[Introduction] Through the Redhorn Gate

[silvercrowned]

The mountain thrusts up before them like a knife: its peak is silver with ice and sunlight, but the lower slopes are the dull red of dried bloodstains. The path runs before them, narrow and twisting and treacherous, the climb up the steep mountainside sends the horses struggling and sliding toward the darkness beyond the cliff. Snow dusts the

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[misborncat]

He moves quietly, as any normal cat would (though perhaps not as quietly as an elf?), towards the fallen person. Asato is curious and a bit worried about the stranger. He doesn't like to see people hurt, but he hesitates to reach out.

Instead, he crouches nearby and sniffs, searching for signs of wounds greater than the simply visible ones.

[silvercrowned]

She would look up at some point, try to make out her surroundings - this is not Caradhras, and she has not been returned to Imladris, the very air is different, nor is this Lothlórien.

"Well met?" The words come hesitantly, and testing herself for broken bones she tries to move limbs and her body, and finding herself capable of sitting up, she does so.

[misborncat]

Asato moves to offer his help, if she needs it. "Hello," he says. "Try not to move too much. You look hurt." Of course he'll be worried about a stranger.

[silvercrowned]

"Merely shaken, it is nothing much. Say, have you seen any --" but his looks give her pause now that she finally takes them in, the dark skin less than the ears and tail "-- alike to me nearby, or have I strayed far from my people?"

'What new mischief is this,' she wants to ask, but doesn't. It would, perhaps, be unkind to someone who seeks to help, and the rest of the mystery she may solve later.

[thenotsofair]

He's friends with her mother, and, well, there is sort of a weird family debt he feels like he has to ever Finarfinian ever, especially since he cannot be within a twenty foot radius of the Finarfinian he should actually be making it up to without wanting to crawl into a mousehole and die.

That would probably upset Irisse, and probably isn't an option.

However, she is, at the moment, just a blond elf looking to be in not such good shape. He drops the game a few feet away, shoves his hunting dog away from licking her face, and crouches next to her. "---lady?"

[silvercrowned]

She'll start away from the dog, a quick motion, her eyes flying open and toward the voice.

"Thank the Valar," she breathes, and reaches a hand out to him, noting briefly the bright eyes and recognizing the same light that is in her mother's. "Pray tell, where have I been transported?" She is half-wondering if she died, and she passed through Mandos without remembering, and this is Aman.

[thenotsofair]

Celegorm gives him a harder shove away in response to that, tells him firmly to sit. Rather sulkily, Anto obeys, and Celegorm changes his focus back. Even if wince, who knows what the Valar have to do with this. Of course, he would wince even more if he knew the train of her thoughts. "--that's a very difficult question to answer," he settles, after a moment, still kind of frowning. "Are you all right? Wounded?"

[silvercrowned]

"An Orc ambush beneath Caradhras separated me from my companions. I fear they must be considered slain or taken if they could not follow me here." Her voice breaks a little, and she lowers her head. "Not wounded. I could escape, but what is this place?"

[ebonyjaenelle72]

Yay blond women who are cast as Claire Danes! (Not this one. But she often is.) "Oh," she says, quietly, coming out on the porch, and then, "Oh dear," and comes down the stairs, hurrying across the lawn.

"Are you all right? I'm not going to hurt you - I'm a healer."

[silvercrowned]

"Thank you -- are my companions near, did they send you?" She sounds unhappy, but Jaenelle will find Celebrían is not hurt - not badly, at any rate, even though she is scared and understandably upset.

[ebonyjaenelle72]

Understandably! and that is enough. "No," she says, a little sadly, "I'm afraid you've - rather changed location. Although - who was in your party? Maybe some of them..."

Because Jaenelle knows elves well enough by now to recognize, and heeyyyy. Her eyes light up, a little.

"You are related to Galadriel," she says, with a bit of a smile.

[silvercrowned]

"Maybe some of them are here?" And she'll rattle down the names of her escorts, perhaps a lady-in-waiting, several warriors, one scholar or the other - perhaps Erestor or Glorfindel were among the party, only because that would go a great length to reassure her if they ever make their way to Carpe, but for now, there is no one at the Mansion those names fit.

But she dares a softly hopeful look. "You are familiar with my mother?"

[eldeststark]

Robb just can't avoid people who look like they are in distress, especially when they are ladies. And he is in a particularly good mood, because he is now omg engaged. And while Grey Wind makes a nervous wolfy noise, he tells him firmly to sit, stay, and comes over to touch her shoulder gently, very properly.

"Er - excuse me-"

We never said he was a very good rescuer.

[silvercrowned]

The wolfy noise elicits a flinch and the lady reaching for the knife on her belt before she has opened her eyes -- orcs ride wolves. But the gentle touch and sound have her lower it again, this young man is most certainly no orc.

"Yes?"

[eldeststark]

He looks a little concerned about the reaching, but since she stops - not too concerned. "I'm sorry," he apologizes. "I know he's not - well, he won't hurt you, he's mine. Can I help you?"

[silvercrowned]

She still looks nervously at the wolf, such a large one as well - "It is fine. There was an ambush I could flee." By now she is not mentioning her companions any longer. "Thank you."

[doriath_crowned]

There will be a pair of boys by her - one of them murmuring, "she's beautiful," the other saying, "she looks like the Lady --"

"We shouldn't wake her."

"Yes we should, she needs to be in a safe place..."

And so on and so forth. They might even wake her with their worried chatter, perhaps.

[silvercrowned]

She will stay where she is, unmoving for a while, and let the voices wash over her. They remind her of her sons when they were young, the half-finished sentences and concern and the sometimes-contradictions.

"I -- am well. Thank you." She'll try to keep her voice measured and steady, although it may be shaking then and there.

[doriath_crowned]

Amusing, considering that they're in fact her uncles-in-law (?). Oh, Finwean family trees!

"See what you did?"

"I didn't do anything."

"My lady," one of them says, quietly, "Allow us to assist you? You are bruised, and battered."

[silvercrowned]

As a mother of twins herself, she probably finds it easier to follow their conversation and meaning than someone else might. But they are young, she thinks, and ought to be spared the whole truth of what happened.

"Would you guide me to your house, if it is yours, or to another safe space? There is, I fear, a force of Orcs perhaps not far from here, and I could barely flee them. It is not safe out here in the open."