Southern Rills, the North of Westeros
Morning, 297 AC
The wind here, in the dunes, was crueler than by the water. It carried fine, stinging sand that ground between the teeth and pricked the face, as though the land itself were trying to drive out the stranger. The elf walked at a measured pace, his steps unnaturally light for one wearing a full suit of plate armor. His soft leather boots barely left prints in the loose sand, while the fishermen sank ankle-deep, breathing hard, stumbling and cursing the weather under their breath.
Hobb, deciding the silence had gone on long enough, drew level with the elf. It wasn't proper to walk alongside a man - strange as he might be - without giving your name.
"I'm Hobb" he grunted over the wind, adjusting the strap of his basket. "Senior man in the boat. The one grumbling behind us is Olden. And the lad who can't take his eyes off you - that's Will, my nephew. We're fishermen, m'lord. Simple folk. We catch cod and whatever else swims into the nets. That's our living, and we pay our coin to Lord Rodrik Ryswell. Hard work, wet work, but the sea feeds us."
Aerindir turned his head toward the fisherman - just enough to show he had heard.
"I am no milord, and no lord" he said quietly but clearly, cutting through the gusts. "I hold no such title. Call me by my name."
He had committed them to memory at once: Hobb, Olden, Will. Titles were born of land and power; names belonged to the living, and therefore meant far more to him. Hobb grunted and bit his lip for a moment, as if weighing what he'd heard. Then he shrugged, hitching the basket strap where it dug into his shoulder.
"Maybe so" he said at last. "But for simple folk like us, it's easier the other way. When a man walks in plate like it weighs nothing, and looks at you like the cold can't touch him... the tongue reaches for 'milord' on its own. No offense meant" he added, shooting a quick glance at Aerindir. "Just feels safer. More familiar, like."
He slowed his pace, letting the wind and sand rise again between them. The path stretched on toward the grey hills and the distant village. Aerindir walked in silence, accepting not the title but only the form of respect this harsh land resorted to when it met those who seemed stronger.
The elf felt strange, as though his body no longer fully belonged to him. In Arda, every stone, every leaf had its own voice, its own part in the Great Music. Here the world was mute. It was the silence of a graveyard, broken only by the whistle of wind, the rasp of sand, and the rough breathing of mortals.
Marring. The Shadow of Morgoth fell upon these lands so long ago that even the memory of light has been worn away.
Will, who had spent the entire walk staring at the elf's weapons - darting ahead, then falling back - finally could not hold himself. Curiosity overpowered the fear of the "demon."
"M'lord... why is your sword so strange?"
Aerindir slid his gaze toward the boy. The elf's look was heavy, but there was no malice in it.
"Strange?"
"Well... curved" Will traced an arc in the air with a clumsy hand. "The blade bends. Our swords are straight, but yours looks like a fishing knife."
Hobb squinted at the sword on the stranger's hip.
"Never seen the like, not even on sellswords from Essos who put in at White Harbor. They had sabers, I remember, but wide as shovels. Yours is... thinner and shorter than any blade forged around here."
Aerindir touched the hilt of his sword. The scabbard was worked from leather adorned with a fine white pattern, and the grip bore a design of twining vines. The pommel gleamed with pure silver.
"A straight sword is like a beam of light, but a curved blade is like the flow of water" he answered quietly. "It is the work of the smiths of Gondolin, a city that is no more. They forged steel with a straight spine and a sweeping edge, so the cut would be swift and light."
He drew the sword a finger's width from its sheath. The steel was neither grey nor black - it shone with a cold light. Along the blade, a short line of thin, elegant elven script appeared.
"Such a sword does not merely hack. It finds a path through armor."
Will only blinked in confusion, mouth hanging open. Olden, walking behind, stared hungrily at the silver pommel, but when his eyes met Aerindir's, he looked away at once and spat into the sand.
"The Rills" the elf said, changing the subject to draw their minds from the temptation of robbery. "Is that the name of this region?"
Hobb nodded, adjusting the strap of his basket.
"The lands between Barrowton and the Stony Shore, m'lord. Dozens of streams come down from the hills - that's why they call it the Rills. The soil's poor, but the hills break the wind and the sea feeds us. When it doesn't take, that is."
"And the continent?" Aerindir asked, trying to lay their words over the map of Arda in his mind. "Is this Endor... Middle-earth? Or perhaps the lands beyond the sea, where the ships of Númenor once sailed?"
The fishermen exchanged glances, and in their eyes was frank doubt about their companion's sanity.
"Endor? Middle-earth?" Olden repeated, picking at his teeth. "Hit your head on the rocks, did you, m'lord? What 'Númenor'? This is Westeros. The Seven Kingdoms. Well, the North, to be exact. Stark lands."
"Westeros" Aerindir repeated slowly.
The word was utterly unknown to him. It sounded like nothing in Quenya, Sindarin, or Adûnaic. Dread, cold and clinging, stirred in his chest - worse than any chill of the water. Arda is vast, and perhaps the storm had carried him to one of the distant, hidden continents that lie beyond the known maps of his people. Lands that even the ships of the Falathrim and Númenor had never reached. There is sun here, there is wind, but they feel different. The stars... I must see the stars tonight. They will give an answer.
The path curved around a high dune, and before them stood something that stopped Aerindir in his tracks.
By the road stood an old trunk, bent and twisted by the wind, stripped of bark and bleached white. But that was not what struck the elf. A face had been crudely carved into the wood. A terrible face, contorted in anguish, with weeping eyes. Aerindir felt a wave of revulsion. This was a desecration of the living.
"What manner of idol is this?" he asked, and steel crept into his voice. "By whose ill will was this tree defaced?"
"Hush!" Hobb hissed in fright, glancing about as though the tree might hear them. "That's a weirwood... well, what's left of one. The Old Gods watch through it. Don't blaspheme, m'lord. In the North we keep the Old Gods - nameless and eternal."
"Gods that demand disfigurement?" the elf said quietly as he passed. "My people revere the Valar, the Lords of the West. But they do not demand that faces be carved into the living flesh of the forest."
"Might be ugly" Olden muttered. "But we'd rather catch fish than starve. The Old Gods may be fearsome, but they're ours."
At that moment the wind caught Aerindir's cloak, and the hood he had drawn up earlier slipped back. Olden, walking alongside, suddenly stared at the elf's head and said in a low voice:
"What's wrong with your ears, then? Some disease? Or did a headsman clip them for thieving? I've heard that in the east they cut the noses off slaves and the ears off thieves."
Aerindir touched the tip of one ear without thinking. The question struck him as strange, almost childish.
These people have never seen the Firstborn.
"I was born this way" he answered with dignity. "It is no mutilation. It is the mark of my kind."
"Your kind?" Will studied him from a safe distance. "Crooked Jack in the village has sticky-out ears too, but not so... pointy. Gives me the shivers, m'lord."
"My people are the Eldar" Aerindir said, gazing over the fishermen's heads toward the horizon. "The Firstborn. Those who awoke beside the waters of Cuiviénen before the rising of the Sun. Has no one in these lands heard of us?"
Hobb scratched the back of his head through his grimy woolen cap.
"Firstborn... The steward who comes from Lord Ryswell to collect the taxes used to say that the first folk here were the Children of the Forest. Wee things - knew magic, could speak to beasts. But no one's seen them for thousands of years. Died out, or went beyond the Wall. As for your 'Eldar'... maybe there's something in the old tales, but I've never heard tell. We're simple folk up here in the North."
Aerindir's heart missed a beat. No one here had seen elves. What manner of land was this, where his people were unheard of? He stood on solid ground, yet inside him spread a cold sensation, as though he were adrift once more among the black waves of Belegaer.
* * *
Village of Windton, Southern Rills, the North of Westeros
Midday, 297 AC
Aerindir swept his hair back with a quick motion, hiding the pointed ears. In a shaft of sunlight breaking through the clouds, his hair burned like molten gold, stark against the grey of the moor and the grime of the fishermen's rags.
They crested the last sandy ridge, and the settlement spread out below. Aerindir had expected, perhaps, a small harbor. What met his eyes made him recoil inwardly.
The village was a chaotic huddle of low hovels built from rough stone, peat, and driftwood. The roofs were thatched with straw blackened by damp and age. Narrow paths wound between the houses, churned to a mire of mud and dung.
The smell struck the elf like a blow: smoke, sewage, rotting fish, and unwashed bodies. For one who had grown up in Tirion upon Túna, where the walls were whiter than snow and the air smelled of blossoms, it was like descending into an orc pit. It was squalid and filthy. And in that filth, people lived.
"This is Windton village, m'lord. Our home" Will stepped forward and drew a deep breath, as though glad to be back. "It's no Winterfell, of course, but it's livable. Warm enough, once the peat dries out."
They began the descent. Several women rinsing clothes in wooden troughs by the stream lifted their heads and froze. Conversations died. The only sounds were the splash of water and the bark of a scrawny dog. Aerindir felt dozens of eyes upon him. He walked with a straight back; his cloak, though a touch dirty, still looked like a king's mantle against their homespun.
"Who's that with them?" came a whisper, thick with fear and superstition.
"Look at his hair..."
"The golden-head..."
"Where'd he come from? The sea?"
"Some lord, maybe?"
Aerindir kept his face impassive. His golden hair reliably hid the "demonic" ears. The villagers saw only a strange, unnervingly beautiful foreigner whose beauty seemed as out of place here as a diamond in a pig's trough.
* * *
While Hobb led the strange guest toward his cottage, Olden made a point of slowing near the village well. Two men were already waiting: Gill the smith, wiping greasy hands on a leather apron, and old Edwyn, leaning on a stick.
"Some catch you've got today" Gill smirked, nodding toward the retreating golden crown. "Who's that, then? Some Lannister bastard?" He gave a coarse laugh. "Shines a bit much."
Olden glanced back to make sure Hobb had gone far enough, then leaned in, dropping his voice to a conspirator's whisper.
"Could be a dragon lord for all I care - he'd still be a man. But this one... You should see him without the hair covering. His ears are... sharp as daggers. Like a"
"OLDEN!"
The thunderous shout made the fisherman jump. Hobb, having noticed his crewmate's absence, had doubled back with the speed of a man who sensed trouble. His heavy hand landed on Olden's shoulder, squeezing hard enough to make him gasp.
"Walk on" Hobb said through clenched teeth. "See the guest along so he doesn't fall in the mud. And keep your tongue behind your teeth, if you value it. Now."
Olden opened his mouth to snap back, but meeting the older fisherman's hard stare, he thought better of it. Muttering something unintelligible, he hurried after the elf and Will.
"So who is he, really?" Gill pressed, folding his thick arms across his chest. "Out with it, Hobb."
The old fisherman spat at his feet, his whole bearing making plain that the conversation was a burden.
"A foreigner. From across the sea. The storm smashed his ship to splinters - he's the only one it washed up. Took a hard knock to the head, mumbles in some foreign tongue, but there's no harm in him. He'll sleep, warm up, and move on."
Old Edwyn narrowed his rheumy eyes, in which a naked greed glinted.
"But that iron he's wearing... Fine iron, that. Gleams like silver. Worth half our village, I'd wager..."
"None of our concern, old man" Hobb said sharply, looking him dead in the eye. "And none of yours. Our nets are full of holes, the fish won't catch itself. And here you lot stand, flapping your tongues."
He turned and strode away.
A handful of people by the well watched him go.
"What are you gawking at?" Hobb tossed over his shoulder. "Get to work."
And without another backward glance, he made for his house.
* * *
They reached a house slightly larger than the rest but just as dreary, with a sagging roof and clay-daubed walls. Thick grey smoke poured from the chimney.
"My home" Hobb said, pushing open the creaking door that hung on leather hinges. "Come in, m'lord. Don't think less of a poor man's roof."
Aerindir stepped inside, ducking sharply to clear the low lintel.
Within, it was dark and stuffy. The only light came from the hearth in the center of the room, where something bubbled in a soot-blackened pot. The chimney drew poorly, and the smoke stung the eyes. The air smelled of peat, boiled fish, and old hides. The floor was packed earth, trampled by generations of feet to the hardness of stone.
A woman stood by the hearth. Seeing them enter, she wiped her hands on a dirty apron. Beside her, on a pile of furs, sat a boy of about eight, whittling a piece of wood with a knife.
"Hobb?" The woman frowned at her husband, then her gaze shifted to the guest. Her eyes went round, her mouth fell open. "Old Gods... Who've you brought home?"
"A guest, Marda" Hobb grunted, pulling off his cloak and hanging it on a nail. "This is... Aerindir. We found him on the shore after the storm. Olden and Will are eating with us too, so don't grumble. The catch is poor - nets torn to pieces - but a guest is a guest."
The boy Torr leapt up, forgetting his carving, and stared at the elf with his mouth wide open. His eyes gleamed in the half-dark.
"Are you a warrior?" he squeaked, edging closer but not daring to touch the shining armor. "Or... a lord?"
Aerindir looked at the child. In the boy's eyes there was none of the clinging fear or avarice of the adults. Only pure, untainted wonder. The elf allowed himself the faintest, gentlest smile, though bitterness still lived within him.
"A lord?" he echoed. "I am no lord, child. My name is Aerindir."
"Torr" the boy answered, puffing out his chest and studying the armor with open curiosity. "But you are a warrior, aren't you? Nobody here dresses like that..."
Aerindir nodded.
"Yes. You could say that. I am a warrior. But my title is captain of the Guard of the Silver Light."
The boy's eyes blazed brighter still.
"A guard?..." he repeated. "What's that mean?"
Aerindir smiled sadly, and a shadow of grief touched his face.
"It is... very far from here, child."
"Torr!" Marda snapped, shaking off her stupor. "Stop bothering the gentleman with your foolishness! Sit down, m'lord. Sit down, all of you. We've only fish stew and stale bread, but it's better than the cold outside."
Aerindir nodded gratefully and, gathering the fems of his cloak with care, sat on the rough bench offered to him. The table was unplaned boards, sticky to the touch. Marda set before him a wooden bowl of grey slop and a hunk of dark bread. Sitting in the gloom of a stranger's house among strangers, the elf was struck by a sharp, piercing pang of longing. This world was grey, filthy, and cold. The food smelled of silt. But the warmth of the hearth was real. And the bread Marda had placed before him was a real gift of hospitality.
"My thanks to you, mistress" he said, receiving the bowl in both hands as though it were a precious chalice. "May the light not forsake this house."