Chapter Ten
Estel closed his eyes when he took her ring. What is going on? She wondered. He seemed to be having a battle with himself. Katya did not know whether or not she should interrupt. After a long time of waiting he began to get paler and paler. "Estel? Are you alright?" Estel's head snapped up and his eyes were open very wide. "Katya. Do you realize you just saved the entire Middle Earth from destruction?" "I did?" Katya asked vaguely. "Yes. If you had not interrupted when you did I would have done something that would have destroyed everything." Then he looked at the Ring in his hand.
It was silver.
How can this be? The Ring was gold. He thought. "Katya has your ring always been silver?" He asked. "Yes. What sort of question is that?" Estel sighed. "These markings have always been there I assume?" Yes. I always assumed it was Chinese." "I assume you never leaned Chinessy?" He said faintly. "You're right. I don't even know what Chinessy is." "Whatever you said." He replied with a wave of his hand. Katya laughed. "Chinese? No I never learned that either." "Good because it is not Chinessy." Katya shrugged. " Okay, is it Japanese, Korean, or something like that?" "No. It is Black Speech, The current language of Mordor," "You mean this ring came from Mordor?" Estel frowned before continuing. "Yes I believe it did. I am not sure though." Estel sighed wearily. "Where did you get this Ring?" " My... my dad. He gave it to me when I was about four." It sounded like she had to choke the words out of her mouth. "What else happened when you were four?" Estel asked. "Nothing. You probably would not understand." She responded quickly, shaking her head. "I have gone through a lot more than I make clear Katya. Chances are that I have gone through very much the same thing." Katya took a deep breath and let out what she had been hiding from inside for so long. "When I was four, my mother died. On the very same day that my father came home saying he had found this ring lying on the street. After that things began to go downhill for us. Not terribly, but it was hard to deal with it." Katya trailed off thinking about the most recent disaster her family was going through. The family misfortune had finally, after many years of dread, reached out to a non-family victim. And it gave her Cancer.
"Katya I'm sorry how did it happen?" Estel asked sympathetically. Katya hesitated. "I understand if you don't what to talk about it. I know... how you must feel." "No it is okay. I just have never talked about it to any one other than my sister, Vera. A car hit my mother. Some idiot spun out and hit her. Dad was at work when we got the call." Estel's face showed a mixture of shock, concern, sympathy, and confusion. "What is a car?" He asked. Katya smiled. "A car is a big metal object that is used for transportation. It is hard to explain but the closest thing I believe you know of is a wagon. But it has a hood on it to keep you dry and it runs on its own. There are no horses or cows pulling it. Estel laughed merrily. "What other things are you ahead of us on?" he asked. And so they continued on late in to the night.