The sun had long since disappeared below the horizon, most of the Company had already drifted into a peaceful sleep but the youngest of it's members sat quietly awaiting slumber to steal them away from the restless night. The Ranger and the Princes of Erebor were huddle on a pile of soft straw with heavy eyes but sleep was not quite ready for them.
"Have you met this Beorn before?" Fili asked softly, he glanced over to Laire who stared out a window up at the moon. The gentle rays of silver light reflected the grey of her eyes and beige of her skin.
Laire shook her head softly, "No, I've heard stories though." She reached up and brushed a loose ringlet that fell over her eyes. "I doubt he is a threat to us."
"Hard to believe when apparently he does not like us." Kili slurred, the grips of sleep finally won his will over as his eyes fell closed and his head lolled against his shoulder.
Silence encompassed the thick air once again as Fili and Laire were the only two barely holding on. It's funny how the mind seems to wander in the later hours of night, Fili's mind wandered to the future which he found it often did. He wondered about what awaited them in the depths of Erebor, no doubt a dragon. But tonight his mind drifted further into the unforeseen, the days when they would rebuild Erebor to the once flourishing kingdom it had been. Being the heir to such a throne was daunting no less, but Fili was not thinking of his future responsibilities, no. Tonight he was thinking of the red head next to him. Where would she be? Would she stay? Or would she go? He hoped not.
"What's on yer mind, love?"
Fili jerked from deep in his thoughts and looked to Laire who waited for his response. "Just thinking of the future, I suppose."
"That is a dangerous game yer playin' there, especially if yer thinking of yer next meal, Gods know it'll only make ye hungry." Laire and Fili shared a quiet chuckle mindful of waking their companions.
Fili pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, mulling over the question he so desperately wanted to ask. "What will you do once this quest is over?"
"Ye mean after we somehow kill a dragon? Drink, a lot." Laire giggled again and let out a deep sigh. "I dinna know, probably chase me brother north or head for Rohan, I've not been there in a while." Laire answered with a shrug of her shoulders. "Why do ye ask?"
Fili turned his head away, finding a great deal of interest in the straw beneath him. "I do not know, I thought perhaps you might... stay?" He did not look at her as he waited anxiously for her reply, the seconds felt like hours before her response came.
"What reason would I 'ave to stay? Would ye miss me too much if I left?" Laire's grin was impish, but Fili didn't share her humour as wholly.
"Maybe."
Laire sighed heavily, she knew full well what he was implying and whilst the idea was inviting it was just an idea, nothing more. "I am a bastard, Fili. I dinna belong in a world of Lords and Kings." The Ranger rolled over and faced away from the Dwarf, a clear signal of the end of the conversation and any other conversation that would follow for that evening.
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"So you are the one they call Oakenshield. Tell me, why is Azog the Defiler hunting you?" Beorn, who now stood before them in his human form addressed the leader of the Company. The Skin Changer towered over the Dwarves, standing even higher than the Wizard as he walked around the long wooden table the Company were now occupying munching away on some breakfast.
"You know of Azog? How?" enquired Thorin.
"My people were the first to live in the mountains, before the Orcs came down from the north. The Defiler killed most of my family, but some he enslaved." Around the Beorn's wrists were the remnants of iron manacles. "Not for work, you understand, but for sport. Caging skin-changers and torturing them seemed to amuse him."
The Company avoided the Skin-changer's eye as a feeling of pity and sympathy hung heavy in their stomachs.
"There are others like you?" The Hobbit asked curiously.
"Once, there were many."
"And now?" Bilbo asked softly.
"Now, there is only one." Beorn answered somberly.
A heavy silence fell over the Company as each wondered what it might be like to be the last of their kind.
"You need to reach the mountain before the last days of autumn?" Beorn questioned, changing the subject.
The Wizard nodded, "Before Durin's Day falls, yes."
"You are running out of time."
"Which is why we must go through Mirkwood." Gandalf announced.
Laire, who until Gandalf's announcement had been contently drinking the creamy milk that had been put in front of her, but the mention of Mirkwood made her almost choke. A few sets of eyes turned to the Ranger who had her wide eyes set on the Wizard as she wiped away the milk that rolled down her chin.
"A darkness lies upon that forest. Fell things creep beneath those trees. There is an alliance between the Orcs of Moria and the Necromancer in Dol Guldur. I would not venture there except in great need." Beorn warned.
"We will take the Elven Road. That path is still safe."
"Safe? The Wood-Elves of Mirkwood are not like their kin. They're less wise and more dangerous. But it matters not." The Skin-Changer's voice was grave as he spoke.
"What do you mean?" Thorin asked.
"These lands are crawling with Orcs. Their numbers are growing, and you are on foot. You will never reach the forest alive."
The members of the Company glanced between each other, none of them sure if they would all survive another encounter with Azog and his pack.
"I don't like dwarves." Beorn began as he rose from his seat and slowly walked down the long wooden table, "They're greedy and blind, blind to the lives of those they deem lesser than their own." The Skin-Changer reached down to gently pick up a white mouse that had been scampering in and around the Dwarves, he held the small creature in his large hand and turned to Thorin and Gandalf. "But Orcs I hate more. What do you need?"
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Beorn had been kind enough to give each member of the Company a pony, or in Gandalf's case a horse for the journey to Mirkwood. The pony Laire had been given was a young mare who's coat was a mixture of patches of cream and chestnut. She spoke soothing words in Elvish to the uneasy mare as she adjusted the saddle and her belongings.
"You are not a Dwarf."
Laire glanced back over her shoulder to see the Skin-Changer looking down at her curiously. "Not quite, no."
"You speak the Elvish tongue, and yet you are not an Elf?"
Laire ran her fingers fondly through the pony's shaggy mane. "I grew up in Rivendell. The woman who gave birth to me was a Dwarf, my father was one of the Dunedain."
"The Dunedain? There are few of you left to wander the world."
Laire pursed her lips and looked up at Beorn, "I suppose tis somethin' we have in common." The two strangers changed empathetic glances before going their separate ways, a mutual feeling of understanding between them.
The Company mounted their ponies and rode towards the Elven Kingdom, the final words of Beorn ringing in their minds.
"Go now, while you have the light. The hunters are not far behind."
Contrary to common belief I am not dead!! I'm so sorry to have kept you all waiting but I have been swamped lately and haven't had much inspo when it comes to writing lately but I will endeavour to update more regularly if I can. Much love!
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Honour For Bastards
FanfictionThere's a shame that can't be spoken, for children born out of wedlock. A shame that leaves a stain on their face for all their lives which leaves one to wonder why there are names left out of the great stories? Why the heroes are always noble and p...
