Combe - Farms, Flocks, and Feathers (FREE RP)

The fair valley of Rivendell, upon whose house the stars of heaven most brightly shone.
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Combe is a thankfully overlooked treasure of a valley, hidden in the midst of Bree. To find this lush allotment, you would have to leave the busy trade town around Breehill and venture through the stretches of Staddle. To linger you would have to overlook the brooding shadow of the Chetwood which provides Combe and all it contains, fair shelter from the big wide world.

Vastly under-visited, Combe is nonetheless a most essential portion of Bree’s entire survival. Here are grown the grains and fruits, the crops and the root vegetables which feed the whole bustling population. Farmers sweat and toil to conserve and cultivate the horses raised for transport, the cattle meant for meat, the wool that provides warmth, the hops that brew the Breetown Beer, the poultry, eggs, and milk and cheese, the furs and endless resources which have allowed Bree to thrive; a small island of stark civilization surrounded by the lonely wild north.

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Be mindful though, not to underestimate the residents of idyllic Combe Valley. Farmers possess pitchforks, and are hardy with the use of heavy tools. Combe folk are extremely protective of their most precious homes, their families, their livelihood. Any threat to their peaceful, conservative ways is like to be met unwelcome, for around these parts the land has nurtured the same enduring families for generations. Change is a distrusted stranger and the slightest oddity or rare occurrence can be deemed responsible for the ruin of an entire season’s reaping.

Daily life is simple, hard work, and duly rewarding. But local superstitions have never run so rife as they do in Combe. Everyone knows everyone ‘round here. And anything out of the ordinary will incur a good deal of suspicion.




This is a Free RP thread. Feel free to RP your own stories, set in whatever time/year you like, as long as you follow a few simple rules.
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(Description written by Ercassie)
Last edited by Rillewen on Thu Mar 07, 2024 10:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

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Faervelien and Ellie Meadows


"Ouch. Ouch! Let go of me!" Ellie stopped to detangle her stocking from the vicious brier tendril which had ensnared her. "Really, why must you be so difficult? I only want some blackberries." The girl complained, while her dog, Rusty tilted his head to the side, puzzled who Ellie was talking to. Freeing herself, she climbed over a fallen tree and knelt to pick as many berries as she could from the next patch. Her basket was getting fuller, and soon Grandma would have enough to make a pie. Ellie couldn't wait. She'd been watching the blackberries for several days now, trying to keep track of when they were ripe enough, and worrying that the birds would eat them all up before she could pick any.

As Grandma had taught her, Ellie made sure to leave enough for the birds, but she also made sure that she got the best ones. Soon, she looked down at her basket and nodded. "I reckon that's enough, don't you think so?" She asked Rusty, who wagged his tail. Tongue lolling off to the side, he looked quite happy, though he didn't answer her at all. Ellie fastened a cover over the basket and started back homeward. Grandma would be very pleased with her haul of berries, she thought happily as she skipped along through the forest, the red husky bounding at her heels.

Back at the cottage, Faervelien had kept herself busy while Ellie was out picking berries. She'd just completed the season's last harvest of honey, and was carefully washing the wax so that it could be used for a variety of things. The honey would be put into jars, but the wax would be cleaned, boiled, and strained before it was stored away, to be later used by either Faervelien, or a customer. At least half of the wax that was harvested each time, of course, went into a special storage place, where it would be kept until a certain customer came for it. Faervelien couldn't even remember a time when this was not the custom, and hoped that after she was gone, Ellie would continue this practice as well. If the girl chose to continue the beekeeping work, that is, but Faervelien felt fairly confident that she would. Ellie enjoyed the bees and their honey, and seemed rather excited whenever she got to help with it.

Keeping a close eye on the wax in its pot, Faervelien dared not leave even for a moment, as it was far too easy for it to ruin or catch fire, or some other catastrophe. She'd learned that when she was quite young, when her father was only just getting started in this business. Since then, she'd had only a few accidents in that area, and she didn't intend to start now. The old woman hummed softly to herself as she went about her work, until at last it was ready to strain through layers of cheesecloth. After that, she would add it back to the boiler, then pour it into a mold to let it cool and solidify. Hopefully, Ellie would be back in time for that, so she could help Faervelien with that part. It used to be easier for her to do all of this by herself, but it seemed the older she got, the more difficult certain things became. Lifting things was one of them, though of course that didn't stop her from trying. Still, with a batch of hot wax in the equation, it was best to get help.

After a time, Ellie and Rusty came bounding back. "Look Grandma! I got lots of berries!" Ellie showed her eagerly as she burst into the house.
"Oh, my, you certainly did." Faervelien smiled as she looked at the bounty of blackberries. "We may have enough for two pies." She laughed softly. "You're just in time, Ellie. Help me pour this into the molds, will you, dear?"
"Of course." Ellie smiled and set her basket aside, then carefully lifted the pot of wax using some mitts, and held it while her grandmother made sure the wax went where it was supposed to. Soon they had a few molds filled with lovely, golden wax. "It made quite a lot this time, didn't it?"
"Yes, it looks like it." Faervelien agreed, pleased. "Now, be a dear and take these to the store-room?" She asked. "They need to cool for a few hours." She paused, thinking. "This is the end of the month, isn't it?" She realized.
"Yes, it is. This is the last time for the year that we'll harvest, isn't it?" Ellie asked.
"Indeed. And we ought to be getting a visitor any day now, at that." Faervelien added with a mysterious glint in her eyes.

Ellie paused, tilting her head. "A visitor? What visitor?"
"Same ones we always get around this time of year." Faervelien smiled.
"You're being mysterious again, Grandma." Ellie grinned, intrigued, but took the molds full of wax into the store room. While she was there, it dawned on her, and she hurried back out, wide-eyed. "It's the elves, isn't it?" She asked excitedly.
"Indeed, I expect one of them will be along any day now. Perhaps even today." Faervelien confirmed with a laugh. "Now then, let's get this pie going, shall we? I've got the crust all mixed together already."

Excitedly thinking about a visit from elves, Ellie helped her grandmother make up a couple of blackberry pies, trying to remember what their visitor had been like last year. Then she remembered why she couldn't quite remember it; she'd been away that day, doing something... visiting a friend? Picking berries? She couldn't even remember, but she recalled hearing about the elven visitor when she returned home, and being disappointed that she'd missed the whole thing. Hopefully, not this time!

Last edited by Rillewen on Thu Mar 07, 2024 11:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

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Menellótë Silosse and Erfaron Sílûgnir
Come to pay a call in Combe
@Purrmonster of Doom


As dawn unfolded lazily into the day to come, it was something else besides the sun though which rose up over the horizon. Combe had seen it’s like before. The horses were not particular. The cart was properly typical of any local farmer, else performed expertly in conveying that impression. The inhabitants of said cart were not quite so easy to overlook.

The debate had begun some days before, when the lonely road they travelled first began to feature others, others who were not as they. Greater wisdom might have been employed in disguising their features, but there, the people of Combe were like to view the strangers with greater suspicion, were there attempts made at veiling their faces. In the end, the pair of outlandish visitors had elected to show their true form, and have those who saw them, stare. They had grown accustomed to being awarded stares. One elected to soundly discourage the practice, by leaping from cart to road, and reaching for the closest tool at hand to make a .. lasting impression. The other spoke but a single word, and saw him stay his sword, at but her say so. And if the one had a reputation hereabout, the other who would wield such a power would assuredly ever after. They two had never travelled together along this road. And so those who beheld them stared. And he did glower ever more at the reasoning. And she said no more, for she had not the need.

Erfaron would rather be anywhere else. His mother knew it and had not wasted either of their time with asking him to tend this errand. Instead she had declared her clear intention to manage it herself. A cunning feat which immediately saw her son striving for causes to be found too busy to keep custody of Herumacil in her absence. Swiftly he had proclaimed the roads far too dangerous for his mother to travel alone, and she had conceded, so that he could kindly be her escort then. Precisely as she had expected, anticipated, planned. Little time did the mother and son have in each other’s company these days. For she would ever loiter at the shore, teasing the sea with the thought of leaving .. while he avoided the coast for that same reason, and others.

Halyanis was far more accustomed to performing this annual feat. Herumacil was, after all, her brother; whatever the state of his long addled mind. But the very recent troubles she had endured on the road, had convinced Tirindo to keep his wife safe, and at home, at the least until she was properly recovered from her ordeal. Which meant that Herumacil would not have his sister visit for some long time yet, and he would thus require more than ever, some means of recreation to distract him. Hatholdir of all people had agreed to stay at Silosse’s home, so that she and Erfaron could ‘enjoy’ this rare time in each other’s company. The latter may have been surprised at his mother proving so agreeable, so trusting, of this rather infamous friend. But of course, in trusting Hatholdir with Herumacil, Silosse could only be proved right, for either giving the MoleKing the benefit of the doubt, or for why her son should listen to all those who warned him not to trust that Moleking … so she won out either way. And he was all the more irked to recognise quite how well she had managed it all.

Elves passed through Bree of course, some upon their pilgrimage from Rivendell or further east to gaze from the White Towers for a distant western shore. Some had a habit of sharing skills with the Mortals, as their two kinds had once of old. But Erfaron did not come through Bree if he could possibly help it. There were various outstanding warrants and allegations of vandalism after short stays in the Prancing Pony, for a start. Silosse had been to Bree but once before; some hundred years before; to set in motion the very errand they were about, what had become an annual tradition for Haly to keep up, sometimes with her own pseudo-son to keep company. But this time Silosse deemed that the stars had shown their signs, and it was time for her to come this way again. All those as had observed her previous pass through, were bones now. And she had not took a ride with her son, since they had dwelt in Tirion-Upon-Tuna; when the world was still young.

And so he had kept her company, from so far away as Lindon. And they had camped in the last hem of the wild, just beyond the Great Bree Gate, rather than spend the night debating with Hill Watch over who ought pay for the last time the windows of the Pony inn were broken. But come the first moment they might pass through, still when most the town were not yet wakened to the world, the cart had ambled into Bree and the glances, the stares, had grown in number with the hours since. Of all that common steeds and bog standard transport might have dispelled rumours, the Elf’s surly expression more than compensated for all other tries at looking less alarming. The likeness in the physical colouring, between he and his unknown acquaintance, might have been less striking if they had not also bourne a certain similarity of attitude; a most imposing bearing and an almost apathetic mask of expression.

Silosse was little fairer in the delicacy of her features than she was less tall in stature than her son. Although she sat astride her mundane throne with a slight superiority of grace, it was clear she was not soft, for all that she seemed flawless. She looked not sweet, nor simpering, nor sentimental. She was composed, calm and dauntless. Her blue eyes sparkled like the faintest flicker of a distant star, and when her gaze raked even momentarily upon the bold Breefolk, they felt a windless chill embrace them, in the same refreshing manner as immersing their whole self in cold sea water under a deep night.

She was not beautiful, not in the manner of women that were considered such, ‘round here. There was a somewhat unsettling intensity about her, as though her shimmering silver hair, her pale skin .. it was not meant to be observed by naked mortal eyes ; and if folk stared too long and too hard upon her then they might be blinded. Her glitz and glimmer were as penetrating as a knife thrust through an unwary chest.

She did not present any sure indication that their intrigue bothered her the slightest, but her male counterpart stared for the two of them. He glanced back over one shoulder, defensively, at any fool enough to not flee, and he appraised then with a swift and none too lingering inspection, before apparently dismissing them as harmless. Many a young mortal released a small tremor of relief as he was liberated from that keen if passing interest.

The son's build spoke of no less athletic prowess as his parent, though the sinew of lean muscles were manipulated ever more pronounced, as though he might strike in a moment and a speed which seemed impossible. The anaemic Mole's countenance was equally as severe as his feminine counterpart, but there was something else that gathered in the thin line of his mouth, the promise of peril in his piercing eyes. They were lit by a more sheer blue than the lady, but the stare remained equally glacial.

Both wore an almost uniform garb of arctic purity, dusted from their travel as the sky is freckled by the stars. The clothes were an absence of all colour, almost erasing all hint of the two Immortals that were enveloped within it. Silosse turned, as they rode on, incongruous, upon the country road, and spoke to Sílûgnir in a tone like the lap of the moon-led tide. And she smiled in the silence after, even as he did not. And the unlikely replacements for the far more approachable Halyanis came at last within the sight of their ambition. The house of Faervelien
All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not touched by the frost.

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@Ercassie

Ellie Meadows and Rusty


The pies were finished, resting on the window ledge to let the breeze cool them a little. Ellie breathed deeply, enjoying the smell of fresh-baked pies filling the house. She couldn’t wait for them to cut into them, but knew Grandma wouldn’t let her have a piece until either after supper, or if they had any guests show up today. She hoped for the latter, because supper would be a while off, and she was impatient to try a piece of that pie.

The torment of waiting was too great for the girl, so she ran outside to play and remove herself from temptation. Rusty went with her, and she grinned as she raced against the dog, trying to run faster than him, but he always beat her. She laughed as she stopped at the edge of the woods to catch her breath, Rusty standing by her, panting, waiting while Ellie caught her breath. “Ready to run back, Rusty?” she asked, once she’d caught her breath a little. The dog looked up at her with his tongue lolling out, and she took it for a yes; it looked like he was smiling. And with that she took off again, running as fast as she could go through the grass, intent upon outrunning the dog that ran alongside her, always just a little ahead.

Ahead, riding along the lane that led to their house, Ellie was surprised to see a glimmer of white. Caught off guard by this, the girl slowed to a stop, panting as she peered intently ahead, intrigued. Who was that? She looked down at the dog, then back up toward the travelers making their way toward the house. They were definitely heading toward the house, because there was nothing else out this way. She remembered her earlier discussion with grandma, about the elf visitor, and grinned. “Come on, Rusty!” She set off running again, this time making directly toward the travelers, eager to meet this elven friend of grandma’s.

Nearing the two elves on horseback, Ellie slowed to a stop again, breathing hard as she looked up at them. “Hello!” She greeted them, intensely curious, though her eagerness to meet elves quickly dissolved a bit into slight uncertainty now that she was up close to them, feeling slightly nervous about these two. There was something a little bit intimidating about them, and she decided she’d better not go any closer, though Rusty certainly felt no such way. The dog got quite close to the horses, sniffing around as if they had to pass his inspection before he’d allow them to come any nearer. “Are… are you friends of my grandma’s?” Ellie asked, unsure which of the two to look at, and also starting to question whether she ought to have come to meet them. “Rusty, come here,” She added, a little unsure whether her dog was in any danger as he insisted on sniffing the horse which was ridden by the scary-looking man elf.. she was also a little unsure if they might be annoyed by the dog, especially when he didn’t come to her when she called him. “I’m sorry…” She added to the elves, apologizing for the dog in case he was bothering them. “Rusty, come.”
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

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