Story Downloaded from Open Scrolls Archive (https://www.openscrolls.net)

Title: Be Careful What You Wish For (#2893)
Author: MorwenofRohan
Chapters: 9

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Archive: Tolkien
Category: Femme Fatale
Description: Luthien is an average sixteen-year-old whose biggest problems are her name and her two younger brothers, until two bored Valar decide to give her what she idly wished for. Kind of. Free of Legolusting, Tenth Walkers, and other Suvian contaminants.
Published: 20 Aug 2006
Updated: 20 Aug 2006
Warnings:
Type: General
Characters: OFC, Original Rohirric Characters


Chapter 1 - Chapter One

Luthien slammed her bedroom door, wishing yet again she could prove she was adopted so she could get away from here. She was counting the days until her eighteenth birthday, when she could move out for good, change her name, and deny any connection to her family. She hated her name (among other things). Who in their right mind named a child ‘Luthien Tinuviel’? Her parents must have been high on something when they decided to name their children after characters from ‘Lord of the Rings’ (which, knowing them, seemed entirely likely). Her younger brothers (who were three years apart) had been named Elladan and Elrohir.

“Why couldn’t they have named me ‘Jennifer’ or ‘Heather’?” she asked her cat, Gothmog, as she sat down on her bed. “When I turn eighteen, I’m changing my name to ‘Isabel’.” Gothmog looked at her unblinkingly for a long moment, then yawned and rolled onto his side.

Luthien spent the rest of the afternoon listening to Dar Williams while she worked on the rough draft of her research paper for English on Queen Elizabeth I. She’d thought when she chose to write on how Elizabeth had been influenced by her father she’d enjoy the research, but after one day source-gathering at the huge library downtown had disabused her of that idea. Most of the books and articles were boring and dry and she was looking forward to the day when she handed in her final draft and never had to write down another quote on another notecard ever again.

She was just about to save her work when the screen turned an ugly yellow and laughing jars of Smuckers jam began to dance across the screen, followed by ‘Greetings! You’ve just been jammed by Cap’n Lonestar’ in blood-red letters. Luthien stared at the screen in mute horror as the jars and message scrolled across her screen in an endless loop. No. Not again. Not now. Not when she’d all but finished her research paper. “ELLADAN! ELROHIR, YOU STUPID LITTLE-!”

“Cursing is futile,” a voice interrupted sardonically from her doorway. “Your files have been assimilated. We’ll give them back if you’re real nice to us.”

Luthien closed her eyes and counted to ten. “Why don’t you use your skills for good, like hacking the school and failing the jocks in gym?”

“Already did that,” Elladan said, sounding smug. “We want to wait a while before we do it again.”

Luthien’s eyes opened and she looked back at the older of her two brothers, slouched against the doorframe. “When?”

“Last June. The football coach was livid when his star quarterback couldn’t play.”

“You could have changed my grades while you were in there,” she pouted.

Smug smirk. “You passed Algebra, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, because I studied like crazy for the final and did well,” she retorted.

Elladan laughed. “You couldn’t factor your way out of a paper bag and you know it. Even with me doing your homework. You owe both of us big time.”

“I’ve done your art projects for years,” she muttered, cheeks burning, “so I hardly ‘owe’ either of you anything. Thanks for doing it. Now give me my paper back.”

Elrohir appeared next to Elladan. “If you’re nice to us, Lulu.”

“Please don’t call me that,” she said, her clipped words dripping with sweetness. As soon as she had her paper back, she was going to make them pay. “What do I have to do to get my paper back?”

Her brothers looked at each other, then at her. “Clean our rooms,” Elladan said.

She felt her stomach turn over. “Other than that.”

Elrohir shook his head. “That’s the deal. Clean our rooms and you get your files back.”

Luthien shoved back her desk chair and stalked over to her brothers. “No. Stinking. Way. Your rooms are total toxic pits of despair. Give me back my school files before Mom gets home or I’m telling her you two hacked my computer to blackmail me into cleaning your rooms.”

“That’s not why I did it,” Elrohir said. “I hacked into your computer because I was bored. Elladan suggested borrowing your files so you’d do us a favor once I was in.”

“My mistake,” she said tightly. “I’ll tell Mom you hacked my computer and then decided to take my files to blackmail me into cleaning your rooms for you.” Her brothers blanched slightly, making Luthien smirk. They knew if their parents found out they’d hacked their sister, they’d be grounded from their computers (which they lived for) for a long, long time. “I want all my files back in five minutes, or I’ll also tell her that you hacked the school last summer and changed people’s grades.”

“Including yours,” Elladan said quickly. “I don’t think you want that.”

Luthien narrowed her eyes. Damn. She’d been so close to total sibling domination. “I’m still telling her you hacked my computer and took my files and I lost a good chunk of my research paper because of that and you won’t give my files back unless I clean your rooms.”

“We saved everything,” Elrohir assured her emphatically. “And you’ll get it all back.”

“I was about to save when you stole my files and froze my computer, you little turd. You know what happened the last time you hacked me.” She suddenly had an idea. “Recover what I didn’t get a chance to save and put all the files back on my hard drive before Mom gets home, and she never hears about this from me.” She gave Elrohir the Evil Eye.

After a long moment, he looked away and muttered, “Fine. I’ll get your paper back for you.”

“And put my files back.”

“Yeah.” He slumped back down the hall, muttering under his breath.

Elladan, however, didn’t move. He stared after Elrohir, and when his younger brother’s door slammed, he looked at his sister and said proudly, “Taught him everything he knows.”

She regarded him with narrowed eyes. “Only you would take credit for turning him on to high-tech espionage.”

“The CIA pays well for someone with those skills.”

She rolled her eyes and shook he head slightly. “Or he’ll end up in prison, and you’ll be his cellmate.” She went over to her desk and opened the ‘Documents’ folder on her computer desktop and checked that her research paper was there in its entirety. “Excellent. Go tell Mini Me he’s safe from Mom going lawnmower on him.”

Later that night, Luthien was curled up in the ‘secret’ room behind her closet, reading. The farmhouse they lived in had been used on the Underground Railroad, so there were several of these spaces built into the walls around the house. By chance, she’d gotten the only bedroom with a hiding space, which made her brothers green with jealousy. More than once, they’d attacked it, necessitating that her father put a lock on the closet door. For extra security, she’d put one on the inside of the entrance to Mirkwood for when she was in there. She’d wanted to call the room Imladris, but you couldn’t very well call an enclosed space Imladris, now could you?

Something began pounding on the closet-side wall, startling Luthien. “Sweet Eru on a pogo stick!” she exclaimed, sitting up and hitting her head on the reading lamp. “Ow! Damn! WHAT?”

“Let me in!” Elrohir said in a low voice. “Elladan is going to pound me to a pulp if he finds me!”

“So says the boy who came into my room and closet without permission. If he doesn’t turn you into hamburger, I will, and I’ll feed your remains to Gothmog and Beruthiel when I’m done.”

“Tee, please.” He was using his old nickname for her, and that tone! He sounded so pathetic! “Please?”

“You owe me,” she grumbled as she unlocked the panel and pushed it open slightly. Elrohir grabbed it and jerked it up, sliding underneath quickly and letting it drop back into place. Luthien pulled her knees tightly under her chin so Elrohir wasn’t sitting on her feet. “What’d you do this time?”

He grinned, dimpling in a way that always made female relatives want to pinch his cheeks. “I replaced all his MP3s with Backstreet Boys and N’Sync.”

She smothered a laugh, not wanting to encourage him. She didn’t want him messing with her settings again. “You can’t hide in here forever, Ro. You’ll have to face Dan at some point.”

“Yeah, but the longer I hide, the less mad he’ll be when I do have to see him and maybe he won’t want to pound me so bad then. Can I have some chocolate?” Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed the bag of mini Hershey bars on the floor by the reading lamp and took out a handful. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, sure, Ro, you can have a few,” she said sarcastically. He gave her an angelic smile as he unwrapped the first little bar and popped it into his mouth. “It’s not going to work, Ro. I know you too well to be fooled by the Charming Angel look.”

“So does Mom, but she always gives in to it.”

“Mom’s a sucker for dimples and puppy eyes. And that would be Dan” she added, hearing feet pounding up the stairs that were on the other side of the room’s back wall “looking for you.” As if on cue, they heard a muffled “RO, YOU’RE DEAD WHEN I FIND YOU!”

Elrohir’s eyes grew wide. “I told you he was going to pound me.”

“That’s if he finds you.” She unlocked the panel and started to open it, but Elrohir grabbed her arm. “Ro, let go.”

“Don’t tell him!”

“I’m not going to, I promise. I’m going out to tell him you came looking for somewhere to hide, but I kicked you out and I think you went down the back stairs.”

Elrohir let go of her arm. “Okay. Thanks.”

“I like your style. Usually.” They both grinned. “You owe me for this.” She crawled out into her closet, hearing the inside lock slide closed when the panel was back in place.

She followed the sounds of things being tossed around down to Elrohir’s room, where Elladan was pulling apart the closet.

“He went down the back stairs,” she said, trying not to think about the moldy plate on the dresser. “He came to me to hide, but I kicked him out.”

Elladan cursed as he crawled backwards out of the closet. “You should have let him hide and then come told me where he was.”

“And let you make a bloody mess out of my room?” she asked dryly.

“Mom and Dad would let you change your room around, like you’ve been begging them to let you.”

“Probably.” She stood back to let him out the door. “Still proud you taught him everything he knows?”

“Bite me.”

If eyes could dance, hers would have been. “No thanks. You’d probably taste nasty.” She laughed when he stuck his tongue out at her.

She did the Secret Knock on the back wall of her closet and was rewarded with the feeling of several wooden planks smacking hard into the front of her left ankle. “You could have warned me first!” she hissed as she crawled into Mirkwood. “Where’s the chocolate?”

Elrohir’s eyes grew large. “I finished it?” he offered in a small voice.

“You ate an entire bag?” Luthien echoed with disbelief. “You’re going to be up all stinkin’ night! And Mom’s going to blame me if she hears it’s my stash making you bounce off the walls. Like it’s my fault you pigged out while I was gone.” She rolled her eyes and silently counted to ten while biting the tip of her tongue. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t go and tell Elladan where you are?”

“Because if you do, he’ll kill you, too, because you hid me and lied to him.”

The kid was too damn smart. “He won’t if he knows what’s good for him,” she said, thinking fast. “Mom will nail his butt to the wall for going after me when I was only trying to keep you from being hurt, and when I tell her he helped you hack me today, he’ll be in even deeper trouble.”

“And so will I.” His voice was small and pathetic and he’d crawled up next to her, his huge, sad puppy eyes threatening to melt her resolve to use the hacking to her advantage at some point. “I put everything back. And you didn’t lose any of your research paper.”

“Which I would have if I hadn’t insisted you restore it,” she shot back.

“No, I made sure to save it before I did anything.”

“Thanks.” Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.

“If I didn’t, you’d definitely tell Mom, and she’d take my computer away, and everything I need to hack Matty Simcoe’s computer is on there. I’m really close and don’t want to stop now. Do you have anything in here to eat? I’m hungry.”

Luthien unlocked the panel and pushed it open. “Get out, brat.”

“What?”

“Get. Out. Now. You just ate all my chocolate, you only give a crap about wreaking havoc on everyone else’s computers, and you want to eat the rest of whatever I might have in here. Get out. I hope Elladan pounds you good.”

“Thee, I’m sorry about the chocolate. Really! It was just so good, and I didn’t realize-”

“Get” she pushed him towards the opening “out!” Brothers!

She locked the panel behind him and swore she’d never stand in the way of Elladan giving him what he deserved ever again. It was funny, though, replacing all of Dan’s MP3s with Backstreet Boys and N’Sync. Quite a shock for a kid who liked acid rock and ska. She giggled. He must have been livid. Violently livid, like the time she told some kids at school their parents used to call him ‘Elly’. He hadn’t forgiven her for a month.

“MOMMY! HELP! AUGH!” Elrohir’s piercing shriek was followed by a moment of silence, then the ‘whump’ of something heavy landing on furniture. Luthien grinned, trying to imagine what Dan was doing to Ro. Probably tossed him onto the sofa and was pushing his face between the back cushions, pinning an arm behind Ro’s back while Ro shrieked and cried. “MOMMY!” ‘Mommy’ didn’t answer. She likely had the door to her office shut to keep out the noise while she worked.

‘Mom should know better,’ Luthien thought to herself as she unlocked the panel and got out of the hiding space. ‘Probably assumed I’d take it upon myself to keep them from killing each other.’ Their mother always shut herself in her study at night to deal with whatever she hadn’t gotten done at the law clinic she ran earlier and all bloodshed-prevention was left to Luthien. At least, that’s how it seemed because their mother always got upset with Luthien for not preventing whatever the family’. If she wanted to baby-sit, she’d hire herself out for $8.00 an hour, not referee her brothers for free after dealing with overgrown kindergarteners at school all day. If she heard one more person call her Ginny Weasly one more time….

“Oh, there you are.” Luthien stopped short at the top of the back stairs, surprised to see her mother on the second step in front of her. “Your brothers are fighting.”

Luthien kept her face flat. “I heard. That’s why I’m going downstairs.”

Her mother’s face relaxed into a smile. “Thanks, honey. I knew I could count on you to break it up.”

Luthien feigned surprised at her mother’s assumption. “Break it up? I was going to watch and maybe offer to hold Ro down for Dan.”

Her mother frowned. “Luthien, you need to set a good example for them.”

“As opposed to what? I read and chat online and draw, Mom. Whatever influence you expect me to have, I’m obviously not having it. They’re guys, I’m a girl. It’s in their genes to beat the cr-ud out of each other. Don’t blame me for how they act.”

Her mother didn’t look convinced. “Could you get them to stop? I’m working on an important case, and the yelling is distracting.”

“Aren’t you always?”

“Excuse me, young lady? I asked you to please help me out while I’m working on something important. Don’t talk back to me!”

“You always lock yourself away in your office at night and when the hellspawn-”

“They have names, Luthien.”

“When Dan and Ro do anything that even remotely distracts you from your stupid legal work, you yell at me and tell me I need to be a good influence, as if I haven’t been doing a good enough job leading them to the path of goodness and light. News flash: they don’t care what I say and if they’re not listening to you, don’t yell at me. You’re always yelling at me about how they’re using their computers after you tell them to go to their rooms. That’s where their computers are, Mom! You send them up here, all they do is spend the rest of the night on their computers, playing games and Elrohir will be working on his latest computer hacking efforts.”

“Computer hacking?” Her mother sounded skeptical.

“Yes. He drives Dan and me nuts messing with our systems and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s hacking other people now, too.”

“Where would he learn how to hack? He hasn’t had any computer classes at school.”

Luthien tried not to roll her eyes. “Yes, he has. For three years now.”

“He has?”

“Yes. They started that five years ago. It was announced in the school newsletter.”

Her mother looked confused for a moment. “Oh, I must’ve forgotten about that. They teach the kids how to hack? That doesn’t sound right.”

“No, he learned that elsewhere.”

“Where?”

“Online. Where else?”

“You’re sure?”

Luthien took a deep breath to keep her from losing it. “Yes.” ‘No,’ she thought to herself sarcastically. ‘I’m not, actually. I just pulled that out of my butt because it sounded real good.’ “Among other places.” She leaned against the wall.

“Why didn’t you tell your father or me?” her mother asked, a slight edge to her voice.

“He hasn’t been enough of a threat to national security to justify scheduling an appointment with either of you yet.” Elrohir shrieked for ‘Mom!’. “We can handle him on our own right now.”

“I can hear that.” Her mother was definitely Not Happy with her.

She shrugged. “Dan has his ways, I have mine.”

Their mother gave Luthien The Look. “I have a son to rescue. We’ll finish this talk later.”

“So you’re actually going to be a parent for once,” Luthien muttered under her breath, staring after her mother running down the stairs and yelling for her brothers to “Stop it now! I said NOW!” Well, there went all the excitement for the evening. She turned and went back to her room to see if Trish was online. They hadn’t finished talking about Michael Burns and how Luthien should go about asking him to the prom next month during lunch.

Thundering feet on the stairs, yelling, crying, their mother demanding Elrohir “Get back down here RIGHT NOW, young man!”. Her door flying open and Elrohir cursing at her in Sindarin.

“You told her!” he yelled. “You said you wouldn’t!” He grabbed her Figwit-signed copy of ‘Lord of the Rings’ and tore a handful of pages out. “You lied!”

“YOU SHIT!” She scrambled off her bed, across the room to her bookcase, and wrapped one arm around his neck and grabbed the book with her free hand. “I’m going to fucking kill you, you little bastard,” she spat through clenched teeth, so furious she couldn’t see straight. “I’m going to choke the living shit out of you for this.”

“MOMMMMMMMM!”

“Shut up!” She tightened her hold on his neck. “That was ‘Lord of the Rings’, you shit. My signed copy. And you tore pages out of it because you’re all pissed Mom busted your ass. How’d you like it if I came in to your room and tore up your first-edition ‘Silmarillion’?” She pried the torn pages out of his hand. “Or maybe your Topps cards? That’s not a bad idea, actually. I’ll go do that now.” She let go of his neck and shoved him away from her. “I’ll flush every single one of those cards.”

Hands grabbed her arms. “Thee, I know you’re really mad, but you need to calm down.”

“He tore up my ‘Lord of the Rings’, Dan,” she spat. “Because he’s pissed he’s in trouble.”

“He was turning blue, and you promised you wouldn’t tell Mom about today.”

The bit about ‘turning blue’ penetrated through the angry fog in her brain. “I didn’t say anything about today. Only that he’s hacked into our computers before.”

“What happened today? And what’s wrong with Elrohir?” Their mother pushed past her and Elladan to pull her youngest son into her arms.

“Dan didn’t give me a chance to finish choking the little shit for tearing apart my ‘Lord of the Rings’,” Luthien answered.

“You were choking him? Sweet Eru! Elrohir, are you all right? Luthien, how could you?”

Luthien smiled weakly, her eyes connecting with Elladan’s. “Oh, it’s easy. Just put your hands around his neck and squeeze until he stops trying to pull free.” Elladan squeezed his lips together, obviously trying not to smile.

“That’s not funny!” their mother exclaimed. “Hurting your brother like that!”

“I wasn’t trying to be. Dan, you can let go. He’s safe.” Elladan let go of her arms and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “For now. Mom, he just came bursting in and saying I lied, and then he grabbed ‘Lord of the Rings’, the one Dad gave me and I had signed when we went to L.A, and just grabbed some pages and ripped them out.” She felt herself tear up as she said it. “The book is ruined.”

“I’m sorry. But that’s not a reason to choke your brother.”

She turned a hard stare on Elrohir. “Your ‘Silmarillion’ is confetti, and so is your Hugo Weaving picture. And-”

“You’re not doing any of that,” her mother interrupted sternly. “Destroying his things isn’t going to make up for what he did to your book.”

“No, but it’ll feel good,” Luthien shot back grimly.

Her mother sighed, gave Elrohir another once-over, and stood up and walked over to Luthien. Putting an arm around her shoulders, she said, “I know how much that book meant to you. And I am sorry.”

“It was signed by lots of the stars. What good is it now?”

“I know. When I was living at home, one of your aunts got mad at me and threw out about half of my 45’s, many of which were hard to get.”

“What’d you do?”

“Tried to pull her hair out. Gramma stopped me and made Jeanne pay to replace every 45 she’d thrown out.”

“How long did that take?”

Sigh. “A while. But Jeanne didn’t go out on the weekend during that time, either, so it wasn’t all bad.” Shoulder squeeze. “Don’t worry.”

‘Right’ Luthien thought. Good luck making up for this.

Her mother walked back over to Elrohir. “You are in deep trouble, young man. Not only for hacking your sister and brother’s computers, but for destroying your sister’s copy of ‘Lord of the Rings’ for absolutely no reason.”

“She lied to me!” Elrohir protested. “She said she wouldn’t tell about today!”

“What happened today?” their mother asked. “Elrohir?” Silence. “The longer you wait, the angrier I get.”

“He hacked into Thee’s computer and took her files and was going to make her clean his room to get them back,” Elladan said.

“You helped me!” Elrohir shot back. “You were going to make her clean your room, too! And taking her files was your idea, not mine!”

“Prove it! Mom, he’s making that up. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“You stinking liar!” That was Luthien, now ready to pound both her brothers. “You were right there alongside Ro, demanding I clean both your rooms to get my files back! And I didn’t tell Mom about today, you little turd. I kept my promise. All I said was that you’d hacked into my and Dan’s computers. I didn’t tell her when.”

“QUIET! All of you.” All three kids fell silent. “Elladan, I’ll deal with you in a minute. Go to the kitchen. Elrohir” she looked down at her youngest son “you and I are going to my office to have a chat.” Hand firmly on his back, she propelled him forward and out of Luthien’s room, closing the door behind them.

The silence was deafening. Woodenly, Luthien walked over to her bed and flopped down onto her back. “They should have been drowned at birth. They’re the spawn of Morgoth. Especially Elrohir,” she said to the ceiling. “I can’t believe he tore up my book. No way Mom can do anything that’ll make up for that.” She sighed deeply. “I hate my life! Everyone at school thinks I’m some kind of freak and that I like being named all weird, and they think they’re so damn smart by asking me if my parents were going to name me after a character in a book, why didn’t they name me Ginny? I’m sick of having to deal with Morgoth’s spawn. I’m sick of being treated like a bloody babysitter so Mom can spend all night in her office and spend more time on her clients than she ever spends with us. I’m sick of Dad working all the time in that crappy walk-in medical clinic because he thinks everything will fall apart if he’s not there. I’m sick and tired of being trapped in this pink nightmare of a bedroom! FUCK!” She jumped up and pulled the bedspread off the bed, dragging it behind her as she walked over to the window. Letting go of it for a moment, she threw the window open, shoved the screen up, then reached down and grabbed up the bedspread, pushing it out the totally open window. When she head it ‘plop’ on the ground two stories below, she grinned. That felt good! Energized, she went back to her bed and snatched up the decorative pillows and threw them out the window. In short order, everything pink, frilly, ruffle-y, lacy, or daintily femme joined the pillows and bedspread on the ground below.

“And now, the finishing touch,” she said brightly as she carried a bucket of water into her room from the bathroom across the hall. “Add black ink to water” she opened the pot of black ink she used for calligraphy and poured it into the bucket “stir, and dump on pile of Pink Nightmare” she hoisted the bucket up to the window and tipped it towards the opening, smiling when she heard the black water hit the pile below. “Let sit overnight. Serves one with an excuse to re-decorate and not live like a six-year-old.”

Feeling slightly better, she went downstairs to make some tea. Elladan was at the kitchen table, looking cross. Luthien ignored him, not wanting to get into another fight. Not tonight. For all she cared, he could be grounded from his computer until he graduated high school. The only person he cared about was himself and he’d let someone else take all the blame for something he’d been involved in if it meant he wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences. ‘If there was ever been a real Elladan, he’s rolling in his grave that my brother is named after him,” Luthien thought smugly to herself as she poured hot water over a strawberry teabag and set a bowl over the mug so no steam would escape while the tea steeped for ten minutes. ‘Wouldn’t be surprised if Real!Elladan started haunting my brother in retaliation for giving his name a bad name.’ Not a bad play on words. Maybe she had a future in speechwriting.

When her tea was ready, she added milk and cream and went back up to her room, hiding away in Mirkwood. “What I wouldn’t give,” she said with a sigh, “to be in Middle Earth right now, mingling with elves and sons of Man, but especially elves, and not dealing with two little brothers that should have been drowned at birth.”

A light, tinkling laughter came from somewhere behind her and over her head. “At least this one has read the Red Book,” a barely-audible female voice said, sounding very amused.

“And she’s not wishing for Legolas to fall in love with her, thanks be to Eru,” another voice said, male this time and also barely audible. “One of those had Mirkwood in an uproar for decades.”

The female voice made some kind of noise that sounded like a groan. “Don’t remind me.”

During all of this, Luthien was turning around and looking for any cracks where voices could be coming through, but found none. Odd. But who would be talking about her and wishing for Legolas to fall in love with her? Was she cracking up? Was this a sign? Would she see little men next? It wouldn’t surprise her if she was, after the day she’d had. Those two beasts were enough to drive anyone over the brink. She tried wiping out the insides of her ears with her pinkies, but the voices were still speaking. She must be going crazy. Ah, well. May as well enjoy it. She rested her back against the rear wall of the space and slid down into a sitting position to listen to what the voices were saying.

“So we’re agreed,” the male voice said. Luthien blinked. What had she missed?

“Yes. Tomorrow, after Afternoon Tea.” The female voice laughed again. “What is it Men always say? ‘Be careful what you wish for’?”

“Yes. But you forgot the last part. ‘Because you just might get it’.” Both the voices laughed. “If they knew we were listening, they’d probably be more careful.”

“Men were always foolish,” the female voice said indulgently. “Some things never change. Now, about those storms in northern China. Do you think….” The voices faded to nothing, leaving Luthien extremely confused as to what had just happened. Had the coffee creamer gone bad and triggered hallucinations? She looked down at her mug for a moment, then set it at the far end of the space. No more of the tea, just in case. She didn’t want to end up seeing elves two-stepping around her bed later. Or maybe she was simply loosing her mind and she’d end up in a rubber room talking about the little green men tap-dancing on the ceiling. She giggled. That could be interesting, tap-dancing men on the ceiling. Maybe they’d take requests.


Chapter 2 - Chapter Two

DISCLAIMER: If you recognize a person, place, or thing from Tolkien’s work, it’s his. I’m just playing in the sandbox he created, to paraphrase Novidhelion, a fellow fanfic writer. I lay claim to everything else.

The sound of Galadriel talking about becoming a dark queen pulled Luthien out of a very nice dream she’d been having that involved Figwit, chocolate, and body massages. Supremely annoyed at the untimely and very unwanted intrusion, she rolled over and slapped at her alarm clock. “I hate mornings,” she muttered groggily under her breath. “Wish I had a ring. I’d make school start later. And ban math.” Which reminded her she had a test today and she hadn’t studied. Groaning, she pulled her pillow over her head and tried to think of a way to convince her mother she was sick that she hadn’t used a million times before.
Someone was shaking her. “Luthien, it’s seven o’clock,” her mother’s voice said. Whatever. She had fifteen minutes until she had to catch the bus. And she was in bed. Oh. Crap.
“Thanks, Mom,” she said, bolting upright and trying not to start cursing. “Could you put a Pop tart by the front door for me to grab on my way out? Thanks.”
“I already did,” her mother said dryly as she left. “I know the routine.”
Luthien stuck out her tongue at her mother’s back. She didn’t have to rub in Luthien’s habit of seriously oversleeping. She always made it to the bus, didn’t she?
Trish was waiting for her at the back of the bus. “You will not believe what I heard about Orlando Bloom,” Trish gushed as Luthien sat down next to her. “He broke up with Kate whatshername and is moving to America!” She giggled. “Now all we have to do is find out what city and go find him!”
“He’ll have scads of security and where he’s living is going to be top secret.”
“I’ll look his phone number up online.”
“It won’t be listed under his name, if it’s listed at all, or everyone would find him that way.”
“Oh.” Trish’s face fell. “Then how am I going to find him?”
“Hire a PI and have them track Orlando down?”
“Already tried that. They all laughed.”
“Guess you’ll have to wait until then.” Luthien patted her arm. “Sucks to be sixteen.” She was going to hire a PI to find Figwit. She needed a man who knew elves weren’t Santa’s helpers, unlike most of the morons at school. “Ro the Demon Spawn hacked my computer yesterday and then hacked Dan’s later and Dan tried to kill him and I wanted to go watch but Mom stopped me and I mentioned to her that Ro’s hacked our computers and Mom busted his sorry butt and he came tearing up to my room and tore a wad of pages out of my copy of ‘Lord of the Rings’, including Figwit’s autograph, because he thought I’d ratted him out on what he did earlier after I promised not to. Mom and Dan stopped me from killing him. Mom says she’ll take care of it, but how can she? Dad gave me that copy years ago, and where’s she going to get Figwit’s autograph?” She sighed deeply. “Brothers suck.”
“So do sisters,” Trish added. “They use all your stuff and leave it all over the bathroom or totally destroy it and then don’t replace it. And they’re always taking your clothes without permission and then not washing them before they give them back.”
“Nasty. I’m glad Ro and Dan don’t do that.” She shuddered a bit at what kind of condition her clothes might come back in if they ever borrowed something. If the clothes ever came back…. “So, how should I ask Michael Burns to the prom? I’m so nervous!”
At the end of third period, asking Michael Burns to the prom was the last thing on her mind. How she was going to explain to her parents why she’d totally bombed the geometry test she’d just taken had her full attention. She had to spend more time studying. There was no way around it. Ro could hack in and change her grade at the end of the year, but until then, she’d have to endure being lectured by her parents. Just because they were good at math and her brothers were Einsteins with it, they seemed to think she just wasn’t trying hard enough. “I’m right-brained,” she muttered as she violently twisted the combo lock on her locker. “Art is my thing, not figuring out the area of an equilateral triangle.” Not like you needed that stuff anyway.
“Hey, Luann,” a deep voice said to her right. She tried not to start grinning like a fool. Michael Burns!
She turned slowly, trying to look non-chalant. “Hey, Mike. What’s up?”
“I was wondering if you-if you’re planning to go-if you’re interested, if you’d like to go to the prom with me.” He seemed relieved to have it out.
“Yeah, that would be great.” She was amazed at how calm she sounded.
He smiled, making Luthien feel a bit weak in the knees. He had a great smile. “Great. We can figure out everything when tickets go on sale.”
“Sounds good.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t move.
Luthien watched him watch her and wondered if he was sticking around to kiss her. That would so totally rock if he did. She’d never been kissed before, and she was sure Mike would be an awesome kisser. So why did he keep standing there? She licked her lips and leaned towards him slightly.
The bell rang, making them both jump. “I gotta get to chemistry before Tate kills me for being late again,” Mike said quickly. “I’ll see you later!”
She stared after him, stunned. Why hadn’t he kissed her? Jerk! He must have known she wanted him to. He was such a jerk, standing there like that, letting her think he was going to kiss her when he wasn’t going to at all. And he never got her name right! Luann, indeed! Why couldn’t her parents have named her something easy to remember, like ‘Molly’ or ‘Anna’? She slammed her locker door shut, then remembered her backpack was inside. Grinding her teeth, she opened her locker and grabbed her books and backpack and sprinted off to English.
She gave Trish a run-down on her day on the bus home. “Yeah, I was totally bouncing off the walls that he asked me,” she said, grinning “but then he just stood there and I thought he was going to kiss me but he just ran off when the bell rang, saying he didn’t want to be late for chemistry again. Why are boys so stupid?”
Trish shrugged. “I don’t know. But he asked you! That’s great! We need to go dress shopping. Find out what color his cummerbund is going to be so you can get a dress to match. Or tell him what color your dress is so he can get a cummerbund to match. And find out where you’re going to go for dinner, and me and Brad and you and Mike can all go to the same place and we can share a limo.” She squealed. “We could get similar dresses, so we’d match, and then Mike and Brad would have matching cummerbunds. We’ll look great in the pictures.”
“That’s a great idea!” Luthien exclaimed. “IM me later and we can talk about what to wear. I have to study math this afternoon. Totally bombed the test today, I’m sure of it. I’ll get chewed out by Mom and Dad because I’m not a math genius like Dan and Ro and they’ll practically ground me so I can spend all day on math, which you know I suck at even when I do study all the time.” Trish nodded sympathetically. “I ace every art class and I’ve won awards, but they don’t seem to care. All they care about is math and science and all the boring stuff.”
“Parents always do. They’re evil like that. Oh, it’s your stop!”
Luthien jumped up. “Talk to you later!”
The afternoon was warm and breezy, so Luthien took her time walking back from the bus stop. The bugs were buzzing loudly in the fields on both sides of the road and butterflies were floating from flower to flower. Occasionally, she saw squirrels in the trees, chattering at each other or leaping from one branch to another. She smiled. Maybe she’d just spend the afternoon studying outside and enjoy the weather before things got cold and ugly.
A rabbit dashed into the road, and then stopped dead on the center line. Its dark eyes, large and dark, darted around looking for danger while its little nose twitched, smelling for threats. Its ears were laid back against its mottled grey body, making it look like one of Luthien’s stuffed animals. She stood still, watching the rabbit, smiling at how cute it was. Maybe if she stayed outside, she’d see more rabbits. Definitely a reason not to go home right away. She started walking again, heading for the rabbit to get it out of the road before a car came flying through (like they always did) and turned it into a bunny pancake.
The rabbit took off quickly, heading straight into the field like Luthien thought it would. She kept on straight, using her hands to push the chest high grass aside when she entered the field, aiming for the small clearing on the edge of the woods that ended near her house.
On a whim, when she reached the woods, she kept going. There was a great climbing tree not too far back with an awesome branch to sit and read on. She could study up there and watch the ground below for wildlife. And who knew? Maybe a squirrel would come to visit her while she was up there. That would be awesome.
“Let the fun begin!” she thought she heard a female voice say, and then there was the same laughter she’d heard last night. Luthien stopped walking and shook her head. She hadn’t had any more of that creamer and she’d gotten enough sleep, so it couldn’t be hallucinations. And she hadn’t had to deal with Morgoth’s Spawn yet, so it couldn’t be that either. Maybe she was just hearing things. Probably. She started walking again
And broke through the trees, stepping out into a huge, rolling, grassy meadow. Where the heck was she? Had she somehow gotten turned around weird and come out a different edge of the woods? She didn’t think she had, but it was easy to do when you weren’t paying attention. ‘Better go back and get my bearings’, she thought to herself as she headed back into the woods. No way she wanted to be lost when the sun went down. That would suck. Weird people came into the woods at night, and she didn’t want to be there when they did.
Eru only knows how much later, Luthien was getting panicked. She couldn’t find her way back to the grassy field and the sun was getting lower in the sky. “HELP!” she yelled, hoping someone would hear her. Maybe Dan and Ro were outside. Or Mom was home, and they were looking for her. They’d hear her and come looking. She sat down at the base of a tree. “HELP ME! ANYONE! HELP!” Silence.
More time passed. Luthien was hoarse from yelling and sick with worry. She’d never gotten lost in the woods before, not even when she’d first started going into them. So why was she lost now? “Mommy,” she whimpered, resting her forehead on her knees as she started to cry. She just wanted to get out of the woods and go home. She wanted to sit down at her computer and talk with Trish about the prom. She wanted to hear Ro come running to her to hide her from Dan, or watch Dan pound Ro for whatever the little twerp had done this time. She felt herself smile. Watching those two was better than anything the WWE could come up with.
Her head jerked up with a start. It was completely pitch black now, and somewhere near by, something was breathing loudly. And it was getting closer. Luthien sat, frozen, terrified at what might be lurking behind the tree, about to pounce on her. “God, help,” she murmured softly. “Don’t let me get eaten!”
Without warning, she suddenly found herself pushed backward onto the ground, paws on her chest, extremely rancid dog breath assaulting her nose as whatever animal that had just pinned her to the ground panted. She figured if it wanted to eat her, it would have already tried to, and her friend, Becky’s dog had managed to pin her like this a few times when it wanted her to play. She reached up blindly and felt around for the dog’s face. It seemed friendly enough.
She shrieked when the dog licked the palm of her hand and then snuffled at her face for a moment before licking her from nose to chin. “Getoffame!” she said in a rush as she sat up and pushed the dog off her chest. “Do not do that again. Your breath stinks and Eru only knows what nasty stuff is in your mouth. I need a shower.” She wiped her face on her sleeve, hoping she wouldn’t come down with a rare and disgusting disease from this stinky dog.
The dog circled a few times and plopped down, resting its front paws and head on her leg. Luthien looked down in the direction of the weight on her leg, wondering where the dog had come from. Probably a stray that had wandered into the area. She gingerly felt for the top of its head and patted it, deciding she was glad the dog had found her. She was definitely glad for the company, and in the morning, maybe it could help her find her way out of here and back to food and clean clothes. Sighing deeply, she pulled her leg out from under the dog, grabbed her backpack, and tried to make a halfway decent pillow out of it so she could get some sleep before dawn.
Five minutes later, she dumped the books out and stuffed the backpack with leaves and whatnot off the ground. No way she could sleep with books for a pillow. Way too hard. Eru only knew if this would be any better, but it sure couldn’t be any worse.
Figwit was kissing her passionately, sucking on her ear, her chin, her nose. “mmmmm…yes,” Luthien said, laughing softly. This was the way things should be. It was about time he saw she was just a simple Dunedain maiden that wished to make her home among the Eldar, and not there to seduce Elrond’s sons. He, on the other hand, was fair game. And now, after months of anxious waiting, he was here with her, licking her-
Luthien’s eyes flew open and saw the dog licking the side of her face. “I hate you,” she muttered sleepily. “You made me think you were Figwit. Stupid dog.” She should have known elves wouldn’t do something so tacky. But it was light, so it was time to get up and get out of here. “Let’s go. When we get back to my place, I’ll get you some food or something.” Mom would have a fit, her showing up with a stray, but she’d convince her the dog helped her find her way out and deserved some food in thanks.
The dog bounded ahead several yards as soon as she was on her feet, stopping and looking back at her. “Just a minute, dog.” She dumped the leaves out of her pack, stuffed, the books back in, and headed after him. When she almost caught up with him, he moved ahead again and waited for her to catch up.
He stayed ahead of her like this until they reached the edge of the woods. Luthien stepped out into the open (another field) and, with a start, realized the sun was almost at its peak in the sky. “What the hell is going on?” she exclaimed, tendrils of fear snakiing around her gut, threatening to squeeze and make it hard to breathe. “Where am I?” She looked back at the dog. “Mutt, where are we? Where do you live? Take me to your master.” The dog looked at her, panting, tail wagging. “Let’s go! Home!” The dog stood, but didn’t move. “Or Imladris. Your choice.” His tail began wagging faster. “You know where that is?” ‘Stupid dog’, she thought. “Let’s go to Imladris! Yeah, let’s go!” The dog trotted forward a few steps, and when Luthien moved to step forward, he took off away from the woods into the field, stopping up ahead and looking back at her. Laughing under her breath, she walked quickly towards him. Hey, whatever got him moving towards somewhere with a phone and food.
The field shouldn’t be this large. That was Luthien’s first thought when she realized the sun had sunk significantly in the sky and she and the dog were still walking without any sight of houses or roads. The field had turned more into a flat, grassy plain by this point, stretching unbroken in all directions as far as she could see. “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” she muttered under her breath. “I have no idea where we are, actually. But I need to stop.” She sat down and flopped back, her feet screaming with relief at the lack of pressure on them. “Oh, sweet heavens above, yes, this is wonderful!” she sighed, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.
The dog licked her cheek. “Hello, Dog.” It licked her cheek once more and sat down next to her. “I wish you could speak and tell me where we are and how you found me and where you’re taking me. But you’re a dog, so you can’t.” She turned onto her side so she was looking at Dog. “I’ll trust you’re not leading me to any balrogs or orc patrols or white slavery or anything really evil, so wherever we’re going, let’s get there fast. I’m very hungry.” The mention of her hunger make her mouth water and her stomach growl loudly. Dog stood up and stared at her gut curiously. When it didn’t growl again, Dog sat back down. “Go hunt for food or something. Bring me a rabbit. Or something.” Dog didn’t move. Luthien pursed her lips and, for lack of anything else better, pulled up a handful of grass and ate it. It didn’t taste too nasty, so she ate a few more until her stomach felt fairly full. She was so going to scarf burgers, fries, and chocolate when she got home to make up for having to eat grass. And why wasn’t anyone out looking for her? She’d have words with her parents when she got home.
The sun was just starting to set when a small hut, smoke floating out of a chimney, appeared on the horizon. “Finally!” Luthien exclaimed. People! Maybe they had a phone or something, and they could help her get back to civilization. Through her parents, she knew, or was at least familiar, with all the hippies and New Age-type people in the tri-county area. Hopefully, they’d remember her and give her something to eat and clean clothes and take a bath. Or maybe just feed her. She’d deal with the rest after she ate. The grass had only lasted just so long.
Luthien began running and Dog followed suit, quickly outdistancing her to the hut, barking loudly the whole way. Someone came out and looked in the direction of the barking, exclaiming something when they realized it was Dog. Dog jumped up on the person and allowed his head to be scratched, then dropped down and started back towards Luthien, sitting down about halfway between her and the person. The person shouted something, but Dog didn’t move. The person shouted again and, when Dog didn’t move, started out towards Dog.
Luthien, clutching the straps of her backpack tightly, also started walking towards Dog. She sent up a silent prayer things would go her way.
As she and the person drew closer to Dog, she saw the person was a woman wearing a brown dress under some kind of dark cream-colored smock. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a bun that looked like it was coming loose and, even at a distance, she could see deep lines in the woman’s face. Luthien stopped walking, the fear from last night returning. She’d never seen this woman before. She would have remembered someone who looked as much in need of facial moisturizer as this woman did. Where was she?
Dog led the ugly woman over to Luthien and gave a short bark, looking at the woman and then at Luthien. When neither person moved, Dog barked again, looking between the woman Luthien. The woman, face unreadable, asked something Luthien didn’t understand. Luthien shrugged and tried to indicate she was confused. The woman repeated the question, slower this time, but Luthien still had no idea. She shook her head, shrugging again. Why didn’t the woman just speak English? Was she an immigrant that hadn’t bothered to learn English? Her parents thought people like that should be made to go to government-sponsored programs so they could learn enough English to get a job and make a better life for themselves. She’d never had to deal with anyone like that, but if this was what it was like, she was with her parents. Those people really needed to learn English so people could understand them. And they were in America now, so they needed to speak English. Maybe she could teach this woman some English. Her dad would like that she had helped someone.
A tug at her sleeve brought her out of her thoughts. Looking down, she saw Dog tugging on her sleeve. The woman was saying something and gesturing towards the house as she walked in that direction. Luthien nodded and started after her. Dog dropped her sleeve and ran ahead, occassionally running back to Luthien.
The reek of unwashed bodies, animal poop, burned food, and other things Luthien couldn’t identify, and wasn’t sure she wanted to, hit her nose before she reached the house, making her dry heave a few times. Oh, Eru, what was she getting into? Who lived like this anymore? She was so going to tell the police about this place when she got home. It wasn’t healthy.
The reek got stronger as she drew closer to the house, causing her to fall to her knees about fifty yards away and puke until her gut muscles were aching. When she got back to her feet, the woman was standing by the door, an annoyed expression on her face. ‘It’s not my fault you can’t keep your house clean’, Luthien grumbled to herself as she plodded up to the house, holding her nose. If she wasn’t so hungry and it wasn’t dark she’d go back to the woods and take her chances finding her way home.
The inside of the house was surprisingly clean. There were a few barnyard animals at the far end, a trough near their back ends scraped mostly clean. A few lamps were along the walls, guttering slightly as they burned some kind of really obnoxiously smelly oil. Over the fire, a pot hung from an iron hook, whatever was inside bubbling. The few windows were covered with some kind of opaque material that, when the sun was out, must let in some degree of light. There was a long table not far from the fire and a stack of mats by the left wall, she assumed, were the beds. But where was everyone else? The only person she’d seen so far was the woman.
A hand grabbed her arm. Luthien jumped and looked over, seeing only the woman, who was holding a wooden bowl of something grey and steaming. The woman nodded her head at the table. Luthien took the bowl and went over to the table. That had been easy enough to figure out. But where was the spoon? She looked back at the woman, whose face was blank. Okay, no silverware. This was definitely strange. Like going to Medieval Times, except it wasn’t a show and the food definitely didn’t look, or smell, as good as what they’d had there. Not that the food there had been good, but she was sure it had been better than this would be. Luthien picked up the bowl and took a tentative sip. Yeah, Medieval Times had definitely had better food, but, right now, she didn’t care. This was food, even if it was tasteless and greasy, and she was hungry and she’d get picky when she was back home.
The woman stood next to Luthien while she drank the soup, and when the bowl was empty, the woman took it from Luthien’s hands and, using a piece of coarse brown bread, wiped the bowl with the bread and lifted the break to her mouth, but instead of eating it, she handed it to Luthien. Guessing she was supposed to eat the bread and the bowl scrapings, she bit off a piece and was rewarded with a relaxing of the woman’s expression. Luthien smiled, nodded, and rubbed her stomach. The bread, while dry, had a nutty flavor and wasn’t half bad. Luthien hoped she could get some butter, and maybe some honey, the next time she had the bread.
The next time. Wait. There wasn’t going to be a next time. Luthien was going to try to find out how to get to the nearest town so she could find the police and get home. She’d be gone after breakfast in the morning.
Luthien was just finishing the bread when she heard loud voices, shouting and laughing, appoaching the house. Uneasy, she stood and looked over at the woman. She was smiling and scooping soup from the pot into a bowl. The voices must belong to the others that lived here. Luthien relaxed. Affecting a questioning expression, she reached for the bowl and nodded towards the table. The woman nodded and handed the bowl to Luthien. Seven more bowls followed, as did slices of bread when the woman moved to the small counter area near what looked like a Dutch oven. Luthien smiled to herself, glad she’d been able to communicate with the woman. And she’d done something nice, so the woman would know that Luthien was just a simple girl and no one to worry about. Something else her dad would be proud of her for. He always said she never helped around the house.
Eight males, all of varying ages, came bursting into the house moments after the last slice of bread was put down. They all immediately sat down and, almost in unison, lifted the bowls to their mouths and emptied them with a speed Luthien found slightly disturbing. Small wonder there was no flavor to the soup. With the speed these guys ate at, they’d never taste it anyway. The bread was gone almost as fast, but was quickly replenished by the woman, who was obviously used to this routine.
Only after everything was eaten and mouths were wiped on sleeves did anyone notice Luthien standing slightly behind the woman. One of the younger guys, sitting next to the older man at the far end, said something to the woman, who launched into a long explanation that Luthien didn’t understand a word of. Whatever the woman said, the older guys looked confused and two of the younger guys said something that made both of them laugh loudly. The woman barked a sharp command, silencing the laughers and causing them to wear sheepish expressions.
The older man at the far end stood up and said something to the woman, who followed him out the door. The other seven guys waited a moment, then stood up and surrounded Luthien, all speaking at once. She looked around at them, eyes wide, wondering what the heck they were saying. She shook her head and shrugged, but they kept on speaking. “I don’t understand!” she yelled. “I don’t know what you’re saying! Leave me alone!”
The guy stepped back, wary looks on their faces. One said something. She shrugged. He frowned and furrowed his brow and said something to one of the other guys, who made a gesture in Luthien’s direction. This caused several of the others to laugh and make comments and gestures of their own. The first guy who spoke nodded, smiled slyly, and said something that made everyone else nod enthusiastically and then look at her in unison.
Luthien felt her stomach sink into her feet. Guys laughing and then looking at you in unison was never good. They were always up to something. She started to edge sideways, eying the door, hoping to escape before they did whatever they were planning.
No such luck. The guy that had made everyone laugh was suddenly blocking her escape and holding her by the elbows. Luthien felt her eyes grow wide and her mouth go dry. ‘Whatever you do’ she begged silently ‘don’t kill me or rape me. Be nice to me. I’m lost and want to go home.’
Suddenly, his mouth was on hers and she was pushing him away and the guys were laughing and hollering and there were shouts from the doorway. The guy was pulled away from her by the oldest guy.
The woman pushed through the guys and came over to Luthien, anxiously looking her over. When she didn’t find anything, she sighed and muttered something under her breath, shaking her head slightly. She gestured to the table and gave Luthien a small push towards it. Mind still spinning, Luthien woodenly obeyed, putting her head down on her arms when she was sitting. This was all too weird to be real. She had to be dreaming. She’d fallen asleep in the field and this was all a dream and she’d wake up and everything would be fine and she’d blame this on too much school food at lunch time. Or something. But this was all a dream. It had to be.


Chapter 3 - Chapter Three

A lot of stern voices and yelling in a language she didn’t understand went on behind her, ending when the guy that kissed her stalked outside, followed by the oldest guy still yelling at him, and all the other guys followed the action. Luthien stood where she was, too shocked by everything to move. What the heck was going on? Why had that guy grabbed her and kissed her? Was he going to try anything else? Would he try to force her to have sex with him? Images of him grabbing her at night and forcing her flooded her mind, making her feel sick.
“This is all just a dream, this isn’t real, I’m at home and I’ll wake up late for the bus again,” she muttered to herself, trying to banish the images from her mind. “But even if this is real, there are too many people here for him to rape me.” Unless no one would stop him. But the woman and man were yelling at him, so they probably would stop him if he tried anything. If he lived her. Who was she kidding? She hadn’t seen any sign of humans until this house. Of course he lived here. “If he so much as brushes me with a finger I’ll kill him,” she said to Dog, who was sitting by one of the cows at the far end of the house. “Guys are pigs.”
Energized by righteous anger, Luthien walked to the doorway and looked outside. The sun had long since set, leaving the sky inky black. Stars blanketed the sky in numbers Luthien had never seen before. It was like there were layers on layers on layers of stars. Awed, Luthien stared, jaw slightly slack. It was amazing and so incredibly gorgeous. Somewhere behind the tree line, the moon was starting to rise, a thin sliver of its silvery-white light barely visible above the trees. To her right in the darkness, the people were talking rapidly. Occasionally, there was laughter, so she assumed her being assaulted had already been settled. It was nice they weren’t arguing or upset anymore. She liked it when everyone got along. Too bad she couldn’t understand them. It would have been interesting to know what they were talking about and to be able to talk with them and find out where she was and how to get home and to thank the woman for giving her something to eat.
She stayed in the doorway for a while, moving back inside when she began to shiver. Good thing she’d worn one of her heavier skirts today or she’d really be freezing. Too bad she didn’t have-she did. She’d stuffed her jacket in her backpack when she left school because the afternoon was warm enough she didn’t need it. Excellent! She hugged her fleece when she pulled it out of her backpack.
Smells of home filled her nose, making her tear up as homesickness flooded over her. “Mommy,” she murmured, wiping her eyes and nose on her shoulder and upper arm. “I want to go home.”
“So soon?” a female voice said behind her. “You just arrived!”
Luthien spun around, surprised. “Who are you?” she demanded. “And why are you glowing?”
The woman, dressed in the same kind of broomstick skirt and peasant top her mother liked to wear, laughed softly. “I am Nessa, one of the Valar.”
“A Valar. Right. Nice to meet you,” Luthien said, trying hard to keep from telling the woman to cut back on the amount of pot she smoked. “Do I know you from somewhere? And why are you speaking English?” It had just dawned on her that she understood this woman.
“Your John Tolkien wrote about us,” Nessa said.
“John Tolkien. Who is-oh.” THAT Tolkien. “You’re one of the deities of Middle Earth.” She bit her lip to keep from laughing. “I didn’t know they dressed like hippies and spoke English. Interesting story, though.” Valar. Wow. “I don’t know how I got here or how you got here, but I really want to go home now so if you can get me there, I’d like you to show me the way back.”
The woman’s calm expression didn’t waiver. “We appear to the Secondborn in a form familiar to them,” she said. “I prefer loose garments. Hello, Orome.”
That was said to the man who had just appeared next to her. Luthien did a double take, not believing her eyes. How had-what the-why was-“You look like a freak.” She clapped her hands over her mouth, not beliving she’d just said that. If they were really Valar, they could fry her where she stood. Or something.
“A ‘freak’?” the man asked. “And why do I look like a ‘freak’?” He pronounced the last word as if it were stinking filth to be tossed away.
“You’re dressed like some rich British guy going fox hunting.”
Orome looked himself up and down. “This is what your people wear when they go riding, isn’t it?”
Luthien shook her head. “Only rich people in England.”
He looked annoyed. “So what do you wear, then?”
She shrugged. “Last time I went, I wore jeans and an old shirt and boots with a heel and a riding helmet. And gloves to keep a grip on the reins.”
Orome looked taken aback. “Oh. Well, I’ll have to change, then. Is this better?”
“Yeah,” Luthien choked out. He’d just…‘poof’, gone from British Snob Rider to Casual American Rider like…‘poof’. Before she’d even had time to blink, he’d changed. This was too strange. “So you two are Valar?”
“Yes, we are,” Orome said. “You said you wished you were in Middle Earth, so we brought you here. Do you like it?”
“You heard me wish I was in Middle Earth?” she echoed weakly. “When?”
“You were in your hiding place after your brother tormented you,” Nessa said. “My brother” she shot a look at Orome “and I were out for a walk, talking about all the interest in Middle Earth now that Jackson Peters-”
“Peter Jackson,” Luthien corrected.
“Peter Jackson, thank you, has made the movies based on John’s writings and how many silly girls have no idea what Middle Earth is really like, when we heard your wish.”
“It was Nessa’s idea to bring you here,” Orome said.
“You two are who I heard talking!” she exclaimed. “You were talking about doing something after teatime!” Now it was all making sense. Kind of. If making sense could leave you more confused. “Where am I?”
“The Mark,” Orome said proudly. “Nessa got to pick where the last one went, so it was my turn this time.”
Luthien felt her jaw fall open slightly. “I’m in Rohan?” she said, wishing she’d heard him wrong. “Land of the Horse Lords?” Oh, sweet Eru, this was worse than she thought.
“Yes, you are.” Orome was looking Very Proud of himself.
“Oh. I’m going to sit down.” She backed up to the table and sat down hard on the bench.
“Do you like it?” he asked, sounding like Ro on Christmas when he asked their mom if she liked whatever he’d made out of old computer parts. They rarely worked as he planned and usually ended up bursting into flame and burning everything around it. Luthien felt like their mom when she said “I haven’t been here long enough to know if I do or not.”
“I told him you’d prefer an Elven realm,” Nessa’s voice said inside her head. Luthien looked over at Nessa, who was looking slightly apologetic. “I’ll try to sway him.”
“She should have the chance to see all areas of Middle Earth, and she can decide which she likes best,” Nessa suggested.
“What’s not to like about The Mark?” Orome asked. “She just needs some time to get used to things here. We can come back in a few months and if she wants to go elsewhere, we’ll make sure she gets there.”
“I’d like to go home, if that’s okay. I didn’t really mean it when I wished I was in Middle Earth. I was just frustrated with my brothers. I’d really like to go home, if that’s okay.”
“You want to go home?” Nessa asked, sounding distressed. “But you wanted to be in Middle Earth! We heard you!”
“I wasn’t serious. I’m sorry. I appreciate you trying to help me out, but I want to go home. Please.”
“You’ll love it when you get used to things here,” Orome said confidently. “I promise. I never get tired of riding across these lands. Stay for a while and if you’re still not happy, we’ll see you home safely.”
“Yes, try it here for a while,” Nessa said eagerly. “Maybe you’ll find you love it more than your home.”
“But-” She burst into tears, frustrated and tired.
A gentle hand touched her shoulder. “Everything is going to work out, I promise,” Nessa said. “Give Rohan a chance.”
“Fine,” Luthien choked out. “I’ll try it for a while. Will I get to meet any elves?”
“You like Legolas?” Orome suddenly sounded weary.
“He’s okay. I was thinking Imladris elves. Like Elladan and Elrohir. Or Figwit.”
There was a long moment of silence. “It’s not likely,” said Orome. Luthien started crying harder. You’d think the least they could do if they were stranding her here was grant this one little wish.
“We’ll see what we can do,” Nessa soothed, rubbing her shoulder. Somewhere in the back of Luthien’s muddled mind it registered that the longer Nessa touched her, the more refreshed and calm she felt.
She stopped crying and looked up. “I appreciate you granting my wish. Really. I just miss my home and my family.” A picture of Ro grinning in the way that meant someone was in for a lot of computer trouble came to mind, making Luthien’s heart twist and a lump to come to her throat. Dan smirking as he leaned against her doorway yesterday replaced Ro’s face, making the lump grow. If she could just see her pain-in-the-butt brothers again, she’d never complain about them again. Well, unless they hacked her computer again.
Nessa was speaking. Luthien blinked and tried to focus on the Valar. “We must go now. If you need us, you need only call our names.”
“Okay.” Luthien forced a smile and waited until Orome and Nessa were gone to put her head down on her arms and start sobbing again. This truly sucked.
The family came back into the house fairly soon after and took bedrolls off a shelf along one wall. The woman fussed in the cooking area while the men laid their bedrolls out and layed down, falling asleep quickly, if the volume of snoring was any indication.
For the first time, Luthien realized she had no idea where she was going to sleep, or on what, and that she’d be sleeping in her clothes for the second night in a row, which reminded her she hadn’t changed clothes in…days. How many had it been now? Too long to go without changing clothes for sure, but she didn’t think it was likely she’d get anything fresh to wear here. They didn’t seem to grasp the basic concept of hygeine. Well, if she was going to be here for a while, she’d have to change that. Everyone knew that regular bathing and washing kept germs away.
She pushed the bench back and stood up, turning to face the woman. As best she could, she got the woman’s attention and mimed sleeping and being curious while gesturing around the room. The woman looked totally confused. Great. Luthien thought for a moment and tried pointing to one of the bedrolls, then at herself and raised her eyebrows as if asking a question. The woman looked confused for a moment, but understanding came over her face and pointed to a pile of clean hay at the far end of the building. Luthien pointed at the hay to make sure the woman had really meant she should sleep on the hay. The woman nodded and smiled.
‘Oh, sweet Eru, this just keeps getting worse,’ Luthien thought to herself while forcing a smile and acting like sleeping on hay was on her list of things she loved to do. Well, it would probably be better than sleeping on the floor. Softer, at least.
Luthien’s eyes slowly opened as her mind tried to come awake. There was noise and one of the younger guys was leading the cow through a door not far from her and Dog was following him. But the sky was dark so it couldn’t be the next day yet. What was going on?
She sat up and pushed hair out of her face, picking out pieces of hay that itched uncomfortably, watching everything with undisguised curiosity and wonder. Is this what life on a farm was like? How interesting. But why were they going out at-wait. This wasn’t night. This was dawn, or just before. That’s when farmers got up. She never thought she’d be forced to wake up at dawn, though. That was way too early. She’d go back to sleep when they were gone.
She’d just gotten comfortable in the hay again when the woman was speaking and tapping her shoulder. Luthien sat up and silently groaned when the woman gestured for Luthien to come with her to the cooking area. This was so not happening. This was evil. She was going to tell Orome and Nessa she wanted to go home now.
A bowl of…something was on the table and a very crude wooden spoon lay next to it. Luthien looked at the woman questioningly, to which the woman pointed to her, then at the bowl. Luthien nodded. Breakfast, it seemed. She hoped it would be better than last night’s meal.
Luthien nearly gagged when she tasted what was in the bowl. Gritty and bland and tasting slightly of last night’s soup, she wondered if the woman had boiled up sand and tried to pass it off as a meal. Visions of Poptarts and Cocoa Puffs and eggs and bacon danced through her mind, taunting her. She forced herself to swallow and take another spoonful. It was food. It was better than nothing.
When she was finished, she smiled at the woman and stood up. Now, where did the dirty dishes go? She looked around, but didn’t see anything. The woman took the bowl and spoon out of her hands and dropped them into a bucket next to the hearth. She picked up a dingy apron and held it out to Luthien. Luthien, sinking feeling in her stomach, took it. This was turning into a total nightmare. ‘Enjoy Rohan, my left butt cheek,’ she groused to herself silently as the woman mimed filling the large pot with water and putting it over the fire, then taking water out of the large pot (when it was hot, Luthien assumed) and dumping it into the bucket that held dirty dishes. Luthien nodded. She could handle that. The woman looked pleased and picked up two similar buckets and started toward the main door, nodding for Luthien to follow her.
They walked a short distance to a swift-flowing stream, where the woman set the buckets down and dipped one into a small pool, filling it to the brim. She nodded at the empty bucket, then at Luthien. Luthien nodded and picked up the bucket, filling it full and setting it back on the bank. This, she was used to from being dragged by her parents to some tree-hugger gathering that went on during July in Woodstock. There wasn’t any electricity or plumbing, which her parents and their weird friends seem to think was great. Getting back to nature. Is that why they had a dishwasher and microwave at home?
Luthien felt a tear run down her cheek and she realized she’d started to cry, thinking of home. Her parents were probably worried sick about her and her brothers were…probably besides themselves with glee at the idea of having access to her computer and her diary. She smiled wryly. She could almost hear them, exclaiming what an awesome chance this was to find out stuff they could embarrass and blackmail her with. Ro would be practically wetting himself with excitement that he had free access to the hiding space beind her closet (and her stash of chocolate). Gothmog would be on the end of her bed, sleeping like a log, not caring one way or the other what went on as long as no one disturbed him. Luthien giggled. That cat slept more than Garfield.
The woman was tugging on her sleeve. Luthien looked over at her quizically. The woman pointed at the house and, carrying the bucket like it weighed nothing, started towards it. Luthien picked up her bucket and grunted, stopping every few feet to put it down so her arms could rest. Good gravy! Where was a faucet when you wanted one?
Luthien eventually made it back into the house and, using the last of her strength, dumped the excrutiatingly heavy bucket into the large pot over the fire. Luthien glanced at the woman, who was kneading dough on the table, and thought she saw her lips twitching, like she was trying hard not to laugh. Luthien pursed her lips and crossed her arms over her chest. The woman may think it was funny that Luthien had trouble carrying a bucket, but she didn’t live in a place where you didn’t need to haul heavy buckets or heat water over a fire or anything primitive like that. People also took baths and didn’t live in the same area as animals and sleep on filthy mats on the floor and eat food that tasted like dirt off the ground, only greasier. If living in a world where you didn’t have to kill yourself to just have the basics was something to laugh at, the woman could laugh her silly butt off for all Luthien cared.
The woman looked up from her kneading and gestured for Luthien to come over to where she was standing. Hesitantly, Luthien did. Was the hag going to make her knead the dough and laugh when her arms fell off? Yes, that was apparently what the hag wanted her to do. Fine. Where was-Luthien blanched when she realized there was no sink, or anything she could use to wash her hands. Luthien looked down at her hands and felt her stomach roll at the sight of the dirt and Eru only knew what else on her palms and pads of her fingers. She gamely wiped her hands on the apron, but that only served to make her hands feel greasy and more dirty, if that was possible. Luthien closed her eyes and tried not to think about what was going into the bread. The heat of baking would kill any germs and stuff.
The ache in her shoulders and arms from carrying the bucket was nothing compared to the pain she felt when she was finished kneading dough--all five loaves worth. She would have complained, but the woman wouldn’t understand her, and Luthien had a feeling it wouldn’t do any good, anyway. The woman was mean, forcing a guest to do hard work. This was crap. She shouldn’t have to be doing this. She wasn’t going to do any more of this. Thus emboldened, she followed the woman outside, carrying one of the wooden slabs with loaves ready for baking. Luthien didn’t know why they were coming outside, but the crazy old bat must have her reasons, so she’d just follow and if they got into trouble, it wouldn’t be her fault. She’d probably be expected to get them out of it, though. She scowled at the woman’s back. She was going to demand the Valar let her go home. Now.
The woman stopped walking in front of a small mound and, using a forked stick, pulled a small wooden door open and, with a practiced speed, pushed the wooden slab she’d carried into the mound, turning to Luthien and gesturing for her to come over. Bemused, Luthien obeyed, handing her slab to the woman, who pushed the slab into what Luthien was assuming was the oven. Odd-looking oven. How did you manage to keep it hot enough to bake anything, and how did you know how hot it was and how long to leave whatever you were baking in the oven? Trial and error seemed the obvious answer. Lots of burned bread and charred cakes. Luthien giggled, remembering when her brothers and father had tried to make a cake one year for their mom’s birthday and forgot to set the timer, then forgot the cake was baking until the smoke alarms started going off. They’d asked for help from her or Luthien’s mom after that. Luthien stopped walking and squeezed her eyes shut to keep from crying. Her mom was an awesome baker. They never had to buy anything from the stores because it was never as good as what her mom would make. Her and her brothers’ friends were always wanting to come over to get some of what their mom had made. The spice cookies were amazingly good, and the cream puffs were pure bliss. She loved cream puffs and wasn’t above occasionally sneaking off with the whole container full of them, something her family never let her forget. Every year, her birthday ‘cake’ was a stack of cream puffs with a candle stuck in the top one. She could almost taste one now, the filling melting on her tongue and making her sigh with bliss, the pastry all but melting in her mouth. But there weren’t any cream puffs. The taste of a cream puff turned to the sour taste of uncried tears and bitter, sharp sorrow at being trapped here without any way to return home. “Let them know I’m okay,” she murmured under her breath. “Don’t let them worry.”
A light hand touched her shoulder, startling her. Her eyes flew open and her head turned quickly to see what was touching her. Heart pounding, she saw the woman, looking at her with a concerned expression. For a long moment, they stared at each other, Luthien at a loss for how to communicate to the woman how she was feeling. ‘How did you tell someone who didn’t speak your language that you’re miserable and homesick and aching and just want to go home? You don’t,’ she bitterly thought, frustrated by the whole situation.
She abruptly turned and hurried toward the house, taking off the apron was she went. She didn’t care what the woman thought. She couldn’t deal with this. She had to get out of here and…she didn’t know. She just had to get out of here and away from whatever crude, backwards, dirty way of life. ‘No wonder so many kids died,’ she grumbled to herself as she grabbed her stuff. ‘They live like friggin’ animals. No wonder everyone got sick and died young. They probably worked themselves to death.’ She was going home. She’d demand the Valar let her go home. She needed a shower and clean clothes (especially clean underwear. It was so scavy she was still wearing the same pair for a third day in a row) and decent food and a real place to sleep and her brothers, even if they were obnoxious gits. At least they were familiar obnoxious gits that, on occasion, were almost-normal human beings who were a lot of fun instead of the bains of her existence.
She wasn’t far from the house-‘hovel’ she corrected herself sourly when the woman caught up with her. Grabbing Luthien’s arm, the woman made her stop walking. Luthien sighed and, jaw clenched, turned around. The woman looked like she wasn’t sure if she should be confused by Luthien’s behavior or insulted by it, but she wanted an explanation anyway. Which, of course, Luthien couldn’t give her because of the language difference. ‘Would it have killed them to dump me with the Elves? I at least speak some Sindarin and Quenya. Is wanting to be able to understand what people are saying to you too much trouble? That I’d have fun not having a clue what anyone was saying or what was going on?’ If this was Orome’s idea of a good time, she didn’t want to know what he considered a lousy experience. And Nessa just went along with him. She just wanted to go home and back to her life. Why wouldn’t they let her go? Why were they trapping her here?
She didn’t realize she’d begun crying until she felt something warm running down her cheeks, leaving a cold trail behind it. Luthien tried to staunch the flow, but the harder she tried not to cry, the larger the lump in her throat grew and the stronger the ache of grief at being ripped from her home became, which only made her cry harder.
Dimly, Luthien was aware of the woman helping her to sit down and putting an arm around her, pulling her close and murmuring something she didn’t understand, but was probably meant to soothe her. Her mother would do that. “You’re going to be fine,” she’d say when Luthien was sick, or “It’s going to be okay,” when something had gone wrong and Luthien had no idea how to fix it. Maybe the woman was saying something like that. She was a mother. She had sons. Those were the things all mothers said. Luthien smiled weakly. Some things never changed. The tearing pain lessened a bit. For a moment, she felt like her mother had been there, her arm around Luthien, her voice saying “Everything is going to be okay. You’ll see. Everything is going to be fine.”
There came a point when Luthien didn’t have the energy to keep crying. Lifting her head, she wiped at her eyes and nose with the back of a hand and looked over at the woman. Her eyes were probably all swolen and red and she looked terrible. She felt terrible. Incredibly drained and tired. The right shoulder of the woman’s dress was soaked, making her feel a small pang of guilt. She hoped the woman wouldn’t be upset. But judging from the woman’s expression, she wasn’t. She looked concerned and a bit troubled. Luthien tried to look like she was okay, but was only able to force a weak smile. The woman smiled as well, though with pity and understanding, and reached out a hand to lightly touch Luthien’s cheek. She murmured something in a regretful tone, dropping her hand afterwards. She stood and held out a hand to Luthien. Luthien stared at it for a moment. If she took the woman’s hand, she’d have to go back to the house and live in squallor and work until she dropped and probably have to pick lice out of her hair and never have clean underwear. But if she didn’t, and kept going toward the forest, what assurance did she have that she’d get to go home? If the Valar didn’t let her, there was no way she could come back. She’d be too embarassed, and the family would probably be mad at her, and she didn’t have any idea where their neighbors (if you could call families that lived nowhere in sight ‘neighbors’) were and she didn’t want to wander for days trying to find another house. But that was if she didn’t go home. Maybe the Valar would be decent this time and allow her to return home.
The woman said something, pulling Luthien out of her thoughts. The woman’s hand was still extended. ‘There’s food and shelter and the hay’s not bad to sleep on,’ she reasoned to herself. ‘Remember eating grass on the way here?’ Luthien did, and if she ever had to repeat that experience, it would be too soon. Swallowing hard and pushing down her reservations and concerns, she took the woman’s hand and let her help her to her feet.


Chapter 4 - Chapter Four

A/N: A tip of the hat to the Hayfield of Inspiration, mowed before its time.

THREE YEARS LATER

Cearo, balancing a young child on one hip, stood on top of a small hill not far from the house, her free hand shielding her eyes from the late afternoon sun while she looked for any signs of Algar, Helm, and Aelfrid, who had been gone for the last three months on patrol with others Riders, above the grasses. Rheda would have gone out herself to look for her husband and two of their sons, but she had to keep an eye on the pig roasting over the fire so it wouldn’t burn. Cearo, never fond of working around the fire, had only too happily agreed, taking Wilone, the youngest child, with her so she wouldn’t get in Rheda’s way.
“Stupid hair,” she muttered, dropping her hand from her eyes to pull hair out of her mouth and tuck it behind her ear. She knew she was fighting a losing battle and wondered how long it would stay behind her ear this time. She’d tried Rheda’s suggestion for how to keep her hair from being pulled loose and blown into a rat’s nest by the unceasing wind but it had become as much of a rat’s nest as it always did. Stupid wind. Why did everything have to be so flat, instead of hills and mountains to block the wind, or at least some of it. And why did the grass have to grow so tall? It was such a pain to walk through when it was nearly as tall as she was. And the hair was back in the mouth. “I’m going inside. Tellan and Grindan can stand out here and watch and pick their hair out of their mouths constantly.”
Cearo put her hand back up over her eyes and gave the horizon to the north one last quick scan before shifting Wilone around to her front so the child would be easier to carry.
“Wanna get down,” Wilone said, trying to move out of Cearo’s arms.
“Not here, honey. I want you right with me so you don’t get lost in the grass.” The thought of getting separated from Wilone in the grasses made her shudder slightly with horror.
“I won’t. I’ll hold onto your hand real tight.” Wilone nodded emphatically twice then stared at Cearo with an expression that never failed to melt her heart.
Except this time. “When you’re taller, love. Now put your arms around my neck and make sure you hold on.”
Back at the house, she set Wilone down not far from the door and yelled to Rheda she was back. “There’s no sign of them yet and Wilone is-running after one of the chickens again.” She laughed and watched Wilone, yelling for the chicken to stop and play with her, chasing after a bird who was running as fast as its legs could carry it for a moment before going inside to help Rheda. “What do you need me to do?”
“Nothing, right now. Everything is under control.” A loud squak of chicken indignation floated in through the door. Rheda stopped chopping a thick root and took a deep breath, holding it for a moment before releasing it slowly. “Or it was.” She opened her eyes and, looking at Cearo with an almost pleading expression, asked, “Could you please go save her from having her arms pecked up?”
Cearo tried not to laugh. “I don’t think Wilone is the one in need of saving, but yes, I’ll go distract her from tormenting next week’s dinner. Unless you’d like me to take over for you and you could go take a break and spend time with her.”
Rheda shook her head. “I’m fine.” The chicken squaked again. “Go save Wilone and the chicken from each other.”
“She’s going to work herself to death,” Cearo muttered under her breath as she went outside. Wilone’s birth two years past had been a difficult one for Rheda and she’d never fully recovered, tiring faster and needing more help now, but she refused to slow down and let Cearo and her brothers ease her workload. Rheda had collapsed before and it was only a matter of time before she collapsed again.
Squirming toddler clutched against her chest, Cearo carried Wilone back to the house and set her down just inside the door and gave her her dolly to play with before going to stand by Rheda. “You’ve been working all day, you look tired, you need a break, go play with your daughter and rest for a bit. I can take care of whatever else needs to be done.”
Without looking up, Rheda calmly replied, “I’m fine, Cearo.”
“No, you aren’t. You’re tired. Your hand is unsteady and the slices are unevenly cut. Go take a break. Let Wilone tell you about when we went flower picking earlier.”
“The slices are-” Rheda sighed and half-heartedly pushed stray hair out of her
face. “I’ll admit I’m a little tired but I’m almost done.”
“Rheda, go rest. Go play with Wilone.” Wryly, she added, “I think I can handle the daunting task of slicing bread and I will make sure the pig doesn’t burn. Tellan and I will take it off the fire when it’s done.” Wilone chose that moment to toddle over and tug on Rheda’s skirt and ask her to play dolls with her. Rheda, meeting Cearo’s smug expression with one of wry amusement, wordlessly handed the knife to Cearo and went to play with her daughter. Chucking under her breath, Cearo turned her attention to the loaf in front of her.
The men were still not home when Cearo finished the last of the supper preparations. ‘The pig is off the fire, berries are chilling in the bowl in the stream, the neeps are roasting in the coals…what else?’ Cearo thought as she looked around the cooking/eating area. Seeing nothing that had been forgotten, she wiped her hands on her overdress and told Rheda, who was busy listening to Wilone tell her about the flowers she’d picked earlier, she was going back out to the hill to watch for the men. As an afterthought, she took her wool wrap in case the men didn’t arrive home until the air had begun evening cooling.
Out on the hill, Cearo wove herself a circlet of buttercups and daisies while bees flew from flower to flower, the buzzing sounding like ‘Hurry! Hurry!’, and butterflies sedately drifted through the air, looking so ethereal and weightless it seemed as if they simply floated along on the breeze, the illusion broken only by the occasional movement of wings. Cearo sighed and smiled, daydreaming about being a butterfly, just floating along, no worries. If she were a butterfly, she’d fly across the Mark and see the places and people Algar and the other men told stories about when they returned from patrol. It wasn’t fair she wasn’t allowed to ride even as far as the nearest village because she was a woman and, therefore, needed to help Rheda but Kendric and Aelfrid and Helm and Daegol had been allowed to ride wherever they wanted since they were old enough to hold a short sword without dropping it. The younger ones couldn’t go out without one of their older brothers, but at least they’d allowed to go and see something other than the endless stretches of grasslands around the house. It wasn’t all bad, though. When she told Algar and Rheda she wanted to become a shieldmaiden, her lessons with a dagger and, later, short sword began the next day. Kenric, Helm, Aelfrid, Brego, and Daegol, in the tradition of brothers everywhere, had been happy to act as sparring partners since it allowed them to knock her around without getting in trouble. It had taken several years, but when she sparred with them now, she was able to have them on the ground, practice sword to their throat, about as often as they had her on the ground, sword at her throat. The expressions they wore when she did almost made up for being tied to the house.
The sun was a thin orange sliver low in the sky over the grass when Algar, Aelfrid, and Helm, all on horseback, becamae discernable in the distance, their voices singing of joyful homecomings carrying on the wind. Cearo gave a shout of excitement and began waiving broadly, hoping they could see her. When the rider in the middle gave a waive in acknowledgement, Cearo turned and ran into the grass, roughly shoving it out of her was as she ran back to the house.
“They’re here!” she exclaimed breathlessly, grabbing the doorframe as she ran into the house to stop herself. “I just saw them. I waived and one of them waived back.” She leaned against the doorframe to catch her breath. “Anything I can do so the food’s ready when they get here?”
Rheda, color high, pushed a stray piece of hair out of her face. “The berries and butter need to be brought in from the stream. Could you take Wilone?” The little girl was tugging at her mother’s skirt and begging almost unceasingly to be picked up. Cearo smiled sympathetically.
“Of course. I’ll show her the really pretty purple flowers that grow up there.” The last part was directed at the little girl, whose face lit up at the mention of flowers. “You want to come with me?” She held out her hand to Wilone, who rushed over and wrapped her small one tightly around Cearo’s pinky and ring fingers.
Wilone, anxious to help, insisted on picking a large handful of flowers to
decorate the butter with “to make it pretty for Daddy” and carrying the crock back herself. Cearo tried to convince her to carry the bowl of berries instead, as the crock of butter looked to be too heavy for Wilone, and was met with stubborn refusal. Finally, to make sure everything was ready when the men came inside, Cearo agreed Wilone could have the butter but only if she let Cearo carry her to the house.
“I wanna give it to Daddy,” Wilone insisted after being picked up, arms tightly holding the crock.
“Make sure you tell Mommy that, so she doesn’t try to,” Cearo said as she walked back to the house, trying not to chuckle at how serious Wilone was. “You miss your Daddy a lot?”
“A lot a lot. I thought he’d never get home.”
“It does seem like that sometimes. Oh, look!” Cearo pointed to the men, who were now close enough to tell who was who. “There’s your daddy, in the middle, and Helm and Aelfrid. You want to waive to them?” Silly question. Cearo had to reach up quickly to keep the butter crock from falling when Wilone let go to waive and yell to her father and elder brothers.
Cearo was just setting Wilone down and asking her to please set the crock on the ground while they waited for Daddy when the man in question, flanked by his sons, galloped out of the grass, reigning in their horses not far from Cearo, who’d gone white. Wilone simply scowled. “You almost rode into us!” she chastened her father and brothers. “You need to be careful.”
“It was Father’s idea,” Helm said as he dismounted. “He’s the one who told us to frighten you and Cearo.”
“And you said it was an excellent idea,” Aelfrid countered as he started to lead his horse to the fenced pasture near the house. “Scaring Cearo, that is. Hey!” He picked a clump of dried mud and grass out of his hair Helm had thrown at him. “Don’t attack me for being honest.”
“Too honest, brother,” Helm said. “But since we’re being honest, why don’t I tell her what you said last night?” Aelfrid shot him a dark look, which made Helm grin and open his mouth to start speaking again.
“Not now,” Algar said, shoving one of his gloves into Helm’s open mouth. “You can tell her all about what Aelfrid said after we take care of the horses and put our equipment away.” He turned to Wilone and picked her up, holding her upside down. “You look different than when I left, love,” he said to her shoes. “What happened to you?”
“I’m upside down, Daddy,” Wilone said between giggles.
“You are?” Wilone giggled. “So these are your feet.” More giggling and something which sounded like “Yes”. “I don’t want to talk to your feet. Let’s fix that.” He turned Wilone right side up. “You’re much prettier this way.” He kissed her cheek. “Did we scare you with the horses?”
Wilone nodded emphatically. “Me and Ce’ro were real scared. I thought you were going to ride right over us.”
“We would never do that. We only wanted to impress two of the most beautiful women in Rohan.” He kissed the tip of her nose, making her giggle again.
“Who’s the most beautiful, Daddy?”
“Your mommy,” he said, looking over her shoulder at the woman standing in the doorway.
“You’re saying that so I don’t make you sleep outside tonight,” Rheda remarked dryly as she walked over to Algar, her smile taking any sting out of her words.
“Never,” Algar assured her, setting Wilone down and drawing Rheda in a tight hug. “I’ve missed you, love.”
“I missed you too and I can’t breathe.” Algar set her back on her feet and loosened his hold. “Thank you. How was Patrol? All you three stink enough to knock an Orc dead. You always do. Wash in the stream before you come inside. I left clean clothes and soap for you three behind the house.” Rheda rattled off the instructions as she walked back inside, never seemed to stop for breath. “We’ll eat after you wash.”
“I brought you butter, Daddy!” Wilone exclaimed, trying to lift up the crock but only getting it a short distance off the ground.
“Are those my favorite flowers in it?” Algar asked, kneeling to take the crock from Wilone. “Did you put them there?”
Blushing, she grinned and nodded. “I made it pretty for you, Daddy.”
“Thank you, Little Bird. It’s very pretty. I can’t wait to taste how good the flowers have made it. Why don’t you take it inside and after I stop smelling-”
“Like an orc!” Wilone exclaimed, giggling. “Mommy says you smell like an Orc!”
Algar nodded. “And since I don’t want to smell like one of those, I’m going to wash up and put on clean clothes like Mommy wants me to and then we can eat and I’ll taste your butter.” He lightly kissed her forehead and set her down, telling her to go inside with Mommy.
“Walk with me, sister,” Helm said casually, putting an arm around Cearo’s shoulder as he lead his horse toward the pasture. “We can talk while I cool down Sherwyn.”
“Don’t believe a thing he tells you!” Aelfrid called as he and his horse caught up to them, an edge of fear to his voice.
Cearo laughed and looked over at him. “Why don’t you tell me, then?” she teased. “Since I can’t believe Helm.”
“Just foolish talk after too much drink,” he muttered, looking away, his neck turning red.
“Three pints is ‘too much’?” Helm said. Aelfrid’s color grew higher. To Cearo, he said, “The eodred camped outside a town last night and we all went to the tavern for some ale. After we’d had several pints, talk turned to what we’d be most glad to return home to. This one” he jerked his head in Aelfrid’s direction “says-”
“Don’t forget to mention what you said, brother,” Aelfrid interjected. “How glad you’d be to see Elfhild later tonight. Meeting under the crooked oak tree, if I recall correctly.”
“We’re to be married next month. What’s your point?” Helm asked irritably.
“You were sitting next to Father when you said that.”
“He and her parents knew our plans before we left, idiot.”
“So he’s meeting Elfhild later,” she spoke up. “So what?” She shrugged. “I think it’s very romantic.”
The brothers snorted with laughter. “ Romantic’?” Alefrid said. “What does that have to do with what he said about wanting to tum-”
“I’ve missed her,” Helm interrupted tersely, “and I’m looking forward to seeing her again. With her dress on,” he added when Aelfrid started to say something, “and her brother will be there. But enough about what I said. What you said was far more interesting.”
“Don’t even-” Aelfrid’s voice had gone hard.
“‘Don’t even’ what, Aelfrid?” Helm shot back. “Don’t say anything? I don’t have to. Father will say enough for the both of us.” He smiled slyly. “You’re too easy to get a reaction out of, Aelfie.”
Aelfrid’s neck and ears turned a deep red. “Don’t call me that! And don’t say anything,” he snapped coldly, “or I’ll tell Elfhild’s father about the women I saw you with during patrol.”
“You go too far, brother,” Helm said, barely concealed anger heavy in his frosty tone, as he loosened Sherwyn’s girth. Cearo backed away a few steps, afraid they might come to blows. “I told you months ago, when you first came to me, I wouldn’t say anything and you shouldn’t either. I stopped being bound by that when you shot your mouth off last night. When you were sober, no less.” He gave Aelfrid a look of dismay and frustration. “What were you thinking last night? You’ve always been good at getting yourself into messes but this tops the rest.”
“Everything is going to be fine,” Aelfrid snapped. “Just keep quiet and I’ll handle Father.” He removed Osric’s halter and released the horse into the pasture before picking up the saddle and stalking off toward the barn.
“What’s his problem?” Cearo asked Helm, taking the bridle he was holding out to her.
“He can’t keep quiet,” Helm said offhandedly as he removed Sherwyn’s bridle.
“So what’d he say this time?”
Helm smiled with what looked like a trace of sympathy for Aelfrid. “The wrong thing in front of the wrong people.”
“Such as Father?”
“Among others.” Cearo cringed, knowing full well what saying the wrong thing in front of Algar could mean.
“I hope for his sake it’s nothing he’ll get the strap for. But what’s the big deal about you telling me?” She leaned against Sherwyn next to Helm. “Tell me. It must be good if he’s so worried about you telling.”
Helm didn’t say anything until after he’d put Sherwyn to pasture and taken the saddle back from Cearo and put an arm around her shoulder. “I was only teasing him about telling you.” Cearo started to proteset but Helm cut her off. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Why won’t you tell me?”
“Because, brat” he pulled the tie off the end of her braid “Father doesn’t need to know Elfhild’s brother won’t be with us tonight.” The wind pulled Cearo’s braid apart and blew the hair into her face.
“Did you have to do that?” she snapped iritably, pushing the hair out of her eyes and mouth with one hand, holding the other out to Helm, palm up, for the leather thong she’d tied her hair with earlier. “Thanks.” She raked her hair back and quickly braided and tied off the end before the wind could push much hair back into her mouth. “Helm, please-”
He lightly tugged on her braid. “You’re worse than Wilone sometimes, pestering when you can’t get what you want. I need to go wash up because I’m starving and you know how Ma is about us being clean before we eat.” They both laughed. “Go tell Tellan he’ll answer to me if he eats all the neeps.”
Drat the man, refusing to tell her! He was doing it on purpose, just to annoy her, she knew it. Brothers! Whatever it was, she doubted it was any more shocking than what she’d heard her brothers talking about many times before when they didn’t know she, or some of the younger ones, were listening. She didn’t believe most of it, except for the things about drinking and hangovers, but if any of the rest was even a little bit true, that would explain why Rheda kept a close watch on her and her younger brothers when they went into the village. Too bad. It sounded like a lot of fun.
Algar and Rheda were standing not far from the door, backs to her, when Cearo drew near to the house. Their voices were carrying on the wind but were low enough she couldn’t make out what they were saying, and if their voices were low like that, it had to be important. Maybe they were talking about what Aelfrid had said? If they were, she wanted to hear what they were saying, but if she were caught listening they’d flay her alive. Last time, she couldn’t sit down for two days. “Helm will be right in,” she called. As she expected, they stopped talking “Rheda, what needs to be done?”
Rheda startled and spun around. “You startled me!"
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to,” she said when she reached Rheda. “I could say nothing next time and sneak right up on you if you’d like.”
Rheda smiled wryly. “No, thank you. There’s nothing left to be done except eat, and we’re waiting on Helm.” She looked pensive for a moment. “Did Helm say anything to you about last night?”
Cearo sighed. “No, unfortunately. He was teasing like he was going to but now he won’t. Why?”
Rheda’s expression relaxed. “Just curious. Would you mind going and telling Tellan it’s time to eat? He’s with Wilone near the creek.”
For a moment, she wondered crossly why Rheda couldn’t do it herself, but she pushed it aside quickly. Rheda looked ready to drop where she stood. “Sure. No problem.” She’d ask Tellan what Aelfrid had said. Maybe he knew.


Chapter 5 - Chapter Five

A/N: 'lig', in Old English, means ‘flame’. And on a totally different note, Monty Python is Teh Bomb.

To Cearo’s disappointment, Tellan didn’t know anything more than Kenric, Aelfrid, and Helm were home. “He’s in trouble?” Tellan asked eagerly, eyes large with excitement, as they walked down the hill to the house.

“I don’t know,” Cearo said. “All I know is whatever he said, he didn’t want Helm telling me.”

“I bet he’s in trouble!” Tellan was grinning now. “He probably did something like put horse poop in someone’s boots and then said he did it!”

“That’s something you’d do, brat,” Cearo chided with a laugh, wishing she could swat him but her hands were full carrying Wilone. He was so much like-Cearo shook her head and swallowed hard to dislodge the lump which had suddenly formed there. She wasn’t going to think about her real brothers. She’d already cried enough over the family she’d lost. More tears wouldn’t bring them back to her, or her to them, any more than the ones already spilled. This was her family now, Tellan was her younger brother now (one of several, actually), this was her home. She’d cried out to Bema and the other Valar repeatedly, asking why such a thing had happened, but she’d received no answer and, three years on, she’d given up thinking she’d ever receive any. “They don’t care,” she muttered angrily, remembering their promise to her. “They forgot all about me and left me here. If I ever see them again, I’m going to tell them where they can stick it and demand-”

“C’ro?” Wilone asked, putting a hand on Cearo’s cheek and breaking into her thoughts. “What you saying? Are you sad?”

With a start, Cearo realized she’d lapsed into English. ‘Not hard to do from Rohirric,’ she mused wryly. The two weren’t so horribly different, which had been nice
when she was learning it. And there she went, getting lost in her memories again. Wilone was still studying her face with concern. “I’m remembering where I used to live,” she told the little girl. “I miss my ma and pa and brothers.”

Wilone looked confused. “We have the same ma, Cearo,” she rebuked confidently.

“No, little one, your ma is not my ma. Not my real ma, the one who gave birth to me.”

“You’re not my sister?” Wilone looked ready to cry.

“Of course I am! You remember Aunt Freda?” Wilone nodded. “Remember how she took Hilda in when Hilda’s parents died of the cough?” Wilone nodded again. “You ma took me in like Aunt Freda took in Hilda.” Tellan ran ahead, his grumbling stomach taking precedence over hearing Cearo tell Wilone what he’d known since he was seven and Cearo had come home with his mother one night. “You’re my sister in my heart.” Cearo lightly kissed the tip of the little girl’s nose. “And you always will be.”

Wilone giggled. “I’m glad. Put me down.”

Brego and Kenric, egged on by their brothers, were doing an excellent job of
beating each other senseless with practice swords in front of the barn as Cearo came down the hill behind the house. She shook her head and sighed quietly, wondering what it was about violence boys found so irresistible. Violence and food. She shook her head again. What did one have to do with the other? There had to be some link there to explain why boys loved both so much. She smirked. They did like their meat rather raw, or at least her brothers here did, so maybe it was the blood. But what was it about blood they liked so much? It was messy, it stank, it attracted flies, and it was a nightmare to wash out of clothing. If it was a love of blood, then, she decided, it was that much more proof to support what she’d known for a long time: boys were absolutely crazy.

“I thought you were hungry,” she remarked casually as she came to stand next to Aelfrid.

His eyes didn’t leave the fight before him. “I am.”

“You don’t seem to be in any hurry, that’s all.”

He glanced at her this time. “What are you talking about?”

“Brego and Kenric. You know Ma’s going to make them wash up before any of us eat.”

“Yeah, so?” He looked irritated she was still talking and distracting him from watching his brothers pummel each other.

She looked up at him, trying not to smile too smugly. “The longer they fight, the longer before we eat, and the longer they fight, the dirtier they get and the longer it takes them to wash up and we’ll all have to wait for them.” She silently counted how long it took Aelfrid to realize what she was saying. ‘Four seconds,’ she gloated silently when a look of comprehension settled over his face. “Have fun breaking it up.”

When all of the brothers were finally washed up and inside Cearo was ready to undo all their efforts at cleaning up by smashing their faces in for making her, Wilone, and their parents wait Eru only knew how long to eat and they’d been ravenous enough before the idiots decided before dinner was a great time for a fight. She wasn’t the only one upset, however. Rheda was pulling at her belt, a sure sign she was highly agitated, and glancing frequently between the food growing cold on the table and the doorway. She didn’t say anything when the boys entered, only glared at them. “Your father, Helm, and Aelfrid eat first,” she said tersely. “The rest of you will wait.” Cearo was sure if the meal had been delayed on any other night, and Helm and Aelfrid weren’t two-thirds of the reason the meal was a special one, Rheda would’ve filled bowls for Algar, herself, Cearo, and Wilone and forced all the brothers to watch the four of them eat, allowing the boys to eat only when all the food was cold. She’d done it before.

To Cearo’s surprise, after Helm, Algar, and Aelfrid filled their bowls, Rheda told her to fill her bowl. Cearo looked at her quizzically. “Your brothers obviously don’t care when they eat so they can wait.”

“Of course, Ma.” Cearo bit her lip to keep from laughing at the chorus of protests that arose from her brothers and took pleasure in not having to grab and snatch and fill her bowl at a frantic pace before all the food was gone. Wilone didn’t have to face the fierce competition yet; Algar would fill her bowl for her when he filled his.

After the meal, Cearo nearly dropped the water buckets she was carrying when Helm asked her to come with him that night. “Why me?” she asked, suspicious. “Isn’t her brother going to be there? Are you trying to match us up?” Helm laughed loudly-a little too loudly for her liking. “I’m almost old enough to marry and so is he,” she snapped. “It’s not that funny of an idea.”

“I’m sorry, it’s not that. Okay, it is,” he admitted a moment later. “You and he are nothing alike and you’d be absolutely miserable together. I can almost hear the arguments you two would have.”

Cearo smiled in spite of herself. “I don’t think he gets dressed in the morning unless his mother tells him what to wear,” she said dryly. “I hope Elfhild doesn’t turn out anything like her mother.”

“She won’t,” Helm said firmly. “I’m asking you now because I forgot to ask earlier. Elfhild said she’d like to see you.”

“You could’ve told me that before you left for patrol.”

“I told you, I forgot.”


‘And Brego has learned to cook,’ she thought sarcastically. Helm never forgot. He’d told her earlier that Elfhild’s brother wasn’t going to be there and he knew full well what their parents would say if it got back to them no one had been there with Elfhild and Helm. “Have you told Pa and Ma?” Helm nodded. “And Ma doesn’t mind me leaving before chores are done?”

“She said bring the water in and you can go.”

Cearo started walking toward the house again. “I love you, Helm, but you’re a terrible liar. You know as well as me Ma would never-”

“So ask her yourself. Meet me at the pasture.” He turned and walked away
before she could say anything else.

“Fine, I will!” she shouted after him.

“I said you could,” Rheda told Cearo when she asked if it was okay to leave with Helm.

“Thank you.” Cearo was shocked. Rheda never let anyone not do their chores unless they were physically unable to do them.

“Just this once,” Rheda teased with a sly smile. Cearo laughed and promised to
do all the cleanup herself the next night.

Out at the pasture, Cearo was surprised to see Aelfrid putting a saddle on Osric. Or she thought it was Aelfrid. The newly-full moon was directly in front of her as she walked and it was hard to tell which brother, exactly, was out there with Helm but none of the other brothers had horses in the pasture tonight besides Helm and Aelfrid so he was the only other one who had any reason to be saddling his horse in the pasture. Which begged another question: why was he saddling his horse? Unless…Cearo giggled. So that’s what he was in trouble with Father over. Aelfrid had a sweetheart. And if he was in trouble with Father over her, he’d be in even more trouble if Father knew he was going to see her. ‘Oh, this is great!’ Cearo gloated silently. ‘He’s going to owe me for this one! Both of them are!’

Taking a tip from ‘Dan and ‘Ro, she stopped walking, knelt, and took off her shoes so she could sneak up on Aelfrid quietly and surprise him. Helm had probably already told him she was coming, but they were already going to be mad at her for threatening to tell on Aelfrid so she was going to go for broke and give them plenty of reasons to pound her the next time they practiced fighting. She knew she’d regret giving them reaons but, for now, it would be fun.

Her plan worked perfectly and she was able to slip right up behind Aelfrid without him noticing and she’d later swear to the fact she saw air between his feet and the ground when, standing directly behind him, she said, “Who’s the girl?” Her triumph was short-lived because, a moment later, she found herself flat on her back, pinned down by an upset older brother who was breathing rather heavily for someone only tacking up his horse a moment before.

“What girl?” he asked.

“Quit kneeling on my legs.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“The one you’re sneaking off to see, stupid. Now get off my legs!”

He smiled widely, shifting his weight only slightly. “Am I hurting you?”

“No, it feels great,” she said sarcastically. “You know I love this kind of thing. Would you mind getting totally off my legs before you break them?”

“And be kicked?”

“You’ll have to eventually.”

“What, kicked?”

“That’ll happen, too, if you don’t get off my legs.” She glared at him for added effect.

“If I stay on your legs, how can you kick me?” He laughed when she glared at him harder.

“Get off my legs now or I promise, I will kick you later. Repeatedly. In very painful places.” He shifted his weight slightly. “AELFRID!”

Helm appeared behind Aelfrid and pulled him off Cearo. “Do you want Ma and
Pa coming up here, you moron?” Helm barked in a low voice. “Finish with Osric and let’s go.”

“Thanks,” Cearo said to Helm as she followed him back to Sherwyn. “Who’s Aelfrid meeting?”

“You’ll have to ask him. You’re riding with him.”

“I am not riding with him.”

“You can’t ride with me.”

“Why not?”

“Because Elfhild will be.” He mounted Sherwyn.

“Can’t I ride with you until we meet up with her?” She knew she was whining but she didn’t care.

“No.”

She grabbed Sherwyn’s bridle. “Helm-” The sensation of suddenly being lifted up off the ground at a high rate of speed pushed every coherent thought from her mind. Only when, after an endless few seconds, she felt her bottom connect with something solid and firm (and moving, but she’d consider that in a moment) did she regain enough of her senses to look around her shakily. She was on a horse, which was walking, and there was an arm around her waist. And the person behind her was laughing. “Aelfrid,” she said, her voice cracking, “I am going to kill you later. But not before I maim you and pull off your sensitive bits with my bare hands.” To her ire, he only laughed louder. “You’re lucky I didn’t piss myself with fright.”

“It didn’t seem likely you’d ride with me any other way,” he quipped, “and I know Helm is eager to see Elfhild.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to scare me to death.”

“Like you did to me?”

“You’re a poor Rider if your sister can sneak up on you and surprise you. Eru help you if an enemy ever does.”

He tugged gently on the end of her braid. “No enemy is going to be sneaking up
on me barefoot in the middle of a pasture, Lig.”

“I told you not to call me that!”

“What else would I do?”

“Not scare me, not pull my hair, and not call me ‘lig’?” she suggested. “Be nice to me?”

He snickered. “You deserved to be scared, Lig, for doing it to me.” He tugged her braid again.

“Stop!” she demanded. “Keep doing it and I’ll tell Ma you pinned me to the ground tonight!”

“You deserved it.” His voice cracked. She’d rattled him.

“So who are you meeting tonight?” she asked again. “And why can’t Ma and Pa know?”

“I’m not meeting anyone.”

She smirked. “I don’t believe you. You said you missed someone and you got real upset when Helm threatened to tell me and he didn’t mention you were going with him tonight and the only reason I can think he wouldn’t tell me that is because he didn’t want me mentioning it to Ma when I talked to her so you’re not supposed to be gone tonight. So who are you meeting?” She studied his face and tried to find some indication of what was going on, some hint that would tell her what she wanted to know.

“I’m not meeting anyone.”

His voice remained steady. The boy was a good liar. “I’ll find out soon enough who it is. And I’ll tell Ma and Pa you went tonight.”

“You can’t.” And there went his voice, cracking again.

It was all Cearo could do not to break out in a huge grin. Blackmail goldmine! “Why not?”

“Because,” Helm said, riding up next to them, “it would cause trouble for more people than just Aelfrid. You can’t tell Ma and Pa.”

“What’s the big deal? So Aelfrid has a sweetheart.”

“You’re assuming that’s it,” Helm said evenly.

“So what’s going on, if that’s not it?”

“You’ll find out when you need to, Lig.” Cearo’s eyes narrowed when Helm used that horrid name and his lips twitched as he tried not to smile. “If you won’t keep quiet because Aelfrid is asking you to, keep quiet because I am.”

“For a price.”

“Do you like things remaining calm?” Helm asked. Cearo nodded. “Then you’ll be quiet.”

“If you tell me what’s going on, I will.”

“It’s not my place to say anything,” Helm said. “That’s for Aelfrid to do.” Cearo looked at the man she was riding with.

“Later,” was all he said.

“You’re red!” she exclaimed. “You’re blushing about something!”

“Cearo, leave it,” Helm said.

Cearo glanced at Helm, who gave her a hard look. “For now. I want to know what’s going on, though.”

“We’re getting married next weekend,” Aelfrid said. “That’s the secret. You and me are getting married next weekend.”

Cearo twisted around so fast she was sured she pulled a muscle in her side. “WHAT are you talking about?” Only after a moment did she realize he was laughing and he hadn’t been serious. She smacked him. “Aelfrid! That’s not funny!”

“Actually, it is,” Helm said.

“Maybe to you,” she grumbled, turning back around to face forward. “Since
you’re not going to tell me what’s going on, tell me what patrol was like. All the stuff you can’t say in front of Ma and Pa and the brats.”

The rest of the ride to meet Elfhild was filled with Aelfrid and Helm telling all the good stuff about patrol, like the night they snuck a squirrel into Gamling’s bedroll and when someone put too many onions into Brecca’s stew after he said he hated them. Among other stories. She could read between the lines when they talked about the inns they’d come across on occasion and understood what Aelfrid had been talking about earlier when he threatened to tell Pa about the women he’d seen Helm with. She wondered if Elfhild wouldn’t be more upset to find out but she kept that to herself. What Elfhild didn’t know wouldn’t hurt any of them. As long as Helm stopped with the women after he married, no one ever needed to find out.

At the tree, Elfhild and her brother were waiting. Cearo smirked, guessing Elfhild’s parents had foiled her plans to be unchaparoned. Aelfrid slowed Osric, letting Helm get ahead of them, and kept Osric at a slow walk, which allowed Cearo to get a clear view of Helm pulling Sherwyn to a stop, almost vaulting off the horse, and running to Elfhild, sweeping her up into a tight, passionate embrace. Cearo watched the whole thing silently, wondering if she’d ever find anyone who’d act like that after three months on patrol. ‘Since I’m stuck here’ she groused silently. ‘Never going home’. Damn the Valar straight to Angband via Mordor for that. She’d long since stopped crying herself to sleep at night over being forgotten and left in this forsaken, primitive place. It wasn’t all bad, but…she sighed. She didn’t want to end up like Rheda, worn to a nub after years of near-endless childbearing and hard, grueling work. When she gave birth to children, she wanted see them grow up and bear children of their own and she knew the odds against that happening here. Rheda had buried more than half her children, most of them dying before the age of five.

Aelfrid calling her name pulled her out of her thoughts. “Yeah?”

“What’s wrong? You’re never quiet.”

“Are you saying I talk all the time?”

“Did I say that?”

“In as many words.”

“You’re not making fun of Helm and Elfhild. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“When it’s my turn to marry.”

“You don’t sound happy about that.”

“I was thinking how so many of the children I’ll give birth to will die. That wouldn’t happen at home-where I came from.”

He gave her a squeeze with the arm he had around her waist. “They may still find you.”

“It’s been three years. If they were going to find me, they would by now. If they even knew where to look.” Which they wouldn’t. The police would have written her off as a runaway and her family would-she didn’t know, but they’d be wondering how she could’ve walked right off the face of the planet, for all intents and purposes. She wondered if she’d left any tracks in the woods and if people had wondered how her steps had just vanished into thin air, just stopped mid-path. “You’re stuck with me now.”

“What, we’ll never get rid of you?” he said with mock horror. “We’ll always have to see your hair glowing in the dark?”

“Haha,” she said dryly, a smile tugging at her lips. “I don’t know what I’d do if I went back home now anyway. I’m used to living here and I don’t know what I’d do if I had to lose another family. It was bad enough the first time.”

“Does that mean you like us?” he teased.

“I don’t know why but I do. I’m crazy, I know.”

“Not crazy, smart. You see what a great bunch of guys we are and you’re glad to do whatever you can for us.”

“Right. And you beat me up and tease me in return. Yeah, a real great reason to stick around. I’m here for your mother. The rest of you can go fend for yourselves for all I care. You’re Riders. You all know how.”

“We need you and Ma to sew our clothes and cook for us!”

“You all can cook for yourselves. What do you do on patrol?”

“You cook better than we do. Much better.”

“Get yourself a slave if that’s all you want,” she shot back.

“Slaves cost money.” She jabbed an elbow into his gut and was rewarded with a grunt. “You also make great clothes,” he said a moment later, sounding a bit out of breath. “You do those really nice designs on them, too.”

She blushed at the unexpected compliment. “Thank you.” Among the things in her backpack that day, she’d had an embroidery project she’d been working on during study hall and she’d used some of her threads on the chemise Rheda gave her not long after she’d arrived. The others had seen that and wanted her to make their clothes look good. She used wool thread now and more primitive needles so the designs weren’t as intricate or nice now, or at least what she called ‘nice’. Everyone else had liked them and she’d begun embroidering on clothes to trade for things we needed each spring in town. For next year, there was talk of taking some things to Edoras to sell and trade.

“Everyone loves the desgins you put on our cloaks.”

“So I’ve been told. Speaking of the cloaks, do any of your clothes need repair from patrol?” To her horror, Aelfrid immediately began to give her a list of repairs that needed to be made. “Tell me later,” she interrupted. “I didn’t realize you wanted me to make you new clothing.”

“It’s just a few things.”

“You’re not the one who has to repair them all!”

“What do you think we did while we were on patrol?”

“All I know is you’re asking me to repair rips and tears and sew sleeves back on and between the three of you it’s not going to be a small amount of work.” She sighed. “Bring me your things tomorrow. I’ll talk to Helm and Pa and get what they need repaired.”

Elfhild’s brother, Haleth, came over then, much to Cearo’s annoyance. The boy was nice enough but she doubted if a duller person had ever lived. His idea of fun was to watch sheep graze. Or something like that. He’d told her once but the idea of doing something so mind-numbingly boring was horrifying so she’d changed the subject so she didn’t have to think about it anymore. He even looked dull, with lank white-blonde hair and flat slate-blue eyes and was tall and gangly. She said the socially appropriate things when he greeted her and tried to make an excuse for why she and Aelfrid couldn’t stay and talk but before she could Aelfrid started talking with him about that year’s crops and she had to dismount because Aelfrid wanted to and she was forced to follow along with the two guys while they talked about incredibly boring things. ‘Just my luck,’ she thought to herself petulently, ‘I get stuck listening to oral sleeping pills. If I fall asleep mid-step I won’t be surprised.” If Helm wouldn’t have killed her later for interrupting him and Elfhild, she’d have ditched Aelfrid and Mr. Boredom.

To entertain herself, she began humming and, to her surprise, found she was humming Monty Python’s ‘The Lumberjack Song’. She grinned and tried not to start laughing. “I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay,” she sang under her breath. “I wish I’d been girlie, just like my dear Papa.”

“Did you say something, Cearo?” Haleth asked, looking back at her.

“No, nothing,” she said, trying to keep a straight face and failing, the memory of Eric Idle singing away proudly about dressing in women’s clothing and hanging around in bars just too funny. “It’s nothing,” she managed to choke out. “Really.”

“What’s so funny?” Aelfrid asked when she stopped laughing.

“Just a song I used to know.”

“Really?” Aelfrid stopped walking and turned to face her. She rarely talked about where she’d come from, other than to say it was a long way away and very different from Rohan. The family had tried to find out more but had given up when she hadn’t given any details and said she’d rather not talk about it.

Cearo shrugged nervously. “I don’t know why I started humming it. Strange what you remember.”

Aelfrid wasn’t going to let it go. “Will you sing it for us? It has a nice tune.”

“You won’t understand any of it. It would be hard to translate.” If there was a
Rohirric word for ‘lumberjack’, she didn’t know it and there definitely weren’t words for ‘high heels’, ‘suspenders’, and ‘bra’. Especially not ‘bra’.

“That’s okay,” Haleth spoke up. “You have a nice voice. Sing it anyway.”

“I’d rather not.” She started walking again, quickly, to get away from the guys. Even if it would’ve been easy to translate, she didn’t want to sing it. She hadn’t really thought about her old life for a while and she liked it that way. She didn’t want to remember because remembering hurt and she’d had enough of the hurting. That part of her life, the one in America, was over. She wasn’t Luthien, spoiled teenager whose only worries were getting a date to the prom and her brothers hacking her computer (something which seemed very strange and foreign now), anymore. She was Cearo, adopted older daughter of Rheda and Algar, who had seven brothers and one adorable younger sister and a good, if hard, life somewhere in northwest Rohan two days from Fangorn.

Aelfrid grabbed her arm as she passed him. “Cearo.”

She looked up at him, annoyed. “What? I don’t want to sing.”

“Please? You do have a nice voice.”

“I-okay,” she conceeded with a sigh. ‘What?’ her mind screamed. ‘Why, for the love of all that’s green and grassy, did you say you would? You want to forget all that, remember?’ She couldn’t explain why she’d agreed, either, other than Aelfrid really wanted her to. It had to be the puppy eyes. He was good with those.


Chapter 6 - Chapter Six

A/N: The language gets a bit colorful in a few spots.


Helm, Aelfrid, and Cearo were loudly singing ‘The Lumberjack Song’ when they arrived back home, not noticing Algar and Rheda were standing by the pasture gate until they were a few dozen feet away. “Oh. No,” Aelfrid said under his breath as he stopped Osric. “We. Are dead.”

“What?” Cearo asked and then remembered Aelfrid had probably snuck out tonight. “You’re in a lot of trouble if they’re waiting out here for you.”

“More than you know.”

“Cearo, go inside,” Algar said stiffly as he strode toward Osric.

“Yes, Pa,” she replied, already dismounting. Whatever was going on, she didn’t want to be around for it-at least, not where she could be seen. She walked toward the house until she heard Algar start yelling at Aelfrid before changing direction and heading up to the large tree not far from the pasture, making sure to keep to the shadows, and pulled up her tunic and shift, shoving the extra material into the belt, before grabbing a low-growing limb and hoisting herself up into the branches.

“We told you to stay here tonight,” Algar was saying angrilly to Aelfrid as he paced in front of the brothers. “And you!” he said to Helm, stopping suddenly in front of him. “You, of all people, I would never expect to be helping him get around me and sneak around!”

“How interesting,” a low voice said from above Cearo. Surprised, she nearly fell off the branch she was sitting on but managed to keep her grip and her balance.

“Hello, Brego,” she said flatly, not surprised he was out here. If there was trouble, Brego was rarely far away and it was usually of his devising, though he was good at making it look like someone else’s fault. She loathed him with a passion and was looking forward to when he married and moved out. Too bad that meant some poor woman would be burdened with him. The only person he cared about was himself and getting what he wanted and he didn’t care who he hurt in the process. “So what’s your reason for getting your brothers in trouble tonight? Couldn’t find any small animals to torture?”

“What makes you think I had anything to do with this? They can find trouble good enough on their own.”

“No one needs to find it when you’re around,” she shot back. “You’re always making sure it finds us.” Cearo ground her teeth when Brego laughed.

“That’s not always true,” he chided.

“But it usually is.”

“So you say.”

“We both know it’s true. Now shut up so I can hear what Pa is saying.” She lay forward on the branch and scooched forward on her belly so she could hear better. Aldric was ranting on about Aelfrid disobeying him and ignoring him as he paced, saying how he should take a thick branch to Aelefrid’s backside until he bled, with Rheda and Helm trying to get a word in when Algar stopped long enough to draw breath. Aelfrid was still on Osric and while she couldn’t see his face, it was easy enough to imagine the sullen, petulent expression he must have been wearing. The whole scene looked comical and Cearo had to pinch her lips together tightly to keep from laughing. Now if Algar would only get to the good stuff and start going on about why he’d told Aelfrid not to go anywhere tonight. Above her, she heard Brego chuckling and making the occasional comment under his breath. She rolled her eyes and wished she knew of a way to unseat him from the branch. That would shut him up and get him back for ratting out Aelfrid.

Finally, Algar stopped pacing. “Well?” he snapped, standing in front of Osric. “What do you have to say for yourself?” Aelfrid was silent, which only made his father angrier. “I have a good mind not only to take a branch to you but to send-”

“Algar,” Rheda said loudly, placing a hand on his arm, “it’s late and dawn comes early this time of year. We can talk about this tomorrow.” She glanced back at the house then added, “We also have an audience.” Cearo looked to see what she was talking about and saw Tellan and Grindan standing not far from the doorway. She smirked slightly. Between their parents and the younger brothers, Aelfrid wasn’t going to have a moment’s peace tomorrow. Poor boy!

Algar said something in a low voice Cearo didn’t catch, but whatever he’d said, it set everyone into motion. He and Rheda walked back toward the house, Helm led Sherwyn toward the barn, and Aelfrid wheeled Osric around and took off at a gallop.

“I told you, they need no help from me,” Brego said, his voice now coming from directly behind her. “Nice legs, by the way.” Startled, Cearo began to sit up and turn around and promptly lost her balance. She felt a scream start to rise in her throat as the ground began to rush up at her but it was cut off when her fall was abruptly stopped by something grabbing both her ankles. “You’re lucky I’m here,” Brego said dryly as he pulled her back up into the tree.

“I wouldn’t have fallen if you hadn’t surprised me,” she retorted with as much pride as she could muster. “How did you know Aelfrid would be in trouble unless you were behind it?”

“Because, silly girl,” he explained as he helped her get her seat next to him, “I heard Pa telling Aelfrid to stay here tonight and I heard him later asking where Aelfrid was and the way he was cursing out here by the pasture when he looked to see where Osric was.”

“Oh.” Yeah. That made sense. She felt rather stupid now and Brego’s laughter at her expression wasn’t helping. Of all the people to look stupid in front of….

“I’m not the monster you seem to think I am, Cearo.” He gave her braid a gentle tug.

She jerked it out of his hand. “You’re an selfish ass and what is it with you all thinking it’s fun to pull in my braid? It’s not a freakin’ toy!” She glared at him for a long moment, then rolled her eyes and looked out at the horizon beyond the pasture, searching for any sign of Aelfrid returning. “I wonder what Pa’s so uptight about?”

“What?” Brego asked, and Cearo realized with a start she’d been thinking out loud in English. In Rohirric, she said, “I said, I wonder what Pa’s so upset about.”

“You heard everything Pa said tonight and you don’t know why he’s upset.” Disbelief hung heavy on his words. “I knew you were slow-witted, but-”

“Not that Aelfrid snuck out,” she snapped. “Why he wanted Aelfrid to stay home in the first place. I’m pretty sure it’s because Aelfrid is sweet on some girl and Pa wants him to stay away from her” next to her, Brego made a sound like a cough “but no one will tell me anything so I have no idea what’s really going on.” She looked over at Brego. “You always seem to know everything that’s going on. Why is Pa so upset? Aelfrid is old enough to start calling on girls so it can’t be that.”

Brego was smiling slightly. “The girl isn’t old enough yet.”

“I knew it!” she cried triumphantly. She looked over at Brego. “So, who is she?”

Cearo could’ve sworn a look of predatory triumph flashed across his face but it came and went so fast she wasn’t sure it wasn’t just a trick of the shadows. “Ask Aelfrid.”

“Don’t play games with me, Brego. You’ve always been only too happy to make everyone else’s secrets public knowledge so don’t start playing secret-keeper now. Tell me.”

“I’m not sure you really want to know.” The patronization and condescention in his tone made her want to slap him.

“Yes, I do,” she said hotly. “I’m the only one in this family who doesn’t know what’s going on. Helm refused to tell me, saying I should ask Aelfrid. Ma asked me if I knew and looked worried sick until I said I didn’t and then she practically collapsed with relief. I asked both Aelfrid and Helm tonight when we were out and neither would tell me a single thing. I’m not a child anymore and I don’t want to be treated like one!”

“You really should ask Aelfrid.”

“Right.” If that was the way he wanted to be…. “I’m sure Pa would love to know what you say and do when you’re on patrol. I heard the most interesting things about you and a woman near the Gap.” She smirked, certain he wanted that kept silent.

“Pa already knows.” He laughed at the way her face fell. “Good try, though. You’re getting better.” He was silent for a long moment. “It’s you.”

“What?” She couldn’t have heard him right.

“The girl he talked about on patrol. It’s you. I’m serious,” he said when she glared at him and smacked his arm. “It’s you.”

“You are so full of shit,” she said disgustedly. “I should’ve known you’d just mess with me. Get out of my way. I need to climb down.”

“Cearo, I’m serious. Why do you think no one would tell you anything? Why do you think Ma was so worried and so relieved when you told her you hadn’t heard anything?”

“Oh, fucking hell,” she exclaimed softly, his words making a terrible kind of sense.

“They wanted to wait until your birthday next month, when you’re twenty, to tell you,” Brego said in a low voice.

“Then why did you tell me tonight?”

“Because you insisted,” he teased gently. “And you deserve to know.”

“You’re the only one who seems to think so,” she murmured, looking down at her lap, where her hands were playing with her bunched-up skirts. “I’m his sister. You can’t love your sister that way.”

“You’re not our sister.” Cearo looked up at Brego, blood frozen in her veins. He still saw her as an outsider, and intruder. She should have known. “You are, in a way. But you came to us when you were sixteen. You’re more like the cousin from another part of the Mark we say you are than a true sister.” He gave her a smile. “Maybe if you’d been a plain little stick it would’ve been easier to see you as a sister. An annoying sister who drives us crazy and can kick our butts now when we’re practicing with short swords and daggers,” he teased, making her crack a smile. “You’re not a plain little stick, though. You never have been.” His tone became serious again. “You’re a very pretty girl. Woman,” he corrected himself quickly. “Or you will be next month. It’s very hard to see you as a sister. Very hard,” he repeated and Cearo felt her mouth go dry.

“I need to go,” she said, or would have but she only got out “I need” before his mouth was on hers. She stared at him, wide-eyed, wondering what the heck had gotten into the guys all of a sudden and what the fastest way out of this nightmare was. This was not how she’d pictured her first kiss being. She thought she’d be kissed by a guy she liked, a guy she wanted kissing her, and she’d be kissing him back, maybe on a bench somewhere or on her parents’ deck, not stuck up in some tree in Rohan being kissed by a quasi-brother she considered to be walking slime who’d just told her another quasi-brother wanted her and then decided to make his own feelings known by kissing her. She thought she’d be putting her arms around his neck or something, not frozen stiff with shock like she was right now and her eyes wouldn’t be open. This was all wrong!

To her great relief, he stopped kissing her a moment later. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that. Aelfrid was enough shock for one night. I’m sorry.” Cearo just stared at him mutely, no idea what to say and not sure she could get the words out even if she did. Her mind was a jumble of a million and one thoughts, all zooming around and crashing into one another. The only thing she was sure of was that she wanted to get far, far away from this whole mess as quickly as possible. She’d get out of the tree as soon as Brego was gone and she’d get her horse and she’d ride into town. She’d go to Elfhild and promise to tell them everything in the morning. Elfhild could act as a go-between for her and the family and things could get worked out that way. “I should go,” Brego said, breaking the long silence that was stretching between them.

Cearo nodded stiffly and looked down at her lap, eager to be alone.

Someone was yelling. She looked up in the direction of the voice as Brego climbed up into the higher branches to get a better view of who was coming and saw a rider galloping toward the house, his tone full of alarm and fear. She felt a chill crawl slowly across her skin with prickly claws. The only thing she knew of which would have someone yelling like that was

“ORCS!” the persons yelled, now close enough to make out what he was saying. Cearo’s stomach plunged and she felt like throwing up. This was the second time in three months. Rheda would need her. Wilone and Tellan needed to be kept safe. She needed her dagger. Where was Aelfrid? Oh, he was the rider. Why hadn’t she recognized his voice before? She needed to go and get Tellan and Wilone and-

“Stay here,” Brego barked at her as he scrambled down to the ground.

“The kids. I need to get them.”

“Stay here. We’ll bring them to you.”

“No. I’ll get them.” She started to shift around to start climing down. “You and your brothers and Pa have enough to do. Ma and I will get the kids.”

“Stay. Here,” he snapped, obviously furious to still be talking to her. “Ma will bring them out here.”

“Brego-”

“Be quiet and do as I say.” Before she could argue with him further, he dropped off the branch to the ground below and sprinted to the house. Cearo, miffed at being told to just sit and wait, moved so she was sitting against the trunk and straddling the branch, legs dangling, and watched Aelfrid thunder up and ride into the barn. A short time later, Aelfrid was galloping out of the barn with the family’s horses and breeding stock behind him. Cearo watched them head south and hoped wherever Aelfrid was taking them, it would be far enough away. The last time orcs had attacked, they’d made off with several of their best mares, all of which were pregnant. Thank Bema, most of the pregnant mares and the stallion were in the barn that night so while things would be tight due to fewer horses to sell in two years’ time, they would still have horses to sell and trade. Since the last raid, they’d kept all the horses in the barn at night. None of the horses this year were black and Cearo wondered if the mares still would’ve been taken if they had black horses or if they’d have left the mares and only taken the blacks. Probably not. The idea of their horses being used by the Dark Lord sickened her. Poor creatures. His defeat wouldn’t come soon enough.

The sound of clamorous male shouting brought her back to the present and she saw Rheda hurrying toward the tree with a fussing Wilone, Tellan jogging close behind her, his face paler than usual, though that could’ve just been a trick of the moonlight. Three months ago, when he’d been told to go with Cearo to hide, he’d whinged loudly about not being allowed to fight and being treated like a child. He continued to grumble when they were up in the tree, stopping only when he what his father and brothers were fighting with out in the pasture.

“Those are orcs?” Tellan had asked Cearo, voice shaking.

“Yes.” She heard her own voice crack and squeak from fear.

“They’re big.”

“Yes.”

“Why do they want our horses? Don’t they have their own? Why don’t they buy them or trade us something for them?”

“Because orcs are evil and their master is even more evil and they don’t see anything wrong with taking what they want.”

“I hope Pa and Grindan will be okay.”

“So do I.” Wilone had started whimpering again then so Cearo turned her attention to the little girl, her words meant to soothe herself as much as Wilone.

Now they were back again for more horses and this time, Tellan hadn’t said a word as he hoisted Wilone up to Cearo and allowed himself to be boosted up to the lowest limb and currently on the branch above her, humming softly.

‘Sweet Bema,’ she thought to herself as she held Wilone close, ‘let this be over soon’. At least this time, though they’d had warning the orcs were coming and had the chance to gather up the horses which were out to pasture and take them elsewhere.

Grindan, riding bareback on a chestnut mare, was about to lead the remaining horses out of the pasture when the leader of the orcs, now close enough their stench on the breeze was gagging, let out a roar and veered in Grindan’s direction. Cearo grabbed Wilone tighter and began praying to Bema and Eru under her breath. ‘Ride fast,’ she silently implored her brother. ‘Be safe.’

It was over quickly. Grindan had enough of a lead on the orcs he and the horses were able to get away. Cearo was surprised he hadn’t fallen off the chestnut with as fast as the terrified animal had been galloping. Algar, Helm, Brego, and Kenric gave chase to the orcs and managed to kill a few without sustaining any serious injury. Through it all, Tellan continued to hum the same tune over and over, his feet swinging rhythmically to the beat, and Wilone kept her face buried in Cearo’s chest, whimpering about something which might have been how scary the orcs were but it was hard to make out her muffled words. Where Rheda had gone, Cearo didn’t know, but when the men had managed to drive off what orcs were still able to run, Rheda reappeared and assisted them with moving the carcases of the two they’d slain before coming over to the tree for Wilone.

“Are you all okay?” she asked as Cearo lowered Wilone into her upstretched arms.

“Shaken but fine.” Cearo would’ve smiled but with the danger past, she was feeling as if someone had pulled a plug at the bottom of her energy supply and drained it dry. “I’m glad it was over quickly and the horses are safe.”

“We all are,” Rheda said with emotion. “I’m worried about Aelfrid, though. With orcs raiding tonight….”

“He’s fine,” Cearo said. “He’s the one who shouted the warning and he took all the horses from the barn somewhere to the south.”

“Bema be thanked,” Rheda said, leaning against the tree. “I was so worried about him.” Pause. “I hope he comes back soon. Eru only knows if he’ll run into orcs coming back.”

“If he took the horses where I think he did, he’s not far away and the orcs are going to have to run for awhile before they find another farm to raid so they won’t be around here. Go inside and go back to sleep.”

“We all need to.” She adjusted Wilone in her arms. “We’ll talk about why you were in the tree and what you heard tomorrow.” She looked up at Cearo for a long moment, then turned and started back to the house.

A dark shape appeared next to Cearo on the branch. “You heard what her and Pa were yelling about?” Tellan asked, punctuating his question with a yawn.

“Yes. Move. I need to get down.” In the excitement, she’d forgotten about all of that but now it was rushing back and all she wanted to do was get on her horse and ride far away. Too bad Aelfrid had taken Cwen with him or she probably would have, orcs in the area be hanged. Ma was right. Tomorrow, they’d talk about what she’d heard.


Chapter 7 - Chapter Seven

A/N: ‘galdricge’ means ‘enchantress’ in Old English.

She was sitting, cross-legged, at the top of the small rise just outside of the village, the bottom of her sketchpad resting on her lap, oblivious to everything but the drawing of her family that she was working on. It should not have been hard, since it was just her mother, father, and brothers, after all, but it was hard to picture their faces in her memory now. She’d struggled to remember Elrohir’s lopsided smile or the scheming glint that always seemed to be in Elladan’s eye and had she been taller than ‘Dan or had he been taller than her? It frustrated her that she could not remember those details as she tried to remember her family and that it was Rheda, Algar and their sons that came to mind the quickest now. That was why she had started the drawing, so that she would have something to look at and remind her where she had come from and who she had left behind.

She had been at it most of the day and now, finally, it was nearly complete. All that was needed was a slight adjustment to ‘Dan’s cowlick and-

“Luthien.”

Cearo shrieked and tossed the sketchpad away. The drawing had spoken! Had she been in the sun too long? That was probably it.

She let out a shaky sigh and leaned forward to grab her sketchpad. She had just had too much sun. She would go inside, get a drink of water, and take a break from drawing until tomorrow.

The drawing spoke again, and this time Cearo saw Elrohir’s lips move, calling her ‘Lulu’.

I’ve been in the sun way too long,’ she thought to herself. “This isn’t real,” she said out loud.

Elrohir continued to speak.

“We miss you. Come home.”

He took his hands out of his pockets and hugged himself just like Cearo remembered him doing. Next to him, Elladan put a hand on ‘Ro’s shoulder and looked up at her sadly. Cearo stared at the drawing, unable to look away. What was going on? Did the Valar have something to do with this? If they did, they had taken their fine time showing up again.

“Why did you leave us?” ‘Ro started to cry, little pencil tears running down his cheeks.

“I didn’t want to,” she said, kneeling. “I wasn’t planning to. I wanted to come home but the Valar wouldn’t let me.”

“Huh?” ‘Ro asked. “What’d you say, Lulu?”

“I said I didn’t plan to leave and I’d come home if I could.”

‘Ro was still looking confused. She repeated herself again, slower that time. ‘Ro scowled.

“Speak English, Lulu,” he groused. “What language is that? Black Speech?”

Last night’s orc attack flooded through her mind and she began to shake. “Don’t ever say anything like that ever again,” she said through clenched teeth. “Of course I’m speaking English. What-” With a start, she realized she’d been speaking Rohirric. She took a steadying breath. “Better?” she asked her brothers, this time in English. They nodded. “I thought I was speaking English. Guess I’m getting too used to being here.” She smiled weakly.

“Come home, Lu,” ‘Dan said, his tone slightly pleading. “Mom and Dad are a mess. ‘Ro and I miss you a lot.”

“No one else has a computer to hack?” she joked.

“Come home.”

“I wish I could.” Something dripped onto the paper and Cearo realized she was crying now as well as ‘Ro. “I don’t know how.”

“Take my hand.” To her surprise, Dan reached toward her from the paper, his flat, off-white hand extending out into the air in front of the pad. “Take my hand. I’ll pull you back to us.”

Still wondering if this was all the product of a sun-addled brain, she set the pad down and took the small paper hand.

Suddenly, something was seizing her shoulder and shaking her. “Time to get up,” a rough voice said in Rohirric.

Cearo’s eyes flew open and reality crashed down on her like icy water. It had only been a dream. The talking drawing was only a dream. Her gut twisted with disappointment, making her swallow hard and dig her nails into her palm to keep from crying.

By then, her brain was awake enough to register that it was Helm who had woken her up and was now striding toward the front door, the family cows and sheep following after him, most likely on his way to the barn to get Sherwyn before taking the animals out to a fresh pasture for the day.

“Another glorious day begins,” she murmured dryly under her breath as she turned onto her left side so she could wake Wilone, who was clinging to her arm like lichen on a rock.

Cearo had long since given up trying to keep the little girl from using her arm like some sort of security blanket because every time she had tried, Wilone had slept poorly and woken up crying from nightmares which, in turn, woke everyone else up. She also refused to sleep next to anyone but Cearo. Rheda had brushed it off as just a phase and said she did not care but Cearo could tell she had been hurt by Wilone not wanting to sleep near her.

“Good morning, Little Bird,” Cearo said softly as she gently prised out of Wilone’s iron grip. The little girl shifted slightly and groaned as she joined the waking world. “Time to get up.”

“Don’t wanna get up,” Wilone grumbled, eyes still closed.

Cearo chuckled. “Neither do I but we have to.” She sat up and pulled her sister into her lap. “If you don’t, I’ll tickle you until you do.”

Wilone opened her eyes and gave a sleepy giggle. “What if you don’t get up and you stay asleep with me?”

“Then Kenric will come and tickle us both!” On the last word, she tickled Wilone’s belly, making the little girl shriek. Everyone in the house looked over and saw Wilone draped across Cearo’s lap on her back, giggling loudly as she was tickled

“You can play later, daughters,” Rheda chided, smiling. “Cearo, come help me
with the porridge.”

“You’re safe for now,” Cearo told Wilone as she slid the girl onto their sleeping mat, “but I’ll get you later.” She tickled the little girl quickly one last time before slipping on her shoes and going over to help Rheda make breakfast.

“We’ll talk about last night after we eat,” Rheda said as she slowly poured a bowl of oats into the kettle of boiling water over the fire.

“What about the baking?” Cearo asked, suddenly wanting to be anywhere else but in the kitchen.

“We’ll do that tomorrow. Grindan needs to finish grinding the grain.”

“Oh.” Cearo looked down at the bowl in her hands and tried to think of something else she could use to stall the discussion. “What’s so important about what I heard last night? Why’s it a big deal Aelfrid went out riding and why do you need to talk to me?” She looked up at Rheda and affected her best confused expression. “Am I in trouble?” Maybe if she could convince Rheda she did not know anything, they would not have to talk about it.

“No, dear, you’re not in trouble,” Rheda reassured her. “It’s-we’ll talk about it later. Bring me the bowls. The porridge is ready.”

After breakfast, to Cearo’s dismay, Aelfrid stayed at the table when everyone else left. ‘Horse balls,’ she grumbled silently, keeping her gaze down to avoid accidentally meeting Aelfrid’s eyes. ‘Why couldn’t Aelfrid have just stayed in last night and why did Brego have to go and say anything and kiss me? I hope both of their manhoods shrivel up and fall off!’

“I don’t bite,” Aelfrid teased, reaching across the table and putting a hand over hers.

“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, jerking her hand back as if she had been burned. “Just leave me alone.” A moment later, she moved both of her hands into her lap.

“What’s wrong?” Aelfrid, to her annoyance, was playing stupid.

“Don’t act like you don’t know why Ma and Pa want to talk to both of us,” she said, her tone clipped. “If you’d just listened to them last night, none of this would be happening.”

“So I went riding last night. What’s the big deal?”

Cearo looked up from the tabletop. “You know what the ‘big deal’ is, Aelfrid. You know why they didn’t want you to go riding and so do I. Brego told me last night.”

Aelfrid’s already-pale face lost what little color it had. Cearo took a slow, deep breath to try and steady her jangling nerves.

“Is it true?” She knew it was. His reaction to her statement had confirmed that, but she wanted to hear it from him.

“What did he tell you?”

‘Where do I start?’ she wondered dryly. “That I’m the one you said you missed when you were on patrol and the only reason you haven’t said anything to me yet is because I’m not twenty yet and you were going to talk to me next month.” She swallowed thickly and willed her queasy stomach to settle.

His eyes met hers and she willed herself not to look away.

“Yes.”

It was amazing, she decided later, how much could change with one little word, how you can suddenly feel like you do not know someone you have known for years and nothing will ever be the same ever again. What she saw in his eyes scared her. He was not supposed to be looking at her that way, like a man looks at a woman, the same way Brego had been looking at her last night. It was not supposed to be like this. She looked away.

Rheda and Algar chose that moment to sit down at their usual places at the table. “Talking about last night?” Algar asked. Aelfrid and Cearo nodded. “What did you tell her?”

“Nothing,” Aelfrid said. “Other than telling her that what Brego told her last night was true.”

Algar’s stern gaze turned to Cearo. “And what was that?”

Cearo told him what she had told Aelfrid. “He also said it was hard to see me as a sister and he kissed me,” she added, figuring Algar and Rheda deserved, or at least needed, to know Aelfrid was not the only son seeing their ‘sister’ in a very un-brotherly way.

Algar did not say anything for a long, uncomfortable moment. “He kissed you,” he said flatly, voice taut with an undercurrent of anger.

Cearo nodded slowly, wondering what he was thinking. He was not happy, that much she could tell, but how upset he was was anyone’s guess. Rheda and Aelfrid’s expressions left absolutely no question of how they felt. They were both Very Mad and both looked as if they wanted to work Brego over. ‘I’ll be hiding under the table now, if anyone needs me,’ she silently thought. ‘Any loans of amour are greatly appreciated.’

“I see.” The outer corner of Algar’s left eye twitched slightly and after another long pause he said, “I should talk to Brego. Rheda, come with me.” As he stood, he turned to Aelfrid. “We’ll finish discussing this later. Stay here.”

To Cearo’s surprise, Aelfrid stayed at the table, even after Algar and Rheda left. She waited for him to get up and go somewhere else but he stayed sitting, saying nothing while he stared at her, hands resting on the table. “No sneaking out after them?” she asked dryly to break the uncomfortable silence. “I’m surprised. I thought you’d be going after Brego.”

“I’m in enough trouble right now and Pa is already thinking of sending you to live with Deagol until after your birthday.”

That was news. “Who told you that? Pa didn’t say anything to me.” She hoped it was just talk. She and their eldest brother had never had more than a politely distant relationship and the idea of having to live with him and his wife, even for a short time, made her want to cry. He did not much like her and had always been suspicious of how she had gotten to Rohan and the vague answers she gave whenever someone asked her about where she was from.

“He wouldn’t. He’s just threatened to me to do that.”

“If I’m going anywhere, I’d rather go stay with Elfhild or Gurda.” She bit the inside of her lip, hoping if Algar made anyone go live somewhere else it would be Aelfrid, and studied a stain on the table which looked like a very warty ball.

A toad had played with it, she decided, which is why it had warts. Maybe it had tossed it around with all its toad friends and played catch. She giggled at the mental picture of toads playing catch on the bank of a creek and made a note to tell Wilone, who was playing on Cearo’s sleeping mat, about the toads that came out at night to play catch and tag on the bank of the stream behind the house.

“What’s funny?” Aelfrid asked.

She glanced up and found herself looking in his eyes. “Stop staring at me,” she said crossly, unnerved by what she saw there. “I was just making up a story about a stain on the table.” She pushed back the bench and stood up, suddenly anxious to be anywhere but here. “I should tell it to Wilone before I forget it.” Anything to get away from him and his ceaseless staring.

She took her sister outside to play not far from the creek in the shade of a willow tree. The weather had been unseasonably hot and even early in the morning, it was already warm enough that Cearo wanting nothing more than to strip off her wool clothing, or at least chop off the sleeves and most of the skirts. She had suggested the idea of altering clothes for the summer months to Rheda her first summer here and been soundly shot down. Decent and proper women, it seemed, did not go about with arms and legs uncovered, no matter how hot the weather and as long as Cearo was living under their roof she would live by their rules. There was a nice, hidden pool upstream from the house very few people seemed to know about so Cearo went there to swim when she could to get relief from the heat. If the early morning temperatures were any indication, Cearo knew she would be going there again today.

Wilone loved Cearo’s story about Tom the Toad and his toad friends, Larry, Curly, and Moe. “They have funny names,” was Wilone’s opinion.

“They do,” Cearo agreed. “And they’re very silly toads, always tripping over each other and falling down and poking each other in the eye.” Wilone giggled. “Sometimes, Tom and Larry and Moe and Curly go swimming with,” she searched her brain for more names, “Laurel and Hardy, minnows that live in a pool we go to and they have swimming races and play games in the water.”

“Like tag?” Wilone asked. Cearo nodded, trying to keep a straight face, and Wilone lit up. “I wanna play with them sometime. Do you think they’d let me play with them?”

“I don’t think Ma would let you stay up to play games with them, Little Bird.”

“Maybe she’ll let me if you say you’ll be with me.”

“I don’t think so. I’m sorry.” Wilone’s face fell. “I’m sure Tom and his friends would love to play with you. Maybe when you’re older.”

“Like next month?”

Cearo pushed a lock of hair behind Wilone’s ear. “Maybe next spring.”

“But that’s so long! I don’t wanna wait! Maybe Tom and Larry and Cully and Mo will leave by next spring and I won’t get to play with them.”

“I know,” Cearo said, pulling Wilone into her lap and hugging her. “It’s hard when you’re a big girl and people think you’re still little.”

“I’m hot.” Wilone squirmed out of Cearo’s arms and began pulling her tunic off.

“Don’t.” Cearo grabbed her wrists. If Wilone ran around with no clothes on and Rheda found out, she’d be in trouble for letting her sister not wear any clothes.

‘I really should cut the sleeves off our shifts,’ she silently groused. ‘Who cares if I get in trouble? At least we won’t roast to death!’

It would, though, waste fabric because there was no easy way to reattach the sleeves when colder weather came so the shift would only be good for warm weather. For cold weather, they… no, she would have to make an entirely new shift (Rheda would make sure she did it all by herself as punishment. That would mean making the fabric (which was a major pain to make, especially carding and spinning the wool and then dying it) and there was no way she was going to deal with all that just so she could cut the sleeves off in the summer.

“I’m hot and I wanna!” Wilone whinged.

“I know. So am I.” Cearo flopped back onto the grass and lay out with arms and
legs spread, willing her body to adsorb the cool of the earth. “I wish we could take our clothes off but if Ma finds us I’ll get in trouble.”

“We do when we go in the water!”

“Yes, but the pool is well-hidden and this spot isn’t.”

“Anyone could ride up and see us.”

“Let’s go to the pool,” Wilone said, sounding as if she was annoyed to be pointing out the obvious to her sister.

“When Ma gets back.” Wilone pulled a face. “I don’t want to wait either but
she’ll get worried if she doesn’t know where we are.”

“Let’s go find her.” Wilone grabbed Cearo’s hand and tried to pull her up.

Cearo ‘let’ Wilone pull her into a sitting position. “I don’t know where she is, sweetie. She and Pa went to find Brego to talk to him.”

“Oh.” She plopped down. “Tell me more about Tom.”

When Cearo ran out of stories about Tom the Toad, they went to the barn to look at the kittens. One of Cearo’s favorites, a tabby she had named Morwen, had just given birth behind the hay pile. The brothers did not understand why Cearo cared about the cats in the barn and they had teased her for months when she brought the runt of one litter into the house two years ago and hand-raised it, going so far as to name him Aelfwine. She had ended up having the last laugh, though, as Aelfwine was one of the best mousers they had ever had. Now that Aelfwine had proven himself useful, Cearo’s strange attitude toward keeping cats around was tolerated and she was allowed to bring a kitten into the house each year. Morwen’s kittens were almost old enough to be taken away from their mother now and Cearo had promised Wilone she could pick a kitten to be hers.

The kittens were nursing, little ears moving back and forth as they suckled, while Morwen lounged on the hay, purring loudly and looking very pleased with herself. Her narrowed eyes widened when Wilone grabbed one of the nursing kittens and she began to stand. “Let the kitty finish eating,” Cearo told Wilone gently. Morwen settled back when the kitten was plopped back down among its siblings and returned to nursing greedily. “You have to be nice when you’re touching them. You can’t grab them or they get scared and their mommy doesn’t like that.”

“Sorry,” Wilone said. “They’re cute and I wanna hold them.”

“I know. Watch me when I pick them up and do it like I do.”

“Will they be done eating soon?”

“I don’t know. Let’s sit and watch. Maybe Morwen will let us pet her. Be soft,” she cautioned. “Like this.” She lightly stroked Morwen’s back. Wilone copied her and Morwen began to purr louder, making Wilone grin. The cat sniffed Wilone’s arm and gave her a lick.

“The kitty licked me!” Wilone exclaimed. “She likes me!”

Cearo chuckled. “I think she does.” She sat back against the hay and watched Wilone pet Morwen and tell the cat what a good kitty she was and that she was soft and had pretty babies and how she was going to take one and love it a lot and pet it a lot and name it Galdricge.

“Where’d you learn that, Little Bird?” Cearo asked. Big word for a small kid.

“Brego says that’s what you are,” Wilone responded brightly. “He says it’s a better name for you than ‘Cearo’. He’s right. You aren’t sad so why do they call you ‘Cearo’?”

“Because I used to be before you were born.” She idly scratched behind Morwen’s ears. “When I first came here, I missed my family a lot.”

Wilone crawled up into her lap. “Do you miss them now?”

“A little. Sometimes.”

“Would you miss us if you went away?”

“Absolutely.” She gave Wilone a hug. “I’d miss you the most.”

“What about me?” Cearo and Wilone startled at the sound of Aelfrid’s voice.

“What about you?” Cearo replied, irritated he had been standing there listening and had not said anything. “What do you want?”

“I heard you and Little Bird and came to see what you two were doing.”

“Wilone’s picking out a kitten and we’re waiting until they’re done nursing, “ she explained. “Slide off my lap,” she said to Wilone. I can’t reach around you to pet Morwen.” She hoped if she ignored Aelfrid he would go away and stop making her feel uncomfortable.

To her supreme annoyance and discomfort he came over to the hay pile and sat down next to her. “What do you like so much about cats?” he asked.

She moved to the other side of Wilone to lie on her stomach. “They’re nice to pet and they’re good company.”

“They just lay around and sleep all day and they don’t come when you call them.”

“So? They smell better than dogs and they don’t jump up on you or shake water all over you or roll in dead things and horse crap. And dogs don’t get rid of the mice.”

“That’s the only thing cats are good for.”

Cearo looked up at him, angry words on the tip of her tongue, and saw he was grinning. He’d been baiting her. She rolled her eyes and silently berated herself for letting him get to her. If things were not so totally messed up she would have enjoyed going at it with him over which were better: cats or dogs.

“You can tell cats anything and they won’t tell anyone else and they’re nice to cuddle.”

“So are dogs.”

“Depends on the dog. They still smell.”

Wilone tugged on Cearo’s sleeve. “The kitties are done eating. Can I pet them?”

“Be very soft.”

“I will.” Wilone gently scooped up a kitten with both hands and slowly brought the mewling ball of fuzz to the hay in front of her where she stroked it lightly with one finger. To her annoyance, the kitten continued to cry and tried to return to Morwen. “Make it stay!” she told Cearo petulently.

“Why don’t you go sit by Morwen and pet the kitties there? I’m sure the kitties will let you pet them if they’re with their ma.”

Wilone nodded, put the kitten back, then scrambled over the hay to lay down on the other side of Morwen. Cearo smiled at the sight of Wilone petting the kittens lightly with one finger, an expression of concentration on her face as she made sure to be soft. “She looks so sweet,” Cearo said softly, wondering if her parents had ever felt so full of love and amazment they could burst when she’d been Wilone’s age and learning how to pet nicely.

“She does,” Aelfrid agreed. “People treat cats like this where you’re from?”

She nodded, still watching Wilone. “We keep animals around for their company. Lots of people do, strange as that sounds.”

“Why?”

“Because we want to. It makes us happy. I haven’t heard you complaining about Aelfwine.”

“He does a job.”
“He’s also a nice companion.”

“What about us?”

“You and your brothers?” She rolled her eyes. “You smell and you’re loud and you harass me and you like to beat me at swordplay.” ‘And, lately, you kiss me without warning and you tell me you see me as a woman and turn everything upside down,’ she added silently. “Aelfwine helps me relax and makes me smile and laugh.”

“And none of us do?”

“He doesn’t harass me and use swordplay as an excuse to hit me.”

“You do the same to us.”

“And? Wilone, be soft. Don’t hold the kitty so tight.” Wilone set down the wiggling, mewling kitten she’d been gripping around its belly. “You like snakes and bugs and all those nasty things but I don’t tell you it’s stupid.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Only when you dangled them in my face or dropped them down my shift to scare me and make me scream. I didn’t used to be afraid of them, until you brats started scaring me with them.”

“If we didn’t like you, we’d ignore you.”

“That must mean Brego adored me,” she said sarcastically, then felt herself go red. “You know what I mean,” she muttered.

He put a hand over hers. “Yes. Cearo, we need to talk.”

Her heart began to race. “No, we don’t.” She knew what he was going to say and she didn’t want to hear it. “Let go of my hand.”

“Yes, we do,” he said in a low voice. “We have to at some point.”

“Then we’ll do it later,” she shot back. “Let go of my hand.”

“Not until you listen to what I have to say.”

“No.”

“You don’t have a choice!” he snapped, frustration thick in his voice. “If you don’t now, you will at your birthday when I ask Pa for permission to court you.”

She looked up at him. “And what if I don’t want to hear it?” She could see the hurt her words caused reflected in his eyes, making her heart twist. What was she supposed to do, lie to him? “What if all I want is a brother and a friend?”

“Is it?”

“I—yes.” She looked away. “You’re my brother and my best friend, Aelfrid. You’re not supposed to want—to see—this isn’t how it’s supposed to be.”

“You’ve never been a sister. You were sixteen when you came to us. Maybe for Grindan and Tellan, but not the rest of us.”

“Brego said something like that last night and how it would’ve been easier if I was ‘a plain little stick’.”

“He’s right.” He lightly ran his thumb over her palm. “But there’s no sense in wishing for what might have been. You’re not and you’re nearly of age and I don’t want to be your friend anymore.”

‘Stopstopstopnononono,’ her mind cried, willing him to shut up and stop talking about love. “Let go of my hand. I don’t want to talk about this. Leave me alone.”

“Cearo-”

“Let go,” she snapped, jerking her hand from his. “Just leave me alone, Aelfrid. I said I don’t want to talk about it.” She scrambled away to sit next to Wilone. “Did you find a kitty you like, honey?” They were all so cute with their large bellies full of milk and big blue eyes.

Across the hay, Aelfrid had not moved and Cearo knew he was watching her and Wilone. She took a slow, deep breath and held it for a moment. ‘Just ignore him,’ she ordered herself as she let the breath out through her nose soundlessly. If she ignored him and refused to acknowledge he was there, he would go away soon enough.


Chapter 8 - Chapter Eight

A/N--Just a few things:
1) I know rabbits aren’t rodents but no one told Luthien that (or if they did, she forgot). ;)
2) ‘Leoflic’ means, among other things, ‘dear’.
3) In Anglo-Saxon society, women had final say on who they married and Tolkien modeled Rohan on the Anglo-Saxons.


Cearo and Wilone were in the house eating their midday meal when Rheda and Algar returned with Brego. ‘Somebody has a burr under their saddle,’ Cearo thought snidely Brego entered the house and she saw the thunderous expression on his face. ‘Pa must’ve told him to stay away from me.’

“Where’s your brother?” Algar demanded, his expression equally dark, entering close behind Brego.

“Which one?” Cearo replied.

“Aelfrid.”

“I don’t know. He was with Wilone and me in the barn for a while when we were looking at the kittens but he left before we did.”

“Why do you waste your time with those beasts?” Algar asked crossly.

Cearo bit the tip of her tongue to keep from giving him a flip answer. “Because I
find that they’re sweet and I enjoy petting them and hearing them purr.”

“Did you see where your brother went after he left the barn or were you too busy with the cats to notice?”

“I don’t know where he went, but he didn’t take Osric.” ‘I wasn’t so busy with the cats I didn’t notice that,’ she added silently. How was she supposed to know where Aelfrid had gone? It was not her job to keep track of him and he was more than old enough to go about on his own without supervision.

“How long ago did he leave?”

“I’m not sure. Not too long. He stayed in the house until Wilone and I were in the barn with the cats.” Algar ‘hrumph’d and stalked back outside.

Brego waited until their father was gone to sit down next to Cearo and put his hand over hers. “Why did you tell Pa and Ma I kissed you last night?”

“Because they have a right to know Aelfrid isn’t the only one who wants to court me. Take your hand off mine.” ‘Sweet Eru up a tree,’ she sighed mentally, ‘not again. I do not want to deal with another man who fancies himself in love with me.’

“They want to send you to live with Deagol.”

“Aelfrid mentioned Pa was considering that.” She tried to jerk her hand out from under his but he was holding it firmly. “Let go of my hand, Brego. Now.”

“In a minute. Pa is definitely going to send you to live with Deagol. I heard him telling Ma. He doesn’t want you and me and Aelfrid all under the same roof.” He laced his fingers through hers and ran his thumb lightly over the palm of her hand.

“Let go of my hand now,” Cearo snapped, panic rising inside her. “Let go! Brego! Stop!” She looked up at him only to wish she had not. That Look was in his eyes again.

“Calm down.” He placed his fingers on her lips. “Don’t yell or Ma and Pa will come running, thinking I’m attacking you.” He smiled wryly. “You’re fine. You need to get used to men holding your hand, Galdricge.”

“Don’t call me that!” she snapped, pushing his fingers off her lips. “Leave me alone. Go away and leave me alone!”

“Stop hurting her!” Wilone yelled before bursting into tears. With a start, Cearo remembered her sister, who was sitting near her and had, until then, been quietly eating her bread and carrot pieces. “MA!”

Brego dropped Cearo’s hand like it were a hot rock and moved down to the far end of the bench from her. “Stupid brat,” Cearo heard him mutter under his breath.

“Say that again and I’ll geld you before the sun sets,” Cearo snapped, anger at his remark quickly replacing the panic and fear. She turned to her sister and pulled the crying little girl into her lap. “It’s okay, honey. I’m fine. Everything is going to be okay.” When Pa came back, she was going to ask him if instead of going to live with Deagol, she could go live with Elfhild or Gurda. She had to get away from Aelfrid and Brego or she would go totally out of her head.

Rheda burst into the house a few moments later. “Where’s Wilone? What’s wrong?”

Cearo turned to face her foster mother. “She’s fine, Ma. She just got upset when Brego wouldn’t let go of my hand when I asked him to.”

Her words had the desired effect. Rheda’s drawn expression became one of barely suppressed anger. “Brego, what did your father tell you about leaving her alone? We’re only just home and already you’re ignoring him!” She strode over to Brego and cuffed him on the back of the head. “You can’t be forward like she’s a tavern whore, you oaf!”

“I let go of her hand when she said so, Ma,” Brego protested. “Wilone was already upset because Aelfrid tried to hold her hand earlier and she didn’t want him to.”

Rheda cuffed him again. “You should not have tried to hold her hand at all.” To Cearo, she said, “Did Aelfrid try to hold your hand this morning?”

“No,” she lied, surprising herself. “He was going to but I told him not to and he didn’t.” She hoped that it didn’t show on her face she was lying. She had no idea how she’d explain it because she had no idea why she had.

“Yes he did!” Wilone sniffled, lifting her face from Cearo’s shoulder. “I saw him.”

“He wanted to but I told him not to and that was it,” she explained to Rheda. Aelfrid owed her for this. “Everything’s fine.” She stood, holding Wilone, and walked over to where Rheda stood by the doorway. “The garden needs weeding.” She set down her sister and went outside.

Taking care of the garden was hot, sweaty work and between cursing the rabbits and other rodents eating the vegetables, the weeds which refused to be pulled up, and the prevelence of bugs that wanted to eat the plants to stubs the whole issue of brothers who refused to stay brothers was far from her mind while she attacked the weeds, tied up straggling vines, and dropped bugs of all life stages into a bucket of old ale kept around for that purpose.

When the sun slipped below the tops of the trees by the creek, Rheda called for her to come inside and help with the evening meal.

“The garden is growing like someone put a spell on it,” Cearo said as she cut up dried beef to add to the pot over the fire. As much as everyone hated the heat, it meant a longer growing season and that meant more crops to store away and sell and more time to enjoy things fresh, instead of hard and dried. She was looking forward to when the berry bushes would start producing fruit. Wilone needed to learn the fine art of berry picking and eating your fill before your parents caught you and yelled at you for putting more berries in your mouth than your bucket. With what berries actually made it into the buckets there’d be pies and jams and fresh berries with cream. Just thinking about it made Cearo’s mouth water. Berry season would not come soon enough.

“The garden isn’t the only thing with a spell on it,” Rheda remarked. “Brego and Aelfrid are-”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Cearo said.

“You cannot avoid it forever.”

“I can try.”

Rheda chuckled and came over to where Cearo was working. “You’ll drive all of us mad in the process, leoflic.” She gave the girl’s shoulder a squeeze. “I know this is hard and uncomfortable. It is for all of us. Your father is worried about you and your bro-Brego and Aelfrid and so am I and what it will mean for our family. Talk to me.”

“I wish both of them had never said anything and I wish they’d both leave me alone.” She scooped up the pieces of beef and carried them over to the pot. “The whole thing…I just want it to go back to normal.” She didn’t want to talk to Rheda about it, to tell her what she was thinking only to have her go and tell Algar everything. If he knew it scared her to have Aelfrid and Brego intersted in her, he’d probably tell her to stop being weak and she should be flattered two men were interested in her. For all she knew, he’d want her to marry one of his sons. She shuddered slightly. She did have final say in who she married but it would be an incredibly uncomfortable situation if she were to refuse to marry Aelfrid or Brego if Algar wanted her to marry one of them and where would she live if that happened? Wilone would be crushed if she wasn’t around anymore and Rheda needed her to help out. As she dumped the beef pieces into the pot, she imagined one of them was Brego, bringing a smile to her lips.

“I want to go live with Elfhild’s family or Gurda’s family.”

“You do?” Rheda sounded surprised. “What brought that up?”

“I know Pa wants me to go live with Deagol. I’d rather live with Elfhild or Gurda.”

“Who told you that?”

“Aelfrid said Pa was considering it and Brego told me he’d decided I should go live with Deagol. What else needs to be done?”

“You can cut the bread. Your pa hasn’t decided anything.” She muttered something under her breath about boys and driving her to murder.

“I think I would still like to go and live with Elfhild or Gurda, if they’ll have me. I don’t know if I can live around Aelfrid and Brego with everything and not go out of my mind.”

“I understand. I’ll talk to Pa and see what we can do. I’m sure Elfhild would love to have you there to help prepare for the wedding.”

Oh. Duh? How could she have forgotten about Helm’s wedding? “We can say that’s the reason I’m going there.”

“No, I’ll tell Pa the real reason. He needs to know what is going on and why.”

“I didn’t mean him. I meant Brego and Aelfrid.” She stabbed the loaf of bread with the knife and sawed the loaf into halves. “I tell them to leave me alone but they don’t.”

“Men do that.”

Cearo stabbed the right-hand loaf and hacked off a thick slice. “Then they’re stupid. When someone tells you to leave them alone, you leave them alone.”

“Men are hunters. They like to chase after things.”

“I’m not a deer.”

Rheda laughed. “No, not at all. You’re like a fox, all bright red hair and cunning.”

‘I wish I was bald,’ Cearo groused mentally. “I wish they’d leave me alone. Why can’t they go after some girl from the village?”

“Because they’ve decided you’re the one they want, leoflic.”

Cearo stopped murdering the bread and looked over at Rheda. “Why? What’s so special about me they both decided they wanted me? And if they think I’m so great, why are they always making fun of my hair and the way I ride and tugging on my braid? If they like me, why aren’t they nicer?”

Rheda laughed. “The same reason Helm drove Elfhild to distraction before he finally got up the courage to talk to her father.”

“They’re scared to tell me the truth?” Cearo found that hard to believe. “If they’re so scared about talking to me because I might tell them to go bug-kiss an orc, making me sore and bruised when we spar and tugging on my braid when I tell them not to are stupid things to do to make me inclined to listen to them.” She’d nearly used ‘go bugger their horse’ but, thank Bema, caught herself in time. Rheda had no idea all the really great words and phrases she’d learned from her brothers when they didn’t know she was listening and Rheda’s ignorance was her bliss.

“If they like me, why don’t they bring me flowers or help me with chores?” Cearo finished slicing the bread.

“Because that’s how most men are.”

“It makes no sense.”

“Men rarely do.” Rheda picked up the long spoon and stirred the mixture in the pot. “Don’t try to understand them. No woman can.”

Cearo didn’t know who was behind it but when everyone sat down for the
evening meal, Kenric, Grindan, Tellan, and Helm moved around so that neither Aelfrid nor Brego could sit next to or across from her. “Thank you,” she told Helm in a low voice while leaning across the table to grab a slice of bread.

“For what?” he replied with a wink. “Come riding with me after dinner.”

“So you can sell me on Aelfrid’s good points?” she teased, though only half-joking.

“That would be an impossible task,” he quipped and was hit in the head a moment later with a chunk of something from the stew. “She knows you well enough to make up her own mind, Aelfrid.” He threw the chunk back at his brother, hitting him in the chest.

“Why are you mad at Aelfrid?” Tellan asked. “Is it what he said on patrol?”

She felt herself grow red. “And other things,” she said quickly, suddenly interested in the food on her plate.

“What’d he say? When did you find out? What did he do?”

“Nothing you need to know,” Algar interjected. “Eat your meal.”

Cearo couldn’t get out of helping Rheda with clean-up two nights in a row so the ride with Helm had to wait until the dishes and table were wiped off, the scraps fed to the pigs, and the stray bits of food were scraped off the inside of the pot back into the stew, which would be heated up again for the evening meal the next night.

“So why did you want me to come riding, if you’re not going to try to convince me to marry Aelfrid?” Cearo asked as she followed Helm to the the pasture with Sherwyn’s bridle and saddle.

“I thought you’d like to get away from the house for a while and you might want to talk to someone about what’s going on.”

‘Lovely,’ she thought sardonically. ‘Someone else who thinks they have a right to know everything going on inside my head.’ “And what if I don’t want to talk about it?”

“Then you can teach me more of your songs and we’ll race rabbits and watch owls hunt after the sun sets.” He took the saddle from her and settled it on Sherwyn’s back. “Elfhild said you might want someone to talk to.”

“You told her about this?” She was going to kill him.

“No. She told me before I left on patrol that when you came of age and men started asking Pa to court you, you would want someone to talk to other than Ma.”

“Oh. She’s right.” She handed him the bridle. “You won’t tell anyone what I say?”

“Only if you want me to.”

“Good. Have you told anyone?”

“No.” He gave her a leg up into the saddle. “I’m not Brego. I don’t go around telling things to whoever asks.”

“Thank Bema for that,” she remarked dryly. “I’m surprised he said anything last night about Aelfrid if he wants me, too. He said I deserved to know.”

Helm snorted. “The only ‘deserving’ person he cares about is himself. He told you because it serves his purposes.”

“What, to make me want nothing to do with him or Aelfrid? Whatever he thinks he was going to get out of telling me, he didn’t do himself any favors and after earlier I want even less to do with him.”

“What did he do?” Helm’s tone was clipped.

“He refused to let go of my hand when I asked him to and said I needed to get used to men holding my hand and he called me ‘Galdricge’. Wilone told me that he says that’s a better name for me than ‘Cearo’.”

“He has the manners of an orc.”

“Don’t insult orcs.” They both laughed. “Wilone yelled for Ma when I got all upset and she came running and that was it because I went out to the garden then. Thanks for talking to Kenric, Grindan, and Tellan and getting them to move around so I didn’t have to sit near Brego or Aelfrid tonight. I’d have been too nervous to eat if I’d hada to be near them and I know at least one of them would’ve tried to sit near me.”

“Pa told me earlier the boys had said too much and you were looking tenser than a bow string because of it.”

“I love you, Helm. As a brother. Hope you’re not disappointed,” she added dryly.

He chuckled. “My broken heart shall never heal.”

“Be thoughtful like that to Elfhild and you’ll make her a very happy woman and the other women in the village wish they’d gotten to you first.” She sighed and settled back against him. “Brego and Aelfrid both said you older boys never saw me as a sister, or at least had a hard time seeing me as a sister. How did you manage to escape going stupid over me like they have?”

“You weren’t blonde and named ‘Elfhild’.”

She laughed. “So if I’d changed my hair color and name, I might have three brothers wanting to court me?”

“The not speaking Rohirric would’ve been a problem.”

“Good point. I do now, though.”

“You would have to remove the real Elfhild and I have trouble believing you’d be successful with that.”

Cearo laughed in what she hoped was an evil manner. “I have my ways.”

“Leave my betrothed in peace, Lig! You have two of my brothers wanting to court you. Set your sights on a man who isn’t in love with another!”

“That’s too easy, Helm! I like a challenge!”

He gently tugged on her braid. “Find your challenge elsewhere.”

“If you insist. Seriously, why are they so interested in me? I’m nothing special and they’ve seen me when I’m dirty and messed up and in a horrible mood and I’ve driven them crazy with tricks and spying on them and telling on them to Ma and Pa.”

“Brego, I have no idea, but you and Aelfrid have always been close.”

“We’re friends. Like you and I are friends.”

“You and Aelfrid have always been much closer than you and me.”

“So? He told me the only reason he didn’t tell me go leave him alone when I first arrived is because he felt sorry for me and because I’d do his work for him and I’ve helped him play pranks on the rest of you and I’m good at getting him out of trouble. He also said one time it was easier to let me keep talking than to get me to be quiet.”

Helm laughed at the last part. “Is that when you broke his teeth?”

“Yes.” Helm laughed harder. “How can he want to court someone he thinks talks too much and breaks his teeth?”

“So he can be sure you’ll always be there to do his work for him.”

“Haha, funny,” she groused, elbowing him. “I haven’t done his work for him for a while now-I haven’t been able to, so he’s out of luck on that.”

“Cearo, if that’s what he still thought, he wouldn’t be friends with you and he wouldn’t want to court you. You’re a very pretty girl with a nice smile and a nice laugh and you’re sweet and understanding and you keep your word. It’s not hard to understand why a man would want to court you.”

“I thought you said you had no interest in me,” she teased.

“You talk too much. Hey!” He rubbed his side where she’d elbowed him a second time.

“Didn’t your mother teach you it’s rude to say things like that to a lady?”

“Yes, but I’m not talking to a lady. OW! Stop with your elbow!”

“When you stop insulting me.”

“Jab me again and I’ll push you off Sherwyn and you can walk home.”

“And what if I’m kidnapped by orcs? How will you feel then? You’ll never be able to show your face in public again if you leave your poor, defenseless sister all alone to walk home when there are orcs about.”

“I know how you fight. You are not defenseless. And don’t you keep a dagger with you?”

“Yes, but if I’m taken by orcs unexpectedly how can I grab it in time to defend myself? A search party will find my dead, mangled body in the grass and it’ll be all your fault for leaving me out here alone. Elfhild will never want to marry you after that.”

“You’d make an excellent wandering bard, making up tales of hardship and woe.”

“And I can stitch designs on clothing and draw pictures for a few extra pennies on market days,” she quipped. “All I need is someone to travel with me.”

“Let me know if you find anyone.”

“I’ll do that. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Saying I’m pretty and sweet.”

“It’s true. Not as pretty and sweet as Elfhild, though.”

Cearo chuckled. “Of course. I’m sure even Nessa or Vana would fall short in your eyes. Were you serious about wanting to learn another of my songs?”

“Yes. Who are Nessa and Yavanna?”

‘Smooth move, using Elvish names,’ she chided herself silently. “Bema’s sister and wife.”

“Is that what they call them where you’re from?”

“Yes.” Among other names.

“What language is that?”

“Sindarin,” she said, thinking fast. “One of the Elven languages.”

“Elves are real?” Helm sounded like a little boy who’d just been told Santa was sitting in the living room.

“Yes. They live to the north and west of here, on the other side of the Misty Mountains.”

“You met them?”

“No, unfortunately. I’ve only learned about them. I want to meet them. How’d you like to learn a drinking song?” Definitely time to change the subject.

Helm chuckled. “I didn’t think fine ladies knew those sorts of things.”

It was her turn to laugh. “Who says I’m a fine lady?”

“What else could you be? Your hands were soft and your skin was white when you arrived, you knew nothing of everyday work, and you know how to read and write in your own language and you learned at least one other language.”

“What if I told you that where I’m from, even the poorest children are taught to read and write and we have developed ways of doing things that make it easier to do work like cooking and cleaning that don’t leave your hands rough and worn?”

“I would say your home sounds like a wonderful place and I wish it were possible to bring those things here.”

“So do I.” She sighed and stared up at the sky, wondering if it was the same sky her parents and brothers were looking at.


Chapter 9 - Chapter Nine

A/N: The reference to Brecca’s awareness of women is taken from the movie Big Fish.

Cearo moved to Elfhild’s one week later under the guise of going to help her with last-minute preparations for the wedding. She was sure Helm, Aelfrid, and Brego suspected the real reason but if they did, they never said anything, not that Aelfrid or Brego had much chance to. Algar made certain his sons were occupied with tasks that kept them away from the house most of the day and Cearo kept herself busy inside the house in the evenings, ensuring neither man would have any opportunity to talk about anything more serious than that season’s crops and the foals which were due to be born any time now. She tried to ignore the way Aelfrid looked at her but it was hard to avoid in a house as small as theirs and much too often she’d accidentally meet his eyes and no matter how fast she managed to look away, what she saw there made her heart twist and her mouth go dry.

“Come outside with me,” Elfhild said a few nights after Cearo arrived. “We haven’t had a chance to talk since the beginning of spring.”

Cearo eagerly agreed, her eyes sore from straining to see while she embroidered the hem of Elfhild’s wedding overdress by firelight. Thankfully, she was nearly done and was sure she could finish tomorrow afternoon.

“How excited are you?” Cearo asked as she stepped outside with Elfhild. “Nervous?”

Elfhild laughed. “Very. Some days I feel as if I will be a terrible wife and I will never be able to get the fire going again if it goes out and I am still terrible at making soap and weaving.” She sighed. “Do you think Rheda would be willing to let you come live with Helm and me after we’re married? You make the best soap. You can teach me how.”

“A better question is if Wilone will let me come live with you and Helm,” Cearo replied dryly. “My darling little sister threw an absolute fit when I told her I was coming to stay with you until the wedding and refused to let me out of her sight for two days straight until Pa told her she could come to visit me every other day. Even then, she was incredibly clingy and I had to sneak away from the house while Ma distracted her so I could come here.”

“Is that the sad wailing I heard the night you came?” Elfhild teased. “I was wondering who had died. If Wilone will not allow you to come live with us, do you think you could come over regularly and help me?”

“I’m sure that can be arranged.” She smiled slyly. “Are you sure you want anyone else around?”

“You’re terrible, Cearo!”

“What else are friends for, if not to tease you mercilessly?” She gave Elfhild a side hug. “Of course I’ll come over regularly. I would anyway to see my favorite brother.”

“I’m marrying Helm, not Aelfrid.” When Cearo didn’t say anything, Elfhild looked over at her friend. “Cearo?” she asked, concerned, when she saw her friend’s face was now drawn and unsmiling. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything,” Cearo replied with a sigh and told Elfhild about Brego and Aelfrid. “That’s the real reason I came,” she admitted. “I had to get away from them.”

“Both of them?” Elfhild wasn’t surprised to hear of Aelfrid’s interest as she’d suspected it for quite a while but Brego…when had he become interested in her friend? The last she’d been aware, Brego considered Cearo a pest to be tolerated for his mother’s sake. What had changed his mind?

Cearo nodded. “Both of them. It frightens me, the way they look at me. I’m not ready for this.” She hugged herself. “Why can’t brothers stay brothers and friends stay friends? I’m happy with things the way they’ve always been. Why can’t they stay that way? Why do they have to go and be stupid and want to change everything and ruin it all?”

“Bema alone knows, my dear.” Elfhild put an arm around the younger woman’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “May I offer some advice?”

“Only if it’s a way to get them to leave me alone.”

Elfhild chuckled. “Not exactly. Give Aelfrid a chance.”

Cearo pulled away. “What? Did he tell you to say that? Did Helm tell you to?”

“No and no. You are the only one who has said anything to me about this. Give Aelfrid a chance. He loves you, Cearo. More than a few have suspected it for a while.”

“And you didn’t say anything to me?”

“I did not know for sure and I did not want to risk being wrong and causing problems. You two do live in the same house.”

“You could have warned me.”

“I left that to Helm.”

Cearo felt her temper start to rise. “Helm suspected and he never said anything?”

“Yes, and he agreed with me that it would likely cause more trouble than it was worth to say anything to you. What good would it do to say anything before you were twenty?”

“I could have told Aelfrid to stop it and go find someone else.”

“It does not work that way, Cearo. You cannot just tell someone to not love you or to go love someone else. Think about it. If you are this uncomfortable now, how uncomfortable would you have been if I or Helm or someone else had told you what we suspected a year or more ago?” Cearo didn’t say anything. “It would only have made trouble, especially if Aelfrid was not in love with you.”

Cearo had to admit Elfhild had a point, but she did so only to herself. “Aelfrid wanted me to listen to him. He said if I would not now, I would have to on my birthday when he asked Pa for permission to court me. He shut up, mostly, after I told him I didn’t want to hear it. Brego refused to let go of my hand and told me I should get used to it and he scares me more than Aelfrid does. The way he looks at me…there’s something in his eyes that makes me feel like a tiny mouse being stared at by a big, hungry cat.”

“You have a say in who courts you and who you marry. Remember that,” Elfhild said, taking Cearo’s hand and giving it a squeeze. “I wouldn’t blame you if you refused Brego. Something about him makes my skin itch like fleas biting in July. Did he tell you what it is about you he finds so attractive and interesting?”

“Nothing, other than it would have been easier to see me as a sister if I was a skinny little stick. Bema knows we’ve never gotten along very well. I have no idea what about me he’s so interested in. He’s always criticized me.” She sighed and leaned back against the house. “I miss Aelfrid. I want my friend back.”

“If you miss him, return home.”

“He’ll only bother me about wanting to court me. I want to be able to spend time with him and not hear anything about that.” She chuckled. “I remember I helped him herd the sheep before he left on patrol and he was at me to try to ride one of the ewes and wouldn’t leave off about it until I did. The stupid sheep bolted right out from underneath me. My butt was sore for a week.”

“So you want Aelfrid to harass you to do stupid things,” Elfhild said through her laughter. “I would not think you would miss that.”

“I agreed to ride the ewe only if he’d ride the ram.” She grinned. “I wasn’t the only one with sore parts at the end of the day. I beat him the next day when we were practicing with short swords. Had him down on the groud, tip of the practice sword to his throat. He said he let me beat him but I knew he hadn’t. I want to race Cwen against Osric again. I love racing with him.” She sighed. “I want to be able to lay out at night and look at the stars and make up stories about what we see and just be relaxed with him and not wonder if he’s looking at me with that look in his eyes and if he might try to kiss me or hold my hand.”

“If that is how you feel, tell him that at the wedding.” She gave her friend a long side hug.

In the remaining weeks before the wedding, nothing more was said about Cearo’s problem with Aelfrid and Brego. As promised, Wilone came to visit every other day, usually with Helm.

“I want you back,” Wilone whinged to Cearo a week before the wedding while they made flower crowns near the house. “Ma isn’t no fun.”

“Ma is not any fun,” Cearo corrected, “and I’m sure she is. She’s just busy and doesn’t have as much time to play with you as I did. Don’t you play with Tellan or Grindan?”

Wilone glowered. “They knock me down and make me be the orc and don’t tell me about Tom the Toad.” As if for emphasis, she stuck her thumb in her mouth.

Cearo pulled the little girl onto her lap. “I’m sorry, honey. I wish I could come play with you but it’s too far to ride back and forth each day.”

“Can I stay with you? Please?”

“I don’t think Ma would like that and I wouldn’t have time to play with you right now. I’m busy helping Elfhild and her ma get ready for when she marries Helm.”

“Why are they doing that?”

“Because they love each other very much and they want the whole world to know.”

“Why do they need you to help them? Can’t they tell everyone on their own?”

“It’s a really big celebration and Elfhild and her ma need my help cooking for everyone who’s going to come hear Helm and Elfhild say how much they love each other and I’m making Elfhild’s overdress pretty.”

“Can’t you do that at home?”

Cearo hugged her sister tightly. “I wish, Little Bird, but they need me here.”

“Alfrid misses you, too. He wants you to come back. C’ro, what’s wrong?” Wilone looked up at her sister, who’d gone tense.

“Nothing, honey. I’m fine.” Cearo forced a smile. “I’ll come home after the wedding.” After a moment, she asked, “Has Brego said anything?”

Wilone shrugged. “I dunno. He and Pa yelled a lot after you left and he stays gone a lot.”

‘Wonder what they fought over,’ Cearo mused. ‘Maybe Helm knows.’ “Do you miss him?”

Wilone shook her head. “He’s no fun to play with.”

If Helm knew what Brego and Algar had fought over, he wasn’t telling.

“I was not there when it happened,” he told her later while saddling Sherwyn up to leave. “It was not just about you.”

“The woman near the Gap?”

Helm glanced at her. “How did you know about that?” he asked, surprised.

Smirking, she cocked an eyebrow. “I have my ways. Brego told me Pa already knew about that. What else has Brego done?”

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with.” He pulled her into a hug. “We miss you at home.”

“So Wilone told me. She mentioned Aelfrid wishes I was home.”

“He is not the only one, Lig.” He tugged her braid. “We all miss you.”

“Even Tellan and Grindan?”

Helm chuckled. “They wouldn’t admit it if you asked them.”

“Do you?”

“What a stupid question.” He tugged her braid again. “Of course I do! It’s boring without you goading the boys to pull pranks or dropping them in the manure pile when they won’t do what you want.”

“I only did that once!” Helm laughed. “See if your boots don’t end up filled with manure! Elfhild wants me to come live with you two after you’re married to help her.”

“Help her with what? Burning the food and losing the sheep?” Cearo glowered at him and ground her heel into his toes. “What did you tell her when she asked?”

“That I was sure she’d be fine and was she sure she-you two wanted anyone else around?”

“Why would we not?” Helm asked innocently. Cearo laughed.

“I’m not Wilone, Helm. I know why you two wouldn’t want anyone else around. At least for a while.”

“You know less than you think.”

“I’ve seen horses and I’ve heard the stories. I know what men and women do. I’m not stupid.”

“That is not what I meant. Could you go find Wilone? Ma will yell herself hoarse if I return too late with our sister.”

The day of the wedding dawned overcast and rainy for the fifth day in a row. Elfhild, to Cearo’s intense annoyance, was driving herself to distraction worrying over the weather.

“I will shove her overdress in her mouth,” she muttered under her breath as she dashed out to the privy under a cloak, “if she doesn’t shut up about the stupid rain.” It wasn’t a big deal if they had to gather in the tavern instead of the center of the village for Helm and Elfhild to say their vows. Yes, everyone would get wet going over but everyone was damp enough already it hardly mattered and the old wives’ tale about rain being bad luck was bollocks. Plenty of people had been married on a rainy day and gone on to have long, happy marriages and no more of their children died than couples who had married on sunny days. Cearo rolled her eyes. When she married, she was going to make sure someone slapped her if she started acting stupid like Elfhild was.

Elfhild, who was standing by the door, grabbed Cearo’s arm as she came back into the house.

“Is the rain slowing?” she demanded.

“It’s a slower kind of totally drenching than it was the last time you asked,” Cearo said dryly. “I think I’m only mostly soaked instead of entirely. Elfhild, worrying about the rain is not going to change anything. Brecca said weeks ago he’s happy to let us use the tavern for the wedding and the feast afterwards if it’s raining so there is no problem with where the wedding is going to be and if there will be room for everyone. Why don’t you get your overdress and go over to the tavern and start dressing for the wedding? Your ma and I will come over with the food and we’ll get the tables and benches set up for the wedding.”

“I wanted to have it outside!”

“What, in the mud? Even if it stopped raining now, it would still be a total mess outside. Having it in the tavern is the best idea.” She pried Elfhild’s hand off her arm. “Get your overdress and go to the tavern and ask Brecca if he minds helping your ma and I move the tables and benches.”

“I wanted to have flowers in my hair.”

Cearo bit the inside of her cheek and counted to twenty. “I know where I can find flowers for your hair. I’ll take care of all of that. I’ll find flowers to set around the tavern as well. Just go.” She walked over to the fire to talk to Elfhild’s ma before Elfhild could start whinging again.

Soaked to the skin, but bearing a huge armload of wildflowers, Cearo entered the tavern an hour later. Much to her pleasure, the tables had been moved to the perimeter of the room and the benches set up in rows for people to sit on.

“Hello, lovely girl,” Brecca greeted her from behind the bar. With a wink, he asked, “What do you say we make it a double ceremony today?”

Cearo laughed. “You know I’d love nothing more but I’m not twenty yet, Brecca. Pa would never allow it.”

“Only three more days, Cearo. Surely he wouldn’t argue over three days when true love is involved!”

“He might not but I’m sure your wife would.” She set the flowers down on the nearest table and shed her drenched cloak, lying it across a bench near the fire to dry out.

“Who cares about her?” The older man laughed. “Thrilled to see that rascal Helm finally settling down?”

“Elfhild is too good for him,” she quipped. “It’s his good fortune so if she wants to settle for a lout like him, who am I to argue? I’d like to think she’ll make a real man out of him.” Both she and Brecca laughed. “Can you spare some mugs for the flowers? I promised Elfhild I’d bring flowers to put around the tavern since she was so upset the wedding couldn’t be outside.”

“Only if you agree to marry me today.”

“Only if your wife says it’s okay.” She grinned and made her way over to the bar. “A mug for each table should be enough.”

“You’re a lovely girl, my dear,” Brecca remarked with a rare seriousness, wiping out a mug and pushing it across the bar to Cearo. “If I was younger, I’d ask to court you.”

She felt herself blush. “Thank you.”

“And not just because there are so few women within an easy riding distance. You’re a fine woman and you’ll make some man a wonderful wife.” He smiled knowingly. “I know of a few men who would love to make today a double ceremony.”

“So do I,” she replied dryly. “Not that it would happen. Even if Pa would allow it, I wouldn’t.”

Brecca cackled with laughter. “I remember being young and impatient. Couldn’t wait to go and ask Dagmar’s pa for permission to court her. I thought I would burst out of my skin.”

“And you’ve regretted it every day since, or so you always say,” Cearo quipped. “So has Dagmar. I can understand why. How she puts up with you always making eyes at other women, I have no idea.”

“She beats me with her broom,” Brecca said matter-of-factly.

“Smart woman.” Cearo bit the inside of her cheek and looked down at the bar for a moment to keep from laughing. It was a joke in the village that Brecca was aware of only two women in the world: Dagmar and Not Dagmar. “I hope when I marry it’s like you and Dagmar.”

“You’re going to beat him with your broom?” Brecca teased.

“Every day,” she replied dryly. “I’m serious, Brecca. I want to be as happy and in love as you two are.” She straightened up and carried an armload of mugs over to the table where the flowers were. “Where is Dagmar?”

“Counting our barrels of ale to make sure we have enough for the feast afterwards.”

“We have ale for the feast. We don’t need to use yours.”

“Where do you think your parents were getting the ale from?”

Cearo chuckled. “That would explain why I never saw any barrels anywhere, if it was being stored here.”

“I was not sure if it would arrive in time for the wedding, seeing as it had to come from Edoras but it arrived yesterday, thank Bema.”

“That far? You don’t have enough of your own?”

“Mine is ordinary ale. This is a wedding! We need the best!” Brecca sounded horrified by the idea of serving the usual ale, as if it would be a crime against nature to do so.

“You don’t have to go through so much trouble. You know we all love your ale.” ‘Some of us too much,’ she thought archly, remembering the last time some of her brothers came home totally and completely drunk and puking.

“It’s my gift to them.”

“You have a truly noble heart, Brecca, and don’t try to convince me otherwise.” Cearo looked at him over her shoulder. “Everyone knows you’re not really a grouchy old man.”

Brecca snorted. “Tell Dagmar that.”

Cearo grinned at him. “I will.”

When people began to arrive for the wedding, Cearo hurried to the storeroom at the back of the tavern Elfhild was using to change in. “We have plenty of time,” Cearo said when Elfhild opened her mouth to say something. “I have the flowers for your hair,” she held up several deep blue blossoms which matched the color of Elfhild’s eyes, “and there are bunches in mugs on every table. Dagmar, Ma, and your mother are all working together in the kitchen to make sure food will be ready after the ceremony. There is plenty of ale.” Cearo held her tongue about where it had come from. That was for Brecca to say.

“Is Helm here yet?” the nervous bride asked.

“Not yet but there is still plenty of time. I came early so I wouldn’t be rushed doing your hair. Let’s light a few more candles so I can see what I’m doing.”
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