Post by Tallaith on May 30, 2010 10:09:26 GMT -5
This is the beginning of Cay's story, and also the middle, and a bit of the end... It's complicated. This is Ceallian's return to her work as a war-singer and traveler. Her new friendship with Branfrith has been the catalyst behind her choice. It's not particularly its own plot-line to anyone but me; rather I hope it will serve as the binding to hold together the many different pages of the stories we've told.
Ceallian was never very fond of mirrors. She'd only seen one, in truth, during her growing-up; her stepmother kept a small polished silver looking-glass in a special wooden case to protect it from damage. She never permitted any of the children to handle it because it was her wedding gift from her mother and father who were long since dead. On Cay's first wedding day, when the lass was only sixteen, her stepmother allowed her to take the mirror from the bloodwood box and use it to arrange her hair. After the handfasting was complete Ceallian's father presented her with her very own looking-glass, about the size of her palm, set in a brass case. She had long ago lost it, perhaps even during her first few days on the road, most likely because it was tucked, scarred and sooty and forgotten, in the very bottom of her pack.
Now, even though she didn't care for them, Ceallian had her very own mirror. It was much grander than anything her stepmother ever owned, standing half as high as Ceallian herself and rimmed in silver and copper lacework, and in truth likely cost more than two good horses. Cay had no idea of the value of treasures such as this nor would she have ever spent any of her or her husband's money on such things. The mirror was a gift, as was nearly everything in her dusty, hollow house, from one of the many alliances of people she met on her travels.
For the longest time Ceallian had toyed with the idea of selling her own house just outside of Bree-Town because she was so rarely there. Her husband had purchased a lovely Shire home where they could start a fresh life. But after only a few weeks it became very clear that this new life together was not going to be the peaceful dream they both longed for. Now, though she only had the chance to visit very rarely, Ceallian was glad she'd never had the time to devote to the sale of her own home.
Now her packs were stacked in the corner by the door, the fire was mellow and dozing in the grate, and she'd knocked the worst of the cobwebs down with a broom that had nearly molded to crumbles. Bats had roosted in the eaves and a mouse had gnawed a doorway in the wall; she'd never been afraid of bats and she was rather fond of the fieldmouse now and left him supper whenever she came to visit him.
The sun was nearly set as the girl slipped into the wooden bathtub she'd dragged close to the fire in her own bedroom. The water was just as she liked it, nearly simmering, and immersed her aching muscles nearly up to her chin. At her Shire House, as she thought of it, a peaceful bath was a rarity. Though it was a generous cottage, her other home was occupied by an overly-excitable young Hobbit girl, Ceallian's disturbed but brilliant cousin, and a baby boy who was just starting to drag himself up on his bowed legs and teeter across the floor. Though the three rooms were crowded and Cay never had privacy or quiet there, the Shire House was a deserted betrayal where she always felt haunted and alone. Edan had abandoned her there.
She soaked in the tub, her head bobbing as she fell into the comfort between sleep and wakefulness, as she watched her face echoed in the mirror hanging on the wall just a few steps away. I look so different now, but just the same. I wonder if people can tell... A shadow of a frown creased her face and she blinked and shook her head to wake herself. The water was growing cool and there was no point in worrying over foolish things like what other folks thought of her appearance.
As she wrapped herself in a drying-sheet before the fire Ceallian couldn't help but look over herself again in the mirror. It took some work to dispel the expression of unease on her face but when she finally adopted a neutral demeanor she realized that neither her face, nor her body, had changed as she imagined they would have. Even though I am almost twenty-one, and I have traveled for nearly four years, I still look... young. She quickly turned away from the mirror, disgusted at her own mask of surprise and curious longing.
Her supper was simple: cold meats and bread eaten in the main room while still dressed in the wet sheet. She sighed as she looked over the long table, once laid with plenty of food and drink for a nearly unending stream of visitors and friends, and now laid only with sad green crockery muffled with dust. For a short while before her life with Edan began in earnest, she'd used her house as a stopping place for travelers on the nearby road that passed from the Forsaken Inn to Bree-Town. Of course even then she was almost never here and she hired a Hobbit lad to watch over the place in her stead.
Sad. How sad, that no matter what I begin in my life, it is so quickly undone.
She was not the sort of girl who easily became maudlin or morose. This was a night to surprise herself. Ceallian was a very practical person; she was not inclined to mull over self-discovery or the purpose of her life. She accepted her tasks and attended to them as well as she could. Now, though, she was unsure of what tasks actually lay ahead of her. This novel purposelessness had unsettled her so greatly she could feel what she thought of as being simply her cracking, nearly falling away beneath the weight of a life suddenly misspent.
Obviously, there was the matter of her missing husband and his companion to confront. She also had a son back in the Shire who was likely missing his mama tonight. She'd spent almost half a year at home with him, content but guilty because she'd left so much work unfinished. Ceallian's sister and cousin were capable and loving guardians but a shadow marred her heart when she thought of him being sung to sleep by anyone but herself. Cay believed in Light above all things, but only slightly thereafter was Balance. She had not found hers yet as both a mother and warrior.
Even though these seemed like clear goals that merely required attaining, there were so many layers of brittle, lacy sorrow and damp, velvety regret quilted over them. It seemed like an endless, useless struggle to find a place to begin healing her own grief and naive mistakes; the threads were too tangled, too matted with blood, to discern from one another or follow one whole from start to end.
The lass finished her meal mindlessly and with equal automation went to the door and dropped the heavy latch to bar out the starlight. If she'd been slightly less road weary or just a fraction less worried she would have laughed to herself and lifted the lock again. This was the first time she'd used it.
She took up a lamp and checked over the smaller bedchamber more thoroughly than she had when she'd first arrived and scanned the house for signs of intrusions or damage. Tomorrow she would scrub the neglect from the house, knowing but not admitting that by the time she returned here it would be a sorry refuge again. She smiled as she smoothed the musty covers on the small bed; Aedan, her little boy, would be overjoyed to have his very own bed and very own room here. A chill sparked over her bare arms. I should not think about such things. If I leave the Shire, there is no promise Edan will know where to look for me when he returns. He should never think I abandoned him.
Ceallian blew out the lamp and pressed her lips together to try to seal in her agitation and aching, ceaseless worry. She shook away the darkness like she shook water from her hair, knowing it would return just as easily and frequently as rain or bathwater soaked her tresses.
Being at idle rest did nothing to refresh her now. She'd been stopped at a crossroads on her Path for so long, debating which direction to take, that she'd forgotten that no matter where she traveled, as long as she was willing to accept the barriers and threats that found her she would bypass and defeat them with grace and a light heart. Stillness had once settled her mind and soothed and healed her spirit. Now she felt as if sudden inertia was forcing her to saddle her horse, dress once more in her subtle armour, and take up the tools of her true trade.
She dropped the sheet over the mirror in her chamber and found a nightdress in the bottom of the cabinet next to her bed. The girl smiled as she traced her fingers over the tattered books and ragged scrolls that slept on the shelves of the cabinet; her fosterling sister had collected all of these, and hundreds more, in the four years since they left their home. Ceallian had not so long ago thought of books and reading as the property and providence of minds much greater than her own. Eventually the demands of her travels taught her about the porous and unsated nature of her own intellect and she was only now beginning to stumble into learning to read and write. She mused to herself that she might like to read a book or two during her stay here, knowing in truth that she'd be leaving before sunset tomorrow and would have no time for such diversions.
Her own quilts and sheets were dusty and stale but she slipped into the feather bed blissfully. A grassy meadow was a sweet place to pass the night in dreams but there was no place as restful as her own bed.
Ceallian slowly released the tension from her body as she nested in the deep, lush mattress. She'd imagined earlier as she guided her mare up the lane to her dooryard that as soon as she lay her head down she'd fall immediately asleep. As she lay staring at the canopy overhead, her thoughts turned again to compelling dreams and musings. She sighed and pressed her palms to her burning eyes and knew that she had to travel the road her spirit was taking or she would have no rest, no matter where she made her bed.
Branfrith began this. If I had not met him I would likely still be in the Shire, reading over old letters and passing my husband's gold a piece at a time through my fingertips... as if touching things that he had touched would help me understand his troubles and troubling ways... I will never know how much of what has happened is my fault! If only I had tried harder to bring him help, if I had just put my saddle on my horse and gone to him myself! Why is a woman's way so much harder to navigate than a man's?
She groaned and scrubbed at her face with her hands. She was surprised to find no tears on her cheeks.
Branfrith... another Rohirrim so much like the first one, and so very different! I would have believed he and Ealdread were brothers... But Branfrith is not yet broken and badly mended. He is the reason I have taken up my weapons once again. I would walk with him to whatever end he seeks to save him from ruin... Since I have not saved so many others who cried out for rescue.
But that has never truly been my choice, has it?
He seems so eager to aid me in my search for Edan, yet he does not know me or understand what I can do. Perhaps he will not find me so terrible as I find myself?
Ceallian clenched a pillow over her face like a little lass hiding from the barely-living dark. Had meeting Branfrith in Ost Guruth and aiding him and his brother proved anything to him but her madness? She supposed when she found him again she would know. If nothing else, Ceallian could read the light in people's eyes. Too often she saw it dampened and protected behind tinted glass to shield it from her.
That is why I left them. Not a single time, but twice! Harloeg, him and his brodor and their gefera, the Hobbit Bill. I was only apart from them a moment and took the chance to lose myself in the swamps. I do not know which Branfrith must think is the greater danger: the trolls and wights or me. And then again in Agamaur after Bill wandered too far and fell to the blade of a shadow. Did Branfrith see that the breath had gone from the Hobbit's body and I brought him back from the lands of the dead? Or did he see what so many choose to see: a lass shaking their addled companion back to wakefulness after a bad shock or brutal blow?
The third and final time that she abandoned her new friends was just outside the gate to Garth Agarwen, near an alter so ancient and bitter the spirits who were bound to it had become insane. The party would not even find clean water in that place; the swamps were red, stagnant shallows polluted with the rusting rot of cowards' broken swords. She had mentioned on the dry verge of Harloeg that they should free their horses there; the mires were too unsteady and treacherous and none of them wished to risk injuring their mounts navigating the insincere hillocks and dejected bits of paths through the trees. The companions had also followed her advice as they entered the Red Swamps of the dead, sending their horses back through the gate to Radagast's lonely tower.
But she had not told them that her own horse, Scir Eohen, never left her mistress alone. The war-mare always moved unseen on the edge of Ceallian's presence; she shone with the light of the Valar and was a gift to the girl from the Lady of Lothlorien. She was born to serve only one companion and would die to protect her.
In the black frenzy of the attacking phantoms near the great alter, Ceallian stole away, passing through the jutting teeth of stone and the soured trees to where she knew Scir Eohen would silently find her.
I rode as hard as I could to escape them. Why?
"Because they will move away from me, find their own paths. As all others have." Her own voice was lost in the heavy Elven cloth of the canopy above. "Even Edan."
I am no heretoga... No leader fit to ask anything of anyone after this. I will find Branfrith and say my apologies and take back the pin I gave him. I know he is still alive because I see the gleam of his campfire in my own. But I do not know how much danger I will guide him to if I keep his friendship.
Edan would know what to make of this and would have calm words of good judgment that would help her find her way. Of course, Edan's disappearance was her greatest heartbreak and puzzle to solve. She could only imagine she had displeased him in some way because he had not come immediately to her for comfort or aid.
If only I could see him and know he is well... I have so many questions for him. And to tell him that I am sorry and that I forgive him.
Of course I forgive him. He is my deore.
The night passed softly, trailing an unsteady dawn on the hem of its skirts.
The house was already empty by the time the sun slipped through the elm leaves to kiss the homely flowers in the yard; the door, as always, was unlocked and the lamps were set in the windows in ready welcome.
There was another crossroad for Ceallian to navigate in the coppery dawn. As she moved through the gates of her homestead, fluid in the saddle of her proud war-mare, she took her time looking down the beaten road that went from Bree to the Lone-Lands. She was not sure where she would find Branfrith and had no words to say to him when she did. Whichever way she chose, if he was not at the end of that road, she would travel the other. And another, endlessly another, to find him and to make sure he was never broken--even if that meant abandoning him again.
He may deny me. He has every right to turn me away and most likely to raise his sword against me. I should let him die in my thoughts and leave him to his own doings and ask nothing of him again. But... I will let him decide what he wishes to make of my actions. I have never been too perfect to say that I am sorry.
She slackened her grasp on the bridle and leaned back in the saddle, pulling her hair back from her shoulders and knotting it at the base of her skull. The sun lit bright embers in her hair and across her armour. This was not the time for her to make choices; her thoughts and judgement were too sullied with many wants and many pains. The Valar had walked with her and gifted her endlessly in the four years she had been a traveler. She had scars, yes, but none that were bared to be plainly seen. She was alive and had a life worth finding once again. The Valar were her guides now and she would place all her trust in their generosity and purpose for her.
The Valar owed her this, at the least, for taking away so much of her purity and will.
Scir Eohen's hooves clattered on the careworn cobbles of the road. She tossed her head and clopped an impatient hoof again, awaiting the command of her mistress. Cay took one more breath's span to memorize the gold and emerald dew-soaked grass growing between the stones. Every time she left her home she prepared herself to never return.
"Go where you will, Brightest Light Among Horses. You know there are better guides than I." Ceallian could hear the laugh behind her words and found her heart was soothed.
Perhaps old roads could be walked again. And perhaps tired travelers could find some respite by lacing on their boots, taking up their packs, and placing their trust in the hidden goodness that had always guided them.
Ceallian was never very fond of mirrors. She'd only seen one, in truth, during her growing-up; her stepmother kept a small polished silver looking-glass in a special wooden case to protect it from damage. She never permitted any of the children to handle it because it was her wedding gift from her mother and father who were long since dead. On Cay's first wedding day, when the lass was only sixteen, her stepmother allowed her to take the mirror from the bloodwood box and use it to arrange her hair. After the handfasting was complete Ceallian's father presented her with her very own looking-glass, about the size of her palm, set in a brass case. She had long ago lost it, perhaps even during her first few days on the road, most likely because it was tucked, scarred and sooty and forgotten, in the very bottom of her pack.
Now, even though she didn't care for them, Ceallian had her very own mirror. It was much grander than anything her stepmother ever owned, standing half as high as Ceallian herself and rimmed in silver and copper lacework, and in truth likely cost more than two good horses. Cay had no idea of the value of treasures such as this nor would she have ever spent any of her or her husband's money on such things. The mirror was a gift, as was nearly everything in her dusty, hollow house, from one of the many alliances of people she met on her travels.
For the longest time Ceallian had toyed with the idea of selling her own house just outside of Bree-Town because she was so rarely there. Her husband had purchased a lovely Shire home where they could start a fresh life. But after only a few weeks it became very clear that this new life together was not going to be the peaceful dream they both longed for. Now, though she only had the chance to visit very rarely, Ceallian was glad she'd never had the time to devote to the sale of her own home.
Now her packs were stacked in the corner by the door, the fire was mellow and dozing in the grate, and she'd knocked the worst of the cobwebs down with a broom that had nearly molded to crumbles. Bats had roosted in the eaves and a mouse had gnawed a doorway in the wall; she'd never been afraid of bats and she was rather fond of the fieldmouse now and left him supper whenever she came to visit him.
The sun was nearly set as the girl slipped into the wooden bathtub she'd dragged close to the fire in her own bedroom. The water was just as she liked it, nearly simmering, and immersed her aching muscles nearly up to her chin. At her Shire House, as she thought of it, a peaceful bath was a rarity. Though it was a generous cottage, her other home was occupied by an overly-excitable young Hobbit girl, Ceallian's disturbed but brilliant cousin, and a baby boy who was just starting to drag himself up on his bowed legs and teeter across the floor. Though the three rooms were crowded and Cay never had privacy or quiet there, the Shire House was a deserted betrayal where she always felt haunted and alone. Edan had abandoned her there.
She soaked in the tub, her head bobbing as she fell into the comfort between sleep and wakefulness, as she watched her face echoed in the mirror hanging on the wall just a few steps away. I look so different now, but just the same. I wonder if people can tell... A shadow of a frown creased her face and she blinked and shook her head to wake herself. The water was growing cool and there was no point in worrying over foolish things like what other folks thought of her appearance.
As she wrapped herself in a drying-sheet before the fire Ceallian couldn't help but look over herself again in the mirror. It took some work to dispel the expression of unease on her face but when she finally adopted a neutral demeanor she realized that neither her face, nor her body, had changed as she imagined they would have. Even though I am almost twenty-one, and I have traveled for nearly four years, I still look... young. She quickly turned away from the mirror, disgusted at her own mask of surprise and curious longing.
Her supper was simple: cold meats and bread eaten in the main room while still dressed in the wet sheet. She sighed as she looked over the long table, once laid with plenty of food and drink for a nearly unending stream of visitors and friends, and now laid only with sad green crockery muffled with dust. For a short while before her life with Edan began in earnest, she'd used her house as a stopping place for travelers on the nearby road that passed from the Forsaken Inn to Bree-Town. Of course even then she was almost never here and she hired a Hobbit lad to watch over the place in her stead.
Sad. How sad, that no matter what I begin in my life, it is so quickly undone.
She was not the sort of girl who easily became maudlin or morose. This was a night to surprise herself. Ceallian was a very practical person; she was not inclined to mull over self-discovery or the purpose of her life. She accepted her tasks and attended to them as well as she could. Now, though, she was unsure of what tasks actually lay ahead of her. This novel purposelessness had unsettled her so greatly she could feel what she thought of as being simply her cracking, nearly falling away beneath the weight of a life suddenly misspent.
Obviously, there was the matter of her missing husband and his companion to confront. She also had a son back in the Shire who was likely missing his mama tonight. She'd spent almost half a year at home with him, content but guilty because she'd left so much work unfinished. Ceallian's sister and cousin were capable and loving guardians but a shadow marred her heart when she thought of him being sung to sleep by anyone but herself. Cay believed in Light above all things, but only slightly thereafter was Balance. She had not found hers yet as both a mother and warrior.
Even though these seemed like clear goals that merely required attaining, there were so many layers of brittle, lacy sorrow and damp, velvety regret quilted over them. It seemed like an endless, useless struggle to find a place to begin healing her own grief and naive mistakes; the threads were too tangled, too matted with blood, to discern from one another or follow one whole from start to end.
The lass finished her meal mindlessly and with equal automation went to the door and dropped the heavy latch to bar out the starlight. If she'd been slightly less road weary or just a fraction less worried she would have laughed to herself and lifted the lock again. This was the first time she'd used it.
She took up a lamp and checked over the smaller bedchamber more thoroughly than she had when she'd first arrived and scanned the house for signs of intrusions or damage. Tomorrow she would scrub the neglect from the house, knowing but not admitting that by the time she returned here it would be a sorry refuge again. She smiled as she smoothed the musty covers on the small bed; Aedan, her little boy, would be overjoyed to have his very own bed and very own room here. A chill sparked over her bare arms. I should not think about such things. If I leave the Shire, there is no promise Edan will know where to look for me when he returns. He should never think I abandoned him.
Ceallian blew out the lamp and pressed her lips together to try to seal in her agitation and aching, ceaseless worry. She shook away the darkness like she shook water from her hair, knowing it would return just as easily and frequently as rain or bathwater soaked her tresses.
Being at idle rest did nothing to refresh her now. She'd been stopped at a crossroads on her Path for so long, debating which direction to take, that she'd forgotten that no matter where she traveled, as long as she was willing to accept the barriers and threats that found her she would bypass and defeat them with grace and a light heart. Stillness had once settled her mind and soothed and healed her spirit. Now she felt as if sudden inertia was forcing her to saddle her horse, dress once more in her subtle armour, and take up the tools of her true trade.
She dropped the sheet over the mirror in her chamber and found a nightdress in the bottom of the cabinet next to her bed. The girl smiled as she traced her fingers over the tattered books and ragged scrolls that slept on the shelves of the cabinet; her fosterling sister had collected all of these, and hundreds more, in the four years since they left their home. Ceallian had not so long ago thought of books and reading as the property and providence of minds much greater than her own. Eventually the demands of her travels taught her about the porous and unsated nature of her own intellect and she was only now beginning to stumble into learning to read and write. She mused to herself that she might like to read a book or two during her stay here, knowing in truth that she'd be leaving before sunset tomorrow and would have no time for such diversions.
Her own quilts and sheets were dusty and stale but she slipped into the feather bed blissfully. A grassy meadow was a sweet place to pass the night in dreams but there was no place as restful as her own bed.
Ceallian slowly released the tension from her body as she nested in the deep, lush mattress. She'd imagined earlier as she guided her mare up the lane to her dooryard that as soon as she lay her head down she'd fall immediately asleep. As she lay staring at the canopy overhead, her thoughts turned again to compelling dreams and musings. She sighed and pressed her palms to her burning eyes and knew that she had to travel the road her spirit was taking or she would have no rest, no matter where she made her bed.
Branfrith began this. If I had not met him I would likely still be in the Shire, reading over old letters and passing my husband's gold a piece at a time through my fingertips... as if touching things that he had touched would help me understand his troubles and troubling ways... I will never know how much of what has happened is my fault! If only I had tried harder to bring him help, if I had just put my saddle on my horse and gone to him myself! Why is a woman's way so much harder to navigate than a man's?
She groaned and scrubbed at her face with her hands. She was surprised to find no tears on her cheeks.
Branfrith... another Rohirrim so much like the first one, and so very different! I would have believed he and Ealdread were brothers... But Branfrith is not yet broken and badly mended. He is the reason I have taken up my weapons once again. I would walk with him to whatever end he seeks to save him from ruin... Since I have not saved so many others who cried out for rescue.
But that has never truly been my choice, has it?
He seems so eager to aid me in my search for Edan, yet he does not know me or understand what I can do. Perhaps he will not find me so terrible as I find myself?
Ceallian clenched a pillow over her face like a little lass hiding from the barely-living dark. Had meeting Branfrith in Ost Guruth and aiding him and his brother proved anything to him but her madness? She supposed when she found him again she would know. If nothing else, Ceallian could read the light in people's eyes. Too often she saw it dampened and protected behind tinted glass to shield it from her.
That is why I left them. Not a single time, but twice! Harloeg, him and his brodor and their gefera, the Hobbit Bill. I was only apart from them a moment and took the chance to lose myself in the swamps. I do not know which Branfrith must think is the greater danger: the trolls and wights or me. And then again in Agamaur after Bill wandered too far and fell to the blade of a shadow. Did Branfrith see that the breath had gone from the Hobbit's body and I brought him back from the lands of the dead? Or did he see what so many choose to see: a lass shaking their addled companion back to wakefulness after a bad shock or brutal blow?
The third and final time that she abandoned her new friends was just outside the gate to Garth Agarwen, near an alter so ancient and bitter the spirits who were bound to it had become insane. The party would not even find clean water in that place; the swamps were red, stagnant shallows polluted with the rusting rot of cowards' broken swords. She had mentioned on the dry verge of Harloeg that they should free their horses there; the mires were too unsteady and treacherous and none of them wished to risk injuring their mounts navigating the insincere hillocks and dejected bits of paths through the trees. The companions had also followed her advice as they entered the Red Swamps of the dead, sending their horses back through the gate to Radagast's lonely tower.
But she had not told them that her own horse, Scir Eohen, never left her mistress alone. The war-mare always moved unseen on the edge of Ceallian's presence; she shone with the light of the Valar and was a gift to the girl from the Lady of Lothlorien. She was born to serve only one companion and would die to protect her.
In the black frenzy of the attacking phantoms near the great alter, Ceallian stole away, passing through the jutting teeth of stone and the soured trees to where she knew Scir Eohen would silently find her.
I rode as hard as I could to escape them. Why?
"Because they will move away from me, find their own paths. As all others have." Her own voice was lost in the heavy Elven cloth of the canopy above. "Even Edan."
I am no heretoga... No leader fit to ask anything of anyone after this. I will find Branfrith and say my apologies and take back the pin I gave him. I know he is still alive because I see the gleam of his campfire in my own. But I do not know how much danger I will guide him to if I keep his friendship.
Edan would know what to make of this and would have calm words of good judgment that would help her find her way. Of course, Edan's disappearance was her greatest heartbreak and puzzle to solve. She could only imagine she had displeased him in some way because he had not come immediately to her for comfort or aid.
If only I could see him and know he is well... I have so many questions for him. And to tell him that I am sorry and that I forgive him.
Of course I forgive him. He is my deore.
The night passed softly, trailing an unsteady dawn on the hem of its skirts.
The house was already empty by the time the sun slipped through the elm leaves to kiss the homely flowers in the yard; the door, as always, was unlocked and the lamps were set in the windows in ready welcome.
There was another crossroad for Ceallian to navigate in the coppery dawn. As she moved through the gates of her homestead, fluid in the saddle of her proud war-mare, she took her time looking down the beaten road that went from Bree to the Lone-Lands. She was not sure where she would find Branfrith and had no words to say to him when she did. Whichever way she chose, if he was not at the end of that road, she would travel the other. And another, endlessly another, to find him and to make sure he was never broken--even if that meant abandoning him again.
He may deny me. He has every right to turn me away and most likely to raise his sword against me. I should let him die in my thoughts and leave him to his own doings and ask nothing of him again. But... I will let him decide what he wishes to make of my actions. I have never been too perfect to say that I am sorry.
She slackened her grasp on the bridle and leaned back in the saddle, pulling her hair back from her shoulders and knotting it at the base of her skull. The sun lit bright embers in her hair and across her armour. This was not the time for her to make choices; her thoughts and judgement were too sullied with many wants and many pains. The Valar had walked with her and gifted her endlessly in the four years she had been a traveler. She had scars, yes, but none that were bared to be plainly seen. She was alive and had a life worth finding once again. The Valar were her guides now and she would place all her trust in their generosity and purpose for her.
The Valar owed her this, at the least, for taking away so much of her purity and will.
Scir Eohen's hooves clattered on the careworn cobbles of the road. She tossed her head and clopped an impatient hoof again, awaiting the command of her mistress. Cay took one more breath's span to memorize the gold and emerald dew-soaked grass growing between the stones. Every time she left her home she prepared herself to never return.
"Go where you will, Brightest Light Among Horses. You know there are better guides than I." Ceallian could hear the laugh behind her words and found her heart was soothed.
Perhaps old roads could be walked again. And perhaps tired travelers could find some respite by lacing on their boots, taking up their packs, and placing their trust in the hidden goodness that had always guided them.