"Voiceless it cries,
Wingless flutters,
Toothless bites,
Mouthless mutters."

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Chapter 6: Answers in the Dark

"Psst! Frodo!" I hissed.

It was our second night out from Bree, and as I had a vague memory of mosquitoes to come and a clear memory of not liking mosquitoes, I had decided to stop postponing this conversation.

The hobbit rolled in my direction without opening his eyes. "Yes, Lady Raelyn?"

"Rae," I corrected.

"'Rosie Rae,' your aunt called you."

That. It was that sort of thing I hated. That sort of thing that made me angry. A woman who had never known me, using a pet name? Of course, everyone had called me "Rosie Rae" - a play on my middle name, Rose - until I was about twelve, and then seemed to think I would think it undignified if they didn't stop soon. It had petered off after that, though Geoff still liked to call me it when he was feeling especially older-brotherly.

"Will you tell me about her?" I asked aloud. My anger could not quite stifle my curiosity, I was finding. An aunt who had left us for Middle Earth was more interesting than an aunt who had merely left us.

I was assuming, at this point, that I wasn't dreaming, or rather, I had stopped assuming I was dreaming and had agreed with myself not to think about it. It's possible I had made the decision after the Barrow Wights, but I wasn't thinking about that either.

Frodo rolled over on his stomach. Our bedrolls were close enough that at this angle we could gossip like girlfriends at a slumber party. Not that I had a lot of girlfriends. And Jimmy and John didn't gossip.

"She was…different. Certain of what she was doing. While Bilbo was always running around spinning one scheme or another, Lady Scilla was focused. She was calm and confident, but not cold. I was very young, but I always remember she…she looked at me with pity. Now I think she must have known. Did she know? Do you know?"

"Yes, I know," I whispered, thinking I was being extremely selfish, grilling the hobbit about my aunt while he was carrying the One Ring. "And she knew. I wonder…I wonder if that's why she came back."

Frodo frowned. I could see the outline of it, the edges of his lips tipping in the moonlight. "I don't think so. Strider could tell you more than I, but I believe she stayed because she fell in love."

My jaw dropped. Aragorn had said she was a queen…someone's wife…but I hadn't imagined…

"My aunt stayed because of a fling?"

Frodo's frown deepened. "I don't think so. Not the way Bilbo tells it. He said they'd all hoped she'd stay, but she'd gone home anyway. Gandalf watched her and eventually went to your world to bring her back. Apparently she was very unhappy. She fell in love with Bard in Laketown."

"Bard the Bowman?" I asked, shocked. "The guy that killed the dragon?"

"Yes, although your aunt was there too."

"She was?"

And Frodo told me the whole story. How my Aunt Pris, his Lady Scilla, had bargained with the Elven King for her freedom and ridden to warn Laketown. How she'd freed Bard from prison and, with his son's help, brought him the Black Arrow that could slay Smaug. How she'd fought orcs and Smaug on the rooftops of Laketown, and again in the Battle of Five Armies.

Somehow in all that she'd fallen for the man Tolkien's novels only ever described as "grim." How could a woman so reckless fall for a man so pessimistic? How could he fall for her?

"She and Bard reigned in Dale for many years, and maintained a friendship with King Dain Ironfoot, in part because of your aunt's travels with Thorin. I've only ever heard her name spoken with respect."

I rolled over on my back to stare up at the stars.

"She went back for you," I heard Frodo say. I tilted my head to look at him upside down. "Even though it broke her heart. She left because she believed it was wrong to stay when she had a family at home."

"She was right," I said, shifting again.

"Maybe," said Frodo, "but from what she told Bilbo, I think your mother told her to go."

I knew this. I didn't want to know it.

"And," Frodo continued, "I think Bilbo understood. He was never quite content in the Shire, after. Adventures, they seem to change a person."

We made it through the Midgewater and on to Weathertop. My memory of The Lord of the Rings was not so fuzzy as to have forgotten this part, and I spent our campout twitching, which is not like me, in the wilderness or the dark.

Strider was out of sight when they came, and my hobbit companions were distracted by their dinner preparations. This was not quite right, I could tell, and yet, the horror that came awakened my memory perfectly.

I drew the short sword Tom had given me, putting my butt to the hobbits' backs. It wasn't as heavy as I had expected. Then again, I was no desk jockey. My palms and my arms were hardened by outdoor work. I could wield a sword, if I only knew how to swing it.

"You will learn," Tom had told me, but this wasn't that moment. The Ringwraiths were on us, and we were flung aside. They went straight for Frodo, who had disappeared.

Strider was back – Aragorn, I should say. The man fighting in the wild was nothing like that man frightening Butterbur in his own pub. He had a log lit on fire and was swinging it at the Ringwraiths. They may have been immune to our swords, but fire seemed to give them pause.

Frodo? Where was Frodo?

I crawled out of the heap that was Merry, Pippin, and Sam just as he screamed, and then Aragorn was on them, and they fled.

"Poison," I said, as he retrieved the hilt of the dagger.

"Yes," he agreed. "This is beyond my skill to heal. He needs Elvish medicine."

We were far along the road before he said to me, "You knew. Like your aunt, you knew."