From The Inside

28

Reaching slowly up, Ylva frowned, there were fruits growing on the trees, so far they hadn't quite moved fully into Mirkwood, so there wasn't a chance of this food being tainted. The only problem was she couldn't quite reach. Seemingly sensing her struggle, Beorn moved away from looking to the sky to watching her. He sighed and moved away to her slowly, she had a rather determined expression on her face, every so often her tongue would poke out from her lips in concentration. Eventually she pointed a finger at the fruit and moved to the trunk of the tree.

Rolling his eyes, he easily plucked the fruit from the branch. Ylva looked at him and his rather smug expression while she moved away. She no longer needed to climb the tree seems he held what she was aiming to get. "All right, all right, not all of us can be as tall as you!" She laughed while he gave her the fruit. Having a hand placed just above her head, she looked up at him with a frown. "What? What is it?"

"You're about three heads shorter than me. You are tall enough." Beorn said while looking down at her. Ylva just pouted and bit into the fruit, she seemed to ponder over this. He rolled his eyes and started to walk away, they had travelled for a few hours before stopping for the moment. Beorn shook his head when he could hear grumbling from Ylva. "What?" He asked while she appeared by his side.

"You are the only person to say that. My brothers, even my father, used to always tease me. I was the smallest in my family, you see." She confessed quietly while holding out the half of the fruit she had left for him.

"Were you the youngest?" Beorn asked curiously. In truth, despite all that they had gone through together, not once had they spoken about their families, not as such. He was aware of her brothers, she had mentioned them before. But other than that, her past was a mystery, but then so was his to her.

Ylva frowned then and looked to the ground. She seemed awkward then, like whatever she was about to say she didn't exactly wish to. Tilting her head to the side, she looked hesitantly up at him. "I was the runt." She said stoically.

Beorn stopped walking then and looked at her seriously. She was lucky, usually the smallest, the runt, of any litter did not last. He had known many to perish because they simply were not strong enough to survive and compete with their larger siblings. "How-"

"Did I manage to be the lone survivor of my kin?" Ylva finished off for him and shook her head. "My mother once said to me, that I could be whatever I wished. Of course, this was within reason; my brothers always left me behind, teased me, bullied me, the usual sibling things. So, I once said to my mother that I wished to be a boy. Then I would not be left behind, I would not be ignored. My brothers would not hate me, because I honestly thought they did." Ylva said while looking up at him.

"My mother didn't wish for my wish. I was her only daughter, and she loved me for it. Not to say she didn't love my brothers, she loved us all. But I was special to her, and to my father. She said I could be whatever I wished, all I wished to be truly, honestly, was to be as strong as my brothers. So, she said I could do it and I did. Though small, and I was terribly small, as we all once were, I shot up in size and strength by training on my own. My father caught onto what I was doing, where I snuck off to on my own, and he though...concerned, he was proud. At least I think he was." Ylva narrowed her eyes.

"My father was a strong man, determined, brave and fearless...you would have liked him, well, I'm not sure about that, our kin never crossed paths before all that had happened, happened." Ylva said measuredly. "It was one of your kin who killed him. Then my mother, then my brothers. My only lone surviving brother I had to kill myself, other family members I presume were either killed by your kin or by the wargs or the orcs." Ylva said while rolling her hand in the air. "That's how I became the lone survivor. If I hadn't wished to be so like my brothers when I was younger, then I would surely be dead. I would not know you, we would not be here." She smiled, there was no malice in what she spoke of. She held no grudges against him, or his kin. What happened could not be changed. Nothing either of them could do could have changed what happened to their families.