~I only own my OCS and the chaos they might end up causing Please Review or tell Pm me with ideas. This chapter is long overdue. I am still looking for a beta. If anyone would want to volunteer that would be great! Just leave me a comment or PM me saying so. ~
I should apologize for not updating in a while but i won't because i can't control my broken computer or the slow spend of the local library computers. I am pleased to be able to say that i passed the college semester with all A's and B's
Italics = mental speech or flashback/dream
Italic underlined = elven speech
Bold = songs, none of which i own
Black Hearts by Brufield
Last time in Empowered Ones
Rose shook her head and promised herself that she would keep Thorin, Fili, and Kili save even if it meant locking them deep in the mountain after burying that cursed gold in the deepest of forgotten vaults. With that in mind Rose returned to her bed motioning for Chandra to also get some sleep. Tomorrow would be an every long day.
(Sabriel's Pov)
Our departure had been swift, we left without Rose knowing or rather hoping that Beorn would send her after us. We had put her luggage on Chandra's back. Let it be said that said dragon was furious with us and proceeded to yell at us with colorful language that she could have only picked up from her bonded through out the short journey. She quited her yelling to soft growls when told to silence herself by Thorin. We arrived at the entrance to Mirkwood forest a little before the sun reached its peak in the sun. Rose was there waiting for us, singing something softly.
"About time you lot got here!" She said rather annoyed, something that did not go unnoticed and unchallenged by Thorin.
"What stuck a blade in your foot?" He asked rather bemused
"Sorry what was that i couldn't hear you over the sound of the rains of castamere." She said as she took the earbuds out of her ears
Thorin repeated his question
"An Orc and he tried to stab my heart rather than my foot, Thorin. You are currently standing on what is left of the slimy git if you would care to look at the ground." She said not looking at Thorin while she walked up to Chandra and stroking the dragon's long neck and scratching the patch of smaller scales under Chandra's chin. she ignored Thorin's inhale of air at the gruesome shadow left on the ground under his pony's feet and proceeded to grab her weapons out of her luggage.
"It is a runty little thing that seemed to just wither away when i ripped his shadow into tiny pieces. He screamed like a banshee too, good lord my ears are still ringing from the pitch of it." She said as she put one of her ear buds back in. I glanced away from the woman that is like an older sister and at times a mentor to me. Alex and Samantha were exchanging a concerned look. I reached towards Rose's mind to find it block by defenses of pure iron. I looked back to Rose and found her exchanging words with Gandalf while the company dismounted. I dismounted and took all off my stuff out of the horse's saddle bags before turning it around and sending it back to Beorn as was the company's agreement with the huge bear man.
"Your not stay are you?" I heard Bilbo ask Gandalf when the wizard shouted "Not my horse! I need it!" I ignore the exchange between the Wizard, dwarves and single hobbit. It holds no interest for me. When i tune them out i can hear Rose humming Bad Blood by Taylor Swift or maybe its Never Getting Back Together another Taylor song, either way its a sign to stay out of her way. Soon i realize that it is the Bad Blood Trouble mash up so i go hover by Ashley and Vanyo.
I watch Rose carefully, her sword is unsheathed now and she is taping the flat of the blade against her thigh. Her impatience is obvious to those of us that know what to look for. Soon Sami also noticed and calls out, "Are you men ready to head into the forest yet? Or are your feet sore from all the walking that the ponies did for you?"
Dwalin chuckled at that.
Hmm he often chuckles at Samantha these days. Sabriel said absentmindedly to herself
It wasn't more than a few minautes after Gandalf's departure that we entered the depths of Mirkwood. Bilbo was fiddling with something in his pocket and gripping and releasing the pommel of his 'letter opener'.
~000*000*000~
(no one pov)
They had been traveling for a few weeks before we came to the river. It was wide banked and black as the darkness Rose commanded. Beorn had warned us about it, about how some sort of sorcery lay over its swift waters. If someone drank or bathed in it they fell asleep.
"Rose can you maybe..." Kili started to ask before he was interrupted
"Already on it." the elemental said as she parted the black waters like Moses parting the red sea. That little show of power worked just long enough for Thorin, Balin and Bilbo to make it across the river bed.
"What happened?" Gloin blustered before looking at Rose. The elemental was on her knees breathing hard. "The enchantment on the river makes it hard for me to hold it back and impossible to turn it to ice." She panted out of breathe "Give me a moment before i do it again. Till then the dragons are large enough to fly some of the supplies across."
The flame haired dwarf grumbled but nodded and placed his luggage in Tanis's light pink claws. Tanis had chosen Macy as her bonded. Between the four dragons all the supplies were now safely on the opposite back with their leader, burgler and oldest company member. Eventually all of the company except Rose, Ashley and Bombur had joined us on the opposite bank. Right before they too reached the bank, a white buck with silver antlers came bounding out of the brush and it Rose in the head with a hoof. It knocked her unconsious, allowing the water to come rushing at the three straglers and engulf them in the torent. Alex was thankfully close to the bank and swiftly shifted into her dragon form, while she scooped Bombur out of the river Chandra and Vanyo were slowly dragging their bonded to the bank.
~000*000*000~
"Blackened by already blacken hearts" Rose said in a sing song voice. She had been the first of the trio to wake, it was not Rose that woke nor was it the Dragon Lady. It was someone else, someone we did not know. She sounded off, not off key but off her rocker. To make things harder Chandra growled at anyone who she thought came too close to Rose. Something was very wrong. Everything seemed foggy...
"Cause i want you to know, i have let you knoooow." She sang this in the same way she had the other line, so i guess it was part of the same song.
"Young hearts are so naive." The last word was slurred, either Rose was trying to get a message to them or she had completely lost her mind.
Bombur had also woken, all he had done after waking was complain about the lack of food. That was the other thing wrong with Rose, she wouldn't eat. When offered food all she would say was, "Tree eat earth. Earth eat all. All eat none. None eat legs. Legs eat us." When ordered to eat by Thorin or Sami she would just repeat her odd mumbles and go on and on about legs eating.