The Dunlander is certain he has located the second stone. Nestled like a ravenous cookoo in the soft bounty of the halflings' Shire. By report a pretty, placid land of nothing and no-one, populated by childlike bumbling farmers intent on buccolic pleasures. Insular, isolated and adrift in a fantasy where the sun always shines and the butter is as fat and yellow as their own creamy cows. For folk such as these, not even lesser Men, but for these bovine- bellied gardeners, the last blood of the North spends itself.
We must set forth soon. The second stone calls mutely, a tugging at the gut from the stone of the northern downs. I feel it, the time is coming. And time to choose who will accompany me. One who will find the hidden paths to the stone, these shire folk must remain asleep and adrift. A Man is enough to set their chins wagging for a whole moon, a dark Man ... worthy of a year, a tale and the danger of intelligent ears hearing such.
The Crow - no. The woman must remain behind - and so must he. It is of no hardship. He is well named, as foul as the carrion picker he is named for. That such as he should be a man - seeming to delight in lying in his own filth. His stench and his foetid mind will not be missed. She is welcome to his company. Mayhap the alternative will seem more appealing when I return. Perhaps she will begin to understand that it is for folk such as he that she mouths these pretty tales of self-sacrifice and humility. Let her enjoy the fruits of her work. He is her charming creation.
And she will see, how some men sink towards beasts. How her own blood will sink too ... from lordship, to servant, to cotter, to beast ... unless they turn away from the tired teachings of their forefathers that have led them to this ruin.
And so I choose the Dunlander, as rank as a bear in his own musk, but one who strives to move from the wildness of his folk to honest service,bound by his desires, open to the truth.
