So she journeyed toward the mountains with Falaran. They crossed the bridge, the waters of Mitheithel running swift and gray through stone piers, and followed the road for days past ridge after ridge of wooded hills that rose steeply on their left, dark and vaguely threatening even in summer. Across the Ford of Bruinen then, and longing tugged in her heart to turn aside and seek for the hidden valley. He said I could come there...But she grunted ruefully, and shook her head. Such is the way of the Wild. Could have been up at the pass for a month already if I had known; instead I've walked a damn great circle all around the northlands. But then I would not have been in Bree when I was, and things might have gone far worse. A smile then, memory pushing away all thoughts of Rivendell. And I would not have seen the Chieftain.

They stayed a night in Stonebridge, sharing a room in the small, thick-walled inn, and bought what supplies the villagers would sell. "They'll be glad of it up on the pass," said Falaran, as she hefted her heavily laden pack with a sharp grunt of effort. She remembered the night she and Anna had spent with the Thurinrim garrison years ago, how careful they were with food and firewood, and she knew he was right.

She had been in the high mountains before, and she had not forgotten the difficulty of it, how the head ached and breath came short and sleep came hard. But she had in some way discounted its realness, and so as she toiled on behind Falaran, up and endlessly up, she halfway cursed herself for a fool.

But only halfway. The other half was wide-eyed, wondering at the eagles that circled above them, the fertile lands dissolving into haze behind them, sunrise gilding jagged peaks before them, and trees becoming smaller and smaller, twisted and bent in the shelter of hollow or boulder, roots clinging to rock. How do they do it? And why? Go back, go down and grow tall in good earth.

And then, sudden and strange, in her father's voice, as she had so often heard it: 'You grow in the earth where you're planted.'

What if I had been born somewhere else? Bree, or Stonebridge, even far away in Rohan, like Anna? Would I still be a Ranger? Would I have done what she did? Would I have had the strength for it? The thought sobered her, and she brushed her hand lightly over the gaunt mountain trees.

They stopped for a day by a small clear lake in a high valley fed by streams that tumbled down from the icy peaks. Falaran was weary, though of course he would not admit it, and she certainly did not grudge the rest. Her legs ached, and she never seemed able to get enough sleep. But then they went on, up and farther up.

The road was not steep, for it must be passable by carts carrying goods for trade between Eriador and Wilderland. The Rangers shared the guard with the men of Wilderland, the Beornings who lived in the open land between the mountains and the great forest. There was little guarding to be done most times, to be sure; any brigand intent on plunder knew better than to risk the Rangers. But there were small-time robbers, men often alone and desperate, and there were the creatures of the mountains. Orcs had not been seen near the High Pass for many years, but there were rumors now that they were creeping down from their haunts in the north, and there were other creatures too, trolls and wolves and mountain lions, that would if given half a chance plague the unguarded road.

The higher they climbed into the mountains, the more summer seemed to retreat behind them. It became cold at night, the rocky ground damp and chill. The road followed a stream that foamed and whirled with meltwater, and they were never free of the rush of it, even in sleep. But at last the slope began to flatten, and midway through a morning they saw a gap between high peaks, and through it a vast space of open air. Falaran picked up his pace, and they came around a shoulder of rock and saw ahead of them, tucked in a hollow at the bottom of a cliff on the south side of the road, a small shelter made of dry stones carefully laid. Movement then, and shouts, and though she could not make her weary legs run, she no longer felt the pain.

Belegon met them on the road, a broad smile on his weathered face. "Thought you were taking it easy in the lowlands this summer, brother."

"I was," growled Falaran, and Belegon laughed.

And then he turned to Miriel, grasped her arm and looked in her eyes. He said nothing, but she nodded, in answer to the question he had not asked. I am well. It is done.

The Wilderland men were not there; they had gone down the eastern side of the pass early that morning, to repair damage done to the road by a heavy rainstorm. But they returned in the evening, four men, dirty and weary, trudging up the road under a dull cloudy sky that promised more rain. Miriel watched them come, curious and a little apprehensive. She had met Beornings on occasion, traders on the road to Bree, but she had never spoken more than a few words to them. They had seemed good enough men, sturdy and cheerful, and they were said to be honest in trade, but still disquiet whispered through her. They are not us. They are not my people.

But as they came closer, one caught her eye. Something in his shape vaguely familiar, and then he straightened, and silver caught the light of the westering sun through a break in the clouds. 'You may find friends at the pass.' But I thought he meant only Belegon...

Calen caught his breath when he saw her, stood stock still for a moment, then strode forward and embraced her. He said nothing, but she could feel his breath shaking. At last he said very softly, muffled a little in her hair, "I worried about you, Mir."

"I know."

When at last he let her go, there were tears in his eyes. He did not let them fall, but he stayed close all evening, huddled with the others in the damp, drafty hut while rain pounded the rocky slopes and lightning flashed above the peaks. She found his eyes on her when he thought she was not looking, and at last she said quietly, so that only he could hear, "I am who I was, Cal. This is what I have always been, though you were the only one who knew it."

He nodded. "At least I no longer have that burden."

She frowned. "Was it a burden?"

"Yes," he said at once, low and vehement. "It was, Mir."

"I—I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"You knew. You pushed it away, tried to pretend it wasn't there. But you knew."

She sighed. "I suppose I did." A pause, and then, soft and uncertain, "Was it wrong?"

He shrugged. "That is not for me to say."

"I would not have been ready then. The first time. I...don't think I would have been strong enough."

She had not said this before, not to Aragorn, not to Darya, not even to Girith. It hurt a little, to admit Darya had done something she could not. And her mother, and so many others…Am I truly a healer? Or only a Ranger playing at it? But that was foolish, and she knew it. It is not a game. She thought of Toldir, lying on the floor of the healers' house in Elenost—so long ago that now seemed—and young Will Rushlight. 'We all do what we can with what we are given.' And that is all any of us can do.

"Mir?" Calen's voice was gentle, worry plain in his eyes. "I didn't mean—"

"I know. And you said nothing I haven't thought myself a hundred times." She made herself smile. "The Chieftain has forgiven me, if there is anything to forgive. I can ask nothing more than that."

The men of Wilderland were strange to her, their skin fairer and their hair lighter than the Dunedain. They spoke the Common Speech well enough, but used another tongue among themselves. It was in truth a little galling, to feel that secrets were being spoken before her face, though she tried to hide it. But Calen must have noticed, for he nudged her and said softly, "Watch the captain." She watched without seeming to do so, saw the faintest of movements, perhaps only a catch of indrawn breath, a flicker of eyes when the Wilderland men began to speak, and she knew he understood them.

But on the whole they were friendly, good-humored and loud and strong, and the stone hut was crowded and cheerful with them there. Days passed one into the next, weather sometimes stormy but mostly fair, travelers perhaps every two or three days, though they were not evenly spread; some days there would be several groups, and then none at all for a stretch so long they began to wonder if the road had washed out. Miriel was glad she had come; quite apart from the pleasure of being with Calen again, the Chieftain had been right that there would be need for a healer. Nothing too serious, but the road was not easy, and the mountains even less so, and she had ample opportunity to hone her new-learned skill. The men watched with bemused wonder at first, but they soon became used to it, indeed were grateful for it, for it gave them security of a sort in this lonely place.

In late summer, when flowers bright amid the rocks and the sun burning at midday, Belegon decided it was time to send down to the lowlands for supplies. They had been careful with their food, but the thin air drained their strength, and there was little game and few edible plants in any quantity so high up. The eastern slope of the mountains was gentler, the nearest settlement of the Wilderland men only a three-day journey down the road, compared to the five or six days it would take to get to Stonebridge, and so Belegon sent them east.

It was decided, with much chuckling and not a few relieved groans, that the porters would be Calen and Miriel along with two of the Wilderland men.

"Young knees take better to the rocks than old ones," Belegon laughed. "And besides, you need to see the country."

She was glad to leave the crowded hut and windswept pass for a while, even if it meant hauling a load back up. And she was intensely curious about Wilderland. It had never been part of ancient Arnor, and stood thus on the edge of legend, a land of bears and wolves and men who could turn into either, a land where the storyteller's fancy ran free. Rangers ventured over the mountains on occasion, but less and less frequently as their numbers dwindled, and now they mostly relied on travelers for news.

And then also she wondered at it because of Calen. He spent much time with the Wilderland men at the pass, had even learned enough of their speech to join haltingly in conversation, and she often caught him watching them, a strange, closed expression on his face. For their part, they seemed to enjoy his company, and while they clearly did not consider him one of them, there was recognition that he was something different than the rest of the Dunedain, whom they seemed to hold slightly in awe.

They left before sunrise, on a clear morning that was cool but promised heat. They each carried a porter's pack, really just a frame of sturdy wood to which goods could be strapped. Their own gear, enough to get them down the mountain but nothing more, was tied in a small bundle, leaving most of the frame empty.

Calen shrugged on his pack and shifted this way and that, awkwardly, uncertainly, and it was so unlike his usual grace that even Falaran laughed.

"It feels wrong," Calen grumbled at last, with a wry, self-conscious grimace.

"Too light," chuckled Koren, the older of the Wilderland men who was to go with them.

"See what you say on the way back up," laughed Tam, the other. He was perhaps of an age with Calen, older than Miriel, but he had been on the pass the summer before, and so took pains to hold himself above their blundering. But he was kind, really, good-humored and good-hearted, and he had already said quietly to Calen, the night before they were to leave, "We'll put word out when we get down. Someone must know your people." Calen pulled in a soft breath, nodded but said nothing, and Miriel touched his hand and then let him be.

The journey out of the mountains was uneventful, though the heat rose every day as they went down, and she realized how much she had become accustomed to the cool dry air of the high places. On the third day they began to see signs of habitation, shepherds' huts and the occasional grazing flock, and when late in the afternoon they came down into a dense forest, the sound of axes came faintly through the hot, pine-scented stillness. Gradually the light faded, for it was late summer now, and the days were not as long as they had been. But long before true dark, she smelled the smoke of cookfires, and they came almost suddenly to a wide clearing in the trees.

It was hardly a village, smaller even than Stonebridge, perhaps two dozen low, thick-timbered houses within a sturdy palisade of logs. But the gate was open, and voices shouted greeting in the Wilderland tongue. Koren and Tam were welcomed warmly; Tam, it turned out, had an uncle there, and room was found for them in his house. In truth Miriel thought she would have slept better outside, away from the grunts of animals and the whimperings of restless children. They were fed heartily, and there was much appreciative laughter at Calen's attempts to speak their tongue, but faces grew grave when they understood his story. One of the older women had a vague memory of something of the sort being spoken of, "But many years ago it was, and nothing ever came of it, so I was told."

"No," said Calen quietly. "So I was told as well."

She eyed him with a keenness that belied the wrinkles on her face. "No harm trying again. Word spreads slow, and more often than not goes astray before it reaches who it's bound for."

Calen thanked them, though Miriel could feel the tension beneath his measured tone. Hope can be dangerous. And then with sudden sharpness she thought of her own mother and father, and was grateful for the dim, smoky light. It did not happen so often now, but was all the more unexpected when it did. Perhaps she made a sound, or perhaps it was only the abrupt stillness of her body, but Calen glanced over at her, knew something was amiss without knowing quite what it was, and moved close to her in the bustle of preparing beds for the travelers. "What's wrong?" he asked in a low voice.

I'm fine. The instinctive answer, but she bit it back. He deserves better. "You don't know who or where your mother and father are. I know mine are gone. Sometimes it is...hard to remember."

He nodded, said nothing but touched her hand, and made sure his pallet was close by hers in the strange, stifling dark.

They stayed only a day in the village, just long enough to gather and pack all the food and supplies they could carry. Belegon had written them a list on a scrap of parchment, and Miriel read it out to the bemused villagers; clearly they were aware of writing, but it was not a thing often done among them. But they gathered all that was needed, and gladly accepted coin in payment, for it was not easy to come by here on the edge of the mountains. They even found the two skins of wine Belegon had requested, sweet wine from the small mountain grapes, and though Koren grumbled that the mead from his lowland village was better, they took it gladly.

And there was wonder of a deeper kind when she asked if there were any in need of a healer's care. She would not draw hurt into herself, for she needed all her strength for the laden trek back up to the pass, but there was a fevered child, and a man with a newly and badly set bone.

He had fallen three days before from one of the great horses they used to haul logs from the deep forest. "Lucky it was only a broken leg," grumbled his wife, voice tense as she watched. But Miriel hardly heard her words, nor the husband's groans. Eyes closed, mind reaching out as she had done with the boy, she eased the shattered edges into alignment, splinted and wrapped them, ignoring the sweat that dripped down her face. It was a frustrating, exacting task, but she thought she managed it well enough. Better than it was before, at least. He will be able to walk, and work, when it is healed.

But it took more from her than she had realized, and it was well that Calen was there beside her when it was done, arm steady around her shoulders. "Easy, Mir," he murmured, and brought her to sit on cool moss at the base of a tree. When at last her head was clear, he helped her up, and she met his wry half-smile with her own.

"Your fault," she said softly.

"My good fortune," he answered. "And his."

She was still tired the next morning, said nothing as they ate in the gray light before dawn. But when Koren lifted the laden pack so she could slip her arms through the straps, she found she could bear it without struggle. Here, at least. And she tried not to think about the mountain path.

Calen cursed softly and staggered a little as the weight came onto his shoulders, steadied and then turned to her with a grim smile. "They had better not eat too much. I'm not doing this again."

She chuckled, and Tam cuffed him on the shoulder. "You'll do as you're told, boy. Besides, you eat more than anyone."

"Fair enough," nodded Calen amiably. "Maybe if you ate as much as I do, you'd grow. Then folk wouldn't mistake you for my younger brother—"

Tam's lunge was slowed by his pack, and Calen stepped back out of range, but too quickly, overbalanced and would have fallen had Miriel not caught him, and then they stood facing each other, laughing and gasping.

"Whenever you're done, children," growled Koren.

That sobered them, and they thanked their hosts and set off, early light slanting through the trees.

It was a slog, as she had known it would be. Hot by mid-morning, and cloyingly damp in the forest, but worse when they left the trees behind, for the sun beat down on them then without mercy. Her shoulders ached, and her throat was dry, and she could feel blisters starting on her feet. But at least the men weren't doing any better, and it was Koren who first stopped to rest. They gulped water, filled their skins again from a stream, and started again up the trail.

When she took her boots off that evening, she found that she did indeed have blisters on her heels. "Why the fuck—" she muttered to Calen, as she wrapped strips of cloth around her feet the next morning.

"You walk differently." Koren nodded to the pack beside her. "With that weight on your back. Changes your balance just enough." He chuckled grimly, pulled off a boot to show his own bandaged foot. "Live and learn, eh? Wrap them before you start next time."

A grudging chuckle. "You couldn't have told me?"

"Would you have listened?"

"Probably not."

Calen laughed. "Definitely not."

Clouds overtook the early sun, and for the next two days it rained on and off, making the rocks beneath their feet slippery. "But at least it's not hot," Tam grunted, wiping water out of his eyes. Her shoulders gradually became used to the weight, and though she ached fiercely by the end of each day, she found that she could keep up without trouble. Koren struggled most, sweat shining in his graying hair even in the cool of evening, but none of them dared offer to lighten his pack, and so they matched their pace to his, and each was secretly glad not to be the one to slow down the group.

It took nearly six days to reach the pass, and when they came around the last turn in the road and saw clear air and the squat stone hut tucked beneath the rocky flank of the mountain, she thought she had never been so glad to see journey's end.

Falaran scrambled down to them from the watch-post above the road, a broad grin on his face. "Took you long enough."

"Carry it yourself next time," growled Koren.

"Any news?"

A pause, and Koren's lips tightened. "I'll tell the captain."

Falaran raised his eyebrows, glanced at Miriel and Calen. "You'll tell the Chieftain."

Notes:

Miriel and Anna cross Thurinrim pass, in the northern part of the Misty Mountains near Mount Gundabad, in NATWWAL Ch. 20.

Calen is not Dunadan by birth, as you probably gathered. He reveals this to Miriel in NATWWAL Ch. 8.