eachdraidh | {Video/After the Feast: Open to Seelie & Unseelie}

There is a magic here that I have never encountered in all of my journeys across Middle Earth. I do not know what to call it or even where it originates. {His anger over having been taken from the final battle at the Black Gate has diminished. In its place, Aragorn looks solemn and paler than usual.} I can only ask that it returns me from whence I came. It is of the utmost importance that I do not -

{For the first time, his voice cracks and he falls silent.}

There is a battle. It will decide the fate of my world. If I do not fight within it; if I do not lend my strength to my men, more of them will perish. {Perhaps they will lose heart. Perhaps all of them will die in the face of their greatest fear. All of the possibilities are incredibly grim.} I must return.

My name is Aragorn, son of Arathorn and I am the rightful heir to the throne of Gondor. My place is with my people and my friends.

{No feast can distract him; food is naught but a texture against his tongue. Now isn't the time for joy and festivities. Rather, his entire attention is fixed upon that which he can't see anymore.

The Black Gate.

How far has he been transported? And by what sorcery? He holds onto his sword - the reforged Narsil - tightly, ready and waiting to draw it free from its sheathe.}

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[Big wide eyes peering.]

Didn't know the kings of Gondor still wanted it. Are you for true?

{Another young one. Aragorn smiles encouragingly.}

I do not lie. The line of Gondor Kings has hidden itself well; I am the last.

[Sigrid is in the woods, about a day away from Caer Glaem but fairly well-groomed for someone who's been on the road for five days. Her hair has been brushed and braided neatly, and her face is washed. Something in the personal success of her journey to Treun has made her take more care in how she presents herself lately. That Aragorn is a king in exile makes him not so very different from her father, in her mind--and, in a sense, more of a peer now than he would have been before she knew her father would slay a dragon. Her shoulders square.]

I don't think I've met anyone else from Middle-earth who wasn't an elf or a dwarf or a hobbit, since I came here. I'm Sigrid of Esgaroth, daughter of Bard, who is to be King of Dale.

[If it's not a title yet, it definitely bears the weight of one in her speech.]

{Luckily for her, Aragorn sees (mostly) everyone as an equal. The only people - and creatures - that don't apply are those who actively seek selfish or evil desires.}

I know of your name and the name of your father. {Word travels and it's not everyday a dragon is downed.} Is your father here?

{It hurts for him to see children separated from their parents.}

[Sigrid shakes her head.]

You really are the first of our race from Middle-earth I've seen since I came.

{So she hasn't even been gifted with the brief presence of her father like Arya and Sansa.}

It must be difficult for you to be so far from home.

[Dammit Aragorn you're making her think about it and she gets hideously homesick when she thinks about it. She's been riding on the high of her latest accomplishments and she does not need to remember how badly she'd rather go home than anything else, no matter how crappy a town home is.]

I'm...making a place for myself.

[I guess. The Starks are a little like family, though she's usually the one taking care of them. Only Faolan takes care of her.]

Should you ever need aid, I am at your disposal. {He won't let any youngling stand on their own without offering help.} I do not doubt that you will make a warm home.

[She doesn't have a home. Not one of her own, not here. Her house is about to be burnt up by a dragon far, far away. What she wouldn't give for a house with family in it.]

I'm trying. There isn't...I don't know what to do with a home when it's just me, whether I have one or not. Everyone else's got family here.

As you said, we are the only inhabitants of our race. Family is not always about blood-lines, Lady Sigrid; it is oftentimes about friendship.

[She gets what he means. But there are a lot of men who try to get too close too quickly, and they have only one purpose.]

We're not friends.

Not as of yet. {Such a purpose would not occur to him.} Your well-being concerns me nonetheless.

[Her head bows, and she trembles. People don't say things like that and intend anything good, not where she comes from. Good people don't talk about their own problems because everyone else has worse problems, or at least so good people assume. And good people understand that other good people aren't going to talk about their problems, so they don't ask. The only people who would ask her are people who love her and are okay with accepting her own problems along with their own, and there's nobody here like that. There's nobody here who loves Sigrid.]

You'll sleep just fine tonight.

{Hopefully in time she will see Aragorn is a far, far different sort of man.}

My thoughts will keep sleep from me, I fear. {Yet that is his burden; not hers.} I must consider my next steps carefully if I am to aid my friends.

[He's backing off. Or...something. Changing the subject from her to other people. She relaxes a little.]

What do they need aid with?

{Video/After the Feast: Open to Seelie & Unseelie}

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