Why had he told the men of Bree he was a man of Dale? He chopped down into the piece sycamore he had gathered earlier as Una and Rhye had continued on to their small abode near the Old Forest. “A kuksa I would like, and a kuksa this shall be-” he thought to himself and smiled, but his gnarled and beaten features turned to a scowl as he worked the wood with his axe. Why had he lied, even to a man such as Rhyson, and little Una? His mind drifted back to the time before his wandering as chip after chip parted from the small section of log.
Trickster and craftsman, woodsman and leader of men. Even if only for a short while, he had been many things. All for the good of his people. All for them, though it hadn't made much of a difference. Flakes of wood began to carpet the ground around his makeshift bench, the log now roughly giving in to Folke's design.
His mind was fixed on the memory of the dark, and of the flame as the warbands had plagued them along the borders of the great wood. They had fled to begin with, but came back upon the orcs with vengeance, his sinister mind had led the men to encircle them with flame, and they had laughed, and even growled as the dark beings had squealed and screamed as their death came from arrow or from fire. Folke felt the story of it curl on his tongue, as if nearly ready to come forth. At the least, he would have to tell Rhye and Una of his past.
He picked up the lump of wood and looked it over with a grin. With a curved blade, he began to hollow out the middle, and he had decided on what it would look like, this would be his next masterpiece, bearing the knot work of the north, he would hide a woodsman in its midst, axe in hand, and it would be a gift to be given away.
