A New Way of Life
Chapter 4: Ade, blobs and home.
Disclaimer: see chapter 1.
Note(s): I may have gotten some facts wrong, and if I did, and you notice, please tell me and I will try to change it A.S.A.P. (as soon as possible). Oh, yeah, and thoughts are in italics.
Thanks to Loquacious for the information on the Dunedain and Numenoreans. I promise I will use the info. Thanks again!
I originally put this story down as Aragorn/Arwen, action/adventure/romance, but just so you know it will change as I go (If you haven't figured that out from reading the first 3 chapters). There is little romance and Arwen in here, and I put them down, because they are major characters/themes, and are in here.
Oh, and Aragorn is 20 and a half in this. It's rated PG-13 for Aragorn's thought's in this one. I will tend to overestimate the censor rather than underestimate, I am not trying to lead anyone on. The censor grade will change as the story moves on.
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As Aragorn walked back through the forest to the edge where the children waited for him, his clear gray eyes flicked between all of them, noticing all their stances and expressions.
Marroc stood tall and didn't shift his weight from foot to foot nervously and held his head up proudly waiting patiently. But the very slight wrinkles on his forehead told Aragorn he was worried.
Aldarida stood balanced on the balls of her feet, as if she was a deer, ready to string at the first sign of danger. But from the way she held her right hand near the knife at her belt, and the left hand out, probably has a slip wrist knife hidden up there in her sleeve, he bet she would spring towards the danger and not away as a deer would. But her face was neutral, betraying no signs what so ever of her feelings; be they anxious, angry, deadly, or anything else. Yet she too held herself proudly, making him do a double take between Mar and Alda, their bearing was the same, hmmmm...
But the little one, Taniaiel, she was easiest to read. Her wide eyes, open mouth, and a hand placed hesitatingly near her waist, where the handle of a dagger just peaked out, showed him that one of them, Alda probably told her to cut first and ask later if he tried anything. Yet again, even she too held her chin up as she still leaned on her knees her breath finally calming from the climb up the hill.
"I am ready, and thank you for your kindness," he told them politely when he reached the edge of the woods. "Just don't try anything," Alda said, staring him straight in the eyes. Gray met gray, clam star-silver met boiling silver. Mar shot her a look that plainly told her to be polite, which she ignored completely, and he quickly replied, "Your welcome, I hope we can help you," he pointed to Tana and said, "Follow Tana, she show you our house and introduce you to Ade." With a nod of thanks and acceptance, Aragorn broke the stare-down followed the girl down the hill, but he could feel the angry silver eyes boring into his back.
The 2-year-old sprang down the hill. The solemnity of the moment was forgotten as she felt the wind rush past her ears and eyes and whip her clothes. She pushed with all her might to go faster, faster still, and even FASTER! But she suddenly collapsed into a heap of limbs and clothes. Aragorn, who had been walking down the hill, sure the girl would wait and catch her breath at the bottom, came down slowly. As soon as he saw her fall from swift momentum to a halting stop and crumple on the ground he gave up all walking and ran. He rushed down the hill to her to see how she was.
He stopped and leaned over her crumpled form to look at her and jerked back quickly as a chubby fist slashed out with a dagger. "Stop! Stop!" he shouted as he dodged her flailing fist. He reached in and grabbed the fist and quickly removed the small dagger, and quickly suppressed a smile. He shoved the dagger in the ground next to Tana and tried to reassure her, "Look, I'm not going to hurt you, just let me look at your foot." For during the dodging and shouting he had managed to get a look at why she fell. Her foot was caught in a rabbit's hole. He looked anxiously at her face to try and discover anything of her feelings. He saw trepidation to let him look at her foot and whiteness at how much it hurt. Finally she nodded and pulled back the edge of her dress so he could see. He gently dug out around the foot and pulled it out slowly. Even with his best efforts Tana face went even whiter with pain, but she didn't cry, whimper, or make any noise.
Just as he was lightly touching her foot to see, Mar and Alda came running down. "What happened?" Mar asked his face wrinkled in worry, arms immediately flying to his smallest sister who still sat on the ground. Alda's slightly larger eyes, a slight crease in her forehead, and tightening of her lips were only Aragorn's warnings of her apprehension. "She fell into a hole as she came down, twisted her ankle." He stated as he finished his probing search, still holding her ankle as he knelt in the grass before her. Mar's brow furrowed more as he thought then finally said, "We can't leave the flocks to show you which house is ours. It's the one with smoke coming out of the chimney, that's connected to the smithy. Tana can help you if your not sure." He pointed out the house to Aragorn.
Alda's lips tightened more when she realized what must be done. "You must carry her Strider. But if anything happens to her, I will hunt you down and deal with you," her face grew taught with the deliverance of the threat. Aragorn simply nodded, his face and eyes calm and certain, and gently picked the little girl up in his arms.
He walked across the green meadow and into village as Mar and Alda walked back up the hill to their post. Aragorn carried the girl down the street, looking at the different houses as he went. On house had a boat carving over the door. It's probably a boat builder. And the one with a picture of a leaping fish over it he wasn't sure of. But as he passed the open door and smelled and saw candles, fish, fruits, vegetables, knives, and other odds and ends and useful things, he realized what it was, a general store, or something like that. And the mill was a mill, no picture needed, the loaf of bread a baker's, and the anvil a smithy. But he didn't know was one place was. It had a lump of something that looked like wet sand over the doorway.
He knocked on the doorway of the house connected to the smithy and waited. A young woman opened the door. Alda had said Ade was 18. What she forgot to mention was that she was very pretty. She wore a leather smock that had burns all over it and the sleeves on her thick woolen shirt were pushed up. She had sweat on her brow and her waist length black hair was held back in a ponytail. But her round face had high cheekbones, her lips were red and round, and her brown eyes were clear and bright. As soon as she saw Tana in Aragorn's arms she gave the child a quick look over, saw the red, dirt- covered, bare, right foot and immediately open the door all the way for him to walk in.
"Set her down here," Her pleasing voice was edged in roughness. Pain? Worry? Or just horse from working in the forge? She pointed to a bed on one side of the open room.
The room had a hearth to the door's left with a table across from banked fire. On the door's right side were 4 beds. A large, rough trunk was directly across from the door and some stools and chairs were placed around the room. As was a vase of flowers, slightly wilting and a worn piece of blue cloth on the table, scrubbed clean and worn age and with scrubbing from spills that hadn't totally come out of it. Some cupboards and shelves were scattered around the room, filled with nick-knacks and useful items. A closed door on the room's north side, the side between the hearth and the table, led to what Aragorn guessed was the smithy.
Aragorn gently placed Tana on a bed one in from the left side, the side opposite the door. Ade, noticing his roving eyes and calculating look, said simply, "It's home," and shrugged, then got back to the subject, "What happened to Tana? You must be the stranger." It wasn't a question, he noticed wryly.
"She was running down the hill and fell into a rabbit hole. I think she twisted her ankle." He watched her get out water and a cloth to wipe off Tana's foot.
"Twisted? What's your name?" She seems to have no problems holding two conversations.
"The ankle probably twisted when she fell. The ankle will swell and be sore but will heal in a few days. Strider." He answered mater of factly.
"I know what a twisted ankle is," I'm 18 and the oldest of-" here she hesitated slightly her irritated face changing into sorrow, into neutrality, "-four and know what a twisted ankle is, from first-hand- experience and from bandaging many of them. Why Strider?"
"I came from Esgaroth, two weeks ago and Alda named me Strider." I want to ask her about her family. Why did she hesitate when she said four? I probably shouldn't, I am a guest her- "Four, no more no less?" Why can't I even keep my own tongue? Oh well. But my, she thinks on her feet and has a quick tongue when it comes to asking, lets see if it's just as fast asking.
"It's a long story. And one we have buried." Her brown eyes where hard as she looked at him from her sister, plainly telling him end-of-story. "I can see why. Two weeks," she whistled with appreciation. She put away the cloth and water and went over to the chest and dug around in it. She came out with a long strip of fabric and started to wind it around Tana's ankle and tucked the end tightly into the folds of the wrappings.
She then proceeded to pull a worn stick out from under Tana's bed. The stick had a smooth bottom and the top had a notch, as if it came form a tree. The notch end was wrapped in more rags. "Go sit by the stream and soak you foot so it doesn't swell so badly. And Tana, don't fall in this time. I just want our foot cold not your whole body." Tana swung her feet off the bed, sat on the edge, tucked the stick under her arm and slowly hobbled out the door.
This time Aragorn whistled. "That's one worn crutch, hope the river isn't to far wawy, she looked pretty white." Ade snorted, "She'll live, she once followed Alda and Mar on a camping trip for a whole day on a broken ankle and a twisted wrist." But her shining eyes dimmed and she sighed, "But, yes, it was used so much by-" here she stopped again and sat for a second with a pained look on her face then abruptly switched tracks before Aragorn could ask, and asked him "Are you hungry? Tana said you wanted some hot food and bread." She got up and pulled out some bread wrapped in a rag and a worn ceramic bowl from the cupboards above the table and put them down.
"I have bread and some meat, but I haven't got a soup yet, I normally don't start it 'till later and work on my blacksmithing 'til then. But you could eat, and you look like you need a bath," She wrinkled her nose and laughed at his withering look. "Bath first I think," She got down another item from a shelf. It was the messy lump he had spotted above a doorway. "What is that?" his curiosity getting the better of his annoyance.
"It's a blob," she replied in a monotone voice. But she laughed again at the look of half revulsion half questioning on Aragorn's face. "Sandsoap, a widow in the village heard about it from her cousin up in Esgaroth. It's a mixture of sand and oils from different leaves. All baked or set to dry or something. The woman won't give the recipe to anyone and the only thing we know is that it takes a long time. We have to trade for it. But that is fine with us, she is an old woman with few skills and needs to do something to put bread on her table. Everyone likes her, but no one can afford to just take her in," As she turned the blob over in her hand she suddenly handed it to Aragorn. As their hands met, something flashed in his mind.
It was a memory, no more. He thought, blinking, But why does touching Ade's hand remind me of when I last said goodbye to my mother, Gilraen? I had said goodbye, hugged her, kissed her check and held her hands- Aragorn swallowed -I don't know. And with that he pushed the matter to the side to be delved over later.
Ade's forehead furrowed with curiosity at his faraway look but quickly smoothed her forehead and held her tongue. He is a stranger - he has a right to his own privacy. But there is something in him- I can't place it. Ade closed his fingers about the blob and told him, "I'll get a pair of clothes for you to change into and you can go bathe. I can start washing your clothes, I need a break, when you come back I can wash the rest of your clothes." She said mater-of-factly. "Why don't you give me the clothes in pack now and I can start. I'll show you where to bathe and I'll go to wash you oils cloths." She grinned at his scowling face, "When we come back, I'll also put some soup onto boil for lunch."
Aragorn opened his pack and dug out his clothes. He handed them over to Ade. Then Ade and Aragorn left the house. Ade holding his clothes, and Aragorn holding the borrowed clothes, the sandsoap, and a metal comb that she had made herself, that she had playfully told him, "You need it, please have it, I can make more," and laughed at his sour expression. On the way to the pool she told him that a small stream ran off from the River Running and back into it later on, beyond the village. That fits in with what I remember. A small stream I crossed last night, it had clear, fresh water. But somewhere beyond the woods, and in the middle it had created a small pool about four feet deep at the edges and 5 in the middle. So Aragorn went off to the pool to bathe and Ade went further downstream to wash Aragorn's, or Strider's in her mind, clothes.
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Well, That's it so far. I don't know if you like it - so Review! PLEASEEEEE review!!!! Just go all the way down to the bottom of the page and press that little go button to review. That's all, it's not harrrddd... PLEASE! Tell me what you think.
~Kit ;)
Chapter 4: Ade, blobs and home.
Disclaimer: see chapter 1.
Note(s): I may have gotten some facts wrong, and if I did, and you notice, please tell me and I will try to change it A.S.A.P. (as soon as possible). Oh, yeah, and thoughts are in italics.
Thanks to Loquacious for the information on the Dunedain and Numenoreans. I promise I will use the info. Thanks again!
I originally put this story down as Aragorn/Arwen, action/adventure/romance, but just so you know it will change as I go (If you haven't figured that out from reading the first 3 chapters). There is little romance and Arwen in here, and I put them down, because they are major characters/themes, and are in here.
Oh, and Aragorn is 20 and a half in this. It's rated PG-13 for Aragorn's thought's in this one. I will tend to overestimate the censor rather than underestimate, I am not trying to lead anyone on. The censor grade will change as the story moves on.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As Aragorn walked back through the forest to the edge where the children waited for him, his clear gray eyes flicked between all of them, noticing all their stances and expressions.
Marroc stood tall and didn't shift his weight from foot to foot nervously and held his head up proudly waiting patiently. But the very slight wrinkles on his forehead told Aragorn he was worried.
Aldarida stood balanced on the balls of her feet, as if she was a deer, ready to string at the first sign of danger. But from the way she held her right hand near the knife at her belt, and the left hand out, probably has a slip wrist knife hidden up there in her sleeve, he bet she would spring towards the danger and not away as a deer would. But her face was neutral, betraying no signs what so ever of her feelings; be they anxious, angry, deadly, or anything else. Yet she too held herself proudly, making him do a double take between Mar and Alda, their bearing was the same, hmmmm...
But the little one, Taniaiel, she was easiest to read. Her wide eyes, open mouth, and a hand placed hesitatingly near her waist, where the handle of a dagger just peaked out, showed him that one of them, Alda probably told her to cut first and ask later if he tried anything. Yet again, even she too held her chin up as she still leaned on her knees her breath finally calming from the climb up the hill.
"I am ready, and thank you for your kindness," he told them politely when he reached the edge of the woods. "Just don't try anything," Alda said, staring him straight in the eyes. Gray met gray, clam star-silver met boiling silver. Mar shot her a look that plainly told her to be polite, which she ignored completely, and he quickly replied, "Your welcome, I hope we can help you," he pointed to Tana and said, "Follow Tana, she show you our house and introduce you to Ade." With a nod of thanks and acceptance, Aragorn broke the stare-down followed the girl down the hill, but he could feel the angry silver eyes boring into his back.
The 2-year-old sprang down the hill. The solemnity of the moment was forgotten as she felt the wind rush past her ears and eyes and whip her clothes. She pushed with all her might to go faster, faster still, and even FASTER! But she suddenly collapsed into a heap of limbs and clothes. Aragorn, who had been walking down the hill, sure the girl would wait and catch her breath at the bottom, came down slowly. As soon as he saw her fall from swift momentum to a halting stop and crumple on the ground he gave up all walking and ran. He rushed down the hill to her to see how she was.
He stopped and leaned over her crumpled form to look at her and jerked back quickly as a chubby fist slashed out with a dagger. "Stop! Stop!" he shouted as he dodged her flailing fist. He reached in and grabbed the fist and quickly removed the small dagger, and quickly suppressed a smile. He shoved the dagger in the ground next to Tana and tried to reassure her, "Look, I'm not going to hurt you, just let me look at your foot." For during the dodging and shouting he had managed to get a look at why she fell. Her foot was caught in a rabbit's hole. He looked anxiously at her face to try and discover anything of her feelings. He saw trepidation to let him look at her foot and whiteness at how much it hurt. Finally she nodded and pulled back the edge of her dress so he could see. He gently dug out around the foot and pulled it out slowly. Even with his best efforts Tana face went even whiter with pain, but she didn't cry, whimper, or make any noise.
Just as he was lightly touching her foot to see, Mar and Alda came running down. "What happened?" Mar asked his face wrinkled in worry, arms immediately flying to his smallest sister who still sat on the ground. Alda's slightly larger eyes, a slight crease in her forehead, and tightening of her lips were only Aragorn's warnings of her apprehension. "She fell into a hole as she came down, twisted her ankle." He stated as he finished his probing search, still holding her ankle as he knelt in the grass before her. Mar's brow furrowed more as he thought then finally said, "We can't leave the flocks to show you which house is ours. It's the one with smoke coming out of the chimney, that's connected to the smithy. Tana can help you if your not sure." He pointed out the house to Aragorn.
Alda's lips tightened more when she realized what must be done. "You must carry her Strider. But if anything happens to her, I will hunt you down and deal with you," her face grew taught with the deliverance of the threat. Aragorn simply nodded, his face and eyes calm and certain, and gently picked the little girl up in his arms.
He walked across the green meadow and into village as Mar and Alda walked back up the hill to their post. Aragorn carried the girl down the street, looking at the different houses as he went. On house had a boat carving over the door. It's probably a boat builder. And the one with a picture of a leaping fish over it he wasn't sure of. But as he passed the open door and smelled and saw candles, fish, fruits, vegetables, knives, and other odds and ends and useful things, he realized what it was, a general store, or something like that. And the mill was a mill, no picture needed, the loaf of bread a baker's, and the anvil a smithy. But he didn't know was one place was. It had a lump of something that looked like wet sand over the doorway.
He knocked on the doorway of the house connected to the smithy and waited. A young woman opened the door. Alda had said Ade was 18. What she forgot to mention was that she was very pretty. She wore a leather smock that had burns all over it and the sleeves on her thick woolen shirt were pushed up. She had sweat on her brow and her waist length black hair was held back in a ponytail. But her round face had high cheekbones, her lips were red and round, and her brown eyes were clear and bright. As soon as she saw Tana in Aragorn's arms she gave the child a quick look over, saw the red, dirt- covered, bare, right foot and immediately open the door all the way for him to walk in.
"Set her down here," Her pleasing voice was edged in roughness. Pain? Worry? Or just horse from working in the forge? She pointed to a bed on one side of the open room.
The room had a hearth to the door's left with a table across from banked fire. On the door's right side were 4 beds. A large, rough trunk was directly across from the door and some stools and chairs were placed around the room. As was a vase of flowers, slightly wilting and a worn piece of blue cloth on the table, scrubbed clean and worn age and with scrubbing from spills that hadn't totally come out of it. Some cupboards and shelves were scattered around the room, filled with nick-knacks and useful items. A closed door on the room's north side, the side between the hearth and the table, led to what Aragorn guessed was the smithy.
Aragorn gently placed Tana on a bed one in from the left side, the side opposite the door. Ade, noticing his roving eyes and calculating look, said simply, "It's home," and shrugged, then got back to the subject, "What happened to Tana? You must be the stranger." It wasn't a question, he noticed wryly.
"She was running down the hill and fell into a rabbit hole. I think she twisted her ankle." He watched her get out water and a cloth to wipe off Tana's foot.
"Twisted? What's your name?" She seems to have no problems holding two conversations.
"The ankle probably twisted when she fell. The ankle will swell and be sore but will heal in a few days. Strider." He answered mater of factly.
"I know what a twisted ankle is," I'm 18 and the oldest of-" here she hesitated slightly her irritated face changing into sorrow, into neutrality, "-four and know what a twisted ankle is, from first-hand- experience and from bandaging many of them. Why Strider?"
"I came from Esgaroth, two weeks ago and Alda named me Strider." I want to ask her about her family. Why did she hesitate when she said four? I probably shouldn't, I am a guest her- "Four, no more no less?" Why can't I even keep my own tongue? Oh well. But my, she thinks on her feet and has a quick tongue when it comes to asking, lets see if it's just as fast asking.
"It's a long story. And one we have buried." Her brown eyes where hard as she looked at him from her sister, plainly telling him end-of-story. "I can see why. Two weeks," she whistled with appreciation. She put away the cloth and water and went over to the chest and dug around in it. She came out with a long strip of fabric and started to wind it around Tana's ankle and tucked the end tightly into the folds of the wrappings.
She then proceeded to pull a worn stick out from under Tana's bed. The stick had a smooth bottom and the top had a notch, as if it came form a tree. The notch end was wrapped in more rags. "Go sit by the stream and soak you foot so it doesn't swell so badly. And Tana, don't fall in this time. I just want our foot cold not your whole body." Tana swung her feet off the bed, sat on the edge, tucked the stick under her arm and slowly hobbled out the door.
This time Aragorn whistled. "That's one worn crutch, hope the river isn't to far wawy, she looked pretty white." Ade snorted, "She'll live, she once followed Alda and Mar on a camping trip for a whole day on a broken ankle and a twisted wrist." But her shining eyes dimmed and she sighed, "But, yes, it was used so much by-" here she stopped again and sat for a second with a pained look on her face then abruptly switched tracks before Aragorn could ask, and asked him "Are you hungry? Tana said you wanted some hot food and bread." She got up and pulled out some bread wrapped in a rag and a worn ceramic bowl from the cupboards above the table and put them down.
"I have bread and some meat, but I haven't got a soup yet, I normally don't start it 'till later and work on my blacksmithing 'til then. But you could eat, and you look like you need a bath," She wrinkled her nose and laughed at his withering look. "Bath first I think," She got down another item from a shelf. It was the messy lump he had spotted above a doorway. "What is that?" his curiosity getting the better of his annoyance.
"It's a blob," she replied in a monotone voice. But she laughed again at the look of half revulsion half questioning on Aragorn's face. "Sandsoap, a widow in the village heard about it from her cousin up in Esgaroth. It's a mixture of sand and oils from different leaves. All baked or set to dry or something. The woman won't give the recipe to anyone and the only thing we know is that it takes a long time. We have to trade for it. But that is fine with us, she is an old woman with few skills and needs to do something to put bread on her table. Everyone likes her, but no one can afford to just take her in," As she turned the blob over in her hand she suddenly handed it to Aragorn. As their hands met, something flashed in his mind.
It was a memory, no more. He thought, blinking, But why does touching Ade's hand remind me of when I last said goodbye to my mother, Gilraen? I had said goodbye, hugged her, kissed her check and held her hands- Aragorn swallowed -I don't know. And with that he pushed the matter to the side to be delved over later.
Ade's forehead furrowed with curiosity at his faraway look but quickly smoothed her forehead and held her tongue. He is a stranger - he has a right to his own privacy. But there is something in him- I can't place it. Ade closed his fingers about the blob and told him, "I'll get a pair of clothes for you to change into and you can go bathe. I can start washing your clothes, I need a break, when you come back I can wash the rest of your clothes." She said mater-of-factly. "Why don't you give me the clothes in pack now and I can start. I'll show you where to bathe and I'll go to wash you oils cloths." She grinned at his scowling face, "When we come back, I'll also put some soup onto boil for lunch."
Aragorn opened his pack and dug out his clothes. He handed them over to Ade. Then Ade and Aragorn left the house. Ade holding his clothes, and Aragorn holding the borrowed clothes, the sandsoap, and a metal comb that she had made herself, that she had playfully told him, "You need it, please have it, I can make more," and laughed at his sour expression. On the way to the pool she told him that a small stream ran off from the River Running and back into it later on, beyond the village. That fits in with what I remember. A small stream I crossed last night, it had clear, fresh water. But somewhere beyond the woods, and in the middle it had created a small pool about four feet deep at the edges and 5 in the middle. So Aragorn went off to the pool to bathe and Ade went further downstream to wash Aragorn's, or Strider's in her mind, clothes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, That's it so far. I don't know if you like it - so Review! PLEASEEEEE review!!!! Just go all the way down to the bottom of the page and press that little go button to review. That's all, it's not harrrddd... PLEASE! Tell me what you think.
~Kit ;)