As he journeyed alongside the refugees, his attempts to prolong his stay within their company gradually began to waver. At various points throughout the journey, he would mentally declare that he wouldn't venture any further - perhaps only to the next ridge, or until after the mid-day meal, or even until the following morning. However, as the first day transitioned into the second and third, he came to the realization that he would need to make his way back to Bree-land solely on foot. Despite his reluctance, he knew he had no choice but to depart.
Within the group, there was only one individual with whom Will had a genuine connection. However, he was certain that even she still regarded him as a stranger. He found himself embroiled in the situation in the first place due to his concern for her well-being. While the others were grateful for his assistance, the trauma they had experienced was still very much present in their thoughts. Despite witnessing the aftermath of the event, he remained unaware of the exact circumstances that led them to such a harrowing state. Although there were signs of physical conflict, the overwhelming sense of grief and sorrow among them was undeniable.
Aside from the occasional haunting howls of wolves that caused a ripple of unease among the group, the journey was relatively straightforward. However, as the company ventured beyond the limits of Bree-land, Will couldn't help but reflect on the things he was leaving behind.
Nothing. And everything.
Nearly every person he had known and loved had been in the place he was leaving, but he wasn’t sad to leave it. He had often longed to do so, temporarily, with the promise that he could always return. Instead, his thoughts dwelled on his mother and his last encounter with her and his father. Estranged as he was from the rest of his family, he had worried on her behalf. He had not gotten the chance to say goodbye.
And so the time came for him to announce his departure to their captain, Aerluinil, who had delivered them fearlessly into the lands to the south. He exchanged his goodbyes, committing the grateful faces to memory, accepting the invitations to visit, with the promise to do so when he could.
But when could he? When would he? Objectively, there was nothing to hold him there to the lands of his youth. He had always prided himself on the fact that he had no roots and could come and go as he pleased, taking what work he could find to sustain himself.
‘Like a tumbleweed in the wind,’ he often told people.
That lifestyle meant he had no home or horse to maintain, no permanence in his life that he could not easily escape from, but also no plan, no reserves, and his next meal often depended on his ability to find work. An excursion that would take him so far from the places he knew, with uncertainty at its end appealed to him, but also gave him pause.
What if he could find stability there? What if he no longer needed to sustain himself by the seat of his pants, taking whatever job happened to cross his path just to feed himself? There would be uncertainty, but there could be something more. There could be the promise of a hot meal after a long day of work, a dry roof over his head in the cold winter that was just a few months away, and the security of fellowship and community. That was something Will thought very long about. He had never had that and never known a community that welcomed him without question and judged by his own deeds instead of the ones he was born into.
As he said his goodbyes, he became more aware of what his help meant to the folks he had encountered. He could see it in their battered faces, if not for the kind words they had imparted. And then it was time to go, but he found himself pausing after only a few steps, as much from of his doubts as the words carried to him. It had been Emmawynn's voice and her words reached his ears.
"Are those loose ends really all that important?"
They were. And they weren’t.
He had told her as much then and had been surprised by how she had answered, harkening back to the conversation they had shared the previous night, in the dank cave where her company had sought shelter. He often felt like he lived under a shadow and was constantly trying to escape.
Contrary to his own beliefs, he had a choice. He didn’t have to accept that others determined his lot in life. Through coincidences and misunderstandings, he had long been thought by the residents of Combe and the Chetwood to be the rotten apple fallen from the branches of his father’s tree; the ex-brigand, the drunk, the gambler. It was something he never thought he could escape from or live down. The idea that there would be people who did not equate him with his father's misdeeds was not something he had ever considered, and to hear her welcome him, even invite him to the edges of their fold, even as an outsider, made him reconsider that idea.
He had wanted to embrace her then, but remembered how she had pulled away the night before. Instead, he reached out only to give her shoulder a gentle squeeze. She again shied away from the gesture, and so he withdrew from her and them and started to walk, that same hand flexing as he moved, as if holding onto the brief connection. He didn’t look back, and as his feet carried him further away, he found the will to break into a jog, and then a run.
Few other things exhilarated him as running did. It cleared his head, filled his lungs with clean air, made his blood rush and his heart beat soundly in his chest. The steady beat of his feet against the soft earth kept him from overthinking. The rush of wind in his ears kept them keen and alert. He did not run heedless and frantic but paced himself, willing his mind to let go of the image of the Rohir woman crumbled and broken against the wall of a cave and instead in the way the light had caught her hair when she twirled and danced, and the flush in her cheeks as she smiled and laughed. He wanted to make her laugh. He hoped he would get the chance to.
But should she never look at him again as she had that day, nor speak to him with more than polite friendliness, he was no longer a dog running home to its abusive master. He was running home to tie up the loose ends of the ties that bound him there.
