Can it be that almost a week has passed? Time seems to have become a nebulous thing to me. One day fades into another. Endless hours of quiet, with only the sounds of the earth and its creatures, the rhythm of Jack’s breath and the heavy drumming of his hooves. The weather has been merciful, and though the nights are getting cooler, it has not rained. My belly does grow a little weary of hardtack and dried fruit, but there is a sort of stubborn anger that battles against the temptation to pity myself.
After departing the crofts near the rebuilt village, our supplies were replenished and we followed the line of the East Wall going north. Each morning, the sun took longer and longer to crest those sheer cliffs and bring light to the plains. The grass is still green, but the croft fields are richly golden, and in the gentle afternoon sunlight, we could see the workers dotted over the landscape, scythes swinging like so many tiny figurines. The land becomes more wild to the north, and the farms are long behind us now. The hills melted into rugged riverbanks, and we can now spy the distant gleam of the Anduin to the east. Ahead of us lies the Wold, endless horizons of rolling land with little shelter, save for what boulders may peek through the skin of the earth. A few, hardy crofters still call it home from what I have been told, though I have not traveled here on my own before. I think we will spend a night or two and then turn westward. I dare not explore the banks of the river on my own, and there is naught to the north unless one were to wander a vast wilderness that leads towards the fabled Dwimordene.
For now, we have found an enormous old ash tree growing out of a small dell, with a trunk as thick as a house and branches spread like a roof over our heads. The sky is so very blue beyond the crimson-tipped leaves. I think Jack would like a proper gallop over the plains tomorrow, as I have kept our pace steady and slow so far. Now and then I can feel his muscles bunching up beneath me as we ride. It has been a long while since he ran his heart out, and he deserves the reward for all the cooped-up docility that I demand of him.
So, that is about all I have to write about where we are and where we’ve been. Now, the choice comes of whether to write about my thoughts or not.
I will say that, while my mind feels far more peaceful than it has for many months, my soul is not quiet. Perhaps it never has been, and I’ve just not noticed it. I do not know. It is a relief not to be around people. Not to have to feel anything in particular; no grief, no joy, no frustration. And while the thoughts of riding, finding places to camp, exploring the hills, valleys, and rivers, have all been refreshing to my brain, there remains an ache, deep within me.
It angers me. It angers me because it is the thing that will not let me be entirely free. It is like a fisherman’s hook, barbed into the flesh of my beating heart, knotted to a long thread that stretches far, far away to the south. And no matter how far I ride, no matter what wilderness or solitude I seek, the thread only stretches farther, unreeling, its length endless and its hold unrelenting. And I know that I will find no peace - no true peace - until I have gone back to face the source of this infuriating sensation.
These are the perils of having a heart and allowing it to love others. Once that seed is planted, you are doomed. There is no distance you can run that will put enough space between you and the other soul, to make it go away.
I doomed myself, I suppose. I should have left long ago. Before this could happen.
