The sky was a wash of salmon and pearl in the still hour just before dawn. Bare branches reached for the periwinkle sky, which still held a smattering of fading stars. Within the embrace of its white stone walls, the city of Snowbourn stirred to life, one smoking chimney at a time. A deep and peaceful quiet held sway in the shadowed streets, though it would soon be broken by the opening of doors, the crying of merchants, farmers, and craftsmen, the laughter of children and the neighing of horses.
Hooves were already making a lazy, uneven rhythm of stomps as the ruddy-faced woman approached the stable. Wide, velvety nostrils sent plumes of impatiently snorted breaths into the chilly air. Elfswith unlatched the half-door that led to the passage between the stalls, and chuckled softly as she stepped within. "Good morning, my restless loves," she said to the line of heads peeking out at her. She propped the door open and turned inward again, then gave a little gasp.
"Brynleigh!" she breathed out, pressing her hand to her heart. "I didn't see you there, my dear. You startled me."
Brynleigh was sat on an overturned pail in the farthest corner of the stable. A curry comb was in her hands. She lifted her pale face to gaze at Elfswith. "Forgive me, Elfswith," she answered in a quiet voice. "I couldn't sleep."
"Is something the matter?" asked the older woman, taking an apron from the hook near the door and hoisting it over her head. She paid little mind to the lack of an immediate reply, and began busying herself with tying the apron strings.
Brynleigh watched her for a moment, before lowering her eyes again. "I don't know."
Elfswith stopped in her busied movements and regarded the other woman more closely. "What do you mean, you don't know?" She strode across the space between them, her shoes scuffing through tufts of straw. "Has something happened?"
Brynleigh gripped the curry comb more tightly, turning it over and over in her hands as if it were an anchor to keep her grounded. She felt a hand come to rest gently upon her shoulder, and after a hesitant sigh, she lifted her face.
Elfswith waited in silence, studying the sapphire-like hues that looked up at her now. The younger woman's expression was difficult to read; pain seemed to radiate from her eyes, but this was nothing unfamiliar. There was something else now, something new.
"With him?" Elfswith spoke in a hushed tone, though no one was close enough to hear their conversation, save for the horses who continued to stare curiously over their stall doors, wondering what was taking so long for their needs to be met.
Brynleigh's gaze faltered a little, darting to one side and then returning to Elfswith's face. Her full lips thinned as she pursed them, and then she nodded weakly.
"But you don't seem happy," the older woman observed, hastily grabbing an empty bucket of her own and turning it upside down to sit next to her friend.
"...I don't know if I should be happy," Brynleigh murmured, puckering her smooth brow in contemplation. "Nothing is happening as I thought it would."
Elfswith reached over to lightly pat the younger woman's hand, though it still gripped the comb. "You are a person who thinks too much on things," she said. "What does your heart feel?"
Brynleigh drew in a long breath, filling her lungs as full as they would bear. Her shoulders slumped as she blew it out again, carrying her words on the air. "Too many things! I can't make heads nor tails of it." She glanced at Elfswith. "I want to think that I love him. I want to believe that I can love him. And yet..."
Elfswith waited patiently, as a woman who had endured long years and endless seasons of life with the grace and fortitude of a woman of the Riddermark. A long minute passed in silence. And then another. It was not an uncomfortable pause, and Brynleigh's grip on the comb was beginning to soften.
"Do you doubt that you would know if you loved him?" Elfswith finally spoke softly. Beyond the stable door, the sun had crested the horizon, and a cool, pale beam of light was creeping now across the floor.
"I do doubt it," said Brynleigh, without much pause. She looked up, directly into her friend's eyes. "I doubt everything about my own feelings and thoughts. I don't know who I am anymore, Elfswith." Her forehead furrowed. "Every time I think I do...something happens and I'm thrown back into feeling lost all over again."
Elfswith gave a slow, thoughtful nod. She licked her lips and turned her gaze slightly away. "Does he love you?"
Brynleigh's shoulders gave an awkward, bouncing shrug. "Oh, I don't know. He's never said it, of course. But I don't expect him to."
"It will take time," Elfswith said, her voice quiet, even, and confident. She nodded again, her eyes pensively flitting over the stalls nearby. "You suffered a terrible loss, far too soon. He has suffered much, too." She did not give any time for Brynleigh to react to this revelation. "Oh, yes. I've lived here all my days, my dear. I listen to the chatter in the marketplace and the tavern, by the wash lines and the privies. I may not know the whole story, but I know that a man does not appear from another city with a motherless child, without quite a story behind it all." She turned her warm blue eyes on the young woman. "I do not think that hearts connect without a reason. I believe our paths are laid out before us before we even begin to tread them." Again, Brynleigh opened her mouth to interject, but Elfswith pressed on without allowing it. "You want to know the end of this path, understandably. I imagine he does as well. But it is not for us to know, always. Sometimes we simply must walk, one foot at a time. One day at a time."
Brynleigh surrendered her questions beneath the tender shower of motherly advice, and expressed another deep sigh instead. She relinquished her grip on the curry comb to take Elfswith's hand and hold it.
Elfswith smiled, then reached her other arm around Brynleigh's shoulders, giving her a gentle embrace. "We'll talk more later. We've work to do."
