A Place to Belong

Chapter 22: Mirkwood

Braerka stormed her way into Beorn's house. She marched all the way to the larger room she had spent her first few nights in barely supressing the need to break something. She quickly gathered her things and slipped on her coat, promptly strapping her sword to her belt and slinging her bow on. She tried to block the image of what she had just seen but it was no use, her mind was a blur of anger and regret, and mostly at herself for not being there to stop it.

'You couldn't have been there! Stop blaming yourself!' she heard a voice in her head cry. She ignored it, to her it could be no one's fault but her own. She had after all been the one to enrage The Black Eyes and also the one to incite the anger of the assassin's. Suddenly she was regretting all the choices she'd made of late.

No matter what way she looked at it, it was she who had been the cause of it all.

She slipped on her half repaired bag and then considered her stitching. She probably would have been better of letting someone else do it, her skills with a needle and thread where less than up to scratch.

She stopped and looked around the room, taking the barely a split second to slow down she recalled all the wonderful memories that she had made there and then quickly brushed them aside, Windermere was taking priority in her thoughts and she struggling to drown them out.

In all honesty she would have preferred to stay a while longer and she was sad to have to leave so soon, but more important things were at hand and an incessant gut wrenching feeling that was pressing her onward. Windermere was, as far as they all could see, ablaze and if no-one was to help, then she would regardless of how long it took.

Her only drive now was the hope that someone would survive and that she would be able to get there in time to help or at least to help the townsfolk cleaned up. She was almost certain in the knowledge that the Assassins or Black Eyes had started it, but even that didn't really make sense, why would the assassins set fire to a part of their own society? And if the black eyes had done it then what were the assassins doing? As part of the town of Windermere they had to protect it and its people! A measly group bandits were hardly enough to beat them, (Five of them couldn't even beat her!)

She buckled her coat up tight and then left the house as quickly as she'd entered. Without paying any attention to anyone she marched onwards and further east.

~\/*\/~

Kili couldn't help but feel aggravated; since being made aware of the flaming village Braerka hadn't even so much as looked at him, let alone acknowledge him. It didn't make him feel any better when she had left soon after, seemingly oblivious to everything and buried in her thoughts.

What infuriated him most was the thought that something so far away could make her so dismissive of everything and everyone so close to her.

'Was this what Thorin had meant when he said it wouldn't work between them?' he wondered.

He hastily filled his new haversack. Beorn had been kind enough to provide them with anything they needed on top of having already given them room and board. He moved so quickly he unfolded the already folded blankets and spare shirts.

"Will you slow down?! She won't get that far ahead of us, besides she's bound to come to her senses sooner or later! She'll come back, I'm sure of it!" Fili told him, trying desperately to calm him.

"I know that place is kind of like home to her and that she probably knows people there but does she really have to just run off like that?!" Kili confided sharply to Fili as they speedily packed their own effects in an attempt to not let her get too far ahead.

"She's as unpredictable as the wind Kili! I thought you'd have noticed that by now! What with all the time you spend with her!" His brother answered sourly.