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“Oh Wenda!” Mara sighed shaking her head sympathetically, her brow creased with worried concern as she watched the fleeing forms of the reindeer race from the grounds towards the dark silhouette of the forest against the dying light.
She hesitated then glancing back at the door which she had just come through, where the others sat over supper contemplating and planning how to survive this thing when it came and come it would! Deep down inside she believed this to be inevitable. She knew that she should return and tell the others of Wenda’s flight, but Master Stamo’s words still echoed in her mind… 'I’ll say yes, the creature will grow more powerful, more dangerous. I think it would be best if we do not wait for events to give proof to that. Better to kill the snake before it grows another rattle and bites,' by the time she went back inside relied what she had seen and a search party arranged it might already by to late.
Besides she had promised herself that she would stay close to the young woman, partially out of guilt for having taken the woman’s recount on their first meeting so lightly to heart, but mostly because she had formed a strange affinity with the young changeling, both hunters of sorts and both embodied with gifts that they would probably never fully understand and that would ever be coveted by the greedy and the wicked.
Her mind finally made up she turned from the inn and hurried out in to the fading light, following the deep tracks left by the reindeer in the soft snow. Into the forest she followed, careful to avoid any of the halfling‘s traps. Fresh deer tracks and a broken twig here and some ripped up foliage there marked easily the reindeers passage and if the snow held off she would have no trouble tracking them, it was the catching up to them that was her main concern, although raised by elves she had not their pace and if Wenda and her deer did not rest, there was little hope that she would catch up at all.
Hope is with us!
Again it was Stamo’s words that echoed in her mind and although she could not yet see what hope he spoke off she held to what little she had and hurried on hoping beyond hope that she could find Wenda and convince her to return to the relative safety of the inn.. at least until an adequate plan could be devised to see off this evil.
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