When she sees him, Ethlyn drops everything and runs full sprint to pull him into her arms. He's older. Sadder in the eyes. But she knows the second she sees the man's face that this is Finn. He was her husband's squire but he was always so much more than that. He's family.
"Finn!" She laughs and tears prick at the corners of her eyes. "It's really you! I knew you'd find your way here eventually! Leif's told me everything. Everything you've helped him with, everything you've done."
There's so much to say. Too much to say. She doesn't even know where to start or what to feel. Maybe it doesn't matter. She hugs him tighter before looking up at him and reaches up toward his face.
"Thank you. For everything. I owe you so much."
As the young woman ambushed him, Finn could find nothing to say. No response to her tears of joy could express the mixture of confusion, guilt and joy that this moment brought him. Memories of his training rushed to meet him as quickly as he was pulled into a hug, of happier times than he had known for what felt like forever.
True, he had planned on what to say when next they met, after he set off for the desert. But those words were for a sandy corpse, and the Ethlyn in front of him was alive, and as lively as the day he last saw her.
"I could never hold you in debt, Lady Ethlyn." Finn wrapped an arm back around her. Had she always needed to reach so high to his face? "To see you safe, and know that Lord Leif has his mother again⌠you have repaid my service tenfold."
