While Zhie, Yucca, and everyone else searched for Bainith, Bainith searched for Valanyonnen. He had not seen or heard from him in days, and while he spent his evenings huddled in a corner on the dirt floor of the deserted shrew stomping grounds from the last spring festival, he spent the days roaming the streets of every city, entering every pub and inn, watching for any sign of the Elf he now came to think of as *his* minstrel. His healer. His soul-mate.
It was true that the first place he had gone that night was the nearest docks to book passage on a ship, and to send letters to friends and notes of apology. Following that, he spent the evening on what he was beginning to think was his island, so much so that when he was unable to sleep he carved his name into the boulder that was there. He almost continued on, to add things that tweens often carved into the back side of the Bird and Baby, or on the roof of the Auction Hall, but he stopped himself just as his hand was positioned to start the next line with the letter V. He cried himself to sleep, curled up on the ledge of the rock.
On the following day, he decided to find a different place to go, recalling that Taellenor could probably lead the group to him as he had the last time. That was when he decided on the shrew stomping grounds; they were lifeless and empty, reflecting his mood perfectly.
All was going well, until he came into Duillond to check if any responses to the wedding had been sent. About this he felt the worst of all, but there was no way he could make Yucca's wedding a happy one if he were there, considering all that had happened. He stopped to leave his mount with the stable-master, and right then was when he met HER.
If ever a conscience could be personified, Bainith thought that his might very well have been in the form of a loud, rude, nosy, and honestly correct hobbit. He lost count on the number of times she insulted him and called him a coward; her tendency to flirt a bit (if one called that flirting) with other females who happened past was actually charming, while the insistence that he was stomping on other people was absolutely absurd. The fact that she made half-apologies on his behalf was most upsetting, and that she actually seemed to care about the situation he was in confused him to no end.
Yet, in the end, it was this sassy little hobbit woman who managed to scold some sense into Bainith -- or at least, he hoped that it was sense and not folly. He answered his letters, took his gear (something else that was insulted -- too light to be traveling, said she) and rode fast back to Valanyonnen's house, after one key item was mentioned: While Valanyonnen had said that he had to go to Rivendell first because of items being there that he and his daughter needed, there was that locked chest at Valanyonnen's house.
Betting on the idea that something would be in that chest that Valanyonnen needed, Bainith reached the homestead, left his horse with a caretaker so as not to alert Valanyonnen of his presence, and ran the rest of the way to the house at the end of the street.
He had considered mailing his key back to Valanyonnen, but he had run out of paper when he sent his last message to Yucca on the scrap he had with him. Instead, it was in his pocket these past days, a constant reminder of what had seemed to slip away. He entered the house, and headed straight for the chest. It was still locked, and when he lifted one side, it was heavy and he heard the contents shift. He doubted Valanyonnen would have cared to have locked it again if leaving one final time, and so Bainith settled down on the bottom step of the stair and waited.
When it became dark, Bainith lit candles, but he did not climb the stairs. To see the bed that had been built for them, by Valanyonnen, was far too much to bear at the moment. He had enough food in his pack not to need to leave for weeks if he rationed it, and he found paper on the table and had his ink and quill still with him, and so, he began to write.
Not letters, not even full sentences. Anything and everything that came to him, filling pages fully, and others with sparse verses. When tired, he slept, half-propped on the bottom stairs. When awake, he scratched and scribbled on the papers, finding the the fear of a second heartbreak brought forth his inner poet.
