House Mallorn ar' Celeb'ithil

She was glad Recurver had persuaded her to take this trip to Mallorn. After the disaster of the trip to Taliessin a short venture is perhaps just what both of them need. Glancing across from her position on Teba’s back she looks at Recurver, his usually sparkling eyes not twinkling as much recently and the tiredness evident in the softest of shadows that circle under his brown eyes.

They had stopped for a brief rest at the walled city of Bradford and she was delighted to have acquired a new leather saddle bag, finely made and intricately detailed in each carving. Following the route through the woodlands before the Chugging river and towards their final destination of the House of Mallorn she feels her muscles tense as they travel below the canopy of the trees, her nerves frayed and on edge in remembrance of the last woodland they travelled. “No slaughter this time” she hopes in her mind. “I have neither the will or the energy”

Daylight dapples as shafts of sunlight weave through the trail. Her eyes flicker abound the forest floor, anxious and wary still. Leatherbound thighs tight against Teba’s chestnut back; his own ears alert as her tension flows through to her beloved steed. A glimpse to her left and she spots a flicker of unnatural light. Bringing Teba to a halt she slides off his back and wanders to the undergrowth where upon she saw the light. “Did you see that Recurver?” Not waiting for a response she spies the object. An orb, almost the size of a small grapefruit, carefully she picks it up in her gloved hand. It is heavy almost glasslike in structure, taking her teeth she pulls on her other glove till her hand is bare and lightly touches the globe. Her hand caresses the cool smoothness and as she does a light flickers within the globe, a reddish glow grows beneath the warmth of her grey ashen fingertips, her mind captivated with this dance of light. A firm hand on her shoulder causes her to jump and the orb falls with the softest of thuds on the vegetation below. “Recurver!! what a fright you gave me” Her heart hammers and she is angry with herself for letting her guard down. Picking up the globe with her gloved hand she walks angrily back to Teba and slips it in her newly acquired satchel. Climbing up on his back she settles in the saddle and looks to Recurver unable to read the expression in his face “I’m sorry, let’s continue”