I had been sitting there reading when my hands started to tremble. The stacks and stacks of books around me started to spin and the book left my fingers in a rustle of the fabric binding sliding over the ridges of skin that laced the tops and sides of my fingers. I could hear it distinctly hit the ground. It met the old wood with a little bump and a chorus of fresh, crisp paper bending and creasing under the weight and awkward position it now held. If I wasn't a bit preoccupied by the phenomenon that was happening in my head I would have immediately bent over to pick the book off the ground like you would help a friend if they had fallen. But I couldn't, as soon as the room had stopped spinning there was an odd sensation in my hands, and feet, and soon every surface in my entire body until I could literally see it. I could actually see the feeling.
If I were to describe this feeling I would describe it as wet. Like the quick dots of rain that fall on your arms, or that prickly feeling you get in certain parts of your body if you sit strangely and starve that particular appendage of blood flow. I began to suffocate me and engulf everything. Soon blackness started to drip into my vision, like ink on paper, as time went on and I just sat there helpless. I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. My mouth was starting to fill up.
I was then falling.
Falling, not far, straight down until I abruptly met the ground with my side. The feeling of drowning had, mercifully, stopped but now I was in a coma state.
I was blind to everything and it was terrifying.
A few hours passed, or so it felt like when I started to drift off, despite my best intentions.
Dwarves were swarming everywhere.
Every which way you could possibly think of, there was a dwarf going in that direction-most assuredly with food or ale.
Gandalf tried counting them only to come up with the realization that they were one short. Dwalin, of course, assured him that he was just late having just come from a meeting.
Gandalf grumbled a bit, not liking that the leader of the company hadn't shown yet. Dwalin's seemingly comfortable explanation aside.
Gandalf really didn't know why he was worried about whether or not Thorin would show up. He knew of Thorin's drive and loyalty to those who were loyal to him.
Thorin was set on reclaiming him homeland after all these years and there wasn't anyone who was going to stop him. After all, what was rightfully his and his peoples was stolen. Why wouldn't you fight for it?
Although, there are those who would not deem this quest as a wise decision. For, even though, Thorin feels he is answerable to nobody, that may not be entirely true. Even for such a personal quest that shouldn't necessarily effect too many others seems relatively harmless, this journey could set in motion unseeable futures and, quite possibly, unseeable evils.
Gandalf knew Thorin would show up- in due time.
Thorin was on his last nerve. He had been up and down the hill and he had been down by the water and had even ended up in some deep woods that were nowhere near where he was supposed to be.
The wizard had said that this place would be easy to find. But, Thorin was finding that to be quite the lie.
If getting lost so many damn times hadn't been infuriating enough it had started to rain. Not in light little droplets where you could just start to smell the light haze of the grass.
No.
This was thunderous, pouring rain and beat you into the ground and left your skin stinging. This was the type of rain that tapped on the top of your head so hard that you could hear it echo throughout your skull.
Needless to say, Thorin wasn't a fan.
Just when he was about to give in to the degrading option of knocking on someone's door and asking directions, in the process probably scaring a family of halflings near to death, he spotted a little shine of light.
It was in the shape of a dwarvish rune. It was one that wasn't commonly used in the trade much anymore, but it was akin to saying: "Burglar wants a good job, plenty of excitement, and reasonable reward"
Obviously, this was the door. It was also the door that Thorin had past around five times.
How he had missed the marking that was in his own native language he will never know, but, hobbling up the well-worn path once again he made his way to the door.
He was just about to pound his fist onto the green wood when another thing caught his attention.
A murmur escaped from the grass about ten feet away from where he stood. He suspiciously looked over to where the noise came from and barely made out the faint outline of a bundle in some low laying grass, in a place that was just out of range of the soft yellow light given off my the candle lamps hanging from the mossy roof.
So being like the average dwarf, who were so untrusting to the point of stupidity, Thorin made his way over to the bundle- thinking, most likely, that it was a spy sent to find out his plans of a quest.
To his surprise the little bundle was a person, and as he grasped said person's arm he saw that it was a girl.
Her hair was plastered in thick strands across her cheek and neck where the rain had pasted it on. Besides being soaking wet she was also covered in little bits of grass that had stuck to her as well.
She wasn't thick-limbed nor did she have very much hair on her so she obviously wasn't a hobbit or a dwarf. Immediately Thorins brain jumped to the most obvious, for him, conclusion.
Also, she was clad in the strangest clothing Thorin had ever laid eyes on and he was having the hardest time identifying what the fabric was.
"Probably some Elvish craft", he thought.
He was almost contemplating leaving the Elvish filth there, despite her being a female, when she let out a moan and her breath could be seen in the air.
Thorin could feel her shaking under his hands as he knelt beside her. He leaned over and he could see his breath as the temperature of the air around them grew impossibly colder. Thorin watched as her eyebrows furrow in discomfort and it was then he made his decision.
Gritting his teeth against the thought of having to touch an elf, he easily picked up her small form bridal style and walked the few steps to the door and kicked it with his foot loudly.
Gandalf came to the door with a wide and relieved smile on his face, which quickly disappeared as he saw what Thorin was carrying.
A curious furrow graced his bushy brows as he tried to make something out of the situation while he shushed them in.
All the other dwarfs had quickly got up to greet their king and friend, but when they arrived at the entryway all they could see was a very soggy Thorin carrying what looked to be a even soggier elf girl.
The view didn't last long for Gandalf told them to go and sit down, except for Balin, whom Gandalf thought could be of assistance at the moment.
Thorin had set down the girl on a large writing desk in which he had cleared by swooping his large arm over the surface. Knocking over every little thing in the process.
This flustered an already ruffled Bilbo, but he said nothing. He had been a decent host so far and the night only getting stranger, but he would be damned if he cracked now. Even in the presence of an albeit, drenched king of dwarves.
