Even though the Elves of Mirkwood do trade in Lake-town, a lot of their trade happens without them visiting. They float goods down the river on barrels just so they can avoid having to come in their own selves. But once in a while they got to, to secure prices, to make arrangements for deliveries, and the like. As the weather started to turn bitter cold, and that narrow, uneven garret I were sleeping in was getting to be not warm enough to get through the nights, and I were counting the months I'd been in this town I figured to be in for only a couple weeks, I had been working the docks long enough to know more than a few folks, and be known by some. So I managed to get a chance to meet this one Elf what came in for arranging trade, but he didn't show any interest in talking to me, and dismissed me without even hearing me.
But I didn't let it go at that. I'd been carrying cargo for months now. I'd heard more than a few things about goods and when they were expected, things that a trader could profit from knowing. In this Elf's case, things a trader could not only make a profit knowing, things that could spare him a trip into the town he so disliked having to visit. The business with the Dwarf and the waggons made me realize how things are done in Lake-town, so I offered these secrets in exchange for a chance to talk. The Elf haggled with me and finally we came to an agreement: my information for a brief talk with one of the Elf-scouts -- he said he didn't think he'd have the information I needed, but I think it's as much that he didn't want to have to talk to me any more than I had to.
That night, by the light of the ice-cold moon, I met this Elf-scout under the eaves of the forest. I never learned her name. She told me as she served as a scout to Thrandruil, the King of the Woodland Realm of Mirkwood, and watched the paths and ways of the woods. "We see everyone who crosses our lands, though they do not oft see us," she told me. I must have seemed doubtful, because then she told me that she'd watched my passage a year earlier, and recounted to me of one night when I set up camp by a large stone near a spring, and how she'd saved my life that night, and many others.
I got to admit much of what she said I didn't really understand. I struggle with the words most Men speak, and Elves all the more so, and her the most of all, as she seemed always to have her thoughts in another place and another time, jumping from one to another without warning. But she told me that she remembered the days when Eorl's riders fought the Balchoth, though it was far from her lands and of no interest to her or her people. She had watched the paths of Mirkwood since long before that, and she was sure that no large group of the men of Eorl had crossed the forest during the last five hundreds of years, nor had any Man crossed carrying a lantern like I described.
She then told me that if I was to return across the woods I must do so at once, as the way would not remain safe for long. She promised if I did, my crossing would be without peril. She would not say what the danger was, nor if it was one that would persist. Any other questions I had were lost as she vanished like smoke on the breeze back into the forest.
The next morning I gathered my possessions and set out along the forest path, leaving the Dale-lands behind me. What cause was there to delay, even if not for her warning? There were no more places to search this side of the Mirkwood -- indeed, this side of the Misty Mountains. As I crossed the forest, I would at times find a basket of food or a pitcher of clean water, which was most welcome as I hadn't had a chance to gather provisions before I left. The way was peaceful and I made good time.
Winter had seized the lands well afore I reached Woodland Hall. While I'd crossed, I'd thunk about what to do next, and concluded I would have to search the other side of the mountains, into the ruins of Arnor what I had learned of from the librarian in Dale. There were no other directions left to search. But it were far too late to cross the High Pass, as it was full snowed in, and I had no provisions set aside for the journey. I would have to stay the winter at Woodland Hall again, and use the winter to stock supplies for the crossing.
I did wonder if the Woodmen might find it suspicious that I came to stay another winter, after I'd spent the last with them, showing an unseemly amount of notice for their chieftain, Far-Scout. I had long since gotten past my boyhood crush on her, and when I came to the hall, I learned that during the summer she had taken a wife. Maybe that's part of why they made welcome, or maybe they just remembered I worked hard.
The months crept by slowly, and I did not know whether to dare to hope that the lantern would be found over the mountains. I had ruled out every other direction, but each new possibility I searched seem less likely than the previous. Surely the lantern must have simply been lost, buried under fallen walls, washed away in the Great River, buried in some forgotten elder's tomb, crushed under stones, or left behind in a cellar. But even if I didn't find it, I'd be able to tell the Thane I'd looked everywhere, and that's the more important part of duty: to do the best you can.
