[Elora]

Aman sorted through the herbs Vanwe had gathered at speed from the kitchen, not staying to answer the questions of Mrs Bunce or Buttercup or Ruby. As Aman efficently searched, Vanwe bent over the fallen Elf and silently cursed her fogged senses. It would be easier had she a clear head. Herbs could not be administered until they were was certain what ailed the Elf, and that was the subject of much conjecture.

A crowd gathered, Vanwe dreading each and every face that clustered to watch. The would be no privacy this time. She closed her eyes, bending over and the sight of the crowd and Aman faded as she struggled with her unschooled abilities. The latent heat of the pendant seared her, and Vanwe gasped at it.

An old wound twisted, a remembered pain, a dislocated pain. It made no sense, Vanwe inwardly cried. Damn that wine! Distantly Aman's voice floated to her. "What are you doing?"

Vanwe made no reply as she struggled on. A pain that was here and was not. It was familiar, somehow. It had a character and edge that reminded her of something. It had a scent she could detect that she had found before. It also reminded her of Lespheria, whose pain came from what she sensed from afar.

Aman, who saw only that Vanwe was suspended over the unconscious Elf, silent and unresponsive, pulled at her shoulder and repeated herself more forcefully. "Vanwe, what are you doing?"

"Power," Vanwe mumbled through distant lips. "Healing."

The searing heat of the pendant was branded upon her senses. It burned, surely it did. She was tumbling suddenly, falling into an inky abyss, the pendant glowing like a coal below her. Her senses fell apart, shattering like glass on a tiled floor, scattered and broken shards of realisation.

"Vanwe!"

Aman's sharp voice was like a rope to cling to. Vanwe clambered back, clawing her way from it. She realised dimly that Aman was pulling her away. Sagging back, now oblivious to the gathered crowd, Aman pulled closer with the herbs she had selected.

"Use sage," Vanwe said faintly. It had worked with Lespheria.
"I am," replied Aman brusquely.
"And Calendula," Vanwe said as she tried to gather her wits.

"I don't have any," muttered Aman as she steeped the herbs in the warm water, infusing their qualities of healing.

Vanwe fumbled at the pouch at her waist. Apart from the braided leather, which now lay forgotten on the table, it held two now somewhat wilted sprigs. She pulled them out, scenting them to be sure they were still useable, and passed them to Aman.

"Here. There is also what you call Kingsfoil."

Aman took the offered herbs, peering into Vanwe's pale face a moment. Then, she turned away and added them to her infusion. With gentle surety, she lifted the Elf's head and trickled some of the infusion through her lips. Aman waited, then gave her more. The murmuring of the crowd at the unusual display buzzed around Vanwe, threatening to swallow her whole.

"The herbs should dull the pain without clouding her senses," Vanwe said as Aman fed the Elf the infusion. "I've used it before."

"What ails her," Aman asked. Vanwe shook her head and then regretted it. The floor tilted crazily.

"An old wound, and that pendant.... she is pained by something she senses from afar... I cannot properly tell. I am not schooled enough."

Aman fell silent, mulling Vanwe's words and slowly trickling the warm infusion. Vanwe frowned before adding, "I am sorry I cannot do more."

A querrulous voice chimed in from the crowd. "All I saw was chicanery! It's a show!" Debate ensued from there. Vanwe leant against the panelling of the counter to steady herself in the rising noise. Driven by the mayhem that threatened to envelope her utterly, she said in a loud voice made firm by her desperation, "Silence!"

The crowd was shocked. So was Vanwe. She moderated her tone somewhat, the ring of order and authority foreign to her.

"It is no show. Please, return to your seats and give the Elf some peace."

Mrs Bunce clapped her hands. "You heard her!" Authority was something she was accustomed to. She shooed the audience away, breaking them up and leaving them no recourse but to return to their tables. Ruby and Buttercup milled around, ensuring it was so.

"She needs a bed, not an inn floor," Cook observed as she peered at the Elf Aman knelt beside. Two gentlemen offered their services to see it done. Ruby peered at Vanwe.

"What's wrong with you? Is it contagious?" Vanwe again shook her head somewhat violently.

"Well something's gotten into you!" Ruby was not to be put off. Vanwe sighed and made an experimental attempt to stand. If nothing else, it would put paid to Ruby's innate curiosity. Aman had followed the Elf, as had some of her companions in an anxious knot. Surprised that her experiment was a success, Vanwe waved Ruby away. SHe only tottered marginally with that action.

"I'm fine... just some fresh air is all," she murmured.
"You don't look fine," Ruby persisted stubbornly.
"She doesn't, does she Mrs Bunce?"

Vanwe groaned quietly and turned for the door in a bid for freedome. Cook crossed her arms and studied the Elf's tenuous movements/

No," she pronounced, "she does not. Where do you think you're going, Miss," she called after Vanwe as she tried for the door.

"Outside!"

Vanwe's relief at making the porch of the inn was in her sigh. The scent she had detected came with her. It was familiar. She struggled down the steps, the bedlam of the stables carrying to her. The white hitching post proved a convenient crutch. She leant against it as she struggled to make sense of it all. Where had she smelt it before?

Vanwe felt clammy. Her head was filled with light. The pendant glowed every time she blinked, branded onto her eyelids it seemed. Her knees seemed treacherous and her arms heavy. Leaning heavily, cheek pressed against a winking green dragon, Vanwe closed her eyes.

She held her breath, the trembling stilling, as she made the connection. The man! It was his scent, somehow mixed in with it all. She did not know what this meant, but it was important. She should tell someone. Where was the man that Falco had so mistrusted anyway?

Vanwe unpeeled her fingers from where they clutched the post and focused all her might on placing one foot in front of the other. She focused on the stable. She would tell Derufin. Aman was busy. She trusted Derufin. As she neared, she heard the shout of instructions swapped between Derufin and Beren.

Vanwe appeared in the doorway and beheld the disorder that the two men were struggling to overcome. In the stalls closest to her, horses rolled their eyes, the whites wildly showing. They shifted, snorting as their ears swivelled. Panic was in the air. Vanwe could taste it.

She made for the closest stall, partly to hold herself up. The horse shied away. On a sudden idea, Vanwe started to sing the gentle melody she sang every morning in the stables. Her voice was faint and weak, and barely heard by Derufin and Beren who grimly held onto rearing horses deeper in the stables.

But for those horses near to Vanwe, who strained to hear everything in the fear, her voice carried to them. It was familiar, soothing and recognisable. The panic fell slowly from them. Vanwe continued to sing, hoping the tiny seed of calm would grow and find it's way further into the stable.

She held onto the stall, feeling a little stronger and firmer as the moments wheeled past. Her mind was filled with two things. The man, whom she did not know his whereabouts in the chaos, and the glowing pendant that was there, everytime she blinked.