It turns out I kinda like Tanneth. I wanted to see where she could take things. Here's chapter two for you; hope you like it...

Goldwine's vices, usually endearing, were beginning to grate my nerves as we approached Minas Tirith from the south. At this point I really needed speed, and he flat-out refused to comply. I hadn't been worried about this first leg of the journey upon my departure – the road from Belfalas to Minas Tirith was a relatively safe one – but based on gossip gathered from the farmers of Lebennin and Losarnach, the city I approached had become a dangerous place indeed.

"There was an attack on Osgiliath, only a week or so back," one man told me, as I stopped to water my old horse. "Them goblins came straight down from the black mountains, they say – almost took the city by force."

I gaped at the old fellow. "A week ago?" I confirmed.

"Just about, from what I gather."

"Were there... were there many casualties?" I asked him.

He shrugged, rubbing his hands. "So I hear. It was a tough one, alright." He brightened up suddenly. "But thank Eru for them young captains! Where'd Gondor be without men like them?"

I had no interest in young captains; my concern was for an old knight who ought to have been granted his retirement years ago. I admit I didn't allow Goldwine as much time as he would have liked at that particular watering hole. Suddenly the need to find my father was altogether more pressing than my horse's desire to drink.

My preferred route to the city was to travel north from Linhir, almost as far as the White Mountains, and to then turn eastward to ford the shallow tributaries of the rivers Sirith and Erui. I did not, at this point, appreciate Goldwine's habit of wanting to roll in anything cool and wet, and after two or three crossings we were not at all pleased with one another's attitudes. I sweated and puffed to keep the old beast moving, and he did his very best to disappoint me, twisting and snorting and scurrying backwards with his head to the ground. We progressed a good deal more swiftly once we were both too tired to fight.

At long last I reached the southernmost gate of Rammas Echor, the wall surrounding the Fields of the Pelennor. The great barrier was even now under repair, though as I watched the men hammering away above me, I could not help but wonder if this was too little, too late.

The guards at the wall did nothing to slow my progress, though one or two glanced down at me, perhaps to make sure that an orc hadn't suddenly learned to ride a horse. Unlike Linhir's guards, these men had dealt with real threats, and would not waste their time on harmless women intent on nothing more devious than a family reunion.

The sight of the White City, glittering before us beyond the wall, was the one thing that could have stirred my old horse into a gallop. His ears pricked forward and his hooves began to drum faster and faster against the hardened earth of the fields. This was no romantic notion, no stirring of his soul brought on by the legendary sight – no, he simply knew from experience to recognize Minas Tirith as rest and food.

The guards at the gate of the city itself were a good deal less obliging than those at the wall had been. They stared down at me from their vantage point atop the outermost wall of the city, and my neck began to cramp from squinting back up at them.

"You say your father lives here?" one asked skeptically. I praised myself for being unrecognizable in my own hometown – the matron would be proud, indeed.

"Yes – Sador's his name. Perhaps you're familiar with him?"

The guard seemed to think this over for a moment, and I despaired that my greatest fears would be realized – he would tell me my father was dead, and that I was orphaned for the second time in my life.

"Not personally, no. I'll have to ask someone," he said at last, and disappeared from view. Another guard appeared in his place, glaring down at me.

"Hello, there," I called, smiling. "Nice weather for June, isn't it?"

His reply consisted of silence and an increasingly hostile stare. I grimaced and looked away. The inhabitants of Minas Tirith were certainly not the friendliest of people.

My fears were all abated in a moment. My father's face appeared above the battlements, eager and smiling, and my heart leapt straight up to him.

"Urwen! What a lovely surprise!" he cried, then turned to speak to the guards. In a moment the gates were rolling open and inward, and as soon as the space between the great wooden behemoths was wide enough, I sent Goldwine trotting through into the spacious square beyond.

Sador descended the stairs from the wall as fast as his dear old legs could carry him. As he ran up to me I saw him properly and gasped, leaping from Goldwine's back in an instant and running to meet him.

"Your arm! Oh, Father, what's become of your hand?" I cried, and laid my hands on the stub of his left arm, which now ended just above the elbow.

"It's nothing, really," he assured me, stroking my hair with his right hand. I searched his eyes suspiciously - the man was inclined to lie about the severity of his injuries - but he simply smiled. "It doesn't hurt half as much as you'd think, dear. I got lots of use out of it beforehand. Just be grateful it wasn't my head!"

He laughed, and I forced myself to laugh with him - though a significant part of me wanted to cry.

"You ought not to fight anymore, Father, honestly. You're too old for this; you've done your time."

He shrugged and shook his head. "I'll have no opportunity to retire in the near future, I can tell you that. War is on our doorstep. Although perhaps they won't send me in too often, now that I'm a cripple," he said, and chuckled at the thought. I drew him into a tight hug, more to hide the treacherous tears that had managed to pool under my eyes than to reassure him.

"Now, what's your business here?" he asked as I released him.

"Oh, just passing through, really," I said lightly, turning back to collect Goldwine's reins. (The horse hadn't moved an inch, naturally.)

"I hope you'll be able to stay a while." Sador led me up the road toward the second gate now, his right arm around my shoulders.

"Well..." I sighed. "Not too long, I suspect. I've business beyond the Misty Mountains."

"That's quite some distance!" Sador exclaimed. "You're not traveling alone, are you?"

"Of course I am, Father – you know how it is," I grumbled. "There aren't enough of us to spare two for a single mission. And besides, it's easier to go unseen when I'm alone."

Sador shook his head firmly. "No," he said. "That's not acceptable. I'll have to go with you."

"Father, really...!"

"I won't hear a word about it. That's a dangerous rode to travel at the best of times – and these certainly are not the best of times," he added, regarding me seriously.

"Father, Gondor needs you. The Steward needs you."

He snarled and spat on the road. "The Steward is nothing to me," he muttered.

"The people, then," I said, exasperated. "Father, really! I can't protect you, out in the wild."

"What do you mean, you can't protect me?" he demanded. "It's your job to protect people like me! That's what you do! And besides," he added, "it's me who will be protecting you. That's the whole point."

"Father, I hate to be the one to tell you, but you're a one-armed old man," I said bluntly. "Just how much protecting were you planning on doing?"

He harrumphed and played his lips along his teeth. "I will be going with you, whether you like it or not – at very least I'll know you made it safely to wherever it is you're headed."

"And when we get there...? You plan on making your way back, all alone?"

"Well, perhaps I can stay there until you finish your work," he grumbled.

"I don't think the Eldar appreciate uninvited guests hanging about for extended periods of time," I said.

"Aha! So you're off to see the elves, are you?"

Damn. I always let my guard down around Father.

"Yes, yes – but you won't be getting any more out of me, because I don't know anything more about it," I told him. "All the matron did was assign me a destination and tell me that the matter was very serious indeed."

The man became pensive as we passed through the second gate. "You'll be attending to a party, I suppose?"

"Well, that's the usual routine," I said. "I won't play guessing games with you, though, Father. The less you think you know, the better."

He snorted. "I know more than you could ever dream," he said, with false haughtiness. I found myself laughing with him - legitimately, this time - and despite no change whatsoever in the circumstances, I was feeling less worried.

I had Goldwine settled and stabled quickly. The city mews were embarrassingly underused, with less than half the stalls occupied. The old gelding received a box fit for a steed high above his station, but took note of nothing in it besides the manger. I quickly stored away his near-decrepit tack, and went to find my father sitting on the fourth wall, which was deserted at that time and afforded a fine view of the Pelennor.

"I brought you some things..." I began, sitting down next to him.

"Oh, come, now, I'm fine –" he protested, seeing the herbs and ointments in my arms.

"Quit your whining, it'll do you good," I scolded, batting him affectionately across the ear. "I want to know you've been properly taken care of. That's no trifling wound, that."

He grumbled, but allowed me to unwrap the bandages on his stub. The end had been well sewn up, the flap of flesh from the back of his arm drawn up across the bone to close the wound. It was swollen, of course, but not infected, and appeared to have stopped bleeding entirely, though fluid was still slowly draining from certain open points. I examined the patches of broken skin carefully. The flesh hadn't healed much yet, but scar tissue was beginning to develop nearer to the surface. Overall, what I found was reassuring. My father would survive this injury. I provided him with a few vials of ointment nonetheless, as well as a herbal pain remedy, telling him to clean himself daily and to see a healer immediately if it the situation deteriorated.

"Anything else, O Mistress Healer?" he asked sarcastically.

"Yes – don't you ever fight again," I said, tapping his nose with my finger and regarding him through narrowed eyes.

He snorted. "If the city's never attacked, I promise not to fight," he assured me, his voice dripping with irony.

"Oh, Father, be serious – you can't even hold a shield."

"No," he sighed. "But you've been away a long time, my dear. The way Gondor sees things these days, I can still hold a sword. So fight I must."

I sighed and stared down into my hands. I really wanted my pipe - but Sador thought smoking a disgusting, barbaric northern practice, so I'd have to do without. If I wasn't forbidden to draw attention to myself, I swear I would have marched straight up to the Citadel and demanded that my old man be given the rest he'd earned. As it was, I could only lay my head on his shoulder and murmer, "You've done so much, Father."

He kissed my head gently and pressed his cheek into my tangled yellow hair. "As have you, my love," he whispered. I closed my eyes and inhaled the approaching evening, in and out, floating up and away from war, pain, and all consequences of Men's short-sitedness.

I wonder, why was it that here, in the intimate company of my adopted father, my thoughts turned to a mother-figure, away in the south? The mind, as they say, is a funny thing...

There is a history to me, as there is to all things. The first of my kind – the first of the Elignias, as we now call ourselves – was said to be part-elven, a descendent of one of the lost companions of Nimrodel and of the man who must have loved her. It was she who began the practice of taking in lost or weary travelers, of nursing them in peace and tranquility within the hills of Belfalas. Hers was a magic medicine, as much for the soul as for the body. Her wisdom was passed on to other young women, but to no men – for she was very frightened of them, indeed. These days I wonder what the story was behind her fear of men, as the legends speak nothing of it – but of course, the Elignias are permitted no recorded history of their actions, so wondering is all I'll ever do.

About a hundred years later, one of the followers of this original wise woman must have made her way down to the sea, or so the legend tells us. They say that Ulmo himself revealed himself to her, and that she was filled with awe. (Well, really – who wouldn't be?) He spoke to her in a strange tongue, but she found she understood him. He told her to devote herself to others, to live outside of herself, desiring neither material wealth nor physical comfort. He told her to be neither woman nor man, to abandon the idea of marriage, and to live in utmost humility. In this manner, through the fateful woman's teachings, the modern doctrine of the Elignias was eventually born (though I must admit it's been well and truly warped over the years), and our own secret language drawn from the speech of Ulmo.

It had been my father who discovered them for me. He had been wounded in a fall near the coast, and try as they might, his men had been unable to heal him or carry him to safety. Fate had proved his rescuer – two of the Elignias sisters had wandered by and spied his party in distress. Sador alone was taken into the hills, and there he stayed until he was well enough to make the journey home to Minas Tirith. I was nine years old at the time of his return, and did not let him rest until he'd broken his promise to be silent about the matter and proceeded to tell me everything.

I was an ugly, skinny, ungainly child, bony and angular and entirely masculine in appearance. I understood from a very early age that the boys found me unattractive, and felt fated to spend my days alone in some tower, reading from old dusty tomes (for such was the fate of an ugly, unmarriageable woman, I believed). The prospect of being one of the Elignias – of seeing the world, of helping people, of going on adventures and, above all, of never having to worry about fickle young boys again in my life – seemed impossibly wonderful. At the age of twelve, despite my father's protests, I left to join them – and, I thought, as I sat with Sador on the wall that evening, I have never regretted it for a moment.

It hurts me to say that it was not a conviction that remained with me through the rest of my days. ...But I'm getting ahead of myself. What's been said is enough, for the time being.