The last few nights I have been able to sleep again some. Maybe it's just how plum wore out I have gotten, with tending the stables, restocking all its supplies, my sword training, and my journeys up to Hengstacer for lessons. That's starting to settle down though, now I'm caught up, more or less, on resupply. Tomorrow morning I get the last thing the stable's running out of, a few sacks of dried peas, plus one extra sack to make up for that they missed the date they promised for to deliver it. But maybe it's also on account I am moving past what kept me awake -- trying not to think of the awful thing what happened, what Miss Brynleigh must be going through, what it'd be like if the same happened to me -- either to lose someone like she done, or to be the one lost to someone else. Trying not to think about where she is, and if she's all right, if she's alone, if she's safe. Those things are still in my thoughts, but there's other things starting to push them aside, good things ahead, especially today, so I think tonight I'll sleep even better.
The one thing what's taking up most of my thinking now is the journey back south. Been thinking about that and planning it almost since the first day I came to Bree, last summer. Has it really been more'n half a year now? It's been far away so long, and even a couple days ago it was still more'n a month off, and now of a sudden we're talking about leaving maybe in a week. Miss Adri finding that map with the pass at Carrot-thras changed everything. Going that way will cut a few weeks at least off the trip, and lets us go sooner, on account it's already passable. A dwarf caravan came through Bree two days ago said they'd come through it.
Miss Cesistya weren't so sure it was safe enough, and pushed us to go through Dunland -- I don't think she really understands what that means for someone like me. I explained it to Beoda tonight -- the Dunlendings lost a fight with my people some five hundreds of years ago, and they're real sore losers. But Miss Adri didn't think we got to worry about the mountain being mad at us. I don't think I know what that even means, but I guess I don't got to. All I got to do is talk to Miss Ramield about her hiring on a journeyman stable-keeper sooner, right away in fact, and collect the provisions from Miss Bottle soon too. I asked her to deliver them this week, and I think she said as she could, but I'm not sure, as I fell asleep while talking to her, and woke up with soup in my hands.
The other thing about this pass is we don't got to pay Beornings for tolls, which means the five gold I got saved for that suddenly is free for other things. Like when I finish my apprenticeship and being a journeyman, I can use it for to buy a mastership and a stable, and become my own stable-keeper. And I can use it to buy the house outright once we're back, and everything else as is needed for starting a family. And when I mentioned that to Beoda, well, she asked if that meant I was asking her to marry me. She laughed and I reckon she was joking, but maybe not all joking. And I sure wasn't. I wanted to ask her that for some time now but I figured it were too soon, and I never got to get any advice about how courting is done. I told her that if it were too soon, I would wait long as it took to do it proper, but if it weren't, aye, I did want to ask that. (And not just on account of the special meal she made me, flaky bread rolls with rabbit-meat somehow cooked right on the inside!)
Well, turns out it might not be too soon, except I got to ask her pa first. I had thunk asking if I could court was enough, but I guess this is a separate thing to ask, so I mean to do that tomorrow. But knowing she wants me to ask, that's enough to give me a reason to sleep better tonight. Once we do this journey I will have put the last of my old life to rights and put it behind me. Then there's nothing but to come back and put all my heart into the new life here in the north. I'll miss Kestrel, sure, but I've got friends here, and a home, and a trade, and love, and after we get back and can get married, a family. Tonight when I go to bed that's what will be in my thoughts, bringing me to much-needed rest.
