Hello everyone! Welcome to my first attempt at fanfiction. Hopefully it doesn't turn into a complete monster. I've got quite a bit planned: it begins in "The Ring Goes South" in The Fellowship of the Ring and will continue through one of the endings of The Return of the King. I'm basically adding a new character to the story, so if that's not your cup of tea, this may not be for you. This is the story of a girl coming to know the worlds around her and within her set in the context of the Lord of the Rings. I hope you enjoy it.

Also, I'm not Tolkien and thus own nothing but the one character I made up.


Her mother used to braid her hair for her when she was young. Big, thick braids, little tiny braids, overbraids, underbraids, long, straight braids, inverted braids winding around the head—her mother had taught her all that. She braided her own hair now, wrapping it around and around her head and leaving a thick plait hanging down her back. It made an excellent bludgeon. She kept it like this most of the time, coiling the tail up while she slept out of the fear that a passing traveler might notice it hanging down. She tended to sleep rather lightly, awakening at even the quietest of treads passing underneath her. If it were a lone traveler, she might ambush him then and there, but she rarely had the courage to take on multiple foes at once, preferring to wait for them to fall asleep and then rob them quietly and disappear into the night.

The group of nine moving south below her had been loud enough to wake the dead, but they were moving incredibly fast; she was having quite a bit of trouble keeping up with them, clambering through the trees as she was. They're in an awful hurry, she thought grumpily to herself as she fought to keep up with them. A group that large was intimidating to raid: wake a single one of them and it could quickly turn to a nine-to-one battle. But she was desperate.

Once upon a time, people had travelled through these woods almost constantly, but the flow had slacked off inexplicably over the past few years, and she had not seen anyone at all for over a month. Winter would be setting in soon, and she had naught to wear but the piece of leather she used to bind her breasts securely to her chest and a skirt that had gotten shorter and shorter over years of tearing it on branches and using it for bandages. She found that heavy clothing made it awfully difficult to dodge attacks in the times in which she failed to stealthily abscond after robbing someone, but she'd rather not freeze. Also, she'd been living for nearly a year without a knife-didn't anyone carry them anymore? Apparently these travelers did...in fact, they seemed rather well-armed, she noted in the brief moments in which she could look down.

There were three men, as far as she could tell in the darkness, one appearing to be quite old; in addition, there were a dwarf, an elf (she would have to be careful of his keen senses), and four odd creatures that were similar in height to dwarves but more alike in their proportions to men. She had plenty of time to ponder what they could be and why she had never previously encountered them as the party continued to travel with scarcely a pause all night.

They finally came to a halt around dawn. Her stomach growled smelling their lovely sausages; she wondered how many she would be able to steal that day. She was absolutely famished. With so few travelers from whom to pilfer food, she was having to rely more and heavily on hunting, which was rather difficult without a knife, and her meals were becoming disturbingly few and far between. Hopefully, that would all change today.

She was rather dismayed to see that they set a watch, but that at least left only one person between her and food and supplies, and thankfully that was the rather oblivious dwarf. The elf would have been far more difficult to sneak attack. She was not opposed to killing in order to get what she needed, but it was strictly for cases of emergency: this was definitely an emergency. She could try to knock the dwarf out, but one noise too loud and she would have ruined the entire operation. No, she would have to break his neck, quickly and quietly. Then, she could stash one of their knives on her body and dash away with as much food as she could carry...this would be difficult, especially working during the day. But she had no other choice. A leap ever so slightly forward from the limb she was perched on would leave her quite close behind the dwarf without being so close he'd notice. She hoped. She gave her arms a brief stretch before jumping forward, and, turning a quick flip to try to calm her pounding heart, landed silently behind him. She crept up close, trying to find the precise positions of the hands for the most efficient death she could deal, but just as she was about to reach forward and deal it, she heard a quiet chuckle from behind her.


Please be gentle with reviews! xx