A/N: Disclaimed - only the original character is mine, the world, characters and most of the plot is Tolkien's and whoever else legally owns it (not me). This is an AU of the Hobbit, with an original character (personally do not go by the 'own character' thing going around - but alas).

Triggers/Warnings: (You can skip this of course if you have none)
Mention of violence and blood/gore this chapter.

Also – had a mishap when uploading this, html everywhere (thank you Qoheleth!). Nightmare.
-08/12/17

The Power of Friendship
"The strongest actions for a women is to love herself, be herself and shine amongst those who never believed she could." - Author unknown

"All that talk about the power of friendship," the antagonist murmured, as they circled the protagonist. "And it never even occurred to you that perhaps your enemies might have friends too, did it? How arrogant a thing, you are…"

And the forest child was sent away.

Green eyes cease their flitting around - their proprietor's head snaps towards the noises: dogs or...her head tilts slightly, considering. Wild dogs, surely. A pack! Hunting. And coming this way.

A blink.

- And then she's rolled in the ground, thrown herself and just as quickly loped to her feet, bounding towards the fringe of the new-old-forest. Snapping, snarling and the shouting let her know all she needs to know: men are being hunted (stupid?).

She jumps a particularly large uneven, upturned rocky cropping, lands on hands and feet, springboards forwards, propelled, and then slows to a slow prowl and crouch, watching.

There are many men standing, running, dropping things and generally making a loud noisy mess coming towards her. They clearly lack all sense: they should be quiet, for one, and another - they've stopped. In the middle of the clearing. What even? The bemusement worsens. There's a brief pause.

Looking quietly to the sky in askance, she decides to give thanks to the Gods by saving some of the resident one's own children. Just this once. Animated once more, she hitches the partially processed herd animal over a shoulder and carefully secures it up the nearest high tree, climbing after it.

High enough, she looks at the scene again; quickly, quickly, she leaps to the next tree, and then, arms and legs finding the natural grooves and knots, makes her way along the treeline, around towards the closest one. They are all senseless: they have their backs to the forest. Which would be fine, if they were of any sort of people to belong to it. But clearly not. The stupid disregard irks her, pausing in a ready crouch, still unnoticed (they are like children) she brings her right hand up to her face for examination. The trees...her mouth frowns and eyebrows dent - but no time for that, her eyes snap back to the present.

(One literally runs into another who has tripped. And trips over him. They both are still scrabbling.)

However:

They are surrounded.

Now, she moves.

(And she doesn't know it - but she's watched. This usually wouldn't be the case, but as she would soon find, this forest was not her own and this did matter in this place...it was also sick, clouding some of her senses lest she cut herself off from the surroundings.)

"Aay-ah!" The sharp sound slices through their noise. The wild dogs raise their heads from their hunting prowls, ears perked up, noses and eyes towards her. There are loud exclamations. Clicking her tongue, she continues. She whistle-shriek calls again; and sinks her hand, into the blood and viscera of the food, her kill. She drops some blood to the ground in front of her. Some spills down the tree. (It absorbs the blood.) And holds out some organs.

The wild dogs are still dogs - they break rank, but slowly. One moves forward from the frozen front they've made, from the pack, the pack Lead or close, and is riderless. It sniffs, coming closer. When some of the loud-men telegraph they're about to shout or speak (and what does it matter, they're still loud, so surely it is the same?) she sends them a look to quiet. Slowly, she climbs down the tree boughs, still in the tree but no longer the canopy, arm outstretched. She gently beckons, clicking. The riders seem to have broken their stupor - and some start to scuffle, shouting, shrieking, making a din in some tongue to their unresponsive wild-dogs - but as it's happening, she's so close, it's too late –

Hesitatingly/Hesitantly, and half-snarling, until she goes absolutely still and keeps watch with look-but-not-look (focusing out), she turns her hand so the meat is offered. The dog suddenly half-lunges and grabbing the meat, pelts off several feet back towards her pack. But she's still closer than her packmates. It was good meat - an organ: the liver. Immediately, her closest pack are investigating, and she snarls back, protecting her food - against her pack. She frowns, this is too much, will not do.

Clicking her tongue, calling, the other two closest - who had vied for the food, cease their anger, snarls frozen on their faces before they approach. The riders are angry now, throughout the pack and one of the approaching wild-dogs has one, and snaps at it's Rider, growling. The rider falls off with a grunt, scared and angry. She quickly takes out a chunk of meat, tearing out another for the other wild-dog: they are both big, but probably middling in the pack - so they get part of an organ and good meat parts each.

She's gotten them fed a piece, they three wild-dogs, who are lying down to eat, when the pack goes into a rage, biting, snarling, growling, whining, whimpering, rolling - at each other and their riders, if they had any still on them or at all, to begin with. A rider had hit his partner and angered it had bitten him. One of the second wild-dogs ignores this and comes back to her, sniffing, for more - she gives another piece of organ - lung, or kidney. And is sure to eat some organ herself, smearing some blood over her jaw and mouth, to show she's one of them, now, too.

Then...

Silently she shoots arrows at the riders, luckily there are only a few - and the rest, some that are off their mounts, she lets run. The men wisely leave them too, still half-crouched and huddled together. One assists her quickly enough, so not too dumb then. One or two of the wolf-dogs leave with them: one that was small, scarred and beaten down - and the pack alpha, or leader of this regiment (if they were true alpha the others would follow, surely), the strongest physically. A white one. They go.

She glances at the loud-men, they are huddled still, but defensively, and she dismisses them quickly for now: none are hurt, it seems.

The wild-dogs shake off, calm down now the riders are gone, and the rest of the pack approaches. She's crept down quietly, confident, and stroked along the three who have eaten, sitting with them and the kill in front of her. The pack approaches, quieter, curious, but hungry. She must keep calm and vigilant.

Calling, she offers some meat to the closer ones, and four suddenly approach to the meat. She offers, calling out louder but without anger when they get boisterous -to get them to slow and behave- and the she-wolf she'd first fed, with her two sides, both raise their heads at the bad behaviour until the others calm down. Once only, one is too hungry and energetic so is aggressive, and the she-wolf snarls to stop it. It whimpers back and calms under her steady push to lie down on its belly.

Then she feeds them. They are quite cute. It takes a while to do and she is always careful. Though it is a messy affair, they are worth it and something warm settles in her stomach as a member of the pack, leans against her, resting settles. Others are settling too.

They are ignoring the loud-men, mostly. Some still are cleaning, she accepts one to her hand. There is no playing - yet, she promises herself. There will be.

Then and only then, does she show attention to the loud-men. She looks over at them and tilts her head in question.

POV change –

Bloody muzzles lick furred scarred faces and paws and claws, some awake, some asleep/dosing. But that could change any minute now. The Company shares a tense uneasy silence as they watch the girl or woman of Man (maybe - who knows) singlehandedly feed the wild vicious Wargs like stray puppies! And then sit in the middle of them! As if they weren't starving, angry tooth-and-claw killing monsters!

Green eyes peer at them over the hulking shoulder of one such WARG- no, sorry, brain stop shouting they're sleeping (mostly) - Oh Valar, preserve them. Green eyes can barely peer over the shoulder. There's a face somewhere under that blood and dirt, Bilbo thought faintly. The eyes aren't angry or scared for being in the midst of Wargs. As if she's one of them.

And the Wargs - they're so -still - it's easier to see them now. They're... thin, though. Bilbo thinks. They have...rather emaciated forms, for such large animals. "Why are they so thin?" the question, whispered, echoes his thoughts exactl- oh, wait. Did he say that? Out loud? When the rest of the Company looks at him varyingly, Bilbo takes that as a resounding yes. Ah, then.

"They were not taking care of them." The voice speaks. The person - she! It, no, she was a she - can speak!

"Maybe she's not a crazy wild-person" Bofur, he must have muttered that, humorous all the same when possible that one.

The voice- the –

"And what do we call you, stranger?" Kili speaks up. Others are quick - and quiet at the second reprimanding glare sent their way from her, to agree and second this. She gets up, slowly.
At the collective shuffle, sword/axe/blade raise response that garners, she slowly shows her hands -one still very bloody- which are empty and by her sides palms facing them and raises an eyebrow in question.

There's a grudging silence and intense suspicious stares towards her. Oh Valar above; it's not like she saved us or anything" - again - oh, again, bebother it! Bilbo spoke out sarcastically. Gasping - well, half-choking it back, really, his hands fly to his mouth, as if covering it will hush the sound. The silence persists. The girl stays frozen, though now looks strangely amused, like she's confused but paying way too much attention. Hands lowering Bilbo shrugs, sheepish.

"Well, it's true" Fili this time points out. Like an invisible signal, they all gather to convene: Balin, Gloin, Fili, Kili and Thorin, muttering quickly and then, just as quickly, break circle. Attention is on the stranger. At a nod from Thorin, Dwalin stands back from his guarding position (a little, so it's less obvious - but Bilbo did not know that. Dwalin is always guarding Thorin and sister-sons), with the others: Ori, Dori, Bifur, Bombur and Oin, stumbling a little in their haste to comply and follow Dwalin. Nori just stays at attention, hands ready at his sides, watching.

"And you may approach, stranger." Thorin graciously allows; though he looks suspicious still.

"Though we have yet to learn your name," Balin adds, as she approaches, walking carefully around the pack, pausing when they wake to stare and stoke them to rest before continuing, "which is not altogether a lot to ask for." He says in his mild-mannered, friendly voice, though there's a little reproach there.

At this, she looks up, from stroking an over-eager (in comparison) ...packmate, Bilbo supposes with something like awe and a little terror and the horror he felt when they met her. He gulps. What kind of a person is packmates with a Warg?

And answers briefly, with no consequence, before giving a final gentle stroke along a whiskered cheek and around an ear, "Nayarani".

Bilbo hums a little. There's a strange accent to the name, gone suddenly when she speaks - from when she spoke before, that is.

She walks to the distance between them and crouches there in no-mans-land. Before Thorin can surreptitiously grab them, thankfully without the usual shout and dodging around Dwalin, Fili and Kili rush forwards to join her, slowing quite suddenly at a small distance away from her, before slow-walking and sitting. It would have been hilarious if it weren't so foolish of them! Fool boys!

With a sigh, she sits. Her shoulders relax. Strange, he hadn't noticed it until now, how tense she was with them. Looking quickly around, Bilbo is surprised to realise he's not the only one to miss this. Looking back now, oddly relieved a bit, Bilbo notes - she's black of hair, long and unruly, but half-tied, pale under tan skin, despite her fierce appearance - though she's bloody and muddy, she is also nervous.

Or not so foolish, after all, Bilbo thinks fondly.

And in the mind of the forest child, in this new place, all she can think is:
The trees...they are rotting. The forest, It smells sick.