Over time, Kvothe has grown accustomed to the less endearing features of the Inlet - has learned to love them, even, as tokens of home. Bleak and blustery as it might sometimes be, Tinuvel’s northernmost shore was the place where she had been reborn. The place where her daughter had come into being. The first place that she had been truly happy. But as the last remnants of light were sucked from the sky and the shadows continued to dark around her, even the ever-idealistic mare could find no magic in the long moments of solitude and silence that followed each of her increasingly hopeless calls. She could not know, of course, that Ironclad had been ill - nor that the wind had torn the sound of her voice away from him until its abrupt shift. She only knew that she needed him, and he did not come.

When the young stallion arrived, the chestnut Friesian was weary enough - her eyelids heavy from want of sleep - that for a moment she believed that Tyr had returned. It was only when the shorter creature approached that that Kvothe recognized him as yet another stranger. Her dark eyes showed a rim of white as she stiffened with fear, unable to comprehend how history could be cruel enough to repeat itself so soon. What was it about her that drew these creatures to her, like moths to the red flame of her coat? And unbidden, in the corner of her mind, she could not help to wonder if she could truly mean that much to Ironclad, that she should face such circumstances alone once more.

No matter how desperately she tried to think only good things of her Prince - no, her King - Kvothe would never be able to forget that it was a stranger who had answered her first.

Your cry is like that of Ran… As if unable to see the uncertainty and fear broadcast by her body, the nameless male stepped closer still. And Kvothe - as if his partner in some dance - took an equivalent number of steps backwards, moving herself away from him. Her eyes, too, fell away from his; fell away from the piercing gaze that sought to probe the secrets from hers. “I - I don’t know any Ran,” she replied in a timid, barely-audible voice. “Please, I’m not who you think I am. I - I’ve never harmed anyone.”

But the wavering tenor of her voice revealed the truth behind the lie. Kvothe might not be capable of physically attacking another, but she had done her share of harm. Her mother, Ironclad, Tyr - had they not all suffered the effects of the curse that she bore? Perhaps it would be better to follow this creature willingly, if possession of her body was what he sought. Perhaps - if she were to permit that - then someone who had earned it could share in the misery that she blighted those around her with.

And then suddenly - before she could surrender - her King was beside her.

Kvothe felt the reassuring brush of his warmth against her side, but she was beyond the comfort that such touch could have previously offered. Instead, she shied away from the familiar warmth and scent of her mate, her slender limbs dancing her away from both stallions. There, she stood trembling like the last leaf trying desperately to cling to a bare branch whilst the screaming wind tore at her body.

There, she felt the echoes of pain over a year gone in the pink lines drawn across one cheek - and remembered that this first scar she’d suffered had begun in a conflict not unlike the one unfolding before her.