My feet are so weary. I walked far today. I don't know what it is that I look for every day among the sunlit fields and shady trees. I only know that I cannot keep still. My mind will not let me.
I passed over the little stone bridge beyond the west-gate. I turned and looked along the stream. I appreciated the way the sunlight glinted off the water. And, fool that I am, I looked for a tall, dark shape to be standing in the grass along the bank. He was not there. And I was glad.
No attachments. I am no one. He is a troubled man. He told me so himself. Prone to violent rages. I must remain a shadow. A nameless apparition. Until the day I can discover who I am. My true name. Until then, I am nobody. Without a name.
But he gave me a name. Laurëa.
It is much more beautiful than that which I've called myself all these years.
A man dressed all in white approached me on the road, as the sun was setting. He, too, wears a hood. Strange, now that I think about it. All these hidden faces. He warned me of bandits and wolves in the fields, and asked to escort me back to town. I tried to decline, but he asked again, so plaintively that I could not deny him a second time. He gave me his name, though I didn't ask for it. I did not tell him mine. He followed me as promised. I told him that he was kind.
I hope he knows I meant it.
I saw Aeruthuil in the inn, later today. I had not sat down for long with my supper when a lady approached him and looked at his hands, and spoke of the cuts on them. She asked if he had used the salve she had given him.
I felt betrayed.
I am so thoroughly disappointed in myself.
I left a short time later to find him standing with her outside. I may know nothing of such things from my own experience, but she was flirting with him. The coy smile, the subtle twist of her body, the drag of her hand along the stone wall.
He smiled back at her.
I felt confused.
I walked away.
I must remain empty. Weightless. I refuse to feel anything beyond the most casual of polite concerns for my fellow men. I cannot leave Bree yet. I don't have enough money to travel. But as soon as I do, I am leaving it behind. I am glad I felt betrayed and confused.
It will make it easier.
