Into the Starless Night
Synopsis: Anária is a Ranger who has survived Helm's Deep, but now she must continue south, to Gondor and war against Mordor. Sequel to "Daughter of Númenor", set during TTT, ROTK. Haldir/OC
A/N: First of all let me apologise for being gone so long, the 'real world' sadly interrupted things. But I'm back on track!
This is the second part of Anária's story so If you have not read "Daughter of Númenor" I suggest you do so, this story will not contain any of the back story required to understand a lot of what is going on.
Thank you for reading this story, and please leave me a review!
Disclaimer: JRR and New Line own all rights. Please don't take my story down or anything nasty!
Chapter 1: The Dúnedain of Arnor
As the party came down towards the Fords of Isen Anária felt a tugging at her senses. To the north-west the Gap of Rohan loomed, she could see the angle of the pass and felt a call in her heart, just beyond it was the lands she had grown up in, and with a short journey, her home. Rivendell and the House of Elrond, with Elves and occasionally her own kin. As she looked west at the Gap for a moment she thought she saw a movement at the height of the pass, as though a company moved through the gap. She turned in her seat, behind her Legolas the Elf sat his horse beside her kinsman, Aragorn, and Eomer, the Lord she had met in the hall the night before.
Legolas met her eyes, he had been smiling, but seeing her frown he looked at her askance, she flicked a finger towards the gap, a silent signal to look towards that place. He turned his eyes in the direction, he frowned. He spoke quietly to Aragorn and then flicked his reins, encouraging his horse to pull out of line and come towards her.
"Did you see something?" she asked. He shook his head.
"I saw dust, there may have been travellers in the Gap but if there were they have already passed beyond my sight, into the forest on this side or over the pass." He was quiet and respectful, his manner and accent reminding her with a pang of Haldir. Although Haldir was many centuries older than his Woodland kinsman they shared a calmness and clarity of speech that was almost lazy in its pattern. She realised she had not responded to his words, she smiled apologetically.
"Thank you, I thought I saw something but I have not the eyes of Elfkind." He smiled and inclined his head.
"Yet there are few humans who would have seen anything at that distance." It was her turn to acknowledge his compliment. But her smile was rueful.
"I thank you, but I fear I must tell you I believe I looked at the only moment I could have seen anything and that which prompted me to look at the gap was not my eyesight but another sense." He raised an eyebrow, he had seen the night before that her fighting had a strange style to it; at times he thought she moved – as Aragorn sometimes seemed to do – before her opponent acted. It was not only skill that allowed them to move like that, preternatural senses due, he believed, to their kinship with Elves as all his kind had senses that went beyond what many humans had. He had never really known humans at war before the Rohirrim, and while he respected their prowess he saw there was a difference between them and the children of Númenor.
"If it would be of assistance I can keep an eye on our flank?" he asked. She smiled and nodded to him. With a returning nod he returned to Aragorn's side where they had another soft conversation, she ignored them, riding close behind Gandalf and Théoden, King of Rohan.
Several times he had turned his head to look at her, a contemplative look upon his face, each time she smiled politely and then looked away. She was unsure what bothered him so. Whatever it was she had little time to think on it. Something at the edge of her mind was bothering her, it was like a bee trapped within a small room by a pane of glass, buzzing and flying this way and that. She could feel a strange tugging in her heart. There was somewhere else she should be.
Her eyes were drawn again and again towards the gap of Rohan, to where she had seen that brief hint of movement. She felt she had to be somewhere else, and that somewhere was not before her on the path to Isen. The fords were already before them, soon they would cross them.
As the water washed around their horses hooves Anária rubbed the neck of her mount. The horse was tense, she could feel Anária's restlessness. As they went up the other bank she pulled Brasnora to one side of the path, turning in her seat to find her Captain's eyes. Aragorn looked older and more careworn in the daylight than she had seen him in her life. Like her parents he was beginning to show his age before a Dúnedain should. He was aged by the times he lived in she knew, and by the great burden he felt upon his shoulders. He moved his own horse to join her. Gandalf glanced at them briefly but to her surprise the wizard made no move to speak with them.
"What is it?" he asked quietly, his grey eyes scanning the wooded valley and mountain sides that led from the gap of Rohan.
"Something or someone if coming east, I think I should go and see who or what comes this way." Behind him Eomer had moved towards them.
"You should not go alone." He said, with his deep, heavy voice.
Aragorn turned his head to look at Eomer and then returned his gaze to the dark pines. She watched the play of thoughts upon his face. He too felt something to the west, she wondered if his thoughts, like hers, were turning to Imladris, to the Last Homely House and their friends and loved ones. His grey eyes met hers.
"You should go if you feel you must, but Eomer is also right, you should not go alone." She acknowledged this. Eomer looked towards his king and then motioned to two other members of his household, men he had known since childhood. He quietly ordered them to guard her passage as though she were his sister, while Aragorn and Legolas exchanged words with her.
"You go carefully now lass." Gimli growled, the closest Eomer had heard to a gentle tone in his voice, although in the brief time he had seen Eowyn she had told him the dwarf had been a fine and amusing companion on the road from Edoras.
Anária nodded to them, a deeper nod – almost a bow – to her kinsmen and then she turned her horse to the west and spurred him to a trot, the two green cloaked rohirrim urged their mounts to join her and three quickly disappeared into the trail that led to the Gap of Rohan.
Far away to the west Arwen stood looking down to the gathered Elves in the courtyard below. They were heading to the West, to pass away forever to Valinor. And she was going with them. She felt tears come anew to her cheeks. Falling in silence. It seemed such a short time ago she had sworn to wait here in Middle Earth for all her life. For love she sworn. And now for love she was leaving. The love of others. The love of Aragorn who had told her to leave him, for the love of her Ada who seemed so hurt by her promise to Aragorn.
She wondered what her brothers would say. But they were not here, they had gone East. To search for Aragorn as their grandmother bade them. Galadriel had not sent her any word though. Should she pass away or stay? But Galadriel had not sent a word of advice or comfort for Arwen. Behind her she heard her father's soft steps.
"Arwen. They are waiting." He said softly. His deep voice resonant and warm. But she could hear the slightest note of doubt. She wondered if he doubted whther she would truly leave.
"Ada…" she could not even speak the words. She looked below again, but rather than the grey clad elves she saw something else, a day in spring when the sun had poured down from above. Aragorn, speaking softly, too softly for her to hear to his slim cousin. Arwen watched the girl take his instructions with a serious face, but then the face looked up, she caught Arwen's eye and she smiled. And Arwen returned the smile. She was so young, too young to go to war, to young to leave Rivendell. She was like a small sister to Arwen as she had spent much time with the young human. It had been Arwen who had cut her hair short when Anária had wanted her too, and it had been Arwen the young woman had spoken to about the disagreements she had with her parents about her choice of life. Arwen sighed and as she did the vision faded away.
"Ada where is Anária? Are she and her brother safe?" She turned to look at him, he seemed surprised by the question and raised a brow.
"Galadriel cares for Anádor, he was wounded. And Anária left Lothlórien with Haldir's company to aid the Kingdom of Rohan ten days ago." He said quietly. She nodded.
"It seems a great sadness to me that one so young goes into the very jaws of death while I flee." She looked back at him, his face was twisted with pain.
"It is." He said softly. "And it is I who sent her thus, and beg you to leave." Arwen raised a brow She had known that Aragorn had not been that pleased to send Anária east, but he had not said why he must do so. She had not suspected it was her father who had desired her to go.
"Why ada? Why did you send her?" she asked her thoughts clouded with doubt, she did not understand how he could think only of sending her away while he sent others to war. Elladan and Elrohir he could not have stopped. Aragorn was their great friend they would pass into Mordor itself if he asked them, and it had been Galadriel who had sent the request. Their mother's mother, more precious to them now when their mother was so far away. But Anária…
That feeling of right in her request, that sense of good to come from her passage to the east had faded with his hopes many many months before. Arwen waited her eyes on him, questioning, wondering. Her gentle remonstrance cut anew his reasons for all that he had done, and all that he was doing. The right of it seemed to him now wrong, the wisdom of his years but nothing in the oncoming of the shadow.
"I sent her… Because I had hope, hope that she might become who she should have, hope that Aragorn would take up the burden of his birth. Those hopes are all but crumbled into dust." Arwen looked away, below all was in readiness. But there were no songs, no calls, no laughter echoed through her home of many years. Only a gentle sighing, like leaves in autumn as they brush against each other. It was a gentle, forlorn sound. They were leaving the Last Homely House, no joy did they feel in it. But amongst that sighing she heard two words.
"All but?" She turned to look at him. "Then there is still hope? For Aragorn, for Anária? For Me?"
Anária reined in her horse, barely even aware of her two guards exchanging a glance. She peered ahead, the trail curved to the right, the perfect sight for an ambush. The trail had been wide but winding so far, but now a hundred metres ahead it narrowed, on one side it fell away steeply into a copse of pine, on the other the mountain thistle grew thick and dark. She fingered the hilt of her sword.
'Where now are the Dúnedain?' She jumped in her saddle as a voice seemed to whisper in her ear, beneath her Brasnora snorted, prancing a little to the side. Before her on the road she saw a silver bowl, grey horseman rode across it. She had seen that somewhere before. Galadriel! It had been her voice whispering in her ear. And Galadriel's mirror, in that maelstrom of images had been a company of grey riders, dark and grim. Her kinsman of the north, riding through a wooded forest. She reached up to pull back her red hood.
"Is everything alright m'lady?" asked one of the Rohirrim. She turned to look at him.
"Where now are the Dúnedain?" she asked him he looked confused, exchanging a glance with his fellow. Turning her eyes back to the trail ahead, she perceived the quiet steps of men, scouting the path, they like she, had paused at the corner, weary of unknown territory. She called to them.
"Near is the hour when the Lost should come forth,
And the Grey Company ride from the North."
"Hail Dúnedain! Hail my Kinsmen! I am Anária Dúnedain! Come forth I say!" two men came slowly around the bend. They grey hoods still up as they approached her.
"Hail Dúnedain!" called one of them. "We had news that we might meet with kin here, but it was not you we expected to meet Anária, daughter of Anáthor." Said one of the men, his hood still up. The two men of Rohan moved silently to stand closer to her, sensing rightly the wild danger of those who approached.
"Fear not, good sons of Rohan. I am in no danger." She said quietly to them. She gently touched Brasnora's white neck and the mare stepped daintily forwards. Anária dismounted.
"My friends." She bowed to the two men. "Shall you not give me your names and show your faces?" the two exchanged a glance.
"Our company is not far behind, there is one amongst them who knows you. I have never met you in adulthood, I had not been to the Last Homely House in ten-year. Forgive us, but caution is not an idle thing in such times as these." She inclined her head.
Silently they stood, the waiting as the sounds of the approaching company grew till even the Rohirrim heard it. Unlike her they did not dismount, but staid in their saddles. Weary of the dark cloaked men who stood on the path watching her.
She knew what made them pause, not only the treachery of Saruman which they knew might be set against them in any number of guises – including a false friend. But her appearance was as unlike the Anária who had come east. She had been a grey eyed child, never far from Rivendell unless to visit her family, and that had only happened twice. Trained well it was true, but untested in true battle. Simple of dress and in most ways all but faded into the background amongst the Elves of Rivendell. But now with her red cloak and robes, the fine armour of Lórien and Brasnora she was as striking as she believed the Lady had wished her to be.
Presently the leading riders came around the bend, one was built tall and strong, and even at noon had up his hood, just behind came two whose hoods were down, immediately she saw the black haired sons of Elrond, their faces bright and fair under the sun.
It was they who first called her name, and as the company drew close they dismounted, rushing to greet her with hugs and exclamations of surprise. As Elladan returned her feet to the ground after for the second time pulling her off her feet to whirl her around like a child she found herself face to face with her kinsman, Halbarad. His grim face broke briefly into a smile, he reached out a hand, almost as though he would ruffle her hair as he would a hound's, but thought better of it, instead he gently cupped her chin.
"I think you have grown, little one." He said gruffly.
"And I think you are older, old one." She responded to his banter. The brothers laughed gaily, Elrohir in particular.
"And he has grown grumpier as our trip went on!" he told her. Conspiratorially Elladan stepped close to whisper in her ear.
"The time is soon approaching when good Halbarad will no longer venture away from his cosy bed and warm fire!"
She smiled, the gruff ranger turned away from the brothers, as though their childish play was beneath him.
"Mmmm." Agreed Elladan with his brother. "And some in this company might wish that day were closer had they heard his snoring." The grey Dúnedain chuckled at the Elven Princes, this brief moment of happiness the only one they had known on their journey. Even Halbarad gave a smile, though not so their sharp eyes could see.
"Anária, where are you going? Home to Rivendell?" he asked gently, switching to the Elvish tongue. She shook her head.
"I have come to lead you to Aragorn." She said, but in Westron, glancing back at her guards. "I was with him but a few hours ago, if we hurry we may meet him at fords of Isen come sunset." Halbarad looked around at the company, many of whom were returning to the saddle even ash spoke, including the two scouts.
"Then you had best lead us on, little one, lead us to our Lord."
~Please Review~