IMPORTANT NOTE:

This story was inspired by a wonderful piece of literature by BrambleWillow called 'Circle Of Life'. I think the story really captured the essence of creative writing and I really hope you'll go and check the story out, it's quite deep.

WARNING: This story contains spoilers for the end of the book. Don't read this if you haven't read the Hobbit yet

Thanks and enjoy,

Ellie x

-XXX-

I peered down excitedly at the worn old book in my hands. I must have read it at least a hundred times already, if not more. I sighed contentedly as I opened up the first page and began to read.

It had always been a favourite childhood story of mine and I could lose myself in it for hours, tracing the words with my finger like a delighted 5 year old.

"Sophia!" my mother called from downstairs and I sighed and pulled my hair behind my ears to look up.

"What?" I called "This had better be important!"

I got up and carefully put the book down on my bed. I stood at the top of the stairs to see the front door opening.

I had entirely forgotten the arrival of my little cousins until this point. Now, don't get me wrong, I love them more than anything in the world but they always found a way to annoy me. I'd agreed to babysit them every Saturday night and, in return, my aunt would give me £20. A deal I was quite happy with. So after my aunt had said goodbye to them and left for a night out with my mum I had cooked dinner, served ice cream and ushered them to bed quickly.

Now you're probably thinking that's impossible. Little Janey is only 4 and Harry was 7 and at that age, no child wants to get into bed. But I had a secret weapon. The Hobbit.

I read them 2 chapters every weekend and they'd force their eyes open, not willing to miss even a tiny little bit of the story if they fell asleep. And if one did accidentally doze off, the other would quickly command me to stop reading and try to wake the other up with a well-placed kick or a tug of hair.

This week I had just reached one of the ending chapters; my favourite one, actually, entitled 'The Clouds Burst'

When I read them the title Harry frowned at me

"Does that mean that there's going to be rain?" he asked

"Or a storm?" Janey whispered, bunching the blankets around her face in fear "I don't like storms…"

I giggled a little bit "No, sillies. Let's get onto the end of the book. Don't you want to see what happens to the characters?"

Until that point I hadn't considered that this book probably wasn't suitable for soft eyed children who were still in the age of fairies and pixies. The sheer horror of their faces when they found out about the fate of Thorin…and Fili and Kili would be horrific. They were too young to understand death and if it were to happen in their favourite book it would probably upset them greatly.

"Actually…" I stammered "Why don't we read something else?"

The two children shook their head and Harry looked at me impatiently so I kept my panic internal and carried on reading

"The next day" I began "The trumpets rang early in the camp. Soon, a single runner was seen hurrying along the narrow path…"

I carried on reading to them, trying to swap words that had anything to do with death with other words but it became difficult

"So began a battle that no one expected. And it was called the battle of five…ermm…hats!" I squeaked

Janey looked at me "Hats?" she asked "Why hats?"

I thought quickly "Yes…ermm, why hats? Well, because Bofur, you remember him right? Well, he needed a new hat but he couldn't choose between 5 of them"

"What colours were the hats?" Harry asked, suddenly quite interested

"Well" I began "There was a purple one, a red one, a green one, a blue one and a pink one!"

"Pink!" cried Janey, clapping her hands in delight "Make him wear the pink one!"

"Okay…" I smiled "Well, in the end he did pick the pink one. He wore it proudly"

The two children looked delighted at their input into the story and grinned wildly as I continued

"So, anyway, on the way back to his house Bofur's hat blew off" I tried not the laugh as the children gave nervous gasps "But luckily, Fili and Kili were there"

Harry gave a gap-toothed grin "I like those two…"

I smiled "And since they were the strongest and the fastest, they chased Bofur's hat. They chased it for 5 whole hours before they eventually caught it. They took it back to Bofur and for a while everything was good until…"

I stopped reading as a loud rattling cut me off. The children screamed and huddled together as I looked around the room, putting the book down on the chest of drawers

"Harry?" I asked, looking at the frightened little boy "You didn't put another frog in a box again did you?"

He gave a frightened shake of his head and yelped as the rattling started again. It was coming from above us, in the attic.

I gave a sigh. A pigeon had probably got stuck in the attic through the wonky tiles again. It seemed to happen every other week. I grabbed a torch out of the drawer and despite telling the children to stay in bed they whimpered and followed me, as I pulled the ladder down from the attic flap.

The rattling got louder as we ascended the stairs and Harry and Janey hung behind me, peering out from between my legs.

I blundered forwards and directed the torchlight at a cardboard box in the corner that had a vast amount of thumping coming from inside it

"Don't worry" I sighed "It's just a poor trapped birdy…"

I jumped backwards as I opened the box and a white light flashed at me, knocking me backwards. In shock, Janey jumped backwards and put her hand on the latch to steady herself. The latch on the attic trap door clicked in again and the door swung down with a loud bang.

I jumped towards the door and tugged at it. We were locked into the attic.

Janey began to cry loudly "I'm sorry" she sobbed but I shushed her. It wasn't her fault.

I turned my attention back to the cardboard box that still had a bright light glowing from it brightly. The light was coming from inside a small wooden chest, about the size of a pencil case. It was intricately designed with tiny silver details and the white light continued to shine from beneath the hinges. It gave another rattle as I reached towards the latch carefully.

I flipped it backwards and withdrew my hand quickly as the white light dimmed.

Inside was a huge gemstone that took in all the light that fell upon it and changed it into ten thousands sparks of white-radiance, shot with glints of the rainbow.

"The arkenstone…" Janey breathed, staring at the beautiful gem

I scoffed at her "That's ridiculous…"

Harry shook his head and reached for it "No, look! It is the arkenstone…"

Before I could stop him, Harry had grabbed the gem in his hands and there was a loud splintering noise as the whole world fell into a white light. Buzzing filled the back of my eyes and I had the worst feeling that something terrible was going to happen.

I couldn't see anything. It was all white, like some ridiculously cheesy film sequence except this was more painful. Every time I tried to push out an arm or leg to steady myself against the feeling of falling a pain would ricochet through my entire body and I'd wince.

My stomach got left far above me as I fell for what felt like whole minutes, my body flipping over until I hit something. Hard.

It was solid earth. Cold, hard, muddy solid earth. I didn't even know where I was but my body had already set into panic mode as I heard screaming and yells from off to my right somewhere.

I tried to drown the dizziness inside my head and sat upright, spots waltzing in front of my eyes.

I stood up and looked out over the landscape in front of me.

I was on a hill. A hill that overlooked one of the most frightening things I had ever seen in my entire life. A battle so huge I couldn't see over to the other side of the fighting. All I could hear was screaming and yelling and the sounds of metal hitting metal and spears piercing flesh.

My own screams were added to the mixture as I saw where Janey and Harry were stumbling down the steep hill ahead of me, right into the path of a huge battle.

It seemed clichéd and even a bit stupid but I knew where I was. I knew exactly where I was and what I was about to witness.

"The Battle of Five Armies" I breathed before setting off down the hill at a run, stumbling over dust and mud and half running, half falling down the rocky hill-side

There was a loud cry behind me but I couldn't quite tell where it was from. I, however, knew who had said it, even if I couldn't see them

"The eagles are coming! The eagles are coming!"

I looked up to see huge shapes crossing the sun as they flew in formation out of the sky and plucked figures off the ground and into the air, dropping them on rocks or into ravines

I closed my mouth that had been hanging open and continued to race down to the base of the hill, falling the last 5 metres to the bottom.

Now, I'll admit that running headlong into a battle wasn't the best thing I could've done. But at the current moment in time a 4 year old and a 7 year old were wandering around amongst swords and orcs whilst under my protection. So I ran into the battle anyway.

It was horrific; I still get anxious thinking about it now. But within a few moments I already had an orc swinging a cleaver at me, trying to separate my head from my body.

I fall backwards and crawled back on my elbows gasping as the horrible thing swung its weapon and narrowly missed my nose.

I winced as something heavy smashed into its skull and the creature gave a horrific squeal as it died.

"What are you doing?" asked a dwarf in front of me and I stared at the tattoos on his arms

"Dwalin?" I asked and squinted at him. This couldn't be happening

"We've never met, elf" he spat

I shook my head "Oh, no… I'm not an…"

"Arm yourself!" he cut in and tossed me an axe covered in black goo that appeared to be orc blood.

Before I could turn back to him to ask for help he had already sprinted off, taking down two goblins and a warg on his way.

Now, I'm fairly rational. I like to think things through and approach them carefully. That's what I had originally decided to do. On the other hand, I was surrounded by death in a made up world with no clue what I should do. I was also holding a weapon.

So I swung it. Surprisingly it was much easier to reach Harry and Janey when anything that stood in my way got smashed down. With every Orc that got near me and every one that I killed I got angrier

"Get the fuck out of my way!" I screamed, flinching slightly as a cleaver narrowly missed my throat. Instead of running onwards I turned back on my heel bashed the Orc over the head and turned back onto my original path.

I could see Harry and Janey; they had pulled themselves onto a ledge overlooking the battle and they were together. They were safe.

But now I had to figure out how to get myself out of this mess.

I continued doing what I had been doing for the previous half of the battle. But it got harder when I realised that my motivation had disappeared. Now the kids were safe, I didn't have a reason to fight so viciously. Except to hold onto my own life.

Before I could reach the edge of the battle there was a surprisingly loud screech. It was animal-like but the sound went beyond desperate. It was a need and something I'd never heard before in my life

"Kili!"

I turned around. There was a blonde stood in the middle of it all, wielding a sword and fighting with the most pleading expression on his face I had ever seen.

Behind him was another man. With the wounded expression on his face he looked more like a lost boy. His leg was bleeding and he could barely limp away.

The scenario in front of me was obvious. The dark haired boy had been wounded badly. Unable to fight for himself, a friend had come to save him. The look on the Orcs face said that as soon as he had killed the blonde, the other boy would be cut down too.

I ran towards them and swung the axe into the orcs shoulder blade, just missing his throat. It gave a screech and looked at me as a lion would look at a deer.

But I didn't even flinch. The thoughts going through my head right now were insane. But I wandered if these two boys were Harry and Janey, I'd want somebody to save them too, wouldn't I?

Before the horrible thing could lift up its weapon, I leapt up, swung my axe and brought it slicing through the orcs throat. Its head dropped to the floor and rolled a metre before staying face down in the mud.

I breathed hard, watching as the battle around me started to die down

The boys in front of me were silent for a moment before the dark haired boy gave a desperate sort of laugh and leant his hand on his brother's shoulder. They both grinned at one another and turned to me

"Fili…" said one

"And Kili…." The brunette added

"At your service!" They both said at the same time and bowed before running off to cut down another orc.

Before I could count the seconds, the battle was over and many bodies lay on the battlefield.

I caught hold of Harry and Janey as they ran to join me, closely followed by a dwarf in a hat that I had a suspicious feeling I knew from somewhere…

"Sorry lass" he smiled "But I found these two little 'uns on the battlements. I assumed they were yours?"

"Bofur?" I asked, then quickly shook the thought away "Yes, err, yes they're my cousins"

"Why isn't your hat pink?" Janey asked, her head peeking out from behind me

He frowned before I heard a voice behind me

"And who, master Bofur, is this?"

I spun around to meet eye to eye with a wizard. A grey wizard with bright eyes and a pointy hat

"Gandalf?" I asked, stunned staring at him

"I'm at a disadvantage" the wizard chuckled "You know me but I'm afraid I don't recall you"

"You can't recall me" I stated "I mean, you haven't met me before so you wouldn't remember me"

The wizard nodded, seeming to understand "How, then, do you know me, young lady?"

With Bofur having wandered off and the kids safely at my side I decided to tell him everything

"You're used to odd thing, aren't you mister Gandalf?"