[Elora]

Vanwe blinked at Alatariel's appearance from another stall, momentarily at a loss. What she saw did not match what her senses told her.

"I am the Stable Master's assistant. I heard movement and sensed your horse was in need of healing," Vanwe explained. Even as she did so, her senses stretched and still the wrongness pervaded what she felt. Vanwe glanced at her meagre belt knife and realised that in her patched and worn dress she must very much resemble a beggar or thief. She lowered the knife, but did not put it away. The wrongness she felt did not emanate from Alatariel, but it was still there.

"I have some small ability to heal," Vanwe further offered, "I could not sit above and let your horse suffer through the night. My name is Vanwe."

Vanwe attempted a fragile smile at the wary Alatariel. Understandably protective about her horse, Alatariel moved to inspect what Vanwe had been doing in the stall earlier. She found his condition greatly improved as she looked him over.

"With some rest he will recover well," Vanwe said. The Elf maiden ventured another smile, again it was a little unsure upon her face. "I do not mind sleeping in the stables, but sometimes the noises of the night play with me," she tried to explain. The result was far from satisfactory. Alatariel straightened and favoured Vanwe with a sceptical look that spoke volumes.

"The inn has wonderful fare," Vanwe went on, "Do not miss it on my account. I am sorry to have troubled you so." Vanwe bobbed a curtsy in the straw and dust of the stable to Alatariel and withdrew to climb back up her ladder. Her heart was still thudding in her chest, and her cheeks were hot with embarrassment. A prize fool she had been, all on account of a creaking stable and intuition.

Shaking her head, Vanwe set the candle nub on the dresser and stole a breath of clear evening air. The candle, only a small remnant winked out shortly thereafter, leaving only the growing brightness of the summer night sky to shimmer through the open hay doors at her. She still held her knife as she stood by the dresser as though graven in stone. Vanwe attempted to still the urgent whirling of intuitive danger and ignore the memory of what her reaching senses had found. Such injury, such wrongness! She rubbed a hand over her face, as though to wipe the memory from her.

When again the darkness around her seemed to move around her, Vanwe startled and whirled around to stare back into the loft behind her. Who or whatever it was, it was real, it had not fled at Alatariel's approach and it was in the loft with her. Vanwe raised a hand as if to part the veil shadows, her wrist a pale glimmer in the darkness. Her other hand tightened again around her small belt knife.

"Who," she breathed, "is there?"