Thank you again for all the kind words and follows, you wonderful human beings! This chapter, things get a bit hairy for everyone involved. Let me know what you think! Hmm, what would be an incentive to review? How about this. If you review, I'll choose one new review-er to get a short drabble on whatever they want.
After bumping along the rock encrusted pathway from midday to the hour of the setting sun without stopping for lunch, Thorin finally allowed the company to set up camp. They corralled the ponies in a speedily-made makeshift pen and Bombur got dinner going for the ravenous company. "Kili, Fili, you two watch the ponies. Bring the girl with you."
They nodded, stomping away in their heavy dwarven boots to keep an eye on the ponies in the forest corral. They could hear the faint noise of the camp, especially the raised voices of Gandalf and Thorin, arguing over whether or not to keep going.
Dusk had long fallen over the company and eyes were heavy with the need for sleep. Feet dragged slowly along the ground, leaves crunching underground as the trio made their way back to the ponies.
Neither of the brothers had spoken to Nierea after their conversation back at their previous camp. Neither of them wanted to. She wasn't going to say anything to prove or disprove anything their uncle said, so what was the point? No matter how badly the brothers wanted to shake an answer out of her, they knew she couldn't be forced. Awkward silence blanketed the group, draining their already depleted energy further.
Jaw twitching in annoyance, Kili turned on Nierea. "Why don't you talk? Or even write? I know you can write, at least. Are you unable to talk or do you just choose not to? Which is it, because you're really starting to get on my nerves with your silence!" Fili faced them, curious as to her answer, if she answered at all.
While Kili was ranting, Nierea kept her gaze trained on the ponies behind them, flicking her eyes back and forth between the cage and the boys.
"…What?" Kili demanded. She nodded her head towards the cage, gesturing as though something was amiss. The boys turned, stifling groans when they saw what Nierea was trying to point out.
"I brought supper!" Bilbo's cheerful voice broke through the silence. Walking up to the trio with bowls of stew balanced in his arms, he glanced back and forth between the stony faced dwarves. "What's the matter?"
"We were supposed to be lookin' after the ponies." Kili started.
"Only, we've encountered a slight problem," Fili finished.
"We had sixteen."
"But now there's fourteen."
After a minute of searching, they discovered Daisy and Bungo were missing. Fili turned to Bilbo. "Let's not bother Uncle…Actually, as our official burglar; we thought you might like to look into it."
"We don't know," Kili began, until Nierea pounced on him forcing him downward and tripping the hobbit in the process. Gripping Nierea by her untied hair, he brought her face extremely close to his, anger burning in his eyes. She dragged her hands towards her face, motioning for quiet. Fili ducked down with them just in time to avoid being seen by a monstrous troll. Field grass shielding them from sight, they watched the beastly troll amble toward the ponies. It snatched two more up under its arms and went on its way. The hobbit, dwarves, and woman slithered on their bellies along the ground to remain hidden while tracking the troll to its camp.
"We have to do something!" Bilbo said, bemoaning the future fate of their ponies.
Hiding behind a fallen tree, they watched the troll deposit two more ponies into a makeshift pen. "Yes," Kili whispered, nudging Bilbo forward. "You should!"
"Just hoot twice like a barn owl and once like a brown owl if you're in danger," Fili encouraged him. "We'll be right behind you!" Nierea gave them a disbelieving look as they pushed the hobbit into eminent danger. Her stare mutated into a severe glare, instantly hardening her face as she waited for the Hobbit to return.
"C'mon, we've got to go grab Thorin," Fili crashed through the undergrowth back towards the camp, dragging Kili and Nierea along with him.
"Thorin," Fili roared in unison with Kili, "We have a situation; Trolls 're taking the ponies. We've sent the burglar to investigate, but-"
"You did what?" Thorin growled; throwing down the stone he was using to sharpen his sword. "And where'd you leave the murderess?"
Kili was left staring stupidly after his Uncle as the company gathered their arms and prepared to rescue the hobbit. Gathering his wits, he cursed Nierea for slipping away when she had the chance. "No good, lying, hell-seeking woman," he spat under his breath, galloping after his uncle. By this time, he was moving fast enough that overtook the thumping step of his Uncle and nearly ran over Bilbo. The poor hobbit was out of breath and wide-eyed with fear.
Choking on his own saliva, Bilbo pointed back towards the trolls. "She…they…caught…" His voice came out in spurts as he tried to regain his breath.
Kili burst through the undergrowth, still blind in his rage. "Uraagh!" He roared, slashing one of the trolls across the back of its leg, momentarily felling it in a few strokes of his sword. "Drop her."
"O' what?" One of the two trolls left standing clenched Nierea in their fists, tightly rendering her unable to move.
"I said," Kili smiled evilly, swinging his sword in a wide, arching circle, "Drop her."
Spitting in anger, Nierea's captor chucked her towards Kili. Landed roughly on Kili as he scrambled to drop his sword and catch her, the pair of them skipped against the ground once and lay still, Nierea's head resting above the beat of Kili's shock-speeded heart. Nierea's face tightened in agony due to her wounds, but she scrambled to her feet, yanking Kili up with her as the rest of the dwarves (and one hobbit) swarmed the three mountain trolls.
Swords swung, hacked, and sliced through small slivers of the troll's thick hide. Nierea was a whirlwind of flying fists and small hidden blades she must have disguised in her clothes. She aimed for eyes, mostly trying to target the troll's weakest joints and organs. A wide smile split her lips apart, her teeth exposed in the pure adrenaline from the heat of battle. She spotted Bilbo attempting to swing one of the troll's oversized pigstickers to cut through the ropes caging the trapped ponies.
Unfortunately, a troll spotted him, as well.
Clenching her teeth, she rolled off of one of the bucking troll's shoulders, getting in between the charging troll and Bilbo. Angry at his lost prize, the troll gripped her by her injured arm, causing her eyes to roll back into her skull in pain. He swatted Dwalin away from one of his companions and sat in front of the company, allowing his fellow troll to hold an arm and a leg while he held her other limbs still. She struggled in their grip, to no avail.
"Lie down yer arms, o' we'll rip 'ers off!" The troll crowed gleefully, sniffing Nierea's hair and nearly salivating. "Mmm, she smells delicious. I haven't eaten a woman in years! Except that one old woman, but she was all stringy and tough. Ow!" His fellow troll swatted him over his thick skull. Nierea was shaking her head violently. She wanted them to keep fighting.
"What makes you think we care about her?" Thorin growled. "It would go better for us if she were dead!" None the less, he drove his sword into the soil. Watching a woman being torn apart by trolls wasn't something pleasant to behold.
In her frustration, Nierea chose that moment to thrust her toes to end of her moccasins and reveal knives in the toes of her shoes. Stabbing upward with her feet, her knives connected with the tissue of the trolls' hands and they squealed. All the while, her arms were wrenching around. Kili winced as he watched her arm get bent backwards in the trolls' attempt to restrain her. She never stopped fighting until the Troll not keeping ahold of her whacked her over the head with a stone. Her head rolled forward with a sickening thump as her body limply hung from the trolls' meaty hands.
Big thanks goes out to ask-sexykili on Tumblr for editing all of my chapters. If you want to contact ME through tumblr, my RP blog is ask-sexykiliandfili and my main blog's url is a-different-type-of-pretty. I appreciate all feedback. 3