When I Needed You *

First chapter sorta choppy and written over three years ago. Yes I know the idea is cliched but I promise once she gets to Middle-Earth things go much more smoothly.

Risen From the Ashes
Note on the text:

Title: Risen from the Ashes
Author: Aewnaur
Disclaimer: If I owned them, I would be to busy with an elf to write!
Rating: Mature Adult
Pairing: Aewnaur/Legolas
Archive: Just let me know where so I can go admire it.
Summary: AU alert! Original Female Character falls into Middle-Earth! Tenth walker tale.
Aragorn finds a girl in the woods, a girl not of his world. Legolas finds peace in an unlikely companion. Renee-Aewnaur finds out where she really belongs. Warning! First chapter (non-graphic) sexual assault minor mentions thereafter.
Author’s Note: Okay, call me crazy but I love these stories so I took everything I love about them and put it all into one story. This is loosely based on a blending of the book and the movie, but my girl just has to meddle! So call this an AU. And I like Haldir and I want him at Helm’s Deep so I will borrow that from the movie. Though in my world he does not die! Also I must note that there will be a lot of songs in the story. I am trying to be true to the spirit of the book. Also there are going to be several times you recognize lines or phrases from the book, I will not note them each and every time unless it is a full paragraph or something of that nature.

Contents

Book One: When I Needed You

I. Shattered Child
II. Bruised but not Broken
III. Beginning Again
IV. Ever Onward
V. No Fate
VI. The Last Homely House
VII. Into the Circle
VIII. The Calm Before
IX. Vision Quest

Chapter One: Shattered Child

I'd like to be a child again
So many things to do
Playground noise, and colored toys
And everything brand new
~Erasure~

Renee was not an ordinary girl by any standards, although the town she lived in now made her stand out spectacularly. Her family had move to this two red light town a couple of years ago, after her gift became too much for her to remain in the city. Dallas Texas was just to crowded for her extra sensitive gifts. Well her parents called them gifts anyway, she was more likely to call them her curse.

She sat in the classroom doing the stupid math work that really was never used in life unless you went into a specific field and even then most of it would be done on a computer. She hated math she would never understand why you needed to more that add and subtract. She scribbled furiously on the paper hoping that if her handwriting really sucked the teacher might mistake her answer for the right one. When the bell finally rang she slowly packed her things away in her backpack and when all of the other students had left she followed. At her locker she repacked her bag and headed out.

School is finally over for the day, thank goodness, she thought. Her parents had bought a house just behind the school so she wouldn’t have to ride the bus and her father had cut a path through the woods and lined it with stepping stones. So when the rest of the kids where heading out the front doors to their buses she calmly walked through the lunch room and out the back doors. No one bothered her, the lunch ladies for the most part were gone and the few who were still there where used to seeing her every afternoon. She sighed to herself, she had spoken to exactly no one all day long. She was getting used to being lonely, but still she longed for something more.

There was no one home when she finally walked through her back door, not that she had expected any differently. Her parents fought more now since they had moved to the country. Her father had been a hot shot martial arts instructor in Dallas, he liked to brag about training some of the body guards that were hired by actors when they made movies there. Jason Teco looked a lot like Chuck Norris with slightly darker hair. Her mother was a holistic healer, back home in Dallas she had been much revered in their community. Both of them had to travel an hour each way to get to their jobs here. There was just no call for their skills in the sticks of Alabama.

Her dad would probably get home first, probably drunk, and her mother would come in later. Renee was convinced that her mother was having an affair and she thought her dad knew. So pretty much her life had gone down hill in the last two years, to say that she was a troubled child might be an understatement. When she reached her room she closed and locked the door, it might not keep her dad out but for a while it made her feel safe. She walked over to the mirror and stared at herself. She glanced down at the calendar on the vanity and marked another day off. That made twenty three straight days of not talking, not even to herself, and no one had noticed. She walked to her closet and pulled out her packed hiking bag. She had gotten the idea to run away when she had heard about that psycho guy who hid in the woods for a long time to get away from the FBI.

Her father had insisted that she know all about martial arts, and she had been training since she was four. Her room was decorated with trophies from the different tournaments. Sha’nita, her mother had insisted that she know about herbs and stuff, so Renee knew that she could take care of herself in the woods. She just had not decided if the time was right yet, but if her dad came home and hit her again she was going. Her mind was made up. Last Thursday her father had broken down her door while she had been changing clothes and was mostly naked. He hit her and screamed that she shouldn’t tempt him like that after all she was not his real daughter and he might just take her up on the offer next time.

Renee shuttered at the memory. He had practically humped her leg like a dog while choking her. Now it was Thursday again. He got paid on Thursday and always stopped by the beer store before coming home. He had always been a heavy drinker and she had learned early to stay out of his reach when he was drinking. He didn’t realize his own strength when he was drunk, or he just didn’t care.

She checked her pack. Three changes of clothes, a jar of peanut butter, a couple of bottles of water, her bag of herbs and ointments. Damn where were her crackers? Oh right she had eaten them last week. She walked down the stairs to the kitchen and grabbed two sleeves of saltines and had just grabbed a soda when she heard the car door slam. She looked to the clock on the wall, damn how had she lost track of that much time? She ran up the stairs and shut her door quietly. Maybe if she was real quiet he would forget her.

She moved quickly but quietly and threw the crackers and soda on top of her bag and shoved it back into the closet. She closed the door softly then sat on her bed. After a few minutes of silence in the house she sighed and grabbed her well worn copy of Lord of the Rings. Sometimes she dreamed of Middle-earth like she was there, the dreams were so vivid. Even before she had read the books or seen the movies she had dreamed of huge silver trees.

She flinched as her door burst open, and her fathers bulky form filled the doorway.

“Do I look like I am made out of money, you fucking bitch? Huh answer me, do I?” He screamed.

She shook her head no.

“That’s right, I’m not but you just keep testing me. You left the refrigerator door open again. That’s a waste of my money. I’m the one who earns the money around here. Me. Not you. It isn’t your money your wasting it is mine. So you know what I’m gonna do?” He went from screaming to almost whispering and that really frightened her.

She still couldn’t make her self speak, she just shook her head again.

“I’m going to get some payment. That’s what I’m gonna do. It’s time you started earning your keep around here,” He was standing right at the foot of her bed.

She shook her head again, dreading the fact that she knew what was coming. It was no use fighting her dad and she knew it, even drunk he was dangerous. He actually had to register his hands as lethal in Dallas. Which means that he could kill her easy. She knew all of that but still when he reached for her, she fought back.

*

Several hours later Renee woke up with her entire body screaming at her. In between her legs was burning and her legs felt like jelly. She groaned as she rolled over. Well, this was definitely the sign she had been waiting for. She couldn’t stay here anymore. She staggered to her bathroom and immediately went for the shower. She stood under the hot water until it was cold, she just couldn’t believe what her mind was telling her had happened. If it wasn’t for the blood washing down the drain and the pain in her body she might have been able to convince herself it had all been a horrible nightmare. As she ran the soapy wash rag across her bruised chest she could feel at least one rib broken. That was going to make carrying her hiking pack uncomfortable but she was determined to manage somehow.

Thank goodness the bleeding stopped she thought as she pulled up her panties. Her inner thighs were bruised in the exact shape of a hand. He hadn’t even bothered to remove his pants and belt. What the hell, she thought, why would that matter? She put on her most comfortable pants, a soft stretchy cotton that hopefully would not aggravate any of her injuries. Next her tightest sports bra, hopefully it would help her ribs since she was not going to bind them, then a thin white sleeveless undershirt. After that she pulled on a regular t-shirt then her favorite long sleeved t-shirt then her hoodie. Wow, five layers! I’m too bulky to move. She pulled off the hoodie and the long sleeved shirt, then she tied the hoodie around her waist.

Moving silently while trying to put on a hiking pack was not easy, especially when you have bruised or broken ribs. But she finally managed. Last she pulled on her homemade silk gloves. They fit almost halfway up her arms and when laced just right wouldn’t move even while sparing.

She tried to carry her sword, it was won in her last tournament and she really didn’t want her dad to have it, but it was too awkward to just carry so she pushed it down in between her back and her pack. Then she headed down the stairs slowly. It was full dark and she had to feel her way down the stairs, when she reached the last one she just looked around and gasped. The living room was destroyed, from the looks of it she wasn’t the only person having to suffer her fathers wrath this night.

She decided she couldn’t worry about her mother anymore. The woman had been looking the other way for too long, maybe now that Renee was gone Sha’nita would wise up and leave the bastard. Renee grabbed the road atlas from the magazine rack on her way out the door. As she headed of down the trail back to the school she breathed her first breath of free air and smiled.

*

Renee had been walking for almost two days but she knew she wasn’t really getting that far away from her home. She was maybe the next county over. Staying off the roads and in the woods was slowing her down. But she didn’t want to be spotted by anyone until she was at least across the state line. Her sleeping bag was warm and everything but not really comfy like she could have wished. So she was extra tired early on the second evening.

She let her mind wonder as she stumbled along what she suspected was a deer trail. She thought about her ‘gifts’. Her mother believe in all that mystic karma stuff being almost a Wiccan in her beliefs, and her dad at one time professed to be a Buddhist though that had been a long time ago. Both of them had said her powers were a gift, but she knew otherwise. How could seeing the future help her? She had tried several times to change what she saw but usually they turned out even worse. She could touch something and know things about it, like the last day of school she had attended in Dallas. She had touched the desk and seen the student who had been sitting there just before her gunning down his best friend over some drugs. She had tried to tell the teacher why she was screaming in the middle of class but everyone had just thought she was crazy. Her parents had supported her until the police had shown up at their door demanding to take Renee in for questioning. Ever since then Renee had worn her gloves when she was in public.

Visions of the future that she couldn’t change, yeah some gift.

She sat at the base of a tree and ate a few crackers with peanut butter smeared on them. She was beginning to get heartburn from the peanut butter but she knew she would need to keep her strength up to continue the walk. She desperately wanted to drink the soda but knew it would only make her more thirsty, so she waited. She pulled her sleeping bag around her shoulders and laid her head on her pack. The stars were prettier here than they had been back home in Texas. She resisted the temptation to sing the children’s song Star Light Star Bright, but only just barely. Instead she heard a woman’s voice chanting in her head. The beautiful melody haunted her into sleep.



tbc...