Found:
It's been a while since I last wrote in any other capacity but to speak with her. Now I feel compelled to do so for my own sake again.
I sit here now in a hidden cave on the shore of Nen Harn. It is cosy. It is comfortable. It is warm. It will serve me well when the snows come, should I still be in this land by that point. I've never had much liking for static places. I like to keep moving. I know that, sooner or later, even this spacious cavern will be begin to feel increasingly small and oppressive. I know that the walls will close in around me, as they always do. But until that happens, I'll likely be happy here and, at least for a time, suitably distracted. And when I need to be out and about, I have the comfort and warmth of that wolf pelt.
Time moves on, and with it, feelings have grown. On both sides, I am told. I've yet to admit mine to anyone but the one to whom they apply. I have considered doing so, but the timing has always been wrong. There's always something more pressing, something more important. Besides, in a way, it seems a little... pointless.
To say it aloud to others would be to suggest that matters are progressing, that there is some forward momentum. I don't believe that there is, or will ever be. Especially not with the ghosts of the past now alive and well and looming over me, albeit from an unknowable distance. Closure is not something I can have, it would seem.
I still have that stupid stone. Many are the times I have thought about tossing it into the lake or down a well, even selling it. I never do, though. Its owner was a large part of my life for a long time and he will always have a place in my heart. Although his spectre still haunts me, moreso since his reappearance, I cannot bring myself to part with the object just in case he comes looking.
Not for me, of course. Never for me.
I try to put it out of my mind, to just enjoy what I have, but recent words suggest that even if I do, the bard does not. That is a conversation we will need to expand upon, I think. Perhaps there is a way to deal with this that does not involve waiting around to be found by a man who is not even seeking me. Most likely, however, there is not and this... this is where I run face-first into a cliff wall.
Ah, pessimism! How I loathe you!
In the meantime, I continue to fend off 'Dara's adorable but fruitless attempts to measure me for a wedding dress that we both know I'll never wear due to lack of impending marriage.
I also must remember to purchase some new attire when next I am in town. Trousers and a shirt. Perhaps more than one set. I seem to be going through them rather quickly at the moment and am down to my last set of clothing. Well, aside from the Haradi robe I purchased from Khazim a few weeks ago, but that's not something I intend to wear in public or even make use of now.
Bah! Such frivolous topics barely serve to turn my mind away from present annoyances. Or past ones, as the case may be. Why can't it be over? Why couldn't it have stayed over? I tire of the anger. I tire of the hate. I thought it behind me until...
My focus must be upon the present.
