[Elora]

Blackveil tossed her spirited head as Vanwe lifted her hand towards the horse's now. Silvanis seemed to slightly nod at his horse's display of mettle and Vanwe dropped her hand.

"Fiesty," she commented. "I did not wish to unsettle her," she added. If this was how horses reacted to the new assistant in the stable, then Vanwe had a lot of learning to do and quickly before Derufin realised she would likely cause mayhem with his equine charges. Silent, Silvanis studied her as she let her hand fall away and Vanwe held still. He was waiting for something, she sensed. Occassionally his wary gaze would flicker over her shoulder, and the impulse to turn and see what may be approaching behind her itched between her shoulder blades.

The habit of looking over one's shoulder was a one deeply ingrained upon her, and a dead giveaway of the legitimacy of her ventures abroad. Instead, Vanwe gathered her thoughts and began as best she could with the mysterious and hopefully favourably inclined man before her.

"I should thank you, sir... twice over. Once for not mentioning the name on the paper you found in the stable before Derufin. Twice for a night in the south, where your silence kept at least part of my hide attached to my back the morning after the feast."

The memory of the beating, one of the more savage examples of community justice for an outcast, was another thing that itched her shoulderblades, in memory of the injuries that healed in the intermidible heat and sand.

"You could easily on both counts have me jailed, or worse. I do not know your name, or why you would do this... and you know many things about me... my village, my parents... My name is Vanwe, and I am endebted to you, sir."

Vanwe bowed deeply, in the only manner she knew, the manner of Far Harad. She took a step backwards, glided to her knees, bent forward until her brow touched the cooling grass and as smoothly rose again. As she straightened her lithe frame, Vanwe's thoughts leapt about. She had a debt to this man, and she was about to ask of him yet more. She still could not know if Silvanis had some connection with her village. Her mother had paid the elders handsomely at the time to take and keep from the world her infant daughter. Failure to keep such trust would be met with considerable displeasure from a woman that was considered more Demon than Elf. They would be prepared to see to Vanwe's return before Naiore discovered her daughter was abroad and not safely tucked into oblivion.

Standing and speaking with Silvanis in the evening was a considerable risk if they had sent him on her trail. Yet the very reason she had risked the journey was what kept her in place and confirming her identity. If he was not hunting her, he had what she needed and he may also have word of the south, of a village in the sands and those that may yet seek her. He had all she knew of her parents, and all that she needed to know.

Vanwe endured his silence, remaining in place and measuring him as he measured her. The merry sound of the evening that floated out from the inn seemed distant to her, not quite real, and she was cast back to that night as she stared at his face with wide blue eyes.