A/N: I should really get a life instead of compulsively updating stories no one reads.

White chocolate spaghetti.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Hobbit or any affiliated characters.


Chapter 9

Bilbo was in a state of turmoil. It had been quite a few hours since they'd left Rivendell in the cover of early dawn and even now as they set up camp, the same thought that had been plaguing him for the last miles without waking up his cousin. He sighed again and looked at the road they had been travelling on with a frown. She was a part of the company as well, it was obvious in the way Fili and Kili had asked after her and been just as confused as he had been when Thorin said they would be leaving without her. But unlike Bilbo they had accepted the verdict with a shrug.

"Do you think we did the right thing? Not waking Myrtle up?"

"Why are you talking about me like I'm not here?" Bilbo squeaked and jumped into the air. Behind him, Myrtle glared, hanging upside down from a tree. Dwalin growled something in Khuzdul and Thorin's frown deepened even as Kili, Fili and Bofur laughed at his reaction. "And you called me Myrtle again, where's my apple and hair scratch?" She teased.

"Why did you do that?!" He shrieked, still feeling his heart pounding away in his chest. He always knew that some Took cousin was going to give him a heart attack but he had figured it would be some youngling who was intent upon surprising him.

"To hear you make that sound." She laughed and jumped off the branch saluting the company in acknowledgement.

"I swear it's like we stole Farmer Brandish's carrots all over again." Bilbo muttered while Thorin walked up to her his brows drawn close together.

"Are you following us?" Thorin said accusingly.

"No I left before you all did, I've been sitting on that tree for the past fifteen minutes waiting for one of you to notice me and no one did. How are you all still alive?" She made a face and Thorin snarled. Bilbo felt obligated to run interference for his cousin before Thorin would kill her and began speaking again desperate to take the attention off her.

"You could have just come with us like a normal person, you could have done anything but that!"

"Yes but what's the fun in that?" She scoffed.

Bilbo would have cursed her for being so frustrating, so bold and brave, so stupid, so utterly Tookish but then he remembered he'd signed on for a quest that involved him stealing from a dragon.

"I do not remember allowing you to join our quest."

"I'm here mainly to make sure you don't kill my cousin and honestly, talk about granting me permission when you manage to find a way to actually stop me." Bilbo was in awe at the fact that she would take such a risk just to ensure his safety but he really wished she'd stop making Thorin so angry in the process.

"Travelling with a woman is bad luck." Dwalin grumbled and she turned to him in disbelief.

"There is a dragon waiting for you at the end of your journey and you're worried about me bringing bad luck? Your fearless leader got lost in the Shire. The Shire. Have you seen how tiny the Shire is?!" Thorin reddened at that reminder.

Bilbo had forgotten about that.

Thorin, to him, was rather a majestic, brave sort of character. Stubborn obviously, frustrating as well and bloody judgemental but he was in awe of the Dwarf King. To lose everything he had, and then the story of the war fought at Moria it seemed like such a tragedy and Thorin bore it with grace, Bilbo thought.

His awe lessened dramatically when he realised that yes, Thorin really had gotten lost in the Shire.

"You spoke of a sorcerer you were looking for." Thorin said, narrowing his eyes at her and her ear twitched. Bilbo knew her well enough to know that that meant she was angry. Very, very angry and not too subtly he moved out of the way and close to Bofur.

"Yes, I know. I was there when I said that." She said impudently.

All in all Bilbo was quite surprised she had survived all these years. What with her being a hobbit, not exactly creatures known for their survival skills and her penchant for making people angry, she really should have been dead.

"Who is it?"Thorin demanded of her. "Tell me and I might let you stay."

"I will stay whether you like it or not and the sorcerer has no name." She licked her lips suddenly, nervous. "He has many names but none of them true. There is a title that he was given in the villages of Men that he passed through. He likes to use it, it makes him feel important."

"What title?"

She paused, taking a deep breath as if even saying it hurt her and Bilbo wondered exactly why she was on the trail of this sorcerer. It seemed personal to say the least. He hadn't seen her get this angry since the time when Todo Crowan refused to take her refusals for his suit seriously. It had ended in a feud between the Crowans and the Tooks when she had decked him at a fair in full view of all of Hobbiton.

"The Puppeteer." She said softly.

Thorin frowned. "I have heard rumours of him. He appears as a magician and puts on shows, stays for days until the villagers trust him and then in the night he vanishes with the children of the village but he has not been seen in decades."

"He shifted his focus that's all, he still lives."

"And how do you know this?" He said suspiciously but her patience had given way and it was apparent that she would not give him a straight answer anymore.

"I have read the portents." She sneered.

"Very well, I will allow you to travel with us." Thorin said and Bilbo released a breath of relief as his cousin sunk into a curtsy with a flourish, picking up her cloak in her fingers as she did so, gracefully.

"You are most magnanimous, Thorin Oakenshield." She smiled before turning to the company. "So, let's get that fire started!"

"I can't believe Thorin let you stay." Bilbo said, sitting down next to her and handing her a bowl of stew as the camp settled down. She had just returned from scouting and declared the area clear when the Bofur had shoved the two bowls into his hand and pushed him in her direction. She looked up and nodded at Bofur and Bombur in acknowledgement before answering him.

"He has his reasons. I can guess why."

"Really? Why?"

"You can't fight Bilbo. He has enough to worry about as it is with his heirs on this quest, he doesn't want to risk any of his men's life saving you. He doesn't trust me but he doesn't trust you either and if we become each other's problems he doesn't have to think about us. Besides that, he's pretty sure you're going to leave soon and in case you do it would be better for your safety if I was there to guide you back."

"That's cold."

"It's sensible. Regardless of what he thinks about me he knows I can handle myself in a fight, I'm a logical addition to the company despite the fact that I know elves. Now that he knows I have my own agenda he can think of me as being separate from the Company, a hired hand of sorts and consequently not his responsibility."

Bilbo was speechless for quite a while. With a huff and a roll of his eyes he went back to eating. By the time he was scraping at the bottom of his bowl, Fili and Kili who were freed up from wood gathering duty joined them.

"Kieran!" Kili cried out when he saw her before frowning. "Keera? Myrtle? Erredil?"

"Let's stick to Keera."

"Alright then, Keera, we were just wondering how you came to be a Ranger."

"Oh." She stopped in her steps. "Oh you want the story. Well I'll tell you but it's not very exciting and I'm not very good at telling stories anyway."

"A hobbit lass becoming a Ranger, you're all but telling tales anyway." Dwalin said and by way of answering she casually shifted the braid off her shoulder onto her back and in doing so revealed the edges of the six pointed star tattooed into her shoulder that had been hidden before and Dwalin eyed her carefully.

"It isn't really that complicated, just a simple thing," she continued as if he hadn't said anything, "I helped rescue a Ranger from a few Orcs and he was so grateful for my assistance he trained me."

"Is that so?" Bilbo questioned, clearly thinking of a different account of the same story.

"Yes, yes it is."

"That's not the story Gandalf told me. As I heard it, you accidentally conked the Ranger on his head and knocked him unconscious."

"And that combined with the stench of decay he emitted was enough to convince the Orcs that he was dead and they left him for dead instead of ripping him apart. Obviously." She rolled her eyes.

"And then you wouldn't leave him alone so he decided to teach you a few things to make yourself less conspicuous." Bilbo added.

"I just didn't want to leave him alone when he was clearly suffering through a concussion." She simpered.

Her cousin snorted. "For five days?"

"It was quite obvious, especially since he wasn't covering his tracks nearly as well as he should have. If I could follow him back then even without the skills I have now then someone else would have done so as well. Shoddy work." She clucked her tongue. "He needed the help."

"So you really are a Ranger?" Kili said in awe.

"An honorary one but yes."

"Have you been to many places?" asked Bilbo tucking his hands inside his pockets.

"A fair few. Some places I ended up at because I got lost."

"Isn't it dangerous? Travelling all by yourself?"

"Yes it is. But it's also fun."

"You are more a Took than I ever realised."

"That so?"

"Yes, very much so. The epitome of Tookishness, truly." Bilbo said.

"Aww." She smiled sweet and soft and pulled his cheek. "That would mean so much to me if I didn't know what Tookishness represents. And really Baby Cousin, you're much more of a Took than I am. Dragon." She said meaningfully.

"You're older than him?" Fili asked, giving her a probing look.

"Only by two years!" Bilbo protested emphatically glaring at Keera who cooed and pulled his cheek again.

"You'll always be my baby cousin!"

Bilbo opened his mouth, sulky and they half expected him to call for his mother to play mediator. Instead he shifted and yelped when something jabbed his hip.

"Bother it, this letter opener keep son getting in the way." Bilbo complained and she eyed the sword at his side with interest.

"Do you want to learn how to fight?"

"I-I'm not a fighter."

"Yes I know, that's why I'm offering to teach you." Bilbo sighed and frowned, thinking it over. "Let me correct that. Do you want to learn how to hold your own in a fight?"

A look of understanding dawned on his face. "Yes, I'd like that very much."

"Okay then." She stood up. "We'll start with unarmed combat, leave the sword away for now."

A little away from the rest in a relatively plain area, they stood facing one another. The company had gathered and were watching from the sidelines, making Bilbo a bit nervous. Keera on the other hand stood unmoved as if she hadn't even noticed the interested stares being thrown their way.

"So what do I-"

"What do you see around you?"

"Umm what?"

Having shrugged off her coat and quite a few layers now, she seemed impossibly small. It was hard for him to remember that this was the same person who had threatened Thorin, fought Wargs, killed Orcs even. But then she began moving, pacing around him without looking at him and Bilbo was reminded of the cat he used to have as a child and the way it prowled when hunting mice.

"You're in the middle of a fight, surrounded by sounds of battle. Clanging swords, yells as muscles are torn into, screams of people dying and war cries." It painted a morbid picture in his mind. "You've been disarmed and backed into a corner," She walked up to him fats and he backtracked finding himself right up against a tree. In the dimming light of evening her eyes seemed to gleam and he was momentarily terrified. "What do you see around you?"

"Uhh...grass, rocks, pebbles, a fallen branch, a frying pan, trees-"

"Out of all those things, which are closest to you? Within arm's reach?"

"The stones?" He scrambled back as she loomed closer and his toes dug into the soft earth at his feet, finding a pebble.

"And what can you do with the stones?"

"I can throw them I guess. Like conkers."

She smiled. "Exactly." And then she fell back. "You heard the story of how Thorin used the oak branch as a shield when his own was broken," From the corner of his eye Bilbo saw the dwarf in question jolt at the mention, "that is an example of excellent awareness of your surroundings. In a true fight you are almost never truly unarmed because there is always something that can be used, either to defend yourself with or to attack your assailant with. Right now the branch is too far away, you can't reach it quick enough to get away from me, so what do you do?"

"Umm I throw rocks at you," He toed one out of the dirt and flung it at her. She caught it but pretended to be impacted anyway and he used the time to equip himself with the branch nearby. She came at him arms swinging but he held her back long enough to reach the frying pan. "And get myself armed again." He said, his breath coming fast.

"Good. Now let's try that faster."

It went on till the moon came out and then continued for a while longer. The sequence of events remained the same, he obtained some means of defending himself, she disarmed him and they repeated it all over again but with the amount of time spent thinking in between actions decreasing.

"You're doing well." She said, not a hair out of place, not even breathing hard while he took large lungfuls of air, tired from all the running and fighting. "Better than I expected. Tomorrow we'll go through basic stances and blocks."

"Great, just bloody great." He gasped."I'm going to die before we ever get to the dragon."

She shrugged, "To be fair that was always a possibility."


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