"Aragorn, show me the plan that you sketched out." Elrond was standing, and Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and Borin were sitting around a table. Elrond held his hand out in front of Aragorn, who was slowly taking out his parchment plan. Lord Elrond snatched the paper away and looked at it.

"I thought that we'd go past the Ford first, and then go south down the Loudwater River. When we reach the Glanduin River, we follow that through the mountains, which should generally lead us to Lorien, hopefully without meeting any trouble. We follow the Great River until we can see the Field Of Celebrant. It wil be difficult, but we are going to have to split up into groups, or small armies if you'd like.....if we have enough Men. I thought that each army could go in different directions and possibly surround Sauruman. From there, we just fight," said Aragorn, memorizing his plan from beginning to end.

It was silent for a moment. Lord Elrond frowned, and paced back and forth on the spot. He ran the plan over once more in his head and spoke his thoughts. "Perfect! Much better than mine.....that's why I deal with Elves....."

He turned to face the rest of the group ansd smiled. "I assume that you four will be in one group?"

"That would depend on the skills of other Men," said Borin quietly. Everyone looked at him, startled. His eyes darted around at each member. He knew that they wanted to hear more of him, so he kept on talking, but very nervously. "W-well, Lord Elrond says that we are the best of the warriors out of all Men, Elves and Dwarves, so if the skills of other Men or Elves that we are going to bring do not rise to our, or Aragorn's, expectations, then he might have to send one of each of us with each group to make sure that they have a decent leader.....if that's what he wants....." He became quiet again and stared at the ground. Aragorn frowned at Borin, though his words pleased him greatly.

"Borin! I will not be able to make a leader of any army if your confidence does not rise to the perfection of your aim! Do you want to be a leader? Do you want to be known as a great leader? Well you won't if you are going to speak to the ground as quiet as a mouse!" Lord Elrond nodded in agreement and put a hand on Borin's shoulder. "I chose you because I believed in you and thought of you a possible great warrior."

And for the first time, Borin's face broke into a huge smile. "I will do everything you ask! I won't fail you!"

Legolas leaned over and whispered in Gimli's ear, "I think he's finally getting the swing of things!"