The Journal
The auburn-haired dwarf, Stokrít, turns away from the mailbox and walks slowly back to the carts, the large book, one he instantly recognized, sits on his table. It looms with the words held within, waiting to tear apart two girls he loved too. He had seen the girl’s father, Kaedon bent over it, his dark, handsome face was clouded as if it was painful to write there. “I hafta to what is right” he mummers to no one in particular. As the light faded, he picked up the book hoping his letter had reached Guriwen and went inside.
Yulemath TA 2995
I have a daughter! She looks exactly like her beautiful mother, with large blue eyes. She has quite a set of lungs on her too, and at all hours of the day and night. I try tending to her in the evenings to give Fionn time to rest and recover. Though I am a poor excuse for her mother and for her frequent feedings. The birthing was long and arduous, but my wife is strong and so is our daughter, who we named Guriwen, Guri for short after a special auntie.
Lithe TA 2996
Guri is crawling everywhere and getting into everything. No chest or trunk is safe from her prying fingers, and they are long and thin, not meaty like most children! She requires constant care, and Fionn has let me take over after supper, so I bathe Guri and then read or sing silly children’s verses to her till she blessedly falls to sleep.
Medel TA 2996
Just a quick note here, Guriwen is walking, and I usually try to take her out on the stoop, the late afternoon sun glints like gold on her blonde hair. She calls me Da, and it fills my heart with joy.
So much time has gone by, this might be only a periodic account….
Lithe TA 2997
Just too busy to write between the shop and home. I have little time to do anything but watch darling Guri.
Wedmath TA 2997
Another girl, we are so blessed! This little lass is quiet and solemn, content to study the world and not run screaming into it. We named her Svanvhit after the white swans that visit the lake in the spring. She is so different from Guri, content to lie happily cooing in her cradle.
Wintring TA 2997
I am at my wits end; Guri follows me around when I am home but seems to avoid her mother. I noticed a bruise on her arm while she and Svan were in the large tub and asked Fionn about it and she said she fell against a banister post. I do not know what to think. Guri seems afraid of Fionn.
Thrimridge TA 2998
There is something wrong with Fionn, she coughs all the time and is so thin. She is withdrawn and seems to do nothing to care for our girls or the house. I have tried sending for the healer and she refuses. She will drink their potions but really nothing works very well. When asked what I should do, she gets angry and brings up Bain and how it is my fault, I ruined her life with him. She had always dreamed she was to be his wife, but I am not sure that was the case. It must be her fever talking causing her to imagine things that were not true. I hope she is just woefully tired and feeling unwell.
I come home to find the house in shambles and both children are hungry and seeming desperate for attention. Guri, despite her age, tries to mind Svanvhit and will feed her if I leave simple things out. I caught her in my rocking chair last night, singing to her little sister. The image is so painful to see it makes my heart ache.
Mede TA 3000
Fionn is no better, she sits by the fire and coughs, it is a terrible thing and when I plead with her to let me bring the healer she becomes angry. She blames me for this terrible sickness, and I am powerless to stop it. Each time she mentions his name and reminds me she was to be wed to him until she met me. I am happy to be the person to blame and told her so, and she told me I can have brats, they just serve as a reminder of how miserable her life is with us.
The girls both fear her, though thankfully Guri keeps Svanvhit away for her. I find them hiding in their small room when I return from my shop. I work with Guri on her letters and numbers and will sometimes take them to my shop with me to keep them safe. Thank Valar neither cough and I make them each drink a tonic daily to keep them well and take them with me to my shop everyday now.
Harvestmath TA 3001
I have decided to make my Guri a harp for Yule; she loves singing and I often hear her humming songs she has heard the bards play at the market. I will also make Svanvhit a house for her dolls, which she seems to love as much as Guri loves music. One of the bards at the Jolly Bell has sold me an old harp to use as a pattern.
2 Yule TA 3001
The girls loved their gifts, and Guri is strumming her harp constantly. Old Tybold the harper has even taught her a few simple songs, so my workshop is filled with sound, sometimes joyful and sometimes discordant, though Tybold says Guri shows true promise.
Home is another story, the happiness of the shop is dashed at home, it once a place of safety and warmth, destroyed by the coughing illness. Fionn rarely leaves her bed, and I pick up rags tinted in her blood each morning as she lying passed out in exhaustion. I burn those rags, I do not want the girls to see.
Second Summerday TA 3002
We have settled into an uneasy sort of existence, and I dread returning home each night. Fionn saves every hurt and fear to accuse me and now Guri of, when we return. There is uneasy silence in our house and the girls, lively and happy whilst in the shop, turn silent, frightened, and wide eyed at home. All care of either falls to me, and I am so tired. I cannot sleep, I just lie awake by the fire and hear her cough.
Blooting TA 3002
Fionn is so ill she is unable to eat, and I finally mustered the courage to call for the healer, who just shook her head sadly and gave small honey cakes to the girls as she left.
It did not take long, I found the woman I once loved dead one wintry morning, her once beautiful hair dry as straw and her body, a shell of what it was, all bones.
I was sad, but the healers assured me there was nothing I could do. I must admit I was also relieved to have peace, to have the house back, to have a chance to give my girls a proper home. They had lived the young lives facing death bravely, watching it steal their mother.
Wedmath TA 3003
I try my best to make up for the loss of their mother and spoil my two girls. I am not short on advice for well-meaning ladies, though at the end of each day I am happy. They are usually skipping about, Guri singing and Svanvhit always has her nose in some large book. Our home is warm, and the girls are adjusting.
Guri has learned several new songs, and the bards often stop in to sing her a new one for which she quickly learns the words and music. She also has good business sense and loves numbers and has been delving into my account ledgers. Svan is less lively, often content sitting outside and reading, escaping into a story until the darkness is too profound to read any longer.
Rethe TA 3005
Well, I might get tongues wagging here in this town, a market of gossip, but I have decided to let Guri go to the Jolly Bell some afternoons. The owner and his wife have agreed to watch after her, and she is to sit and learn songs. I freely admit I cannot refuse those blue eyes. She has such a convincing voice. I am powerless to deny. She is so excited, and I wish there were a more proper music teacher here, but it is all we have.
Business is great and I have been extremely busy. Counting my blessings. Several of the toys I made for Bilbo’s party were huge hits and I have taken a dwarf by the name of Stokrít as an apprentice, to keep up the orders. He seems like a kind enough fellow.
Frery TA 3007
We have become a strange little family, myself, my two lovely girls and this dwarf of Erebor who seems to share Svanvhit love of history. Each night he regales us with stories of Erebor, Thorin and of course the elves, dastardly in his eyes. The girls sit rapt as he talks about tiny folk called hobbits and the stranger yet Beorn, the man who changes into a bear, or the enormous eagles.
Harvestmath TA 3008
Guri has become the darling of music for Dale and people come from everywhere to hear my daughter of 13 winters play her instruments. Skorkit has learned to carve other wood instruments too, which she picks up to play with little effort and her songs… Her voice is like that tiny lark Skorkit speaks of showing the way to Durin’s Door.
Blooting TA 3009
I am not feeling well, sometimes when walking up the stairs my chest hurts me. I panicked at first but there was no cough, just squeezing in my chest. I try not to let the girls see, their lives have already been held in the pall of illness, and I have no wish to cause them to worry. The healers all assure me it is not a coughing illness, but rather my heart, each time causes me dread and leaves me breathless in pain.
Yulemath TA 3010
I have decided, in case I do have what Fionn had, I will send my girls away. Just in case. My girls will never go hungry or want, my shop and the money I have stashed during our simple lives plus selling the shop, funded with what I surmise is Erebor, gold will assure this. Guri is more than capable of taking care of her sister and I will urge her to leave Dale and go to Bree. From there she might go south, to the storied courts, the bards here tell me of. Even one day she will play for princes and Kings.
This is where she should play and sing, and I agree. Stokrít will buy my shop and the house. My girls shall not be paupers. Without me there is nothing holding them here. Now all I must do is convince her to go…
