Greetings everyone! It looks like the story link still isn't working but if you have the app everything seems to be fine. I'm hoping it will sync up appropriately soon. In the meantime enjoy Chapter 2. Thanks for the follows and favs.
The ride back to Edoras took much longer than their journey to Helms Deep. Many of the wounded were carted between horses, dragged behind on liters, or if necessary, carried between the able-bodied. At their current pace, it would take them a whole extra day of travel to reach the Golden Hall.
Nat had chosen to travel alone and on foot.
The morning they'd gone to depart Eowyn had offered her a mount, already saddled and ready for their journey, but she had kindly refused. The horse was better off with someone who really needed it. That had been her only interaction for the day. She had strategically avoided everyone and set out on her own ahead of the main party. Somehow, she had blessedly lost her ear com and could continue to avoid Gimli. What was there to say? She had practically made him responsible for killing her and given him no choice in the matter. No apology she could ever concoct would suffice. She needed to speak with Eric more than any of them but the sight of him nearly overwhelmed her. He was a painful reminder of all she had left behind.
When this was all over, if they survived, they could make a home somewhere together. She would watch over him until the end of his days and then...well who knew. Maybe she would wander the earth alone until she found something, somewhere that meant something to her. Find a small bit of happiness for herself in some hidden corner of this world where no one would bother her, ask her for favors and proposition her with jobs.
She wrapped her chilled hands in the lining of her cloak and examined the setting sun. A whole day alone scouting and wandering, and she felt marginally more like herself.
Some distance had done her well.
She had reformed her barriers, center herself, it was the only way she would come out the other end of this.
She shouldn't care as much as she did about the fellowship, about Gimli, Wulfric, Haldir, Eowyn or any of them. They weren't really her business. Their lives would all go their separate ways when this was over. Strategically speaking, she needed them close enough to value her and continue to offer her aid. It was a precious balance on her end to maintain enough distance that she would not question choosing herself over them.
Survival was always her main priority.
The wind, cooling with the setting of the sun, whipped around her and sent her hair flying loose. It was well past time to make camp and make up the ground she had lost over the last few days.
By the time she reached camp, there were brightly lit fires glowing in the darkness. Grilled venison, the smell of it had her mouthwatering as she passed one of the sentries with an acknowledging nod. Nat followed her nose, weaving through small tents, scattered people, and bedrolls strewn here and there. She rounded a small grouping of tents; a cacophony of rowdy and familiar voices filled the air.
Nat stopped for a moment and took them in slowly, handsome faces and straw blonde hair. All of them seemingly unscathed with the exception of Eorl whose arm was set in a sling. They shared food and drink with one another, comfortable in the company of fellow soldiers.
It was Gramm who noticed her first. He stood dramatically, his hand on his chest. "Alas my love has returned to me!"
Holdred followed Gramm's gaze and then quickly punched him in the thigh. "You're a rutting dolt, Gramm."
Baldor looked up from where he was polishing his sword. "Natalie, lass! Come sit!" He called happily. "Ignore the pup. His idiocy knows no bounds."
Offering up a smile and she joined them. "You all look well and surprisingly unscathed."
She gave Eorl a pointed look and was surprised to see heat rise to his cheeks. Gramm nudged him with his elbow as if to say, go on, tell her, but he only cleared his throat and refused to speak.
Gramm clapped him on his uninjured shoulder smiling. "Our good friend Eorl here...fell off his horse just this morning...unseated by the dwarf they call Gimli, who was riding the oldest, quietest, stud the Riddermark has to offer. He was apparently feeling his oats this morning and attempted to be more than friendly with Eorl's young mare."
The other men chuckled, and Nat took the offered seat beside Baldor and set her pack down beside her.
"For the hundredth time…" Eorl defended. "I didn't fall! It was a deliberate emergency dismount. It was either that or be clobbered to death by flying hooves!" He took a swig of whatever was in his waterskin, from the smell of the stuff it most assuredly wasn't water. Eorl looked her in the eye, humor glimmering in their depths.
"I chose the ground."
She knew the men of the Mark were very skilled horsemen. It was a significant blow to his pride to have been unseated from his horse regardless of the reason.
"That old stud is as randy as Gramm." Holdred added with a laugh, always the one to put Gramm in his place.
"He's been takin' notes from you lad and all the ladies you've had bent over in the stables."
The other men snorted with laughter at Gramm's expense. The look on his face was enough for Nat to join in. Gramm had the decency to look affronted by the comment but grinned a handsome devilish grin in her direction. Yes, she thought, the ladies did not stand a chance resisting that face.
"You have to practice to develop a skill." He smiled at her. His eyes were hot and full of youthful lust. He was interested, that much was obvious, but she wasn't the type of woman he would ever be able to handle. Her interests were too varied for someone as wholesome as Gramm. He would be much better off with the tender-hearted girls of Rohan.
A surge of unexpected irritation welled up inside her as he continued to ply his gaze to her. How many young men had she ensnared with only a look? How many men had she brought to their knees with a silky smile and a fluttering lash?
"How else am I to convince the lady to be mine if not by wooing her into my bed until she's dizzy with love for me." He was half-joking and half serious, it was impossible to miss her beauty. Any hot-blooded man would find her attractive. He would be lucky to have even a small bit of her, but he was tireless when it came to pursuing prey of the female variety. He loved them in all their shapes and forms. Thin, curvy, blonde, brunette he preferred none of them over any other and they were all equally appealing. But he'd had his fair share of girls in the stables and lately had been more inclined to the idea of hunting himself up a real woman.
She scoffed, a bitter angry sound she hadn't expected to make. She reached out for Eorl's flask. Love would never be something she was worthy of nor could she give. Sorrowfully she was reminded of Clint and Laura, all that they shared. That was love. She knew nothing of it in regard to herself. Anyone she had ever thought to love had betrayed her or been lost to her over the decades of her life. All love had ever brought her was pain and heartache.
Eorl handed the flask to her with ease. The other men had quieted at her harsh reaction.
"Love?" She gave a choked laugh in memory of the old adage, "The deadliest of all deadly things: it kills you both when you have it and when you don't."
She rubbed at the ache that began to form in her chest again. Silently she cursed the elf at the root of it and shoved her feelings back down and then cursed herself, bottling them was definitely working for her.
Gramm winced; he had obviously unintentionally struck a nerve. He had not expected her anger. He had wanted to see that teasing look in her eye and hear her laugh. Where was the woman who had flirted with him in good fun at the inn?
Nat took a swig of the flask, capped it and tossed it firmly to Gramm who distractedly fumbled with the catch. He took a slow draw, his eyes never leaving her. The small group had gone quiet with thought at her words. He wanted to apologize but before he could speak Baldor had already engaged her.
"Who was he?" Baldor asked quietly thinking of his own past love, one he had lost much too young. When she remained silent, a hard glint in her eye, he continued on his own.
"There was a bonnie lass from the Eastfold I fancied years ago..." He paused in reflection. His hands still moved over his blade as he polished the steel to a gleaming shine.
"She had hair like sunlight and eyes so deeply blue...I've never seen the ocean but that's what I thought of every time I saw her." His eyes filled with sorrow as he held his steel to reflect the light of the fire, checking its surface for any remaining imperfections.
"By some miracle, I convinced her to marry me. A month after we were wed, I rode out on my rotation with the Rohirrim. Our village was raided by wild men while I was away, our house burnt to the ground...and she with it."
He met her eyes, "I nearly took my own life when I lost her."
Baldor nodded to the men around him, "If it wasn't for this lot, I don't reckon I would have pulled through."
Eorl reached out for the flask in Gramm's hands; he gladly passed it over.
"I lost my oldest son just last summer." Eorl met and held Gramm's eyes, "He and our Gramm here were as thick as thieves." He took a long draw of the flask and gazed back at Gramm's handsome face.
"Not a day goes by that I don't look at you and think of him."
With a pointed look, Eorl reached out with a slow hand to give Nat the flask. Her chest tight, she swallowed thickly as she took it in hand.
So, this was how it was going to be.
"My family sold me into slavery when I was a child." She flicked open the cap and swirled the remaining contents. "I spent years being tortured and trained to kill for men who had too much money and too much power."
She downed the contents of the flask. It wasn't nearly enough to make the pain go away but it was enough to dull the growing ache in her heart. A feeling she wasn't accustomed to yet, one that threatened to consume her. A longing so deep and hungry, she wondered if she would ever satisfy it.
She looked at Baldor beside her; his gaze steamed with anger. She was relieved to see there was no pity in their depths.
"Clint was the most important person in my adult life." She paused and took a long drink of the burning liquor.
She barked out a laugh as she recalled the moment they'd met, "We were supposed to kill each other. At least that was how it should have worked out. We'd danced around each other for years; our work had a tendency to overlap. He was protecting a target I'd been tracking for weeks. I had days and days of recon and intel. I broke into their safe house and he was just standing there, bow drawn on me, waiting. He had the shot, but he didn't take it. Took me on hand to hand instead, 'out of respect' he said. I was burnt out...I wanted to die." She had maneuvered into his fists; twisted into each blow but he'd known. Even then Clint had been able to read her better than anyone.
"I gave him every opportunity to put me down instead he turned me. Offered me a job and helped me escape...When I was ready, we went back together; killed the trainers, the doctors, and burned the place to the ground. He was the first and only person I ever really loved, in a brotherly sort of fashion."
She wasn't sure if she was capable of more than that. She gave a small wistful smile as his face appeared before her.
Her voice turned soft with affection.
"He took me in and so did his wife...and their children. They were the only family I ever really had." They had been everything to her and now they too were lost. A world away.
It was time she accepted it for what it was.
"Now they're just one more thing I've lost." One of the rare things she would be able to look back at with a smile.
She looked to Eorl again and attempted to lighten the mood, "Enough of this talk. You better have more hooch somewhere. This wasn't the conversation I planned on having tonight."
Baldor gave her a nudge as he produced a dark bottle from his saddlebag.
"It is good to be among friends." He removed the stopper with his teeth and poured a splash of liquid to the ground. He raised the bottle in a toast.
"To our glorious dead."
The men echoed his sentiment passing the bottle between them. When it came to her, she sniffed it, the heady spice of whiskey filled her nose. The faces of all those that were gone, the ones she had buried, the ones she had killed, and the ones she'd left behind would be with her forever.
"To our glorious dead." She echoed and drank her fill.
They spent the next hour recalling battle stories, sharpening blades, and blessedly eating the venison they had hunted down before making camp. The camp itself was still busy this early in the evening. People were up and about walking here and there. Other soldiers stopped by their fire for a bit of meat and a friendly greeting. Despite their losses, the people of Rohan were happy to return home.
It was the most at ease she had felt in weeks. At some point she had eased to the ground beside Baldor; her legs casually cast out and her back leaned against his shin. He seemed perfectly comfortable with casual contact. When he had finished sharpening his sword, she had borrowed his wet stone and had adamantly been addressing the long knife Wulfric and she had made.
They made her smile and laugh at the fun they poked at one another. They spoke of their homes with great affection. They recalled and relayed even the most minute details. All of them were natural-born storytellers, a gift all the people of Rohan seemed to possess. It was a pleasant distraction.
"What about you?" Baldor asked at long last. She had been listening intently but hadn't volunteered to add to the conversation.
"Where are you from?" She knew she didn't look like the people in these parts or the people in other parts they knew. She had been mistaken for an elf now more than once. Nat was unusual to them and still, this band of warriors welcomed her with ease.
"I was born in Stalingrad, Russia." She continued sharpening her blade. A vague answer but the truth, nonetheless. Nat was getting in the habit of providing more fact than fiction these days, a habit Clint had tried to instill in her for years. His words echoed in her mind, 'You don't have to keep everything from everyone all the time, it's an unnecessary burden. Eventually, you have to give it up and let it go.'
Gramm prodded her for more.
"What's it like there?"
She swallowed hard as a familiar soothing feeling blanketed over her. Nat clung to that feeling, knowing beyond a doubt who was near. It was strange, her body betraying her mind this way. Her heart told her one thing, her mind another.
She cast a casual glance Gramm's way at the gentle inquisition.
"I... I couldn't really say. I never spent much time there. It's cold...There was a river near my grandmother's house. The Volga. Most of the city was destroyed during the Second World War, there's not much left but rubble and dust." Nat was more a citizen to the world than a particular country. She had been adrift for a very long time.
She spun the black ring on her finger between her knuckles watching as the black glossy spider caught the light.
Nat answered genuinely as she reflected.
"I went back once and tried to find my parents. I found their two little graves linked by a chain fence." She looked to Gramm; his youthful face gone hard with regret. She could see now that he realized that she wasn't the person he had imagined. She was well beyond the simple village girls he was accustomed to. He had put her on the same pedestal Eowyn was constantly trying to place her on. An ideal that she would never fulfill. She was hard and dark at her center, a core that had been forged in the fires of the Red Room. Try as she might to be rid of that place, she knew that some part of it would follow her to the grave.
"I did what I could; pulled some weeds and left some flowers...Мы имеем то, что имеем, когда имеем это."
Baldor looked down at her and held out his hand for his wet stone. "And what, exactly, does that mean?"
She handed the stone to him with quiet gratitude. "Sometimes we have, what we have, when we have it." It was as simple as that. What use was there longing over changing the past?
He gave her a friendly look. "You have us lass." He reached down and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "We are family enough to each other."
She had no words for him and instead chose to grip his hardened hand in thanks. She looked up at him from her seated position at his leg. The lines of his handsome face formed a comforting smile which she returned.
Nat felt it then, a hot pulse of irritation in her blood. She blinked it back; tried to shove it down just as she had earlier but this time the feeling wouldn't dissipate. Nat quickly realized it was because it wasn't her irritation. She searched beyond the campfire until she found exactly who was responsible.
He was deadly still and just out of sight to the human eye, but not to hers. She released Baldor's hand.
Haldir found his stride again and came into the light.
"The King requests your presents and council." His words were as sharp and pointed as any weapon he could wield.
The men around her jumped a small bit in surprise. Unlike her they had not known he approached from the dark.
She couldn't stop the delighted pleasure that hummed in her blood at the sight of him in the firelight. He was dressed neatly in what she assumed was the uniform of his position as March Warden. His red cape draped proudly around his broad shoulders. He cut quite the figure, but she much preferred him as she had seen him the other night with his hair loose around his face and pleasantly mussed. Nat used every ounce of training ingrained in her not to let it show.
Nat couldn't blame him for his cool tone. She had failed to address a many number of things after what had occurred in Isengard. As much as she hated it to admit it to anyone but herself, she had kept away for good reason. Her mental state and control had been sorely lacking.
His irritation clustered tightly inside her.
"Where?" She bit out.
"It matters not." His impassive face arched one clever eyebrow at her tone. "I'm to escort you." He back stepped to the side waiting for her to stand. Another hot pulse shot through her, this time it was all her.
She stood and let her irritation show with a snide reply. "I'm not some dog he can command to heel whenever he likes."
"Least you forget, you're in his country. The King can do with you as he pleases so long as you choose to be in the company of his people." He cast a glance at the men around the fire. The company of soldiers she had kept this evening rode exclusively at Lord Eomer's side. They were some of the best the Rohirrim had to offer.
Nat gathered her pack, tied the flap shut and took a deep calming breath. She went to shoulder it but Holdred stood and stopped her hands in their place. He took her pack with equal amounts of kindness and warning in his tone.
"Be at ease, camp here with us for now. We will watch your things, little sister." The levelheaded one of the group had taken to her in the same fashion he had taken to Gramm. She relented it into his hands with gratitude.
She crossed the paths of the company she had kept the last hours. "I'll be back."
Holdred gave her a steady nod and offered the March Warden an impressive glare. "You'd better be."
Haldir remained impassive as she passed by him into the dark. He matched her stride in moments and guided her with subtle shifts of his body toward the other side of camp. She was so attuned to him, so aware; she didn't miss a single movement he made. With each step, her previous tension eased. The spring he had coiled inside her slowly unwound. He released a long quiet breath, and the set of his shoulders relaxed a great deal. Their irritation had very clearly redoubled between them, one had fed the other.
Nat could see now where they were headed. The king's tents were nothing large or overly impressive. They had come here in haste and made their way back to Edoras much the same. There was little time for luxury. Torches had been set deep into the earth encircling a makeshift table, most likely the side panel of a wagon, and gathered around it were numerous familiar faces.
She paused for a moment, taking in the scene. Carefully she collected her previously shredded defenses. Nat refused to let her newly developed sensitivities overwhelm her. She would not look the fool in front of them...and in front of him. This behavior wasn't like her. She was assertive, quick, strong, and emotionally well developed not some child with a hairpin trigger.
It was frustrating beyond belief that all the layers she had developed over the years had so quickly been stripped away. He had left her unintentionally defenseless and had given her little indication that he was even aware he had done so. He had rattled everything Nat thought she knew about herself. But if he hadn't...If he had chosen to sit by while she had suffered; she had the very distinct feeling her psyche would never have fully recovered. She was already damaged goods, the mental burrowing the wizard had subjected her to certainly hadn't remedied her trauma.
Haldir passed her by a single stride. He halted, intent on addressing her, but she was already speaking.
"Thank you." She cleared her throat. "For what you did for me."
Words much too simple for what he had done. He had protected her, guarded her, and brought her a great deal of comfort when she had needed it most. Somehow, he had held the fragments of her together long enough for her to begin to weld them back together herself. Somehow, he'd let her use his strength and helped guide her as piece by piece she had reassembled what the wizard had destroyed. The aftereffects be damned. She was still grateful even if she was fearful of the emotional turbulence, he'd churned up inside her.
He was with her now, gentle at the edges of her mind, a curious mental probe.
Was he too trying to come to grips with whatever had formed between them?
He took a half step forward. The moon and firelight winked in tandem in his eyes.
"You're safe here Natasha." He had so many questions and so few answers. Haldir reached into the folds of his trousers and palmed something. He turned it over and offered it to her openly. Nestled there was her ear com.
She grasped it with delicate fingers, careful not to touch him, afraid of what would happen if she did.
"I thought I'd lost this." She responded gratefully.
"It... chirps...every now and again." The curiosity was evident in his tone.
"It's a communication device. Gimli has the other. It's how he knew my plan in Isengard." The chirping was Gimli trying to connect with her device. He had figured out how to page her, clever dwarf.
"It's particularly useful over long distances." She motioned casually to his pointed ears with a playful grin. "Not all of us have them built-in."
Mild amusement showed on his face at her attempted joke. He wondered briefly if she knew exactly how much of her previous conversation with the men of Rohan, he had overheard because of them.
"Come." He said after a quiet moment. "We are late."
This time she didn't hesitate to follow.