As Mark sat down, the wife of their host started preparing a stew, at least that was what he thought she planned as she prepared the indigrients with help of her daughter and servant, while the water in the pot slowly started heating up on the fire. He sat down just as he heard Hana speaking. "...bandits. We barely escaped them by dropping our wagon - the beasts were to interested in the loot of my life savings to go after us..." She sighted as she shook her head. "Well, you escaped with your life, that is important." The head of the family said trying to console her.
"We had a good chance of defeating them. It was your decision to retreat," Mark somehow disliked the notion that he ran away. Even in a made-up story. "Also, those elves should keep their borders safer."
Hana looked at him then sighted and waved her hand. "Yes, yes... you don't run, you take down dozens of opponents by yourself, outsmart the most dastard evil bandit and outeat a troll~" She said with a lazy dismissal making the daughter of family giggle. "He can't be that bad~" She tried after a moment making Hana snort.
"Just because Valars haven't blessed me with the physique your father possesses, it doesn't mean I am not deadly with my spear," Mark said addressing the daughter "Size is important but it is not the only thing that determines man's prowess in combat or... other activities." He smiled knowing well that it is not an appropriate thing to say to a young girl in front of her father.
The father glared at Mark, his hand slowly moving to his ax- "If only they gave you enough brain to know when to escape from danger~" Hana said, making the other women present laugh. "Really, if you could use your ego as a weapon, you would surely be the most undefeatable man in this kingdom~ if only you could raise it~" Now, even the man quirked a smirk at the joke at Mark's expense.
"I can understand why you can't handle my ego. Men of your realm are severely lacking in this department. " Mark had tons of fun and had no intentions to stop " I am not sure that any halfling woman can handle my ego, accept all of its size so to speak" He grinned satisfied with himself.
Hana smacked her face and then sighed heavily. "Do you see what I have to deal with!?" She exclaimed loudly then turned to the head of the family. "Mr Hurwar, would you like to take this idiot as a guard maybe?" She asked hopefully. The man blinked and than snorted... he paused as he started thinking. "Well, I need someone to pull my wagon~" He said making the gathered women laugh.
"And who will escort you to the Shire then?" Mark asked and then brought a shiny husk out of his pocket "If you really want to have me go, I may try to solve a mystery instead. It is a mermaid husk, I found it at the stream, a weird place to find one. I suspect some merfolk tribe may live in a mountainous lake. "
All of the gathered looked at the husk, surprised, intensely looking at it. Hurwar's wife reached out her hand- "May I?" She asked, her eyes briefly moving to Mark's before back to husk.
The woman took the item and looked the husk over. "Well, this certainly looks... unique. And there are lakes high in the mountains." She shrugged as she gave the husk back. "There might be something in what you are speaking, but for the life of me, I could not guess, how mermaids would find themselve in the mountains of all things."
"They are strange and elusive folk, in all my travels over the Middle Earth I never met one." Mark answered "And how could they get there is a mystery similar to how Tara could end there as a street orphan. Her home must be south from here, very south."
Mark resisted a strong urge to say how Tolkien had rather simplistic racial distribution in his worldbuilding and instead said "Because I know that people with this beautiful skin tone tend to live far south of here.
"The, then - were you there!? That far in the south?" Hurwar's daughter asked enthusiastically. "How do the south look!? Are people all there so dark-skinned!? Are there also blue people there?" SHe asked question after the other.
"Yes, in the lands south of Gondor, which is itself far away from here, there are people with dark skin and they say that further south there are people with faces dark as charcoal." Mark enjoyed this kind of attention way more than Hanna's mockery of him " As for the blue-skinned people, perhaps some mermaids have this color. Perhaps one I suspect to find in the mountain lakes"
Hurwar's daughter looked at Mark with wide eyes and Tara was listening to him with great attention. The rest of the company also had their attention on Mark. "While we are talking about Mermaids..." Hurwar hummed. "Are they humans or fish - are they intelligent? I mean, do you talk to them like a neighbour or do you eat them like a fish?" His daughter raised a finger but then frowned and looked at Mark, waiting for an answer, eyes wide with excitement.
"They are people. We aren't orcs to eat other people, " Mark smiled "But little is known about merfolk. We aren't even sure how they procreate, there are many amusing theories which I won't discuss in front of young ladies."
The young daughter pouted at declaration of lack of knowledge. The man laughed and patted her head. "You were hopping to meet a merfolk prince, Kana?" Hurwar asked teasingly, making the young woman blush a little. His wife shook her head with a smile on her lips. She paused. "So what do you know of Merfolk?" She asked curiously. Hana opted to stay silent and listen to the exchange.
Mark regretted not being detailed when making the request for the addition of merfolk but being a fantasy nerd he had no problems inventing stuff by borrowing from different universes "I know rumors, legends, tales. Can't say how true are those but there are surely interesting... Here is a story about a young and curious mermaid princess living in the seas near Numenor." He began retelling Disney's Little Mermaid only removing talking fish and adding some of Numenor's lore
