How did it come to this?
Loyal to her family, her lands and her people, Théadain, the illegitimate daughter of Théoden, King of Rohan, has little concern for the world that lies beyond her familiar grasslands. When all that she loves is threatened...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Chapter 16
Those first weeks of walking challenged Théadain's body in ways it had never been challenged before. Her legs ached, long days of trekking over uneven terrain left her calf muscles screaming at the end of each day, and even more stiff the next when she awoke after a night on hard ground. It might not have been so bad had Gandalf allowed them to follow the roads, but she understood his reasoning. They could not afford to be seen by any that may report to the enemy, and it was reported that all roads now crawled with spies and orcs.
She was careful not to complain though. A lifetime spent fighting to prove herself an equal to the men that surrounded her saw to that. Showing weakness had never earned anyone respect, she had learned that very early on in her training. Yet, she had not yet felt any doubt in her capabilities from her companions. It was as if their esteem for one-another came freely, though some were still wary of the personalities of others, they all respected each other. She could see it between Legolas and Gimli, Aragorn and Boromir; there was a wariness there, they trusted each other as soldiers trust one another – they followed the same path, they were driven to complete the same task and they would protect each other for the sake of their mission, but friendship? That was yet to come.
Théadain however seemed to have wormed her way into their affections, though she had not initially set out to. She did not count feminine instinct as one of her strongest qualities, but amongst this small group of men she could not help but seek to remedy the endless issues that men often ignored. She would scold them fondly when she insisted upon washing scrapes, encourage them to make use of an extra layer when the nights got cold, make sure they left their boots to dry at night so they did not suffer blisters the next day – in her mind it was merely good sense, yet in theirs they could see why she was valued as a leader by her men. She cared, perhaps so much that she often forgot her own needs.
Another day of walking had passed uneventfully. As they walked in single-file, with Gandalf at the head and Aragorn at the rear of the party, there was rarely opportunity to speak with the other members of the Fellowship. It was only when they stopped to make camp that they would talk freely again, an easy camaraderie emerging as they went about the business of setting fires and preparing food. It was on the edge of a small fir woodland that Aragorn agreed with Gandalf's suggestion to settle for the evening; a number of smooth boulders and a small rushing river providing sufficient shelter and fresh water, whilst the forest held the promise of food to forage and hunt for. Over the weeks Théadain had felt the ground rising in her legs as much as she could see it with her eyes. The Misty Mountains drew nearer by the day, and as they traversed the changing landscape she was treated to the most breathtakingly beautiful scenery – the likes of which they would never have seen from the road. Ruins, valleys, cascading waterfalls, ancient formations of rock moulded by time and weather; sights potentially unseen by anything other than birds and animals for hundred of years. Despite her aches, Théadain truly enjoyed her time spent walking; there was something immensely freeing about setting out each morning, her only thoughts focused on placing one foot in front of the other and staying alert to any potential threat. It meant she had little energy left to spend thinking about Rohan and her family, and even less energy to spend thinking about the dark-haired Ranger that walked several paces behind her.
