Chapter seventeen

Lowering myself slowly onto a curling root that managed to wander near the path, I caught my breath and heavily wiped the sweat from my face. There was a mushroom the size of my face growing on a rotting log just a few feet away. Glowing sweetly at me, its white plumpness beckoned. I turned away resolutely. I wasn't that hungry. Yet.

"Tallis," Thorin came up to me as we rested and watched worriedly as I peeled off my bandages.

I hissed when pulling off the dressings that revealed puffy flesh and angry red punctures. It had been a three days since the run in with the wolf, but my leg was far from better. The wine was gone and the little water we had left was most certainly for drinking. Sighing, I rummaged through my pack until I found the little glass bottle of elvish healing slave. It was technically for surface wounds like burns or shallower cuts, but I was far past caring for its original uses. Perhaps I was running a great risk of having the wound grown over; however, it was a risk I had to take.

"It's going on," I announced.

Thorin looked at me, a little alarmed. "Will the skin not heal over the wound?" He knelt down beside me.

"A risk I must take."

"At least wash it first," he drew out his water skin and uncorked it. His eyes swept over my leg.

I waved it off. "Don't waste it. We don't know when we'll see water again."

"Tallis," he gave a reproaching look.

"No,"

"Just a little," His usually icy blue eyes were now a softer and darker hue in the shadows of the trees. His cheekbones had been a little red when we travelled in the sun, but it had all but faded now.

"No," He had no idea what his face could do to my resolve.

"It will become infected,"

"Slightly too late for that, I think,"

"I can go without," he insisted.

"I swear –if you give that to me, I'll drink the lot." I raised my brows and tilted my head for extra effect, "All of it."

That got a smile from him and he finally closed the water skin and put it away reluctantly.

"Thank you," I breathed.

I didn't tell him, but I inwardly feared that whatever had bitten me may have been poisonous, since blood had barely crusted around the wound, as it usually did. Perhaps the venom had been of the sort to keep the body from healing, but at least the bleeding had stopped for the time being. The elvish slave would close the wound fast, but I did not know if its healing properties would penetrate deeper in the punctures. Weighing the chances, I hoped my decision was the right one as I sucked a breath in and dabbed the medicine onto my leg as gently as I could. After rewrapping my calf, I got up slowly, trying to bat away Thorin as he put an arm around my waist.

"I can manage,"

He gave me a look, but let go.

Our food was running low already and we could not see nor begin to imagine how much longer we would have to travel before we reached the other side. Wasting many arrows to bring down one of the squirrels who scampered across the branches above the path, we finally shot one. We had rosted it that night. They let me have the first bite. I spat it out. Gloin had spluttered at me and snatched the rest of the thing up, but he too spat out his bite. It was inedible. I had never tasted anything so foul in my life. We could only pinch away at our food in our packs. Faces all around were sallow and heavy, dark circles rounded everyone's eyes. It was harder to sleep, if that were possible, as we wandered through the heart of the forest. The difference between day and night became blurrier too. Barely seeing during the day, the nights were just as horrible as before, but the eyes that had watched us multiplied and became bolder and came nearer.

Bilbo, Fili, and Kili were happy to keep me company as I lagged behind our little train. Ori danced about me, feeling horrendously guilty about my leg and trying to help, but mostly just getting in the way. Fili and Kili narrated stories together to lift my spirits. Hardly able to talk properly while breathing so heavily, they now were the storytellers.

"When we were tiny little dwarves," Fili began,

"Thorin took us down to the iron ore mines," Kili finished. "We were playing hide and seek, and we fell asleep in the one of the iron ore baskets that was to be taken to the smelting forges."

"It was Kili's idea, obviously," Fili stated, "I went with him to keep him out of trouble."

"That's not hard to believe," I commented.

"Falling asleep and forgetting to go home would have probably been yours," came the reply from his brother.

"Our first adventure," Fili paused, "And probably your only real one until now,"

Kili took great offence in this, "We went on that trip to the south for nearly five years –when Tallis was in Ered Luin! –to Southern Ered Luin to that mining outpost! Don't –,"

Fili was laughing. Kili fumed.

I wanted to hear more of the story, so I pulled them back. "You still remember this?" I brushed a few tendrils of hair from my face.

"Little bits." Fili cut in. "And it has been told to us so many times that sometimes I'm not sure if the memories I see are memories anymore. Maybe it was just my mind matching the stories with imaginings."

"Thorin told mum after he had ripped the mines apart looking for us. She made half of the city put down their hammers and search for us," Kili smiled.

"Though, we luckily climbed out the baskets before they were dumped into the fires and Thorin apparently found us tumbling about the smelter's running around and getting in the way."

"He snatched us up by the scruff of our necks like wayward kittens and delivered us to our mum,"

A deeper voice finished the tale. "And your mother," Thorin had done his shift at the front of the group and was waiting for us. "Your mother set us to cleaning her entire house as punishment."

I laughed aloud. Dis was one dangerously stripped cat when it came to the protection of her children. When I was in Ered Luin, she spoke often of her two boys with equal amounts of exasperation and unconditional love.

Bilbo shyly started a little tale of his own. "When I was a young hobbit, there was a while when I played conkers with my friends nearly every day."

Thorin remembered that the hobbit had thought himself quite good at a game of conkers when we had all first tumbled into his home those many, many, weeks ago. "I suppose I will have to play to find out how skilled you really are," he gave Bilbo rare grin.

Alarmed, Bilbo nearly fell over. "I –I... You –I think you would prefer swords and axes and hammers to a conker," he stammered.

We all chuckled.

"At any rate, I got bored of the game and wandered off into the woods near Hobbiton swinging my conker about climbing trees. The old patriarch of the Proudfoot family was walking under the branch I was on and my conker managed to catch onto his hair and lift it right off his head!"

We all looked at him, a little startled.

"He had been wearing a wig of sorts and no one had known it! Until me, anyhow."

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Every time I needed to stop and rest, Thorin would settle down next to me. I was sweating from the combined effort of walking on one leg and carrying my pack, though it was much lighter than before. Part of my mind was plaguing me incessantly of the fact that my excessive sweating was not completely from exertion, but from the infection. Thorin did not ask to let him carry my pack and for that I was grateful, though I knew it pained him to see me struggle so. That day, we reached a part of the path that was overgrown to the point where branches had begun creep over the path. My arms were aching as I had to continuously hold them aside as I passed. I branch was caught tightly in my hair, disassembling my already unravelling braid before snapping off in my locks. I was hardly going to stop and pull it out in a place where visibility was literally limited to an arm's span ahead of my face. Perhaps whatever magic had kept the trees back did not run so strong in the heart of the forest.

In the half darkness that evening, I changed my dressings shakily. Undoing my long braid, I finally was able to pull the branch from my locks. I dropped my arms in exhaustion. It felt pathetic, barely being able to keep them lifted long enough to braid my own hair. I felt like splitting the root I was sitting on in half in anger, but knowing the forest a little better know, I was sure some terrible fate would befall me as revenge. Trying again, I sighed heavily in frustration and let my head hang forward. It was useless.

Calloused fingers brushed past my neck. Someone's hands were in my hair, deftly parting and crossing over and over. Thorin. I let my shoulders fall, finally at rest from the day's travels. His touch was firm but so gentle. The result would something neat and lasting, every curl and tendril in place. I ventured a smile, though I knew he could not see. He suddenly paused. I tensed. I knew he was looking at the fine chain around my neck. I wanted to turn and see his expression, but after feeling a slip of his breath caress the back of my neck, he continued to braid. Realizing with a jolt that he was truly braiding my hair, I almost pulled away. Braiding. Hair. That –that was only permissible in two instances in dwarven culture: children or marriage. And I had kept the chain. I had kept his gift. He must have known then. He must have known that I hadn't left because of him, but for him. Did he still –still...

But I couldn't hurt him again. That was certain. I couldn't lose him again. I wouldn't be able to bear it.

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I had told Dis about Thorin and I and finishing the sword and accidentally igniting our... passions in the process. She hardly looked surprised, but before she could have spoken, someone knocked on the door. My stomach and heart flopped around like dying fish. Dis opened the door. It was Dwalin.

"Dis," he nodded to her.

He came in, standing before me. "Lassie," he acknowledged.

"Dwalin," I replied uncertainly.

"Here," he opened his palm. "Thorin bade me to give this to you,"

It was a fine silver chain. Nestled in the center of Dawlin's hand was a gem. Dark red, to the point where tones of purple seemed to reverberate from its depthless facets, it gleamed softly. It had been cut into the shape of a crescent moon. The lights from the lamps dimmed in its wake.

Dis gasped. "That is a red diamond."

I swallowed dryly.

Dwalin's hand was still outstretched. I lifted the necklace from him, my fingers shaking.

"Do you accept?" he asked, a little uncomfortable.

I looked at him. I didn't understand, then.

Dis burst out with a, "Of course she does!" and shoved Dwalin out the door.

"What just happened?" My eyes were still locked onto the gem.

"You, are going to be courted by none other than my brother." She smiled at me, eyes crinkling.

I frowned.

"What?"

"You took the gift,"

I still hadn't fully grasped what had happened.

"That marks the beginning of the courtship rituals,"

I wet my lips to speak. "But I –I can't. I can't. I have to go."

It was her turn to be confused. "What? You can't go."

"I have to. He'll... he'll have to do without me."

"What are you saying?"

"I can't be his queen. I can't. I'm not a dwarf."

"You love him."

"It was only physical." I reassured myself, but I found that could barely spit the words out or look at Dis.

"I see the way you look at one another when you think the other isn't looking –the way you two work together and talk and laugh –don't lie to yourself,"

"What if he loves me because I am different? That will fade eventually."

"Are you worried he will stop loving you? Do you doubt his love?" She paused triumphantly. "You do love him!"

"I do!" I gasped out, "But the risk,"

"How can you see it as a risk?"

I rambled on. "I always left right after I mastered what I learned. Then I would just be a visitor, just a traveller passing through and I could leave and everything could stay the same and nothing would ever have to change and I could just move to the next place –,"

"What about the people you leave behind?"

"Wandering is stability for me. They –they would hardly miss me. I was just a wanderer."

"You really can't see how people want to be around you do you? Take a chance and do something different. Stay."

"But I am the Wanderer, what am I if I do not wander?

"You are so warm, open, and inviting without even trying, but wandering has made your insides so cold. Let his fires thaw you. Love isn't a cage, Tallis,"

"It has always been for me. It confines me –they wanted to be with me all the time, they expect things. I always have to change too much." But in the five years I had been here, Thorin had never asked me once to change. He had never once wanted to improve me as if I needed to be fixed. A dwarf who was unlike all the other people from all the other races who came before him. I closed my eyes to force my thoughts away.

"You shouldn't give up who you are when you are in love. Love isn't a compromise. A relationship doesn't have to define who you are."

"And I tired of them. Every one of them. What if I tire of him?" The thought was terrifying. "What if he tired of me?" I balled my hands into fist. "I know what I feel about Thorin now, but it is safer not to... to go on. We will both survive."

"But you both won't live."

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I padded softly towards the gates. There was not a soul about this early in the morning. I passed the darkened homes, something aching deep within my chest. But what could I do?

"Tallis,"

I whirled around. Balin.

"Where are you going?"

"Leaving,"

"Why?" He knew already. "You will break him –more than he already is,"

I clenched my jaw and turned away.

"You were healing him. His heart,"

"Don't say that,"

"Do you want to stay?"

I spun back round. "Yes, yes, I do. I want to stop wandering for him, but who am I if I do not wander? And –yes, he will be broken, but he is so strong –he will find a way to go on as he always has. Would I have even been able to bear him an heir? Would all his people have accepted me as a queen? You dwarves are all so stubbornly steadfast –I'm human! I'm human! You are not supposed to trust my kind! We lie and cheat and our minds change like the wind! What if we don't stay in love? The story –the story stops here. This will be a happy ending. This is a happy ending in real life –the ones in the epic tales and the harp songs are hardly possible –something wrong will happen and everything will fall apart and it will destroy him. If I leave, then –then things like that will never happen. We can only shape our own endings. And this, this, is all I can do. For me. For him."

There had been movement behind Balin. I looked past him. It was Thorin. He had heard every word. His eyes found mine and something disappeared within me then. Hollowness yawned within me. It felt strange. I had never not felt anything before. His eyes were a velvety sky blue. They enveloped me in their depths.

He hadn't said anything. He was giving me the freedom to choose.

I rarely ever shed tears for myself. I did then.

I left.

I didn't look back –so that I wouldn't be able to find my way back when I wanted to.

The chain slipped across my skin and the red diamond settled its heavy weight just a little to the right of my heart.

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When Thorin finished braiding my hair, it was nearly pitch black. I suddenly felt the forest quite cold though it was still summer and felt a little ripple of shivers worming up my back. A little whimper sounded from the back of my throat and in one flurry of motion, I turned around to face him, and pulling my legs under myself, I crawled under his arm. He flinched and recoiled a little, but softened and chuckled –a wonderfully husky sound. We both were surprised –neither of us was very generous with physical touch at all. I buried my face into his shoulder and I felt happy again. I was happy. Finally. After the years we had been apart when I worked so hard always to fill a strange space that had settled itself within me.

I didn't care about anything else then. Besides, it seemed like there was little chance we were to make it out of the forest anyway.