Greetings! Have you missed me?
My apologies for not updating this since August. I had quite the semester. I'm going to try to get as far ahead in this story as I can before January when I have to go back for three more months of hell.
You'll notice something different in this chapter. There are two different dwarf POV-Thorin (finally) and Bifur. The story's moving right along now, so that's going to become a thing. At some point I still plan on going back and rewriting the earlier chapters, too. No, I am not at all organized and yes, my brain is fried.
Also yes, this is another short chapter. I started writing it four months ago and finished it yesterday. I need to stop doing that.
I had trusted Kili, and here he was holding a knife mere inches from my throat. I was sick and tired of fearing my imminent death. Just when I thought I was out of the woods something would happen again and I'd be back under the dwarves' scrutiny. Oh, well. Maybe it was for the best. I was never going to see home again anyway, and I was causing them more trouble than it was worth to keep me. At least somebody I had almost called a friend would be the one to do away with me. I know that sounds weird, but to me, then, it seemed a great deal better than having Dwalin or Gloin decapitate me.
Please, God, let this be quick, I prayed, my eyes closed, as Kili looked at me curiously. The knife came nowhere near my throat. Instead, I felt him gently pull one of the thin braids away from my face. He hesitated for a moment, and then with one quick movement, sliced off the end. I yelped.
"Shh!" he commanded, waving his free hand in front of my face. Then he sliced the end off of my other braid, dropped the knife and my hair, and re-tied my braids with thin strands of leather cord. Then he held up the hair for me to see. The bits still had the beads attached. He could have just slipped them off, but oh, well. I guess in retrospect I'd rather be missing a few inches of hair than my head.
Quickly, he pocketed the hair and signed something. Frustrated that I couldn't understand, he took my hand and placed it on his chest, and placed his hand on mine.
"Oh," I breathed, suddenly unable to meet his eye. "Well, then."
He looked down at the ground and smiled sheepishly, dropping his hands into his lap. After what seemed like an age, he finally looked up at me, gave me a reassuring pat on the hand, and headed back toward his companions and the warmth of the fire.
I turned back to the coat that I'd been mending, spread out on my lap. There was still a pile of stuff next to me waiting to be fixed.
Sleep would have to wait.
"Have you done it?" I asked.
"Yes, Uncle." From his pocket, Kili produced two locks of hair with the silver beads still attached.
I sighed. "No, Kili. You must cut all of it."
"I cannot." he answered defiantly.
"Don't give me that cheek, boy." I grumbled. He truly was infuriating sometimes.
"I will not."
"And why ever won't you? Don't tell me you love the girl." I tried to conceal my fear that he actually might. He was an impulsive lad.
"No, but…I just wanted her to know she is not alone."
What on earth did he mean by that? "By the gods, Kili, if I were your father…"
"You'd what? Disown me for accepting a human as one of our own? I do not think my father would have been as callous as you. And I have done what you asked. She no longer wears the beads. But I will still consider her as kin to me."
My heart lurched at my sister-son claiming me heartless. But still, I managed, "You will do no such thing!"
But he had already walked away. Mahal, I swear that boy would be the death of me.
The next morning started out much the same as the last. I was kicked awake by Thorin, having surprisingly fallen asleep over the tunic I was mending, and he was still in a state about my hair. Enough so to yank me up by it and thrust my pack into my arms without so much as a word. My neck hurt, and there was a pain in my back that I blamed on the fact that I had spent the last couple of hours kneeling with my legs toward the fire and the rest of me facing a large boulder which I had faceplanted into at some point during my little nap. I'm sure I looked like a mess. I sure as hell felt like one.
Shouldering my pack, I followed the group away from our campsite and along a pebble-filled beach. When the lake gave way to just a stream, we filled our water skins. Ahead of us was nothing but high grass for what looked like miles. My back ached from the injuries the goblins had inflicted upon me, but there was nothing I could do but carry on and try not to fall behind.
Bofur noticed first that someone was missing. He yelled something to the others about me, and they all began looking around. The grass was taller than everybody but me, but even so, it didn't matter, as I had fallen to my knees a ways back from all of them. My back burned, my skin seeming to generate its own heat. I could hardly stand or even right myself, the pain was so unbearable. And so I knelt there, head bent, hoping that by some miracle they found me.
I waited until the silence was maddening before I attempted to stand, which now took all my willpower. As soon as I stood, I saw someone push through the grass towards me.
Mr. Axe-in-head.
By now the entire company knew that I was learning their sign language. But this one—the only dwarf whose name I couldn't remember—spoke so rapidly I could barely make out any individual signs. Accompanying this, he spoke in their gruff language which, now more than ever, grated on my ears and I wished he'd stop. The pain radiated throughout my body and my knees began to buckle, but he caught me and hauled me back up. His arm was around my back, and the fabric of my tunic pressed up against the tender skin. What had previously felt like I was wearing a cloud, now grated and scratched as though it were burlap. My back felt wet, either with sweat or from whatever had begun oozing from my wounds.
Together we made our way through the endless stretch of tall grass, with him holding onto my wrist and his other arm wrapped around the small of my back. He was at least a foot shorter than me, and had I been in any other situation, I probably would have found it funny. But as it was, I was just glad to have been found.
Bofur met us at the edge of a clearing. The others had already gone ahead somewhere. His eyes widened when he saw me staggering along, and he helped lower me to the ground and knelt in front of me. Giving me a questioning look, he pointed at my shoulder. A mixture of blood and pus had leaked from my still-open wounds all the way through my clothes. Shaking his head, he muttered apologetically and took my other arm and bringing me gently to my feet again.
And then everything went black.
She had collapsed again, this strange foolish girl who my cousin insisted we must aid.
"Should we just leave her?" I asked "I don't think it would be any great loss to Thorin."
"Bifur! Of course we can't leave her! What'll she think when she wakes up?"
"You mean, if she wakes up. At this point, I'm not sure she will. You know, he was right. We never should have taken her with us."
"Well," he argued. "What's past is past. Now hurry up and help me."
Together we hefted the surprisingly light girl to her feet. I could feel the heat of her skin through her thin sleeves where she had rolled up her outer coat—she was burning with fever. Oin might have something, but I dreaded to think what would happen if she died. Though some in the company thought so, I was no fool. I saw how Kili and Ori had grown attached to her and how my cousin looked after her and Bilbo both. They would certainly mourn her.
We pressed on, following the others until finally, we caught up with the rest of the company as they had stopped to rest a while.
"They found her! They found her!" exclaimed Ori, sprinting through the high grass towards us. "Mahal! he cried, once he reached us. "What's wrong with her?"
"She's got a terrible fever," Bofur explained, and I nodded in agreement. "I think Oin should have a look at her."
The girl was just barely conscious and not at all lucid, it was easy enough to lead her over to where the others were gathered and sit her down.
But as soon as we did, she fell over and curled in on herself.
Kili's quite the impulsive little shit, isn't he?
I think the "what if she gets sick" question was posed in the reviews or PMs somewhere a while back. Soooo...I ran with it.
Thus far, the dawrves seem to be divided in two camps: the ones who are warming up to our hapless heroine, and the ones who want nothing to do with her.
As always, review, por favor!