~*Author's note: This story takes place just as the Battle of Five armies is about to happen. It incorporates information from the movies, along with the books. This story is mostly told between where The Hobbit ends... and Lord of the Ring's Begins. All Druid stats and information is written around the ideas of Tolkien's magic, and DND rules about Bards. Please enjoy =) *~

"Bard, stop this foolishness and listen to me!" The male turned from his son and looked at the girl in the cloak. She stood as tall as she could, despite being only a half head shorter than Bard himself. Her silvery hair fell down in waves across her shoulder and cascaded behind her. He frowned deeply as her steel eyes set on his own and she stomped her foot harder against his flooring.

"Would I risk coming back just to waste your time? Would I risk your children over useless information?" She scowled with a darkness that Bard had not seen on her face in quite some time. With a sigh, he shooed away his children. Individually they hugged the woman around her hip and sounded their welcomes to her before ushering towards the back of the home. Slipping down into the stool across from Bard, across from his table, she folded her hands on the splintered wood and looked him in the eyes.

"Alright Grey, I'll hear you out. I had just hoped for once you would risk this to just see us. It has been years since Bain has seen you, and Sigrid has spoken too often of how she wishes to come with you… to the icelands." Bard spoke the last part with a bit of sadness. Grey downcast her eyes as she looked upon the darkened wood below her hands and wrists. How the years had worn the wood to rot, she would have to show the boy how to make a steady table soon. Maybe steal the entire family for a day and bring them to the local ashwood just north of the lake-town. The wood was good for years.

"I had not meant for her to be so keen with my life Bard, but you know the girl wishes to be less of a burden. Tilda will make a good housewife, but Sigrid is much too curious for her own good." Grey spoke softly as she looked up to Bard. He cocked a brow towards her before he motioned with his hands for her to continue. "War is coming." Grey spoke.

Bard furrowed his brow. "What do you mean?" He questioned with a thick voice.

"Orcs come this way, they are on the hunt for something and will slaughter all in their way. I don't know what they hunt for, but Mither smelt Orcs on the wind, and I've even seen a white orc move his army towards the mountain." Bard pushed back from the table to look at Grey.

"Orcs don't come this north, they dare not awaken the dragon." Bard murmured.

"Orcs are not intelligent, but they are determined. If their hunting something this way, it may be in order to claim the mountain." Grey pushed harder as she clenched her hands tightly together. Grey needed to warn Bard, for she knew if anyone could motivate the humans to survive, it would be him. He was not the master of this town, the master would only have her beheaded for even showing her face again. But Bard, he was a man of the people, they could listen to him. If they didn't, she had done her duty to warn them. It was the only neutral solution.

If anyone were to wake the dragon and he were not killed on the spot, the whole world would die in the process. Nature would curl up in the ash of his destruction. For a smaller drake of the world, Smaug had the most terrible attitude towards the world that she had ever witnessed. Even as a child she knew it would be her mission in life to keep the dragon from destroying the nature and animals around. Which meant she had to save the humans.

"What do you suggest?" Bard asked softly. Grey smiled and reached out to clasp his hands in hers.

"Go out everyday, watch for the Orcs. Keep check of where they are. When you find they are too close, you will know what it is they are hunting. Keep it safe! The world around you depends on your town keeping whatever it is safe."

"And what if it does not want to be kept safe?" Bard asked. Grey nodded and chuckled.

"Then you have done all you can. But please, promise you will try."

"If you promise me one thing." Bard stated with a firm grasp of her hands now. With her palms inside his, he looked into her eyes. "I know it is only in your nature to be neutral. To stay as powerful as you are, you must stay neutral. But please, if anything happens to me, if anything happens to this town, you keep my children safe." He begged. Grey had only seen him beg a few times in her lifetime. One of them had been to save even her own life.

"Bard. Old friend." She teared lightly as she moved from the table and he rose to meet her. She wrapped her arms around him tightly and he let his head rest on her hair. "You have saved me many times. I promise your children will never see harm." She whispered into his shoulder. Their embrace ended as she pulled away.

"Teach Sigrid sword, she will do well with blades. And Bain the bow, he is my only boy, he must carry on the family way." He added with a cheeky look in her direction. Grey swatted his shoulder before she nodded. "And make sure Tilda does not marry for nought, she must find a husband who loves her, I will come back from the dead to haunt you should she marry a thief or worse. Do you hear me Grey?"

Grey rolled her eyes as she pulled her hood up over her hair, her smirk the only part he could see from her hood. "Don't worry so much Bard… It'll age your face and hair." She joked and just as she appeared, she was gone with a swift flick of her cloak and out of the home. Bard sat down on his stool and looked out to the open door that she had exited from. With a sigh, he hung his head into his hands and attempted to rub the oncoming headache from his aching skull.

"Papa?" He looked up to Sigrid as she walked out from the back of the home with a soft look. "You didn't mean it did you. You're not going to die, right?" She asked as her voice barely weighed an ounce in the air. It fell flat to the floor before her and Bard smiled softly to her. He motioned for her to come towards him. Child under his arms, he pressed a kiss to her scalp and shook his head.

"Don't you worry child, as I know you always do. It is just in case." His voice weighed even less than hers as she curled up more against him.

"Will Grey return soon?" She asked, her throat closing up at the idea of her father dying, and her family being ripped apart. Sigrid attempted to change the subject, because atleast wondering when their favorite aunt of a different blood line would return, always brought a smile to Bard's face.

"I do not know, Grey is a free spirit you know." He added with a chuckle, "But she has always promised to return to teach you, when you're ready my dear. Now go check on your siblings, I fear they have been too quiet for too long." for a pack of quiet children, is a bad thing. Bard then turned his eyes to the door as his daughter left his side. Grey had been raised beside them, but their lives were drastically different, as he knew they would be.

Bard didn't know how much he would change Grey's life, or how he would shape her future after the war she spoke of. He didn't know he would be the reason that she met Thranduil, or the reason that she would become the one known as the Frost Queen.

Because in times like those that would pass, Desperate Measures were a necessity.