Friends of Nimrodel: Tapestry of Dreams

[Orual]

Ravion's green eyes narrowed and he felt his face flush with rage. His left hand clenched and unclenched as his right hand fiddled with his sword hilt. Who was this boy to deny his sister? The grief on Mellonin's face, the tears running down her cheeks, the tightness that the abandonment of her brother brought to her shoulders...it tore at Ravion. He looked at the boy, whose seemed outwardly so much like Mellonin. Her handsome face, Ravion thought, sat ill on her brother. The grey eyes, so lively and earnest on Mellonin, seemed only cold without her spirit behind them.

"That he would deny her now!" Ravion whispered, terribly fixated on the image of Mellonin's grief-stricken face, unable to tear his thoughts from her. "That he is not moved! He must not be her brother indeed, but some imposter. Surely he could not stand to see his flesh and blood in such a state."

His right hand clenched the hilt of his sword. He felt like he ought to strike out at someone, to find some way, through steel, to ease Mellonin's pain. But strike at whom? The swamp elf? Even if he were to show himself, it would be madness, and more likely to get Mellonin injured than to help her. The boy? Irrational, and Mellonin may never forgive him if he hurt her brother. He released the hilt.

Would that it was I that she sought! Ravion tried to remove the thought from his mind and keep his focus on the present crisis. But it was a difficult battle.