She woke, still dreaming of sand in her ears, mouth, hair. Something had her in its grasp and was shaking her back and forth - she opened her eyes but couldn't see, and flailed out in her panic, hitting something hard. The pain in her knuckles woke her up, and as her eyes became accustomed to the darkness she made him out, crouched carefully on the ground nearby, watching her with his hand at his mouth. He coughed, guardedly. "I was trying to wake you. You cried out."
"Well what do you expect!", snapped Lora, suddenly furious, "Shaking me like that! What are you trying to do? Get away, let me sleep".
He looked at her, surprised, and asked, "What did you dream?".
Lora was as taken aback as the man was by his own question, and she forgot to be angry or secretive until she had answered. "There was sand everywhere, and I was being buried…" she unthinkingly brought her hands to her face, as she had in her sleep, and brushed them through her hair. Suddenly she looked straight at him. "Who are your people?".
"The Dunedain", he answered, and immediately cursed himself, before he saw that she did not recognise the name. She continued to watch him, and he grudgingly explained, "We are an ancient people of the north, now wanderers through middle earth, called Rangers by those whose places we pass through. I am called Strider here."
She frowned, rubbing her ear, and said grumpily, "Strider is a stupid name". He laughed, and she raised an eyebrow. "You can laugh, then?".
"Yes. And yes, it is. I have many names, one for each place. Aragorn, Elessar, The Dunedan, the Northern Walker, many more…". She smiled in the dark, and pulled his cloak around her again from the ground. "There are no people in this forest to call you Strider except for me, yes?"
"Yes".
Lora lay down again, and he lost sight of her for a second. "Well I won't. You will have to have a new name for this place. What did you say your people were called?"
"The Dunedain".
"I'll call you Dain, then… if that's alright". She yawned as she spoke, and closed her eyes. Aragorn yawned too, to his annoyance, and to make up for it, asked her again as she drifted into sleep, "Where do you come from?".
He thought she had ignored him, or was already asleep, when she whispered as he settled himself against a tree-root, "…some kind of war…".