"Kai, can we go now?" Thorin asked, impatient, as the elf continued to clean the last of the dishes, swept, and otherwise endeavored to make the hobbit hole nice and pristine once more. "We really do need to get moving!"
"You can go if you want, I want to make sure that Mr. Baggins doesn't have to wake up to a mess that a horde of dwarves left strewn across his home! It's bad manners!"
"Since when did dwarves care about manners?" Bofur asked, tone almost whining as he reluctantly took Gandalf's offered broom and started sweeping as well. Kai threw him a look but didn't answer. "Oi! All of you start helping to clean! I don't want to be the only one..." About two hours passed after several unsuccessful attempts to get all of the dwarves working in utter silence to clean up a mess that they didn't even believe was theirs, and Kai eventually gave up and followed her uncle's movements to usher her out of the home into the cold night air.
"Where are we headed to?" she yawned and caught something about some sort of inn before she basically went comatose walking. In fact, when she woke up in the morning, she didn't know how she had even gotten to her bedroom though all the dwarves swore that she had walked up to her room on her own and had in fact been moving about on her own without any assistance. They had thought she was perfectly lucid.
That morning as they all sat there, eating and conversing, Kai turned to Gandalf.
"Gandalf, I have a question..." she began, pushing Fíli's head away as her siblings tried to eavesdrop, sending both into a bickering argument between each other.
"Hmm?" the wizard said vaguely as he reached over and stole his roll of bread back from Nori who threw him a rather daunting glare. However, it wasn't as daunting as the returned glare that looked like storm clouds had descended upon the old man's eyes and the dwarf muttered something about never taking his food again.
"Can...I mean do - " she stopped, trying to wrap her head around what she was trying to ask. Finally noticing her floundering, Gandalf turned his full attention to her, taking a deep breath of his pipe.
"Yes, what is it, my dear?" he asked and his full attention gave her a sense of confidence.
"I was wondering," she began purposefully and turned to look down at the food she was twisting about her fork. "Can - do elves need to sleep?" She closed her eyes as she asked the question, and Gandalf frowned at the distaste that was written upon the young one's face as she asked the question. "I don't remember anything from last night. I was so tired that I just...I blacked out as soon as we left Mr. Baggins' house, but I don't remember anything until I woke up this morning. But everyone has said - even you - that I was awake that whole time." Gandalf frowned in thought.
"Awake may be a bit of a strong word," he acknowledged. "You were awake but you were a bit vacant. No, you weren't sleepwalking," he answered as he saw her open her mouth to make a suggestion. "But in answer to your original question, yes. Elves do sleep, though it is a different kind of sleeping than the one you know. They weave together the world of night and day to create a sort of walking sleep." He watched her carefully as she took in the information.
"Do you - I mean, is it possible that that's what happened to me last night?"
"Quite," the gray robed man answered and turned to talk with Balin about something serious, voices continuing on in an undertone. Kai, feeling considerably down, looked at the elvish bracelet tied about her wrist cuff and idly picked at it.
"What's that, Uncle?" her thirteen year old voice asked.
"It's a bracelet for you. We found it when we found you in the snow. It's elvish." Thorin fastened it about her wrist and gently rested his calloused hand on her silken hair. Kai frowned as she looked at it. "What's wrong?"
"Why did you keep it?" she asked, confused. "You don't like elves, why did you keep it?" Thorin looked uncomfortable, but his glance towards Dís for assistance was pointedly ignored by the female dwarf.
"It is true that I don't like elves, little one. But it is not true that I don't like you. You are precious to me, and I can't take your heritage away from you. I wanted you to have something that was their's and this was all that would have fit for you and all that was salvageable."
"You didn't have to keep something so accursed, Uncle. You shouldn't have." Kai got up and moved to throw it in the fire, but Thorin stood up and grabbed her wrist, refraining her from disposing of it. She met his serious eyes and he gestured for her to sit down.
"Kai, you must understand that there is more to you than being a dwarf. You are an elf. You have another name somewhere. You have...abilities that we won't have. You'll have keener eye sight; better, longer memory; better singing voice," he teased and Kai grinned. Here, his tone grew sadder almost. "But there will be other things that will keep us apart. You age differently. You live so much longer than we do. Hundreds, thousands of years longer," he continued, almost wistfully and Kai noticed how his grip tightened on her hands. "You will be alone at one point in your life. And you'll need someone to take care of you." He closed her hands over the bracelet. "I hope this can lead you home when that time comes. This looks like a seal, but it isn't one that I've seen before. It will be able to guide you back to your true family."
"I don't WANT my true family!" Kai cried standing and glaring at her uncle. "YOU are my true family! If my - my elvish family had wanted me, had been my true family, they would have stopped at NOTHING to find me and bring me back!" She brandished the bracelet. "This is a bondage! I don't want it!" With that, she threw it to the ground and marched away, angry and vindictive, stalking turning quickly into running as she fled into the woods and ran to her special clearing that she had gone to so many times before with her brothers. She leaped into the river and swam to the far bank, curling up in the gentle arm of the half submerged tree branch, the remnants of a mighty giant that had toppled into the water, roots torn up out of the ground and cast down by some large storm. She had no idea how long she had been crying when she heard footsteps approaching.
Please not one of the human boys, please not one of the human boys...
"Kai?" a voice asked and she looked around to see Balin standing behind her. He walked down to the bank and sloshed through the water to put a hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong?"
"Uncle tried to give me an elvish bracelet he said belonged to my parents," she muttered, now feeling silly as she stated why she was now crying in a river. "I don't want to be an elf, I want to be a dwarf! WHY can't he see that?!" Balin sighed and looked at the little child, tucked away in the wood, just as she had been so many long years ago. He gave a smile and squeezed her shoulder again.
"It's alright lass. Thorin didn't mean anything by it, he just...he just thought that you might like something of your home. You know, maybe to revive some memories or the like." Kai shrugged off his hand.
"Not you too...DO NONE OF YOU WANT ME TO BE A DWARF, AND JUST A DWARF!?" she shouted and sloshed to her feet, running up the bank and vanishing into the wood as the white haired dwarf tried to pull his heavy boots out of the thick mire.
"What do you mean she's GONE?!" Dís shouted, brandishing her wooden spoon as though it were a battle axe. "BALIN, WHAT DID YOU DO!?"
"I tried to talk to her, but she wasn't - let's leave it at she was rather disturbed." Thorin looked down guiltily.
"That may have been me..."
"What's this I hear about Kai being missing?!" came a new voice that practically cracked with concern, and everyone looked around to stare uncomfortable at Fíli as he stood in the doorway of the kitchen, a stricken Kíli beside him. Before Dís could say anything or point to Balin and their uncle for an explanation, Kíli saw the discarded bracelet on the ground and everything clicked. He grabbed it and pushed off the wall, sprinting out the doorway for the woods, leaving everyone gaping slightly at the speed with which the usually slightly slow dwarf had picked up on the situation. Fíli shook his head and walked in to sit at the table, expression clearly saying that he was waiting.
"KAI?" Kíli called as he walked in the woods, searching around the trees and shrubbery for any sign of his elusive little sister. "Where are you you stubborn little dwarf..." A light giggle reached his ears and he looked around to see blonde hair vanish around the corner. "Kai..." he play growled and ran to the tree, reaching out and grabbing Kai's ankle as she tried to clamber up into the tree. "Come on down you little varmint - OW!" The dwelf, who was now bigger than her brother, landed painfully atop the dwarf and both collapsed in a laughing heap on the ground.
"Give me your arm, Kai. Please?" he asked and his sister, unable to resist his puppy dog eyes, held out her arm and her eyes filled with sadness as he fastened the elvish bracelet on her wrist.
"You're branding me," she muttered bitterly, but her brother grabbed her in a hug before she could go anywhere.
"No we're not. We're acknowledging your diversity. You're not an elf, but you're by dint of nature not entirely a dwarf. So what do we call you, my impossible little girl?" he asked and Kai leaned into his hug.
"A dwelf," she said finally, trying the name out on her tongue. "I'm a dwelf."
Kai gasped and nearly fell off her pony, looking about her. PONY?!
Not again.
"GANDALF!" she shouted, pulling Poppy to a stop, and scaring half the people around her, some ponies tossing their heads and skirting away from her. She sat there, frozen as the wizard came up from the back of the line and Kíli guided Poppy off to the side, Fíli helping Kai off her horse and sitting her down on the grass.
"Kai, what's going on?" Fíli asked turning her head to face him, but she just shook her head.
"What's happening to me?" she whispered and her older brother pulled her into a hug while Kíli explained to Gandalf that she had just gasped and shouted for the wizard to come over.
"What happened, Kai?" the dwarf asked but she just shook her head once more, shaking and trying to wrap her own head around what had happened. But soon, she felt herself pulled away and she was looking into the ages old eyes of Gandalf.
"I was sitting at the table in the inn. And then I dozed and I woke up out here," she explained unsteadily and Gandalf frowned, putting a hand on her shoulder as she began shaking.
"Gandalf, what is going on?" Fíli asked, voice laced with worry. "She's never been like this before..."
"Fíli, Kíli, can you give us some space please. Just go up to your uncle and tell him she's having some elvish problems," Gandalf said placatingly and shooed the siblings off. He looked around at Balin and sighed. "Balin can you tell Thorin to move on? We'll catch up." The dwarf nodded and clapped his legs to the sides of his small steed, trotting up to Thorin and relaying the message. After casting one more worried glance towards his niece, he called the command for the company to move on and soon they were vanishing in the trees, Kíli and Fíli lagging behind and casting furtive glances over at their sister until they were practically dragged along by Dwalin and Bofur.
"What is happening to me?" Kai asked again, enunciating carefully in hopes that that would drive the ambivalent man before her to answer directly. Instead, he sat down beside her and pulled out his pipe, lighted it, and began smoking. She sighed in frustration. "Gandalf, for goodness sake, I'm BLANKING! I'll be one place and then be another almost instantaneously, WHAT IS GOING ON?!" Gandalf looked around at her and sighed.
"It seems as though you are manifesting abilities similar to those of your mother. It may be stress induced, or just because you're in a new world right now. But it seems as though your mother is definitely starting to show through in your lineage." Kai hesitated, unsure that she had heard correctly.
"My mother." Her voice was flat, trembling. Gandalf nodded. "You knew her? You knew who she was and you didn't tell us?!"
"Yes. Yes, yes, and yes. You were happy with your uncle, and your uncle for the first time in a very long while, had a smile on his face. I felt that it was best to let things...unfold." He paused to take a few deep breaths of his pipe before continuing. "She is quite a person, your mother. Powerful, smart, beautiful."
"Is. She's dead, it's was," she protested, in denial. Gandalf shook his head.
"Oh, no, Kai. She's far from dead, believe me. She doesn't know you are still alive, though. It will be a pleasant surprise, I can tell you that." Gandalf hesitated and looked down at her wrist, reaching out and lifting it so that the back of her hand was facing them. The sunlight reflected off the bracelet and sparkled in the sun. "I could even tell you your name," he said, in a manner that said he was half paying attention. She looked at him and shook her head.
"No. No, you're lying. My mother is dead. She died, she was murdered by orcs!" she shouted forcefully, drawing away from the man. "No elf has that sort of power! NONE! They aren't supernatural!"
"Some of them are," he answered, voice ambiguous and truthful at the same time. She shook her head and backed away.
"Why do you know more about me than I do?" she asked, sickened and mounted Poppy, driving the horse to a gallop in an effort to catch up with the others. However, she was so distressed that she ran full speed around a corner, right into a sprinting, smaller figure.
"WOAH!" she shouted, pulling Poppy up into a rear and pivoting her so that she neatly missed the trembling hobbit before her. She smiled and then started laughing. "Welcome, Mr. Baggins. I am surprised you were able to run that fast. Come, let me give you a ride." Before Bilbo could protest, she had reached down to grab him from the back of his jacket and lifted him effortlessly into her saddle. There was a funny little squawking noise as Poppy lurched into a run again and they sprinted full speed ahead, racing back to the line of ponies that was the company.
"Guess who signed it?" she called and amidst many whoas and hey's, the line came to a stop and all the dwarves looked around, expressions disbelieving and happy. She trotted up to Balin's side so that the hobbit could pass the slightly crinkled paper to the older dwarf. With a twinkle in his eye, Balin took the long contract and inspected it carefully, drawing a pocket-glass from his saddle pack so he could in fact read what he himself had written. Then, just as the silence was getting to be slightly awkward, Balin smiled and placed both the document and the makeshift glasses into his pocket.
"Everything appears to be in order. Welcome, Master Baggins, to the company of Thorin Oakenshield," he said with a grin adn there were a few cheers; however, Kai noted that Thorin still didn't look too impressed.
"Give him a pony," he said bluntly. "He looks ridiculous on that horse, and don't try to tell me Poppy can carry two this whole voyage!" he snapped as his little dwelf opened her mouth to protest.
"No, no, no, no, that-that won't be necessary, thank you," Bilbo began as he clumsily fell off Poppy with some help from Kai, who was feeling slightly put out by her uncle's behavior towards Bilbo. It wasn't the hobbit's fault that he was a peace lover. He was just raised that way; the least Thorin could do was not take it out on the small person. He was rather quite nice.
"I-I'm sure I can keep up on foot. I- I-I've done my fair share of walking holidays, you know." Kai rolled her eyes and started Poppy up on a walk again. The poor thing clearly didn't know how far he'd be walking. "I even got as far as Frogmorton once-WAGH!" His speech was rather uncouthly cut off as Nori and Dori rode up beside him and hoisted him up onto another pony, leaving him awkwardly in charge of the pack animal. Kai exchanged a glance with her siblings and discretely mimed Bilbo falling off as the pony beside her neighed and tossed its head, making the poor hobbit look quite uncomfortable and terrified.
"Come on, Nori, pay up. Go on," came Oin's voice and Kai looked around to see Nori, who didn't look pleased in the least, throw a sack of money to Oin and soon, before she knew it, she was dodging sacks of money flying all about her head, and soon she too was joining in in the general laughter as her brother Kíli got hit square between the eyes by one of the small leather pouches.
"What's that about?" Bilbo asked and Kai listened in to the wizard's response.
"Since when was he back?" she asked Fíli, and the blonde dwarf shrugged.
"Don't rightly know," he muttered back and Kai fixed the old man with a glare. "What's with you?"
"Nothing," she responded, voice short.
"Oh," Gandalf began, suddenly casting an eye about at the front of the group. "They took wagers on whether or not you'd turn up. Most of them bet that you wouldn't," he added, voice amused. Bilbo frowned in thought.
"Huh. What did you think?"
"Hmmm," was the only response Bilbo got, and Kai reflected how over used that response was for Gandalf. However, she jumped slightly as a small pouch of money flew past her head and Gandalf caught it, stowing it away in his saddle bag with a twinkle in his eyes. Thorin scowled over his lost money and twisted back around to face the front. "My dear fellow, I never doubted you for a second."
Just as he was about to answer, Bilbo sneezed rather violently, and Kai began searching her bags for the spare handkerchief she found that her mother had tucked away inside her vest as she had been leaving. She had since then placed it somewhere else, she just had to remember where...
"Ugh...all this horse hair, I'm having a reaction," the hobbit groaned and began his own search of his pockets for his handkerchief. However, he too was unable to locate the elusive scrap of material and he looked around in mild shock.
"No, no, wai - Oh. Thank you," the hobbit awkwardly said and took the maroon handkerchief brandished in his face by the Dwelf beside him.
"It's one of my spares. Sorry, there may be some blood stains on that from out little expeditions as children," Kai commented, gesturing to her and her siblings just as the hobbit went to blow his nose, eliciting a very horrified expression from the halfling. The dwarves laughed at his face and up at the front, Thorin shook his head in annoyance.
"Move on."
"You were lucky Kai had a spare, Mr. Bilbo Baggins!" Gandalf laughed. "But you'll have to manage without pocket-handkerchiefs and a good many other things, before we reach our journey's end. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you; the world is ahead."
"Way to be over dramatic," Kíli muttered to his siblings, earning a smirk from Fíli, but Kai was off in her own little world again. "She's doing it again - " he complained, but suddenly Gandalf reached forward and pushed Kai a little bit. Suitably spooked, the dwelf started, looking around in horror before Gandalf simply shook his head.
"It's alright. You'd just gone," he said and Kai sighed in relief, nodding her thanks to her new body guard against her own mind. Instead of allowing her mind to wander, which lead to problems, she focused on the landscape around her. For hours that stretched into the whole day, they passed through the beautiful lands of Middle-earth, forests, hills, plains, and mountains. While most of the dwarves' focus was on each other and laughing at jokes and old stories, Kai, Fíli, and Kíli had eyes only for the world around them. Bilbo frowned and looked over at Gandalf before gesturing to the siblings.
"What is it with them?" he asked as they pushed at each other before fawning over some other little aspect of the natural world they just came upon. At one point, Thorin had to call Kai back from chasing a butterfly.
"KAI! LEAVE THE BUG ALONE!" he shouted in a manner that clearly stated that he thought he shouldn't have to be saying such things, but she managed to grab the beautiful monarch in her hand before returning to her siblings' sides.
"Sorry uncle!" she called.
"What are you a dwarfling?!" he responded, voice tried and exasperated. Balin began speaking to him placatingly, and Kai reached out to put the butterfly on Kíli's nose, Fíli and the girl laughing as their brother tensed up and went cross-eyed watching the small insect. The way he was looking at it you would have thought it was a dangerous spider.
"They are siblings, Bilbo, and they were raised in the most uncommon way: with the adventure and drive of dwarves, but with the all seeing eyes of the elves... They are wondrously close and view the world with the eyes of eternal children." There was a sad note to his voice and the wizard slipped off into reminiscing.
"What is it?" the hobbit asked and Gandalf sighed, looking down at him.
"They are always the ones who suffer the most. And the ones who lose everything," he answered, and Bilbo kept the cryptic response in his heart as he watched the three of them go gallivanting across the country side. They seemed so happy and to Bilbo it seemed true: only ones so happy could be so scarred by the horrors of life that he was sure they would encounter.
As the sun was setting, the company slowly came to a halt as they consulted their various maps, trying to find a decent camping spot. Eventually, they decided on the edge of a cliff. It was strategic and gave them a good view if anyone tried to attack. It seemed that everything was timed perfectly: as soon as they finished setting up camp, gathering firewood, setting up supplies and watch posts, the world was plunged into an inky blackness. But it seemed only a select few couldn't sleep and to Gandalf it really was no surprise who couldn't.
Gloin was snoring loud enough to wake the dead, tiny flies getting sucked into his mouth every time he inhaled, and getting released back into the air, disoriented, when he exhaled. However, the poor bugs couldn't escape as the cycle repeated before they could regain their sense of direction and flee. Bilbo watched for a moment, but was soon too disgusted by what he watched and he got to his feet, walking around to try and induce sleepiness, to derive a sense of inspiration by the rest of the sleeping company. Gandalf, Fíli, and Kíli were awake and gathered about the fire. Kai was standing over by Poppy, grooming her horse and whispering to the animal in soft, low tones. Seeing a possible companion, Bilbo walked over to stand beside her, pulling an apple out of his pocket in what he thought was a secretive manner and walking over to his pony, stroking her muzzle and holding the apple out to her.
"Hello, girl. That's a good girl." Kai smiled at him.
"See?" Bilbo looked around guiltily, but she waved it away. "They grow on you." She looked back to Poppy and rested her forehead on the white fur of her horse, gazing into the dark, intelligent eyes. "Sometimes it seems that they get more than humans do..." Bilbo nodded and looked back to Myrtle.
"It's our little secret, Myrtle; you must tell no one. Shshhhh!" he hissed as she started grumbling at him, searching for more apples in his pockets and Kai was about to laugh when that sound returned. That dreadful, dreadful sound.
A scream. And it was a scream that wasn't human. Or elvish, or dwarvish. Bilbo started and Kai grabbed his hand, guiding him over to the fire. Kíli and Fíli had sat up a bit straighter and were looking about themselves in mild worry, though it was more caution.
"What was that?" the hobbit asked, fearful.
"Orcs," Kíli answered, looking around. Kai felt a shiver run down her spine at the sound and she inexplicably felt a massive fear rise up in her gut. There was something burning deep inside, something that was so close to sheer terror that she tried to push it away. A scream drifted through her mind, followed swiftly by a real world screech of another orc. At the sound of the scream and Kíli's word "orc" Thorin jerked away and sat up, swiftly standing. But in her mind, the world was snowing, and fear was a sharp metal tang in her mouth.
"Orcs?" Bilbo asked, clueless. He had no idea what it was, but he didn't like the sound of it.
"Throat-cutters," Fíli answered, voice serious, but with a tinge of pranking in there. "There'll be dozens of them out there. The lowlands are crawling with them." Kai took in a sharp breath through her nose and moved to grab the nearest rock, steadying herself. Gandalf frowned slightly, watching her.
She was cold. The air was whipping around her. Why was the world moving so fast, she was happy when they had been nice and still by the fire, listening to the songs of the two people with her. What were those screams? Why was there salty water in her mouth? Why did she feel like crying? Why was the nice lady crying? Why did the world suddenly get dark what is - a horrifying image came to her mind and she saw flashes of red, horrible, horrible creatures that looked like they were from a nightmare -
"They strike in the wee small hours, when everyone's asleep," Kíli said suspenseful, and Kai felt some dangerous emotion bubbling up in her stomach. "Quick and quiet; no screams, just lots of blood." Then, she put a finger on it. Anger. She was really, really angry.
Bilbo looked away in fright towards Gandalf, as though begging for the wizard to counter what the brothers were saying. However, Fíli and Kíli simply looked at each other and began laughing and Bilbo looked very peeved when he realized that he had been pranked. But Kai was having none of it and she stepped in front of her uncle, face a mask of pure hatred. Her siblings looked at her confused.
"You think that's funny?" she snarled in disbelief, voice heated and dangerous. Thorin backed off, sensing the explosion about to go off. "You think that's FUNNY!?"
"Oh god, Kai," Fíli began and stood up, immediately apologetic. "I'm so sorry, we didn't -
"We weren't thinking, I'm so - " Kíli tried, but she rolled right over them.
"I was orphaned by an orc raid!" she said in disbelief. "My parents - they, they were torn apart, they - " Her breath started coming in raggedly as the sheets of red filled her mind once more. "And you think that an orc attack is funny?!" Bilbo looked between the two of them, interest piqued. "I remember it, you know!" Thorin's expression went slack and he felt something cold settling in his stomach. How could she...she couldn't -
"I remember it all. Or as much as my mind could understand. I saw the world fly by so fast. I felt tears on my face, I saw my parents' scared expressions. I felt my mother kiss me goodbye. I was lowered into a tree cavity, and then I saw the blood. I saw the orcs. The - the yrch." Gandalf's eyes widened as she used the elvish word for orc. How did she - "I remember my father calling them that. I remember their fear! And god, the nightmare! And yet, you mock it! You MOCK it!"
"Kai - " Fíli tried, but Kai only pushed by him to vanish over the boulders, moving off to sit on her own. Thorin gaped at his two nephews, appalled by what they had done.
"You think a night raid by orcs is a joke?"
"We didn't mean anything by it, honest," Kíli offered hopelessly but Thorin simply shook his head in disgust.
"No, you didn't." He walked over to the edge of the cliff and looked out over the valley, wanting to get rid of everyone around him by immersing himself in the landscape. "You know nothing of the world."
Bilbo looked over at the two siblings with pity, wishing more than anything that there was something he could say to make them feel better. He rather liked the two of them...despite the fact that they had threatened him at his house. But still. Instead, he watched Balin approach them, hoping that the older dwarf had some sort of comforting advice for them.
"Don't mind him, laddie. Thorin has more cause than most to hate orcs. And I don't mean just your sister Kai. His hatred goes much farther back than that." Atop the boulders, Kai leaned a little closer. This was a nighttime tale that she hadn't yet heard. "After the dragon took the Lonely Mountain, King Thror tried to reclaim the ancient dwarf kingdom of Moria. But our enemy had got there first." Kai gasped inaudibly as she felt herself dragged to a time far ago and far away and she struggled to find sense in the mayhem before her: The battle of Azanulbizar. Thousands of dwarves and orcs were passing through her as though she were a ghost as they fought before the gates of Moria. She couldn't tell friend from foe in some cases but soon she saw Thorin, Thror, Thrain, Balin, and Dwalin fighting fiercely, dangerous and malicious. These weren't the people she knew now, not that she had known Thror or Thrain.
Suddenly though, a monster that looked like it was from a nightmare, marched to the front of the group; a massive, pale orc stormed up to the front, swinging its mace like a club and killing dwarves like it was nothing. Kai screamed in anger, running forward, but only passing through the monstrosity of nature. She could only watch, not interfere. She heard Balin's voice reverberate over the battlefield.
"Moria had been taken by legions of Orcs lead by the most vile of all their race: Azog, the Defiler. The giant Gundabad Orc had sworn to wipe out the line of Durin. He began by beheading the King." Kai watched in horror as Azog challenged Thror and knocked him to the ground, raising his hand moments later from the sea of dwarves to brandish the head of her great-grand uncle, throwing the head to bounce and roll to the feet of a dwarf beside her which she saw to be Thorin.
"NOOO!" Thorin screamed and Kai felt shivers go through her at the anguish and terrible pain in that expression. Balin's voice returned and the battle continued, violent and bloody. "Thrain, Thorin's father, was driven mad by grief. He went missing, taken prisoner or killed, we did not know. We were leaderless." The sense of hopelessness and fear descended into Kai's very core. "Defeat and death were upon us." She watched in paralyzed horror as the orcs overpowered the dwarves, and her kin fled for their lives; the young girl could only watch in horror as her people were cut down as they ran, and she felt sick as she realized the stench of blood, the cacophonous noise of metal on metal, metal on flesh...this was war. This was what she was running to. Erebor would be a blood bath.
"That is when I saw him: a young dwarf prince facing down the Pale Orc." Kai could barely bring herself to look at her uncle facing down Azog. Her fear was too great. She could just as easily see Kíli or Fíli in her uncle's place and could see their eyes go blank as the mortal blow was struck. But instead, she watched as Azog knocked Thorin's shield and sword away with his mace, sending her uncle tumbling down an embankment to land in a heap on the ground.
"He stood alone against this terrible foe, his armor rent…wielding nothing but an oaken branch as a shield." Oakenshield. Thorin Oakenshield. Her horror turned to wonder as she filtered out the terrible violence to watch her uncle deftly avoid Azog's attempts to crush him with an oaken branch. Azog swung down one last time, and with her heart in her throat, Kai watched Thorin grab a sword lying nearby and swing it up to cut off Azog's left arm, his mace arm, from below the elbow. A sense of savage pleasure filled the Dwelf as Azog clutched the stump of his arm, howling in pain. She listened contemptuously to Balin's over voice as Azog was rushed into Moria by other orcs as her uncle lead the dwarves victoriously back into battle, shouting "Du Bekâr! Du Bekâr!" To arms! To arms!
"Azog, the Defiler, learned that day that the line of Durin would not be so easily broken. Our forces rallied and drove the orcs back." Kai watched in what seemed like a time lapse as the orcs fell about her and dwarves pushed the foul creatures back or hacked them down where they lay. "Our enemy had been defeated. But there was no feast, no song, that night, for our dead were beyond the count of grief." The intruder of the memory could only watch helplessly as Dwalin and Balin walked into view, sick with war and grief. "We few had survived." The battlefield was covered in the corpses of dwarves and orcs alike, but Kai had only eyes for her slain kin. Despite herself, tears slipped from her eyes and slid down her cheeks as she watched the surviving dwarves weep with one another over their loss. A younger Balin and Dwalin embraced before her and put their foreheads together as they wept. Balin, still weeping, looked up and saw Thorin framed in the sunlight, holding his oaken branch. Even to the spectator of the memory, Kai could feel the aura of power and just incredible awe that radiated from him. Despite her own anguish over the devastation, she felt her eyes dry of tears and pride swelled in her.
"And I thought to myself then, there is one who I could follow. There is one I could call King."
Kai gasped and pulled herself out of the memory, looking around to find who had put a hand on her shoulder and who had helped her down to the fire. She met the unfathomable gaze of Gandalf. There was something confused and...was that baffled? in his gaze. Had she, Kai daughter of Dís, baffled Gandalf the Grey?
Upon hearing that sentence, Thorin turned away from his post at the edge of the cliff and dropped his manner of not listening to Balin's narrative; the entire Company was awake at that point, and some of the younger dwarves were standing there, staring at him in a sort of awe. Fíli and Kíli's expression clearly were asking why Thorin hadn't told them of this before, while the others had a sense of wonder and respect about them. Thorin walked between them toward the fire, looking up to meet Kai's soft, sad gaze.
Were those tears on her cheeks?
There was something more to those elven eyes, something akin to pure understanding. He nodded once to her and she nodded back. However, Bilbo wasn't done with the story.
"But the pale orc?" he protested, stuck at the plot hole he had uncovered. "What happened to him?" Thorin's expression grew dark and he stalked away.
"He slunk back into the hole whence he came," he snarled. "That filth died of his wounds long ago."
But as Kai looked at Balin and Gandalf, noting the significant glance they gave each other, she couldn't help but feel that her uncle's assumption wasn't entirely true. But her mind was reeling from the memory she had seemed to access to really care about the fact that Azog was still roaming free.
Come, my dear readers, who is Kai's mother? Should be quite obvious by this point... :) Sorry for the long wait. As i put on my profile, I've been having finals.