Alone

Earun patted me on the back as I set several empty beer steins down on the counter. I had the late shift, but tomorrow afternoon I would go to the library, as discussed with Legolas. Ever since we had said goodbye to each other at the street entrance, I had been nervous. The very prospect of seeing a second source talking about people who had had a similar thing happen to them as I had made me feel restless. Perhaps my encounter with the elf was not as troublesome as I had thought at first? Maybe we really could help each other.

"Your mind is somewhere else today, isn't it?" asked Earun with a smirk.

I looked at her. "What makes you think that?"

She pointed her chin at the stein I was filling. At least, I had thought I was filling it, but I was holding it the wrong way. "Damn!" I quickly turned off the tap and reached for a cleaning rag. "Yeah," I grumbled, "you're probably right."

There wasn't much going on, so Earun leaned against the counter with her arms folded and looked at me closely. A glance over my shoulder told me she wanted to say something, but didn't know if it was a good idea. "Just get it out of your system," I said as I tossed the rag into a bucket of water and finally filled the beer stein properly.

"I know we don't talk about stuff like this, but… I'm worried. About you," she admitted.

"You have nothing to worry about," I said, smiling briefly at her.

But she didn't seem convinced. "Ever since the dwarf and the elf showed up here, you've been different," she said, raising her hand when I tried to deny it, "I don't want to tell you what to do, but just be careful. You know as well as I do that nobility is two-faced. They claim to help you, and then they stab you in the back."

It was as if she sensed I'd made a deal with the elf. For a moment I stared at the second stein of ale I was filling, then I said, "I really appreciate it. But…"

"But sometimes you have to do things that aren't smart," she said.

"That was a beautiful way to put it." I turned and raised my steins. "Thank you, Earun."

She put a hand on my arm and was about to walk to one of her tables when I remembered something else: "Do you think it will get better eventually?"

"Oh, it's getting better," she said, "but not for us."

"Yes, I know that," I said, "but do you think Aragorn will change his apparatus? That we are important enough to him?"

Earun ran her hand over her face. "You can never tell," she finally replied. "But I wouldn't give it the benefit of the doubt. You know as well as I do that the lower ranks of nobility are used to doing as they please, especially after years of Denethor's rule. Whether Aragorn can get a handle on that would be looking into a crystal ball."

"I know," I muttered. I wasn't sure what I wanted to hear from her. That there were some nobles who were not as she said, perhaps? Was I trying to get absolution? Or had the brief chat with the elf about our lives on the balustrade caused me to turn soft?

No.

I didn't know him well enough for that. And I didn't give anyone the benefit of the doubt.

Not even the elf.

"Just always remember, if you can avoid them, avoid them. If you can't avoid them…"

"Then don't let them remember you. I get it." Only, unfortunately, it was already too late for that. The elf knew not only who I was, but also what I was looking for. But I couldn't tell Earun that. I could not tell anyone why I was really looking for these people. Even Legolas didn't know about it, after all - because none of them would understand.

I was alone.

And it had been that way ever since I had fallen into this time.

With a put-on smile that only served to reassure Earun, I carried the steins of ale to the table for which they were intended. The rest of the evening passed as if in a dream. My mind was on tomorrow afternoon, and the same old stories of drunkards made the hours blur into one another like the waters of a river.

When I was finally able to go home, I half expected to meet the elf on the way there, but this time he seemed to let me have my privacy. Still, I assured myself I was alone before climbing the stairs to my room.

It was waiting for me dark and empty. Only after lighting some candles and hanging a kettle of water over the fireplace did I undress.

Every morning before I left for work, I made sure that there were at least two large buckets of water waiting for me when I got back. I heated one of them piece by piece over the fireplace and dumped it into my tub with the cold water. That I had a fireplace at all was pure coincidence. But a coincidence that I had used for myself. I bathed there every other day and washed myself with a small bar of hard soap that I had bought from my saved tip at one of the markets of Minas Tirith. I used the same bar of soap to brush my teeth. The saying "wash your mouth out with soap" was not by chance. Before my backpacking trip, I had researched alternatives for conventional toothpaste to save space and had stumbled upon this tip by accident. Of course, I hadn't put it into practice and ended up using regular toothpaste, but when I ran out of toothpaste after a good two months, I remembered it. And it seemed to work.

Earun liked to make fun of my washing obsession, as she called it, but I didn't let it get to me. Hygiene was important, and not just to prevent disease.

So I braided my now almost waist-length hair into a pigtail and pinned it up. Then I got into the tub.

The water was only lukewarm, but better than nothing. I cleaned myself and got into my old pajamas, which, like the other things in my luggage, I still used. I also washed the bedding regularly and always put in several small bags of dried lavender, rosemary and sage to prevent fleas. Girdis had given me that tip. I also kept the same plants in tubs near the window so that I could change the bags regularly. The people of Minas Tirith were considerably cleaner than what I knew about the European Middle Ages, but limited supplies had limited results.

When I finally put out the candles, I couldn't fall asleep. I stared at the ceiling as if hypnotized. The events of the past few days had shaken up my well-rehearsed routine and stirred hope in me that I would see my time, my parents, and even the man I had once loved again after all. True, the feelings had long since been buried under a layer of realistic judgment, and I knew that he had probably long since changed his mind, but still... When I had arrived in this world, I had thought every day of the last sentence we had exchanged. We had parted on bad terms, and if I hadn't fallen to Middle Earth, we probably would have broken up. The travels I had taken alone had only been the beginning of the end. But since I had arrived in Middle Earth, the memory of him had been like a kind of safety line for me. Not because I thought we would get back together when I returned, but because the thought of him kept me from completely forgetting my world, my time.

I didn't want to be a part of this world.

And that included relationships.

Until now, this had worked well, because no one had tried to break through my wall of defense. But I had a feeling that this could change. And part of me didn't want that to happen. Because when I really arrived here in Middle Earth, I would lose my world for good.

The other part of me wished for the exact opposite. And this discrepancy tore me apart.

Tears welled up in my eyes and I curled up in my bed. At least I had an outlook now, the first one since I'd started going to the library.

No matter how alone I felt here, if I managed to return, I wouldn't be.