Yep, I'm alive. The last few months were...hectic. But things are smoothing out now, and I'm hoping to really be able to jump back into my writing on a more regular basis.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment, critique, whatever your heart desires.
Kili gapes at me, his eyes rounded in the candlelight. Finally he swoops forward and pulls me into a tight hug.
Then he lets me go, a sleepy scowl on his face. "What are you doing here?" he hisses. "Do you have any idea what time it is, or where we are? How did you even get in?"
He takes in the rope around my body, and Bard standing by the door, his expression growing more incredulous by the second. "Who is that?"
"Kili, this is Kalonga, a friend of mine. He has been my host while I've been here in Laketown. And we can answer your questions, but we need to be quick. Obviously, we're not supposed to be here."
Bard shifts closer to me as Kili looks at his brother, still sleeping in the next bed over.
"He should be awake for this."
I hesitate. "You can fill him in when we leave. I'm sure he needs sleep."
"What, and I don't?" Kili grumps, scrubbing at his eyes.
I smile. Even after everything, he's still himself.
"When do y'all plan to leave?" I ask.
Kili thinks for a moment. "The twelfth of October. It gives us enough time to rest and gather supplies, and get to the mountain before Durin's Day on the 19th."
Bard and I exchange a look. "We need to scout out Dale, so we will leave two days before you, and meet you there," I say, turning back to Kili. "Then I'll continue to the mountain with you."
"Why can't you just leave with us?" Kili asks. "You are employed with us after all, and you've been here for months."
I shake my head. "I have responsibilities here, and I can't leave these people. They mean as much to me as you and the rest of the company."
Kili gives me a funny look before a huge yawn splits his face. "If you say so. Can I tell the rest of the company that you're here?"
"Aye, but be discreet about it. I can't have Alfrid knowing that we're acquainted."
Kili gives me another funny look, but doesn't say anything more, choosing instead to update me on the health of various company members.
"We should be leaving," Bard says, looking out Kili's window. Though the sun won't rise for hours, Bard needs to be up in the morning for his shift at the citadel. And I can't keep Kili up all night, as much as I want to continue my conversation with him.
I stand and make my way to Bard. "Aye, we should go."
Kili frowns and looks at Fili again. "I know he'd like to see you."
"Another time perhaps."
Kili opens his mouth to argue, but I shake my head and look at Bard. Kili backs off, but not before giving me one more look and halfheartedly making a rude gesture. I smile and return it.
Bard listens at the door while I look out the window for a minute, making sure the house is quiet and the night is still. I give Kili one last wave before we crawl out his window and onto the roof, easing our way down the slick roof, making our way to the edge while watching the guards below. They disappear, and after a couple breaths, Bard and I drop down with small thuds.
We dash to the building on our right, clinging to the wall, but the guards never reappear. We wait a few more minutes, then slink away from the hall, alert and on edge, waiting for an alarm to sound. It never does, and twenty minutes later Bard and I are climbing up the stairs into our cold kitchen.
As soon as the lock slides into place, Bard and I slump with exhaustion and relief.
"Of all the late-night outings I have been on over the years, that one was by far the most stressful."
I smile. "Oh really? I would've thought the time Alfrid almost caught you at the citadel was worse."
Bard laughs. "Absolutely not. I'd been planning that night for weeks and I knew when he was coming. This time was much worse."
"My deepest apologies. It won't happen again."
Bard laughs again and says, "Make sure of it." Then he wishes me goodnight and disappears into his room. My smile lingers on my face as I get ready for bed and crawl in next to Chiko, who grumbles and pulls the covers closer.
"You have terrible bed-sharing manners," I mutter, poking her shoulder.
The week before we leave flies by too fast. Bard and I keep low profiles, and let Chiko gather supplies while we plan our route. The current plan is for Bard to take time off at the citadel, and we take his boat north. We can go all the way up the lake, and walk the rest of the way to Dale, about two days of travel since we plan to move fast.
The night before we leave Mphatso and Ahmad come over for dinner. Dolgoon is already at the river camp. Bard and I are just finishing the potatoes when everyone arrives all at once. They clomp up the steps and barge in without knocking, instantly filling the house with laughter and noise. Then they slough off their boots and leave them in a tangled heap by the door.
"So Aspen, how's it feel to be leaving us behind? You know, because you're going off on a vacation with your friends while we'll be fighting a dragon," Mphatso says. Chiko slaps them, and Mphatso jumps, rubbing their arm while giving her a hurt expression.
"It will be quite nice getting away from you," I retort. "You've been out to get me since you hauled me out of the river."
"I haven't heard this story," Ahmad says, looking at me curiously.
Mphatso beams, and Bard and I groan. Chiko just starts piling her plate with food.
"Oh it was hilarious," Mphatso begins as they sit and grab the plate of fish. "Bard was helping me collect a large delivery of barrels from the Woodland Realm. Apparently, the elves wanted to see how many barrels they could collect before shipping them downriver to us. We begin like normal. We go down the day before, stay in the village overnight, and load up the barrels in the morning. We start back, and we're on track to make it back by night," Mphatso pauses to take a sip of water. "We're about two hours from town, deep in the marshes, when all of the sudden we hear a voice calling for help."
Ahmad gives me a skeptical look. "That was you?" he asks.
"Aye. I can't even imagine what I must have looked like, trying to wave them down with my boots and partisan falling all over the place."
Mphatso laughs. "It was very funny."
Bard gives them a look, and Mphatso adds, "Not at the time of course. But now it is. I jumped in as soon as I found you and swam as fast as I could. I was afraid you were going to drown before I reached you."
"You looked like you were about to drown when they finally got you to the boat," Bard says. "You coughed up so much water."
I shudder as I remember the coldness of the marsh and the fear as I went under, unable to breathe when I resurfaced.
"And then you were unconscious for hours," Bard continues. "Mphatso bumped your head on the wall as they carried you up our stairs and you didn't even stir."
Mphatso laughs as I glare at them, and says, "You just barely touched the wall. And only for a second."
Ahmad sets his fishbone on his plate before pointing a finger at Mphatso and saying, "Right. You just barely bumped her head like you just barely scratched the paint on my stall."
Chiko laughs. "You should have seen the way Mphatso dropped her in my bed like she was a sack of onions."
"I've seen the way Mphatso throws his barrels around. I bet half of Aspen's recovery time was from her rough treatment," Ahmad says.
Mphatso protests as the accusations pile up, and tears up bits of their dinner roll and throws them at us.
"That's enough!" Chiko yells, smiling the whole time. "If you're not going to eat my food then get out!" She gestures emphatically to the door to emphasize her point.
Mphatso grins sheepishly, holding up their hands in surrender. "It's really no good for anything else."
Chiko huffs. "Well at least I tried."
"You did great. They're much better than last time," Ahmad says.
"They are," Bard agrees. "Aspen has been quite helpful in that regard."
"You have made a lot of progress," I tell Chiko. "It's really impressive, and you should be proud."
Chiko beams, and the conversation moves to other topics, such as higher prices on smoked fish, scuffles with the town guard, and Alfrid's new haircut.
"It's awful," Ahmad says. "I was at the community house early, and he came by to drop off a child, and he's cut it above his shoulders. It looked bad enough when it was below his shoulders, but now that it's shorter he doesn't wear his cap anymore, so everyone can see how greasy his hair is."
Chiko shakes her head. "A man supposed to be representing the town should take better care of himself. I don't care how long his hair is, but it should be clean. Especially when we have visitors."
Everyone's eyes flick to me, and I shrug. "I doubt the dwarves have noticed." I'm sure this is not true. Most likely, the dwarves are talking about it in front of everyone, in Khuzdul of course. They've probably insulted the master too. The few times I've seen him I haven't been impressed by his appearance.
The night wears on, and as much as I don't want them to, my friends eventually have to leave. They slip out shortly before the curfew, but not before nearly cracking one of my ribs with the force of their hugs, and extracting promises to visit them when I can.
Then the door closes behind them, and pressure builds in my throat. I take a deep breath and scoop up the dishes from the table, hurrying to the sink to hide my tears from Bard and Chiko as they bank the fire for the night. I try to be as quiet as possible, but when the siblings appear at my side I give up trying to hold everything in.
"I don't want them to go. I don't want to go. I've had to leave so many people behind and I don't want to leave you behind too. I've lost so many people that I care about and I know I'll see you again, but there's still a part of me that's afraid I won't." I screw my eyes shut to keep any more tears from falling out.
"You know you are like family to us right?" Chiko asks. "You won't be able to get rid of us even if you want to."
I laugh a little and open my eyes, drinking in the sight of them, as precious to me as the dwarves, or my Earth family.
Bard opens his arms and I fall into them. "Chiko will haunt you as a ghost if she has to." His warm chest vibrates beneath my head, and I laugh again.
Chiko nods, squeezing my shoulder. "Of course. What kind of sister would I be if I didn't?"
"You'll see us again," Bard says. "Whether it's in a few weeks or a few months."
"You should sleep now," Chiko says. "You both have an early morning." With one last look at her brother, Chiko disappears in her room, leaving Bard and I alone in the main room, the fire down to a few smoldering embers.
Bard looks at me, his face and eyes soft, his arms still wrapped around my waist.
"You do not have to go if you don't want to."
I sigh. "They're paying me to go with them. And I swore to Fili a long time ago that I would help him for however long he needed." My head fills with the image of a cave in the mountains, Fili sobbing in my arms. My throat tightens again.
"I've done as much as I can for the town. And I can't leave them."
Bard shakes his head. "Think about what you want, beyond any promises you have made to people. Think about who you want to spend time with, or who you want to become."
With that last thought his arms fall from my waist and he slips into his room.
I make my way to bed, but sleep evades me. Bard's words ring in my head.
We leave with the first light in the morning. After we load all of our supplies into the boat beneath the house, Chiko gives me a long hug. "Remember, I will haunt you as a ghost if you don't come to see us after this is all over."
I squeeze her back. "I'll come when I can."
"I know you will. I will miss you."
"I'll miss you too."
Chiko finally lets me go with a kiss on the cheek, and Bard helps me into the boat and into my seat. He and Chiko untie the ropes, and Bard pushes away from the dock, into the canal. I wave to Chiko until she slips out of sight.
"You alright?" Bard asks.
"Aye, I will be," I say, though the tone of my voice isn't very convincing.
We fall silent as Bard concentrates on navigating us through the canals, into the marketwater, out to the gate. The sun is barely over the horizon and paints the lake with streaks of gold. The water steams in the cold air, and I shiver, pulling out a blanket Chiko packed for the journey.
I wait as Bard speaks with the guardsmen on duty, explaining that we're going fishing on the north end of the lake. The guard rolls his eyes and says something along the lines of how we must be truly stupid to go there, but passes us through the gate anyway, scribbling in his logbook.
It takes a while to clear the traffic surrounding the town, but as soon as we can Bard puts up the sail, and after about an hour Laketown falls out of sight. We keep the western shore just in sight, and ahead of us lies the mountain, which grows bigger with each passing hour.
I avoid looking at it, wishing that somehow I could complete my job without going anywhere near it. Nothing good will come of being there.
I look at Bard, wondering what exactly he thinks of this trip. I've seen both him and Chiko speaking in whispers, looking north to the mountain or Dale. One time I found Bard at the table, examining the black arrow with a scowl on his face. He and Chiko gave it to Ahmad for safekeeping before we left. Just in case.
"Are you happy to see your dwarves soon?" Bard asks.
His words bring me back to the moment, and I answer, "Yes of course. I miss them. But I will miss you as well."
He smiles, and a dimple in his left cheek appears. I've never seen it before, and it makes him look much happier. It's a welcome change from the grim look he usually has.
"Yes, you made that very clear last night," he teases.
I make a face, crossing over to stand by him at the rudder. "You're both my family," I say. "I love the dwarves, and without them I would be dead. But I'd also be dead without you and Mphatso. And I've grown to love the people I met in Laketown."
"It seems to me that the problem you had, whether to go or stay, is really not a bad problem to have."
"What, stay with one group of friends and fight a dragon, or go with another group of friends to unleash the dragon on the first group? Sounds like a problem to me."
"Well, that is a problem for sure, but it is not a problem to have friends you care about."
"I wonder what the dwarves will think of me after all this time."
"They will be happy to see you, and proud of the work that you have done."
"I hope so."
When we finally stop for the day, we're close to the north end of the lake. Bard estimates we'll have a few more hours of sailing tomorrow, and we should be in Dale by nightfall.
We hurry to collect firewood and start a fire, since the sun will be going down soon. I scoop cups of water from the lake, running it through a cloth into the pot to boil for soup. It's not as clean as I would like and it never quite loses the taste of dirt, but it's better than nothing. And with the few carrots and potatoes it will pair well with the dried fish in our packs.
Once the soup is bubbling over the fire and potatoes are nestled among the embers, I check my partisan and medical supplies while Bard fletches arrows. When it is too dark even for that I listen as plays his oud, humming softly while staring at the fire.
"You have a good voice," I tell him, and when he smiles his dimples peek out again.
I'm about to offer a song of my own, but he puts the oud away and asks if the soup and potatoes are done. He carefully drags the food out and I add another stick to the fire to ward off the cold. We have a limited supply, and with the chill there is no question of sleeping separately, so after dinner we build the fire as high as we can and pull our rolls close together, so that my back is pressed up against his legs. Bard takes first watch, though there isn't much to watch for.
To be honest I'm grateful for his presence. After all this time I'm not used to sleeping by myself, much less by myself out in the open. In the last bits of wakefulness memories of my journey from the elven halls of Mirkwood to Laketown surface, and I shiver hard. Those were hard days.
Bard mistakes my discomfort for coldness and pulls my covers up higher, murmuring something in his tongue. His voice is low with fatigue and his hand as it grazes my cheek is rough, but his actions are gentle enough to help me sleep.
Bard wakes me halfway through the night for my watch and builds up the fire with the last of the firewood again before he bunches down into his roll. I grab the blanket he was using earlier and wrap it around my shoulders, watching as his breath begins to even out. The firelight flickers against his skin, highlighting his cheekbone and the shadow of his beard.
I smooth his locs under my hand, humming a song under my breath. He stirs and mutters before stilling, his nose pressed up against my thigh. I smile at the sight, and something in my chest begins to spark and burn.
There's no sound except the crackle of the fire, the lapping of the waves, and the wind whistling around us. It would be peaceful really, if it didn't feel so open and desolate. It's a lonely emptiness. The hours pass, and I guess I fall asleep at some point because I wake up when Bard pokes my shoulder, nudging me awake.
He quirks an eyebrow. "I thought you were supposed to be on watch."
I yawn. It's too early for this conversation. "I was. Clearly nothing happened."
He snorts. "We could have been eaten by wolves," he says, smirking up at me. "Which would you prefer, eaten by wolf or eaten by dragon?"
"Dragon, obviously. I'd prefer to be swallowed whole rather than torn apart," I say as I pull dried fish out of our packs.
He snorts. I glance at him, shaking my head. I don't know what's gotten into him, but he hardly ever smiled or laughed this much in Laketown.
After we eat, pack the camp, and take care of our hygiene needs, we set off again. The wind is just as cold as yesterday, and Bard and I soon find ourselves in gloves, our hands shoved in our armpits.
"Have you ever seen Dale?" I venture.
Bard looks at me like I'm crazy. "Of course not. No one goes there."
"Except us," I mutter.
"According to the guard on gate duty yesterday, we're idiots with a death wish."
"So I gathered."
"I've heard stories about Dale of course. Our mother used to share them with us before she disappeared."
"Would you mind sharing a few?"
Bard launches into a tale about his ancestor Girion, how he tried to defend Dale against Smaug. Girion rallied his archers to fire upon the dragon, but nothing pierced the dragon's hide. Nothing except a black arrow, forged by the dwarves of Erebor. The arrow knocked loose a scale on the dragon's chest, directly over his heart, but did not kill him. Smaug then moved his focus to the Lonely Mountain, but the city was ruined. The people that survived moved to Laketown, and the city has sat abandoned ever since.
"Did Girion die there?" I ask, though I already know the answer.
"Aye. His wife and son escaped down the river with the other refugees. She took the last black arrow with her, and made sure that her son knew who he was. And so the story has been passed down to us." He eyes me, a small smile on his face. "It's not really a cheerful tale, but from it we know how to defeat the dragon."
"How you can defeat the dragon," I clarify.
Bard looks down at the rudder, mumbling an agreement. I put a hand on his arm, then hug him as best I can from the side.
"You will," I say.
"You don't know that," Bard says, but I shake my head.
"I do. I believe it. Look at me," I say as Bard stares at wood beneath us. His eyes find mine, and I find myself staring into his deep brown, almost black eyes. "You will defeat Smaug," I say. "I am sure of it."
Bard smiles, his dimple peeking out. "If you say so."
When we reach the northern shore we drag the boat over to a pile of boulders close to the river to hide it. We're not worried about anyone stealing it, but rather what the bargemen will say when they ferry the dwarves this way in a couple days, and happen upon a relatively nice boat. No one goes fishing this far north.
Bard sticks close to my side as we follow the river to the city. This close to the river the terrain is mostly flat and sandy, but we still work up a sweat walking for hours in the sun. I hike my skirt into my belt, and Bard removes his coat.
"Why couldn't we just sail all the way up the river?" I mutter under my breath.
Bard hears me though, and says, "There's not enough wind. And the two of us aren't enough to fight the current, even in a boat as small as mine."
We walk for hours, only stopping for a quick break near dusk. We have to reach Dale tonight.
The moon rises in the sky, illuminating a dark shadow on the horizon. The shadow grows as we walk, and above us looms the Lonely Mountain, giant and intimidating. Spurs shoot out on all sides, not quite reaching the valley.
The shadow on the horizon gradually takes form, though it's hard to tell how large the city is in this light.
Beside me, Bard is rigid, his mouth a tight line.
Be more, a voice whispers, and I let my hand brush his.
He startles, but then grabs my hand, holding it in a firm grip.
We leave the river when we reach the city, following the wall until we reach an ancient, crumbling gate. We walk up the street a bit, stopping at the first house that looks moderately intact. Bard is silent as we set out our stuff and build up a fire from the fallen wood around us.
We lay out our rolls side by side, and Bard falls asleep immediately, and I wish I could join him.
Exploring the city tomorrow will be exhausting in more ways than one.
