Found:
Lost: One sense of humour. Reward for safe return!
Dreary and bland though Bree may be, it's a step up from Trestlebridge. More of it is rotten, of course, but less is charred to cinders and falling apart. It also boasts a tavern with passable beverages. I wish I could have enjoyed it like I used to.
Dearest Neyaa was here this night, also in need of some good company, I think. I tried to give it, but alas even my fake smile failed me in the end. We joined the table of Loakee and Baldvin but despite the merry nature of the pair, my wit was as lost as my good cheer. I couldn't even muster up a passable flirtation. I just didn't want to.
What's wrong with me?
There was a time when nothing could stop me from smiles, from jokes, from flirtations and, ultimately, a night of warm amusement. There was a time when I'd have pretended for all I was worth until the lie shown to the world became the truth to me. There was a time when none of this would have mattered, when the pains and frustrations, the anger, would have been brushed aside and ignored until it faded away.
There was a time when I would have run.
But I can't. Not now. Maybe that's the problem.
I admitted to Neyaa what I've not yet admitted to anyone else. I have retired from ruin stalking not out of a will or desire to settle down - I could continue to travel and dig even did I have a stable home and a husband to return to - but because I simply can't do it anymore. The breaking of my back, though healed well enough now, leaves me weaker and slower than I once was. But it is the dislocation I received from trying to save the life of the one I despised the most that has rendered me incapable now. How can I swing my pickaxe with any real heft or precision, how can I bury the point into the head of a wight and remove it again with one smooth motion, without the use of two good arms? The damned shoulder joint falls right back out of the socket at the slightest provocation. It's useless. I'm useless.
Instead of running free, the wind in my hair, the horizon in my sights, the reassuring thud of Steel's galloping hooves beneath me, I am trapped. Languishing in a town that makes me uncomfortable, daily faced with the risk of running into the two people who I would happily punch in the face right now.
It's unlike me. I'm not a violent woman.
Were it not for Neyaa being in need of a friend, were it not for Ethan being in need of a tutor, were it not for the promise I made to remain until spring, I'd be long gone by now. But to where? Northwest to Evendim, to the project I started but now have little interest in completing? Or Northeast to Angmar where, somewhere in the barren distance, the promise of a fitting end may yet await?
We'll see when this cage of my own making opens with the first thaw of the new year.
