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Rowan stared at the little blindfolded girl for a moment, the fear of the yew throne slowly draining from her.  She was in control of this moment.  The tall elf crouched down on level with the girl and unfastened her gauntlets at the wrist, slipping them off her hands and setting it down on the floor.  She chose to ignore the girl’s question for the moment – Rowan did have a canteen on her but she was not inclined to grant favors to unknown entities – and instead gently took the girl’s tiny hand in hers.  “Just who might you be?” she asked, trying to slip a friendly inflection into her tone.

“Faeryn,” she answered.

Rowan reflexively smiled for the child’s benefit, near-immediately dropping it since the girl was either blind or merely blindfolded.  “You know what that means, don’t you?” she asked with manufactured sweetness.  Rowan knew what it meant.  Rowan would rather the girl’s name be something else, something less…fey.

Faeryn shook her head.  “What does it mean?”

The elf tried to force a smile into her voice.  “It means ‘gift from the fairies’.”

“Oh,” the girl said.  She sounded happy about it.  “What’s your name?”

“Rowan,” Rowan answered sincerely.  Giving her real name may not have been wise, but she was proud of it.  It was the name given to her by her parents, and she wasn’t going to give that blackguard the satisfaction of dropping her name.

“Rowan is a pretty name,” said Faeryn.  “What does it mean?”

The elf smiled, genuinely this time.  “It means courage, and protection.”  Her free hand subconsciously went to her neck where the small cross of rowan twigs bound in red thread hung on a braided cord.  The cord had been found with her when she was left at the gate as an infant.  It had never left her neck.  Rowan; the perfect name for a soldier, his words echoed in her head.  Rowan quashed the thought.  I am not and never will be your soldier.  Not even if you struck me until I couldn’t stand and my blood ran true green.  

“Are you a knight?” Faeryn asked, disrupting Rowan’s thoughts.

Rowan opened her mouth to answer, then hesitated.  “Weren’t you thirsty?” she asked, pulling the canteen from her pack.  “Here.”  The elf handed her the unstoppered canteen.