Left Behind?
They stood a little way away from the camp, where Ilesté was sleeping and frowning at her dreams.
"What else but a wight could have made that snake leave? What child would have the courage to go up to it like she did?" Faramir could not help raising his voice slightly as he tried to convince Éowyn of his suspicions, convincing himself at the same time. The White Lady of Rohan was, true to her nature and the nature of her ancestors, being stubborn. This was one of the things Faramir loved about his wife, which make it even harder to argue with her.
"I am very sorry, Éowyn, truly sorry, for I too begin to grow fond of Ilesté, but I am forced to conclude that she is a wight- an evil shape shifter."
"And I begin to see your point Faramir," Éowyn admitted, looking at the ground, and feeling angry tears well up. "But my heart refuses to believe it. And if she is evil why has she not murdered us in our slip, or just lit the snake kill me? I do not know what to think, and therefore not what to do either!"
Faramir took Éowyn in his arms and held her close, until her tears subsided, then kissed her tenderly. The moon made her hair shine, a waterfall of molten silver coursing down her back. She really was beautiful, and all the more so because he had nearly lost her today.
"We will give Ilesté the judgement of our hearts. If, as I fear, it is folly, then at least we shall not be ever wondering if it was an innocent child we would have abandoned to the foothills of the Angmar Mountains. But if, on our journey to visit the hobbits, she does anything more to indicate that she is a wight, then we shall have to ride on without her." Éowyn nodded, accepting Faramir's judgement.
No more incidents occurred in the following fortnight, but much progress was made, both in terms of distance and of getting to know each other. Ilesté was quite pleased with how much she was able to communicate with Faramir and Éowyn, even if it was through a mixture of words and mime. Éowyn tended to be much better at guessing these mimes than Faramir, and several times when Ilesté didn't know the word for something she wanted to say to Faramir, so she was miming, Éowyn refused to explain to her husband what Ilesté was trying to say, instead collapsing in fits of laughter art Faramir's attempts at guessing. (Sometimes Ilesté did actually know the words, but simply wanted to make them all laugh. She was swiftly realising how lonely she had been when she was on her own.)
Ilesté did not know where they were going, but sensed the growing excitement as they neared their destination. They were about a day's ride away when they encountered trouble- a wall of dense trees, stretching away in one direction, and halting at a cliff edge in the other. They couldn't tell whether it was a narrow band of trees or a huge forest, and they couldn't see any way for the horses to get through the undergrowth.
Only Ilesté was small enough to crawl through the brambles, so she offered to go and look. Faramir looked at her surprised; he had not thought of that, and nodded his encouragement. So Ilesté slipped off her horse and wriggled into the trees.
It was very dark under the canopy, but Ilesté, who liked the steady peacefulness of wooded places, didn't find the darkness oppressive. And it was by no means silent- there were birds all around, singing and hopping importantly from branch to branch to converse with each other. There was a bird-voice she recognised! A bird like that had lived near her hill and she had listened to it, watching it going about its daily routine for hours on end. Ilesté tried to follow the voice which darted from tree to tree playfully. She ran after it eagerly, completely forgetting why she was in the forest (which wasn't actually a forest but a small wood, with the other side not far), revelling in the joy of recognising something. Suddenly the ground was moving and cracking beneath her feet, and the trees around her were shaking. Her arms flailed and she grabbed onto something she couldn't get her balance she was falling. She knew no more.
She didn't hear Faramir and Éowyn calling, and searching, and weeping. She didn't hear them continue on their journey, believing her dead, captured and eaten by some malicious creature of the "forest". She didn't hear the sounds of the wood die away as she was borne far from it.
