She looked at her reflection in the horse trough, distorted and staring back at her like a stranger, dark hair shrouding the face until broken up by the water she fed into the trough with a bucket. A long days work of mucking out could have been worse, even if it was getting dark she didn’t have to go far as her bed was in the barn, admittedly shared with the yards dogs and a sickly foal, but the barn was warm and it was a proper bed, one of wood, a straw mattress and more importantly it was safer than any she could ever have found in Bree town. Bree town, it was in the morning on business with the inn that she ended up speaking with a man. Pretty thing, beautiful he called her, wanting her to accompany him, but she did not feel pretty, she felt hollow and only wished to return to the open air, the fields and the companionship of the animals she helped care for. So many lasses embraced such words and were so willing to share a bed with one they had just met, but she was not one.
An oil lamp is a dangerous thing in a room filled with straw, but, she kept hers lit upon the upturned bucket by the bed. In such light she could hardly make out the bruises that still speckled her skin, they faded a little more each day, from purple to yellow, but in the light of the barn she seemed healed. The animals knew of course, animals oft do when something is wrong, and all three dogs slept beside her bed, snoring sometimes, kicking in their dream state, but never moving away. The animals of the stables were all she could trust fully, they didn’t want to harm her, only trying to nudge her arm to get to a bucket of oats in her hand or to chew upon her hair as she tried to brush down their coats, that wasn’t wanting to harm, that was innocent.
It had been two days clear since she left Colewulfs hospitality without word. He had been a good friend to her, sheltering her when she needed it most, but even he wished to harm her, not that he would realise it. She had found herself becoming close to the man who tended her bruises, his touch so gentle, his concern seemingly great. The man that gave up his bed, that promised retribution for what had occurred, but, he wished flesh, just like they did only Colewulf was a kind man, they were far from it. She would not give it to him, she did not want a body without a heart and he understood, both disappointed. So once left alone in the vast building he owned, she departed to make her own heart strong again, but she missed him, the kind merchant that was there in her time of need.
She also thought of her brief time in the company of Fiontann and those serving beside him. He gave her the first chance at trying to be something more, admittedly it was only to be a maid and cook, but she quickly found that she did not belong. Rhayvan was an oddity amongst those who enjoyed to fight, she'd never been very skilled with a weapon of any sort save a bow which she could use with reasonable skill but certainly nothing of great note, and it was in reflection, in the darkness of that barn she resolved to do something. In the morning, she would find someone who would aid her to be less of a scared mouse and more of a vicious cat, claws and teeth and every chance to survive when faced with cruelness. The healer that first tended to her wounds implied she would help, yet, she seemed not to be a fighter either...
