In two days going they rowed right up the Long Lake and passed out into the River Running, and now they could all see the Lonely Mountain towering grim and tall before them. The stream was strong and their going slow. At the end of the third day, some miles up the river, they drew in to the left or western bank and disembarked. Here they were joined by the horses with other provisions and necessaries and the ponies for their own use that had been sent to meet them. They packed what they could on the ponies and the rest was made into a store under a tent, but none of the men of the town would stay with them even for the night so near the shadow of the Mountain.

"Not at any rate until the songs have come true!" said they. It was easier to believe in the Dragon and less easy to believe in Thorin in these wild parts. Indeed their stores had no need of any guard, for all the land was desolate and empty. So their escorts left them, making off swiftly down the river and the shoreward paths, although the night was already drawing on.

They spent a cold and lonely night and their spirits fell. The next day they set out again. Balin and Bilbo rode behind, each leading a pony heavily laden beside him; the others were some way ahead picking out the slow road, for there were no paths. They made northwest, slanting away from the River Running, and drawing ever nearer and nearer to a great spur of the Mountain that was flung out southwards towards them.

It was a weary journey, and a quiet and stealthy one. There was no laughter or song, and the pride and hopes which had stirred in their hearts at the singing of old songs by the lake died away to a plodding gloom. They knew that they were drawing near to the end of their journey, and that it might be a very horrible end. The land about them grew bleak and barren, though once, as Thorin told them, it had been green and fair. There was little grass, and before long there was neither bush nor tree, and only blackened stumps to speak of ones long vanished. They had come to the Desolation of the Dragon, and they had come at the waning of the year.

They reached the skirts of the Mountain all the same without meeting any danger or any sign of the Dragon other than the wilderness he had made about his lair. The Mountain lay dark and silent before them and ever higher above them. They made their first camp on the western height side of the great southern spur, which ended in a height called Ravenhill. On this there had been an old watch-post; but they dared not climb it yet, it was too exposed.

Before setting out to search the western spurs of the Mountain for the hidden door, on which all their hopes rested, Thorin sent out a scouting expedition to spy out the land to the South where the Front Gate stood. For this purpose he Balin and Fili and Kili, and with them went Bilbo. They marched under the grey and silent cliffs to the feet of Ravenhill. There the river, after winding a wide loop over the valley of Dale, turned from the Mountain on its road to the Lake, flowing swift and noisily. Its bank was bare and rocky, tall and steep above the stream; and gazing out from it over the narrow water, foaming and splashing among many boulders, they could see in the wide valley shadowed by the Mountain's arms the grey ruins of ancient houses, towers, and walls.

"There lies all that is left of Dale," said Balin. "The mountain's sides were green with woods and all the sheltered valley rich and pleasant in the days when the bells rang in that town." He looked both sad and grim as he said this: he had been one of Thorin's companions on the day the Dragon came.

They did not dare to follow the river much further towards the Gate; but they went on beyond the end of the southern spur, until lying hidden behind a rock they could look out and see the splendidly carved but dark cavernous opening in a great cliff-wall between the arms of the Mountain. Out of it the waters of the Running River sprang; and out of too there came a stream and a dark smoke. Nothing moved in the waste, save the vapor and the water, and every now and again a black and ominous crow. The only sound was the sound of the stony water, and every now and again the harsh croak of a bird. Balin shuddered.

"Let us return!" he said. "We can do no good here! And I don't like these dark birds, they look like spies of evil."

"The dragon is still alive and in the halls under the Mountain then—or I imagine so from the smoke," said the hobbit.

"That does not prove it," said Balin, "though I don't doubt you are right. But he might be gone away some time, or he might be lying out on the mountain-side keeping watch, and still I expect smokes and steams would come out of the gates: all the halls within must be filled with his foul reek."

With such gloomy thoughts, followed ever by croaking crows above them, they made their weary way back to the camp. Only in June they had been guests in the fair house of Elrond, and though autumn was now crawling towards winter that pleasant time now seemed years ago. They were alone in the perilous waste without hope of future help. They were at the end of their journey, but as far as ever, it seemed, from the end of their quest. None of them had much spirit left.

Now strange to say Mr. Baggins had more than the others. He would often borrow Thorin's map and gaze at it, pondering over the runes and the message of the moon-letters Elrond had read. It was he that made the Dwarves begin the dangerous search on the western slopes for the secret door. They moved their camp then to a long valley, narrower than the great dale in the South where the Gates of the river stood, and walled with lower spurs of the Mountain. Two of these here thrust forward west from the main mass in long steep-sided ridges that fell ever downwards towards the plain. On this western side there were fewer signs of the dragon's marauding feet, and there was some grass for their ponies. From this western camp, shadowed all day by cliff and wall until the sun began to sink towards the forest, day by day they toiled in parties searching for paths up the mountain-side. If the map was true, somewhere high above the cliff at the valley's head must stand the secret door. Day by day they came back to the camp without success.

But at last unexpectedly they found what they were seeking. Fili and Kili and the hobbit went back one day down the valley and scrambled among the tumbled rocks at its southern corner. About midday, creeping behind a great stone that stood alone like a pillar, Bilbo came on what looked like rough steps going upwards. Following these excitedly he and the Dwarves found traces of a narrow track, often lost, often rediscovered, that wandered on to the top of the southern ridge and brought them at last to a still narrower ledge, which turned north across the face of the Mountain. Looking down they saw that they were at the top of the cliff at the valley's head and were gazing down on to their own camp below. Silently, clinging to the rocky wall on their right, they went in single file along the ledge, till the wall opened and they turned into a little steep-walled bay, grassy-floored, still and quiet. Its entrance which they had found could not be seen from below because of the overhang of the cliff, nor from further off because it was so small it looked like a crack and no more. It was not a cave and was open to the sky above; but at its inner end a flat wall rose up that in the lower part, close to the ground, was as smooth and upright as mason's work, but without a joint or crevice to be seen. No sign was there of post or lintel or threshold, nor any sign of bar or bolt or key-hole; yet they did not doubt that they had found the door at last.

They beat on it, they thrust and pushed at it, they implored it to move, they spoke fragments of broken spells of opening, and nothing stirred. At last tired out they rested on the grass at its feet, and then at evening began their long climb down.

There was excitement in the camp that night. In the morning they prepared to move once more. Only Bofur and Bombur were left behind to guard the ponies and such stores as they had brought with them from the river. The others went down the valley and up the newly found path, and so to the narrow ledge. Along this they could carry no bundles or packs, so narrow and breathless was it, with a fall of a hundred and fifty feet beside them on to sharp rocks below; but each of them took a good coil of rope wound tight about his waist, and so at last without mishap they reached the little grassy bay.

There they made their third camp, hauling up what they needed from below with their ropes. Down the same way they were occasionally able to lower one of the more active Dwarves, such as Kili, to exchange such news as there was, or to share in the guard below, while Bofur was hauled up to the higher camp. Bomber would not come up either the rope or the path.

"I am too fat for such fly-walks," he said. "I should turn dizzy and tread on my beard, and then you would be thirteen again. And the knotted ropes are too slender for my weight." Luckily for him that was not true, as you will see.

In the meantime some of them explored the ledge beyond the opening and found a path that led higher and higher on to the mountain; but they did not dare to venture very far that way, nor was there much use in it. Out up there a silence reigned, broken by no bird or sound except that of the wind in the crannies of stone. They spoke low and never called or sang, for danger brooded in every rock. The others who were busy with the secret of the door had no more success. They were too eager to trouble about the runes or the moon-letters, but tired without resting to discover where exactly in the smooth surface of the rock the door was hidden. They had brought picks and tools of many sorts from Lake-town, and at first they tried to use these. But when they struck the stone the handles splintered and jarred their arms cruelly, and the steel heads broke or bent like lead. Mining work, they saw clearly was no good against the magic that had shut this door; and they grew terrified, too, of the echoing noise.

Bilbo found sitting on the doorstep lonesome and wearisome—there was not a doorstep, of course, really, but they used to call the little grassy space between the wall and the opening the 'doorstep' in fun.

Their spirits had risen a little at the discovery of the path, but now they sank into their boots; and yet they would not give it up and go away. The hobbit was no longer much brighter than the Dwarves. He would do nothing but sit with his back to the rock-face and stare away west through the opening, over the cliff, over the wide lands to the black wall of Mirkwood, and to the distances beyond, in which he sometimes thought he could catch glimpses of the Misty Mountains small and far. If the Dwarves asked him what he was doing he answered:

"You said sitting on the doorstep and thinking would be my job, not to mention getting inside, so I am sitting and thinking." But I am afraid he was not thinking much of the job, but of the absent Hannah and of what lay beyond the blue distance, the quiet Western Land and the Hill and his hobbit-hole under it.

A large grey stone lay in the center of the grass and he stared moodily at it or watched the great snails. They seemed to love the little shut-in bay with its walls of cool rock, and there were many of them of huge size crawling slowly and stickily along its sides.

"I see you finally have the full use of your leg once again," Legolas remarked when came to visit Hannah again and found her enjoying herself doing whatever exercise she could manage in her small prison.

"Yes," smiled Hannah. Though she couldn't exactly go anywhere, it was still a great relief to finally be completely mobile again.

"As the king appears to have decided not to pursue your companions, and we have already guessed a great deal for ourselves about your venture, surely there can be no harm in your sharing some of it with me," the prince suggested, clearly hinting that he would like to hear another tale about the world outside his forest.

Hannah thought about it for a moment, and decided there would be no harm in sharing what she could remember about the early part of her adventure. If the Elvenking planned on interfering with the Dwarves he would have undoubtedly taken further action on the matter by now. And perhaps she could help clear Thorin's name somewhat since she had heard he was accused of having stolen his great sword, which we of course know was not at all true. Legolas listened with great intent as she began with the hobbit's reluctant recruitment for the adventure and found their altercation with the trolls most amusing (which it was, looking back now that the danger of the moment had passed). But when she came to the part of how they had been chased by a hunting party of Orcs astride large wolf-like beasts that had been identified as Gundabad Wargs his expression suddenly darkened. Upon asking what was the matter, she learned that Gundabad was an old Orc stronghold in the far north of the Misty Mountains, one that was thought to have been long abandoned, and that his mother had died in that fell place.

"The king does not speak of it," the prince said grimly with his head lowered. Had he not overheard the whispers of the other Elves as a child, he would know nothing of it. "There is no grave, no memory, nothing." He looked up when Hannah reached out through the bars of the cell door to gently place one of her hands hand on his.

"I'm sorry for your loss," she said sincerely with understanding eyes. "My mother also died when I was young—well, younger than I am now. She passed away five years ago."

"I am sorry," said Legolas with no small amount of sympathy.

"Thank you. So am I," said Hannah with a sad smile as painful memories resurfaced. "She and my father worked as healers... until she contracted a fatal illness from one of the patients she attended. My parents were terrified that my brother and I might catch it, so once they recognized the symptoms, my mother stopped coming home and began staying at the hospital. My father worked tirelessly to try to save her, but they wouldn't let me in to see her. No matter how much I cried and begged and screamed they wouldn't let me any where near her." She bit her lip and blinked back the tears that had begun to form in her violet eyes and exhaled a ragged whisper.

"But I didn't have to see to know what was happening to her. I'd overheard my parents discussing the effects of this particular disease on other patients, so I could imagine for myself how much she must have suffered. In the end, despite all my father's best efforts, she died choking on her own blood, just the same as all the others. I never got to say goodbye. And my father never got over her death."

Hannah still remembered sometimes how back then, when she would watch him from a distance without his knowing, she would get this terribly lonely feeling, like the time her parents left her with her grandfather so that they could have a short holiday together without her; and she became terrified that he might be thinking of leaving her and Jacob to follow their mother. "He did his best to carry on, for me and for Jacob. But he was never the same. And it became taboo to even so much as mention her name around him, not because he wanted to forget her, but because remembering how much he still loved her even after she was gone was too painful for him to bear."

Legolas gazed at the stone floor, deep in thought. "You think it was the same for my father? That his reluctance to speak of my mother is due to grief?"

"I would not dare to presume to speak for the king... But for myself, I have found that the saying 'time heals all wounds' is not necessarily true. It's in these moments of tender and ridiculous nostalgia that I know something inside of me is still broken. The wounds remain. With time the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone. Everyone has their own way of dealing with grief, but the one thing we all have in common is that we must learn how to make room for it. If not it will eat us all alive from the inside out. The best that we can do is not to let the damage control our lives."

Legolas looked long and hard at his little friend. Though she was only a mere fourteen years of age there were moments such as this where the wisdom she exhibited astonished the prince. Already she had seen and experienced much for one so young. But she wasn't bitter. She was a little sad perhaps, but it was a hopeful kind of sadness: the kind that just took time and a willingness to continue moving forward through the world.

They talked a little longer and allowed the conversation to drift back to lighter topics. Hannah told the prince a bit more about her imp of a younger brother, who seemed to never tire of trying to drag her into some misadventure or another, and he in turn told her one or two stories from his own childhood in the forest, back when it was still called Greenwood and was a much more wholesome place to call home.

"You are going to be late, Legolas," the king cautioned his son, stepping into view. It was time for the prince to join the guard for a patrol through the forest to take care of yet another nest of spiders. Upon realizing the time Legolas quickly took his leave from his friend and his father, leaving the two of them alone. Hannah shifted a bit nervously under the Elvenking's intense gaze while he took a moment to regard the young girl. Having been concerned by the ever increasing amount of time his son spent with their prisoner, he had decided to keep an eye on the prince personally and had overheard much of their conversation.

"I think I am beginning to see the reason for my son's odd fascination with you," he said at last. "You are unlike other children of your race." Her mental development seemed closer to that of an elfling's than that of a child of Man.

"I shall take that as a compliment," said Hannah, not quite sure what to make of the comment. "But is your highness so worried of leaving him alone with me that you must eavesdrop on private conversations?" The information she had shared with Legolas had been of a very personal nature.

"I will not tolerate my son being hurt," answered Thranduil sternly, not liking her tone.

"I would never—"

"No, you wouldn't, not intentionally," he agreed. "But you are mortal, and mortals die. The more attached to you he becomes the harder it will be for him when you are gone. A Man's life is but the blink of an eye for an Elf, but his memory of you will endure and bring him a disproportional amount of grief and pain to the very short amount of time you might spend together. I will not see my son put through that kind of suffering."

"Does he know of this concern of yours?" asked Hannah with a frown.

"Yes, and I told him to stay away from you. But you have seen how well he listens. He is still young for an Elf and does not yet fully understand death as well as he might."