Too much happened in too little time. And the more things that happened, the less Assaj felt in control of the situation. And feeling powerless was something she was not used to feel. Far too many emotions were warring inside of her, most of them foreign, and all of her usually so reliable instincts were a mess, leaving her with nothing to get a grasp onto.
She was hiding now, in the stables of Esteldin, sitting in a corner of her own horse's rest place, bundled up against piles of straw. Her hands were wrapped in crude bandages, one ripped sleeve revealing from where she had found the cloth to bind them. Both were broken, the right one less than the left, which's knuckles and fingers had all to be reset by herself in stoic silence. Her steed nudged her shoulder with it's head and absentmindedly the Savage Woman nudged it back. Seemingly satisfied with the state of it's owner, the horse went back with nibbling on something.
The letter from the Weakling was hidden away in a pocket now. She had thrown away the gloves she had owned, both damaged beyond her skills could allow her to fix. She hated the letter - it felt like a false relief. While it did tell her that the Weakling was fine, it did not actually bring him to her and her companions, the Golug-Lover and the She-Golug. It was also filled with things that she could read, but did not understand. Caring, love, desire to be in someone's presence were odd things, weak and stupid from her point of view (even though the idea of leaving the Golug-Lover behind did not sit well with her, whether she wanted to admit that or not).
Following the confusing contents of the letter, the way it was brought to her was also astonishing in itself. This man, Urses, some kind of knight, prince, whatever, had brought it to her and apparently the Golug-Lover knew him. She was suspicious of him, youthful looks under the hair of the old, a beard hiding part of his features.
Along with the newcomer, a foreigner had arrived. A tiny piece of human, called Sarnai. She had immediately forced herself to dislike the girl, no matter that she could not help but to wish to hide her away from any further violence, for the scars on her face told her she had already seen some.
Although...in the end, forcing herself to dislike them had not been too hard; she had liked the dry tones of the man and the firmness behind the heavily accents words of the other, but they both spoke the elvish tongue with the Golug-Lover. Which left her to brood in a corner, leaning against a wall, trying to decipher whatever was being said. Until the Snaga's name was mentioned in a burst of Westron from the tallest of the three.
A wave of nausea, betrayal and pain hit her again when remembering what had transpired. The Golug-Lover had readily revealed to the newcomer that he had played a game and acted as if he had agreed with the Snaga. While that had not bothered the Savage Woman, it was the fact he had not told her afterwards and only freed her from his service. It infuriated her that for all his talks about trust, he had not given her this truth. It also constricted her chest tightly and now all of the adrenaline was gone, made her want to curl up and cry.
She did none of it and kept on staring unseeingly at the wall in front of her. A fleeting thought of regret passed through her when remembering the pained look on the Golug-Lover's face when she had told him that she didn't want to see him anymore. But, what was done, was done. She needed time, and time she would take to sort out her thoughts...
Until a familiar voice called out to her, bringing along with it a feeling of deja-vu.
