Time passed strangely for Smaug in his new form. It took the day longer to go by, but the hours within that day could fly by him without any notice. Three months to him when he had been among his treasures in the Lonley Mountain would have been no more than an afternoon nap to him now. And yet, it felt as though centuries had gone by as he and the woman came to the end of the Mirkwood and looked upon the Brown Lands.

There were no more trees there, just the stale and forgotten ground.

"Nothing to do but pass through it," Cerys braced herself, the cart stopped just on the edge of the last of the trees, "It's likely to be the most dangerous part of the journey, but if we want to get to Rohan, it's the only thing we can do."

"The earth is poisoned here."

She nodded. "I was told there was such a great battle that the land was tainted. Once it was the place where the Entwives made their gardens, and it was green – the feeling of crisp greenness, the freshness of the grass. Rivers ran through here as clear as a piece of glass, and you could see the fish and rocks within them. There were flowers so rich in color and delicate in their beauty, that Elven Lords would come to pick them for their brides. And a wind would blow across and down to Gondor, and on that wind was the smell of the flower petals, the sap from the trees, the roots and the deep richness of the earth itself. They would call it the Summer Wind, no matter when it came, for it was always summer in this place. But now, so it goes, it brings only the smell of dry bones."

Smaug tried to picture the way it had been, but he couldn't.

"I have never seen a garden." He realized.

"Oh, well," Cerys nodded, "that's probably why you're such a disagreeable person. We'll get you to one, and it'll be sure to calm your tempers a bit."

He gave her a sidelong glance.

"Have you ever seen a diamond?" he asked, remembering the cold glitter of the stones. He did not know the colors of wildflowers in the spring, but he knew the colors of gems.

"No," she said, "I've never understood the point of diamonds, to tell you plainly. What are they for?"

"Having. Keeping. Admiring."

"And?"

"What do you mean 'And?'" He balked, "Diamonds, unlike gardens, can be brought along anywhere you go. They can be worn at your throat, at your wrist, tied with golden thread and woven into your hair. If I were to kill a man and take his garden, what would that do? We would travel away and never see it again, or it would wither and die. But if I were to kill him and take his diamond, we would always have a treasure."

"Why would you kill anybody?" She asked. "It's a foolish idea all around. And even if we had a diamond through honest means, I would sell it for some proper gold."

"Gold is a fine thing as well." He nodded.

Cerys sighed. She was tired of talking about money, which seemed to be the stranger's favorite subject. An odd obsession for someone who owned only a dead man's coat and a cursed coin.

Travelling in the winter was harsh, not only for the cold rains and frosted ground, but because supplies were low. The last trading post they'd found had charged them three times what they would have had to pay in the summer, and Cerys was not a rich woman. She was starting to worry that her purse would be empty before they got to Minas Tirith.

The horse was walking carefully, as though it were his intention to tiptoe all the way to Rohan.

These lands were a foul place, and only orcs and goblins had the stomach for crossing them. Cerys hummed a tune to take her mind off of it; a lament that she'd known since girlhood, about the men of Gondor marching to aid the Elves and falling in battle. She never sang the words, the words were too sorrowful.

The cart rattled forward, with the melody settling on the path behind them like a cloud of dust.

"Stop." The stranger said suddenly, reaching over and grabbing her hand on the reins.

"What's the matter?"

Smaug could feel something familiar. His skin was prickling, and his ears were trying to catch a sound that was just beyond them. His old instincts were trying to tell him something, but his new form was limited. He cursed himself and his body, and wished again for a proper nose.

"Don't sing," he told the woman, "It's waking something up."

She covered her mouth with her fingertips and looked about. There was nothing but flat, barren land on all sides. Calmly, he took the reins and drove the horse on.

He could feel something following them, but he didn't turn around. He wouldn't have been able to see it anyway.

That night, they built a very small fire.

There wouldn't have been any fire were it not for the fact that they'd come too far from the river, and all the water they had was taken from the small and stagnant lakes of the Brown Lands. It needed boiling.

Cerys was peeling a few potatoes that they'd gotten the week before from a merchant who was heading north and passed them by. He'd given them up in exchange for word on Lake Town. The stranger was not looking forward to trying them; he hadn't said anything, but he'd been glancing at them with some suspicion. When she came to think of it, Cerys wasn't too surprised. If they didn't have any sort of potato where he hailed from, then they very well might seem strange. Ugly brown lumps pulled up from the ground and cooked until they were soft enough to chew. Not too appetizing, really.

"We should sleep in the cart." The stranger announced, standing on the very edge of their firelight and looking into the darkness of the hills around them. "You in the back, and I on the bench."

"Yes. I was wondering about something like that." Cerys nodded, "It's a curious thing. I came through here just a year and a half ago, and it wasn't as… dangerous as it seems to be now."

The stranger came to sit across from her.

"Things are changing," he said. "Dark creatures are stirring, old and dead things are finding themselves reborn. In the north, in the land that I am from, the beasts and worms are growing restless. It is a slow change, but it will come swiftly in the end. There is movement in the darkness. The world will be different now."

Cerys put a hand on her belly and looked out to the dark horizon. She thought of the sweet flower winds that carried only the scent of death. She thought of spiders in the Mirkwood and dragons in the Lonely Mountain. She thought of the White City turning as black as coal, its women dressed in mourning clothes and the blood of its sons soaking into the grass of a thousand battlefields. What sort of times would her child live in? Would her baby be as the stranger, and never see a garden?

"I suppose I should try to think up a name for myself." The stranger decided.

"Yes," Cerys answered distantly, "I'm beginning to think that the baby will be named before you are."

"Impossible."

"I already have an idea of what I'm going to call her." She told him, pulling herself away from unhappy thoughts, "I think I like Gilraen. Wandering Star. I want to give her a nice Sindarin name. My grandmother was from Rohan and I was named for her, but I was always jealous of the other girls with their pretty Elven names with pretty meanings."

The stranger looked down his nose at her belly, as was his habit when he was thinking about life growing in there and turning into a person.

"How do you know it's a girl?"

"I just know," Cerys shrugged, throwing the last of the potatoes in the pot, "A girl to be born in the city of kings, beneath the branches of the white tree."

"I don't like Gilraen," he said imperiously. "I prefer Ivorwen, if it must be Sindarin."

"What's that one mean?"

"Maiden." He said.

Cerys smacked him in the arm.

"It's bad enough you're calling me 'woman' day and night, you won't be calling the baby 'girl'. Not that you have any say in the matter."

She was dreaming of a soldier made of mist, singing the song that she liked to hum. He sang every word, with a strange old-fashioned accent. He was a peaceful figure, but terribly sad. All at once, he stopped singing and drew his sword.

Cerys snapped awake and sat up. There was a snarling growl, then a flash of red fire and a whimpering cry. As she came to her senses, she realized that the camp was surrounded by a pack of golden eyed wolves, larger than any wolves she'd seen before. They were stalking quickly, trying to close in on the cart.

The horse reared in fear, once and then again, dropping his front legs with such force that the cart shook beneath Cerys.

A wolf broke from the circle and leapt towards her. Everything was happening all at once. There was another flash of fire, and that was when she noticed that the stranger was on his feet, brandishing one of the burning logs from the campfire. He cracked it against the wolf's skull, and the animal fell to the ground in agony.

Gathering her wits, she pulled the crossbow out of its box and began to load it.

The stranger swung at another wolf, catching its pelt with the flame. Three of them were dead, or too wounded to keep attacking, and only four were left. One of them got close to the cart, snarling and baring its blood-stained teeth.

Cerys pulled the trigger and the bolt went straight into its neck. She stood up and began firing on the others.

The stranger saw her, dropped his torch, and jumped into the driver's seat. He snapped the reins and shouted for the horse to run. When the cart started to move, it was so quick that Cerys almost fell backwards. But she kept her footing and fired at the wolves giving chase.

Another of them crumpled to the ground.

It seemed to make the others think twice. They stopped, and howled as the cart moved on towards the west.

Cerys put the crossbow down and tried not to throw up.

A/N: Thanks, as usual, to the lovely AliceNotInWL for her help. And thanks to you for reading!