Mistress of the Fellowship (LOTR)

* 25 * Rembering, But Why

Ryker was not so easily defeated. She was not going to wear the dress still and so she quickly went and tore down the thick purple and silver drapes from the window and put together a garment in which did not exploit her womanly curves but gave her room to move. It reminded her of some pictures of a story her uncle once read to her about warriors wearing very little and if she recalled they called them togas.

As soon as she had finished braiding her hair a knock sounded and once again he emerged but this time he was not alone. With him came three servants carrying trays followed by two guards in which looked like Haradrim. The sight of them made her both sick and angry as she recalled her betrayal. Was the man she had been fighting a Haradrim as well?

Out on the balcony the servants set the table with a single flower in the middle of the table, an evening blossom.

As they set the table she watched the moves of each of the people in her presence all while he watched her until it was set and she was summoned to the table. He kindly offered her a chair in which she declined and moved to the opposite so the Haradrim were not at her back.

He soon sat down and said, "I don't suppose you have ever poured tea have you."

She scoffed, "I do it every day at brunch, just after I have picked flowers and gaily sing in the sunshine."

He smiled more and replied, "That's what I thought. Have you ever had tea?"

"You'd be surprised what sort of tea you can make wherever you go."

"But nothing from an actual tea cup?"

"I'm sorry but a barbarian like myself has never had an actual tea cup touch my lips."

Shockingly he asked, "Tell me what has touched those voluptuous lips."

This time she couldn't hold back a burst of laughter. This man was truly something else with quiet the nerve to ask her such things.

"Tell me stranger, you know so much about me but I have yet to discover a single thing about you."

He grabbed a couple grapes and replied, "You want to know how I know your name and your history?"

"No. I want to know who you are. I all ready know what I have done and my birth name and so the information you give me is only a waste of both our time."

"I don't know, I think it is rather amusing to have the upper hand."

"Holding me here prisoner is not an upper hand?"

He smiled and stuck his knife into a piece of sliced goose and pondered the thought as he chewed the piece of fowl before speaking again, "I know who you are because I have watched you since you were a child."

"Funny, I don't recall ever meeting you."

"We never properly met."

She studied him hard for a few minutes. She looked hard into his dark amber eyes and he stared back at her hard and challenging. Inside the liquid mahogany eyes she felt something rising in her mind. There was something about those eyes that seemed almost familiar and suddenly she smelled burning flesh causing her hands to shake in her lap but soon the smell faded to that of smoke and then of her familiar forest and then she was taken to Mirkwood where she spent her time as her family was massacred. She had been hiding from the elves but she recalled a time when she was spotted and suddenly she recalled those brown eyes. He looked the same except back then he had no facial hair and he appeared to be hiding in the woods like she was.

He was down by a rock and she was up a tree but then she recalled the time when she was even younger and followed her father and the other leaders to Lorien where she eaves dropped on the important meeting. Again he did not have facial hair and his hair was short and he had a look of happiness when she saw him.