Warnings: ‘downtrodden’ females, and… fluffiness

Characters: Aragorn, a stranger maiden, Barliman

Story Notes:

This story is an event told from three perspectives – Barliman, Aragorn, and the maiden. The point of view of the writing in each part (holding a single perspective respectively) might be different one from another.

Here I am trying to bring the stereotype of women in most cultures to the surface. I do not know if I am successful in that regard or not. Anyway, please enjoy the read!

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It is raining. It has been so since hours ago, and rain in the middle of winter like this is not a welcome guest. The snow will part under the travellers’ feet, melting into one with the ground and creating a mire the length of the road; and when it has a chance to cool, the ice which it will become is dangerous for any race to tread upon. The raindrops are, if possible, colder – and wetter, yes – than snowdrops too, chilled even more by the accompanying wind. The two reasons alone can make the hardiest of travellers baulk and seek around desperately for warm and dry shelters.

The common room in the Prancing Pony is extraordinarily packed, and all rooms in the inn are rented for various lengths of time. Men and a few Dwarves chatter merrily around the large hearth, drinking to their fancy and singing off-key songs. Few huddle in the chilly corners.

But one, a hooded figure sitting near the stairs to the second level of the inn, is completely alone. A pair of keen grey eyes survey the surroundings lazily from under the protective shadows of the hood and the corner; however, contrary to his gaze, the figure himself looks rather restless.

“Barliman.” He stops the inn-keeper when the flustered stocky man passes bearing a tray of mugs full of ale. The tray would have fallen from Barliman’s grip had the mysterious man not reacted in time to save it.

“What do you want, Strider?” Barliman asks as politely as possible. he would gladly snap at the mysterious guest if not for Strider’s formidable – and downright scary, according to the rumors and gossips around Bree – persona. His heart thumps quickly in his chest, as if trying to escape the cold sensation which now is gripping it fast.

“Do you still have some pipe-weed left? I will trade it with a piece of information or story if you would, or a carving,” the person called Strider replies nonchalantly, his eyes impassive.

Barliman fidgets. He is torn in his decision. He wants to make this Ranger as uncomfortable as possible so that the latter would leave; but in the meantime, he thinks that he might appease a possible danger to his inn and other guests by granting the Ranger his request. Some people in Bree and its neighbouring settlements usually charge a Ranger with much higher price than usual for anything, but Barliman is an honest man, drilled to be so since his childhood by his parents. He always tries to be fair to everyone; yes, even to the Ranger visitors who usually both unnerve and fascinate his other guests.

“Hmm?” Strider tilts his head slightly to one side, questioning.

“Y-yes… I-if you had some carving for me to put on the mantle…” Barliman stammers at last in a low whisper. He hates this vulnerability, yet he cannot help it. Strider has a strange air around him which somehow commands respect and awe. It does not suit the Ranger’s ragged and dirty appearance, Barliman thinks, and that opinion only serves for more nervousness when he is in the presence of the Ranger. It is as if Strider is a spy to a great power in the guise of a ragged, uncultured wanderer.

He informs Strider in advance that the pipe-weed must wait until after he has done some other jobs around the common room. He hurries away when Strider nods his ascent.

In the middle of serving ale to his customers, Barliman spies the Ranger. He notes how Strider declines requests for stories from young men during a span of half-an-hour with either a firm – but tiny – shake of his head or a curt ‘no’. `That man is too reclusive for his own good,` he grumbles with disapproval to himself. `He seldom talks, and usually in low tones if he does anyway. What folk is his kind… appearing and disappearing abruptly, and as hard and unyielding as stone too; a suspicious fellow, indeed.`

“Queer people, Rangers, they are,” he mutters as he is cleaning his hands with a rag behind the counter – a safe distance away from Strider. Then, unable to prolong the unevitable anymore, he stalks to the pantry, firing orders to Nob his hobbit helper when they come across each other on their ways. He retrieves a package of Longbottom Leaves from inside a sturdy cascade in the corner of the pantry but hesitates for a moment before exitting. “This should do. Hmm. Perhaps I could even persuade him to tell some stories if I agreed to smoke pipe with him?”

The idea is discarded for a while, though, when the inn-keeper returns to the common room. It is right when someone opens the door from outside, clearly another unfortunate guest who is soaked and chilled right to the marrows, and dirty with mud from the scattered puddles on the East Road. Barliman Butterbur cannot provide him any form of lodging or even a temporary shelter, sadly. There is even no space left in the common room except for the narrow lanes between the tables and chairs or the corner where Strider lurks; and no good folk would like to sit by a Ranger. Thus,, after dropping the package of pipe-weed on Strider’s table, he approaches the visitor with the intention of asking him to seek for another inn or tavern to spend the foul weather in.

When he nears, he notes how similar yet different the stranger is from Strider – with some trepidation in his wearied heart. The stranger, who is presently taking the inniciative to close the door behind him uninvited, is hooded and cloaked almost like in Strider’s fashion. There are some differences, nevertheless, about his cloak. The broach of the cloak is pinned under his chin instead of to his left like in Strider case; and the broach itself is also different: a weird symbol on a circular metal pad, not the simple silver star pinned to Strider’s cloak. The visitor is taller than Strider, although not by far, but as slim and supple as a woman – which, to Barliman, is an insult to such a formidable-looking person.

Regardless, what he gets from his scrutiny only makes the inn-keeper more nervous in approaching him, both physically and about the problem of the fullness of the inn.

“Sir…” he begins hesitantly.

He could swear that the stranger is smiling – if not outright smirking – under his hood.

“There is no room left here; all full…”

He choaks when the stranger laughs softly. Weariness tinges the newcomer’s voice, but it is not uncommon among the guests in the inn. No. What makes Barliman feel like jumping out of his skin is the undeniably female character in the laughter. A woman! In travelling attire, garbed formidably, and in such weather…

Barliman the simple, cheery inn-keeper suddenly tenses and draws to his full height. He is not aware – yet – of a pair of shining grey eyes peering over his shoulder to the stranger he is facing. He is overwhelmed by a collection of conflicting emotions.

As a father of two daughters, he strongly disapproves of the way the woman bears and adorns herself. He is also concerned that a woman is allowed to travel in such a foul weather, as he would never permit his daughters to do so. A good maiden should be at home preparing a meal or sewing or doing household chores in such weather, he would say, and the reason is truthful enough in his opinion. For the same reason, he has disallowed his female helpers to work in the inn if they are not willing to lodge there ever since the weather has turned particularly bad two days ago. As a good man, he has to protect the women folk in any means, or so he thinks, and that extends also to this stranger.

But, as an experienced inn-keeper, he suspects the woman being there not for a good purpose, and this he fears. He ever detests maidens or women who sell their own bodies for dishonourable men. And besides, the situation in the inn has been complicated enough with the weather and shortage in almost everything without a trouble maker – if it is what she is – adding to the problems. He had better stop any unwanted things before one has a chance to occur…

“What business brings you here, stranger?” he asks harshly, his timidness and uncertainty gone. Now, despite his warring thoughts, he is convinced that he has firstly to uncover the stranger’s motives above all. Only then he can ponder about how to get rid of the woman… back to her home or anywhere else, preferably outside Bree if she indeed is as foul as some men he has ever had to encounter. A cruel thought, yes, but if she is of one of the kinds he despises, there is no way for her to take shelter under his roof.

“A place safe from the wind and rain,” the stranger, standing with her back blocking the door, answers in a simple tone; it gives Barliman no hint of dishonesty. During the inn-keeper’s scrutiny, she has let go of her pack. It slide by one shoulder strap over her sleeved arm and rests by her booted feet.

`No. She must not be a body-seller, but why is she here now, then? It is still too suspicious.`

`And why did she not say something about warmth from the fire, a good bed to rest in, or meal? Should she not want all those comforts? After all, all weary travellers seek such things from an inn or a tavern in the least. Does she just want to cause trouble here then go? But how if…`

Barliman, his prior conviction stripped from him rather mercilessly, begins to show the tell-tale signs of nervousness and uncertainty again. He looks around the common room from the corner of his eye, to the oblivious Men and Dwarves, all male, then to the farthest corner where Strider skulks.

His breath catches in his throat when he meets a pair of steely eyes belonging to the Ranger. Strider, unlike before, now seems more… alive, as if the stone fortress around him were about to break away, relenting to the flooding water from inside; the Ranger’s impassivity is nearly gone. Swivvling around, Barliman discovers that Strider’s intense gaze is pinned to the newcomer. If he were at the receiving end of that look, muses Barliman, he would have quailed and excused himself hurriedly. Contrary to what he would have done, though, the stranger, who finally looks around and notices Strider also, instead appears to bask in the fierce attention.

And before Barliman manages to digest all the situation, the newcomer has snatched back her pack from the floor. She slips between Barliman and the earthen wall, almost running to the corner where Strider sits. The Ranger himself leaps to his feet and away from the table he has been occupying. He is only in time to receive a fierce, heartfelt bear hug – quite unladylike – from the stranger; Barliman’s eyes, which are used to the dimness of the common room and are naturally keen, detect a wince on her cloaked shoulders when Strider returns the embrace, however. They toss their heads back, shaking off their hoods in the process, and laugh joyously as if kins long sundered.

The woman kisses the Ranger’s each cheek then cradles his head in the crook of her arm as if a mother to a child. Barliman is taken aback. He never thought that she would do such a thing, and to a fearsome Ranger no less!

And Strider does not protest at all! He must notice that all eyes are now fixed on the odd pair. So why does he seem so careless? Should he not maintain his menacing guise?

Barliman has never seen Strider when in his ‘carefree mode’ like that. Years of toil and hardships seem to be lifted from the Ranger’s face and eyes. Now he looks like a teenager, a handsome one at that. His eyes burn ever brighter – if that is possible; they are filled with fierce joy, intense love and – strangely – hope for comfort and warmth of one that he recognises. What slightly disturbs Barliman, though, is that Strider really looks like a child welcoming his parent home.

No. The maiden – for now Barliman sees that she is too young to be a full woman – is too young for such an old child. She may have similar pair of grey eyes – which are kindled with the same emotions and intensity – and similar features, but they do not guarantee anything in the matter of kinship. Barliman does not detect any signals which could point that she is a mother to Strider.

Well, except when she starts to inspect Strider’s face and limbs and body for – probably – injuries…

The Ranger tries to dodge her hands, yet she is too strong for him.

No. Not to strong. He must be stronger than her. He must just be playful with her, as suggested by the light of his eyes – into which Barliman cannot stand long gazing. After all, that is what an indulgent son would do to his mother… if he is indeed her son…

Laughter and whistling and catcalls fill the room after the definite silence – which has only lasted for some seconds. Amidst the din, a Dwarf asks why Lady Ringil is in Bree, some men from around Bree push Runner verbally to leave the settlement as soon as possible, and – to Barliman’s horror – one of the inn-keeper’s daughters chooses the time to appear and ask Doelimbs to teach her some artistic knitting or tapestry-weaving tricks.

To his utter confusion, all three names seem to point to only one person: the maiden.

Who is she that she could melt Strider’s cool, impassive attitude that way? Who is she that she gets so many names? Why was she outside, roaming the road, when all good maidens should be cooking or singing by the hearth in their homes, safe and comfortable? Is she from his kind? Is she really his mother?

“Miss, you create too much attention here,” the inn-keeper, with the last remaining courage and resolve in him, strides forward and addresses the maiden pointedly. He would not be frightened in his own home. And by the way, his daughter will have to answer to him for befriending wild strangers. His tone is clear, although he does not speak it aloud; “Leave here, stranger. You are unwanted.”

That veiled shooing statement, above all treatments Bree has ever given Strider in the long years, perks the Ranger’s ire – to Barliman’s great dismay.

Nudging the newcomer gently aside, now the Ranger towers before Barliman, his eyes flashing dangerously. The inn-keeper cowers away. However, unfortunately, a pair of slim but strong hands catch his upper arms before he could flee. They are not that of Strider but Runner.

The maiden, being several inches taller than him, stares down and meets his eyes. There is no anger in those dark pools, only slight confusion and resignation.

“I am unwell, master inn-keeper,” she mouthes. Barliman draws back as if stung or slapped, his face reddening. He cannot retreat more than a pace, though, as her hands are holding him in a vise grip. She is truly strong!

His apparent weakness does not go unnoticed by his other guests.

“Whoaa! Defeated by a lass, Barliman?” a Man crouching by the fire jeers gleefully, his voice steady despite his drunken state. Barliman clenches his fists but does not respond to the insult. He has a more pressing problem, that is why: he still cannot extricate himself neither from the maiden’s stare nor from her hands’ grip! He feels naked under her steady inspection. Those eyes seem to glow too!

Barliman utters a small, involuntary whimper when at last, accompanied by a long sigh, Runner releases both her holds on his arms and eyes. She turns her back to him and addresses Strider instead. She is speaking in a lilting language, the language of the Elves.

Barliman’s hair stands on end. Is she an Elf in disguise? Her ears, framed by her spotless raven tresses, are round; yet her eyes…

Who is she?

“Where are you going?” the inn-keeper finds his voice again when Strider also turns around, ready to ascend the stairs.

“To my room,” the Ranger says slowly, bemused and irritated; but he Is not angry anymore, which Barliman is thankful for.

“Why does she follow you?” Barliman presses on boldly despite his better judgement.

Strider frowns disapprovingly. “Do you count me as a dishonourable man, Barliman? I thought you had known me well enough.” And with that he stalks off. his form seems to grow and fill the narrow stairway up to the second level of the inn; he looks like an angered noble, if not king, in Barliman’s opinion.

Runner, after glaring reprovingly to Strider’s back, spares Barliman a rueful, apologetic glance. Then she follows after the Ranger, but at a more sedate pace, up the stairs. Her gait is a little heavy, but Barliman is sure that, in any other circumstances, she could be as nimble as a doe indeed.

Barliman the inn-keeper is not about to be defeated that easily, the portly man thinks – a little ficiously. He finds that his courage is fueled by an unknown persistence. Taking an instant decision, he trails after the pair, his jaw set. If he looked at a mirror at this time, he would find that he himself is looking formidable.

He positions his right eye around the key hole after the maiden has closed the door behind her. Thankfully, she did not leave the key in the hole after she had locked the door, so the key hole is now available for him to peep through. He watches as the pair argue quietly in the Elven tongue. Strider is sitting on the edge of the bed and Runner is standing on the empty space between the single bed and the wall.

Then, as though by prior consent, Strider looks away and Runner strips her clothes. Barliman blushes red, thinking that he is being dishonourable himself by catching a maiden in a naked form. But, he reasons to himself, he does not mean harm upon her. And so he only lowers his gaze.

What he sees draws a sharp breath from him.

What should be skin around her waist is an area bandaged neatly. It is odd that the bandage is only damp while her other clothes are soaked wet. But all the same, Barliman cares more to how she shivers in the freezing air with nothing to fend the chill with. And she winces when she puts a hand gingerly on her left side too. The wound concealed by the bandage must have been dire, if not still fresh, to elicit such reaction from her. Has she walked a long way to the inn? How far? In such weather…

The realisation of the situation seeps inevitably to Barliman’s mind.

She has been injured.

And she has pressed on to reach the inn.

Barliman shooed her away.

She did not protest.

Tears well in the inn-keeper’s eyes. He feels like a brute. He reasons that she should have told him, that she should not hold a pride reserved only for hardy, foolish men over the wound…

The turmoils in his mind is only soothed when, after dawning on dry clothes, Runner sits cross-legged – with barely-concealed pain – in the only chair in the room. She closes her eyes and exhales a long breath.

Strider, leaning to the headboard of the bed, is singing in a low voice in the Elven tongue. Somehow Barliman knows that the song is about healing and peace and warmth and comfort, and he unconsciously leans into the soft notes with gratitude. His burdens and troubles since the rain has begun are eased from his shoulders, and for the first time in the span of two days he smiles genuinely.

It appears to work wonders on Runner also. She seems to forget her pain and cold and smiles blissfully. Her posture relaxes and she leans almost casually against the back of the chair. She seems to be in deep sleep, betrayed only by the way she sits – cross-legged with each hand on her knees; such is not a relaxed pose for someone to slumber on, the inn-keeper assumes.

Barliman does not know how long the song lasts; it has died down when he is once more aware of his surroundings. All he knows – and witnesses – is that Runner is opening her eyes, and they are lit by the same eerie light but brighter this time. She rises to her feet, stretching and flexing carefully.

A gleeful grin lights Strider’s face as she approaches the bed. As if waiting to be tucked in, he scrambles into the covers and seeks a comfortable position in the bed.

“You are fifty, Estel!” Runner chuckles lightly, teasingly, using the Westron for the first time after her encounter with Barliman. The inn-keeper cannot hear Strider’s reply – if there is any –, but he does witness when Runner tucks the Ranger in. She lays herself down across his form afterwards, leaning on her uninjured right side and encompassing his head in the same cocooning embrace like it was in the common room.

`Surely Strider is too old for that? He is fifty years old – if Estel is his other name. He could have been expecting a grandchild!`

Barliman is incredulous. He frowns and mutters to himself.

Thus, he fails to hear a soft call coming from the room he has been spying on, not until the second time Runner calls him. “Barliman. I know you are there.” She has been settled back into the chair, but now she rises again from it – with a tired, somewhat-exasperated sigh. She grabs the key from the nightstand beside her, then strides to the door. She unlocks it and gestures the flustered inn-keeper to go inside.

“I apologise, Miss—“

The maiden waves her hand once again, this time indicating that she would not hear him.

Sighing, Barliman steals a glance to the bed, to the sleeping visage of Strider which is not marred by worries and thoughts. The Ranger’s weathered countenance is back, but now Barliman can see well the child hidden beneath it, the child that may as well never be shunned from the Ranger’s character as long as he lives.

`Yes, and as long as there are people like Runner who can crack his outer layer and bring the inner youth out.`

`Speaking of Runner…`

He eyes her warily. She has reclaimed her seat and is now gesturing to the stool on the corner near the door. “Please have a seat, good Barliman. We have to talk.”

Good? She calls him good? After he has neglected her and even did not acknowledge properly her statement that she was ‘unwell’… (The way she said it, it was as if she only caught a slight cold and a need for small comforts, not a possibly-hideus gash on her side!)

“Master Barliman.”

The inn-keeper’s head jerks to the maiden’s direction, surprised and lost. When the maiden gestures to the stool again, though, he is ready and quickly takes it, bringing it closer to where the maiden sits. He assumes that they are going to be talking for a long time.

He fidgets when the awaited talk is replaced by silence. He is very glad when Runner finally speaks.

“What you did was not entirely your fault,” she says before he can think of anything to ease the uncomfortable silence with. “I hate to say this, but indeed caution is needed among people like me and Strider. Not for a bad reason; only that dangers are not that far from us.”

She chooses her words with great care, it is obvious. Now she looks like a diplomat. Barliman wonders what other changes could come upon her.

“What is your business? And you don’t seem like Strider or his folk.” Barliman points at the broach now fondled in Runner’s fingers, having been taken out from her cloak hanging over the back of her chair. She shrugs and lifts the broach. Then she tilts it in such an angle that it catches the light from the lantern hung from the low ceiling and sparkles brilliantly.

For the second time, Barliman sucks in his breath. Now that the broach is lit properly, the weird – but beautiful and intricate – symbol shines with many colours within its various designs.

On the very centre is a relief of a golden flower blossom which kind the inn-keeper has never seen, wrought seemingly out of pure gold. The flower itself sits on the middle of a rayed silver star encircled by a wreath of leaves, flowers and berries made of small colourful gems. The broach is round and made of pale blue metal. In a way it looks beautiful, befitting a lord’s House, yet in another it could be perceived as outlandish or even garish.

“I am not a Ranger, yes.” The maiden, lowering her broach again, pauses for a moment. “I have been working with them for a long time, though. We have many enemies – yes, and they are yours too – so we have to be always vigilant and disclose as little information as possible if not needed.”

“Including injuries?” Barliman finds himself saying. He flinches when Runner’s back straightens and her eyes become hard.

“Especially injuries. If the enemies get word of any weakness, they are surely on to employing it to their dirty ends.”

Barliman shivers. Runner does not mask the statement nor soften the stark truth that seems to emanate from the words. She is too much like Strider.

Yes, too much like him, despite everything, and now Barliman remembers some of his earlier questions about the maiden – dares he call her a young lass?

“You acted like a mother to him.” He jerks his head to the bed, his hands squeezing each other behind his back nervously. “Are you his mother? But he looks older than you…”

“Really?”

The word brings Barliman’s eyes back to Runner, and for the third time he inhales sharply. The closed eyes are now opened fully, pouring out countless hardships, sorrow, pains and hurt from what seems like ages as if a spring flood.

“I am older than he, old enough to have helped raise him,” she says, and that is all she wishes to impart on the matter. Barliman bows his head, suppressing an urge to squirm. The estimated count of years in her age makes his skin crawl.

“Why were you called by so many names? What are you called aside from that?” he asks again when the silence stretches too long. Runner smiles and shakes her head gently, her eyes once again closed and impassive. She rises from the chair and motions Barliman to do the same.

“That,” she says firmly but without hostility, “is for you to find out yourself. Ask those who call me by those names and you will know the answer; better than if I were to guess and give you some.”

Barliman struggles to muster an indifference look with no avail. Well, he grunts to himself, he is indeed not born nor trained to be other than an inn-keeper, is he? Those masks are only for high people or perhaps the Rangers too, whoever they are.

Before Runner closes the door in front of him, though, he gathers enough wits to declare some parting words: “You ar lucky, Miss. No one could breech Strider’s defenses like a battering ram on a gate like that. And one of your names is beautiful – what’s Ringil, I wonder…”

Smiling, Runner shrugs off his compliment and makes to close the door. The last word the inn-keeper gets from her is what he assumes the translation of her name. “Crowned Star.”

Barliman shakes his head. “No wonder,” he mutters as he is making his way down the stairs, grimacing at each protest of his crieking joints. “Crowned Star, eh? Fitting, I say. She behaves like a queen. I wonder who gave her that name. Ah yes… those Dwarves… I have to ask them – perhaps some ale is enough to make them talk? Or some… Eh, is that my pipe-weed?” Guiltily, he spots the package of pipe-weed discarded in Strider’s spot – a name given by the people for the place Strider is used to sit in the common room of the inn. “Deliver later. Now for the ale. Where is Nob? That hobbit…”