Disclaimer: If I owned any of this "Lord of the Rings" stuff, I wouldn't be sitting here, writing fanfiction. I own Arwith. Steal her for your own use, and I'll send small, furry animals to eat your socks.
To cute little Legolas: See other story (The Aftermath aka The Chapter Loet Forgot).
Frodo awoke the following morning with two questions troubling his and everyone else's mind: How and why? How did she manage to survive getting shot in the heart with an arrow, and why did she attack the orc the way she did? He had pondered it the night before, to no avail. One question, he might know how to answer.
He looked around for her before seeing her in the tree and waited patiently for her to come down. When she climbed down from her perch, he stood in front of her. He didn't bother hiding that his sword Sting was unsheathed. He raised it in front of him, brought it down so that it pointed at her, and paused to see if she would react. She watched him as carefully as he watched her. He slowly pushed the blade through the chest, through layers of cloaks until its progress ceased and she had to place one foot behind the other to keep from stumbling back. Frodo withdrew Sting and raised his hand to her neckline, pulling it to the side. "Thought so," he muttered.
Aragorn was walking toward her when he saw someone about eighteen inches shorter than her standing before her. It was Frodo, looking at something on her shoulder. "Frodo," he called. "What are you doing?" "Answering one of questions swimming around in your head," the hobbit answered. Lifting one eyebrow, the king asked, "And which question is that?" "'How did she survive?'"
Frodo gestured toward her shoulder and answered with one word, "Mithril." Aragorn bent over to examine her and discovered the she was indeed wearing a shirt of mithril, not unlike Frodo's. "There's the answer," he said as Aragorn fingered the metallic material. He turned to face Frodo. "How did you know?" The hobbit shrugged. "Personal experience would cause me to bear testimony of its durability."
Aragorn straightened himself up in time to see Faramir join the group. "Good news," said the king. "We know why she's still alive." He gave Faramir the opportunity to see the glittering garment. When released, she left in the general direction of the orc pile, which was some hundred feet off, still smoldering from the previous evening. She disappeared around the edge, but the three males failed to notice, as they were talking about something else.
"Why did she attack him like that?" Frodo asked. "Besides the fact that he held her up by her neck and let Legolas shoot her in the heart, that is." "As if that's not incentive enough. Where's Pip?" The trio turned to see Merry passing by. He appeared preoccupied and was consistently peering around, standing on his toes and rushing about in short spurts while stepping cautiously over what few men were still sleeping. He explained that when he had woken, the best friend has vanished and was nowhere near the food. It was this last detail that had Merry the most concerned.
Elsewhere, Legolas was sitting with his back to a tree, staring at the arrow he had been given the night before, no doubt wondering why it had failed. There was nothing visibly wrong with it, except that the tip was slightly bent. He had aimed correctly, albeit belatedly, so she should have died. Of course, it wasn't his wish to kill her; far from it, in fact. He was still rather sore, both figuratively and literally, about being kicked in the back of the head, but that was no reason to want her dead. His thoughts were interrupted when Merry came by, asking if Legolas had seen Pippin. The preoccupied elf muttered that Pippin had wandered by some minutes ago and that he was probably somewhere around Gimli.
Both halfling and dwarf were found a few minutes later, next the orc pile. The girl was there also. Pippin explained that she must have overheard him when he said his sword was missing because he found her scouring through the pile, emerging moments later with his hobbit-sized coustille. He had thanked her happily and joined Merry, who excitedly told him about a small crowd that had gathered to watch some swordplay. They agreed to join them, as soon as they had gathered their fill of first breakfast.
A handful of men in their late thirties to early forties were showing some of the younger men the finer points of swordplay, demonstrating different techniques and giving advice. The audience enjoyed the show, congratulating the novices when they did well and calling out advice when they thought it was needed. The shy looking young man from the previous night, called Gugwyn, spotted the girl as she pushed her way forward, standing at the inner edge of the ring, watching with interest. He had just succeeded in dropping his own sword and losing the spar. He stood next to her, watching another dueling pair. The older of the two, Gwullyn, congratulated his younger opponent on his performance while the mob roared with approval. Gugwyn clapped politely, then asked, "Do you fence at all?" The girl turned to stare at him blankly. "Yes," Gwullyn's voice called out. The din abated to a degree. He was looking at her. "Do you fence?" An excited murmur ran through the crowd. Her left brow twitched as though it had been prepared to rise of its own accord and had been beaten back. When no other response was received, Gwullyn asked, "Do you know how to handle a sword, or would you like to be taught? Can anyone lend her sword?"
Gugwyn offered her his own sword. She took it by the hilt and was promptly jerked downward, unable to hold it up. The crowd laughed when they realized it was too heavy for her to lift, but their mirth quieted when she unsheathed her own weapon. Hers was a curious-looking sword, an oddity to be sure. It was made of one, unbroken chunk of metal. It was a one-edged blade and there was no hilt; in its place, the blade grew thicker and curved under. A hole resided in the middle of the thicker end, and a length of leather was wrapped securely around one edge. A series of minute Sandarin runes along the "hilt" provided evidence of its light weight. The entire structure ensured simplicity, yet effectiveness. (A/N: If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go the website for Museum Replicas Limited and type in "dussack.")
Gwullyn smiled and both began to fence. It appeared as though she did possess a certain amount of skill, though she seemed out of habit. Gwullyn somehow managed to back her into a corner where she was unable to comfortably swing with her right arm. Everyone agreed that Gwullyn's signature technique was impressive, and they thought that she would soon lose. So it came as a surprise when she switched hands and began to fight almost as well with the left arm.
The fight ended when both competitors had to stop, as each of them had the other's blade pointing in the general direction of a vital organ. They shook hands, and the audience cheered their approval. Gwullyn said, "Perhaps sometime you'll reveal where you learned that." She gave a short, uncommitted nod and left.
She was found sitting on the ground next to Gimli, who sat on a tree stump, sharpening his axe and doing a marvelous job of ignoring the fact that she was gnawing on a bone and looking somewhat wolfish in doing so.
She soon finished with the unusual task and tossed the bone aside. She retrieved her dussack and took out a whet stone. She was in the process of honing the blade when Legolas found his friend and sat down. He said, "I've just spoken with Aragorn; we leave soon. My advice is to finish that up." He received a short grunt in reply.
"I've just been told of your latest escapades," Legolas said, addressing her. "You've certainly gained some popularity among the other men." Upon receiving no reply, he murmured under his breath, "Or infamy." She reached over, jerked one of the elf's long blonde hairs taut, and used it to test her swords edge. It sliced through with ease.
She stayed away from Legolas for the remainder of the day, a decision he failed to oppose. She also avoided some of the crew who still didn't approve of or trust her. As a direct result, she spent most of her time walking next to Gimli, whom she seemed to prefer above the others.
During midday, they stopped by a wide, deep stream and rested in the shade of the trees. In the noontime sun, it was oppressively hot. For some reason, the insects that normally tormented them had abandoned them to a horsefly that spent its time buzzing around and biting nearly everyone. The latter problem was more easily remedied than that of the heat. And many of them were beginning to tire of eating the same food everyday when they were in the wilderness and food abounded. More than anyone, this bothered Sam, who stared at the water, thinking aloud, "If there were fish in there, I'd cook them. But it's so hot; they're probably all at the bottom of the stream by now."
The girl stared at him pensively for a few moments, then got up, and walked over to the water's edge. She sat on a large boulder that formed a small cliff over where the water was deep. Leaning over, she did a most curious thing; taking a deep breath, she shoved her head under the water and looked around as though searching for something, surfacing moments later. Acting as though this was completely normal, she climbed up into one of the trees and disappeared in the thick branches. There was the sound of rustling, a pause, and then she promptly dived headfirst out of the tree and into the water. Pushing her feet heard against the water, she swam towards the waterbed.
A few watched the surface for some sign of life below. Sam himself was sitting on the small rock cliff, leaning over the edge, when he saw something moving towards the surface. It moving very quickly and growing larger by the second. Mere seconds after Sam realized it was headed straight for him, the girl surfaced from the water, practically throwing herself onto the cliff. Hunched over on her knees and dripping more water than a drowned cat, she dropped at his feet the large fish he hadn't failed to notice was in her mouth. She turned on one hand and immediately threw herself back into the water. The process was repeated twice more, and the group spent the day eating Sam's baked bass.
The girl ate in the canopy of the tree while waiting for her wet jerkin and trousers to dry. She seemed considerably smaller without all her cloaks, and with her clothes sticking to her. It made sense that she should doff the cloaks, lest they weigh her down in the water. But to put them on again made no sense to anyone. One man suggested that it was actually a very clever idea- that the layers would keep the cool in and the hot out- but few said the hypothesis had merit.
They met up with another party at the end of the day, and the two groups spent the evening together. The following day brought yet another battle to fight and more orcs to kill. Thankfully there were no fatalities following this particular brawl, but few escaped without injury. The medic more than had his work cut out for him. Had he not been concerned for the overall morale of the soldiers, he would have openly fretted about the state of both his supplies and their injuries.
The girl helped out some, trying to ignore the nasty-looking gash that dripped blood into her eye while she dug a rock out of someone's cheek. She also spread an absolutely horrid-smelling oil over the wound and began to sew it up. While not an expert stitch job, it would hold until later. She administered the oil with the awful stench to a fair few others with the most ghastly wounds, and it numbed the pain to a certain extent. One man explained to the others that no, it was not some horrid poison that could kill them, it was oil of cloves and his wife had spread it over their infants' mouths when the new teeth came in, so it was perfectly safe.
They traveled for most of the following day, stopping only momentarily for a short lunch. During that time, she stared in quiet fascination as Merry and Pippin each wolfed down his own body weight in food. When she tired of this, she wandered off and investigated the surroundings, content to collect various articles of the differing foliage. Aragorn nearly had to tear her away from this sport. Judging from what she had gathered, he came to the conclusion that she was most likely restocking whatever supplies she had depleted in her small medical unit.
"Unbelievable," Faramir could be heard muttering. "First she was an enemy in a cell; now she's treating the wounded. She's moved up faster than a bird on the wing, and we don't even know her name!"