I don't know how long it's been, since I sat at a desk and wrote something down on paper. I faintly remember tossing my old journal into the fire, many months ago. I'm not sorry that I did that. I'd like to forget most of my memories as it is, even now. There was nothing recorded in those pages worth cherishing, really. A lot of questions, doubts, worries, regrets, and stupidity.
So, here I am, starting again, for good or ill. Another cheaply bound book with empty parchment, and a stubby little bit of sharpened charcoal, with which to scribble my terrible handwriting.
I can scarcely think back on who I was before I...well, before all that's happened, happened. A year ago, I hadn't even heard the name that would be my downfall. I barely knew my blue-eyed mercenary. And I was months away from encountering the darkest shadow ever to fall across my life. I was young, carefree, wild, fearless, and happy. Of course, I'm only a year older than I was, but I feel as if a decade has passed, not just a single year.
I am filled with regrets. More bitter than I ever thought imaginable. But in recent weeks, I have learned to hope again. No more do I sit and think on how much I deserve to die, nor how sweet death would taste. How it would silence the voices, quiet the nightmares, and end the terrible, gnawing, nagging doubts. I have found a strange and somber light on the horizon. I don't understand it, but I hear its gentle voice, asking me not to give up, to give life another chance. My long-time mantra of "everyone goes away" will be spoken no more.
I have found friends in unexpected places. This bleak, dismal inn, on the edge of the wilderness...who would guess that friends could be made here? Yet it was here that Wincer and I met again, and talked, and I smiled for the first time. My bow - my old bow, that I never thought to touch again - is here with me, thanks to him and his extraordinary kindness.
I wandered to the top of the old fortress on the hill - Weathertop, they call it - and encountered a stranger, tall and broad and gruff. We were each wary of the other at first, but he proved to be as amiable as could be, and we camped a night there together. On the way back down, we came upon a goblin scout, and where others would have pushed me out of sight and told me to hide and be useless, this man, with a simple, wordless nod of his head, told me to take aim with my bow, and in that moment, he earned all of my respect. For not seeing a weak, inept female, but a skilled huntress who could be of aid. I had not shot my bow at anything but foxes and deer for untold months, and the thrill that coursed through my veins as I hobbled the hideous creature, and the man charged forward and skewered it with his spear, was something I have not felt in forever. And for that moment, I remembered who I was. And I wondered how I had let myself be persuaded that I was so much less than that.
I wonder if he is dead. If he's still alive, I wonder if he thinks I'm dead. I wonder if he cares either way. I loved him truly. I changed for him. And I change for no one. Love or madness, or both. A part of me loves him still, in some annoying, foolish way that is beyond my control. But it no longer devours my sanity and eats away at my mind. Yes, I would honor my promise if he ever claimed it. But I know he won't.
Brushing fingers with Death has a way of changing a person. The kindness of the hermit, Robin, spared me from Death's full embrace. There has been kindness on all sides of me. Unlooked for, and undeserved, but it will not be taken for granted. The serving woman who brought me food, even when I wasn't hungry. So many others.
But more than anything else, the return of Taraborn has shown me the truth. Like the dawn after a long, dark night, where one feels all hope is lost and the sun will never rise again...and then, it does. And you wonder why you doubted that it would. And you feel so foolish for ever thinking that the night could last forever, when you knew the sun would come again.
I cannot see tomorrow at all. I can hardly see from one hour to the next. I can only see the moment within which I exist. That is the farthest I can push this fragile, newfound hope of mine. One more breath, one more heartbeat.
