The Journal of Turri and Yurri
A Study on the Men Folk
Entry Six Hundred and Ninety Six
I had all but given up hope in the Inn of The Prancing Pony. In my own way, I had given up hope long after I left it. My spirits were sour long after I stepped through the West Gate and turned to look back on where I had resided all these long year's. Most of them, anyway. The smoke from the chimney's of Bree rose up from what I would perceive to be the last time through my beady little eyes. I was afoot, with a young, bumbling boy in tow.
His name was Hutwig, 'Twig' as he liked to be named, and he broke in half like one too as I knew he would. We had been walking together he and I, upon the west path, bound for the Brandywine river. We came to a ruin upon a hill, and there we rested. Or had the best of intentions to, yes.
Bandits came upon us, and they did take us swiftly. The second time my axe had been taken from me by sniveling beasts, for this is what the men folk are. Kin slayers. I surrendered only because the boy had handed over his own weapon. Had I engaged, the unarmed boy would have been slain with certainty.
Another saved us both upon the move, a woman talented with bow and arrow. The rescue could not have come at a better time, upon the border's of a bandit camp. Their hound's barked as their nostrils did smell us, but the petulant brigands below took little notice. We three made short work of our captor's, and then our path's parted.
The boy I could take with me no further. He was too young. To think of him traveling home alone from the cold harsh mountains of the Ered Luin through brigand infested roads to Bree, made me think I had done him wrong. I gifted him with the loot of the fallen, and parted with the young boy on good terms. He proved his metal in the end. He took a life and likely saved mine.
The woman disappeared as quickly as she came. She and the boy knew one another, but it is doubtful I shall meet her again. Alone I now go to the hall of Thorin to be reunited with my kin, and to pass first through the realm of the little folk.
I shall record my finding's further once I pass the border into the Shire.
