Chapter Twenty-Eight: Mirkwood Bingo


Emelia was slightly more bitter than she should have been about Gandalf leaving. She hardly knew the man and thought he was horrendously unsettling at the best of times, but that didn't stop her from feeling slightly embittered and pouty. She did not expect him to go flitting off to who knows where so soon after he had dropped the bomb of the information he had, or more accurately the lack of information he had about her and her maybe, possibly, probably not, going home. Emelia thought he was going to stay with them all the way until Erebor. Apparently, he had better things to do.

His departure left Emelia pondering what he had said alone, in her own moody way, as they trekked through Mirkwood.

Mirkwood was worse on the inside than it was on the outside, Emelia had decided. It was miserably dim and eerily green. Emelia thought for a moment that they were walking single file through a cloud of pollen. She quickly realized that was not the case when she took note of the fact that none of the trees seemed healthy enough to grown proper leaves, let alone produce enough pollen to turn the air and ground around them as green as it was.

The sun had left them as quickly as Gandalf had, resulting in the company fumbling around as best they could, moods turning south with each step they took. Thorin led them in front, which caused Emelia to stick as far to the back as she could so she could avoid him as best as possible. She didn't think the dwarves would take to her too kindly if she spontaneously started punching Thorin. Bilbo walked in front of her, oblivious to Emelia and her wandering thoughts.

"I don't like the noises." Emelia whispered to Bilbo, breaking the silence that had stretched between them for the last two hours or so. "Sounds like a pack of rapid squirrels is coming to get us."

Bilbo smiled slightly, glancing over at her over his shoulder. "I do not mind the squirrels. It is the cobwebs that worry me." Bilbo pointed to the nearest clumping of trees. It was covered in ominously dark cobwebs that stretched out past their line of sight into the forest. Emelia did not want to think about what size spiders could have made the massive cobwebs.

"I hate spiders." Kili said from behind Emelia. He was the rear guard of the group. It was the first time he had joined in the conversation since they had been in Mirkwood. He had been singularly focused on his job, despite Emelia's attempts to get him to play Mirkwood Bingo with her to pass the time. She had already found six blue mushrooms before she realized that he wasn't exactly paying attention to her. "Fili put one on my head when I was thirty."

"What a brat." Emelia said, smiling at the mental imagine of Fili sneaking up on Kili to plant a spider on him. She imagined he must have screamed like a little girl. She suddenly stopped walking, seeming to realize what Kili had just said. "I'm sorry, did you just say thirty?" She turned to face him, fully expecting him to smile at her in the cheeky way that she had come to associate with him joking around with her. He wasn't. In fact, he looked slightly confused at the alarmed expression on her face.

"Well, yes?"

"And that would make you like 32 now, or…" She trailed off, trying to find any sign that Kili was the age he was saying. He had no lines on his face, no spots, no early grey hairs; nothing but handsome features and youthful looking eyes.

"Seventy-seven."

Emelia laughed out loud for a moment before she realized that Kili wasn't laughing with her. "Oh come off it. You don't honestly expect me to believe that you're seventy-seven, do you?"

"I'm not lying." Kili said, glancing over Emelia's shoulder to see the rest of the company. "Come on, we don't want to get separated."

Emelia was silent for a moment, thinking, before she finally blurted out what she was thinking at Kili.

"Kee, are you part elf?" Emelia asked as Kili guided them back to being closer to the rest of the company. She whispered her question, finally putting the pieces together in her mind. The elves that she had encountered in Rivendell had been well over six hundred and looked like they weren't a day over twenty. It seemed only logical that Kili would have to have some sort of elf blood in him. She knew saying so would probably cause an uproar with the rest of the dwarves, so she kept her voice down. "I mean, you don't look like you're older than twenty, twenty-one if you squint."

"I will ignore that elf comment, Emmy." Kili did not look as upset as she imagined another dwarf would have. Emelia made a mental note to keep her observations about heritage to herself from that point on. "Dwarves age differently than humans." Kili said, placing a hand on her lower back to move her forward at a slightly faster pace. "How old are you?"

"Well, when I left I was eighteen. I don't know what day it is or how long I've been gone, so for all I know, I could be nineteen already."

"I didn't realize you were so young." Kili said. Emelia glanced at him, only to see a very thoughtful and confused look on his face. He seemed conflicted about something, which instantly made an odd feeling settle in her stomach.

"At least I'm legal, right?" When he made no sound of understanding, Emelia switched her focus. "I didn't realize you were old enough to be my grandfather, so we're even." Emelia was rather surprised with herself for being so relatively unalarmed at Kili's age. Perhaps it was the fact that he didn't look so old, or maybe it was the way he acted like he as younger than her most of the time, or perhaps it was that she couldn't bear to think that she was actually attracted to someone who was seventy-seven years old so she immediately thought of him as being closer to her age to cope. "Seventy-seven. Geez Kee, you're such a crotchety old man."

"Very funny, Emmy."

"Did you pack enough denture cream and oxygen for this trip?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You could buy me alcohol." Emelia said, choosing to pointedly ignore the fact that he had no idea what she was talking about. "We could get the senior discount at Denny's."

"What are you going on about?" Kili asked, pushing her to keep moving despite the fact that she wanted to stop walking.

"I'm rambling aren't I?"

"Yes." They were close enough to be overheard by the rest of the dwarves. "I do not mind, though." She felt one of his hands slide up to her shoulder, squeezing it slightly. She expected him to remove his hand, as he usually did, but he didn't. Instead he began to tap his fingers rhythmically along her shoulder, smirking at her when she looked over her shoulder at him questioningly.

He winked at her, effectively silencing her as she suddenly forgot what she was going to say to him. She imagined, thinking back on it, that he had done that on purpose to confuse her. He knew full well that she forgot how to think most of the time when he looked at her, let alone winked at her. She imagined Kili was much cleverer than most people gave him credit for, if his dealings with her were any sort of indication.


Their first couple of days in Mirkwood were not as unpleasant as Emelia had anticipated. In fact, some might consider them downright wonderful compared to some of the other nights she had spent in the company of the dwarves. She had, for the first couple of days, been able to sleep oddly peacefully. She had curled up into a little ball, pointedly ignoring the fact that Fili was still avoiding her. She spent her nights, and most of her days, playing Mirkwood Bingo with herself. It was rather dull, but she would take dull over something exciting. Exciting things with the dwarves usually meant her life being threatened in some way or another and she had just about had her fill of that for one lifetime.

They had altogether lost the sunlight that had been previously streaming through the tree intermittently, plunging them all into moody silence that mirrored the lack of light. Dwalin seemed to be moodier than the rest, glaring at every tree he passed, growing under his breath whenever he saw signs that indicated elves. Emelia thought his blood pressure was a little high, but she buried the desire to inform him of that. She preferred to stay away from Thorin and Dwalin was practically connected to Thorin at the hip, so she avoided him by proxy.

Emelia spent her days with Kili and Bilbo, which she wasn't complaining about. Bilbo seemed to understand Emelia's need for interaction ever since Fili had stopped talking to her. Kili offered her very little insight every time she asked, resulting in her feeling even angrier at Fili. The air around them was becoming thicker and heavier as each day passed them by, making Emelia's anger at Fili even more prominent.

Emelia's initial good mood had all but evaporated by the time they reached their first obstacle.

Thorin called for a sudden halt, forcing Emelia, who had been mentally adding a pair of squirrels to her checklist, to focus her attention back on the dwarves. Now that Emelia was paying attention to something besides her own self, she was able to hear the undeniable sounds of rushing water in front of her. She peered around Bombur who was blocking her view now that Bilbo had abandoned the rear to go up and see what exactly was blocking their path.

"I don't think you're even trying at Mirkwood Bingo, Kee." Emelia said after a palpable silence. The dwarves, besides Kili, had all moved up to stand next to Thorin, ideas about how to cross what was apparently a very large river bouncing about between them.

"Maybe you're just better at it than me." Kili said from behind her, moving to stand next to her while still keeping his gaze firmly planted on the trees behind them. "Or maybe you're making the rules up as you go in order to best me."

"You'd like to think that, but no, I'm actually just kicking your as…"

"Over there! There's a boat against the far bank!"

"We'll discuss your gaming ineptitude later, Mister." Emelia said, reaching her hand down to pull Kili with her to see what Bilbo had suddenly gotten so excited about.

"How far?" Thorin asked, glancing up at the sound of Emelia and Kili joining them. Kili immediately released Emelia's hand, offering no explanation besides a slightly apologetic look.

"I don't know, twelve, maybe fifteen yards." Bilbo answered, lifting himself up off the bank to turn and look at Thorin and the rest of the dwarves.

"Twelve yards is still long enough to be a problem. Boern warned us that we should avoid entering the water, so we cannot swim it nor can any of us hope to jump the distance." Thorin sounded frustrated.

"We could throw a rope." Dwalin suggested, leaning forward ever so slightly to peer at the blackness that was Mirkwood with slight disdain.

"We could hook it and pull the boat over." Bilbo said, elaborating on Dwalin's thought.

Emelia leaned back against one of the trees, waiting for them to decide what to do. They wouldn't have listened to her opinion, despite the fact that for the first time since she had been with the dwarves, she was uniquely qualified to hook a boat with a rope. She did that sort of thing all the time back in Alaska. Kili left her, moving to stand next to his brother. Emelia watched them as they leaned towards each other, matching looks on their faces.

"The boat is more than likely tied." Thorin said, sounding worn out for the first time in Emelia's recent memory.

"I do not think so." Bilbo said, peering even harder at the opposite bank.

"Fili come here and see if you can find the boat Bilbo is talking about." Thorin said suddenly, surprising most of the dwarves. Fili seemed the most surprised. He shot Kili a questioning look as he moved hesitantly to stand next to their impatient looking uncle.

He took the rope and hook that had been fashioned by Dori, rolling his shoulders with determination. Emelia did not envy him, despite the fact that she secretly thought she could do the job better. Thorin was standing close to Fili, thick arms folded across his chest as watched his eldest nephew expectantly. Emelia watched Fili, taking note of how his back had suddenly become very tense. She could see his back muscles working as he raised his arm up over his head, swinging the rope and hook around before he let it fly across the black river.

It took him three tries before he was finally able to hook the edge of the boat. The dull thud of metal hitting wood made all of the dwarves cheer. Fili struggled to pull the boat on his own before he was helped along by Kili, Gloin, and Oin. Emelia wasn't sure what she expected, but she found herself being a little disappointed by the size of the boat that they hauled onto the bank. It looked like it could only hold three or four dwarves at the very most.

They looked at the boat for a moment before Bilbo spoke up, voicing the question that they all had floating about in their minds. "So, who will go first?"

None of the dwarves seemed overly eager to cross over into the uncharted territory on the other side. Ori even went so far as to step back from the boat, some of the color leaving his face.

"I will go first, with Bilbo, Balin and Fili." Thorin said, moving towards the boat to prep it. "Kili will follow with Oin, Gloin, and Dori."

"What about Emelia?" Kili asked, cutting across Thorin as he opened his mouth to give the next group. Emelia felt a blush creeping up onto her face as all of the dwarves turned to look at her. Some were smirking knowingly, others seemed less than impressed with Kili's out of nowhere question. Thorin merely looked annoyed.

"She will cross last with Dwalin and Bombur." Thorin said simply, effectively cutting off any room for argument. Kili looked over at Emelia. He had an odd look on his face until he realized that she wasn't nearly as alarmed as he was about being separated for five minutes.

"Why do I always have to cross last?" Bombur did not sound happy. Emelia wasn't exactly happy either about crossing with the two biggest dwarves in the company, either. She imagined they were not very graceful. She could just imagine the boat tipping over due to their girth, sending her crashing into the dark water. The last time she had been in water things hadn't ended up too well for her and she wasn't entirely eager to repeat that traumatic experience.

"Because you weigh more than two others combined." Apparently Thorin was channeling his inner mean girl. "You shouldn't be so fat if you don't want to go last." Emelia placed a hand on Bombur's shoulder, patting it sympathetically. She felt him reach up a meaty hand to pat her hand in knew, better than some, that Thorin was uniquely capable of ruining your day with a single look.

It took them another couple of moments of finagling a crude pulley system, of sorts, before they were finally ready to cross. When everything seemed ready for them, Thorin moved towards the boat, lifting himself over the side heavily, before he turned back to face the others.

"Come."

Emelia watched, surprising herself with her patience, as the dwarves made their way over to the shore. She felt a slight sense of apprehension when they got far enough away that she could no longer see them. The sounds of the forest drowned out their voices after a certain point as well, making her feel suddenly very uncomfortable. She shifted uncomfortably next to Bombur, moving closer to the bank in the hopes that she might catch a glimpse of Fili's blonde hair or Kili's smirking face. Perhaps she shouldn't have thought Kili was being silly for being separated. It was awfully creepy once it was only her, Bombur, and Dwalin.

"Come here, lass." Emelia jumped slightly at Dwalin's voice, turning around to face him. He was holding the rope attached to the boat, keeping it steady despite the current of the seemingly black river.

Emelia took a calming breath, moving towards the boat. Dwalin held the boat edge as Emelia hauled herself over, gripping the sides for dear life. She was suddenly quite ashamed of how nervous she was feeling. She was born and breed around water, and there she was nervous about a short little ride over a river. She moved towards the middle of the small boat, breathing deeply. She almost cried when she felt the weight that she knew belonged to Bombur rocking the boat. Her fingers and knuckles turned white from the force she was using to grip the side of the boat. It felt like an eternity before the boat finally stopped rocking.

"I need to pull up front." Emelia took that as her cue to move to the middle. She allowed Dwalin to shuffle around her, pointedly ignoring the horrible rocking of the boat as he did so.

As far as boat rides went, it wasn't half as bad as she expected. She was sandwiched uncomfortably between Dwalin and Bombur, but they both seemed to sense her discomfort, the latter going so far as allowing Emelia to squeeze the life out of his hand.

The ride wasn't bad, what happened after was, however.

Dwalin was safely out of the boat, in the process of pulling it onto the banks when the deer came shooting out at them from the underbrush. Emelia, being the ever observant person that she was, didn't see it. In fact, she wasn't sure what was going on at all. All she knew was that one moment she was moving towards the edge of the boat, a feeling of relief feeling her up at being on the bank, when the boat was rocked violently by Bombur. Apparently, he wasn't very observant either.

Emelia was thrown forward by the force from the momentum of Bombur's girth, her head smashing painfully into the edge of the boat as she went. In her haze she thought she heard the distinct sound of a crash in the water. The splash was deafeningly loud in the darkness. It reverberated through Emelia's chest, making odd imagines spring up in front of her eyes.

"Bombur! Grab the rope!"

Emelia attempted to stand up, only to be met with the worst case of vertigo she had ever experienced. She imagined it was due to the fact that she didn't have a clear point to focus on in all the murky blackness that invaded her vision. She didn't imagine that it was because she had a knot the size of a cumquat on the side of her head. She blinked rapidly, hands digging into the mossy dirt in an attempt to get her vision to stop spinning, if even for a moment to see what was going on with Bombur.

"He's asleep." Emelia looked up, recognizing the annoyance in Thorin's voice instantly. "And we've lost the boat." It was then that he muttered something rather foul sounding under his breath. "Where's Emelia? She isn't still in the boat is she?"

Emelia looked around her, realizing for the first time that she was in a rather large bush. She moved, kicking and elbowing, her way until she was able to make a sound loud enough for them to hear her.

"I'm here."

Thorin actually looked relieved to see her pulling herself out of the bush. She moved painfully slow until she was finally free of the brambles. She felt little cuts littering her arms and new snags in her clothes, but she found, now that she could see Bombur snoozing like a baby on the bank in front of her, that she would rather the bush than the alternative. If the water had done that to such a big dwarf, she couldn't even begin to imagine what it could have done to her.

"Is he alright?" Emelia asked, reaching up one of her hands to prod at the lump on her head out of morbid curiosity. Her mother had once told her as a child she had banged her head so hard she had had a lump 'the size of Texas' on her head. She wondered if she had beaten her own record. It felt like she had, but she didn't exactly have a protractor handy to be sure of that.

"Emmy…" Kili appeared in front of her, seemingly out of nowhere, a look of horrible concern on his face.

"Before you even say it, I'm fine Kee."

"What's on your head?" He asked, reaching a tentative hand towards her head. She had to stop herself from smacking him when he gingerly poked the knot.

"Something you shouldn't touch, you..." Emelia trailed off, realizing all of the dwarves were now watching them once again. "What?"

"Nothing, lass." Bofur smiled brightly at her, shaking his head. Emelia wasn't convinced.

"Shouldn't somebody wake up Bombur, or are you all going to sit there watching me like I just grew a second head?"

"Well, I think you might have." Kili pointed to the lump, a wicked smirk on his face.

Emelia didn't stop herself from smacking him that time.


They were out of food and Bombur wouldn't wake up, or couldn't, and Emelia was certain her head was about to explode.

Emelia had thought that dwarves kept food squirreled away like they kept weapons. They always seemed to be able to pull out a roll or a hunk of cheese on demand. She saw now, now that she was contemplating eating leaves, that she was woefully wrong. It had been three days since any of them had last eaten. It wasn't so bad for the first day or so, at least it wasn't for her seeing as how she didn't have to carry Bombur, but by the third day rolled around with nothing to eat, Emelia thought she might have been wasting away.

Kili was quick to point out that she was overreacting, but she didn't take his word for it. His stomach hadn't stopped growling for the last two days, after all.

Her head bothered her more than her stomach. The knot had lessened in size but it was no less painful to touch. Emelia did her best not to complain about it, despite the fact that she wanted nothing more than to pop Excedrin migraine and slip off to sleep for the next month and a half. While she wouldn't have minded being carried out of Mirkwood, she knew the dwarves wouldn't appreciate that. Besides, she hadn't had access to real medicine for months, so thinking about it made her head hurt even more and her mood worsen to the point that she thought she might never be in good spirits ever again.

It wasn't until the fourth day of no food that Bombur finally decided to grace them all with his consciousness once again.

Emelia paid his complaints about hunger very little attention. She had her own things to worry about. Like the fact that her stomach was shriveling up inside her, or the fact that she had sweated out all the moisture she had left, or the fact that she thought she might have been seeing things.

She knew she wasn't the only one, so she didn't share her issues with Oin. That might have been a neglect on her part, but she thought she had already bothered him enough for one lifetime. She knew she wasn't the only one when Kili spontaneously started calling her weird names, and when Bilbo started avoiding eye contact with everyone else, and when Bofur and Dori proclaimed loudly, after discovering a small pouch on the forest floor, that there were dwarves in the forest from the Blue Mountains.

At first all she saw was the back of Kili's hair making funny swirling patterns. She hadn't minded that. It was quite beautiful to look at. During the third night it had progressed to her seeing her own hands falling off her arms every time she looked at them. She was the most disturbed going into the fourth day when she started to see Eddy.

"Wait here, it'll only take me a moment to climb."

Emelia glanced around, watching with lightly hazy vision as Bilbo climbed up the tree and out of sight. They had stopped once all of the dwarves had started fighting amongst themselves. Emelia had crept over to the far side of the little rock clearing they had found themselves in, scrubbing her hands together nervously. The air around her was thick and heavy, making her already hazy mind even hazier. The shouts of the dwarves drowned out as Emelia sat in her own little world, struggling to keep calm.

"Emmy!"

Emelia froze, hands stopping midair as they moved to swipe some of her hair out of her face.

"No." She spoke to herself, shaking her head in a twitchy sort of manner.

"Emmy, you have to come see all the fish!"

"He isn't real." Emelia said, voice shaking.

"Why are you ignoring me?"

Emelia felt tears spring into her eyes at the pain in his voice.

"Look at me!"

Emelia shook her head, reaching one of her hands into her shirt involuntarily. "He isn't real. " She pressed her fingers against the jagged line of puckered skin, hissing to herself when she felt a small amount of pain. The pain helped for the briefest of moments to bring her back into reality before he started yelling at her again.

"Stop ignoring me, Emmy."

Emelia finally looked up, not entirely sure what she would find. She didn't expect to see Eddy, drenched in freezing water, standing in front of her. He looked so small to her, so fragile. She shook her head, pressing her hand against her chest even harder. "You aren't real. You aren't here."

"Emmy, I'm scared."

Against her better judgment, she decided to keep talking to him. All the other times she had seen him, it had been flashing, almost like messed up blurbs of color than danced in front of her vision before fleeing entirely. "What are you scared of?"

"I can't breathe." He said, reaching one of little hands up to his throat.

"You're breathing right now, Eddy."

"I can't. The water is so cold. I can't move, Emmy. I can't breathe."

Emelia felt all her blood turn to ice. "N…no. I saved you. I pulled you out. You can breathe. You aren't real so you can do whatever you want. Do it with me now." She took exaggerated shaking breathes, indicating that he should follow along with her. Her eyes pricked with even more hot tears when he didn't follow her example. "Breathe."

"Why didn't you save me?"

Emelia stood up, moving towards him. She ignored the bickering dwarves all around her, focusing all of her attention on her brother. Or what she thought was her brother. He took three steps back from her, shaking his head.

"You didn't save me and now you've forgotten all about me."

He began to move away from her, shaking his head even more. His red curls, which were stuck to his head from the water, moved slightly. Emelia wanted nothing more than to pull him close to her and hug him like she had never hugged him before. Emelia scrambled after him, hand pressing even more into her chest. "Don't leave. Please." He didn't respond, merely turning around to run off into the underbrush. Emelia took off after him, not even entirely sure where she was going or what she was doing. She heard some shouts behind her, but she ignored them entirely. All she saw was Eddy's red curls running away from her.

"Emelia! Come back."

She kicked past a particularly large bush, eyes scanning for Eddy's red hair. Emelia felt her head pounding so painfully she started seeing black moving in at the edges of her vision. Tears streamed down her face, eyes burning from trying and failing to find Eddy in all the darkness.

"You didn't save me."

"Emelia!"

Emelia skidded to a halt in a small clearing, breathes coming out in ragged bursts. She rubbed her hand along her chest for a moment, eyes straining to see her little brother. He couldn't have gotten far. He was so tiny. Fresh sobs wracked her body, forcing her down to the ground. He was so tiny. Maybe he hadn't been saved when she had been able to pull him out of the water. She had thought, perhaps foolishly so, that he was safe and warm and alive. All of them were.

Emelia felt her eyes rolling into the back of her head when she couldn't get her breathing under control.

She wondered vaguely, briefly, if this is what it felt like to lose your mind.

"You didn't save me."

She felt certain she was.

"I saved you." She spoke into the dirt, crying herself into a stupor. "I saved you."

"Emelia?"

Emelia was only able to look up long to catch a glimpse of long dark hair and a straight nose, before she blacked out entirely.


So, yea.

I don't know why, but that chapter sort of clicked for me. All of the chapters leading up to this one after DOS have felt sort of off, but that one felt like I was finally back to the real story. I don't know, maybe I'm crazy.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed that. Things get weird next chapter. This one was kind of dark, so I am hoping to make the next one a little more lighthearted. Maybe. In case any of you were wondering, which I am sure you were, Kili and Emelia are totes crushing on each other by this point and in next chapter one of them will fully admit it. Aaaannnndddd, a kiss will be coming soon, so buckle up. Tauriel shows up and things get cray cray.

I love to hear from you all! Thank you for all the reviews on the last chapter. Being this close to 400 is kind of mind-boggling to me, considering I am fairly new to this whole writing game. Thank you for all the support!

If there are any artists out there that wouldn't mind taking a crack at drawing something for this, I would be really interested in it. I love to see artistic renditions as I am horribly unable to do it myself.

R&R!