[Elora]

Watching out the window, Vanwe observed in the faint light that lingered from the day still Derufin approach the inn. She watched the Man for a while, her thoughts darting like minnows in the shallows to and fro. Her last words she knew had not been well received. The flash of objection she had read in his face, his smile now only a memory at that instant. Regret welled within her at the memory and her brow furrowed. She did not understand.

For, if Derufin did not think that a family could be proud of him, what hope was there for her. All she had to guide her through the lonely years of abandoned childhood was a conjured pitcure of a father hardly anyone spoke of. She had spun layers around the concept she had conceived as a child one night as she lay aching more from her isolation than the beating she had received for some infraction.

She had added to that idea in ways she could not for a mother. Her father was kind, clever and no matter how terrible she was according to those around her, loved and was proud of her. What she saw in Derufin's face in that instant threatened to pull all of that down. If a family could not be proud of him, then how could she merit her father's regard? There was no way. The weight of unshed tears glimmered in her eyes and she lowered them to the table as she set the cup down.

Around her, the inn seemed to get louder and somehow oppressive. Painfully conscious of the doubts held by Aman and Lespheria concerning her, Vanwe shrunk in her chair. Her appetite vanished into thin air. Her head felt heavy, and she rested it against her hand as her lower lip trembled. Not here!

Before she knew it, Vanwe was on her feet in a rush to escape the press of the inn. In her panic to hide her rising humiliation she lost all regard for whose attention her speedy departure may draw. What painfully turned within her rose sharply, and on feet sped by a lifetime of grief, she ran from the commonroom. She barely noticed who she passed on her way, or even if they had to leap aside to avoid collision.

Into the stables she plunged in a headlong flight, past the horse tied to the hitching post. Vanwe flung herself up the ladder and across the loft. Her legs refused to cooperate at the mattrass that was her bed and she sank onto it. For a moment that stretched, Vanwe fought against the rising tide. Then, a small sob floated from her lips and through her hands that she had clapped across her mouth out of force of habit.

It was followed by another and she swallowed the third but not the tears. Vanwe pressed her face into the mattrass and her shoulders shook soundlessly then. Even when she was pinned by her past in a dark place, she could still be quiet. Shadow swirled around in her mind and heart, and a longing so profound that it seemed a bottomless pit sliced through her.

In the quietness of the stable loft, Vanwe struggled to piece together what shards she could to allow her fight. She reached deep and far to do so, labouring hard to overcome the tears and find some strength. She was not weak, even if they said Elves were. If her father was not proud, then she would try harder. Perhaps Derufin was wrong, and perhaps if she just tried to better make her way in the world, as he seemed to have, she would make her father, her imaginary dream father, proud.

Her shoulders stilled after a time, and she lay still on the mattrass in the quiet, eyes closed as she continued to rein it all in again to that private place to which not another soul had ever been granted.