I had intended to write of more mundane matters this entry, instead I find myself wetting the quill with which I hold and simply staring at a blank page. By the time I have put pen to paper it has needed a fresh application more than once. My absence was supposed to put distance between us. Yet it has not. This woman of Edoras has been anything but distant over the past month.
I have fulfilled my raison d'etre for returning to these lands. Though I was not bold enough to hand back my sigil it will serve as a keepsake. The child I thought was mine, is not. Perhaps I should turn north and visit Dale, and Esgaroth. See the Lonely Mountain. I've mused of such travels often enough. I should sell the business, sell it all. Gift the coin it has amassed to my little brother who is still being fostered and just go. I should've never come back.
I should just go. This is foolishness and I am the greatest fool in Middle Earth for staying here. The woman has a growing son of her own for Béma's sake and I have forsaken my own. What she knows of who I am, what I am. Is this not enough to deter her? No, evidently not. Perhaps I should have been more frank and told her further of my crimes. Not just the one's I can justify. Or spin them in a way I can justify. I should have laid bare my falseness.
She confessed to me her love, plain as day. Yestereve, And I stood there as dumb as a babe yet to master speech. This is naught but a trap waiting to be sprung. I can already sense the presence of the spinners, rubbing their hands together with glee at what fresh miseries they can inflict upon me. They have snipped the thread of every other I have ever loved.
I am going to be sick. I can feel it, no doubt my Innkeeper will be fussing over me soon in the knowledge that I have refused not only my supper last night but my breakfast this morning. Who can I speak with about this, the Captain's daughter?
No, I know what she would say. Especially of my childhood friend and I listened to her once before and just look how that turned out. If a man is cursed, then he is cursed. There's no escaping fate.
I stand at a crossroads as I have in the past and yet I am much too frightened to choose a path. Perhaps it is my cowardice that they punish. Will my dithering aid me in escape of the inevitable? Whichever road I take. A man can only bury his head in tall grass for so long.
I do not know, all I know is I do not wish to leave this house and yet I must. The business of the day calls whether I will it or no. I have obligations for the moment which keep my whims of departure in check. I suppose I can take a day off. Two at most.
She is the only link to my past. Before the bloodshed, before my life's experience forged the man I am today. Whoever he is. I do not want to lose her yet I suppose it is inevitable one way or another. I had thought in my wisdom upon encountering one of her old friends in the Prancing Pony to point him her way. Mayhaps something would come of that. I do not know.
It seems she has been talking to the Dalesman and I can only presume she told him also of her professed love and of course he replied with what I had told him. Why wouldn't he? I was half asleep when she turned up at my home. I should have been firmer, I should have discouraged the closeness which has developed.
And yet I didn't.
