Chapter Text
Morwen rose early and went downstairs just as dawn tinted the ice of the kitchen windows. It was Folcwyn’s week to cook but Morwen started tea anyway and filled the largest cauldron with water for those who would bathe and for the laundry. In ones and twos the girls trickled downstairs, yawning and stretching their intrusive way into Morwen’s silence. The last one down was Scarlet and not long after she appeared- with puffy red eyes and pale cheeks- Morwen went upstairs and stripped their beds, wadding dirty sheets into a mound on the linen closet floor. Rolling, stuffing, hauling, yanking sheets from their moorings beneath corn husk and straw mattresses felt good, burned off energy. The wash tub water felt good too, shrinking and pinking her skin until her hands didn’t look like her own.
“What bit her arse this morning?” Folcwyn asked as Morwen dropped the washboard into the tub and started scrubbing. Morwen didn’t see who spoke next, and the gravelly whisper could have come from anyone.
“The door guard hasn’t been here in weeks. Probably just needs someone to make her scream.”
“You’re just jealous. You haven’t had any business at all this week,” someone else muttered. “Damn snow. Keeps them all close to home. Pass the honey?”
“Unlike our little Scarlet here. I’m surprised she’s still walking, that lad of hers been here so often. He must leave the big tool at the smithy at night,” the first speaker said again, cackling. Moments later, Scarlet joined Morwen at the washtub.
“Go eat, child. I’m fine,” she muttered.
“Can’t. May as well help you until she shuts her ugly face. If her bubbies were as big as her mouth she might fetch more than two coins a night.”
Morwen tsk tsked softly, trying to hide a smile and kept washing. “Dreame was it?” Scarlet nodded and helped wring out a clean sheet. Catching her eye over the mass of sodden linen, Morwen winked. “You’re right.”
“Really, Morwen, what did get into you today? You’re working like a man afraid of the law,” Folcwyn said swatting her on the bottom as she passed.
“Just tired of being cooped up, I guess. What else do you need to do today?”
“Just dishes, the usual. Why?”
Morwen eyed Scarlet for a moment, then looked at Folcwyn. “We should go outside today, just for an hour or two.”
Dreame snorted. “Are you mad? You’ll freeze out there!”
“Not if we’re running around. It seems a shame to let such lovely snow go to waste.”
“Now I know she’s from Gondor. Who else would think two feet of snow is ‘lovely’?” Folcwyn teased.
“About three quarters of the town’s children,” Scarlet said from the floor.
“Well I’m not going,” Dreame said smugly. “And I won’t listen to you all complain when you come back frostbitten and shivering like you’ve taken a fever… if you don’t really catch your deaths.”
“And we won’t ask you to, but somehow I think you’ll listen anyway,” Morwen said with a benign smile. Several snickers and grins were hidden behind hands, but Scarlet laughed out loud.
“Bicce,” Dreame spat, glaring over her teacup. Morwen just turned her back on the surly blonde, scrubbing more quickly now that the idea had taken root. Yes, a romp in the snow was just what they all needed.
……
Only once that afternoon did Morwen think her idea was a bad one, and that was when Scarlet knocked her face first into a massive snow bank, barely missing the hooves of a passing horse. Spluttering and wiping snow from her eyes, she was surprised to hear a familiar male laugh and looked up to find Gamling studying her from the back of a huge bay.
“There are better ways to eat snow,” he teased, dismounting and helping her stand. Over his shoulder, Morwen glared at Scarlet’s waggled eyebrows and suggestive grin, but quickly smiled at Gamling again.
“Such as?” she asked, shaking snow out of her braid.
“A spoon?” he suggested, dusting at a few flakes clinging to the hair above her forehead.
“Really?” she asked, turning away to hide her smile.
“I'd say so,” Gamling muttered, too distracted by staring at her backside to realize why she was bending over.
“Let’s try my way first,” she said before- Splat!- a snowball disintegrated against his chest.
Gamling stopped, staring down at the gobs of snow stuck to his breastplate with a bemused smirk. When he looked back up, Morwen recognized the gleam in his eye and quickly made another snowball, backing slowly around the drift.
“Uh-oh,” Morwen giggled.
“That sounds like a good start,” Gamling rumbled. “But maybe an apology would be a better one?”
“I just wanted to bring you into the fun,” Morwen said with false innocence. Gamling’s smile widened as he scooped up a handful of clean white snow, just sticky enough to pack. They’d almost circled the snowdrift when a blond streak charged Gamling at full tilt, hitting him head first in the midsection and ricocheting into the snow.
“Ow!” the child yelped, rubbing his forehead. Gamling roared with laughter, pitching the snowball half-heartedly into the drift. “I didn’t know you had your armor on Uncle Gamling! That hurt.” Still laughing, the Horse Lord hauled the boy off the ground.
“Not damaged much, are ye? Your mother’ll skin me if you get too banged up.”
“No, I’m okay,” the lad said, looking at Morwen and nodding his head. Behind him, and with far more grace, scampered a little girl, her eyes barely visible under a large brown hood. “Feanreth, I told you not to follow me!” the boy groaned.
“I wanna thee Unca Gamling too Haleth,” the little girl retorted, her fists rooted to her hips. When the lass turned and smiled at Morwen, she noticed two missing front teeth. Morwen covered a laugh with a cough and met Gamling’s eye.
Uncle is it?
“Morwen, these are Háma’s children. Haleth and Feanreth.”
“He’th not really our uncle,” Feanreth said, shoving her hood out of her face. “We just call him that. You’re pretty.” A groan of humiliation drifted from Gamling’s side and Haleth slapped his forehead before slumping over like an old man.
“Well, she’s right lad,” Gamling teased. “Why not say it?”
“Yuck,” the boy muttered, scuffing his toe in the snow. “Wanna come see what me and some of the other boys did? Please?”
“I made one too,” Feanreth said, taking Morwen’s hand as Haleth took Gamling’s. Surprised, Morwen's eyes widened at the child's open familiarity. Doesn't she...?
“Ours is better,” Haleth retorted, tugging on Gamling. “Please?”
“I was on my way to the cobbler,” Gamling protested hanging back.
“Nuh-unh. You were tryin’ to hit Morwen with a thnowball. We thaw.”
“She has a point Gamling,” Morwen said.
Meeting her eyes over Haleth’s head, he mouthed, “You’re not helping” before turning back to the children. “I just stopped for a minute when she fell. It wouldn’t be nice to nearly ride over a lady and leave her flat on her face in a snowbank, would it?”
Haleth grinned but shook his head and Feanreth laughed. “Haleth doeth it to me.”
“That’s ‘cause you’re a sister. You’re not a lady,” he retorted sagely. When he turned around again, the little girl stuck her tongue out at the back of his head.
“I recall my brother doing some of those same things to me when I was a little girl,” she said as Feanreth tugged her toward an open field where the Riders practiced on fair days. Usually in this weather no one but the young or those on business went outdoors and the field lay dormant for much of the season, making it a perfect place for the village children to make snow forts and sculptures. It was toward one of the latter that the children drew the adults with a sigh of defeat from Gamling.
“See!” Haleth said to one of the other boys. “I told you it was taller than your father. It’s almost taller than Uncle Gamling.”
The snow orc was indeed the full height of a man with bits of coal and dried leaves stuck into the topmost ball as a parody of a face. It even sported a piece of old, worm eaten wood as a sword. The weapon was stabbed under a length of frayed rope tied belt-like around its midsection.
“Looks more like a real one than I hope any of you ever have to find out,” Gamling said, stepping back to admire their work. “But, what will you do with it now?”
“Kill it, of course,” one of the boys said, grinning. “Then build another one.”
Just then Morwen felt a tug on her sleeve. “Will you come thee mine?”
“Of course,” she replied as the girl took her hand again. High-stepping through the snow, Feanreth led her to the edge of a haystack, partially hollowed out by the animals that didn’t den up for the winter. In the lee of the stack, Feanreth had fashioned something small and lumpy with two points jutting out of the top. Morwen studied it for a moment, trying not to notice the look of expectation on the child’s face. Then it dawned on her. “Why, it’s a rabbit! How clever.”
Feanreth beamed, then yelled over her shoulder. “Thee Haleth! I told you it looked like one! Even without eyeth.” Turning back to Morwen, she continued. “It needth eyeth and the thtream ith frozen, tho I can’t get pebbleth.”
“What about acorns? The tops of two acorns might work,” Morwen suggested.
“You’re right,” Feanreth said, running off. “I’ll be back!”
While she waited for the little girl to return from her acorn hunt, Morwen watched Gamling with the boys at the snow orc. The creature’s sword had now been turned against it and each boy vied for a turn to strike the beast with the chunk of wood. Gamling turned it into an impromptu training exercise, improving this one’s stance or that one’s grip.
I bet he’s not so patient with new recruits, she mused, laughing. Gamling turned and caught Morwen watching him from the haystack, and she laughed out loud when he suddenly blushed. With a few final words of advice, Gamling left the boys to their ambush and hiked over to Morwen looking sheepish.
“What?” he asked, planting his feet at shoulder width and crossing his arms over his chest.
“How educational,” Morwen murmured, fighting a grin.
“They’ve gotta learn sometime.”
“I meant for me,” she purred. “You have a soft spot for children.”
Gamling blushed a little redder and offered his arm, turning back toward the drifts near the Dragon’s Hoard where Morwen, Scarlet and Folcwyn had been pelting each other with snowballs.
“WAIT! Unca Gamling, don’t leave yet! You haven’t theen mine! Pleathe?” Feanreth dashed out from behind a shed, her fist clenched tight around what Morwen surmised were acorn tops.
“All right, but it can’t be for too long. I still have to get to the cobbler this afternoon,” Gamling sighed allowing the tiny girl to drag him to her haystack. “Not a word,” he grumbled through clenched teeth as Morwen fell in step beside him.
“Not one,” Morwen swore, grinning.
“Don’t look yet. I hafta put the eyeth on.” Gamling obediently put one huge hand over his eyes, fighting a smile.
“All right. Now!”
Morwen held her breath, praying Gamling would recognize the creature. Feanreth had done a very nice job of shaping the body and the little cotton tail, and the paws were recognizable as well, but the nose had apparently been too much weight for the rest of the head to support and fallen off, leaving a stubby, oblong gob of snow with pointy ears.
“Oh Feanreth, how nice. What a nice… rabbit?” Gamling guessed, looking to Morwen for confirmation. The little girl grinned, quite pleased.
After another moment of admiration, Gamling rest a hand on top of her head in farewell, then reached for Morwen’s arm. Feanreth waved goodbye and looked back at her rabbit, smiling broadly. “Humph. And Haleth thaid it looked like horth poop!”