It's a slightly grubby sheet of parchment with some notes scribbled on it. No care has been taken to record any dates or places.
So I am on the road again and I don't want to be! With every particle of my being I want to run back towards Bree, towards a little cottage shaded by trees, where simple vegetables are pulled out of the soil that bears them and turned into masterpieces fit for a king. I want to run towards the hearth that never truly goes cold and towards the well-tuned harp that will sing so beautifully in the deft hands of its master. I want to and I can't. I mustn't. I daren't.
I am heading towards the Blue Mountains in the company of three dwarven lasses who pose as dwarf males, clad in leather clothing, with heavy axes and hammers slung across their backs, and hats shading their faces well. They keep their names, the contents of their wains and the purpose of their mission secret. If they are talking and I approach, they'll go quiet and look at me in this particular way that lets you know you are not welcome. I don't mind, it's not their companionship I paid for. They look dangerous enough and will fool most men and that is exactly what I need. And they charged me a fraction of what their male counterparts demanded of me for the same service. This parchment will suffice in the absence of a merry conversation. Our little caravan has crossed the Brandywine and I am perched on the last waggon, shaded from the elements by a cloth roof.
I left Bree yesterday in the afternoon, which was a terrible delay to my plans, and reached Newbury in the morning, just in time to listen to a tirade of complaints about my lateness. I was tired and aching from half a day and the whole of the night on horseback (save short stops) and the poor mare was almost blown. All I wanted was sleep and the dwarves accommodated me despite all the grumbling, so I've been in this waggon from the start of the journey and I've had a healthy dose of sleep already. I hope we will stop to eat something hot when we reach Stock. I dread going back to my usual dried meat and hard rations.
…
It's a wet and windy morning today and I slept badly last night. We didn't stop in Stock, my dwarves being unsociable and suspicious towards anything on two legs. I had a chewy piece of meat and some foul ale at the campsite and nightmares of snowstorms poisoned my dreams. Maybe it's this cloth roof and the wind whistling in it? It reminds me of the tent in Talvi-mûri. No, I don't want to remember the tent in Talvi-mûri. Not now. Not today.
…
I have tried everything now. I walked next to the waggon, I tended to the ox pulling it, I tried to spark some small talk with the dwarves and all for naught! I keep thinking of the little cottage bathed in sunshine and somehow the image of the cold and droughty tent sneaks into my pleasant thoughts. It makes my longing so much more painful. This weather doesn't help. I don't want to be here. I don't want to go to Ered Luin.
…
The road is terrible and the waggon rattles and shakes despite the fact that the oxen go at ... well ... oxen pace. The views are breath-taking, as always, but they don't erase the image of frozen wasteland of Forochel. The dwarves have stopped talking to me completely and I am the epitome of self-pity. It's fear, I know it well.
There was a book about dragons in the tent in Talvi-mûri. Arran bought it and gifted it to me in one of those rare moments when he behaved more like a man and less like a blood-thirsty animal. It was called The Wyrm and was an illustrated story of Ancalagon, an ancient dragon of some legend. It captured my imagination so much that I day-dreamed of being a dragon, a powerful creature, strong and fierce and fearsome and one that could fly higher than the highest peaks and out of reach of any harm. I flew with the dragon no matter if it was the fist or a leather thong, a sweet word or a foul one - I learned to fear sweetness as much as I feared curses. I flew with the dragon away from shouts and equally deadly whispers. I flew with the dragon when people poisoned by lies turned their heads away when I needed them to look in my direction. I feel like flying with the dragon again, because the little cottage is getting further and further away from me and I never needed my dragon when I was there.
There is a splodge at the bottom of the page. Probably rain.
