[What remains of this sheet of parchment is a disaster of ink, large segments written and then entirely crossed out, five or six aborted attempts. At one point the writer even began to write in another language before blotting that completely out; in other places the handwriting, usually so neat and upright, becomes disjointed and chaotic before smoothing back out into tiny letters, very, very small.]
Dad Father 'Uddel To the most worthy of honor and love of all fathers, greeting.
Your son Seimurr is good and true and found what he was sent to seek. He fails to bring you this letter from no neglect of duty but because I have entrusted it to the hand of a Dwarf I trust and revere, in the hopes it shall so reach the mountain sooner. I know you must have been suffering long, waiting for word that I am whole and hale. Let this be that word and apology for
Dear Father.
I am so sorry I have not written. If I were to try to offer an excuse like some sort of sniveling , I would say something about the worry of a letter being traced and a party being sent to retrieve me. But I know now after reading your letter that it was wrong of me to even fear such — though it was not easy, with such tears in my eyes.
I have done grievous wrong by you, so grievous there is not shame and regret enough in the world to feel for it. I deserve every ounce of your anger — and yet you are such a good and kind father you wrote to me with not even one reproach. I have imagined and feared a rough rescue, your smoldering wrath, perhaps ultimately to be exiled punished, but what I ought to have feared and now suffer is the sting of knowing I have brought my family, dear and kind and perfect, such sorrow. The pain is perhaps more than I can bear.
I would beg you not to waste your love on me, the most unfilial of all children, but I know that in the attempt to so convince you — and your attempts to convince me otherwise — we would only knock ourselves senseless against the bulwark of mutual stubbornness. So I beg you to believe in my love instead.
I love all of you so much.
But I cannot return. yet
To Bóurr, best and most beloved of fathers, the prodigal sends greeting.
Dear Seimurr tells me it is a condition of my freedom that I write and at least attempt to explain my actions. Generous terms these are, and write I can, with gratitude and love — but to explain is not simple. You guessed yourself in your loving letter that it could only be something terrible and grave to drive your baby pearl out of your hall without saying a word.
You are of course right, kind father. It is terrible. I do not know that I can explain it, and even to attempt it makes me blush with confusion and shame.
I well remember the stories of the wanderings, in Dunland and then to the west, when our people suffered poverty and our dams were forced to go in male garb always. I know it was an indignity that could hardly be borne and how hard you and every Longbeard fought and labored, and fight and labor still, to ensure that it need never be borne again. Many times you have told me how blessed you felt to be father of a daughter born under mountain restored, and many times you promised me that it would never be necessary for me to set foot outside, that I could live my whole life shining safe and well in its heart.
I know that what I do now is tour in the land of our people's suffering, and that I make that suffering into my play.
I cannot stop myself.
Dad,
I miss you terribly.
I have also never been so happy in all my life.
In the short while I have been beneath the sky, I have seen and experienced more things than I can list in one letter. Surprises and frights there have been, but no harm, instead a hundred blessings. Among Men there are to be sure the fickle and cruel, but most have been to me generous and welcoming; Hobbits not small-minded fools but lively, joyful, and kind; even an Elf I have greeted, and in turn I have been addressed with only slight condescension. I have a friend I love fiercely and would call honor-sister one day, if she allows me. I have employment that you will hate I have been weeks walking the roads without bathing and yet never felt so light and bright with joy. I live as I have not lived before.
And do not dare to say I am too young, for you were younger than I when you marched for Thrór's sake, and do not dare to say it is too dangerous, for it was you who tried to forbid me to even learn the house-axe.
One cup of the happiness from these days is worth more to me than liquid mithril, and I should be satisfied. Yet I am not. It is like gold-drunkenness, but worse. The more I am out the more I long to remain out. Every 'Master Dwarf' I hear from the mouth of an ignorant Man or Hobbit makes me desperate to meet the next and be so addressed again. The more I am called by the outer-name I give to strangers the more I long to hear it, again, again.
You are sure to be offended when you learn what it is.
Father,
I think I am Bíld r crazy.
Father,
In these few months I have seen and felt so many things. And I have dissembled, outright lied to the faces of honorable Dwarves, done it so much it begins to feel easy. Each night I laugh and am embraced by ale and friends while far east over the mountains you and my Mad weep for me. I spend Seimurr's purses so quickly I might as well cut holes in them and pour the contents on the street, and I call myself a dwarrow but neither craft nor fight.
I abandoned you to die.
I am no jewel, nor made of steel or iron, or silver, gold, or mithril. There is something truly wrong with me.
I am afraid I can be never be a son of whom you can be proud, nor a daughter.
And I suppose I should not waste ink and paper till I have properly decided what I shall write.
[The page was burned in the fireplace.]
