#Breeland

As the boys played in the front yard, Eira watched from the steps. The leaves were nearly all fallen from the trees, covering the ground. The autumn chill caused her to pull her scarf over her face, shivering. She looked down to her swollen stomach and asked...

"Are you two cold?"

Peace, calm, stillness. Three words that had been removed from Isulril's vocabulary for the past month at the very least. The past few weeks had been a whirlwind of activity for her. She had seen so many changes that it had been difficult to keep up. Life was changing, and she was changing too.

The feeling of wishing to run had come to a crescendo for the woman. She had considered leaving everything, leaving Bree altogether, returning to Gondor as a disgrace. The disgrace that she knew in her heart that she was. But she had remained.

Standing by the fire, the pale woman was clad only in her chemise, her feet bare, long black locks falling to her waist. She looked into the embers, and thought of the previous evening, standing by the fire in the common room of the Prancing Pony.

The crowd clapped uproariously. Usually the approbation of the crowd was more subtle, dimmed down by the soft sounds of the harp. But tonight, at the Harpers Court, the harpists were not there at all. Instead, it was a band of merry fiddle players, playing the score for a small opera, which was performed by a few women in rather profuse costume makeup, as well as some gentlemen in excessive robes.

I met her again that day, the woman with the glinting eyes, the combative woman. She pushed me with a booted foot into the pond outside my house. I still do not know how she had arrived there, having never given her my address.

As the water overcame me, I remember feeling rage and resentment toward her. She had ruined my neat little bandage, had jeopardized my injured hand, and had wounded my pride. But she is like that, is this woman.