[Airerûthiel]

The company walked for days without event, across the Brown Lands east of the Anduin and the living forest of Fangorn. The landscape was much the same as they had seen for days, seeming to stretch away forever into the distance. As the distance between the group and the last safe haven that was Mirkwood increased, everyone's mood seemed to grow heavier and more melancholy. There was a sense that the journey was too easy.

Airerûthiel could see that her fellow Ranger, Khôrbar, was as uneasy with the situation as she herself. She knew that when the eastern lands of Middle-earth were quiet and untroubled, danger was growing about them. And she was thrice troubled - as well as having to worry about the problems that dogged Elentari, her only true friend since she left the land of Gondor behind, and the journey's constraints, she was still edgy.

The Gondorian she saw when she closed her eyes...he was connected to her family by some link. She remembered seeing a child with his red-gold hair and dark blue eyes walking in her parents' house when she was barely out of babyhood. The eyes were his most haunting feature; she had seen those in the face of her mother on the night that she was slain by Orcs. The truth weighed heavy on her heart as she scanned the country.

When most of the others had gone to bed, Khôrbar took the first watch, while Airerûthiel and Elentari stayed to clear up the camp following their meagre meal of berries and roots. It was not enough to satisfy any of the company, and the half-Elf's stomach rumbled miserably as she absentmindedly fed the horses and secured them for the night. "Are you all right?" asked Elentari. "You seem very nervous."

"It is nothing," said Airerûthiel. "Do not worry yourself with my concerns when you have troubles of your own. I may be young but I do know how to handle my own problems." The Rivendell Elf nodded wordlessly and went back to her blanket. Meanwhile, faint columns of grey-blue smoke rose into the air from Khôrbar's pipe, the only motion around the dying fire as the two Rangers stood together, not speaking a word.

"Khôrbar..." Airerûthiel knew she needed to tell someone who she really was, but never thought she would choose a strange and cold Ranger over the only true friend she had ever known. Maybe it was because he was not particularly her friend; it made burdening him with secrets and lies easier in a way, softening the emotional blow she would inflict on the one she revealed the truth to. He grunted in reply, not meeting her eyes.

"I'm not Airerûthiel."

~*~*~*~*~

The Ranger was shaken out of his stupor by the young girl's words. His thoughts instantly jumped to the most suspicious that he harboured - she was a spy, an infiltrator. Slowly he turned to look at her. She stared fixedly at the toes of her steel-capped black leather boots, her long shiny black hair glinting blue in the firelight as it cast a hood over her pale oval face.

"What do you mean, you're not Airerûthiel?" he asked, raising a thick dark eyebrow the colour of a charred beam at her. There was a tinge of anger in his voice, as a parent scolding their disobedient child might have. "And why did you tell me this? Why not Elentari, or Lorin? We are not friends; indeed I might say you appeared to hate me on sight. And why tell me now, when we are so close to sighting Mordor?"

"Airerûthiel was the name of my mother," the young girl replied. Khôrbar could see her grey-green eyes were glazed over with tears of relief, but they did not soften his heart towards the Gondorian. "I had no choice, Khôrbar. If I use my real name of Bragolhirwen, then those who murdered my family will surely find me. Their spies are everywhere, and although the dark times have passed they will never relinquish their quarry. Should I take the true name I was given at birth, my days would surely be numbered.

"You are a Ranger, like myself. You have seen as much of this Middle-earth as there is to see. We have been through the same things - both outcast by society, both simply tolerated rather than accepted or rejected. Elentari, Lorin - none of the others would be able to help me. They are not being chased by their pasts each day they live to see. There are no secrets for them. They are not unwanted."

With that, unable to prevent herself from bursting into tears, the half-Elf drew her dark hood over her head and almost ran back to her bed as far from the campfire as possible, leaving Khôrbar confused and alone in the darkness. The fire had long burnt out.