A century ago I wrote a journal about my sisters disappearance. I am rereading it to refresh my memory before giving it to Rainith for her to read.
Who knew preparing for a journey was such a monumental task? My wife Bornith is insisting on coming with me to search for Rainith, and she has been fretting over our travel supplies and gear for three weeks now. I would have taken a bedroll, some bread, cheese, and water, my bow and dagger, and been on the road already. Bornith has assembled a tent, some lotion to repel bugs (which doesn’t work for me, but she swears by it), cooking gear, larger saddlebags, sewing kits, tinderboxes, firestarters, parchment, ink, and who knows what else. She says we’ll be ready to go tomorrow morning however, so maybe this strange feeling of impatience will go away after we’re on the road. I am unsure what exactly we’ll find outside of the valley and I think that Bornith is nervous about the journey ahead of us as well.
My rest last night was not as restful as it should have been. I kept dreaming about Rainith. We found her quickly, injured or worse. We didn’t find her at all. We found her but she no longer remembered us. We found her but she refused to come home. I died looking for her, my wife died, Rainith died after we found her.
Bornith wonders if Rainith had simply gone across the valley to see her friend, but I think not. We will go visit anyone who might have seen her before we leave Imladris to find out for sure, but Rainith always sent word back to us when she would visit friends.
It is time, and past time, for us to finish packing the last bit of “essential” gear and be on the road. I hope this journey goes better than I fear it will.
