"What do we do now?"
Lora and Dain sat opposite each other in the pitch blackness, chewing the last of the bread that Dain had had in his pocket. It tasted older than them, but was welcome nonetheless. They had been sitting there for some minutes now, silently nursing the feeling back into their limbs, before Lora finally ventured the question. She had begun to shiver with the cold, and her back was aching from being bent in the small space.
And he's so much taller than me… nothing bothers him though. He probably doesn't even notice.
His uncomplaining silence, and, although to a lesser degree perhaps, the knowledge that he must be suffering just as much as she was, gave Lora strength, and a certain amount of satisfaction. To her annoyance, when she realised this, she felt a pang of guilt.
He should blame me for this, it's my fault we're here… I should have known he'd come after me, he's only doing his job. And he's right - I'm lost in this forest without him. I shouldn't have run away.
"I'm sorry", she blurted out suddenly, and she felt his gaze on her in the darkness. Her voice was considerably smaller as she said, "I shouldn't have left you, it was stupid, and it's my fault we're here". It was a relief when he spoke, actually sounding, to Lora's surprise, uncomfortable, strangely stiff and formal.
"I… I see very few people in the forest, and I become… unaccustomed to behaving as I should. I should have acted more civilly towards you. I apologise".
Lora raised her eyebrows, knowing he could hear the smile in her voice as she said, "So I was the first person you'd spoken to for, what, years?". He laughed quietly. "Anyway, thanks for coming after me".
He said, his voice serious now, "I had no choice". He hesitated, then seemed to make up his mind. "My people are sworn to protect the inhabitants of the lands we roam. I have been in this area for some time, searching for something that I heard rumours of among the farmer's families at the edge of this forest. Men have been entering the forests to collect wood or hunt, and never returning. I had seen no traces of it or those who had disappeared, until I found you - I was suspicious of you. I thought you might be something more than what you seemed, a lure, or a trick of some kind, but now I believe you are exactly what you appeared to be", she could hear the laughter in his voice again as he concluded, "- lost".
Lora felt like growling at his slightly patronising tone as anger flooded her again, worsened by the tiny twinge of disappointment she couldn't help feeling.
That's all it is, of course. His mission. He didn't come to rescue me, he came to recover me.
She snapped, more sharply than she meant to, "You could have told me that before. I'm not in a position to blab secrets, after all". She winced at her own tone, and quickly continued, "Whatever got me… us… do you think it's the same thing which took the people?"
He didn't answer. Lora sighed inwardly in despair, and rested her head against the hard wall of their cell. Why couldn't she just get along with him? Why did everything have to be so difficult? She turned her head to press her cheek against the wall, which although rough, was pleasantly cool on her burning skin. Then she noticed something. She brushed her hair away from her ear, and turned fully to press it against the patch warmed by her skin. "Umm… Dain… can you hear this?"
"What?"
"The wall. Put your ear against the wall." She waited, listening to his movements. He was still for a minute. Then she said impatiently, "It's humming. Can't you hear it?".
Fascinated, Lora ran her hands over the wall, which seemed to flex under her touch, and pressed her ear to another spot. As she listened, the undiluted noise seemed to flow through her and separate into strands, as if she had spread her fingers against a sheet of water. Aragorn's voice suddenly, distant and faint, and unimportant. The song so pure in her head, so beautiful, the song opening to cradle her, so easy to ignore the rough man's hand on her arm, tugging her. Cold fresh air suddenly filled her lungs, and she gasped, flailing out into open space, and fell.