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Ered Luin

When, in one particularly cold day, Mithrandir arrived to his home and spoke to her of the attack the Lonely Mountain had suffered, Mäetharanel stared at him in shock. It was known that dragons fancied gold, but for Smaug to attack so suddenly and to even drive them away from their home was something she could not understand. Unless there was something else that drove him to it... Thror had been assassinated by Azog, the Defiler, his son Thrain was lost, and the only ones that remained were Thorin, Thrain's older son, and Frerin, the heirs younger brother. 

Another information would cloud her mind some years later, when Thorin, now Thorin Oakenshield due to the battle of Azanulbizar, had taken Ered Luin as his home.  Massaging her bulging temples, Mäetharanel groaned at the pain inside her head. Her father had much to concern himself with, why did he choose the Blue Mountains? She hoped their new neighbours would not be as bothersome as she feared. Alwaya a box filled with surprises, only two years later, Mithrandir had told her a third part concerning the dwarves, one she had just heard.

"You will meet with Oakenshield in Bree?", asked the princess, without believing what the wizard had just said.

"Indeed", nodded the man, while smoking from his pipe.

"To start a quest to retake the Lonely Mountain from a dragon?", she could not believe it, it was way too insane for it to be true.

"That is correct", he nodded once more and she blinked.

"And let me see if I got this right", she cleared her throat, "you are asking me to accompany you in this... insane quest, to meet Oakenshield in Bree and follow him to Ered Luin so I can be of assistance and help prepare the quest? Is that it, Mithrandir?", unbelievable, thought the princess. Should she cry or laugh?

"Exactly", he smiled after nodding once again.

"Mithrandir, have you gone completely insane?", with her eyebrows forrowed and her teeth gritted, the elf truly looked like a bear, "how have you come by this idea?", had he been smoking those herbs Radagast smoked as well?

"My dear, I am anything but insane", reaching into his robe, he presented a key, "here, is this familiar to you?" shaking her head, Maethäranel saw it as something ordinary, yet it was the last parting gift of a suffering dwarf, "what you see in my hand happens to be the only key that can open the secret entrance to Erebor", her face fell straight into her open palms, "it was given to me by Thrain's hand", Maethäranel lifted her head, surprised.

"Thrain lives?", everyone thought the heir to the line of Durin dead.

"I am not certain of that", the key glistened in the cold light of the lamp Gandalf had lightned, "it is no mere occurence that it has come to me, Mäetharanel."

"I believe you, truly", she touched his hand that had the key in it, "what I fail to understand is how you expect me to work, or even get along, with those... those dwarfs."

"Need I remind you we have made a bargain?", she snorted and crossed her arms.

"Need I remind you it is a dragon we will be facing, should your plan come to be put to work?", she raised an eyebrow, for he certainly had forgotten about that. Dragons were no easy task.

"You fought a dragon before", he shrugged his shoulders, "and here you are to tell the story."

"Mithrandir, I had the right weapon for it. I was prepared for it, it was what we were called for", for the love of the Valar, he meant for the quest to happen.

"You swore to me you would not forsake me", blue eyes glared straight into his own, yet they eventually closed, thoughtful, "Mäetharanel, I understand your animosity towards dwarves, I understand the fear that grows inside you whenever the battle you fought comes into your mind, but I would not be asking you to accomplish your part of the deal if it were not strictly necessary", Mäetharanel thought. It was true, she had faced such a foe before, but it had been with her own people, not with dwarves, gold-hungry creatures.