The disgrace! The damned misery and disrespect I've endured tonight! I have to say I wouldn't expect anything of these northern trollops on a normal occasion... but this! This is almost more than I can endure.
I must admit, I didn't start it well. Grabbing Dru like that from behind in jest, wearing the stinking clothes of a vagabond ranger. Not my finest idea of a joke. Still, I changed and presented myself to her proper, so that crisis was averted. No wonder she objected to me wearing those damned rags with her elbow.
Then that girl... petit, miniature thing with an oddly husky voice for a woman. She amused me for a time, even whilst she was goading me. Her little one verse ballad pisstake, that was tolerable. Almost endearing. But the damned weasel kept pushing it on and on. Typical, though. I tolerate abuse from that wench, I give it back with one comment, and I earn a punch to the face for it?! If we were home I'd have her whipped for impudence.
My only regret is reacting. Letting some common girl work me up so. I was better than that, but father knows I've told one too many military men to stick it up their proverbials on several occasions. Perhaps that's why he wanted to ship me away to the army, to curb me. But I will not be curbed, regardless of how ashamed they are of me at home. Perhaps that is why they shipped me off with this seemingly impossible task... knowing I'd jump at the chance to prove myself and regain our family honour. Anyhow, I digress. I'll be damned if I'm writing my thoughts of them on this damned parchment. Waste of good ink.
Where was I? Ah, yes. Grabbing that weasel by the neck. Mental note - 'Davamir, do NOT react to fools'. Ah, but don't suffer them either. What a thinly drawn line. Speaking of which, who on earth was that dwarf, and what possessed him to spring into a conversation not of his own? First I know of it he's commenting on me spilling wine, the next I've been charged by the walking ham hock of a man, claiming I'd insulted his honour.
Although, I suppose I did throw wine on him. Though through no fault of my own. What possessed Dru to stick her knee into my beacons of Amon Din I'll never know. She's off her nut, at times. Though then again, she's never been the proper lady type.
That damned dwarf, as well. Pulling an axe?! In a tavern brawl?! It's bad enough flattening a man who is already wheezing and clutching his Andros with Cair, but to pull a weapon in a bar? He's lucky he wasn't returned to the hole in the ground he sprung forth from!
To think that wasn't insufferable enough, that damned ranger Aranoll returned. Who does he think he is?! The last time I saw him... okay, okay. Yes, I shot a brigand to prove a point. Yes, it annoyed Dru. Yes, she had a knife to my neck. But then he butchered the rest of the camp as we watched, unawares to him, then bumped into us. Then he told Dru to make my end painful and to not be "too gentle" with me for killing a brigand. The HYPOCRISY!
So, back to today's ridiculous events. The man barges in between myself and the dwarf when we had stopped fighting and were about to talk amicably, and tries to grab me by the collar like someone chastising their child. Reacting by putting him into an arm bar though... heh, that was a good moment in the midst, I can't deny.
Then, he had the AUDACITY to lecture me about bad courtesy, and look down on me! Who does he think he is? He's a vagabond, a nobody. You know, the Beauchamp House may be on the brink of oblivion, but it's still a proud name. We've been looked down on and crushed by the boot of the Gondorian Court for years, and I'll be damned if I'll let some ragamuffin with no lands, no title and no Kingdom or home look down on me and lecture me.
Worse yet, he treated Dru like some porcelain vase! Like she'd crack and break if she were anywhere near our altercation. Damned woman stepped in front of a kick and took it like a hero. She fled the south and survived. He's just like all the other Nobles. Why do any of them not show her the respect she's warranted?! Deep down, we both know, if I return without her to Gondor at this point I'll not make it there alive, and should we ever pit wits against one another I'd be the one in the ditch. Am I the only one that sees that?!
Still, I wasn't going to defend her honour like she couldn't. Merely give her the chance to do it herself, and remind that blockhead of the fact she can, and that she can do it rather well. She doesn't need me. In fact, that's becoming increasingly clear. Her body language and facial... well, her lower facial expression, looked so disappointed. Normally I wouldn't care... but I found myself, in that moment, loathing myself entirely. Like someone had held a mirror up to the scar and shown me for the disgrace to the family name I truly am. No wonder I jumped at this cursed task...
*wet blotch*
I suppose whilst I'm writing my feelings on this paper... Dru? She looks at me with almost hope, sometimes, and then pure loathing. I find myself caring about what she thinks. What would you call that? Respect? Maybe. I think it's that she indeed fills me with hope for myself. That there may yet be hope for me to become someone, and not a nobody, forgotten by the history scrolls. And she also provides me hope that my family may yet weather this storm, when the safe money's on us being wiped out. It's a dangerous thing, though, hope. And I mustn't pin my hopes on her, it's entirely unfair.
Still, I apologised for my actions at the end of the night, and walked away with what little pride I had intact. I must promise myself to be more controlled in future. Perhaps this backwater brigand town will indeed teach me something after all. But the sooner we move south the better, lest there may be one ranger less plaguing the hills around Bree should he ever talk to me like that again. I may learn restraint, but I won't tolerate things like that.
