[Elora]

When the storm had, for that time at least, passed, Vanwe pushed herself back from the now damp mattrass. She sat, arms wrapped around herself, and glanced about the stable loft with eyes that could pierce the shadows of night. Eyes that the villagers had said were wickedly cursed by her bloodline. She could make out the drawers that stood against the sloping roof of the stable, empty apart from a scattering of a few possessions in the topmost drawer.

Vanwe rose, walking across to open the drawer and retrieve the length of braided leather that she had carried with her. She'd found it the night she began her flight, after she'd taken a knife to the leather braid that had marked her back and shoulders too many times in bloody anger. It had lain in small pieces at her feet by the time she had finished, and she had dropped the knife and instead picked up one small length.

A knife would have been of greater use, but she had carried this fragment over all the miles since as a reminder. Vanwe wrapped her fingers around it, solemn and grave for a moment. She could not forget. She could not return to that. She would never permit it to happen again. With her other hand, she scraped back strands of hair and straightened her back. Noone stood over her now, wordlessly grunting as they let the braid rise and fall. Noone gathered in a circle around her now, chanting supersitious oaths against witches and Elves.

Instead, she was free in a way she had never been before. Her feet went as she chose. She worked and laboured as she wished. She had only to free her mind and her heart and she would be worthy of her father. The leather braid she clutched was a powerful symbol, one that she had made out of the fear. In the darkness of the stable, the horses below were the only witnesses to hear her whisper, "I will be free," with a startling intensity and desperation.

When they had faded from hearing, they blazed still in her heart and mind. Vanwe turned from the dresser and moved to the furtherest edge of the loft to open out the hay doors. They swung smoothly on well oiled hinges, and she stood there looking out over the inn and the immediate surroundings.

"Free," she repeated again. She did not need to skulk in shadows any longer if she did not choose to. Vanwe soon had flint to candle and a small flame sprang into life, gently flickering. She set that down and retrieved another possession, another lump of wood. This time it was smooth yew, a piece she had collected on the long road.

Sitting by the candle, Vanwe removed her belt knife as she rolled the yew around in her hands. It spoke of many things to her, and soon her knife started to rougly carve out the shape she felt resonnate within her. Below a horse shifted in its stall, Vanwe ignoring it, and instead fell into another song, one she heard mothers sing to their children in the village. It was sweet, simple and soothing.

Shavings fell to the floor and over her lap as she worked, small chunks and finer curlings depending on the stage of the carving. The wall behind her creaked faintly, as if the timbers were settling in around her. For some reason, the creak lifted her head. Instinct demanded she look about even though she was safe in the loft, far away from the village. Feeling a little foolish and unsettled, Vanwe set the roughly shaped wood aside and reached for the candle. She rose, candle and knife in each hand and walked to the edge of the loft so that she could peer over the edge at the horses below.

She stood there, still, for a while, scanning the lower stable, until she came at last to the newly installed horse at the far end. It was that horse which was restless, and knowing what it was like to be alone and frightened, Vanwe moved to do something about that.

She stowed her belt knife and nimbly climbed down the ladder. As she came to the stall, gently murming soothing meaningless phrases, her senses were hit with something else. Wolves, fear, injury assailed her. Vanwe blinked, startled, and continued on. She set the candle well out of the way of the straw, and moved into the stall.

The horse was skittish, shivering as her hands ran over it's coat. Vanwe steadied herself as the horse sent flashes of wolves, and fear. Most of all it was fear and pain she sensed. Untrained by either her mother or her father, Vanwe found it difficult to make sense of it all. Still, her quick hands soon found places needing attention. For the second time that day, she sensed for the wrongness and attempted to heal and put it right.

When her senses found something that was not a horse's flank or leg, something more wrong and much more dangerous, she fell back with a gasp of shock. The horse whickered fitfully as she stood, unsure of what she had found, and retrieved the candle. Instinct said that someone was there. If there was, she needed to know... foe or not? The memory of what she had stumbled across suggested the answer.

Someone was there, nearby, and she should run. The candle cast a golden glow over her features as she peered about the stable. Her fingers worked at her belt knife frantically. Run, her instinct screamed. No, came the response, like a tolling bell. She would not, not this time. She had already decided she was tired of running.

"Who is there," Vanwe called in a voice half question and half a bravado challenge.
She moved out of the stall and into the more open area of the stable.

"Who is there? Do you need help," she asked, remembering the wrongness she had sensed. How anyone could live without healing for that, she did not know. The silence of the stable, the occassional creak of the walls and roof, could not mask the insistant screaming of her instinct. Her muscles coiled in readiness as Vanwe tried to pierce the evening darkness held at bay by her candle nub.

Unable to see anything, she fell back on her senses and extended them. The wrongness, the pain, struck harder this time. They were close. Fearful fancies flew through her on ghostly wings. She grasped candle and knife harder, and waited for the first hint of movement.