The fire struggled and flickered, its faint light dancing over the broken stones of Osgiliath. Shadows stretched toward the unseen edges of the ruins, their shifting shapes mirroring the weight of the night. The air was damp and heavy, carrying the smell of wet leaves and the sharp tang of burning sap. The Anduin murmured low and steady somewhere in the distance, threading its quiet melody through the darkness.
Ungoránë sat just beyond the firelight’s warmth, his axe resting across his knees. Its broad head gleamed faintly as the flames licked the air, its solid weight grounding him against the drift of his thoughts. In his hand, the whetstone moved in slow, deliberate strokes, each pass leaving a whisper of stone on steel—a steady rhythm that filled the quiet between his memories.
Nearby, Thordur worked on a wood block with his knife, the blade flashing in the firelight with each precise motion. Thin slivers curled away, gathering at his boots like fallen leaves. The shape emerging from the wood—a rooster—was rough but unmistakable. Its proud neck curved with defiance even in its unfinished state. The firelight played along its uneven edges, lending it a life it hadn’t yet earned.
His hands moved quickly from years of habit, each motion flowing into the next as if carving were intuitive, like drawing breath. Thordur didn’t seem to think much about it; his eyes rarely left the block of wood, though the faintest smirk tugged at the corners of his lips whenever a particularly stubborn splinter gave way.
Thordur was the first to break the silence, as he always was. He leaned back, holding the half-finished rooster aloft so it caught the fire’s flickering light. The wood’s rough edges gleamed faintly, its wings still blocky and unformed, but its proud neck arched just enough to suggest defiance. His grin was boyish, and his tone was light with mischief. “What about this, Ungoránë? If you were surrounded by Southrons and had to choose between this fine rooster and that axe of yours, which would you pick?”
Ungoránë didn’t look up immediately; his focus was still on the slow, deliberate strokes of the whetstone against his axe. The rhythmic scrape filled the pause between them, steady and sharp. Finally, he glanced at the carving in Thordur’s hand, his expression unreadable. When it came, his voice was quiet but laced with dry humor. “The axe. Always the axe.”
Thordur’s grin widened as though he had expected the answer but couldn’t resist teasing anyway. “No faith in the rooster?”
“It doesn’t cleave through armor,” Ungoránë replied, letting the whetstone scrape again. The sound carried through the cool night air, clean and precise, like the note of a blade drawn from its sheath. The faintest twitch of a smirk played at the corner of his mouth, gone almost before it appeared.
Thordur chuckled, shifting his weight as he tossed the carving lightly into the air, catching it with a flick of his wrist. “True enough. But this one’s special. My father swore by it back at the inn. Called it the ‘Feathered Guardian.’ Said it scared off drunks, rats, even a tax collector once.”
The whetstone paused mid-stroke, the sound of stone on steel giving way to the soft crackle of the fire. Ungoránë tilted his head slightly, his gray eyes flickering toward Thordur. When it came, his voice was low and even, like the Anduin in its quietest stretches. “Did your father run an inn?”
“In Lossarnach,” Thordur said, his tone warming with the memory as he turned the wooden rooster in his hands. The carving was still rough, its edges catching the flickering light, but the fondness in Thordur’s voice lent it life. “A little place off the old road. Not much to look at—low ceilings, creaky floors—but it was home. My father ran it like a captain runs a ship. Spill your ale; you mop it up. Break a stool; you fix it. Can’t pay? You shovel dung until you can.”
A faint smirk tugged at Ungoránë’s lips, there and gone before it could fully take shape. “Sounds like he’s kept better order than most captains I’ve met.”
Thordur’s laugh came quickly, soft and genuine—the kind of sound that carried warmth through the cold stones of Osgiliath. His grin widened as he leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. “Careful, Ungoránë. Talk like that, and you’ll be peeling potatoes until next winter.”
The fire popped suddenly, a spray of sparks spiraling upward to join the canopy of stars. Ungoránë returned to sharpening his blade, the whetstone resuming its steady rhythm. Thordur, however, leaned back, stretching his legs toward the fire’s warmth. His face was relaxed and open, but a glimmer in his eyes betrayed the mischief that always simmered beneath his words.
“Once, my brother thought he was quite clever,” Thordur started, his voice adopting the rhythm of a cherished story. “He watered down a barrel to extend the ale and served it to a traveler. Naturally, my father caught him and forced him to drink it all.”
A laugh escaped Ungoránë before he could stop it—a rough, quiet sound that startled even him. It was rusty and unused, like an old hinge forced to move. “He actually did it?”
“Halfway,” Thordur said, his grin widening, his teeth flashing in the firelight. “Then he staggered into the yard and started serenading the chickens in Elvish. He passed out in the hay. We still call him the Bard of the Barnyard.”
A quiet laugh escaped Ungoránë before he could stop it, rough and rusty like an old hinge forced into motion. He shook his head, dark hair falling into his face momentarily before brushing it back. “Elvish, huh? That’s impressive.”
“Is it?” Thordur shot back, tossing the wooden rooster lightly into the air and catching it again. “Don’t tell me you’ve never spoken it. I thought all you soldier types picked up some poetry between the drills and the drinking.”
Ungoránë smirked faintly, though his gaze flickered toward the firelight, shadows playing across his face. “Not quite,” he said, his tone clipped. “It didn’t come easily to me; it never has.”
Thordur leaned forward slightly, curiosity glinting in his eyes. “You mean to tell me the Shadow Wanderer, wielder of mighty axes, stumbled over a few fancy words?”
Ungoránë paused, his fingers brushing absently along the blade of his axe. “More than a few,” he admitted, his voice quiet but carrying the weight of old frustration. “There was a captain during my training in Minas Tirith—Valhir. He believed every soldier should know Elvish, not just for tradition, but because it was the language of Gondor’s heart. ‘The language of light,’ he called it.”
“Sounds poetic,” Thordur said, his grin widening. “Not what you’d expect from a grizzled old captain.”
“He wasn’t a poet,” Ungoránë said, the faintest shadow of a smirk tugging at his lips before it faded. His tone softened, and his gaze was fixed on the flickering firelight. “He’d seen more battlefields than I can count. He believed that knowing the language wasn’t just about words but discipline—understanding what we fight for and why. He said it kept us closer to something worth protecting.”
For a moment, Ungoránë shifted slightly, his fingers brushing the axe’s edge as if to steady himself. The weight of the vivid and raw memory lingered, pulling him back to the cold stone halls of the barracks.
“I wasn’t the best student,” he said finally, his voice quiet as though testing the weight of his words. “The words twisted in my mouth like they didn’t belong there. Every mistake felt like a failure—proof that I didn’t deserve my uniform.”
Thordur’s grin faltered slightly; his teasing tone was tempered by curiosity. “Valhir didn’t let that slide, did he?”
Ungoránë let out a faint, humorless chuckle. “No. He was relentless. When I stumbled, he called it pride. When I avoided the lessons, he made me stay longer. He said a soldier who couldn’t master himself couldn’t hope to master anything else. I hated him for it at the time.” His voice dropped lower, almost to a whisper. “But I respected him, too, because he was right.”
He paused, a faint breeze stirring the damp air as the shadows cast by the fire shifted, restless and flickering, while his thoughts drifted more deeply into the memory. “There was one night—after I’d fumbled another lesson—when he kept me behind after the others had gone. I was furious, but he wasn’t angry. He stood there and said, ‘You can leave, Ungoránë, if you can say one thing properly: Estelë tulya. Hope endures.’
“One night, after I’d fumbled another lesson, Valhir made me stay behind after the others had gone. I was furious. But he wasn’t angry. He stood there and said, ‘You can leave, Ungoránë, if you can say one thing properly: ‘Estelë tulya. Hope endures.’”
Ungoránë paused, his grip tightening briefly on the axe as the memory settled deeper into his thoughts. Even now, in the ruins of a city Valhir had fought to protect, he could hear the captain’s voice—steady, unyielding, like the Anduin itself. Valhir’s lessons had seemed harsh at the time, his words cutting as sharply as the blade he carried, but they had stayed with him, echoing in moments like this when the weight of shadow pressed hardest.
He glanced at the fire, its flickering light casting uneven shapes across the stones. Hope endures. The words felt fragile here, surrounded by ruins and fading embers, but they lingered all the same.
“And did you?” Thordur asked, leaning forward, his tone softer now, the mischief in his eyes replaced by genuine interest.
“Eventually,” Ungoránë replied, his lips twitching into a faint, fleeting smirk. “I think he let me go more out of pity than pride. But those words… they stayed with me.”
Thordur raised an eyebrow. “The lesson or the language?”
Ungoránë’s gaze dropped to the axe in his lap, the firelight glinting along its edge. His voice, when it came, was quieter than before. “Both.”
Thordur laughed again, the sound warm and genuine, though it lingered a moment too long, like a note that didn’t quite resolve. “Well, good for you for sticking with it. It sounds like Valhir was the kind of man who got what he wanted from people, whether they liked it or not.”
For a brief moment, his grin faltered, and something flickered in his eyes—quick and faint, like a shadow crossing the firelight. He glanced down at the wooden rooster in his hands, his knife moving slower now as if the task had become less about precision and more about keeping his hands busy. Then, with a quick shake of his head, he flashed another grin, mischief back in full force. “Maybe I should’ve had someone like that when I was growing up—might’ve saved me from a few bad decisions.”
The joke landed lightly enough, but Ungoránë caught the edge in his tone, the brief crack in the usual easy warmth. He didn’t press, though. Thordur had a way of sidestepping conversations when they cut too close.
“He was.” Ungoránë’s gaze returned to the axe in his lap, his voice dropping softer. “He said it wasn’t about perfect words. It was about meaning them. That’s the part I’ve never been sure of.”
Thordur caught the note in his voice but chose not to prod. Instead, he smiled, his grin easy and warm as he leaned forward, holding the wooden rooster between his fingers like a trophy. “Maybe my father should have been a captain,” he said lightly, humor softening the air between them.
The comment caught Ungoránë off guard. He tilted his head slightly, his gray eyes narrowing as he studied the carving in Thordur’s hand. After a moment, he let out a faint, humorless chuckle, a sound barely passing beyond the space between them. “Might’ve saved some of us from worse mistakes.”
Thordur’s grin faded, the easy mischief in his eyes giving way to something quieter and more thoughtful. He glanced at Ungoránë, his expression uncharacteristically serious. When he spoke again, his voice was low—a tone meant for one man and no one else. “And maybe you should save yourself from some of your own.”
The whetstone paused in Ungoránë’s hand, the rhythmic scrape of stone on steel falling silent. The stillness was sudden, almost jarring, as though the world held its breath. The weight of Thordur’s words settled heavily between them, unspoken yet undeniable.
Ungoránë stared at the axe resting in his lap, its edge gleaming faintly in the wavering firelight. The weapon felt heavier than it should have, its heft pressing against him like the weight of his name. Shadow Wanderer. The man who walks in darkness. The name whispered through his mind, carrying the memories of choices made and paths taken that he could never undo.
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The words stuck in his throat, unformed and jagged, like shards of something broken. The silence stretched between them, vast and empty, like the space between stars—a distance that could be felt but never crossed.
Thordur broke the silence first, his voice lighter now but edged with something softer—an undertone of understanding or maybe just curiosity. “Enough about me. Tell me—what’s the story behind that name of yours? ‘Ungoránë,’ meaning Shadow Wanderer. It sounds like something out of a sad old song.”
Ungoránë’s fingers tightened briefly around the axe’s handle resting across his lap. The motion was small, almost invisible, but Thordur caught it. Ungoránë muttered something under his breath, his voice low and indistinct; the words were too vague to matter. It was a habit he’d honed—a way of saying just enough to turn the conversation away without giving anything up.
Thordur laughed anyway. He always laughed, the sound loose and easy, as if it cost him nothing to find humor even in the cracks of a somber moment. The firelight caught the lines of his grin as he turned the carved rooster over in his hands, the unfinished figure catching the flickering glow.
Ungoránë didn’t join in. His gaze fell to the blade resting on his knees, the firelight running in liquid streaks along its edge. The axe was new to him, heavier than he preferred, and its weight felt alien in his hands. Still, something grounded him in its presence; its solidity was a quiet anchor in the shifting landscape of his thoughts.
The night stretched around them, vast and silent, save for the fire’s soft crackle and the distant murmur of the Anduin weaving through the dark. The other men had quieted, their conversations fading into the lull of tired bodies and restless dreams. The stillness felt strange, almost fragile, like something that could break if either of them pushed too hard.
Ungoránë didn’t look at Thordur, though he could feel the man’s eyes on him, bright with the curiosity that rarely let go once it took hold. Thordur didn’t press the question, though. He never did, not when it counted. Instead, he leaned back against the stones, his knife glinting in his hand as he idly smoothed another edge of the wooden rooster.
Ungoránë let the faint scrape of steel on wood fill the space between them. His grip on the axe loosened, and he let out a quiet breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. He didn’t have an answer for Thordur’s question—not one he was willing to give, anyway. The name clung to him like the shadow it described, a mark of what he had become and a reminder of what he had lost.
The fire burned low, its embers glowing faintly against the broken stones of Osgiliath. The ruins stretched endlessly into the dark; their jagged edges softened only by the faint, shifting light. For a moment, Ungoránë glanced at the axe in his lap, its weight solid and familiar, grounding him in the present even as the past tugged at the edges of his thoughts.
He let his gaze drift to Thordur, who was now humming softly under his breath as he worked. The rooster in his hands was rough and unfinished, yet somehow alive with purpose in the flickering glow. The sound of the knife against wood was steady and unselfconscious—a quiet rhythm that seemed to hold the night together.
Ungoránë loosened his grip on the axe, releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Valhir’s words echoed faintly in his mind: Estelë tulya. Hope endures. In the ruins of Osgiliath, it felt like a fragile truth—no more substantial than the dying firelight. And yet, in the soft hum of Thordur’s tune and the steady scrape of steel on wood, there was something that felt like hope: small and imperfect but enduring all the same.
Adequate for the time being.