So much has happened since that night I was kidnapped to Bree. I finally got back to the Shire only to begin having nightmares - dark men in shadows coming after me, things like that. But the worst were the spiders. I've always hated the things, but after my thankfully brief encounters with them in Bree, I'd had more than enough adventuring (against my will, I might add) for a lifetime. Working in Michel Delving allowed me to put my heinous experiences behind me, but it was a slow process.
It was also merely a diversion. My work as a yeowoman did not bring in enough coin. I did learn a lot, though. I did a lot of work for a lot of different people. I discovered goblins in the Shire, and worse things. Goblins in abundance up north, wolves seemingly taking over entire farms...then Wilcome Tunnely sent me into a cave to retrieve Golfimbul's skull.
I had to force myself into that cave. It was a hundred times worse than my encounters in Bree. These spiders were larger, more vicious (if that's possible), and far more numerous. They had completely overrun the quarry in Scary, and they've completely overrun my mind. I'm having nightmares almost every night. I tried many things, though a combination of teas seem to help; but nothing makes that fear go away completely. It's a deep, penetrating fear, the kind that makes your bones crack and your whole body go cold.
What concerns me most is what brought all these fell creatures into the Shire in the first place. I initially suspected that dwarves and men were behind it, not as a conspiracy but simply bringing their own troubles to us. But dwarves in particular seem to be most numerous, and now elves are starting to show up in the Shire as well.
Eventually, I decided to see why. We've traded with dwarves in the past, but never have they been in the Shire in such numbers; elves have never traversed our streets so frequently; and men have never been so bold as to claim our lands as their own. That's what happened to Old Odo. Brigands took over his farm, apparently looking for any hobbits they could find to sell to this mysterious Black Rider. That's how I wound up in Bree in the first place.
The bounders can't seem to do anything. Or they won't. Some think it's a joke; one hobbit even tried scaring poor folks by pretending to be the Black Rider himself! The nerve of that idiot! At least the dwarves we have had friendly enough trade relations with in the past, so I decided to pay them a visit. Ered Luin is absolutely freezing and not at all easy to traverse. Oddly, a pet sheep of mine - Fleuricia, I named her - seemed to know the way better than the few dwarves I encountered.
I had passed out of my childhood hometown of Needlehole and through the Yondershire to get to Falathlorn, but it's past that where the beauty of the elf-lands gave way to frozen rock and occasional open tundra. Without Fleuricia's odd knack for navigation and her stubborn nature, a strange thing in itself, I may never have made it to Thorin's Hall.
I'm not sure what I expected to find. I got caught up in a local treasure hunt and won a chest for myself, though I'm keeping that private. No need to blather on about it to greedy folks back home. Apparently, many treasure hunters use cave claws for digging things up. They're these ugly little creatures with long, hooked beaks - and those things are SHARP! But the dwarves have tamed some of them, it seems.
I've since returned to the Shire. I don't know where I'll go next, but it seems my days of being forever Shire-bound are behind me. I intended to never leave the Shire again after Bree, whatever my curiosity might have led me to before, but that obviously didn't work out. One thing I did learn from the journey, however, was that there are dark things happening everywhere, not just in the Shire. I don't believe the dwarves or men or elves are wholly responsible, but I do think they should all get out of the Shire and take the brigands, goblins, wolves, and spiders with them.
Especially the spiders.
