Author's Note

Silversun XD: Would it be very stupid to ask what the difference is? As far as I could see on the internet, there are two major types: standing/upright and grand. I was more or less aiming for grand. Glad you like the puzzle (and that you haven't solved it yet ;)).

Next chapter will contain an important conversation...

20

She hadn't thrown him off after his badly-ended excursion into her body, so he figured that maybe she wasn't actually angry but rather defensive. She hadn't let him back in though, and after experiencing the acuity of her superior senses, he felt rather deaf and blind with his own.

She stopped in the middle of the forest, startling him out of his thoughts.

"Off," she said. Then, after he slid off her back, "Come."

He followed her through the trees, trying and failing to mimic her level of stealth, but she seemed satisfied anyway because she didn't remark. He was so focused on keeping quiet that he almost stepped on her tail when she stopped, one forepaw suspended in the air, nose focused on something he couldn't see.

He carefully made his way up until he was next to her head, and then he finally realized what her stance reminded him of. It was similar to some dogs he knew, that were called "pointers" and were bred not to attack the game but to point to it so the hunter could take the shot. He followed her gaze and noticed a herd of deer, standing amongst the trees. He counted one young buck and three does, one of them with a calf.

Silently, he pulled an arrow from the quiver on his back, staring at the deer, and began to pull back the string.

"Which one?" she asked him soundlessly.

"Doe," he said, referring to one of the calf-less does. She nodded, pulling her legs into a low crouch while never taking her eyes off the herd. She'd probably run after the doe if he didn't manage to bring it down immediately. He huffed quietly. The doe was standing perfectly, left flank turned towards him, and a single arrow to the chest behind her left foreleg would kill her before she hit the ground. He'd show her.

He pulled the arrow back, aimed, and released. The moment the arrow left the string, he knew it was a perfect shot, and he watched with immense satisfaction as it zoomed at the herd and buried itself behind the doe's left foreleg.

The next moment though, that satisfaction was replaced with shock, because at exactly the same time his arrow found its mark, his hunting partner sprang into motion and covered the distance between them and their prey with a speed that easily outmatched any horse he'd ever seen. What was more, she didn't make for the doe he'd hit.

Once close enough, she launched herself onto the back of the buck and, avoiding the antlers trying to poke her eyes out, closed her jaws around its neck. The buck ran for a few more seconds, bleeding down his flank and neck from her teeth and claws tearing through his skin, staggered, and fell. His legs stopped flailing and his breathing slowly ceased, but she didn't let go until his eyes had gone glassy and empty.

It was an excellent kill, swift and precise. He didn't fail to appreciate the setup either, because he realized that if she had moved a fraction of a second earlier, she would have spooked the deer and he might have missed. A fraction later, and the deer might have been too quick to catch up on. Her timing had been perfect. He doubted she could keep up that astounding velocity for very long anyway.

Once she was certain the buck's fae had departed, she released him and sat back, bringing up each paw in turn to clean it. It was better to do it right after a kill than later. When blood dried up, it got itchy.

As she used her tongue to clean every claw and in between her toes, she watched Kíli pull his arrow out of his doe and clean it before sticking it back into the quiver.

"Nice job," he said as he came over. Her eyes flashed golden in appreciation. Paws cleaned, she looked down at the buck at her feet. She didn't collect trophies, but she knew Dwarves did, because some of them had shown her teeth and claws from animals they'd killed. Even though Kíli hadn't actually brought down the buck, she was impressed with his marksmanship. She grabbed one of the antlers near the base with her teeth, then yanked and tore until it finally came off and dropped it at Kíli's feet.

He blinked in confusion, then seemed to understand and picked it up. "Thanks," he said, turning it in his hands, "but…it's not very practical while traveling." She hummed approvingly. "Thanks for the help though. Maybe, after we reclaim Erebor, we could go again?" She wagged her tail twice, thumping on the forest floor.

She decided to fly rather than carry the dead animals back to Rivendell. When Kíli asked why, she said "Remember what I said about waving it in their faces? They don't mind me hunting, but strolling through Rivendell with two dead deer might be pushing our luck a little far."

So she pushed the buck on his back and grabbed each of his legs with a paw of her own. Leaving Kíli to guard the doe, she hoisted herself and the buck into the air. Thankfully, she thought as she flapped her wings to stay airborne, Rivendell was not far away. Flying with a large animal like this was exhausting.

Her mind started to wander. Kíli had been heavier than she'd expected based on his height, but not uncomfortably so. As long as he didn't stray into places he wasn't supposed to go, she wouldn't mind a next time. She'd liked having a hunting partner again. It reminded her of– No.

She shook her head and flapped on. When she reached the Dwarves, she unceremoniously dumped the deer next to Bombur, causing him to jump and fall over. She rolled her eyes and turned to fly back to Kíli.

After retrieving the doe and then Kíli in a similar fashion (except that she only grabbed his arms and not his legs), she quickly scavenged a meal out of the heap of vegetables Bombur was cooking with. Then she tore off on of the buck's muscular legs, ignoring Bombur's glaring, and stripped it until there was nothing but bare bone left, at which point she abandoned it in a bit of a rush to save Bofur's teeth by explaining that only the inside of a pistachio nut was edible and you had to get it out of the hard shell before eating it. She left them to amuse themselves by trying to crack open the almost-closed ones and spent the rest of the evening fishing out the tasty marrow from inside the bone and watching the Dwarves one by one leave for bed or nod off where they sat.

The next morning, the Dwarves awoke to a rather unusual sight, that is, more unusual than they'd gotten used to.

She was lying in a tree, on her back against the trunk, tail waving gently, nothing unusual there. What was unusual was the open book, propped up on her belly. She was reading it with a concentrated expression on her face, and the contrast between the civilized book and her wild looks was so great they couldn't help but blink and stare at her for several seconds or more.

She was aware of it, of course, but chose to ignore them in favour of reading the book. It was about sea mammals and it always amused her to see whether the writings of Elves agreed with her own observations. If she found something she didn't feel was right, she'd tell Elrond. He would always look at her with a quizzical expression on his face and say he would pass it on to the author.

The Company left her in peace until after breakfast, and then she found herself being approached by what might just be the most timid members in the whole group.

After a lot of shuffling and whispering, Bilbo was the one to ask her.

"Could you, erm– T-that is if it's not too much trouble, could you maybe take us to the, um, library?" the Hobbit asked shyly with a vague gesturing to himself and Ori, who was nodding fervently in the background. She stretched, rolled off the branch, put the book on her back between her wings so it wouldn't slide off and set off towards the library.

She had been spending time with every member of the Company at one time or another, especially Fíli and Kíli, whom she was developing a careful friendship with, but her interactions with Ori had primarily consisted of her whistling down some bird or other for him to draw and she was curious about him.

Bilbo, on the other hand, she had barely spoken to on the whole trip. Not that she wasn't curious about him too, but Thorin plainly didn't like him very much and he was the alpha. It would not be wise to let him see her getting too close to the Hobbit, so she mostly just ignored him, keeping her distance. Which wasn't that hard, honestly, considering there were thirteen others for her to talk to if she wanted a chat.

But now it was only the three of them, so she slowly dropped the carefully maintained distance between her and Bilbo. She trusted Gandalf, but she had been wondering what in the world could possibly have compelled the Wizard to enlist him as a member of the Company. The incident with the trolls had given her part of an answer, and it had piqued her curiosity. Clearly, the Hobbit was more than he seemed.

He didn't look like it right now though, walking next to her with Ori in awkward silence. To break the ice, she nudged his shoulder with her nose and asked: "Why the library?"

(Talking through her mind, as she was getting used to doing with Fíli and Kíli, would probably freak him out.)

"Just, er, curiosity," the Hobbit stammered, apparently terrified she'd said something to him. 'I've, um, heard tales of the great knowledge to be found in Elvish books."

She turned her eyes a dark green. "You do know most books are written in Sindarin, don't you?"

Now he finally looked at her, apparently shocked out of his shyness. "Really?!"

She rolled her eyes at him, letting them turn golden mixed with purple. "No, not really. I was kidding."

Ori chuckled, then said: "You can read Elvish though, can you?"

She turned her head at him, eyes pale blue. "What makes you say that?"

He pointed at the book on her back. "That's not Common Tongue."

Observant. She smiled at him, then turned back to Bilbo. "Seriously though, most of the books are written in the Common Tongue so you should be fine."

They talked more freely after that. She learned that Ori's brothers fought constantly, except when something or someone was threatening their younger brother. Then they formed a united front to protect him, Ori said with an exasperated smile. Privately, she thought it was nice when someone looked out for you, but she didn't voice that thought out loud, afraid of any questions it might lead to.

From Bilbo she learned that it had been a very good idea not to show herself back in Hobbiton. If she'd been seen, there wouldn't just have been a fuss, he assured her, there would have been a 'full-scale panic'. Apparently Hobbits were petrified of things they didn't know and that might threaten their comfortable and ordered lives. It made her wonder even more why Gandalf had chosen a Hobbit as the fifteenth member, but she decided not to ask Bilbo. It might insult him.

She jumped onto a high ledge in front of them, then paused. When she'd been with Fíli and Kíli, she'd just taken her normal route, since Elvish paths meandered a bit too much for her taste, and they hadn't shown any problems with clambering after her. Ori and especially Bilbo didn't seem as athletically able, so she faced the slight dilemma of either taking her shortcut or leading them on an easier accessible, but far longer route. After a moment of thought, she lowered her tail down the ledge, then waited for either of them to get the idea.

Ori was first, as she expected he would. He hesitantly put his hand around her tail, just above the round knob on the end, and quickly added his other when she began slowly pulling him up and off the ground. She raised him to her level, then carefully placed his dangling feet on the ground next to her.

Bilbo followed suit, and she was surprised to feel the strength with which his hands tightened around her tail. She pulled him up faster than Ori, trusting him to know the drill after witnessing it the first time.

The large, airy building that was the library stood in front of them, and after she pushed the door open she smiled silently at the reverent expressions with which they regarded the endless rows of tall, dusty bookcases.

It turned into a rather pleasant afternoon. Ori settled down with a book on tropical birds, Bilbo submerged himself in a thick work about Elvish culture (about the only book he could find on that subject written in the Common Tongue) and she read on about whales, seals and dolphins, occasionally smiling sadly at the author's failure to comprehend the complex social nature of the animals they wrote about.

She spent the evening with Bombur, who, finally in possession of adequate supplies, was quickly starting to turn every meal into a feast. He told her all about herbs, spices and other additions that "made good food even better".

She recognized every herb he showed her, though she didn't know all the names, but she wasn't as familiar with spices, so she sniffed everything he held in front of her and committed name, scent and taste to memory.

Unfortunately, the pepper he showed her went up her nose and made her sneeze. A metre-long jet of flame burst from her nostrils, torching several herbs before she put it out with a flick of her tail. Upon seeing the expression on Bombur's face, she thought it prudent to leave his presence immediately and go find replacements for the herbs she'd accidently roasted.

When she brought a pile of weeds back later that evening, it apparently still wasn't enough to get her out of being whacked on the head with a wooden ladle. Which, she thought indignantly as she rubbed the sore spot on top of her head, was quite unfair, because he was the one who'd waved the pepper at her in the first place.