By dark they reached the cover of the forest, making a campsite when they had penetrated two miles into the trees. Working together, Gimli and Aragorn were able to make a blazing fire, much to the envy of Leah. Legolas disappeared into the woods, returning with some small game a few minutes later that they cooked and served, trying to conserve the supplies that they already had.
They had all eaten by around nine, and they all sat in silence for many minutes, listening to the fire crackling joyously in front of them. Then Aragorn spoke, trying to pull from the silence a conversation. "Leah, you never said how you got to know each other in detail. Would you do so now?" he sat on a felled tree beside Gimli, who was humming a song to himself, half asleep. For the first time in days, Leah smiled.
She looked over at Jacen who had lain back on a tree, and he smiled in return and closed his eyes, listening contentedly to the conversation. "A bit of an odd story, really. Not much to it. I had moved to the neighborhood after the school year had started, and it was in the middle of November." She spoke more confidently now in the warm light of the fire and with only two other people listening intently to her. It was as if she was in the company of close friends. "My mother had given me one of her special scarves to wear on my first day of school there, and being a fourth grader I thought it was just about the most 'grown-up' thing ever. But during recess it started to get really windy, and my mom's scarf, which I had hung loosely around my neck so as to protect it from wrinkles, blew away and got caught about a hundred feet up in a tree. Now, there were quite a few trees from where I lived, so naturally I started to climb to get the precious scarf, but apparently some of the branches had iced over in the night, and it was quite treacherous.
"When I had reached the scarf, it had been tangled in some twigs, so I let go of my support so that I could untangle it, but when I had gotten a hold of it, I slipped and fell." The other two blinked and leaned forward to listen more carefully. "But, then…it was really weird. My vision started to darken, and all of the branches seemed to be highlighted, sticking out in my mind. It was as if everything slowed down…." She paused, submerged in the memory that she had long disregarded as a simple strange happening in her youth. Now she looked upon it with a new light, noticing things she had not before. She brought her thoughts back to the present and continued.
"When I was falling…a branch pulled up beside me and…I don't know how, but I was able to reach out and grab it. I then pulled myself up and looked down, and it was only about ten feet to the ground, so I slid off and jumped down….Meanwhile, Jacen was the only out of the twelve or so people who saw me fall who came to see that I was all right. I had received a long cut along my right arm where a branch must have scraped me when I fell, and he took me to the nurse. Amazingly, that was the only thing that I hurt: no fractures or broken bones. Not even a bruise. All that I have to show for it was a scar that I hold even today," she lifted the sleeve on her jacket to reveal a long, white scar that spanned from her wrist to her elbow, deep and blatant in the yellow light of the fire.
Jacen opened his eyes, and turned over, a look of curiosity in his eyes. "You never told me it scarred. Here, let me see," he walked over to where she sat and his eyes widened as he saw the scar. "Whoa! That looks painful. And yet you were still more worried about your mom's scarf when you went into the nurse's office if I remember correctly," he laughed slightly. "You were so distraught that it had this little hole in it whilst your arm was all tattered. Man…" he shook his head and went back to his tree where he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
Aragorn leaned back, thinking about what was just said, and Legolas did the same, his keen eyes deep in thought. The rest of the night was silent, Gimli volunteering to do the first watch as everyone else prepared for sleep after the day's long journey. They dealt out thin but sturdy sleeping mats, and Leah watched in tired wonder as Legolas fell into slumber with his eyes open, staring in a half-conscious manner into the heavens. He folded his hands upon his chest and laid still for the rest of the night, save for when he was called for his turn in watch duty.