No Woman Is An Island

Not even the birds chirped this early in the morn. There was no breeze but a chill crept through the air. The smell of birch and fresh moss filled Amelia's senses as she hummed a low melody to herself. A bucket sung in her nimble fingers while she followed the track back from the river to her humble cottage at the forest edge.

She was no mad woman, out this early as she was this morning but for some unknown reason she had awoken in the middle of the night and had been restless ever since. Maybe it was because of the shouting she had imagined she had heard from what she was certain was the depths of the forest.

"I must be mad." She mumbled to herself, rolling her eyes.

Crazy. She must be. No one would be out that late in that Godforsaken bracken. Except her of course, she, who decided to set up home there on the edge. Amelia sighed. Loneliness she concluded. She was lonely, isolated and secluded - of her own doing of course. It was just better that way. Yes . . . It had to be that. It was the desires she quenched that must be triggering these sorts of imagings of hearing voices. Silly fool, she chided herself.

The water sloshing in the bucket was the only sound as the forest came into view. The tall trees canopying and looming overhead. High and overbearing.
A cocoon, a safe haven for a wondering soul like hers. Amelia's feet took her on a familiar and invisible path, one she had walked hundreds of times, lost in the mire of deep thought.

Self imposed exile was all fine and well. For a greater good she supposed but that did not stop the heart from wanting what it wanted. And what did Amelia Hawthorne's heart desire above all else? Adventure she purported. Experience of the world. Friendship. Connection. Love . . . But most of all home. Verden. It was a silly notion. For all of her life before she could not remember a fixed abode. Moving from one place to the next in Verden just as she was settling down and then being uprooted yet again. Yet Verden was home. But not safe. Dalen was now home. But safe. It seemed all her life, what she desired was always at an opssition in reality. She was twenty and eight and new little of the world beyond her Kelmoran upbringing and the little she had taught herself since. It was rather pathetic if she did say so herself.

Lost deep in her frustration, a small frown burrowed between her brows as she followed the path through her little wooden fence towards her cottage. She hadn't even noticed the creature grazing in her little allotment until movement in the corner of her vision startled her and she almost dropped the bucket as she gasped.

Frozen, daring not to move a muscle Amelia took in the strange creature. . . What was it? She had never seen anything like that in her life. Majestic. And eagerly devouring up her vegetable patch. When she thought she might have startled it in return, Amelia slowly lowered the bucket of water gently to the ground.

"It's . . . okay." She bent slightly, ever so slowly pulling a small turnip out of the ground. "Here." She offered it a morsel, smiling slightly not wanting to scare it away. "Enough for both of us."

(OOC - Thanks LaserSexPanther :) Think I babbled a bit but hope you enjoy it. Also mentioned the shouting in the Forest if the guys in Skeldergate wanted to stumble across us for shelter or something)