For a moment that lasted half an eternity, Xanderian stood in a back doorway of the Prancing Pony and stared at the man before her. A little older, a little more battered then she last remembered, but alike enough to her tender recollections of Hawke, her urchin, that a single tear ran down her cheek from the weight of the memory.
Then her hand dropped to the hilt of Lovelorn as an all too familiar rage took over her soul. Her voice rose to a brittle pitch that could have cut glass. "EVEN NOW? Even now when I think at last my solace may be at hand you BEDEVIL me! Away from me foul shade for I will not fall for your traps again, turning my own tender foolishness against me. Not NOW, least of all now. Face me steel on steel or tell me true what matter of unreal spirit you might be and HARASS ME NO MORE!!!"
Hawke gawked...then shrugged. Clearly he was no spirit and explained as much.
The huntress stopped and stared again, her previous rage spent like a passing storm...lifting her hand slowly from the hilt of her sword she reluctantly stretched out one finger...hesitant as if she faced a nightmare made flesh, and with her eyes closed extended her arm and pressed her fingertip against the man's somewhat smudged forehead...which was solid and did not yield.
Her eyes snapped open. "Urchin? My urchin? It tis you and not some cruel jest of my nightly torments? Your face is ageless now, after so many long ages have passed since I felt your warm embrace...a lifetime since first we met at the Pony as you hissed and spat like a wet cat lest any think you as noble as I knew you were?"
With a rush of emotion she pulled the man into her arms, hugging him so tightly for a moment he feared that she was going to slay him after all, just in case.
"Ahhhh...Xan...." he gasped. "Let me breathe...."
She reluctantly released him, and dropping to her knees wept like a child as the entire last year spilled out of her in a jumble of words. Cyndwin's disappearance and the ages spent searching the darkness uselessly for any sign of hope. Her dark path and black deeds until her love's distant voice drew her back from the abyss and set her course for stolid, pitiful Bree yet again in a fresh hunt.
Hawke listened intently, his jaded heart saddened to hear the pain in the woman's voice...a woman who tended to fill him with a cavalcade of warring emotions.
"Xan...Xan...get up...it'll be alright. I am sure you'll find her, if that is what you mean to do." He meant to draw her back to her feet, but somehow it didn't work that way and she pulled him down to kneel facing her, her bright, tearstained eyes searching his face again.
"My urchin..." she whispered, as if there were no one in the world save for the two of them. "You, my urchin, are another sign, a sign that whatever I did to offend gentle Elbereth has at last been forgiven. First she sent me the voice of my golden Aza in the darkness, and now, as I return to this place which should break my heart with memories, I find you here, waiting for me, summoning me with a tune as if you were of the Valar, creating an entire world anew with your music. My world, Son of Gondor..."
Hawke made a face and shushed the woman. He wanted none of that Gondor stuff. Hilston may have been dead but it was hardly safe in Bree, and he had no idea who else may have been looking to dig up dirt from the past. He then explained in hushed tones that he had been thinking it is time that he put Bree behind me and saw what the world had to offer.
The Huntress smiled slowly in realization, and on impulse pulled Hawke closer and kissed him long and hard, with a long year's hunger behind it as the man froze then pulled away.
Xanderian's eyes gleamed triumphantly, her mouth still hovering dangerously close to Hawke's. "It is high time you went forth my darling Urchin, for the quality of your blood must show itself in the light of day as the transition between ages is soon upon us. As Man now rise, so shall you, to take your rightful place far from Beggar's Alley, Gwa...."
He silenced her again with a look.
The Elleth caught herself and nodded, then looked up again..."And what of Love's Blade? Will the brave Audea come with you?"
A shadow passed over Hawke's face and he shook his head. He explained that Audea sought a quiet life with her sisters with his blessing, free from blood and danger. He was convinced he was going to have to do whatever he did alone.
Xanderian kissed him again, but softly, gently. "Dear, noble Urchin...I feel the pain of your heart as if it were my own, for indeed, what hurts your heart hurts mine. You shall go forth indeed, but hardly alone. I shall recover my Cyndwin and you shall ride forth with the two of us to meet your fate. Then Xanderian the Monk and Golden Cyndwin, Shieldmaiden of the Westfold and Hawke the Trickster shall challenge the very gates of time themselves."
Hawke sneered, assuming at first she was teasing him...then he saw the Elleth was as earnest as she always was.
He was about to respond when Nob pushed through the door suddenly, breaking the moment . The halfling was reluctantly holding out a bit of smudged notepaper to Xanderian. As she took it, he ran back to the safety of the common room considering himself lucky to be alive.
Slowly Xanderian unfolded the tattered, beer stained bit of paper and looked up at Hawke, her eyes like soup plates and her voice low and spectral. "It is a note that has travelled a strange path to reach Barliman for me..."
Hawke nodded. "It looks it..is it from your Cyndwin?" Xanderian's sudden change in manner was worrying him.
Xanderian shook her head slowly, scarcely able to believe the careful, well-educated penmanship on the note. "Not from Cyndwin...It is from Fillegedhiel."
