[Envinyatar]

There were eight horses and four ponies to be seen to that night. All fractious, their ears plastered back against their heads, eyes wide and rolling. Beren saw to two of the guests’ horses, his slow approach and gentle words bringing down the heightened level of anxiety that whipped their nerves. They bobbed their great heads at him on their arched necks and attended to every word, the rhythm of his voice drawing their attention away from the source of the panic.

It was the Elf’s horse, Morsereg, which Derufin decided had been the focus of the chaos. Attuned to her thoughts, as Elven horses are, he had picked up the frenzy of the Elven woman’s dark flow of images and remembrances. The scent of his fear and the agitation in his whinnies was the spark that set the others on edge. Vanwe, seated near Mosereg’s stall had calmed him with her soft song and probably, thought the stable-master, her own gentle stream of thoughts. As Morsereg calmed, the others did also. Nettle the Inn’s own little Shire pony nickered contentedly as Vanwe sang, and his three stall mates crowded near him, borrowing his peaceful mood.

Once Derufin had seen to the two horses he had talked down from their wild state, he handed the leads to Beren and strode quickly to the end stall, the one nearest his quarters - Falmar’s stall. The steed of another Elven woman, she too would be affected by the prostrate Elf’s unchecked thoughts. And indeed she had been so. Her stall’s half door had been kicked open in Falmar’s hurry to escape the frightening thoughts, and she had bolted from the stable, seeking to put distance between herself and danger . . . seeking her own mistress.

Vanwe and Beren were beginning to settle the horses back into their stalls. The usual air of calm was returning to the stable. Just as Beren was returning the chestnut charger to his stall, Derufin stepped up and took the lead from him, saying that he would need him to go after Falmar. The blanket and saddle were quickly put on Eodwine’s steed, and Derufin mounted up and was out the door of the stable, heading west as he left the Inn yard, down the Great East Road.

Under a tree at the western edge of Bywater, the light of the moon just picking him out in the shadows, sat Falowik, unseen by Derufin as he raced past . . .

[ August 15, 2003: Message edited by: Envinyatar ]