It never ceases to amaze me how often men, even men who seem to like music, insist that they do not dance. This last one I met, he told me he does not dance because he is a fighter (as if fighting is not akin to dance). Surely one can do two things? He does, he insists, know how to drink, but otherwise, nothing but fighting. If a man cannot see the joy in music, and in moving as if the music itself were the blood in your sinews, every thrum and swoop a heart-beat pumping it to make your muscles move, surely at least one or two of them will have realized that learning to dance with women might help them in their never-ending quest to get into those women's beds?
My assignment these last few weeks has taken me into Bree and back several times. I cannot spare the coin to stay in the Inn, nor even to eat there, so I make camp outside town, and eat the occasional roasted bird. Still, I take a mug of beer every few days at the Prancing Pony. Not for the beer (though it is excellent beer; I must find some way to learn how to brew my own, though I've had no luck figuring out where to start), but for the chance at merriment.
And in a way one never sees in the Lone-lands, the Prancing Pony is often full of merriment. Even when the Soft Folk think they're having strife, it seems like laughter to me. Their most strained moments seem almost like a performance. A farce, perhaps. And the music! Glynn Harper does his best, better than I can eke out, but when there is a minstrel in the Pony, the music is so much finer. And more varied! I've heard every song Glynn can remember a dozen times each, but every time I hear a minstrel in the Pony I hear a new song, and my thews wish to move to it, if only to figure out what new beast's heart beats in the core of the song.
I must complete my assignment soon, as the need is real, and growing urgent. But this is amongst the longest times I've ever spent in the Soft Lands. I am enjoying the plenty, the beer, and especially the song, but I also am just beginning to think back to home. I wonder how my kin are doing. And that strange man who, for a time, was so eager to join us, then lost interest; what has come of him? And the land; have there been more visitors, have more caravans come through, has the snow on the hilltops melted, has the gorse started to brighten? It will be time soon to return. Then I can get back to missing the music of the Prancing Pony.
But one thing won't change. Men still won't dance.
