***I really am sorry about the time between this chapter and the last. It's been busy, and I've been distracted in other fandoms; I am committed to this story, and I promise I will finish it. I still intend to write a sequel, too. I really appreciate that people are following this story, and I hope I don't disappoint. If you'd like to be notified by e-mail when I update, let me know. This chapter's longer to make up for it.***
The man and the girl came to Beryn's door just after the clouds had finally cleared to reveal the moon, full and high in its course. The man inclined his head at their threshold, tall and dark with one arm held stiff against his side, and asked for shelter as humbly as if she were a high-born lady. Desten frowned and shook his head from just inside the door, and Beryn was turning apologetically back to the travel-worn man when the youth behind him, whom she had taken for his son, stumbled forward a little, and she saw that 'he' was, in fact, a girl, face vague and shuttered with exhaustion. She looked at him in half-wary inquiry; slavers were rarely seen in the free lands of men, but they heard rumours.
"She is my sister-daughter. I am returning her to the house of her father", he said, and the girl raised her face suddenly at the sound of his voice, like a newborn foal to the sun. Beryn stepped back to allow them in, brushing off her husband's furious gesticulations.
The girl toppled onto the rug Beryn laid down for them, and had barely rolled to face the fire before falling instantly asleep. The poor thing looked spent, she thought. They were both filthy from travelling, and she did not doubt that they had truly become lost in the woods, but if the man was a lowland-peasant of Rohan then Beryn was a horse's daughter. He was quiet, though, and civil, and she asked no questions. She also doubted their story of she being kin to him. Before she crept to the bed she shared with her husband she had sneaked a glance back at him, and saw him looking down at the sleeping girl with a curious, fierce expression on his face; when he finally lay down on the blanket he was facing away, as if afraid to touch her.
The next morning, he was awake early. Beryn gave him a little bread and what milk she could spare; when he ate less than half, setting the rest aside for the still-sleeping girl, she gave him a little of her own share too. He seemed restless, and woke the girl shortly after dawn, speaking her name softly. She ate the bread quickly, like a starving animal, and could not quite hide her disappointment that there was no more, although she tried valiantly.
She was a pretty little thing, even under the layers of dirt and encrusted blood. Seeing her in the light of day, Beryn wondered about slaving again; the girl was dark, as she'd heard the Southern folk were, but that thought was put to rest quickly by the way the man looked at her, watched her as she ate. Perhaps he did not know it, but he even gave Desten a murderous look when he earned a small smile from the girl with his good-morning bow, which had ceased to break the ice with Beryn long ago.
Perhaps the girl was an escaped slave, she thought, before dismissing it as an old woman's fantasies. No doubt she was what she appeared to be, and he too. She gave them a little dry biscuit and fruit wrapped in cloth, and accepted the man's grave thanks and the girl's awkward curtsey with a gracious smile. Desten watched them go with her, and then limped back into the house as she went to feed the pig. As they reached the crest of the hill and left Beryn's sight, it started to rain again.
The day had been a thin pale line on the foothills swiftly fading overhead into black before they saw the lights; the stars were all out by the time they were close enough to hear the muted grunts of pigs in fenced pens amongst the small dwellings, and smell the bitter smoke that wove its way from the centre of the roofs. With the smoke came the promise of food, and Lora thought, I'm hungry as they picked their way down the shallow ridge in the near-black. Several minutes later she found that the words were still rolling over and over in her head in a mindless litany in time with her footsteps.
She did not remember reaching the tiny hamlet afterwards except for a brief impression of firelight, and Aragorn's voice, accented with a burr that she had never heard in it before, lying uneasily to the small woman who took them in. She supposed, trudging away from there again in the cold dawn of the next day, that her exhaustion had simply wiped away her hunger, because she certainly had eaten nothing before she slept. Her stomach gnawed a little less now after the harsh bread and milk, but it was raining again, and Lora was miserable. Not only that, but she was increasingly aware that their journey would soon be ending, and was now gripped with ceaseless foreboding that chilled her worse than any rain. Fixing her eyes on the figure trudging ahead of her did nothing to ease her fear of the future, although she feared nothing else with him anymore.
He hasn't told me everything, she thought, as she had many times since his last strange look, since he had frightened her in the forest with his questioning of her name. But perhaps he would, if I could ask the right questions.
Lora thought of Aragorn's grey eyes, and tried to imagine him lying to her, but could not. It was far easier to imagine him evading the question, making her so angry that she forgot what she wanted, or simply turning and walking away. But then, perhaps she would not want to hear the answer either.
She remembered the conversation they had had that morning, as they sat at the low table with their meagre breakfast. She had been deeply asleep when she felt a movement next to her, and opened her eyes to see him quietly pick himself up off the rug that she had not even been aware of sharing with him. She had lain still, feigning sleep, while he had stretched his wounded arm slowly, frowning, and had adjusted the binding so that he could bend it at the elbow. It had been little more than a full day since the arrow had bedded itself in his arm, and it was the only time that Lora ever felt afraid of him, even when he had had a knife to her throat.
Then he turned to speak her name, and she pretended to wake, knowing that he probably had only done it for their hosts' sake, as he always knew when she was watching him.
"You're not… not like me, are you?", she had murmured, as soon as the shrewd-eyed old woman left the small room to wake her husband.
She hesitated when she saw him flinch, but continued resolutely, rolling the last of her breadcrumbs into tiny pellets.
"I saw that wound, you lost too much blood. You should be -".
She stopped again, feeling the pain that flashed from him at the accusation in her voice. She finished, softer, "You shouldn't be walking, anyway".
For once, he seemed at a loss. He sat and stared at the table with her, then started to say something, and hesitated. Finally he had said, cautiously,
"Lora, I am… older than I seem".
She had looked up in surprise, and was caught once again by the deep sadness in his face that made her throat ache. He's seen this before, she thought suddenly, remembering the way the husband had looked at him as his wife stepped back to let them in, his thick, weathered features standing out in the firelight like a stone guardian's. He is not trusted, and yet his whole life is spent trying to protect people.
The old woman's husband staggered through the tattered curtain that divided tiny dwelling, grinning toothlessly, and bowed so elaborately, his stiff leg flung out on one side, that Lora could not help forgetting her confusion for a minute to smile at him.
Aragorn had not caught her eye again before they trudged off into another wet day of walking, finally heading away from the shadow of the forest. Still she dwelt on his words. I am older than I seem. What did that mean? That he was different from ordinary men, that he lived longer, that he would never grow old? Or was it a warning of some other kind?
The sun was somewhere overhead, although it could not be seen through the thick layer of clouds, when Lora slipped on the muddy ground and fell forward. Aragorn was instantly beside her to help her up, offering her his arm for as short a time as possible, and he tugged a shrivelled russet apple out of his pack to share while they stopped, and Lora cleaned the mud from her face with her cloak.
"Where we are going, I will be different too", she said on impulse, and he blinked, caught off guard; the way he looked at Lora then, she thought, was as if he were seeing her for the first time.
"Yes, you will be different", he said abruptly. "They will call you the Southron girl because of your dark hair and eyes, and they will whisper about you, and stare in the streets. Rohan has become a fearful place of late, and you -", he broke off suddenly and shook his head, as if to ward something off. Lora stared, but managed to recover herself enough to reply before his expression closed off again.
"Then why are we going there? Aragorn -", he made an abrupt, impatient gesture with his hand, and Lora cut him off irritably, "They will not hurt me, you will protect me, I know".
His laugh was short and bitter. She looked up, hurt, before she realised that his anger, if that was what it was, was directed at himself. He turned from her, and started to walk again, and she barely caught his muttered words dulled by the rain.
"You were wiser when you ran from me".
She stared after him, unable to decide which she felt more; anger at his turning away from her, or desire to comfort him.
"Aragorn!".
He did not stop, so Lora ran past him and blocked his path, planting her hands firmly on his shoulders before he had the chance to step back, feeling him tense as she did so, although she was careful not to hurt his arm. She looked him squarely in the eyes, and saw something that might have been fear.
"I trust you", she said.
He flinched with a pain she could not understand, and muttered, "I do not deserve your faith".
"I trust you", she said again, as if she could brand him with the words, before she stood on her toes, and brushed her lips gently over his.
He breathed in as she pulled back shakily, the air seeming to crackle between them, but did not push her away; and Lora noticed distantly that he was actually trembling under her touch. His voice was low as he said, his eyes burning into her, "I do not trust myself".
Some part of Aragorn remembered that there had been another moment like this, where the world had seemed to hang in the balance between them. There were no arrows to drag away her hold that froze and burned him, to tug the shadow of the lightest of touches from his mouth. "I do not trust myself", he told her, barely able to speak, all his will focused on not moving, not forever shattering the fragile barrier that prevented him from betraying his own fate and the promises of a previous life.
He tried to will a warning into her mind, beg her to let him be, watching her eyes dance between confusion, fear, and a hunger that echoed his own. Unable to pull away, fearing and desiring in equal parts, he hung for a heartbeat's space before comprehension entered her gaze, and in disbelief he saw her decision as she deliberately let go of him, and stepped back, setting him free.