Serena stood there then just turned and walked out the back door, shutting it behind her. Bane sighed and said "if I had known what weighed on her heart...I would have spoken sooner" Bilbo looked at Bane and asked "why does she blame herself like this?" Bane leaned against the table and said "my village was wiped out in a night by the creatures we hunt. Serena has been tracking them but lost them the day before. She found them again right as they attacked the village and she got there just when I was bitten. She was able to save me and the few villagers left...but only a handful. She has blamed herself for not saving my home...and then I learned how she first met those things. She once lived outside a small village in the mountains. She watched ovrt it but the one day she hadn't been there, the village was wiped out in a night. She came back to the village in flames and the people who she cares for dearly were gone. She has been on the road since, trying to repent of what she thinks was her doing for not stopping them when they were small." 

Bilbo listened quietly then he looked at Thorin. "I hate to say this and forgive me if I'm wrong...but it's a lot like what happened to your home and Dale is it not?" Gandalf nodded and said "she is a lost soul in the dark who can't find her way out in her grief...I think of all people, you all can understand that pain" bane looked at Thorin and said "I know she didn't mean to add risk to your mission...and I'm sorry for all of the trouble we have caused you..."

Serena sat just outside the door, looking at her hands as she tried to rewrap her wound but her hands were shaking so badly she couldn't do it right.