No Road Home

Part the Third

Elrond awoke the next morn, unaccustomedly frustrated and angry, still mulling over yesterday's argument with Mithrandir. 'The human does not belong here,' he thought vehemently. 'She has no concept -- none of these "modern" humans do -- of what is important to Elvenkind.' He was shocked that she had even managed to get aboard the grey ship, much less sail home to Valinor with them, undetected. Gandalf himself had placed the spells of protection on Cirdan's vessels.

His frustration only grew as preparations for the day went on. As Maltheneldor, his devoted manservant, asked him his desire for breakfast, Elrond waved him away. "I am not hungry this day." Maltheneldor bowed to the Elven Lord and withdrew. Elrond stepped onto the terrace, looking out at the Valinoran landscape and beyond to the Sea. "I will walk in the forest," he decided. "There I will find peace."

He set out alone, his feet stirring no blade of grass nor leaf as he passed silently into the forest.


Sometime later, Elrond's equanimity and good humor had returned, as he visited with tree and lichen, boulder and pebble, bird and beast and babbling stream. He always delighted in the way the animals came to him. This was something that Elves loved, and Elrond was especially good at it, conversing with his furred and feathered companions.

So it was a surprise to him to hear a voice nearby, also conversing, but not in Sindarin. He moved closer, in the silence only an Elf can achieve, blending in with his surroundings, to see who the being might be. He was stunned to see Windwalker, sitting on a fallen log, surrounded by animals, and softly speaking a language Elrond neither recognized nor understood.

"Osiyo, unalii usdi. Dohitsu? Osda? Osda dv! Ah, tsadulis tsaldati? Osigwu." (Hello, little ones. How are you? Good? Very good! Ah, do you want to eat? All right.)

Elrond watched in amazement as the human woman held out grain. A deer stepped up to her, fearless, and ate directly from her hand.

"Tali ulosonv saquui. Ah, gesvi osda." (Two after one. Ah, that is good.)

At her apparent command, the animals shared the grain, taking turns feeding from her hands.

"Sunalei osda, vv? Oh, tsiskwa uwoduhi! Tsiskwa osda!" she said to the sparrow that landed on her shoulder and began to chirp. (Good day, yes? Oh, pretty bird! Good bird!)

Unexplainably drawn to the delightful little sylvan scene, Elrond stepped silently forward. As he expected, Windwalker took no notice of his presence. To his surprise, however, neither did the animals around her; their focus remained on the human. He moved steadily forward, until he stood directly behind her, watching.

Windwalker fed the animals happily. They accepted her, seemed to like her, and she never felt condemnation or criticism from them. She sighed contentedly, as close to happiness as she had ever been in her lonely life.

"What tongue do you speak? I have never heard it."

Windwalker stiffened in shock at the voice immediately behind her. Of all people to interrupt her happy little interlude, it would have to be Elrond. It already irked her no end that, despite the alertness of her own people, she had discovered she could never hear the Golodhrim approach. She watched in dismay as her animals scattered at her start of surprise. Elrond, too, stared in confoundment.

"They...fled from me," he said softly, chagrined.

"No," Windwalker sighed, "you startled me, and I jumped. They ran from that."

"Will they return to you?"

"Eventually."

"May I join you, and await them?" Elrond asked courteously, curiosity overcoming enmity for the moment.

"It's your forest," she sighed again. "I don't belong here."

"At least you know this," Elrond retorted.

"I've known since the beginning," Wind said softly, a catch in her voice that, to Elrond's ears, bespoke tears all too near the surface. The Elven lord decided to let the matter drop for the moment.

The animals were already starting to return as Elrond folded his robes and seated himself gracefully on the log near her. Wordlessly she held out her hand to him, and when he opened his long fingers, she poured some of her grain into his palm.

"You are animal-friend," he noted.

"I...am," she agreed.

Both of them knew the unspoken thought: But not Elf-friend.

"Where did you get the grain?" he continued, offering it to a buck, who accepted it.

"I traded for it this morning. Last night I made Gwaloth some moccasins like mine. She liked them."

"Oh." A pause. "And how did you meet Gwaloth?"

"Gandalf introduced us."

They were silent for awhile, feeding the fourfoots. It was, Wind reflected, probably the first time he had not been berating her for her very existence in this place.

"You were speaking to them earlier," Elrond ventured again. "I did not know the tongue."

"It was Tsalagi. Some pronounce it 'Cherokee.' They are my people, one of the tribes of North America. The word means, 'cave people.'"

To Wind's surprise, Elrond chuckled. "Very similar to one of the meanings of my own name."

"Really?" Windwalker glanced at him curiously.

"It is a long story."

"And...one you don't want to tell me."

"Not...now," Elrond amended. "Perhaps later." The buck nudged his shoulder meaningfully. "Ah," Elrond devoted his attention to it, "you wish to know --"

"Why we aren't friends," Wind finished softly, and Elrond shot her a startled look. "Yes, Elrond. I can speak with them too. It's part of my heritage. Some Native Americans can do it, too. Not all, but some." She looked away, then back. "Galutsv -- come," she murmured to the buck.

In response, the buck moved past Elrond to the human woman. She put her small hand gently on its muzzle. "We are not friends," she told the creature, with no sign of rancor, only sadness, "because I have no friends. I have no one. I am not supposed to be here, and he is a guardian of this place." Elrond stared at her, shocked at her revelation.

'No one at all? Anywhere?' he wondered, astounded. 'How does she exist?'

Both of them clearly heard the buck: You have no herd?

"No."

But we like you. You are kind. You can join our herd.

"No, Buck," Wind said softly, "I can't."

Why not?

"I'm not one of you. Oh, it doesn't matter," Wind answered quietly, "that's just...the way it is."

The buck turned to Elrond. Then change it.

"It is not my place. She is not...as I am." A sadness suddenly filled Elrond as he spoke, a barrier inside him breaking down.

Then make her as you. Or, make her Elf-friend.

Elrond's eyebrows climbed as he considered the buck's idea.


Elrond sat watching, as the teachers of young children worked with Windwalker, instructing her in the Sindarin language and history. They found she was already well versed in their history, having devoured as a youngster the books written by their English historian, and believed by most humans to be fiction. Matters of language, however, she found difficult. Windwalker had never had formal schooling before. She had learned to read and do some basic mathematics, thanks largely to innate curiosity and a year spent sheltering in a library under the gentle tutelage of a sympathetic librarian. But the complexities of Sindarin, coupled with her feeling of being tested, proved frustrating in the extreme.

"She progresses slowly, my lord Elrond," one of the teachers reported to him. "I begin to wonder if we shall ever move on to Quenya."

"But she IS progressing?"

"She is. However, her impatience is high. We do not understand this. She drives herself, and grows frustrated when she cannot grasp the intricacies of our tongue."

Elrond glanced past the instructor to the student, seeing Wind fling her pencil in irritation, as she attempted to spell her vocabulary words. "AH!" her voice came to his ears. "Agida! I'll NEVER get this right! I do good to spell in English or Tsalagi, let alone Sindarin!" (excrement)

"You do well, not good," one of the teachers corrected, and Elrond saw the tears that gathered in Wind's dark eyes, even from where he stood. She fought them back, however, refusing to cry, and obediently bent her head back to her paper, struggling to recall the Sindarin alphabet as well as to master spelling.

"You see?" the instructor noted. "This impatience alone concerns us, Master Elrond. No Elf would ever behave so."

"Be patient with her, my friend," Elrond advised. "I have it to understand from Mithrandir that she may never have had such training before."

"As you wish, milord." The teacher bowed, and joined his colleagues hovering over their student, to her immense chagrin.


"...You MUST learn to think as one with your surroundings," Elrond explained, for what seemed the hundredth time to both of them. "Only then will you move without disturbing them."

"But...I'm Indian. That's what we do, too," Windwalker protested in confusion.

"Not to this extent."

Wind sighed, and watched as Elrond moved silently, gracefully, across the lawn. In his path, not a blade of grass was bent. There was no sign of his passage whatsoever. 'He's better than any scout of my people ever was,' she marveled. 'How can he do that? Surely he has weight...'

Elrond turned to see the thoughtful bemusement on her face. "What is it you do not understand?"

"Elrond...do you..." Wind became tongue-tied. Her cheeks flushed pink.

"Continue," Elrond said, with some irritation, his patience beginning to wear thin at the human's inability to comprehend.

"How...m-much do you weigh?" Wind finally stammered.

"I have a normal weight for my height," he huffed, offended at the personal question.

"I-I didn't mean to..." She swallowed hard. "I'm just trying to unders-stand."

"What? You think I am too light to make an imprint?"

"I...I just wondered..."

Elrond came to stand beside her. Deliberately, he placed his foot lightly over hers, then commenced to lean forward, watching her face intently, as his weight began to bear on her foot. Her eyes widened, then narrowed, as the pressure slowly grew. He increased the intensity of his observation, and when she had just begun to grimace in pain, he quickly removed his foot. "Are you convinced now?" he asked blandly.

"Y-yes."

"Good. Now enough of such foolishness. If you would learn to be as we are, and live in Valinor, you must learn these things. Reach out and find your environment, become one with it, and move as I showed you." He glanced around them. "Yonder is your friend Buck. His back is to you. Go to him and touch him without his knowledge."

Windwalker nodded, thinking swiftly. Elrond saw her close her eyes for a few seconds, feeling her reach out. Then, slowly, she began to move forward, gradually picking up speed as she grew used to the motion. He watched her slender form in silence as she made her way toward the male deer, Buck taking no notice of her presence. Elrond glanced upward for a moment, noting the leaves on the trees; they were still, no gust of air creating movement. Then he returned his attention to Wind, just as she touched Buck lightly on the hindquarters. The deer jumped, startled, and whirled to face her. Elrond heard the laughter of human and deer as Windwalker embraced her embarrassed fourfooted friend, and could not restrain a slight smile. Windwalker fairly danced back to Elrond as Buck returned to grazing.

"How was that?" she asked happily. "Buck said I scared him out of a year's antlers."

"You touched him without his awareness of your presence," Elrond admitted, "and that was well done. But you made a sound like a soft wind in the grass. And the air is still." He knelt, studying her outward path. "And see here...there are three bent blades in this footprint."

Windwalker's face fell.


"Windwalker?" one of the Elves remarked scornfully, glancing in the direction of his subject. "More like Groundstomper, if you ask me."

"Buck should be ashamed that she got close enough to touch him."

A group of Elves had come to consult Elrond on an important matter of governance, and while they awaited his arrival, they chatted among themselves on the terrace. Windwalker had been visiting with Buck's mate Awi when they arrived, and now was trapped in a corner of the porch, the subject of their ridicule, forced to listen to their mocking.

"Why the Council does not simply return her is beyond my understanding."

"I heard Mithrandir refused to vote."

"Why? It is patently obvious she does not belong here."

"You know the White Pilgrim. He keeps his own counsel."

"Mithrandir spent much time among the humans. He was said to be fond of them. Maybe he misses them."

"Feh. Let him go to their world, then. Valinor is ours."

Suddenly something rose up within Windwalker. She turned to the elves, a fierce expression on her face, her shoulders squared.

"Let Gandalf alone," she said in a firm voice. "Your resentment is with me, not him." A sharp twinge of pain made itself felt in her side, and she put her hand to it, pressing hard, as she faced down the group.

"She is correct, for once," a voice said from behind her. "Mithrandir is of the Wise. He should not be scorned, no more than you would me."

Elrond moved past Wind, stepping onto the terrace, challenging. "Or would you mock me to my face?"

"No, my lord Elrond," one of the Elves said, abashed.

The Elven Lord stood before them, imposing in his ire. "Why, then, do you mock my pupil? Like any student, she is not always successful, but she is making a valiant effort. And the things we are attempting to teach her do not come naturally to her. Any success she makes is a great one."

Windwalker's jaw dropped as Elrond defended her.

"She does not belong here," one of the Elves declared.

"She does not 'belong'...ANYwhere," Elrond noted. "She has no belonging place. If you have not seen how hard she strives to learn in order to belong here, you cannot begin to know whether she belongs, or does not." He drew himself up to his full height; Elrond was one of the tallest Elves, and he looked down at the group before him. "Have you instructed her in the ways of the Eldar? Have you seen this thing firsthand?"

"...No, master Elrond."

"Then let us hear no more of it. Come," he gestured the group away from Windwalker, "let us go inside and discuss YOUR business."

And Windwalker was left alone with the animals on the terrace.