Editing Maeryn (section)

==Introductory Story==
A fire crackled in the hearth, it's warmth beckoning people into the tavern as a cold, driving rain pattered against the roof in the night. The bard cleared his throat and strummed his lute, "Gather, gather, and listen you good people. I'll sing of one Maeryn of the Crossroads, Maeryn of the Gentle Smile, Maeryn the Maiden's Friend, none but Maeryn Thistlewind."

The bartender, a solid middle-aged woman, her left arm gone at the shoulder, laughed aloud, "Hah! You don't have to sing of Maeryn Thistlewind here, I've talked these folks' ears off many a night telling them of her!"

The bard, raised an inquisitive eyebrow, "Oh? Would you care to talk my ear off, then? I might be able to add another verse to my song."

"Aye, I can do that. You know how Maeryn sort of would, well, attract young women? Foolish girls following their hearts and dreams, thinking they saw them in her eyes. Oh, about 20 years ago, I was one of those young maids." She grinned at her own foolishness, across the gap of decades. "Like the song says, I met her at a crossroads. I had run away from home, I couldn't have been more than 16 at the time, and it was raining. And there she was, astride her fine elven steed, mule in tow, a wolf prowling by her side, and a hawk nestling under her warm cloak. Seeing all that, I knew who she was, though she wasn't half as famous then, I'd say. I remember her smile first, warm enough to make me not even feel the rain, the only thing I could see of her face under her hood. She asked me in her odd way of speaking if I would care to follow her, and laughed. Ahh... that laugh, like a young girl on a bright summer day chasing butterflies. I said yes of course. I was young, foolish, and smitten. Within a night, I was a maiden no longer, and glad of it."

She paused and poured herself a tankard of ale, drinking deeply, "That was before I met Alta over there," she nodded to the cook, "but I get ahead of myself. Five seasons I followed her, learning woodscraft and war in equal measure, whatever she took into her pointy-eared head to teach me. A dangerous life she leads, hunting down all manner of foul creatures, sometimes for bounty, sometimes for her own reasons. It was on one of those hunts I lost my arm." She drank again, frowning, "Five seasons wasn't enough to cure me of being a fool. The beast we sought was a true monster, a madman's mix of owl and bear in one crazed body. She tracked it down, and used her wolf, his name was Dwarshaer I recall, to lure it into her trap. Calling upon the spirits of the woods, they rose up as one and snared the beast and calmly as you pleased, she sank arrow after arrow into the creature. But it broke free, and charged at her. Did I mention I was fool back then? I tried to fend it with my spear, but it brushed by me and with once swipe tore my arm from my body. And that was the last I saw of Maeryn Thistlewind. When I awoke, I found that she had slain the beast and bandaged my wounds, leaving me in the care of a young tavern girl." She smiled warmly at the cook, who returned it with one of her own.

The bard bowed, "Why thank you indeed, Milady Bartender, that will make a fine--" He was interrupted by a laugh like a young girl chasing butterflies on a bright summer day. A small figure in a cloak that was at once brown and gray and shadow and light pulled back her hood, revealing long pointed ears, a cascade of strawberry blond hair, two big teal eyes, and beneath them a small mouth, the corners pulled up in a gentle smile. A red-winged hawk swooped down from the rafters and alit on her shoulder. Maeryn stepped forward from the corner table where she had been nursing a bowl of stew. The bartender stood stock still, her eyes following the lithe woman as she approached. Maeryn reached up and gently stroked the bartender's face, "Ah, Lasura, to speak of me in such terms after all this time is fit to make me blush, that it is. It does my heart good to see you happy and contented, that it does."

The crowd erupted into a cacophony of questions. The bartender yelled at them to quiet down, "Maeryn, I, what, I mean, why!?" Maeryn smiled, and tilted her head to one side as she inspected bartender and the cook, "You make an excellent couple, that you do. As to why I am here..." She pulled out a pelt from her pack, a large black-furred hide, with six legs, a pair of long tentacles, a snarling cat's face, "Would be to hunt this thing, that it is." The crowd peered at the hide. The bard cleared his throat, "Ah, Milady Maeryn, would you care to share the tale of you fight against this creature? Or am I too greedy to want two verses in one night?"

She laughed again, "I shall do better than tell, that I will." She spread her hands and twisted her finger as she chanted a short phrase in elvish. An image of the creature in life, at one quarter its size, sprang unto a nearby table. The crowd shrank back. She spoke, and as she spoke, the imaged changed and displayed her words as she reenacted the battle. The chase, the trap, the dozens of arrows striking nothing but the creature's shadow, a wolf lunging, harrying one of the beast's tentacles, a hawk swooping at its eyes, and then Maeryn astride her horse, charging, spear lowered, finally running it through from end to end.

For a long moment the room was silent. Maeryn's mouth twitched into a mischievous smile. She jumped up and waved her hands wildly causing a cloud of butterflies to swirl around her. "Smile, laugh, be joyful, that we should be! Will you not share your mirth with a weary traveler, might you not?" The room erupted in relieved laughter. The bard sang, the bartender reminisced, and Maeryn, Maeryn smiled.

The next morning, the rain continued, cold and gray in the feeble dawn. Maeryn paused at the crossroads as she sat astride her horse, her mule in tow behind her, her hawk nestled under her warm cloak. A young girl, barely seventeen, stood waiting, shivering, a pack over her shoulder. Maeryn smiled sadly. The girl spoke, "Lady Maeryn, let me follow you. I--I have nothing to keep me here. Please, show me the world like the maidens before me!" In answer, Maeryn threw back her head and howled, long and mournful, answered immediately by another howl. A large gray wolf, yellow eyes appearing first from the shadows, paced over to her. "I no longer let maiden's follow me, that I don't. Return to your home, that you should." The girl shook her head, "Please! At least tell me why!"

Maeryn looked at the girl, "The last maiden that followed me, I fed to Caerdwa, that I did." She indicated the wolf, who yawned, displaying sharp white teeth. "She was not so lucky as Lasura, that she wasn't. She tried to help me, when I needed it not, that she did. And I couldn't save her, that I couldn't. Not with arrow, or spear, or axe, or spirits of the woods, or words of power, I couldn't. Torn in two, her guts spilled out, her eyes bulging, her bowels voided, she died, that she did. And then, I fed her to Caerdwa, to honor her spirit, that I did. It took him three days to finish her, that it did." Another sad smile, "Go home, you will dream other dreams, meet other travelers, that you will."

Maeryn rode away slowly, trailed by mule and wolf, disappearing into the rain and fog. The girl stood there for several long moments, the rain plastering her cloak to her body, before she turned and walked back to town.