The Lion, the Dwarves and the Hobbit
Summary:
Running is what she does. She hides, avoids, and lies. It's her nature. But she hates it and it's brought her nothing but trouble. Which is probably why when Gandalf tracks her down and asks for her her expertise she says yes even though she knows it will be difficult and dangerous. But can she really, truly start over or is this life just another lie to forget and run from?
(In which a seasoned dimensional traveler wandering in the wilds of the north finds her slightly dubious expertise on dragons in demand, takes on yet another fake name and joins a band of unlikely heroes on their quest to reclaim their long lost homeland.)
Chapter One
Disclaimer: I don't own the Hobbit. I also don't own the elements that my OC is shamelessly borrowing from the asoiaf/GoT series.
The grey wizard, Gandalf, she reminded herself stopped them off to the side of the road, greeting the burly and rather tall dwarf in the middle of it with a casual: "Ah, Dwalin, most convenient of us to run into you."
"Us?" grumbled the dwarf, crossing his arms over his chest and glowering at her with clear and obvious suspicion.
"Us," agreed Gandalf, not at all put out by his unfriendly manner, "I managed to track the rumours of the dragon expert of which I spoke. It would be most helpful if you would take her up to the meeting while I retrieve the others from the Green Dragon."
Taking that as a hint she swung a leg over and slid to the ground, wincing as the motion aggravated some of the stiffness in her hips and knees, she'd ridden with the wizard almost without pause for the better part of a week, coming south from the village of Belgrave and into the Shire proper, and it marked the longest single stretch of riding she'd ever done.
The dwarf favoured her with a glance and then turned to the wizard with a short grunt of assent, "I can do that if there's need but Thorin, my brother, the lads and possibly Óin and Glóin will be arriving separately. They had last minute preparations to make."
"They will have to find their own way then, I must secure more provisions at the inn and I hardly have the time or the inclination to go chasing them around the Shire. In any case I've marked the door with rune and craft both, it should be easy enough to find."
Dwalin offered another grunt, and Gandalf shook his head a bit.
"Careful on your way," he offered before spurring his horse into a trot and taking off down the road.
Once he was around the corner the dwarf turned back to her and gave her a more searching look. She felt a distinct well of panic in the centre of her gut, but she reminded herself that she was turning over a new leaf. Meeting new people was something that everyone else managed all the time and there was no reason to fear a friend of the grey wizard's. So, she clasped her arms behind her back to hide the shaking of her hands and offered Dwalin a small smile.
She got an unimpressed little grunt for her trouble.
"Dragon expert are you?" he said, shaking his head, "I won't pretend to know what that old meddler is thinking, but it isn't wise to interfere with the will of a wizard, or so it's said. I am Dwalin, at your service."
He offered his name grudgingly and favoured her with a shallow bow and she was suddenly glad that Gandalf had thought to have a few words with her about what constituted politeness among dwarves.
"R-ros Lannister, at yours and your family's," she replied with a bow of her own, cursing herself for stuttering.
She didn't want to give Dwalin the impression that she couldn't handle herself or that she was afraid of him, even though both of those things were at least a little bit true, so she offered another carefully practiced smile and indicated the road with a jerk of her head.
"Shall we?"
Dwalin shook his head and moved passed her with another grunt and Ros sighed to herself.
"Oh yeah, this'll be loads of fun."
The roads of the Shire was well-worn and well maintained, lined by trees and lawns, farms and houses with little fences painted white and green and yellow and occasionally adorned with more delicate paintings of vines and flowers.
Ros took some comfort in the fact that Dwalin seemed just as disdainful of them as he was of her. Not that she was all that impressive, for all that Gandalf had introduced her as a dragon expert. Not to a dwarf like Dwalin.
He was a very clearly a warrior, through and through, from the faded tattoos on the crown of his bare head to the pair of heavy and geometrically ornate battle axes he had strapped to his back. His armour was broken in boiled leather lorica under his travel-stained cloak and his arms bulged with muscle. Paired with his overall growly and disapproving demeanour he cut both an impressive and intimidating figure and he made Ros feel small despite the fact that she was at least half a head taller than him.
As the sun continued to set and true night fell they had to stop and ask for directions from a hobbit matron with a wary expression who was selecting a few choice items from her kitchen garden when they passed by and was openly staring by the time they got their directions up to Bag End. She sent them off with a warning not to go dragging Mister Bilbo into anything troublesome, saying that he had quite settled down from his youth and was a proper, respectable Baggins nowadays.
"That doesn't really sound promising does it," Ros muttered, more to herself than anything, frowning at the darkening lane.
"No, it doesn't," agreed Dwalin with a grunt of displeasure.
Ros started, those being the only words her erstwhile walking companion had spoken to her in the better part of an hour.
"Gandalf mentioned that he was recommending the hobbit to be the company's burglar, that he thought that he had the best chance of sneaking a treasure past Smaug if he was still alive."
"He did say that," agreed Dwalin.
"What will you do if you can't get him to help?" she asked, curious despite herself.
"Don't know that we'll be wanting the kind of help he can offer in any case," grumbled Dwalin, "Never met him but my brother is convinced he's an outright thief and not to be trusted. He hasn't contracted with us yet. And as for the other bit, well, I've been told Nori is joining the company along with his brothers and I know for a fact that that sneak-thief has stealth and skill."
For all that the words were complimentary Dwalin sounded distinctly disapproving of this Nori character as well. Ros wondered briefly if there was anything that Dwalin did approve of.
"No hardship has touched these lands in what seems like living memory," he added as they approached Bag End, the dwarf rune glowing visibly against the forest green paint of the door, "I can't think that anyone who lives here would be of use to us."
And Ros thought that he was probably right, given the givens, but she also knew that Gandalf had tracked her stupidly unlikely butt down through the mire of time, wilderness and a few different names using only the threads of truth in the stories about dragons that she'd been telling to the younglings and in the taprooms for a bit of bread and stew.
Dwalin contemplated the door for a moment, eying the rune and the flowerbeds alike with equal parts incredulity and distrust and then he grunted and turned to her, pining her with a stern and outright menacing glare.
"Now see here, lass," he said, pointing a finger somewhere in the vicinity of her stomach, "I don't know what that wizard is thinking and I don't care, but if you're going to be a part of this company you're not to be using whatever Mannish nonsense passes as manners no matter how bad the hobbit ends up being. There won't be any talk of business until after the meal. You'll hand over your weapons without any trouble. And you'll offer your service same as the rest of us."
"Of course," said Ros, wiping her sweaty palms on the backs of her trousers surreptitiously.
Dwalin gave her another of those searching looks and then nodded, apparently satisfied by whatever he'd observed and reached over to ring the bell.
It was a few moments before the door swung open but when it did it revealed, well, not what Ros had been expecting.
The hobbit was small of course, hardly bigger than a child, with a slight paunch around the middle and a head of sandy colored curls tumbling around the delicate points of his ears. He was clearly not expecting them, whatever Gandalf had convinced the dwarves, if the look on his face was any indicator and even in his shirtsleeves and a patchwork dressing gown with the sash hanging loose he was better put together than she was.
"Dwalin," offered Dwalin, with a bow, "At your service."
"Bilbo Baggins, at yours," said the hobbit automatically, scrambling to tie his robe shut, his brows furrowing in confusion as Dwalin nodded and pushed his way into the house without so much as a by-your-leave.
"Um, d-do we know each other?" he asked.
"No," Dwalin answered shortly, as though he thought Bilbo was being purposefully obtuse, reaching for his axes and setting them to leaning up against the nearest wall.
The hobbit twitched slightly wavering about what he should do so Ros decided to cut in before Dwalin got them both thrown out, because dwarvish manners were clearly not what Bilbo was expecting out of the night.
"Ros Lannister, at your service," she said, offering Bilbo a sympathetic smile, and a bow of her own and padding past him into the foyer.
"Which way, laddie? Is it down here?" demanded Dwalin, apparently getting tripped up by the rounded and organic nature of the hobbit hole, unfastening his cloak from his broad shoulders and tossing it at Bilbo, who caught it automatically.
"Is what down where?" asked Bilbo, blinking in confusion even as he hung Dwalin's overlong coat on his coatrack.
"Supper," Dwalin clarified, "He said there'd be food. And lots of it."
"He said—who said?"
Dwalin ignored the question and strode off down the larger of the three halls without seeming to mind that he was tracking roadside dirt into the lovely little dwelling.
Ros shut the door behind her, since it seemed Bilbo wasn't going to, and unclipped her long knife from her belt and pulled her little knife out of her boot, holding them out to the hobbit hilt first, "Could you put these somewhere out of the way?"
"What, oh, yes, of course, um—"
He dithered for a moment before eventually setting them atop a square wooden chest and Ros hung her jacket up on the coat rack on a peg near the wall to counterbalance the weight of Dwalin's cloak and toed off her mud caked boots.
"What exactly is going on here, if you don't mind my asking, Miss Lannister?"
"Ros'll do," she offered, wondering if she ought to just tell Bilbo that Gandalf was having a bit of fun at his expense and eventually deciding against it since she really didn't want the tables turned on her, "We were invited over for a bit of supper."
"Supper," repeated Bilbo faintly, shaking his head, "Yes but who would—"
Ros talked right over the question, wincing at her own rudeness but completely unwilling to ruin the wizard's fun or let the irritable Dwalin know that Bilbo had no idea why they were there.
"I've actually come directly from Belgrave so you'll have to excuse my appearance, is there somewhere I could wash up a bit?" she asked.
"D-down that hall the last door on the left, help yourself to the linens," offered Bilbo a bit distractedly bustling off with a wary backward glance at her as a loud clatter came from the kitchen area.
Ros made her way down the indicated hall and found a small bathroom with a washbasin and a crude version of indoor plumbing. It wasn't a real bath or shower but it was better than a creek and certainly more than she'd had in days, so without further ado, she stripped out of her clothes and underthings, took what looked to be the oldest towel from the cupboard and the small cake of soap and used both to ruthless effect on the grime and unfortunate smell that had accumulated on the road.
There wasn't much to be done about her clothes, she didn't have much in terms of a spare set—it wasn't practical or prudent with her lifestyle—but she did endeavor to wash her shirt and smallclothes somewhat lacing up her close fitting jerkin over her breast band for decency and wiping at some of the stains on her pants.
Her hair took a bit more effort to get clean and combed and she borrowed Bilbo's scissors to neaten the ragged ends from when she'd last used her knife to hack a hunk off. She scraped it back from her face as best as she could and the mess immediately began to frizz, but there was nothing to be done about that and really this was hardly a situation where it was necessary to cater to her own somewhat battered vanity.
She pulled a face at herself in the wide mirror hanging on the wall and for all that she felt like she should hardly recognize herself after everything, she still looked much the same. Pretty after a fashion with wide doe eyes that remained unlined despite her advancing years and high cheekbones that paired oddly with her small mouth making her smile look like a smirk and close-mouthed indifference like she was begging for kisses.
She pulled her lips away from her teeth and dug into her belt-pouch for the willow-bark brush she'd shredded to keep her teeth—the work of ten thousand dollars, five years and a great deal of orthodontics—in good condition.
Feeling cleaner and more modernized then she'd felt in a good long while Ros cleaned up the bathroom a bit and snuck out the back door to put her wet things on the line, hoping that the cool gusts of early autumn wind would have them more or less dry by morning.
Khuzdul:
Shazara - silence
Du bekar - to arms!
Tharkun - The Dwarf name for Gandalf
AN: Hello and welcome to the story! Before you venture any further there are a few things that I'm sure readers would like to be aware of...
1. This story will tend to rely on the movie aspects or deviate from canon entirely either based on the premise of the story or where I want to add dramatic flair (therefore this is perhaps not a good story for the Tolkien purists among you)
2. Do not be concerned if you don't understand about Ros or her history for the moment as it will be revealed as the story goes on. Some basic facts include the following: yes she is from our Earth, her birth name is not Ros Lannister she picked it from asoiaf/GoT, she has traveled to one other realm besides Earth and Middle Earth.
3. I am not 100% settled on the pairings, so if you have a suggestion feel free to let me know, but I do have a preference in mind already for the main romances (I want to leave it a surprise and let the relationships develop organically but if you absolutely have to know the pairings I'm leaning towards for whatever reason you can feel free to ask in a review or PM)
EDIT (March 28 2015): Nope, sorry, I lied, main pairing has definitely been decided, please enjoy your Fili/Ros~~
4. The story is rated M primarily for graphic descriptions of violence and potentially disturbing topics (for which I will attempt to add chapter specific warnings) but there may be sexual situations farther down the line (which I will also clearly mark out for those who want to avoid them).
5. Lastly, I hope you find that my OC is well-rounded and engaging but if at any point I stray too far into Mary-Sue territory please feel obligated to sound the alarms, light the beacons, and use whatever methods are to your liking to show me the error of my ways.
Well, hopefully that covers everything! I'll try not to be so long-winded in the future. In the meantime though, thanks for taking the time to read! I welcome any and all suggestions, questions, comments, or criticisms :)
