[Amanaduial the archer]

Flori glanced at Mali and nodded, smiling slightly, and they continued walking in a sort of companionable silence. The other dwarves chattered, argued (a most well thought-of dwarven past-time), or simply walked in silence, occasional bursts of song and impromptu poetry joining the group every so often.

Presently, a debate about a certain cloud formation broke out, and certain theories floated to Flori's ears. "It's a snake!"
"No, a hearth!"
"Don't be daft, any fool can see it is quite clearly a river!"
"A river? How is it a river? It is quite clearly an elf - see, there are the eyes, and the side of the face, the neck - why, you can even see the pointed ears!"
"Since when did you become an expert on elves? And when did you ever see an elf with a nose that blobby, or for that matter, one that can fly, hmm?!"

Flori grinned to himself, exchanging a glance with Mali before craning his own neck back to squint up at the 'elf'. Personally he couldn't see it but...he snapped his fingers as he realised what had been praying on his mind, startling Mali who looked at him, puzzled.

"Excuse me one moment - yonder cloud made me remember something." Mali nodded and Flori manoevured himself through the singing, talking, sausage-eating dwarves until he had reached Balin himself, striding away at the head of the group and humming to himself cheerily. As he saw Flori he beamed widely. "Ah, doesn't it do you good, Flori, to be on the path to reclaim at last what is rightfully ours?"

Flori smiled briefly, walking fast to keep up with his eager friend's robust stride. "It does, Balin, it does - but...the path is what I came to talk to you about. It won't be long until we reach the borders of the elven forest. We will be going around it, will we not?"

Balin's smile broadened even wider and he seemed to think about something before nodding to himself. "Go around it, Flori?"

Warning bells started to ring in the back of Flori's mind as he recognised his Balin's mood and noted the worrying glint in his friend's eye. They hadn't really worked out the route properly beforehand - Balin had always waved away their concerns, declaring he had it all planned out. "Aye, Balin - it would be wiser to go around it, surely-"

"And why is that, friend?"

Balin's voice was still cheery but it had a slightly dangerous edge to it. Flori hesitated, then decided he had to bring the issue up - surely Balin had noticed... "Balin, you do remember your last visit to the forest, don't you?" he said gently. Balin rounded on him immediately.

"My imprisonment, you mean? At the hands of those filthy elves?" Flori didn't say anything and Balin kept on. "Oh, Flori - that was the fault of those vile spiders, nothing more, and we won't be going near them now, will we? My young friend, surely you are not afraid of the elves? Why, it would be positive cowardice to go around Mirkwood."

"I fear it would be provoking trouble-"

"Why?" Balin snapped, his jovial tone vanishing, and several of the dwarves looked up. "What have we to fear from them, hmm?"