“Then greetings to you, Talia” The orphan girl produced half an apple, saved from her borrowed lunch with Derufin. “A gift to Sunrunner – no doubt that big golden stallion there. I could have used him in my journey from Go-Fast. I was on the road from there to here almost two years.”
They came to the corral and Willofain offered the treat to Talia’s horse. “I ran away to make a different life for myself. I did not know the Orcs would strike my village that very day I left. When I heard the cries, I returned but what could one unarmed girl do against a band of Orcs? I hid” – here Willofain looked both fierce and ashamed – “and later buried my folk. Now that I have a decent place to live, I would like to stop traveling awhile and study to be a warrior. Or maybe a tracker. So I can hunt Orcs.”
The dark-haired woman said nothing so Willofain asked: “What of your story? Have you traveled far? Are you a scholar or a bard? Do you know any of the inn-folk yet?”
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