It has felt like an age since I opened up this book to wield my pen and convey innermost thoughts to these pages, as though I am waiting for a satisfying end to the disjointed narratives within these pages. I suspect I will be waiting for a very long time. Where to begin, what do I write? And so they lived happily ever after, the author and his childhood friend and that was that?
Life is no fairy tale, no story that we tell our children to make them feel better. We can romanticise it all we like. But it oft belies a reality which is oft cruel and unforgiving. I cannot say how my story will end but it is not always so. There is good among bad, we have to keep going. All the hardships I have suffered I am determined to go on and I will. The fates will not cow me into submission. I will not surrender to their whims I will fight them every step of the way and I will go on for as long as I can.
I don't believe many of our stories have truly happy endings. Pain and ultimately grief come to us all. It is unavoidable but I have had good experiences of late. I will say that. We made an agreement my childhood friend and I that we would not put a label upon what it is we were experiencing, we would simply be.
The date of the wedding feast passed me by, for the most part it went without incident aside from a foolish empty-headed girl who chose to vandalize my property and who has now seemed to come to the conclusion that I am her mortal enemy because I cast her out of my tavern. As was within my right. None other than the blunt huntress I met not so long ago who amused me. The rules that I and my Innkeeper hold to are quite simple. You break it, you pay for it. I was well within my rights. If she had apologised I might have shown leniency but why would I do as much to one without remorse.
Who does she think she is, really? Did she really think that just because she has firm tits and a pretty-face that she could do whatever it is she pleased in my establishment?
She has taken to sulking like a teenage girl sent to bed without supper ever since the encounter. I must admit her petulance amuses me. Mayhaps her father should have taken a belt to her arse more when she was a child.
I must admit I have rarely given the incident thought except when I see her frowning face in the Prancing Pony and tales of her cursing me have relayed. She is surely more sensitive than I originally thought given this preoccupation since no one else seems to particularly care yet she has somehow managed to blame me for her being attacked after she was removed from my Inn. Even in apology she could not look me in the eye. I suspect she has trouble taking responsibility for anything she's done. No matter. I will be pleasant lest she continues to be a brat. I have more pressing matters upon my mind than an imagined rivalry on her part.
Spring has blossomed and I awoke this morning in an empty bed. The evening went better than I had hoped. In spite of my commitment not to run from this I feel as though the doubts within my mind linger. They come and go. My mind however is awash with sentimentality. There is no doubting that those big blue eyes of hers have a hold over me. Gods, she incites me to indescribable behaviour whenever she is near. It does not take long for impurities to hold sway over my mind when I am with her. I have indulged her desires and she mine yet when it came to awakening she was not there. This is not uncommon, I know she has her son and oft rises so that she is home when he wakes. But though it aches me to say it I have started to wish that she didn't have to go home. That she could be there when I arise, as well as retire.
But it is what it is, I sometimes wish that her son was not in the equation. Oh, it may sound dreadful of me. Dreadful and selfish. But it is what it is. When it comes down to it, when I really think about it. The fears that gnaw at my heart are still strong when I consider all there is to be considered.
I have felt my heart soaring the past weeks at times. But the doubts I have kept locked away seem to be resurfacing, pesky and recurring as they are. I wonder at my place in this land. Despite everything, I think she is sleeping with other men and this bothers me. It shouldn't. I should not allow it to. Though my feet are rooted to the spot through sheer force of will. I will not, I will not run away from this. My mind changes with the direction of the wind which blows and oh how the wind blows. I feel as though I cling stubbornly to my balance within the force of a gale. There are few solutions to this discomfort which do not have implications. This musing of mine is inconsequential. Why does everything always have to be so complicated?
To dwell on past and future, is this not my curse? Have my days not been much brighter of late when I have simply lived in the moment. I have only barely scratched the surface of my thoughts and I am fast running out of room within these pages. There is still the matter of the so-called Lord I have had killed and my business rapidly expands as though a fast-growing weed which takes up the vast majority of my time. I met a man skilled in the art of making mead not so long ago and so a meadery was born with significant investment from myself. I find it slightly perturbing that I have not heard further word of this crime. A dozen bodies upon an estate north of town and I've heard scarce little of tidings from the scene which surely must have been discovered by now.
I can only watch, and wait.
