Chapter 8

After the others had returned bearing new weapons – even Bilbo, Aleks noted with a silent whistle – the hobbit made his way to Aleks's side, his face pensive as he looked at the long dagger in his hands.

"I heard what you did," Aleks said in an undertone.

Bilbo checked himself, as if believing Aleks might be speaking to someone else. "M-me?"

Smiling, Aleks nodded. "That was brave, delaying those creatures like that."

Bilbo shook his head in a vehement no. "I am not brave," the hobbit assured him. "No, most decidedly not."

Aleks snorted. "Marcus once told me that bravery was not the absence of fear, but acting in spite of it." More dryly, "The only good piece of counsel he ever had."

Bilbo came nearer, head tilted at an angle. "You did not care for him at all, did you?"

"Marcus?"

Bilbo bobbed his head, hands awkwardly gripping his weapon.

Aleks frowned, unable to meet the small man's eyes. There was no hiding the bitterness in his voice as he said, "A man has no business taking in children if he has no intention of caring for them beyond their physical needs." Bilbo wavered for a minute as tears threatened to fall. Aleks forced them back. "Feeding and clothing children is not the same as caring for them."

"No," the hobbit agreed. "No, it isn't." The small man laid a hesitant hand on his shoulder. "What you did for us? Thank you."

Aleks gave him a half-smile. "I only wish I'd had something more powerful. A Ruger is not designed to take down big creatures like that. It's more for small game." Then with a laugh, "Though I suppose anything short of an Uzi might have had a hard time with those." He dipped his head towards the stone creatures.

"Uzi?" Fili asked as he approached, his braided blond mustache twitching.

Aleks grinned. "Wish I could show you one."

Suddenly, a noise broke the relative peace of the morning. Something was coming, tearing through the woods and headed right for them.

Aleks found himself on his feet. He pushed Bilbo behind him and loaded the Ruger, hopping on his good leg until he had a better vantage point of the thing's approach.

"Take up arms," Thorin commanded in a bellow. The dwarves hastened to obey, spreading out, armed and ready for this new threat.

"Thieves!" a male voice rang out from the woods. "Fire! Murder!"

A sled crashed through the underbrush, skidding to a halt before them. He caught a glimpse of the brown-robed man at the reins before his attention locked upon the diminutive, brown haired woman in the bed of the sled.

The world vanished as a dawning sense of shock claimed him. For sitting there was none other than his missing twin sister.

OoOoOo

Thieves, fire, murder. I'd never understood that. Before I could ask the wizard in question, we were staring at the business end of over a dozen blades wielded by a motley band of bearded dwarves.

My nape tingled as if someone stared at me. My head whipped around to find…my brother. A scruffier, dirtier version of Aleks, I'd never seen. His jaw sported the beginnings of a ginger beard, and his hair looked tousled. His clothes showed signs of hard use, and his leg was gashed and bleeding. I gaped at my brother. To think him dead and now to see him in his element, it was more than I could take in.

Alive. He was… "You're alive!" I exclaimed, rising slowly to my feet. I tripped over the sled's rim but managed to remain upright.

Those olive green eyes mirrored my shock before hardening. "So," he growled, "are you."

He might as well have slapped me.

Again, I howled to myself as all expression bled from my face, and I locked down. The mask slammed into place – where I promised myself it would not budge again. Aleks. Of all the people to be with Oakenshield's Company, it had to be Aleks.

I felt the press of eyes searing against my skin. Hostile, in all likelihood. I refused to check. If he'd been with them all this while, he'd had ample time to tell them all the dastardly things I'd done. Or at least, all the things Aleks plunked on my doorstep.

Hollow inside, I forced my attention back to Radagast.

A speck of confusion touched me. Where had that bird poop come from? And that spacey look in his hazel eyes? Was he…faking? Was this where his idiot reputation came from? If this was the face he presented to Saruman, no wonder the head of his order held him in such disdain.

A suspicion arose. He does it on purpose. After all, who would bother him if he acted like – well, this – every time an elf, dwarf, or man happened by. At any other time, I'd have been impressed. It took dedication to maintain such an absurd guise. A proud man certainly couldn't do it. But once the curiosity of his actions and appearance faded, all I could think was, Aleks wants me dead. He hates the very ground I stand upon. He wants me dead.

I paid little attention to the conversation. After all, I knew what happened next. I turned dead eyes to the woods around us, waiting for the warg's howl that was sure to come.

OoOoOo

As Gandalf conversed with the strange wizard, Thorin waited with arms folded before him, a frown creasing his brow.

Bofur sidled close, his cousin Bifur at his side. "Now that is not what I was expecting," he said for Thorin's ears only.

Thorin inclined his head in the barest acknowledgment. That anger ruled Aleks where his sister was concerned was no surprise. Its hold was such that not once had the naiad given them an inkling of what had transpired between them. Thorin had been left to conclude the sister must be a foul sort: scheming, backstabbing, and cruel.

Not what he was seeing before his eyes. The female naiad was over a foot shorter than her brother, smaller than all of them but the hobbit. Short, ragged hair dangled around her face, a face that had, at Aleks's words, gone completely vacant after a glimpse of devastation. Now, her eyes refused to alight upon any of his party. She all but huddled in upon herself as she kept her focus upon the brown-robed Radagast and the woods around them.

Suddenly, her head sprang up, her gaze intent as she stared off to one side. One slender hand lifted a strand of hair into her mouth, a nervous habit Thorin was certain she was unaware of.

"What is it?" he asked, stepping closer.

She shied away as if he'd brandished his sword. Bofur's swift inhale told him the toymaker was as appalled as he. More was wrong with these naiads than he had ever suspected.

The naiad – why hadn't anyone introduced the girl? – met his eyes for less than a heartbeat before turning to Radagast. She slunk away to the wizard's side like a whipped dog, a second hank of hair vanishing into her mouth. A rumble went through his dwarves. He was not the only one to react with anger at the sight.

The wizards both halted and turned eyes upon the lass. Gandalf betrayed annoyance, but the Brown Wizard… Thorin's eyes narrowed upon him. For a moment, the vacuous look vanished from the other wizard's eyes, and Thorin swore he detected fondness. Amusement, even.

Thorin lifted one brow and saw Bofur's ghost of a grin from the corner of his eyes. "What?" he asked the toymaker.

The smile faded and a rarely seen seriousness marked Bofur's face. "Not afraid of our Grey Wizard, now, is she?"

Thorin frowned.

"She belongs with us."

Now he turned to the dwarf. "How so?"

Bofur tugged on one ear. "Where else can she go? Like the lad, she's got nowhere else to be, Thorin. Who will take her in? Men? The elves? She is Aleks's kin. We cannot allow him to do this. Not without reason."

Thorin's hands descended to his waist. Two fingers smoothed across the pommel of his sword. Even should they cross paths with them, he'd never tolerate Aleks's sister to be left in the hands of elves. "Aleks may have a valid reason for his actions."

"Och, you do not believe that. Not seeing what we've seen."

"Bofur, she is not your lost cousin."

Anger sparked within those green-brown eyes. Anger tainted by pain. "Well do I know that, Thorin."

Thorin heaved a sigh, regretting his hasty surmise about Bofur's motives. He redirected the conversation. "I do not believe she trusts us."

Oddly enough, it was Bifur who responded. In Khuzdul, he said, "Fear. Learned over much time." The gruff, wild-looking dwarf withdrew to Bombur's side without further comment. He never once glanced in Aleks's direction, never gave any indication the naiad was the subject of their conversation.

Thorin was once more reminded of just why he'd placed so much trust in the three Khazad-dum-descended dwarves that comprised his unofficial honor guard. None would believe it to look at them, but they were shrewd and tactful, albeit in a brazen and misleading fashion.

Thorin watched as Aleks's sister stood beside the wizard with no expression on her face. Patient. Unbudging. Aleks was not malicious or possessing of a mean nature. The female naiad had done something to earn Aleks's animosity, and Thorin wouldn't allow one of questionable morals to join their venture. Too much was at stake.

Still, Bofur had a point. The naiad should be with her brother if at all possible. Bifur's assessment stuck with him. What could cause her to be so frightened? They had to find out what happened between the two, for as Thorin knew, family was everything. He shuddered to think where he'd be without Dís and her sons. If there was a way to fix things, the female would be joining them. If not on the quest, then when they'd won Erebor.

OoOoOo

When I dared to trespass upon the Wizard's-Only Hallowed Ground, Gandalf frowned, a tic underscoring one eye.

Didn't care. He wasn't my travel companion.

Radagast's idiot face flickered, and I caught a peek of the intense, abrupt wizard I'd come to know. He held up one finger and continued to discuss Dol Guldur with Gandalf. I counted in my head, waiting for everything to fall to pot.

Warn them, a part of me urged about the time I reached sixty. I hate to admit it, but my lips actually parted, the words on the tip of my tongue. Run. That's all I had to say to Thorin. I snapped my mouth closed. Are you crazy? If you warn them, what if they ride off on their ponies, SUCCESSFUL in evading the orcs? No trip to Rivendell. No consultation with Elrond about the map, not unless Gandalf could be a lot more convincing than he had been to this point. Erebor not reclaimed. Smaug not killed.

Another thought. No trip to Rivendell might mean a different path through the Misty Mountains. No Thunder Battle, no meeting with the Great Goblin. And if that didn't happen, Bilbo wouldn't find the One Ring.

My stomach twisted. One word, and I could have condemned all of Middle Earth to an eternity of Sauron. I clutched myself, feeling faint at what I'd almost done. Have to stay away from the dwarves. A slip with Radagast might be fixable. As a wizard, I could probably tell him what I knew, and he'd make sure the time-line remained intact. But anyone else?

If the books are true. Also a chilling thought. What if they were mostly accurate, but not entirely? Spilling the beans could lead to faulty expectations. Suddenly, being stranded on Middle Earth didn't feel like such a gift. Oh, it was better than Faerie – infinitely better than that – but so would a swift execution before a firing squad.

A warg's low growl had everyone whirling to face west. It stalked closer, ready to spring. What if someone dies because I didn't speak?

The warg leaped towards Thorin, but a club-like branch slammed into its path – Bombur, moving with amazing agility and speed. His forceful blow cracked bones and sent the warg flying into the glowing embers of their camp fire. Thorin finished it with one swipe of Orcrist.

Another growl came from the other side of the clearing, and Bofur took up a protective stance by my side. Why…? The warg charged, this one aiming for Thorin, too, but before it reached him, an arrow sliced through the air and embedded itself in its skull with a dull thunk. A bald, muscular dwarf – Dwalin, I assumedslammed his war-hammer down upon its skull, crushing it like a pancake.

Ick. I swallowed and averted my eyes. I ended up staring at Kili by chance. The younger Durin gave me a gamine grin and a wink.

"Warg-scouts," Thorin identified. "Which means an orc pack is not far behind."

I forced my gaze away from the young dwarf, at turns confused and flattered by that flirtatious wink. Don't care, I repeated to myself. Not about any of them. If they'd embraced Aleks into their group, they'd hate me for his sake. And, again, I couldn't afford to be sociable with them. Too dangerous for us all.

"O-orc pack?"

Grateful for the distraction, my eyes sought the speaker and found the hobbit staring at the warg corpse with saucer-sized eyes. Aleks placed a protective hand upon Bilbo's shoulder and glared at me. Like I would harm him or something.

"You are being hunted," Gandalf declared, staff in one hand as he marched towards Thorin. "Who did you tell of your quest?"

"No one," Thorin growled.

"Who did you tell?" Gandalf demanded in a harder tone.

"No one, I swear." From the hot look in Thorin's gray eyes, I believed him. Not that I'd doubted, knowing the story.

"We have to get out of here," Dwalin said, hefting his heavy ax over one shoulder.

"We can't! We have no ponies!" a younger, thinner dwarf cried out. Ori, I labeled. The dwarf had hair a shade more coppery than mine and ink smudges on his fingertips. "They bolted."

Oh, no. Here it came. I made tracks back to Radagast's sled. Bofur frowned, a strange expression on his face.

"I will draw them off," Radagast proclaimed. It earned him incredulous looks all around.

"These are Gundabad wargs," Gandalf said. "They'll outrun you."

"They didn't last time," I offered helpfully, picking up my tote and slinging it over my neck for added assurance. I wasn't losing it. If it held the only chocolate on Middle Earth, death alone would part me from it.

Bofur marched closer, his own weapon – huh, so that's a mattock – hoisted onto a muscular shoulder. "Lass?"

I ignored his question. "I'm ready. We going or what?"

Shocked silence.

Radagast smirked, his facade discarded for the moment. "I didn't know you were so fond of me, leaf-child." Then more seriously, "You will remain here with Gandalf."

My own face assumed an obstinate bent. "No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

I stomped close and got up into his face…er, chest. (I hated being short.) One finger poked him. "Don't you dare think you can pull that intimidation stunt on me again. It won't work."

Radagast elevated a single brow. "I beg your pardon, but I do not do 'stunts'."

"Sure you do," I continued on. "You do that Gandalf-trick, where you seem to take up a whole lot more space, the air turns dark, and your voice booms like an angel proclaiming doom from the heavens."

"No," he whispered for me alone, intense hazel eyes as sharp as I'd ever seen them. "In this, you must trust me." I got the distinct impression he knew exactly how difficult that was for me. A glimmer of sympathy and amusement lightened his stern visage. "Besides, if this is Faerie, it doesn't matter whom you travel with, correct? None of us are who we claim to be."

Touché. I folded arms before my chest. Maybe I should have told Radagast before now that I believed him, that Thranduil had set me straight. I suspected he knew, though. Why else the amusement?

"You will take all care," I blurted, my fingers knotting themselves up into a ball at my waist. I felt vulnerable, revealing that much emotion. But… It was Radagast. I'd not been without him since he'd saved me from Dol Guldur. Well, barring one night under Beorn's watchful – and devious – eye.

Radagast seemed to preen, his bony shoulders straighter. "You will tell Gandalf what you beheld in Dol Guldur." He leaned in to whisper. "Or…is he Gandalf?"

Jerk. He knew, all right. I gave him a sour expression and wriggled some fingers at him, shooing him off.

One last penetrating look, and he was off.

I watched until he disappeared from sight. Deep down, I knew he was right. He wouldn't take anyone into danger if he could help it, especially not a young woman. My weight would only slow the sled down and put us both at risk. I snorted at myself. He'd seen me almost topple from the cargo bed more than once when he took a sharp turn. I was the last person he'd want with him when tangling with orcs.

So why did I feel so abandoned?