They had been walking down the path for a little while when Haldir suddenly heard somebody say his name. "Who is it?" he asked, looking for who had called him, but unsuccessfully.

After a couple steps, they came over the crest of the hill they had just climbed. Looking down, Haldir saw an elf standing next to the road. "You are Haldir?" the elf asked.

"I am," Haldir replied.

The elf waited a minute as they came down the hill. When they were finally a few feet away, he bowed slightly. "I am to be your guide to Tirion," he said with a smile. "My name is Elhith."

Elhith smiled again at Haldir, and then turned towards Sauron. He tilted his head a bit to the side and frowned. "I was not told that there would be somebody besides you," he said, speaking to Haldir.

"Last minute changes," Haldir responded quickly. "I am to bring him along with me, by orders of Namo."

The fact that Namo had given the command seemed to appease Elhith. "All is well then," he said cheerily, as though about to go. Yet, he then asked another question. "What is your name?"

Sauron, who had been off in his own special little world, suddenly snapped back to earth. "What?" he asked.

"Your name?"

"Ah…" Sauron said, his face dropping. He glanced at Haldir out of the corner of his eyes, obviously an "what am I going to say?" look.

Haldir racked his brains, but came up with nothing. The fact that Elhith was clearly becoming suspicious did not help any. Haldir looked up, noted the stars again, and then went through a very random thought process at the end of which he had a name. In essence at least. "He's ah, Ron...dae."

Haldir could feel Sauron's annoyance at the name, but he didn't say anything, thankfully. Instead, Sauron bit his lip and forced a smile - hard things to do at the same time - and apparently was able to pass Elhith's "test".

Once Elhith began to walk on, Sauron instantly turned to Haldir. "Rondae!" he seethed in a whisper. "That's the best you can do? What sort of a lame name is that!"

Crossing his arms, Haldir made his defense. "You'd rather me just stand there like a cow, letting you stutter around trying to think of a name for the next week?"

"Well, I'd rather do that over having people calling me Rondae! You've totally cursed me! It's a completely sissy elf name!"

"The only alternative would be saying what your name really is, which, can I point out, is also a 'sissy elf name'."

"Well for starters, that isn't my real name; it is just the one that everybody happens to call me. Secondly I doubt that what 'sauron' means could actually count as sissy," Sauron groused, frowning.

"You're totally right. That name would be a lot better, because then you wouldn't ever have to go out for various foods, since people would be throwing them at you wherever you went," Haldir said, his voice dripping of sarcasm.

"Yeah and that would be terrible because food can really maim you for life, you know."

Haldir sighed, quickly becoming disgruntled by the conversation. "Don't forget that I am stuck with you for the next who knows how long, and, personally, I don't want to be punished for your poor choices as well. Try to think of somebody besides yourself."

"I have never before and, frankly, I don't plan on starting."

"Well you're going to because I don't want to have to baby-sit you for the rest of eternity."

Sauron shook his head. "I'm perfectly capable of seeing to my own needs, thank you."

"And also seeing to the destruction of various peoples, yes, I know."

"Wait just a minute," Sauron interjected, adopting a completely sincere expression. "I might have changed. You have no faith in me at all!"

Of course, a sincere expression could not cover a blatantly insincere message. "No, I do not, since you have had multiply opportunities of repenting your ways. You have never done such, however."

"I almost did once."

"That's nice. Seeing as how you didn't though, it doesn't count."

"It should."

"Well it doesn't," Haldir said irritably, "so just can it and get walking, Rondae!"

Sauron glared at him, but began following after Elhith. For a long time he steamed silently, muttering under his breath things that sounded oddly like curses. Haldir tried not too worry about it too much as Namo had assured him that Sauron wouldn't be able to actually do anything. He just hoped that Namo had been more sure of that than he had been concerning whether Sauron would be able to read Haldir's thoughts or not.

They walked on for a long time, even though it was dark. Elhith hummed to himself, seeming to have a never ending amount of happiness, although this appeared to aggravate Sauron even more than he already was. Haldir kept glancing at him occasionally, noting that every time he looked over, Sauron's expression had turned more sour.

He was beginning to think that it wasn't such a good idea to leave Sauron to his own thoughts and was on the brink of speaking when they broke through the forest and came to a short plain. The path went straight across this to a dock, where a large boat was anchored, waiting to sail.

After walking on for a moment, Haldir realized that Sauron was no longer in step next to him. He stopped and turned back, finding Sauron at the edge of the forest, staring at the ship. Haldir heaved a sigh of irritation and made his way back up the path towards Sauron.

Sauron did not seem to take in the fact that Haldir was standing right next to him. "Hello, are you in there?" Haldir asked, waving his hand in front of Sauron's face.

Blinking a few times, Sauron turned to Haldir with a look of poorly-concealed horror. "We don't have to go on the ship, do we?"

"Oh yes, the ship to Tirion! You don't want to have to walk all the way; that wouldn't be any fun at all!" Elhith said, coming up behind them silently.

"I think that it would be plenty fun to walk, on the ground, with dirt under my feet and rocks and solid things of that nature, away from the water," Sauron said quietly.

"What, do you not like sailing or something? All elves like boats," Elhith put in bubblingly, although the look in his eyes added that he thought Sauron to be the oddest looking elf he had ever seen.

Sauron instantly opened his mouth to clear up Elhith's misconception, but that definitely could not be allowed. Haldir, deciding that simply elbowing Sauron might be too obvious, quickly threw his arm over Sauron's shoulders, causing him to take a moment to rebalance himself before speaking. It was in this moment that Haldir quickly tried to answer Elhith. "He's not particularly fond of boats. Had some bad experiences with them and all," he said, lowering his voice as though what he was saying was highly embarrassing to Sauron.

"Ohhh," Elhith breathed, nodding knowingly. "I understand. Don't worry though, we are good sailors; we wouldn't let your drown or anything!"

Sauron's face blanched drastically, but Elhith did not notice as he ushered them forward towards the ship.

Haldir abruptly pulled his arm off of Sauron, cringing that he had actually even touched him. Ewwwww... he thought to himself, pausing a moment to consider it again. Ewwwww...

Sauron looked at him angrily, although it did not have much affect as he was still as white as a sheet and apparently rather distracted. "You could stop thinking things of a derogatory manner for just a moment, you know," he hissed so that Elhith, who was only a few feet away from them, wouldn't hear.

"Well, at least I didn't say them out loud, eh?" Haldir said slowly.

"Do you think that I have been laying in a dung heap or rolling in a pile of rotting corpses or something?" Sauron asked crossly. "I've had this body for a total of four hours. Not really enough time to mess it up, I would hope."

Haldir really looked at Sauron then for the first time. Yes, he still looked remarkably like he had in the cell and not at all like a dark lord. It was possible that he could have been mistaken for an elf - a consideration that Haldir found a bit unpleasant - except for the fact that no elf would ever dream of going in public with their hair looking as though it had lost a fight with a rabid animal. Of course, there was also his creepy eyes, which somehow managed to have a fiery appearance regardless of the fact that they were very dark. Elf eyes didn't really tend to appear that way.

Fine, he didn't look contaminated by anything foul, although Haldir was sure that his spirit could definitely count, if one wanted to argue it. While Sauron had not really done anything to hint to such, it was a sure bet that this part of his character would be unleashed eventually.

Haldir didn't answer in a way to suggest that he had given up his position on the topic. Besides, they were now on the docks and he didn't want to have to continue the argument when they were around other people on the boats.