A curious arrival: Taffeta Thistletop (and family)

‘Well, I’ve seen some odd things in this town, but that was the first time I’d seen a whole wagon of soggy halflings turn up on my doorstep!’

Tonight in the Ettin, Old Tabrud is telling anyone who will listen (and some who are just pretending) about his first encounter with his new neighbours. ‘It was one of those rainy Alturiak days, and I was having a little nap by the fire. But then I heard this knocking on my door! So up I get, and there outside is this little woman, dripping wet, and she’s got this covered wagon behind. Of course I tell her to come in, but she says thanks but have I got room for all of them? “All?” I say to myself, and sure enough, as I’m squinting through the rain, there’s four other little faces peering out of the wagon at me! An old woman, a younger fellow, and two girls.’

‘Now, this isn’t quite what I bargained for,’ continues the old man, ‘but looking at them all cold and damp out there I couldn’t say no, could I? So, next thing you know, I’ve got five halflings huddling round my fireplace and wringing rainwater out of their clothes!’

The halfling woman sitting next to him chuckles: ‘Oh Tabrud, it was ever so good of you to take us in!’ This, you’ve learned, is Malri Thistletop, known as Taffeta. The sturdy halfling, all of two feet and ten inches tall, seems relaxed and jolly. She’s wearing comfortable and practical clothes – a green woollen shirt, sandy-coloured breeches, and leather boots that dangle some distance off the floor as she sits on a human-made chair and peeks over the table’s edge.

Tabrud has moved on to recounting how he helped the halfling family, fresh through the portal, get their bearings and find somewhere to live in Daring Heights. Taffeta nods and smiles appreciatively, mostly letting him talk but occasionally chiming in with a joke or a word of praise for the old man or some other townsperson who has helped the family settle in since they arrived.

As Tabrud gets less sober and less coherent, some in the tavern turn their curious conversation to the halfling. Taffeta answers their questions gamely. It emerges that she comes from the Reaching Woods in Faerûn, where she grew up in a family of hunters and foresters, somewhat isolated from the towns and villages outside the woods. She had a taste of town life after marrying a young pie-maker and moving to the largely gnomish town of Hardbuckler. But after several years the couple, with their two young daughters and Taffeta’s widowed mother-in-law, moved back to the Woods.

‘What do you plan to do in Daring Heights?’ asks one drinker. ‘Well, Nerry – that’s my husband – he’s just about set up to start making and selling pies again. We’ll probably sell them at the market to start, but if it goes well, maybe a little shop. As for me, I’ve a good eye, a steady hand, and a well-made bow, and I’ll keep hunting and trapping like I always have. But I hear you have some dangerous neighbours around these parts, and I can shoot a kobold as easily as I can shoot a rabbit. So if you good folks ever need a hand, and if Nerry’s free to mind the girls, I’ll do what I can to help.’

‘But why have you come here?’ says another. Taffeta’s face shows worry for the first time you’ve noticed. ‘Look, I’ll be honest with you,’ she says. ‘I don’t know. My youngest, Idari, she’s fierce clever, probably got more brains that me and her dad put together, and… there’s magic about her too. I don’t mean… My aunt can do healing spells, a bit of nature magic, that kind of thing, but this is different. I can’t describe it. But it’s real, and she says we need to be here. She’s firmer on it than she’s ever been firm on anything: “Mum, she says, we’ve got to go to Kantas. We’ve got to.” So here we are, and I just hope she can find some peace of mind now.’ It’s a curious tale, but you’ve heard stranger stories, and the halfling seems sincere.

‘Come on then, Tabrud,’ she says to her nearly-unconscious neighbour. ‘Let’s get you home’. And somehow Taffeta Thistletop kindly but firmly pulls and pushes the old man, more than twice her height, onto his unsteady feet and out of the tavern. ‘You all take care now,’ she shouts to you over her shoulder as they disappear into the dusk, ‘I’ll be seeing you again soon!’