Author note: Lockdown positive - when I want to write I write A LOT. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that I already have some patrons :) A HUGE shout out to Captnschick58 and jazellsparrow for being so generous (honestly, I can't believe it) as to support me during this challenging time. Note to past self: DO NOT BECOME A FREELANCER, your government will screw you over in a pandemic. Oops too late! Well, all this unemployment means I have more time to be creative with both this story and my non-fanfic work, so that's a win. I never want people to feel obligated to support me though - honestly, every time a review comes in I beam from ear to ear, and that is gratification enough and always has been over the years, along with every new follow alert. Big love to everyone.

I'm loving people's thoughts and opinions in reviews of the last chapter, and the love for Yrsa. She was one of those people that really wasn't planned, it was all going to be her father, but she literally just walked into my brain as I was writing that scene with the deer, and I fell in love with her. I hope you enjoy the scenes in her house.

V V important stuff now from an elf that's handy with a sword. I'm not saying remember this conversation but, REMEMBER THIS CONVERSATION. x

Chapter Seven - Bears and boars

"Greenleaf!" Negeneth called to her prince as he hastily crossed the courtyard. "Will you not stay and listen to reason?"

"Reason has abandoned everyone I hold dear," he said over his shoulder, his quiver and knives ready for travel. He was heading to Arod, who had been quietly enjoying life in a quiet spot by the river since his long journey had ended.

"Including Keren?" she said shortly, which caused him to stop abruptly.

"Especially Keren." He shook his head and carried on walking, but the sword master was quick, and she had hold of his arm before he realised.

"She is answering a call higher than any wish you may have for her. You know, in your heart, if you leave now to find her she will not do what she needs to do. Do not run to her aid as if you have no faith in her to do this by herself."

She softened her grip when she saw he was listening.

"How do you think I came to be the best fighter Thranduil has?" she went on. "Not by letting every male elf run to my rescue, that's for sure."

"She's risking her life for my happiness."

"Then let her," Negeneth said angrily.

They held each other's gaze, and Legolas saw realisation dawn on the other elf's face.

"Your father is wise. This is as much a test for you as it is for her, isn't it?" she said softly. "She has asked you before to let her fight her own battles when she can. You are protective, Greenleaf, but you are proud. You want to protect her, because you do not think she can survive without you, do you?"

Legolas couldn't answer, but he did not need to. Negeneth sighed.

"She stands as much chance as any who brave the Drear Hills and the Dead Marshes. Her fighting is good. She is clever and resourceful. Have hope. Have faith in her."

"But she's already passed my father's test, all she had to do was agree to it."

"Your father sees further than you," Negeneth said shortly. "As do I. The day that Keren accepted Thranduil's challenge she actually accepted far more. Look at the fates of others so challenged for daring to love our kind. Beren pledged to retrieve one of the shining jewels, he not only did so and won the hand of the Nightingale, but they - "

"I know the story, I told it to her myself."

" - they were sent back. Reborn." Negeneth ignored him. "Aragorn, your friend, swearing not to marry the daughter of the Lord of Rivendell until the throne was won. He won it and he wedded her, uniting elves and men in blood again. Tuor, so beloved of our people that he needed no challenge, wed Idril and - "

"Negeneth…"

" - and was granted eternal life in Valinor. Why are you afraid of these stories?"

"Because I don't want that for her!" he shouted, finally losing his temper. "She is not Tuor, or Beren, or Aragorn, is she? I don't want her to have to face choices, or dangers, or strange fates. I want her to be happy and safe, is that too much to want?"

Negeneth tilted her head to one side.

"Of course not, my prince," she said gently. "You love her. But listen, and hear me out. In the First Age, Lúthien's wish is granted, and she becomes as a daughter of man, to live out a short but happy life with her mortal lover. But something needs to be done to address the balance, for her immortality is wasted. So, in the same age, the mortal Tuor is reborn as elf-kind, to live forever in Valinor. Balance is restored. But now, at the start of the Fourth Age, the Evenstar has faced the choice of the half-elven, and she chose mortality, the first of them to do so. An immortal being dying a mortal death. Things will be out of kilter once again. What if - " she took a breath as both of them realised what she was saying - "what if it is Keren who is meant to right the new imbalance in the fabric of the world? What if she is supposed to take on the Evenstar's immortality?"

Legolas was very still, and Negeneth felt the need to whisper, as if a loud word would make him crumble.

"And what if she is on this journey to prove to the Valar that she is worthy of such a thing? Would you run to help her then?"

"You've got honey on your nose," Yrsa said by way of greeting.

Keren had been with Yrsa's family a week, living off bread and salad and honey. The bees had been rather a surprise, huge things almost the size of her thumb, but it certainly explained the amount of honey about. The animals too, dogs and cows and sheep, all part of the household, all - she had blinked frantically the first time she had seen - helping with the chores.

From their meeting in the forest she and Yrsa had marched briskly on for almost another week, not talking much, but both trusting the other. Every night as the sun set Yrsa would run ahead, and leave Keren sleeping on the edge of the forest, with a promise she would be safe. Every morning she had woken to find the strange woman back at her side. Now she had lived with them a little while she knew why. Yrsa changed her skin every night, for fun.

Every night in the large, low, wooden house Keren bedded down early under warm blankets, next to Nanna, the human woman Yrsa's brother had taken to wife. The doors were locked and the windows shuttered, and they both lay awake listening to the scratching and sniffing, the roars and snuffling, sometimes just outside, sometimes from what sounded like a mile away. They had been candid with Keren - their human consciousness became a very small part of them when they shifted, and often disappeared completely. She was to stay inside under all circumstances, until they had finished their business. Every night was the same, Yrsa explaining that they all needed some time every day in their true form, however impractical, in order to stay sane. But Keren was unsure whether sane was the word she would use to describe Grimbeorn. She had never seen him smile, or ever caught a twinkle in his eye. Dour, sullen, grim as his name. Every day he would nod at her as they broke their fast, sometimes a low grunt in his throat for, she assumed, 'good morning'. His son was the same. Nanna was quiet, shy, and seemed a little afraid of Keren, yet more than happy to be married to a half-man, half-bear.

There were only four of them that changed.

"My grandfather Beorn was the only one of our kind left, for a long while," Yrsa had told Keren on her first evening there. "He mated with one of the woodmen's wives. It could have meant death for him, and her, but instead the woodman saw it as an honour. Don't ask" - she had said in response to Keren's bemused frown - "they are strange folk. Long had the woodmen sought an alliance with the great Beorn, for they feared him, and wanted him on their side. The child was my father, Grimbeorn. Now Beorn is dead, and Grimbeorn is chieftain in these parts. My mother was one of the woodfolk, but taken to wife truly. She died birthing me."

Keren extended a hand to take Yrsa's in sympathy, but Yrsa shrugged it off.

"No need," she said simply. "Her sacrifice meant that I lived. It would be wrong of me to mourn. I am grateful."

Keren nodded, unsure whether to agree or not.

"My brother Leifbeorn and his wife Nanna, they had their first cub - Svenbeorn - a few years back. It seems Beorn's line is strong. There was talk of…"

She looked over her shoulder.

"When we were younger, there was talk of me and Leif… of us having to… to keep the line of bears going. But Leif would have none of it - he found a wife and got her pregnant, all without telling our father. Thankfully Nanna is the least offensive person you could hope to meet, and the child was like us, so father was satisfied. You can imagine I was mighty relieved. People would have been even quicker to call us savages if they knew I'd had to lie with my own brother."

Yrsa laughed at Keren's shocked expression.

"You look as if you're going to be sick. We never wanted to, you know. And thankfully for you and your sensibilities it seems the woodfolk are natural bear-mothers. They cannot change themselves, but they birth skinchangers easily. Everyone assumed when I came along I would not change, being a girl. But I was a week old when they saw that the curse held true."

"Curse?"

"Oh, no-one knows really. I imagine it must have been a curse, long ago. But it works in our favour now."

"Do you like it? When you're a bear? Is it - how is it different?"

"It's entirely different and all the same. I am huge, and even hairier" - she grinned - "and I can smell more, and see further, and run faster. I have more freedom. But inside, inside I have the same worries and hopes as any human. I want to eat, and sleep, and mate, and run wild."

Keren felt she did not know Yrsa well enough to query the mating aspect. Could Yrsa… have real cubs, if she mated in bear form? But her thoughts must have been written all over her face, for Yrsa spoke in a dry voice.

"I've never had sex with a bear. Don't worry. Father's already lined up a young man of the woods for me. He's fairly handsome, and seems decent. I'll take him, some time soon."

Keren smiled. "What's his name?"

"Arlan," Yrsa replied, fairly disinterested, certainly not looking how Keren had ever looked over either of the men she had been in love with.

"Daughter!" A deep voice with little emotion behind it had called from the house. "Almost sunset, your friend must come inside."

And so her first night there had begun, locked inside with Nanna while three adult bears and a cub roamed outside.

She had calculated that she could afford to linger there, as long as she was welcome, learning about the best paths through the land to the south, and where she could find berries and mushrooms and seeds that she could eat on the road. When a few weeks had passed she would be on her way.

She had not shown any of them the map, but sometimes when Nanna was asleep before the bears returned she was able to hastily study it. She could see clearly where she was, the exact house she sat in even marked in tiny detail - the Beornings must really be of great importance in the north. And she was still very definitely in the north. So far yet to go, though she had a better idea now of the path ahead, now that Grimbeorn had described the path south as far as the narrows of the forest. She wouldn't dare to hope for the woodfolk to treat her as kindly as Yrsa and her family had if she came across any, but she was at least expecting nothing untoward to happen. And now she knew to ask for Arlan, should anyone doubt her tale of staying with the Beornings.

She was kept busy. She liked the bees, the hives, and had only been stung once, which was immediately treated with a strange, cool cream and smooth leaves. The food was all plants and grains and honey, and she felt strong and healthy as the days went on. Milking the cows was a new experience for her, although it was made very easy, for her cow gave her very long, doleful looks when she was pulling too hard on the teats. Yrsa explained that none of the animals were shapeshifters like them, but a magic was upon them, one that made them think almost like a human, and be able to work together. All were equal.

"It means when they die we can use their whole body. Everything they offer us, freely," Yrsa explained. "Meat for eating, skin for warmth, fat for preserving, everything. It is the only time we do so. It honours them, their life, rather than putting them in a hole in the ground or burning their bones. When we die, it is the same."

Keren swallowed, trying not to show her shock at the new knowledge that the bears ate… each other?

"Never have we taken a life." Yrsa seemed to have missed Keren's discomfort. "Well, not an innocent one. Many an orc have we slain."

"And do you eat them?" Keren dared to ask, to which she received a look that showed she had greatly offended her new friend.

"Sorry," she said hastily, and went back to milking.

So the weeks passed there, and Keren was content, although sometimes the memory of what lay ahead caught her like a chill, and she would grow quiet and not be able to eat much, or smile. Yrsa would watch her closely at those times.

One evening they all gathered for supper, and Grimbeorn raised his hand for silence. All immediately obeyed, for though he spoke rarely, it was always important.

"You should leave tomorrow." He looked to Keren. "The skies are favourable. The further south you go the warmer it will get, but even far to the south, by the great sea, they have snow. I do not know how long your journey is, nor do I ask, but it is never good to be on the road in winter."

Winter. A memory, warm despite all the snow, came floating to Keren, carried up from her city in the south. A kiss beneath a willow tree, not even a year ago. But she could not let herself linger there.

She nodded. "You're right. I can't avoid the road any longer. Though I will be sad to leave this place. You've all shown me such kindness."

"Ah, the world is large, especially for lonely travellers," Grimbeorn replied, surprising everyone. "You are not an orc, nor a servant of evil, therefore I took you in. But" - his voice grew deeper, quieter, more menacing - "betray any of our secrets you may have heard, and I will find you on the road, and I will cut you down."

"Father!" Yrsa's voice came loudly from the other end of the table, shocked and angry.

"Only joking," Grimbeorn said, with no change in intonation, and a deadpan expression. But the rest of them all laughed, for it was the most animated they had ever seen him.

Keren decided she would not miss a bear's sense of humour.

"The problem with the pointy ears," Yrsa had said on Keren's final morning, "is that they forget not everyone is as odd as them. We bears, we know all creatures and their ways. Strengths and weaknesses."

She presented Keren with a thick pair of gloves, wool inside and leather on the outside, something that had indeed been missing in her pack from the elves.

"Frostbite is a human weakness," Yrsa said by way of explanation. "Here - my gift to you, for the road. And wherever it ends."

Grimbeorn had nodded when he appeared behind Yrsa with the rest of the family, Nanna bearing a basket of food.

And so Keren left the skinchangers with a heavier pack and a lighter heart. Honey cakes - "they'll keep for weeks," Nanna had offered quietly - bread for the first few days, nuts, berries and seeds, full water skins, even a shining jar of fresh honey. All those signs of kindness, along with her new gloves, gave her hope, however small.

She knelt to say farewell to little Sven, who hid in his mother's skirts, having inherited her shyness. Would he one day lead these people, when perhaps there were more bear-children, and more wives, and a real tribe? Keren supposed she would never know.

She shook Leif's hand, and hugged Nanna, and then taken by some instinct, bowed before Grimbeorn. He nodded again, and she knew now that meant he was fond of her.

"If I ever find my way north again, I hope I will be welcome here, and I will bring gifts in return," she said simply. "Or if you ever…"

She stopped. She knew they would never leave this land for anything other than war. It was their home, and it was as much a part of them as they were of it.

"We have no desire for gifts from the outside world," he said. "Travel well, Elfwyn."

By the look on Yrsa's face Keren assumed she had just been highly honoured by the amount of words spent on her farewell. She smiled awkwardly, still feeling a little brush of fear as she turned her back on him to face Yrsa.

There were no tears in her eyes as she came forward and took Keren's arm. Together they walked down the path to the gate, Keren turning just as they slipped through to wave back at the little family.

Outside the gate, Yrsa seemed tense.

"I won't lie to you," she began, "I'm nervous for you. Something strange is going on, and I can't help you more than I already have."

Keren nodded. Both were true.

"My father trusts you," Yrsa went on. "It's endless questions with him, if he mistrusts a stranger. It's funny… he almost seemed to be expecting you, when I brought you here."

There was a question, a challenge, in her eyes, but Keren was just as confused as she, and could not provide Yrsa with the explanation she craved.

"I'll carry on calling you Elfwyn in my head, when I think of you," Yrsa said. "Because I think it's safer for you if I don't know your real name. And I don't think I should know your story, or where you're heading, for the same reason. But I'll admit I'm curious, and I hope one day I'll find out."

Keren was about to say it wasn't that interesting anyway, but held her tongue. She was painfully interesting now. If she succeeded in her quest she would be one of the few of the Edain who had wed one of the Eldar. If she did not succeed it would be because she was dead and would - maybe - go down in history anyway, as the first human to fail miserably at an elf-lord's challenge. Every day she tried to push thoughts of it further and further down, along with memories, hopes, dreams of Legolas. She did wonder how transparent she had been when she had allowed those thoughts to creep in, when the touch of a smile flitted across her face at the memory of a look, a kiss, a touch.

"Thank you, Yrsa," she said, and hugged the other girl, so much taller and stronger than her, tightly, "for all your kindness. If a time should come when… Well, I will remember you."

There would be no promises made that she could not keep, for it was unlikely they would meet again. With that sad thought in her mind, Keren turned to face the south. All she saw was fields leading into grassy plains, the forest a constant shadow to the east as far as she could see. But to the west… The Misty Mountains. She had been the other side of them, once. Somewhere beyond them lay the land of the hobbits - somewhere past those peaks was Pippin, and his laughter, his innocence, his hope, and Sam and Merry and their wives, and Frodo and his… pain. But she had no idea how far away. The world was large indeed.

After a look back and a wave to Yrsa, she turned to go.

"I hope he's worth it," Yrsa said quietly behind her, causing her to stop in her tracks. The bear woman was wise beyond her years.

Keren smiled sadly as she looked at her new friend one last time.

"A thousand times over, and he would do the same for me," Keren had answered honestly, and that was the closest the two women ever got to discussing the truth of her journey.

Three days into her walk she came to the crossing of the Great East Road, and it had taken all her strength not to stop, and sit, and weep at the roadside. For here, at the height of summer, Arod had born her and Legolas across the ford in the Anduin, and on the very spot where she now stood they had turned north for his home. She could almost see them before her, she tired and saddle sore, he all gold and silver and green.

She turned back, looking north. Her journey so far had been peaceful, with no peril. Even the dreaded spiders had let her be, and she had spent a month with good people, preparing for the road ahead, building her strength again after weeks of wandering in the forest. She had started to relax, to even enjoy all the walking - stopping for quick, quiet meals, always looking across the river plain to the mountains. The weather had held out too. But she had always known this would be the easiest part of the journey.

There was no road, as such, that led north to south through the fields west of the forest, and it was not called Wilderland for no reason, for she saw no other people using the rough path. But sometimes she felt eyes studying her from the edge of the forest, curious but benevolent. The woodmen were watchful. Eagles too, many of them, often soared high above the plains, but they never came over the forest. She had come to think of them as good omens, and her courage rose whenever she saw them. It was spying them then that made her turn again to face her path, rather than look behind.

But she could not help but linger, looking west. If she took that road, forded the river, crossed the mountains, she knew Rivendell lay beyond, and beyond that Bree, where her grandmother had called home, and beyond that… the Shire. All places she had never seen, would never see, but they called to her now. Safety. Comfort. Friendship.

She shook her head, feeling foolish. She had no map for beyond the mountains, she would not even find Rivendell. But if she just followed the road all the way to the Shire… She could. But it would mean facing the pass of Caradhras in winter, and that would likely mean death.

You are thinking of giving up before you've even been tested, she realised, slowly. You don't want to face the dark roads ahead. You are wondering what it would mean if you turned from this path, and found a quiet home far from everything Elvish and adventurous, found peace and rest. You would face the mountains to risk it, you want it that badly.

She did not like that voice in her head.

Ithilien was wild, and had battle scars, but it was beautiful, and it would be home. Legolas was at the end of her road, and he was home.

Not the Shire then. The voice went on. But if you ford the river and head south on the west bank, you will come to Lórien. No mountains to cross. And maybe the Lady is still there, and Haldir, your friend. You are welcome there. They will see you are safe, and loved.

Stop it. She might have spoken aloud, she wasn't sure.

She was hungry, saving her honey cakes for darker paths, munching instead on berries and seeds. And she was tired. But she would march on, and try to enjoy the sunshine. In her head she waved goodbye to the old version of her she saw in her mind, riding north on Arod, with no idea of what was to come. She crossed the road.

Two weeks later and she was even more tired, and even more hungry. But then suddenly her body seemed to get used it. Her legs no longer wobbled for lack of strength, and she could feel herself growing tauter, lighter, stronger. Sometimes she would take some time, when she stopped for the night, to practise her fighting or archery. It was never going to be of Elvish standard, but she hit her targets more often than not, though whenever she felt a sense of achievement she remembered that a tree trunk was very different to someone who wanted to cause her harm. And one dark thought always led to another, so that some hours would be spent thinking that every step she took was bringing her closer to her death, until she was able to shake herself out of it.

The mountains had grown tiresome now, her constant companions since leaving the forest. Soon, surely soon, she would reach the end of the plains and cross into the desolation that was the Brown Lands, where the mountains would be too far away to spy. It was not a hopeful prospect, but one that at least meant she had covered a huge distance. But no, the view was unchanging, forest to the east, mountains to the west, further in the distance now, but still there.

She had drawn closer to the edge of the forest, skirting the eaves, for she felt safer being close to the woodmen's lands than not. If she could trust them - and she hoped she could - then if trouble did come she would not have far to run before someone came to her aid, for she knew they were still watching her.

And trouble came.

She had spent a normal, untroubled night - still sleeping lightly and little, but it was more than she had ever hoped she would manage when she first started out. She was breaking her fast on a handful of dried berries from the bears when she heard it. Little high-pitched grunts and whines. Baby animals, and very close by. Her time with the bears had had some impact on her, for her first thought was concern for their welfare rather than thinking of them as a food source. She stood up, looking for signs of a mother close by, but didn't really know what she was looking for. Following the sounds, she drew a little further into the forest.

Soon she came upon them and saw that they were suckling from their mother - a huge, fat hairy mass lying on the forest floor. She barely reacted when Keren's soft footfalls became audible, and she drew close enough to see the tiny babies feeding. She raised her hands and whispered.

"It's alright, I'll leave you and your babies be." Indeed she was pleased to have something to talk to, to hear the sound of her own voice again.

The sow didn't even raise her head, perhaps too exhausted, or just knowing there was no threat. But just then Keren heard another sound, a deeper, louder grunt, from through the trees.

There, perhaps twelve feet away, was a huge male boar, standing at least to Keren's waist, though it was hard to tell from that distance, and she wasn't going to let it get close enough to measure. Gasping with fear she turned and ran, and therein lay her mistake. The boar gave chase, and boars did not stop until their quarry was still. This boar was large, and old, and angry, and his first children of the mating season were but hours old. No one could come near.

Keren sprinted blindly, hearing the grunt and crashing of hooves behind her. Surely she could outrun it, it was too bulky, too heavy. But if anything it sounded as if it was gaining on her. Through the trees she went, reaching for her bow on her back but unable to grasp it in her panic. Really she should stop dead in her tracks, draw it, turn, and shoot from close range. But the sound was so terrifying, so close, that she dared not. Her breath coming loud and fast, turning into pants as she felt a burning in her chest, her legs, she knew she needed to do something - she couldn't just run blindly for ever, she would tire before it did. She tried darting around trees, changing her path, trying to confuse it, but she ended up confusing herself. Now she did not know where she was running to, and she realised, far, far too late, that her pack was still by the tree on the edge of the forest where she had slept.

But she could not think about that, about anything, now. Blind panic had taken over. The sound of it was closer still, and she daren't look behind in case it slowed her down. But she must, she must do something soon.

Trees. The trees. She heard Legolas's voice in her head. Use the trees.

But she had tried that.

No! Climb them. Climb!

Without stopping to think she dived for the nearest tree with a low enough branch, arms reaching, stretching, fingers curling around the old, gnarled wood, and pulled herself up, legs swinging. She scrambled on top and along the branch towards the trunk, breathing hard, her vision blurring. She turned swiftly, and saw the boar below, too far below to hurt her. But it was beyond angry, and started pounding at the tree with its tusks in frustration.

The tree, an oak, was old and strong, but she could not stay up here forever, tottering on a branch waiting for the boar to get bored. She needed to find her pack, which could take a very long time, and be on her way. Trying to calm her breathing she prepared her bow, reached for an arrow and aimed down at the animal. But she paused. Shooting it meant safety, and food. But he was doing what was his right - defending his territory, his mate, his children. She nocked the arrow, pulled back the string.

Just do it, it's trying to kill you, she thought. But Yrsa's face came into her head. The animals in Grimbeorn's house.

He would tire eventually, wouldn't he?

Gritting her teeth in frustration, she lowered her bow. She would leave it a while, and if he still would not stop, then she would shoot.

So she tried to get comfortable, though with the sounds of the boar's tusks stabbing into the trunk, and the sight of the branches and leaves shaking with each impact, that was not easy.

Suddenly she heard raised voices, and a shout. An arrow was loosed from somewhere and the boar squealed. Two more arrows, and another. Keren turned her head to try to see where her saviours were coming from, but too quickly, and she lost her balance. She failed to grasp onto the branch, and as she fell through the air she had a moment of definite, dreadful knowing of what was about to happen. Sure enough she landed heavily, heard a crunch, felt a rush of nausea, and blackness swallowed her up.

Author note: I did an embarrassing amount of research (ok, 10 mins) on wild boars to see if this kind of behaviour would be plausible... It is. They are badass.