Note: Chapter contains some swearing.

Hands suddenly grabbed her shoulders. "Fuck!" she yelped, heart pounding. People around her looked over with alarm, then smiled and some laughed. She willed her heart to slow down. 'You're fine,' she told herself. 'Just someone who thinks they're funny.'

She reached back and felt at the hands on her shoulders. 'Hair. A man's hands.' No women had hair on the backs of their hands. 'Why is that?' Didn't matter. She could think about that later. Right now, she wanted to get loose and find out who had grabbed her. She tried to pull the hands off her shoulders, but the man's hold was too firm.

"Let go of me. Please," she added, an edge to her voice, when the person didn't release her. "Let go of me now." The person chuckled, and she immediately knew who the smartass was. "Let go of me, Aelfrid." She'd know that laugh anywhere. "Let go or I'll kick your bits in and you'll spend another month without the pleasure of my company."

"Dire threats, indeed," he teased, giving her shoulders a quick squeeze before dropping his hands.

"They're not threats, they're promises." She turned around to face him. "I'd love a reason to spend another month free from the practical jokes and pranks you uncouth barbarians love to play on me."

Aelfrid gave a bark of laughter. "The pranks and jokes we play? What about the ones you play? It was calm before you came."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm sure. I'd love to continue discussing whose pranks are most evil, but the food is coming out and I'm hungry." She turned and walked away, glancing over her shoulder when she was a few feet away to see if he was following her.

Rheda stared at Cearo for a moment, clearly skeptical, before nudging Kenric and telling him to move over.

"What is funny?" Kenric's voice broke into her thoughts.

"Just thinking of my family and somewhere we would go each summer." She looked over at him and smiled. "My brothers and I hated going. It's one of the few things we all agreed about."

"Your first family?"

"Yes."

"Why did you only have two brothers? Why did your parents not want more boys?"

"I guess they were happy with two." She had to try hard not to laugh at how baffled he sounded. "I'm older than both of them. Elladan's a year younger than me and Elrohir's eight years younger. Elladan, who we called 'Dan, told me one time if he'd had two sisters, he would have run away so he didn't have to be around girls all the time."

Kenric nodded earnestly. "So would I. I am glad I have brothers. They are fun to do things with."

"And I'm not?" She feigned being offended.

"Not anymore. You always have Wilone with you and you are always doing boring things with Ma."

"Those 'boring things' are the reason there is food to eat," she chided. "We also make sure you have clothes to wear, and if I was not with Wilone, it would be one of you watching her. I am not always with Ma or Wilone."

"You are most of the time." The movement of something being set down on the table near him caught his eye and he turned towards it, grabbing a baked potato when he saw it was a bowl full of them. He yelped and dropped it a moment later, clutching his hand to his chest.

Cearo had to lean back quickly to avoid being pushed aside by Rheda.

"What's wrong? What happened?" Rheda pulled his hand away from his chest and examined it. "What did you do?"

"The potato was hot!" Kenric whinged, a few tears sliding down his cheeks.

"He saw the bowl of potatoes and grabbed one before he realized they were still hot." Cearo bit her lip to keep from smirking. Kenric would have a fit if he thought she was laughing at him and it would take dunking him head first into a rain barrel to shut him up. As much as the idea of dunking him appealed, Helm and Elfhild's wedding feast wasn't the place to torment him.

Rheda let go of Kenric's wrist and gave him a stern look. "Maybe this will teach you to pay attention and think before you do something. Go outside and stick your hand in a puddle. It will feel better." She straightened up. "How that boy—how any of my boys—have managed not to get themselves killed is a mystery to me, with the way they are always charging off, straight into things, never thinking or looking first."

"There's a say where I come from that God looks out for fools and children." Cearo laughed softly. "Here, you would probably say the Valar look out for fools and children. My mother said that a lot whenever my brothers or I ended up in trouble."

"Your mother is a wise woman. Bema watches over fools and children, and men are very foolish sometimes. I do not know what they would do without us."

"I know." Cearo smirked. "They'd starve to death if we weren't there to cook for them, and they'd bleed to death if we didn't patch them up." She turned to face Rheda and raised her mug. "To keeping men from killing themselves." Rheda laughed and touched her mug to Cearo's.

"Toasting the happy couple?" Aelfrid asked brightly as he sat down where Kenric had been. "Where'd the pest go? I saw him run for the door like his clothes were on fire."

"He burned his hand," Rheda told him. "He did not look before he grabbed a potato from the bowl." She gestured with her head to the large blue bowl not far from Aelfrid. "I told him to go soak his hand in a puddle."

"You did not smear grease on it?" Aelfrid sounded surprised. "People will start to talk if you take any more of Cearo's advice, Ma."

"Let them talk." She gave Cearo a fond look. "She is right about some things and you know it." Her tone brooked no argument.

"I did not say she was not! I am only thinking of you, Ma. I know how you love to gossip with the other women when you are in town, and I would hate it if you could not because you were the one being talked about." Rheda gave him a dirty look, eyes narrowed, and he laughed. "You know—Cearo? What's wrong?" He reached out to grab her arm as she stood up, but she pulled it away before he could touch her.

"I need to go." Mind noisy with a million thoughts, she hurried toward the door.

She was walking quickly next to the road, skirts pulled up a bit to make walking easier, when something grabbed her left arm and she screamed. Orcs. How stupid was she, to be walking around alone? How could she forget about the Uruks that were around? She'd been too wrapped up in her thoughts to notice them and one had grabbed her and now it would rape her and kill her and—

"Cearo." Not an uruk, then. They didn't sound like Aelfrid. She wasn't sure if she was relieved it was him and not an uruk, or if she would have preferred the uruk. "What is wrong? Did you not hear me calling your name?"

"No. Let go of my arm." She studied the streams of water that flowed in the ruts wheels had worn into the road she'd been following. The road back to the farm, she noted idly. She must have been more wrapped up in her thoughts than she'd realized, because she'd never have gone that direction on purpose. She wanted to get away from Aelfrid, not go where he could find her. Him and Brego both. Where was Brego, anyway? She hadn't seen him since they started to set up for the feast. Maybe he was waiting until Aelfrid wasn't around. That would probably happen when pigs started flying, she thought sourly. He seemed determined not to give her a moment alone—and why was he still holding her arm?

"Aelfrid, let go of my arm. Now." She looked up and gave him a dirty look, her nervousness and fear rapidly turning to annoyance and anger.

"What is wrong?"

"I'll be fine. Go and tell Ma I'll be back inside soon." She turned her attention to the mud splatters along the bottom of her over dress, studying the pattern of small dots and random lines carefully.

"I am not going anywhere until you tell me what is wrong, and do not tell me 'nothing'. People do not become white as death over nothing and they do not run out into the pouring rain."

"I was hot and I felt ill. Now leave me alone."

"You are lying." With his free hand, he tucked the hair that had been washed onto her face behind an ear and grasped her chin and raised her head until she was looking at him. "What is wrong? Why won't you tell me?" His eyes were filled with concern.

"I did. I felt a bit ill and did not want to risk becoming sick on someone." Her expression was stony. "Now leave me alone. You've been nothing but a bother, you and Brego both, never leaving me alone and always harassing me. All I want is some peace, and you can't—you won't—you refuse to let me have it. Just go away!" She tried to jerk her arm from his grasp and, this time, she was successful.

"I was concerned about you. So was Ma. You were pale as a ghost when you ran outside and I wanted to make sure nothing happened to you. I do not care if you are upset that I did not leave you in 'peace'." He regarded her with an irritated confusion. "Why are you suddenly so upset? I thought you were glad to see me."

"I was." She pushed his hand off her face and hugged herself.

"What changed?" He took a step toward her, his expression darkening when she moved backward, keeping the distance between them. "Cearo, what is going on?"

"I don't want to talk about it. Please, just…leave me alone." She turned and started off into the tall grass, abandoning the road.

"No." He grabbed her arm and pulled her around so she was facing him. "Why are you upset?"

"I told you, I don't want to talk about it right now."

"Why not? What did I do that's so horrible you won't even talk to me?"

"I didn't say I wouldn't talk to you, only that I didn't want to talk about it now. Right now, I want to be alone."

"In the pouring rain?"

"If it bothered me, I wouldn't have come outside."

He sighed loudly and roughly pushed back the hair that had been washed onto his face. "Cearo, stop acting like a child." He took her hands, lacing his fingers through hers, and she had to take a slow, deep breath to keep from freaking out. "Tell me and then I will leave you alone. I want to know why you are suddenly acting like someone put a mouse down your back."

"'Put a mouse down my back'?" She jerked her right hand free and slapped him hard enough to knock him off balance, and felt the warm glow of satisfaction in her chest when he stumbled to the side. It didn't last long, though, because he was still holding her left hand and when he stumbled, he pulled her with him and they both fell sideways into the grass, Cearo landing partly on top of him.

"I could get used to this," he said smugly.

"Don't expect to, asshole." She rolled off him. "Let go of my hand." He didn't. "I want to get up. Let go." 'I will mash his bits to a red pulp,' she swore to herself silently. 'I will mash his bits and break more of his teeth and shave his head.'

"Tell me why what you are so upset about."

She shifted on to her side so she was facing him. "You're either blind or stupid if you don't know."

"I am having no trouble seeing you glare at me, so I suppose that means I am stupid." He tone was dry. "What is it, oh, wise one, that I am too simple to understand?"

"Just let go of my hand and I'll tell you."

"You will stand up and run away and I will have to chase you. No."

"I won't." She was definitely going to mash his bits later for this.

"And you will tell me why you are being so quarrelsome?"

"Since I won't get rid of you any other way, I guess I have to." He was such a prick sometimes.

"That is what I have been telling you." He released his grip on her hand. "Your turn."

She clenched her teeth and took a slow, deep breath to nervousness that had quickly returned. "I saw the way you were looking at me, like I killed your dog. That's why I'm upset." She got to her feet and walked away. Aelfrid made no move to stop her.

A short time later, she recognized a small copse of trees ahead to her right and hurried over to it, eager for the shelter. Beneath the trees, there was a small pond that was fed by a creek that entered on the other side of the copse. It was a popular swimming and bathing spot when the weather was warm enough. If it had been sunny today, it was likely there would have been others already. Cearo leaned against the thick trunk of an oak tree and smiled. Some of the best pranks she had played on her brothers had been committed here and there were few things more wonderful in the summers than to take a break from the work and soak in the pond's coolness during the hottest part of the day.

She listened to the soothing patter of the raindrops on the canopy of leaves above her head and wished she could stay here for a while, but she knew if she did not return to the feast soon, more people would come searching for her and she did not want to ruin the celebration for Helm and Elfhild when there wasn't any good reason for it. Aelfrid would have made it back by now and told Ma she was fine, which gave her a little bit longer to spend out here.

'I think,' she mused, 'moving in with Helm and Elfhild would be an excellent idea. No one would argue with that, I'm sure.' Ma and Pa would likely be relieved not to have to deal with her and Aelfrid and Brego all being in the same place. She'd have to ride back and forth between Helm's and the family house to help Ma every day, but if that's what it took to keep things from going totally insane, it was worth it. Wilone would make a huge stink about it, though. She smirked. Maybe Ma would let her take Wilone with her, and carry her back and forth each day in a sack when she came to help Ma.