5 Vhalar, 716
Kaiyu snorted, and tossed her head as Lei'lira tried to put her bridle on. Lei'lira sighed at her antics. She was feeling weary, as once again, nightmares had robbed her of much needed rest. She wasn't in the mood to deal with a frisky horse. But Kaiyu needed to be exercised, and the mare's needs came before her own. So she waited for the mare to settle down before she tried again.
This time, she had more success. Lei'lira led the mare out of her stall, and put her saddle on. After leading her out of the barn, she mounted the mare. She rode Kaiyu in laps around the farm. As she did so, she alternated between using the reins, and leg cues to guide her; the former was more familiar to Lei'lira, and it was a struggle for her to remember that she had to press her leg into the opposite side of the direction she wanted Kaiyu to turn in.
After the seventh lap, she was starting to feel more comfortable with using the leg cues to guide Kaiyu. She was also wishing she had enough land create a riding trail. It would be more interesting to ride along a trail than it would to do endless laps around the farm. Lei'lira gave it two more laps before she gave up on using the leg cues. Instead, she leaned forward in the saddle while Kaiyu was walking, asking for a brisk trot.
She didn't trust her own skills to be up to handling anything faster than a trot, so she took the next few laps at a trot. When she noticed that Kaiyu was breathing heavily, she slowed the mare into a walk to cool the mare down. But as they approached the barn, a strange figure rose out of the growing shadows. It was roughly the size of a man, and it reached towards them with vaguely shaped arms.
"Lei'lira..."
Lei'lira paled. She knew that voice. It was the voice of one of the bandits; a voice she had grown to know very well while they had her captive. Kaiyu was more afraid of the creature itself, and she expressed her terror with white rimmed eyes, and ears that were pinned back against the side of her head. Without warning, she reared, throwing Lei'lira in the process. Then she bolted. The shadow creature started to follow the panicked mare.
Lei'lira had been practicing with her katana earlier as a way of building up her arm strength more than trying to improve her non existent skill with the weapon, and it was in the barn where she put it when it was time to exercise Kaiyu. She didn't know if the blade would work against something made out of shadows, but having a weapon was far better than not having one. So she raced into the barn, scooped up her katana, and dashed back out to try and protect her mare.
She didn't have to go far. The shadow creature had trapped the panicked mare against the cottage, and was reaching for her. Determination to protect Kaiyu overrode any fear Lei'lira might have felt, driving her to action. She raised the blade above her head as she rushed the monster with a yell. When she got close enough, she swung down, striking it with the blade. The blade met no resistance, passing through the shadow effortlessly. But the shadow creature reacted as if it had taken a mortal blow, even so. It shrieked in impotent rage, and began to dissolve slowly, fading back into the shadows it had come from.
Lei'lira stared dumbly at the place where the creature had been mere trills before. Then she shook her head, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand. She needed to get Kaiyu back into the barn before another of the shadow creatures could attack. It was the only thing she could think of to do; if the shadow creatures were able to pass through walls, it was unlikely that she and her animals would survive to greet another day.