A Broken Promise(On Hold)

Chapter 18: Isla/Lona

I felt the riders before I heard them. The vibrations shook the ground, and I stumbled, hissing as my ankle twisted. Aragorn frowned.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine Aragorn," I said. He nodded.

"We should hide." We hid behind the rocks, and saw the mass of rides come past. Over 200 of them, by my reckoning. Maybe by Shire reckoning. Aragorn stepped out and called,

"Riders of Rohan, what news of the Mark!?" As the riders turned I saw long brown hair uncovered by a helmet.

Darlene?

What was she doing with the riders? As the group headed toward us, I saw she was unbound. So not a prisoner. Pity. We could have launched a exciting rescue. The group came in a tight circle around us, and I saw Darlene, Eomer, and another woman, whose horse Darlene was sharing, gallop forward. Darlene started to dismount, but the woman hissed something to her that made her stop, her face grim. And was that...fear? She turned her face, the raised scar on her cheek showing clearly. As usual, my mind fled the conversation at hand and I was plunged into memories.

It was raining, and Darlene and I, nine at the time, had decided to slide down my swing set slide. We, of course, had drenched clothes and hair, but we where laughing. Until Darlene slipped over the slide, and a rusty nail cut her face. 12 stitches. It still showed, 13 years later. Or, now, hundreds of years earlier.

The childhood memory ended abruptly when Eomer glared at me.

"And who are you?"

"Lona of Earth." The name we had chosen for out past world. Better than Hoonkipank(Lana's suggestion). Eomer looked from Darlene, to me, surprise etched on his face. Darlene came down and hugged me, then Legolas, then Gimli, and finally Aragorn. Their hug lasted slightly longer, as I suspected it would.

And now I was getting things right. Okay. The world was inside out. Well, now it was more inside out.

And my mind thought bad things.

You're never going home. You're stuck here forever. You're trapped.