Twidler's Tales (Prologue - II)
You gingerly make your way through the cramped hallway, grateful for the reprieve from the biting cold outside. As you approach the door at the far end of the passage, your nostrils flare up seduced by the smell of freshly baked pumpkin pudding and freshly brewed (and especially strong, you imagine) coffee. You politely knock on the door, which slowly sways ajar by itself. In the small living space before you, you see a comfortable looking arm chair facing a warm hearth of fire. Tiny feet lay to rest on a cushion before it, watching glowing embers of firewood occasionally darting to freedom and dying out on the worn rug below. You pause to offer the etiquette of being invited in, but you feel your back start to crick and crackle from the burden of heaving your torso through ways where the ceiling measured hardly five feet (in human terms) from the polished wooden floor. As you start to clear your throat, tiny feet spring to life and in a flash an elderly gnome-skin yellow with age and ...