Lost, perhaps? | open

[hallayn]

Just a wee starter! Anyone can happen upon her, really ^^ She's just derping around; a little out of her element, but she'll be as homely as possible.

This was, at the very least, an upset in her original plan. At the very most, however, it was an annoyance, and a rather large one at that.

"Shush, shush, you mangy thing, I do not-- stop! I am not-- I'm--"

Her mangy hound kept on barking, a growl in his throat and a tap in his step. He was a loyal thing, and a good beast, but when it came to following orders, it was... well, it wasn't it's office, surely. It had been raised as a guard dog, and that post it would serve 'til it's dying day. But to bark at a flutter of crows - why, it was absurd.

"Oh, keep quiet!"

Hallayn felt her voice almost crawl back down her throat, her pale fingers wrapping around the hound's muzzle and bringing it against her trouser-clad thighs as she made to silence it. It wriggled, snarling, and pranced in place, its eyes wild on the thicket facing them.

"Mor, it was only a flock of crows..." She frowned, smoothing her wild hair back. "I knew I should have brought Hamish with me."

She all but plopped back in the mud, her chest collapsing with a sigh as she glanced about. She was near enough to the dwarven outpost that she had no reason to be so hostile, and though they were populated - and safer than she held them for - Hallayn despised the eerie glow they gave off, their clouds and fog looming over them as if they were shadows that would not stir.

Another bark ripped from her hound's muzzle the moment her hand left it, and she sighed with a small smile; it appeared that Mor felt the same way.

"Oh, fine. Get after them, then."

All he heard was 'get', and that was enough to send him barreling off into the bush. She'd have to remind herself to find a good farm dog, a road companion, not a hunting hound that would start at the slightest noise.

Now quite alone in the dreary space, the young woman settled down on the dirt once again, glancing back up the incline she had come down. The clouds over the trees has become pale and grey, blanketing the once blue sky with a bright luminescence. A frozen gust snaked down the mountainside, and Hallayn seethed softly.

"Aye, of course it would threaten rain just as I've got to trudge out an' find my damn dog," she mumbled to herself, gathering her pack and smoothing her pant legs out over her thighs. Tugging at her shoes and moving slightly, she glanced up, the hair on her arms and legs rippling.

... She hated the mountains for this very reason. That sense of being watched, that sense that no corner, no shadow was safe.

"... Bah." Her mouth parted before she could think of a thing to say; all that came out was a puny little sound. Embarrassed, Hallayn took a few steps back, glancing about for another way out of the mess of thickets.

"For all the ruddy trees, there just had to be so many bushes."

[pumpkin]

A meeting with any dwarf, let alone royalty - kin, of a sort, at that - was especially difficult. At least, it had been since the downfall of Erebor some 170 years before. It was as though the dwarf population had heard of the Lonely Mountain's people, the downfall of their kingdom, their strife in the years that ensued, and thought to themselves, Why that lot's no good! Naturally, who would be all right after such ruin? Better keep well away from such a desperate bunch!

Balin resented that attitude of his own people in the very same way he resented it in the elves. The more practical side of himself could understand the hesitation of such dwarves, why they would be leery of Thror's people after such overwhelming defeat and the ensuing chaos and violence of their vagabond, war-torn lives. But Balin was first and foremost a firm believer in loyalty and support, of helping close friends or family in need no matter what the stakes. So the abandonment of his people, and all those who had once dwelled in Erebor...it may have happened nearly two centuries before, but the memory of it all remained painful enough. And the tense relations with other dwarves served as a hurtful reminder of that.

He had just come from a meeting with a number of other dwarves, most of them scouts of the Dwarf Lords and Kings of distant mountains. They had all gathered in secret in an abandoned fortress in the Misty Mountains, not quite so far from Moria, and otherwise at the center of all the greatest of the current dwarf realms. Balin had volunteered himself as one of the attendants to go from the Blue Mountains, and he had taken with him a number of other scouts from the area. They would be the dreaded presences at the meeting--the lost souls from Erebor.

The meeting itself had resulted in a lot of banter, none of which had quite resolved the issues that had initially been set forth for discussion. Dwarves were simply too proud. Balin had sent the others of his company back to the Blue Mountains early. "But do not speak a word of this to Thorin yet," he had warned. "I think it's best I be the one to mention it to him."

He would be able to soften the blow. Perhaps.

These thoughts were plaguing his mind as he trekked through the edges of the Misty Mountains, back for the Blue Mountains of Eriador. He was thinking of his chambers under the mountain--the pleasantly hard bed, the back wall of texts and thick books, the coarse hearth, the one he himself had fitted with the Dwarvish runes for "Balance," "Integrity," and "Loyalty." Balin sighed at these thoughts. Perhaps he was getting old, then, thinking of all these things as if he were a crippled elder dwarf, retired from the usual labors of his kind. He might have been well into his elder years, but he was nowhere near retired. Not quite so lucky, perhaps, Balin mused to himself. Not that he would have been able to retire properly anyway, what with his own somewhat restless nature. Though that was another matter entirely...

Or...

Perhaps it was him. Thorin. And the strange sense of unease Balin sensed in him. The same unease that had been there since those 170 years ago, when he'd lost his kingdom. It was almost stronger now, as if all the years of pent up pain were about to manifest themselves in some terrible gesture. Balin feared this. Thorin was brave and incredibly intelligent, but he bore the true essence of dwarvish stubbornness. And when he put his mind to something, he never ever gave it up.

Balin looked skyward. Clouds were moving in, dark and gray. He was still a good ways from the main entrance of the Blue Mountains, nearly half a day's journey away. It wouldn't be a fun trek, climbing the mountain in the middle of a rainstorm, but he supposed it could well have been worse...

And then he heard it. A very quick sound. Small, too. But it had an oddly familiar ring to it.

Balin turned to glance off the main path. All along the road was a firm thicket, rising and following the slope of the mountain all the way up. The bushes themselves were high enough in height for Balin to lose himself in, if he really wanted to be ridiculous. They were high even by human and elf standards.

But not quite high enough to disguise an elf--or in this case, a she half-elf--completely.

Balin's eyes widened in surprise, crinkling at the corners at the sight of the girl before him, stuck in the thicket. "Well bless my beard!" he called over the gentle mountain wind. "If it isn't Miss Hallayn!" He beamed. He was normally a very jolly soul, but the past weeks in the dwarf realms had proven so stressful, that it had started to feel a bit like a chore to grin. He hadn't realized how true that really was until now. Fate must surely have desired to treat him kindly, to walk him right into the one lovely person who always had the ability to make him smile.

"What are you doing in these parts, lass? I'd ask you why you still always travel alone on these paths, but I know you better than that. And..." He grew sly-looking, as he always did when he was with those he was close to, like a child about to get in some sort of mischief. He gestured at the empty space around him, the lack of companions by his side. "I appear to be guilty of the same, so I ought to avoid being too hypocritical."

He chuckled at the sentiment before he grew serious once more, trying to take in the situation. The poor girl looked worried. "Mor giving you trouble again?"

[hallayn]

She could have dropped everything on her person, had they not been tied quite firmly to her waist and belt. Her heart leaped in her breast, thudding against the bones of her ribcage and giving her lungs a good start as the young woman nearly fell onto her rear. Not at all means a skittish person, but when wary, Hallayn tended to over-react.

Bless whatever power that had brought a familiar face through the thicket, however, for the moment her squinting eyes recognized the snowy beard and weathered face, she promptly beamed.

"'n if I had a beard to bless, I would hope it so!" she replied, standing with a small grunt and patting her legs free of small twigs and leaves and earthly sprinklings. The brambles rustled about to her left, and the mangy dog she'd sent spiraling off into the wilderness stumbled out, feathers and needles and thorns sticking from every inch of his face.

"If one could say I 'got bored', I suppose that'd be the better answer. My sister came to visit, and I - and I do not mean to speak ill of my family," she held up a hand, kneeling down to pick the thorns from her hound's ruddy coat, "but she can get a wee bit overwhelming."

Mor wiggled, his nose trembling as he danced in place, barking to the dwarf that stood not but a few feet off. She could never guess what had endeared her dogs to the stoutly fellow, but Hallayn didn't complain - when he was around, they left her quite alone.

"All that fuss, and you didn't even bring anything back," she teased, scratching the dog on his head and patting him squarely on the flank before straightening. Sighing, she fitted her hands to her hips.

The hound trotted forward, barking once again as he stuffed his nose against the smaller man's beard, his tail wagging so furiously that it slapped the bushes about him. "He's gotten rowdier, I think. Doesn't want to accept that he's getting old." Hallayn shrugged her shoulders, fitting a thumb in the strap that crossed from her shoulder to her hip.

"And how d'ye fair, Mr. Balin? It's been far too long since we've spoken, aye? Though that's," and she laughed, "partially my fault. I don't expect an old man like yourself to make it down the mountains and into the Bree Country as quick as I do."

She winked with a smile. It was purely a jest, of course, for she knew of the old man's adventures, and his prowess with blade and battle - only what he boasted of, of course. He was quite merry company for a dwarf - she had met far too many in their grumpy and sturdy countenances on the road; ones who scarfed down every bit of food in her pantry, snored like logs in bed, and left with a small note of 'mild annoyance' at a lack of breakfast.

But she knew that all dwarves were not like that - though it was a hard thought to break.

"And I don't mean to pry, but what are you doing out? I don't suppose it's for the 'wonderful' and 'beautiful' weather?" A finger pointed up towards the pale grey sky, and she smiled wider.