The Exile's Daughter

No Turning Aside

I grew stronger as the months in Rivendell passed me by. My training had finally been built up to five full days a week, and even I had to admit that I was improving quicker with every session. Every bruise I gained was a lesson, every fall a manoeuvre I knew how to use with more skill and agility. Even my horseback fighting was improving, though I was nowhere near where I wanted to be.

Aragorn had also taught me a little about his life as a ranger. He'd shown me how to read a story from the ground, looking at the size and shape of tracks, from men, animals and wheels alike, as well as teaching me how to build a proper fire without causing smoke and how to conceal myself completely from unfriendly eyes. He even offered to teach me how to gather food fit for eating, but I did not need that instruction any more than he. My parents had taught me such things all my life.

It could not be denied that my knowledge was growing every day, and I was also physically stronger than I had ever been. There were faint tones of muscle on my stomach, arms and legs, and I could now more evenly match Aragorn and Legolas' strength in a spar, though they would always be far larger and endlessly encouraged me to use my small height to my advantage.

It was a sunny, apparently unremarkable, morning. I woke to the sound of crunching and saw Aragorn sitting cross-legged next to me, wolfing down an apple. Legolas threw one to me from where he sat as I rose groggily from the grass. We had eventually persuaded Lord Elrond to let us leave Rivendell for a few days so I could gain some practical experience living in the wild. It was the final day, and we would turn towards home for a much-deserved rest after a long and busy trip. I was already longing for the warm bed and food awaiting me, and I could see that the others were thinking the same.

"Well, I think you've done brilliantly." Aragorn smiled as I finished my apple, throwing the core into a gnarled old oak tree for the wildlife to enjoy.

"I suppose I've been useful" I mused. "It was good to track those strange footsteps for the Dúnedain." I frowned slightly, and Legolas seemed to know what I was thinking, as he nearly always did.

"You still think there's something suspicious about them".

The tracks we'd found had been numerous and churned up in the damp mud of the lightening world on that early March weekend, and even Aragorn had not been able to say for sure what they were. To me, they had looked like Warg prints, but there were also faint outlines of boots in the mess, far too big for orcs but not nearly big enough for trolls. It had been playing on my mind ever since we'd found one of Aragorn's people bending over them in equal confusion.

"I am suspicious." I said eventually to Legolas, watching the footsteps stretch out around us in my mind's eye. "I fear something worse is to come from those creatures, whatever they were".

"I'm sure it was nothing" Aragorn assured for the tenth time. "More than likely it was a company of men out hunting".

"Men never hunt in these perilous places" Legolas said, repeating his own point yet again. "They have not hunted here for years out of fear of what may come in the night". He, like me, could feel the sense of foreboding and danger brought by the mysterious tracks. Aragorn, however, could feel no such fear, being as he was impeded by his mortality. Elves could sense these things as men could not. I wished he would listen to us.

"Aragorn, you're not treating this with the -"

"Strider!" A shout interrupted me before I could finish my sentence, and I saw the same ranger who we had found inspecting the strange tracks running towards us as if the very legions of Morgoth were on his tail. He looked a little like Aragorn, as he was kin to his chieftain, but his nose was longer, and his eyes brighter. He ground to an unsteady halt in front of us, red faced and looking grim. Halbarad was his name; Aragorn's most trusted lieutenant. He was a quiet man, who said nothing not worth saying and acted with almost hilarious courtesy towards me. I had been a little nervous meeting another mortal man, since some of their kind had harmed me so, and he must have taken that rather to heart and treated me with as much respect as he could muster. It was rather sweet, I supposed, but I would still have preferred to be treated like an equal, as he treated Legolas. The three of us rose to our feet.