In which Lorna reaches Dale (and is sick as a dog), Bard has Elven visitors (who unsettle him), and Thranduil is extremely frustrated (for good reason).

Oleg was more than a little worried.

His passenger – Lorna – had soon fallen asleep again, and he'd been content to let her, for he appreciated silence. However, when they reached Esgaroth, she wouldn't wake up. Given her injuries, he didn't dare shake her very hard, but he had an unfortunate feeling that no amount of shaking would wake her.

She was burning with fever, too, though her skin was ashier than ever. It was too soon for any infection to have set in from any of her wounds, but pneumonia could sneak up on a person with the speed and stealth of winter fog. And if it was pneumonia, he had to get her up the lake as soon as possible, for the healer in Esgaroth wasn't equipped to deal with any but the most basic injuries a fisherman might suffer. Only Dale would have what was needed – but only if they got there in time. Oleg was no healer, but like everyone, he knew there came a point when someone was past saving.

Elves were immortal, and Dwarves so long outlived mortal men and women that they might as well have been, far hardier than any other race in Middle-Earth. They didn't understand what it was to walk each day cheek-to-cheek with death. The Elves, of course, had no sickness, but there was little enough that could affect the Dwarves, either; among them, things like pneumonia were very rare. Oleg had wondered, more than once, why Eru and Aulë had each seen fit to create their own fantastically designed races, only for Eru to then create men and women, who were at a disadvantage to both of them in almost everything.

Musings like this were why he preferred to work alone. Most others looked at him like he was cracked.

In any event, Lorna was damn ill, and the ice at the north of the lake was still bad enough that it cost him a full day. She was so little the innkeeper had given her one of his daughter's old dresses, and the healers had done what they could before wrapping her back up, with four extra blankets he'd return later.

Thank bloody Eru she did wake – sort of – when they reached the docks. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused, but they were open, and she said something in what he presumed was her native tongue. Her voice was hoarse and cracked, and he shook his head.

"I don't understand you, lass," he said.

"Where are we?" she tried again, in Westron.

"Home," he said, hopping out to tie the boat. "You're sick – I'm taking you to a healer."

Obstinate creature, she tried to stand on her own, and would have fallen if he hadn't caught her. He tried to pick her up, and now she was the one who shook her head. What she said was mixed up with her own language, but he got the gist of it: the day she couldn't walk was the day she was buried. He didn't bother arguing that that might just be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There was no sense fighting her on it; she'd flag soon enough, given how heavily she was leaning on him. Even through his coat he could feel the heat of her fever, and she smelled of sour sweat and sickness.

And yet she lurched her way along beside him, grim-faced, occasionally hacking great, dry coughs that made his chest hurt just listening to her. At least, if the poor lass was going to die, she could do it in relative comfort, rather than in his boat.

They drew a number of curious stares, and several of the fishermen ran to help, but Lorna stubbornly refused. Oleg knew the sort – their pride was all they had, and they'd not give it up for anything.

Though the grey light of dawn was giving way to sunrise, the lanterns of the porter-house were still lit, the windows warm and gold, and Lorna tried to stagger toward it.

"Not there, lass," he said. "It's into the city we're going, if we get there before noon." He picked her up, and nearly got kicked in the head for his trouble.

"Put me down when we hit the gate," she said muzzily.

It wasn't a terribly long way – perhaps half a mile – and he doubted she'd be awake when they got there. The pale walls of Dale loomed tall and strong, a far cry from what they'd been five years ago – as was the city within it. Richer by far than ever the original Esgaroth had been, no one in Dale knew hunger or want. Some were better off than others, but the poverty that had defined much of Esgaroth was absent.

There were only two gates, both heavily fortified: one faced the lake, while the other looked across the former Desolation to Erebor. Both were almost invariably busy, but he and his hacking companion were admitted to the head of the queue. Lorna was lucid enough that he set her on her feet, not wanting to actually get kicked in the head.

"It's a day for strange visitors," Percy said, waving them through. "We've a party of Elves with Bard, though they've said nothing of their purpose."

Lorna let out a stream of what could only be curses, which Oleg was quick to blame on her fever – and to assure Percy it was only pneumonia, not some exotic disease from foreign parts. They'd weathered a few of those already.

The thought that Lorna had truly run afoul of the Elves worried him, though not unduly. They were a suspicious lot, wary of outsiders – though the fact that they had possibly followed her was cause for concern. He'd never head of them doing that before.

Well, they'd not get any explanation from her yet. He led her through the bustling streets, watching her watch the crowd. Sick as she was, there was still a wariness to her. After whatever had been done to her, he couldn't fault her for it.

Dale was always crowded, and its architecture was apparently quite famous. Nobody commented on the fact that most of the buildings, like the walls, were largely made of new stone. They'd salvaged what they could after the battle, but it hadn't been nearly enough.

Esgaroth had been almost completely drab, so they made up for it now with bright pennants, and flower gardens in the spring and summer. Balin, one of the few Dwarves who remembered the city of old, had advised them how best to recreate it.

Lorna was in no condition to appreciate it, but he didn't doubt that once she was well, some proud citizen would take her own a tour. Having something to be proud of was still rather a novelty to most who had once lived in Esgaroth.

There were enough people now that they had a proper surgery, as opposed to the front parlor of the healer's house, and several healers who worked in shifts. It was a large building, with several rooms for the sick and injured, and an over-sized cupboard of herbs and remedies from all over Middle-Earth. Even after four years, it still smelled faintly of new wood, and the warmth was damned welcome after their cold journey.

It was currently empty save for old Astrid, the healer on duty, which was a blessing – the fewer people he had to explain Lorna to just yet, the better. Oleg still didn't know what she'd done to make his head hurt as it had, but he prayed she wouldn't do it to anyone else.

Astrid took one look at her, staggering and feverish, in clothes clearly not her own, and dragged her back to one of the rooms, settling her in a rocking chair beside the fire. Even at sixty-odd, Astrid was a big strapping bull of a woman, near as tall as Oleg, with a brisk, no-nonsense, overbearing manner that even Bard wouldn't cross.

"What have we got here?" she asked, laying her wrist on Lorna's forehead. "Aside from a fever you could fry an egg with."

"Pneumonia, I think." He told Astrid how he'd found Lorna, leaving out the inexplicable headache for now. "Her Westron's poor, and somebody's been torturing her recently. I don't think we'll get much out of her until the fever's run its course, though."

Astrid rolled back Lorna's sleeve, and frowned. The bruise on her wrist had darkened yet further, an ugly purple-black; whatever she'd been bound with, she'd fought it like mad. "Somebody had best warn the Elves they've a monster on the loose," she said.

"If they don't already know." It was entirely possible the Elves had caught him, and had come to Dale to ask if he belonged to anyone. Oleg devoutly hoped he didn't.

He wasn't about to go ask himself. He'd invested too much in keeping Lorna alive to risk dealing with potentially hostile Elves.

Bard had a headache.

It was early in the year for Elves to make their way to this end of the lake, but he had an entire party of them in his sitting-room, all looking very…neutral. They always looked neutral, but somehow they contrived to be even moreso than usual.

"I don't know anyone of that description," he said, pacing, "but that doesn't mean nobody else does – not with how much the city's grown."

Their captain, the red-haired lad responsible for his daughter's lives, somehow managed to look even more neutral. "If she makes it this far, she will be injured," she said. "I must warn you that she has the capability of being a danger, but I do not believe she wishes to be. We frightened her badly, but she did not attack – she fled."

A danger? Bard didn't want to know why Elves would consider a tiny mortal woman a danger, but he asked anyway. "What did she do?"

For the first time, the captain looked ever so slightly uncomfortable. "She moves things without touching them," she said, after a pause. "It is some sorcery unknown to us. She only used it in an attempt to keep us from pursuing her, however. Someone in our forest, someone we have yet to discover, tortured her before we found her, and I do not believe she had ever seen Elves before. In truth, I think the King frightened her out of her wits."

That Bard could well believe. King Thranduil was intimidating even to those who knew him; to a stranger, he could easily prove terrifying. "I will send word, if we find her," he said. "Can you be certain she does not wish to bring us harm?"

"Certain?" the captain said, watching him pace. "No, not certain. She could not understand us, nor we her, but I sensed no malice in her. Fear, yes, and anger, but it was anger at whatever had harmed her. There were several occasions she could easily have attacked or even killed us, and she did not."

The captain seemed suspiciously determined to foist this woman off on him, but he trusted her not to deliberately place his city and his people at risk. It was not the way of Dale to turn away the needy, and if this woman was injured, they would at least see her back to health.

"We will look after her," he said. "If she does not wish to stay when she is well, she can leave with the caravans when they come."

The captain looked distinctly relieved, so much so that he was curious.

"I do not know what was done to her," she said, when he asked, "but given her bruises, it was extensive. I cannot fault her fleeing us, or using what methods she had available to escape."

Bard supposed he couldn't, either. He would tell the guards to watch for her.

As it turned out, there was no need. When Bard escorted the Elves to the gate, Percy told him she'd already arrived.

"Sick, she was," he said. "Oleg had hold of her, for she could barely walk. He's taken her to the healers."

Terrible as it was, that was rather convenient. Bard made for the house of healing, not surprised when Captain Tauriel followed. There was enough warmth in the bright sun that he was glad for a chance to be outside, away from what seemed like a desk filled with endless correspondence and petitions.

In the healers' house, he found not only Oleg and Astrid, but also Sven, a man in his forties who had apprenticed for a time with the healers of Minas Tirith. He was the only man among the healers, and unfortunately, they rarely let him forget it.

"It's rest she needs," Astrid was saying, her broad face fixed in a scowl. "I've given her a tonic for the fever and the cough. She doesn't need you poking at her. A man as a healer – it's not decent, especially not with a sick woman."

Sven drew himself up to his full (rather impressive) height, his eyes narrowing. They were an unsettling shade of blue, very like that of the sled-dogs used by the northern traders in winter. "Mistress Astrid, I have no intention of poking anything," he said, and Bard had to fight an incredibly juvenile snort. Sven never did seem to pause to consider what something would sound like before he said it. "I merely need to see her."

"I will go with you, if I may," Captain Tauriel said.

Her gentler – and, more importantly, female – voice seemed to mollify Astrid. "Very well," she said. "Bard, you may as well go with them. You're not a pervert."

Bard didn't comment, mostly because he knew there was no point. Sven gave an irritated sniff, stalking into one of the little rooms. The curtains were drawn back, the window leaving a square of sunshine on the pale stone wall.

The woman herself was little more than a lump of blankets and black hair, but it seemed enough for the captain to identify her, for the Elf relaxed infinitesimally.

Sven knelt beside the bed, trying to find the woman's face under all that hair. As soon as he touched her cheek, her eyes snapped open.

She recoiled, and in doing so made him jump – but he had no time to do anything more, for she seized his collar and slammed her forehead into his nose. It made a truly hideous crack, and then there was blood everywhere, pouring from the poor man's nose like a river.

Bard jumped, and he wasn't the only one – out of all of them, only Captain Tauriel remained sanguine, or at least appeared to. He would swear, however, that Astrid choked back a laugh.

The woman scrambled to her feet, standing on the bed, unnervingly green eyes tracing over the lot of them. To Bard's surprise, the fear left them, replaced by something that looked very like exasperation. They settled on him, and she said something rapid-fire in her own tongue, between coughs.

"I knew you'd do it," Astrid snorted. "I knew you'd wake her up. Well done."

"Who are you?" the woman asked, her Westron so heavily accented it was almost incomprehensible.

Beside Bard, the captain blinked. "I thought you could not understand us," she said.

"I did not, then. Now, I do. Who are you, and where am I?" Her expression had shifted to one of intense concentration, as though she were actively hunting for words.

"You are in Dale, my lady," Bard said, and felt a bit ridiculous calling this waif 'lady'. "I am Bard, lord of this city. Please, do not damage my healers further."

She sat, warily, her gaze traveling to the stricken Sven, who was trying fruitlessly to staunch his nose with his sleeve. "He scare me," she said, completely unapologetic. "Do not touch me. Anyone."

Captain Tauriel looked at the poor healer, and at the woman. "It is the eyes, isn't it?" she asked. "His eyes disturbed you."

The little woman glowered. "Maybe," she said, but her tone said, exactly.

"Might I speak with you alone?" the captain asked.

The woman looked genuinely torn, but nodded.

"Call if you need anything," Bard said, ushering poor Sven out before him. At least Tauriel was an Elf; should their little guest turn to violence again, there was little she could do.

This was probably a bad idea, but Lorna didn't care. The redheaded…Elf…lady had been nothing but helpful, and Lorna had just had the shock of her life.

That Bard was such a ringer for her dead husband that it was downright creepy, and she wasn't going to be able to talk to him. She felt too guilty over what she'd done to poor Oleg to ask him much, even if he didn't actually know what she'd done. Hell, she wasn't entirely sure, but she had a good enough guess, and that was more than bad enough.

She wrapped the blankets around herself, coughing. The mattress was lumpy, but better than her cot at the Institute, and the blankets were definitely warmer. That slightly terrifying lady doctor had got her into some kind of flannel nightgown that she suspected was meant for a child, but it too was warm, which was all that mattered. Her joints felt like they were filled with ground glass, and Christ did her chest hurt.

And yet it was better than the bloody Institute.

The Elf-lady – and God, did Lorna have an issue with that word, with that concept – drew up the rocking-chair, and sat facing her. "What happened to you?" she asked.

Lorna frowned. "I do not have the words," she said, and it was very true. Westron, so far as she could tell, had no equivalent for 'telepath'.

"You had no words before," the woman pointed out, her green eyes a little too piercing. "You did not understand me at all, so why do you now?"

"I do not have the words," Lorna repeated. "This bloody language, it's like nothing I've ever heard," she added in English, frustration bleeding into her voice. "I haven't got all'v his, and I have to hunt to translate every damn thing you say!" Her words were lost in a fit of coughing that nearly made her choke, an ugly wheeze beneath it. She'd had pneumonia once, and she'd be very surprised if this wasn't it. Somehow, she doubted this place had anything like antibiotics, so she might well be fucked. Great.

For the first time, the Elf-woman looked uneasy. Lorna couldn't blame her, since this cough half sounded like a cat trying to gack up a hairball.

"I do not know where I am," she managed. "Or how I got here. I have friends I must get to, but they are not here. They are in danger."

"From the one who did this to you?" the woman asked.

Lorna nodded. "He will do worse to them, when he finds I am gone. I do not know how I went." The word for 'escape' was nowhere to be found in what she'd taken from Oleg, and in any event it wasn't accurate. She hadn't done this at all, and she'd give her left kidney to know who or what had, and why.

The redhead's stare was still a little too intense. "I will help you," she said. "Once you have healed, I will aid you."

Lorna would have been grateful, except she knew damn well this woman wanted something from her. It didn't take reading her mind to see that. "Thank you," she said anyway. "My name is Lorna."

"I am Tauriel," the woman said. "It is a pleasure to meet you."

Lorna hoped like hell she was right.

Thranduil detested mysteries, and this one especially.

Reverse-tracking the tiny Edain's progress was not at all difficult. The maddening thing was the fact that it seemed to have begun out of nowhere.

He could see plainly where she had been lying, the place she had presumably first slept, but there was absolutely nothing leading to it – not a single footprint. It was as though she had been dropped from thin air.

More frustrating still was the complete lack of evidence of any other person. Whoever had tortured her was around here somewhere, but where? Nothing could truly evade Elven eyes: not even other Elves. Whoever he was, he had hidden himself well, but there was simply no way he could have hidden himself so completely.

The forest was unusually loud today, dozens of birds calling to one another among the trees. While it was true more had flocked here now that there were fewer spiders, they were rarely this vocal. It was, he supposed, a better sign than if they had all vanished.

If the Edain woman was alive in Dale, perhaps the guards could find some way of communicating with her, and bring him any manner of news that might aid in their search. They could not rest until this monster had been removed. It was probably too much to hope he'd be eaten by a spider.

I agonized a bit over whether Thranduil would think it worth his while to make an impromptu visit to Dale himself, and decided that he probably wouldn't. Yes, he's had this strange creature running around in his forest, but he's got a kingdom to run, and guards he trusts to take care of things on this errand. Lorna's creepy, but she didn't actually hurt anyone; he's more worried about whoever messed her up so badly, since that person is probably still in the woods. Given that Von Ratched is actually on Earth, they're not going to find anything, but that won't stop them looking.

As I said in chapter one, something occurred to me that didn't when I was writing Ettelëa (and I don't know how many GiME writers it has occurred to): Lorna's been dropped into a world full of pathogens to which she has no immunity. Now, in the Wood-Elves' halls she wouldn't have been exposed to as many, but all the other humans were, and I missed some storytelling opportunities by not playing with that.

Tauriel does in fact have some ulterior motives in wanting to help Lorna, but they're not nasty. She's also dead right about Lorna's paranoia about pale eyes.

hikaru shinyi: That is indeed the plan. :)

Title means "Frustration" in Irish. As ever, your reviews give me direction.