The company, rested up in such pristine settings, were rejuvenated for another leg of the journey ahead. It would be an uphill tread in more ways than one. The Misty Mountains lay before them capped in snow, the last fingers of summer at last withdrawing from the land.

Thorin woke up cold in the morning of their departure. He could feel a chill in more ways than the coming frost.

Meisar donned dratty travel-wear again, up to her cloak and leather vambraces. She would not say a word to him; she busied herself pattering across the terrace in the mid-morning, long past the hour when the elves had arisen, waking the dwarrowdams, extolling the dwarves to remember to take their smallclothes and stockings down from the line they had strung across their guest quarter, dry or not.

When they had bidden the elves farewell and snatched up whatever sweetbreads were leftover in the kitchens, she rode stoically beside him more than a few feet in front, and would not even throw a glance in his direction. She kept her eyes trained on the narrow, twisting paths and the rock flanks. Single-file was the best they would manage with the wagons, and more than a few skittish ponies, rising up out of the gorge and toward the outlying wilderness. Her eyes were set and grim.

His own pride would not let him break the silence. Haunted by the ghost of her touch, her hands in his hair, her breath pressed to the thin layer between cambric and skin, he resisted still. After a few hours he realized she just might be as stubborn as he, and this aroused a feeling of immense displeasure in him, much like being trapped in a small room. If she could only see how it had made him weak.

How could he not have admired her? Her quiet dignity coupled with the tenacity to shield a king's life with the same body she denied him. The stubbornness of dwarves he thought dispiritedly to himself.

When he found her later that afternoon on the mountainside, a brief stop turning to an extended rest, she was laying on the ground, flat on her belly, ear to the stone. Her eyes were closed, her brow creased and tense. Thorin watched her, every worried twitch of her lip, fingers curling up and flattening again on the cool stone. Finally she opened her eyes and looked up at Thorin, doing all to conceal the obvious alarm of opening her eyes from whatever particular world she was in, to see him. "This mountain is full of goblins. Goblins, and trolls by the sound of it. They are at work down there. And these are but foothills."

"Found a peephole somewhere and shined a light in?" he rebuffed her sarcastically.

She glared at him tiredly. "You have been gone awhile my king. Dwelling in a far more peaceful corner of this world no less."

"The enemy has been defeated. There is peace now, in the world." A stupid word, a stupid, stupid word. His blood felt quick and hot in his veins, stirring and angry.

But not for her sake. No. She was exquisite in her simplicity, the curve of her face, hair drawn up in a coiled braid at the nape of her neck and bunned tight. Only the courtship braid coming down to frame one side of her face. She was still his.

"Alas," she said finally, climbing to her feet again and brushing the dirt and dust from her jerkin, "the world will go on, peace or no peace, as it has for thousands of years before." Her stony, lined face still expressive somehow, she took a careful step down toward him on the steep mountainside. He put his hand out to help her but she stumbled down on her own, brushing him off. "Let it come to your own heart first. Or it'll be nowhere."

He thought he saw a hint of a comforting, even teasing, smile, but it faded quickly. The eyes he had found lamentable in their sternness when he first lay eyes upon her, were invidious at the moment, as if that bereft, but somehow profound, expression of them were meant solely for him. Teasing him, making the fire of his wanting rise in him like a fire just before it burned out of control. "You could help me with that," he remarked sarcastically.

"Have I not?" She twisted her head back toward him.

As surely as the sun comes up in the morn. A contentment more sublime than words can say. Try to wring them from me, stubborn, stubborn woman. Jewel of mine.

"You have, my lady," his glowering silence ended. There was a seething, penetrating rancor however subtly it was expressed. From behind her, it felt as if she were being stabbed in the back, by his eyes alone.

My king, my Arkenstone. Mine...

"I care for you it frightens me!" She whirled around and spit the words with a high-pitched vehemence about them. Thorin wavered back a bit, but straightened at once and proudly, a haughtiness within soothing him, but ominously so. She had broken first.

...Mine, my king, my Thorin. The only thing that is mine except for my heart, my body. Now let me show you the stubbornness of dwarves.

She flinched ever so slightly as he stepped forward and reached to cup her face in one hand and draw her in, aching much to savor the warmth and softness of her cheek, a sensation his palms, his fingertips, his mouth, had not known in days. Longed for her comfort and her hidden sweetness, her softness, to flow through him like milk of poppy and soothe him utterly. He had cracked her shell easily enough; he would open other parts of her surely, in time.

She dipped her head away from him the very second his palm made contact. "The heart of this mountain is black," she said, stoically. "We should keep moving."

.

II

"No shepherdess by his side this night or last," observed Dwalin to his brother, smiling smartly out of one corner of his mouth. "Bedrolls clear on opposite sides of the camp."

It was morning and Urdlaug was doling out miserly portions of bird-eggs and berry jam slathered thinly on hard bread. Her food stores were already running low; they would not eat again until nightfall. Balin bit into his bread bitterly. They had traveled well into the night down narrow passes that seemed to go on for leagues and leagues, lanterns lighting a precarious path toward a reasonable spot to make camp. His head felt light and edgy from lack of sleep.

"And this pleases you, brother?"

"Well.."

"To say nothing of his own greed. Why... look at yourself! Greedy and a fool, brother. He is not yours to keep to yourself," simmered Balin.

Dwalin rose swiftly and angrily. The other dwarves noticed but dispersed quickly around them, afraid to say anything, even look. "I am trying to protect him!"

Balin squared his shoulders up toward his brother, remaining seated. "You gloat over this… tiff, if it even is that, and to think, you, we believed him dead half a year past! Did he come back to this life for you to treat him as a prize to be won?!"

"How dare ye speak of it as if I didn't have the bloody experience to know! A year to dwell in my misery thinking I'd failed him the worst of any! Sitting at his tomb without breath in me lungs from sobbing like a wee babe!" Dwalin's girded fists clenched and unclenched, the iron of his knuckle dusters wincing against the force of his grip; he nearly raised one to Balin in a moment of sudden passion but the color drained from his face and his arm dropped with a helpless flop against his side.

Balin exhaled apologetically, as Dwalin did the same, sat again, and buried his face in his hands in shame. Balin slung his arm around his broad shoulders. "I wept there too. Many days and nights. As Thorin will at the tombs of his nephews for years to come. It stole our lives for a spell as well. Both of us. I am sorry, brother."

Dwalin grunted quietly and slapped Balin's back in his own affectionate way.

"Others will do so in their way," sighed Balin.

"Others will never understand."

Balin shook his head, annoyed again. "Was Bilbo Baggins not a force for good? Did he not care for him? Was his time in the Shire not well-spent if desperately needed?"

"I suppose," Dwalin grumbled resignedly.

"Then suppose the same for the lady. Give her a chance."

Dwalin grumbled, resisting any encouragement with his brother for a morsel of agreement.

"If it is broken between them, then he is lost. He must care for something, or someone, and have the same returned to him. Now that everything else he loves is gone," Balin finally stated firmly.

"Her highness waits in Erebor for him. You have forgotten his sister?"

"I fear that moment more than I do any, when he comes face to face with her again. He will need pillars stronger than stone or iron to brace him when he must do so."

"And you impart that duty onto this simple woman?"

"I impart nothing, nor do I encourage or discourage it. They have chosen. They have chosen each other."

.

"I'm going down the other side. I can see to the next hill from there," Meisar announced late in the afternoon. The three hounds swirled about her feet, chasing each other over a dry bone. She looked at Thorin for a long moment, her eyes asking a subtle but clear question visible to none but himself, and he remained stubbornly seated at the cook-fire, taking his time on Urdlaug's seasoned hash. Dwalin stared hard at her. Balin nudged him with unveiled chastisement, giving Meisar a reassuring, subtle glance.

She nodded sadly to Balin. "I take my leave then, my king," she curtsied briefly, and departed in haste.

"Thorin..." sighed Balin disappointed.

"What?" he growled back, arms stubbornly clasped around his torso with empty plate on his knees.

"You know what," said Balin, rising to his feet and taking up his walking stick.

.

She headed down upon the steeper part of the hillside. A fall of water came down over a great precipice in smooth, quick runnels of whitewater, churning lightly, pooling into a shallow valleys between the rocks and into a thick stream rolling downhill. It misted coolly against her face and she stopped, closed her eyes and took in its refreshing touch for a moment.

If I could return I would, and lay beside you for all of the night, watched over by stars and Elven maids carved of pale wood, and you...

She brushed the mist from her face, determined to carry on beyond. It was mostly low-bush, dry scrub and rocks beyond the reach of the water, but somewhere behind her the sound of twigs snapping underfoot caused her to spin suddenly in alarm.

"Away!" she exclaimed, whirling around, dirks drawn in both hands. Balin put his hands up. The tautness of her shoulders eased.

"You startled me, Balin," she said unhappily. Balin's face sunk a little.

"I am sorry for that, Balin." She sheathed the dirks, aloofly.

"Forgiven. I should have made myself known sooner."

"Are you following me?"

"A fair morning to be scouting no doubt. Look how the sun still shines," Balin smiled invitingly. She squinted at him; she had long learned the purposefulness to such a manner, from Emli and enough others.

"You have always treated me with such cordiality, Balin. Do me the kindness of answering my question," she implored, a quiet, delicately controlled irascibility behind her words.

"I did, my lady. To see if you were alright is all."

"I am fine."

"You haven't the look of it, if I may say so."

She kept a harsh, flinty look straight ahead. But it was no longer the staid expression of that hard little woman he had met just east of Bree. There was pain in that face now. "Nor did have I seen Thorin so dour in many days..."

"You best ask him then," she responded quickly.

"I should, indeed. But I am asking you now."

She spun and sat upon the hillside so heavily then, the back-end of her made a harsh thump almost as if it had cracked against the ground. Balin took a seat beside her. "Have you un-chosen each other?" he asked carefully. She could feel the disquietude of him with all five of her senses.

"Not for anything would I do so," she murmured, finding the relief palpable in his face of little comfort alas.

"A mild disagreement then have you?"

"No. Not really."

"Well it's something, and it's clouded the air between you."

She sighed heavily against a tense silence that commenced then between them. But Balin was patient. Kind. He might understand.

"I have never so much as been looked upon by any dwarf as he looks upon me, and courts me. Courts me, Balin. Not like men court women hoping to woo them with a gift of daisies and sweet words. He has taken me as his lady. A king has taken me as his lady." She rested her face heavily in her hands, her cheeks hot again, thinking of his hands on her, the weight of his body pressed firmly against her in a soft bed.

"It is a reintroduction into the world I would not have expected," Balin confessed. "Perhaps I think too his grief has wounded his heart- and his head- in ways we will never understand."

"Do you mean to say then that this is all for some malady? That he treats me with such affection without sound mind to it?"

"Of course not." Balin reached and wrapped her hand in both of his the way he had done once in those wee hours, listening to Thorin groan and weep in some dark sleeping universe. "I see in his eyes when he looks at you something I have not seen in many a year. A light. A true, sterling thing."

She smiled, a glimmer of hope that made her weary face a bit warmer. But there was still a woefulness that Balin was determined as ever to solve. "My lady, is there something else? Something that puts a fear in you? For him or yourself?"

"Thorin has asked me that himself many times, and I cannot answer, except to say I am overwhelmed. More so now than I ever was Things progress so quickly I cannot keep up. It makes me dizzy."

"Nor can I. I cannot predict him anymore. Where this will go is beyond my ability to foresee."

"What does your heart tell you, Balin? Both of our heads seem quite useless, don't they?"

"My heart tells me that there is something greater at work in all of this. Keep your faith in him, my lady. He has kept it in you. In spite of his stubbornness at the moment. I blame my brother for encouraging it," Balin laughed self-deprecatingly. He heaved a deep, hesitant sigh then. "Did something happen in Rivendell? You disappeared for a long while in the night."

"It moves so quickly, Balin..." she all but whispered. "My heart..."

He smiled a little to himself, a light flickering on inside. "If his attentions so disquiet you, perhaps, you could distract him in some manner. You cannot forsake his company entirely, even for a spell. It will hurt you both."

"Distract him?"

"You are not the only pair whose eyes have fallen to each other, nor are Bofur and Brynja."

"I don't follow."

"My brother may need some encouragement. A hint if you prefer. To be of any effect, such a thing can only come from Thorin. A messenger would help."

"Another promise I've made and not kept," lamented Meisar. She turned to Balin. "I promised Freyda I would do some investigating. She is sweet on your brother."

"Yes, yes. I have slowly figured that out."

"I'm sure you're well aware I'm not very good at these things, Balin."

"You are better than you think. Do it for Freyda if no one else. All dwarves can appreciate an effort however small. Let Thorin's attentions be quenched in some manner, if sharing his bedroll is too much at the moment." He grinned nervously again and held it.

"Oh, his attentions, Mister Balin, they do not un-ease me like that. No, no. They… please me so deeply… it makes it hard to breathe. And here I hold him at bay because I am a proud, stubborn, stupid woman."

"I am certain he feels quite the same. He has been proud, stubborn and stupid himself. And you will both find out that it's a waste of time."

"If he does, let him be the first to show it," she grumbled. "He is finding me as stubborn as he. Good. He ought to know it."

"Like all things in this world, it builds over time. There will be starts and fits. But dearest Meisar, remember the greater good in all this. You share something which is between you in ways no others but yourself will ever know, but it is more than that. I think you well know that this world is not the same, nor will it ever be. You will need each other, to find your way through it."

.

III

Meisar reached up and stroked the courtship braid delicately when she felt his eyes gaze out of their corners toward her.

Grumbling, Thorin reached across and took her hand. Her fingers went limp in his but she did not draw back. She gave him a shy, content smile, dipping her head like a bashful maid. The feel of his hand, steady, heavy, the calluses in his palm against her own. She sat in utter silence while Dwalin's eyes fell in disbelief, even unmasked disappointment, toward the clasped hands that warmed themselves close to the fire.

"I would ask of you a small favor, if it would not trouble you," she said finally, when Dwalin had made a grunting sound in her direction and drawn away. She looked back toward a distantly-lingering Balin with some hesitance.

"Yes?"

"Freyda is sweet on Mister Dwalin."

His heart sank into his stomach. "I would be a sad duty for me to disappoint her. I never knew Dwalin to be the fancying kind."

"I'm sure he has learned some unexpected things about you over the years."

"None expected it of you either my king."

"Nor did I," Thorin sighed, irritably.

She squeezed his hand and rose to her feet quietly. "My king... Thorin..."

He reached for her hand again but she was gone just as swiftly. Dwalin swooped back around and sat where she had, beside Thorin. "Painful," rumbled Dwalin, pathetically. "Painful to watch."

"Aye."

"You'll drive each other mad, the two of ye."

"Perhaps."

Thorin stared into the fire. Dwalin's arm extended suddenly and squeezed Thorin around the shoulders from the side. "Never shall I break faith in ye again." Dwalin smiled, the first real smile Thorin had seen in weeks. "Ye are my brother, without being forged of me mother's womb. Ye are. Nadad."

"Nadad," repeated Thorin quietly in return. He rested a hand on Dwalin's forearm, squeezed it comfortingly.

"I've watch," said Dwalin eventually, realizing the hour. "Drawn me lot tonight to be paired with that daft old crone," Dwalin nodded toward Hegi.

Thorin grumbled dispassionately but mustered himself enough to say the words. "Perhaps Freyda would keep you better company." She lingered somewhere in the darkness just outside the firelight's reach, with Balin, Meisar.

"Freyda?"

"Switch watch with Bifur. He prefers the company of Hegi over Freyda anyway."

"S'pose," shrugged Dwalin.

"Well, how does her company at watch compare to Bifur's?" He eyed Bifur out of the corner of his eye, he and Hegi engaging in some odd feat, seeing who could hold their hands over their own little cook-fire the longest.

"Stout-hearted lass. Trust her skill over an anvil. A fine ax she wields," responded Dwalin, shrugging..

Thorin saw an inroad and took it. "I regret that you have been so attentive to me, and I not so much in return, in light of… things."

"Aye," Dwalin said curtly. "A lady-dwarf takes up yer time, certain enough."

"It is not such a bad thing, to pass one's time… with a woman."

He waited for a response but none came. Dwalin staggered to his feet and shouted at Bifur that they'd be switching shifts. Bifur shrugged. Dwalin called out, summoning Freyda for only the second time, by name.

.

Freyda landed in her bedroll at the tail end of the wee hours with a thud and shoved Meisar awake.

"Who?" she moaned, half-awake. Hands fumbled for her dirks, her ax. Her head felt too heavy to spring up, even if she had been an orc. Instead it was just Freyda who sank down low beside her, distressed. "All night on watch! Barely said a word to me! Meisar?"

"Huh?"

"I tried to make nice. You know, a simple conversation. Got no more than a few "aye's" and well, grunting sounds that were vowel-like in nature I s'pose."

Meisar slipped her body out of her bedroll, chafing at the cold air, and hustled Freyda away from the sleeping dwarves for a more private conference. They sat near the edge of the precipice with a lantern between them. It illuminated the night beyond with a beautiful, almost frightening quality. Owls hooted, a screech of an unfamiliar kind echoing far over some distant peak. The Misty Mountains had always frightened her.

"Why are dwarves so difficult?" bemoaned Freyda. She unscrewed a small flask and took a swig, handed it to Meisar. She nearly choked on the strength of the shine and looked over her hand, clutched against her face stifling a coughing fit, over at Freyda, who seemed as much on the verge of tears as she'd ever seen.

"Because Mister Dwalin is difficult," Meisar answered sharp and precisely.

"Why do I feel it like I do? It cannot be for no reason! Remember what Emli said? You will know your one and he will know you."

"Emli is married. It's easy for her to say."

"And Gloin is as cantankerous as Dwalin! But he fell straight in love with her. All due respect, she's an onerous kind sometimes you know, not easy for a man to be so besotted with. Worse than me anyway. What am I doing wrong? I'm kind to him, make him laugh, share me food. Even when I'm hungry." Her laments rang endlessly and drudging in Meisar's head.

"Don't sell yourself short, Freyda," she grumbled, sadly.

"Well what's weighing on you then? Could light a match and blow the air sky high between you and Thorin. Elves put you in a bad mood?"

"I think with Mister Dwalin it would be best to take a more direct approach. Just a feeling I get. He doesn't read women very well," Meisar suggested briskly, changing the subject with a tense inhale.

"You think?" said Freyda hopefully.

"I don't know what I think. But it couldn't hurt." She closed her eyes and remembered Thorin's hands on her that night. The tingling that made the tip of her breast furl at the weight of his touch, Elvish silk or her fading cambric tunic; it made no difference. She had desired him all the same, craved his touch.

How he had craved her and she had known it, tingled the same perhaps and felt his limbs go numb, a body morphing of its own volition or not.

.

IV

"Good Elven soaps. Makes skin soft and sweet! Two pence for two!" Siv roamed through the camp and passed Meisar, sitting alone on the ground on a blanket.

"Two pence? You nicked them out of the Elven bathhouse, you did."

"Course I did. Now I'm turning a profit," said Siv. She gave Meisar a little nudge aside with her hip, sat down and spread her goods across the blanket. There were cakes of daffodil-yellow soap pertinently wrapped in ribbons, the ribbons being similarly pilfered from the Elven hosts no doubt. "Got to make me myself money somehow."

"I can think of a few other ways you could," Meisar relayed sarcastically. Siv laughed.

She shook her head at Siv, slightly amused at this point but refusing to show it; Siv saw an inch and blabbed a league. "Spending time with Nori are you? I'm sure Emli will appreciate that. Emli and only Emli."

"Gave me this for helping him lift the dinnerware," bragged Siv, flashing Meisar a garnet brooch. Her cheeks and her black eyes both lit up with a girlish sensibility about them. "Sweet, isn't it?"

"Very."

"Spot you one cake of the good stuff, the jasmine and lavender. Rub it in yer hands, yer face and anywhere else ye like. Make your skin sweet for yer king to touch, love." She bit her lips and her brows raised, ignoring Meisar's troubled expression.

"Siv, please."

"Got that long face again I see. Funny, I can think of someone else wearing the same look. But I dare not suggest the jasmine to the likes of him."

Meisar said nothing to her in return. Her red-coat hound glared and Siv and barked and she hushed him, tiredly. "Ah, dinna even get his morning kiss, did he?" pooh-poohed Siv.

"Not your concern."

"Got a little "homey" at the Homely House did ye? Been acting like a couple of stumps since we left. Post-coital regrets?"

"Do you think or speak of nothing else, Siv?"

"Not really. So... romp in them silky elven sheets getting 'em a wee dreggy did ye?"

"No. For Mahal's sake, it's nothing like that." Liar. Look in her eyes. Conceal. She gave Siv a doleful stare. Siv sighed, benevolently.

"Ah, so that's it. What's it you got all wound up in? Look but no touch? Probably smarter of ye, truth be known, dunininh."

"No."

"So he's had a taste has he? Rest his head on them pillows at night? Light a fire in that forge and put a hammer to it, if there ain't one burning already. You red-headed ladies." She winked.

"No! Siv... what... oh my goodness. Please."

"Mahal, lass, yer like pulling teeth with a string sometimes. About as entertaining."

"I'm not here to amuse you. We're in the mountains now. I'd like to get you through in one piece."

Siv laughed her cackling naughty laugh. "Me in one piece? You're the one needin' to worry fer being split in half, lass." She was so amused at herself she kept on laughing at her own lack-wit.

Meisar bristled as Yrsa entered their space and plopped down. "Good morning, Yrsa," she mumbled, tightly.

Yrsa jabbed her in the face with her spoon-hand. "King Thorin be looking fer ye."

"I am right here. He's not blind, Yrsa," Meisar muttered irritably at her.

"What are you two going on about? Ye fighting with naughty Siv here again? My sister Urdlaug says you're a hussy anyway, whatever that means," Yrsa commented, her smile crooked and endearing. Siv curled an amused but hostile lip at the girl.

"A plan to get us through the mountains safely, child. All of us. I thought Siv ought to be included."

"Are you and Thorin cross with each other?"

No answer came out of Meisar for a few long seconds and Yrsa crawled up to face her and jabbed her in the forehead again with her spoon hand. "Why is it?"

She didn't answer. Yrsa and then Anbur pounced on her. "Make up! Make up and kiss!" chanted Anbur, shaking Meisar by her courtship braid.

"Yes, give him a big kiss," Yrsa made a dramatic smooching sound with her lips and all but leaped at Meisar with her sister. "Kiss, kiss!" crowed Anbur. Meisar rolled her head to Siv for help but Siv was flat on her back roaring with laughter.

"Well then," Siv shoved her elven stash toward her again, regaining herself, shooing the two enthusiastic butterballs off of her. "Got no beard? No problem." She took Meisar's hand and pulled her upright again on the grass. "Let there be a fine soft skin like an elvish babe's backside for our king to kiss." Siv put her arms around Meisar's shoulders from the side like a vice and kissed her cheek teasingly. She slipped a soap-cake down her tunic stealthily so that it caught in the fleshy well between her breasts. She remembered the weight of a hand, however timorously it had met the external layer of silk which was all that separated her flesh from his. His eyes gone black and hers.

Just as she felt her extremities tingle and go limp, Anbur swooped back in and with Yrsa tried to drag her away by her arms. "Kiss! Kiss! Bring her to the king! Make 'em kiss!" Meisar slumped in surrender in the grips of the two grobbling dwarflings. She looked around in half a panic though for Thorin.

"This is not a game!" Urdlaug snapped suddenly behind them.

"Do I look to you like a dwarrowdam given to games?" Meisar shot back, rolling over. Anbur and Yrsa were quickly dispersed, as was Siv and her loot. Urdlaug put her hands on her hips and her nose twitched at its bulbous tip the way it did when she was in one of her fouler moods.

"Turning away from another's love has consequences," she lectured. "You think I don't know what you're up to? Playing games with his heart? You're a woman, of course ye do."

She looked up at Urdlaug, wounded. The porcine dwarrowdam fretted down at her. "For me, a lifetime spent alone, cooking, cooking, cooking some more, and eating a great deal of what I cook. At this rate I shall be larger than my father and he can no longer move about without help. But pie and a good smoky brisket never hurt me the way Hroth the Blacksmith did."

She let out a mournful, rigid breath, and looked at Meisar again, suddenly flush, self-abatement quickly becoming discomfiture. "That stew you all love so very much gets is flavor being salted by my tears. But stew is stew, and I am just fat Urdlaug, suffering in silence, crying herself to sleep each night. If that is a lamentable story to your ears, imagine what places Thorin Oakenshield will go should you forsake him. He is a king, and a fragile one at that."

"I would never! I hold him… I hold him in higher esteem than ever I have another. I…" She put her hands up and moved them in front of her, hands opening and closing, trying to express something that came out just as awkwardly. She sighed and dropped both arms in her lap. Urdlaug's expression mellowed slightly. "You are as good as kin to me, Meisar. For my father opened our hearts and our hearth to you and would have treated you always as our own had you stayed."

"Yes he did. I shall always cherish his and your mother's kindness toward me."

"You know, I've heard things. But I think differently on the matter now that observe more carefully, and observe I have. I see everything through the steam over a cauldron of stew, be well aware."

"Then believe what you see only, Urdlaug."

"You want to know what I see? You are not afraid of him. See, that is what they speculate. But I don't see that. You are afraid of you. You are afraid of being cared for, not him. It's why you went into the wilds once from my father's hearth, because he cared for you. I pray Mahal for you to avoid the same mistake this time around."

"I will never make that mistake again." Meisar offered Urdlaug a look of contrition, of a deeper regret than that night in Rivendell could compare to.

She watched the sky turn umber high above the mountain peaks.