[Dairym]

Heather laughed. “These are hardly foreign roads. The Shirelings can be queer folk, to be sure, and their speech is odd, but they’re the same breed as our dear old Underhills and Haygirdles and all the little folk back home. As for traveling alone…” Heather shrugged, setting down her empty mug. “I came alone because only I had reason to come.”

It was her own journey, after all. She was choosing her own roads and making her way without direction from man or hobbit; it made a thrilling change from ordinary life. She had already seen more people and heard stranger tales than the plain farmgirl from Further Chetwood had ever imagined.