I started the ride home thinkin' of one thing only: the ring hidden away in my trouser pocket. Feelin' near to certain that the promise that were in it would be easy to give and have accepted. After all, me and Lumina had been livin' like we was married already for some while, ever since we moved her into my house, now our house. To most folk that'd mean we was already married and just hadn't gotten 'round to havin' a celebration to tell folk about it.
A week ago I got up while she were still asleep and rooted around in my cabinet and found in its hiding place the ring I'd given to Beoda, what she'd given back afore she moved away, and tucked it away for to bring into town with me. Took some time to find someone did jewelry as I could trade it with. I wanted for to get gold with a red stone on account Lumina wears gold and red, but best I could do was silver with a red gem. I tucked in my trouser pocket and headed home, all manner of excited as things was goin' so well as I would be promised for to marry.
Well, seems I got plenty of time to look for gold after all, if it ever even come to that.
But afore it even come to that, first there was the storm. It been raining for most the day, with wind and a fair bit of thunder, keepin' the horses in the stable on edge. By time I got to Hookworth the storm seemed so much worse, particular the wind. There were branches down, and fenceposts cast loose and bein' tossed about, and waggon wheels flyin' like leaves, and pieces of roof on the grass. Afore I even come to market I were gettin' scared as to what if Lumina were out, or Napi, her horse, or what about that barn kitten she'd brung home, what if it were out in the storm?
I found Napi out front of the house havin' pulled free of his reins and runnin' scared, so I went to him, calmed him, even had to use the Elf-spell I been taught, which only made me all the more scared. I were just about gettin' him calm when a big branch, big around as my leg, come down and if I hadn't thrown my arm up to block it I'd like be dead right now. I thought as my arm were broke; couldn't really move it and it hurt to try.
Things were calmer at the house, seein' as how it's tucked right under the cliffside and so sheltered from the wind. I got Napi and Kestrel safe behind the house and come in to find that Lumina were readin', in bed, with the cat, and didn't even know it had got bad out there. That were quite a relief. She put some smelly salve on my arm and said as I needed just a few days of rest for it to heal. (Good thing Malhufel is workin' out so good as a stablehand, on account I will have to tell Master Rosewood I won't be to work for them few days.)
I still had some the scare of Napi in me, and the hurt from the arm, but the ring was still there in my pocket, so I mustered up courage as I could and asked, thinkin', as I had afore, that it weren't so much askin' to make a promise as to simply make it what the promise we were already livin' were made aloud. I could tell almost right away it were a mistake. In the end she said not until she'd met my family. Which send me to thinkin' how a few nights earlier I been askin' if'n she wanted for to go on any the journeys we'd talked on, to the Shire, or the Elf-valley, and she'd said she didn't want to, and even weren't sure as we should go to the Mark next spring. So now I can't stop puttin' them two things together. How could I been so wrong about how things was, that I felt like we was already married in all but name, and she don't want to even wear a ring tells of a promise to marry one day, not this year and prob'ly not even next? How much else am I wrong about?
Next morning, after I had hid away the ring in my cabinet, I went out to see if the neighbors needed help, on account in a time like this folk got to pull together, but maybe I were just as eager to get away from my own thoughts. It were a sight out there. Some houses barely touched, others with roof tore off and fenceposts through windows. The big hall up the hill, mostly made of stone, got no damage, nor the barracks, but the much-neglected stables, not used in more'n a year, had been blown down entire, nothin' standin' but a few timbers. (The barn-cats what lived in it, what Lumina's kitten were the get of, must gone up into the hills afore the storm hit.)
I were still pickin' over the wreckage tryin' not to think too much of what the torn-apart timbers kept makin' me think of, like there'd been more'n one storm tearin' more'n one thing apart last night, when I got yet another shock to turn ever'thing upside down. Though this one not a bad one. Of all the folk to see comin' up the hill but Lady Ramield, come back from what to her, in her Elf-years, seemed like a short time away on some business were none of mine. She were most surprised as to find the village hadn't been bein' cared for much -- that by ones and twos ever'one had left after she done, and no one was left to look after things. I felt right rotten for to have to see how the village looked, what a state it were in, for her to come back to. Not like it were ever my business to tend to it; I weren't never any more'n an apprentice stable-keeper here, and then not even that. But there I were standin' in the wreckage of that stable, and maybe the ring bein' hid away maybe never to come out again were too much in my thoughts, but it sure felt as like this other wreckage were my failin' too.
The sun's out now, and the storm is far off in the north headin' on to other places, and I got to think about what's good, what's not wreckage. That now Lady Ramield bein' back means there'll be someone to help get Hookworth back on its feet; and that, even she don't want me makin' promises or to wear my ring, Lumina still loves me, and that she and the horses and the cat and all the folk of the village at least are safe, and my arm, prob'ly the worst hurt anyone got, is one will heal in a few days. Maybe after a time the storm won't feel so much like wreckage and more like when things started to change for the better. At least some of them.
