Finally!
Lord, I'd grown so damned tired of this place that I couldn't even be bothered to put ink to paper and write it all down. This place drains the life and soul out of a man. Surrounded by farmers, drunks and stinking tanners. Bree is a cesspit. I'd say this is where ambition comes to die, but to say anyone here had any ambition at all to begin with would be an outright lie. Nay, this is where people are born, live, and die, without seeing beyond the Brandywine or the Marshes.
Sorry to disappoint you Father, but your fairy stories are in fact just that. There's nothing left of value at all up here, and to try and start a commerce or trade would be folly. Any ruins would cost millions to rebuild, and they're all infected with bandits, orcs or worse... dwarves. I'm afraid the Old Kingdom is just that. There's very little chance of reclaiming anything in our great Name. Besides, there's a bunch of nitwits up here calling themselves "Rangers", who talk like the fools in the Swan City, claiming to be noble and that it is their land by right. Bunch of squatters, mourning over what their ancestors lost. To compare them to our rangers in Gondor would also be an insult. They merely roam around the barren lands, whilst ours are on the frontlines of a war day in and day out.
Ack! What I wouldn't GIVE to be home. I tried to control and liberate the locals of supplies by attempting to manage a ruin on the south road known as the Andrath, but the man I put in charge seems to have gone rogue. I try to keep a handle on him, but he's sending less supplies down the river to our homeland with each passing week, and it seems I have failed. No help from Gondor, and I secured no help from other sources. Our people may starve before this is over.
Hells, I make everything sound so grim. But I found the light! A glimmer of hope. A diamond in all this damned mud. I couldn't believe my luck when I bumped into her. The lady Drubainbess is here. What are the chances! Haha! Just when I was ready to give up, return home in shame and likely be shipped off to the ranks of the Batallion by my family in hopes of attempting to earn favour in Court, there she was.
She isn't the same as she was. She's quieter, more secluded, and more withdrawn. She has taken a liking to the peasant life, too. She'd forgotten who she was. Probably deliberately. But someone like that doesn't belong in the mudheap. It's easy to shine your light when everything's dulled around you, but she could change so much more higher up the ivory tower.
I think she's exiled herself up here or something. I vaguely remember all the wanted posters in Gondor, but they were probably put up by half the boys in Gondor! I'm glad to see though that her fire hasn't waned. If anything, it's amplified. Many, like my pig-headed brother, will remember her flirtatious cheekiness, dazzling face and her ability to hold court so cleverly. I remember the girl who would punch the arrogant, jumped-up Swan Knights who looked down on us in the Vale. Who would rather be out there than in the parties. I remember the girl who wouldn't take any s**t from anyone, excuse my Sindarin.
She is the key. Father, if I ever make it home, I hope you have the sense to hear me out and not betray her in another pitiful attempt to try and pander to the Steward and the White City. She is the one woman both connected enough, knowledgeable enough and downright scary enough to turn our fortunes in this war. She may be the bricks that build our walls high to weather the storm. And she's agreed to return home to Gondor to aid us.
I only hope we're not too late in returning, as we suffer delays in departing up here. Some moronic ex-guard has been threatening the mob again, or something. I miss my home, and the streets of Tingobel.
I wonder if that hobbit lad fancies another flagon later?
