Falowik watched the Elf woman flee to the stables. You fool, thinking only of your debts! He had caused her pain and seen it in her eyes and by her shaking hand at her lips for that brief moment. An urge had arisen suddenly in him to declare all wrongs righted, all debts paid. He would rise to her aid and protection, to shield her from all the evils of the world. Fool, useless fool! Banish yourself to the wilderness, the sooner the better!
"No, fair one, you have not troubled me too much," he said so that only the breeze could hear, "only I could do that." He thought to run to the stable after her. He could not, for he had already made a ruin of any good thing that might have been, and he could not face her now. If only things could be different. So spoke his heart, though his mind could not form the words so. Instead, her words came back to him: What would you have changed? He did not know. The past was dead and gone. Himself he could not change. His life as a wanderer was fixed, once this trouble with the captured man was dealt with.
No.
Something was changed. He realized it the moment he came to himself and discovered that he stood yet by the well, staring into the stable. He had found a Light, and it was in the stable, and it was all the Light he knew. It had given him warmth where before had been a heart made of ice. And he cared about that Light as he had cared for nothing in years. Who are you? He had his answer already. She was Light. But now he was hungry to learn who this being was that came to him as Light, little knowing that she did, holding such power for hope, fragile as a day lily?
I will do all that I may and all that you permit to redress. He would permit anything that she thought of. He owed her that much, and gladly. She would come nigh again, and he would let her shine; maybe he could find ways to blow upon the coals, as it were, that she might shine the brighter.
He walked to the front doors of the Inn with a lightened step, and went inside. He still had no coin. Maybe he could offer to work for his food? He would see about that. And there was the matter of the man Eodwine, and his finding, and of clearing his own name of suspicion in that regard, though that meant less to Falowik than it had. What meant more was seeing that Light, and if it could be, making it so that she shone bright when he was near.
You old fool, he said to himself lightly, thinking of anyone in this way. But his heart was light with it, for his purpose was good and laid upon one other than himself, which it had not been for many a year.
He walked up to the bar and waited for the eye of one of those who worked here to land upon him.
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