To Deorla,
Leader of the Company of the East Road
/Delivered by trusted hand, or left at the Company Kin House, Bree Homesteads/
Deorla,
This letter may reach you before I do. Or perhaps I will already have passed through Bree by the time it arrives, unseen, unspeaking. I leave it not only to inform you, but because it must be said.... these words, however unwanted, must be given voice.
You tasked a group of us with a simple thing: get wood. Quality wood for the new kin hall, for the repairs, for the hearth we might build together in kinship. And so I went with the group, in fellowship... willingly. Not for glory, but out of commitment to the Company, and to you, its leader.
We travelled north. To Esteldín first, where the wind bore not promise, but shadow. There, the Rangers, those cloaked in the King’s justice, spoke a name I did not expect to hear. Yours. They spoke it not in respect, but in accusation. Of blood. Of betrayal. Of murder.
I did not believe it. Not truly. Not then.
But when they spoke, they spoke plainly. And they charged us with bringing you forth. And though many were unsettled, none refused.
Some did so for justice. Some, perhaps, for doubt.
I went instead to the Wildwood - I urged my fellowship onward to fulfil the mission that you gave, to salvage at least one promise while the rest began to crack and crumble.
What followed was a descent.
Cotfast had fallen. The Brotherhood turned us away, despite our help. The League offered hope, but their workers were found slain, the timber gone. Orcs, brigands, corpses and silence. We followed every lead into dust.
And then… came the deal.
Mattas, a whisper-smuggler with a serpent’s tongue, offered what we needed. But there were too many shadows behind him, and we could not all bear them.
Alairif, true to himself, walked away. Ulysior, a friend of Guriwen, left too. Raspi held his tongue, but his eyes told their own story.
The fellowship fractured.
And so I chose a path I did not want. I wrote to my father in Lothlórien. I asked him for aid... not in coin or counsel, but in timber.
And he answered. The oak will arrive. The kin hall will be completed. The promise, at last, fulfilled.
But I have paid a price.
My father has summoned me home. It is not a gentle invitation. I return eastward, on the long road. Through Bree, perhaps. Through Weathertop, through every place I have walked freely these past years. Only now I go with shackles not seen.
And so I write to say this:
I am angry with you.
Not only because of what was said in Esteldín. Not only because I do not know what is truth, and what is lie. But because whatever it is, it has cost us all dearly.
This Company you helped build, this fragile thing that some of us dared to believe in, is cracking because of it. I have shed blood for it. I have begged favours I can never return. I have left friends behind and am now walking into exile, all to keep your promise alive.
If the stories are lies... why have you let them linger?
If they are true.... why did you let me believe in you?
I want to believe still, Deorla. I do. I want to believe that the woman I heard of, the one who saved travellers on the road, who fought against bandits and worse, that she is you. That she is not just a shadow play hiding something darker.
But if she is not… if the person who sits in the Company kin house now is not the same one I followed… then I hope I do not see her. Not in Bree. Not on the road. Not ever again.
I go east, to the woods I once fled. For how long, I do not know. Perhaps I will remain there for an age. Perhaps not.
But if you are the woman I once believed in... then may our paths cross again.
If not… then I shall not suffer this heartache too long.
—Naridalis, Daughter of Ceneshar, of Lothlórien
((OOC: See the following recap to see where things went next, including contributions from others in the story: https://laurelinarchives.org/node/65372))
