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They say that in the fading light, the Nightingale sings so enthusiastically that it almost dies.
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Fastia almost tripped over her own feet.
With every step she took, the whole world swirled mercilessly around her. Every which way she turned, people were running and shoving and whispering in low, hurried voices. There was something very wrong in the village. She had barely seen only fourteen winters, but she was bright enough to have picked up on the sense of urgency that clung to every word whispered between the panicked folk that had gathered in Old Torgal's small thatched house that night.
"They say they caught something! Something that almost ripped one of master Farthren's horses clean off its hind legs, I tell you!" cried one voice.
"Not something, but someone! I know I saw him skulking about, upright as any man and large as a bear!" cried another.
Fastia froze where she stood. So that was why Féodren had kept her from visiting the Easternmost stable just a few hours earlier that evening. Suddenly there was a sickening feeling within her, as if her stomach was tangling itself into knots. By the forefathers, she begged silently. Let Vinur be unharmed.
It was times such as this that Fastia was grateful for her small stature. Before anyone could note her absence, she had slipped through the gaps between neighbours and was tearing down the darkened field towards the stable, hitched skirts whipping in a frenzy behind her. Let him be alright.
That was where she found him. He truly was a brute to behold - with his height alone, he looked capable of breaking the little farm girl in twain. But there was more to him than that. Save for the grayish tinge to the skin and claw-like fingers, the being seemed mostly man. It was the eyes that gave him away - bright red, almost demonic in the manner that they glinted up at her from where he lay on a short hay bale.
Orc-kin. Half-Orc. Beast. Creature.
She wanted to scream but found her hand had moved to cover her mouth as she caught sight of something on his side. Running from rib to shoulder was a gaping gash dribbling dark, oozing blood. A clean cut from a two-handed claymore, she had seen this injury before and noted the handiwork to be Féodren's.
The girl needed to turn, to turn and leave and call her father to put the wretched thing out of his misery, but she couldn't. Instead, she found her hands moving of their own accord, rolling up her sleeves to the elbows, steeping the nearby stores of willow and plantain and applying tinctured bandages to his wound.
Fastia could never remember why, but she knew that she had wept during the whole process. How could she have left him? Regardless of how he'd treated her afterwards - how he'd thrown her against the wall, how he'd growled at her through bared teeth before staggering into the night. Foul spawn or not, he was mortal all the same. Her decision was final.
Had she known what would befall her family five winters onward, her decision would have been very different indeed. Even in her sleep she felt the hatred coursing through her like tongues of flame.
And then, she saw the Lady smile approvingly at her as the images slowly faded from her mind. Do not let your heart be filled with anger, Fastia, daughter of Farthren. For it is because of your choice that you will be needed, she breathed. As abruptly as the Lady had appeared within the dream, she was gone.
Middle Earth was moving steadily towards the brink of war and, if her vision held any sort of accuracy, she would be needing more than the compassion and simple healing she'd employed that night.
She would be needing a teacher.
As if without any conscious effort, Fastia bounded out of her bed for her workdesk and put quill to parchment to pen a letter.
"To the Grey Warden..."
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