Adara's Redeeming Quest

"I've seen your kind before."

Adara looked up from her drink. The man at the next table was looking at her, but not in a way that made Adara uncomfortable. He wasn't leering or sneering, just watching. He had a beard, and wore a leather jerkin over a homespun shirt, patched trousers and a battered hat. His boots were clean though, and supple-looking. The eyes were what Adara noticed, they were deep brown with flecks of red in them, like embers in the fading light.

"Your kind?" She asked. "What kind is that?"

"The kind that's suffering," he said. "Not for their sins though - for their innocence."

Adara nodded slowly, looking away into the firelight of the inn's hearth. "That's me alright," she said after a few moments, her voice flat and dead.

The stranger leaned forwards, his eyes intent on hers now, like he was looking for something buried beneath layers of pain. After another few moments of searching silence he sat back again and grunted at her to continue.

"I am Adara." She said simply. "Dragonrider of olden days."

He shrugged nonchalantly and took a sip from his mug of beer. "So you say."

Adara blinked at him in surprise - but there was not even the hint of a smirk on his face to suggest he was making fun of her. She decided to let it pass though - it had been so long since she'd spoken to anyone but herself that she didn't really have much by way of conversational skills any more.

"My wings are gone," she continued quietly, holding out her arms to show him where the flesh met the air between each finger as if to demonstrate their absence. "Broken off in battle with the Dark One on earth."

"Sammael?" He asked suddenly, leaning across the table towards her eagerly now. His eyes blazed with excitement and Adara felt herself shrinking back slightly from him - she hadn't expected this reaction from him at all, nor had he seemed like someone who would be familiar with such names as Sammael either...but then, who would? Wasn't Sammael still alive?

"Yes! Yes! The same! It was he who did this to me!" She cried out in excitement, tears starting to well up in her eyes now as she remembered that awful day so many years ago when everything had gone wrong...and yet it felt like only yesterday too somehow...it all felt like yesterday sometimes... "You know him!?" She gasped breathlessly as she rose to clasp his hands excitedly between hers. He smiled down at her kindly though and slowly peeled her hands away from his own as if trying to calm an overexcited child down before giving a small nod in response to her question about knowing Sammael...or rather not answering it directly by shaking his head sadly instead and muttering something under his breath about 'the innocent' before pushing himself up from the table and heading for the door without another word or glance at Adara sitting there alone now with tears streaming down her cheeks...