The wind brushes through the mess of mud trodden hair which crowns the Hobbit’s head. She stands now, furry feet in the river, allowing the cool water to rush over her toes. It is not long before she begins to think of the events which have transpired, and the heaviness on her heart. One thought weighs on her mind, and it is as true as the ring of hammer on anvil.
“My Daughter.”
She begins to remove her ripped robes and tosses them to the riverbank, leaving her in nothing but her linen chemise. As she steps into the water the thought continues to ring causing a deafening noise within her mind. Soon she is floating in the water, her tears cascading carelessly into the flow of the river. She can hear the rushing of the current, the singing of birds, the wind within the branches, yet none hold the tune they once did. In their terrible silence, her mind begins to work.
“I have lost my stars, and now my sun. How am I to grow without warmth, or find my way without the guiding of those lights so far above me? Perhaps I am truly lost.”
Even then, there is an ember which still sits within her chest, glowing hot against the cold which envelopes her. Her hand touches the fresh scar which now lays above her breast.
“I will find Lincoln, they may have what they wish of my life, but not his.”
Kithri takes to scrubbing the mud from her hair and blood from her body. When she stands she feels not the ache of her knee nor the fear which once held her so tightly. The sound now is of metal, forged in flame, tempered by the cold of the rushing stream. When she comes from the river, for the moment she is not the song of spring as she once was, but the sound of the Mountains all at once, and war drums beating in the night.
