Sadron woke up the next morning as Aragorn and Legolas were cooking breakfast—the remains of last night's deer, the side that hadn't been dragged halfway across the forest by a wolf pack. She put a hand to her side, noticing the new bandaging, and the fact that her breasts were no longer bound flat. She didn't have time to say anything before the wolves mobbed her, making sure their beloved packmate was well.

"You're up at last," the ranger noted dryly as Sadron's pack finally backed off. She noticed that he had a black eye, and wondered absentmindedly what he'd done to himself. "You had us frightened for a while there."

Sadron didn't say anything. She draped her arm around Stardance, twining her fingers in the wolf-queen's fur.

"Sadron?"

"It's Sadroniel," she murmured. "You might as well know now."

"Sadroniel, then."

"What happened after you told me of Arathorn's death?" she asked, much subdued.

~You began to live in the past,~ Stardance told her. ~You cried out for Wildheart and cursed Tharad.~ Sadroniel's jaw tightened at the name. ~The elf Legolas who has to be named removed the splinter of poisoned iron from your wound, and Strider bound it up.~

Sadroniel looked up sharply. "You healed me? Why?"

Aragorn frowned quizzically. "Why not? You saved my life."

"Shame," Legolas muttered. Aragorn threw a stick at him.

"I—did?"

"In the lake. Not only did you get rid of the sword that would have weighed me down, but you dragged me and Snowfire out of the water."

"Snowfire and me," Legolas corrected.

"Count on you to correct my grammar when we're out in the middle of nowhere," Aragorn snapped.

"A king must be well-spoken," the elf said elegantly. "Even an uncrowned one."

"A gellam," was the muttered reply.

Sadroniel smiled in spite of herself. Her companions smiled back.

"I fear I must ask you a delicate question," Legolas began. "You don't have to answer."

"What?" Sadroniel looked suspicious.

"What happened to you?"

She didn't say anything for a long time, and Aragorn began to fear that Legolas had offended her. But then she spoke, and she told them everything.

*          *            *

Rhovan and Sadroniel were a pair of imps as children, inseparable and mischievous, wild as a thunderstorm. Their father, Talagan, was one of Rivendell's finest bards and an excellent horseman, a talent he had passed onto his son, but not his daughter. Their mother Meril, on the other hand, was one of the best warriors, like her daughter, but unlike her son.

When the twins were still young, but no longer children, the family left Rivendell to map the land beyond the Grey Mountains, and had just crossed the mountains when they were attacked.

Men burst out of the underbrush. Talagan was dead almost before anyone could react. Meril didn't last much longer—both Sadroniel and Rhovan knew she wouldn't want to live without Talagan. The men dragged Rhovan off his horse and clipped heavy chains around his wrists, ankles, and neck and dragged him away.

Sadroniel was ahead scouting. She didn't see any of the fight, but she found her parents' broken bloody bodies in the snow. She tracked the men to their keep and snuck inside, determined to rescue her brother.

They caught her. King Tharad was delighted at this opportunity—not one, but two elven slaves. But it would be better to show of the woman, by his way of thinking. He kept Rhovan captive in a dungeon where the elf never saw the light. Sadroniel was forced to obey the king's orders, else her brother be tortured to death.

The beatings and humiliation were bad enough, but when Tharad decided she would share his bed—Sadroniel flatly refused. The Aldyrions had a strict taboo against rape, a trait that saved her, but not Rhovan. Tharad came through on his promise—he tortured Rhovan for days. Sadroniel heard his screams.

For forty years the twins never saw each other and spoke only in screams. Tharad grew old. One day, he was out hunting, a common practice among the Aldyrions, while Sadroniel scrubbed floors.

One of the guards who had stayed behind came up from the dungeons with a grin on his face. "Your brother's dying," he told her.

Sadroniel ignored him. She didn't believe him, she couldn't believe him, though death would be a relief after this.

"He screamed like a woman when we burned out his eyes."

Sadroniel's fingers clenched the rag too hard for it to be of any use. Her chains rattled on the floor.

"He wept like a child when we cut off his bow fingers."

When Sadroniel didn't react, he grabbed the chain attached to her collar and jerked it. She fell back, choking and sliding on the soapy floor. "Show some emotion, bitch! I'll do you like I did your brother!"

Some thing broke inside Sadroniel. Forty years of rage, pain, and, helplessness, forty years with no name but "Mûl", forty years of hell and torment flamed up within her. She spun around, and the look in her eyes made the guard stumbled back. He slipped and went down hard. Sadroniel's bare feet had more traction than his booted ones did, and as he tried to scramble upright, she jumped on his back, looping her chains around his neck and tugging hard.

Once he was unconscious, she took the dagger from his belt and slit his throat. She used the bloody blade to pick the locks of her chains and, thus freed, she ran down the stone steps to Rhovan's cell.

She found him. Like the guard had said, his eyes had been burned out and his bow fingers cut off. The points of his ears had been sliced off. His clothes were ripped and tattered, his fingers had been smashed and broken, and his back was twisted. He was scarred almost beyond recognition.

He had looped a chain around his neck and hung himself.

Sadroniel wept bitterly. She didn't blame her brother for leaving—she blamed Tharad. She swore to kill him.

She took what she needed and shot Tharad with a poisoned arrow when he returned from the hunt. She fled into the wild, and almost starved to death. Winter was in full swing, and the White Wolves of Aldyrion found her half-dead, frozen and hungry, on the tundra. They led her to their den and cared for her, and she stayed with them for twenty years before Tharad's son Dariad sought vengeance. It was his men attacked that her pack, his men that killed Stormwing and drove Sadroniel, Stardance, Nightwind, Snowfire, and Sunrunner out of Aldyrion. They searched for a female elf in the company of wolves, so she disguised herself, and only half the pack accompanied her. They bid Brightheart, Moonlight, Rainsong, and Icefeather farewell and began the long journey south.

*          *            *

Aragorn and Legolas were silent. "That's why I hate humans," Sadroniel murmured. "They killed my brother. They killed my mother. They killed my father. They held me captive for forty years of hell." She looked away from them. "I know not all humans are like that—Arathorn was my friend—but I can't help it. I can't stop hating."

"But you saved my life," Aragorn said again.

"So?"

"Would you have saved me if you truly hated all humans? You weren't very fond of me at that time, but you didn't hate me. You couldn't have. Don't be a fool."

Sadroniel stared at him with wide eyes.

~Strider is right,~ Nightwind said firmly. ~We have been trying to convince you for twenty years, Songblade. You are not wicked. You do not hate all humans, and you do not hate without reason. You have been away from home long enough. It is time for you to return to Rivendell.~

"Rivendell." Sadroniel breathed the name like a caress. "Imladris." Legolas saw tears in her eyes. "I'm going home." She cleared her throat and stood taller. "It is time. Let me retrieve my spear."

Sunrunner and Sadroniel ran down to the lake and returned not long after with her spear and Aragorn's sword. The ranger sheathed the blade with a sigh, and they turned their path toward Imladris.