They stayed in Lothlórien for nearly a month before bidding farewell to Celeborn and Galadriel. Crossing the Anduin, they continued their northward journey.
Traveling north, they visited the Brown Wizard Radagast, who lived in Mirkwood.
After a brief stay, they continued north, crossing the Old Ford and the Old Forest Road until they arrived at Beorn's house.
Beorn warmly welcomed them.
Beorn was now the ruler of the Vales of Anduin. His territory stretched west to the Misty Mountains' foothills, east to Mirkwood's edge, north beyond the Carrock, and south below the Old Forest Road.
He was no longer alone. While chasing orcs in the Misty Mountains, he had rescued a female skin-changer.
They fell in love at first sight and married quickly. Kael had been one of the few attendees at their wedding.
Now, Beorn had a newborn son named Grimbeorn.
Even the stern Beorn showed fatherly affection for this son, his face softening whenever he looked at the boy.
Kael, looking at Grimbeorn, who was sturdier than ordinary children, couldn't help liking him. He gave him an alchemical mithril locket that automatically formed a shield when danger was detected, blocking attacks.
The locket contained a permanently fixed space the size of a house. Only the wearer could open it.
Once depleted, its magic power could slowly recover. Truly a reusable life-saving item.
"This is too precious! I cannot accept!" Upon hearing the locket's function, Beorn recognized its value and hastily declined.
Kael ignored Beorn, directly placing the locket on little Grimbeorn's neck. The locket automatically shrank to the appropriate size, remained comfortable, and automatically recognized its master. Others couldn't remove it even if they tried.
"This is for little Grimbeorn, not for you. Does little Grimbeorn like it?" Kael didn't glance at Beorn, cheerfully teasing Grimbeorn.
Grimbeorn seemed to recognize its value. His small hands tightly grasped the locket as he giggled happily.
Seeing this, Beorn no longer refused. He expressed his gratitude to Kael.
Arwen also loved Grimbeorn, taking out an elven cloak to wrap around him. The cloak provided concealment, making him difficult to detect.
Seeing Arwen's love for children, Kael whispered warmly in her ear through their mental connection. "Look, Beorn already has a son. How about we try for children of our own? We could fill the castle with the sound of little ones playing."
Arwen's cheeks immediately flushed red. She nervously glanced at Beorn's family opposite before remembering Kael was communicating mentally. She uncharacteristically rolled her eyes at him.
Speaking such nonsense in front of others. Wasn't he afraid of embarrassment?
After being enthusiastically hosted by Beorn for three days, Kael and Arwen finally bid farewell to Beorn's family, setting out again.
This time, Kael chose not to continue north but to head west, crossing the Misty Mountains toward Rivendell.
The Misty Mountains were towering and precipitous. Though the High Pass was an important passage between both sides of the mountains, it obviously wasn't suitable for carriage travel.
So this time, Kael chose not to drive slowly on the ground but to fly directly over the Misty Mountains.
The pegasus pulled the flying carriage through the High Pass, encountering storms.
Unluckily, they encountered stone giants playing with rocks.
The carriage flying at high altitude attracted the stone-giants' interest. Massive stone hands parted clouds, reaching for the carriage.
The pegasus nearly lost stable flight from the stone-giants' presence. It made frightened, anxious sounds, desperately trying to escape the stone-giants' clutches.
Facing these mountain-like stone-giants, Kael didn't dare be careless. He directly left the carriage, transforming into Obscurus form*,* and charged at the stone-giant's palm.
The black mist-like Obscurus successfully blocked the giant hand reaching for the carriage, even pushing the hand away. The stone-giant stumbled and fell on the mountain.
After shattering boulders thrown at the carriage, he charged at several stone-giants' heads.
With a boom, under the massive impact force, the stone-giants toppled backward, losing their balance. They crashed heavily into mountain peaks, causing avalanches.
Kael didn't intend to kill these mischievous stone-giants—he only wanted to drive them away.
Part of his Obscurus body rapidly extended into a long whip, lashing the stone-giants with heavy strikes.
The stone-giants roared in pain as countless rocks fell from them.
At first, the stone-giants tried to resist, but after Kael struck them several times, they immediately began dodging and begging for mercy.
After driving the stone-giants several hundred miles to the north, Kael finally stopped, reverting to human form.
After reuniting with Arwen, they continued flying to Rivendell.
Elrond was very happy at Kael and Arwen's arrival. Seeing how happy his daughter looked, he finally felt completely at ease.
This was his daughter's first return after marriage, so Elrond asked them to stay several days.
Kael readily agreed.
Apart from spending time with Arwen, he discussed Middle-earth's situation with Elrond, trained with his brothers-in-law Elladan and Elrohir, or read in the library.
Additionally, Kael made time to create a pair of Two-Way Mirrors.
The principle behind creating the Two-Way Mirror wasn't complex. Simply because the technique had been lost in the magical world did it become precious.
Kael gave one mirror to Elrond, the other to Arwen. This way, no matter how far apart, they could converse anytime.
Elrond was very satisfied with this gift. His reluctance about parting with his daughter was eased.
What dissatisfied Kael about the Two-Way Mirror was that it could only communicate one-on-one. It couldn't allow other mirror owners to join conversations or have one-to-many functionality.
Because of this, Kael thought perhaps he could try improving it. If different Two-Way Mirrors could connect with each other for multi-party communication, even with messaging and interconnection capabilities similar to communication devices from his previous life, that would be an invention capable of changing all of Middle-earth.
With this in mind, Kael brainstormed, explaining his concept to Arwen, Elrond, Elladan, and Elrohir.
Everyone was very interested in this concept for the Two-Way Mirror. After all, Middle-earth's only current long-distance communication tool was the palantír.
But palantíri were extremely precious and limited in number. Only four palantíri were currently known to remain, in the hands of Kael, Gandalf, Gondor's Steward, and Sauron, respectively.
But if everyone had Two-Way Mirrors that could contact others anytime, they could replace palantíri as long-distance communication tools.