Daughter of Starlight

Chapter Two: Secrets

The beautiful Emilia Clarke at the top as Laerornien. Just imagine her with pale elvish hair and you'll see our favorite elven princess :)

I woke up the next morning to the delicious smell of food.

I opened my eyes, squinting at the bright noontime sunlight. I was surprised by how late in the day it was.

I sat up and yawned while I brushed straw out of my long hair with my fingers. I heard the talk of the dwarves in another room, where the smell of the food seemed to be coming from, so I stood up and headed in that direction.

"Good morning, Laerornien," Gandalf greeted me pleasantly as I sat down in between Kili and Fili. I nodded towards him, still groggy with sleep. I was never one for waking up.

"I think perhaps 'good afternoon' would be more appropriate," Balin said.

"We all overslept." Fili's tone was one of agreement. We should have been on the road a long time ago.

"Try the potatoes," Kili said, spooning a large helping onto my plate. I joined in the feasting, then noticed that Thorin wasn't eating. He stood by, looking as if he was thinking deeply about something, then his eyes were cast upward, towards a hulking figure making its way into the room.

My eyes widened at the sight of the hulking man before me, who I assumed was Beorn. He wore nothing but hide trousers and a stern expression, and he held a wooden jug that was half the size of me. I thought I was tall because I was an elf, but this man was much, much taller. It certainly explained why everything in this house was double in size. I could easily believe that he was the bear we had encountered yesterday.

Beorn locked gazes with Thorin, slowly heading over to him while stopping to fill each of our enormous mugs with milk from his jug.

"So, you are the one they call Oakenshield," he said to him. When he didn't receive any sort of response, he continued. "Tell me, why is Azog the Defiler hunting you?"

"You know of Azog?" Thorin's look revealed his surprise at Beorn's knowledge. "How?"

"My people were the first to live in the mountains before the orcs came down from the north," Beorn explained. "The Defiler killed most of my family, but some he enslaved. Not for work, you understand, but for sport. Chaining Skin-Changers and torturing them seemed to amuse him."

I had been eyeing the cuff on his wrist with a bit of broken chain still attached to it, wondering why it was there, but his words cleared that up.

My face grew grim as I tried to imagine what horrors the man before me must have witnessed and experienced, flinching at what my imagination conjured.

"There are others like you?" Bilbo asked Beorn curiously.

"Once there were many," Beorn told him, a sad look in his eyes.

"And now?"

"Now there is only one."

There was a moment of somber silence before Beorn continued to speak. "You will need to reach the mountains before the last days of autumn."

"Before Durin's day, of course," Gandalf spoke when Thorin didn't.

"You are running out of time," Beorn said.

"Which is why we must go through Mirkwood."

At Gandalf's words, I looked up at him in shock, and he discreetly avoided my questioning gaze. Thorin took notice of my look while Gandalf and Beorn conversed about the dangers of Mirkwood.

"A darkness lies upon that forest. Foul things creep beneath those trees," I heard Beorn say, but I didn't concern myself about it at the moment. "I would not travel there except in great need."