Joy bit her lip as she hesitated, the dwarves and hobbit drifting over to watch them. "I... I was found with it pinned to my blankets..."

Thorin looked at it then looked at Joy in surprise. "It was pinned to your blanket... when you were a baby?"

She rolls her eyes and nods "Yes, Thorin. I... i can almost remember when i was found"

Balin pats her hand "Its alright lass... would you like to know what it says?"

"It reads... Nar and Galwyn, made for their sweet Joy" Balin looks at her and smiles as she stares at him wide eyed.

"Those are my parents names... my parents..." she frowned as images flashed through her mind "I... I think i remember them..."

Thorin moves a little closer to her "Tell me what you remember..."

She sighs and closes her eyes as she focuses on the fragments she could see in her minds eye "My mother... riding a copper coloured horse, she's holding me and there are things chasing us... she's scared, i remember feeling her heart beating against me... there's a noise, an arrow... we're tossed from the horse and there's an arrow tail sticking out from her shoulder... she hides me in the bushes and strokes my face as she cries... then she screams and a bear roars..."

She opens her eyes and Thorin leans closer to her and strokes her cheek, she blushes and he smiles softly "you're crying..."

Joy wipes her face and sighs "I could never remember anything before my father found me before... maybe i didnt want to remember."

"Do you remember your real father at all? Nar... do you remember him?" She shakes her head at Balin and he nods sadly.

"We do lass... it makes sense to us now how you got here..." Joy frowns and and looks at each of the dwarves in turn.

"You know my father?" They shake their heads.

"No lass... we knew your father, he died years ago killed when Thorin's father disappeared..." Balin sighed deeply and offered her a sympathetic smile which she returned.

"At least my mother and father are together now and i was found by the best father i can think of..."

Thorin smiled at her and patted her hand "Aye, they are together and you have been well cared for."

Joy got to her feet and headed for the door "Time to get supper ready i think..." Her hands shook and her eyes welled with tears as soon as she closed the door behind her, she knew now she would never meet them... and it broke a piece of her heart.

Next morning they were all wakened by Beorn himself.

"So here you all are still!" he said. He picked up the hobbit and laughed: "Not eaten up by Wargs or goblins or wicked bears yet I see"; and he poked Mr. Baggins' waistcoat most disrespectfully although Joy had to stop herself from laughing. "Little bunny is getting nice and fat again on bread and honey," he chuckled. "Come and have some more!"

So they all went to breakfast with him. Her father was most jolly for a change; indeed he seemed to be in a splendidly good humour and set them all laughing with his funny stories; nor did they have to wonder long where he had been or why he was so nice to the strangers. He had been over the river and right back up into the mountains from where the travellers had come from. From the burnt wolf glade he had soon found out that part of their story was true; but he had found more than that: he had caught a warg and a goblin wandering in the woods. From these he had got news: the goblin patrols were still hunting with wargs for the dwarves, and they were fiercely angry because of the death of the Great Goblin, and also because of the burning of the chief wolf's nose and the death from the wizard's fire of many of his chief servants. So much they told him when he forced them, but he guessed there was more wickedness than this afoot, and that a great raid of the whole goblin army with their wolf-allies into the lands shadowed by the mountains might soon be made to find the dwarves, or to take vengeance on the men and creatures that lived there, and who they thought must be sheltering them.

"It was a good story, that of yours," her father said to them, "but I like it still better now I am sure it is true. You must forgive my not taking your word. If you lived near the edge of Mirkwood, you would take the word of no one that you did not know as well as your brother or better. As it is, I can only say that I have hurried home as fast as I could to see that you were safe, and to offer you any help that I can. I shall think more kindly of dwarves after this. Killed the Great Goblin, killed the Great Goblin!" he chuckled fiercely to himself and it pleased Joy greatly to see him so happy.

"What did you do with the goblin and the Warg?" asked Bilbo suddenly. "Come and see!" her father got up and left the hall and they followed round the house. A goblin's head was stuck outside the gate and a warg skin was nailed to a tree just beyond. Her father was a fierce enemy. Gandalf thought it wise to tell them their whole story and the reason for their journey, so that they could get the most help he could offer.

Her father would provide ponies for each of them, and a horse for Gandalf, for their journey to the forest, and he would give them food to last them for weeks with care; nuts, flour, sealed jars of dried fruits, and red earthenware pots of honey, and twice-baked cakes they were Joy's favourite thing to eat. The making of these was one of her fathers secrets; but honey was in them, as in most of the things he cooked. Water, he told them, they wouldn't need to carry this side of the forest, as there were streams and springs along the road. "But your way through Mirkwood is dark, dangerous and difficult," he said. "Water is not easy to find there, nor food. The time is not yet come for nuts... though it may be past and gone indeed before you get to the other side, and nuts are about all that grows there fit for food; in there the wild things are dark, queer, and savage. I will provide you with skins for carrying water, and I will give you some bows and arrows. But I doubt very much whether anything you find in Mirkwood will be wholesome to eat or to drink. There is one stream there, I know, black and strong which crosses the path. That you should neither drink of, nor bathe in; for I have heard that it carries enchantment and a great drowsiness and forgetfulness. And in the dim shadows of that place I don't think you will shoot anything, wholesome or unwholesome, without straying from the path. That you MUST NOT do, for any reason. That is all the advice I can give you. Beyond the edge of the forest I cannot help you much; you must depend on your luck and your courage and the food I send with you. At the gate of the forest I must ask you to send back my horse and my ponies. But I wish you all speed, and my house is open to you, if ever you come back this way again."

They thanked him, of course, with many bows and sweepings of their hoods and with many an "at your service, O master of the wide wooden halls!" Which made her and her father smirk. But she could see that their spirits had sank at his grave words. All that morning they were busy with preparations Joy even managed to get Bombur to do something other than eat. Soon after midday they ate with her and her father for the last time, and after the meal she watched them as they mounted the steeds her father was lending them, and bidding them many farewells they rode off through his gate at a good pace and Joy sighed sadly. "I hope they will be alright..."

Beorn nudged her and winked "I will see them safely to the forest gate." Joy smiled and reached up to tug his ear gently as she did as a child, it made him smirk and look at her curiously. "What is it you are wanting my girl?"

She smiled almost slyly, her eyes shining with mischief "Well..."