"Does it have a name?" Morwinyon asked, hefting the blade. It was heavier than Delu had been, but it fit her hand as perfectly.
Dis snorted. "What has it done to earn a name? It's a sword. I made it for you. Use it if you're going to."
The sword had a graceful curve not as deep as most elvish blades, a crossguard not quite as large as the usual dwarvish run, and all the lethality of both. It was shorter than Delu had been, too, and thicker. Morwinyon made a few humming passes with it, carefully away from Dis and the rest of the Dunedain smiths, getting a feel for it while Dis watched.
It felt made for her because it was, and it not feel hungry as Delu had. Morwinyon used it.
Now Morwinyon walked uneasily towards Moria's other entrance, itching to draw the sword. It would be impolite to approach with weapons in hand, though.
Moria felt like it did not want her much as Erebor had not wanted her, but she had won over Erebor in the end. Surely Moria was no pickier: Erebor had, after all, been exceptionally picky for a mountain from what Morwinyon had been able to tell over the years. Even the downs and their surrounding peaks had liked her better than Erebor at first, and the Blue Mountains had never made her feel unwelcome.
The orc tracks nearby might have something to do with Moria's hostility. They were fresher than the others she and Kili had run across, and more numerous.
"A recent attack?" she asked, but she doubted it.
"I don't like it," Kili said. "The gates are in disrepair, which we know Balin would never allow. And there aren't any signs of fighting at all."
"But we know that Balin reclaimed Moria," Morwinyon pointed out. "Gloin and Elrond said so. One wrong or exagerating I could believe, but both?"
Kili switched to Khuzdul. "Could the enemy have followed?"
"We are back to spies," Morwinyon replied in the same language. "I do not like it."
"No one would," Kili said. "Things happen all the time that we don't like."
Morwinyon blew out a breath and adjusted her widow's braid so it lay clearly visible over her cloak and armor, Fili's clasp prominently and properly displayed. Dis had given her a few more of Fili's things over the years, including more hair ornaments - she even wore some of them now, braided into the rest of her hair - but the first clasp she wore always.
Kili looked away, up at the stars that were not yet visible, and Morwinyon wished she had not left her knife with Tauriel. Tauriel had deserved a weapon in hand, but Kili should have had something of her to keep too. Morwinyon had over a century of memories of Tauriel, after all. Kili could have at least had a knife.
They continued their cautious approach and remained unchallenged by dwarves or anyone else.
"And yet I still feel watched," Morwinyon murmured in Khuzdul.
Kili grimaced and drew his sword, polite or no, and Morwinyon followed suit. They were almost to the gates, which lay open and, as Kili had said, in disrepair. The wind changed, and Morwinyon felt the now-familiar shadow at the corners of her mind. She stopped, holding up a hand.
See something? Kili signed.
Morwinyon pressed two fingers to her temple absently, and Kili swapped his sword for his bow while she tried to decide why Moria felt more like the barrow downs than Mirkwood or Erebor.
The obvious answer was that a lot of people had died here, but people uncounted had died in Erebor, and Mirkwood regularly lost scouts and guards to spiders or other dangers even when orcs were not trying to creep in. Could it be that the dwarves buried their dead in Moria? But when she had assisted in Erebor they had burned them.
"There is evil here," she said finally in Khuzdul.
Kili swore.
"If my brother is there, we have to go in," she said.
"No," Kili said, and she spun to stare at him.
His jaw was set stubbornly when he continued, "We don't know for sure they went through Moria. We don't know what's there. If Balin and his folk remain, then they are safe enough for now: if they don't, then they are likely already dead. The two of us couldn't help."
"That's why we're here," Morwinyon retorted. "To help."
"We were charged to protect Aragorn," Kili said.
Morwinyon gestured to Moria.
"You said your cousin would know where they are."
"I said she might," Morwinyon snapped.
"What harm to ask? If they are dead they're already dead, and if they aren't then presumably they are clever enough to live another few days while we return with reinforcements."
Just because he made sense was no reason for Morwinyon to like it.
"Your brother would hate it if you charged in like an idiot and got yourself killed," Kili added softly. "Arwen wouldn't like it either, and Dis and the twins-"
"Low blow," Morwinyon told him, but she was already turning away.
"You never fight fair," Kili said, following. "Why should I?"
"You do know your cousin, right?" Kili asked in Khuzdul two days later as they entered the fringes of Lothlorien. They had fallen into the language out of paranoia, probably, but it also felt good to speak it.
"I have met her," Morwinyon said. "At least, I believe I have. I would have been very young, but I am sure she visited at some point."
"Would this be before or after you remember meeting Elrond?"
"It may have been my first birthday," Morwinyon admitted. "She is my mother's cousin, remember? She did not visit after Laeriel went missing, and I never went anywhere but Mirkwood, so-"
She stopped talking when two arrows hit the ground, each bare inches from Mowrinyon and Kili.
"Halt," someone said unnecessarily as several elves dropped to the ground around them. He spoke Sindarin with a shadow of her mother's accent.
"We mean no harm," Morwinyon began in Sindarin, letting her mother's accent take hold with more than a shadow. "We come seeking-"
"I know who you seek," the elf said. "All who come here seek her. I ask why you come seeking with a dwarf, for we never had one before and now we have two in a year."
"I come seeking with my brother," Morwinyon said, keeping her hands clearly visible. All of the elves but the one speaking had arrows trained on her and Kili, and the speaker had knives close to hand. "We come seeking for Legolas Thranduilion and Aragorn, son of Arathorn, the latter on behalf of the Lady Arwen-"
"With a dwarf."
Morwinyon drew herself up to her full height - taller than this elf - and said coldly, "I am Mirwen Thranduilien, daughter of Laeriel Glingaerien, who was daughter of-"
"I know who birthed the Lady Laeriel-"
"And I tell you I come here with my brother, and this is my welcome?"
"Welcoming people, elves," Kili said in Khuzdul, smirking at her.
She could hear the elves shifting at the language they could not understand, but the elf in front of her said, "You cannot be her daughter. Morwinyon of the Greenwood died decades ago, when she went to fight a dragon."
"I did not die," she snapped at him in Quenya, the only way she could think to prove the point. She knew her pronunciation was archaic ("Correct," Laeriel would have said instead, "Your pronunciation is correct."), not to mention that she was fluent in it at all. She subsided back into Sindarin when she finished, "I admit I fared worse than I might have, and I admit I never saw anyone after, but neither did I die on the mountain. I would like your name, sir, since you have mine."
"The children of Thranduil travel far then, and in unusual company," he said instead of answering. "I wonder that he allows it."
"My father cannot allow me anything," Morwinyon replied, tamping down the reflexive but weak surge of old anger. "And he never refused my brother anything he truly wanted. You have seen Legolas recently?"
The marchwarden studied her. Finally he said, "You are certainly Noldor, and I have heard that the daughter of Laeriel resembled her greatly. Perhaps you speak the truth."
He stepped forward and gestured towards her face. Something about it reminded her of Thranduil, though she did not know why. She carefully lifted off her eyepatch and let the elf look his fill at her missing eye and scar-covered right side, letting him turn her head left and right at his pleasure. He did it gently, thumb running along the line of her jaw and brushing her ear. She did not flinch.
"And you have certainly faced a dragon," he said. "Did no one warn you about the blood?"
"No," she said. "I was warned about all the wrong things, I think."
He released her chin and stepped back. "I am Haldir," he said. "We will take you to the Lady, but the dwarf will be blindfolded."
He continued when she opened her mouth, "No negotiating. I will blindfold you as well if you wish it, for honor's sake."
"Something tells me it's not the first time he said that," Kili said in Sindarin. One of the elves jumped. Haldir cocked his head.
"You enjoy that too much," Morwinyon told Kili, and let herself be blindfolded.