They say a wounded creature is the most dangerous of all for it wants to survive, it has little left but to do so for the alternative is being to curl up and rot where it lay, so it turns vicious. Claws, teeth and the will to tear the flesh from its opponent, snarling, scratching and biting till it emerges victorious, the prize simply to keep living, perhaps later to die in a ditch, but not at the will of its aggressor.
Many days had passed since her time sat in the mildew tainted hovel. Gone were the dead rabbits that swung by their heels, gone the dogs that would growl and snap over newly given bones, instead a new roof, or lack thereof, sheltered her. Although now her fingers were eventually free of the bloody semicircles encrusted beneath her nails, bathing did not cleanse her mind from the brutality that was etched upon it. Yet, what she witnessed was a farce, a charade to chip away at her already wary mind. The bard, a changed man for the experiences thrust upon him, gone was merriment, joy, song, replaced with a coldness. His arms offered warmth and shelter where the missing roof of the tumbledown inn could not. Gone was his Blossom, replaced by a terrified child, not the woman he had come to know so very well.
The blood of three sunk into the smooth oak floorboards of her home on that dark eve, but unbeknownst to her at the time, the man slain before her eyes did not share her lineage. How could he? For now he stood in the dark room that she cowered away in as she stared fearfully in confusion, an apparition? Perhaps, for many of her kin knew of the shades that dwelt in the White Mountains, it would not be without reason he would return in spirit form. Flesh and blood tell no tales, his strong form, the family resemblance, it was indeed her brother before her. Shock, relief, a myriad of emotions flooded her mind, and as one day bled into the next, then another emotion came, anger smothered them.
