It had been a short while now since arriving with the others from the raids. Bundled up on the caravan, half dazed and barely aware of what was going on till she was far from home. So much had happened since the landslide. Arriving to send word back home she was safe, only to turn around and head on foot a way straight into a raid. Someone had got her out of the way, but she had been knocked out at some point, dragged off to safety. Eventually dazed and confused with the others seeking safety she ended up with some kind stranger helping her onto a caravan to safety and now here she was.
Ryheric had been the first to talk to her, the guard on the caravan. Cwenawynn she had met on the way as well. It wasn't till near Bree she had met clothillde and Lavendara. Each in turn had offered friendship, kindness, and their own stories. Good people she couldn't help but be inspired by. It was Ryheric though who had seen through those smiles, told her she had lost so much and was covering, that she was numb. She was far from numb, it hurt, confused, there was so much anger, guilt, yet a sense of freedom for the first time since her mother had passed.
Ryheric cornered her over her smiles, and she finally admitted it. The complexities the confusion, the weight that had been on her shoulders since she was twelve that was no longer there, but now the guilt there for not being there to look after her father. The relief at the admission. Parting she took up her lute, her mothers lute, all she had left of her mother and sat in the dark of her room for several days. Pouring through all she felt she wrote last ride, a song for her mothers last ride that led to her passing, the turn that changed her father. Last ride, a song of choices made that lead to directions taken that alter people in ways they can never return the same from, much as the ride she took when she left home.
Her skills still so much less than so many other minstrels around. Learning her way back to her mothers side through music. Her fingers finding their way through the emotions she struggled to express through words in conversation. Her next challenge would be to find a way to put lyrics, if she could find the words as easily as she did for others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW62uTXEoFo&t=1s
