[PK] There Flies the Peregrin

[salamanderfantasy 691]

Spoiler

 

- It is a dewy morning in Hayhollow-By-Water, year 125 of the Second Age.     -

 

- Grass is damp, glittering in the rising light. -

- Watercress grows in the stream, ever trickling down the rocks. -

- The fields stand full, ready for the scythe. -

 

The doctor’s office is empty of patients, luckily. The recovery beds lay unused, white sheets unsullied by blood. The broken ceiling has just been patched. The storage room could do with a stock up; running low on rubbing alcohol and gauze. 

 

And Dr Sorrel Rosehipp Mowood Mudfoot Ironbrew Peregrin is dead at her desk.

 

Rigour mortis has set in, but not yet rot. She would look as though asleep, eyes shut, slumped over, still in the chair. One hand still even rests on a bottle of ale, half-empty, not to be finished. The other is tucked under her face down head as a pillow, cushioning herself as she settled down for a nap.

 

An unfinished sheet of notes lies in front of her in her too-fancy script. Half a recipe for licorice root tea.

 

She wouldn’t deliberate much on her own cause of death, if this was back in her Sheriffing days.

 

Lifting her eyelids would show yellowing jaundice from a failing liver – almost unheard of among halflings, but Knox did try her best with seventy years of hard drinking. Any neighbours would have heard grumbling of chest pains or harsh coughing as she made her way along the path to her office each day – crystal and pipeweed for a weak heart and bad lungs.

 

And even then, her hair is splayed out grey on the table, scar on the bridge of her nose faded and hidden by wrinkles. Living to a hundred and forty one is good-going, as far as halflings go.

 

If she’d had it her way, she’d’ve dug out the grave herself, cut herself a neat little hole into the earth near the fields, and tucked herself down to sleep. Leave the office tidied and ready for the next Doctor to forge a licence and take her place.

Instead, it now becomes someone else’s job to pick up her corpse from the desk. Lug it out of the building, brush her hair, wipe the spit from her lips. Dress her up in a clean button up shirt, tie Meemaw’s scarf around her neck, pin her rose brooch to her chest. Sort through the jumbled up papers, old files, a hundred years worth of notes on criminal investigations and village happenings and where to pick wild billberries in the summer. 

 

And somewhere tucked among that mess is a document, waiting for whoever can find it. Something that might have been a will, or a farewell note. The paper is beginning to yellow under her fancy penmanship. It’s at least twenty years out of date.

 

Spoiler

- From the pen of Doctor Sorrel Rosehipp Mowood-Mudfoot Ironbrew Peregrin, once Thain, once Sheriff, always Halfling.     -

 

Should you be finding this, I am probably dead. If I am not yet dead, begone till I am.

 

If Knox holds no ill will towards me, then it will have been a death as good as a death can be. One without blood, perhaps. Peaceful even. At the very least, I hope to leave on my own terms. 

 

Still, it’ll do no use to lament my own death. I’ll be too busy in the Wheatfields. I know even know, soon as I’m there, Filbert will be hurrying me along! Come on now, did you think the wheatfields would tend to themselves? As he passes me a scythe. And expect to see some of my siblings and fathers there, so afterwards I’ll be putting on the kettle for us all. And then my mother will see me hungover and hand me some sweetbread, and my uncle shall pack a pipe for me, and then I will invite to dance those who I never had the nerve to. And all will be well. 

 

• I leave my slingshot and whatever other tools I accumulated to the office of the Sheriff, whoever they be at this point in time.

 

• I leave any toys of my childhood that survived that time to the many sprogs Lily will be having, no doubt it, on the condition you tell them stories about their Aunt Sorrel.

 

• My herbalists tools and any other medical equipment shall belong to the Doctor’s office for whoever should take to staffing it. I also leave them the singular tool that has saved the lives of countless on the surgery table – my custom made medical shovel. Do well with it.

 

• The Kraken’s tooth I would like you to put on a shelf somewhere, as that will look quite nice I imagine.

 

• There's a bottle of holy water stolen from the big church in Karosgrad when I was a child. It would be quite nice if someone would give that back to them. Or not.

 

• I becreaf the rest of my tat to whomever wishes for it.

 

• Anything that remains becomes village property once more. 

 

II would like to be buried under the tree my mother was. Aside from that, I've no more requests.

 

I'll be seeing you all eventually. I’ll keep the kettle on while I wait.

 

-Sorrel.

 

 

[Notic 941]

Monkey Peregrin, who up until moments prior had been harvesting herbs in the Wheat Fields on his brief jaunt from his own, Shamanic afterlife, let out a roar of laughter at seeing Sorrel waddling through the iron-wrought gates that heralded the entrance of Billy Bob's Fields. "We killed krakens toget'er, we made quick work o' boars in t'e hills n' trolls in t'e fields, n' yew die at yer bloodeh desk! Come o'er 'ere, yew braggart, oi got somet'in tew show yew!" 

 

Lily Peregrin, as Sorrel's weary head crashed upon the mahogany desk, felt a sudden jolt within her stomach. "O' Knox, its comin', some'un get Sorrel!" She cried out, scrambling out of the burrow as she waddled as fast as she could, entering the Doctor's Office as she stopped with an air of despair. Tears of pain and confusion welting in her eyes, she whimpered, "Fawk..."

[NotEvilAtAll 10001]

"Oh Knox... oi t'was jus' talkin' to 'er, invi'ed 'er over ter dinner, even. Wish oi could've said ah few more thin's t'ae 'er, or go''en one las' checkup 'fore t'ah village doc'or wen' off t'ae t'ah Whea'fields" remarks Mimosa Applefoot-Nimblefoot, Mayor of Bywater.

[Toodles6 88]

(OOC: What a well-written PK! Sad my character didn't have the pleasure of knowing Dr. Sorrel :) R.I.P )