[Amanaduial the archer]

Aman had also procurred a hat for herself to store her money in- and coming in it was. As to why there was a top hat in an attic in the Shire was complete mystery, but no matter, mysteries were becoming commonplace as Aman saw mathoms selling that she wouldn't have thought a blind beggar would've wanted. But the Innkeeper was getting a feel for the sale, she thought, and the value of the odd objects.

“I’ll give you two bronze for that.” A red faced hobbit announced, pointing to a bizarrely shaped vase.

Aman raised an eyebrow. It was rather a nice vase, she decided, and decided to attempt bargaining. “Five.”

“I’ll give you five,” he scoffed in reply. “and won’t report you to the authorities for daylight robbery.”

Now both Aman’s eyebrows rose as she thought of Halfred Whitfoot, the postman cum Shirrif. The hobbits cocky expression wavered slightly as he thought of the same, before he spoke again. “Four.” He conceded.

“Done. And this, I’ll throw this in for another three.” Aman offered, holding up a hat, covered in tassels and bright orange in colour. The man’s eyes widened and he nodded violently, but before he could say anything, the hat was grabbed out of his hand by a fierce looking hobbit woman. “I don’t think so! That hat’s my territory!”

“No mine! I wanted it as a souvenir before the rest of you even saw it!” A man, looming about the other two although he was actually several inches shorter than Aman, said, then turned to the Rohirrim woman. “I’ll give you 10 for it!”

Furious gasps from the other two, before the red faced hobbit exclaimed, “You would take something so beautiful for just ten?!”

“You would have taken it for three!” The man replied.

“I never!” Declared the man. He fished in his pocket, pulling out roughly ten bronze coins. “Here, Innkeeper, take this!”

“No you will not! Aman, have 12!”

“Well, I never! Its mine!” the woman threw a few more in.

As the coins poured into the dusty top hat from there and all directions, Aman gave up on trying to intervene, and pulled up two equally bizarre hats which she had spotted previously. “Look, each of you can have one for fifteen bronze!”

“Done!” All three cried at once, and began fishing in bags and pockets for the rest which they had not yet paid. As Aman hadn’t been able to keep up with how much they had put in before, she simply had to trust them, but trust them she did; hobbits took mathoms seriously.

Bewildered by all that was going on, Aman simply stopped trying to intervene, simply returning to the traditional method of coin tossing when there was a dispute, and allowed the chaos around her to keep coming with the money, only coming up on a real problem a few moments later when telling a young elven woman that no, the top hat and all its contents were not for sale. She smiled at Vanwe’s equally bewildered face, and just hoped that that pickpocket wasn’t in the vicinity of the sale…