A/N: So yeah this has been edited from its original, less than stellar, form and hopefully it'll only be an improvement *crosses fingers*. I somehow managed to lose the doc I had all this written on (seriously- I lost the entire document) so I've decided to just start from scratch with this, which TBH can only be an improvement. O-o The edited version of the next chapter should be up later today, and after that it'll be tally-ho and on with the show. Enjoy! ^-^
Kili yawned widely and blinked his eyes open, flinching as bolts of sunlight struck him right in the pupils. He felt like he had a hangover of epic proportions but he knew it wasn't drinking that had led to this. He remembered the battle- arrows and fire and swords and death- his death. He had died, hadn't he? He could still remember it, a pain in his gut followed by cold followed by darkness. He sat bolt upright, only to flop over backwards as his head spun. It was hot, so hot his eyes were watering. Was he in Harad or someplace like that?
He pushed his hair out of his eyes, noticing idly that he was still wearing the clothing he'd fought in, bloodstains and all. It was the dwarven way to bury their dead just as they'd fallen in battle. The clip was still in his hair but he was considering taking it out and using it to hold all of his hair back. Already he could feel sweat trickling down the back of his neck and he stumbled over to the only shade available, a large tree sitting by the side of the path.
He plonked down underneath the branches gracelessly (hey, he's just died, he figured he was entitled to a little exhaustion) and took stock of his surroundings. All appeared to be well, but Kili was a warrior at heart and he was always on the lookout for trouble. He noticed that the path he had woken up on was well laid, neatly packed dirt with a drainage ditch to either side. Kili tugged his collar back and forth, really wishing that he could have been buried in something less stifling.
A crude fence blocked the path off from the surrounding pastures, threaded metal with spikes sticking off of it at regular intervals. He examined it with a dwarf's eye and couldn't help but think that such a fence would be very useful in Erebor. It was old but it stood strong, too strong for him to break. He repeated the tugging motion on his collar and, even as tired as he was, he whooped when he saw a house in the distance, only a few minutes' walk away- if only he could get around this damned fence.
Eventually, after sacrificing a bit of skin on one of his palms, he figured out that he could climb over the top with a little effort and a bit more balance. He gave himself a satisfied smile and made a beeline for the house across the field. He just hoped there was somebody there who could give him some water.
Until she woke up, Katie was perfectly unaware that she had been asleep. It was nearing a hundred degrees in the sun, and it was only slightly better in the shade and she was all alone for the rest of the week. So she had gone out onto the porch to catch the breeze and propped the standing fan in the doorway and before she knew it she was out like a light. That was, until General sat up on his back legs and began to growl, jolting her awake to one of the strangest sights she had ever seen.
Kili had finally tromped all the way across the field, wondering who in their right minds would voluntarily live in this sort of heat and wishing that he could just strip down to his birthday suit and jump into a pond somewhere. He neared the house and suddenly he realized, much to his chagrin, that there was a woman sleeping on the front porch- a woman wearing a pair of trousers much shorter than what would be considered acceptable in Erebor. He blushed, though he had to admit that not all of his blush was due to embarrassment.
There was a large black and brown dog lazing away next to the woman, eyeing him suspiciously as he approached. He stopped briefly, not wanting to awaken the woman- or be targeted by the dog- but it was too late to avoid notice. The dog sat up on its haunches, growling at the dwarf and baring a very sharp set of teeth. The woman sat upright, taking in Kili's disheveled appearance and obvious confusion, not to mention the fact that he was visually close to suffering from heat exhaustion, and settled a hand on the dog's back.
"Easy, General, there's a good boy." She thumped it on the back a few times and the dog settled back onto its front paws, never taking its eyes off the nervous dwarf prince. The woman jumped to her feet and launched off the wooden steps. "You know those are some nice clothes but you shouldn't be out in this with 'em on. You'll get heat stroke."
"I, uh... yes, I do feel rather unwell," was all Kili could manage amidst his confusion. The woman grabbed his arm, alarmed at the heat coming off of the dwarf, and pulled him bodily into the shade of the porch.
"Here, you get some of that stuff off and I'll get you some water." Katie hurried into the house, trying to wrap her head around why a- rather short, truth be told- stranger had suddenly turned up this far from anywhere dressed in clothing that, while she would admit was very pretty, was completely ridiculous to be wearing in south Texas in the middle of summer. She grabbed a few ice packs from the rusting old freezer and hurried back out to the porch where the stranger sat, giving General an amusingly wary side-eye. She chuckled quietly.
"General doesn't bite so long as you don't make him," she told the stranger with a wink. She grabbed a well chewed cow bone and threw it out into the field, and the Shepherd chased after it without hesitation. She suppressed a sigh as she realized that the stranger had yet to remove any of his heavy garments; either he was more out of it than he seemed to be or he was the most ridiculously shy person alive. "C'mon, dude, I don't bite either. Get that stuff off before you collapse, you're already overheating." Now she knew that it was shyness because a distinct blush rose to his face at her words; she barely held in a giggle, wondering what had come over her.
"I do not believe... that would be appropriate, my lady," Kili muttered, trying his hardest not to blush. He was utterly mortified at the thought of taking off his anything in front of a lady he'd never met before, let alone going down to his skivvies- even though it was obvious that dress here was more, ah, relaxed than it was among the dwarves. Katie rolled her eyes; modesty was all well and good but there reached a point where one had to sacrifice modesty to prudence.
"Look, bud, don't make me wait til you pass out to strip you anyways. 'Cause I will." He searched her face for some evidence that she was joking and found none. Kili was still somewhat mortified but he realized that, well, the woman had a point. There was a funny little spinning motion going on all around him and he felt like he was sitting on top of a campfire. He shrugged off his overshirt and boots and a few more articles until he was (just as he'd feared) down to naught but his unders. For her part, Katie kept her eyes averted at his obvious discomfort, handing him the ice pack.
"Lay back and put this on your head. You should be alright in a few minutes. You from out of town?" She'd noticed his accent earlier and she knew no one from Texas would ever dress like that outside of December, so it wasn't so much a question as a means of making noise to avoid awkward silence.
"What town is this?" Kili asked, peering up at the oddly dressed woman. He genuinely had no idea where he was or how he was even there- dead people did not usually wake up again.
"A little ways outside of Schertz, Texas," she responded, noting the blank look on his face. Him not having heard of Schertz was understandable (who had that didn't live there?) but no matter where you went in the world most everybody had heard of Texas. "Where are you from?" She watched General playing with his bone idly while she waited for the visitor to answer, taking a drink from her glass of water.
"Erebor." She just about choked on her drink.