((neatly penned in Lumi-kieli))
There has been so much happening that I have been so tired or busy that I have not written about any of it, so I am going to get caught up and keep it brief.
I have my new harp! Right now it is sitting on the floor next to me, and begging me to pick it up and play it. But then my diary would be even farther behind. I finally paid for it yesternight and then with one thing or another I was not even able to take it out of its case until this morning when I woke back in my room. It was only a few days after when I gave Syllea the old harp that Mister Baraque had given me that I was finally able to pay for the new one. I feel like things are turning around; maybe preparing to give away the gold penny is enough to start the wind-spirits taking mercy on me. Though I did cut my finger cutting chips last night. I took the harp out of the case this morning, but have not yet played it, other than the night that Mister Dem and Miss Arrygg showed it to me in the first place. I feel so sure that its voice and mine will go well together. And I still feel like my intuition that I had to earn it myself, with my own hands, owing to no one but myself, was the right way forward. It will be my voice in its voice, and no more. I cannot wait to spend time with it. But maybe not today. There is too much to do today!
Mister Godwin is very eager. I like him, but I am also a little concerned about just how quickly he is going. Maybe that is how people are, or think they are, in the south, falling in love impossibly fast, or thinking they do. Mister Baraque also seems to think he is in love with me even though we barely spent any time together, and what little we learned about each other felt to me like we did not fit -- he is so on-the-inside, and I am so on-the-outside. I took the time to ask Mister Godwin about whether his interest was more about what the Bree-väki call "sleeping together" than what I would call wooing, but he insists it is wooing, and we even talked about what that means, so we are not just using the same word for different meanings. I just looked at the page before this and I was worrying about telling him about the necklace! That seems so long ago. Well, I told him, and he was a little disappointed, but a few days later I decided on a whim to try to remake it as the Lumi-väki might make it, make the lie a truth, and turn it into a bracelet too. Of course we do not make bracelets this way, but if I dye it and maybe add some beads it will be at least a little more like that, plus if I re-make it, it will be of Lumi-väki make! Never mind that I really never did such crafts. I only need more blue and purple dyes, and some beads. Yesterday I explored Combe and Staddle and I found several places where blueberries will be coming in in two moons and I will be able to make a dye from the pulp. I tried using some jams and preserves but I only got a very faint color, especially on the stones. Anyway, Mister Godwin heard me call him rakas and now he is calling me that, but I am calling him pupu. I like the time I spend with him, and I like how he smells and feels. I just have to make sure he does not try to rush things. I have learned a hurtful lesson about getting too involved too quickly. Mister Dem wanted to warn me about him being with Miss Essie before, but it is not something I did not know, and it does not seem to mean anything, but I must still guard myself.
There has been quite a surprise with Mister Baraque. If what Mister Dem tells me is true (and I no longer take anything for granted), Baraque was captured by the criminals and had to fight his way free, but I do not understand how he could have known this was going to happen before it did, so he could tell me I would not be seeing him for a while; so something in this must not be entirely true, or there is more to it. What is most shocking is that Baraque does not think he cast me aside at all -- and I was very specific about it at the time since he was being so coy -- and now he is angry and heartbroken that I reacted to his casting me aside by moving on. He says he did all this (he does not say what this is) to protect me (he does not say from what, and I am not happy about the idea that I needed to be protected, because if I did it was because of what he and Furley brought onto me, or that I could not protect myself). When he found out that I was longer his, and even more that I was wooing with someone else, he grew very angry and said some very hurtful and cutting things, but I was surprised to find that they did not wreck me. I care about him and I wish we could be friends, but this anger he has to me is unfair, and I have no question in my thinking about this, so when he lashes out at me and calls me a 'northling' as if that were a bad thing and tells me that my mother was right, I know it is just unearned anger, and thus it does not hurt me that much. Only to think that we cannot be friends. Then he got angry at me for not getting angry at him for getting angry at me! Men make no sense. I do not think he will ever be my friend but I will keep trying. At least if he is not, it will not be by my choice. He refused to take the harp back, which is why I gave it to Syllea. That seemed petty to me, but it works out since she will, I hope, bring joy back to its song, and it bring joy to her, too.
I was able to bring Miss Tacita to see the library, and she was pleased, even though it was very small. She started talking about a place called the Old Forest, which is near Buck-land, and which Mister Godwin says he has visited from time to time. She says there are trees there that walk! She had made me think she wanted to go with me and him, so he could be a guide and I could also see it. Then she got a book about it and told me that she was going there immediately, by herself, the same day I had finally talked to Mister Godwin about it. I was very disappointed and a little hurt that she did not want me to go with her; I am never sure if she really thinks of me as a friend, or just forgets about me when I am not there. I happened to mention her plan to go there to Miss Cesistya, but then they got to arguing about it, and it was all very confusing and a little frightening and I do not think either of them was listening to the other. Then she was gone and I was worried that Miss Cesistya was right, that she had gone there and met some danger too great for her; but she came back last night and had only been fishing and not actually to the forest. And I thought I might get to find out what was happening with her and me, but then she got distant and strange again immediately, and I do not know why, and she started to leave, and I tried to go help her but she ignored me, and then she left. Maybe I should not be trying to help her, or anything. I just do not know. She is clearly far beyond my reach.
Then again maybe she was just reacting to the tension at the table when she came over to it, and she is simply one of those people who feels the feelings of others, the feelings lingering in the air, or of the spirits. But I do not know why those feelings were tense, only that they were. I am worried it is my fault because of how I reacted to Mister Egfor's story, though that does not seem to make sense. He was telling a story that was terrifyingly like that of the susi-väki, where he did as they do, took on wolf pelts and maybe the wolf-spirit and used them to frighten some farmer. So deeply ingrained is terror at the susi-väki, so many nights I have woken crying at the certainty that my brother had been hunted by one, tortured, killed, or maybe even made into one of them which is even worse, in the dream maybe he is now hunting me. I almost wanted to cry, to scream, to beat his chest and say how could you, how could you do such an evil thing, but I stopped myself. Maybe what he does is not like what the susi-väki do, maybe it only looks and sounds the same. Maybe the evil does not come from the wolf-spirit, but was in those men before they took it on. Or it does, but it can be resisted. Or it cannot, but it takes more than one or two times. Mister Egfor is a good person. He could not be like the susi-väki that hunt and kill and maybe eat my people. I knew this, I know it, but the terror was so strong that the only thing I could do, to not ruin his story, was to step away and tend to a customer until the terror passed. The terror was in me, and he and the rest at the table did not deserve to be exposed to it. I think that was the right thing to do. But not long after, he and Mister Dem left, and when they came back they were very somber and distant, and it was very tense. And it was about then when Miss Tacita arrived, and then they left again quickly, but whatever was tense was still there to perhaps haunt the Gondor woman. Maybe there was something else going on; certainly they have many other things to keep their hearts busy. I had seen Eoricc earlier, and I know there was some matter with him, though it is not one that I know about. Maybe the reason I am doing better here in Bree is not that I am no longer too much, as my mother put it, but that so many other people are too much even more.
Mister Butterbur still is asking me to take on more responsibility. A pair of sisters, Aileas and Ayryn, who run another inn somewhere, wanted some of his ale, so I negotiated a trade for some spices and tea, and Mister Butterbur was very pleased with what I got for the trade; not just how much I got, but also, what I thought of to ask for. He is letting me do more of the shopping in market, and to choose one or two special meals we offer at a good price for two nights. And sometimes I buy the ingredients and then if they sell I get almost all of the pennies, but if they do not, I lose what I spent; I lost a lot on the mutton chops no one wanted, but I have made a profit on mushrooms, fish, and a few other things, and this helped me afford the harp. He also had me talk to Mister Nathan about some repairs, and now the shelves in the kitchen and tap-room are level and smooth, and all the doors close right, and Mister Butterbur is happy with the deal I arranged for that, too. I still need to learn more about cooking, but I do not think I will remind Mister Egfor about that, since he seems to be angry at me. I have done a little experimental cooking and learned a few things on my own. And there are other ways to learn and other people to learn from.
Reminders:
If Baraque will talk to me, ask him about what Mister Dem said happened, though he probably would not tell me anyway
Ask Syllea if she is wanting harp lessons or if Miss Arrygg is providing them
Practice the harp until I know its strings like my own fingers!
Remind Goldwin about the gold penny donation, and the Dalish red wine
Ask Nathan about the keg transport cart (not soon, maybe in summer)
Spend time with Godwin outside of working
Delivery of Shire brandy expected soon
Learn more about cooking; maybe there are books about it in the library
In June, gather blueberries and dye the cord and stones for my bracelet
Make and dye beads too for the bracelet
Archery training with Godwin though I doubt I will be good at it
Maybe practice throws and holds?
Finish reading the book about Bree and the villages around it and their history
Learn where to gather fiber for wicks (the blueberry patches looked good for that)
Things to buy when I have more pennies:
A dog brush (and teach Suojelija to tolerate brushing) before summer
A new diary, this one is nearly full; maybe I can get a nicer one next
Maybe dyes, definitely a drill for making beads from tusks Godwin brings
Tools for candle and soap making: a thick flat stone, a pot for boiling tallow, a pot for making lye, bowls
Paints (since charcoal sketching is so limited)
