"Daddy, Daddy!" She shrieked in excitement as she saw the familiar figure appear over the hill. "Daddy's home!"
Completely disregarding her morning porridge, the little girl almost upended the table in her rush to meet her father. Her mother rolled her eyes affectionately but followed the girl out into the early morning sunshine.
Her feet almost flew over the ground as she scampered over the dew covered grass of the front garden, ignoring the front gate and instead hoisting herself over the small stone wall and running along it until she collided head first with the figure appearing around the corner.
"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!" She cried, as he swung her into the air.
"Penelope Maybelle Cotton, you get bigger and more beautiful every time I see you, you do."
"Where did you go Daddy? What did you see? Did you get me anything?"
The Dwarf laughed, the sun glinting off the decorative metal pieces in his red beard. He smelled like smoke, the earth and home. "Give me a chance to sit down, little one!"
Penelope slipped down onto the ground and started tugging at his hand. "Come on then! Mummy made cakes yesterday, your favourite ones!"
"Not lemon and ginger?" Her father laughed. "I hope you didn't eat them all, little one!"
"'Course not!" His daughter replied as they reached the front gate, looking affronted. "I knew you were coming home so I saved some."

Her mother, who was waiting at the gate, laughed and picked her up. "She always knows when you're on your way, I don't know how she does it."
"Hello, wife." Penelope's father said, smiling softly. The young Half – Child looked away in disgust as her parents kissed.
"Come on, come on!" She said impatiently. "I want to see my gift!"
They both laughed and Blossom let her squirming red haired child down. "Alright, Penny, alright!"
Once inside, Baldin gratefully removed his pack from his aching shoulders, removed his travel stained cloak and boots, and was settled in his armchair with a hot drink and a cake. But he was allowed no more than thirty seconds of peace before his daughter wormed her way onto his lap and demanded a gift. Blossom, who had sat in a chair opposite them, shot her a warning look, but Baldin simply laughed and shooed her off.
"Well, on my way home I had to travel through 'the woods'."
His daughter gasped, her eyes shining. Being too young to go to the woods (or so her mother thought) her imagination was running wild with all the mystical things that must be kept there.
"And on my way through, you'll never guess what leapt out and jumped into my beard!"
"What, what?!" She said, giggling at the thought of something hiding in her father's large red beard.
She saw him reach in and grope about a bit (he was only pretending of course, but it was important to go along with these things) until he pulled out a long thin cord, with a piece of metal attached to it. She'd been raised on stories of the mountain and the dragon, and it only took her an instant to recognise it.

"It's Erebor! Look Mummy, it's Erebor and Smaug!" She snatched the necklace from her father's hand and held it up to the light.
"He doesn't look so scary like this." She mused and a few, childish images of herself riding the dragon flashed through her mind, before her mother gently reminded her to thank her father.
"Thank you Daddy!" She said, placing a sloppy kiss on his cheek, before running into her bedroom to admire herself in her looking glass.
"You're spoiling her." Her mother warned, laughing.
"Nonsense." He replied. "If I can't use my gift as a metal worker to treat the two most important people in my life, then what am I good for?"
His wife cocked her head at him in confusion, then her eyes widened as he produced a small ring from his pocket. "Oh, Baldin..."
"I know it's a few years late." He said gruffly, clearing his throat. "But while I was back with my family, I remembered that I never actually gave you anything when we got married."
"You never had to." Blossom said, hating how her voice wavered. "You were all I wanted. You are all I want."
"Nevertheless," The Dwarf continued, "Since we have broken almost every convention for both of our races, we should at least attempt to stick to some kind of tradition. So, Blossom Cotton, will you do me the very great honour of becoming my wife?"
She laughed through the tears in her eyes. "Of course I will, you idiot."
Penelope watched from the doorway as her mother leant down and kissed her father. Yes, she decided, that was the right way to do it.

The goblins were not good fighters, and were easily cut down. But the sheer number of them meant that there was a strong possibility that they would not get out alive. Thorin decided that if he ever got out of here, the first thing he would do was drink some kind of alcohol, and a lot of it.
Completely disregarding the rest the fight, Thorin sprinted to Penelope's cage and leapt high into the air to grab onto it and pull it down. When it touched the ground, Thorin looked inside and felt his stomach roll. Her back was whipped to shreds and she was covered in blood. She was unconscious and her head lolled about uselessly when he gently picked her up.
"Don't you dare, Penelope Cotton." He said, barely aware that he was speaking. "Don't you dare give up now."
A mighty shout caught his attention. Dwalin was gesturing to him and as he ran over to join the company, he felt them surround him and Penelope in a protective circle. Both he and Penelope now depended on the ability of the company to get them out of there alive.

"Go live with the Dwarves,
"No one wants you here."
"Freak."
Penelope fought back tears. If they saw her crying, she would lose, she knew that much. So she kept her head down and pushed on home.
"Where do you think you're going, freak?"
It was one of the biggest boys in her class, and he shoved her so hard that she fell face first onto the dirt. She felt his shadow fall across her as he stood over her. A few tears leaked out of her eyes and slipped down her cheeks.
"Why are you crying, freak?" He demanded. "You're a Dwarf. Dwarves love dirt, don't they?"
He grabbed her hair and shoved her face into the ground. She squirmed against his grasp. Dirt was filling her nose and mouth, she couldn't breathe.
"HEY!"
Abruptly, her head was realised and she twisted onto her back, coughing and hacking. She could see the bullies sprinting away down the path. Whatever they might say, the sight of a fully grown male Dwarf sprinting towards them was clearly enough to frighten them.
"Come on sweetheart." Baldin lifted his daughter, dirty and crying, into his arms. "Let's get you cleaned up."
Later, after Blossom had forced some food down her and scrubbed her skin until it was a
rosy pink, Baldin knocked on his daughter's bedroom door. She was sat cross legged in the middle of her bed, holding her necklace in her hands. She was older than when he had first given it to her, but still young, too young to have to suffer fools like Hobbit children.
"Why are they so mean, Dad?" She asked, without looking up.
He sighed,and sat down next to her. "Because you're not the same as them, and they're scared by that."
Her lower lip trembled and she looked up at him. He was, as always, slightly blown away by her eyes. They looked like they belonged to someone much, much older, with a lot more troubles. Eyes that sad shouldn't belong on the face of his beautiful little girl.
"Why aren't I the same?" She asked quietly. "I'm not mean, they're mean. But everyone likes them, and no one likes me."
He pulled his little girl onto his lap and pressed a kiss into her fiery red curls. "You're not the same, Penelope, because you are a good person, you do not push other people around because you think you're better than them. You're braver then any of them will ever be."
He looked down at his child and gently stroked her cheek. "What they say can't hurt you unless you let it."

Thorin had no idea how Penelope had survived the fall. He had managed to twist his body so that she fell on top of him, hopefully softening the landing, and they were luckily out of the way of the impact of the Goblin King when he landed on top of the other Dwarves. But still. Thorin could only come to the conclusion that she was blessed.
Groaning and cursing, the other Dwarves pulled themselves out of the rubble. Thorin, still holding Penelope's unconscious body close to him, managed to grab Oin.
"Is she alright?" He demanded. Oin let his eyes travel over her body, before sighing.
"I don't know." He said honestly. "I just don't know."
It was all Thorin had expected really. He made a silent plea to whatever deity existed, that she would survive through this.

"Penelope! Penelope, quickly!"
She had just come from a lazy afternoon in the forest with Holman Burrows, her cheeks still flushed and hair rumpled, when Old Man Roper had found her. He had pulled her up the path to her Hobbit hole, giving her no explanation as to what was going on. But as soon as they rounded the final corner, Penelope saw.
A cart had upturned on the path outside their house, and trapped underneath, with the spoke of the wheel stuck clean through her hip, was...oh god.
"MOTHER!" Penelope screamed, pushing and shoving through the quickly gathering crowd. She fell to her knees beside Blossom who, despite being as white as a sheet and bleeding profusely, managed to give her a weak smile.
In one swift movement, several Hobbits managed to lift the cart off her, and Penelope rushed to help carry her mother into the house. Quickly and efficiently, they carried her through the house and placed her gently onto her bed. Tears were streaming from Penelope's eyes as, with shaking hands, she helped the healer (who by some miracle had been around at the time of the accident) try to bandage the wound.
"Where is your father?" asked the Healer as he placed a poultice of herbs onto the gaping wound. Penelope felt bile rise in her throat has she saw the open skin and looked away.
"He's gone collecting metal from the Blue Mountain," She replied, "He won't be back for at least a week."
Blossom was pale and sweaty, her body taunt against her mattress. Penelope stroked her hair back and placed a wet cloth over her mother's forehead. The Healer had taken out some
thread and was doing something to the wound, she didn't want to see in case it made her vomit.
"Will she be ok?" She asked quietly.
He did not reply for almost twenty minutes while he finished his work, then stretched and sighed. "I've done as much as I can for now. It's out of my hands."
Penelope nodded, looking down at her mother. "Thank you. You can let yourself out."
If the Healer was affronted at her lack of manners, he did not show it. "I hope she recovers." He said from somewhere near the doorway. "I truly do."
And at first, it seemed like she was going to. As the days passed, her mother grew stronger and stronger, and was able to move around more. Hobbits came and went to their home in a steady stream, with gifts and comforting words. By the sixth day after the accident, Blossom was eating full meals and walking, with help. The Healer and been to see her, and said that she must have been blessed by the gods, as her fast recovery was some kind of miracle. The steady stream of gifts began to slow, and life in Waymoot began to return to normal.

They sprinted through the trees, adrenaline and the joy at having escaped alive fuelling their tired bodies as they ran. Thorin cradled Penelope's frail body in his arms as he ran. Bofur had offered to take her from his aching arms, but he refused. It worried him that she hadn't regained consciousness yet and he wanted to be right there when she did.
Eventually, Gandalf judged that they had run far enough down the mountain side to stop and catch their breath,and began to count them all.
"Bifur, Bofur, Fili, Kili, that's twelve. And Bombour. That makes thirteen."
He glanced at Penelope, and Thorin nodded at him, telling him that she was at least still breathing. How much the wizard knew about her past, he did not know, but Gandalf did not seem overly shocked by the whip wounds on her back. Worried, yes, but shocked that they were there? No.
Reassured that she was, at least for the moment, somewhere in the region of alright, he turned away.
"Where's Bilbo? Where's our Hobbit?"
Thorin, who had been stroking Penelope's red curls away from her face, jumped slightly and glared at the wizard, partly embarrassed that he had been caught doing something so silly, and partly incredulous that he could be thinking of the Halfing at a time like this. Accusations began to fly between the group and the Dwarf King could feel his temper rising.

She was dead within three days. Penelope had walked in from a morning at the market to find her unconscious on the bed, soaked with sweat and dark bubbles of blood gathering in the corners of her mouth. The Healer had said something about an infection, and something internal, but the point was that there was nothing he could do about it.
Penelope didn't sleep, she didn't eat, she sat by her mother's side, willing her to get better. Sometimes she wept, clutching at her hand. Sometimes she screamed at her, demanding that she get better. But most of the time she spent sitting dumbly in a chair by the bedside, staring at her mother's lifeless form, as if by sheer willpower she could make her recover.
She must have fallen asleep, sheer exhaustion wearing her down. But as soon as she surfaced from the bottomless pit of sleep, she knew. Her hand was cold. It was the most peaceful she had looked in days. Wherever her mother was now, she was at peace.

Things seemed to happen very quickly after that, events and people rushing around Penelope in a blur as she sat there, trying to process the fact that her mother was dead. Her father still hadn't returned by the time the funeral took place and as she stood there, on that cold windy day that seemed so out of place for Waymoot, she realised that she had never felt more alone.

Penelope felt cold. No matter how hot the day, or how much the fire blazed, she was always cold. It was like little shards of ice had wormed their way into her heart and now they were stuck there. She became a recluse, never leaving the house, barely leaving her chair. It was her mother's chair and the cushion smelled of her.
Gandalf came to visit. He always knew when he was needed. They barely spoke to each other the whole time he was there, they simply sat together and relished the feeling of not being alone. He was there when her father finally came home.

"...but I will help you take it back if I can."
Thorin lowered his eyes. He was not really sure what to make of their Hobbit burglar now. There was such honest loyalty in his eyes, surprising when he owed so little to company, and to Thorin.
Bilbo stepped forwards and looked at Penelope, still curled in Thorin's arms. She was not bleeding anymore but covered in dried blood and moaning in pain, ever so quietly under her breath. Thorin blessed every moan of pain that came out of her perfect lips.
"Give her to me." Gandalf said gently. The Dwarf looked at him warily but handed her over to him anyway. The old man slung her across his back and tied her down with his cloak, like some twisted grotesque version of a mother with an infant child. His arms were aching but he couldn't look away from her pale face. He wanted, needed, to be there when she woke up.

Suddenly, the sound of Wargs howling reached the group through the trees. Thorin sighed. "Out of the frying pan..." he growled.
"And into the fire." Gandalf finished, eyes shining with worry. "Run."
"Run!"

Gandalf had told her Baldin died of a broken heart. He had known as soon as he had entered Waymoot. The Hobbits there had never been overly kind to him, and the pitying looks and murmured condolences had alerted him that something had happened to his family.
Their home became like a ghost town. Penelope's father was rarely home, spending the majority of his days at Blossom's grave on the outskirts of the village. Gandalf stayed with them, but no matter what he did the three of them were like ships passing in the night, moving silently around the house and never speaking. When Blossom died, so had the fire in Baldin's heart. The only way to describe it was just 'giving up'. Her father gave up on life. Within a month, he had joined his wife in the ground. Towards the end, he began hallucinating and several times mistook his daughter for his wife. Penelope tried not to let it hurt too much when she saw the disappointment in his eyes when he realised his mistake. At times, she thought he would have preferred it if she had died instead of her mother. But she couldn't hate him for it, most of the time she wished it too.
It was only in his very last days that he began to smile again. Perhaps he knew the end was near, perhaps he knew he would be with his wife again.
She was sat with him, holding his hand as Gandalf tried to force some kind of soup down him.
"No...no...I don't want it!" He roared suddenly, throwing the bowl across the room. Penelope forced her eyebrows to raise. She had found that she had to force any kind of facial expression, she never felt any emotion strongly enough for her face to make it of it's own accord.
"Father..."
He turned to her, wild eyed, and held her hand in a firm grip. It was the most animated he had been in days. "Listen to me. Listen. Never forget who you are. Never."
She felt her head move as she nodded. "I won't, Father."
He lifted a frail hand up and gently caressed her cheek, like he used to when she was younger. Penelope was surprised to find that she was crying. She thought she had used up all her tears.
"So beautiful..." He said quietly.
Then he crumpled, like his soul had flown out of him. And just like that, Penelope Cotton was an orphan. While Gandalf gently covered her father with a blanket and went to get help, she walked, very calmy, into the garden and promptly emptied the contents of her stomach onto the grass.

Gandalf watched in amazement from his unsteady perch in the tree as Bilbo sprinted through the fire to help Thorin, who was caught in the jaws of Azog's Warg. But Dori and Ori were quickly slipping from his staff and Penelope's weight on his back was beginning to get to him.
But Bilbo's action had started something. The rest of the Dwarves flew from the tree and advanced on Azog. As they did so, Gandalf could see the Eagles flying towards them over the mountain. He breathed a sigh of relief as Ori and Dori landed safely on the back of one. They were safe, at least for the moment.
One by one, the Eagles dispatched of the Wargs, and the Dwarves, Gandalf and Bilbo, all ran to jump onto one of the Eagles. On and on they flew, further and further from danger but no one was cheering.
Thorin was unconscious, dangling from an Eagle's claw. Gandalf couldn't see from where they were how severe the damage was, but there was no sign of movement from the Dwarf King.
Then, behind him, he heard Penelope cough and groan.
"What's going on?" She croaked.

The wizard helped her tie her cloak around her neck and adjusted her pack. "There." He said quietly. "I think you're ready to go."
She nodded. "The Blue Mountains."
Her Hobbit Hole was empty. Everything had been cleared out and sold to ensure that she had enough money to get her to her Dwarf relatives. It felt much larger and colder than before, and Penelope suddenly felt very small.
"I will be alright, won't I?" She blurted out suddenly. "I mean, I'll be ok?"
Her old friend gently leant down and pressed a kiss on her forehead. "I know you will."
He walked with her to the end of the road, before enfolding her in his arms. She surrendered to the feeling of the hug, realising she might never see him again.
"Bye Gandalf." She said, hating how her lip wobbled.
He smiled. "Goodbye, Penelope Cotton. Go and be wonderful."

As soon as they were set down on flat ground, Gandalf rushed over to Thorin, who had been placed gently on a rock by an Eagle.
"Thorin? Thorin." He said quietly, kneeling over the Dwarf. Behind him, Oin was quickly unstrapping Penelope from his back and making her lay down so he could bandage her back.
Before anyone else had their feet on the ground, the wizard placed one hand over the Dwarf's eyes and one on Penelope's back and whispered a few words in the Olde Tongue. With a gasp, he felt some life energy leave him, and in the next instant Thorin opened his eyes.
Penelope was suddenly very aware of everything that was happening. Life shot into her veins again, and she took a deep breath, feeling more alive than she had in months. The rich, ripe smell of the earth made her nostrils sing, while the rock felt wonderfully cold against her cheek. Oin was standing over her, bandaging her back, and placing a mixture on it that dumbed the dull ache. Her shirt lay in useless pile a few feet away. Thankfully her trousers, although covered in blood and dirt, were intact. Oin's bandages wound from the bottom of her shoulder to her lower back and she felt very on display. But then again, it wasn't like she had anything to hide from the company anymore.
She could hear Thorin and Bilbo talking, and everyone sounded relaxed and cheerful, more than they had in a long time.
"I think it will heal," She heard Oin say. "In time."
He helped her to stand and she winced at the pain. Now that she was facing him he began to readjust the bandage on her head. "But no more adventures in the goblin tunnels, please."
She smiled a tired smile. "I hope that's a promise I can keep."

"You have a lot of explaining to do." She heard someone say. She turned.
The whole company was looking at her. It was Dwalin who had spoken, and he was looking at her with an expression close to pity.
Her cheeks burned, there was almost anything she would rather do than discuss this with people that she looked up to. With Thorin.
"This is why you didn't want us to go through the mountain pass?" Bilbo said and she nodded, staring determinately at her boots.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Fili asked gently.
She almost laughed. "How? How was I supposed to bring it up?"
They were all looking at her bare arms and collar bone, where the old scars from the whip shone white in the evening sun. She felt on display and very uncomfortable and looked at Gandalf for help.
The wizard cleared his throat. "Perhaps we should return to this topic at a later time. For now, let us just be thankful that everyone is still alive."
Penelope looked at Thorin. She couldn't help it, he drew her gaze wherever he went.
"I think I lost your cloak." She said, unsure of what else to say.
His face cleared suddenly and he laughed, a bright joyous laugh that made her feel like she could fly.
Striding over to her, the Dwarf swept her up in his arms. As much as she enjoyed it, Penelope couldn't help but let out a cry of pain as his hands pressed against her back. He abruptly put her down, but smiled at her, a smile so bright it was like the sun was shining on her.
He didn't seem to be able to find the words to say, and Penelope simply squeezed his hands as a thanks. For a brief moment she wondered if he could kiss her, and she wondered if she would mind. But they were surrounded by the company and so they separated (reluctantly, on her part), although he remained close enough for her to feel his presence.

"Look..." she heard Bilbo say, and reluctantly brought her eyes away from Thorin's face to look over the horizon.
Thorin's hands fell from hers as he walked to the edge of the rock they were standing on. "Erebor. Home."
She went to stand next to him, looking at the small mountain in the distance, shrouded in mist but still visible. "We're almost there." She whispered.
"I do believe the worst is behind us." Bilbo said.
They stood there, basking in the gentle heat of the late afternoon sun and looking over the mountains, to their future.