Lunch with Britta's Family

So glad it was our last night in the inn! There were these totally noisy sailors in the room next door last night, and I swear they were carousing until a couple hours past midnight. And this was TOTALLY not the day for my narcolepsy to be worse than usual, given our luncheon with the Frostbeards. Stupid sons of troggs. I had half a mind to unleash Wynni on them before breakfast and see how they liked it.

Anyway, so, lunch with the Frostbeards! Pizzy was of course supremely nervous, and I admit that I wasn't really up for a meal with a whole clan of dwarves just then. Everyone was focused on the food for the first hour or so, though - seems the oldest brother, Bronin, had bagged himself a shoveltusk stag, and evidently that's a Big Deal. I found the meat to be a little gamey, but the dwarves thought it was the best thing since the gyrochromotom or something. Noodler told me that since it was the first week of the month, the Frostbeard brothers who were logging up in the Grizzly Hills - the ones who were lending us their cabin - were here, which was pretty special.

And, of course, what's the first thing that comes out of someone's mouth once food and ale are no longer the focus? "Hey, you must be Duerma's husband!" Pizzy turned bright red and was like, um, not really. So I swept in and said, no, we're still working on that, and then I introduced us properly. I'm hoping neither the relative nor Pizzy was too mortified. Then a couple of the brothers started talking about mining (something about the quarry at Fort Wildevar), and Pizmo got caught up in that conversation. The women, though, wouldn't stop grilling me about him. Evidently a man is much more interesting when he hasn't married you yet.

We were asked to stay for games and such after the meal, but after being there for a couple days, I was REALLY eager to get settled in, you know? Britta and Noodler weren't up for leaving yet, but Britta's brothers Beldin, Bjarn, and Broldar were heading out too. It was a long trip back to the logging camp, and they could let us in as well as anyone since, you know, it's THEIR HOUSE. We nabbed a wagon and hooked it up to Pookie after I summoned him (figuring that he could go back to eating bombons in the Twisting Nether after he was through, rather than continuing on to the Grizzly Hills like their rams). The trip only took an hour this time, even with the wagon hauling. It's amazing what a difference not trudging through ice and snow will make.

The house was this cute little A-frame with a fireplace and chairs down below, and then beds in a loft up above. They cooked everything in the fireplace. Very cute and quaint. The brothers helped us lower one of the beds downstairs for Wynni (I had visions of her crawling through the railing to her doom in the middle of the night), and then they continued on their way. After being constantly surrounded by people pretty much ever since we got on the boat, it was kind of weird to finally be on our own. But it was nice.

We had a pretty low key evening, just reading books and playing games with Wynni until she finally petered out for the night. I wasn't far behind her. Pizzy was finally OK with getting cozy with Wynni sleeping downstairs, but I'm like, dude, I'm totally exhausted. He was a little put off by that - I really haven't rebuffed him very often - but he was fine snuggling together before bed. I'm so glad that he respects me enough not to push me - I really feel like I can trust him in that regard.