There was a merry feast at the hall organized by the new Captain and I must say I rather enjoyed it. I rather liked the look of the new quartermaster I must say but the wedding band upon her finger soon put to bed any notions that I might be having about making the evening any more merry afterwards. Still, she was a welcome sight compared to the hulking brutes which sat nearest to me and I remember there being much mead and an exquisite boar. Perhaps I should have asked this woman to cater for my own feast to come? I surely considered asking her when I had seen what was prepared. Though I didn't, I've already my own arrangements now.
Though the merriment was to come to a swift end when the Captain's daughter stood and announced the death of the Ranger lover.
What is done is done, I cannot change it. I will mourn the friend that was once, I already have. Twice now. There will not be a third at least given events and following a private conversation with the Captain's daughter. Her fate has transpired as the spinners have seen fit to weave. There is little I could have done. It is not my fault. Perhaps the blessing I gave the Ranger could have been seen to be a curse but she cursed herself through binding herself to his life's thread. I could not have altered the outcome. This would have likely come to pass regardless of my own actions.
I have done much thinking since I shared the bath with my childhood friend and sought immediately after to clamber into the bed of the Variag. Even though I was much too exhausted to indulge in pleasures physical or otherwise.
There is only so long a man can run from his fate from fear of what may happen and in doing so fate himself to misery.
My gaze lingering upon a map of this Middle-Earth. In the lonely hours I made a choice. I would not run this day. I would like to say that I would not have run that day, or any day but I cannot make any promises.
I did leave the Bree-lands as it happened but only for a short jaunt across to the Shire. A neccessity, I had need to speak to my suppliers, reaffirm old connections. Provide assurances. Stocked as my wagons were I headed back. A chance encounter with my childhood friend in the tavern turned into a night of passion.
It truly does feel so liberating, to share the later hours this woman. To unburden myself of the secrets I kept from her surrounding the murder of her benefactor so long ago. She is a fine woman she truly is. I could have loved you if you would only allow it. She told me, that night before she bolted from my home some time ago.
The truth is, I could love her too. If I would but allow myself. These have been the words on the tip of my tongue. But these words I have buried deep within. I have no wish to speak of them. But they have never found voice.
To my surprise I expressed my love in no uncertain terms not to her but the Captain's daughter. Given the emotional tumult of that evening's affairs after the feast.. Granted, I had been drinking. Though it is a different love. Still, it is surprising that I managed to allow these words to spill forth from my lips. I have dwelled much on fate these week's past. Considered all the events of my life's web. From my childhood to the blood on those plains, my captivity in brigandage when I became separated from my father. His subsequent murder, being regent to my brother after I slew his mother and then abandoning those responsibilites following the failure of my engagement to his mother. My life of hedonism thereafter, a lonely life which has persisted. And yet do I not have these two now? Potentially others, for there is the Variag.
It has been strange to see her grapple with the love she has felt for this kinsman. I have consoled her and our talks were deeply philosophical. She asked me how it made me feel to let someone see the true me. The real me, without mask or pretence.
Is it truly possible to be surrounded with company but feel utterly bereft and alone in the world? To always have to hold something back. To obfuscate or obscure the truth. I think it is. I think she understands. There is catharsis in confession, to be honest and for once not to have to weave lies or withhold information in the presence of another.
Utterly bereft and alone is how I have felt indeed, isolated all these years. Either too guarded of my secrets that cannot ever be known at large or grieved by losses sustained and too afeared to allow myself to grow close. I know.
Fate as understood by me cannot be escaped, if a man is doomed then he doomed. If he is cursed, he is cursed. But fate can be influenced. And can oft save an undoomed man if his courage is good. I have perhaps not always worked it to my advantage.
The ill omens which loomed overhead in the sky and the downpour following my professed love of my flower, I knew she was doomed to die. Yet it was my choice to bind my subsequent fate to hers. I could have perhaps chosen another path. Less fraught. I have felt that for the most part my life's web has been beyond my control. Circumstances thrust upon me whether I willed them or no. But perhaps despite all this which I have weathered... am I truly daring once more to question the curse, the cruelty of the weavers? Perhaps this is all Eorling superstition.
There is no conclusion to these meanderings, there never is. Is there truly any reason to this fear that grips my heart. What will be will be. And yet that is easily said.
