When I started writing this journal almost half a year ago I thought of all the stories I could fill it with. My trip into the Old Forest, the time I got stuck in the Midgewater Marshes, some memories from my childhood, things like that. There are a few things that immediately came to mind that I didn't think were tales worth telling. This is one of them.
Back in the days when I worked under Gib Heathstraw as a woodworker's apprentice, I had my first girlfriend. She was a city girl, born and raised in Bree, while I was more of a country fellow from Combe. Despite the obvious differences here, we shared many things: wanderlust, a love of reading, and a disdain for city life.
I think she saw me as a way out of her current situation. She grew up close to Beggar's Alley, and grew to despise the uncomfortably close quarters demanded by life in the city. She dreamed of wandering the vast wilderness, or living on a wide, open farm the likes of which she had read in the books she borrowed from the Scholar's Stair. Her father didn't even let her walk outside the city walls for fear that she would never return. The policy only made the situation worse. When she was fifteen she ran away in the night. The next morning, on her way to the Combe Gate, she met me as I was getting supplies for Gib.
Coming suddenly and quickly out of an alleyway, she ran into me, knocking over the tools and wood planks I was carrying. She apologized profusely, helping me to pick them up. She offered to help carry them to Gib's workshop, an offer which I accepted because she was cute and I almost immediately had a crush on her.
On the way we bonded almost instantly, since we were in such similar situations. I said I wanted to be a hunter. She said she wanted to be free of the city. Both of us were disobeying our parents in wanting these things. She asked me to run away with her right then and there. I couldn't. When we got to Gib's workshop I asked her to stay with me for a while until my apprenticeship was over, which I was sure would be any day (even though I had only recently started). She reluctantly agreed.
So I asked Gib to let her stay with us. He said no. I told him I would quit if he didn't, and since he was a few weeks away from hiring Fenley he had to accept these terms, lest he do all the work himself. He was already doing most of it, though, since I wasn't a very good worker, as I'm sure I've already gone over.
Freedom from her parents was enough for her for a time. For almost a year, actually. During this time we grew closer and closer. We bonded over books, we took walks outside the city walls, we complained about the oppression of our parents, we even slept in the same bed. I was so happy, and I had no doubt that I would spend the rest of my life with her.
But she didn't always feel the same way. She was waiting for the apprenticeship to end. Every other day she would ask about it. I always told her the same thing: "I'll finish it when I finish it." It's ironic that I never finished the apprenticeship, isn't it?
Of course she was free to come and go as she pleased. One day she was in the marketplace and met an older man, a merchant from the south. He told her fantastical tales of his travels, and immediately she took a liking to him, despite being twice her age. He offered to take her with him, and the choice was easy. Either she had to spend the rest of her life with a boring, lackluster woodworker, or spend it with a successful merchant and traveler. I walked into the marketplace, with the intention of buying a box of nails, just as they were leaving. I watched from afar, and made no effort to go after them. I knew I waited too long to quit. I had failed her, and myself.
That night, Gib asked where she was. I told him she wasn't coming back. He asked what he should do with all the stuff of hers she left. All her favorite books and extra clothes and such. I said I didn't know. He sold them.
I never saw her again, but I did see the man she ran away with. Just last year I stumbled upon him in the Forsaken Inn. I didn't immediately recognize him for who he was, but he seemed familiar so I bought him a drink and introduced myself. When he said he was a traveling merchant it clicked, and I asked him what ever happened to her. He told me that a small caravan of merchants had been waylaid by bandits a couple years prior. They were in it. The bandits took them both, but they let the man go when he offered to pay them a ransom. They didn't let her go with him, though, since nobody was there who wanted to pay for her freedom.
