PART I: HEAL

"What is sorrow?

To long for the past."

Vikram Chandra; Red Earth and Pouring Rain


Chapter 1: And Back Again

I believe I'm lucid now so I might as well put my thoughts on paper while I can. I have to leave Dale. Staying will only make things worse for the both of us, as I'm sure you already know. I don't think I have time to elaborate on that. So I will conclude this note with an apology for leaving. And I want you to forget about what happened, or at least ignore it. I won't come back. Goodbye. I'm sorry.

Holly

The crumpled note had been in her pocket for two years now. She'd forgotten to give it to Bilbo—or perhaps she hadn't wanted to. Her memories surrounding the battle tended to blur, so it was hard to sort through what had happened, and what she had dreamed, and what she had hallucinated.

Holly kept her head down, trying to stay on the edge of the road. She'd come back to find a steady stream of travelers—men heading for Dale and dwarves heading for Erebor. Perhaps they sought to help rebuild the cities, though it was more likely they were after the piles of gold in the mountain.

Holly hadn't meant to come back. She'd wanted to stay out in the Wilds. Yet the road stretched out before her feet, and already she felt the urge to make her way up the hills to where Dale stood.

She felt. That was a change, if nothing else.

Perhaps it was just the infectious whispers of excitement running through the crowd. They all seemed so hopeful, even if their hopes were focused on precious metals.

Someone placed a hand on her shoulder. Holly spun and took several steps back. An elderly woman looked down at her. As soon as she caught sight of Holly's face, her friendly smile faltered. It had been quite a while since Holly had last seen her reflection, but she had no doubt that there were shadows ringing her eyes, and she could feel the smudges of dirt painted on her too-prominent cheekbones. Hardly characteristics one would expect on the face of a child, for which the old woman had probably mistaken her.

"Are you lost, dear? Where are your parents?"

So predictable. "My parents are dead. And I'm not a child." Holly almost said I'm not lost, but that was irrelevant.

People usually left after she said that, but the old woman kept pace with her. "I'm very sorry to hear that. Are you alone?"

Holly felt the muscles in her face tighten. She knew the woman was showing concern, but the words sounded like a threat. "I'm meeting with a few friends in Dale. They should be expecting me later today. You know how impatient dwarves can get," she replied with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. The statement seemed sufficient enough to warn away any potential threats, even if it wasn't true.

"I'm not sure anyone truly knows anything about dwarves," the woman said, returning the smile. "Well, if you ever need anything, I'll be staying with a friend on Glen Street, near the smithy."

Holly paused. "Which house?"

"Number three, I believe."

That was the house she and Bilbo had stayed in after the battle. He must have moved somewhere else after she'd left.

Holly wrapped her arms around herself, although the air was warm and heavy as it tended to be in late May. He might have gone back to the Shire, for all she knew.

If he was really gone, what would she do then? Following him meant attempting a six month journey that she knew she wouldn't be able to complete. She couldn't stay here alone. Perhaps she could look for the Company, but why would they want to see her again after what she had done? There was nothing left for her here.

Finding Bilbo was her only option. Something like fear spiked in her heart.

"Do you think I could come with you, back to your house?" Holly asked. "I just want to get my bearings, and then I'll be on my way."

"Of course, dear," the old woman said. It wasn't as though she would refuse. In her eyes, Holly was little more than a lost little girl.


The house was the same—cream walls and a reddish roof dulled by age. For a moment, Holly saw snow on the roof, and she shivered.

Hilda, the old woman, knocked on the door and took a step back, her shoulders growing a bit stiff.

Holly knew why she was tense, why she would feel nervous about reuniting with an old friend. If leaving was hard, coming back was doubly so.

Holly cast her gaze towards another building farther down the street. The last time she had been in Dale, that building had been short one wall. But she could see that the city was no longer a ruin—Dale had recovered from Smaug's wrath and the battle, and was on its way to thriving once more. Holly felt the dull bite of exhaustion clamp down on her shoulders.

The door opened. Another elderly woman stood in the doorway. Holly turned in time to see her face lift into a smile as she spread her arms. "Hilda!"

Holly turned away again as the two women embraced. She was intruding on what should have been a private moment. All the same, she felt her heart lift a little at the sight.

"Brenda, this is Holly," Hilda said once they had broken apart. "She needs a place to stay for a while."

"Just to get my bearings," Holly said. "I've had a long journey."

Brenda smiled. "Then come inside, both of you."

Holly followed them in, not bothering to take her cloak off. As she stepped into the room, she felt a familiar drag on her limbs, as though something were weighing her down. Her memories of living there were quite literally dark—she remembered shadows and hushed, desperate voices and lacking the will to move.

But now the house was warm and a light breeze drifted through the open window, making the air seem less stagnant.

Holly blinked, realizing the two women were sitting at the table and staring at her. "Sorry. Thinking." She sat down next to Hilda, one hand fiddling with the thin fabric of her dress sleeve.

Brenda gave a smile that brimmed with pity. "You must have been on the road for quite a while. Where are you from?"

Holly only needed to ask a simple question to get the information she wanted. But she found herself saying instead, "I came from the south, near Gondor. I was traveling with a trading caravan, but they were all killed in an orc attack. I came to deliver the bad news to the dwarves we were trading with." Not true, but it followed her story about meeting a group of dwarves in the city. It would also explain her bedraggled appearance.

Brenda gasped while Hilda shook her head and said, "It's dangerous out there in the wilds."

"It's dangerous everywhere," Holly replied before she could stop herself. She forced a smile. "But Erebor and Dale are at peace for now."

The pity in their eyes did not disappear. Holly waited for the familiar roar of indignance, the resentment that came from being looked down upon, but she felt nothing. Her thoughts had, predictably, become less aggressive since she'd severed her mind from that of an egotistical dragon.

Holly shifted her gaze to the walls out of habit. "This is a lovely house. How long have you been here? Since Laketown was destroyed?"

There was smoke and fire and the stench of burning flesh, and a black arrow flying through the air, straight towards—

A phantom pain twinged at the back of her throat and Holly swallowed hard, pulling herself back to the present.

Brenda shook her head. "A couple lived here before I did. Both very short, the neighbors told me." She looked down at her, and Holly could pinpoint the exact moment when she realized. "You're looking for him, aren't you?"

The words wouldn't come, so Holly nodded.

"I heard that he went to the mountain," Brenda said.

Holly took a moment to thank Eru that Smaug's fire had failed to burn away the people of Laketown's tendency to gossip. She stood up. "Then I should go."

"You're leaving so soon?" Brenda asked. Holly could tell that wasn't the first question that had crossed her mind.

Holly nodded again. She'd essentially been caught in a lie, but she didn't care. "I need to see him."

Hilda gave her a sympathetic smile that was tinged with melancholy. "Go, then. And take care of yourself."

She planned on doing the former, at the very least. "Thank you for your hospitality." Holly allowed herself a small smile. She'd only known the two women for a few minutes, but seeing them sitting side by side—she knew they were at peace.

The Lonely Mountain stood tall next to Dale. Perhaps she would find her peace there.


Holly didn't stop to rest during her journey to Erebor. It was mid-afternoon by the time she made it to the front gate. It was no longer a pile of rubble, but a large set of wooden doors flanked by two new statues. It was almost as if Smaug had never broken through in the first place.

The pair of guards flanking the doors stared at her as she passed. Holly pulled her cloak closer to her body. If she ran into one of the dwarves from the Company, she didn't know what she would do. They were all angry with her, most likely.

Holly felt the phantom sting of white-hot gold against her skin as she passed through the entrance hall. The floor was just stone now. She paused in the middle of the vast hall. More guards stood at intervals along the columned walls—rows and rows of strangers.

The residential district was just past the market. Holly started walking, wishing she didn't remember that. She wished she didn't remember where the treasure hall was and how the gold glinted against the dark green stone and what it looked like to see her friends dead on the cold floor.

Holly crossed her arms, prickles of discomfort crawling down her arms as the crowd in the market swallowed her up. At the very least, the people, the smell, and the noise helped drown out the sound of dragon scales scraping against stone and the stench of blood and ice.

Holly snapped back to the present when someone knocked into her shoulder, forcing her to stumble back into someone else. She exchanged brief apologies with the dwarf, forcing herself to relax. There was no reason to panic.

"Holly?"

Now she had a reason. She stiffened under the pressure on her arm and turned around.

As Holly faced him, Bofur's eyes widened in shock and recognition. Then his face morphed into a strange blank expression.

Run.

Holly almost did. But she needed information. She needed to know where Bilbo was. She needed to know if the others were all right. She needed to know if it was too late to apologize.

First things first. "Where is Bilbo? I need to… Do you know where he is?"

"Where have you been?" Bofur asked, ignoring her question.

"Where is he?" Holly tried to keep her voice from trembling. She needed to focus on that. "Please just tell me." The crowd was closing in, making it hard to think.

Bofur shook his head. "You left for two years without a word to anyone. I'm not telling you anything until you explain yourself.

"All right. All right. But can we—" Holly swiveled her head, looking for an exit. She needed to get out of the market, before it overwhelmed her.

He let out a long sigh. "This way." He gestured for her to follow him though the market.

Holly tried to pretend that this—she and Bofur walking through the crowd, walls towering on either side—did not remind her of the night that they went looking for kingsfoil. Holly tried to pretend that she could not see and smell smoke pouring from the windows carved into the stone.

She pulled in a breath that seemed to slip from her lungs like water from cupped hands. It would be all right, once she saw Bilbo again. She could make things right. And she would stop seeing fire and snow and blood.

"I had to leave," Holly said, looking over at Bofur. She'd grown a few inches in the past two years—they were almost at eye level. "I was hurting everyone. I could see that. I had to stop it."

Bofur stayed silent for so long that she wondered whether he was going to answer. Finally, he said, "We could have helped, you know."

"I wouldn't have let you." She had shut them all out—Bilbo, Dori, Nori. She had been so cruel. Facing them after what she had done had terrified her. It still did. So she'd locked the door and stayed trapped in the dark room, in the depths of her own mind.

A light pressure on her arm caused her to stop walking. Holly forced herself to focus.

"We're here," Bofur said, searching her face with his eyebrows drawn together.

Holly stared at the door. The house was built directly into the stone, as were the others. Small bunches of purple flowers bloomed in one of the windows. She tried to swallow the dryness in her throat.

"And one more thing," Bofur said as she started for the door. "Bilbo—he's tried to move on. He really has. So just keep that in mind."

"Oh. Thank you." Holly wasn't sure if that was the right thing to say, but it seemed appropriate enough.

He waved goodbye and left her at the door.

A thrill of nerves tickled her spine as she faced the door. It was long past time to fix what she had broken. Holly raised her right hand and knocked.

I hope you all enjoyed this first chapter! This is the sequel to Feangren, so if you haven't read that, I would recommend checking it out first so you don't get confused.

Please feel free to leave a comment letting me know what you think. It helps me out a lot.