lostladyofesgaroth:

Slowly, Rúna nodded. “Yes. I.. sometimes I can see images play before me but with no sound, or hear voices that aren’t quite there.” Blinking, the woman shook her head and took a step backwards. “I sound like a mental case.” She muttered, her arms curling tightly around her stomach. No wonder no one wanted her around. She was losing her mind; a complete and total nut case. And the urge to run away—all the way back to her house—hit her strongly in the chest making it hard to breathe for a moment.

She slowly raises her face and eyes to look at him when he asks her name. “It’s… Rúna. The villagers gave it to me when they found me..” Why she felt like she had to explain, she didn’t know, but she did. She had to explain that she was aware this wasn’t her true name—she had to explain because it would keep him from looking so sad. And keep her from wanting to fix that. That very want got her into trouble before. Her fingers dug into her sides trying to think of anything other than him (his name was of no importance; he was a thing, worthy of nothing but that), but her thoughts cycled back.

What if this was that all over again? What if this man just wanted to take advantage of her as well? Laugh while she cried, yelled when she messed up, threw things when he was angry? What if… what if…

She didn’t answer him immediately, so lost in her thoughts she was. Eventually, she relaxed, her shoulders dropping. “Okay. That sounds… nice.”

Nice was perhaps not the word for tavern The Drowned Fish. Like so many - if not all - buildings in Esgaroth, it was neglected, filthy, the water lapping at the wooden structure until it would one day be swallowed whole by the lake. Lost, in shadows of hues green and blue.

The alternative was to bring Rúna to the house. And that, Bard could not do. His children… their children… would be there. Sigrid trying to put together the best meal she could with what little supplies they had, Bain teaching Tilda how to tie knots and weave thick rope they could perhaps sell to or trade with some of the fishermen on the lake. Percy would vouch for them, possibly earning them an extra coin. Anything to survive another weak under the Master’s watchful eye and ruthless reign.

Seating opposite from her, Bard ordered them both a drink. Watered down and vile it would be, but this was not a tavern in which one could remain without purchase of some kind. Looking at her across the table, he felt his chest constrict painfully, not for the first time, certainly not the last. Oh, how he ached to reach out and touch her, but there was something, something in her eyes, something in the way the lines of her body tensed when he stepped close… An old pain, but not forgotten.

“You say you were found and named by villagers.” She could have been no farther than East Bight, by the banks of the River Running. Knowing she had been so nearby, all these years… The thought was enough to make Bard feel nauseous. “Have you… any friends there? A husband, perhaps?”

There. He had gone and said it. Vile though the drink in front of him might be, he took great gulps from it as he anxiously waited for an answer, dreading it all the while.