The wind coming down from the valley was beginning to get colder for the elf as he sat by the fire he had just lit, enough branches on the ground in the area he chose to settle for the night to make a decent enough fire.
Normally he wouldn’t risk it, fire attracted as many things as it repelled, and most often the worst types of things. He still wasn’t sure where he was after he had made his escape, but the fire was necessary as the weather began to turn. There was no point in being overly careful of his pursuers if they found him frozen solid anyway.
Life was choices and he made his, letting the warmth of the fire radiate over his cold bones and body.
It had been two long days since the band of orcs had tried ambushing him, thinking they had an easy mark with the lone traveling elf. Luckily their ambush had been a crude one, and he’d spotted it well before the small Curve in the road where they had set it.
What he had not counted on was accidentally stumbling into their small encampment as he veered off the road, well ahead of their intended ambush.
One arrow had grazed him as he had taken off from the ten or so orcs that chased him through the woods, thankfully the treeline had not been far off from the clearing they'd chosen for their temporary encampment.
They had pursued him longer than he'd anticipated, he was clearly not anyone of any means judging by his attire, so it surprised him that they had tried tracking him for at least a day.
By the first evening he was sure he had lost them, they were noisy and clumsy in the woods, especially to his ear, but he camped without a fire the first night just too err on the side of caution.
His second night now he risked the fire rather than freezing, and he huddled by it, munching on some berries he had found in the woods. He was for all intents and purposes quite lost as he had sped through the forest following a game trail the last two days, having seen a few deer along the way but little else in the way of wildlife. The cold wind led him to get south, he was not prepared for a winter out here on the trail.
Besides being cold, he felt decent enough, luckily the one arrow that had grazed him seemed free of poison, and the dull ache was wearing off now, perhaps some rest tonight by the warm fire would have him refreshed in the morning with more wits about him to find his way to the main road leading south.
He had traveled alone much of his time since he had decided to stay, a decision he went over in his mind less and less as time rolled by. He was content, all things considered he enjoyed this middle-earth and the people that inhabited it, finding his way doing odd jobs but mostly traveling, it was a beautiful place and he wanted to see as much as he could.
He had met some interesting people along the way, but made no real friends. His distance to others was not something purposeful, and it was not anything he could recall being before, perhaps a remnant or a mental scar from those thousands of years ago when he faced the dark one’s forces. So long ago it was hazy now, sometimes it felt like a dream to him, perhaps it was. However he looked at it, there was always a nagging feeling of unfinished business with the Elf, like something that drew him to this land, that wouldn’t let him leave. His other life was only memories now, and those seemed to fade as the time went by, names and even faces were harder and harder to recall.
Perhaps one day he would forget everything, but he knew better.
The dark forces of his past would never let anyone off that easily.
