(no subject)

Discontent is no way to go about things. Usually feelings and moods wash over him like so much water over river rocks, but today there's a mood he can't seem to shake. It's due, he thinks, to being so far from home for so long. Here, he can't simply step from one reality to another without the intervention of a piece of machinery and that doesn't sit well.

To that end, he contemplates: things in Minneapolis are not what he wants, but he can't just pack up and walk away like he normally does. The situation is bigger than him; it's all tied up with the Court. And maybe that's part of the problem: it's always been so easy to just get up and leave. His feelings for Eddi aren't any stronger than his feelings for anyone else have ever been, but there's something about the way she looks at the Phouka that sticks in his craw, forces his eyes to narrow, and leaves him wondering in an oblique way about the very nature of life.

Then again, he's always been a little bit of a philosopher, and isn't that what's got him into trouble with his family in the past? He doesn't know: he both sees and doesn't see the big picture. The problem is that it's lonely here. People come, people go -- that never changes, no matter where he is -- but for years and years he's immersed himself with people and to be so isolated almost hurts.

Almost.

It isn't just that he wants a companion for the night. It's that he wants to understand, and understanding doesn't come at a bargain price. It has to be worked for.

Restless, he sits on the edge of his bed and strums his guitar, and the words tumble out in a graceful melody that he can't stem:

I am a freeborn man of the traveling people
Got no fixed abode, with nomads I am numbered
Country lanes and byways were always my ways
Never fancied being lumbered

O we knew the woods, all the resting places
And the small birds sang when wintertime was over
Then we'd pack our load and be on the road
They were good old times for the rover

There was open ground where a man could linger
Stay a week or two for time was not your master
Then away you'd jog with your horse and dog
Nice and easy, no need to go faster

Now and then you'd meet up with other travelers
Hear the news or else swap family information
At the country fairs, we'd be meeting there
All the people of the traveling nation

All you freeborn men of the traveling people
Every tinker, rolling stone, or gypsy rover
Winds of change are blowing, old ways are going
Your traveling days will soon be over

Maybe he'll play that later this summer at home. A swan song: he knows what he has to do. It's time to start traveling again.