Strong arms held her tight. She was small and weak, and the body she was clutched to was warm and strong.

Shush, baby of mine, she said. All be over soon.

The face that loomed over her was lit by starlight, gashed by the silver streaks of tears. She opened her mouth, but no words came out – only meaningless burbles, lost in the whip of winds that surrounded them both.

The strong arms extended and Averell looked down. An endless chasm yawned before her, fog creeping up the sheer cliff-face. Fear overwhelmed her, and cries wracked her body; she spasmed wildly, lashing out, trying to escape, but the slender fingers that held her in place were too strong.

Gods! The sobbing face cried out. Don't make me do this, please!

Averell could only cry helplessly, twisting her naked body against the grip. Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating her captor for a brief second. She saw mud-streaked clothes, torn and ragged, and blonde hair flying like a standard in the wind.

She hung above the drop for what seemed an age, the fingers loosening gradually. Averell fought harder, kicking her legs ineffectually at the wrists before them. In a swift motion, she was pulled in from the drop and clutched back to a heaving breast, screaming against the cloth.

So sorry, she heard between the sobs and thunder, so sorry, my beautiful child…my starlight child…

The clink of metal on metal woke her from her dream, wrenching her painfully back to reality. She shielded her eyes as she opened them into a sunbeam that bathed her cell from the high, barred windows opposite.

"Come along, Wildling," said a familiar unfriendly voice, silhouetted in the sunrise. "The King wants to see you." Averell pulled herself to her feet, brushing straw from her pelts and plucking it from her hair, rubbing her eyes until Wulfstan's lean, cruel face appeared before her. "No accounting for taste, apparently," he growled, unlocking the door to her cell.

The muscles in Averell's arms burned to reach out and throttle him as soon as she had the space; the Man's cut-throat smile bared yellowing teeth, exposed in mockery. It took every ounce of what little self-control she had to keep herself in check and not fly from her cell.

"Then take me," she replied, "horseman."

She felt Wulfstan's eyes resting on her rear all the way up the tunnel to the surface and the path to Meduseld. Disgust crept over her skin like oil, only exacerbated by the wandering eyes of the soldiers at the doors to the Royal keep. As soon as the doors opened she strode inside ahead of her guard detail, like a walker escaping a storm, unconsciously raising a hand to her shoulder as if to brush off the rain.

The soldiers assigned to her clanked in their golden armour as they quick-stepped to catch up with her, while others within the hall reached for their swords at the sight of a Wildling entering unaccompanied. As she walked to the throne, Averell couldn't help but glance around; lofty cross-beams suspended a roof higher than anything she could have imagined in her life of cave-dwelling, letting in fine sunbeams that bathed the entire room in gold, glinting off of the brass and bronze that adorned every wall and sat at every table. Averell had heard tales of Dwarven mines where gold flowed in rivers and precious metals poured from the walls; she had heard nothing of the riches of Men, but they appeared to be giving Mother's stories of the Dwarves a run for their money.

As she reached the dais, two soldiers stepped down to indicate that she'd come close enough. Seated upon it, a middle-aged man spoke confidentially with an elderly attendant, their voices too low to be heard. After some minutes in impatient silence, he dismissed his adjutant and gave his full attention to Averell.

"You're the girl with the Warg, then," he addressed her, slouched comfortably in his seat. "What brings you to Edoras?"

Averell stood in silence, unsure how to answer. "When Eomer King addresses you, you will answer!" Wulfstan barked from behind her. The King frowned over Averell's shoulder, and she suppressed a smirk as she felt Wulfstan's pride palpably shrink.

"My mother was Hild of Edoras," she explained, "she departed us some five summers hence. I wished to learn of how she came to live in the Wild Hills, and…and to learn of the fate of my father," she said, feeling eyes beginning to burn into her back, as though the entire room had taken much more of an interest in her story all of a sudden. "Mother spent her life waiting for his return, but he never came. Does he live yet in Edoras?"

Eomer sighed and rose from his seat, descending the dais to speak to her face-to-face. He was tall, with blonde hair flecked through with long streaks of grey to give the impression of flaxen steel, and a beard to match, cropped close to his face. The first signs of a paunch strained at his fine red tunic, but the unmistakable bulges in the chest and arms belied a man who was still very much in fighting trim. "There's much of that time that's been misplaced or misremembered," he replied. "The War didn't give us much time for record-keeping. People came and went to Edoras in their hundreds in those days; it's only thanks to bonds of blood that we can be sure your lineage can be found here at all." Averell blinked in surprise as Eomer gestured to his left, beckoning someone forward. From behind a pillar, Aelfling emerged sheepishly into the light. "Aelfling here…well, I'll let him explain it," he said, retreating back to his throne.

"Thank you, Highness," he said before turning to Averell. "Averell, I…well, we've not been formally introduced." He stood straight with his feet together and bent forward, extending his hand in supplication. "Averell-born-of-Hild, I am Aelfling, son of Gram. Your mother was sister to my own." Averell's back stiffened in surprise as the young man looked up with a warm smile. "She left us some twenty years ago, when I was just a small boy. We looked for her, but in vain. But now…" he swallowed hard, steadying his rising emotion. "You're welcome in the home of my kin," he announced, bowing his head once more. "Will you fulfil our bond of blood?"

Silence once again fell over Meduseld as Averell stood dumbstruck, unsure what to do next. She glanced behind her to find that soldiers, courtiers and other hangers-on had gravitated to the throne room to goggle at the goings-on. The world seemed to spin around her; family? Why had Mother never mentioned them? There was only ever her, and Father, and her parents, both long dead; what had she felt was necessary to protect Averell from?

"If you accept," Wulfstan whispered behind her, his breath thick and oily on her ear, "take his hand."

Averell immediately grasped Aelfling's proffered hand and stepped forward, locking the two together in a tight embrace. The room burst into rapturous applause and calls of triumph, and Eomer King seemed to be party to it. Aelfling laughed merrily, patting Averell on the back, who stood dazed at the centre of such adulation. One by one people streamed forward to attempt to congratulate her on her new-found kinship, and the sheer mass of bodies began to send her into a panic. Her head turned wildly for a sword, a rock, anything to-

"I think my cousin would like to meet the rest of her family, "Aelfling called out, clutching her shoulder tightly, surreptitiously preventing her from reaching out for a cheese-knife left idly by the table beside her. "Let's give her her privacy and not crowd her, hm? Wouldn't you say, your Highness?" He asked the King, inclining his head.

"Quite," Eomer replied, sitting in his throne. "Don't trouble the woman – let her see her kin," he ordered the crowd, gesturing for Aelfling to make for the back door.

"Thank you, Sir," he said, bowing low, before guiding Averell out through the King's study and down the stairs that led out onto Meduseld's rear, where two soldiers stood silent guard and did not react when the pair came bundling out of the tiny door.

"That could have been messy," Aelfling said, finally letting go of Averell's shoulder, who twisted away from his grip entirely.

"I warned you," she hissed, "not to lay a hand on me!"

"If I hadn't, you would have killed someone," he retorted, unamused. "I saw you going for that knife, what were you thinking?"

Averell seethed silently, looking askance. "That there were too many people around me for my liking."

"Well, get used to it," Aelfling said, descending the steps laid into the hillock upon which Meduseld sat, "there's fifteen of us at home, spread over four buildings. Mother will want to feed you up, you're all skin and bones – as long as you promise not to stab any of us."

Averell made after him, skipping down the steps two at a time. "What of Eadwulf? He can't stay in that cell, all alone!"

"We've an old stable-building we were going to pull down, but he's welcome to it," Aelfling replied as the pair of them turned onto a main path, turning heads as the golden-armoured soldier and pelt-clad Wildling walked side-by-side through Edoras.

"Why are you doing this for me?" Averell asked after some minutes spent in silence. "I've offered you nothing. What do you want from me?"

"Want? Nothing," Aelfling replied, surprised. "Why would you assume I want something?"

Averell swallowed hard. "People always want something," she muttered.

"Well, not now. Not for you. You're family," he explained, stopping to rest on a fence-post. "Family stick together." Averell looked past him to see a large clan ranging in age from toddlers to the elderly, sitting outside a ring of thatched huts around a fire.

"She's here!" a middle-aged woman called out, and a great cheer rose up around the group. Children ran out into the lane in fits of giggles, stopping yards short of her.

"Come," Aelfling said, laying a tender hand on her shoulder. "Come and meet your family."