Allissa

We learned the shape of our only compass on the first day north, and it was a crueler instrument than any of us had imagined.

Thorin could feel direction the way I feel which way is down. Asked to point, he pointed, instantly, from any height, through cloud, in the dark, his arm swinging to the same bearing every time like iron finding a lodestone. Distance came vaguer. “Far,” he would say, frustrated, hunting for words a bond does not come with. “Not close-far. Mountain-far. ...