My apologies for such a late update. Life has been crazed of late, to say the least. If you have any suggestions, desires, or hopes regarding any of the characters, either canon or OC, please let me know in a review. I have a vague idea of where I want to go with this but added incentive or prompts are always welcome. Hope you enjoy. Cheers!

"Come on Braga," Tilda made the extra effort to whine as she tugged at the guardsman's cape, "let us see Da! We promise we won't tell anyone!"

Braga jerked his cape out of Tilda's hands before she could tug again, "I told you, I'm under orders: no one visits."

Tilda lunged forward and took hold of Braga's forearm, squeezing as hard as she could to keep him from jerking it away too quickly. "Honest Braga! We'll be so quiet no one will know!"

"As quiet as you're being now?" The man managed to again pull himself from Tilda's grasp and looked ready to signal to the other guardsman to throw them out of the guardhouse altogether.

Sigrid spoke up then, taking her cue from Tilda's whimpers, "Braga. Bain took sick this evening and we need to tell Da. He'll know what to do. Please let us see him."

"Go tell an herbswoman about Bain. Your da is being held on criminal charges and no one is to see him." From his voice, it seemed apparent to the girls that Braga didn't seem to think that their father was a criminal but he still had a job to do nonetheless. Orders straight from the Master were difficult to avoid in Laketown.

"But Braga!" Tilda crumpled to the floor at his feet, throwing both arms around one of his legs and latching on as if her life depended upon it. Behind her Sigrid barely managed to hide her eyerolling at her younger sister's antics; it appeared the youngest of their family had a flair for the dramatic and their current ruse had put her in her element. Katun had been right to instruct Tilda into such antics; it appeared the woman knew the littlest of their family better than Sigrid had expected her to.

Katun's plan had been simple: just before the changing of the guard in the evening, Tilda and Sigrid would draw Braga into conversation trying to convince him to let them see Bard while Bain would set fire to one of the old warehouses near the guardhouse. Then in the chaos, the girls would retrieve the keys to the jail and drop them beneath the guardhouse to Katun, who had taken the unfortunate job of waiting in the water for them to do so. Then, once the guardhouse was drained of its occupants in order to fight the fire, she would sneak Bard and the dwarves out and they would rendezvous back at the house. Tauriel had remained with Edwin, who had yet to wake up from his sleep, though the fever was gone and he seemed to be on the mend. After the rendezvous, well Katun's plan hadn't gotten that far. They'd all been too hopeful to see this part of the plan through, as simple as it was it had to be followed through precisely in order to be pulled off.

Simple plans, however, rarely happen as one would like. Often, before a good plan can come to fruition all hell will break loose. In the time that Bain was to light one warehouse on fire, instead they heard the alarm bells of the town ring out and sudden distant screams from townsfolks began to grow not so distant, accompanied with the cries and yelps not so different from those the girls had heard from the attack of the orcs the night before.

"What is it Braga?" Sigrid helped Tilda stand to her feet, holding her sister close as the guardsman went to the door and looked out into the night. They saw fire begin to pop up all across the town and the girls knew that there was no way Bain had done all that.

"I can't believe it." They heard Braga whisper more to himself than to anyone else. Tilda tried to squirm out of Sigrid's hold and step closer to the door. At her approach, Braga sprung to life. He signaled to the other guardsman, "Get to the weapons rooms. Now!" The man fled and Braga turned to the girls. "When I leave, you shut and lock this door tight. Don't let anyone in unless it's me." He went to the wall and took down a rusty looking halberd. He handed it to Sigrid, who struggled under its weight. "You'll know when to use this."

Before either of the girls could question further, Braga left, closing the door behind him. Sigrid immediately latched the door, though she continued to stare out into the fiery darkness outside. Tilda took up position at the nearest window also watching in confused alertness. They were too stunned for a time to speak until they heard a distinct knocking coming from the garderobe further back in the gatehouse.

"Katun!" Tilda exclaimed as she hurried to the back to help their friend inside. The woman she helped maneuver through the small opening was soaked to the bone and shivering, covered in filth Tilda didn't want to think about, but she was alive. When they stumbled back into the main area of the guardhouse they found Bain now standing near Sigrid as well, having also made his way to the building after the alarm bells had ruined their plan.

"What's happening?" Tilda asked, wringing her hands together in front of her body.

Katun didn't answer right away, instead looking around the room until her eyes fell upon the keys hanging on the far wall. Taking hold of them she spoke over her shoulder on her way up the stairs that led to the prison cells, "We're under attack."

Leaving the children below to stare out into the approaching danger, Katun hurried down the passageway to largest cell at the end of the corridor. She'd known that's where they'd be as she'd already spied Bard's face pressed between the bars earlier that day when they'd scouted out the place, taking note of how many guards were staying in the guardhouse and how often they changed places. Hearing the jangling of keys brought both Bard and one of the young dwarves to the cell door.

"Katun!" Bard exclaimed, clearly surprised but also relieved to see her. "Where are my children?"

"Downstairs." She began to fit various keys to the lock in her efforts to find the right one. "We were in the process of orchestrating a great jail break scheme when the orcs began to attack."

The dark-haired dwarf growled, "Orcs."

The lock clicked and Katun grinned as she followed through with unlocking the door, "Yes. Orcs."

Bard threw open the door before Katun could step back and she was surprised to find herself wrapped up in his arms for a brief but warm embrace. She barely had the time to register that he was indeed hugging her, before he stepped back and motioned for all of them to follow him back downstairs. She and the two dwarves came downstairs just in time to witness Bard embracing his children and righting himself again. It didn't escape Katun's notice that the blonde-haired dwarf took up position closer to Sigrid, once the three of them moved away from the stairs and joined the rest of them in the room, and she remembered the night before how the dwarf had seemed to be more aware or attentive towards her presence than the others. Interesting fact, but now was not the time to ponder it much.

"What do we do now, da?" Sigrid had given him the halberd and now stood armed with a club the dark-haired dwarf had created after smashing one of the chairs to bits. All three children had one leg of the chair, with the fourth leg begin handed to Katun.

Bard continued to look outside. It seemed the fighting was growing worse, the townsfolks leaderless and retreating into their homes to be slaughtered. Katun watched Bard's visage, feeling as if she could read his mind. He would have to go out there to fight, there was no doubt he was their only hope. The people of this town respected him and would follow him. Katun looked at the two dwarves. These two would also follow him, she believed. Stepping close to where he stood at the door she touched his shoulder to draw his attention back to her.

"I'll keep them safe." She gestured over her shoulder to his children. "But they need you." She used the club to point outside to the screaming townsfolks. "And we need to you to help them."

Bard stared at her a moment before looking back to his children. "Please da," Katun heard both Sigrid and Bain say this, Tilda having grown strangely silent as the violence in the town grew louder and more apparent to them all. Glancing down at the dwarves, Katun saw that they nodded to Bard, giving wordless assent that they'd follow him as she'd suspected they would. His eyes were filled with doubt but determination when they met her gaze again. She squeezed his forearm and also nodded.

"Stay here." She nodded, not having planned on doing anything else. "And stay alive." Again she nodded, this time offering a sardonic smirk, one which he gifted in return. Then, without further preamble, Bard and the dwarves lunged out the door and into the smoky chaos of Laketown.

The predawn hours of the next day found Laketown in shambles, barely livable for even rats. Few houses had escaped unscathed from the attacks from the orcs or from the fires they'd set. But Katun's assumptions regarding Bard had been true. It had been under his leading that the townsfolks had rallied again and driven out the orcs. And it was in the predawn hours that Katun had looked towards the mountain of Erebor and seen smoke, not enough to account for an attacking dragon but enough to let her know that Alyse and the dwarves that had gone there were still alive.

Once the chaos settled and the mourning of reality began, they'd found there were many casualties, among them the Master of the Laketown and Alfrid Lickspittle would've joined him had it not been for the intervention of Bard. He'd redirected the anger of the townsfolks to gathering up what supplies they could and retreating to Dale, with the understanding that more orcs would attack before long if they'd grown so bold as to attack the night before. Katun suspected that Bard was also thinking of the dragon the dwarves may or may not awaken in the coming days; no doubt assuming that the ruined city of Dale with its still standing rock walls and buildings could offer them better protection than the smoldering embers of wooden houses upon a near frozen lake.

In a brief moment of quiet, right after the announcement of their retrenchment and the people had first begun to collect themselves, Katun found Bard standing alone by the lakeside. His gaze was distant and on the far shore, the side of the lake that he'd told her she'd come from and where the elven king lay hidden in the forest. Coming up beside him, she didn't say anything but also trained her eyes on wooded shore, curious if he saw something she didn't.

"Thank you." Bard's sudden words took Katun by surprise and she looked up towards his face. He still hadn't taken his gaze away from the woods but he spoke again, "For protecting my children. And for breaking me out of jail."

Katun smiled, "I can only assume that you'd do that same for me were our roles reversed."

"Tilda told me that you snuck up through the garderobe into the guardhouse." Bard looked down at her then and Katun became painfully aware of all the grim that she'd yet had the chance to wash off. "That was quite innovative of you." She watched the corners of his mouth twitch, as if he were fighting a smile.

The funny thing about chaos, about shock and recovery, was how humor could come unexpected, like a splash of sunshine in the midst of a rainstorm. Katun still couldn't remember all of her past but in the turmoil of the night before she'd had a few more memory flashes and knew that she'd been in many fights before and had experienced such odd moments of humor as they were now experiencing before as well in the recovery process. She understood the need to have something normal, something routine occur now, even with all the mess around them. And she relished the idea of sharing that normalcy with Bard as well.

"I suppose you would've thought of something else to do?"

Bard shook his head, "Not exactly. But it's just a good thing our roles weren't reversed because I most certainly wouldn't have fit through the hole." They both laughed at the brief mental image his words brought to mind. Their mirth quieted almost immediately when they heard Bain call to them from somewhere behind them in the town. "Do you think this is the right thing to do?"

Katun was surprised at Bard's candid question, at his willingness to be vulnerable about his decision to her. She rewarded his candidness with her own, "From what I know of dragons, of orcs, and of our current surroundings, I can't see that any other decision could've been made." She glanced back towards the far shore. "Do you think he'll know about this and do something?"

"From what the dwarves told me, along with your friend Alyse, I've no doubt that King Thranduil is more aware of what's going on than I. I've also no doubt that if he suspects the dwarves will be any sort of successful at eradicating Erebor of that dragon then he'll come out of his wooded realm in order to claim some of the treasure that's been hoarded up there for so long."

"And where does that leave us?" Katun felt a strange thrill at the inclusive word and she thought she saw a slight twitch at the corner of Bard's lips in direct response to it as well.

"Between a mountain and a forest and with little else to do." Bard turned away from the lake and gestured for her to follow, "Come. We've a lot to do if we're going to make to Dale by nightfall."

The following hours were a blur of activity. After she managed to clean up at least a little, Katun helped Tauriel with Edwin, somehow managing to create a stretcher out of scattered debris that they could carry together. Tilda was aided by Bain with carrying much of their supplies, and Katun watched the blonde dwarf—whose name she now knew to be Fili—as he silently helped Sigrid while his brother Kili helped Bard. Again, an interesting fact. Also interesting was the fact that neither dwarf had made an eager effort to leave them and head to the mountain to rejoin their kin. When Katun asked Kili about it he said that until they were told by their king, Thorin, to leave they would follow through with the deal that had been struck with Bard and remain as collateral. Katun admired the sense of honor.

Though the townsfolks hurried in their collecting and walking, they still didn't make it to Dale by nightfall, as they'd all hoped, and instead had to camp out under the stars in huddled family groups along the trail that led from the ruins of Laketown to the ruins of Dale. The trail was too dangerous to attempt in the dark, especially since many them had not tried to walk along it in decades. As they settled down to sleep, their own small group of one elf, two dwarves, and six humans, Katun couldn't help but shake her head at the situation. It seemed to not matter anymore that she couldn't remember her past. Though she was grateful that her body seemed to remember skills faster than her mind memories. But that was of little consequence in the face of such dire circumstances. Watching as Tilda and Sigrid curled up close together for warmth, Bain begrudgingly coming close as well, with both dwarves sitting on the edges of their circle to keep watch while Tauriel lay next to Edwin on the stretcher, Katun sighed. Indeed, her lack of memory was of little concern now.

"What is it?" Bard asked, having decided to sit next to her during their sparse meal and who had yet to leave her side.

Katun shrugged, "Just realizing that the concern over my lack of memory is somewhat of a luxury I can't afford to ponder right now. Not with what's going on here." She gestured to their small group as well as down along the pathway to the other people camped together in clumps.

"I'm grateful that you're here." Bard shifted closer to her and it was only with his added warmth driving it away that Katun realized she'd begun to shiver. "Though I am still sorry for your lack of memory."

"As I said, it is of little consequence now. Not to make light of the situation, but I welcome the diversion of survival to being left too long with the uncertainties of my foggy mind." She blushed, thankful that the night hid it from Bard's eyes. She felt horrid admitting such truths but she found she couldn't keep them from the man.

"You can't be faulted for that," Bard sighed, "the heavens know I can empathize with your sentiment. For too long Laketown had festered and rotted away under the likes of the Master and his kind. Do I take pleasure in the knowledge that many have died and lost their livelihoods in one night? No, I don't. But do I think that a better future lies for us in Dale?" Bard again sighed and this time Katun felt him shrug, the movement jostling her own body. "If those dwarves are successful, then they promised us a share and we could use that to rebuild Dale. Commerce could once more thrive here and these people could do more than merely make ends meet. They could rebuild in every way, maybe ever surpassing what used to be here. Did the girls tell you what this place used to be like?"

"A little." Katun shifted her position, her back beginning to ache.

Bard seemed to be aware of her discomfort, "Hold on." He stood up and went over to his pack near the children for a moment, Katun very much feeling the lack of his presence by his side. When he returned, he held a blanket, "Please," he handed it to her then gestured to the ground, "I know it isn't very conventional or even proper, but it is a cold night."

"Ha," Katun covered her mouth at her ready mirth, not wanting to wake anyone up, "I've no worries about that Bard." She unfolded the blanket and laid down, rolling down one of the edges and looking pointedly towards the man. "Do I need to say please as well to get you to lay down?"

"No," she could hear Bard's amusement as he shifted onto the ground beside her, pulling the blanket up until it was under his chin. It being under his chin, however, meant that it was over her head. They shared some childlike giggling at this fact, earning some grunted protests from the direction of his children. "I haven't shared a blanket with anyone aside from my children since my wife passed." Bard's voice was open and cordial once they'd both sobered again.

Katun nibbled her lower lip, not sure of how to respond. "I'm sure it must be strange," was all she could think of to say. "Sharing it now with a near stranger, on the side of a mountain, after your home has been destroyed and your family displaced."

"Perhaps," Bard rolled over onto his side and Katun turned her head to look towards him, "but it isn't wholly unpleasant." She couldn't quite make out all of his facial features but she could see enough to see that he was offering her a small smile. She returned it with her own, though her smile faltered a bit when she felt his hand press against her cheek. "Good night, Katun." His hand retreated almost as quickly as it'd appeared and Katun blinked in wondering if it'd been there at all.

"Good night," she replied before she too rolled over onto her side facing away from him.

It took some time but eventually her body relaxed enough to sleep. But just before she fell entirely into the darkness of slumber, she felt the warmth of Bard's body press close to her back and smiled when she felt his arm wrap around her waist and hold her close. Not very conventional or proper, but completely welcome.