The Sheriff plagued my daylight hours and my nightmares. I longed for freedom, for my little place of freedom when I'd seen him.

I did as I was bid, carrying flagons of wine that were often far too heavy and awkward for my little hands to hold properly but it mattered little to the man dressed in furs whose red cheeks showed his level of drunkenness was far beyond his ability to see reason. If the good Sheriff Vasey even knew the concept of reason though... I would have been amazed. I kept my eyes lowered as I moved around the many drunken men, it didn't pay to lift them and catch the eye of one, you'd be as good as dead or lying in their bed if you did.

I didn't know if he was there, if the man whose smile was helping to break the nightmares apart was standing on the dais with the Sheriff as he normally did. I felt someone watching me but surely it wasn't him. Sir Guy had been kind it was true but I knew my place, and it was not to be a friend of a man such as him. I was too far beneath him, he was Master of Arms and I was nothing, if not worse than that.

Then there was the crash... my musing over him had led to a disaster for me and outrage from a drunken noble, a man I didn't recognize and worse still I would face the wrath of the Sheriff. I'd fallen forward over a discarded bone perhaps and knocked the flagon I'd been carrying to the floor...

I heard him scream at someone to get me out of there and before a hand could touch me, I ran. I knew it was foolish but I wanted to escape even for a few brief seconds rather than be dragged out of there like an animal.