Chapter four

Our first three days were spent wandering along the Great East Road through the hobbit lands. There were comfortable inns and singing and joking as we went along. I promised Fili, Kili, and a shy Bilbo to tell them a story about my travels every day. Usually, Fili and Kili would want me to go on after I finished an episode of sorts, but Bilbo always got a dreamy look on his face and just told me to save it for later. I could see that the hobbit was not as averse to adventure as he was before. I felt a little sorry for him, since I knew that after we passed out of the Shire, he would be in for a nasty shock as we neared the Misty Mountains and left the warm, rolling hills of his home behind us.

We had left Bree the day before and this would be our first night in the true wilderness. I knew there were a few farmers and shepherds and hunters who lived around those parts, but they were scattered and mostly kept to themselves. As the day progressed, we climbed higher and higher on rockier roads and the trees became pines and firs and cedars. We had travelled for a week already.

Night had fallen and Thorin chose a clearing on the edge of a cliff a little ways off the road. I smiled as we all lead our steeds into the forest. The clearing was well-known to me, as it was quite a frequently inhabited place by all sorts of travellers on the road. I had stayed there a few times before. I had usually been alone or with some drivers or escorts when I was working as a courier. Being there with thirteen dwarves, a hobbit and a wizard leant a wonderful safeness to the dark and solemn surrounding woods. The clearing was almost surrounded by these massive outcrops of rock that served as a wind barrier and a place to rest our backs.

"Dinner!" Bombur banged his pots together and we all scrambled over.

As we sat around the fire in a messy circle, Kili, Fili, and Bilbo wandered over. I had already told them about how after I turned twenty-one; I went off with one of the trade caravans destined for Rhun. After passing the sea of Rhun, I had come to Lake Town and soon began working as a pole-man for the caskets and barrels that were poled up the river to Thranduil's kingdom in the Northern Greenwood. We never got to see any of the elves, of course. They seldom left the woods and we just left the barrels tied to a tree where the river flowed from under the eaves of the forest and the next day, the elves would pole it up the river themselves. Besides, the forest was dangerous wherever you were and no one was very eager to be stuck on a barge of barrels and poling against the current in the darkness of the trees. Until me, anyway. I had decided to pole the barrels up myself. I was stupid and rash back then, but perhaps it was well that I had done what I had done, or my travels would have certainly not have started. I had my bow and my arrows on my back, but that was it. I was still poling when it got dark. My arms felt like they were ready to detach and fling themselves into the water. I was hungry and tired, but I realized I could not stop because there was simply nothing to grab a hold of. If I stopped, I would float all the way back and have to start all over again. Unfortunately, the water got rougher and the river began to slope steeply upward. Luckily, the trees also began to close in on the banks and I was able to grab onto a branch and keep my feet hooked onto the ropes that bound my barrel raft together. With a splash, my pole had hit the water as I struggled to hold onto the bouncing branch. I cussed loud enough to wake a troll. As I quieted, the forest came alive around me –odd calls and rustlings. Realizing what I had done, I smacked my own face and nearly lost my grip on the branch. I never ran off into the forests at night back east. I wasn't sure why I had done that in the Greenwood.

I had begun to shout.

Eyes began to blink into existence in the darkness around me. I stopped yelling. I snatched an arrow out of my quiver to use as a knife.

Whoosh! –A light blinded me and something cold was at my neck.

I blinked madly.

I was surrounded by men. But they were all tall and slim and beautiful and young. And, there had been a knife at my neck. It was held there by a blond man with porcelain skin and blue eyes that frightened me with their age.

"What are you doing here?" His voice was mellifluous.

"I –I was poling." I gulped. The knife was very cold. "I was poling the barrels up,"

"That is not your part –we do that ourselves."

Elves!

"Who are you?"

"Tallis –Tallismae... I'm from the east, who are you?"

He looked surprised that I had answered so willingly. "I am Legolas, son of King Thranduil,"

"You don't look like a prince," I blurted.

He frowned at me, a little confused.

"I mean, princes back at home never go wandering in the woods at night –they stay in their palaces and where golden robes and don't go outside much."

He didn't say a thing.

"May I be let onto land? My arms are sore and the knife is really unnecessary and someone needs to hold onto the barrels or all my hard work will be for nothing."

I supposed they judged me of little threat and complied. Their movements were graceful but I fell as I tried jumping to the bank. I was very wet when I wiggled up onto the bank.

"Come with us," the prince of the elves had said curtly.

And I did. The stories I told the dwarves and Bilbo afterwards were simple really. After I was taken to Thranduil's caves, blindfolded, mind you, I was kept there as a guest, or rather, a prisoner. The King was the most beautiful man I had ever seen, but he had a cold, wild fire in his eyes that never missed a thing. The night they brought me back, I told them of the east, of my home. Thranduil was captivated, but he did not show it. Perhaps that is why they treated me kindly. I became a sort of servant and worked hard. The elves were aloof and removed, but Legolas and I became unlikely friends after he had marvelled at my bow and my skills when I had shot an arrow that had pierced through the target. Though it didn't hit the center mark, the elves became more interested in me after I had shown them my strength and willingness to work. Slowly, they took me out on hunting incursions and taught me how to fight with their weapons. I learned some of their language. The forest, however, was still strange to me. I followed them carefully whenever we went out, for no matter how many times I tried, I could not find any way to distinguish path or clearing from the other. Trees and little streams and rocks seemed to shift and change every time I tried to memorize their places. I spent five years there. When I brought down my first deer on horseback, with my bow, I realized that I needed to leave. There was still more of the world out there and I was in such a small corner!

I had asked for Thranduil's leave, but he had refused. I was exasperated. I knew none of their secrets. I could not find my way back to his halls. Wasn't that what he worried about?

That night, Legolas told me to pack my things. He took me south.

"Your ada will think you betrayed him," I mentioned.

"He will have endless days, endless years to forgive me," He shrugged.

So, we went south. He handed me over to the elves in Lothlorien. I stayed but two years there. The elves valued cultivating patience and wisdom and knowledge: the latter I had a fierce taste for. Luckily, the elves seemed to have seen my potential in the first and kindly guided my learning in Lorien, and my only meeting of Lady Galadriel resulted in her smiling gently at me, nodding approvingly at my teacher –Haldir, Marchwarden of Lothlorien –and teasingly told him take my wisdom as an example for himself at times. The uncharacteristic grunt that she elicited from him was worth all the strict and harsh regimes he had set for my training.

As I left that life behind, I realized that I had a gift for drawing people to me with my stories. I was able to adapt to all sorts of cultures and races, and the sunny disposition I had made others happy. All things want to be happy. And what made me happy was learning and making myself rich with stories and songs and history. I headed to Rohan next and stayed mostly in the Edoras. The Rohirrim trusted good riders who knew how to care for their steeds like children and good mead drinkers. I had come to them from the elves who had taught me much about horses already and that knowledge opened up the trust of the Rohirrim. Mead had been an acquired taste, however. I spent another five years there, learning to ride by day, and learning to hold my drink by night. Gondor was next. I dabbled in medicine and book binding and mastered weaving in Minas Tirith and sweated in a smithy in Belfalas. The things I made were mostly ship and cart parts –things that were vital to the flourishing trade there. With each place I came to, I started a new life and mastered an art and ended the story and moved on. It was freeing and at times I could not believe the life I was living. It was as if I had chosen the best parts of the books I had read as a child and strung them all together. Rivendell was next.

"Rivendell is for another time," I told Bilbo. It was the only time he had begged me to continue. "Perhaps we shall go there soon," I whispered to him as he was getting ready to curl up in his bed roll. He smiled a sweet as a child.

Fili and Kili tumbled off to lean against a rock wall and smoke their pipes. I unrolled my bedroll and tucked myself in with my cloak folded into a pillow for my head. Some of the dwarves did the same as I did but some of the others still sat about the fire or leaned against the rock face and smoked. Bombur's cooking was delicious and my tummy made a happy grumbly noise as it digested the beef stew. Ah, if this adventure went on like this, I would be as fat as Bombur at the end of it.

As my eyelids began to droop, Bilbo got up. He had been wriggling for a while. He had probably been lying on a stone or a root. Not making a sound, he tiptoed over to the ponies and furtively ferried an apple from his pocket to little Myrtle's smacking lips. He murmured something to her and patted her snuffling nose as she crunched madly and began nudging the hobbit's pockets.

Something rustled and flapped.

My heart leapt to my throat as my arm shot out for my sword beside me. It took a moment before I recognized it as the soft wings of a crow.

"Just a bird, lassie," Dwalin grunted beside me.

"I know," I breathed out slowly.

He turned and propped himself up on his elbow. "You're on edge,"

"Being a courier means I've got to be alert. The roads are not so safe anymore. You know that –even back in the days before I was in Ered Luin."

"Aye,"

Screech!

We both jumped a little but we both knew it was the voice of a screech owl.

"What was that?" Bilbo's voice quavered.

"Orcs." Kili answered, his voice deep, menacing.

"Orcs?" Bilbo trembled.

Poor Bilbo. I exchanged a look with Dwalin and was about to tell them to bugger off when Fili continued.

"Throat cutters, there'll be dozens of them out there." he said, "The lower lands are crawling with them."

Kili's voice was quiet, like someone telling a ghost story, "They strike in the small hours when people are asleep. Quick and quiet, no screams. Just lots of blood."

Bilbo looked ready to implode. Kili and Fili exchanged a glance and burst into chuckles.

A hard voice cut through their laughter, "You think that is funny? You think that a night raid by orcs is a joke?" Thorin strode angrily past them and headed to the edge of the cliff.

"We didn't mean anything by it..." Kili winced.

"No, you didn't. You know nothing," came the angry reply and Kili and Fili both shrank back a little.

Everyone else sat or lay in awkward silence like a group of scolded children. I hated it when someone got yelled at and everyone else feels somehow reprimanded also.

"Don't worry about him laddie, he has more reason than most to hate orcs." And thus Balin began his telling of Thorin and Azog the Pale Orc during the Battle of Azanulbizar at the West-gates of Moria. I let my mind drift with Balin's gentle voice. I had heard the tale many times when I sat by the fires in the halls of Ered Luin. When night would come and the stars peeped through the smoke holes in the roofs of the halls, the dwarves would finish their suppers and gather about the sizzling embers and sing, smoke, and tell tales. Thorin would always look so angry and grieved and uncomfortable whenever the story was told. It was a favorite, so there was no avoiding it. I still remember when the story ended the first time I heard it and I had looked at him with my eyes shining and he had returned my gaze with something just as full of emotion, but as hard and hot as the fires in the forges. I had felt a little frightened of him for the first time then, as I suddenly realized the depths of his rage and his sorrow.

I was jarred back to the present as Balin finished the tale with his usual flourish.

"And it was then that I knew I would follow him. Here was one I could call king,"

* Tallis and Thorin actually have a conversation in the next chapter and I think I'll develop that more. This chapter was more of a filler again.