Coming Home

~insanity and co~

Chapter Seven: "Sweet little pony, my ass."

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the canon (characters, events, places...) That all belongs to Tolkien.

I watched Balin place another contract on the arm of Bilbo's favorite chair with extreme care. Bilbo hadn't come out of his room at all since the dwarves had woken up and began cleaning hours before the sun would rise. I had been a little disappointed; it had been interesting to watch him race after the group the night before and I was sure that it would be just as much fun watching him fuss over everything in the morning. Or maybe he would have been stunned into silence, as I had been. The sun was just now starting to rise, and still there was no sign of Bilbo under the hill.

I was a little disappointed that he hadn't gotten up to see us off. I wanted to at least say goodbye or something. The first of my own kind - and the first gentleman - that I had met in this place. But now I was part of the group of dwarves, the Company of Thorin Oakenshield, and that became official the moment I signed that contract with Cody. And Bilbo had made his feelings clear on this particular bunch of rowdy dwarves.

I stood at the front door with Gandalf and Cody, the three of us not having many belongings to gather up. I had secured the cloak around my neck and grabbed the edges, pulling it tighter around me to hide my clothes.

The rest of the Company was putting swords on their belts and axes across their backs, hiding various knives and even smaller weapons up their sleeves and in their shoes. I think I was finally over the shock of the sheer volume of weapons these men carried...but the axe strapped to Dwalin's back still made me a little wary.

"Do you really think he'll come?" I asked Gandalf. Everyone was almost ready to go and the small home under the hillside had been cleaned spotless. If he wanted to join us, it was now or never.

"I do," Gandalf answered firmly, opening the front door and bending low to step out into the cool morning. His staff was beside the front door, leaning against the grassy wall of Bilbo's house and he grabbed it, using it as a walking stick while everyone filed out of the house after him. I glanced back as Cody stepped out, making up the rear of the Company. Bilbo's house was left spotless, just as it was before we arrived. Clean. Tidy. Perfect. I had seen Kili and Fili move his furniture back to their original spots but someone had also moped up the floor, cleaned the area where all the weapons had been piled and straightened up everything that had been ransacked or pushed off to the side.

The front room was quiet and calm; welcoming and cheerful. I felt another pang of longing to stay in the Shire and enjoy this place. But I had signed that contract, the one currently stuffed into the back pocket of my jeans, and with a sigh I stepped outside and closed the large green door behind me and followed the line of dwarves. I walked behind Cody, weaving around the hillside, holding the cloak tight around my shoulders to keep the chilly morning air from getting to me. The grass was wet with dew under my feet but that soon turned back to dirt - thankfully, not mud! - as we went back through the Shire the way we came. It wasn't long before we passed the small sign tucked away into the grass, tilted just a little off center.

It was a little different traveling with so many other people. I could hear faint chuckling and chattering from up ahead, but they were far too ahead of us to hear what they were talking about. There was just a general...cheeriness about the group that hadn't been there when it was just the six of us.

Fifteen. That didn't sound like much but each dwarf was walking single file and when I was at the top of a small hillside I could look down and see all the braids and weapons and shaking shoulders as a few of them shared jokes and stories. I brought up the end of the group, turning back to take a final glance at the Shire.

Would there be any other places like this, or would it all be like the mountains where me and Cody were found? Cold, empty, creepy...if that was what I had to look forward to until we got rid of a dragon, I was seriously rethinking my involvement in this. And my thoughts didn't exactly lighten up when I thought about that dragon. A dragon. Breathing fire and hooks like spears and teeth like a sharks. How does someone even go about fighting one? About killing one?

I had been so lost in thought when the group came to a stop that I walked straight into Cody's back.

"What's going on?" I asked, craning my neck to see over his shoulder. I couldn't see a thing, of course. I would have been able to if I was my normal height and he, his...but I couldn't see squat from here.

"We get ponies." Cody did his little happy-hop-skip and clapped his hands, looking like the happiest little girl on Christmas morning who actually got a pony from Santa Clause after a year of misbehaving.

"Ponies?" I asked, not quite sure if he was awake enough to know what he was talking about but as soon as Cody raced forward I heard a few of them snort and huff and I finally saw them. Those were not ponies, they were horses. Full sized and tied to one of the last fences in the Shire with large packs thrown over their backs. I had no idea how many there were, but the dwarves each seemed to claim one, throwing their belongings over the backs and easily hopping onto them.

"Move the food over to this one." Thorin's voice carried over the noise of the dwarves as everyone picked a pony and saddled up. Balin and Dwalin were grabbing some packs and shuffling them around - one of the poor ponies looked like it wanted to take a bite out of Balin's beard when the older dwarf threw a heavy looking bag over it's butt.

"This'll be yours," Bofur said, and I realized with a start that he was talking to me and pointing over to a smaller looking gray pony. Oh, of course, give the Hobbit the tiny pony. "You'll have to ride along with the pots and pans, I hope you don't mind." He grinned, untied the pony's reins and brought it over, giving it's neck a pat. "Here you go."

And with that, I was left to stare up at my pony with reins in my hands and absolutely no idea what to do next. It had several bits of rope over it's back, tying on all the cookware in place. It stared back at me and I wondered if it was as confused as I was. I would probably be puzzled in it's place, with noisy things tied to my back and odd people climbing around on all my friends. The pony shifted and made a surprising amount of noise and I jumped back.

By now most of the dwarves were on their own ponies, and I felt more and more like an idiot. How do I even get on one of these things? It didn't have a saddle like the others did, I noticed, and it was quite a jump from the ground to it's back, even if it was one of the shorter ones.

"Darle's a sweetie, don't be shy." That was Bombur and before I had even gotten a glimpse of him, hands were on my waist and I was tossed into the air, falling quite clumsily with one leg on either side of the pony and a pan's handle in a quite uncomfortable spot under a butt cheek. I clung to Darle's gray mane, frozen in place and I couldn't un-freeze even when I realized that Bombur had actually helped me. Although that chuckle made me think he knew I would make a noise akin to a squirrel being catapulted into the air. It's hair - or is it fur? - was coarse but long and with one hand gripping the reins for dear life my other was buried in it's mane, tightening with every shift the pony made.

And that was the first time I had ever ridden a pony. Shocking, right? I, clearly, was a natural. (Sarcasm at it's finest.)

As quickly as we had stopped to get the ponies, the group began to file back onto the path. I felt even more awkward now, sitting on my pony with a pan's handle under my butt and Bifur fixing me a weird stare from his own, dark horse.

He let out a loud yell, something that sounded like 'ba-haa-gloo' and he kicked his pony into a walk.

And here I was, all alone in the Shire while the butts of the pony's ahead of me got smaller and smaller.

"Okay, Darle, let's go." I winced and grabbed her mane tighter, eyes squinted shut because I was sure she would take off like a rocket once I kicked her sides. No. Instead, she just shifted from hoof to hoof and...just stood. "This isn't cute, you know." I scolded, but that didn't seem to help much. "Go!"

Either that was the magic word or she didn't quite like the way I was accidentally pulling on her mane. She took off like a bullet, much faster than I had expected and so much rougher! With each quick step I was left flying through the air, and let me tell you I was really starting to think I should just grab that pan under my butt and throw it behind us...food be damned because it was really starting to hurt.

"Stop! Stop stop stop stop stop!"

I could hear Bifur and a few others laughing as my 'sweetie' of a pony came racing up the path and skidded to a stop right before it would have run into the pony in front of us. God! Finally! Finally she just walked, which was all I wanted in the first place. A normal, comfortable, walk that didn't have me nearly falling off with every jolting leap. After a moment or two, I finally felt comfortable enough to let go of her mane - eww, my hand was all sweaty - and just hold onto the reins, rough like old leather in my grasp.

"Wait! Hold on!" I could hear someone yelling over the group, but Bombur let out a bellow of a laugh from ahead and I couldn't hear what anyone said next. I tried to turn and look behind us, but twisting on a pony is not as easy as it looks - even though everyone ahead of me made it look like a piece of cake.

Before I could get the sweetie Darle to turn around so I could see who was behind us, Bilbo came flying past us and my gray pony gave a little jump which gave me a fucking heart attack! That's it, back to clutching her mane for dear life, it is. Have it your way, you jumpy cow.

"I've signed it! I've signed it!" Bilbo was screaming and I noticed he had a piece of paper trailing behind him, waving in the air until he disappeared up the trail and I lost sight of him.

But he was here, and with a large pack on his back so that meant he was here to stay. And he signed the contract that Cody and I had signed earlier. I really couldn't help but smile. I wouldn't be the only Hobbit on this journey, meaning - putting Cody aside - I wouldn't be alone. In the height department, at the very least.

I couldn't hear what everyone was saying up there, but I could hear the command Thorin yelled back at us and the ponies continued on, single-file down the path. There was a squeak - hey, I'm not the only one! - and I can only assume that one of the dwarves grabbed him in the same man-handley way that I had been grabbed, and thrown onto his own pony.

"Don't you feel like a pirate?" Cody called back, only separated by Bifur, who didn't respond at all. Could he even understand us? Because I couldn't understand him.

"A pirate?" I called out, unsure if I had heard him correctly. I definitely didn't feel like a pirate. Bruised butt and feet bare and the only thing for warmth other than my thin jacket being a borrowed cloak with mud caked on the bottom. No, nothing about this felt like a pirate to me.

"Yeah, come on! There's a map, we're going on a quest, there's ponies-"

"I wasn't aware that all pirates rode ponies," I yelled out, cutting him off.

"Only the awesome ones," he shouted with a laugh. "I bet if Johnny Depp could ride a pony he would."

"He would need a horse, not a pony, idiot!"

I could see Cody's hand waving me off in the air over Bifur's shoulder and for a long time we just walked. Well, we all sat while our ponies walked. I was beginning to feel a little bad for Darle, despite the fact that she was an irritating little pony that no doubt left a handle-shaped bruise on my butt from her first little stunt. The dwarves ahead of us all carried bags and large packs and heavy weapons, but Darle carried both me and all of the cookware. All of the cookware...for sixteen people, now. I felt uncomfortable sitting on a pan but I'm sure Darle wasn't exactly in heaven, waddling around with all of this on her back.

I leaned forward just a tiny bit to pat her neck and maybe to make a bit of peace with her, but her head jolted up sharply and she let out a loud snap. A snap! Was that her snapping at me? Yep, definitely no peace between Hobbit and pony, here. I jumped a bit and leaned back. I would have to make sure to keep as far from Darle's snappy teeth as possible...and maybe trade her for a different pony when we stopped for a bit.

Little did I know that our break wouldn't come for hours and hours. And let me tell you, hours and hours don't exactly fly by when all you're doing is sitting on a pony that doesn't even like you, staring at the back of Bifur. I did think more about home during that first day of traveling, about friends and family and my house and my cat. I had been meaning to paint my bedroom in a week or so when I got paid and had even picked out a pretty lavender color...I think the chips were still on my kitchen counter somewhere. It would have been a small task, but I was looking forward to it for weeks just to get rid of that God-awful pasty mucus green.

I missed everything I used to hate in that horrible gut-wrenching heart-sinking feeling of homesickness. Even my bus ride to work sitting next to the man in the suit with a disgusting amount of cologne on was starting to sound nice because it would mean I was home.

I eventually had to push all of those longing thoughts of home as far from my mind as possible, because it was really getting depressing how much I missed all the stuff I used to hate. Cleaning Bean's litter box, being my brother's designated driver, dinner with my grandparents...and not the ones I liked. It was sad, really. I couldn't completely rid the thoughts from my mind, but I tried harder to focus on the task at hand. We would travel with Gandalf and the Company and hopefully come across someone who knew about our situation, someone who could help us get back.

Ahh, that was it. If I focused on feeling determined to get home I felt less like crying and more like kicking little Darle into high-gear to get there faster. Well, okay, no kicking the pony into a run. That would be a disaster waiting to happen.

We climbed a few rolling hills, crossed a stream and also that river that - I shudder just thinking about it - I had been carried across. Water splashed up at my feet and legs, threatening to soak my jeans again and I quickly brought my feet up, balancing horribly on Darle's back with my legs up onto her shoulders. None of the pony-ride into the wilderness was pleasant but we kept going, making no move to stop or take a break longer than for a quick pee in the bushes as I followed the line of dwarves ahead of me.

At one point I was sure I had fallen asleep, driven to snoozing by the sway of the pony under me and the gentle breeze that was slowly warming up as the sun climbed higher in the sky. I even stopped clutching at the cloak around me and let the edges fall to my sides. Sure, my jacket and jeans were revealed now, but everyone's back was to me so I didn't feel as exposed as I had in Bilbo's house the night before.

I jolted awake - or at least awake from whatever half-doze I had been in for who knows how long - to the ponies slowly climbing higher and higher. I had to grab onto Darle's reins as we moved up a steep hill, working our way side to side as we zig-zagged along this narrow path. The pots and pans clanged on her back and with a particularly nasty jolt I grit my teeth because that pan's handle was now going to leave a horribly shaped purple mark smack on my bum. We were taking a different route back, I noticed once I got my breath back from that bump. None of this looked familiar at all.

Tall trees surrounded the path, and while they weren't so close together that I couldn't make out anything past the trunks and branches, I couldn't see any mountain over the tops. I only assumed that we were going around the mountain, but when I leaned forward just a tiny bit to ask Cody what he thought, Darle's head snapped up sharply and I jumped back.

So I sat back, gave Darle a little glare, and just sat.

And god was it getting old to just sit! I had heard a few stories from my friends who had traveled across the country and I suppose this would be the equivalent of them telling me everything second by second. From them standing in line after line at the airport to them sitting for hours and hours on the plane to them waiting in line to rent a fucking car. Bo-ring!

The sun had gone up well into the sky and I tried to keep busy by guessing the time based on the sun's location, but after a few minutes even that got boring and I was clearly no good at it. I was so bored of being bored.

Finally, finally we came to a stop after a particularly rough little bought of climbing and zigzagging our way up a hill. At some point on our trip everyone ahead of me had fallen silent, the only sound being the noises from the ponies - Darle being a particularly fussy one - and the occasional grunt of a dwarf or an outcry from Bifur which I still couldn't understand.

I could hear a few voices ahead of us and now that we weren't on such a narrow path everyone gathered together and started to get off their ponies.

That was another problem I hadn't foreseen. If I couldn't get on the pony, how was I supposed to get off?

"Need help?" Cody asked, walking up to me with his own dark-colored pony following obediently behind him.

I made a point not to look at him because I knew he was grinning like a maniac.

"No, I'm fine." I sniffed, picking at the old leather in my hands.

"Really? Because someone had to throw you on her in the first place-" He seemed to have the same train of thought as me and stepped closer, letting the reins in his hands drop. Oh hell no! "-it seems like the only way to get you down is to pull you off."

"Don't you dare!" Too late. Cody leaped forward before I could effectively kick him away. He caught my ankle and with a loud crash of pots and pans and me, everything came tumbling off of Darle's back and onto the grass. That damn pan handle was now jabbing into my back and I quickly scrambled up and kicked it away, furious as Cody took a few steps back and grabbed the reins of his own pony and skipped away.

"You bitch! He pulled me down!" I yelled, turning to Bofur when I noticed Cody was too far to hear me.

"I'll show you how to get on and off bareback tomorrow, but for now this little lady needs to go graze." Bofur grabbed the reins of that "little lady", who I swear to God enjoyed having me dragged down off of her, and lead a few of the ponies to a patch of grass just a little ways off from where everyone was gathering. Bombur and Bifur came over and gathered up the mess of pots and pans and I grabbed a few as well, feeling a little bad that all of their stuff was just getting tossed around.

Bombur just shrugged off my apology and Bifur made a bizarre gesture with his hand, holding a few bowls under his other arm. It almost looked like he was flipping me off but he was grinning ear to ear and sharply turned to follow Bombur. I stood, bewildered and my butt more than a little sore after sitting on something as uncomfortable as a pan on a pony's back. But then I noticed that Oin and Gloin were building a fire near a stone wall, far away enough from the cliff's edge that none of us would be rolling off in the middle of the night, and I joined them, trying to walk off a bit of the stiffness in my legs.

"Soup for dinner, tonight!" Bombur yelled out, pulling several packages from a bag and placing everything next to the growing fire. A few of the others muttered back to him as he busied himself with the meal and I smiled a bit; I should have guessed that Bombur would be the cook. He clearly had a thing for food, as I remembered from both the Inn in Bree and at Bilbo's house.

And when my stomach let out a particularly loud whine, I remembered that I did too...not that I ever forgot that little detail. All my anxiety about being homesick and thrown onto a horse that hated me and setting off from a place that felt like it could have been a home was gone and it felt like I was coming down from an adrenaline rush. My arms and legs felt achy and even though I knew I was hungry, something like a switch flipped and I thought for just a moment I might be sick.

I started to breath slowly, in through my nose and out through my mouth, and found the fresh scents of the forest to be more soothing than I had expected. The feeling passed within a minute.

There were a few scrawny bushes that lined the cliff's edge and beyond that I could see the rolling hills and patches of trees past the mountains. There wasn't a light in sight, aside from the deep orange of the setting sun, of course. No houses, no towns, no nothing. We were out in the wilderness. Alone. And who knew how long it would be until we came to another town? I hadn't taken a very good look at the map last night but aside from some mountains and a few words, it didn't look like this place was extremely populated.

"We can set up a few blankets for you over here," Balin said, passing by me with a heaping pile of blankets in his arms. I followed the older dwarf, weaving around the others to the stone wall and hopping over the pile of food Bombur had laid out before the fire. Unlike at Bilbo's house, there was no designated pile for the larger weapons. Everyone who was settling down with a blanket and a pack to mark their spot had their knives, swords, or axes laying right next to them, no more than a few inches away.

I had no idea what was out there and what would be crawling around the mountains at night, but I decided with a gulp that if everyone was essentially sleeping with a gun under their pillow, we weren't alone out here. This world had Hobbits, dwarves, dragons...I shuddered to think of what sort of creepy crawly things would be coming out of the woodwork once the sun was fully down.

I patted my jeans, finding my pocket knife snug in my front pocket and I felt a little bit better just knowing it was there.

Author's Note: Please leave a little note letting me know your thoughts on these characters and what-not so far. :) Feedback is always great.

Edit: (3/26/14) Not much has been changed in the edit of the chapter, but there were some things that got confusing and I fixed them up. So, if you'd like, give it another go and see if it flows a bit better. :) A huge thanks to Lasgalendil for encouraging me to go through this story and fix up little things.