Fey smog had settled about the forest, and with it came a leaching of what little color remained in these borderlands. On the wind a stench much like rotting flesh was carried.

A horse snorted in disgust, and a rider sought to calm him.

"Hush, Rocharon," the rider hissed, his hand now upon his hunting knife.

The rider knew that he had ventured too far into woods, and he knew very well what it might cost him. Orcs were ever present in these lands, now, for as of late they had taken to hunting the Dunedain like wolves.

i"And this smell," thought the rider, "It is so much like…,"/i

But he shook his head of the thought, not wanting to remind himself of such days. Memories of the dragon, of the legions of orcs, and of his first life never failed in bringing him anguish.

But in truth, the stench iwas/i much like that of Glaurung, or of any dragon, for it was the stench that accompanied the burning of many corpses, the plague, and evil. It was the smell of darker times of war.

The rider cursed himself for straying so far from the rest of the hunting party. If he was taken now by surprise, he doubted he would know the way to help.

He turned his horse around and set back upon his trail, casting glances over his shoulder frequently.

But for all his concern, a reverie settled about him almost at once. It was all too easy as of late for his mind to wander back to his lover's words of scorn and bitterness.

For a long time, he had spent a great deal of time thinking of brilliant rebuttals with which to use against the cruel words cast his way. He prided himself in developing his own insults and slights in his spare time.

But years pass, as they often do between people who have no energy to either restore or end their love for another, and now the rider could do nothing more but siphon through errant comments and harsh fights.

A sudden, unsought for power, as if a fishing hook had suddenly caught his heart, pulled him from himself. He pulled his weapon and looked about in alarm. Upon noticing that Rocharan was merely annoyed and not afraid, he lowered the blade and blinked.

Upon further inspection of his whereabouts, it did not take the well seasoned hunter long to spot a reason for concern. In the weeds along the trail, a wayward piece of fabric rested.

The rider dismounted and led his thoroughly irritated steed towards the object.

"What is this?" he asked aloud, having crouched before the fabric. With nimble fingers, he turned the deep blue over in his hands. "A child's cloak," was his bewildered reply to his own question.

"But how could such a thing find its way here? These are but deer trails, and there is no wind in this land,"

And then he noticed the child to which the cloak belonged to. She lay haphazardly amongst the detritus of the forest, and was splattered with all sorts of mud and bracken. In one hand, she held a cloth doll that had seen far better days. The other hand was pressed to her face, and the rider saw that her thumb was in her mouth.

The rider leapt to her at once, and pulled her into his arms.

i"So pale is she," he thought, cradling her tighter, "But quite alive, I think, if I have learned anything of healing,"/i
And as if his thoughts were a cue, the child opened her eyes. She startled with a squeak, but could say nothing, for she was quite parched.

"I shall not hurt you, child. I am a friend," he said to her, and she eased a little.

He pulled his flask from his belt a let her take a long drink from it.

"There, that should help your voice. Now tell me, little one, what is you name?"

"Father said that I should not give my name to strangers," she said sternly.

The rider chuckled. "Nor are children supposed to accept drinks from men with great knives and hooded heads, but come. I will not use your name against you, little one. I ask purely out of manners,"

The child seemed to consider this with deep thought, and then gave her name as Maia.

"That is a queenly name," Was the rider's answer, and secretly he thought it unfit for a mortal girl. "And tell me, where is your home?"

"Masto," she said, now looking with interest at Rocharon.

"You home is called 'village'. Very well, then," the rider said, amused by the mere simplicity of it. "And can you tell me why it is that you are so far from Masto?"

The child's face grew grayer, and the rider almost regretted posing the question. Tears welled up in the youth's eyes, and her arms began to choke her raggedy doll in a fearsome death grip.

"I do not know," she murmured. And she began to cry in dry, silent sobs.

The rider pulled her close and stroked her matted hair. He looked downwind and scowled, now sure of the wretched stink's source.

"I know," he thought, and his mind was made.

The child slept before him, her head drooping to her chest. The rider checked her breathing ever so often, still not confident in his abilities to affirm her condition. She was after all, very small.

"She cannot be more than ten," he thought, and as Dúnedain grew, that made her no more than five in comparison to the average human babe.

And as for her size, it was the mere lack of it that the rider used as his excuse for her having escaped.

In honesty, he did not know what it was that he was to do with her. But leaving her had not been an option, and therefore she sat upon a deeply disturbed Rocharon.

Disturbed, too, were the rider's party, for they had meant to set out hours ago.

"He has gotten himself lost again, the fool," they said to each other, but in hushed voices, for they felt shame in disparaging a doer of great deeds as well as their captain.

But their words were in fact true, for despite all his deeds, the rider had become careworn and thoughtless as of late. 'Like an angst-ridden, heartbroken girl,' Master Elrond himself had said.

But the label of heartbreak held some truth as well, for the spawn of the rider's despondency was in fact a relationship that had been crumbling for years. And now, all that was left was a pile of ashes from which a phoenix was not likely to rise. For phoenixes arise in times of great need and suffering and neither of the aforementioned lovers had yet the energy to feel either need or suffering.

Like a caged pair of elderly songbirds they seemed, for they had been stuffed in a cage that was far too small and meanwhile continued to call out two contrasting, boastful songs. The competition amongst them had once fueled their passion. Now, it was like a canker upon a dying plant, causing pain upon something that was already withering of its own accord.

But the cage, despite having almost rusted through, still held. The iron ties of memory and youth still held fast. And thus, their broiling contempt endured.

The rider happened upon his men eventually, and their enamored moods abated long enough for them to ask after the addition to their party.

"She is called Maia, and her village was sacked by orcs. I wish to take her to Imladris, I think, for she may have deeper wounds than I or anyone of us may devise,"

His riders said little, for although they disliked the idea of a plain mortal coming to the Last Homely House, they had long trusted their leader and all of his plots.

And so they set back, having already accomplished much as far as orc-hunting was concerned. Some, having been touched by the sight of the young girl, wished to avenge her and haunt those that had burned her village, but their master would have none of it. His thoughts were turned only to her future.

When she awoke many hours later, she asked him where they were going.

"To Imladris, little one, where you will be safe,"

She considered this with the same expression she had worn when they first met, her eyes looking distant while her cheeks and brow were screwed up in concentration. The sight warmed some part the rider's heart, but cooled another, for although the look was amusing, it also told him that she had aged far more than she appeared.

"You asked my name," she said at last, as she readjusted her doll in her arms, "May I ask yours?"

"My name little one? Well, I guess you may call me Glorfindel, for it is the name that most know me by,"