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A wave of conflicting feelings had stunned Merisuwyniel into immobility. She had been deep in pensive thought when they had left the GAP, trusting Falafel to keep to the road with little guidance on her part, lulled into the false security of a seemingly eventless journey ahead. The attack surprised her, but she had mastered situations like that so many times that it would normally have posed no serious problem. She had felt the Bow vibrating with the excitement of battle, but then…
That face, so strange and yet so strangely familiar – not the face that was burnt forever into her memory, but one that she had seen in her dreams of late – had stopped time and obliterated her surroundings. Her mind told her that it could not be, but the unruly beat of her heart spoke more eloquently. Yet before she could say or do anything, he was gone, his last, desperate cry echoing in her delicately pointed ears. She wanted to follow him, wanted to fight the Orcs, wanted to pursue the Wargs who chased that – well, whatever it was; her sharp Elven eyes told her that it was not exactly a Zerl.
Yet she had done – nothing. Instead, that bumbling Workmudian Half-Elven poet had given chase, apparently successfully, since he brought the little creature with him. Deep shame flooded her senses and coloured her cheeks a bright red (quite becoming, of course). She, a pure-blooded Elf, an experienced shieldmaiden, the leader of this group of questers, had failed miserably.
She became aware that the gazes of her companions were fixed upon her. Earnur repeated his question: “Does this mean we’re going to have to rescue someone again?” How should she decide now? Should she follow the tugging of her heart and the Orcs to attempt to find Gravlox, if indeed it was he? Or should she follow the path of the Quest ahead of her, laid upon her by the Velour Queen Yawanna?
“Let me think!” she said. “And now may I make a right choice, and change the evil fate of this unhappy day!” She stood silent for a moment. “We shall continue westwards,” she said at last. “I would have followed Gravlox to Moredough and gone with him to the end; but if I seek him now in the wilderness, I must abandon the quest. My heart speaks clearly at last: the fate of my Beloved is in my hands no longer. We that remain must carry on with the task given unto us. Come! We will go now. If we are true, the Velour will protect and aid Gravlox better than I may.”
She stormed ahead dramatically on Falafel, only to pause after some minutes, since she and the other riders had to wait for the cart to catch up anyway…
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