I was wrong. They had names like Helen and Mike and Mrs. Amigone. They didn’t tell many stories. They were quiet and grateful and greeted Kristin, Daniel’s girlfriend, with a quick hello, barely acknowledging Daniel. After the initial meeting, the other workers helped me set up some tables and greet some early arrivers. Melissa, the woman in charge of the shelter, put me on kitchen duty, using my minimal cooking skills to make soup and cornbread. The evening passed quickly, my fear devoured by frantic cooking, a burn on my forearm from a cast iron skillet, and sweat.

Daniel broke me from my trance with a gentle hand on my back. “Kate. Take a break. Come sit down; you’ve been going for three hours.”

I blinked and looked at him, my neck muscles creaking. “Let me get this cornbread out of the oven and I’ll meet you outside.”

He grinned at me and left the kitchen. I put on hot pads and removed the cornbread, turning it out of the pan onto the serving platter, sliced it with the dull chef’s knife, and passed it off to Horace, the runner between the kitchen and the food line. I left the kitchen, wiping my hands on my dirty apron.

Most of our customers, as Kristin called them, had left. Daniel and Kristin sat at a table with two old men, laughing.

One of them men had a long white beard spotted with troubling stains, the other was craggy but clean shaven. Both spoke with accents I couldn’t identify.

“You don’t understand,” the one without the beard was saying. “Myths are created from journeys. Someone comes to town. Someone leaves town. There is always movement.”

Kristin shook her head. “But I watched nine hours of war, hairy feet, and crying hobbits to see them do something it would have taken those ginormous eagles only fifteen minutes to do!”

“No one would have changed,” the clean-shaven man said. “Yes, the threat would have been gone, but more happened in the story than just the ring getting thrown into the volcano. Characters grew. The rightful king came back. Those wars removed corruption. If you go the easy way out, nothing changes and nothing grows. Sauron would have been gone, but what about his armies? What about Saurumon?”

Daniel waved at me when I sat down. “Kate, this is Isaac and Mr. Big,” he said. I shook their hands, trying not to think of how dirty their hands were. “We’re just having the Lord of the Rings argument.”

“Ah,” I said, sitting down. “So you’re saying that the journey is key, not the destination.”

Isaac nodded fervently. “You know, some things are sweeter when you work harder for them.”

“I don’t know,” Kristin said, frowning.

“Eh, you’re young,” Mr. Big said. “You will learn.”