It took her much longer than she had anticipated to make it to Starmere lake. When she arrives she barely has time to make a camp before dusk settles in. As she sits looking up at the starry night sky, she can almost hear music and laughter on the air. The sounds that had pulled her from the cave behind her on that night long ago.
Only then does she understand why she is there, to remember. The girl she had been that day is gone. The friends she made that day have scattered literally to all different corners of the earth. Yet all of them were a part of who she had become. The woman she is today.
After the battles, the long journeys, and the ordeals, she found herself back at her family’s homestead in Rohan. For the better part of a year she had stayed close to them. While she grieved her own losses mostly in private, she helped them clean up the debris from the fires, rebuild houses and stables, track down the villagers who had fled for their lives and bring back the ones who wanted to return. She walked patrols at night until she was sure that all of the enemies had moved on, even the stragglers, practiced her archery almost daily and trained with the one Rider who had somehow survived the attack on her family’s home.
The suitors her mother brought around to meet her, she received with grace. For a time she considered marrying and settling down, trying to want it for her family’s sake, but in the end she could not bring herself to take that path.
There were a few long talks with her grandmother, but even in those there were things Emmawynn could not bring herself to talk about. Things that were so personal that telling them was just not possible. Better than most, the old woman understood when it was time for Emmawynn to leave again.
She procured a job guarding a small caravan traveling to Swanfleet, the first leg of her journey. The rest she knew she would have to figure out when she made it to Bree.
Which brought her here. To the place where her life as a wandering protector had started. Here in this place, for the first time since the end, she can remember without that hollow, lost feeling. For the first time, all of the good memories can shine again. So she takes the time to remember sitting around campfires playing truth and dare, visiting waterfalls with Ryeric, dancing, rescuing a little girl from a bandit, building a swing for Salin and playing hide and seek with the child, playing charades with the group, building houses together, jumping off cliffs into lakes, the first time she killed an orc, taking out a goblin den with just Ryheric, Winnie, Cwennawynn and herself, choosing hens for the settlement, and so much more.
Three days, she walks around the lake, swims in it, rides out to visit other little haunts nearby, and lets the memories bring healing to her spirit. The next morning she packs up her saddlebags and heads back to Bree. Ready to begin preparations for the next part of her journey.
