Though I was able to cover more distance than I expected (for my leg's healing continues to bring strength with every day), I still could only travel until the sun hung midway between the sky's peak and the horizon, before my leg needed me to rest. My slow preparations to camp for the night (in a sheltered hollow within sight of Weathertop) left me time under the sun, and I might as well spend it with my journal.
Not the real journal, of course (for there's nothing worth noting there about this journey, as my only purpose is to return home). But this gorse journal was meant to record tales of merriment, of meeting people and telling jokes and laughter. While the stars above, and the crackling of my fire, and the warmth of my cloak pulled tight, and the smoke of my pipe, might be pleasant and even joyful, and thoughts of home before me even more so, this is not the sort of merriment this journal is meant for.
However, song is, even if I have to write my own (for my lute is here, and there is no one to mind if its song stumbles).
(Many attempts at rhymes have been scribbled out and written over, but the deleted words are so thoroughly struck out that nothing of them can be read, only the final form of the song:)
Some from the Soft Lands may sing of their forests,
Their rivers and plains, their cities and farmlands.
Their lives may be easy, warm fires and full bellies,
But my feet will always come back to the Lone-lands.
The wind in the gorse is the song of my homeland:
The shelter of blue skies, as far as the eye sees,
As open as freedom, as wide as hope's promise,
Its welcome reserved for only some few, like me.
Land rumpled and rolling, hard, unforgiving,
Hungry and dry, sweaty hot, freezing cold,
To survive is a challenge, to prosper a wonder,
None make it a home save the strong and the bold.
On further consideration, perhaps using this journal to write my songs in is a poor idea. If another scout finds it, or worse yet, one of the Soft Folk, they will only see why I am a scout and not a minstrel. I wonder if Glynn could have improved on it?
