The Love of Gold

This is the journal of Eir I am writing in the third age when we are at peace but I feel as if there is a tenseness like a calm before the storm. Hallvard teases me that I think that girls are only meant to be servants and leave the fighting and thinking to them. I hate Hallvard although I shouldn't my mother Fridgeir tells me that I should show kindness and love to evryone but Hallvard is harsh and arrogant he believes himself to be the bravest boy in all of Dale, and I'm too intimidated by my father to ask him if this is true. My father Jorund is a bowman and once a loyal soldier to the king he's seen many wars he has a deep voice and only knows how to interact with my two brothers so I leave them be I slip away as often as I can to my secret place.

I set down my ink quill and let my latest diary entry dry taking great care to not mention where my secret place is if anyone read my diary then everything I held dear to me would be destroyed. My gaze shifted to out the window to the great mountains beyond I knew that one of them is the great Lonely Mountain and Erebor the hall of the mountain king well former mountain dwarve king where inside lay a vast trove of gold and precious jewels oh how I longed for adventure of which I could never speak of to my parents they could never understand my father knew only one thing protect our family and our home and my mother she forbid me to cross the river that bordered our land, I suppose that she was generous letting me roam our humble forest of oak trees that dotted the outer edge next to the river but that is not my secret place, it lies somewhere beyond the river its— well yes I suppose I'll tell you after all you are a reader and cannot talk to my parents, how silly of me to think this no matter my secret place is a cave some ten or twenty feet above the ground only I and my best friend Arnor knows about it Arnor and I have been friends since we were babes we've played together ever since I could remember he now lives some distance across the river and my mother sometimes lets me go and see Arnor whenever my mood is stormy today being such a day but mother never noticed, I cut my musing short standing up and walking to the kitchen deciding to ask my mother if I could go and visit him. She was standing at the counter rolling out dough for bread her apron, hands, and arms covered in the white dust, I watched her closely as I entered and did not miss the sudden tensing of her shoulders she knew it was me and I knew that she was dreading this encounter. I decided to make the encounter less painful on her part "mother I'm going across the river to visit Arnor" I said in a firm tone she simply nodded her head and I grabbed an apple on my way out the door, walking briskly I paid absolutely no mind to my father or brothers as they trained in the clearing that has once been mine where I exercised my horse but my father had sold my horse wounding my heart. I crossed the river by walking across a brand that grew over the river and dropping to the ground I set off on the well known route that would take me to my special hiding place