No Road Home

Part the Sixth

A battered Windwalker stood at the prow of the grey ship as Cirdan himself piloted it across the Sundering Sea, some half a fortnight later, her small pack, filled to the top with lembas, by her feet. Elrond watched Unole from the deck near the cabin doorway, noting the slumped shoulders, the bowed head. 'She is despairing,' he thought. He shook his head in dismay. He did not know what to do. He had expended every option he knew in trying to make a place for one who had no place. He sighed deeply, unaccustomedly helpless.

She was not Elven. That was simply all there was to it. And no amount of effort, no level of trying, would ever make her so. Had she, as Mithrandir had said, a powerful bond to one of the Eldar, the thing might be done. But no one had known what to do with her, how to reach out to her. Despite himself, Elrond had been the only one to even truly make the attempt.

He suspected that Galadriel felt great sympathy for Windwalker, but Elrond had many times seen the human freeze up piteously, becoming stiff and tongue-tied, in the Elven Queen's presence, and it was not Galadriel's way to open up to such a one. A private conversation with Mithrandir, who had returned briefly from his explorations, had explained much in that respect, as the wizard had told him of Wind's terrible shyness, her total admiration of the Elves' culture, and her painful awareness of their beauty, in what she felt was a distinct contrast to her own appearance. This latter stunned Elrond, who considered Windwalker quite attractive for an adan.

"Galadriel intimidates her so badly," Mithrandir had informed him, "that poor Unole can barely function around her. The only reason she can bear being around you is because she understands what you feel, the loss you have known, but even you frighten her sometimes. Unole grew up on the streets, Elrond. She is herself, as you know, descended from the leaders of her people, but those people changed their way of determining leadership, rejecting her family in so doing, and she was left with a mean, wretched existence. This place," Mithrandir had waved his arms to take in all Valinor, "is beyond her wildest dreams, your people like angels to her. And Heaven is rejecting her," Mithrandir had said sadly.

Then Mithrandir had utterly shocked Elrond. "Did you know she is dying?" he had said. "Yes, even here, in this place. Her bowels are consuming themselves. It has slowed greatly here. But when she returns to the world of Men, it will ravage her. She will die, slowly and painfully. And...alone. Dreadfully alone."

"Does she know?" Elrond had whispered, horrified, suddenly understanding both what he had felt in her abdomen, and the thing she had wanted him to know but had been unable to say.

"She knows, Elrond," had been his confirming answer. "She knows." Mithrandir sighed. "I believe...she had hoped only to stay here long enough to die in this place, surrounded by beauty; perhaps even to be buried at the foot of a Suimhallorn. Now...even that is denied her." (like-mallorn)

Mithrandir had turned away then, his heart heavy, and Elrond had watched in stunned silence as the Istar slowly walked away, shoulders bowed with the weight of the human's pain. Elrond had not seen the wizard since.


The watchman's shout jerked Elrond from his reverie, and his head snapped up to see Windwalker perched precariously on the rail, leaning forward, out over the ocean. "Ai, Eru," he whispered fervently, realizing she intended to jump. A swift glance around told him he was closest. He lunged forward the few feet to the rail, grabbing her arm in a warrior's powerful grip as she began overbalancing. Elrond gave a mighty jerk, and the frail human flew backward, slamming against his chest. He wrapped both arms around her to restrain her as she struggled futilely against him.

"No! No!" Windwalker sobbed. "Please, Elrond, let me go! You don't understand."

"I know what it is to be alone," he said gently.

"But not what it is to have nothing, to BE nothing," she wept. "Look at you -- you're an Elven-lord. All of these people at your command," she indicated the crew gathering around them. "Why? They love you. They would die for you. You have that beautiful land -- Valinor." Wind stopped fighting, seeming to sag against him in hopeless defeat. She lifted her eyes to him. "Look at me," she whispered miserably. "When I die, there isn't anyone who will even notice. When I get back to the human world, I have no gorgeous house, no silks to wear, no servants. I don't HAVE a home. I live on the streets, or in the woods, until someone comes and tells me I'm not welcome, and I have to leave. Just like you did." Her eyes, overflowing with tears, scanned the ranks of Elves around them, then fastened back on Elrond's face. "I'm tired, Elrond. I'll die anyway. At least grant me the dignity to let it be of my own choosing."

Elrond looked deep into Windwalker's eyes, searching, seeing only bleak emptiness. A flash of insight came to him then; he saw the human woman lying alone in a barren, unkempt, weed-strewn field, her body still, unmoving, dead. Her dark sightless eyes, faded and dull, stared upward at the lowering sky. Scavengers circled her body, waiting. Suddenly a vulture swooped down...

He closed his own eyes against the vision, making his decision, as he turned to Cirdan. He, Elrond, would defy the very Council he had helped to create, so many long ages ago. He opened his eyes again, meeting Cirdan's, and seeing understanding and support there for the first time. Momentarily he wondered if the shipbuilder had shared his vision. He opened his mouth to speak, and found his taut throat would not obey. "Take us back to Mithbar," he said finally, voice ragged with the human's heartbreak.


Back in the House of Elrond, Windwalker merely sat listlessly, obviously in frequent pain, but saying little. The only time she left her room was to sit on the terrace. The entire household noted that, whenever her foot touched the terrace stonework, animals immediately left the forest to cluster around. Elrond left orders that a small bin of grain should be placed beside her door and kept filled, so that she could feed her beloved animals, her only comfort. He also ordered that she was to be under a suicide watch. Knowing that, of all the Golodhrim, she was most comfortable with him, Elrond tried whenever possible to be the watchman.

She ate little, if at all. Within days, even the servants noticed her body wasting away. A distressed Maltheneldor came to Elrond, as he stood at the window of his study watching Wind feed her animals. "Master Elrond," he murmured, "Windwalker has refused her meal again."

"I know, Maltheneldor."

"We are at a loss, my lord. What is wrong?"

"She is dying."

"Dying?" Maltheneldor gasped, horrified. "In Valinor?"

"Yes, my friend. Were she not in Valinor, she would already be long dead. And she has no one to be with her at the end." Elrond's eyes never left the human, who bent to give a kernel to a squirrel.

"This is why...you have allowed her to stay?"

"It is."

Maltheneldor nodded. "I will consult with the kitchen," he murmured thoughtfully. "Perhaps we can come up with something that will tempt her appetite."

"That is...kind of you, mellon." (friend)

As Maltheneldor left, Elrond stepped quietly through the French door. "You seem to be as much friend to squirrels as to deer," he noted, as one of the small creatures frisked across Wind's shoulder.

Windwalker looked up. "The fourfoots are the only ones that have always accepted me," she said simply. "Perhaps I should have been an animal instead."

"Tell me why you feel this. Has your life been so miserable that you would find no reason to relive it?"

Windwalker swallowed once, trying to speak around the lump in her throat. "Do you really want to know, or are you just making conversation? Uncomfortable with the dying? Or didn't you know?" she challenged softly.

"I know you are dying, Wind," Elrond said gently, taking her hand and leading her to a seat in the sunshine. "I want to know more about you. I would not have your name be forgotten."

Windwalker chuckled humorlessly. "It would be better forgotten."

"Tell me."

"Not much to tell."

"Then I will not have long to wait."

Windwalker sighed her defeat, sitting in the intricately wrought chair and leaning back. Elrond joined her, sitting in the companion seat and steepling his fingers. "All right, Elrond," she began, "my father died in a car accident before I was even born. He would have been Chief, but some hundreds of years ago, the European peoples came and...well, the history is long and complex. Suffice it that my family was rejected long ago. Probably not so long to you, I guess."

"No."

"Are you really..." Windwalker started to ask, then caught herself, her shyness silencing her.

"Really what?" Elrond encouraged gently.

"Are you really several thousand years old?"

"Yes." He smiled.

Wind chuckled. "Must be nice, not to age or grow ill. You don't look but a few years older than me, if that."

They were silent for a time.

"Anyway," Unole continued, "he died. I never knew him. We weren't exactly well off. Mama made a living scrubbing floors and stuff. It kept a roof over our heads -- barely. The table was always pretty empty, though. I did as much as I could, as small as I was, to help. Then, when I was around six, she died too. Murdered."

Elrond's eyes widened. "Why?"

"Stupid gang drive-by shooting."

Elrond took this in, not quite grasping it. "A...gang?"

"Like..." Wind considered for a moment. "Are the chronicles of your exploits in the earlier Ages of Middle Earth accurate?"

"They are, in most respects. The British human was quite an excellent historian. He recorded faithfully...everything he was told."

"Okay, then...kinda like a human version of a pack of...yrch. Did I say it right?"

"You did," Elrond chuckled. "Your Sindarin HAS improved, I will admit." He sobered. "I understand now. It was a meaningless death."

Unole nodded.

"So from the age of six onward, who took care of you?"

"No one."

"What?!"

"Elrond, I'm a half-breed," she said softly. "Mama was white. European. Daddy was full-blood Indian. That didn't go over well with anyone."

"I am Half-Elven." He squared his shoulders, raising his chin in defiance of such prejudice.

"I know, but..." Windwalker waved her hands vaguely. "Your people take that better than my people do today, I guess." She glanced down at her hands, fidgeting in her lap. "Nobody would claim me. And I fell between the cracks in the system. I was on my own, out on the streets. I never stayed in one place long enough to have any real friends, or anything like that. Homeless people aren't...welcome, very many places. I learned that, really fast."

"How did you eat? Where did you sleep?"

"Anyplace I could find food and shelter. Usually I could find scraps in the dumpsters behind restaurants to eat," she told him. "I got good at foraging wild plants for food and medicine. Nearly killed myself a couple times learning, though," she reminisced. "Couple medicine people took pity on me and taught me a few things. And I learned to watch the animals. If they ate it, I probably could too. And that's the way it's been, ever since. Even here."

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-eight."

"You have been malnourished."

"Probably." Wind shrugged.

"For a long time."

"Yeah."

"Would you like something to eat now?" he offered smoothly.

Windwalker sighed, seeing through his diplomacy. "You're worried about my appetite."

"Yes," Elrond admitted.

"It won't be long now, Elrond," she whispered, looking across the lawn to the forest. "I've...quit fighting it. Don't trouble yourself."

Elrond felt pain shoot through his being at her simple declaration. He eased out of the chair, kneeling before her. "I...have many apologies to make to you, Unole Aisvi," he said quietly, using her Tsalagi name for the first time.

"It sounds so pretty when you say it," she murmured, hearing her name pronounced with a Sindarin accent. "And so...ugly...when others..." Years of pain suddenly flooded up within her, and a sob escaped her. The dam shattered then, and she wept bitterly.

Elrond pulled her into his arms, holding her as she wept. "Shhh," he whispered. "It is neither the name, nor its owner, that is ugly. It is what is in the speaker." He rocked her gently, as he would a child. "I swear to you that you will not be alone, Unole. Nor will you be forgotten."


Each day thereafter, Elrond met Wind on the terrace, and they fed the animals together, sharing their cultures' knowledge of the furred ones. Maltheneldor began bringing their meals at this time, as both he and Elrond noted that Windwalker was more apt to eat a bit during these times of sharing.

Elrond also gave orders that Windwalker should be treated as a full member of his household, for whatever time was left to her. When the Elves of the House of Elrond discovered that she was dying, they were dismayed. Windwalker found herself the recipient of quiet gestures: a beautiful flower in a delicate vase magically appearing on her bedstand, or a daintily-embroidered robe suddenly found in her wardrobe. These little offerings astounded her, and she did not understand. Until she had come to Valinor, no one had ever given her gifts.

"Elrond," she asked him one day, as they communed on the terrace, "are you responsible?"

"No, Unole," he told her. "They know your...condition. I admit to giving orders that you should be as one of my house, but the gifts are theirs to give."

"But...why?"

"Because you are holding yourself with grace and dignity to the end, as would befit any Eldar."

"Hah," Wind chuckled bitterly, "the only thing I've ever done right in my life is dying."

Elrond winced. "These...fourfoots," Elrond used her term for the animals, as he swept his arm in an arc about the lawn, "would beg to differ with you, I believe."

/We would,/ came the answer. He gazed at her knowingly, and she bowed her head, embarrassed.

"Teach me Tsalagi," he asked her then, with a smile. "It is an intriguing tongue."

"Vv," she grinned at him mischievously, glancing up sidelong.

"Meaning?"

"Yes."

"Let us start with our friends here," Elrond suggested. "Deer?"

"Awi."

"Hawk?" Elrond pointed high into the air, wondering if she could see it.

"Tawodi," Wind shielded her eyes with her hand, following the line of his finger. "Oh! There! Tawodi, galutsv!" (Hawk, come!)

To the delight of human and Eldar, the hawk swooped to the terrace.