When I said I wanted my mind to be more full, I didn't mean like this. I couldn't sleep last night for all the stuff bouncing around in there.
I got a mite snappy at Master Tumunir for how he'd gotten himself banned from the Soothery. I asked him if he'd apologize to Mister Doc and he just said "why would I" and that got me angry. Not only because Doc is a kind and affable dwarf who doesn't deserve anyone calling him names, but because now, Master Tumunir has nowhere to go for his own ails. And it seemed he'd rather hold onto his grouchiness than fix what he'd done. So I got grumpy right back at him and went in the house and left him out by the apple tree. But he sounded so downcast when I were was walking away, and he even called me "Taite" and he never calls me by my name. And now I feel awful that I were was grumpy, even if he brought it on himself. I haven't seen him since, and I hope he went and maybe talked to Misters Dimheim or Doc.
I visited Bree and stopped for my usual cider (though it's getting to where I want them warm, not chilled!). I wonder if I should try something new for once. Cider is delish deliti tasty, but there are so many other things to drink in the world. The place was empty except for one woman who came over and stood by me at the fire. She were was dressed very fine and her hair was all fancy up on the back of her head. Not the sort of woman you expect to see around Bree. She seemed real nice and seemed to enjoy talking to me, which felt odd, but in a pleasant way. I've been thinking on it ever since, and now I'm starting to wonder something, and I wish I had someone to ask about it, but I don't. I thought it were just kind when she told me I had a lovely laugh. Then she asked if we could go sit in the back somewhere, and I thought that were was a little odd, considering that the inn was so empty and quiet, but I didn't think more than that, so we went. We just talked about ordinary things, like me being from Bree and living on a farm, and she were from Gondor and lived in a big, crowded city. Then she complimented my laugh again, and she were was smiling at me in a way that just didn't feel right. I don't know how to explain it. It weren't wasn't unpleasant, but it was like the smile you give to someone you really adore. It felt like something I hadn't earned, and it didn't sit right somehow. Folk don't just give big, warm, glowing smiles to strangers they just met. Then she said I were cute. By then I were starting to feel rather giddy and giggly, sort of like when that Seger fellow were whispering all sorts of scandalous things in my ear. It's hard to explain, and I'm sure I'm doing a piss-poor job of it. My heart were sort of racing, and my face were red, and it felt nice to be so complimented and have someone smiling at me like that, but I just knew it weren't because I deserved it. Because this beautiful, refined lady didn't know me from any other lass off a farm in Bree. I don't know, I guess I just can't put it into words the right way. I'm sure she was a perfectly nice person and I'd be happy to say hello to her again, but something were going on there, and I wonder if I know what it was.
Gods, my grammar is all over the place now. It's hard to focus.
I sat last night and wrestled with my own thoughts for an hour, at least. I tried to think of reasons to go over there, and then I tried to think of reasons not to. And then I asked myself why I wanted to go, why I didn't want to go, and I kept at it until my skin started to crawl. The boarding house were empty, the dwarves gone off to do their own things before bedtime. It felt too quiet and I couldn't sit still. I finally just went, even though it was starting to rain. I thought all the way there of why I was going, and what excuse I would give. The truth was that I just wanted to hear his voice. But I wouldn’t admit that. I don’t even like seeing it written down.
I thought I had gotten a merciful break when I saw there was a dwarf already there, sitting on one of the beds. Mister Dimheim agreed that it wasn’t a good time for visitors, so I hurried myself back out and thought “Well, that’s that, that’s what I get for being foolish”. I went home.
Not ten minutes later, a knock at the door. Mister Dimheim stepped in, dripping wet from the rain, which was coming down hard by then. I handed him a towel while he said that Master Yurri (which was the dwarf’s name) told him to come fetch me and bring me back. I guess he felt badly that I had come and gone so fast. I felt guilty to see Mister Dimheim going through such pains over something that were so… I don’t know what to call it. I thought it would have been better to just stay put and let him stay put and that be that. I asked him if he would rather me go back with him or not, and he said he would, and he paid me some of the nicest compliments. Not to be flattering, cause I don’t think he wants to flatter anyone. But knowing that, whenever he says something kind, it means all the more. He doesn’t seem to understand that. He thinks that if you hear a compliment once from someone, it doesn’t mean anything if you hear it again later on from someone else. I can understand why he might think that way. I tried to explain that what one person says to you doesn’t change anything about the way it feels to hear another person say it. He probably didn’t understand that. Maybe it’s just something he’ll have to feel for himself one day.
At least the rain gave up for the walk back to the Soothery!
Master Yurri proved to be a fiery and emotional fellow. At first he were prickly and even a little mean, and I wanted to snap back at him. I thought Mister Dimheim were out of his mind to think that old dwarf wanted company at all. But then he threw a fit like a big child, and broke some of Mister Dimheim’s dishes, and I told him to stop it, like a scolding old woman. That seemed to work, which surprised me. He suddenly broke down and got all sobby, and talked about not wanting to die a feeble old dwarf who can’t get around on his own and such. I couldn’t stay too angry after that, and that makes me even angrier with myself! I don’t like it when someone does something stupid, and then they fall apart over it. It feels like my heart’s being played with, making me angry and then making me sorry for them. But sorry I was. Mister Dimheim were completely calm through the whole thing, and he were kind and gentle with Master Yurri. He went to look for a proper cane for him to use, and I got closer and held Master Yurri’s hand. I thought he would slap me away, but he didn’t, he held on and sniffled and looked every kind of pitiful. I don’t know too much about dwarves, I’ve never had one as a proper friend, and I felt out of place doing what I did, but I couldn’t help trying to comfort him, poor old soul. It seems that all the dwarves I’ve met are either perfectly jolly and warm, or cranky, grumpy old sourpusses.
Master Yurri got himself together and tried out his cane, and stopped sniveling and decided he would be on his way. I do hope he’ll be all right. Broke my heart to see him like he was. I told him I’d used a cane for a long time, it weren’t too bad of a thing. Not the best comfort, I suppose, but it’s better than giving up and acting like your life is over.
After that, I think Mister Dimheim and I were both worn out. We sat and talked for a while, and I felt myself slipping dangerously close to wanting to say things that I cannot say. It were my own fault for feeling weak. It’s a terrible thing, to feel like I’m sliding down this slope, and try so hard to stop and turn and go the other way. It’s like walking a ridgepole on a roof. A little too much this way or that way, and you’ll wind up breaking an arm. Or in this case I guess, a heart. And it’s all so stupid! What am I even thinking? I be like a speck of dust thinking it can impress a star in the sky or make itself seen or noticed or remembered. Or special. It’s pitiful and I don’t want to be pitiful. I don’t think he notices much when I’m struggling so. Maybe he did and he were just polite enough not to say anything.
I think it were something about helping Master Yurri with him, what made me feel sort of...soft hearted. I’ve never done much nursing except for the nights of keeping Emory’s face out of his own throw-up when he were drunk and passed out. But it felt so good to do something helpful like that. Even if it were just holding Master Yurri’s hand and sort of feeling out what he needed and going with that feeling. It didn’t matter right then that my leg doesn’t work right or that I can’t read too well or that I don’t know where faraway places are on a map. And then I thought about how much I like making socks for Master Tumunir or offering tea or biscuits when folk come by the boarding house. It felt good to look at Mister Dimheim and feel like I were helping him, like I wasn’t just a bump in his way or slowing him down. Maybe I’m learning something about myself that I didn’t know before.
All in all, I don’t know what’s happening inside my heart. Every time I feel warm and happy, I get something like flashes of being scared. Like my mind is warning me. Either way, bottom line is that I have to remember what’s what. I have to keep the facts in front of my face because it seems all too easy for my heart to forget them and go frolicking down its own primrose path, as Ma used to say. I refuse to be another moon-eyed fool who cries herself to sleep when a man kindly reminds her that her feelings are entirely on her side and not on his. I never felt so humiliated and stupid and bitter as I did that night.
I won’t do it again. I’ll pack myself up and run straight out of Bree before I let it happen.
