The Tenth Companion
Authored by: Novvilyaiel
Beta Read by: Lady Maria
Chapter 1
A small girl lived in Gondor. She was a rather skinny little girl, and had no parents, and therefore no name, and never trusted anyone. Although she was only five years old, she had learned well the lessons of survival, and practiced them every day in the large city. She had long blond hair, and green eyes. She often used her age to beg food from fat women who obviously liked their own cooking, and couldn't bear to think of a thin little baby out alone starving to death. Everyone she met she saw as a threat, and although she was excellent at getting food from people, she had had many run-ins with death already in her short life.
One day she was avoiding a guard when a man startled her by tapping her on the shoulder. When she whirled around, she was face to face with a tall man who grabbed her and jumped up on a powerful bay horse. The man put his hand around her mouth, to smother her cries for help, and galloped to the gates of the city Gondor. A few minutes after safely passing through the gates with the excuse that she was his daughter, and had gotten lost the day before, he took his hand off of her mouth, and told her to 'shut up', because he was taking her back to her home.
However, when he got a good look at the little girl, he was horrified to see that this not only wasn't the correct little girl, she was about two years younger than the child he was looking for. From the back, she looked like his niece who had run away the day before; who had threatened to run away to Gondor.
The man was mortified that he had grabbed the wrong child and he set her down, and ran away. The little girl was so disoriented that she set off in the wrong direction for Gondor. In a few hours it was clear that she was going the wrong way, but because she didn't know where Gondor was, and she had wanted to go on an adventure for a few months, she just kept on walking the wrong way.
* * *
A day later she was cold and hungry, but not tired (she didn't have to sleep, although she did, like all of the other kids she played with, she didn't understand why they had to either), and she was still lost. The bright autumn day was mysterious, and although it would have been rather warm, the fog made it cold and miserable. Trying to figure out what to do she sat down and thought about it.
Suddenly, the faint sound of hoof beats told her that someone on horseback was coming her way. The girl stood up to make herself more visible; she was so miserable now that she didn't care who found her. A guard stopped his horse near her and jumped off. The girl was rethinking her idea to let the man find her, but she couldn't do anything now.
The man walked up to her with a puzzled expression on his face, what is this child doing way out here? He held out his hand and asked her, "How did you get out here, and why are you out here?" The girl told him the story of what had happened, and found out that he was a Rohan guard.
She had heard stories of the Riddermark, and the stories had always made the valiant warriors sound like heroes. Deciding that she was to abject to disagree with the proposition to go back to the capital of Rohan (it sounded just like the adventure she had wanted), she let the guard put her on the horse (a beautiful gray mare), and go to Edoras.
* * *
A not-very-comfortable half-hour later they arrived at Rohan. Wondering what he was to do with the girl the guard told his captain about her and the captain told him to take her to Eowyn. Eowyn was a thirteen-year-old warrior maiden in training. She would see to it that the girl was taken care of, for though Eowyn was to be a shield maiden she was compassionate, and would want to make sure the girl was cared for until her parents could be found.
When the girl met Eowyn, she immediately liked her and followed her around like a shadow. When Eowyn asked how the girl had gotten there and who her parents were, the girl retold her story, and informed Eowyn that she had no parents. Eowyn begged her brother to let her take care of the little girl as a sister. Eodred reluctantly agreed to let Eowyn watch the girl until someone claimed her.