We didn't say anything, just kept walking, until we were out of the town and beyond the farm houses and down into a small valley. I realized that night I'd ran from the pub it'd only been about a mile further, although at that time it had felt as if I'd ran half way around the world.

With an unspoken decision we stopped. I sat down, and he busied himself with making a fire, me blankly staring at the ground a few feet below where he stood. He had a modest fire going before he sat opposite and looked at me. It was I, however, who spoke first.

"I hate them."

He raised an eyebrow. "Really."

"They have no right."

"Really."

"No."

"Really."

"They cannot treat people as they do."

"Really."

"I wish you'd stop saying that. It becomes quite irksome."

"Really." He responded again, but before I could explode on him, he sighed and looked up at the heavens.

"Why did you come?"

He raised an eyebrow and sat back, sighing. "I'm still not sure if we were thinking of it since time we'd told you to come here that one would follow afterwards, or if it popped in our heads simultaneously four days after you left. We didn't want you to hurt yourself, or someone else. As neither Aragorn or Gandalf would be spared, and any others were not involved, it seemed obvious I should go."

"Yes, you're only leader of-"

"I have a second in command, and it is good that he should take control while I am gone. He has not been tried so as of yet."

"Ah." Was all I said.

The silence drew on. It would not have been uncomfortable if weren't both waiting to start a conversation we knew we must. The place we just left was still pulsing through my veins, and I did not want to return, not even in memory.

"I'm proud of you." He said.

Shocked, I blurted, "What?"

"I'm proud of you, Kinya. Most people are never able to go straight up to their greatest fears and stare at them in the face, wondering if it will recognize you as its victim. Unfortunately, in your case, it did recognize you."

"You doubted me?" I asked dubiously.

"Not for a moment." He defended. "You are a person who's never let anything daunt you from a task. We come to expect that from you, but it is often unwise to take anything for granted. Just because it's what 'you do' does not mean this task was not hard, and sometimes such things must be acknowledged."

"Oh." Was all I could come up with. How did one respond to such a thing?

"So how do you feel?"

I shrugged. I didn't feel much of anything.

"What happened before I came?"

"When did you come?"

"I left a week after you, but assumed you'd be dreading your end and going at a leisurely pace. It took me roughly half-way through the journey to realize I was moving too slow, and never ended up catching you. When I walked in the door and called your name was my arrival."

"Ach." I took a deep breath. He was trying to help me, but help me with what? His persistence on 'helping me' had become wearisome over the last year and a half, not that he hadn't tried similar exercises when he'd seen me before. I sometimes just wished he would leave me alone. Our bitter fights and the nights I'd had to stay up retching and the others forcing myself to eat; were they worth it? Was I worth going through the pain we were all going through? There was enough of it in this world…why did he insist on giving more to try and save a damned girl?

"Are you still convincing yourself that I'm an ignorant fool to try and save you, or have you realized yet that you're using it as a cover-up for yourself to show that you're still so afraid you don't want to speak of it?"

"Mewsh!" I let out the annoyed cry and frustratingly threw a rock at the fire.

"Rocks don't burn well, you know." He commented mildly and plucked it out without acquiring a burn. Elves.

But he was right. Was this another reason I hated knowing people too well? Aragorn, Gandalf, now Gildor, and even Legolas and Gimli on occasion would use the way my mind worked against me. True, I'd used such a technique and many others against everyone I met, but I sometimes liked to think I was the only one who used them. Ah, I am a selfish little bitch…

But for once, I didn't feel like fighting him. I often preferred to argue out my cases until the last cent because I knew I would never tire of it, and therefore always win. But Gildor, once again, had used patience to get it out. Was I loosing something of myself to give in so easily?

"I've traveled as far as you did, you know."

I was triggered, and so I began. I told him what I had done since I came here to Nove, of the wards and of the market, of the innkeeper and their story, of my random decision to go sleep upstairs and come down again. I stopped at the part where he came in.

"Good." He said when I was finished. "Now how do you feel?"

How did I feel? Exhausted, or at least tired enough to be back to my normal state of semi unconsciousness. Scared? What was I afraid of?

"Why don't we go back in town and see if we can pin point exactly what it is?" He offered.

I shivered involuntarily.

"Ach. See, it is this town. We were right to send you here."

"Obviously not, as I have come and not been 'cured'."

"A soul cannot be cured so easily, dear child. Especially one as hurt as yours. I've been working on it for over a year now, and your are still the most pathetic person I've ever met."

I flared up. "What is THAT supposed to mean?"

"Only a person as damaged as you would get as angry as you did when a friend told them such a thing."

"A wonderful diagnosis." I proclaimed facetiously.

"It's not failed me yet. Can you safely say that you a perfect soul, undamaged and unspoilt, a virgin to the waves of hate, sorrow and the original means of virginity itself?"

"I never claimed any of that…that does not make me pathetic."

"I should rephrase myself. The sanity and comfort you've surrounded yourself in is one of the most pathetic attempts at happiness I've ever seen."

"I've done what I've needed to do."

"Yes, and I salute you for it. Now that you've saved the world, it's time to save yourself."

"Mmm hmm."

"Stop fighting me, Kinya. Please."

I said nothing.

"This town; it frightens you. There is no doubt of that. But what about the town do you fear? For surely it is a town like any other town…"

"You're going absolutely no where with this." I grumbled. "It's not the town, it's the memories from the town and the stupid, ignorant horrible people who live there!"

"But surely it is the people that make up this town."

"Which is why I fear it." What? I feared a bunch of townsmen? They had done no harm to me, and between us Gildor and I probably could've slaughtered most of them if our hearts were dark enough to do so. Even at age four I'd been able to kill one, and we'd lived alone here at such a young age all by ourselves. Surly they would've killed us in those two years if they truly wanted to?

"How is this town different from any other town?" He repeated, interrupting the stream of words that was flowing in the atmosphere around us. "What makes you fear this one?"

I stared out for a moment. Did he want me to answer the question truthfully, unshamefully? Why was such a task so difficult?

"The memories." I breathed.

"Exactly. But you say it is also the people. How are these people different from any other villagers?"

"Because they make up the memories." I replied monotonously.

"And if you were born and raised in any other town, and the same thing happened to you, would you fear that town instead of this?"

"What, in the name of the Valar, are you trying to get at?"

"It seems you're frightened of a few parts of humanity that have haunted you, and they're being represented by this town, where you first encountered them. Perhaps if you know what exactly is scaring you and why, you can deal with it better."

I just sat there, not looking directly at him, but keeping still and slowly rotating my eyes in a two-foot radius of his head.

"Yes. Wonderful. Is that all?"

"You don't believe me?"

I shrugged.

"You've seen the worst of this world. And it started in this little town. And although Middle-Earth is safe, for the time being, it's inhabitants are still human, and still carry human faults. You can try, as others have long before you, to cure humanity, but I assure you you'll never accomplish it without destroying civilization."

"Perhaps that would be better. No more pain, no more anything, just unending bliss."

"There's not guarantee that death is the sweetness of sleep."

"I've always hoped it sweeter."

"I wouldn't count on it, then. You scared everyone that day we thought you turned to the Dark Lord. No one said it to you, but all were holding on to you desperately, afraid you might turn from us since we heard of you."

"I figured as much." I replied bitterly. What a dark day, that discovery.

"Kinya…you know it was not out of mistrust or lack of feeling towards you. We just knew you had a type of power, with the Anna Celebrach that He did not have, and the fact that you were always so…dark because of it. You were a target, not to mention also because of your closeness with Mithrandir and Ellissar. And you just said that destroying humanity might be 'bliss'…how can you blame us for not being careful with you?"

"This I all know and have thought out, never fear."

"But it still hurts you."

"It turned out for the better, did it not? If you all had not been so scared of me turning, you would not have believed me and put on such a wonderful act when I pretended to." It was a sure fact, for I had Seen once where it never occurred to them that I could fight for any side but the one I naturally was born to, and they stopped me, and we never found out if Frodo was still alive. That one had haunted me the entire duration of the true experience.

"It still hurts you."

"You're enjoying being repetitious today, are you not?"

"It's taking repetition to catch your attention."

"Usually because I don't agree with what your saying."

"Or you don't want to."

"Perhaps. Or I just choose to ignore your statement, because I find it silly or because I still have an argument to make."

"You're being quite argumentive today, I've noticed."

"I think this is the least argumentive I've been in a while. Especially with you."

"Well, you're clinging on being argumentive to the degree of a normal person being argumentive because that's all you know how to do, even though even you are finding your habits troublesome now."

I opened my mouth to speak, but only to replay a fish-out-of-water expression. He was right…what could I say that wasn't an argument?"

"There…now, where were we? Ah yes, this little town of Nove and your fear of it."

This was beginning to be a lot of attention on one topic solely rotating on ME and I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

"You told me once of your existence here. Told me of your mother, your brother, the pub, the Cave, the visits of Halbarad, Elladan and Elrohir. So there is no explaining needed here. You'd seen poverty, pride, sin and fear. You'd seen prostitution, even if you could not identify it at that age. You'd seen death and illness, and the pure hatred of humanity. However, of all these things you saw, I have a feeling it's something today is what you still cannot cope with."

Today? Today I'd seen they had not changed, except for the worst. Their ignorant minds had created a story so that they weren't at fault, so I was not only the subject of a demon, but a demon myself! How did they come to the miraculous conclusions that they did?

"Was it, perhaps, the fact they had not forgotten you, but could not remember the true events that surrounded your existence? Could it be the fact that even now they live in fear of you, that one town surrounded by mountains and ocean-"

"I DON'T KNOW!" I screamed at him, angry and frustrated at this new attempt of his at 'saving' me.

"That's it, then."

"What?!?"

"That's it. That's what made you blow up, that's what's still bothering you. And it makes sense, too."

"Why? Why does their pitiful lies driving me mad make sense?"

"Just as you said, they are pitiful. You should pity them for it."

"I cannot pity such an evil thing."

"It's Frodo's pity for Gollum that saved us all."

"Yes. But this is not one person…it's people in general."

"So you're just going to go on hating humanity as you always have for all their faults."

"Go on…yes. I've lived thus far. And cursing them for making me alike."

"Ah-I've got you on that statement twice. You've lived, as I stated earlier, a pitiful existence thus far. See? Pitiful. Just like these people, and for similar reasons. You are alike. You both have become the way you have from natural existing things; fear. They fear what they cannot understand; you. You fear what you cannot understand; them. It's quite simple."

"Yes. Elementary."

"Kinya." He knelt in front of me, holding my face in his hands. "We're going around in circles. All I'm trying to prove to you is that they did what they did unknowingly. They do not know that the story changed in any way. The innkeeper told you the truth as they know it. This hurts you especially, not only because you are its victim, but because you've always seen things as they are. That damned Anna Celebrach has twisted you by not allowing your mind to naturally change things. It's a self defense mechanism. Some memories are to hard to hold onto the way they are, so our brains change them around so we can deal with the pain. You've never had that option. Yet you still have put in your mind that these people are evil, as they think you are. Neither of you are evil, just people who live in fear. Just people. The same as you."

I stared right at him, and I felt my eyes as big as the boulders circling around us, and thought all the light of the stars and the fire was somehow finding it's way to them and making them even brighter. And they became so bright that the fire turned to water, and water to sorrow, and regret, and release. I cried, silent and pensive, and his hands went from my face to around my back in an embrace of deepest understanding. I cried out of pity for the people, and myself as one of them. I cried for my ignorance. I cried for the sake of crying, something I'd utterly despised as a tactic of females. Gildor was the only one I would cry for, and we both knew it as I wept silently in a spot where, twelve years ago, I had been reborn.

After a time, we separated and fell asleep, and without a word started the journey home the next morning. No one ever asked me of my trip to Nove, and I never told. And besides, upon my return there were only a few weeks left until the final boat left, and I would go to Valinor.