Across the Ice-Bay is almost too far to imagine. All the way around the Ice-Bay is, how much, maybe five or six times as far? That's how long the expedition was to be, more than Ristiinná could dream of, or rather, such dreams were nightmares, full of fears. Wild beasts, freezing to death, starvation, yes, but more than that, failing the rest of the company.
Now that all seems so tiny. She has no idea how much farther than around the Ice-Bay she is from her mother and father, from her home in Sûri-kylä, but it must be sixty times as far, maybe six hundred! If across the Bay was too far to imagine, this is beyond words to say how unimaginable it is.
How did she find herself on a road though an impossibly green land walking towards a city bigger than anything she'd ever seen? She wasn't entirely sure. The men who called themselves Rangers in a land by a great risen lake had tried to explain some of it to her. It started with a blizzard, and her going into it, and a long tumble, she remembered that much, and it made sense to her. But she didn't understand what happened next until later, and still doesn't understand it all.
As it was explained to her, there was a man called Mordrambor, who they said was a Black Númenorean, whatever that was, who needed something that was somewhere in Forochel, something held by the Lumi-väki, perhaps. And this man was evil, and wanted it for evil purposes. He was taking many approaches to forcing the Lumi-väki into doing his bidding, helping him find it. He had soldiers coming through the Ironspan from Angmar to threaten an invasion. Some of his men had stolen an ancient artifact, the Jewel of the Ice; one of the tribes had been sworn to protect it, and he was using the threat of exposing their failure, shaming them, to make them help him find this item for him. Apparently he had several other tricks besides these planned, some the Rangers didn't even know about. And finally, he had offered a bounty on any of the Lossoth (as the etalä-väki called her people) that could be captured, which he could hold hostage to ransom in exchange for cooperation.
Ristiinná, separated from her expedition without food or shelter, was easy prey for just such a bounty. She almost fell into this evil man's clutches, and would have, had she not happened to secure and hide a tiny knife. Also, if one of the sled-dogs, remembering the times she'd fed it, had not decided to trail her and protect her. It also helped that she was a far better swimmer than her captors, especially this Mordrambor who was clad in metal clothing they called 'armor' and thus unable to pursue her across a river.
But this only left her lost in a land wholly unlike her home. Fortunately, after a few days, she met a man called Arthfael, one of those Rangers. They were suspicious of one another at first, but after a long run of poor luck, Ristiinnä had finally had some good fortune, for he was a kind (if gruff) man. He didn't only help her with a good meal and some shelter, but he took her under his wing for several months, explaining to her how things worked in this strange, green land. In fact, they were constant companions (and occasionally bedfellows, though only in a friendly way) through the entire winter (or what passed for winter in the south). He introduced her to others of the Dúnedain, for so the Rangers called themselves, in this land called Evendim, though she learned little of their purpose in that place.
He even offered to try to help her find her way back to the north, to home. He knew of a Ranger who visited Sûri-kylä from time to time, one who she remembered as well, though she hadn't known he was any more than another etelä-vieras, a merchant perhaps. She seriously considered it. She wanted to see her parents, and reassure them she was all right. They must be convinced she died in that snowstorm. But somehow, in a way she couldn't quite explain to herself, she wasn't ready. She had always felt an outsider, unliked by those she knew, unable to find her place, and the idea of returning to all that, to the struggle to make friends and fit in, seemed far more daunting than merely trying to make her way in a strange foreign land. At least these people seemed to find her cheerfulness foreign but amusing, rather than foreign but annoying. Maybe one day she would be ready.
Arthfael had duties, though he wouldn't speak of what they were, so he couldn't keep some pretty lass under his wing forever. In time, he gave her a pouch of silver and copper coins, then brought her to the banks of a great, wide, muddy-brown river, and introduced her to a woman of the Dúnedain who could take her down its banks and to a city of men where she could try to make a new life. The city was about the same size as Sûri-kylä, and though everything about how people lived there was strange to her, she'd had time to learn some of it from Arthfael and his fellows, and now learned more while living in the city of the great bridge. She even got to spend some time making candles and soaps, one of her duties back home; but she did anything else anyone asked her to do, to make a living.
The hardest thing to get used to about how the etelä-väki lived was how her dog, which she had called Koira -- not admitting to anyone that just meant 'dog' in the language of the Lumi-väki -- had to stay outside, especially in public places like the tavern. Back home, not bringing the dogs in would be folly; a few good sled dogs can keep you warm in the coldest of winter nights.
But in time, Trestlebridge, or so they called it, just didn't have room for her, especially after a big fire turned most of the town to thoughts of rebuilding (which she knew nothing of how to help with). "There is a bigger city a day's walk south, and you can get work in the public house, at the sign of the prancing pony. A pretty girl like you will make a mint on tips," the woman who was called Biddy told her. She knew what a pony was, but not what a tip was, or a mint, but she figured she'd find that all out in time.
