In which our fish and a friend go for a walk.

"There once was a Ranger named Strider,
whose title proclaimed him a fighter.
'Take me at my word
though I haven't a sword
I'll protect you,' he said
'from that spider.'"

"C'mon!" you say when your limerick fails to get a reaction from Estel. He just keeps on sweeping at the leaf litter on the forest floor with the toe of his boot.

You would have thought the incongruity of a 'big scary Ranger' promising to exert himself against a teeny tiny little spider would have gotten at least an amused huff, if not a full out laugh.

Yeah, you've let Estel lead you out north of the Great East Road into Chetwood. You're not exactly sure how far you are from Bree proper. It's definitely further than you usually go, what with the rascals and rogues and highwaymen you might meet on the way, or, you know, accidentally bring with you. It might have something to do with how little work you've had at Barliman's, what with all the rain lately. You've been out a few hours and it's coming on noon. You can tell by how loudly your stomach is wondering if it can eat some of the food you've been foraging.

"'Tis a lazy effort," Estel says, dropping into a crouch and plucking at something on the ground, "to match 'd' and 't' in your rhyme."

You snort. Well, fuck you, too, William Longshanks Shakespeare.

Operation C.U.E. may be struggling a bit to meet its daily quota today. In fact, today's objective is more Poke Estel Out of His Shell P.E.O.O.H.S, which is not nearly as much fun as Unshell Estel, U.E., despite it being a lot easier to say and inadvertently rhyming, to boot. Taciturn and grim is saying it nicely. Sullen and uncommunicative is more like it. You can't exactly ask him what's wrong and expect anything other than "none of your business," so attempt to tease and distract Estel it is.

You roll your eyes and return to cutting mushrooms off a truly massive fallen oak whose trunk comes up to your chest. Luckily you are behind him with the tree between you, and so he goes on.

"In truth." Estel stands and looks about his feet. "You would need to declare what manner of spider was involved, or, at the least, its size, else the humor of your final line is lost. I have fought spiders the size of your house, though, should the tales be true, they are much diminished in size and cunning from what they once were."

Good god. You freeze in the act of dropping the mushrooms into your soft basket. That's just. Too much. Too much all at once. You don't even know what to think of that. Spiders. Houses. He's fought against them. And those are the small ones? Oh my god.

They've got to be someplace far far off, or you'd have heard of them before this. Right? Right?

God you hope so.

"I did not lose my sword until much later. It took more than the use of my own wits and the weapons I had at hand to free myself from them. I had help, and was glad of it."

Oh. Yeah. How did he get his sword back, anyway?

You are on the cusp of asking, when he says, "'Tis an improvement o'er your last attempt, aye, but should you wish to offend me, you must do so with greater wit than you have shown thus far."

And with that you drop everything you had been puzzling over.

Oh, so that's how it is, is it?

"Fine!" you declare, settling the long handles of your basket back over your head and shoulder and picking up your walking stick where you had leaned it against the tree trunk. "Let's see you do better, big boy. What you got?"

"I have shoots of ground elder." He holds up something small and leafy. He's still peering about his feet and very deliberately not paying any attention to you. He takes a step or two and brushes at the ground with his foot. "You may find them in areas such as this even in the depths of winter. Come!" he says, gesturing you closer. "I shall show you."

Yeah, yeah. You take a running leap up to the top of the log and, catching your balance, tuck your hickory staff beneath your arm and trip down its length closer to him before you plop to sitting where you can see him better. You thrust your knife into the trunk of the tree and, laying your staff across your thighs, kick your feet over the empty space between your seat and the ground.

"If you think you can do better, c'mon, let's hear it," you say and he huffs, dropping back to a crouch and brushing away wet leaves to expose more of the ground elder and a dark ivy.

He plucks several shoots from the soil and points at larger growth nearby. Those are his broad shoulders and yes that is his nicely muscled back and yep they are both turned very firmly away from you. "'Tis the same plant, there, but when grown to such a size as those you may eat them, but they do not taste so good as when young."

"C'mon, Estel," you call to his back, leaning over in an attempt to catch a look at his face. "I know you love poetry."

He stands, peering closely at the floor of the clearing as he holds a small green plant with serrated leaves out in your general direction. "When the leaves are yet curled one tother as this is, is when they taste at their best."

"No need to be shy. Spit a verse."

"Hala," he says and drops his chin to his chest, his voice all kinds of resolutely calm.

"Seriously, it's just you and me here," you say. "I'll get you started. 'There once was a person named Fish -'"

"Hala!" he cries and gestures at you where you sit with the ground elder leaves, "I am attempting to teach you that which may keep you alive should you have naught else to eat."

You nod your head. "Yes, that you have and I am very grateful, but-"

"I cannot see how that is so," he mutters and now he's back down on one knee, turning over leaves with the tip of his finger and plucking at the green shoots he uncovers.

"I have been listening."

"You have not," he scoffs. "You have been prattling."

"I'm not prattling. I'm having fun to pass the time in between your very impressive survivalist lessons. There's a difference," you say, though you really hope he won't press you on that because you're really not sure what it is. Maybe you can bullshit your way through it.

"And for it shall not recall a single thing I have shown you or said," he says, his voice sharpening. "Were you always thus? Or has the months of solitude curdled your wits?"

"Hey!" you protest. Fucking cheap shot.

He launches to his feet, his hand full of greens. Oops. He's not just irritated, he's full out angry. He might be crushing the shoots he just plucked from the ground in his fist a little too hard and you might have pushed him a little too far.

"Do you wish to know what I learned of you, Hala, when I asked the folk of Bree what they knew of you?" he asks, pinning you with a very sharp glare.

Great. Just what you wanted to hear. "Sure, Professor Estel," you say, "you're on an educational roll, enlighten me. What exactly did they tell you that I haven't heard every single day since I first got here?"

"That in the depth of winter, you were so reduced as to be found combing through the middens of your neighbors and the slop buckets at The Pony," he fairly yells at you. "You were well on your path to weighing no more than a child come the spring had not you a friend in Bob to make work for you and Barliman's cook to force food upon you."

Oh. They told him that.

Well. Fuck.

"Look, Estel -"

"Say what you will of me." He stabs his finger at your knee. "Recite your poetry mocking what little I am able to do in the face of perils of which you have no great understanding, but, Hala, I beg of you, give me the respect of accepting what help I can offer in gift for what you have done for me."

Oh.

Oh shit.

He's not angry, he's afraid and hurt. And you are the cause of both of those things.

"I'm sorry, Estel," you say, but he's already turned away, striding back to his open pack at the foot of a tree at the edge of this little glade. "I make light of things that I shouldn't. I know that. It doesn't mean I don't take them seriously. It's just, sometimes, you know, they're just too big and too heavy to have to live with them all the fucking time. I really do appreciate your help. I mean, honestly I'm in a much better position now than I was last year. I don't think I could joke about it if I wasn't. And you've been a big reason for that."

He thrusts the handful of greens in his pack, his movements sharp.

"Okay, I'll make a deal with you. If I can recite everything you've taught me in the past twenty-four hours to your satisfaction you have to come up with a limerick of your own," you say and his nicely muscled back heaves in a sigh.

With that, he slaps the flap on his pack closed and comes to face you. His hands on his hips, he's got that spark of challenge in his eye that you were working for in the first place.

He clears his throat. "Very well then, I accept. Let us hear it."

"All right, all right," you say, and draw in air through your nose, settling your shoulders and feeling the words before they come out of your mouth. Using your staff like a drum major's baton to point in the appropriate directions, you begin.

"Grey oyster mushrooms are available in the depth of winter, as are wood bluets which are found in leaf litter that is undisturbed, so look under brambles when close in to Bree but they can be found anywhere off trail outside of that. The ground ivy that we found half a click north by northwest of the northern Bree gate can be eaten or made into a tea. Burdock root found at the foot of a grove of elms a little under one click southeast of our current position tastes like a combination of carrot and potato. The newer growth is more tender, so dig deep. Don't just yank on the plant cuz you'll be left with the woodier older growth. You've got plans to dig out a root cellar beneath my shed where the opening will be sheltered from the weather. Common sorrel is found in the grasslands east of Bree's hedgerow and is about the only thing around here that doesn't taste like carrot. Pay attention to the points on the leaves so as to not mistake it for dock, which is not a big deal given that dock is edible, just not tasty. Be more careful not to mistake it for a lily imported to the North from the 'western hills of Harad in the days of old' which is not edible, though that comes up in the spring not winter. Look for two leaves growing together and about the stem and you will know it for the pines that most often grow about the crown of Bree-hill, not yew, as pine when crushed makes a healthy tea, but yew most decidedly does not. We are currently just over two clicks northwest of the northern gate. Ground elder shoots as seen below your feet are found beneath leaf litter and come in clusters of three with serrated edges.

"I'll gladly gather some of that chervil over there for our lunch as you asked, but only if you eat it first. I'm sure it will taste like carrots like everything else around here does, only to then result in your very painful and sudden death because it is, in fact, hemlock and not chervil, and I really gotta wonder how far you were going to let that particular little test of my skills go. Luthien is the daughter of Thingol and Melian of Doriath, by which the blood of the Ainur entered into the peoples of Middle earth. Thingol is a dick who sent his daughter's lover off to die chasing after some mythical jewel and then stuffed said daughter in a tower made of a tree. He paid for it and seemed to have learned his lesson, which didn't really help anybody in the end. Luthien Rapunzled her way out of captivity and together she and Beren changed the course of history by producing about every leader of half of the cultures of Middle-earth, who then go on to ignore and refuse to name women in their histories and politics with the exception of a few stand-outs, and even though the idea of it is very appealing to you, you've never really kissed anyone."

It is really really hard not to smirk down at him from your perch, but you are certainly doing your best. Okay, yeah, who are you fooling? You are literally grinning broadly down at him. He kinda looks like he's either fighting against a smile or is sucking on something sour. God, you wish you could take a picture about now.

"How am I doing?"

He nods.

"Thingol is not a dick," he says before he turns away and goes to his pack.

Sad to say, but Estel has learned from prior conversations what that means. His vocabulary of foul language is making great progress under your tutelage.

You roll your eyes and let your weight drag you off the tree trunk and land on your feet in a soft pile of rotting leaves and ground cover in a hail of bark.

"Well if he's not," you say, "he certainly does a good impression of one."

"Elu Thingol," he says with a certain emphasis on the dignity of the name, "was the king of a great people put under siege by one of the most oppressive powers in all the ages of the world. For many thousands of years he kept them safe until he himself perished."

"You mean Melian, Queen of Doriath kept them safe. Her husband was a control freak. Locked their people inside the beltway and their daughter in a tree. Awesome dude. You owe me a poem."

He mutters something you can't catch as he fastens the flap to his pack and picks it up.

"What was that?" you ask, cupping your hand behind your ear.

"Aye! Very well!" he exclaims. He drops his pack back to the ground and turns to give you a slight bow, his arms spread wide.

"There once was a Fish who did hinder
the scavenge of food and of tinder.
Then came the cold bite
of frost and of night.
Then perished poor Fish
in the winter."

Okay, yeah.

That's way better than any of yours.

"Did you just make that up on the spot?" you ask, leaning on your staff and smiling, because, yes, that is awesome, and a delighted grin flashes across his face, which he quickly turns away to hide.

"I'm impressed," you say as he picks up his pack and peers into the sun shimmering overhead through the canopy of leaves. "You've been quite modest after all. Big, bad, mysterious Strider has some skills."

"And you, Hala, seem to have retained more than I hoped, despite your embellishments," he says. He slings his pack over his shoulder and onto his back and pauses, flashing you a look. "Let us see what you make of setting traps ere we break for our noon meal."

Fucker. He doesn't fool you. Nope, not with that crinkling about his eyes and that twitch of the corner of his lip. He's got a tell. Yes he does. It's the left cheek. That's the side that gives him away. Honestly, he's probably not trying all that hard to hide it.

And with that, he strides off, moving swiftly through a gap in the underbrush. You settle your basket more firmly between your shoulder blades, watching where he places his feet. He moves really quietly when he chooses to, but doesn't seem to put much thought into it. It's not like he is constantly watching where he's putting his feet. You really don't know how he's doing it.

'Lazy effort' my ass. 'Hinder, tinder, winter.' Fucker just rhymed 'd' and 't' himself.

"Do not forget your knife!" comes his call as you follow behind him.

Huh?

Oh, shit! You left it stuck in the trunk of the fallen tree you were sitting on.

You take a few running steps and sling yourself to the top of the tree trunk to retrieve it. It comes loose after a couple tugs and you drop back down to the soft loam of shredded leaves and bark.

"Come, Hala!" Estel calls. "Keep up!"