[Airerûthiel]

Laitalathion sat sipping another ale, feeling lost and a little bored. He had heard that it was to this inn that his brother had come seeking work, and instead had found himself whisked away into an adventure - albeit one where he met death at the hands of his kindred. Whilst the half-Elf knew that quests did not grow on trees, in his heart he still longed for the freedom of the open roads, the journeys into the wilds of Middle-earth, the re-awakening of the legends of valour and bravery he had stayed up for hours listening to as a child in the house of Pennrod.

Pennrod...his uncle, who had laid dead for nigh on five years or more...he had seen the Gondorian's features in the face of the ghostly maiden who haunted his dreams. She was young and slender, no more than a child, yet seemed to be many years older - the cares she carried were those of one who had seen many terrible things in her life. Her eyes were haunted with unspeakable horrors, and she almost seemed to be wordlessly pleading with Laitalathion when she came to him by night.

The words he thought he heard her whispering in his ears now rang in his head, echoing as though they were being shouted down a tunnel beneath Cirith Ungol. "Who are you?" It was a question that puzzled Laitalathion constantly, and he sighed with resignation as he drained the last of the ale in his pewter mug.

Who was he? There was the obivous answer: he was Laitalathion son of Théomer, Ranger of Ithilien. But there were other answers to that question; he was nephew to Pennrod of the Rocconinquë, who was slaughtered along with his family one bitterly cold night long years ago. He was a traitor to Gondor, branded as such by the military for an act of treason his father had been blamed for but had not committed. He was a murderer, one who had killed his own brother for no apparent reason.

He wanted to answer the girl's question more than anything in the world - even his desire to wake up and see his mother once more. It was the girl's lips that moved in his dreams, but it was the voice of Orowethwen of Mirkwood that came to Laitalathion's ears. He was slowly becoming dependent on these night-time visions as a way of escaping from the harsh reality of his past deeds, but he knew that they were slowly destroying him - and it was not against his own will.

There was only one way to answer her request, and he knew what he had to do. To give her a true and honest reply would take a long time of many tales - legends from his past of why his father's name was still called traitorous in Gondor, of the long journey his mother had made to protect her sons while trying to hide her own emotions, of the brothers' travels in Middle-earth as they searched for more knowledge of their people.

Would he tell these tales? He reached for the pitcher and poured himself another drink, sipping it carefully as he thought long and hard about whether to stay in this inn and talk of his past, or whether to set out across the rolling plains of the Riddermark and see where the road chose to take him.

[ March 14, 2003: Message edited by: Airerûthiel ]