Sarnai sat down and put her feet up on a root after a long day's work, leaning against the barrel of her equine companion. It was spring again, and her injuries from the summer before had long since healed. She reached out to touch a flower sprouting from the tall grass. Its pale petals were tinged in faint, fiery hues from the sunset that bathed the landscape in warm light.
So much had changed.
Stretching her limbs in the dying rays of the sun, Sarnai carefully touched the brooch pinned to her coat, a symbol of the Order she served. She had not heard from the others for some time, but there was the demand that they step out from the shadows and into the light, to serve openly under the aegis of the Valacirca. The Wain, she remembered. It had always been the Wain to her.
Still, she could not deny that she had not heard from most of her friends and allies for many seasons. Pulling a whetstone from her pack, Sarnai went to sharpen her blades, the motions almost mechanical with practice. She could feel her horse's breath in the rise and fall of the mare's sides. It brought her a sense of reliability, even of peace. Her eyelids drooping, Sarnai put away the whetstone and sheathed her last knife.
As the last rays of dying light cast themselves over the field, the woman, the horse, and the solitary tree, Sarnai unrolled her blanket to cover herself and settled into the grass. She would head south to town another day. She would seek old acquaintances another day. She would spit in the eye of someone full of strength and spite - the faces changed, but it was always a faint reflection of the same Shadow beneath - but that would have to wait until another day.
Sarnai closed her eyes and settled quickly into undisturbed, if somewhat fitful sleep.
So much remained the same.
