Gwen groaned softly as she awoke from a dreamless sleep. She lay in a bed with a thick blanket covering her, something she had not felt in ages, and so she refused to open her eyes. At least for a little while. From outside she could hear the sounds of people going about their business, of dogs barking and chickens cooing and geese honking.
After a while, the half-elf almost began to believe that she had dreamed everything, and that she was still in Vengerberg. She could almost hear her mother knocking on the door to her room, yelling at her to get up, that she had slept half the day away, that she had to feed the pigs...
But when she opened her eyes, half expecting to see her mother's angry eyes boring into hers, she at once noticed that the ceiling did not belong to her house in Vengerberg. Angry at her own disappointment, she pushed herself up and inspected the room in which she lay.
In one corner stood two tables, pressed against each other to form a corner as well, with two chairs, and next to it was a pit filled with blazing coals, a pot hanging above it. In front of that another table and a bench had been placed. Planks hung on the walls, adorned with spoons and knives and the like. The bed stood in the centre of the wall opposite of all of this, and to her right was yet another table with candles on top of it. Above it was a small window, though from her position she couldn't see out of it. To her left was a woven basket, and a coat rack hung from the wall, though more ropes than coats occupied it.
With a frown, Gwen threw her legs over the edge of the bed. The very moment her feet touched the floor, she remembered the nekkers and the archer and the elf who had helped her. She bent down to inspect her leg, and found it freshly bandaged. When she shifted her weight to that leg, she was surprised by the lack of pain. She couldn't possibly have been out of for weeks, could she?
Deciding that staying here wouldn't get her any answers, she got up from the bed. Relief filled her when she found that putting all of her weight on her bad leg still hurt a bit and that she couldn't walk without limping slightly.
She made her way to the door and opened it, finding it unlocked. At least the elf wasn't holding her captive. Where could she find said elf, anyway? Should she go around the village asking for him?
The elf solved this problem himself by calling out to her, and she spotted him standing on that platform again, holding an opened spyglass in his hand.
"How are you feeling?" he asked her, and from the way he spoke it was obvious that he had had a drink too many.
Gwen walked over to him but hesitated at the ladder, inspecting it for a few moments before she attempted to climb it. The elf waited patiently for her as she made her way up. This time he didn't help her, as if he already knew that she wouldn't have accepted it.
"Who are you?" she asked at once, taking note of his black hair, combed back with two braids by his ears, and his brown eyes that stared at her in a way that made her uncomfortable. He swayed lightly on the spot, and Gwen wondered whether the small scar on the left side of the bridge of his nose came from a drunk accident.
A human appeared from around the corner, wearing nothing more than striped pants, a harness around his torso and a cap, the brashness of his movements startling the half-elf.
"Y'could start by thanking mister for saving your sorry ass, you damned Squirrel!" he yelled at her, and though she tried her best, she couldn't help but flinch at his harsh words. Somehow she had managed to forget the loudness that followed humans.
The elf who had saved her held out a hand for the human. "Hugo, you shouldn't scare our guest like that. If I did what I do to receive thanks from others, then I'd have stopped a long time ago."
The human, Hugo, glanced at the half-elf once more before nodding and sauntering off. He released the crossbow he carried on the back of his harness and held it in his hand in some sort of display of power.
"Forgive him. Everyone has heard much of the new member of the Scoia'tael," he told her as he lifted his spyglass and looked through it and Gwen wondered how they even knew what she was, since her ears were still covered. Without bringing the spyglass down, he continued, "But to answer your question, I am Cedric. And you are Gwenfrewi, named for the peace between two sides of the war, though with little success."
Gwen stared at him. She had never seen this man before, and his name didn't sound familiar to her either. "How did you know that?"
"I simply know certain things. It is why alcohol is my safe haven," he answered and lowered his spyglass to give her a bleary look, as if his intoxicated state had not been obvious enough from the way he talked.
"Sorry to hear that," Gwen said, though she didn't know whether she meant it. "That must also mean you know I prefer not to be called by that name."
Cedric nodded his head in a sagely sort of way, as if he had already known this, or had expected as much. Or perhaps just because he was drunk.
"For how long have I been asleep? My leg feels much better, as does my back, but I can't possibly have been here for a week already, can I?" Gwen asked him when the elf only continued to look around him some more.
"You arrived here yesterday afternoon, and have been asleep ever since. Though I asked our herbalist to make you a potion to help heal your wounds." Before Gwen could thank him, he frowned and added, "What is it that brought you here in the first place? Did Iorveth send you for something? I hadn't thought he would use a single wounded Scoia'tael for that."
So he knew Iorveth. Gwen bristled at the mention of that name, anger once more boiling inside of her. And she had been so proud of herself that she had managed to keep her calm until now.
"No, Iorveth knows better than to send me on an errand," she spat. "I ran, because I was fed up with him. With all those stupid elves. With everything! I never did anything to them but they have their scowls and their glares ready the very moment they lay eyes upon me."
"Do you mean, just like you?" He asked the question in a light tone, as though he had made a joke, but it was enough to stop Gwen's rant.
"I - I... They have always treated me like scum! From the moment I was born, they were ready to mistrust and mistreat me!" she all but yelled. "And anyway, didn't you say that you knew everything? Why ask me this then?"
"I said I know certain things, not everything," Cedric reminded her. "And the elves have reason to dislike others just as much as you do. The Scoia'tael fight for survival, clinging to the remnants of what once used to be, blind to the truth in front of them."
Gwen scowled at him. "Don't tell me you sympathise with those brutes!"
"No, I do not." Cedric shook his head. "But I understand their plight, as I too took part of it once. I left them when I saw the error of their ways and came here to help the humans with the forest, for nobody understands it as I do."
"Out of the frying pan and into the fire, huh," Gwen muttered, more to herself than to the elf. She could not understand why any non-human would willingly help the humans. After all they had done to the others.
Cedric heard it anyway and let out a sigh. "I do not intend to persuade you otherwise. You are set in your ways, and only firsthand experience will change your mind. In this you resemble Iorveth, whom I at first tried to change as well, though with little success. But if he has taken you in, then perhaps he has begun to learn after all. That, or he is planning something."
"I - what? I resemble that monster?" Gwen stared at the elf, too surprised to say anything else.
He smiled as if he had expected the reaction, but did not give the response she wanted. "You must return to him. He has grown reckless since I last saw him, and you must make sure no harm befalls him until he has fulfilled his destiny."
"I won't take orders from a drunk. And anyway, how am I supposed to make him less reckless? If anything, I'll make him commit suicide, and if not that, I'll murder the man myself," Gwen replied.
"Your presence should be enough," he said, but the frown on his forehead made it seem as though he did not know for sure.
"And why exactly should I return, knowing this?" Gwen asked. "I just might start here and wait for him to rot instead."
"Because you are a good person."
The half-elf chocked on her own saliva and stuttered and stammered while she fumbled for a response. "Wait, what, I am anything but a good person! Good people don't kill others, and I've got a fair share of blood on my hands. I take lives, I don't save them!"
Cedric only shook his head, but did not offer an explanation. "And because without him, many bad things will happen."
"Bad things? Like what? Dragons soaring through the sky and wars breaking out, all because of one dead Squirrel?" Gwen raised a brow.
"Perhaps. I could not see those things clearly," Cedric replied, and the half-elf blanched at the thought of dragons and wars because of a lack of Iorveth in the world.
"All right, so say I do return," Gwen said in an attempt to stay clear of this talk of doom. "How long do you propose I have to stay with him? When will I know he has fulfilled this so-called destiny? Though I'm not quite sure I believe there is such a thing."
"I cannot say. I wish I could inform you of this when the time has come, but I fear that by then I will no longer be here."
The half-elf frowned, confused. Did he mean that he had seen his own death? How could he say it in such an emotionally detached manner? Gwen dared not ask further, and instead she said, "So what you're saying is that I might as well spend the rest of my life with that bastard. And when he does happen to die, I'll get to lead my life never knowing if I failed or not. Is that what you're saying?"
The pained look on the elf's face was enough of an answer. He knew the impossibility of what he asked of her, but the fact that he had asked it of her in the first place struck something in her. Her mother had always had a deep respect for things such as destiny, after all, and she had often mentioned this to her daughter. Perhaps she, too, had had this gift, or curse, that Cedric claimed to have, and she had simply been nurturing her daughter to fulfil her goal in life. Gwen shook her head, tried to rid her mind of these thoughts. Cedric's drunk talk must have gotten to her head somehow. Still...
Gwen sighed, thinking back to her last promise to her mother.
"Follow your destiny, child," she had told her, refusing to close her eyes until she had heard her daughter wail that she would.
"Fine. I'll go back... but first I'd like to stay here for a few days."
And so Gwen spent the next three days in this small village called Lobinden. She procured other means of sleeping, preferring to remain outside even though she had been offered a bed. It had come from a human woman who lived here, and who had stated that a friend of Cedric's was a friend of hers. The sudden hospitality had surprised Gwen, and she had even stuttered when declining. She did not want to owe anybody anything, no matter their race.
During the day she tried to evade those who lived in the village. She suspected that the only reason why they treated her with a semblance of respect was because of Cedric. Instead, she spent the hours with the elf on the platform, swapping stories about their lives in the wilderness. Gwen told him of the one time she had saved a wild dog from a whole swarm of nekkers who had then proceeded to follow her everywhere she went until it got killed by a human who mistook it for a wolf. In return, Cedric remembered that once he had been bathing in a lake, and a whole herd of deer had appeared and began to drink next to him as though he hadn't been there in the first place.
At night, she stared up at the stars through the leaves of the trees, feeling strangely nostalgic. She missed climbing in the branches, reaching the tree tops and using her height to determine her position, though she knew it might take a while before she regained her leg's full strength.
And thus three days had passed, almost in the blink of an eye, when one of the villagers came running up to the platform, breathing heavily.
"Cedric! They've captured an elf from the forest! They plan on hanging her!"
Gwen froze to the spot. An elf had to mean a Squirrel, one from Iorveth's unit. She doubted that he'd send a single elf out to do anything near the town, which meant there must be more nearby. But why would they come here in the first place?
Then it struck her.
Iorveth had sent them to find her. And one of them had gotten caught and would most likely die.
Now Gwen wasn't one to lament the death of anybody, humans and non-humans alike, as long as they died either by her hand or completely unrelated to her. She did not want anybody dying for her.
But then again, had she been the one to get captured, those elves would have watched with smirks on their faces as the humans hanged her. Why should she of all people give a shit about one stupid elf who got herself caught searching for her?
Because she shouldn't lower herself to their level.
Great. She had spent four days in the presence of Cedric, four bloody days, and already she had his voice in her head, speaking nonsense that made sense to her. The voice also claimed that she had to help the elf. Her fault, her responsibility...
Cedric placed a hand on her shoulder and when she glanced at him, she saw that stupid look of his again, the one that meant he knew what she thought. He never judged her for her ideas though, only offered her advice.
"You must make sure that Loredo does not see you. He must be quite angry with you at the moment," Cedric warned her.
"Who the fuck is Loredo? And what did I ever do you him?!" Gwen exclaimed.
"When he heard that Stennis planned on shipping you off to Flotsam, he couldn't let the chance slip by, and so he paid him handsomely so that you were to... serve him. It would appear that he isn't happy you escaped," the elf replied in his calm, or drunk, voice, ignoring her sudden outburst.
Muttering a curse under her breath, Gwen punched a nearby tree trunk. She should have known that the so-called second chance Stennis had given her had been bogus. Now she realised that perhaps she had had a lot of luck when Iorveth had found her and not some bloede dh'oine. Men who paid for women to serve them, as Cedric had put it, did not want maids...
Cedric placed a hand on her shoulder. "Do not worry. Loredo never handles these executions himself, so as long as you stay clear of his quarters you should not be in any trouble. That is, if you do not get caught by one of his soldiers. You will need to create a distraction, since you are in no state to go about fighting armed men like that."
Gwen nodded, thinking back to how a few nekkers had already been too much for her to handle. She used to eat those beasts for breakfast! Figuratively speaking, that is.
"How do I get to Flotsam from here?" she asked the elf, who waved a hand in the direction of the campfire situated at the centre of the village.
"Behind that house is a small gate with two guards, that would be the quickest way to town," he explained.
The half-elf nodded in response and turned to leave, but not before he added, "Good luck."
She would need it, and more.