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As the tide comes in, a small body comes with it. Barely able to move his arms, the little halfling drags himself a few feet up the beach, away from the surf lapping at his legs.

Turning onto his side he stares out at the ocean. The night sky is alight with reds and yellows as the flames from a small vessel leap into the sky. Not far from the boat, another boat sails away, it's crew still rejoicing over their illgotten gains. The boy marks as well as he can the details of the boat and its crew for future knowledge, then his eyes return to the burning ship. His eyes, red from salt water tear endlessly as his chest heaves but no sound escapes his lips. He then collapses to the sandy ground, shaking in the night spray. Before long, he stills as an exhausted sleep overtakes him.

The childs dreams are haunted and nightmarish and he awakens less than an hour later with a scream in his throat. A scream that barely comes out a gurgle. He grasps his neck in pain, tears again streaming his grime laiden face. Looking out to see, the ship is no longer visible above the waters. He jumps to his feet, wincing at a pain in his left leg which almost sends him crashing back to the ground. He stares a moment longer at ocean before shuffling away to the north where he sees a road. A road that, hopefully will lead to better things.

Alan left the road towards Trolls Bane after he passed the Farmer's Union eastwards. Strolling through the wilderness heading for the coastline, he enjoyed the silence of the night.

No one else around. Peace and quiet.
Alan loved being outside the towns. He loved being on his own, only his hawk flying high above him. Shadow, the black bird, being his single companion.
The wind whispered and sang to the bard - songs about iternity, about deities and animals, lullabies and songs of love. Prayers and legends. Alans mind was far away in his own world, rhyming and trying out different melodies. As he produced no sounds, he might have looked like a lunatic walking there on his own, his eyes nowhere in particular and his lips moving and moving, never coming to a halt.

He did not recognize the small figure coming towards him. He sat down under one of the trees, still in sight of the road, and stared into the distance, really seeing nothing. Nothing, or everything that mattered, as he himself would have defined it.

The child halfling stumbled and shuffled, his mind still groggy from sleep and tears, is leg injured somehow in his flight. So wrapped in his own misery, he was almost upon the seated figure when the child noticed the shadowed figure.

He attempted a screach of surprise but only came out with a gurgle. Grabbing his throat in pain he doubled over and dropped to the ground, then realizing his peril began frantically crawlingto the opposite side of the tree, hoping desperately that he had not been seen. There he sat, shivering in fright as he awaited the outcome.

Alan still sat under the tree, and he recognized the halfling as well as he recognized the *shooo-hoo* of an owl nearby. Not at all.
Shadow, his hawk, black feathers in the night, had long disappeared for some hunt or so, knowing that his human friend would stay right where he was for the whole night, and most certainly the first half of the coming day. Alan oftenly staid in one place for a long time - meaning he wandered around, sitting then underneath one tree and forgetting he sat there.

He suddenly lifted up one hand, and declared solemnly:

"My thoughts are wing'd with hopes, my hopes with love.
Mount Love unto the moon in clearest night
And say , as she doth in the heavens move,
In earth so wanes and waxeth my... my..." he seemingly thought about the fitting word, "delight:
And whisper this but softly in her ears,
Hope soft doth hang the head, and trust she'd tears."

A grin formed on his lips, and relatively white teeth shone through the night, as he whispered: "That is not that bad after all... not that bad..."

The child jumped as he heard the person on the other side of the tree start talking, he clung tighter to the hoping, the voice would go away. Soon, however, he realized that the person was not speaking to him but rather was reciting some sort of rhyming poem like his father used to read to him before bedtime.

His shivering slowed as the poem continued and the child peered around the side of the tree, where he saw the mans hand held high. The man hesitated a moment and the child ducked back behind the tree. When the man continued, the child relaxed again, easing against the tree where he listened to the hypnotic sound of the mans voice. Soon he drifted back to sleep. His dream consisted of his sitting in his fathers lap, listening to him read from his fathers book, one of the last happy memories he had of his father, his mother was sitting in another chair, mending a work shirt. Outside the window it was raining...or, were those waves? Suddenly a face appeared in the window, learing and insane. The window smashed open and the man yelled something, "Mu..."

The child sat upright and screamed a groaning sound that tore at his still raw throught. He clutched his throat again, curled in a ball and wept in strang gurgles as tears coursed from his eyes. There he lay, in terror of the dream, the night, the world that seemed so very ready to swallow him whole as it laughed.

"That is not that bad after all... not that bad..."

Alans monologue was broken apruptly. A scream, inhumane at least, interrupted all his thoughts about dark nights full of love and sorrow. Shivering he listened out into the dark, trying to fight down his panic. Whatever was out there, it was in grave danger and pain. And if that was so, there was also some menace. An attacker.

Alan gulped and breathed through deeply, but quietly now, trying to stay inaudible. Soon the cry broke and ended in almost spasmodic sobbing, the voice luring as it was the one of a child. A child needing his help. Alan hesitated three more breaths. He heard only the child, no sign of any attacker now.

Unarmed as he always was, it took him much to follow the sound, but his heart forbid him to run away. Involuntarily brave he now scanned his surroundings, closing in on the tree... and then noticing a tiny figure, smaller than he usually imagined children outside town on their own, and that after nightfall.

His leg, injured two years past, turned his motion into a limping. Then he kneeled down, carefully reaching out one hand to touch the child's shoulder...