Disclaimer: I do not own the Hobbit, everything belongs to Tolkien, and this story is not for profit.

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Chapter 11

We continued to travel north up the river weak and weary, never having recovered from our last illness, never having really recovered from anything.

Even the few moments that we slept were riddled with unrest. We both tossed and turned and dozed more than what one would call sleep. Around this time I had a recurring nightmare about stabbing a man in the back. Thinking I was protecting myself, I would watch the man remain standing and then realize with a pang that the man was just an empty robe, that the real enemy was standing a few paces away, smiling and waving, before he shoots an arrow into my heart. That's always when I would wake up. And when I did lie a few minutes staring up at the stars after an uneasy sleep, I could hear Aeiliel tossing and turning as well, and I would wonder about what she had nightmares about.

We tried to stay off the main paths, and so we did not encounter many fellow travelers or any locals, but one morning when we woke up from a restless night underneath an old tree, and found a little girl staring down at us.

I jumped up when I saw her and gave a small scream. Then Aeiliel jumped as well, but she hit her head on the way up on a low branch and the only thing she was able to do for the next few minutes was curse. Since Aeiliel was unable, I took it upon myself to inquire what the girl was doing.

She just giggled for a moment, then when I grew angry she finally drew her hand away from her mouth.

"I apologize. You and your friend sound funny when you speak. And look at your clothes."

Aeiliel frowned, still rubbing her head, and came toward the girl. "Didn't your parents teach you how unkind it was to remark on people speak? Or that standing over strangers when they sleep is a good way to get yourself killed?"

"I think what my friend means," I said hurriedly when I saw the little girl's face twisting unpleasantly, "is that you sound just as silly to us as we do to you."

The girl was indeed a local. I had not met many people from the north, but the way she dressed and spoke was different. Differences aside, if this girl was representative of most northern people, I wasn't sure living in the north would be such a good idea.

"Is there anything you need young lady?" I asked her when she just kept standing around us.

"If you need food, we haven't got any." Aeiliel said sharply.

I shot her a look, but the little girl seemed to not notice Aeiliel's dislike of her.

"I have food at my home! With my parents! You must come with me!"

"No." Aeiliel said.

"Where do your parents live?" I asked, ignoring Aeiliel. Free food was nothing for us to turn our noses up at.

"On the other side of the ridge! Not very far."

"Would they mind if we came?" I asked.

"Of course not! They would love to have you…"

"Well, it will take a minute for us to untie our horses…"

"Laurwen!" Aeiliel screeched. "Can I speak to you for a moment?"

I followed her away from the little girl to behind some trees and she reeled on me.

"What are you thinking? When you were washing our knives in the river last night did you happen to wash your brain out as well?"

"I know what you're going to say Aeiliel, but the girl says her parents have food for us. The farther north we travel the more trouble Carotene has been having hunting. We're too weak to be hungry right now. I think a nice meal could be the difference at this point between life and death."

"I think you are letting your stomach do your thinking for you." Aeiliel grumbled.

She followed me though, and we both followed the young girl to the cottage where she said her parents lived.

Their home was bright and airy, with flowers planted outside and vines growing on the walls.

If I had had any doubts about whether following the girl was wise, they all dissipated when I walked through the doors and smelled bread being baked in the brick stove in the house.

A beautiful young woman was standing and chopping meat up at the counter. She turned when she heard us come in.

"Bringel, who have you brought?" She asked her daughter as she clutched her mother's skirts.

"We apologize, miss, for disturbing you, but we have traveled many hard miles, and your daughter told us that if we came to your home, you would be able to feed us. Of course we have some money to pay you with…"

The young woman smiled. "There will be none of that," she said, "any weary travelers as kind as you young ladies are always welcome in my home. It will be a few minutes until the food is ready; if you all would like, we have a warm spring just outside the house. You can take a warm bath there while Bringel takes your dresses down to be washed in the river."

We thanked her heartily. Even Aeiliel, who told me that this was going to take too long, could not resist the thought of a warm bath before a large meal.

The spring was warm indeed, and before I had hardly given my dress to Bringel to wash and was left only in my shift, Aeiliel had pushed me into the water.

The spring wasn't really very deep, but luckily I didn't hit my head on anything. Aeiliel jumped in after me when she had given her dress to the young girl as well.

I was still laughing from being pushed in, when I saw something that took all the humor out of me.

As Aeiliel bobbed back above the water I saw her for the first time in a very long time with only her white shift on, which was now outlining her wet body.

And the result was frightening. Her ribs protruded out at disturbing angles, becoming her most prominent feature. Her knees were as wide as her thighs and her collarbones were so big they no longer looked attractive but like a mark of starvation.

"Aeiliel." I whispered. I couldn't take my eyes away from her horrible, ill, and starved body. And I couldn't stop thinking that her father had promised that his daughter would help me escape. His daughter had saved me several times; she had kept his promise. But I wished she hadn't. I wished she had stayed in Gondor, healthy and well fed.

"I know." She said. "But look at yourself."

I looked down, and saw to my dismay that I was exactly the same, if not worse off.

My ribs were just as prominent, my knees just as wide. My chest, which had been filling out nicely when we set out, was now much smaller.

She must have seen me looking at my chest, because she laughed and said, "Don't worry, there was never much there anyway."

"Speak for yourself!" I laughed, and when she splashed me with water we started laughing and fighting until it was time to come in.

Bringel brought us some of her mother's dresses to wear while ours dried.

As we settled around a table in a dining room, Bringel's mother told us that Bringel's father was sick in bed in one of the other rooms.

"He's very sick," she said, "but we just don't have the money to provide for one of the physicians from the town to take a look at him."

We discussed other possibilities, and listened to her tell us about her life and home over the best meal I ever ate in my entire life.

There was a large warm loaf of bread, assorted smoked meats, gravy and broths to dip the bread in, wonderful northern fruit that I had never tasted before, warm milk that had come from the cows that very morning, not to mention about ten other things and a large sweet pudding for dessert.

Bringel's mother told us that we would be sick if we tried to ride right away after all we had eaten, and so we all went into the main room where there was a cozy fire going.

Aeiliel and I sat on some cushioned benches while the mother took up some sewing and Bringel sat on the ground and played with her toys.

I was feeling a little drowsy when I noticed a lute lying on the ground near the fire.

Unable to not ask about an instrument, I turned and asked the mother if she played. She smiled and said she had played since she was a child, and would I like to hear something?

"Very much." I said.

She played a soft, slow song. And she played very, very, well; in no time I was asleep on the bench.

I was awoken, I am not sure how much longer, by Aeiliel shaking me and telling me to wake up.

"Wake up, Laurwen, we have to leave immediately!"

"What…why?" I asked lazily, turning to the other side.

"Laurwen!" She practically shouted, "Wake up!"

When I continued to ignore her she pushed me off the bench. The hard fall to the floor did a good job of getting my attention, and I turned back to my friend angrily.

"What?" I said getting up.

"I think we have been tricked."

"You're too paranoid!"

"No, I have proof."

She told me she had woken up a few minutes ago, and had been hungry and wondered if she could have any leftovers from earlier. She had walked all over the house, looking for Bringel and her mother, to ask one of them for permission, but could not find either of them. The only other person at home besides us, she said, was the sick father asleep in one of the other rooms.

Since no one else was home, Aeiliel had decided it would be all right to have a look in the kitchen. She had been trying to find some of the leftover pudding when she had opened a drawer that she said was full of gold.

"So?!" I asked.

She opened her hand and showed what was inside to me. It was gold. But not just any gold.

It was the gold of Gondor.

"Oh no." I whispered.

"I know." She said.

We both thought the same thing, that the men had arrived here before us and had paid the mother to catch us.

"And they accepted the money, to pay for a doctor for their father." I whispered sadly.

"I wouldn't feel so sorry for them, they are probably bringing the men here right at this moment."

She was probably right. We looked at each other and without a word scrambled out of the house.

We ran away, down the pastures, still wearing the mother's clothes. Our horses were thankfully still tied near the house and so we quickly untied them and ran away. We gave Carotene, who had been sleeping on one of the horse, a fright

We rode away quickly, and when we came to a hill a ways away from the house, we saw, in the distance, a few torches being led toward the house, by the young girl and her mother.

Aeiliel turned away sharply and rode away, and I followed her slowly after a minute.

We both knew now that this could not go on. That something must change soon. That something was going to snap.

I woke up now with a glowing, happy feeling, and for a long time I wasn't sure why. It was the similar to how you would feel when you are a child and wake up in the morning knowing that you were getting presents, but for a few minutes couldn't remember why; or when a relative has returned home after being gone for far too long, and their presence warms the home and the heart.

That was how it was with me now, all the time. I glowed from my head and my heart. As I said, I wasn't sure why at first, and then I realized there was only one explanation.

I was in love.

I was in love for the first, and as everyone supposes at the time it happens, and last time.

My King. How I loved to say those words. Most people called him such, so it made no difference when I said those words to him, I knew, but I meant something different when I said them. I really meant that he was my king.

Except that he wasn't, and could never be, my king.

Remembering that would always bring me down a little, darken the glow, and make my stomach feel unpleasantly heavy.

But it didn't matter.

Being here with him, in any way, was enough.

….

Coruven had returned.

And his return made the dead of winter feel even deader.

I began to feel increasingly like he was there everywhere I went, watching and judging me with his cool eyes. As if he somehow knew exactly what had passed between his father and I.

The King was busy in the winter caring for his subjects. In Gondor winter was not such a hard thing, but the North was a harsh place, I learned, and people had to work very hard and do lots of planning to ensure survival during the cold months.

I helped whenever I could, distributing food and sewing blankets for the children.

Once when I was out helping some of the other elves chop some firewood for some of the families who needed it, when the King was walking through with Carfon inspecting the progress, and grew irritated when he saw me.

"What do you think you're doing?!" He said as he strode quickly over to me, his long legs hardly making a sound.

"I'm helping chop the firewood."

"You know you aren't allowed to touch anything in the weapons vault. And that axe, which is more than half your size, is most certainly a weapon."

"No, you said I wasn't allowed in the archery practice, not the weapons vault. Don't you remember?"

He scowled. I could see he did indeed remember, and was hoping that I had been the one to forget his exact words.

I laughed. "You don't give us humans enough credit. We are smarter-and have better memories-than you seem to think."

"I think you personally have changed my entire outlook on the race of Man." He said quietly.

I looked around quickly, wondering if anyone else thought they heard a double meaning in his words, but no one else looked like they heard anything amiss.

I knew my cheeks were turning red, although the King's expression had never stopped being stoic.

"Please don't be cross, your highness." I said. "I'm only trying to help."

He glanced pointedly at the small pile of wood beside me.

It was true that I wasn't very good at chopping wood. I didn't have much experience or the strength required for that kind of thing.

"Listen," he said, "There is something else I would like for you to do, which is why I came to find you."

I smiled at him. "Let me guess, this secret job requires me to stay far away from any axes or arrows?"

The King smiled grimly back. "You are too clever for your own good. Now come along, don't you want to know what it is?" He gestured for me to follow him.

We walked away from the groups of elves working and back toward the palace.

"Padhrion told me he was looking for a new assistant, to help him mix herbs and nurse some of the sick and wounded. I proposed he might have you to do the job. Would you like that?"

"Indeed I would. " I told King, surprising myself with the truth. "It sounds like a place where I could make myself very useful. Why ever did you think of it?"

"It's your hands." The King said.

"My hands?" I asked.

"Yes. You are unused to being in the cold for so long everyday, and I have noticed at dinner that your hands are cracked and that they sometimes bleed from it."

I looked down at my hands.

He was right. I had noticed a few weeks ago that they were dry and damaged, and had been very embarrassed. My mother had always said that a nobleman's daughter should take care of every part of herself, being especially clean and healthy so as to set a good example for the other women in her town. I had been confused at first as to why my hands were cracking; finally an elf told me that they had seen other humans who lived in the north have cracking and bleeding hands during the cold months, and that wearing gloves was the only cure. But now my hands hurt too much for gloves.

"You are ashamed. " The King said, sounding upset.

He stopped us and turned to look at me. "You should not be. It is very admirable to have winter-scarred hands. It means you are a hard worker, even in the wintertime. But regardless I no longer wish for you to be outside all the time, because I have noticed that for the past two weeks you have made up some excuse every night to avoid playing your harp at dinner, and I assumed that it must be because your hands were paining you when you played, and of course I could not have that any longer."

When I smiled at him, he took one of my dry hands in his, gently, and kissed it.

"So you will take this duty?" He asked.

"I would be honored, my King." I said.

My new post brought me so much joy that I played for the King that very night, not even feeling the pain in my hands.

It was a lovely winter night; all of the stars were visible from the glass roof over the hall. Although it was very cold, a warm fire had been lit in the hall and we were all bundled up in our warmest cloaks.

Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves that evening. So far the King had laughed three times, which I believed had to be some sort of record. I could see Carotene a ways away curled up into a warm bundle sleeping by the fire, and Esteldes was stroking his orange fur while speaking to another young elleth.

Even Coruven, who I seemed to imagine spent most of his evenings at dinner scowling at me, was smiling and speaking to a elleth beside him, and paying no attention to me.

Or he wasn't, that is, until his father stood up, and held up his cup of wine toward all of his subjects.

They all grew quiet when he began to speak, and they grew even quieter when he asked me to come stand beside.

I left my harp and walked shyly back up to his table, where all my anxiety dissipated when his eyes met mine.

He took my hand and held it up in his, before turning to all of his subjects that had come to the hall for dinner that evening.

"My loyal subjects, I have for some time wanted to thank you all for your cooperation. It has ever confirmed my suspicions that I led the best group of elves in all of Middle Earth when this young woman came to our realm, sick and in danger, and you all banded together and agreed with me that we would not turn her away. And after just these few months, it has turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made. She has added to the light and beauty of this realm, which is surrounded by an ever-growing shadow of darkness, and at the same time brought some new light of her own. It is my belief-"

The King shut his mouth when there was a crash and loud murmuring began.

His eyebrows drew and he frowned, scanning the crowd. "What is this?!" He said irritably.

There had been a large group to dinner that evening, and so it was a long time until the whole crowd parted to reveal what had caused the crash and noise.

We had some visitors.

They were humans, like me, and from the dirt and wear on their clothes they looked as though they had traveled very far, and indeed they had.

There were about 10 or 15 of them altogether. The men who had chased Aeiliel and I were among them, but I hardly noticed them.

I could only notice the man who led them, who was my cousin Baldrick, and who locked eyes with me of an even greater intensity.

My cousin was about ten years older than I, and a fairly large man. He had never been particularly bright; I remembered that from our childhood. He had no love of books or learning, no gentleness or pity at all. But for every quality that he lacked he made up for in ambition and cunning. And if Baldrick put his mind to it, he could easily charm people who did not know him better. He was tall and strong, and had the same black hair that I had (a trademark of my father's side of the family), although he did not have my golden eyes. His eyes were as black as his hair and beard, as black as his shoes and his dark black horse, as dark as his heart probably was if you could cut it open and look at it.

He sneered when his eyes met mine and he growled my name out of his big mouth.

The King seemed to know who he was the second he came in, for he dropped my hand and picked up a knife sitting on the table, since swords in elven lands were not customarily brought to dinner.

"Besides the time you are going to spend in my dungeons, was there any other business you had with me or my people?" The King asked my cousin.

But Baldrick did not even seem to hear the King. He continued smirking at me. "What a chase you've led us all on, Laurwen. You sure do like to make a man work for you. But then again, you always were a lot of work."

"My brothers." I half whispered, half croaked out of my mouth.

His smile grew broader. "They are still in my custody."

"And Fiske?" I asked.

A shadow passed Baldrick's face at my older brother's name. "Safe for now, the mousy idiot. Still safe in the neighboring province, protected by all those traitors. He thinks to raise an army against me, but he will learn very soon that I know a thing or two more about warfare then he."

So Fiske was still safe at least, and planning still to take back Lebennin from Baldrick. That was maybe the only good news there would be out of all of this.

"But enough of this. You know why I'm here. Why try to put it off any longer?"

The King spoke up again. "Try to take her, and you die."

Finally my cousin's eyes slid over to the tall blond king standing beside me. "To answer your earlier question, no, I don't have any business with you or your people. I have business with something of mine. Laurwen is a citizen of Gondor and of Lebennin; therefore she is subject to my orders. Not to mention that we have been betrothed to one another since we were children. Our parents always meant for us to marry, and I am here to rightfully claim my bride."

"You liar! My parents never would have made me marry you! They never trusted you, and they were right…" The end of my small speech broke up a little from tears, as I remembered that my parents had been murdered at the hands of the man before me."

"Laurwen, my sweet cousin, would it be so bad to be married to me? Aside from a small punishment you will receive for running away, I won't hurt you. I tend to take good care of my own things."

His words were stupid, but it was the look in his eyes that was frightening. He had looked at me the same way quite often when I had lived in Gondor, and I had not known what it meant. After these precious months with the King, I finally recognized it as a look of desire, and the thought both frightened me and made me sick.

The King, who was very angry now, pushed me behind him and turned to face my cousin.

"Either way," the King said in his clear voice, "it won't matter much if she wanted to marry you are not, although I am quite sure she would rather not. You won't have the chance. You can surrender now and be escorted to the dungeons, or you can not surrender and face me yourself, and I will kill you. Either way works."

Baldrick laughed. "As fun as both of those options sound, I am afraid I must decline them both. Although I do sympathize with your desire to keep so beautiful a prize here in Mirkwood all to yourself, I have the full support of the steward of Gondor, who has assured me if anything happens to me in Mirkwood, the entire armies of the West will descend upon your forest and your people."

He let that sink in to the quiet crowd before continuing.

"Ultimately, the choice does lie with Laurwen." He turned back to me. "Your younger brothers are safe, so long as you agree to come back with me and marry me. I need you still to make my governorship secure. Our alliance will bring peace, Laurwen. Can you not see that? If you do not, the boys will die."

He waited for a moment to see if I would say something. I would not, and I could not, so he said, "We will be gathered outside the forest, across the frozen river. I think it'll take about three days for us to prepare for the return journey, so we will be there until then. Return to me before then, or when I return to Gondor your brothers will die."

And with that he strode out of the hall on his muddy boots, and his men followed him out.

….

There wasn't much of a party after that; everyone's moods were pretty well soured.

My friends, Esteldes, Padhrion, Hatholben, Galessel, to name a few, all gave me kind words and warm but sympathetic hugs. They didn't smother me, thankfully, because I think they understood I could not have taken it.

The King himself walked me back to my room, with one arm around me, supporting me. He must have thought I might faint, for I could see no other reason why he would be holding on to me so tight.

We said nothing until he brought me to my door.

He took my hands in his tightly, and looked at me with grave eyes.

"Laurwen, you must-you must!-understand, that if you went back to your cousin, your brothers would be killed anyway."

I didn't say anything. He was still so angry, I could tell, and I was frightened of him as well.

"Please Laurwen, tell me you understand that this changes nothing. That even if you returned to him, and married him, he would just kill your brothers anyway. It would be pointless. It would be suicide. Tell me that you understand that."

I raised my golden eyes up to his pale blue ones.

"I understand."

"Do you mean it? Do you promise?"

"I understand." The tone of my voice could leave no doubt that I was telling the truth. He breathed a sigh of relief, and kissed my hands, first the left, and then the right, before hurrying away.

I walked into my room like I was wandering in a dream. Everything was foggy and unclear.

I gathered some things up in a daze, my warm cloak, but not the golden one that the King had given me. I put on my riding gloves, my tall sturdy books, and re-braided my hair into its tight rope.

I started to take a knife that had been lying in one of my drawers, and then thought differently about it. What was the point?

On my bed Carotene was restlessly pacing. He seemed to know that we were leaving. He didn't seem happy about it, but anxious. I patted him once or twice before going to the window, undoing the latch, and stepping out of it. After Carotene came through I closed it back.

I understand, I whispered to a King who was not there, but it doesn't change anything.