Hello, dearest readers, thank you very much for your patience and continued support, I'm barely having time to write, so here goes a short chapter to make up for next week's absence, as I'm going to my mother's 75th birthday party and really wont have time to write.


"This. Is. Not. Fair!"

Each of her angry words was pointed by a hard stab on the poor dummy that had the bad luck to be in her path when Gwendolin reached the training arena. After leaving her father in the healing house, the distraught woman ran upstairs to the only place she felt fit for her in that moment. It was not her nature, never had been, but now it was the only thing that came to her mind when she thought about how to release her feelings.

"Not. Fair!"

She took her blades from where they showed only the hilts and begun a new attack, this time kicking strategic points before each stab, which would have brought any male enemy to his knees before she ever used the knives at all.

"Gwen, what's the point in this? You met your father, isn't it a good thing?"

Some of the straw that filled the dummy fell to the floor when Gwendolin retrieved her blades again.

"Iris, can't you see what I lost? I could have had my daddy all my life long, and it. Was. Denied. To me!"

Her last words were accompanied by a kind of dance around the dummy that mixed hits with her fists and elbows and diagonal cuts with her knives. The lower part of an arm was hangingloosely from a strip of fabric. Some dwarves who were sparring nearby came closer to watch her.

"But now you found him, I know it's not the same, but you can make up for so many things you didn't have in the past!"

"My grandma took my daddy from me! She didn't have the right!"

Her latest blow made the dummy's head to rest on its shoulder at an odd angle.

"No, she didn't, but you have him back now."

"Do I? Do I?" Herbody moved with a deadly gracefulness as each of the 'internal organs' of the dummy was stabbed with surgical precision twice, one with her right, then one with her eft, just to be sure. "He is a Dúnedain, a ranger who wanders here and there in the wild, and I am just an Earthling with no skill but to put some pieces of fabric together. Even if he allows me to stay by him, what good would I be to him?"

Each main 'blood vessel' of the poor dummy was being cut open, except for the wrist of the arm that was already mangled.

"If I had grown up with him I could be useful, I could fight at his side, but that repulsive, sickening and nauseating jerk of an purblind, muzzy, thick-headed brute beast of an idiotic dimwit and mindless, dull, imbecile and slaphappy ninny droll of a witch sent him away from me!"

"I see." Iris smirked and took the manged arm of the dummy from the ground where it fell, carefull to be far enough of the knives that made for the dummy's heart again and again. "You are angry because your father is a warrior and you can't be by him because you ain't."

"Precisely!" A precise movement finished to behead the dummy and a kick sent the straw ball a couple of yards away. "Don't you see I would be totally useless in a fight?"

Iris made an effort to muffle a laughter.

"Gwen…"

"Yes?"

"Can you take some steps away from where you are, please?" The woman obeyed with a frown, not grasping what her friend meant with that. "Now, can you look back to where you were 'killing' that poor dummy, please?"

"I was not trying to 'kill' it, I was just practicing some self defence movements Aredhel taught me!"

That she said with her back still to the dummy, pointing behind her with a knife. Iris put her hand on the blonde's elbow and made her to turn around.

The ground of the training arena, up to a seven feet radius of the dummy's post, was covered with pieces of straw and fabric used to fill it and give its shape; an arm was missing, as well as the head, and a leg was almost severed; most of the filling of the torso was spread around it, coming out in wisps from both front and back. Gwendolin's jaw fell a little.

"Gwen, if this was only your self defence, I don't want to be on the wrong side of your anger the day you decide to really hurt someone."

The woman was in shock for the second time that day.

"I… I didn't mean…"

"I hope your phrase ends with 'I didn't mean that I'm useless in a fight', right?

Gwendolin had sheated her knives and now fidgeted with the ring in its chain around her neck.

"What a mess have I done! Mister Dwalin will get mad at me and, and…"

Iris threw the dummy's arm in Gwendolin's direction.

"You're impossible! Now come, let's fix a nice dinner for your daddy, you both have tons of things to chat."

000ooo000

"I'm glad to know Gwen is getting good terms with her father. It was a surprise, though, she was so completely outlandish, none would suspect her to be half-Dúnedain."

"That is, Ferumbras, almost a Mexican soap opera, I'd say."

"No idea of what a Mexican soap opera is, but if you say so, Iris, then it must be weird indeed."

The hobbits were drinking an ale at The Tumbled Chair, one of their favorite inns in Erebor, as mistr Derkin, the owner, was quite short for a dwarf and insisted that his furniture followed his own stature, so it was almost hobbit sized. It made the place more comfortable for them, who didn't need to let their feet dangling from their seats.

"And who am I to say anything about weirdness?"

"You can be as weird as you wih, sweetie, as long as you remain in Middle-earth AND by my side."

They laughed at Bilbo's possessiveness as he held the red-haired lass cloer to him, only to be punched affectionately in the ribs.

"Iris is not weird, it's the rest of the world who are boring!"

"Thank you, Beryl, I'll remember to quote you next time someone calls me weird."

"Don't worry, you'll have plenty of it in the Shire."

"Or, at, least, plenty of it from the Sackville-Bagginses."

"The Bracegirdles are not much better, though."

"Yes, but they are not kin."

"Ok, I won't worry myself beforehand about my future neighbours." – Iris weaved the Sackville-Baggins issue away. "We have plenty to worry with our own journey there to."

"Well, most of the way you know already, though we may take a different route through the Misty Mountains."

"That sounds wonderful, I don't fancy another trip through the tunnels of the goblins."

Ferumbras stretched his arms, as if the mention of goblins made his back ache, and turned to Bilbo.

"By the way, we're not taking that Cold Fells route, are we?"

Bilbo took a sip of ale and sighed.

"No, most probably not. I'm yet to discuss it with our escort, but they are having a meeting today with the elves of Lórien and the reangers, exactly to discuss these issues, and tomorrow I'll have a meeting with the wizards, Gwendolin and Ellen to discuss certain… details of my former journey, while the others will be in Dale for a meeting about the recent orc attack. It seems our current adventure is more prone to bureacratics than anything else."

"With my aunt around? Sure!" She nibbled at a slice of cheese. "By the way of tomorrow, who is in the mood for an outing? Ellen and Kíli will be attending different meetings, Bilbo and my father with her, my sister and two cousins in the infirmary, so I thought it would be nice to take the remaining cousins for a pic-nic in the woods nearby. Anyone willing to go?"

Primula laid her head on Drogo's shoulder.

"It sounds nice, but I'm feeling so sleepy lately that I don't think I would enjoy it as due."

"And I'll stay by Primula, of course."

Dudo slapped his brother in the thigh.

"As if anyone would think you'd leave your flower alone for as long as a minute!"

"Ok, and the remaining of you?"

Iris' wishfull look was frustrated by Beryl.

"We would love to, but we already promised to Bofur to spend some hours with him and Ori for them to record the hobbit different uses for reference in the library, and designs and patterns so Erebor ay produce jewelry fit for our tastes, so it can become a future trade item."

"Wow, Beryl, that's an idea indeed!"

Paladin completed.

"And Bofur said he ale would be free!"

When she stopped laughing, Iris shook her head, amused.

"This explains everything!"

"I'll go with you." Offered Ferumbras. "I'm used to the royal brats and a little sun and fresh air will do me good."

"That will be splendid!" The new member of the family hugged him warmly. "Thank you, Ferumbras!"