Thank you to everyone who has been reading this so far! These extended chapters aren't essential to the general story line, though they do add a little something to the world building. If you're a bit pressed for time, these are the chapters to skip.

If anyone has any questions, qualms or concerns, please don't hesitate to ask!

- Dirv

After three days of walking, Loena was as gratified as the rest when Gandalf finally called for a rest. They'd been walking from sunup to sundown, each of them staggering along. With each step Loena rued that she had not pressed harder for a horse to ride. Legolas, Aragorn and Boromir were the least affected, and the hobbits were the worst. Boromir was often the one who volunteered to carry them, not wanted to over-exert the pony they'd brought to hold their things.

Loena had once carried Pippin for a while, and had felt rather like a horse herself. The feeling had been disconcerting, and she'd only lasted a few miles.

"Legolas, Loena," Gandalf said, before either could sit down. "Would you go and scout the area – make sure we aren't to be disturbed by any unwanted visitors."

Loena swallowed a retort and nodded, setting her pack down, and stringing her bow. She felt Gandalf's gaze on her linger for a moment, as if he had some understanding of what she was wanting to say. She wiped a dusty hand on her shirt, leaving another dirt stain amongst the many hundreds she'd picked up since leaving Rivendell.

"Of course," Legolas said, as untouched and picture perfect as he had been since the day all of them had left from Rivendell. Loena had found that increasingly frustrating, as her own hair became mattered and oily, and every time she scrubbed her face, increasing amounts of dirt were showing up in her palm.

Pippin had told her that her hair was looking quite brown. The thought made her feel quite ill. It had come to the point where she knew that if she didn't find a creek to bathe in soon, she'd make do standing out nude in a rainstorm.

Once she finished, she waited impatiently while Legolas spoke with Aragorn in elvish. Aragorn laughed, and Loena felt her temper flare. Could he not hurry? Did he not want to be done, and back at camp, as well as she did?

Probably not. Loena stared at Legolas's back as he reached for his own quiver, and his own bow, which he still had to string. It would take him barely a minute to do, which was a fraction of the time it took Loena, but the waiting made every second feel like an eternity.

By the time he was finally finished, Loena nodded for him to come to her. "Shall we go North, then circle back down the west way, and then up east?" Loena suggested. "The forest seems denser to the west, and it would be better to go through it while it is light."

Legolas nodded, but he seemed unconcerned. "Either works for me," he said. "Elves can see well in both the dark and the light."

Loena blinked at him. "Of course you can," she muttered. She gripped her bow in her hand a little tighter, and swallowed as much of her frustration away as she could. "Come now."

"As you wish," Legolas said lightly, and in such a way that Loena suspected he were mocking her.

The pair made their way south quickly, and quietly. Despite her tiredness, Loena refused to ease up on her leg muscles, forcing herself to walk lightly across the leaves lost from the leaves around them from the frost of the early winter.

Suddenly Legolas paused, frowning.

Loena watched him warily, hand tightening around Gíed's leather grip. "Legolas?" She asked, her voice a gasp of a whisper.

He had no trouble hearing her, and his strange, blue eyes found hers. "Orc," he mouthed back.

Loena swallowed again, and followed him forward. Loena had never been one for sneaking through the underbrush – both for the fact that she had little interest in the element of surprise, and because there was very little underbrush in Rohan to sneak through. Nevertheless, she paid special attention to where she placed her feet, and tiptoed along behind Legolas, copying his steps as well as she could.

She paused, noting a strange indent in the ground. She squatted next to it, pushing her cloak back from her knees so she could study it better. The curve of the front was achingly similar to the boots of the orcs at home. But the print had been covered with dirt, and dead blades of grass had been caught on the side. It was not a new print.

She looked up to see Legolas had paused to watch her.

He gestured to it and cocked his head to the side, as if to ask what she knew.

Loena wasn't sure how to respond in body-language alone, so she spoke in a low whisper. "Orc. Old. Three days, two?"

Legolas nodded, and both moved on, scanning the forest for any movement, and any more footprints. Loena spied several more in the soft, fertile dirt beneath the trees. Each were the same story. She was beginning to lose some of the fear that had arisen before.

Legolas paused just before a clearing, standing up on the top of a root. He was facing forward, and she stood beside him. In front of them, through the branches and trees, a clearing lay littered with the offcuts of a camp. There was a charcoal firepit, remains of animals, churned up dirt and flattened grass.

"They're gone," Legolas said, no longer whispering.

Loena moved in beside him, and went to press at the old coals. They were dead cold, and already a film of dust had settled on them. She even saw a fresh leaf caught at the top of the pile. "They've been gone a while."

"Three days?" Legolas asked, walking around.

Loena straightened and wiped her blackened fingers on the front of her shirt. The once-white fabric was dirty enough that she had no misgivings. "If that. Sometimes in Rohan, when there is no wind or rain, tracks can seem fresh after an age."

"The forest is rarely so kind," Legolas said. She saw he was feeling at a small cut in one of the trees. He murmured something to himself in Elvish, and turned back to look at her expectantly.

"No," she said, feeling rather stupid, and realising she was far out of her depth. Legolas was a Wood Elf, it was more likely than anything that he knew how to read the age of an orc print. She looked around, and then, narrowing her eyes, moved to another section of the glade. It was flatter than most.

She knelt beside it. The grass had been cloven in two at some points, and there were hard indents in the ground. A horse had stood here, she realised suddenly.

Fear gripped her, and she stood. Images of the Nazgúl on their black steeds swarmed her mind, and she backed away fearfully.

Legolas sensed her anxiety and called out to her. "Loena?" He came beside her, and placed a hand on her shoulder, in a nearly human gesture. "Are you alright?"

Loena swallowed the shake on her voice and pointed to the area she'd bent next to. "There, in the ground. A horse stood there."

Legolas took her meaning immediately. "Orc's don't ride horses."

"Another traveller could have settled in the same clearing," Loena said, turning to look around them. Though there was only proof of one fire pit, and no markings that would indicate a man had stood there.

Legolas shook his head grimly. "None come here. This land is deserted." He looked about, still worried, though now wistful. "The trees were crying out that they had seen an orc. I felt that it must have been a recent spotting."

"Trees change slowly," Loena said. The earth around them was still, but there was still birdsong, and the faint rustling in the underbrush of tiny animals. She was beginning to realise that whatever had camped here was long gone. She knew in Rohan that the coming of orcs could be predicted by the way the earth itself seemed to flee, hidden up in itself. "With the earth. And the seasons."

Legolas blinked at her in surprise. "Yes. Precisely." He looked around, and seemed to feel the same way as she. "I think the evil has passed this place."

Loena hadn't known properly where she'd dredged the thought from, but she was glad she had, because Legolas seemed to look at her with less of his open eyed, barely benevolent, curiosity, and now more with kinship.

"The Elves can speak with trees, so I have heard?" Loena asked, looking about them, at the evergreens that hung over the little glade like curtains.

Legolas seemed to hesitate, and Loena realised that she'd probably massively oversimplified that tradition, but he was the forgiving type, and nodded. "Yes, and Elves lived here once. They call to me as if I am one they once knew."

"What else do they say?" Loena asked.

"They ask for rain, and sunshine, and for birds to fill their branches," Legolas shrugged. "They want for little."

"I suppose that makes sense," Loena said. She couldn't imagine what else a tree could want for.

"Now, come," Legolas said, sparing one last glance into the old campsite. "The evil may have passed, but it could come back. Gandalf will want to know of this."

Loena didn't like his impetuous tone, but she followed him without squawking her indignation. Half for the true urgency of their mission, and half because she was distracted by the trees. She wondered if they would remember her, and tell of her to any other travellers who passed through.

A thing with golden hair, she mused to herself. Who wasn't a bird, or a fox. With the garb of the Elves, and a sword on her hip.

As predicted, Gandalf was disturbed by the news. He, too, agreed that orcs rarely brought horses with them, especially when they were travelling. When they fought they did it on Wargs.

"So be it!" he announced, and the fellowship had turned to him to hear his decision. "We will have no more fires."

"No more fires!" Pippin cried, and Merry beside him looked equally aghast.

"It'll do us no good to freeze to death," Gimli said, grumbling beside Loena. "We started our journey on the throes of winter. We should have left later, or earlier, if we had wanted to travel without a fire."

"And yet, that was not the path that had been chosen for us," Gandalf admonished him quickly. He turned to the hobbits. "During the day, when the weather is clear, and if you can find wood that won't smoke, I may permit it."

That seemed to cheer them up a little, though Pippin still looked distraught. Loena had been lectured on the hobbit eating schedule by Sam a few days after they'd left Rivendell. Her stomach gurgled in sympathy.

"Loena, Legolas, well done," Gandalf turned to them. "For the next few days, I would ask that you scout the path ahead to ensure we do not unwittingly catch up to those who would bring about our doom."

Loena despaired a little at the thought of being with Legolas, and only Legolas, for an indeterminate amount of time. Of all the people she had spoken to, she had the least in common with him. Still, she didn't want to disappoint Gandalf, and nor did she have any special desire to embarrass the Elf. Only Gimli looked at her with any sort of sympathy – Boromir was talking with Aragorn, and both were smiling, and neither were paying attention to Gandalf's decree. Frodo was sitting and resting on the root of a tree, while Sam held out a water pouch, seemingly trying to get Frodo to drink. Pippin and Merry were muttering to each other, probably lamenting the last of their bacon.

Legolas looked the same as he ever did – unfazed, ethereal, slightly bored and faintly happy.

They made camp that night with the quickness of an experienced group. Loena found a soft piece of ground and a root to support her head, found a dark piece of the woods to relieve herself, and ground some of the Witch Hazel she'd taken from Rivendell for the hot blisters on her feet. Normally on nights like these she or Aragorn would cook the food, and then Aragorn or Gandalf would tell a story.

Tonight Boromir had taken his hand to cooking, grimly setting out their first cold dinner. The hobbits seemed to have gotten over their initial grumpiness and were bright and cheerful. It raised the spirits of the camp, and even Gandalf, who'd been moved to stony silence by the news of the orc camp, boomed his belly laugh.

After the food was eaten, and the crockery scrubbed. When no one moved to tell a story, the camp fell into a companionable silence.

Until Frodo spoke out.

He was a quiet one, but not unnervingly so. Loena had spoken with him, walked with him, and even carried him along their journey. He was kind, and knowledgeable. Sometimes he'd join in singing the songs Gandalf or Aragorn sung. Sometimes he'd sing a song of his own, which were either lilting tunes about the Shire, or deep baritone renditions of dwarven song that Gimli seemed to often recognise. She knew now, after living with Bilbo for several months, that Frodo's uncle had been one of those in Thorin Oakenshield's company. He must've sung those songs to his ward all through his ageing years. The thought made her smile.

"Lady Loena, tell us of your life in Rohan?" Frodo blinked at her from across the clearing.

She blinked at him in surprise. "My life?"

She looked to Gandalf and saw him puffing on his pipe, watching the scene with a strange, curious exuberance. Across from her, Aragorn was barely hiding a smile. Boromir had paused with his whetstone over his sword.

"I feel as though we know a lot about everyone," Frodo said. He had a high, clear voice, and he seemed confident. "But we don't know much of you."

"Oh, well," Loena shuffled uncomfortably. "What would you like to know?"

"Where do you live?" Pippin piped up.

"Who do you live with?" Merry added.

"Who taught you how to fight?"

"Do all maiden's fight in your land?" it was Sam this time, with a hesitance Loena found instantly endearing.

Loena looked around the circle and saw all looking at her. "Oh, well, I…" she looked around, and saw Aragorn watching her, face morphed as if trying to hide a smile. "I suppose Strider could answer some of those questions."

"Indeed, I could answer questions of Rohan," Aragorn said. "But I know little of you as these hobbits."

"I tell you some things—" Loena started.

"Not really," Boromir said, thoughtfully, putting his whetstone down completely now. "Even when we spent all our time together teaching the hobbits, we spoke mostly of swordplay, and when we weren't, we divided our time between complaining about Elvish food and my life in Gondor."

Loena had the gall to feel faintly embarrassed for complaining about Elrond's hospitality, but none paid too much heed to it.

"Same with me, lassie," Gimli added. "Even these past three days."

"Oh, well…" Loena ran a hand through her hair. "What were those first questions again?"

Once they'd been repeated, Loena answered them as swiftly as she could. She lived in Edoras, with her mother. She'd been taught swordplay by a string of masters until she'd gotten older and the king had pitied them enough to move them to Edoras. There she'd learnt alongside Éowyn, a few years her junior.

"So it is commonplace for maidens to wield a sword," Sam deduced.

Loena fidgeted. "Well, no. No…" She saw Sam's confusion. "It is common in my family. My line had an unusually high number of female births. The lineage is traced through women with few exceptions." She allowed herself a brief smile. "My ancestor, Beornia, was a great Shield-Maiden. There are few in Rohan who have not heard the songs sung of her."

"What lineage is that?" Pippin asked expectantly.

Loena widened her eyes a little. She really had told her companions very little about herself. She spared a glance to Legolas, who was watching her with the same curiosity as the others gathered around her. She wondered if his strangeness to her had anything to do with this. She was suddenly very determined to be forthcoming.

"The line of kings was broken after the second king of Rohan," Loena explained, as quickly as she dared. "The elder son, Baldor, disappeared into the Path of the Dead to never return. He was the true heir, and his children would have inherited the kingdom, but after his death, the kingship passed to—"

"His brother," Merry guessed.

Loena nodded. "Yes, but Baldor had an heir. A daughter, Beornia"

"The—" Frodo started.

Loena nodded to him. "Shield Maiden, yes. She was not in line for the throne for matters of her sex, but she married, and had daughters, and they married, and had daughters. The line was distinguished at this time, and it was dangerous period. The tradition of our family teaching women to fight as well as men started then."

"What about in times of peace?" Sam asked suddenly.

"Those have been few and far between in my land," Loena said, feeling the bitterness of her inherited history weigh down her words. She swallowed and forced herself to pick up the pace. "There was a brief age, after the death of Baldor, that the Dunlendings were driven back, and peace reigned freely. They call this the Golden Age." Loena ignored the rising nostalgia for a splendour lost, and accomplishments come to nothing. She spurred herself on. "Nevertheless, after generations and generations, the estate fell into disrepair, almost all the wealth was lost, and the name of Baldor became worthless."

"Until recently," Frodo guessed. "For you said that you and your family were invited to Edoras by the king."

Loena blinked, slightly surprised that he'd remembered. "Yes, that's right. My mother was the true successor of that moment of rebuilding, though. She was the one who appealed the king. She was the one who presented me there and made our connections known. It is through her that my blood of Baldor flows."

"What of your father?" Gimli now, watching her with interest.

"A kind man, with a small amount of land and a few tenants," Loena said. "He died before we moved to Edoras."

Loena suffered an unexpected pang at the loss of a father she had barely remembered. She had been so young when he'd died, barely 8 summers old. She could remember his face, sometimes, just before sleeping. Other than that, though, he was a faceless smile, a bodyless sensation of warmth and love.

Legolas shuffled uncomfortably, before blurting; "you read."

Loena raised an eyebrow. "I do."

Legolas looked a little strained. "That is…unusual. For a woman of Rohan."

"Not so unusual for those with my standing," Loena shrugged. "Especially for these past few generations. But I see your point. Before we moved, the king was petitioned by my mother for some simple kindnesses. One was money, one was some more land, and the third was to fund my education. He granted none but the third, suspicious that she was not of Baldor's line as she claimed, and also, he did not want to create a precedent where all who could claim royal blood could simply write to him and be lauded as his family."

Loena spared herself a small smile. "My mother was clever, though, for she didn't specify the cost of my education, nor the tutor, nor the place that it would occur. She wanted me to have a better chance than she did. She wanted the best. She sent me and a small entourage – my nurse and a porter – to Gondor. For 10 years I went each summer."

"Did you meet Boromir there?" Pippin asked, looking to where the lord of Gondor was resting.

Loena twitched her lips in a small smile, and Boromir looked slightly abashed. "I did, but I fear I didn't make quite the impression I'd hoped for."

"I wouldn't worry," Pippin said, saving Boromir from an answer. "Boromir forgets where he puts his shield every time we leave in the morning."

Loena laughed, and the others did too, and even Boromir chuckled.

"Well, anyway," Loena said, pushing her hair over her ear. "I learnt much in Gondor. I learnt to read, I learnt history, I learnt arithmancy and warfare and a little Sindarin, though—" she said, before Legolas could interrupt in wonder. "I was quite terrible at it. I would run away from my tutor and back to my lodgings more often than I'd stay for the class."

Legolas smiled. "Im heni." Loena was mystified, but Aragorn snorted, and Frodo smiled, so she just flashed a grin at the elf and continued on.

"When my mother and I moved to Meduseld, and become closer companions with the king and his family, he started to worry, after a few years, that I'd become too Gondorian."

"A compliment, I'm sure," Boromir joked.

"Hardly," Loena said. "Rohan had suffered one king who'd come from Gondor and tried to make Rohan more like Gondor – changed the language the customs…it is an uncomfortable history. Théoden King sustained his disagreement for as long as he could, but in the end he decided that he would never have overlooked any other of the noble family's sending their children to Gondor, and despite the fact that we were far, far from his innermost circle, he felt the same philosophy had to be applied.

"I was inconsolable at first, of course. I'd miss my tutors, and visiting the great libraries and crypts. My mother appealed to the king when she saw my state, but it was to no avail. I would not return to Gondor for education. I would remain in Rohan." Loena had wanted to say that her true reason for her despair was the loss of her friend in Gandalf. She'd become accustomed to him, as she'd grown, and the last year before she'd been prohibited from going had in them only a few short days where she and Gandalf had met and talked.

She had not known where to send a letter to tell him that she would not be returning. The ones she sent to Gondor were never returned. She had feared that he'd think she'd died, or that she abandoned him.

She looked at him now, and he was watching her with a hint of that old fondness she'd remembered from her youth.

"What did the king do?" Frodo asked now. "After your mother's petitioning?"

"This was when he allowed me to learn how to fight with a sword alongside his niece," Loena said. "The Lady Éowyn. It worked well as a distraction twofold. Firstly, I was skilled with a sword, but was in dire need of proper direction." She saw Boromir smirk a little. She thought back to their lessons and grimaced a little. "Second," she ploughed on. "Éowyn and I were well suited to be friends, and sparring partners. We got on well, and through this, my mother's plan for our family's rebirth was established strongest. Never before had I so much time with the king. And never before had he been so fond of me." Loena swallowed, knowing what was next. "Then our instructor was killed in skirmish with the mountain men, and we were without a tutor. We were both at the natural point in our swordplay to evolve to something else. Most men in the eored would never have had the time and attention that we were given. They'd be sent off to fight on the back of their father's horse, holding a sword for the very first time."

She looked around suddenly, aware that she'd been speaking for a much longer time than she normally would. She wondered if she'd ever strung so many words together in a row before.

Probably not, she thought, looking around the circle at all the eyes fixed on her. And certainly never in front of these people. She nearly chuckled. And certainly not about my own, personal history.

"Does Éowyn fight too, then?" Sam asked. He scratched his head, confused. "I thought you said she was Théoden's niece…and not of your line?"

"Yes…shieldmaiden's do exist outside of my family, they're just not such a sure thing," Loena explained, struggling to hold all the threads of her story together. "But besides that, Éowyn didn't go on to become a proper shieldmaiden. Her uncle forbid it. And as he aged, she didn't ask him again, for he needed someone to take care of him." At that Loena felt slightly guilty. After all of it, she had left Éowyn to her fate, to watch after a dying man, and care for him during the golden hours of her youth. "The king, however, was not so attached to me. He instated me in his nephew, Éomer's—" she wondered if they noticed her pause at the word, whether they heard the familiarity in her tone, or saw the glean in her eye. "Eored as the Ensign. It was mostly a token role. I held the standard when we rode from village to village, but I was left behind when there was fighting to be done. All those years learning seemed like a waste."

"Were you given a sword?" Gimli asked, a little gruff. "They should have at least given you a sword."

Loena was touched that he were so concerned on her behalf. She nodded. "They did. And it was lucky that they did, for it saved me when we were surprised by a small pack of orcs a few years back. Éomer and all other senior soldiers were so distracted that none could give me order to flee. So I stayed, and I fought, and I fought well." The memory, despite the horror of the bloodshed, brought a proud smile to Loena's lips. "Éomer is not a miserly Marshal. He was resistant to the idea of a woman becoming properly integrated into the eored, but after more skirmishes, I proved myself again and again. He didn't know me well, and had no special love for me; he wouldn't prevent me from fighting to save me, and nor would he grant me special favour."

"What happened, thereafter?" Aragorn looked curious now.

Loena shrugged. "Théoden fell more ill, Éomer became relatively unencumbered over his lordship over the eored, and my transition from standard bearer to a proper Ensign of Rohan was an easy evolution."

"Does Théoden King know of your appointment, then?" Aragorn asked, though it seemed as though he were asking something else.

Loena frowned at his tone, but answered his question faithfully. "I have presented myself to him in that capacity many times, though I do doubt it very much. He knows little of what happens in his own halls, let alone the happenings of the eored." She sighed. "And the things he does know, he forgets."

"But neither you, nor Éomer, have impressed it deeply upon him?" Aragorn pressed. "He must recall some things?"

Loena wanted to demand him to tell her what he meant, but she swallowed it. All had sat so patiently and listened to her speak, none now needed the unpleasantness of a verbal spat. "No, I doubt it. Éomer rarely consults his uncle anymore when it comes to his duties as Marshal. His ears are too far gone to catch gossip, and the only advisor he listens to has not enough love for me to bring me up in this flattering light."

"And so your house was restored!" Pippin said jubilantly, breaking through the strange tension Aragorn's questioning had brought about. "You ride with the knights of your country, the sun shines on you forever, so on, so forth."

Loena tightened her lips into more of a grimace than smile. "Not yet." She looked now at Gandalf, who met her eyes in solemnity. "The name has a long way to go, before it can be restored."

Loena pulled her cloak a little tighter around her, and a silence descended as each fell into their own thoughts.

"Now," Gandalf said, rising. "We shall sleep. And I shall keep the first watch. We continue on this route for another 37 days before coming to the South Passage. And then to Mordor. Sleep, well, all. May your dreams be blessed."

Loena had been right, in the end; Legolas had deliberately disliked her because he didn't trust her. After she had told them all the tale of her life, their times scouting ahead was far more enjoyable. He'd tell her, quite animatedly, how old the trees were that they passed. Once he tried to teach her a long Elvish ballad, but her tongue had tripped over the unfamiliar words, and he'd given up, laughing.

Now that he wasn't so deliberately haughty, she was beginning to appreciate the skills she'd found deeply annoying before. He was unparalleled with a bow, and he was a patient teacher whenever they'd found themselves too far ahead, and needed something to occupy their time with while they waited.

Sometimes they'd find a strangeness in the air – or Legolas would hear a strangeness in the voices of the trees – and they'd go quiet, and begin searching. Apart from that first campsite, neither had found any more proof of an orc party, or, thankfully, any more proof of a Nazgúl and his steed. After three days of their scouting, Gandalf allowed them to come back into the group.

Now, though, the dynamic had shifted slightly. Loena no longer stood at the back, talking with just the hobbits, or moodily staring off into the endless woods. Now she spoke amicably with all of them, walking amongst them easily.

She felt a strong kindship blossom now, in her chest, like a warm heat, whenever she looked over them at the end of a day. After two weeks of travelling, she felt as attached to them as she felt she could bear.

She'd felt detached, overwhelmed. The strange scion of a strange line, thrust into the world of kings, Lords and Princes, of wizards and Evil Magic. Now, at least, she knew she was not alone. Now she could see their value in her, and not resent them because she had not been able to see it in herself.