[The handwriting, done in reddish-brown ink, is messy but neither ill-formed nor irregularly slanted – as if the writer was taught proper penmanship but lacks the patience to carry it out. Smudged floral and leaf motifs surround the page.]
It is a shame that the first occasion of using my father’s gift of this book should be an unhappy one, and indeed I had not thought that my first assignment past taking my oath would be disappointing at all. I have been sent to scout the ruins of Tharbad, which is not so terrible of its own merit, but it is the choice of companion that I find humiliating. Mithrandan has assigned Halfaeron to the same task. He is an infuriating little man, and I refuse to believe that we are the same age – indeed, I believe he is a year older, but he does not act it. I cannot imagine any reason he was allowed to take his oaths, unless it was pity that his mother should have to remain at home with not one, but two incapable sons. No, that is too unkind, as his mother and brother are perfectly decent and do not deserve to be made fools of. I cannot take it off of the page nor out of my head, but I will insult only the man himself, and not any others.
Just this morning, he was chasing the chickens of Tornhad as though he was three years old. And then he felt it necessary to come and find me, though not with a greeting appropriate to a man of twenty-eight. No, he threw dust in my face so that I would sneeze, and in so doing he ruined the bridle I was tooling. I would forgive a child for doing so, but hardly a grown man! And a man who I am supposed to be able to trust with my life and our joint goal. I would scarce trust him with a bucket of pig-slop lest he might fall into it.
I do not know what I did to deserve such a ridiculous companion. It feels like a punishment, but I have done nothing wrong, and so I can only think that it is a deliberate snub. I had to work more and harder than anyone else to be allowed to make my Oath, and when I do, I am given a joke of a task to complete, while this…man-child is given all the freedom to chase hens and wreak havoc upon whatever he touches? It is unfair.
And yet there is nothing to be done about it save to hope that he will get tired of pestering me and leave me be after a day or two. Until then, I will endeavor to be selectively deaf.
