A/N: 'Tis not the end, but it is indeed the beginning of the end. And as I have been looking forward to saying since Chapter 1…

WILL YOU FOLLOW ME, ONE LAST TIME?


Wren expected a doubt. That one last moment of hesitation. After all, that was when she was to give up the man she loved, the man who loved her, the man who said he wanted to stay... She expected to waver and to want to keep him, her perfect love as Lady Galadriel said, safe and sequestered, free of obstacles and jealousy and danger of being stolen or ever ebbing... And yet there was only certainty. Wren opened her fingers and looked at the large white stone on her palm.

She needed to hurry. She could be interrupted any moment, the guards could be opening the door this very instant... She had a ridiculous thought that, honestly, she should be paying attention right now, focus on what was transpiring. It was after all the end of her quest, what she had been striving to achieve for moons, her task, her goal... But all she felt was the worry to be stopped, and she whipped her head and looked at the door behind her...

... and missed the moment when the gem escaped her hand. Suddenly there was no weight on her palm, and she looked at her empty hand in astonishment.

It was done.

She immediately looked down into the crack. There was fire roaring somewhere underneath, heat was coming up, and she thought she could see tongues of flames or their reflections on the sides of the crevice, and she wondered whether the Heart of the Mountain had reached its core.

Somehow she expected an explosion, or at least a disturbance, a roar, a hum, or a tremour... Nothing came. She had a ridiculous thought that perhaps the stone fell and got stuck half way down on some small ledge. But she hoped it did not. And somehow she knew it would not. But a preposterous snort escaped her. Lady Galadriel had been indeed vague in her instructions.

And then Wren jumped at her feet and rushed to the door in the opposite wall.


She walked hastily through a narrow dark passage, trailing fingers on a smooth cold wall. It twisted and turned, and she would stumble over some rocks on the floor. Once she even fell and scraped her knees on something sharp. She hissed a swear, she was never good at obscenities, and it brought no relief. She started getting up, swayed, and her injured shoulder met the wall.

"Maiar help me, pull yourself together..." She scolded herself. "It is no time to suddenly grow clumsy..."

She walked for about half an hour, and she had been feeling the passage to slope, going up more and more steeply, and then it sharply turned, and Wren was in front of a door. She pushed it, it was surprisingly unlocked, and she stepped out. And into the blinding light of the setting Sun. Wren cringed and shielded her eyes.

She was standing on a ledge on the Northern side of the Mountain, and she looked around. There was a rocky narrow path leading South, and she saw its other end reaching the Overlook. And suddenly she realised she could not think of any place to go to...

She could not go back to Dale. Maiar knew what fate befell the Dwarves who had helped her, and she would not despise them if they disclosed the whole story of the kidnapping of the Arkenstone to their liege if it could somehow relieve their guilt. And apparently Nori had told Dain Ironfoot that she was the mistress of King Bard… So, the city was out of question.

Wren rushed along the path, leaving the Mountain behind as quick as possible, and once the door was not visible anymore, she took another path, weaving among rocks, leading slightly the East. After several minutes of brisk walk she saw a large boulder and heavily sat on it. The shoulder and the arm ached, and she gave herself just a few moments of rest.

She thought of her needs and which were to come first. Her arm and shoulder were, and she quickly shed her doublet, tunic and the chemise from underneath. Having put the tunic and doublet back on, she ripped the chemise in ribbons with her left hand and teeth. The painful part came next, and Wren clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes. She had done it many times on her patients, and twice on herself, she had had a fair amount of adventures in her life, but this time she was exhausted and seemingly still as if benumbed by what had just transpired. Instead of an assured brisk and forceful movement, in which she should have put her shoulder back in its place, she hesitated for the shortest instant. Instead of pushing her body against the boulder, twisting and letting the joint slide in the socket properly, she grazed the shoulder over it, pain bloomed, white and blinding behind her lids, and she sank her teeth into her bottom lip. She had enough sense not to be loud, but then her legs gave in and she slid on the ground. A half sob, half dry heave tried to escape, but once again she managed to suppress it.

She took a few gulps of air, fighting nausea, and then she got up swaying, quickly bandaged her arm, tightly around the wrist, blue and swollen now, and then made a sling for the arm. She quickly examined her bruises and scratches, the ones on the knees were soaking her trousers in blood, and then she noticed the blood on the shoulder of the torn doublet. She berated herself again for hesitation. While fixing her shoulder she managed to scrape it on the hoarse rock.

She started walking nonetheless, her mind working industriously, and soon she had her plan. She would go to the inn where she had had the scheming evening with the Dwarves, her saddle bags were there, and the room was paid for. She would not stay, she would quickly repack her belongings, making a smaller sack that she could carry, and she would leave Dale as soon as it was possible.

The inn was on the very outskirts of the city, she would walk around the city border, not to be seen. With her decision firmly on her mind, Wren hasted. She was also feeling rather hungry, and thus weakened, from blood loss and the emotional strain of the last hours as well.

On the other hand she felt almost grateful for the pain, from the new injuries and the old ones, from the Misty Mountains. They were distracting her, nagging and aching, and making her wince with almost each step. And letting her ignore the strangest and most terrifying sensation she had ever felt in her life. In those miniscule instants that she was not careful and would allow herself to dwell on it, she would feel nausea rise and her head swim from the most excruciating heartbreak.

Wren felt alone.

Until it happened she had not realised, but through these moons even when she was awake, there was a certain presence on her mind, some sort of a shadow of the connection to the world inside her dreams, to the Hall, and to the dead Dwarven King in it.

It was now utterly and irrevocably gone.

Wren of Enedwaith was now what she had been all the years that preceded her arrival to Dale. She was nothing but a scrap of a girl, just as the Dwarven King told her during their first conversation.

Short, thin, freckled and red haired, an unwanted child, an undesirable woman, a gifted healer, a traveller… Stubborn, know-it-all, prudent, cautious, incapable of taking risks… Or perhaps not anymore… Wren walked down the path, on each crossing choosing the path as much to the East as possible, trying to arrive to the edge of Dale where the inn was, and slowly with each step she was realising she was walking confidently.

Weak and starved, she nonetheless had a bounce to her stride, and through pain and splitting headache after the emotional turmoil, she suddenly understood that from now on and no matter what… she would be alright.

Her mind shuffled through possibilities and opportunities. She rejected Mirkwood, she knew she would be safe and perhaps content there, in the Elven Halls library, but it was too close to the Mountain.

She could go to the Beornings, she suddenly thought, and live with the Northmen. She would be happy to be close to Martha, they seemed to have kindred hearts.

Thinking of the Skinchanger's wife made Wren think of her friend Thea, and it saddened her. She made a mental note to write Thea a letter, explaining what had happened and where she was heading.

It was settled then, Wren would go to the Vales of Anduin, and with this certainty in heart she hurried on.


Five moons later, late Spring

The Vales of Anduin, Northmen village

Wren sat at her desk in the infirmary, quickly scribbling in her register. It was harvest time for many medicinal herbs, and she felt she was in a constant rush these days. Between two deliveries, several children having lung fever, and two men injured during a hunt, Wren could hardly snatch couple hours of sleep these weeks. She was feeling groggy and strangely uneasy, having spent the morning in the woods, baskets of the plants she had gathered still waiting for her in the back room of the infirmary. She felt irritation rising, she utterly disliked unfinished tasks, but she could not gather enough strength to get up and start sorting out the stems and leaves. Wren rubbed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. Her head was heavy, and her mind as if foggy.

A knock came from the door, and Wren invited the visitor in. It was one of the village woodsmen. He was a widower with three small children, and thus a quite frequent visitor to the infirmary. With younglings there were always colds, scratches and twisted ankles. Wren also knew that Martha, as well as several other women in the village, was harbouring a thought of marrying Wren out to him. There was no affection between the two of them, but he was a kind and pleasant man, and Wren felt they respected and liked each other. Wren would wave her hand dismissively when Martha would start her rather poorly veiled hints, but Wren could not say such prospect seemed that inconceivable. He was tall and large, massive arms, soft brown beard and a mane of dark hair, curling at the ends around his nape.

"Honourable healer, I came to pick up the balm for the youngest's chest," the woodsman's voice was raspy and pleasant. His youngest son was one of the children with the lung fever, and Wren nodded and got up to pick up the jar from a shelf.

The room swam in front of her eyes, everything grew blurred and grey, and she tried to grab the corner of her desk, but her fingers slipped, and she sank on the floor. Through the haze she felt the woodsman to pick her up, and then the world grew black.


"Wren… Wren, ushaktul… Wake up..." The voice of the Dwarven King sounded frightened, and she wanted to reassure him, to explain to him it was clearly just the fever she had caught from the children, after being weakened by the lack of sleep and wandering the forests in early morning, dew soaking her boots and trousers, and then she jerked.

He was not supposed to be here! Had she not fulfilled her task?! Had she not returned the Heart of the Mountain to where it belonged?! Had she not released him?!

"Wren..."

Oh no, not again! Wren thought, and once again fell into the deep dreamless slumber.