Fastvi is off, laughing as she hurtles across the fields on horseback. As Skorri is sent tumbling in tangled bruised heap Mørkedrømevandrer urges his horse forward leaping over the ditch in pursuit.

Gunnar, Freyja and Signy all watch with frustration, unwilling or unable to join the chase. Inga and Runa wait too, little Runa muttering to herself while Inga rolls her eyes at her sister's antics and then sighs with embarrassed boredom as her 'guard' Skorri tumbles into the mud.

A stooped old farmer, Old Ljot, rounds the corner from a low-thatched barn, waving his old hoe over his head yelling curses "Lazy...pig-brained wastes of breath...tearing up my field!!!!". He starts to calm somewhat as the chase resolves. Fastvi tears across the field towards the nearby treeline but Mørkedrømevandrer is close behind. The tundra elf has a knack with animals and his steed responds, bringing him alongside the errant girl.

Fastvi reigns in her horse. "Can't a girl have fun. It's all so...boring!" but she smiles as she says it, clearly happy to have had a little freedom and to have been joined in the chase by Mørkedrømevandrer. The two return to the road, rejoining the group to continue onward and leaving Old Ljot to tend his trampled fields.

..................................

Five minutes or so later the trail from Silvermeade Hall west to the Meadows crosses a larger north-south road. This is the main Coast Road and it crosses your trail here at One-Eyed Sven’s Spring. Named for the old huscarl who has taken this natural spring and enlarged it, ringing it with stone as a service to travelers and others taking the main road, the spring is the best watering hole in the area. An thin, older fellow sits under a lean-to by this spring pool whittling, a small pile of wood shavings at his feet. A hunting horn and a well-used fighting axe rest within arms reach. It is the huscarl, One-Eyed Sven who tends this spring when not called by his duties in Jarl Olaf’s hall.

He hails you as you ride up, recognising you. “Morning young folk, care for some dried apples?"