Chapter Fifty-Seven: June is For Contemplation

Eight Months After

When Emelia woke up, just past dawn and covered in sweat, she realized she had overslept once again. Flipping over onto her back, she immediately peeled off her soaked nightdress and threw it to the floor, splaying her legs open and turning her arms upwards to get them just a little bit more air. It was unbearably hot on this side of Bag End, even with the layers of earth built over the side of the house and the slight breeze coming in from her open window, and she found herself more often than not in the last few weeks fanning her face in a desperate attempt to cool down. Still, she preferred it to just about anywhere else. She had tried sleeping on every soft surface of the house when they first got back to the Shire, excluding Bilbo's room of course, and none of them let her get more than two or three hours at most, save for her current room. At night, when the only sounds spilling into her room were the junebugs and mockingbirds, she allowed her mind to wander to places and things she didn't dare think about during the day. She would just as soon avoid it altogether, so she suffered through the stiffing heat in exchange for a few more hours of mental silence.

Emelia rolled back onto her side, embracing the quiet for just a bit longer before she got up and went about her day. The sun streamed in through the window, making the ever-present dust particles dance and swirl across her vision until they disappeared into the shadows and out of sight. She watched them, moving her hand to match the motions. Her fingernails no longer had dirt underneath them, but they were still rough from the months of abuse she had put them through. The hand that had been crushed was still stiff and prone to jerky movements whenever she used it too much, but she was glad to have it.

She marked the days and the long nights by the position of the sun on her wall, counting the hours when she couldn't sleep until she had to make an appearance and pretend everything was normal. Today, it would be beautiful in the Shire, like almost all days were, sunny, warm, and full of light and she would hardly notice any of it. Instead, she would notice the hitch in her shoulder that kept her from holding her arms over her head for too long, the slight limp she carried that was more cumbersome than burdensome nowadays, and the way she could no longer tuck her curls back behind her ear on one side of her night, when the hobbits gathered around their hearths, or the Green Dragon if they were feeling sociable, she spent her time pouring over the impressive amount of books in Bilbo's library. When she read all the ones she could understand, she started trying to teach herself to piece through the ones she couldn't, to very limited success. Elvish was particularly nonsensical to her, but she was proud of the few phrases she managed to learn.

She had, at the very least, managed to learn how to insult Legolas in the most colorful ways imaginable in the letters he insisted she send to him.

"Emelia, are you up?" Bilbo knocked on her bedroom door, voice soft and comforting. He had adopted that tone for her at some point on the journey back from Erebor. At first she hated it, hated the way it made her feel like a porcelain doll that already had one too many cracks, but along around the time they reached Rivendell again, she found she had started craving it.

"Just a minute," She said, heaving herself the rest of the way out of the bed and throwing on her patchwork robe. She swiped her good hand across the back of her neck and forehead, grimacing at the accumulated moisture before she crossed the small room and opened the door, tying her robe with hurried hands. The rough edge of her nail caught on the fabric of the robe, snagging it. She pulled it up to her mouth, worrying on the edge until she tasted a flash of copper.

"Tea?"

He shoved a steaming cup in her face and she couldn't help but smile at the gesture, even if the heat from the cup made her sweat even worse.

"Thank you," She took it and placed it on the top of the old wardrobe, stepping aside so that he could sit on the edge of the bed as she went about getting ready for the day.

"Roper Gamgee told me you shouted at him on Thursday."

Emelia cringed. He hadn't exactly deserved her sour attitude

Emelia bent over and started digging through her small collection of dresses she kept folded in the bottom drawer, noting, with great disappointment, that not a single one was light enough to keep the heat away. She would be hot no matter what, but she knew that wouldn't be a concern later, so she grabbed her warmest one and did her best to hide it from Bilbo as she stuffed it into the small leather bag next to her feet. It was a deep purple, almost dark enough to be considered black if she wasn't standing outside, and had long sleeves. She had been drawn to the morose colors when she first arrived and now, in the dead of summer, she could not help but hate her dramatics from months prior. She wished, more than anything, that she could throw on a pair of jean shorts and a t-shirt and call it a day, but she was already enough of a scandal around Hobbiton she didn't need to add trollop, as the Hobbits would say, to her ever expanding list of nicknames.

"Roper Gamgee should learn to mind his own business."

"Emelia," Bilbo warned, although she could hear the humor in his voice.

She sat back on her calves and pulled out a bone colored shift, suppressing her almost daily desire to set all of them on fire, and a pale pink dress that brushed a few inches below her knees. Perhaps thinking it might improve her mood, Bilbo had bought her a dress of every color shortly after they got back to the Shire. It was a kind gesture, if not a little misguided, and she made a point to wear as many of them as possible, just in case it was the sort of thing that made Bilbo happy. All of them, except of course, for the blue and green ones. Those she still hadn't touched. Stepping behind her small dressing screen, she threw off her robe, pausing for a moment before she replaced it with something else. Her bloomers rubbed against her hip bones as she tried to adjust them in a vain attempt to make it more comfortable. Giving up after a moment, she signed and looked down.

There were a great many things more important to be thinking about than her body. So many, in fact, that she tended to avoid the subject altogether when she wasn't taking her weekly bath, two now that it was hotter outside. She stared at her legs sticking out from the off-white undergarments, turning them each left and right before she let out another sigh and looked back up at the changing screen. She pulled on the shift and dress, feeling very much like she had just committed herself to wearing a straightjacket for the day, and smoothed out the wrinkles as much as possible.

"I'll apologize at the Green Dragon nest time I'm there, if you want me to."

"I already did."

She peered out at him, lips pursed. Upon seeing the look on his face, her angry retort died on her lips. She sighed and leaned back, hurriedly lacing up the back of her dress before she tightened the front and stepped back out.

"Would you like to come with me today?" She asked, walking over to her little pile of shoes. Getting them made had been a bit of an ordeal and involved ordering them special made from Bree, but well worth it in the long run. She didn't have tough soles like the hobbits and, although she did enjoy the feeling of the grass under her toes after a long day spent out on her boat, she had stepped on one too many spiked branches to forgo them entirely. Toeing on her favorite pair, she quickly pushed her short bangs out of her face.

She had, perhaps a little misguidedly, attempted to smooth out the rough hack job from months before outside Beorn's house. She had only made it worse, resulting in hair that now barely brushed just above her jaw. At first she was horrified, unable to fight off the rush of shame she felt when she first saw herself in the mirror, but it had grown on her.

"I have errands to run," He said, standing up. He walked over to the small window at the edge of her room, the one that overlooked the Shire, and opened it, letting out a low whistle.

It took only a moment for the little raven to come careening in, still as ungraceful as the day she got him, landing in a heap of feathers and dust on her bed. He was still quite small and she was beginning to think that he might have been a runt when she got him, although she had no way of confirming her suspicions.

Bilbo reached out a hand and stroked the bird with a single finger, cooing when it leaned into his hand. He took a strong liking to the animal much faster than she had, even going so far as to ply it with worms and grubs whenever he spent his day in the garden.

It had been a parting gift from Dain. He seemed to think, by whatever logic dwarves lived and died by, that upholding Thorin's banishment was the fair and right thing to do.

Written in stone.

Apparently, that mean something to dwarves, something she couldn't even begin to understand, and no amount of screaming and crying on her part had been able to change it.

They gave her a raven for her service and sent her on her way and she was forced to try and exist.

She had found herself wishing, more and more as each day passed, that she could go back to how things were a few days before she woke up. She did not dream, did not see any bright colors or think of warmth. There was nothing but darkness, but she found she preferred it that way. At the very least, she could pretend that it was still early in the morning, that at any moment her mom would peak her head into her room and softly wake her up for their daily fishing excursion. She could pretend that the sharp smell of medicine was freshly made biscuits, the pressure on her leg was from sleeping with it too long in the same position, and the feel of the small body pressed to her side was her little brother having snuck into her room when he got too cold in his own.

She couldn't bear to open her eyes and see the truth, so she stubbornly kept them shut as the world moved on around her, without her.

On the second day, she had started to feel the pain in all of her limbs. She breathed in and out, counting up and down to ten before she started over again. She thought that was the best she could so. Breathe in and out, in and out, in and out, and wait for the ability, or desire, to do more than that. But even that was difficult. The pain had started localized in her leg. Someone had cleaned and bandaged it, sewed the cut shut, and left it to heal, but she could still feel the rip in her muscle where the warg had latched on. The pain moved then to her crushed hand, then her back, and finally her ear, the mangled little bit that was left behind, before it settled into an all over ache that made her want to curl into a little ball and cry until she was back to feeling nothing at all.

She missed the numbness.

For so long it felt like she was floating in a vat of cold water. She had never been in a sensory deprivation chamber, but she imagined it was something like that. Her heartbeat was all she could hear, her breathing the only thing that allowed her to feel the passage of time, and for three days she didn't mind. For three days she existed in a world where there were no dwarves, no elves, and no human children in harm's way.

For three days there wasn't even death.

But then the feeling came back and she couldn't pretend anymore.

Warmth found its way back into her body and then there was too much. Her lower back started sweating, but she still couldn't bring herself to throw off the blanket to let her legs breath. All she could do was lay there and listen. She recognized Tauriel's voice, soft and bell-like as she redressed her wounds and worried over her like any friend would, although Emelia had never been kind enough to her to warrant such a concerned response. She heard Tilda, who came everyday like clockwork to ask how she was doing, chattering to her even though Emelia couldn't, or didn't want to, respond.

So many voices had filled her room, but she still didn't hear the ones she wanted, so she didn't move.

Bilbo glanced up at her, noticing her silence as he kept on playing with the bird her bed, forcing her back into the moment and away from the mountain once again.

He did that quite often, although most of the time he had the decency to look away when caught. Sitting together at the small table in the kitchen, or when they both were reading by the fire at night, gardening, or even when they decided to go to the Green Dragon, he was always watching her. At times she felt stripped bare by his gaze, like he could see everything that she refused to tell him, and at others like he was looking right through her, like she had disappeared into the very background of the walls and had ceased to exist entirely.

Living together was not easy for either of them. She blamed herself for that, but she thought he felt the same agonizing suffocation when he was around her as she felt when she was with him.

She loved him and needed him, of course, and the thought of living alone after everything that had happened felt even worse, but even looking at him reminded her of the pain she wanted nothing more than to forget.

"You're late," He said, having learned long ago not to ask. She jumped, remembering he was right, and hurried over to her leather satchel. She threw in the stuff she would need and closed it tight, making sure that Bilbo couldn't see what she tossing inside. He would have questions and, although she was still committed to her plan, she had not quite yet found the way to tell him. "Will you be back for a late lunch or early supper?" He asked, eyeing the bag with an unnatural amount of understanding.

She touched his shoulder before she hurried out of the room, breathing easier the moment she was away from his presence. She rushed through his house and grabbed head scarf as she walked out of the round, green door, and tied it around her hair, hiding it from the outside world. She wasn't recognizable without her hair, and she welcomed the opportunity to disappear again, if even just for a moment.

Emelia found her peace on her boat. For a time, she could hardly stand to be anywhere else. The sound of the water slapping against the wooden sides, the smell of the fresh catch, the way she could close her eyes and forget, lulled her into an almost meditative state. There was also the added bonus that, due to the hobbits aversion to anything water related, there were very few people who were in the fishing business. She spent her days blissfully alone, away from the hustle and bustle of Hobbiton and the stares she got.

Bilbo made sure she didn't need anything, but it felt nice to earn her own money for the first time in her life. She had bought herself, quite pointlessly, a beautifully embroidered coat despite the fact that it never got cold enough in the Shire to wear it, just because she had the money.

Her raven perched itself on the side of the boat and watched her, beady eyes following every movement she made as if it was cataloging it for a later date.

She still hadn't named it, 6 months later, but it seemed not to mind. It responded to the soft calls Bilbo threw in its direction and the snap of her fingers. Even making eye contact was enough, on its needier days, causing her to avoid looking at it as much as possible. She didn't even know if it was a boy or a girl, although she thought the blueish colored tipping to its wing might be the answer, if she was ever bothered enough to look it up in a book of Middle Earth ornithology.

She had laid in supplies, foolishly thinking that she would need to hide her plan from him. He had known, of course, from the moment she started collecting little bundles of food and spending an inordinate amount of time in the study pouring over his maps, that her brain had latched onto a foolish notion that it refused to let go of until she was able to see it through.

Her pack sat at the back of the boat, full to the brim of everything she would need. Next to it, a walking stick sat, ready to be used.

She kicked off and watched the water break as she floated out to the middle of the river. Reaching her hand down, she dipping her fingers over the side of the boat. It was warm, but she had grown so accustomed to it the thought no longer disturbed her. Swiping her hand sideways, she groped around until she felt the mossy length of her fishing net. She had set it up a few weeks ago and so far it hadn't come up empty once. She didn't feel right leaving, so she started the arduous process of pulling the net back up.

It had taken her almost three weeks to put the net together, but it was well worth the effort. Every day she dropped it in the water, she was rewarded with a large catch to sell to the water weary hobbits all around Hobbiton and, sometimes when she was feeling particularly crowded by Bilbo, just a little bit beyond. Today, it looked like she was going to be lucky. Ignoring the shaking in her hand and the awful pain as the rope dug into the thick scar along her palm, she yanked it up and immediately started pulling out the bright yellow fish.

"I received your letter," A voice called, startling her so much she stumbled backwards and land on the wet pile of netting that she had already pulling into the boat.

She looked to the shore and immediately scowled. "Legolas."

"Emelia." He inclined his head ever so slightly, smiling at the look on her face. "Your friend was persistent, once he was able to distinguish me from the next."

"I think he might be a bit blind."

"Perhaps, but he is no less dedicated."

"I send him as practice," Emelia said, going back to her task. "And just in case you got a wild hair to come and visit, which I was clearly right about. I didn't want you to be alarmed."

"I am not." Legolas leaned back against the tree.

"So…"

"Where are you going?"

"What makes you think I am going anywhere?"

"Your letter."

"I could just be going to the town over."

"Then you would not have sent a letter," Legolas said, moving so that he was standing just at the edge of the bank. She felt crowded, even though there was more than enough space between them. "And you would not have done so with more than enough time before you left for me to do something about it."

"It isn't a big deal, and I don't want you making it into one."

"I would never."

"Legolas, we traveled together for months, even though no one invited you, I think I know when you're going to stick your overly large nose into my business."

"You invited me to."

Emelia paused, holding the last length of rope above the water. "No such thing ever happened. If I didn't want to talk to Bilbo, what makes you think I would want to talk to you?"

"The matter still remains, I am here to accompany you wherever you decide to go."

Emelia yanked the rope into her boat and turned around, arms crossed over her chest, an even deeper scowl marring her face. At its face, it seemed to be a chivalrous offer. Perhaps, a few months past, she might have accepted out of a sheer desire to not be alone with her own miserable thoughts. But the long months had taught her to find strength in herself and she was not so easily swayed by his handsome face, or any for that matter, as she had once been. "Absolutely not."

"It is not safe to travel outside of the Shire by yourself."

"You do it."

He smirked and inclined his head. "That is true. Perhaps I could bother you for an escort then. I have business in the north and I would see it through before the end of the warm season."

"I had hoped to be by myself."

There was a creeping sadness in her voice that she had tried to fight off for months. Her despair came in waves, it seemed to her, never lasting long enough for her to grow accustomed to. Sometimes it lingered at the edge of her mind hardly bothering her and allowing her to live her days as she wished. Others, she woke up feeling like a ton of iron had settled on her chest, holding her down and preventing her from doing anything but covering her head and willing the feelings to leave her once again. It was on one of those days that she had taken to staring at Bilbo's maps, eyes dancing over everything north, south, and west of the Shire. She memorized the mountains and the rivers, the valleys that probably smelled of summer flowers and the little towns that were full of people nothing like her. She created stories for those people; lives of happiness and love that would never be touched by the deep sense of longing and depression that had seeped into her very bones.

"Indeed? That is very lonely."

"That was the point," She said, beginning the quick row back to the shore. She shooed him aside when he tried to help her haul the boat up a bit, stepping back without prompting and allowing her access to the tree to tie it off. "I'm not trying to be rude…"

"Yes you are."

She turned her back to him and lifted her pack out of the boat, double checking everything for good measure. She regretted sending the raven. She wouldn't have, if she had known it would result in Legolas popping up out of nowhere. She unbuttoned her dress and slipped it off, throwing it aside in favor of her thicker traveling clothes. She pulled off her leather sandals, a gift form Bilbo once he had seen how torn up the soles of her feet were a week after their arrival, and replaced them with her boots from home. Her foot sank back into the print that she had worn in from months of those boots and nothing else and she wiggled her toes, getting used to the feel of them once again.

"If you come," She said after a moment, already regretting it. "You can't be an asshole."

"I would never…"

She cut him off, turning around with a pleading look on her face. "And we have to go to Forochel, no questions asked."

"Forochel, why…"

"Legolas!" She snapped, hands clenching into fists. When he made no indication that he was going to argue, she couldn't help but smile and relax. "Perfect, let's go."

Emyn Uial was covered in a soft blanket of heather and summer honey suckle, although Emelia was too focused on catching dinner for her and Legolas to take much notice. They were crouched a few hundred paces north of Lake Evendim, a bow clasped in her hands and a bundle of arrows in his, staring at three little brown rabbits on the other side of the clearing. She clenched the three fingers around the bowstring and tried to ignore the horrible shake that happened whenever she pulled the string back to her chin. It felt like it was cutting straight to the bone, but she had developed a stubborn streak since coming to Middle Earth and she couldn't give up without at least trying.

"Arm up," Legolas said, voice so soft she had trouble hearing him. She nodded, eyes narrowing as she watched one of the rabbit turn to the side, practically doubling the size of her target.

"What if I miss and hurt it?" She asked, hoping that he wouldn't laugh at her.

"If you miss, you will miss entirely."

"Encouraging," Emelia said, shooting at look at him out of the corner of her eye before turning back to the rabbits. "What if they have families?"

"Emelia, if the thought so disturbs you, aim for the tree." She was surprised by the care in his voice, even if it was laced with the ever so slightest bit of mockery that she had come to expect from him. He was not unkind, as Tauriel had said, but he seemed to lack a basic understanding of anything relating to humans beyond his dealings with the men of Lake-town. Even more concerning was his apparent lack of understanding of human women. She could not fault him, however, even if he was old as dirt, considering she herself knew next to nothing about elvish men. After traveling together for months, they were able to move in each other's company in relative ease, although that didn't stop Emelia from shooting the occasional glare at the back of his head just to keep herself sane. Their first few days back together were awkward, to say the least, but they were eventually able to reach an understanding that kept them both comfortable and, more importantly, happy. "We have plenty of lembas bread."

"It tastes like thousand year old dust," She said, cringing at the mere thought of having to eat another meal of whatever the elves thought passed as bread. "You need a good focaccia in your life."

"I do not know what that is," He said, moving her arm back up as it started to dip.

"Do elves use spices in cooking?" She asked, genuinely curious.

"Of course."

"Besides salt and pepper?"

"Our lifespans mean we can afford to be a little adventurous."

"If you consider anything but salt and pepper adventurous, I worry for you."

"Are you going to shoot the arrow or continue insulting my race?"

Emelia smirked and shook her head, focusing back on the rabbits. "It wasn't an insult, per se. Just an observation."

"Per se?"

"Latin."

"Is that your native language?"

Emelia shook her head and took a deep breath, focusing on anything but the pain in her fingers, and let the arrow fly. For a moment, she thought she might have actually managed to aim it just right, but then it sailed clean over the rabbits head, startling all three in the process, and flew into the bushes and out of sight. She let out a grunt of annoyance and sat back, dropping the bow between them as she shifted her weight around and stretched her legs out in front of her, resigning herself to her inevitable meal of lembas bread and unfiltered lake water. She held the bow out to him, knowing when to accept defeat, and tried not to feel too jealous when he was able to easily pull string back and shoot an arrow into the trees.

The little squeak followed quickly by another two, softer than the first, told him he had found his mark.

His pale hand appeared in front of her face and helped her to her feet. "I'll get them."

"And a bit of wood for the fire," Legolas said, crouching down next to the spot he had cleared in the grass for a fire when they first arrived. "Shout if anything happens."

"You would hear them coming long before they got to me," She said, already walking away from him and towards the tree line. "In fact, you've probably already been listening and have deemed it safe enough for little old me to walk thirty feet away from you."

She continued walking into the trees, turning her gaze towards the ground to avoid accidently stepping on one their dinner. Stepping beneath the canopy of the forest she felt the temperature drop almost instantly as the last light from the son struggled to reach her through the trees. Spying the first of the little rabbits, she rushed forward and plucked it off the ground, doing her absolute best not to feel resentful about the fact that the arrow had gone clean through the rabbit's eye and imbedded itself in the base of the tree behind it. A few paces past, the second rabbit was pinned to the ground and the third to a tree. Dropping the first rabbit next to the second, she continued forward until she found a small bramble patch that would be perfect for kindling.

Popping down into a squat, she starting pulling on the larger branches, making a little pile next to her feet. When she had enough, or what she thought was enough, she gathered them and the rabbits up in her arms and started back.

"No troubles?" Legolas asked, clearly fully aware that nothing had happened.

She sank down on the ground next to him, holding out sticks as he needed them. Emelia enjoyed the silence for what it was and she was thankful that Legolas was not the type to try and fill it. She didn't think he felt social discomfort, at least not in the way she was used to. When he was finished he looked back at her, eyes searching for something on her face, before he turned back to the rabbits and began skinning them.

While they waited, her little raven came swooping back from wherever he had been and landed on her shoulder, more interested in the fresh meat than her.

"No word from Erebor?" Legolas asked, looking at her over the fire after ten minutes of silence.

She bit her lip and shook her head, holding a bit of raw rabbit meat to her little raven. It pecked at her fingers, missing the scrap three times before it finally connected. He was a silly thing and was exceedingly poor at his job, but she could not bear to part with him and find a better, more effective messenger bird.

"Ravens can't go where they've never been."

"Sounds like a dwarvish superstition," Legolas said, a bite of unkindness in his voice, although she thought that might have been unintentional. Even still, she straightened up and turned her body towards him.

"You don't have to say it like it's a bad thing," She said, ignoring the little bird as it pecked more incessantly at her hand in favor of watching his smooth face. He was so expressionless, so stoic, she never knew what he was thinking. But, she had never thought him unkind. Not at least, until that moment. "I know you have your own reasons for disliking them, but you don't have to be so predictably elvish."

"As should you."

"They have their faults, the same as you and me."

"And yet, it is not I that was banished."

Emelia stared at him, failing to comprehend how, exactly, she was meant to respond to something so mean. She sank back even further into her spot as she looked down at her hands, the fingertips stained red from the rabbit meat. "You don't get it," She managed after a moment, angry that she couldn't come up with anything better.

"No, I do not," He skewered the rabbit on two of the straighter sticks she found and set them over the fire, turning his full attention towards her.

"I don't really want to talk about it."

"I do not wish to cause you pain. I simply wish to understand."

"Why, because emotions are complicated for you?"

"Human emotion," Legolas admitted, turning the rabbits over to their other side. "I found the ranger, but he was not what I expected."

"Why?"

"He is so young and inexperienced. My father seemed to think there was something in him, but I fail to see it." He paused, pale hands hovering over the rabbits as he seemed to try and collect his thoughts. "He reminds me a great deal of you and I wish to understand."

"We aren't mythical creatures, Legolas. You've been alive for what, ten thousand years, humans shouldn't be this confusing to you."

Legolas, despite his clear discomfort, smirked and looked back up at her. "I am not ten thousand."

"That's really not the important part of this discussion." Emelia reached forward and grabbed the last bit of the raw meat left over and held it up to her bird.

"Humans live very short lives."

"Yes, thanks for that reminder."

"So you form strong attachments very quickly."

"I'm still very confused."

"Why did you leave?" Before she could answer Legolas shot up in his spot, dropping the two half-cooked rabbits in the fire as he grabbed his bow and aimed into the darkness. After a moment he relaxed and Emelia thought, for the first time, that she might have been wrong about how good elvish hearing was, but then a pair of laughs broke through and Legolas made his own sound of annoyance. "What are you doing here?"

"Rescuing a fair maiden, trapped in the wilderness with her captor."

Legolas turned his back to their pair of dark blobs in the distance and returned to his place by the fire. "Emelia, allow me to introduce the sons of Lord Elrond, Elladan and Elrohir."

Surprise! Not dead!

I want to apologize to all of you for how long this took. I think I hate it, but it's all part of a bigger plan for the next few chapters, so there is a lot of little tidbits of information that won't make sense until all three are out.

Again, I'm really sorry for the delay and that this is probably not what you expected, but I've written it in full seven times (so, that's about 40K words that were pure shite that didn't make the cut) and I couldn't have it handing it over my head anymore. Emelia is sad and I'm sad and I don't want to keep writing sad things, so I'm soldiering forward to get to better things and finishing this.

Enjoy! The ranger shows up next chapter and we find out a bit more about what happened at Erebor eight months ago!

See you in 2 years!

Lol ;)

ALSO:

I published a new Dragon Age fic called Red Tail, if you're interested. It's a collab with a fellow writer, Nytewing, and is available on my stories. Check it out!