[Elora]

... The sands blew against her face, piercing the too thin cloak she pulled tighter against the onslaught. The wind pushed her backwards as she struggled up the slope of the dune. Her mouth was filled with sand, her legs burnt. When the wind died down, harsh voices shouted from behind her. She twisted her head, seeing the shadows boil over the ridge behind her and terror slowed her further. The wind pushed her back, into their ropes and chains and curses and she had nothing left even for tears as the first rough hand painfully yanked her backward and off her feet...

In the quilt, Vanwe shifted at the mercy of her wandering dreams, winding it a little tighter around her.

... "I do not know it's proper name. I call it the Watcher for it watched over me at need," said a man's low voice. It shimmered in the night sky as if it recognised that name and now her as she looked up at the star she had asked the Ranger about...

A soft murmuring escaped her, lips forming the words of the star's name in a sigh, and Vanwe relaxed a little as she wandered further. The healings, untutored as she was in it's art, had drained much of her strength and her dreams were at the mercy of her deepest memories. Elf, she blended dream with recollection and it lived as though she did not sleep at all.

...Their children's faces twisted with a deeper, more adult revulsion. In sing song voices made shrill by their derison, they chanted "Witch, witch, witch." The more she denied their accusation, the louder they chanted and the tighter they drew their circle around her. She did not see who threw the first pebble, nor the first rock picked up in small hands from the stony ground of the village.

"Stop it," she cried in a child's voice of her own, yet different to theirs as she was from her Mortal jury. Anger burnt through her fear and she shouted filled with wrath. "If you do not stop my mother will stop you!"

The faces grew cold and white. Some gasped at her statement. She was aghast as she realised what she had said. Already someone ran towards a small hut and her stomach sank lower still. There was nervous laughter when the woman appeared, the child who had informed her trailing behind her for protection from the demon child.

"You and your tales!" The woman's voice was a hot and sibilant hiss in her ear as she grabbed her shoulder. "Who are you to be terrifying the children, forgotten spawn," the woman snarled as she dragged her towards where the man she most feared leaned in the shade of the small shed.

The woman relayed the story given to her. "She been frightening the children with her mother. Says she's coming back!" There was a note of fear in the woman's voice that escaped her. The man, though, laughed humourously. He turned away and when she could see him again he had that braided leather in his hands. She stopped her lips from betraying her again with a "No". He dragged her towards him, the woman turned away and soon it was happening again.

Blood, she knew, felt hotter than the midday sun where either fell on her skin. The sound of the leather falling and his sounds of exertion as he brought it down on her back replaced all sight and sound for her and she sank beneath the blows. He would stop, and until then she had to stay silent and listen to his repeated vow. "You'll not bring her back here, cursed whelp."

When he was finished, she could crawl away and maybe find somewhere to clean up as best she could. It wasn't until then that her voice betrayed her silence and in the shade of the animal shelter, she whimpered as she reached for the torn pieces of her shift at her back. A goat bleated at her...

The whimper was still on her lips when her eyes flew open. Her throat was closed and she pushed out against the quilt in the strange place she found herself in. It was dark, and she did not remember it. Was it the lean-to the goats used to hide from the sun during the day?

With a low moan, Vanwe reached with her hands and found a mattrass beneath her fingers. She felt no blood on her back, nor the sting of lacerated flesh. Her frantic breathing slowed as her disorientation cleared. It was a dream, vivid and painful as they can be. Shivering she pulled the quilt back to her and curled up. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. A dream and only that, brought on by exhaustion. She was in the stables. She could hear and smell the horses nearby.

Just a dream blended with memories she would do almost anything to rid herself of. Aching, she clutched the quilt to her and swallowed against unshed tears. Vanwe swallowed also a keening grief that rose sharply from her stomach. No matter how many rocks and beatings, her mother had not come. She never would. Vanwe's shivering did not abate for a very long time in that warm summer night. She placed a hand over her mouth so as not to wake anyone and furiously tried to sleep, this time without the living dreams of exhaustion. Just to sleep, as alone in her mind as she was in life. Vanwe sent a plea to the Watcher that this be so.

"Please", she whispered to the night around her.