Her fingers clawed into the rock Ella hangs from the cliff's edge, her legs dangling uselessly over the yawning depth.
The ground beneath her is shrouded in the ever-present mist that has given those mountains its name, but she knows the abyss to be deep enough that a fall would not only kill her, but likely smash her body into tiny little pieces.
The battle of the Stone Giants still continues, and every time one of the huge rocks they throw at each other hits near her position, large pieces of the mountain range break off and shower her with stone splinters and dust. The stone beneath her hands is slippery and shakes and trembles with every impact, she can't hold on to it for much longer. From afar, she hears the terrified screams of her companions through the deafening thunderstorm that rages around her, but she can't open her mouth and cry for help, and anyway they're too far away.
Then, suddenly, Thorin is kneeling in front of her at the mountain cliff, his long, raven mane blowing in the wind around his head.
"Take my hand!" he shouts against the thundering noise around them. He reaches out his hand and Ella grasps it, surpised at how warm it feels, how firm and strong, like something made to hold on to. She knew he would come back to get her.
For a moment, the pandemonium around them falls silent and there is nothing but the two of them, she and him, the sky above them and the abyss below her. His beautiful electric blue eyes locked with hers, Thorin looks down on her.
Smiles. And lets go off her hand.
Ella falls-
From the Valley of Imladris in the west the Great East Road climbed into the Misty Mountains.
Two passes led through the huge mountain range, a readily accessible lower one, and the so called High Pass which was anything but.
Thorin had decided to take the latter- presumably, to avoid unwanted company- and only a few days into the mountains it began to dawn on Ella that the first part of their journey had been a mere pleasure trip.
Her relief to be able to walk again ( as a decent hobbit should ) instead of rocking back and forth on horseback soon turned sour- the mountain path was steep and at times so narrow that no two people could walk next to another and they had to move sideways with their backs against the rock in order not to be blown down by the relentless wind.
Hobbit feet were made for walking, but on soft grass not hard, sharp stone, and Ella had never been much of a friend of great heights. The view down onto the ever more distant valley made her dizzy, so she kept her eyes straight on the path in front of her, concentrating on putting one increasingly sore foot in front of the other, careful not to misstep.
After a two days' climbing, the path suddenly descended and then they marched through bleak, tundra-like plains for another two days, never resting for more than a few minutes during the day because Thorin was eager to reach his destination as fast as possible.
Upon their departure Gandalf had promised to rejoin them later, but he wouldn't-or couldn't- say exactly when or where, and so far they had seen neither him nor anyone else. The area was largely deserted, or so it seemed, but the dwarves remained vigilant at all times, avoiding open spaces wherever possible and watching out for possible persecuters.
By nightfall they made camp beneath a rocky plateau.
Since they had left Rivendell so clandestinely, Lord Elrond had not provided them with supplies and so they had to make do with the little they were able to gather and hunt underway.
Ella however, had been clever enough to 'borrow' some food from Rivendell's pantry before they left, a little milk for her pet and some slices of a special bread which the Elves called Lembas. It looked and tasted not very different from the hard bisquits she was used to from before, but it was surprisingly nourishing- a single slice was enough to keep her sated all day.
The dwarves didn't like it much, and the warg refused it outright, even when she chewed it for her before.
Ella was worried; she didn't have much milk left and the chance to find a wild mountain goat who would be willing to get milked wasn't very high.
"What do wargs eat?" she mused, more to herself than in the direction of her companions who were sitting somewhat apart from her at the fire as they usually did now.
Her pet no longer horrified most of them as it had in the beginning- in a clean state it looked less like a monster and more like a curious ( and admittedly particularly ugly ) crossing between a dog and cat with surprisingly soft and shiny golden groundhair, and so far it had behaved very well.
She still had to carry it in a cloth slung around her upper body on the steep mountain paths, but in the plains she sometimes let it run free and then it would stumble beside her on its short, chubby legs, wheezing like an asthmatic bulldog. Now and then it would prick its tiny ears and lift its head to sniff in the wind, but if it smelled any of its kind they didn't show themselves and the blade of Ella's Elven blade never changed its colour.
Kili smirked at her. "The flesh of their killed enemies?" he suggested helpfully.
"Great."Ella grimaced."Not that there were many enemies to slay lately- of which I am grateful, of course." she added quickly.
The dwarf prince inclined his head and eyed the animal suspiciously. "What are you planning to do with it when it gets bigger?"
Ella looked down at her bruised feet, then up to him again. "Why, ride it, of course," she said with a grin.
Her gaze flew to the mountain chain next to them. "How long until we reach the Erebor, what do you think?" she asked. "These mountains seem endless to me."
"They are," It was Balin who answered. The old dwarf, as Ella had come to learn by now, was an inexhaustible source of knowledge and rarely missed a chance to share it."Or at least, almost. The Misty Mountains run 800 miles from Gundabad in the far north to Rohan in the south. But don't worry lass, we're only crossing it from west to east, which is a far, far shorter way."
"Gundabad?" Ella asked. She had heard about Rohan but that name was new to her.
"Ah, yes, Gundabad," Balin said in a tone meaning 'Glad you asked.' "Legend has it that Durin, the first of the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves and name giver to Thorin's family line, first awoke on this mountain. He then marched all the way through the mountains and discovered Khazad-dûm- now called Moria- in the far south, where the thriving Dwarvish community created the greatest city ever known and lived there for many thousands of years."
"Until the orcs came and took it from us." Kili said in a gloomy voice.
"We'll have it back," Balin answered, quietly but resolutely. "One thing at a time, my young friend. First the Erebor, then Khazad-dûm. We'll have it all back."
The way he said it, he seemed to have no doubt about the success of their quest. It was strangely reassuring. Kili felt it, too. He smiled and patted the older dwarf's back. "Just as you say, Balin," he nodded.
"Anyway-" his smile turned into a smirk as he looked back at Ella. "Your future mount. Does it have a name yet?"
"It's a she," she clarified. "And no. A hobbit name didn't seem quite suitable, and I don't know any orc names- female ones, at that. There must be female orcs though, right?"
"Oh, I suppose so." Balin cleared his throat. "How else would they-well- you know- breed ?"
Ella suppressed a smile. Despite their usual regulars' manners the dwarves were astounishingly prim when it came to talking about sexual intercourse in any form.
"What a beautiful idea," Kili grimaced. "Honeymoon in Mordor and orc mating rituals. Thank you, Balin. This is going to haunt me in my sleep tonight."
"I suggest you ask them when next we meet," she heard Thorin's humourless bass as he rose to take the first nightwatch, and the laughter died in Ella's throat.
"Which will be soon enough, make no mistake about it."
The look he gave her was anything but amused, storm-tossed brow, eyes cold enough to freeze the water in her mug. "Well, I'm glad some of us are looking forward to an anew encounter with our enemies. For my part, I prefer to avoid it if I can."
He turned his back on them, but before he left, he threw a look back over his shoulder at Ella and the baby warg sleeping in her lap. "Make sure your- pet stays quiet," he growled, then he turned to his nephew. "If it howls, shoot it."
He really had a talent to kill a conversation.
"Well," Kili sighed once his uncle had gone to take his post. "Goodnight then, I guess. Tomorrow we'll be up in the mountains again. Better get some rest."
Ella prepared her bed along with the dwarves, but as usual, sleep wouldn't come easily.
After leaving Rivendell, Thorin's behaviour towards her had become even more unkind, and she understood it in part. He was probably ashamed that she had listened to Gandalf's and Lord Elrond's conversation about the mental illness that ran in this family, and probably resented her for having seen him so unmistakably affected and wounded.
It seemed to her that the more she learned about the dwarf king, the more she believed to understand him, the gap between them only grew broader, and this made her terribly sad.
More than once had she considered to talk to him, disclose her true feelings to him and just await his reaction. Thorin avoided her most of the time, but it wouldn't really prove difficult to have a word with him alone- he always took the first nightwatch- but she couldn't bring herself to do it.
Hobbits might be inferior to dwarves in many ways, they might not be warriors who could look back on a glorious past, but they, too, had their pride. If this big, stubborn mule of a king was too blind to see what he meant to her, it was surely not her job to poke his long nose into it-
The next day, they were back on the mountain chain.
And then there came the thunderstorm.
And the Stone Giants.
Ella awoke with a start, her heart pounding, her body covered in cold sweat.
It took a while until she realised that she was still alive, that she didn't lie shattered on the ground but safely in the cave where they had found momentary shelter.
It had been a bad dream, nothing more.
Of course, Thorin had not let her fall. On the contrary, he had risked his own life to save her. After pulling her up the slope, he had lost his footing on the slippery ground and almost tumbled down the abyss himself. Oin and Dwalin managed to pull him up with combined forces, and then they were all out on their feet again, groaning and panting for breath. And luckily there had been that deserted cave nearby in which they sought shelter for the night.
It was a small wonder in itself that all of them had survived the battle between the Stone Giants, more or less unharmed even, and everyone expressed their relief that they had not lost their burglar.
Everyone- that was, except for Thorin.
"She's been lost ever since she left home," he said grimly. "She should never have come. She has no place amongst us."
Ella waited till her breathing had returned to normal and listened out into the darkness around her. The air in the cave was cold and damp- Thorin had not allowed to make a fire- and there was no sound but the soft snoring of the sleeping dwarves.
Quietly, Ella rose to her feet, bundled up her things, strapped on her sword and tucked the sleeping baby warg in her shawl.
Thorin had made it abundantly clear- she had no place amongst them and she never would. He had expected her to be nothing but a burden on his quest right from the start, and so far, experience had proven him right.
All that was left for her to do was leave, secretly steal away in the night like the thief she was.
Silently, carefully, she made her way across the sleeping bodies on the floor. She had reached the cave entrance when a large paw on her shoulder stopped her escape.
Ella released her breath with a defeated sigh. She didn't have to turn around to know who it was, the scent of him was unmistakable, as was the warmth of his hand that seemed to burn all the way through her clothes.
"What do you think you're doing ?" came Thorin's low, dark voice in her back.
She turned to face him. In the dark she could hardly see more than the outlines of his face, but his bright eyes beneath his dark, bushy brows shone like torches.
"Isn't that obvious?" she whispered back, her chin defiantly raised at him. "I'm leaving. You're right, I should never have come in the first place."
The dwarf king exhaled. "My words were spoken in anger," he said very quietly. "And concern. I didn't mean it. You almost died out there- "
He paused to brush the hair out of his face. "Where would you go anyway?"
Ella shrugged. "Back to Rivendell, I guess. Lord Elrond invited me to stay there for as long as I wished. And isn't that what you want?"
"I wish you would have stayed in Rivendell, yes," Thorin admitted. "Where you were safe. But you didn't, and now it wouldn't be safe for you to return, not on your own. I will not allow it."
"That's not your decision to make," Ella hissed. "You're not my king and I'm not one of your subjects. You can't make me stay."
"Strictly speaking, I could," Thorin replied, his voice even lower and darker than before. "But I'd prefer if I didn't have to."
Ella felt heat rise up her cheeks as she suddenly realized how close he was, close enough that she could feel his warm breath on her face with every word he spoke.
His hand was still on her shoulder, firm and warm, sending oddly pleasant shivers from there all through her body.
The air between them seemed to shift, to grow thicker, quite similar to the way it had in the tunnels when they approached Rivendell, it was crackling with tension. With magic.
The breath caught in her throat. She couldn't speak.
Thorin seemed to feel it, too. His grip on her shoulder tightened and he leaned forward so that their bodies almost touched.
"You'll be safer if you stay here," he repeated very quietly, sounding somewhat surprised by his own words. "You're safe here, with me-"
With so much of Thorin so close to her, safe was not exactly what Ella felt- in fact she had the feeling she was again hanging on the ledge, just before the free fall.
And it felt good. In fact, she couldn't remember to have ever felt better in all her life.
Slowly, like driven by a force outside herself, she raised her hand to bury it in his thick mane and pull his face down to hers.
She heard Thorin inhale sharply.
And then, a low growl coming from the shawl around her waist.
Both she and Thorin awoke from their trance and glanced down at the baby warg who had chosen the worst possible moment to wake up and make its disapproval known.
And then at her belt and the Elven sword in it, which had suddenly begun to flicker and glow in the darkness like a warning light.
Blue.
