Do not look at the dates, Brynleigh. Do not think back and try to place where you were a year ago, two years ago, three years... It is not then, it is now.
And yet, I may allow myself the first. One year ago, nearly to the day, is when I sat in the Snowbourn meadhall, knowing so few souls in this beautiful city. My Shadow was there. How long has he been gone now? Many months. It was on that evening that a large, ungraceful, brutish-looking man walked in the door and past where we sat. A face full of ire, a heavy brow over eyes like chips of ice. I only recall a few words that he spoke. Brusque and short. Not quite rude, but not quite welcoming.
I didn't think there was anything meaningful to our subsequent encounters over the ensuing days. A curt nod as we passed on the street. A brief greeting in the meadhall. One day I found him stomping about the city wall, cursing to himself. A calf was loose from his herd. I offered to help him find it. Surprise was etched into his bear-like face. I know now why he was so surprised. I had no idea then. Oh, how I had no idea!
This man has a propensity for losing things. Be it a calf, be it his temper, be it his self control. Or his daughter. How well I remember climbing the rickety steps of the old windmill! The tiny girl sitting in her high perch, content as could be with her imaginary friends. With her fiery hair and sharp, curious eyes! How could anyone's heart withstand such a fae? There was no thought for how her father worried over her disappearance. And we had to become foxes to sneak out through the hole in the bottom of the "den". A fortunate thing that I do not mind crawling on hands and knees to see a child safely returned to her father's arms.
I do not remember when I first realized that he harbored something towards me. Little flashes of memories, I have. Moments scattered over the tapestry of the past year. I thought he was kind. I've never been a greater fool! His uncles' words were dark and grim, and I didn't believe them; not entirely. Not until I felt iron fingers on my wrist, and panic in my breast, and only my tears were able to save me. I know it well now. He is a brute if ever one breathed air. But that is not all he is. He confessed his base, crass desires. How terribly confusing and bewildering were those months! It was impossible to avoid each other. He passed the stable at least twice a day on his way to deposit Weda with the meadhall cook and then to fetch her again at sunset. Clumsy and fumbling were our times together back then. One moment chatting easily, then laughing, then the sudden storm would come over him. Even then, I was made of flesh and blood, I was not immune to the thrill of knowing a man desired me. But I did not tease him, upon my honor, and he would lash out with hateful, cutting words every time. How deeply his words wounded me! I tried to reassure myself that he spoke in frustration, in anger, but it did little to assuage the pain. I knew I had to get away from him. From the hurt, the confusion, the smothering, drowning closeness of it all.
I wanted to be a good friend, a good neighbor. But my heart was still trapped in the past. Trapped in the north. Trapped in the memories of my sweet beloved.
Oh, even now, the grief is so near! Some days I can utter his name, and others, the very mention of it casts a shadow over me. It is reckless and foolish to compare one love with another! Yet how can one keep from doing so? Ten thousand times have I declared within myself, "I will never love again as I loved him." How can this be disproved? By my own wanting it to be false? I don't believe so.
I fled away. Not knowing where I was going. I only needed to be away.
I had hoped that being alone in the wild would bring quiet to my mind. I will not say that this succeeded. Every moment of my journey, with only the sound of the wind and the creak of Jack’s saddle, my head was ringing with voices, all clamoring to be heard above the rest. I sat beneath a willow tree and gazed west until my chest ached and my eyes bled tears. I tried to say goodbye to him...I tried. I wondered if my Shadow was nearby, but now I do not think he was. A simple meal at a crofter’s home in the Wold, a cup shared with a sweet, generous child, and devastation struck like a wolf, crouched and waiting. So often I have wished that Death would come and lay its gentle hand across my lips, still my breath, and take me to wherever my departed love has gone. Do I wish for that now? I must be truthful. I do not wish for it as I once did, but the thought is not far off. I remember nothing after collapsing to the ground with Jack hovering over me, my flesh on fire and my head spinning so that I could not stand up. I prayed that he would be nearby as he had promised. That he would find me and save me. But he did not come and darkness took me.
The revelation did not dawn until I woke and returned to myself, days later. A second helping of kindness from strangers, a farmer’s bed offered to a dying woman. I had been denied the path to rejoin my departed love. And so I accepted that I was meant to live, and to live is to love, for what use is a beating heart if not to care for others? I had desired to discover if any place would call to me while I wandered, and tell me that it was “home” for me. Would it be Bree? Would it be my father’s house? There had been no home for me since Conrob died. He was my home. I would have been in utter bliss at his side in the farthest-flung corners of Middle Earth…
Some say “home is where your heart is”. I agree. When the fever left me and I could string two coherent thoughts together again, I found myself longing for Snowbourn and the people there. For him. For that huge, rough-mannered brute. The time to grieve was over.
Is there something pitiable and pathetic about a person trying to love again, after having their heart and soul shattered? He is trying to do the same. I waited a long time to ask him if he had loved her. He would not answer clearly, which is a confirmation in my mind. I do not feel jealous now. I do not doubt his intention or where his heart lies. Perhaps one day I will understand why he becomes so angry, so envious, at the mere thought of my past. To be jealous of a dead man seems exceedingly ungracious. But I have faith that I will learn of the reasons why, with time and patience.
There are days wherein I sit alone and interrogate myself as to whether I love him or not. And then I begin to question the nature of Love itself. And I find myself with no more answer than when I began. Will we join together because it is convenient? Because I am a widow and he a wifeless father? Is there some disappointment in this notion? Is it an insult to the trust and bond that we have built to even suggest this? Leave it to my mind above all others to think too much and bring in doubts.
I am glad that he has not gushed forth with declarations or professions of the sentimental sort. I would not have been able to receive them. I do not know that I can, even now. There are moments where I think I see something, where I think my heart is ready, where fondness and affection feel on the brink of tipping over into that deep, inescapable void from which there is no return this side of Death. But I know my heart, at least in this way. I know that once I pledge my soul, there is no coming back from it. And it will either carry me through the rest of my days in this world, or it will utterly destroy me. And I am afraid.
Fear is a good thing. It keeps the hand from the candle-flame and the foot from straying too near the edge of the cliff.
I was so proud of the way he handled himself in front of my father. I knew it was a risky business, to bring the hot-tempered brute before the stern, sharp-tongued man who raised me and taught me all that I know. Once or twice I saw the twitch of his jaw and felt his hands tighten. How well do I know those signs! But each time he held his tongue and spoke only as a decent, respectful man, and I admired him so. I had not worried that my father would disapprove of him. It is only I, his daughter, who have disappointed him over the years. Now I was bringing the man that I should have brought two years ago. I was not sending a letter from thousands of leagues away, asking for a blessing to marry a northern foreigner. I did not doubt (much, at least) that we would leave the house with his approval. Here was a man of our own kin, with the proper, yellow hair and blue eyes, the proper family line, the proper background. A man who could make future sons of Eorl, not half-blooded children in another part of the world.
I had not meant to write all of these things. My hand tires now, as do my eyes. As does my heart.
I asked him if he loved me. But I refused to let him answer it.
I long to let go of it all. To just let go.
