After stirring near dawn, when a very human pounding came at the door, I let a more relaxed Beorn into the lodge. I crawled into my blankets and fell asleep once again.
The sound of Beorn chopping wood out in the sandy yard roused me a few hours later. Listening with my eyes closed to the steady thump of his axe, my heart skipped a beat as I heard the murmur of foreign voices begin to rise. I woke fully, sitting up and straining to hear if I was correct.
Beorn very rarely had visitors.
Swinging my legs over the side of the trundle bed I had slept in for the past eight years, I tugged my tunic over my head. The ragged hem hung down to my bruised knees. After belting it at the waist, I tip toed through the lodge, now golden with the morning sun.
I paused by the shadow of the door, peeking out into the bright yard. Beorn stood, imposing with his axe resting across his broad shoulders and boot up on the stump of a felled tree. A stranger stood before him, grey clad with a long, bushy beard and a tall hat upon his silver head. Beside him stood a much smaller figure. The little man had bare feet covered with hair. I squinted, cocking my head to the side as I studied them. However, I was loathe to emerge from behind the door.
Beorn did not question nor try to amend my distaste for visitors that were not creatures of the wood. I was an oddity and I knew it. Unable to explain myself very well, I preferred to remain out of sight until they left. Puzzled but unwilling to explore the mystery further, I turned and skirted down the hall towards the back entrance. Creeping out into the wood, I decided it would be best if I remained in the forest until the coast was clear.
I picked my way through the trees, reveling in the quiet morning and trying not to think of the guests at the lodge. I caught an unknown scent on the breeze. It was not animal, but something altogether unique. I did not know the proper words for it. Spotting a nearby tree with decent branches, I scuttled up into the foliage and quieted my breathing as the sound of approaching voices disturbed the peace of the wood.
Fili kept a hand on the hilt of the sword at his waist, his senses on edge in the strange forest. It had been a very long and trying past couple days since being rescued from certain death by the giant eagles. This land was altogether wilder than he could have imagined.
Before leaving Ered Luin, he and his brother had had such ambitions of racing victoriously towards the Lonely Mountain where they would fight an epic battle with the dragon Smaug. They had not expected the obstacles the party had so far encountered.
He ran a hand over his braided beard, Kili jumping at the sound of a pine cone falling to the forest floor before him. Fili chuckled at his younger brother.
"What?" Kili demanded, his cheeks turning red.
"Be careful of those pine cones, Kili." Fili jibed, "You never know when they'll turn on you."
Fili laughed softly in his own way, shaking his head as Kili scowled and turned his eyes back on the path. Fili glanced up into the branches absently and stopped hard in his tracks, his heart pounding in his barreled chest. There was a face and a pair of eyes studying them as inquisitively as a child from high in the greenery. He met the gaze, his breath catching in his throat. It was a girl, probably human. The breeze picked up, her shorn hair the color of autumn fires brushing before her face. However, her sharp gaze remained trained on him.
"What is it?" Kili's voice broke him from his trance.
Fili glanced back his brother, his jaw falling slightly ajar.
"I thought-" He looked back to find the branches of the tree absent with no girl in sight, "I thought I saw someone in the trees."
Kili took his bow before him, pulling an arrow from the quiver at his back.
"Let's keep going. Gandalf said to wait a few moments and it's been more than that." Kili strung the bow, studying the wood, "I can't wait till we can get to the mountains again and leave these woods."
I watched the figures of the two strange men disappear towards the lodge. Unable to move before the one with hair the color of straw caught sight of me, I quickly jumped to the next branch when he turned towards his darker companion for a moment. However, I was left trembling from the moment. The only contact I had had since I was a child was with Beorn which, despite all his virtues, wasn't saying much.
The branch I was on groaned under my weight. As softly as possible, I dropped to the ground and followed the two new strangers.