#moio

Groups of refugees from across the nearby hamlets and towns were still coming through the front gates of Helm's Deep on a regular schedule, though their numbers were gradually dwindling as time between safe travel and a siege in progress narrowed. Wren had helped where she could with Edoras' displaced civilians before seeking a quiet corner for her to sit and wait for news.

Her leg swung back and forth, back and forth, back and forth counting the seconds when there was no news from any quarter. She hoped that the small warning would have been enough to prevent anything else changing; the life of one man was enough - if it ended up being an exchange of one life for another...

No, she shook her head. Now is not the time to spiral.

So Wren let her eyes wander. Over the crowds of people were the walls of stone that had remained standing for so long, and three tall stone statues. Each had their backs to the main keep, looking outwards, ready for an attack.

From her seat Wren could make out most of the closest pair - though the one closest to her was damaged and broken, only surviving up to the waist. The blade of a sword was still distinguishable up to the hilt, well designed and very Rohirric though less grand and not identical to its sibling statue on the other side of the walkway.

Wren idly wondered who they were. Many of the statues mentioned in Tolkien's work were grandiose and their histories long and storied, but these were small, quiet, everyday reminders passed by on daily watches or sheltered beneath in the afternoon sun.

"My lady-" a voice from somewhere to her left startles Wren out of the trail of thoughts; pushing away from the wall, she turns to see one of the riders. He was perhaps not much older than herself, somewhere in the late years of his second decade or the early ones of his third, and looking at her beneath his helmet with some consternation. "Are you well?"

"Oh um ... yes, thank you." She's taken aback, trying to stand gracefully despite almost certainly standing on her cloak several times and nearly toppling over the small outcrop on the third instance. "I was just wondering about the statues."

The unknown rider frowns, his head tilting to the side a little. The spray of white hair from the top curls around his shoulder.

He gestures to the one standing taller towards the front. "Of Helm Hammerhand." A gesture to the pair flanking the stairs. "And his daughter and son."

"But I thought ... that Helm only had sons?"

His laugh is light, and for a moment Wren panics thinking she has caused offence (or just generally made herself seem a fool) but the responding smile is understanding.

"So say the bards -" the rider stands a little and turns to muse over the broken statue for a moment. "-but the tales miss out most of the truth I find. Haleth, she was styled. The name afore has not been remembered but that is well. For the one that is," the rider pauses and smiles down at Wren, half a foot shorter. "Is far more suitable for a Shieldmaiden of the Mark."

"Shieldmaiden," Wren turns the word over in her mind. Coupled with the look that this rider was giving her, it seemed that he was making many connections between her, himself, and the broken statue of the woman.

"Names are a grander weight here, my lady, than it seems you are aware of. But one thing is certain that all agree upon. That, were it possible, she would have been a Queen that the entire realm would have loved."

She knew what he was trying to say, in a different language with different words, but she had read historical texts to have caught onto the implications - the tales hidden in plain sight. The hidden rainbow flags waving in the breeze.