DISCLAIMER!: I do NOT own The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings in any way - Tolkien has that honor. I have written this purely for amusement-purposes, and I receive no credit. On that note; read on.
"Tara? Tara, wake up."
Her eyes fluttered slightly as an answer to the request, and as her eyes slowly opened, a toothy smile met her.
"Hey everyone, she woke up!"
Soft laughter reached her ears, and the light from the lantern near her was gentle on her eyes. She slowly focused her gaze on the person in front of her. It was Ori. She smiled gently, nodding in recognition.
"Ori," she croaked, her throat feeling awfully sore. Her brow was knit together in thought, wondering why her voice sounded like that. As flashes of the ordeals from that night came back to her, she blinked. Ah, it was probably because of all the screaming.
Another flash of memory came back to her, and she widened her eyes.
"Thorin!?"
She looked around for a few seconds, locating the Dwarf in question sitting on a rock a bit further on her left. She breathed out in relief, letting the back of her head rest against the wall. He nodded at her, acknowledging her call.
"How are you feeling, Tara? Does your arm still hurt?" The concerned voice of Bilbo came from her right, and she looked at him with a small smile, trying to move her arm. It felt stiff and a dull pain throbbed in it, but it didn't qualify as the same pain from before.
"I'll live. As to how I am, I am starving and could kill for some mead," she shared, making most of the Dwarves laugh loudly.
"I know just how you feel, lass," Gloin admitted. "The food we can help you with, but you need to settle for water rather than mead," he said, throwing his water skin to her. She caught it with her left hand, nodding in gratitude. She didn't trust her right arm at that moment.
She carefully took a sip of the water, marveling at the way the water seemed to fill out the dry cracks in her throat. After clearing her throat, attempting to even it out and remove the uncomfortable feeling of splinters in the side of it, she threw the skin back to Gloin.
"You' okay, Bilbo?" she asked, her blue eyes searching for the Hobbit. He was sitting next to her, his curls sticking to his head, and he slowly nodded.
"Yeah, I'm fine. A bit tired, but its fine. Everything's fine. Just fine, yes," he rambled, and Tara put a finger to his lips with a smile.
"You just said fine four times in a row, Bilbo," she teased him, and the Hobbit laughed a bit.
Bilbo didn't think he'd ever been that afraid in his life. After being pulled up from the edge by Thorin, he had barely seen Tara disappearing out of view through the crook of his eye, and then it had been chaos. He had seen Tara's eyes fill up with tears when her arm had given in, he had feared for her life when the rock she had held on to came loose. And then he had sat by her side the past half hour, the time it took for her to wake up again after Dwalin had put her shoulder in its place.
Most of the Dwarves were already made for sleep, but none of them had wanted to go to sleep before Tara got back to consciousness.
Now that that had been taken care of, they all laid down, trying to get some good shuteye before they had to be on the move again. Bilbo blinked, still looking at Tara. She smiled at him, carefully lifting her left arm and winking at him.
"I'll be all right, don't worry. Go and get some sleep; it will be a long day tomorrow," she comforted him, and he went to a free spot after one quick glance at her again. She smiled as the Hobbit laid down, slowly putting down her arm again. Ori laid down next to her; the only reason Bilbo hadn't chosen that spot had, apparently, been because Ori had laid claim on it first. And there was no room on her left, as a rather strange rock formation was sticking out. The closest area worthy of mentioning for sleeping purposes on her left side, was the rock Thorin had claimed for himself.
"Thank you."
Tara blinked, looking to her right. It was Ori who had spoken, and he smiled up at her, his brown eyes closed already.
"For what?"
"If you hadn't told Dwalin to keep ahold of me, I doubt I would've been able to stay put on that stone giant," he admitted, and Tara smiled.
"Of course you would, don't be silly," she scolded, giving the young dwarf a quick flick on his forehead. He furrowed his brow at the pain, which he had not seen coming for obvious reasons, and he looked up at her with a sulk. She smiled back at him.
"You're stronger than you think, Ori. You might not be the greatest warrior amongst us, but your strengths lie somewhere else entirely," she comforted him, and he blinked. After a while, he smiled, nodding.
"I am glad you came along, Tara."
Tara felt her heart swell at the kind words and she nodded at him.
"So am I, Ori."
Not three minutes after that, the Dwarf was asleep. Tara herself found it hard to sleep. She had already had three hours more rest than the others that day, and even if that wasn't a good enough reason, she was afraid to sleep.
Seeing the Stone Giants on a movie screen had been unsettling enough back then, but actually being there had left her on edge. Whenever she closed her eyes, snippets of the event would jump out from her mind, and scare her.
And to top of it off, she was sitting up. She was that much taller than the Dwarves, so she had to compromise herself as much as possible, but sitting upright was ridiculous. She looked around herself, trying to find a way she could lay more comfortably.
"Can't sleep?"
The voice was Thorin's, and when Tara looked to him, she could see the glistening gold of the dying lantern in his dark eyes. She smiled timidly, shrugging, and immediately regretting it, when her sore shoulder let her know what an idiot she was for doing that. She hissed quietly as a response, before shaking her head.
"Not quite. Can I complain?"
A brief sigh was heard, before Thorin nodded. He knew it had to come at some point.
"My shoulder hurts as hell and I'm going to have nightmares about this mountain for days to come."
Silence ensued for a few moments, before she heard a low rumble. She furrowed her brow. What was that sound?
"That's all?" She blinked in confusion at Thorin's question.
"I am not used to-"she began, but Thorin quickly interrupted her.
"No, I meant; is that all you have to complain about?"
Tara leaned slightly forward, in order to get a better look at the Dwarf King. He was looking her way with a look on his face she hadn't seen before, at least not while she had known him. He looked like he was having fun.
"Well, I am certain I could find some more, if you want me to," she teased. That weird rumble came again, and she looked around her to try and identify it.
"What is that sound?" she asked, making Thorin blink and look around himself, trying to locate the sound she was talking about. Of course, it was gone now.
"What sound?"
Tara hummed slowly, trying to create the sound again. And just as she thought he hadn't heard it, it came again. This time, she was looking around, and she saw a smile on his face.
"Hey! You're laughing!" she said, astounded, and he raised a dark eyebrow.
"What of it?"
Tara giggled when she thought of last she heard him say that. It seemed like a lifetime ago they left Rivendell, and she shrugged, only with one shoulder this time.
"I've just never heard that sound before," she explained, looking away from him.
"Hm." His simple reply made Tara smirk, as the Dwarven King shuffled a bit on his rock. Silence dawned on the two, as they listened to the quite noisy snoring of the rest of the group. And just when Tara thought the Dwarf had gone to sleep, she heard his voice again.
"Thank you for catching me."
She smiled.
"Thank you for not leaving me behind when I had my vision."
He widened his eyes, looking behind. She was smiling at him, her blue eyes glowing in a mischievous way.
"You knew?"
"No, I had an inkling. But you just confirmed my suspicions," she teased, making Thorin sigh.
"Well played, human," he admitted, causing Tara to send a mock-bow his way.
"Why thank you, Dwarf." She stressed her mention of his race, and Thorin was quite sure he had a good idea why.
"I wouldn't leave you behind after you rescued Bombur," he commented, making Tara smile.
"You wouldn't have left me anyways. Leaving a woman, unconscious and unprotected, in the mountains is not the way you do things," she reminded him, and he sighed. She bit her lip.
"Sorry. I forgot you don't like it when I do that," she apologized. Thorin looked out on the sleeping figures of his company. It was unsettling when Tara spoke like that, like she knew them better than they knew themselves.
"You're right. I probably wouldn't have done it. But I wanted to, for a time," he said. Tara giggled.
"I can just imagine. Having me tag along wasn't exactly the way you planned to leave Rivendell, was it?"
"No, it was not."
Again, none of them spoke. But Tara was fine with that. Thorin wasn't the type who liked to talk unless he had to, and it was comfortable just sitting there in the quiet with him. Especially since there was no bad blood between them anymore, which helped the mood tremendously. Tara was laying down, just about ready to fall asleep, when she heard a silent confession from Thorin.
"But I am glad you came with us."
She smiled, her heart feeling fluttery again, and she closed her eyes to fall asleep.
She didn't feel like she had been sleeping for very long before hushed voices woke her up.
"You're homesick, I understand!"
Her eyes jumped open, as she slowly sat up.
"No! No, that's it! You don't, you don't understand, you're Dwarves! You're used to this life, the life on the road, never staying in one place, never belonging anywhere."
Silence followed his rant, and Tara sighed, shaking her head.
"Look, I'm sorry, I shouldn't hav-"
"No, you're right. We don't belong anywhere."
Tara couldn't deal with it, and she slowly inched herself forward, whipping her tongue against her teeth to create sounds.
"Shut up, both of you," she whispered, making Bofur and Bilbo jump, as they looked back to her. She smiled, shaking her head.
"You leaving, Bilbo?" she asked, blinking innocently. She remembered this scene from the movie all too well; it had always made her heart clench. Bilbo slowly nodded.
"Yeah. We all know I'm just a burden here," he slowly said, and Tara shook her head.
"You're no more a burden than I am, Bilbo," she scolded, and the Hobbit looked up at her.
"But that's it, Tara. We should never have come. We are slowing them down, we are putting their lives in danger... We don't belong here," he said. He didn't know how much his sentence his home.
"We don't belong here," she muttered, looking around. She didn't belong in Middle Earth at all, no matter how many years she spent there. Bilbo slowly nodded.
"I am going back home before I lose my way. You could... Come with me?"
Tara smiled. Go back to Rivendell, maybe even go with Bilbo to see the Shire. She had always wanted to see it. The little creeks, the soft hills. She had always wanted to enter a Hobbit Hole, maybe even bump her head against one of the chandeliers.
Her eyes slowly drifted around the Dwarves, as she thought of Bilbo's proposition. A tug on her arm made her look down, and she saw Ori laying closely against her, one arm wrapped around hers. She smiled, carefully removing on of his reddish braids from his face.
"I can't leave."
Bilbo smiled sadly. Tara looked up at him, smiling the very same smile to him.
"I went on this adventure of my own, for my own reasons. And so did you, that day, when you ran out of Bag End, even in such a rush that you forgot your handkerchief. Have you forgotten why you came along?" she asked. Bilbo looked down on the cave floor, full of thought. His reasons for going with the Dwarves? He had just wanted to see what was beyond the Shire, see Elves, mountains and wide plains. He had seen all that...
Wasn't his purpose for joining the company fulfilled?
"Hey, Bilbo, yer sword," Bofur said in confusion, and Tara blinked. She stared at the blue light coming from Bilbo's dagger, along with the hobbit, who pulled it up, showing off the shine. Tara saw Thorin's head slowly raise from his sleeping spot, and the sound of sand shuffling.
"Oh no, no no no!" Tara whimpered, looking around.
