Chapter 29

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

A/N: I apologize for the wait on this chapter; things have been pretty busy for me the last few days, and this chapter was difficult to get right. Many MANY thanks to summerald for giving me the necessary push to get the lore and concept for this chapter hashed out, and for the tips on character development! This chapter would honestly not be what it is without her help. Cheers to Princess Quill for being such an inspiration, and mad respect to OrisounAsh for sticking by me from the very beginning!

Happy reading!


Dinner that night was a merry affair, even with the presence of Beorn presiding. The dogs ran between the dwarves, huffing and playing, and everyone's spirits were high. Bofur and Deorynn sang, Fíli and Kíli forced Bilbo to dance, and all their antics were encouraged by the clapping and stomping of feet from the spectators. The night ended with several stories from the older dwarves, and then everyone was off to bed to be ready for their journey the next day.

Ryn approached Oin, who was talking to Thorin, before settling in; sitting down as he unwrapped the bandages and applied the comfrey, marveling again that she had managed to avoid any trouble with the bites.

Beorn saw the wound as he walked by and stopped. "What is this injury?" he inquired.

Deorynn gave him a small smile. "It was a wolf bite." Oin snorted. "A rather vicious one, too, lassie."

Beorn's eyebrow twitched. "How long ago did it happen?"

Ryn thought for a minute, trying to count the days, but Kíli had joined them and replied, "Seven days."

"It has healed that much in only seven days?"

"Aye," Oin answered. "It's got to be the herbs. Nothing else could account for such speedy healing."

Beorn looked skeptical. He grunted, "Gandalf, a word?"

"Yes, my friend."

"This girl. Where did you find her?"

Gandalf chuckled. "That is a long story, Beorn; would you be so kind as to be more specific?"

Beorn growled his impatience and grabbed Ryn's arm, digging his thumbnail into the tender skin of her wrist and scratching harshly. "Is that specific enough?"

What?

She tried to pull back as Kíli and Thorin both started in alarm—protestations leaving Kíli's mouth before Ryn even could process what had happened. The break in the skin oozed blood and stung, but a moment later, it began to glow.

..What?

Ryn grabbed Kíli's arm with her free hand and pointed, effectively shutting him up. Everyone was riveted, including Gandalf and Beorn, as a golden light glowed from within the scratch, shrinking it. Within seconds there was nothing there—just unblemished skin. Beorn dropped Ryn's arm, and she let it fall, completely shocked.

What just happened?

"Eiri," Beorn breathed, and every dwarf looked completely confused, while Gandalf just looked shocked. "Do you have the Feldbrandr behind your ears, as well?" He moved as if to touch her hair, but she flinched back, and he stopped, moving back in a gesture of placation. "I mean you no harm, girl."

"Do I have the what behind my ears?!"

Gandalf cut in, gentling the girl. "The Feldbrandr was the mark of the Eiri—many of their descendants have one, although it's generally lighter and harder to see."

Deorynn was just as mystified at the end of this explanation as she was at the beginning. She shook her head, confused. Gandalf put a hand on her arm and said softly, "Just trust me, my dear." Deorynn looked at him, uncertain, and then relented.

"Kíli, you look," she said.

He pulled back her sandy waves and tilted her head toward the light as everyone leaned in close to see. What looked like a light brown birthmark marred the pale skin behind her ear. It was a swirling pattern that twisted in and about itself, reaching from the tip of her ear and disappearing into her hair line. Gandalf leaned back in surprise.

"Well, Deorynn. It seems you are descended of the Eiri, the Master Healers of Old, Children of Estë."

Ryn just looked at him blankly. "I'm descended of the who now?"

Gandalf chuckled, but it was Thorin who answered. "The Eiri. A race in their own right, just as dwarves and elves and skin-changers. I did not know they actually existed."

"They have passed into legend," Beorn answered. "But some of their blood still flows through their descendants in Middle Earth in the races of men and elves. I have never heard of a dwarf with Eiri ancestry, though; the two races never got along very well, though the Eiri would of course heal them without hesitation should the need arise; and the dwarves would willingly protect them from orcs and that ilk."

Ryn had latched onto the mention of her father's bloodline like a starving dog to a bone. "My father was a Man."

Beorn looked at her as if assessing her anew. "And you travel in the Company of dwarves, call them your friends? They accept you as one of their own?"

She shrugged. "They are good people, and have learned to see past it."

His gaze shifted to Thorin now, with new respect, and he inclined his head to him, still speaking to Ryn. "Perhaps you are right and they are good folk. It is a kindness I'll not forget, for the Eiri and the skin-changers were especially devoted to one another, more so than any other societies in history."

Gandalf nodded, while Ryn looked as if she might burst from the need to know more. "Hamät, the first Leader of the skin-changers, made a pact with Falathir, the first King of the Eiri, never to fight one another, and always to come to each other's aid—a pact backed by powerful magic. It's why Beorn cannot hurt you."

The bear-man growled. "Not that I would want to. I only needed to be sure my suspicions were correct."

Another nod. "As you say. The Eiri were created by Eru at the behest of Estë, the Vala of Healing and Rest. They were imbued with her power, it is said, and were masters of herbs and healing medicine. They were quick to heal should they be injured, and were therefore notoriously hard to kill unless you managed it quickly. In addition, they had the ability to heal using the life energy of whatever was around them—plants, animals, other Eiri, elves, humans, and the like. This ability, called the Falancurú, was used only by those with the skill to wield it—an amateur trying to use it could accidentally kill everyone in an entire village."

Deorynn blanched.

"The Masters, however, could use the magic in such a way that instead of stealing lots of energy from one source and moving on when it was depleted, they could instead harness miniscule amounts of energy from multiple sources and therefore prevent unnecessary loss of life. Tell me, dear girl, have you ever been near death? Did anything…..strange happen?"

She lay in the smelly tent, tied at her wrists and feet, screaming in agony at the poison making its way through her blood. Poisoned by her own blade, what a pathetic way to die. She was stupid, stupid, it was an idiotic thing to do, attacking a group of bandits this size; now they'd captured her and she was going to die here under this nasty little canvas and no one would ever even know…

She'd woken the next day to find the entire camp of bandits dead. Counting her lucky stars, she assumed some Rangers had come through, though it was odd that they hadn't burned the bodies. She had honestly given it very little thought, though, as she nicked a knife from near the ashy remains of the fire and cut herself free.

Deorynn felt sick. It was suffocating hot in the large room, and everyone was looking at her expectantly…she was sweating and lightheaded and oh Mahal I can't breathe…!

She stumbled outside, barely hearing them calling her name, and was sick in the bushes.

I killed them all.

Which she might have done anyway—they were her enemies after all—but there was something profoundly different about this. They had not been able to defend themselves; this was no pitched battle or even a fight at all. She had leeched the life from them without any warning, by magic. And what if it happened again? Oh Mahal, what happened if she was injured near her friends and they were the ones that….

She heaved again into the bush.

No no no it can't be please say it isn't true…..

A hand touched her back and she jolted away with a yelp. "Shhhh, âzyungel," Kíli soothed, gathering her up in his arms. "Hush, Ryn, it's all right. Gandalf says it's nothing to fear, that whatever happened when you nearly died wasn't your fault, it was an instinct you couldn't have controlled."

She was sobbing now. "I killed them all! There is no honor in the way I destroyed an entire encampment of them….just because I was near death. What if it happens again?!"

Kíli shook his head. "Gandalf says you can learn to control it."

Deorynn shuddered and pressed closer to him. He held her until her trembling eased, then smiled down at her, face so pale in the moonlight. "Are you afraid?"

She flashed back to the first time he asked her that; the first time she realized she was beginning to trust him. As she had done that morning, she nodded.

He rubbed her back and helped her stand. "Don't be. You're not alone anymore; we'll get through this together."

She nodded as he led her back inside. She looked at her gathered friends; word had evidently gotten around that something was up, and everyone was sitting, looking at her intently. She nearly quailed under their combined scrutiny, but instead gathered herself up and looked at Gandalf and Beorn.

"What must I do?"


The entire next morning was spent assessing Ryn's skills, specifically the use of the Falancurú. Beorn and Gandalf spent several hours helping the girl learn to identify and gather energy from her surroundings. She did manage to avoid killing any animals or people, although there was a wide circle of dead grass and shrubs around her before the morning was out.

"I am sorry we haven't more time; you must continue to practice your skills while on the road. Goodness knows when you'll need them in your future," Beorn stated gravely. "The Falancurú will come, in time, as you learn to manipulate the energy in the beings around you."

Deorynn simply nodded, exhausted after the morning's exercises.

"You should also know there are some wounds your healing—even the Falancurú—will not work on. Namely, those inflicted by magic or some poisons. No one knows why, but magical wounds cannot be healed by Eiri, any more than they can by anyone else."

"What if I'm struck by magic like that? Will the Falancurú make me…?"

Gandalf finished for her, knowing her fear. "Only if you do not learn to control it. Deorynn, the power is frightening, I know, but you must not fear it so much you refuse to acknowledge it. Such action could get people you care about killed. The better you are at using it, the less likely it will destroy someone you don't mean to destroy."

Ryn nodded again. "Yes, I understand."

After lunch, Beorn stuffed their packs as full as they could carry them and gave them fifteen horses. "I will stand guard for you," he said gravely. "But you must make all haste. Please send the horses back at the edge of the Mirkwood; your path lies through that place, but I would not have my animals there. Just let them free; they can find their way back to me."

Thorin was slightly disappointed they would not have horses through the forest, but he understood Beorn's attachment to them and didn't blame him in the slightest. Their road would only get more dangerous from here. He nodded to the bear-man, respect and gratitude evident even in the small gesture, and called to the Company, "Move out!"


The trip to the Mirkwood lasted the entire afternoon, before they camped on the edge of the ancient forest; but it passed in a blur to Deorynn. She spent a good portion of it rehashing certain memories, incidents in her life that had made no sense at the time but had just been passed off as oddity or good luck.

Her wrist, broken from a fall out of a tree, healing in record time—the healer told her mother perhaps it just hadn't been as bad as they feared, and besides, children healed faster than adults anyhow.

Smacking her head on a rock when she slipped during an outing in the forest one day; waking just before dusk without a mark or a bruise on her anywhere. There had been a circle of dry underbrush and a tree she was certain hadn't been dead hours before, though she'd barely noticed at the time.

A sprained ankle that had healed in less than twenty-four hours—her mother was convinced she had lied about the severity of it to avoid chores…

The way her scratches and cuts seldom scarred…

Countless injuries on the road, and yet she never had to deal with infections…

Broken ribs that had mended far faster than they ought to have…

Every one of these had been attributed to luck, or in the case of the broken ribs, the elven healing in Rivendell—but looking back on them with this new knowledge made so much sense. It felt a little like cheating, having an apparent advantage over others that originated in her very blood, but she could hardly complain; it had, after all, kept her alive multiple times over the last forty years.

And Gandalf said she could learn to make better salves, stronger medicines, heal wounds others could not. She looked at her friends.

I can preserve their lives.

They would be facing a dragon soon.

Her mind made up, she spent the rest of the ride familiarizing herself with the energies around her—the animals differed from the plants, and the dwarves, wizard, and hobbit all differed from each other. The impressions came to her in colors and patterns; it was fascinating, if a bit odd. Plants held a pure but slow-moving energy that felt very green; animals a browner, more earthy vitality. Dwarves were surrounded by pearly silver that resisted when she tried to access it; Bilbo's energy was blue and pulsing with life; while Gandalf was pure, golden light that was nearly blinding if she focused on it too long.

Curious, she looked at her own hands, trying to see her own energy. Her eyes widened.

Fiery red intertwined with the same pearly silver she saw in her friends, and little spots of sparkling white danced off the edges of her fingers. She couldn't help the awed "wow…." that escaped her lips.

"What's it like?"

She hadn't even noticed Bilbo pull up beside her. She started a bit, her sight clearing, and smiled at him.

"It's beautiful. Terrifying, but beautiful."


End A/N: The Eiri are not mentioned in canon anywhere. I made them up, but this story has definitely crossed into AU! territory at this point, so I'm allowed. I hope you enjoy learning about them as we go further into it. In case anyone is wondering: the name Eiri comes from the Norse goddess of healing, Eir. The term "Falancurú" comes from the Quenya (literally, 'to heal with power/energy'), and the Feldbrandr is loosely translated as "cloaked mark."