We ran. Hurtling beneath the trees. Haring into the night. I had let go of the reins, and they slapped loosely against the saddle. My bare hands rested against Bracken's neck, my boots tight against the horse's sides. It was a breakneck pace. Reckless and dangerous. We rode wild and free, and I let him pick our way through the forest, never urging him one way or the other. Never nudging him faster.

Bracken is no fool horse. He is sensible. We were moving too fast for reason, and he knew it. We both did. He could have slowed and I wouldn't have stopped him. But he didn't, and I put my faith in his decision.

I think my horse ran because I needed it. I needed the speed, the rush, the senseless rhythm of hooves pounding earth. The tug of motion against the edges of my wound, pulling until my tunic began to dampen. I needed the sensation of our hearts slamming together in time.

And I think Bracken knew. He raced through the dark, letting the world roar past our ears. I needed to feel alive.

He knew.

He understood.

So we ran.


I don't know when Bracken started to slow, only that we did. Shortly after, he stopped completely. I slid from his back, my feet hitting the soft dirt with a muted thud. It seemed too quiet without the wind whipping around us.

Bracken had found a nice little creek, and I plopped down beside the water. My boots mired themselves in the muddy bank.

I watched my horse drop his head to the water to drink, sucking up great mouthfuls in a noisy manner.

"You're a good horse."

I don't know why I said it, other than feeling a need to speak the truth. So many things in my life were falling apart, slipping out of my hands and my control. But Bracken was here. And he was taking care of the sorry excuse of a man that was me.

"You're a very, very good horse."

Bracken snorted and stomped in the shallow stream. He knew this. I was beginning to see that he knew a lot of things.

I stared at him, heart still pounding from the run. It never occurred to me then that wallowing in a pool of my own self pity was a waste of time. That I could have been putting distance between my horse and I and the men that were following us.

It never even crossed my mind that they would come for me, for us. And so there we stayed.


Bracken heard the rain before I did. His ears flicked on his head, and I looked up at the clouds that pressed themselves down on us. They enveloped the last of the moon's light, turning the world so, so dark.

First one drop, then two, a torrent. I hadn't realized until then that I was too warm, hot with fever. The drops seemed to sizzle when they hit my skin and I welcomed the cool relief.

I felt rather than saw Bracken snuff at the downpour and move to stand next to me. He leaned over, and the rain stopped running down my face. I draped myself around the legs of my sturdy horse, and I thought.

You've done this before.

The thought popped into my head without prompting, lingering like smoke with no wind to blow it away.

I thought of everything that I would give to get my memory back, and I laughed aloud. I had nothing to my name—I didn't even have a name. Halt wasn't sure of who I was, and Baron Arald had been even less believing. What made me so sure I was Griffin at all?

"What hasn't been taken?" I asked the night. I glared up at what little I could make out of the rain and clouds beyond. Looking back I can imagine myself as a stark form pressed close to Bracken, my eyes glaring, lips twisted into a snarl.

Only I've never been so fierce.

The reality of me that night was a slumped huddle. Limbs weak, eye hopeless, mouth one flat line of despair. I'm fairly certain that in the cold of the wind and rain and the clutch of fever that I shook.

I was as depressing as they come, and I knew it. Who didn't?

It was this thought that brought me staggering to my feet, one hand flying to catch hold of my saddle. I clapped my hand onto the pommel, slick with rain, and something wonderful and terrifying happened.

I remembered.


I've done this before.

That thought rang clear in my head, one stab of clarity among the fog of my mind. If I hadn't been trembling before I was trembling now.

I had run away from Halt and the Baron and Redmont, but it wasn't the first time.

A while ago, I had run away from Channer and my Baron and Gorlan.

I can see it now.

Out the door of Morgarath's office. Down the steps of his keep. Into a courtyard full of his guards. Into the night that would hide me.

That much I can remember now, and there's something else I recall too.

Last time, I didn't get away.


I haven't updated in forever, and this is kind of a short little tidbit. Read and review. Let me know what you think so far. =)