[Child of the 7th Age]

Hawthorne sighed wearily and lowered her body onto one of the benches that stood near the hearth fire as she stretched out her aching feet and wiggled her toes. She was definitely ready for bed. For the past three hours, the young Hobbit lass had been sprinting repeatedly from the Common Room to the bedchambers at Aman's bidding. She had made sure that each of the late arrivals had proper bed linens, a stack of fresh towels, and an ample basin of water set inside their sleeping quarters. Even in her earlier sojourn at the Inn, she could not remember a time when things were so busy in the middle of the night.

The guests had continued streaming into the Dragon well past midnight. Some of them were last minute arrivals for the handfasting that would be taking place the next day; others had encountered troubles on the road and were desperately searching for a place to sleep. Aman had even sent a few travelers down the lane to the Ivy Bush, which by now was also overflowing with bodies. They’d gotten to the point that, if additional guests came pounding at the door, they might need to ask some of the travelers to double up and share their quarters with complete strangers. Not a pleasant thought, but such things were not unheard of in a district that boasted only two Inns. She herself would need to consider the possibility of sharing a room with one of the newcomers.

Hawthorne had been so busy with her chores that she had paid little attention to the actual guests arriving. They were just an endless queue of visitors who needed linens and water as quickly as she could bring them. There seemed to be a surprising number of Elves, certainly more than were usually evident in the Shire. But it was not the Elves who stood out in her mind. It was that strange group of big folk who had come in earlier from the courtyard and been assigned a room in back of the common dining area.

What surprised her was not the guests themselves, but Huan's reaction to them. When one of the travelers had walked by the spot where Huan was supposedly sleeping, the hound had sprung up and uttered a low guttural sound from deep within his chest, far more fearsome and meaningful in intent than the sport he'd had earlier with Tevildo. A few minutes afterwards, when Hawthorne had taken a stack of towels down the hallway to the room where the strangers were staying, Huan had insisted on trailing along and standing close by her side. Hastily leaving the towels, she had latched the door and gone back into the corridor. Behind her, she could hear leering voices and comments. She couldn't make out the exact words that were being said, but the tone of the conversation made her feel nervous.

Still seated at the hearth fire and trying to collect her wits, Hawthorne found herself feeling oddly despondent, a mood that was not at all like her usual resilience. Aman walked over and gently nudged her to go to bed, saying that the worst of the inpouring of guests was surely over. With Huan sticking close to her heels, Hawthorne made her way back to her room and, with a caution that was totally unlike her normal careless behavior, placed the heavy fire poker near at hand to her bed and carefully secured the latch for the night....