Chapter 2: An Angry Lycan
A/N (4.26.14): Yes, you are probably wondering why there are only two effing chapters, but, if you read the BIG ASS A/N at the beginning of Chapter 1, you'll know why. Now, as for the time schedule I mentioned earlier, we all know how amazing I am at keeping one...not...so, we'll try by starting off with a chapter every three days!
Anyhow, edited a lot in this chapter (from 3,277 words to 6,542 words XD)
Bilbo had told Valaina of the Shire and its people, the hobbit-folk, and he even went on to tell her the history of some of his items in his house that had belonged to different members of his family before they became his. Valaina, of course, being Valaina, had absolutely no interest in the Shire, or the Shire folk for that matter. They lacked in wanting adventure, they did not like strangers all too much, but they tried to be polite about their encounters, they liked to keep to themselves, and above all else, they liked their quiet natures in which they tended to their homes, gardens, books, and various aspects of their life in which did not involve adventuring or dangerous swordplay. It was a very unappealing talk and Valaina had found herself nodding off several times, but had quickly caught herself before Bilbo noticed the lycan beginning to doze off in the chair next to him.
At least he seems more at ease with me, she thought as she took in the hobbit's relaxed appearance.
Bilbo had become more at ease with the lycan as he talked with her, even though he was doing the majority of the talking and Valaina was doing the majority of the listening…well, most of the time anyway. "What about you?" he asked suddenly. "You like adventure and the like as I know, but what about your home?"
"I don't have a home," Valaina said in slight anger. "Or, at least, I don't have a place to call home. I have a place in the halls of Lord Elrond of Rivendell, but that is because of his daughter, the Lady Arwen. She is one of my close friends, and had persuaded her father in giving me my own rooms in Rivendell on the rare occasion that I spend more than a few days at Rivendell. That is about as close to a home as I've got at this moment in time, and probably ever will have now."
"Oh…I-I am sorry."
"I'm not," Valaina said as she looked out the window to the dying sunset that sent the house into different hues of oranges. "Ever since I learned of what I truly am I have enjoyed my life better than I would have ever thought. Sure, it was tough at the start, but that doesn't mean I have to dwell in the past all the time."
Bilbo was silent for some time as he thought about what the lycan just said. He couldn't image himself without his home, and wondered how Middle Earth did the lycan survive without a home or a family all her own. He was soon pulled out of his thoughts as he too, noticed the sun setting. "It is high time I start supper. Oh …um…" he became awkward, and didn't know how to phrase his thoughts as he looked at the lycan wondering if she wanted to join him for dinner or not.
"I'm not that hungry," Valaina spared the hobbit from any further tough thoughts as she realized that she may have placed a large amount of questions and thoughts in the hobbit's head at the moment. "I'll give Isil a quick ride before I come back. You won't mind, right?"
"No, no! Not at all! Go right ahead."
Valaina smiled at the hobbit as he started to begin his supper, and then left the hobbit hole to find her black mare. She found Isil standing under the same tree she had left her under. The lycan gave a shrill whistle that carried over to the mare causing the black head to shoot up and look toward the lycan before she trotted up to her. Valaina mounted the horse bareback in a swift, horsemanship manner and cantered out of the Shire, dodging a few hobbits while doing so, and made for the forest for a quick gallop before the night closed in and she would have to face the dwarves. Yet, how many dwarves there would be, she did not know. All she knew was that Gandalf had mentioned something about an adventure with a few dwarves and a hobbit, and he was wondering if she would like to join them on it. Valaina couldn't deny her old friend, and jumped at the chance to travel with a group of dwarves instead of humans or elves for once, especially if they didn't know her and didn't want her dead. Well, she did know of the hatred between dwarves and elves, but she was praying to the Valar that the dwarves would overlook her elven features, those being her ears, and see her as a lycan instead.
After about an hour of hard galloping, and a bit of running as a wolf on Valaina's part, the two returned to the tree. Valaina brushed the mare down causing Isil to stretch out her neck and rear legs like a dog as she enjoyed the feeling of her back being scratched. Valaina gave the horse some water before leaving the mare to the tree as Isil found the grass around her quite delicious.
Valaina made her way back into Bilbo's house, and caught scent of cooked fish as she came closer to the hobbit hole, yet her own stomach didn't want to eat at the moment as she had just had her fill of lembas bread. She let herself in and proceeded to sit down in the hobbit's study room. She took to cleaning her weapons even though they really didn't need it. She examined each weapon as if it were a new item to her before she cleaned them. As she fitted her last dagger back into its sheath on her left leg, the doorbell rang a little tinkling sound like a bell causing Valaina to stiffen at who it may just be. Bilbo, with his robe tied over his shirt and trousers, walked over to the door with a frown on his face. He opened it and looked rather shocked at the figure at the door. "Dwalin, at your service," a rumbling dwarf voice said to the hobbit.
Valaina's eyes snapped up, and she gave a small growl much like a dog as she realized that the dwarves would begin to arrive now seeing as one just did. "Deep breaths, and try not to lose your temper," Valaina coached herself quietly.
"Bilbo…Baggins," Bilbo said awkwardly as he was still lost for words at the sudden appearance of the dwarf, "at yours."
The dwarf walked in without really being invited, and Valaina caught sight of a thick, bushy dark brown beard cut in a style that made it look like four, thick bushy whiskers as well as half a head of hair, for the other half, the top half, was completely bald and tattooed. "Do we know each other?" Bilbo asked in confusion as he looked at the dwarf as if to try and figure out where in Middle Earth he came from.
"No," Dwalin responded like it was a common fact that they didn't know each other as he unhooked his cloak and looked around the house for something. "Which way, laddie? Is it down here?"
"Is what where?"
"Supper," Dwalin said as he tossed Bilbo his cloak and continued toward the study as he followed his nose. "He said there'd be food and lots of it."
"He-he said? Who said?" Bilbo asked confused before turning and shutting the door seeing no other alternative to get the dwarf out of his house let alone out of his supper.
Dwalin walked right past Valaina who was leaning against the wall of the study, and continued without so much as looking at the lycan or even showing that he knew she was there. "No greetings for me?" she asked in a less than pleasant, more like sarcastic, tone.
Dwalin whipped around and searched for the voice's owner whether out of shock or aggression, Valaina did not know nor care. "Where are you? Show yourself," Dwalin said as he drew himself up to his most menacing height as he couldn't find the owner of the voice.
Valaina moved out from behind the wall and stood in front of the dwarf with her arms crossed over her chest, feet apart, and shoulders squared as if she were about to jump into a fight, which would probably be true if she couldn't hold her temper at bay. "Well, I am right here," she said.
"Dwalin, at your service," the dwarf said with a small bow though he frowned at the sight of Valaina's red eyes, and became even more confused by her amount of weapons and lack of a dress. All in all, Valaina looked out of place in the hobbit hole, and for the life of him he could not figure out what she was and why she was there, so he went with the only alternative left to him. "And who might you be, lassie?" he questioned.
"Valaina."
"What would you be by any chance? For you are not a dwarf nor are you a hobbit. Are you, perhaps, a human or something of the like?" Dwalin asked as he took in every bit of Valaina up to her hair that covered her ears at the moment.
"I am a lycan," Valaina responded and waited for some kind of recognition on the dwarf's face, yet received only anger and hate as Dwalin gave her a glare.
"You are the elf. We do not deal with your kind," he snapped.
"My kind? I'm the only lycan in all of Middle Earth as far as I know," Valaina grumbled.
"You are also an elf."
"Of course," she grumbled as Bilbo shut his door, not sure what was happening. "It's not like I can change that…"
"Sh-shall we sit?" Bilbo asked uncertainly as if he didn't know whether or not to intrude between the two glaring warriors.
Neither wanted to drop their glare from the other, but in the end Dwalin was the one to lose his glare and give the hobbit a nod as his stomach's growling overcame his own mistrust toward the lycan in front of him. At least, for the moment it did. "After you, she-elf," Dwalin said more or less threateningly toward Valaina.
The lycan, however, was not about to give in without causing some kind of anger in the dwarf that was her doing, not that she was able to help in doing so in the first place seeing as most of the time she spoke out of natural reaction or just plain stupidity depending on the situation. "Ladies first," she sneered to the dwarf.
Dwalin's glare hardened while Valaina's smirk grew as she wondered just how many different situations the dwarf was thinking of to bring death upon the lycan in front of him. "You are lucky that you have met me first, for I do not think the others will take so kindly to you," he finally said after a moment of silence as he seemed to rein in his own temper, something Valaina had a hard time of doing herself.
"Lucky?" Valaina scoffed and was about to give a retort when an image of Gandalf's scowling face popped into her mind along with his swinging staff causing Valaina to absentmindedly touch the back of her head. "Right…control my temper," she mumbled as she took a deep breath.
Dwalin gave her an odd look before moving onward toward the kitchen where the food was, and was soon followed by Bilbo and lastly Valaina. She sat down at the table as Dwalin took up Bilbo's seat and began to eat the hobbit's dinner without a second thought in mind. "So," he said around a mouth full of food, "do you even know how to use those blades you have?"
"Yes," Valaina said as her scarlet red eyes met Dwalin's brown causing the dwarf to stop eating as the elleth's irises began to glow red within themselves as her anger grew at the statement. "I can wield my blades with precision and hard earned skill that I have developed over the years."
Dwalin's glare dropped off and a frown replaced it as he continued to eat. "Then, perhaps, you may be of use to us in the end."
"May be of use?" Valaina repeated with a snarl as she stood up quickly and sent her chair flying back as she slammed her hands down on the table in anger. "What the hell do you take me for?!"
She stopped growling and shook herself as she caught sight of the hobbit looking at her in fear. She looked at Bilbo's large, frightened eyes and was reminded of a little teenager cowering in fear. Valaina took a deep breath in and then let it out through her nose as she dropped her head so that her eyes glared at the table while she reined in her temper as best as she could, and sat down once more before trailing off into a colorful string of profanities in the common tongue making the dwarf and hobbit turn astonished looks upon the lycan. "What?" she snapped after a moment of cursing.
Dwalin looked at Valaina from under frowning, bushy eyebrows before continuing his devouring of Bilbo's dinner without another word while Bilbo cleared his throat at the un-lady like manners in which Valaina just portrayed in her cursing. Soon, maybe a little too soon, the dwarf had finished the plate, and bit off the fish head in a quick motion. "Very good, this. Anymore?" he said in a much happier mood.
"Hm? Oh, yes, yes. Ah," Bilbo said anxiously as he found his plate of biscuits. "Did you want some, Valaina?" he added.
"No thank you," the lycan replied tensely. "I'm not that hungry."
He took one and hid it behind his robe before setting it down near the dwarf. "Help yourself," he said though Valaina didn't think he needed too. "It's just that I wasn't…um…expecting more company."
The doorbell rang at that moment and Bilbo looked slightly frightened once more as he frowned at the hallway that led to the door. "That'd be the door," Dwalin said around a mouthful of food before giving Valaina a half smirk as if he just won an argument.
"I can't sit any more…" Valaina grumbled as she rose to walk off a rude retort that would have ended with a very broken down hobbit hole.
Valaina made her way into the foyer, and caught sight of a rather small old dwarf with white hair and long beard standing at the door. "Balin, at your service," he said with a flourished bow and bright smile.
He looks nice enough, Valaina thought to herself thinking that this old dwarf, Balin, would be more accepting toward her. At least, he looks like he will be.
"Good evening," Bilbo said with a frown as he looked at the dwarf.
"Yes. Yes it is," Balin smiled before walking in and clapping Bilbo on the shoulder. "Though I think it might rain a bit later. Am I late?"
"Late for what?"
"Oh! Ha, ha! Evening, brother!" Balin said as he caught sight of Dwalin trying desperately to grab a cooking in a jar that was much too small more his hand.
"Brother? They are brothers?" Valaina asked Bilbo as she walked up to the flustered hobbit. "They look nothing alike!"
"Um…no, they don't…h-how many dwarves are coming?" Bilbo replied under his breath.
Valaina tried to rack her mind for a number or something that hinted to how many dwarves would be in the house, yet she couldn't think of anything and realized that she should have paid more attention to Gandalf's words whether he had been on some confusing ramble or was speaking perfectly clear. "To be honest, Bilbo," she mumbled back, "I have no idea."
"Are you going to introduce yourself to…um…well…him?"
"I think his name is Balin. He will see me in three…two…one…"
"Who is this pretty young lass?" Balin said with a smile as he turned back to the lycan and the hobbit, who was currently looking out his door for more dwarves.
"Called it," Valaina mumbled to Bilbo as he moved back to the lycan's side after shutting the door.
"This is the she-elf," Dwalin grumbled as he glared at Valaina.
"Lycan," Valaina corrected the tattooed dwarf with little patience. "I prefer the term lycan."
"And why would that be, lassie?" Balin asked as his smile faded a bit.
"I'd rather not be associated with my…people," Valaina said and made a face at the last word that looked very suspiciously like disgust. "They like me just as much as you like them. Most of them, anyway," Valaina added the last part under her breath.
Dwalin looked confused for a moment but still kept his glare while Balin's eyes took in Valaina's appearance including her red eyes, and had to give a smile at the lycan. "Balin, at your service, lassie," he said with a small bow.
"Valaina," the lycan responded with a small, barely noticeable, bow of her head though her eyes never left the dwarf's, "at yours."
The two dwarves noticed the way the lycan moved as if she was waiting for them to attack her. She stood poised with tense muscles ready to draw her blades at the first sign of a threat as her eyes, the red irises giving off an iridescent glow within themselves, never once left their own as she talked with them. They felt as if they were being read like an open book, observed by a predator tracking its prey, and they couldn't help but begin to look past the elven features that made the lycan look feminine, and rather pretty, and more toward her warrior like appearance. Yes, she had fair skin, straight blonde hair to the middle of her back, and some more fair features that all still pointed toward her elven side, but her scarlet eyes held a calculating, rather annoyed look to them that was neither unwavering nor hesitant.
After a moment of silence with the two dwarves under the hard, cold glare of Valaina, Balin gave an indecisive nod as if he would come to a conclusion about the lycan later after dinner. "Right, where is the pantry so we can get started?" he asked Dwalin who promptly turned his brother down a hall with the lycan and hobbit following.
Valaina gave an unelf-like snort as she leaned against the wall close to the pantry yet in eyesight of the door as the two dwarves began to talk about the food inside the pantry while Bilbo was talking to them. They are wary, Valaina thought to herself as she looked at the dwarves. They seem like they are indecisive about something. Maybe that is because they are conflicted with me being a lycan yet also an elf. I did state that I was a lycan and not an elf. Sure, turning into a wolf is an up, but I still resemble all things elven…in appearance anyway…or at least my ears…
The doorbell rang again cutting off her thoughts as she turned toward the doorway and slammed her forehead into the low arch. "Ow! Damn it!" she nearly shouted as one hand flew to her head and the other went out to the wall to steady herself. "Are you fucking kidding me? Stupid, god damn, low ass…" she trailed off in a number of different curse words to describe the low archway making Balin and Dwalin turn to see what was the matter with the lycan.
"She has quite the mouth for an elf. When was the last time you ever heard one curse?" Balin said to his brother.
"I haven't heard one curse. Ever," Dwalin said. "And that is the second time now that she has gone on her own string of curses."
Valaina turned to see who else was at the door as Bilbo opened it. She caught sight of two, younger looking dwarves standing at the entrance looking as happy and proud as they could be, no doubt being able to find the hobbit hole on their own. One had blonde wavy hair with two braids on the side of his head, and a neatly trimmed beard to match, minus the two small braids on either side of his mustache. His blue eyes looked happy, as he looked down at the hobbit in front of him. The other, Valaina thought that it was his brother seeing as they had nearly the same facial expressions, had brown wavy hair, brown eyes, and a scruff instead of a beard as he held his bow and quiver close to his chest as if they were his lifeline. He had this extremely, happy grinning face that looked to Valaina very much like a little kid at a market on market day. "Fili-" the blonde said after eyeing the hobbit up and down.
"And Kili-" the brunette dwarf said without missing a beat.
"-at your service," both dwarves said as they gave a low bow at the same time.
They were handsome in an odd way for dwarves, something she had never personally seen. She always saw the old, scruffy, angry looking dwarves whenever she passed too close to their lands while trying to either evade or track a warg pack. She gave a snort at her thoughts and reprimanded herself. They may have both been handsome, if not a bit noble looking, but they were still dwarves, and she could only hope that they would be more open to accepting a lycan, not an elf, into their company. "You must be Mister Boggins," Kili said with a large smile.
"Nope you can't come in you've come to the wrong house!" Bilbo said quickly and tried to shut the door on the two dwarves as he didn't want any more visitors in his house at that present moment.
He must really dislike visitors, Valaina thought with a small smile as she watched Bilbo's flustered actions toward the two newest dwarves at his door step.
But Kili was quick to catch the door and push it back making Bilbo stagger a bit at the force of the blow even though he didn't have a huge grip on the door in the first place. "What? Has it been canceled?" Kili asked and Valaina had to admit that he looked like a lost puppy with the upset face he was pulling toward the hobbit, and she had seen many lost puppies in her time.
"No one told us," Fili piped in with his own upset frown, and Valaina had an inkling that he may have just finished his brother's thought.
"Can-No nothing's been canceled!" an angry hobbit replied.
Kili's face lit up in a huge smile at the news. "Well that's a relief!" he said before barging past Bilbo with his brother strutting right behind him.
Once in the door way though, the two dwarves stopped. Kili gave Bilbo his bow and quiver before proceeding to look around the foyer as he waited for his brother who was currently un-strapping his weapons. "Careful with these," Fili said as he removed his swords and a few daggers before dropping them into Bilbo's opened arms, "I just had them sharpened."
"I don't think that is a good idea," Valaina mumbled to herself as she removed her hand from her throbbing head.
"It's nice, this place," Kili said as he looked around the house for when he noticed something on his boot. "Did you do it yourself?"
"It's been in the family for years," Bilbo replied still angry at the brothers for barging in.
He began to scrape his boot off on a large wooden box without second thought as to what the box might be. "That's my mother's jewelry box! Could you please not do that?!" Bilbo yelled.
Valaina couldn't help the small chuckle that came from her as she watched Bilbo's face turn from angered to outraged, and she was reminded of an angry little kid at the way Bilbo glowered at the brunette dwarf, not the least bit intimidating. Dwalin must have heard the ruckus the two were causing as he barged past Valaina with a gleeful look on his face, and made his way toward the two new dwarves. He smiled so large that Valaina was sure his anger toward her might have been all but forgotten, at least for the moment, as he moved toward Kili who was the closest to him.
"Fili, Kili!" Dwalin said as he entered and wrapped a large, muscled arm around Kili's shoulder, "could you give us a hand?"
"Mister Dwalin," Kili said before traveling off into a chuckle as the older dwarf began to lead him over to the dining room.
"Right," Valaina mumbled in sarcastic happiness. "Ignore the lycan."
"Wait…where are you…oh, blast these weapons," Bilbo said as he tried to follow the dwarves but was weighed down by the amount of weapons in his hands.
Fili was the one that caught sight of Valaina as he made his way toward the dining room after his brother and Dwalin. "And who might you be, miss?" he asked in a charming manner toward Valaina's back as the lycan began to move back toward the pantry.
Valaina turned and she completely forgot about the low archways, seeing as she was used to taller ones, and ran smack dab into the arch once more causing her to stumble backward very ungracefully which landed her on her ass on the ground in the presence of the four dwarves and the flustered hobbit. "Damn it!" she growled as her hand flew to her head again. "Fuck these low ceilings!"
"What are you doing on the floor?" Bilbo asked.
"Oh, you know, just minding the height restrictions," she grumbled as she stood up, now very conscious of the low archways as she placed her other hand on the ceiling and ducked under it.
"The roof may attack you if you do not watch out for it," Dwalin roared in laughter.
"No shit. At least I have some kind of height on me, small fry," Valaina retorted as she shot a glare at the tattooed dwarf.
"I thought elves were supposed to be graceful?" Dwalin smirked. "You obviously are not."
Fili's smile faded a bit at the mention of the woman in front of him being an elf. "I'm a lycan," Valaina snapped in correction of the term. "Lycan. Do I have to spell it out for you? And I'm as far from an elf as you'll get! It's the god damn ears, I swear…"
"Let us not continue to argue," Balin tried to step in as he turned back toward the dining room table with his brother. "We have to make room for the others."
Kili walked over to his brother who was trying to figure out what to think of Valaina at that very moment. "What's your name?" Kili asked with his bright smile as he realized his brother wasn't about to say something anytime soon.
Valaina turned her glare that from Dwalin's back to Kili as his puppy smile grew brighter. "Valaina," she said with a heavy, agitated sigh.
"You're the lycan Gandalf told us about."
"Now you get the terminology right," she grumbled as she removed her hand from her throbbing head.
"Can you really shift from an elf to a wolf?"
"Yes-"
"Will you show us later?"
"Maybe?"
"Why are your eyes red?"
Valaina looked at Fili with a perplexed look on her face as she was bombarded with Kili's quick questions and his carefree attitude at her presence as she thought he might have been more…well…uncomfortable with a lycan like his fellow dwarves had been. "Is he always like this?" she asked the blonde dwarf.
Fili gave a nod and shrugged. "All the time, especially when he meet's something odd," he said though his face became a bit wary at the way he said something so carefree to someone so easily angered.
Valaina glared at the dwarf for a moment before she noticed that he didn't exactly mean his words to be something of an insult. It just came out that way. "I'm odd…so what?" she grumbled instead and softened up just a bit. "Have you never met someone odd before?"
"Not an elf like you," Fili responded as his confidence in his words began to return.
"What's with the frown?" Kili asked his brother with a confused expression.
"She's an elf, Kili," Fili said in some confusion as he tried to figure out what to think of the lycan in front of him.
"So? She's also a lycan, Fili."
"Elf."
"Lycan."
"Elf."
"Lycan!"
"Holy shit, I'm both!" Valaina snarled before taking a deep breath to calm her nerves for a moment as the two brothers turned shocked eyes onto the lycan. "Unfortunately, you see me as both…or in Dwalin's case as one," she grumbled out the last part.
"Will you help us?" Kili asked.
"Do you not see the glare your fellow dwarf is giving me?" she responded as Dwalin continually glared at the lycan.
Before Kili could reply, Dwalin marched up between the two and hauled them back toward the dining room by the hoods of their coats. That's when the doorbell rang again causing Valaina to turn wide, slightly angered eyes back toward the foyer. "I swear to the Valar, I am about to lose my god damn mind," she mumbled to herself as she nearly avoided hitting her head on the archway yet again.
"Won't that be interesting," Dwalin said loudly.
Valaina rounded on him with a hand on her dagger as she began to finally lose her patience with the tattooed dwarf. "I am far from being in a good mood right now," she snapped at the dwarf.
Dwalin glared back at the lycan and then gave a snort of a laugh as Valaina looked ready to draw her dagger. "I'd be careful with that," he said in a dangerously low tone with a nod toward Valaina's hand as Bilbo went to open the door once more, though the other dwarves took a few steps back from both glaring warriors. "Females shouldn't be handling pointed objects."
"Excuse me?" Valaina growled as her grip on her dagger tightened as she vaguely heard a crash of bodies and Gandalf's voice. If anything annoyed her more than being called an elf constantly, it was having someone mock her gender. "Females shouldn't be what?"
The dwarf advanced on her as the others watched the two in anticipation at what would happen. "You heard what I said, she-elf. You don't belong-"
"And where exactly would I belong?" she cut him off in a calm tone as her eyes flashed angrily.
The other dwarves could see she was holding back her anger by a mere thread, and they knew that Dwalin was about to push it a little too far as he gave a smirk. "You belong back in the forest with your little forest animals happily flitting about in the trees like the rest of your kind," Dwalin sneered as he mocked the lycan.
Before Valaina could make a move to strangle the dwarf, a certain angry wizard came to Dwalin's rescue. "Eärlindë, that is enough!" Gandalf's voice shouted stopping Valaina in her tracks.
She stood poised to attack with a hateful glare on her face as her eyes began to darken in their color, something that unnerved even tough Dwalin. Every muscle itched to go after the dwarf, to knock some sense into him or something that would prove that she wasn't some female in the house of a hobbit. She was a lycan, a warrior, and she would do everything in her power to prove that she was better and stronger than this dwarf thought. Valaina gave a growl as she rounded on the seething wizard.
"Get a hold of yourself of the Valar's sake!" he said in a disappointed tone.
A string of very colorful choice profanities escaped the lycan's mouth followed up by a phrase in elvish.
"Valaina, for goodness' sake, get a hold of your temper!" the wizard raged.
"What did she say?!" a red headed dwarf with a double headed war ax in his hand said as he stepped toward Valaina threateningly. "Does she insult us?!"
"Valaina-" Gandalf started but unfortunately Valaina was too close to her Rage; she was too close to an uncontrollable anger within her that arose whenever she was angry or her emotions got too out of whack.
"I am not insulting you," she snarled in a calm, angry tone as her eyes darkened again while Gandalf sighed in agitation. "I am insulting that god damn asshole-"
"That is enough!" Gandalf yelled as the light grew dark, but unfortunately that did nothing to help Valaina's cause.
Valaina grabbed her head as her eyes shut tight to drown out Gandalf's thoughts as he tried to get the lycan to calm down. "Damn it, Gandalf!" she growled. "You are not helping me one bit right now, so get the hell out of my head!"
"You promised me you could control your temper!"
"I said I'd try!" she yelled back. "And I emphasized the try part."
"You are the most obnoxious, temperamental elf I've ever known!"
"I'm the only god damn elf that is temperamental! And I'm not an elf, I'm a god damn lycan for the Valar's sake!"
"She's a bit touchy," Balin mumbled to Dwalin, but unfortunately Valaina heard.
She rounded on the elderly dwarf, and he, along with the others took a step back as Valaina's red irises darkened in its red color, and looked very close to a deep blood red. "Yes," she said in an angry calm tone that frightened Bilbo to the core as the poor hobbit shrunk back against the wall nearest Kili and Fili, shivers running down his spine as he did so, "so it seems I am."
"Valaina," Gandalf said in hard controlled calm as he gave the lycan a stern look, "go get a hold of yourself and come back in time for supper."
"The she-elf-" Dwalin started but stopped as a dagger embedded itself up to the hilt in the wooden wall an inch away from his ear as Bilbo gave a squeak of surprise.
"That's your only warning from me, dwarf," Valaina said to Dwalin in the same dangerously calm tone. "Say another word to me at this moment and I swear I'll make the next throw land in between your eyes."
She caught sight of the open door and stalked out of the house with a long string of profanities coming from her as fourteen pairs of eyes bore into her back. As soon as she was out of the hobbit hole, ducking under the low doorway as she exited to keep from slamming her head into the low entryway, she shifted. White fur sprouted all over her as the sound of bones cracking and growing within two seconds reached the dwarves' ears as a white wolf, six feet at the shoulder, stood outside in the light of the full moon. Her red eyes gave off a glow within themselves as she snarled. She let out a blood curling howl of anger that caused those in the house to cover their ears as the sound reverberated off the walls and echoed about the hobbit hole before she took off down the road at a dead run toward her mare. "Wow," Kili said as he scratched his ear. "She's loud."
"She is angry, and that is the last thing we need," Gandalf grumbled before turning on Dwalin who was now inspecting the dagger and wondered where it came from because not one of the visible daggers on the lycan had left her person. "I warned you to not anger her, Dwalin, and you did!"
"She was asking for it," the dwarf responded carelessly without looking up from the dagger.
"Next time I will let her take you outside for a good beating. She will be back in a few minutes, and we will all be as civil as possible so that everyone can keep their heads on their shoulders. Valaina is not opposed to using her blades as a means to end a situation, so unless you want to end up in pieces, do not anger her."
"She seems nice enough when she is not angry," Kili said to his brother.
"That may be, but she is still an elf…" Fili replied indecisively.
"Well, does she act, sound, or even seem like an elf? Or does she seem more like one of those rangers to you?"
Gandalf caught their hushed conversation and hid a small smile as his anger left him almost immediately at hearing some of the dwarves already trying to accept the lycan. Now that Kili had mentioned it, Valaina did seem more like a ranger than an elf, but what they didn't know yet was that the elf they were currently talking about was so unelf like it would be near impossible to know she was one if she didn't look like one. "That is true, Kili," said Fili as he moved to help with the setting up of the table.
"At least someone needs to give her a chance!"
"And it had to be you," Fili said with an accusing glare toward his brother.
"No one else would…well, besides Balin, but still…"
"Then I can't let you get on Uncle's bad side alone," Fili sighed as he gave his younger brother a small push.
"So you'll give her a chance as well?"
"Yes…even if that means Uncle will have our heads on pikes."
"Well…you're the eldest so yours will be the first to come off," Kili commented with a smug look directed at his brother's accusing one.
Gandalf looked out the window and saw a black mare run past the window and then back as blonde headed lycan chased after the mare. "She went to talk with her horse," Gandalf mumbled with a shake of his head. "Of course she did."