[The Stormlands] Knock and it shall be opened to you.

[Vahekoh]

15th Saun, 724.

The Stormlands.

Vahekoh sat straight-backed in Vahdah's saddle. Vahdah, she sensed, was wanting to go- it was there in the vibrations of his breathing, in the impatient shiver in his back and in his legs. Vahekoh sat forward a little in the saddle, gripping the reins, and when Vahdah sensed her sit forward he stepped forward with her.

It was one little, impatient step, but Vahekoh said, "No, Vahdah. Hold." Impatiently, and with a snort, the horse stepped the step back.

Then he tensed back into the shivering stance, waiting, waiting, and when he had waited a breath or two longer than he was willing to wait -but before he became so unwilling to wait that he undermined the lesson of holding- Vahekoh squeezed his sides with her legs and said, "Go."

It turned out, Vahekoh had underestimated the intensity with which Vahdah wanted to go.

Vahdah took off from the hold with so much force, with so much ferocity, that Vahekoh had to grab the reins hard. The bucking of his back as he dug his back legs in shifted her backwards in the saddle, and if she hadn't been holding on for all she was worth she would have gone butt over tea kettle off the back of the saddle. But she was holding on, she was holding on with all her strength, and so she didn't go somersaulting off the back of the saddle and off the back of the horse.

Grabbing the reins hard and the horse's sides with her legs harder, Vahekoh tensed and Vahdah ran. He ran forcefully, from a hold to a gallop to a sprint, and after nearly somersaulting off the horse's back Vahekoh had to tighten all her muscles to hold herself on. She'd shifted backwards in the saddle, and so she first got herself back into the seat of the saddle, tightening the muscles in her back and her belly. Then she leaned forward, into the horse's bucking ferocity, and gasped for breath.

"Vahdah, slow!" she gasped, but the horse was not listening. Once he got going, he got hotheaded- he didn't want to listen to her. He wanted to go. He sprinted onward, his hooves digging grooves out of the ground, his steps sending hooves of ground and dry grass toward the darkening sky.

Vahekoh, barely holding on, learned two things.

One, that Vahdah, despite being a learned riding horse, was not learned in sprinting. Riding and sprinting, Vahekoh had learned in this moment, were two very different things.

Two, that Vahdah was a heavy sprinter. That heaviness slowed him down, and so -if he wanted to sprint quicker, and he did- they would have to learn to sprint with a different stride. If they didn't learn, Vahdah would remain forcefully quick on takeoff, and quick in the first intense strides of the gallop, but heavy and slow over distance.

With those two things learned, Vahekoh brought the reins back so forcefully that Vahdah neighed with irritability at the firm rein. But the force of Vahekoh's grip got him to slow, and gasping for breath Vahekoh brought the horse down to a canter. Vahekoh would have liked to slow to a trot, breathless as she was, but she didn't. She'd learned long ago that when Vahdah was hot, he should be cooled down step by step. She remained in the canter.

Vahdah brought his head forward, trying to force Vahekoh into loosing her grip on the reins, but she was firm. When he had been cantering for long enough for his body to cool down she brought him down to a trot, and when he'd been trotting long enough for his body to cool down, she brought him down to a walk.

"Good boy, Vahdah," she sighed when he was walking, and he neighed at her irritably. She thought of the soreness in her body from when he'd taken off, and of the soreness in her body and her hands from grabbing on with all her strength. She thought too of the horse's irritability, and so she sighed and said, "Sort-of good boy."

Vahekoh rode Vahdah a handful of bits more, letting him work out his breath, slow both his breathing and his heartbeat, and loosen the riding tension in his muscles. Then she stopped him and dismounted. "Woah," she said, because he nearly stepped on her when she dismounted. Because of this sign of impatience, she held him by the halter, looking at him, letting his mind cool down. She looked him in the dark of his eyes, and listened to him- listened to what he was saying through his breath and his body language, and through the look in his dark, dark eyes.

When she thought he was cooled down in his mind, Vahekoh let go of her hold on his halter. Vahdah bumped her on the head with his head, and she sighed at the horse's light bump. Good. It meant that Vahdah's mind was cooling down.

Vahekoh looked over at the little campsite that she, Vahdah, Elowen, and Elowen's little black dog were going to use this Saun night.

"I didn't think it would go like that," Vahekoh said to Elowen, whom she thought had likely been watching when she'd been riding Vahdah.

Vahekoh had met Elowen in the morning, on the lakeshore of Lake Lovalus. They were traveling to the Mistral Woods today and tomorrow, where Elowen lived. The girl had her apothecary in the Woods. There, Elowen would be better able to tend to the wounding on her hand, which she had gotten at Lake Lovalus in the morning, and to Vahekoh's own pains- though Vahekoh's wounding was much, much older. Vahekoh's head pain had gone into the background of her head this night, waiting and waiting like Vahdah had waited before taking off. Like Vahdah, the head pain would take off again. It would be back to the foreground of her head within a day or two, Vahekoh thought.

Hopefully, Elowen would be able to do something about the pain.

In this moment, though, the worst pain Vahekoh had was that of embarrassment. "By Ilaren's lightning, I swear I'm good at riding a horse," she said, the embarrassment in her voice. To someone who had likely been watching, it would have looked like Vahekoh had nearly been bucked off the horse. It would have looked like that, because she nearly had been. "It's just that, um. Vahdah got a bit hotheaded," she said.

"Um," Vahekoh said, forging onward through her embarrassment. "I'm going with Vahdah to the nearby stream to give him a rinse." Vahekoh had sighted the stream when they'd been looking for a good location to stop for the night. Night was descending now, but it was a Saun night, a night that wasn't night. Because it was a Saun night, humid and hot but not too horribly dark, Vahekoh thought it would be safe to walk to the nearby stream. It would be safe as long as the campsite was in sight.

"You want to go with?" Vahekoh said, looking away from the girl in her embarrassment. She unbuckled the buckles on Vahdah's saddle so she wouldn't have to look at the girl, lifting the saddle and the saddlebags off the horse's back. With the horse's things off his back, it would be good to go with him to the stream. It would be good to rinse the overt humidity and hotness of the Saun day off him in the covert dark of the Saun night.

[Elowen]

They had covered a good deal of distance since they set out on the journey back to the shack. Conversation was halting at times but that was most likely due to Elowen's lacking social skills. What should one say to a stranger that one chose to travel with? But even with the constant doubt in her mind, it was not an unpleasant journey. Somehow, Ekoh's distractedness and Elowen's awkwardness seemed to mesh well together. At least from the girl's perspective.

When the going got tiring and at least the girl's inner clock told her that evening had arrived since the sky remained unchanged, it did not take them long to find the right camping spot. After surveying the sky for any promise of rain and the landscape around them, they agreed on a level patch of land with a small stream nearby. There were also a few trees huddling together not far away that they could use to tie the horse to or to use them as a refuge should any rain suddenly come. The black pup that had followed Elowen from the city was running wild around them but never too far to get lost. However, it was clearly not yet trained at all to stay near.

After Elowen set up the camp with a little fire to boil some water for tea at least, she rolled out her sleeping mat. At first she just stole a few glances in Ekoh's direction as she tried to hold the horse in place. She noticed the way the woman's voice was levelled when she spoke. But then they suddenly sprinted off. The way in which Vahdah's hooves dug into the ground and the eagerness with which he dashed, it reminded Elowen of the one meeting she had with a Blitznir on the planes of Stormwastes. She shivered when the memory came to the forefront of her mind. She could still hear the thundercalps of the hooves, the smell of lightning in the air and taste of fear on her tongue.

Yet she smiled because Vahdah was no lightning beast, thankfully. He was just a horse with a need for speed. The girl was not a rider herself and so she did not know what looked right and what looked wrong. But there was a moment or two, when her throat tightened and her breath caught when it looked like Ekoh was losing control.

"It ok," Elowen said, when Ekoh spoke of her riding skills and Vahdah's hotheadedness. She would still not look directly at her companion even though her body did not seem as tense as earlier in the trial. "He need freedom. You give. He takes." And she spread her hands out in a gesture that said 'what can you do' and a the smallest of smiles played on her lips. It did not escape the girl how Ekoh took care of Vahdah. How she looked at him almost as if the two were talking. Her mind went to Pea and even to her newest pet companion that seemed to have dashed into the aforementioned copse. "You good to Vahdah," Elowen said but it did not seem to be directed at anyone.

When the stream was brought up, the young apothecary looked at her bandaged hand. It would not be untoward if she changed the dressing after a whole trial of travel. She had to inspect the wound anyway to see if there was any further reaction or development with the thousands of pinpricks she had suffered.

Getting up from her sleeping mat, the girl nodded. "I come." She rummaged in her backpack and then towered a few supplies in the crook of her arm, trying to balance herbs, fresh bandages and a waterskin. Her focus was more on not losing what she was holding than on Ekoh and whether she needed help. But the young woman seemed capable with the horse and so it did not even cross Elowen's mind to ask.

Their campsite was in clear view from the stream which bubbled over rocks and within banks of long grass. The fifteen arc old placed her things on the ground and it was then that she finally looked around for Ekoh as though she just remembered about the other. Which in a way she did. When her eyes rolled over the other woman, she quickly looked away. It was still unusual for the girl to see someone with orange or red hair without a headscarf. It made her wonder. Why were they different to her?

"You...Rharnian?" The girl ventured eventually, fixing her gaze on her hand as she started to unravel the bandage. Elowen had come across accents before but her knowledge of the world outside Mistral woods, let alone Rharne, was limited to say the least. But Ekoh referred to Illaren in a way any Rharnian would. So it made the girl wonder about more than just their differing appearances.

[Vahekoh]

15th Saun, 724.

The Stormlands.

Despite the day's long journey, there had been little time throughout the long day to talk. When one traveled like they had today, not traveling to get where they were going when they got there, but traveling to get to their destination in two days' time, there was little time for talking. Time like today was meant for walking, not talking.

Elowen, Vahekoh thought, wasn't one for a lot of talk. That didn't bother Vahekoh at all. Vahekoh wasn't one for a lot of talk, either. Vahekoh's experience in talking was limited- she mostly spoke to Vahdah. The horse wasn't one to talk back when Vahekoh spoke to him.

When she thought it, Vahdah's experience in talking was even more limited than hers. Vahekoh smiled inwardly at the silly thought.

So it was, when Elowen spoke a little bit about Vahdah, that Vahekoh listened. It was a moment or two later, later than most people would have responded, that Vahekoh realized she should respond.

"Well," she said, when Elowen said that she was good to Vahdah, "Vahdah's a good horse." She thought a moment. "Though, sometimes he is a bit wild," she said. She'd gotten Vahdah's saddle off his back and she laid it over a log. The log would work as a makesift saddle stand, making sure the saddle wouldn't be damaged during the long night. Vahdah's saddlebags she set beside the log.

Elowen said she would go with Vahekoh and Vahdah to the nearby stream. The girl began going through her things, looking for things to bring with to the stream. Vahekoh began going through her things, too.

There was a moment or two of disorientation when Vahekoh began going through her things. She looked through the saddlebags, thinking things were going to be where they were meant to be within the saddlebags. But they weren't where they were meant to be. Vahekoh stopped, disoriented, thinking. She was about to begin going through her things a bit more worriedly, thinking that she had lost something -that something wasn't there- when she realized what it was that wasn't there.

It was her medical bag. With that realization, she realized that she hadn't lost the medical bag- it wasn't there because Elowen had it. She had lent it to Elowen. Vahekoh's medical things, the things that were meant to be in the medical bag, were in the littlest saddlebag. They were not lost, either.

Vahekoh breathed out a long sigh, having to physically work to let go of the disorientation and of the worry of having lost something.

Elowen, Vahekoh noticed, was bringing her medical bag, so Vahekoh brought her medical things as well. It was worth bringing medical things no matter the distance, whether it was a day-long walk or a bit-long walk. Someone, though Vahekoh didn't know who, had drilled it into her to bring her medkit with her no matter what.

Having walked to the little stream, Vahekoh set down the little saddlebag she had thrown over her shoulder, setting it lightly in the long grass. She discarded her socks and her boots, setting the socks in the boots and the boots beside the littlest saddlebag, so they wouldn't get lost. Then she shucked up her sleeves and the legs of her breeches.

Vahdah, looking at the laughing little stream, let out a low sound, and Vahekoh looked at him and said, "Oh, it's just a little water." The horse looked like he didn't want to go in the stream, because he didn't- Vahdah didn't like water. Holding him by the lead, Vahekoh led him into the stream slowly, going more slowly than she would have gone without the horse, until she and Vahdah were in the deepest section of the streambed.

It wasn't a deep stream, maybe as deep as Vahekoh's knee at its deepest, so Vahdah -who was a big baby about water- shouldn't be too wild about it. The streambed was rocky -if it had been muddy Vahdah wouldn't have gone in- and Vahdah breathed out a big sigh when he realized the water wasn't that deep and that he wouldn't get mud on his hooves or on his legs. "You're a big baby," Vahekoh said to him.

But the big baby stood still in the little stream, so Vahekoh wouldn't have to argue with him about it.

"You... Rharnian?" Elowen said, and though she had just begun rinsing Vahdah off, Vahekoh stopped a moment in her rinsing. She was a bit surprised by the out-of-the-blue question. But when the moment of surprise was over, she went back to rinsing Vahdah off bit by bit.

"I am Rharnian," she said. Why would Elowen question whether she was Rharnian? "I've lived in Rharne," Vahekoh said, "Or rather in the Stormlands, for as long as I remember. Vahdah, too," she said, like Elowen would question whether her horse was Rharnian, too.

It was another silly thought, but Vahekoh didn't smile inwardly. It was too weird to her that Elowen would question her. "...Why?" Vahekoh said back.

She went on rinsing Vahdah bit by bit, making sure to wet down most of the horse's body. While wetting him, she ran her hands over his body to wet him to the skin. The water would help him continue to cool down. It was Saun, after all. Vahekoh worked over him slowly but not too slowly, rinsing the long day's humidity and hotness off him, and rinsing off the sweat- because horses sweated.

When Vahekoh was done rinsing Vahdah off, and the big horse had begun to drink from the little stream's cool water, Vahekoh waded over to the side of the stream where the little saddlebag was and got out a bit of soap. She began to soap up her hands.

"Elowen," she said when she'd rinsed her hands off in the water. She'd noticed the girl bringing her medical bag before; now the girl was beginning to unbandage her wounded hand. Vahekoh waited a moment, not sure whether she should say this head on because Elowen was a bit shy, but then- Elowen had questioned whether she was Rharnian head on, hadn't she? Vahekoh spoke.

"Would you like help with the bandaging?" Vahekoh said. "Your wound has been bandaged like this," she said, holding her hand like Elowen had bandaged it before, in one big bandage. Bandaging it like that worked, but it was blocky. "But, if you'd like, I could help you bandage between your individual fingers," she said.

If Elowen wouldn't like help that was okay- Vahekoh wouldn't bring it up again. She thought Elowen was a bit shy, though what she was shy about Vahekoh didn't know. Her gaze seemed to glide over Vahekoh, looking at her but not looking at her- so, maybe she was shy of meeting Vahekoh's gaze. Maybe she was shy, too, because she thought Vahekoh wasn't Rharnian.

[Elowen]

Though the girl was little versed in conversation and social interaction, she knew it when people put their guard up. She had learned to recognize it through her experience with the villagers who would curl up like a Flutterhog, minus the aggression, when she tried to get more information on what ailed them. All innocent question aimed to help her prepare the best possible remedy. But not everyone saw it the same way, especially if Elowen unknowingly plucked at a cord that was too personal.

But she did not think that asking someone if they were Rharnian could cause the same reaction. She had seen Meira ask some foreign visitors the same question. Some answered willingly, others muttered their response. Perhaps she was wrong to assume that everyone was the same and the matter of nationality was as neutral as she believed. So Elowen frowned, unsure of what was happening and why. It was clear that she just did not understand people and therefore was better off not talking to them much.

So she shrugged a little when Ekoh asked for her own reasoning behind the question and remained quiet in an attempt not to make the situation any worse. Because if her question, which she thought was innocent enough, was received like so - how would her reasoning, a bare curiosity, be accepted?

By this point, she had removed all the bandaging. Her poor hand was swollen and dotted with countless pinpricks. It was hurting but not throbbing anymore at least. Thanks to the puncture wounds being so small, they also stopped bleeding quite fastconsequence from this thread. She took out some of her herbal supplies. Then she looked around herself for a large and a small flat stone that she could improvise a mortar and pestle. She wanted to make herself a numbing ointment from some of the Valerian they had gathered earlier.

She searched as she went into the stream to wash her injured hand, grimacing at the discomfort of the water running over the countless miniature wounds. It took her a while, but she succeeded in both the cleansing and the gather. So she returned back to her spot on the shore.

It was after Elowen laid the herbs on the large stone and began to methodically grind them into paste, whilst airing her injured hand, that Ekoh spoke to her. By that point, Elowen was not as much preoccupied by their earlier exchange. Most of her focus was directed on her task.

She halted in that now, however, when the other woman spoke her name. She looked towards her, unsure what to expect but keeping her mind levelled as much as she could, somewhat turning to her persona as an apothecary and Ekoh being, after all, someone who needed her help and no more.

What came next was unexpected to the girl. An offer of help. She looked at her hand. She knew that her earlier bandaging was impractical. It was a hastily done job. She could certainly do with having fingres instead of a fin. So it was no brainer to accept what was being offered. Still it took Elowen a good moment or two to nod and say: "Yes, please."

Perhaps this was a learning moment for the girl, perhaps it was one of further confusion about the human nature and its unpredictability. Where Elowen thought she had upset Ekoh, the woman was now coming to her aid. She was reminded of Eseld, the tavern girl in Mistral village, but Ekoh was missing that ever present feisty spark that Eseld had. Elowen thought it was that spark that caused Eseld to change her moods at a flick of a finger. It may had just been that Elowen was mistaken from the very start and Ekoh wasn't angry at all. Either way...

She was frowning when she spoke next, but it wasn't in anger nor frustration. It was in a struggle to say what she said next. "Sorry if you angry after I ask you Rharnian. But I not speak much with people. Not when they not ask for remedy."

Elowen did not know why she was sharing this with Ekoh. Perhaps it was the sense of comfort in their silences. Or the underlying something that the girl could quite bit which almost resembled a kindled spirit. She didn't know Ekoh though. And who knew if she would ever get to know the woman. But something about her red-haired, easily distracted companion struck Elowen as familiar.

Further still, out of nowhere even for the girl, she attempted a small smile that landed somewhere at Ekoh's feet. The young apothecary then applied the ointment to her hand before offering it to Ekoh for bandaging.

[Vahekoh]

15th Saun, 724.

The Stormlands.

"...Why?" Vahekoh said when Elowen questioned whether she was Rharnian, but Elowen did not respond.

Vahekoh had been surprised by the out-of-the-blue question; she was more surprised when she did not respond. Elowen had questioned whether she was Rharnian, and when questioned back, wouldn't say why. Why wouldn't she respond? Vahekoh's only thought was that she thought her an outlander but wouldn't say why she thought so.

Vahekoh breathed in a deep breath.

Being Rharnian born-and-bred, she thought about insisting Elowen respond to her but, breathing deep, Vahekoh bit her tongue. Should they have been in Rharne, Vahekoh would have insisted on knowing why the girl thought she wasn't Rharnian. It was out of the blue, and honestly a bit irritating, that Elowen would bring it up and then drop it. Elowen herself was Rharnian because she was of the Mistral Woods- she had to be Rharnian, she spoke Gernevoir. Why was it, then, that a Rharnian girl didn't recognize Vahekoh, another Rharnian, as being what she was?

It seemed like a good way of beginning a fight, Vahekoh thought irritably. In a tavern in Rharne, going up to a Rharnian and questioning their nationality would have gotten her into a fight.

But they weren't in Rharne, and so Vahekoh let out the deep breath, letting herself breathe out the irritation. In the lands outside of Rharne, with only themselves, it was better to go along to get along.

Going along meant biting her tongue, and so Vahekoh bit hard.

Elowen went back to doing her thing, and so -with one last, deep breath- Vahekoh went back to doing her thing as well. She rinsed off Vahdah, she made sure the horse was watered, and when Vahdah was good to go she spoke to Elowen. She inquired about helping with the girl's wounded hand.

With what Elowen had said -or not said- Vahekoh thought the girl would simply not respond. She was braced for the girl not to respond. But- "Yes, please," she said, and Vahekoh was surprised.

What an odd girl, Vahekoh thought. But then, she thought, it wasn't that Vahekoh didn't have her own oddities. They were both who they were and Elowen had said yes to Vahekoh's help, and so Vahekoh would help her. Honestly, though the girl was an oddity to her in this moment, Vahekoh was glad she had said yes. There was something in Vahekoh that struggled when she saw others struggling.

Vahekoh watched the girl work, using her makeshift mortar and pestle to make something, some sort of salve, to go on her wounded hand. It was then that Elowen spoke. "Sorry if you angry after I ask you Rharnian. But I not speak much with people. Not when they not ask for remedy."

It took a moment or two for Vahekoh to make sense of what Elowen had said. The words didn't want to resolve into meaning in her mind; her mind was tired. It had been a long day.

It seemed the girl wasn't used to speaking to other people? Vahekoh thought for a moment, wondering why that didn't make sense to her. Why was it that Elowen wasn't used to speaking with others- she lived in the Mistral Village, a village with other people, didn't she? Perhaps what the girl meant was that she, as Mistral's apothecary and -because of that- as a person of import in Mistral, was not used to speaking to people she didn't know well. Perhaps she wasn't used to speaking to people who didn't live in the Mistral Village.

"It's alright," Vahekoh said to the apothecary.

"I thought-" Vahekoh said, then went silent. She wrestled with the words a moment. When Elowen held out her hand for bandaging, she went to Vahdah's little saddlebag to get out the bandages, still wrestling with the words. She was silent a moment longer and then she said, "I thought you thought I was an outlander." Perhaps to Elowen, people who weren't of the Mistral Village were outlanders? "But then when I asked why, you wouldn't say why you thought it. I got- defensive."

Vahekoh wrestled a bit more before saying, "In Mistral Village, if you questioned one of the villagers whether they were Rharnian, would they be alright with it? Would it not have been an- an insult to them?" Maybe the villagers weren't as Rharne-blooded as she would have thought?

"In Rharne, it would have been an insult," she said. She thought about it a moment and then said, "I would not say something of the sort in Rharne, to a Rharnian. It would be a good way of getting into a fight." If Elowen did not know it, then it was better that she know.

Vahekoh began slowly and surely wrapping Elowen's wounded hand. She didn't like the look of the wound, it was an odd wound, but the wound had been washed and dried and medicated. Vahekoh's medical knowledge stopped there, so she simply bandaged it like she had said she would.

Gently, because her hands weren't used to bandaging people other than herself, Vahekoh wrapped the light, gauzy bandages in overlapping layers around Elowen's hand. She made sure to wrap Elowen's fingers individually, winding the bandaging around every finger before wrapping a last, holding layer around Elowen's hand and wrist. She tied the bandage off gently, making sure that the bandaging was tight but not too tight. If the bandage was too loose, it wouldn't hold; if it was too tight, it would have to be loosened to allow good blood flow.

"There," she said when the bandage was tied. "Is that alright?"

[Elowen]

The young apothecary watched Ekoh as she moved around and spoke in that halting way which seemed to be so natural to her. They both seemed to have their challenges, their own struggles. Elowen hoped that since Ekoh's seemed a little more obvious that it could soften the edge of their interaction. Perhaps it could foster understanding, if the other was willing, so that Elowen did not have to be so concerned about the words she said or the actions she took. But it was just that - hope. And she couldn't count on it no matter how much she wanted to. So she remained guarded and careful.

She listened to the woman's words and tried to catch as much meaning as she could. It all seemed to be a misunderstanding what happened just moments earlier. A misunderstanding that Elowen wasn't clear on but Ekoh managed to drive in a point about the Rharnian question. The young girl had never thought about it that way. She never had to. She took a gamble, basing her actions on what she saw Meira do a few times in the past. The old woman would sometimes ask the strangers who visited them where they were from. But then, they were clearly not local, not Rharnian. A gamble was uncertain. A gamble was a risk she was not going to take again. So she nodded to that question and the warning in acknowledgement. It was well received and now engraved in her brain.

The fifteen-arc-old stayed silent, however, as she watched the other bandage her hand. She was processing what had been said, what led to this point in time. At the same time, her medicinal side was quite impressed with the work Ekoh was doing on her hand. Bandaging a hand could be tricky, but bandaging each finger separately and the palm whilst maintaining integrity of the bandage, tension and mobility - that was a tricky skill to posses. She chanced a look at Ekoh's face, wondering why the woman knew, how did she learn.

Elowen knew there was more to people than meets the eye. She had always known that. It was the complexity and depth of human nature which was littered with traps, misunderstanding and deception that discouraged her from entering any kind of conversations. But that did not stop her curiosity waking up now and again.

When Ekoh was finished, Elowen gingerly moved her hand and her fingers. "It good work," she said with a smile. "Thank you."

Then she too took a moment before speaking again, trying to select her words even more carefully than before, almost mimicking the hesitation that the other woman displayed earlier. "Sorry about questioning you," she said at first. "I meet not many outside Mistral village. Was just curious. Did not mean insult."

The girl did not know if this would be enough to recover their interaction. They still had to travel at least another trial to the shack so Elowen could provide the remedy. She had duty to perform and for the sake of her own inner peace, the girl had to attempt to lighten the mood.

"I hungry a little. You? Can prepare food to eat."