"Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."

William Shakespeare, Julius Caeser

The company spent the day talking avidly about Ered Mithrin while they marched, describing in detail the strength of the fortress, the amazing architecture, how mineral-rich the mountains were and, most importantly, the proper food they would get there. After two instances of staying with hosts who did not eat meat they were eager to enjoy food that hadn't been cooked over a camp-fire. Gloin in particular waxed poetic about the superiority of the malt beer and well-cooked meat they would soon be enjoying fresh of the bone.

Despite how tempting the fare sounded, every step Lizzy took was heavy and reluctant as they moved further and further away from the Forest-Gate. She could barely understand how everything had changed so much since they woke up that morning, alternating between blaming herself for telling Thorin about Mirkwood and being angry at him for having the audacity to change their path. She felt numb, as if she was still in shock after her mild panic attack earlier, knowing that nothing would be the same as the book now that they had taken a different route.

It didn't take very long for others to notice Lizzy's preoccupation; she walked at the very back of the company practically sulking in displeasure. Fili and Kili came to walk alongside her sometime in the middle of the morning. "Are you alright?" Fili asked, looking at her with mild concern.

"No," she retorted petulantly, kicking at a tuft of grass. She sighed and rubbed a hand over her face. "I am half thinking about turning heel and marching straight back to Beorn's house to take him up on his offer," she muttered, mostly to herself, her sarcasm belaying the depths of the fear that was still coursing through her.

"What offer?" Kili wanted to know, having heard her words.

"Marriage and dozens of children, by the sounds of it," she replied dully, shoving both hands into her pockets and hunching her shoulders.

Kili promptly tripped over his feet. "Mahal above, you're not seriously considering accepting, are you?" he asked, sounding undeniably worried by the prospect.

Lizzy frowned at him. "No, you dork."

There was a beat. "What's a dork?" he asked curiously after a moment.

"You, you're a dork, Kili," she replied, the first smile of the day being coaxed to her lips. "And I was kidding about accepting," she added, grateful that they had managed to distract her, if only for a moment.

"Will you tell us what's the matter?" Fili asked after a few more moments of walking in silence. "You've alternated between mumbling to yourself and glaring daggers at Thorin's back all morning."

Her frown returned. "I wasn't mumbling," she protested, knowing that this probably wasn't true – she had called both herself and Thorin every foul and ridiculous name she could think of under her breath during the course of trying to decide who she was the most upset and angry with: herself or him. The full, far-reaching implications of his actions hadn't sunk in for her yet and she was half wondering if she would be able to convince him to turn the company around. She wished he had talked to her about his idea before it was too late: she could have talked him out of it, even gotten Gandalf on her side to add weight to her argument. But no, he had probably anticipated such a move and so had sneakily waited until the Wizard was out of sight before springing this little surprise on her.

Realising that Fili and Kili were still waiting for her to elaborate on her melancholy, she decided to explain. "Thorin has changed the path," she told them with a grimace. Their faces remained blank with incomprehension and so she clarified further. "You know, the story from my world about the quest. We are meant to be going through Mirkwood right now."

"So what's the problem?" Kili asked with a slight shrug. "I for one wasn't really looking forward to Mirkwood."

"Things are going to be completely different to what I was expecting!" she said agitatedly, gesturing with her hands to try and convey the importance of this change that they simply weren't grasping. "The entire story will change," She kicked at the ground once more, scuffing the grass with her heel. "Makes my role as advisor a little redundant," she added in a mutinous mutter.

Fili and Kili digested this in silence for a while and Lizzy stooped to pick up a stick to whack at the grass while they walked, enjoying this small way to vent her frustration. If Thorin had confided in her before Gandalf left and they hadn't been able to change his mind then maybe she could have got Gandalf to send her home since she was of no further use here. She had already done enough damage to the quest so this could have potentially been a good time to cut her losses and run, returning to her own world.

Even though it wasn't a possibility now since Gandalf was riding away south, she entertained the thought of suddenly reappearing in that forest in New Zealand. Would she beat her brother on their little race to the camp-site? she wondered briefly, imagining herself running and hugging him to death before frantically ringing her parents just to hear their voices – he would no doubt be highly confused, for him it would be little more than half an hour since they had seen each other.

She sighed: until Gandalf reappeared again there was no way for her to get back to her world anyway. And despite her little daydreams the idea of returning home was now tinged with bitterness. Fili and Kili had become her best friends and she had the Ur brothers, her new, adopted family in this world, as a kind of three crazy uncles. Then there was Bilbo, her quiet and mild-mannered confidant, the one who understood what it was like to be the outcast culture-wise in a company like this, and of course she couldn't forget little Ori, who had been pestering her non-stop for stories from her world since she had told one at Beorn's, faithfully writing her every word in his journal.

The idea of leaving them sent a vicious pang through her, knowing that there would be no way to see them again once she left Middle Earth.

And as for Thorin … well, if by some miracle they did still manage to make it to the mountain then there was still the gold-sickness to contend with and since she was stuck here for now someone had to make sure that the stupid, stubborn arse-hole didn't get himself killed through his own greed and idiocy.

Her musings were interrupted by Fili. "Lizzy, just because things are changing doesn't mean you can't give good advice," he said sensibly. "You still know how we defeat the dragon, don't you?"

She gave him a wan, half smile, knowing that the Dwarves themselves did little to kill Smaug – in fact all they really succeeded in doing was waking him up and rousing his anger. "Yeah," she agreed, examining her feelings to discover why she was really so upset. Her emotions were a roiling mixture of anger, confusion and powerlessness, knowing that Thorin would be stubborn enough to stick to this path no matter what she said, even though she knew she had to try and convince him to turn around. She swished her stick once more, snapping grass stalks in her wake. "I can't decide if I am completely pissed off at Thorin, or ..."

She trailed off, a new thought suddenly occurring to her. At Beorn's house Gandalf had said that only Thorin could save himself – was this sudden self-assertion, this need to be in control of his his own fate, the first step down the path to his salvation?

"... Or?" Kili prompted since she had fallen silent, her mind whirling.

Thorin might have just saved his nephews lives by being brave enough (stubborn, obstinate, pig-headed enough) to change everything, though it might also mean that everyone could die due to his actions.

"You know, I think I just want to be alone at the moment," she said instead of replying properly, suddenly feeling very overwhelmed by the sheer number of possibilities their path could now take, with no way for her to anticipate them. "Would you guys mind …." she made a vague gesture with one hand.

"Of course," Fili said instantly, touching her lightly on the shoulder. "Let us know if you need anything," he told her, drawing Kili forward and leaving her to walk alone once more.

She sighed, looking at their backs in front of her. She had always known that she would have her work cut out for her in trying to save them, knowing that in stories fate had a nasty way of ensuring that people who were supposed to die did indeed meet there end in some way or another. But now, with everything changing around them, their deaths (if they came at all) might come in a way that she had no way of foreseeing and therefore preventing.

Above her the clouds shifted and swirled as the warm weather fronts of late summer collided with the growing coolness of the approaching autumn. There was a touch of humidity, but as the afternoon wore on a cold easterly wind blew from over the forest, bringing grey clouds and a heaviness to the air. She paused to pull her fleece from her pack and quickly donned it, holding it close to her body as she walked.

A storm was coming and she felt like she was travelling without a rudder in uncharted waters.

Once again, Elizabeth separated herself from the company when they had halted for the night. She drew her sword and started practising drills, though this time her movements were tense and erratic. She was clearly working off frustration, not practising with any finesse. As she swung her blade to bring it round in a sideways slicing motion the braid securing her hair came loose, as it had been threatening to do for days, causing her long hair to tumble down her back as she practised. Thorin watched as her movements became faster and more jerky until she eventually gave up and simply threw her sword down onto the grass, heedless of the proper way a weapon should be treated. She was quick to follow, slumping down on the ground with her back to the company, pushing her hair out of her eyes and facing the dark forest that loomed threateningly to one side, flanked by the grey clouds.

The weather had started to turn in the last few days, the tail end of summer meeting the early autumn. Being a seasoned traveller, he recognised the signs of a storm brewing and knew that they would have rain in the next few days. Hopefully that would make it harder for anyone to track them, the feeling of being followed still lingering even after sending their ponies (and subsequently Beorn's escort) away. The possibility of Azog picking up their trail weighed heavily on his mind, despite the difficulty the Pale Orc would have finding their scent after being carried by the eagles.

Knowing that they had to talk, he slowly and cautiously approached Elizabeth, picking up her sword and coming to stand along side her. "You are angry with me," he observed, holding out her weapon hilt first for her to take.

"No," she said swiftly, neither looking at him or taking the sword. Then she shook her head. "I mean yes … Maybe … Ugh, I don't even know," she said irritably, her indecisive words demonstrating the turmoil of her emotions. She sighed deeply and put her head in her hands."I'm scared, I'm terrified ...Thorin, we should turn around," she added, her voice both muffled and lacking in conviction.

He shook his head. "It is too late for that," he told her firmly. He would not have his life dictated by a book, his every step and decision already predetermined by a literary counterpart. Late at night, in the darkness of Beorn's halls, he had remembered the Elf-witches words in Rivendell, that he was one of the few in this world who was free to decide their fate and it had added weight to his conviction that he was doing the right thing. Success or failure, it would be on his terms.

Elizabeth lifted her head and pulled her knees in close to her body, hugging them tight as if she was trying to hold herself together by sheer willpower alone. She returned her gaze to Mirkwood, defeat evident in the hunched lines of her back. This morning she had been distressed, to the extent that her breathing had become dangerously rapid and she was swaying on her feet, but now she looked weary and older than her young years.

"I know how you feel," he said quietly to break the lingering silence between them.

"No, just - just don't, alright?" she snapped with sudden aggression, getting to her feet and rounding to face him properly for the first time since he approached her. Her voice was a mixture of petulance and steely anger and he took an automatic step backwards as she seized the sword that he was still holding out to her. "Don't give me that crap because you don't know anything about how I feel right now."

"You feel lost and afraid," he stated calmly, half raising a single eyebrow at her tone and keeping a wary eye on the sword in her hand. "You feel as if everything is spinning away from your control."

She blinked, hesitated, and lowered her gaze; he assumed he had guessed her feelings rightly.

There was a brief moment of silence between them and then she raised her narrowed eyes to his once more to glare at him reproachfully. "I know because I felt a similar feeling when I realised that everything, this entire quest, was beyond my control if I continued down the road you had planned for me," he continued, trying to make her see his view. "You were trying so hard not to change events from those which you know, but I will not be dictated to by a book. And now you need not be either." There was another brief pause. "We are free to carve out our own fates, Elizabeth, and we will see to it that all goes well."

"Carve out our own fates," she repeated in a whisper, looking towards the forest. Her normally clear eyes were troubled, filled with the burden of her knowledge. He noticed the hand holding her sword trembling ever so slightly, like a leaf in the wind. "I suppose you're right, this might be exactly what we need."

There was a long silence and he watched the slow play of emotions on her face, her pensive expression turning to resignation before going unusually blank. It was almost unnerving, he was so used to being able to read the quirks and movements of her face and eyes with relative ease, but now he did not know what she was thinking. She then suddenly let out a small, bubbling laugh, one that bordered on hysteria, and sheathed her sword. "It's strange, but now that I actually think about it … I feel kind of … free."

He gave her a questioning look at this highly unexpected reaction and she sent him a small, sheepish smile, her posture relaxing ever so slightly.

"Well, not free, but … everything was always my fault before. Even though it would have happened even if I wasn't here, you guys blamed me for not telling you things," she explained, half raising one shoulder. He opened his mouth to refute this claim, only to close it when he remembered Fili accusing him of the exact same thing when he had blamed her for their capture in the mountains. "But now … it's terrifying and scary because we are going to be doing it blind, but I suppose there is less pressure on me." She looked up at him from beneath her eyelashes, her gaze now less troubled: she appeared to have made her peace with his plan. "I hope this doesn't make me sound selfish, but if we mess up now then it won't be because of something that I could have -" she took a deep, shuddering breath, "- changed or prevented."

"Our decisions are now our own," he summarised for her: if they messed up, as she put it, then the weight would be on his shoulders and rightly so. He was leader of this company and was determined to take responsibility for them, not allowing them to be governed by some other-worldly story.

"Exactly," she said, nodding slightly. She then sighed softly once more, looking down at her feet. "Thorin, you said on the Carrock that you thought I had good intentions but didn't know what I was doing ... I – I think you were right, I …"

"You have never been confident in your abilities," he finished as she struggled to find her words, remembering how it had been her lack of confidence and hesitation about giving him straight answers regarding the end of his quest that had prompted the first thoughts of veering from her pre-determined path.

"No," she agreed as she exhaled a breath, a wry note in her voice. She turned to look at him, her silvery eyes piercing. It was as if her gaze was laying bare every doubt and insecurity he had in his plan. "Are you confident that this will work?"

"I have no guarantee that it will," he told her truthfully, choosing to confide in her. The rest of the company knew nothing of his doubts, thinking he had just picked another path without realising the risks and implications of his choice and determination to veer away from what was already planned for them, but Elizabeth did. She not only understood, but countered and argued against him, her every word highlighting the potential flaws and trip-holes of his plan without wholly condemning it; she had come to know him well enough to realise that he could not be swayed once he had set his mind to a course of action. "But I have the intention and determination to see it through to whatever end."

"To whatever end …" she repeated with almost mock seriousness, the ghost of an amused smile on her face, though he could not see what she found amusing. Her mouth slowly fell into a frown and she shook her head. "I know you mean well too, but I hope you understand the gravity of how much you've changed … You might have just saved us all, but you also might have just gotten everyone killed and changed the entire fate of Middle Earth," she said with brutal honesty.

"I know," he agreed seriously, accepting responsibility for his actions.

She nodded, biting the inside of her cheek in a way that caused her lips to purse, apparently satisfied that she had impressed the seriousness of the weighty decision he had made onto his shoulders. "I just hope that this works," she said very quietly, not looking at him.

There was a brief pause, then he spoke once more. "I know you don't entirely approve of this plan, but I believe that we must trust in one another's good intentions, Elizabeth," Thorin said and she sent a small smile his way, agreeing with him. They may be showing it in different ways, but they both wanted what was best for the company. He wondered when she had become such an important figure in their midst; when she had first joined them she had been very much on the periphery, a curiosity with her other-worldly heritage, but on the out-skirts of the group nevertheless. Somehow in the past few weeks she had taken on a central and important role in the dynamic of their group, becoming the one he came to for advise.

"Come, let us return to the camp," he said after a very long silence, in which they had been silently and thoughtfully scrutinising each other.

"Thorin," she said, catching his attention as he turned to rejoin the others. She was twisting her fingers but when his gaze met hers she straightened her spine, looking him dead in the eye. "I know I'm not the most suitable person for this company, my knowledge was my best asset," she said with a slightly self-deprecating shrug. "But I want you to know that I am still going to try my best. I signed a contract and I intend to honour that. This quest is mine now as much as it is yours and I am going to see it through," she finished seriously, her gaze locked on his.

His lips parted as he stared at her, not having expected such a declaration. Her words were as good as a vow, binding her to the company even more than her contract already had. He felt a flare of admiration for this strange, slight young woman who was standing before him with her shoulders back as she pledged herself to his cause. Loyalty, honour, a willing heart ... he thought, remembering his words to Balin at the start of their quest.

"Thank you, Elizabeth," he said softly, inclining his head at her in acknowledgement of her surprising words.

She gave him another smile with her lips pressed tightly together and then started walking past him back towards the camp. Then she hesitated, turning to look over her shoulder at him, her gaze thoughtful and considering. "Ahh, screw it," he heard her mutter after a moment.

He was startled as she abruptly launched herself towards him, wrapping her arms around his neck in a fierce hug. He lurched back a step, far too stunned to respond to her sudden embrace. The side of her face was very close to his and he could feel her hair tickling his nose, the fruity, exotic scent he had come to associate with Elizabeth still lingering around her. He held his arms awkwardly by his side, not sure whether or not to return her embrace.

"No matter what happens, you're very brave to have done this, you know. To have taken this risk," she breathed into his ear just before she drew back. "I know I wouldn't have had the courage, and I really, really hope it works," she added with another, somewhat wan smile, her hands still on his shoulders. She then half patted him on the shoulder, released him, and walked away. He was left staggered in her wake: once again, Elizabeth Darrow had managed to surprise him.

Azog sat astride his white warg, his pale eyes fixed on the opening in the trees, the entrance to the Old Forest Road. For days they had searched for the Dwarves trail, trying to find the point where the eagles, the bird-scum, had deposited them after they had fled the burning cliff top. He had led his depleted troops eastwards, over the Old Ford and down towards the southern forest-gate, believing that to be the most likely route the Durin-rats had taken.

His eyes narrowed as he saw one of his scouts returning. He had sent him up the Forest Road to try and find their trail, but based on the fearful hunch of his shoulders he had been unsuccessful.

"The Dwarves, master ..." he said in the Black Speech as he approached, cringing astride his warg. "There is no sign of their trail." The scout instantly lowered his head, no doubt expecting punishment for not finding anything.

Azog lifted his head to scent the air, his mind working swiftly. There was no way the eagles would have carried them all the way to the mountain, they were too proud to do such a thing, so they would be travelling on foot somewhere and there were only two paths through the forest.

"They must have gone north," he said to himself with a low growl.

He arched his clawed hand over his head, gesturing for his troops to muster and ready to depart. Within minutes they were spurring their wargs into motion, sprinting northwards over the grassy plains.

Big thank you to all of my followers and reviewers, especially my non-signed in ones that I can't reply to!

For this weeks question lets do one about you, I love hearing about you guys … since autumn is well and truly coming down on us, did you guys have a good summer? Did you go away anywhere, what was your favourite part? :)

Speaking of going away, I am off to Paris for a few days (squeeeeee!) so there MIGHT be a minor delay on the next chapter, just as a forewarning. I am visiting one of my best and oldest friends who moved out to France when we were 9. I used to go visit her and we would tramp about in our wellies on her families land and down in the stream, re-enacting the Hobbit … not even kidding, we were cool kids and fans from a young age! Anyway, she has now moved to Paris, so I am visiting for a weekend – c'est tres excited! :p

Don't forget to review! You can also follow any updates, sneak peeks, Richard Armitage spam and ask questions on my tumblr ~kindle-the-stars

Love to you all :)