Left to the sands at such a young age as the Variag describes it, abandoned by her mother whom her master later bid her to murder in order to prove her worth and her loyalty. It is perhaps unsurprising that the dark skinned beauty I have come to know is so cold. Unfeeling. And yet sympathy stays my blade. I have for long enough in the past played judge, jury and executioner when the darkness took me. At first hunting down individuals myself. Then in the hiring of a murderer I thought I could control when my face had begun to be too well known to do so effectively. That was a mistake, it nearly cost the sister of the Captain's daughter dearly. The darkness takes hold more rarely now. Mercifully. But the beast within me still lingers and sometimes attempts to claw it's way out. Who knows when it will surface, maybe months. Years. But one thing is for certain it does not seem I am to be rid of him any time soon.
There was a time I was so consumed with thoughts of vengeance against men like my father, women like my stepmother who led him astray down a dark road of his own I could think of nothing else. The need inside me for blood. Only blood could pay for blood and I would bathe in it's righteous slaughter. One less scumworthy individual in the world each and every time I wet my blade.
Yet I wonder, how many men with which I have committed to the ground were more to be pitied than to be despised, if I had known of their tales would I have stayed my hand or heeded my selfish desire to watch the light go out of their eyes and be no more. I am of philosophical mind today. I suppose it is a fruitless exercise. What is done is done. The pangs of conscience will not bring the deserving one's back. Many did deserve to die though and I hold no regrets for those.
As to the innocents I have mistakenly killed, or those that I have killed through means of self-preservation, that I know of. Their faces I will never forget.
I was fortunate enough to be raised for the first few years of my life by a loving mother, I was not left to the sands. Or the plains as it would have been in my case. She was kind, she was nurturing. She was the loveliest woman I have ever met. That I will likely ever know. She cared about anyone and everyone she ever met. Always ready with a gentle word of a sympathetic ear. And she had a strong sense of conscience.
Perhaps that same conscience has also fallen to me. Inherited from my dear sweet mother. The needling guilt which haunts me whenever I have a moment to stop and think who I truly am, the things that I have done. The eternal tug of war which rages within my mind.
It is one the Variag does not experience. It is something which I have envied. Were I taught to kill from such a young age perhaps I would be bereft of my guilt in the dead of the night too.
In my own captivity they did make me changeable. Alone in the world I became whoever they wanted me to be. Whenever they wanted me to be. It is in these roles I play that I find solace from myself. For who am I, when all's said and done. But a lost little boy afraid and alone in the world. Cursed by the fate-weavers to walk this world bereft of any meaningful and lasting connection. They are all gone, they are all dead. The knife in my hand wielded by a monster even if infrequently in recent times. Striking out at those who took from me my father. Took from me my freedom, my independence. My life.
Gods, when I picked up my quill today I had only intended to recount the events of days past. Now I struggle to steady my shaking hand. I will try my best to note down what I can but I do not feel like writing. Still, it might help me. For lack of a devoted ear I can turn to at this moment in time. From the sea of corpses and stinking and rotting flesh I awoke among to the death of the old Captain, the passing away of lovers and close confidants and the betrayals I have experienced in my life. I have tried to love. Truly I have. Yet I never seem to learn from the lessons fate has taught me. Fool that I am. And thus here we are.
I could abandon the Captain's daughter to the Dalesman, my confidence in him has grown absolute since the two saw fit to exchange vows. Now that I know the child I had suspected could be mine is the Ranger's. I could have been braver. Bolder. Handed the sigil over as I'd intended and vanished into the wind. The tugging within my heart grows no simpler, one way or another. Beating so hard at the strain it threatens to tear me asunder. The sadness in her pale eyes spoke to me that day.
She visited my home again only alone and without the Dalesman, and I could very much guess as to the nature of her intent even as at first it appeared to be a social call. Eventually the subject of her red-haired friend did come up and her Ranger. I am not interested in the excuses she sought to make for her though she insisted that she was simply telling her friend's side of it. And whilst the knowledge of that friend having been in trouble might have once stirred my sympathies is it black hearted to be simply unaware of something having occured. I think not. I had my suspicions of that Ranger from first I laid eyes upon him and the way he looked at me of his possessive and jealous nature. She was capable enough of writing to me in order to tell me she'd abandoned our friendship on his say so. And thus confirming my suspicion. If she was surely in such danger she could have trusted me and mentioned as much in her correspondence yet she was more than capable of writing to me to tell me of the fact she'd allowed that man to come between our friendship even as I so readily supported her in being with him.
No, I am less than angered of her absence than the fact that she willfully cast me to one side. And I suspect that the reported visits were in fact purely a fabrication after the fact in order to save face as she was clearly capable of leaving a message before. I am often away on business, any other explanation would have sufficed. Alas, I care not for her anymore.
The topic soon turned to my childhood friend. I wonder if I have been careless with this book, I wonder if one or two pages of it have been read and I will have to cast it into the fire and burn it should some more questionable passages be read. I wonder if the Ranger lover gleaned more information from me than she should have and read my book in the night. For that is the only reasonable explanation I can give as to why she seems so convinced that I feel anything more than simple friendship. On the tenuous basis of one sighting by the Spymaster in my home and an awkward look upon mentioning of it. As I tend not to make it a habit of speaking of other women I have been with in the presence of others. How could she and she alone have known I did not share my bed with many more at that time?
I must admit, it makes me guarded with my words. The long and short of it is I agreed to host both the Ranger and his lover at the celebration. Even though I would rather not have. But only if she made her peace with my childhood friend. We spoke long over the matter and she finally confessed to me why she hated her so unfairly. Of her jealousy at the woman's closeness with her father. Her motherhood. And her settling with the Gondorian knight who warmed her bed. She needed someone to blame for her father's untimely demise for she like I did with my own did not have long to get to know him truly before his passing. Underneath all the crude bluster and fiery temper she does have a heart.
In the end, I was bold. I did not outright say that we had lain together but I did challenge her. Fiery temper be damned. I steeled myself for it should it arise but surprisingly it didn't. I said that even if we had, it was my business alone. We talked and we drank and embraced so freely. Spoke of our mutual loss of her father and by the firelight I felt a stirring within. Something deeply felt. It was strange. For when I look upon her I no longer feel driven to lust but there were words on the tip of my tongue thus far unspoken. At least not to my memory. Though not words in any context the Dalesman need fear.
So we came to an agreement that she will make peace with her. Unless she can provide me with any genuine grievance she holds my childhood friend that is warranted. And that we will both suffer the presence of another during the celebration. Though I shan't be party to any further concessions to the Ranger lover. Why should I?
The next morning I had traveled to the shop where the Variag now peddles her wares. Two items upon the agenda. Payment for the weapons intended for the Dalesman and the Captain's daughter. And a matter of business, I had once supplied Firefly's shop in town with fine pipes from Hobbiton so it was my intent to secure a transaction and potential business relationship should they sell well. And yet the conversation soon took on a more personal nature. I am not quite certain how we got from discussing the quantity of pipes she was to purchase to discussing something of an entirely different nature. A jest on my part turned proposition or consideration as her response. Recalling our time spent warming the other. I would like to tell you I shot down the suggestion but it appears I did not. Though I did change the subject at first. We spoke of Firefly. Her departure. Our abrupt leave of one another with words spoken in anger. Misinterpreted words spoken in haste. We spoke of our mutual risk to one another but it seems she has pledged herself not to harm any son of Eorl. I was intrigued as to why she made this promise. It was then she spoke of the kinsman I had once met by her fire in the Chetwood. A man I recall fiercely loyal to his King and country and he would not hear a bad word spoken of the king as I recall and so I had to be tactful in my words.
I learned from our discussion that they were almost lovers, but the man fearful of what his kinsmen and those close to him might say of his relationship with a Variag of Khand. He had abandoned her. She claims that he mattered to her and still matters though she does not understand why.
If this Variag beauty, this woman of Khand, raised a deadly killer from birth to shed life's blood without remorse cannot escape love's suffocating embrace. Never mind the poison spread into the heart of the Captain's daughter.
What hope do I have of resistance?
The longer I stay here the more filled with these ridiculously warm and fuzzy feelings I not only bear the Captain's daughter but my childhood friend whom I have not written of recently in any depth. It is suffocating, truly sickening. You fear. The Variag tells me. You confessed far too much that rum soaked summer. I am on edge in her presence given what she knows. I found comfort in her embrace once. Knowing that no matter what she would never feel anything more from me and she offered it again. Taking a deep breath I took my leave of her shop.
Trembling hands give way for me to pause in my writings as I reflect upon my days. I have taken down the advertisements posted in Bree for the position of my bookkeeper. I am shaking like a leaf. Perhaps the Variag has something to relieve this ailment of mine and give me respite beyond the obvious but I do not wish to confide in her of it.
A chance encounter in the market with the fair haired maiden who puzzled me so not so long since. And I can still not put a finger on her strange behaviour. The reason behind it of which I thought seemed not to be the case and although our chat proved pleasant enough at first, I might have threw a flattering word or two her way simply to amuse myself at the way she reacted to them but it was harmless enough. Yet as we continued to speak I felt the weight of judgement in her words with regards to my lifestyle. Who is she to judge me on the life which I have led, a stranger whom she barely even knows. To imply my path to be lesser than hers. She has but judged the cover of my book and no doubt listened to others who have cast their aspersions on me I can only conclude by the manner her husband hovered over us.
Well, damn them all. I am still keeping up with the bookwork regularly. Making time for archery and sword practice. I make my usual morning runs. I have no intent on becoming fat and slow from excess and being shut away in my study. It is time I think I begun to take the time to supervise my men on their local runs in preparation for the cull in the coming months. As for the celebration. I have the whores, all I need now is the caterers and perhaps I will hire some minstrels. I will also need to take on an extra waitress in the Inn for one evening only. Perhaps a trial run, with a look to making the position more permanent as they do struggle on the busier evenings sometimes. I will set aside time to visit the Shire. There is something I am forgetting. Ah, yes. I will need to sort out an office for my chosen candidate as I simply will not allow it for a bookkeeper of my own to work out of my own study. And of course, I will need to visit my childhood friend to let her know that she will be invited to the occasion.
Béma give me strength to steady these shaking hands, Foldewyn preserve me and heal the sickness of heart. A man can only pray for intervention.
Though the fates will doubtless weave what they will as it has always been so and will be so until the world's ending. And no such intervention shall come. For it never has on the rare occasions I have called thus before.
Perhaps I will call on the Variag in the night.
