Wow. Queen Isis, that was a LONG description of a Mary Sue, and it confirmed my suspicion that a Mary Sue could be MANY different things. ^_^ But thank you oh so muchly - Saali is not half unicorn, unless she's hiding something from the world, so I think we're safe. *grin*

Yays! I have another reviewer! Thanks, Soledad, and all the usual suspects...

Since so many people like Reni, I'll try to work him into the story often, but see, he doesn't... talk... so it's kinda hard... lmao

Disclaimer: I am Tolkien, reincarnated. Therefore, I need no disclaimer. Just kidding, but no, really, I didn't mean to offend anyone by being a storyline thief. Really!
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Chapter 5: And Back Again, Continued

What must have been every soldier in the entire troop surrounded the mumak, spears raised. And what must have been every soldier in the entire troop was staring directly at the young widow in soldier's garb at the little doorway in the war-tower.

Saali froze like a deer caught in the headlights, although she didn't think of it that way, since in Harad there were no deer or headlights. She actually wasn't thinking much of anything. She would have thought the third time being caught would shock her less than the first or second, but it did not.

A stumbling noise mixed in with a swearing one alerted her, in the functional corner of her mind, that Kentai was coming up behind her. She saw him grin at her out of the corner of her eye, and wondered how on earth someone could cheerfully swear. "I shall feel that tomorrow morn - oh..." he broke off, then added a few words that were stereotypically suited to the soldier that he was. Reni crept up beside them and clamped his jaw shut, hard, raising his eyebrows.

The three just knelt in the doorway and looked, and the soldiers looked back.

Suddenly, the men started talking, murmuring, yelling, with an explosion of noise.

"...widow..."

"....war is not over, then, Fate curse it..."

"That is Kentai! I know him!"

"And that mute!"

Reni flinched. Anger rose in Saali's chest, and she shouted, "His NAME is EMRENI and he is on a VOW OF SILENCE!" The men looked at her simultaneously for a moment, unease, amusement, even fear in their eyes. Then they turned abrubtly back to their friends.

"...Tai is cursed, then, certainly!"

"Do not talk like that!"

"Is the mute cursed?"

"...did not talk to her, obviously, so most likely not..."
"...said he was not mute..."

"She lies!"

"What is she doing...?"

"Why are we turning back..."

"Well, obviously!"

"...take her back home, Fate knows -"

The last speaker was interrupted by an ear-splitting, scratchy shout from Sir, who obviously knew very well how to project his voice. "ORDER IN THE RANKS! MUMAK-MAN, GET YOURSELF DOWN HERE THIS MINUTE! WE DO NOT HAVE ALL DAY, YOU INCOMPETENT DULLARD!"

Reni made what was unmistakeably an offensive gesture in Sir's direction. He then swung himself down onto the rope ladder and began with dignity to climb, ignoring the whispers from below. Kentai followed.

"He shall curse us all!" A voice rose above the whispers, and several soldiers cried agreement.

Kentai grinned at them and threatened all sorts of bodily harm. His grin, Saali realized, was a fierce one, and she wondered why he had risked an enemy of every man there in the first place, if only to be her friend.

Reni shook his head knowingly, and Tai seemed to understand. "You all believe that nonsense about widows?" he bellowed, then cursed some more as he tried to avoid stepping on Reni's head as they descended the long, swaying ladder.

Most shouted "Yes!", and those who wanted to be different, "Of course!" Those who did not believe it wanted, apparently, to keep their beliefs private. Saali tried to force out the cold lump that sat heavily in her stomach. Her face was stiff and expressionless. She hated them. All of them.

"Well!" Tai replied. "I AM NOT DEAD!" Saali's throat twisted. Not all of them. He defended her. Reni would, if he could. Tai continued,"You believe in LIES -"

"THAT IS QUITE ENOUGH, PRIVATE!" Sir looked as if he could supply enough anger for three people at the moment. Emreni had reached the earth, quickly followed by Kentai, and Sir commanded of Reni, "Lead him back. NOW!"

Reni gave an obliging sort of smile, which disappeared as soon as he turned away from Sir. He gave a small hand motion, and suddenly the room was bumping again, only slowly. Saali slammed the door and threw herself to the ground, feeling squeezed all over with tears she would not allow to fall. She did not cry.

Her many bruises also did not help. She drifted at a painfully slow speed to sleep
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The next day, around noon, Kentai swung open the door without knocking, sporting a black eye and a cut lip, and grinning, as always. "There was a bit of a brawl last night," he announced cheerfully as he climbed stiffly into the room. "Had to fight a bit to get up here, as well. Here is your food!" He dumped the same sort of bag he had delivered yesterday at her feet.

"Why?" Saali wanted to know.

"Oh, they are stupid. They think I somehow managed not to be cursed the first twenty or so times I spoke with you, and I may catch the curse if I talk to you now." Tai shrugged, as if it were no big deal that he was all beat up. "Reni has to stay down with the mumaks - Sir threatened his life if anything else happened," he added.

Saali frowned at the floor. " I just - thank you," she choked suddenly.

"For what?" Tai laughed. Everything was a joke with him, Saali thought.

"Everything. Not turning me in - right away, at least. Catching me when I would have fallen. Telling them off. Visiting me now," she listed, still looking at the floor. "I owe you."

Tai just shrugged.

"You do not have to do this. You could leave me alone. Let them like you again," Saali told him, trying to keep from sounding cold and failing.

"I do not care who likes me," Tai informed her. "And now, my princess, I must leave you. Farewell!" he sighed with false drama, and began to shimmy down the ladder to where a few men jeered up at him.

Saali considered telling him that she was not his princess. But she rather liked him calling her that. And his bruises gave him a certain -

She slapped herself, hard, then returned to brooding over her fast-approaching death sentence.
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Through the crack where the door met the wall, Saali watched as her mumak lumbered through the city. People pressed up against houses and walls as it passed, not wanting to be trampled. She could almost feel them wondering why an entire company of soldiers was making its way, slowly, towards the Palace.

In the Widows' District, she could have sworn she'd seen Niera and Tashkann. They had watched with curious eyes as her mumak passed, and scanned the soldiers, looking for their Tasaali. It was unbearable. She had pounded on the door, but they did not look up. She wanted to leap down from her perch and rejoin them, take back the life she had hated only a few weeks earlier, erase all that had happened. But she could not.

She was going to her death.

She was going to die and she knew it.

But she did not accept it. Not yet.

Her mind was a haze of panic. She leaned her head on the wall and rocked back and forth, back and forth... She was caged. This was her prison. She wanted out. She needed out!

Suddenly, her mumak halted so abruptly that she slid forward a few feet. A minute later, there was a businesslike rap on the door.

"Go away!" Saali yelped, almost pathetically.

"As your commanding officer, I DEMAND entrance!" Sir's voice was a lot less raspy when heard through wood. Without waiting for her reply, he slammed open the door and jumped in.

Saali said nothing, peering out of her panicked mind into his dark eyes.

"Here," he said urgently. He handed her a full canteen and a black strip of cloth, the kind many soldiers tied around their foreheads to keep sweat out of their eyes. Actually, he more like shoved them into her hands. "Take out that braid," he ordered her, waving a hand at the braid nearest her widow's lock.

"Why...?" Saali shrank back.

"Just do it." When Saali did not, he barked, "NOW!"

Startled, Saali yanked out the hair tie that held that braid and pulled the three strands of hair apart. She glanced up at her seemingly insane captain.

"Now braid your lock into it. Do it! Use the water to keep it in, then tie the cloth around it." When Saali hesiatated, he gave a sort of growl-sigh. "I do not have all day! The King's judgement will be less severe if he does not know you are a widow. Now go!"

Saali furrowed her brow and looked at him, looked harder than before. He did not wish her dead? He was trying to protect her?

"THAT IS AN ORDER!"

Saali jumped, then sloshed the canteen over her hair and began to braid, incorporating her widow's lock into the rest of the hair. When she finished, she tied the cloth around her head, making sure to cover that part of the braid.

"Well," Sir said rather awkwardly, "That is better." He gave her a sharp nod, then disappeared down the rope ladder.

Saali watched him go. He would not get any trouble from the soldiers for talking to her, that she knew, although she had often heard throughout the return voyage talk of how he was leading them wrong, and surely they were all cursed. If anyone dared to challenge him, who knows what he would do to them... but now that she thought of it, as a matter of fact, he had not done anything to anyone the entire time, not more than yelling at them, at least.

She sighed and slumped against the wall. She just couldn't figure him out.