Author's Note: This story is borne of the mention of three 'random' names of the dead at a recent kin event (news of three fellows killed while guarding a caravan bound for Imladris on Company business). It offers some background for a future kin RP about the items taken.
The brothers Elias, Brenner, and John were forged in the bitter flames of Archet’s fall. Growing up in the shadow of its end, they had survived the chaotic years which had followed for all those who had been told they were ‘fortunate enough’ to have lived through the brigand assault.
Like many orphaned as a result, they had managed to cling to the edges of the law to survive. Unwelcome in Combe, Staddle or Bree, they learned early that the world had many hard edges to it, and in that harsh upbringing, they found strength only in one another.
When they first crossed paths with the Company of the East Road, it was an elf called Naridalis who had seen beyond the raw, unrefined tenacity in them, and had offered them a path toward something better. She extended the invitation of kinship not merely to fill up the ranks, but to give three broken lives a purpose worth fighting for… little knowing she was binding them to a fate she would come to later, and most bitterly, regret.
Yet, in the beginning, that unbreakable bond of the brothers was a source of some curiosity for Naridalis; curiosity and concern. At times she even felt uneasy with it. For whenever the brothers were assigned to patrols, she felt a subtle prickle of apprehension, as the brothers were virtually inseparable. They moved as a single entity; their senses and strikes overlapped. While they were undeniably capable fighters... more than capable of turning away common cutthroats or beasts... their reliance on one another was a hidden vulnerability she felt.
They would often lose focus on the wider situation, while protecting each other with a ferocity that bordered on the reckless at times. More than once she had had to get them out of a jam… many in the Company had in fact. The brothers were apologetic, at least, on the surface. They had grown to trust their new found family. Grown to trust that when they ever did get into trouble, that the Company would have their backs.
It was a beautiful, tragic devotion that made them excellent armsmen each, but hindered them from ever truly standing as individuals in the wider world. Such was the business of the Company, especially when ranging far from Breeland and the support of allies. And for this, they were often held back, kept away from the more dangerous of contracts the Company found itself handling.
For a long time, Elias, Brenner and John had been filled with a wide-eyed wonder when around Elves… other Elves… Elves they didn’t know, Elves not in the Company. Elves in the far off lands to the east. Their fascination had been truly ignited by the whispered legends and tales of Rivendell often traded over drinks in the Knackered Neekerbreeker tavern and when out on patrols with other members of the Company.
When the opportunity finally presented itself, to escort some artefacts of note to Rivendell, they were quick to volunteer. With other resources stretched thinly, and the road there better travelled of late, finally, they were given leave to go. They spoke of the journey to be as if it were a pilgrimage.... a final shedding of their haunted past, as if walking to the light of Lord Elrond’s sanctuary itself would... heal them.
But the long east road is cruel thing.
It is as cruel as the lives they had escaped when growing up, and it demanded a price of them that they could not pay, for all three had been slain en route; the artefacts stolen away.
They will not now witness the golden light of the hidden valley or the peace they so desperately sought. Instead, they lie upon the cold earth near the Last Bridge.
In the hours which passed since news of what happened reached the Company, Naridalis had taken some small solace in the realisation that the brothers at least had had each other at their ends. They were inseparable in life, and now, so too in death would they walk together. They were beyond the reach of a world that had never been their ally, and because they could no longer seek justice for themselves, she would ensure that the ones who had ended the brothers would soon find their own lives cut short.
The Company would ride at dawn to the Last Bridge, for answers... for justice.. and maybe for some small amount of vengeance as well.
