Evangeline had spent her twentieth birthday at Moria, unbeknownst to anyone around her. It was not until after she had celebrated her thirty fifth birthday that next she encountered the dwarves. She was a very different hobbit, then. Stronger, wiser, and much more learned in the ways of Middle Earth. Evie had been on many more adventures, and as difficult as it always was for her to leave her mother behind, so alone in their Shire home, she couldn't resist the pull of the wildlands, of the cities of men and the forests of the elves… It was too hard to remain in the Shire after all she had seen. After the adrenaline rush of dealing with blood and steel and the heavy weight of time and its immediacy as she tried to rescue the lives of the dwarves at the Battle of Azanulbizar… Drinking and eating and walking and reading and all those lovely things which composed the life of a hobbit of the Shire had lost their agency over her. As much as she loved her home, the monotony of her life had become stifling; never moreso than when she looked at her father's maps and considered all the exotic places she could travel to. Despite the mortal history of her family, she couldn't deny who she was and as much as it made her the most scorned daughter in all of Westfarthing, her mother's desperate pleas couldn't rein her in.

And so, at thirty five years old, she found herself in the great city of Gondor.

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Evie was in a company of men who had been scouting nearby territories for signs of intruders. Something foul had been going on in the hinterlands of Gondor, and the hobbit had been recruited to ride with them and discover the source of the disturbance. She was small, quick, and quiet, which was always useful for reconnaissance, especially at night when she could spy on others and appear almost invisible in the darkness, if she wished it. Hobbits were particularly good at sneaking, although Evie was not so fond of that sort of thing. She preferred the daylight to the darkness, as almost all hobbits do, but she wanted to help where she could and so she went along with them. The company was a small but merry bunch, and after their first expedition had yielded no result they returned to Minas Tirith for a few days of rest before setting off again in another direction.

Those friends Evie had were fellow adventurers, wanderers, and men for hire, therefore she remained with the four man company in most of her free time (she was the fifth member, and the only female). The hobbit had become handy with a dagger and was quicker than anyone she had so far encountered, which meant she didn't worry about being the vulnerable member of the group- if anything attacked her or if one of her fellows discovered himself in a predatory mood, her hand would be quick to find its small but deadly weapon, always sheathed at her side or under the folds of her dress. But all in all, theirs was a happy lot, and she was enjoying their time together, wandering and hunting for the answers they were tasked with finding.

On this particular summer afternoon, the company found themselves at the local blacksmith's. Barenir was in search of a new blade, and they had heard tell that the swords offered here were of great make. And so they collected at the open entrance, avoiding the heat of the smith, which proved especially taxing on such a warm afternoon. Despite the discomfort, they all felt the need to look over the swords for sale and see what could be forged for the right amount of coin.

As the men squabbled over which weapon appeared the most formidable and which would cut the cleanest, Evie adventured a little farther into the workshop. She heard the heavy clank of a hammer striking hot steel, and was interested to see the master at work. She was learning a fair amount about swords and their make, but the process itself constantly intrigued her. The searing heat, the flames, the metal as it bent into the proper shape, directed and manipulated only with careful skill and a strong arm. It was all well beyond her to craft such an item, which was perhaps why the task held such interest to her. Besides, the men were always such a bore when they got to talking weapons for long periods of time. The hazards of such company, she supposed.

She was drifting absentmindedly toward the clank, clink of the smith without direct thought or purpose. It was warm, dreadfully warm, and she had just thought of turning around and returning another day when the heat was less unbearable when she saw him. Or at least, she thought she saw him. It couldn't really be him, could it?!

Evie marched forward, her grey eyes wide with surprise. He appeared too short to be a man, certainly. But even if he was a dwarf… There was no way in all of Middle Earth that they had somehow ended up in the same shop, after all these years… Even so, the curious hobbit stepped closer and watched the taut movement of his muscular arm as the blacksmith swung his hammer with alarming force into the golden hot portion of the blade he worked on. The motion was so violent, so fierce, she was at first afraid to distract him from his task. But if it was him… She was too caught up in the surprise of discovering him here, of all places, that she couldn't resist raising her voice over the greedy crackle of the flames beside her and the ferocious clang of the hammer upon its target.

"Thorin? Thorin Oakenshield?"

She had thought of him often since they had last seen each other, since the Battle of Azanulbizar had become more and more of a memory than a reality… Yet she had never guessed in all her life that she would meet him again. The blacksmith paused in his work. He was slow in turning towards her, almost hesitant. The dwarf placed his tools on the table next to him and, finally, he looked at her. He seemed more offset than she was (for once), his sharp blue gaze full of some emotion she couldn't recognize. He was wearing a dark green shirt, the sleeves rolled up almost to his elbows. He had soaked through it, however, and sweat decorated his face and collected in his hair. She couldn't imagine working here for hours on end, enduring the relentless heat of the raging fire, the oppressive furnace so close and right in the middle of summer… Despite his obvious discomfort, Evie could not help but take some secret pleasure in seeing him like this, laboring like any normal man. To see him without his armor or even his mantle of nobility… The image did not strip him of honor, she doubted any force in the world could perform such a monumental task, yet it did make him seem just as mortal as the rest of them. He knew a hard day's labor and was unafraid of such brutal toil.

Finally, Evie filled the tempestuous silence with a brief reintroduction (she doubted he would remember such a trivial detail as the name of a hobbit he had once met), her eyes searching his as if to discover some secret hidden in their depths.

"I don't know if you remember me, my name is-"

"Evangeline." He cut in, his voice just as deep and sonorous as she remembered. "Evangeline Took, I believe."

She was momentarily stunned. For a split second she was right back in that medical tent at Moria, tending to his wounds and feeling hot under his gaze. She remembered his hands on her cheeks, the way he had looked at her…. But that had been a different time entirely. She had been no more than a child, and they had both been bound by their grief. Even so, she felt caught by his arresting blue eyes just as surely as she had during their first meeting. Yet she was no longer the fluttering, flustered little Shireling she had been before. She was of age now, and had taken to acting like it.

"I cannot deny my surprise at your memory. It seemed to me you do not take great notice of any who are not of your people."

She observed, the initial shock of seeing him again wearing off as she recalled his cold words at Moria, edged in the rough manner of his kind. The image of him standing on the mountainside, his face drawn but stoic, struck her even now.

"I would not forget one who has done such a profound service for the dwarves. And your father… His sacrifice is still fresh in my mind."

Evangeline looked away, swallowing her next breath. She felt embarrassed by him, somehow. Perhaps it was because of the very real possibility she had thought of him wrongly all these years. She assumed he had taken lightly the hobbits and their involvement in the Battle of Azanulbizar, that he was far too absorbed in his lordship over his people to think of others. A strange discomfort began to itch at her. The blonde twisted the small mithril ring around her finger, absentmindedly fiddling with her token from the great battle.

"You have taken up smithing?" She asked, although it wasn't a true query. The answer was all too obvious, and the look in his eyes suggested that it had been the wrong question to try. "It seems you have made some very fine pieces."

She added, hoping to relieve the tension. He accepted the compliment with a gracious nod of his head, and she could feel his eyes still on her even as she investigated the completed blades on the workbench next to him. Someone walked by them- they didn't speak or stop and so neither dwarf nor hobbit took note of the passive intruder, save to realize that the world was still turning outside of their peculiar conversation.

"What brings a hobbit to Gondor?"

He asked, finally, and Evie was saved the trouble of thinking up a less awkward question to ask him. Every query she considered seemed to revolve around the dwarves and their search for a new homeland, and each seemed more painful than the last. She tried on a smile, her eyes meeting his again despite her rekindled fear of the paralytic nature of his gaze.

"There have been attacks on travelers at the borders of Gondor's territory. We do not know who or what has been causing the trouble, but a group of adventurers has set out to seek the source of the disturbance. I was passing through and discovered myself to be one of them."

She explained, feeling much more accomplished than perhaps she had a right to. Yet the smile creeping onto the dwarf prince's lips served to abruptly knock off her shroud of self-glory.

"Adventurers…"

He mused, and Evie felt herself flush with immediate indignation, although it would have been impossible to tell, as her cheeks were already pink from the heat of the smith.

"Yes," she fought, taking a sharp breath of frustration, "I have been on many adventures since last we met, and I find myself well received in many of the lands of Middle Earth."

Her tiny hands balled into fists. The hobbit's grey eyes lit up as they met the spark of joviality in his bright blue ones. One of his hands rubbed the other absentmindedly, perhaps relieving some of the strain built up in his muscles from the rigorous labor he submitted to. The blacksmith tried to conceal the grin on his face, although he nodded at her words.

"I meant no offense."

He claimed, and the concrete tone of his voice chipped away at her anger. She breathed out through her nose, watching him as he stepped around the hot anvil which still separated them.

"Yet it is surprising to me that such a small creature as yourself could become so renowned an adventurer."

Thorin confessed, eyes twinkling in the heat, which hung like a cloud around them. Evie was haughty in her reply, stepping forward to meet him in front of the blazing fireplace. She looked up at him, her button nose pointed proudly in the air, as she ardently contested,

"Pardon me, Master Dwarf, but you are only a few inches taller than I am. We Tooks are very large and very capable, as you should know."

"I wouldn't dare dispute the fact."

He replied, his lips curling into another smile. There was something secretive about his smiles which Evie couldn't begin to guess at. It infuriated her. This was only aggravated by the charming tone of his voice as he conceded to her, and the way the sweat glistened on his unclean brow, dirt and dust collecting on his tan skin like a badge of his toil… His sapphire eyes were striking in the refracted light of the smith, and she was captured by them for a split second- just long enough to make her slip off her high ground and tumble down to his. He was, in truth, over a foot taller than her, but the dwarf was of spectacular height for his race and the hobbit would be considered tall for her own, standing at nearly four feet. The distinction between them was not so great a thing, as far as she would admit.

"Well…"

She began, but what it was she began she hadn't the slightest idea.

"How long are you staying in Minas Tirith?"

He asked, and she was relieved to find her footing in a clear response.

"We stay in the city for tonight and one more, then we leave to continue our search."

"I see…" He replied, his eyes tracing the lines of her face. She was hit by the sudden, queasy sort of realization that she enjoyed the idea of his attention. Of his gaze upon her. It wasn't right of her to think so, or to reminisce about his large, calloused fingers against the soft planes of her cheeks… She wondered if he remembered that moment as clearly as she did. He recalled her name without difficulty, which suggested that perhaps he did… The very possibility made her feel weak inside, but also encouraged the tiny, tough ball of courage in her chest to take action. Drawing in a shallow, broken breath, the hobbit threw caution to the wind (of which there was none in the oppressively hot smith), and took a daring chance.

"Would it be so very untoward for a capable, yet perhaps reckless hobbit adventurer to buy a dwarf-prince turned blacksmith a drink?"

Thorin made a noise in the back of his throat which she guessed was as close a sound to laughter as the dwarf could achieve, and it made her heart constrict in her chest. She hadn't realized she had been holding her breath until he grinned and she felt it erupt from her chest in a sigh of pithy relief. All the discontent she had felt earlier washed into a strange comfort as she tried to commit his smile to her memory while it still lingered upon his noble countenance. He was no longer the dark, stoic mourner of her reminiscence, but someone real and relatable. Soaked in his own sweat, his long, dark hair tousled around his shoulders in knotted, slick raven strands, dirty from the smith and tired from hard labor, she finally understood him. Thorin Oakenshield, stripped of his armor and his pride, was a dwarf willing to go to great lengths for his people. One who knew sacrifice but, it appeared, was not wholly unfamiliar with how to smile. She caught herself hoping to see him smile again and reveal another small part of himself. Her desire troubled her, but all the same she could not resist its lure.

"There's a pub not far from here and I've found they serve excellent mead… Although if you live here you no doubt know if it."

She stammered, and he affirmed, his voice as deep and commanding as ever,

"The Dull Blade. I could meet you there tonight just before sundown, if you think it not untoward."

He teased her, and she lacked the decency to blush. There was a noise from the front of the shop, and they heard a voice carrying over the other sounds of the smith and the snapping of the eager flames beside them.

"Evie! Where'd you get off to?!"

The hobbit took a breath, a soft smirk playing on her full lips.

"Who is left to judge such a thing?"

She pointed out, raising her eyebrows and stepping around the anvil to go look for her friends.

"I look forward to our next meeting, Master Dwarf."

She regained a little of her earlier confidence as she slipped off into the steam of the smith, heading towards the entrance and her companions. Thorin did not reply, but simply watched her go, still doubting that they had spoken at all and that their encounter was not a fever dream easily blamed on the heat. All the same, as he turned back to his work and the heavy mallet struck steel once again, he couldn't resist an amused smile. It had not been so awfully long since he had thought of the hobbit and their extraordinary meeting. I cannot deny my surprise at your memory. It seemed that hers was equally as sharp. He was glad to know he had lived on in her thoughts as well… For it was not simply a sharp memory which had maintained Evangeline's name in the dwarf's mind. How could he possibly forget her?

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Author's Note: Shameless, I know…. But that's as advertised, I suppose. ;)
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