"How long is this going to take?!" sighed Emily, trying to find a comfortable position in which to sit.
Balin had just returned from giving Bilbo the very detailed instructions on how and where to find the Arkenstone, which had consisted of "you'll know it when you see it".
"It has only been a couple of minutes" Balin replied tersely to the blonde. "Give him a bit more time"
It had in fact been half an hour of intense boredom, but Em restrained herself from pointing this out to the aged dwarf.
She glanced over at Poppy, who had remained surprisingly silent throughout the time they had waited outside the hidden door.
With a smirk, Emily remembered the furious exchange that had occurred before the doors discovery, and she was still surprised a diamond had not been formed as a result of the high levels of sexual tensions that had filled the air. It was far easier to ponder Poppy's complicated romance life, which she was completely oblivious to, rather than her own.
To distract herself from the horrify topic, she glanced around, and watched the Mountain King. Who was watching Poppy. Who was trying her hardest not the watch Thorin.
She was about to enlighten her friend to the fact that she was being watched by the man whom she was trying her hardest not watch, but in simpler words, when the stone upon which they stood shook, small stones crumbling off the rim.
"Was that an earthquake?" whimpered Dori, cowering against the cliff face.
"That, my lad, is a dragon", sighed Balin, successfully summoning a mystical and more than slightly creepy aura.
The whole company gazed at the entrance to the hidden door as though it were the gullet of some hideous monster.
"We don't actually have to go IN, do we?" Bofur asked apprehensively.
"No" Thorin muttered distractedly. "Give him more time"
"More time for what?" Balin exclaimed. "TO BE INCINERATED?!"
"I will not risk this quest on the life of on burglar!"
"His name is-"
"POOP!" Emily suddenly cried, ruining a very monumental moment. "POOP I REMEMBER!"
The dwarves all eyes her suspiciously, Balin in particular, and Poppy, realising that Emily had almost given her true name away, slinked over to her.
"What is it?" she hissed, edging away from the company to take attention away from Emily.
"I just remembered something important! My foresight hath returned!"
"Yes, yes, what is it?"
Emily paused briefly to gather her thoughts. "It's the…the GOLD SICKNESS"
"Gold sickness?" Poppy retorted, creasing her eyebrows in confusion.
Emily's eyes appeared to bulge out of their sockets. "Yes, yes, the GOLD SICKNESS! Don't you remember what happens?"
"No…"
Emily sighed in exasperation. "Remember? Thorin kind of goes mad…particularly about the Arkenstone. Just like his grandfather, remember?!"
"Ahhh that gold sickness" Poppy finally realised what her friend was getting at and turned her eyes to the grey sky, trying to think. "And what do you expect us to do about it?"
"Weelllll" Emily stammered, trying to gather her thoughts. "We shall just have to stop that from happening. And then maybe, they will share the gold and then-"
"Em, you are being ridiculous" her friend interrupted. "There is NO way anybody or anything will be able to convince Thorin to share his gold"
Well, Emily could certainly think of someone who could convince him, but she dare not say it. "Yes, yes, I know that. But maybe we can stop the gold sickness from turning him, you know, crazed"
Poppy raised her eyebrows. "And how are we supposed to do that?"
Emily threw her hands up in the air in frustration. "I DON'T KNOW! Hide the Arkenstone from him, hit him on the head with a golden chalice, SEDUCE him if you must!"
"WHAT?!" Poppy shouted, her eyebrows practically shooting out and past her hairline. "WHY ME?!"
"Do I really need to answer that question?"
Poppy swiftly thumped Emily on the head, resulting in a surprised yelp from the blonde.
"Hey! I am just telling the truth!" she proclaimed, rubbing her head. "And you know I am!"
Poppy glared at her and stomped away. Upon returning to the company, the girls realised that their topic of conversation had turned elsewhere, and they were now preparing to enter the mountain, in search of Bilbo.
"WHAT?" Emily exclaimed after she had been told. "Are you idiots crazy? We cannot just walk in there!"
"Why not?" Poppy asked, glancing suspiciously at her now hysterical friend.
"Well…" Em stammered. "You can go in. But I shall stay here to…umm… guard the hidden door."
"What?!" Poppy exclaimed, grabbing her friend by the shoulders. "Are you crazy? Are you unwell?" she paused. "Are you too scared to come in?"
Emily glanced back at her friend. She knew perfectly well why she did not want to go in and, for a brief moment, she wished she had stayed behind in Lake Town with Kili. "Of course not" she mumbled. "I just…" her sentence trailed off and she briefly looked down at her stomach. Instantly, she wondered why she had. What did that matter anyway.
Now very determinedly, Emily stood up from her rock and stormed over the entrance.
"Never mind!" she proclaimed, entering the Mountain. "Let's go!"
The silence in Erebor echoed through the empty halls, the only sound being the distant chink of gold as it slid over and behind rocks. They could vaguely hear the far-off sound of the dragon galumphing around, but of yet, they had seen no sign of Bilbo.
After a few more minutes of hushed silence, Thorin, either seeing something in the distance or going mad from the lack of noise, sprinted away from the company and round a corner.
"By my beard!" exclaimed Balin and sprinted after the retreating back of the King-Under-the-Mountain.
"Amavel! After him!" Emily cried, flapping her arms around wildly and nearly beheading Dwalin. Reluctantly, Poppy sprinted off after the two fleeing figures. Soon the trio was lost in the depths of Erebor, led only by the echoing footsteps to where Thorin stood, outlined by the reflected light of thousands upon millions of pure gold coins.
Poppy swiftly overtook Balin, who struggled, weezing, behind her.
When she reached the edge of the passage, she saw Thorin, sword in hand, seemingly threatening Bilbo.
Poppy shouted out something along the lines of "Nooooo!" and hurled herself at them, just as Thorin mentioned something to do with 'The Arkenstone'.
She hurled herself forward, trying to solve the situation, however, most unhelpfully, the only thing that came mind was her friends line, "Seduce him!". The girl cannonballed into the king's back, and both of them collapsed onto the ice cold path, Bilbo managing to avoid them as they fell.
"Ummm…." She muttered as she clambered off him. She did not quite know how she was going to talk her way out of this one.
Thorin stood up after her, thouroughly confused, and angry. "What in Durin's name-"
He sentence was cut short by a rumbling that began to sound behind Poppy's back. Hearing the sound of something large, and possibly dragon-sized approaching over the mountain of treasure caused Poppy to turn around.
And needless to say, she was not prepared for what she saw.
Sure, the company had said Smaug was big. But they had never really said how big. Now, as he stood before her, hot fire showing through the scales on his throat like burning coal, Poppy could not help a strange feeling of fear welling up inside of her.
As the dragon came closer towards them, Thorin pushed Poppy behind him, and, for once, she did not mind being the weak, fragile female.
Almost on cue, Emily and the rest of the dwarves arrived, weapons in hand.
"Holy shit!" Emily exclaimed upon seeing Smaug.
"You will burn!" Smaug bellowed, heralding the arrival of a great bout of fire.
Emily squealed and ran off blindly, jumping off a poorly built staircase which they were standing on. She tumbled down a seemingly never-ending pile of treasure, not sure if the others were behind her, before she landed in front of a tunnel.
Heart pounding in her chest, she scrambled off of the floor, slipping on various gold coins as she went and ran blindly into the aforementioned tunnel.
She turned around only to have Poppy barrel into her.
They were only just recovering themselves off the floor when the rest of the company bowled into them. Poppy and Emily were pushed backwards against their will and turned around just in time to see Thorin entering the tunnel, half on fire.
Emily began laughing rather evilly and nudged Poppy. "Hot things on fire!"
"What?"
"Do you get it? Hot things on fire? Because-"
However, there was no time for Emily to explain herself as Thorin yelled a very loud "Come on!" and they continued to run down the tunnel, with Smaug roaring behind them.
After a very long, and terrifying walk which involved the company creeping along a rather thin bridge directly under Smaug, they finally arrived at the infamous 'Western Guardroom'.
Emily was in hysterics. She had fallen down endless piles of cold, stomped along slowly down hard, stone corridors, and, not to mention, almost been burnt to a metaphorical crisp by the firey wrath of the now very ill-tempered dragon which the oh-so-clever company had chosen to antagonize.
Her mood was not improved when she found out that the Guardsroom, their fabled safe haven, was littered with an arrangement of desolated corpses of many dwarves with the most glorious array of beards ever soon.
It was at that moment that Dwalin decided to point out the blindly obvious. "That's it then. There's no way out!"
"You don't say?" Emily said in mocking tone.
Balin ignored Emily completely, a sad, faraway look on his lined face, "The last of our kin They must have come here, hoping beyond hope. We could try to reach the Mines. We might last a few days."
Poppy shot Em an angry look, and Emily felt a stab of guilt at the insensitivity shed just displayed. These were people Balin had probably known, and, looking around, the rest of the Company weren't looking too pleased either.
Emily shuffled her feet and looked around awkwardly, even the long dead corpses looked reproachful.
A long awkward silence stretched out and Emily was very glad indeed when Thorin straightened and flicked his hair out of his eyes in a way that Poppy had probably swooned at,
"No. I will not die like this. Cowering, clawing for breath. We shall make for the forges."
Poppy whirled on Thorin and gave him a glare that would have made any other sane being drop to their knees and beg forgiveness, Thorin, as established by his numerous encounters with Poppy, was clearly not sane.
"The forges?" she exclaimed. "That sounds like it means running back out there, and I for one would really rather not come face to face with that overgrown, megalomaniac lizard again."
"We split up, one party distracts, while the other runs." Thorin shot Poppy a hard look, "I would have thought that was obvious."
"Obvious for you, maybe." Poppy growled, "I am rather fond of the idea of keeping on being able to breathe and not have my heart eaten by an insane dragon by the time this day is over!"
Balin nodded sagely, "We'll never make it."
Emily rolled her eyes and then cowered back slightly along with everyone else as Thorin's eyes flashed almost as intensely as the dragon fire had, "We kill the dragon. If this is to end in fire, then we will all burn together."
Yes, we will. Emily thought, horror beginning to dawn. We will all burn. She looked down and realised that her hand was resting unconsciously on her stomach. Balin caught the movement and opened his mouth to say something, but Em shook her head at him fiercely. At least if they did die, Kili would never know truly everything he had lost. Emily stood up and met Thorin's gaze, before nodding jerkily.
"Let's do this."
Sorry sorry sorry this has taken so long! This section inside the mountain is the last part we have not planned. Thus, hopefully after the next chapter everything shall run smoothly.
I hope you enjoy it and credits to Violet- who helped us in our dire need :) (well mainly me, Em was reading manga- so unhelpful)