[Elora]

Uien recognised something painful in Falowik's face as he told her that nothing had been changed. She knew that longing and how bitterly it can twist all that follows in its wake. She knew what it was like to be trapped by circumstance and woe. Before she could practice caution or wisdom, she was speaking as her thoughts unfolded within her. Gone was the earlier good cheer. It was a fragile thing that faded in the face of other weights, her own and otherwise.

"I am sorry, Falowik. There is much I would change were I able," Uian said in a voice low and sorrowful. The stench of burning flesh arose as she stood there, the screech of iron and orcs, the bite of their fingers, the pain, endless pain there in the darkness beneath the mountains...

"What would you have changed," she asked, for surely if there was a way to lessen a burden he carried by way of remedy for the offence she had caused, she would do it. Uien raised her gaze from the grass by the well to where Falowik stood, frozen. He spun, face hard still and anger stamped on his face. Uien was still too lost to know her peril. She had seen faces stamped with such anger before, yet she did not stop herself now.

Falowik was presented with the rawness of her words. She was the same Elf, but what lay beneath the surface had slipped free in the morning light. Her eyes were windows of torment escaped from and yet not left behind. Belatedly Uien came to realise what she had said and she pressed fingers that shook slightly across her lips to stem the flow of words. Falowik was frowning at her.

"Who are you," he asked of her in a strained voice.
"It does not matter. Noone," she said softly, shaking her head as if she could forget it all. She dropped her hand to her side and her eyes to the grass once more. It was hard now to form the words, but she did.

"If I have caused you offence with my impertinence, good sir, then accept my humble apology. I will do all that I may and all that you permit to redress..." Uien dared but a brief glance up to meet Falowik's gaze, stricken as she was. "I... I have to go. I have troubled you too much," she whispered.

With that, Uien sketched a humble curtsy as best she could in her worn dress and all but fled to the stables, hair streaming behind her like a pennant on the wind. Uien blindly grabbed the nearest broom and began to frantically sweep the nearest stall, a veritable whirling storm of frenetic activity - anything to keep the other things at bay. Dust rose in a cloud around her, old straw scattered hither and thither, as she pushed it away with her broom urgently.

Uien paid little heed to the progress she was making nor to the tear of regret that traced a lonely path down a flushed cheek. In the midst of the cloud of rising debris, Uien murmured a single statement that barely floated over the sound of her sweeping out of the stable doors.

"Foolish as you are, it is no small wonder they left you behind." Many things could be changed, but that was one truth that could not be altered no matter how many times she tried to pull or prod at it or tear it apart. No matter if she buried it under another layer of dust or if she forgot for am=n all too brief sweet moment on a moonlit night.

[ August 24, 2003: Message edited by: Elora ]