Calilla sat huddled next to her horses beneath the eaves of a great oak in the middle of southern Chetwood. Above, the sky cried massive blobby tears of the ugliest kind - ones usually reserved for the reddened, snot-covered faces of the soon-to-be executed. They fell onto the leaves in an almost deafening roar, working their way down in rivulets until descending down into the mud or - more pertinently - onto her cloth-covered head, making the air so wet that she could not even build a small fire. Soaked to the bone, freezing to the core and thoroughly miserable in light of recent events, she began to take stock of her life.
Ten years before, she had come to the conclusion that the life she then lived held no real future. She had wanted change. She had wanted freedom and after three years of biding her time, an opportunely placed blade had granted it to her. True, that blade had been opportunely pulled across the throat of her sleeping Master by her own hand, thus setting her upon a path of constant running, but it had been worth it. To be out under that mans thumb, to make her own choices, to make her own way, that was worth any price.
But in the seven years since, what had she done?
She had come to Bree and found her brother, Rellas. She had found a place amongst a pack of brigands as their fence. She had met some interesting people and taken the lives of her pursuers. True, comfort had led to a sense of safety which in turn had resulted in her being captured and a long journey back to Khand for execution, but a chance encounter with a man of Rhun had seen her freed once more.
Her subsequent return to Bree had seen her become a traveling trader in her own right, find friendship with Aevalyn and Denaric, and for a time she had shared her bed with Seaver, an acquaintance from her previous stay in this land. Of course, their ways had long since parted and she knew that, sooner or later, their past association would end with the death of one or both. His bloodlust would eventually drive him to seek her life and her refusal to simply lie down and die would result in her looking to end him before he could take the only thing that she had ever truly sought to keep. That knowledge had not stalled her, however. She had since found what she had hoped to be love with a certain man of Rohan.
In the last two days, however, so much had changed. He had left her, she had been attacked in her own camp, managed to upset the only friend she had left - twice - and found that her habitual campsite was now favoured by the Ranger-men, prompting her to move on.
What, she found herself sullenly wondering, had she really accomplished since her first bid for freedom so long ago?
At twenty-seven, she was a traitor to her people, hunted, hated, homeless and so very alone.
Something had to change.
In the small hours of what was, unbeknownst to her, her birthday, she came to a decision. It was time to leave behind her nomadic lifestyle. It was time to stand her ground. She would sell her wagon and set up a shop, either in the homesteads or town. She would continue to quietly trade with her contacts amongst the brigands and perhaps once or twice a year travel further south to procure the items that these northerners deemed so exotic, but for the most part she would lead a settled life with an outwardly legitimate business.
It would be difficult. It would take hard work to set up the business, especially given the routine distrust and distaste she faced for her accent and appearance, but that was hardly daunting. Settling in one place, however, remaining still when all her life she had ben constantly moving; that would be the hard part. It would require a shift in perception quite beyond that which she had achieved by simply coming here and trying - but ultimately failing - to integrate.
Would she be up to the challenge?
