Instead of wedding planning I’ve been scheming a new Aragorn/OC fic :)
Going to cross post to ao3 as I finalize edits and the title.
Chapter One: The Girl in the Bracken
The first thing Rene knew was pain. Not the clean sort of pain, the kind that could be named and therefore managed. Not a bruise, not the fierce sting of a twisted ankle. This pain lived behind her eyes and under her skull, pulsing there like a second heartbeat. It made the world tilt when she tried to lift her head. It made the trees above her smear green and grey, their branches turning slow waves against a sky the color of old pewter.
For a while she lay very still and concentrated on not throwing up.
The ground beneath her was wet. Bracken pressed against her cheek. Something sharp dug into her ribs, probably a root, though her fogged brain briefly decided it might be a knife and supplied a fresh wave of panic so strong she almost passed out again.
A knife would hurt more surely.
Rene breathed in through her nose and regretted it immediately. The air smelled of mud, crushed leaves, smoke, and something foul enough to make her stomach clench. Rotting meat, maybe. Wet dog. Thick oil and burnt hair.
“Oh, that’s awful,” she whispered.
Her own voice startled her.
She tried to remember how she had gotten there.
Not darkness. Not a dramatic flash. Not even a tidy blank wall. Just—absence. Like opening a drawer and finding it had no bottom.
For one awful second, even that would not come, and the panic rose again, white and cold.
The name floated up, small and stubborn.
She grabbed it with everything she had.
“Okay,” she breathed, though nothing was okay. “Okay, Rene. A name. That’s… that’s a start.”
She moved her fingers. They obeyed. Her hands were scraped and muddy, nails torn, one palm smeared with dried blood. She wiggled her toes and felt them answer. On her feet were soft, ruined things, the soles half-torn, the laces dark with mud. One foot throbbed. Her right knee felt skinned raw beneath the trousers covering her legs.
She pushed herself up on one elbow.
Trees buckled. Her stomach flipped. The grey sky became a river, the ground became the sky, and she heard herself make a thin, humiliating sound before she dropped back onto her side.
“Bad idea,” she muttered. “Really bad idea.”
A branch cracked somewhere behind her.
The forest had been full of sound before—wind in leaves, distant water, the soft drip of recent rain—but this was different. Heavier. Intentional.
Every instinct in her body woke at once.
She did not know where the instinct came from. She did not know who had taught it to her, or whether anyone had. But it arrived sharp and absolute, cutting through the fog in her skull.
Something moved through the trees.
She could not see much from where she lay, half-hidden among bracken and the twisted roots of an oak, but she saw enough: a hunched shape, too broad at the shoulders, too long in the arms. Dark hide. Ragged armor. A head thrust forward like an animal scenting blood.
Nope, she thought wildly. Absolutely not. That is not a thing.
Rene’s hand closed around the only weapon within reach: a stone slick with moss.
Very inspiring. Very heroic. Death by landscaping.
Another shape joined the first. Then another.
They spoke in harsh snarls, a language like rocks grinding together. Rene did not understand the words, but she understood the tone.
The smell worsened as they drew nearer.
She waited until the nearest creature turned its head, distracted by one of the others. Then she dragged herself backward through the bracken, quietly, one slow inch at a time. Her head screamed. Her ribs protested. The root she had mistaken for a knife snagged the back of her shirt—or what was left of it—and tore the fabric with a soft, treacherous rip.
The creature’s head snapped around.
It stared at the bracken.
A strip of torn cloth, pale against the mud, hung from a branch beside her.
The creature bared its teeth.
“Oh, come on,” Rene whispered.
By some miracle, or maybe just because the universe had a sense of humor, the stone struck the creature squarely in one eye. It shrieked. Rene did not wait to appreciate the achievement. She scrambled up, swayed, immediately regretted being vertical, and ran.
Her first three steps were more of a controlled fall. Her fourth became actual running when something snarled behind her and crashed through the brush. Branches clawed at her face. Her lungs burned. Her shredded shoes slipped in the mud. She had no idea where she was going except away, which seemed like a perfectly valid direction.
The forest blurred around her.
Pain flashed behind her eyes. She ducked under a branch, stumbled over a root, caught herself on a tree trunk, and kept moving. Something flew past her head and struck the tree with a heavy thunk.
Crude. A black-feathered shaft, ugly and barbed, quivering inches from her cheek.
“Excellent,” she gasped. “Love that.”
She lurched away from the tree.
Clear and bright, so startlingly beautiful amid the snarls and crashing brush that Rene almost stopped. The sound cut through the forest like sunlight through storm-cloud. It was answered by another horn, farther off, then by a shout in yet another language she did not know but trusted more than the snarling.
The creatures behind her faltered.
Rene risked a glance over her shoulder.
A dark shape burst from the brush to her left. She swerved, slipped, and slammed shoulder and head-first into the ground. Her skull lit with white fire. For a moment she saw nothing.
When her sight cleared, the creature stood over her, clearly savoring the knowledge of an easy kill in reach.
It looked worse up close.
Skin like old leather. Yellow eyes. Black miasma (it couldn’t possibly be blood) running from the eye she had struck. Its mouth opened in a grin full of jagged teeth, and Rene’s mind, perhaps deciding she had endured enough horror, became absurdly calm.
So this is how I die, she thought. In the woods, wearing a shoe with a hole in it, killed by a nightmare with dental issues.
The creature raised a curved blade.
Then an arrow struck its throat.
The force of it snapped the creature backward. It fell with a wet gurgle, blade dropping from its hand. Rene stared at it, unable to move.
Another arrow hissed past, then another.
The forest erupted. Two figures came out of the trees with a speed and grace that did not seem real. Tall, a whirl of grey and green, they moved as though the forest had made room for them. One carried a bow, loosing shafts so swiftly Rene could hardly see his hands. The other came with a long knife in one hand and a sword in the other, bright steel flashing as he met the charging creatures head-on.
They were beautiful in the most inconvenient possible way.
Rene blamed the head wound.
One of them shouted something—again in that clear, unfamiliar language—and the other laughed as he ducked beneath a clumsy swing and cut the legs from his attacker.
“Oh, sure,” Rene said faintly from the ground. “Real funny.”
His head turned, and for one suspended moment Rene met eyes the color of storm-grey water. His face shifted—focus, surprise, concern—and then he was moving toward her.
A creature sprang from the brush behind him.
“Behind you!” Rene shouted.
He spun before the word had fully left her mouth. His blade was in his hand as though conjured there, and the creature fell before it could strike. He glanced back at her, grateful, brows lifting slightly.
“Your warning was timely,” he said.
His voice was low and musical, the words shaped with an accent she could not place. Formal. Precise. Unfamiliar.
“You’re welcome,” Rene said. “Please don’t let that thing eat me.”
“That is not our intent.”
“Great. Glad we’re on the same page.”
Another creature barreled toward them. The man turned, putting himself between Rene and the attack. The second warrior arrived first, dark hair whipping around his shoulders as he struck. The creature fell. The warrior flicked black blood from his blade and looked down at Rene.
He and the archer were nearly identical.
“Oh,” she said. “That’s unfair.”
The second one eyed his brother and tilted his head. “She speaks strangely.”
“She is wounded,” said the first.
“She is also right here,” Rene said, because apparently imminent death had not cured her of poor timing.
Both of them looked at her.
Not widely. Not carelessly. But enough that his face changed from remote and dangerous to bright with amusement.
“So you are,” he said. “Can you stand?”
“Technically? Yes. Successfully? Debatable.”
The first man crouched beside her. Up close, he looked less like a man and more like something from the edge of a half-remembered dream. His features were sharp and fair, his ears—
His ears came to a slight point.
She looked at the other one.
She couldn’t remember much, but she thought she remembered what ears were supposed to look like. A birth defect? Her brain, already under strain, declined further comment.
“My lady,” said the crouching one, “you are bleeding.”
“Yeah,” Rene said, still staring at his ears. “I noticed that.”
His gaze flicked over her face, then to the side of her head. When he reached toward her, she flinched before she could stop herself.
Something in the way he said it—quiet, solemn, not offended by her fear—made her throat tighten.
“I know,” she said, though she did not know. Not really. “Sorry. Reflex.”
“An understandable one. I am trained in the healing arts. May I take a look?”
He lowered his hand, giving her time to see the movement, and gently prodded the matted hair near her temple.
Pain burst bright and sickening.
The second man stepped closer. “Elrohir?”
“A deep cut,” said the one beside her. “And perhaps a blow to the head. Shoes near ruined. She should not walk.”
“I can walk,” Rene said automatically.
The other one folded his arms.
Rene looked from one to the other. “What?”
“You nearly fainted while upon the ground,” said the standing twin.
“That was a tactical sway.”
“You don’t know my tactics.”
The standing twin’s smile returned, sharper this time. “Indeed we do not.”
A shriek rose from deeper in the trees. More snarls answered it.
Both twins turned at once.
The one called Elrohir slipped an arm behind Rene’s back. “We must go.”
“That is not specific enough for me.”
“Nor is there time to be specific.”
He helped her sit up. The world tilted again, though less violently this time. Rene clenched her jaw and refused to make another pathetic noise. Her stubbornness lasted exactly three seconds before her vision greyed at the edges.
“Easy,” Elrohir murmured.
The standing twin made a thoughtful sound. “That word does not mean what you think it means.”
Rene pointed at him, or tried to. Her finger wavered. “You. I like you less.”
His eyes brightened. “Already she has discernment.”
“Elrohir,” said the first, with the air of someone who had spoken that name in warning many, many times.
Rene frowned through the fog. “Wait. You’re Elrohir?”
“I am,” said the one beside her.
She looked at the standing twin. “Then you are…?”
“Elladan,” he said, bowing slightly, as if they were meeting in a ballroom and not in a monster-infested forest while Rene bled into her hair.
“Rene,” she said. “I think.”
The twins exchanged a look.
“You think?” Elrohir asked.
“That’s the current status, yeah.”
Elladan’s expression softened. “You do not remember?”
The forest sounds drew closer. Orcs—some part of her mind had named them now, though she did not know where the word had come from—were calling to one another through the trees. The dead thing beside her twitched. Black blood soaked into the leaves.
It felt foolish to reveal to these strange, weapon-wielding men the vulnerability of her memory gap, but frankly what choice did she have but to trust them?
“I remember my name,” she admitted, and hated how small her voice sounded. “I think. I—I just woke up. I don’t remember anything before waking up here.”
Elrohir’s hand stilled at her back.
Elladan looked into the trees. Whatever he saw or heard there made his jaw tighten.
“Then we shall keep what you have remembered safe,” Elrohir said. “Can you hold to me?”
“Depends. Are you about to do something alarming?”
“At least you’re honest.”
He slid one arm beneath her knees and lifted her as though she weighed nothing.
Rene made an undignified sound and grabbed the front of his tunic. “Oh my God—warn a person!”
“That was not a warning. That was a vague threat.”
Elladan laughed under his breath and drew an arrow from his quiver. “Come, brother. The rest will follow swiftly.”
Elrohir adjusted his hold so Rene’s head rested against his shoulder. “Close your eyes if the motion troubles you.”
“No, thank you. I would rather see the tree that kills me.”
“It is not the trees you need fear.”
Rene had been carried before.
A half-memory flickered: arms around her waist, laughter, bright light, music thudding through a floor. Then it vanished, leaving only the rhythm of Elrohir’s steps and the cold ache behind her eyes.
He moved impossibly fast, yet smoothly enough that she did not immediately vomit on him, which she counted as a victory. Elladan ranged ahead and to the side, silent but for the whisper of his boots through the leaves. Every so often he loosed an arrow into the trees. Each time, something snarled or fell.
Rene tried not to think about how close the creatures were. Tried and failed.
“How many?” she whispered.
“Too many for comfort,” Elrohir replied.
“Eight behind us. Perhaps more to the east.”
“You need not fear. We know these woods.”
Ahead, Elladan paused beside a fallen pine and lifted two fingers. Elrohir stopped at once. Rene could feel the stillness pass through him: no held breath, no tension wasted, only readiness.
At first she heard only her own pulse. Then—movement. To the right. Slow. A scrape of metal on bark.
One second he was there, the next he was a shadow sliding behind the trees.
Rene turned her head too quickly and regretted it. “Where did he—”
A choked cry cut her off.
Something hit the ground.
Elladan reappeared, cleaning his blade with leaves as though he had merely stepped aside to adjust his cloak.
“The way is clear,” he said.
Rene swallowed. “You know, where I’m from, people usually make noise when they do terrifying ninja stuff.”
“Ninja?” Elladan repeated.
“And you hail from where?”
Her head pounded as she considered that.“Unclear but definitely not here.”
Elrohir looked down at her. “You speak the Common Tongue, yet many of your words are strange.”
“That makes two of us. You both sound like you walked out of a period piece, or a very intense theater production.”
Elladan glanced back. “A period piece?”
“Archaic language. Acting. Costumes.” She looked at their weapons, their clothes, the blood on Elladan’s sleeve. “Very committed costumes.”
“I fear your hurt is indeed grave,” Elrohir said.
They continued through the trees and the forest began to change. The ground rose. Oaks gave way to beeches and dark pines. Water sounded somewhere ahead, rushing over stone. Rene shivered as the damp crept through her torn clothes. She had not noticed cold while running for her life. Now it settled deep.
His brother glanced back, took in Rene’s trembling, and unfastened his cloak without comment. He crossed to them and folded it around her with surprising gentleness. It smelled of rain, leather, and something clean like crushed pine.
Rene clutched the edge of it. “Thanks.”
Elladan inclined his head. “You are welcome, Rene-who-thinks.”
“That is not my full legal name.”
“Official.” She frowned. “Probably.”
Elrohir shifted his grip as they descended toward the sound of water. “Your memory comes in pieces.”
“Mostly useless pieces.” She looked at the river flashing between the trees. “Words. Bits of… I don’t know. Places maybe. Feelings. No people. No home.”
The last word landed harder than she expected. There should have been something behind it. A room. A street. A face. A smell. Anything.
Rene looked away quickly, but Elrohir had already seen. Of course he had. People with pointed ears and perfect cheekbones probably noticed everything.
“You are not alone in these woods now,” he said.
It was not a promise of home. It was smaller than that. More careful. And somehow, because it did not pretend to fix what could not be fixed, it made the burning in her eyes worse.
“That’s a really inconveniently nice thing to say,” she muttered.
“Ah.” His voice warmed. “Then I accept.”
They reached the river at a narrow crossing where pale stones broke the rushing water. Elladan went first, light-footed as a cat. Elrohir followed more slowly with Rene in his arms.
Halfway across, a howl split the air behind them.
On the bank above, three orcs burst from the trees. One raised a bow.
Rene’s body moved before thought. She grabbed the folded bundle of cloak atop her and flung it upward, not sure what she meant to accomplish beyond ruining everyone’s day. The arrow struck the layers of heavy fabric instead of Elrohir’s throat, piercing through and stopping inches from Rene’s face.
For a heartbeat, all three of them stared at it.
Then Elladan’s arrow took the orc in the chest.
Elrohir leaped the last stones and reached the far bank.
“Was that,” Rene said, breathing too fast, “helpful or incredibly stupid?”
“Both,” Elladan said, loosing again.
Elrohir set her down behind a boulder with great care. “Stay here. Stay low.”
The twins moved to the riverbank.
There were more orcs now—five, six, Rene could not count with the world pulsing at the edges. The river forced them into a narrow crossing, and the twins used it ruthlessly. Elladan’s bow sang. Elrohir’s blade flashed. They fought together as though they shared one mind, one breath. One drove an enemy into the other’s strike. One ducked before the other’s arrow passed over his shoulder. They never spoke, yet they answered each other perfectly.
Rene watched from behind the boulder, shivering, terrified, and unwillingly awed.
She also saw what they did not.
One orc had slipped downstream, using the rocks and spray as cover. It emerged on their side of the river, crouched low, curved knife in hand. Its gaze fixed on Elladan’s unprotected back.
Rene looked around desperately.
Stone. Mud. Branches. The arrow still stuck through Elladan’s cloak, which was haphazardly folded around her shoulders.
She grabbed the arrow shaft with both hands and snapped it free. The head was barbed, ugly, and slick with something dark. Her stomach lurched. She ignored it.
Her right leg nearly buckled. She caught the boulder and bit back a cry. The orc heard the movement and turned toward her.
It grinned and came for her instead.
This was, immediately, a worse outcome.
“Did not think that through,” she said.
Rene thrust the broken arrow forward with both hands. It was less a strike than a panicked shove, but the creature’s momentum did the rest. The broken shaft sank into the side of its neck. It screamed, knocking Rene backward. She hit the ground hard, pain exploding through her head.
The orc staggered above her.
His sword flashed once and the orc fell.
Rene stared up at him through drifting black spots. “Okay,” she whispered. “That one was definitely stupid.”
Elrohir dropped to one knee beside her. For the first time, his composure cracked. Fear—sharp, naked, quickly mastered—crossed his face.
“Still here,” she said. “Mostly.”
Elladan appeared behind him, breathing hard but unhurt. His gaze went from the dead orc to the broken arrow to Rene. “You have a talent for drawing blades toward yourself.”
“I’m going to choose to hear that as a compliment.”
Elrohir pressed two fingers lightly beneath her jaw. “Her pulse is swift.”
“That would be the terror,” Rene said.
“And her speech remains abundant,” Elladan observed. “A hopeful sign.”
She tried to glare at him. “I’m wounded, not boring.”
His smile was brief and bright. “So we are learning.”
The last of the orcs lay dead or dying on the far bank. The forest seemed suddenly too quiet. Rene became aware of the river’s roar, the cold seeping through her clothes, the smell of blood. Her hands were shaking so hard that the broken arrow slipped from her fingers.
Elrohir took her hand before she could hide it. There was no force in his grip. Only steadiness.
“You are safe for the moment,” he said.
For the moment should not have comforted her. It did.
Rene closed her eyes. “I don’t want to pass out.”
“Then do not,” Elladan said.
She laughed once, weakly, and regretted the vibrations jolting her head. “Is that your official medical advice?”
“Very effective, if you obey.”
“This is why she likes you less,” Elrohir said to his brother.
Elladan placed a hand over his heart in mock injury. “She said so in haste. I believe I grow upon her.”
“Like mold,” Rene murmured.
Elrohir’s shoulders shook.
It took Rene a second to realize he was laughing. Not loudly. Not freely, not with danger still near and blood on the leaves. But laughing all the same. The sound was soft and startled, as though she had surprised it out of him.
Elladan looked pleased beyond reason. “Mold, brother.”
Rene opened one eye. “Are you two always like this?”
“When there is time,” Elladan said.
“And when there is not,” Elrohir added, “he often continues regardless.”
Elrohir lifted her again, more carefully this time. Rene did not protest. Her body had begun to feel distant, as though it belonged to someone else and had only been loaned to her in poor condition. She tucked her face against his shoulder, too tired to care about dignity.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“To Imladris, our home.” Elrohir said.
The name passed over her like music and struck some deep, hidden place.
For a moment Rene saw—not memory exactly, but an impression of white water, tall windows, golden leaves falling in a courtyard, voices singing in a language older than grief. Her breath caught.
Elrohir noticed. “Do you know the name?”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
Elladan, walking beside them now, glanced at her. “Yet it stirred something.”
“Everything is stirring something. My brain is basically soup right now.”
“Soup,” Elladan repeated gravely.
Rene sighed. “Please don’t make that one a thing.”
“I would not dream of it.”
Elrohir’s mouth betrayed him.
Rene narrowed her eyes. “You both are absolutely going to make that a thing.”
“We are sons of Elrond,” Elladan said. “We have been raised with courtesy.”
“No,” Elrohir said. “It is not.”
They climbed away from the river.
The path grew steeper, though path was generous. Rene saw no road, only slopes and roots and stone, but the twins seemed to follow signs invisible to her. Her head lolled. She forced her eyes open whenever they drifted shut. Trees moved overhead. Once she saw a hawk circling far above. Once she heard Elladan singing softly under his breath, a few lines in a language that made her chest ache for reasons she could not name.
She wanted to ask about it.
She wanted to ask a hundred things.
What were those creatures? Why had they been hunting them? Where was Imladris? Why did the twins’ ears come to points? Why did their voices sound like old songs?
The questions tangled with the pain until she could barely hold one at a time.
“Elladan,” she said eventually.
He appeared at Elrohir’s shoulder. “Yes, Rene-who-thinks?”
“Second…” She swallowed. “Will the orcs return?”
Elrohir’s arms tightened almost imperceptibly.
Elladan walked in silence for several steps, and when he answered, his voice was gentler than before. “They may, but we will make it to Imladris safely. No more harm will come to you and your injuries will not linger. Not if our hands and our father’s skill may prevent it.”
“That’s… less reassuring than I hoped.”
Elrohir looked down at her. “You have endured the worst of the danger. The wound is grave, but you are strong.”
Rene gave a breathless laugh. “You met me maybe twenty minutes ago.”
“Closer to three hours ago.” Elladan darted a glance to his brother, brow furrowed.
“Long enough to see you strike an orc with a stone, warn me of an attack, shield me from an arrow, and stab another with a broken shaft.”
“When you put it like that, I sound unhinged.”
“You sound brave,” Elrohir said.
The word settled over her, heavier than the cloak. She did not feel brave. She felt cold, scared, nauseous, and one bad jolt away from crying all over a stranger’s tunic. But Elrohir said it as though it were simply true, and Rene did not know what to do with that.
So she did what she apparently did best.
“Do all women around here get this many compliments after making terrible decisions?”
Elladan answered before Elrohir could. “Only when the terrible decisions are effective.”
They walked until the light began to change.
At first Rene thought the clouds had broken, but the glow ahead was not sunlight. It was warmer, softer, filtering through the trees in slanting bands of gold. The air shifted too. The foulness of orc blood faded behind them. The wind smelled of pine and water and distant hearth-smoke. Somewhere, faintly, someone was singing.
The trees opened and the valley appeared below them.
For a moment, even pain fell silent.
It was hidden in the folds of the world, a deep green cleft carved by water and time. Waterfalls streamed white over cliffs. Terraces and roofs gleamed among the trees, built not against the valley but with it, as though stone and wood had grown into halls because the place had wished it. Bridges arched over rushing water. Leaves moved in the wind. Lamps had begun to glow in windows, small stars caught and held against the coming dusk.
Something inside her broke open—not memory, not recognition, but longing so sudden and fierce that it hurt.
Elladan watched her face. “Imladris.”
Rene could not look away. “It’s real.”
She felt it immediately and wished she could pull the words back.
Elrohir’s voice was careful. “Real?”
“I mean…” Rene tried to think through the pounding in her skull. “It looks like a place from a dream. That’s all.”
“I’m very concussed,” she added. “I reserve the right to be weird.”
Elladan’s face softened, though his eyes remained thoughtful. “Then be at ease. Many strange words have passed within these borders. Yours shall not be the strangest.”
Elrohir began the descent.
The path into the valley was smoother, though Rene barely noticed. Her eyes kept catching on impossible details: carved railings twined with living vines, lanterns shaped like flowers, the flash of silver water beneath a bridge. Figures moved below—tall, graceful, turning as the twins approached. Some carried bows. Some wore long robes. All seemed to look at Rene with quiet, piercing attention.
She became abruptly aware of herself.
The mud. The blood. The torn clothes. The thin shirt shredded at one shoulder beneath Elladan’s cloak. Her hair tangled with leaves and worse. One shoe half-dead.
“Yikes,” she said faintly. “I am making an entrance.”
Elrohir glanced down. “You have little cause for shame.”
“I’m not ashamed. I’m horrified by the aesthetics.”
Elladan made a low sound of amusement. “She fears not orcs, but poor presentation.”
“I absolutely feared the orcs. Let the record show I feared the orcs a lot.”
They crossed a stone bridge. The water below thundered so loudly Rene felt it in her bones. On the far side, an Elf with silver-brown hair came swiftly down the steps, his face grave.
“My lords,” he said, bowing. “We heard the horn. Lord Elrond awaits you. Is she—”
“Alive,” Elrohir said. “Wounded. Set men to the northern paths. Orcs crossed the river in number.”
The Elf’s gaze flicked to Rene. Not unkind. Curious, yes, but controlled.
Rene lifted a weak hand from the cloak. “Hi.”
Elladan’s lips twitched. “This is Rene.”
“Rene,” the Elf repeated, as though trying the shape of it. “Be welcome to Imladris.”
Her throat tightened again.
“Thanks,” she said, softer this time.
They carried her into a house that felt too beautiful for blood.
That was Rene’s first clear thought of Rivendell: it did not seem like a place where pain should be allowed. The halls were open to air and water-song. The floors shone dark beneath woven rugs. Lamps glowed gold in carved niches. The walls held paintings and tapestries, and everywhere there was the sense of long memory—of a place that had seen grief and chosen gentleness anyway.
Voices hushed as Elrohir passed.
Rene tried to keep track of turns and corridors, but the house slid around her in warm light and shadow. At last they entered a chamber where a fire burned low and clean. The bed within was narrow but soft-looking, covered in pale linens. Bowls, cloths, and instruments lay ready on a side table.
Beside it stood a tall figure in robes of deep blue.
Rene forgot, briefly, to breathe.
He was older than the twins. Not old in the way she understood it—his face was unlined by ordinary time—but old like a mountain under snow, like a library at midnight, like grief carried so long it had become wisdom. His dark hair was bound back from a face both stern and kind. His eyes went first to Elrohir, then Elladan, checking them swiftly for wounds, before taking in Rene. She felt seen in a way that was almost frightening.
“Elrohir,” he said. “Lay her here.”
His voice was calm, and something in both twins eased at the sound of it.
Father, Rene thought before anyone said the word.
Elrohir set her on the bed with such care that she might have been made of glass. Rene beat back the impulse to cling to him when he drew away.
The older Elf came to her side.
“I am Elrond,” he said. “You are within my house, and no harm shall come to you here if it lies within my power to prevent it.”
The name struck something. A bell heard underwater. A page turning. A voice not her own saying it with wonder.
Her head throbbed so violently she winced.
Elrohir stepped closer. “Father?”
Elrond’s gaze sharpened. “That troubles you?”
“No,” Rene said quickly. Then, because everyone in the room looked unconvinced, she added, “Maybe. I don’t know. Everything is kind of scrambled.”
Elrond’s expression did not change, but his attention deepened. “So my sons have told me. You remember nothing?”
“My name.” Rene swallowed. “Rene. I’m pretty sure.”
“Names often remain when much else is hidden.”
“That sounds poetic and terrifying.”
Elladan, standing near the foot of the bed, murmured, “You grow accustomed to it.”
Elladan became solemn with impressive speed.
Despite everything, Rene almost smiled.
Elrond washed his hands in a basin and began examining her with practiced gentleness. He asked questions as he worked: Could she see clearly? Did she feel numbness in her hands or feet? Did she remember being struck? Did she know what day it was?
“What is the last thing you recall before waking in the wood?”
“Do you know whence you came?”
The word landed like a stone dropped into deep water.
Rene looked down at her muddy hands. “No.”
Elrond paused. Then he covered her hand briefly with his own. His palm was warm.
“We shall speak no more of that tonight.”
Rene nodded, not trusting her voice.
The cleaning of the wound was awful.
She tried to be brave. She really did. But warm water found the cut beneath the matted blood, and whatever Elrond used to cleanse it stung like fire. Rene clenched her teeth until her jaw ached.
Elrohir stood on one side of the bed. Elladan on the other. Neither hovered exactly, but neither left. At some point, without asking, Elrohir offered his hand.
His expression was steady and calm, but there was a question in it. Not demand, no pity. Just: here, if you wish.
When Elrond began stitching the wound, she squeezed hard enough that a normal person might have complained. Elrohir did not. He merely sat beside the bed and let her hold on.
“Talk,” Rene said through her teeth.
Elladan leaned forward. “Of what?”
Elladan considered. “Once, when Elrohir was very young, he attempted to befriend a badger.”
Elrohir’s head snapped up. “That is not a tale for healing rooms.”
“It is precisely a tale for healing rooms.”
Rene managed, “Did the badger agree?”
“For a time,” Elladan said. “Then negotiations failed.”
Elrohir sighed. “I was six.”
“Old enough to know badgers prefer distance.”
“You told me it looked lonely.”
Rene let out a pained laugh and immediately hissed as Elrond drew another stitch.
“Hold still,” Elrond said.
“I’m doing terrible, actually, but thanks.”
Elladan leaned closer. “Would you hear the end of the badger tale?”
“There is always more when Elrohir is foolish.”
“Elrohir,” Rene said, eyes watering, “did the badger win?”
Elrohir gave her a wounded look. “You ask with unseemly eagerness.”
Elladan smiled. “Decisively.”
Rene laughed again, softer this time, and though the pain still burned, it became bearable with their voices weaving above it.
When Elrond finished, Rene was exhausted down to the bone. Her hair had been cleaned as much as possible around the bandage. Her scraped hands and knee were wrapped. Someone had brought warm blankets. Someone else had taken away Elladan’s ruined cloak after he insisted it could be mended, though Rene was fairly certain an arrow hole and black blood counted as more than casual wear and tear.
Elrond gave her something bitter to drink.
She eyed the cup. “Is this going to make me hallucinate?”
Elrond lifted one brow. “It will ease pain and help you sleep.”
Elladan coughed into his hand.
Elrond’s mouth curved almost imperceptibly. “You may trust it.”
Rene drank. It tasted like herbs, bark, and betrayal.
“Wow,” she rasped. “That is disgusting.”
“It is medicine,” Elrond said.
“Medicine can have flavor.”
This time even Elrond’s mouth curved at the edges.
Warmth spread through her limbs. The edges of the room softened. The firelight blurred into gold.
She fought sleep immediately.
She did not want to wake somewhere new again. Did not want to open her eyes and find the forest, the mud, the yellow-eyed creature above her. Did not want to sink into the empty place where memory should have been.
“You are safe,” he said again.
Rene turned her head toward him on the pillow. “You keep saying that.”
“Because it remains true.”
“For tonight,” he said. Then, after a moment, “And on the morrow, we shall see what may be done.”
That was better than forever.
Forever would have sounded like a lie.
Rene blinked slowly. “Are you staying?”
The question escaped before pride could stop it.
Elladan and Elrohir exchanged a glance. Something passed between them, silent and swift. Elladan moved to the window, where the last blue of dusk lay over the valley. “I have no pressing desire to sleep while orcs may yet trouble our borders.”
“And I,” Elrohir said, settling in the chair beside her bed, “have been entrusted with ensuring that you do not attempt any more tactical swaying or fainting.”
Rene’s mouth twitched. “You’re both very annoying.”
“So we have been told,” Elladan said.
“By many,” Elrohir added.
Rene closed her eyes. The room was warm. The bed was soft. The pain was fading back, not gone but muffled. She could hear the river somewhere beyond the walls, and beneath it, faintly, singing.
For a moment, panic rose again.
No memory. No home. No answers.
But Elrohir sat beside her. Elladan stood by the window. Elrond moved quietly near the table, speaking in low tones to someone who had entered with fresh water. The valley held around her, strange and impossible and real.
Rene let herself breathe.
“If I wake up and this is all some weird coma dream, I’m going to be very annoyed.”
Sleep pulled harder. Just before she slipped under, she felt someone draw the blanket higher over her shoulder. She heard one of the twins say, very softly, “Rest now, Rene. You will be alright.”
And because she had no strength left to be afraid, Rene slept.
Outside, the Bruinen ran silver beneath the stars. In the high passes, wolves cried. Far to the east, darkness gathered in lands Rene did not yet remember she should fear.
But in the hidden valley, for one night at least, the girl without a past was guarded.
