Chapter Text
“No! Don’t pull that up!” A voice calls from just behind her. Hild startles and turns to see a man standing close behind her. She frowns, wondering how he had approached without her hearing.
“This?” She asks, holding up one of the weeds she had pulled from the garden bed, “It’s a weed. Two years ago I had a young persimmon tree sent from Gondor and the seeds must have been in the soil that came with it. I’ve been pulling it up ever since.”
The man’s eyes widen, they are gray she notes, and much warmer toned than the gray eyes of the Gondorians. He is young, no older than thirty, with black hair falling just past his shoulders, and dark tan skin that looks quite out of place in Edoras. This man must have ridden in with the Dunlendings her father had summoned.
He kneels beside her and picks two of the leaves off the plant to crush between his fingers, “This is Athelas, you will find nothing better to put on a wound. It’s the only thing that has any effect on orc poison.”
“You’ve fought orcs?” Hild asks, baffled by this man’s audacity.
He nods, “I’ve killed many and their wargs. That’s why I’m here, my father heard about your warg problem in the Wolde and thought we should offer our services.”
Hild scoffs, “You think a handful of Dunlending hunters can accomplish more than my brother’s éored?”
“Yes.”
He is irritatingly confident and rather handsome in his own way. Hild shakes her head, “What can you do that they cannot? My brother brought home six warg pelts last time he rode out.”
Her companion smiles and seats himself beside her, “Only six? How long was he gone?”
“Nearly a month.”
“I’ll bring you twice as many in half the time, though you won’t want them. Warg pelts smell foul no matter how you tan them. Wolves run with wargs, how would you like a set of wolf pelts for your bed instead?” He asks.
Hild regards him, he’s smiling at her. That is certainly odd. Why was a Dunlending boy in her garden offering to adorn her bed with wolf pelts?
“Why are you here?”
“To offer aid--”
“No, why are you here, in my garden?” Hild asks.
“Am I unwelcome?”
“I haven’t decided yet, who are you?”
He is still smiling at her, those gray eyes glinting with green and gold. “My name is Fearghal, son of Fiachna, the raven king of the men who dwell on the slopes of the Misty Mountains.”
Hild raises an eyebrow at this, “The raven king? I wasn’t aware Dunlendings had kings, does this make you a prince?”
Fearghal shakes his head, “We don’t, not in the way that you do. Just because a man is the son of a great man does not mean he has a right to rule. We have our own word for it that suits it better. In Dunland if a man wants to be a king he must first be a chieftain, and one does that by proving he can protect several families and the lands they inhabit. A king is a man who has convinced several chieftains to swear oaths of fealty to him and in doing so defends an even larger area.”
“Why the raven king?”
“You didn’t see the birds my father brought with him?” Fearghal asks.
Hild shakes her head, “I didn’t think it worth my time to gawk at Dunlendings in my father’s hall.”
“In your father’s hall?”
Hild smirks, “Yes, the large one behind us. You can’t have missed it.”
“Ah, so you’re the princess of the horse lords. I wouldn’t have thought to find you with your hands in the soil.”
“So you assumed I was some serving girl sent out to weed the kitchen garden? One within reach of your charms?” She asks coyly.
“You find me charming?”
Hild pauses, “You’re amusing, and only moderately so.”
“Princess you wound me.”
She shakes her head in annoyance.
Near the hall someone shouts in a language Hild does not recognize and Fearghal frowns, “That would be my cousin, Iollan. I’m needed it seems.”
Hild watches him get to his feet, “I should probably go as well. I have my own duties to attend to.”
He leans down and offers her his hand, after a moment’s hesitation she takes it and lets him haul her to her feet. They stand like that for a moment, eyes meeting for the first time. He grins and lifts her soil smudged hand, dipping his head to press a kiss to her knuckles before releasing her.
“Well princess, I will see you on our return.”
Hild watches him turn on his heel to go, “Are you so certain of that?”
“You’ll be wanting the wolf pelt blanket I’m going to make you. We’ll make short work of this so long as your brother and his éored stay clear of us,”, and with that, he jogs off to rejoin his kinsmen. Hild watches him go, wondering why she hopes he is right.