Conerica Straits

afternoon

It’s been ten months since I last traveled this stretch of road to Elidir. With every mile I walk, there’s a tightening in my chest and a growing sense of unease that I can’t seem to shake.

The last time I was here, I was not alone.

There’s a group of three travelers with us, two human men and a woman, who have clearly been companions for a long time. They move together, speak across one another, and laugh too loudly at things that cannot possibly be that funny. It grated on me all morning.

I tried to put some distance between us, but their voices carried in a way that others’ didn’t. I moved ahead, fell back, and even kept to the far side of the wagons to block the sound. It made no difference. Even now, as we’ve stopped for a short lunch, I can hear them. Do they not even stop talking to eat?

I get fragments of their conversation whether I want them or not (and I do not). They are adventurers or expeditioners of some sort, apparently seeking a passage north through the Menador Mountains to Molthune.

And now that I’ve written that down, I think I understand why they have been getting under my skin. I keep seeing the Minstrels in them, and I resent it. I resent that they still have each other.

Iskaryn hasn’t been much help. Sometimes she’s a mirror; others, she’s a window. Right now, she’s neither, which makes this one of those rare moments when she doesn’t have an opinion to share–or impose on me.

Which is, I suppose, an opinion of its own. One that suggests that I just need to deal with this, and her involvement would only complicate it