How did it come to this?
Loyal to her family, her lands and her people, Théadain, the illegitimate daughter of Théoden, King of Rohan, has little concern for the world that lies beyond her familiar grasslands. When all that she loves is threatened...
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Chapter 23
She was going to kill him.
She, Théadain, daughter of Théoden, would go down in history as the woman who personally throttled the Heir of Elendil and finally killed off what was clearly a line of handsome idiots.
For all his insistence that they needed to get to a place of safety, he seemed to have led them directly into a trap.
She had known little of the elves of Lothlórien, though they were closer in distance than the elves of Rivendell, there was little to no relationship between them and the people of Rohan. The elves kept their own company, shrouded in mystery as they dwelt in their golden forest to the North of Rohan, out beyond Fangorn and the Wold.
Well, she knew enough about them now to make up her mind. The haughty, silver-haired captain that led the ambush saw to that. She had not appreciated the arrows that poked into her arms as the company of elves had surrounded the exhausted Fellowship, mere steps into the promised safety of the woodland. She had cursed Aragorn's name under her breath as, for a moment, she believed they would be shot after running for hours to get away from the mines. They way the elves had looked at them - ragged, bruised and bloodstained as they were - like mud on their shoe had set Théadain's teeth on edge. If this had been Aragorn's plan, it was a terrible one. The fact that he had offered no words of reassurance as they were marched through the woods like common prisoners made her think that he thought the same.
Even Legolas, one of their own kin, was not given the chance to speak as they were hurried on, their tired feet stumbling over tree roots as night fell on the forest. Bathed in the light of the moon, they halted under a tree, an unseen signal from the elf-captain calling for a rope ladder to be tossed down from the branches above. Théadain had almost refused to climb it, in fact she was not sure she could, exhausted as she was. Nearly three days without rest, along with the emotional trauma of losing Gandalf had left her a mere shell of herself. She could barely speak, let alone climb a ladder.
She was however still certain that if the situation called for it, she could wring Aragorn's stupid neck.
Nonetheless, she hauled herself up, assisting the Halflings where she could as they struggled to navigate the swaying ladder.
"Where are they taking us?" Pippin whispered to her anxiously as she pushed him up towards the wooden platform the others had already climbed through.
"If they're not taking us somewhere we can sleep, then I'll be throwing myself off this tree." She growled, helping him up the last few metres and flopping onto the platform with a weary groan. She was so tired she felt physically sick, though she had not eaten anything in days. Slowly she rose to her feet, helping Pippin as she moved to stand by Boromir, who watched as the silver-haired captain approached Legolas and began speaking in their own tongue.
