>>114926648Later in the journey she, due to her cowardice once again, failed to save someone. Not dead, but badly injured. And all those feelings come flooding back, and she begins to wonder if she even deserves the freedom she has at all. So she returns to the tower, and finds it empty and dark, a large hole in the side where the dragon had itself burst free, and in her old room nothing but what bandits couldn't take.
And in this freezing cold winter night she burns the bed for heat, and warming her hands she notices her gloves with the fingers worn through from labour and she thinks back on where she had been. She takes off her scarf, but it's not a scarf at all. It was her bow she had on her dress! But also used to pull someone from a river, and there was that injured woodsman, she had torn a part to tie his wound. His family were so relieved!
And her broach...Where did that go? Yes, she had sold it for that family whose father had left them, leaving behind only his gambling debt.
And looking through that old window she had always dreamed would bring a hero, she sees the sun begin to rise, the first stirring strength of springtime in its rays...
