"You look surprised to see me," Romenstar said with a smug grin and expecting a warm welcome.
Morine snapped, "What are you doing here?"
"What are you doing here?" he echoed.
She scoffed and sat down on one of the two pallets. "Hell, I wish I knew," she grumbled as she pulled off her boots and lay them at the foot of the makeshift bed. "What trouble have you been getting yourself into?"
Romen laughed, being the better natured of the two siblings. "Nothing much, I swear." He sat on the edge of the pallet opposite of hers. She noticed that wherever he had been, he saw plenty of sunshine, for his skin had become a soft bronze. He looked well.
"I have been to the most amazing places, far to the east and south," he said, and indeed his eyes shone in wonderment as they had when they first arrived in the strange land of Middle Earth. It was a though the years had not worn on him at all.
"You mean there is something beyond this barren wasteland worth looking at?" she doubted with a quirked eyebrow.
Leaning closer towards her, he said, "Yes, dear sister. Lands of wonder like you would not believe. There are vast deserts so barren that one must travel for days before spotting a speck of green. The eastern sea is so different from the western coast we landed on. Sandy beaches stretch from the land to the ocean in wide swaths, and in places, you could walk into the shallow ocean for many, many paces before the waves would reach over your head. The wind does not bite your bones like it does here."
"It's winter," she said sternly, rolling her eyes at his poeticism.
Her brother shook his dark head as if she were an ignorant child. "No," he continued. "When you go far enough south, there are lands untouched by winter's wrath."
It was only now that Morine noticed how cold the tent had grown since the sun had set. She crawled underneath the blankets to warm up as he continued, her weapons within arm's reach of her pillow.
"The food is unlike anything you have ever tasted." While he described the many delicacies and spices of the east, she thought of Beorn's homely food. It had been good enough for her, but Romen had a thirst for life that was unquenchable. "Textiles are readily available, and clothing is made into pieces of art. Even the people that live there look different. There are tribes of men whose skin are many shades darker than even mine is now," he explained, pausing to take in his own story, remembering the places he had been. "Everything is beautiful and wonderful. I wish you would come with me."
His voice rang with longing, but Morine closed her eyes to avoid looking at him as her gut churned with guilt for not going with him to the east. She realized that he had missed her, but he was the one who had left her behind and moved on. It was easier to believe that only she had missed him.
"I have missed you," Romen said intuitively.
"I missed you too," she replied. Opening her sleepy eyes, she saw that he had succumbed to the warmth of his own pallet, though he was intent to stay awake and converse.
"So," he said, voice changed to a more sober tone, "What are you doing here? You're the last person I would expect to find caught up in this mess. Did you hear about the slaying of the dragon?"
After a yawn, Morine answered, "No, the dragon was still alive when I made my way here." Romen's eyes grew wide at the thought, knowing how unlike her it was to head into harm's way. "I came because Gandalf asked me to."
"Well, if that's all it takes," he pretended to joke, though she knew he was serious. His attempt at humor hid his anger that she had followed Gandalf's word but not his own, as he had begged her to come with him to the east. In fact, it was the only time in their lives she had seen him beg.
She reprimanded herself to speak with more caution. Centuries of being alone had given her the freedom to always speak her mind since there were never any toes to step on. Romen's feelings were the last ones she ever wanted to hurt, and her brother was the more sensitive of the two.
Clearing his throat, he asked, "What has happened since I left?"
Morine exhaled a heavy sigh. "In your travels, did you ever hear of one called the Necromancer?" Romen thought it over but shook his head that he had not, which surprised and relieved her. Perhaps the villain had not been as big a threat as she had made him out to be. "He was evil and power hungry. Not long after you left, the forest began to grow darker, and evil creatures began appearing and populating in the south. Even the elves moved to the north to escape its grip. The being responsible was called the Necromancer."
"Was?" he interjected.
"Yes," she said hesitantly. "I appealed to Gandalf for his help, and he called on the White Council to intervene. They decided to lead an attack against his fortress that he built at Amon Lanc, called Dol Guldur." Romen seemed to decipher the garish word and to recall the point of interest in the corner of the forest from his short time there. "However, I was told that the Necromancer's death could not be confirmed, and it is believed that he fled during the battle." She clenched her jaw to discourage speaking her fears that the Necromancer may be Sauron. Romen did not share her neuroticism and would not believe her. There would be time enough for Middle Earth to learn the truth. He was defeated for now, and that is what mattered.
Romen asked, "Fled where?"
Morine was laying on her side and turned toward him, but she shrugged the shoulder she was not laying on. "If I knew, I would track him down myself." The bitterness in her voice did not escape notice. "But I am here in exchange for Gandalf's intervention. My problem for his problem."
"And what was Gandalf's problem with the dragon?" he wondered aloud. While no one wanted a dragon around, taking one down was hardly worth trying, if you valued your life. Killing a dragon hardly seemed a fair trade for evicting a necromancer from a forest.
"None," she said. "When he first investigated Dol Guldur, he found an imprisoned dwarf. The dwarf gave him a map and a key to the Lonely Mountain and asked him to give it to his son, who happens to be Thorin. It was nothing against Smaug, though the people in this part of the world are certainly grateful that he is dead. The treasure that the dragon horded has been the prize, and it was the dwarf's dying wish to Gandalf that the gold be returned to the hands of his family."
"So you are the keeper of the old man's promises?" Romen asked rhetorically and referring to their cousin rather than the dwarf.
Morine grunted and ignored him. "When this is over, I can go home," she stated, wanting nothing more.
Romen grimaced at her use of the word home. "I would have grown sick of that dank forest by now, if I were you," he snapped.
She offered no retort, and they lie silently in the cold darkness for a few moments before he wondered if there was more there than he realized. He had often asked himself why she had chosen to stay. Throughout his travels, he halfway expected to find her waiting for him in each new town. It frustrated him to see her lose her sense of adventure, and it went against the nature of the Istari to settle down. "Why did you stay?" he finally asked softly.
That same question had circled in Morine's mind many times over the centuries. "I don't know," she answered with sincerity. "It just felt right." There it was: the truth that she had made a decision based on her gut rather than reason.
Romen could not object to her following her heart in the past, but she had had plenty of time in the forest she had fallen in love with. He knew that there was more in the world that she would love as much or more than Mirkwood. Longing to share the world's wonders with her, he implored in almost a whisper, "Why will you not come with me back to the east?"
Silence hung heavy in the air as she struggled for an answer. The forest itself had been her motivation, especially freeing it from the Necromancer's grip, but now that it would be free to heal and did not need her protection, she understood what her true motivation was and loathed to share it. She remembered the tenderness of Beorn's kisses, and soon she found herself back atop the Carrock with him or sitting beside him on the couch by the roaring fireplace. It felt like home, and the pain of missing him hit her full on for the first time since she had left. She thought, "Damn you, Romen!" It was only around him that she could be her true self, and she could no longer escape the genuine feelings that she had been avoiding, and she wondered if Beorn would return her sentiments.
"Well?" Romen prodded for an answer.
"There is… someone," she struggled to explain. "A friend," she quickly corrected herself before he could jump to a conclusion that he would probably reach anyway.
"Mm-hm," he murmured, doubting that a single friend would keep her tied. "So bring this friend with you," he suggested.
"It's not like that," Morine said, only digging herself a hole.
They grew silent once more. She wondered if he guessed more than she had said, and indeed he did, though he knew not to press her. Morine would soon be wearing her heart on her sleeve for him as she once did. "What are you doing here?" she asked him to change the subject but also wanting to know.
Romen smiled. "You know that trouble and I come hand-in-hand," he quipped, making her chuckle quietly.
"I know," she said with a lazy smile. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think all this was your fault."
He laughed but asked, "Are you worried?" He was concerned about the many armies that would soon be clashing. While the elves and men were a surprising alliance, he did not expect the dwarves to join the party peaceably. The besieged company of dwarves was not a threat to the present army, but with a host of several hundred brethren but another day's march away, the camp at Dale seemed a large powder keg waiting for ignition—a fact that Thorin knew well.
"I think war seems inevitable," she admitted softly, wanting nothing more than to avoid bloodshed and return to the warmth of Beorn's strong arms where she felt safe.
"I think you may be right."
