Chapter Two: Thorin

"Where am I?" I feel myself ask. My voice is weaker than I would like it to be, due to the searing pain in my shoulder.

It feels as if someone is dragging boulders around insidd my head, occasionally thudding against my skull.

I can't even remember what happened. There are just flashes of blood and light, and then nothing.

I consider dropping my head back down onto the rug, when I notice something, or rather, someone.

Next to me, kneels a dark haired...girl? Woman? Something in-between. She wears a brown tunic and has a blade strapped to her belt. I realise, in my pained state, it still has fresh blood on it. I start to panic. Where are the others? What happened?

She seems to see how worried I am.

"My name is Gwendolyn." She says.

Gwendolyn...I match the name to her face.

"I believe you were caught in an Orc raid last night, and...well, you didn't fare as well as your comrades." Her eyes travel down my neck, to my shoulder. They burn into my skin there, as if trying to press the pain out, and then they flick back up to my eyes.

"They brought you here, at Gandalf's orders."

It takes me a while to process all this new information, but the one thing I can't shake is that she is of the race of men. My grandfather always told me that they were weak and not to be trusted entirely, only tolerated.

"We have not had good dealings with them in the past. They have cowered before from things that they should not have shrunk from, because they do not have bravery that we possess. You must be cautious around them, wary..."I exhale slowly through my nose, deciding that I should find out now whether she can be trusted, or suffer the consequences.

I try to get up, but the agony in my shoulder makes me grunt in pain. She presses a hand to my other shoulder, pushing me back down.

"You cannot get up. You are injured."

"Where are the others?" I demand.

"They are trout - fishing in the stream. If you are hungry, I have food prepared. Would you like it?"

I nod slowly and she gets up to fetch the food. I realise I am hungry, beneath all my battle weariness and pain.

I recall it now. Orcs, lots of them, coming in droves to attack us. I thought we'd be outnumbered. If it weren't for the fire, we wouldn't have been here now. It would have been to difficult to overcome them.

If Gandalf instructed us to come here, she must be someone we can trust. He would not send us anywhere he was not sure would be safe, to stay.There is no one I would trust more than Gandalf. However, if the old wizard has gone senile (which I sometimes suspect he has) he may have just been saying things. I need to make absolutely sure she is trustworthy. I know nothing about her, but as I glance around the small sitting room I can see axes hung up in a corner, and stacks of wood. In another there are blades of different shapes and sizes. She's a hunter, by the looks of it. The smell of wood and rust is familiar to me, no matter how much I reject it.

I feel as if I have a lot to learn about this woman.

She comes back, carrying a bowl of stew.

I open my mouth to ask her what it is, but she beats me to it.

"It's deer. I caught it this morning."

I nod, taking a bite. It's delicious but I don't say anything. Anything. I need Balin, I need Dwalin….people I know and trust. I've never been very good with people I don't know. Somehow, it never comes naturally.

She narrows her eyes at me. "It's not poisoned. Somehow, I think if I poisoned the future King Under the Mountain, it would not go down to well with your friends, or anyone for that matter." She says sardonically.

So she knows of me...how much does she know of me?

There is silence for a while.

"How do I know to trust you?" I say finally. I have to get it off my chest. Beating around the bush is never something I've done.

"If you trust Gandalf, then you trust me. He and I are old friends. He helped me after…" her voice trails off wistfully. Her eyes look wistful, full of memory and emotions I can't read. Then they harden, as does her voice. "After I found myself in an unfortunate place.

"I doubt you'll find any other help near here, so I would be grateful if I were you." She snaps suddenly.

"I'll only be grateful when I know if I can really trust you." I retort.

She stands up abruptly. "It doesn't matter if you don't trust me. Sooner or later, you'll be out of here."

Then she walks out, carrying my empty bowl with her, leaving me even more perplexed than before.

UPDATE: thank you for your lovely comments, to the guests that reviewed. It means a lot to me. Unfortunately I can't reply to guest reviews :(

Chapter Three will be up tomorrow. There are quite a lot of chapters so I'm hoping to update regularly, this may mean every day or every other day.

Thanks for reading! x