Brynleigh

I been making myself feel all right about the fact that I can't go back and live in the Mark no more, by thinking of how I'm in a life I chose, and a life where everything goes right on account it's what I chose. It's like I'm the hero of a minstrel's tale; once I chose it, it's like it's fate, so everything got to keep going right with it. But this ain't no minstrel's tale, and I ain't no hero, and things go wrong, very wrong. Sometimes when something's too good to be true, it's too good to be true.

“Now again, through the next hole…like that…now pick up a loop- No, the other way. Pull through the first two…you’re getting it, now the sec- good!” The small fingers moved as Sareva had directed, the young girl working slowly as she practiced. “Your treble crocheting is starting to look more uniform.”

            Dryn stepped into the Prancing Pony inn and looked around with his light green eyes, though his eyes seemed troubled. Upon returning to town, he had heard rumors about one who had been a father figure to him. He did not want to believe it.

I've lost count of the months, but it was about half a year ago, late summer or early autumn, when I were first in Bree and starting to think about the trip back to the Mark, and now, at last, we're taking the first steps. Today will be an easy start to the journey, as me and Miss Adri only mean to make the camp-site below Weathertop, by the spring, same as last time.

It would have been a peculiar sight to any passersby along the quiet village street; the small cottage by the lake with its door flung open, and a motley assortment of furniture and other items on the front lawn. A towering figure of a man stood on the front steps with his hands on his hips, surveying the scene. Rust-colored hair, wild and bushy, fluttered in the stiff, cool breeze, along with the plain and time-worn undershirt that covered his thick torso. 

"How long's it been, Aldwyn?" The middle-aged woman stood with arms crossed, peering out into the pasture with puckered eyes that drew a mosaic of lines and crevices to the edges of her weathered face. 

"Been going on a month, I think," the man replied, while his eyes followed the same path. Beyond the sturdy fence, wide swaths of swaying grey-green grasses flowed like waves in the brisk wind. In the distance, a herd of horses grazed peacefully, tails swishing. "I don't know exactly when it happened. I can't ask her about it."

"Oy, aye, many thanks, Althulf!" The towering, rusty-haired man raised his hand and gave a parting wave, before lowering it quickly to help support the bundle of parcels tucked beneath his arm. He'd have to clean his boots well tonight, in preparation for the next and final leg of their journey. Spring was bearing down quickly over these southern lands, and the snows in the higher hills were melting, sending misty clouds and thick dew into the lower plains, and turning the streets of Stangard into highways of gravelly mud.