The brown eyed plough horse almost reaches the town when she stops suddenly and moves her head in a wide half circle to look behind her. Her plate-sized hooves are held to the earth but she is not in a panic. Instead, she flicks her ears toward the call behind her. Atop, however, the weaver reaches for the small knife he keeps to cut twine or twist out a nail. He turns atop her broad back, gazing into the green through which they'd already passed. 

What called then? It feels like a tugging at the base of his spine. Not uncomfortable, it is as if a storm were coming. Still, no wind kicks up and there remains a brilliant day in the sky. With a shake of his head, he nudges the mare with his heels. She, however, takes a heavy step backwards, tossing her head in argument. They wrestle a moment, his legs and her stubbornness before she, with a sigh, goes as she is bid. 

The sense of storm continues to rise and Wren finds himself looking up at the sky more than once during the ride toward home. The sky, however, remains quiet and blue, with no sign of trouble, though the feeling grows until, as he pauses in town to descend and speak to Marge, he finds himself short of breath and clinging to the mare's crest, his face pressed into her neck. 

The mare turns her head and nuzzles his side, then is once again distracted by the path they have left. She whickers, as one might to an approaching horse, but nothing is there but for a child crossing the street to the baker's home. 

Marge is in her back garden, her hands deep in her tilled earth. She looks up at him as he crosses her fence line and the lines of her face deepen in sudden concern. Surprisingly spry for her age and size, she is beside him in moment, a hand to his chest. She supports him as easily as she might a newborn calf, a farmer's wife to all. Her heavy hand guides him through her back door and into the small room which is most of her small home. He is laid upon a table and she speaks not a word as she busies herself over her fire. The scent of herbs and animal fat flood the room in minutes, mixing in with the crackle of fire and the distant call of the thatcher outside on the roadway. 

“Touched,” she frowns as she comes to his side and taps his chest. The tap feels hollow, his skin too large for his frame, he can sense the knock through his entire bones to his feet. A groan emanates from his chest and he narrows his eyes against the bright light. 

“M-marge,” he croaks, then blinks at the brilliant light above her head as she leans over him. There, just there, a dancing light which winks in and out like a distant star, yet so much more bright. His hand reaches out for the light but his hand is batted and then set at his side. Far from him, he can hear her call out a name, so like a name he ought to know, then his arms are bound to his side. 

A brush of heat and softness against his cheek presses him deeper into the fit. Wren moans, some hidden furry thing within his soul curling away from the alien presence like the mouse does a storm. The world fades away. 

Marge clenches her jaw in concern, going to her pot as the weaver goes still, pale, upon the table of her kitchen. She does not sing over the herbs as is her wont. Rather, she focuses her being on protection. It seems odd that someone so tied to the land might be touched, but then, he had taken in the mage. Perhaps something had happened which offended the rocks and without the mage, there was no one left to focus their ire. 

The paste heats and bubbles and the woman does her best to not take too close note of the man who she cannot help until, with a soft exhalation of relief, she grasps the handle and draws the entire pot off the hook and takes it to his side. With a wooden spoon, she draws out the floral and fatty scented paste, dabbing it at his temples, his cheekbones, the hollow of his neck. She works his shirt open before she begins dabbing the paste at his collar bones, his breast bone, just above his navel. His shoes come off and the paste goes over the arch at the top of his foot then behind his ankles. To do more would be not a woman's place and she takes a breath, sets the pot to the ground and goes to work each bit of paste into wherever it had been set. Starting at his temples, she set thumb and middle finger at each point and set to rubbing in circles, each one going widdershins. The man did not respond, but he did not seem to sink further from her. She could do much provided he did not slip away.