Homeless

The feel of wood beneath her feet - wood that wasn't bucking and twisting like an ill-trained horse - drew a sigh of relief to the woman's lips.  For a moment, her knees buckled and she wanted to do nothing more than sit and relax and take refuge in the steady, solid feel of the docks.  The desire didn't last long, however.  The stench of the city wrinkled her nose and the sounds of drunkards in the nearby taverns had her hand tightening around her willful young son's.  Despite struggling to carry her ill daughter, and the typical curiosity of young children, she tugged him along towards the gates.

There were faces here she did not want to see, people she did not want to speak to.  And try as she might, standing on the docks brought his memory to mind.

~*~

Winter snow fell on her hair and about her shoulders as she stood on the docks.  He stood there, not too far away, swathed in white until nothing but his blue eyes could be seen.  If it weren't for her nose and the ache in her breast, she'd have walked right past him without a thought.

Everything in her wanted to cry, to plead, to stay.  But there was something beneath it all.  The same willpower that'd kept her alive through many a bitter Darkfall held her shoulders back, her chin up, and allowed her to look him square in the eye.

Then she'd turned and boarded the ship, intending never to return.

~*~

Yet here she was...

Her bare toes curled into the sand of the beach as she released the lad's hand and sent him scurrying off to dance in the surf beneath the warmth of the setting suns.  Her daughter slept feverishly in her arms, giving her plenty of time to think while she watched her son with an aching heart.  He looked so much like his father...

The Gods were cruel.  She'd always known it and They'd proven it time and time again and, now, once more there was proof - as if she needed it.  Not only did They tear him from her, they refused to allow her to actually keep that distance.  They tried to seal her fate, to force her in line.  They tried, and she was firmly convinced They would continue to try.

She turned her head to look back at the looming city walls as the last rays of the sun drifted away.

In that instant, the mournful reflections on her past ceased.  Hugging the red-haired little girl close, she turned east with a defiant determination. She could, and she would, carve a niche for her children, somewhere away from the shadows of her past.

Returned

The ship rolled over ocean waves. She groaned as loudly as the swollen timbers, restlessly craving fresh air and solid ground beneath her feet.  She needed to run.  A week in the belly of a ship was enough to drive anyone mad... and she was anything but the most clear-minded of women.  She was quite sure that it was only the pitiful cries of the little red-haired girl that lay on the bunk pale, feverish, and near-death that kept her from dashing up that ladder and diving overboard.

Her daughter was ill.  The captain said it was merely seasickness, but that didn't calm the raging beast inside, the beast that would do -anything- to save the ones she loved, the few who could lay claim to her loyalties.  She'd killed before, she'd kill again... but that impulse was absolutely useless within the confines of the wooden cage.

And so she paced and more than once memory drew her lips back in a snarl that seemed awfully out of place on her feminine features.

~*~

The same woman, but so much younger, was sitting in a shady thicket with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed lawman.  Haden... Quiet conversation had passed the time.  She'd quite liked him, and then he'd done it:  He'd grabbed her.

"I'll keep your little secrets safe.  Nobody will know.  If you don't, I'll have you and your sister both arrested... it'll be your word against mine."

Her dagger had proven the better argument, and she'd left him with a nearly severed finger.

~*~

The girl, pressed against a wall, cornered by a dark-skinned, sneering Tyen.  Vasteel... She'd almost enjoyed taunting him, until he'd touched her.

"I am the law, girl.  And trust me, you'll enjoy every moment of this if you stop your struggling..."

Again, her knives had proved her saving grace... though the Tyen had managed to evade the emasculating blow.

~*~

The memories back, beyond that were hazy.  She strained for even glimpses, fragments of her past.  Bright blue eyes kept flitting to the foreground and were pushed away, forcibly.  Not that it mattered.  Every time she looked into her darling little girl's eyes, she saw his.  Still, somehow she knew that there had been other issues in her past.  There had to have been; this rage didn't spring from nowhere in her otherwise placid, quiet temperment.

Wherever they came from, they'd done it this time - no, she'd done it this time.  The forest lands of Tarkas had been her haven, the tribe she'd found there was a solace in her time of grief and need.  But now they were behind her, forever...

Those cold grey eyes - she'd never forget them.  The way his fingers curled around her arms... she shuddered still at the memories.  And this time, it hadn't been daggers that had secured her freedom, it'd been her teeth.  And he... had not walked away.  When she'd realized what she'd done, it was too late.  Too late to do anything but face the consequences or run.

And here she was on board the ship with her two innocent children, returning to a land that was just as bleak for her as the one she'd left.

She sighed and wiped a tear from her scarred cheek before turning to look over at her son.  His green eyes were the only thing that spared her the heartache of looking into the mirror of her past.  The Gods had been merciful in that, at least.  She touched the slumbering child's cheek, smoothed his long, tousled hair, and sat down on the bunk beside him, closing her eyes wearily.

Had she done the right thing?