Honeysuckle

Idril didn't want to admit anything, even under duress, but the Elvenking had been right.

She'd been travelling for days and was having optimistic thoughts about her journey so far. Despite the King's warning, she'd been feeling hopeful that the shape shifters could discern she was a good person, talk to the person-in-charge, be allowed entry in the village and depending on said discussion, also be permitted to stay for a couple of days or even a few weeks before making her way to Erebor.

She wasn't feeling particularly fussy either. She knew she didn't have any rights to choose. If they're only going to let her stay for just a day, Idril wouldn't object. Just as long as she got to see a community of skin changers and tick off a box on her list.

Truly, it had been one impeccable plan…

Which she later on realized that maybe, just maybe, she'd been a tad too optimistic and hopeful.

It happened so fast and Idril, in one of her bloody rare moments, was discomfited to say she got terrified and just… moved instinctively.

She hadn't even been remotely close to the settlement, not by a long shot, but eight enormously large, dark-furred bears had concurrently roared―dreadfully loud, she might add―and charged at her in several directions, leaving Idril no choice but to Apparate somewhere.

She belatedly gathered she could've stayed still on the spot and plead her case, that would've worked. Possibly. Somewhat. Idril wasn't really sure. The Elvenking did say they were more of an 'attack first, talk much, much later' kind of people and it certainly showed by how they rushed at her without any reservations.

On the other hand, it was a good thing she chose to listen to her flight response instead of showing any form of hostility. There was a chance she could've picked a fight and retaliated―if she'd been on her right, reasonable mind― but she supposed her good conscience was rearing up in her head again. Death did mention about their gradually dwindling population and killing eight members of their group would've been a huge blow for them.

Or she could've just incapacitated them.

Naah, it wouldn't have worked either.

She's already made peace with herself with the fact that she wouldn't be tasting those famous honey-cakes. Not anytime soon anyway.

Moreover, it has been an incredibly long time since she got frightened of anything. She was impressed they were able to take her by surprise, shortly deducing that bears were simply terrifying no matter which world she was in―and if they had bears―or how adorable they looked from afar.

Idril eventually concluded she was grateful she was exceptionally adept in Apparition or else she'd be missing some limbs or probably a few body parts.

She'd already checked her map after she finished checking herself for probable lost parts and knew she was just by the Forest River, the one place she was deeply thinking about when she trekked through the rough terrain on her way to the skin changers.

It was one of the advantages for being a Mistress of Death. She only needed to know the name of a certain area and she could easily Apparate her way to it. It was tremendously convenient but Idril was sticking on her decision to travel by foot and occasionally, by reindeer… Or whatever animal it was that currently strikes her fancy.

Still deciding not to go through Greenwood, she hiked just beside the borders of the forest and finally, yet slowly, made her way East.

Idril amused herself by looking around as she kept walking. She didn't exactly know where she was at that point―probably already covered almost half of the forest―but the coarse path was getting slimmer, the foot of the mountain slopes only a few meters away from where she was.

She wondered what laid behind the tall, white, stony peaks of the Grey Mountains and where it would lead. The thought of a different world consisting a variety of other races with their own customs sprang into her mind, and Idril was suddenly feeling a bit more curious, her eyes glazing with countless thoughts she embarrassingly tripped over a jagged rock, spouting out a few curses as she righted herself and kept walking.

Death chose that moment speak up, sounding amused as his voice rang inside her head, "You weren't always this awfully clumsy. What's gotten into you, hmm?"

"I was thinking about what's beyond the Grey Mountains, wondering if everything out there is completely different from what's on this side," she replied, minding more of her steps this time.

Death didn't need to know what happened to her earlier. Yes, she'd rather keep all that worthless information to herself or else she'd never hear the end of it for days to come, or Merlin forbid, for many bloody months.

Death, on the other hand, replied with ease, "Nothing worth mentioning, I'm afraid. It's just vast wilderness stretching on for many miles. The interesting bits however, are currently on the mountains itself."

Idril raised a skeptical eyebrow, "Interesting bits… Like what?"

"There's a remarkable community of Dwarves living there and are greatly thriving with the wealth that the Grey Mountains has offered them―"

"Just the Dwarves? That doesn't sound very interesting to me," she griped.

Idril felt Death giving her a pointed look before continuing, "―and are co-existing relatively well with a horde of Dragons. Now, how does that sound, darling?"

"Dragons? You didn't tell me there were Dragons," she sent him an ambiguous look and commented, "And was that some heavy sarcasm I heard? A shocking revelation, Death." She turned to her left and observed the formidable-looking mountain summits, as if looking for any visible kind of battles, and probed, "How big are the Dragons? Is it anything like the Dragons from the first Wizarding World?"

"Hmm… I'm not sure," he reflectively droned before suggesting, "Why don't you see for yourself?"

She answered without hesitation, turning her eyes back to the road before her, "After I take a peek on the lonely mountain."

Disbelief was heard on his voice when he exclaimed, "Just a peek? You've gone all this way just to take a peek on some mountain?"

Idril let out a huff and answered in her lofty voice, "It's a lonely mountain, Death. It's one of a kind. And I didn't say anything about climbing the bloody thing. Can you imagine how exhausting that will be?"

"By the void, Idril!" he cried out with no small amount of frustration and Idril imagined him similarly throwing his hands up, "Hundreds of years with you and I still haven't got a single clue why you always do this when you travel! Always so capricious and impulsive." He exhaled a deep sigh and grumbled, "This simply reminds me why I never go with you when you take a trip. You always have the habit of doing the most basic and simplest of things."

"This is the tenth time I've heard you become so flustered as well," Idril nonchalantly pointed out as she shrugged her shoulders, "And this is why I don't like travelling with you. You're always rushing, eagerly wanting to try on the next big thing and never taking notice on the small ones."

"That's because you're always inclined to wasting your time!"

"For someone who's ancient and literally unending, you're awfully obsessed with time," she remarked in a bored tone before groaning and conjuring her trusty reindeer. Idril leapt onto its back and with a nudge, the four-legged animal took off into a sprint, "That's more like it."

Death scoffed and added, "Impatient as well."

She derisively drawled, "Oh, look! It's the pot calling the kettle black again. And I've been walking for days, thank you for asking." Idril finally spotted the edge of the forest up ahead and with a delighted shout, she told her current companion, "I'll continue travelling by reindeer and try to get as close to the mountain as possible."

"And after that?" he prompted.

"Camp out for the night with the wonderful landscape of Erebor and then go further North to see the Dragons."

"And then?"

"Well…" she whirred as she contemplated on how she could make her way back into the West. She eventually said, absentmindedly patting the fur of her reindeer as it continued to gallop through the plains, "I'm still going West but since I'm already going up into the Grey Mountains, I… suppose I could just make my way through it until I reach into some town or whatever. The time to find someone who wants to have afternoon tea with me has come and it would be a complete waste if I can't find fellow tea enthusiasts in this huge world." She stopped short and quickly clarified, "In a friendly kind of way, of course."

Death made the show of nodding his head and indulged, "Of course… But before that, you're going to have to go through a massive host of Orcs, Goblins and all other kinds of dark creatures, that is if you're truly adamant on pushing through with that hasty-made plan of yours."

"It's not a hasty plan. How dare you," Idril grunted before mulishly assenting, "But yeah. The slopes and land West beyond the Grey Mountains are a breeding ground of everything evil for that Dark Lord you mentioned about. Even this far I can feel it."

He mused, "Precisely. The land beyond the mountain ranges is profusely riddled with darkness, even I'm impressed. I have to give my compliments to this Dark Lord. And his dedicated Lieutenant, of course. It's the latter who's heavily responsible for almost all of this violent mess."

Idril didn't sound so impressed though, "So you're implying that this Dark Lord's gone AWOL now? How disappointing."

Death let out chuckle, "He's been cast out of Middle-Earth and into the Void, ever drifting in between nothingness. But the Lieutenant is ever devoted and passionate of what he's doing and he's been corrupting and destroying everything that came onto his path."

She blankly emphasized, "But that previous Dark Lord is still a no-show. I feel bad for that Lieutenant. Did he get the credits for all he's done? Waging wars for hundreds of years isn't easy, you know. It's all about the effort. Effort, I tell you!"

"His name is known in all corners of the Undying Lands and Middle-Earth, provoking fear and misery. What else could he want?" he uttered before making a show of wagging his eyebrows, his voice conniving, "If you're feeling a great amount of pity this time, why don't you take this chance to help him achieve his goals, hmm?"

"And get stabbed in the back figuratively and literally?" Idril let out a snort and shot back, "No, thank you. The aggravation it'll bring me isn't worth it."

He sighed, dejection echoing inside her head, "Fine. I reckon you're right. Getting knifed in the back does sound horrible. And a sign of sloppiness, which you're currently having since you've been losing your footing a couple of times just for the first part of this trip."

"Piss off."

Her journey of skirting through Greenwood has finally come to an end, the picturesque view that greeted her was definitely breathtaking and Idril now understood why it got its name.

An impressively towering summit Erebor was among the adjoining mountain slopes, jagged and rough it may be but it was truly magnificent. The sun was still high up in the sky, its brightness shedding a bit of radiance into the frosty, white peak as snow continued to litter down into the gravel surfaces, adding into it a certain bit of charm.

Death might think her silly, becoming awestruck with simple rock and stone and snow as if she'd never seen one before, but this was what she'd been seeking for and Idril was even more gladdened she undertook this trip.

If this one small part of this world had managed to impress her, Idril pondered about what the rest of Middle-Earth would bring. Surely, there's a lot more places for her to discover and simple treasures like this one waiting for her to uncover. Idril wasn't planning on stopping now.

Idril didn't take her eyes off of the mountain as she bantered, "Just a mountain, eh?"

"It's pure Middle-Earthen soil and elevated crust and rock. What else do you want me to say?" he intoned impassively.

"That it's a beautiful piece of pure Middle-Earthen soil and elevated crust and rock."

Death made one of his incomprehensible sounds, like a mixture of a scoff and a grunt gone wrong―or gone right―and was silent for almost a minute before eventually relenting that it was.

She shook her head in amusement before urging her reindeer into an idle march forward, intent on looking for a nice place to camp out for the rest of the day.

She made her way through the progressively sloping, grassy terrain for a while and found a perfect space in between two pointy rocks with a sparse bit of grass in between them. She came down from her reindeer and after giving it a considering look, flicked her hand and vanished the four-legged animal. Idril settled down right after she made the ground comfortable and without any hesitation, summoned everything she needed to brew tea and began heating enough water for a single pot.

With the stunning panorama of Erebor before her, she considered more about her current travel decisions and whether she should perhaps alter it.

The notion of reconstructing the regal mountain into a plateau suddenly crossed her mind the more she stared at the lonely mountain.

Idril gave herself a moment to ruminate over her thoughts.

Hmm, maybe not.

Erebor was safe from any forms of... redecoration for yet another day.

-o-

Nightfall came swift and aside from a couple of howls and roars and growls from somewhere she didn't care to know where they came from, the rest of the evening was uneventful and the serenity continued even when the first light of dawn broke through the dark sky.

Idril stood up and began stretching her arms and legs. Not that she was complaining. She learned to be vigilant a long time ago when she had once been a human. She wouldn't stop now just because she became someone powerful.

She took another look at Erebor, assuredly unharmed, before turning left and going further North.

The route was getting, well… gravellier and more unsteady and Idril knew she would have to continue travelling by foot all the way to her new destination. Idril didn't mind walking this time though. She'd had a wonderful evening and she could easily entertain herself with the new look this certain terrain has. She'd get bored eventually but for someone who's been travelling through grasslands for days, this vibrant coarseness was fairly welcoming to her senses.

It proved to be a challenge however―without the use of magic, of course―when she had to find a safer path for her to walk on to and to avoid into simply stepping just anywhere, because rocks; nasty, big rocks that could seriously scar her dislodges so easily with just an effortless shift from the pebbly ground. She even had to vanish one when it came plummeting down on her from a very high place, the solid mass clearly aiming for her head.

Still, Idril persevered. How couldn't she when she could already hear the bellows of the great, scaled beasts?

Idril completely masked her presence, remembering the profound senses these creatures have and how they could easily spot anything unknown with a simple waft of wind, and took a peek behind a giant slab of rock.

And what a great sight it was. She has never seen this many Dragons in one place in all her life, even in her human years. The Dragons were of different kinds she was sure, since they didn't look the same, and all of them had such great spans of wings, catching a few of the creatures unfolding their own in what seemed like a show of some sort. Their claws were massive and razor-sharp, their scales definitely tough―she had two pairs of dragon-skin boots before and she loved them―and Idril continued to regard the spikes strewn across the entirety of their backs with interest, incidentally wondering if it could be easily plucked.

"Magnificent creatures, aren't they?" Death remarked as he appeared beside her.

Idril nodded and whispered, "They certainly are." There was a crease on her forehead as she tried to remember, "My memory is hazy. I can't seem to distinctly recall if they're much bigger than the ones we had in my first world."

"Hmm… To some extent, but I've already seen numerous of these kinds of creatures and decidedly they all look the same to me." He gestured to the multi-colored Drakes in front of them and added with interest, "One of their great ancestors, a colossal Winged Dragon, was one of a kind but he had been bred for war. He was grander and far more superior that when he was killed, a huge part of land in the far West caved and fell with him."

She let out a hum, a pensive look on her face as she continued to observe the rowdy Dragons, "An ingenious work since I know they can cause a lot of destruction. Are there others aside from these? I'm sure there are."

Death procured two cups of steaming tea and gave her the other one. Idril grinned, looking pleased, and instantly conjured two, single chairs. After casting a spell for a little bit of stability, the duo took their seats, the horde of snappy, snarling and horny Dragons their current source of entertainment.

Death took a sip before replying, "They're currently settling beyond the Northern Waste. Most of them consider this part of the mountain as theirs and they do spend most of their time terrorizing the rest of the Grey Mountains and the surrounding lands but they never fail to go back to the North whenever they want to."

Idril blinked a couple of times in surprise before saying, "I'm amazed I haven't heard anything while I was travelling."

He gave her a sardonic look, "Obviously they're all currently engaged with something more important."

Idril was staring on what looked like two male Dragons starting a fight as she distractedly replied, "We're probably witnessing the peak of their mating season. Good for them." She narrowed her eyes and seemingly leaned forward, the hissing catching her undivided attention as she caught a couple of words and phrases, "And… And are they talking? Wait… Oh! This sounds like Parseltongue, Death! This is incredible!"

Death let out a laugh and cheerfully exclaimed, "It is, isn't it? They're ancient creatures, naturally they would learn how to speak among themselves. They're shockingly intelligent and eventually learned many languages, including the tongue of Men."

She zealously nodded, still incredibly fascinated, "Clever, winged lizards, though I wager it is also their hubris."

He let out another chiming laugh, "They've grown overconfident with their abilities and believed themselves to be invincible."

She made a piteous sound before saying, "What a shame. I imagined they would've been great travelling companions but they'd probably incinerate me before I could have the chance to talk." She took a sip on her tea and thoughtfully glanced down at her cup, "Earl Grey, Death?"

He hummed in assent as he crossed a leg on top of the other, "I was feeling nostalgic."

"By watching a couple of copulating Dragons?" she voiced out while pulling on a face, her eyes judging.

Death scoffed, sounding slightly affronted when he replied, "Of course not. How rude. If you ought to know, I was doing a little bit of work in some random world's version of England before I came here."

Her judging eyes turned wary as she asked, "Why didn't you let the reapers handle it? What was in that England that specifically demanded your personal attendance?"

Death gave her a sharp and wide grin, "A serial killer, of course." He reclined onto his seat with a satisfied sigh and happily told her the story of how the murderer made the infinitesimal mistake of targeting the younger brother of a woman who was a member of a cult.

Ahh… she thought with a wince. Rituals were always so messy and they were mostly all about exacting retribution. Idril wasn't particularly fond of them and she usually lets the reapers handle such cases, but Death was and he usually took a great deal of care whenever it happens.

She let out a forbearing sigh as she finished her tea.

Death had just ended his story with a smile and Idril chose that time to stand up from her seat, patting down her dress as she said, "Well, this was a nice reprieve from all the walk I've been doing so far. My thanks for the lovely tea. It has undoubtedly given me the extra boost to go West."

Death blanched and wheedled out, "Are you absolutely certain you're continuing with this particular path? You could simply go back down the mountains and retrace your steps and it'll probably save you some time."

"I'd rather not," she resolutely answered as she vanished the chairs, "Besides, it's not like I'm not going to cross some mountains again. I'm going beyond the Misty Mountains. I might as well trek the entire thing for the experience and the thrill."

"And any stop overs along the way?"

"I know what you're trying to insinuate but I'm not stopping in Imladris or in any towns of Men. Not yet, at least. I'm going to see the Hobbits. I've gathered they're a sociable, spirited bunch. Excellent hosts for parties too."

Death let out his own long-suffering sigh, "Yes, I suppose you'll finally be able to have your much-awaited afternoon teas with those lot, considering their proclivity for partaking almost seven meals a day."