[Imladris]

Gorby

I thought about how Anson thought that everything was good and about how dratted naive he was! Don’t get me wrong, he’s the best friend I have, but how could he think that everything is good when we are going on a chase after a man who might be already dead? After what had happened to the Shire under Sharkey’s rule? I shuddered as I remembered Sharkey and his thugs.

But maybe Anson had a point? What is good? Good is relative. Most people assume that “good” is good -- like King Elessar and Merry and Pippin and the other hobbit heroes. Nobody would willingly do what was bad to them, would they? So bad guys -- men that made rangers disappear -- would think they would be doing good because everybody knows that people don’t consciously do what is bad for them. So good to us is bad to them and good to them is bad to us. It didn’t make sense.

I shook my head: the world was too convoluted to be understood by a hobbit like me. I glanced again at the portrait of Falowik I had drawn. Anson had said it was good and he didn’t lie. My eyes strayed to Falco and then to Anson, huddled under his blanket near the fire. The world was good, I suppose. Except for the people who were evil and tainted it with their deeds.