Last Satyr of Middle Earth (Thorin Oakenshield)

Part 11

Afterward, as Iris is busy with the ponies, Gandalf introduces the company to Beorn. The skin changer is tense already as his gaze look over to his ponies. He smells her scent and know she is afraid of him. His bear animal to her deer half.

"That is Iris. She means no harm." Gandalf tries to ease the skin changer to the satyr.

"She is a satyr. She is a female. She couldn't hurt me if she wanted to." The dwarves note the flicker of the female's ear and tense.

"Will you harm her?" Thorin can't help ask. The skin changer turns and stare down at him.

"You love her."

"Aye I do." Thorin confesses eyes falling on the female petting the ponies as they munch on grass.

"She bares me no ill will and neither will i. I will not harm her." The dwarves sigh and they all head inside.

"So, you are the one they call Oakenshield?" Beorn is pouring milk for the company and watch the mice be gently brushed off hands. Thorin leans on a wood post with his arms crossed. "Tell me, why is Azog the Defiler hunting you and your satyr friend?"

"You know of Azog?" the dwarf kind asks looking up from his brooding. His shoulder shoot pangs of pain time to time. "How?"

"My people and even the satyrs were the first to live in the mountains, before the orcs came down from the North. The defiler...killed most of our families, but some he enslaved. The satyr females mostly for pleasure." Eyes turn to what caught the bears gaze. Iris stands with a grim expression. "Not for work, you understand, but for sport. Caging skin changers-torturing them-seemed to amuse them. The defiler got the title from the Satyrs. Azog defiled them in many vile ways."

"Now I wish I shot Azog in the skull and ended this charade once and for all on that cliff. For what he had done for everyone." Iris growls fill the silence of the group and Beorn nods grimly. That is one thing the two will ever see eye to eye is the pain and horror their kin had to undergo under the hands of Azog.

"There are others like you?" Bilbo asks not seeing the pause in the twirling of Iris tail.

"Once there were many," the bear answer quietly.

"And now?" Iris looks away hating the answer already.

"Now there is only one. For both of us." Beorn walks over and she looks at him. He reaches slowly and wipe away a stray tear. "I ask for your name."

"Iris Satyr." She looks at him showing defense.

"Due to being the last, may we end this feud?" Gandalf and everyone turn their eyes to the satyr female. She gulps and she searches deep in Beorn eyes. She sees and feels the pain he has gone through.

"Yes. Let's." Grasp each other forearms, they lean on each other foreheads.

"You need to reach the mountain before the last days of Autumn?" Beorn goes to sit in his chair. Iris walks over to Thorin offering a small smile. He smiles back wraps an arm around her.

"By Durin's day, yes," Gandalf summarized. "Which is why we just go through Mirkwood." Iris ears fall back offended.

"Are you crazy Gandalf? Mirkwood is too dangerous." She knows and smells the dead forest all the way here.

"Iris is right. A darkness lied upon that forest, foul things beneath those trees. There is an alliance between the Orcs and the necromancer of Dol Guldur. I would not venture there unless in great need."

"We will take the elven road; its path is still safe."

"Safe? The Mirkwood elves are not like their kin."

"Yeah. All thanks to the high and mighty stick Thranduil. All because of him losing his wife does he make everyone else lives miserable including his own." Iris growls not liking Thranduil at all. "Elf twit he is."

Thorin chuckle behind a cough but can't keep the prideful smile on his face. Even she hates his guts and Thorin admires that.

"It matters not," Beorn replies. "These lands are crawling with Orcs. Their numbers are growing, and you are on foot. You will never reach the forest alive."

Iris growls warningly at the skin changer not liking his tone. Beorn stands holding a white mouse. "I don't like dwarves. They're greedy and blind. Blind to the lives they deem lesser than their own." Iris steps in front of Thorin protecting him now that they clarified their love. "But Orcs I hate more. What do you need?"

Her shoulders lessen and a smile lift on her face. They rested a bit longer before they get on the borrowed ponies and head off to the elven path.