My Darling Son,
I could never have even imagined that I would have to face the most painful of tasks again so soon. It seems but moments ago that I had to record the tragic news of your natural father’s death, some three years past…yet here I am again, many moons have been and gone since a second terrible occurrence has happened. I have only just mustered the courage to put quill to parchment and write again in your journal to record the tragic and terrible news that I received in the autumn. I have denied what I have learned until now, for to have uttered and admitted it, would have surely killed me.
Oh I have tried, my boy but my tears have washed my words from these pages. It is time however, for me to be brave, and you must do the same Branston, when I sit you down and tell you that your true father, the man who called you his son and heir will never return to us and why.
There is no easy way to explain, no words that will bring comfort, but there is good reason, and I shall come to that presently. My dearest boy, your father is dead, but he died as he had always fortold of himself, Deredan Enimrath, noble knight of Gondor, perished, sword in hand aiding his mother’s kin in the North, defending the free peoples of Arda from an shadow that threatens us all from the East, an evil that most of the good folk of these lands know ought of.
Oh how I have denied such terrible news could be true, Oh how I have mourned him, to my shame I have even felt anger that he would leave us each and every time, how selfish of me to put my own pain, solitude and worry afore all, albeit for just the fleeting moment of his departure, when despair would addle my thoughts. My heart would sink when he kissed me goodbye and leap upon his return…yet it will leap no more, for it is broken and will never mend.
Words fail me son, utterly fail me, what can I write to soften this blow? My memories remain as do yours and they are as precious as the moments we shared with him, my love, your father, my dearest friend, oh how much we have shared together. When the time comes that I can utter his name once more without losing my mind to grief, we will talk, of happier times. I will teach you all that he taught me, about the one true God, Eru Iluvatar and how his very thoughts made the Ainur, great spirits, and how Arda was weaved from the music of these spirits…ah how the folks of Bree would call this madness, and indeed the people of my homelands…oh how we debated these matters. We sat by the warmth of the hearth whilst you slept, he would teach me the tongue and the writings of the Eldar, of his adventures, he was well travelled and educated, and you shall have all of those things, for that is what he would have wished for you.
You have lost two fathers now Branston, and I have lost the two men I have loved most. I will make a promise to you that I will let no other man into our home and call himself your father and put us through such heartache again when they are taken from us. Nay, we will remember them, and we will honour them in our hearts, mind and deeds. His body has not been returned to us, but we shall decide on a place to call Deredan’s resting place where you may visit and lay, flowers just as you have always done for your blood father Hardoleth.
There are no happy endings Branston, endings are the worst part, but as long as one is held in the hearts of those he leaves behind, or his name is still spoken, he is not really dead…we must take comfort in that.
Cormamin niuve tenna’ ta elea lle au’ (Sindarin: My heart shall weep until it sees thee again)
