Deorla left the kin house before dawn, cloaked in her ranger garb—muddy greens and deep browns, worn soft with years. It blended well with the trees, the moss, and more importantly, with anonymity. She carried no banners, spoke to no one. The fewer eyes on her back, the better.
Egde of Bree-land greeted her like a familiar breath: lazy mists clinging to the roadsides, the bray of a distant donkey, the sleepy shuffle of traders. Her passage stirred no alarm. A nod here, a glance away there. That was how she liked it. Just another shadow moving through hedge and hill.
It wasn’t until she reached Lone-lands that the air started to shift. The sky stretched wider out here, and the land had a way of holding silence like it meant something. Near the Forsaken Inn, she paused—instinct, maybe. A flicker of movement. Her eyes narrowed.
Alfarahil One of the now ex-kin members.
He stood off the path, talking to someone she didn’t recognize, the inn’s crumbling silhouette at their backs. He looked older, maybe wearier, but unmistakable. She ducked low, watching from behind a squat line of scrub. He didn’t look her way. Didn’t.
Still, a cold twist tightened under her ribs. He hadn’t seen her. Or, if he had, he hadn’t let it show. Either way, it was better to stay shadows. If Alfarahil saw her, others might hear. And if the others knew where she was heading... no. They couldn't.
She kept east, the wind roughening as she passed into Cardolan. The land here was barer, the sky open like a blade, but she moved with the practiced ease of someone who'd lived off it before. By mid-afternoon, she spotted a farm tucked near the bend of a hill—fences, livestock, smoke curling from a chimney. Her boots slowed.
The thought had crossed her mind before. Stealing from folk like that. They had food. They had coin. Maybe even a clean bed for a night—if they didn’t mind blood on the sheets.
But Deorla never walked blind.
She circled wide, slipping through tree and brush, quiet as dusk. That’s when she saw him. A ranger, sitting at the edge of the field, sharpening his blade like it was a ritual. She didn’t know his name, but she knew his kind.
Her teeth clenched. Too risky.
Without another glance, she turned heel and vanished into the treeline.
By the time the sun kissed the hills, she was near Sedgemead, camp set beneath the crooked shelter of old willows. Her fire was small, smokeless. Her thoughts, louder than the crackle of twigs.
(Here below are the route taken by Deorla in the story if anyone interested in any RP hook/following her/etc)
