Each day was like the one before. Strangely comfortable, as if she had lived amongst the Eryr-lûth all her life. Every night was like the one before. Uncomfortably strange, because every night she remembered that this was not her home, her tribe, would never be; that she was lost.
She tried to wake early, before Danhadlen, in hopes of slipping out of the older woman's roundhouse before she woke. She was told that she was welcome, but she felt like an intruder, and she knew that welcome would wear out with time, so she tried to make it last by demanding as little as possible. But Danhadlen woke before her as often as not. So she would ask what work she could do, hoping for something that would help not just the tribe, but Danhadlen specifically.
Sometimes she got such a thing. Butcher, fillet, and smoke some meat, or do some hunting or forage (sadly no fishing), perhaps. But more often than not the only things to be done that day were things she was no use for. Cut wood and haul it: her axe was adequate but she couldn't carry much lumber, and knew nothing of building or repairing roundhouses. Mending, sewing, pottery, all things it took Danhadlen and the other women of the clan more time to try to teach her than to do it themselves. There was work for those who were large, or strong, but very little for those who were keen, or swift.
Occasionally the women of the tribe that were forced to put her to work talked, when they didn't think she could hear, about whether she might be there to be wed. A young girl of marriageable age, sent to dwell amongst another tribe? What other reason? Perhaps none of the men of her own tribe would look at her. Pretty girl at a first glance, until you saw that nose. Poor thing. Did she think the men of the Eagle Clan were more likely to want her, despite how hideous she was? Eagles are known for their sight, did she expect to find them blind here? And what else would they see in her? She could hardly even cook! They might laugh, but quietly. They wouldn't say such things to her face. They were gracious hosts. But late at night, thinking on their words, she remembered her place was not here, her welcome provisional at best.
Then she'd pass the afternoon and evening trying to stand still while on guard duty. It seemed like a noble calling, guard duty, and it was, she knew it, but even this close to the Isen, there was nothing for a guard to do for hour after hour, day after day. The others appreciated that she could do good work with her axe, not that she ever got to; but they came to hate having to stand a shift with her. She couldn't stand still. Couldn’t appreciate the quiet and calm of their work. Her misshapen nose was off-putting, as was her strangeness. She was Dunlending, true, but as far from them as she could be and still share their blood. They knew it and she knew they knew it.
When she had time, she would spend it trying to see the few horses the tribe had, to learn them, even to try to figure out how to ride them. She still had a pledge to fulfill. But their caretakers were reluctant to let the girl too close. If they didn't know she'd come to Tros Hynt under the blessing of the chieftain's son, and was staying in the roundhouse of his daughter, she would not likely have been able to see them at all. But to try to ride one, to learn how? That would require a greater blessing, one she didn't dare ask for.
Then back into the small space tucked away in Danhadlen's roundhouse to pass the night. It was the same roundhouse, the same village, the same tribe, as it had been all day. The day where, for an hour here and an hour there, she felt inexplicably at home; and then something would jolt her out of it, a comment, a stare. At night, it was the opposite. Everything felt wrong, except for those brief moments when she had almost drifted off and forgot how wrong it was, until she jolted awake with some dreadful thought. She wondered what the others she'd met at Ysbrydnos were doing; she rarely saw them, other than Danhadlen. She worried over the raid she'd sworn to, the one she missed and now had to do alone. She worried about the fact that she was worrying; it felt entirely unnatural, as she had always felt sure of herself in all she did, at least until Trindân had dropped her into the river and beaten her into submission, and now worry became part of her life, a part that she did not like. She wondered how she would ever find her way back to her tribe. She wondered if perhaps the spirits weren't guiding her that way at all.
In the darkest moments of the night, she wondered if the spirits even had ever answered her calls, had any plan for her; or if she walked alone, in the dark, towards nothing.
