A chilly, damp morning is passing into a half-sunned afternoon, with puddles gathered at the edges of the cobblestone streets of Herne. The clouds are high and thin and pale, whispering of the potential for snowflakes before nightfall.
Within the high room of the Crossway House, the woman sits at the humble, small table. A candle flickers its little halo on the wall, and under her slender, pale hands is an open journal. Bound with worn, green-dyed leather, engraved with her name and the image of the running horse of Rohan's banners.
She writes much as the way she is. The way she thinks, and speaks, and acts. Thoughtfully. Pausing often. Examining her own mind and heart to determine how best to express them. Now and then, her hesitations leave the quill pen hovering so long that a drop of black ink plops onto the parchment and must be quickly blotted up.
Ryheric has gone away again, to parts unknown. It is not surprising at this point, nor dismaying. She trusts that he has not gone very far, or for very long. He would tell her if he were going away. Just as she would, and will, tell him, when she does so.
The trip to the quarry. It needs to happen soon. It lingers at the back of her mind. Floating at the edge of her waking thoughts. Tainting everything. Soon. Perhaps after the Yule holidays. A bleak task for the bleakness of winter. It seems fitting.
She writes of her sentiments after visiting with Cesistya, and the unexpected appearance of Baldmar. Her two oldest friends outside of Rohan. Endless memories associated with them both. Their steady, calm love such a contrast to the more youthful upheavals and tensions of the traveling company about Herne.
But Time is a good teacher. The best teacher of all, perhaps. And with every day that passes, she learns more of them, and more of herself. More of what she thinks, feels, expects. What she is willing and able to tolerate, and what she is not. Those souls she feels a connection to, and those who feel strange and dismissive and cold. And some who surprise her in the end. It is a tiring series of lessons at times. Yet there is value in all of them.
She misses her quiet moments with Ryheric. Speaking with him alone, in the middle of nowhere. Only the two of them, relying on each other for everything. How different he seemed then, than he seems now.
The pen scritches over the paper again. Little bursts of confessions, of revelations, of questions to herself. Perhaps it was only a season. Life, after all, is but a series of seasons. Each with a beginning and an ending. Some may repeat, but many do not.
She has no regrets.
Do you think love can come in different forms? she had asked someone recently. The answer is still a mystery.
As she finishes her writing, and the afternoon clouds thicken, she sits beside the window with her hands laced beneath her chin. The great feast to start the winter and to celebrate Yule was coming soon. A time to savor new friendships, to feel thankful for surviving this most difficult of years, and to welcome the future. Whatever may come.
