Entry the Fourth - West Coast of the Aniduin

The river runs north, and it is the route the humans have chose to follow. I am told that there is a pas through the mountains leading to a road that goes directly west to the Shire. This journey may well take a long while, but we are well equipped, high spirited, and thankfully forgotten by enemies. We have yet to encounter any hostility, which only raises my suspicion. Perhaps this is something to do with that great evil which the hobbits destroyed. Maybe this force was so great that its loss has driven the evil of the world underground. It is also possible that this is too much to hope for.

I have broken my earlier vow and I have made a friend, Candace. She is half- elven, and so she will have many long years by human reckoning, but age will catch her eventually. I know in my heart that I will someday have to watch her die, and that burden saddens me. For the present, she is a kind soul who has lived a greatly sheltered life. This is her first trek outside the village of Tyre where she was born nearly a century ago. To look upon her, one would perceive her age to be no more than 16 as a human. Her hair is the colour of crushed grapes at harvest time, an unusual shade of greenish blonde. Her eyes are deep and wide, and shine like mica in as many shades as a blooming forest. She could easily pass for a full elf, were it not for petite stature. She is almost opposite to me, with my dark red hair and sunset amber eyes. I stand a full head taller than she.

She says she will break from the company long before we reach the Shire, and I think I will go with her. She plans to head east, to some forest where some kindred of the Lady live. I crave the company of my own kind, for she is the only being of even remote elven heritage I have met outside Lorien. We will remain with the humans until they turn west to the pas, and then we will venture east, into the forest. She seems to know this area well, though she says that she's never been outside her village. Perhaps this isn't the entire truth, but she seems a good and trustworthy friend. I feel as if I've known her for years.