Chapter 7

Willow sat for as long as she could, twiddling her thumbs. It felt like it had been hours since Fili had run back into the woods, sword in hand, but she suspected it had only been about half an hour at most. And now it was truly dark. She breathed deeply trying to think of what to do. She'd been told explicitly to stay in their camp, by both Fili and Thorin (hell, even Kili had agreed), but they'd also said that it wouldn't take long before they'd be back.

She stood up as she made up her mind. She couldn't just sit here while they could be in trouble! She couldn't fight, but she was still a member of the company, and she was sick of feeling useless. Even Bilbo had tried to be of use, she could do the same!

Making her way to a pile of belongings (who's, she didn't know), she picked up what looked like a large knife and ran towards the forest, willing herself to move forward and not run back to camp like a coward. Breathing deeply, she came to a stop as she crouched on the outskirts of the troll camp, widening her eyes as she saw the dwarves. It seemed helping Bilbo hadn't been as easy as they'd made it out to be as half of the company rotated on a spit over a fire, while the rest lay tied up in sacks. And in the middle stood three massive trolls.

"Where's Harry Potter when you need him." She muttered, trying to think of a plan.

"Don't bother cooking them." Said one troll, surprising Willow as she didn't know they could speak. "Let's just sit on them and squash them into jelly."

"They should be sautéed and grilled with a sprinkle of sage." Argued another troll.

"Is this really necessary?" shouted Dori, who was one of the unlucky ones rotating above the fire. Ouch.

"Ooh, that does sound quite nice." Said the first troll, ignoring Dori.

"Never mind the seasoning!" butted in the third troll. "We ain't got all night! Dawn ain't far away, so let's get a move on! I don't fancy being turned to stone."

Willow widened her eyes. So all that was really needed was a distraction! She didn't know how far away dawn was, but she figured it couldn't be too far away… and if she could just distract the trolls long enough, maybe she could buy enough time to save the others! And it seemed Bilbo had had a similar idea as she heard him speak.

"Wait!" he shouted. "You are making a terrible mistake!"

"You can't reason with them, they're half-wits!" yelled Dori.

"Half-wits? What does that make us?" asked Bofur.

"Uh…" stuttered Bilbo, trying to think of an excuse as he managed to stand up. "I meant with the… uh, with…uh, with the seasoning!"

"What about the seasoning?" asked a troll.

"Well, have you smelt them? You're going to need something stronger than sage before you plate this lot up!" Willow had to hold her hands to her mouth to stop herself laughing. Interesting plan, Bilbo, pretending you're Jamie Oliver or something... It seemed the dwarves hadn't caught onto the Hobbit's plan, and thought he was just plain insulting them as they yelled in protest.

"What do you know about cooking dwarf?"

"Shut up and let the…uh, flurgaburburrahobbit talk." Shushed a troll.

"Uh… th… the secret to cooking dwarf is, um…"

"Yes? Come on!"

"It's, uh…"

"Tell us the secret!"

"Ye…yes. I'm telling you, the secret is… to skin them first!"

Willow hit her forehead with her hand. Bilbo looked so pleased with his plan but hadn't seemed to think of the consequences. How that bought the dwarves time, she didn't know. "Tom, get me the filleting knife."

"If I get you, you little…" yelled Gloin.

"I won't forget that!" bellowed Dwalin, who looked murderous.

"What a load of rubbish!" exclaimed a troll. "I've eaten plenty with their skins on. Scuff them, I say, boots and all!"

"'e's right." Agreed another. "Nothing wrong with a bit of raw dwarf! Nice and crunchy!"

Willow looked on in horror as the troll reached down towards the group of dwarves in sacks. She looked towards Fili, who was also looking around in horror at their situation, and Willow, while she didn't want any of them picking, couldn't help but pray that he wasn't the one it chose. Ultimately, the troll decided that it was going to go for the fattest snack it could get a hold of as it reached down and picked up Bombur.

Willow barely had time to think before she acted. The sun still didn't look like it was coming up, Bombur was dangling over the trolls mouth about to be swallowed whole any second and Bilbo stood staring wide-eyed, seemingly trying to come up with another idea. Without a further thought, Willow burst through the trees, waving her newly claimed knife in the air as she tried to look as menacing as possible.

"Put him down!" She shouted. "Just, ya know… not over your mouth or anything." She tried to ignore how her voice wobbled.

"Lass, what are you doing?" she heard Bofur shout.

"Get out of here, Willow!" yelled Thorin.

She looked over briefly, giving them a quick smile (seeing Fili look either incredibly angry or incredibly worried- she couldn't quite tell…). The trolls seemed momentarily stunned as they froze and stared down at her. She stared back, holding the knife in front of her, not sure what to do. She hadn't thought this far ahead. "Put him down." She repeated.

"Look 'ere." Said one of the trolls. "It's a lady." Willow scowled at his tone.

"I love a bit of woman flesh." Grinned the troll holding Bombur, throwing him back down onto the pile of dwarves.

"Well that's slightly disturbing…" she muttered. "You wouldn't happen to want to let all my friends go, would you?" she asked.
"What?" The troll seemed genuinely confused by her question, obviously not expecting it.

"Let them go." She demanded.

"Willow, just run!" shouted Kili.

"Ooh, I'm going to enjoy eating her! She's feisty!" said the troll that had been holding Bombur.

Willow shrieked as its hand came down to grab her, waving the knife wildly. She jumped out of the way and ran to the other side of their camp close to where the dwarves on the spit were. "Honestly, you don't want to eat me! I'm all skin and bone! No meat on me!" She ran around again as the trolls closed in, but it seemed three versus one was a very easy way of getting cornered. Which is exactly what happened as a giant hand closed on her from behind and lifted her into the air. "My god, this is a lot closer to you than I ever wanted to be." She cringed, as she came face to face with the troll. "Man, you are ugly."

"I'm gunna enjoy eating you."

"No, no, no, no! You can't eat me. You really don't want to eat me. Or you could just save me for dessert! Doesn't that sound better? Just put me down and… don't eat me…" Do these things even know how to bargain? This is the worst stalling for time ever!

"Good idea! We never have dessert!" exclaimed the troll to their right.

"Nonsense! I say eat her now! Fresher the better!" Willow screamed as the troll picked her up by her shirt, dangling her over his mouth as she flailed uselessly. It was then that she remembered the knife she was holding, barely managing to keep a hold of it as she hung. Not sure what else to do, and well aware of all the dwarves continuing to yell out for her, she thrust the knife upwards into the hand that was holding her, causing the troll to shout out in pain and drop her to the ground.

She fought to catch her breath as she landed; she'd fallen onto her back, hitting her head, and struggled to move. Instead, she lay there with her eyes squeezed shut trying to will the pain away. "Urggghhhh…." She moaned. She squinted her eyes open to see a troll hand coming back down to pick her up again. Summoning the last of her energy, she rolled out the way ending up rolling into the pile of dwarves that were in the sacks.

"No!" shouted Bilbo, as he watched the trolls close in on Willow, who looked dazed. "No, you can't eat her! She… she's infected!"

"You what?"

"Yeah, she's got worms… in her… tubes." The troll retreated his hand away from Willow, allowing everyone to breathe a sigh of relief. "In… in fact, they all have! They're infested with parasites. It's a terrible business, I wouldn't risk it. I really wouldn't!"

"Parasites?" exclaimed Oin. "Did he say parasites?"

"We don't have parasites! You have parasites!" shouted Kili.

"You're so mature." Said Willow, who'd rolled right next to the young dwarf.

"We told you to stay in camp." He replied. "Fili and Thorin are not happy with you."

"Yeah, well… hopefully we're all alive by the end of the night for them to tell me about it." She quipped. While she'd regained some of her senses, the pain in her head had morphed into a dull, continuous thud. "Plus, Bilbo is trying to buy us all time, ya know, like I was trying to do by bursting in here. Might want to tell the others."

From a whispered comment from Kili (and from what Willow also saw, a kick in Fili's head by Thorin), the dwarves went from objecting about the parasites to each claiming they had bigger ones than the other.

"I've got parasites as big as my arm."

"Mine are the biggest parasites, I've got huge parasites!"

"We're riddled."

"Yes, I'm riddled!"

"Yes, we are. Badly!"

"What would you have us do then, let 'em all go?" asked a troll.

"Well…" Bilbo trailed off.

"You think I don't know what you're up to? This little ferret is taking us for fools!"

"Ferret?"

"Fools?" asked another troll, seeming insulted.

Willow swallowed thickly. The trolls seemed to be getting annoyed with their antics, and while she and Bilbo had done their best trying to stall until morning, Willow didn't see any other way out now. If it was sunrise, it certainly wasn't high enough yet to break into the clearing.

"The dawn will take you all!" shouted a new, familiar voice.

"Who's that?" asked a troll.

"No idea."

"Can we eat 'im too?"

Looking up, Willow was relieved to see Gandalf standing on top of a very large rock, striking it with his staff, splitting it in half. Sunlight streamed into the clearing, and Willow watched with equal fascination and horror as the trolls howled in pain, quickly turning to stone. In only a few seconds, the trolls had gone from nearly eating them all to statues. And she felt a little bad as she saw her knife still stuck in one of their hands. There is no way any of us is getting that out, she thought. I hope the owner won't be too annoyed with me.

It took her a few more seconds to stand up, fighting the pain in her lower back. She turned towards the tied-up dwarves, leaning down to begin to untie them as Gandalf moved towards those tied on the spit. She was highly aware of Fili and Thorin glaring intensely at her, so once she'd untied Bilbo, she made sure to let him take care of the rest of them as she went to inspect the trolls and stretch out her back.

"Willow." She cringed as she heard her name. "I told you, explicitly, to stay at the camp."

She gathered her courage as she turned to face Thorin, who was looking rather dishevelled after being bundled in a sack for hours. "Well, yeah… you did."

"Instead you intentionally ignore me, running in here without even a thought for your own safety." He scolded.

"I know! But Bilbo looked like he was struggling to think of something to buy more time, and Bombur was about to be eaten! I had to do something!"

"And you thought throwing yourself into danger was the way to do that?" he asked, raising his eyebrow.

"Well… in all honesty, I didn't really think past telling them to put Bombur down." She replied, looking sheepish.

"Evidently." He paused. "At any rate, I am glad you are okay. All things considered, you did well." Willow beamed at his praise. "But I believe you will need to have a conversation with Fili. He is far less impressed with your actions than I am."

Willow cringed. So it had been an angry look she'd seen from him earlier. She nodded her head at Thorin as he left to check on the others before turning her head over to where Fili and Kili were having a hushed conversation. Neither of them looked particularly happy. She was just about to gather her courage and walk over until she was bombarded with a very large, ginger dwarf hug. "What was that for?" she laughed.

"I've thanked the hobbit, but I also wanted to thank you, lass! I'd probably be sitting in a trolls stomach if you hadn't burst out back there!" said Bombur

"You don't have to thank me, Bombur! I couldn't just sit there and do nothing, and I'd do it again! Hopefully without the 'being thrown on the floor' thing next time, though." She joked.

"I'll thank you anyway, Willow! I'll find a way to repay you!"

"What? No, no, that's really not necessary Bombur. You don't…" She trailed off as Bombur had already walked back towards his brothers. Sighing, she turned back towards Fili and Kili, who were both looker a tad calmer than they had been last time she looked. Closing her eyes briefly (and trying not to focus on her throbbing head), she started to walk towards the brothers, smiling softly when she saw them look her way. She frowned as Fili looked away. "Hey, guys." She said.

"I'll leave you two to talk." Said Kili, giving Willow a subtle wink as he passed. Bloody git, she thought.

"Fili? You okay?" she asked, reaching out to touch his arm to grab his attention.

"You were almost killed." He said, quietly, still looking away. "What were you thinking?"

Willow swallowed thickly. "Well… I wasn't." She replied, honestly. "I was just sitting in camp and you weren't back yet, and I remembered you and Thorin saying it wouldn't take long, but it was, and I couldn't just sit there while you might have been in trouble." Fili looked towards her, giving her an intense stare. She wasn't sure what was going through the dwarf's mind as she rambled. "And then I saw you all tied up and cooking and stuff, and Bombur was about to be eaten so I just… did the first thing I could think of! It was stupid and my head hurts and my back hurts and I'll probably have nightmares, but everyone's fine and everything worked out in the end! So… happy ending, right?" Fili continued to show no change in emotion as he stared. "Look, I'm not going to apologise for doing what I did since it helped save you all and shit." She saw Fili about to object. "But, I'm sorry for scaring you."

Fili breathed in deeply. "Okay. I forgive you." Willow grinned. "But we must teach you how to wield a weapon. Your stance and grip holding that knife was atrocious."

"Yeah… I'll have to apologise to whoever's knife that is actually…" she said, glancing up at the blade that was now permanently embedded in a troll hand.

"Apology accepted."

"Oh god, it was yours?"

"It was."

"Of course it was…" she muttered to herself. "Sorry, I'll… get you a new one, I guess?"

"No worries, I have plenty more." He smiled.

"Really? I didn't see any more back at camp. Where are they?" She looked him up and down. He'd been stripped of his coat by the trolls and she couldn't see any hint of a weapon under his shirt.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" he smirked.

Once they'd all returned to their own camp to collect their belongings (where Willow had quickly scurried away from Fili with embarrassment), Thorin led them all to what she had been informed was a troll cave. She walked next to Bombur (who for the entire morning after she'd left Fili had been chatting her ear off about how much he'd bake her in thanks), keeping her eyes straight ahead as heard Fili and Kili talk quietly behind her.

"I don't get how you know where it is." She said. "How do you know they even have a cave?"

"Trolls cannot move in daylight." Replied Gandalf, who had been walking towards the front with Thorin.

Willow nodded in understanding. "I'd just put a giant blanket over my head and run like Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer." She said to herself with a smile.

"What was that, lass?" asked Bombur.

"What? Nothin…" she froze, scrunching her nose. "What the hell is that smell?"

"It's a troll hoard." Said Gandalf as they walked to where the cave opening was. "Be careful what you touch."

"No worries there. I am going nowhere near that cave." She said, holding her nose. She looked around to find most of the dwarves venturing into the cave, bar only a few, and looking to her side, she saw Bilbo with the same disgusted look she was sure she bore.

"I do not understand how any of them are going into that cave." He said, moving backwards to sit on a rock.

"Me neither. It reeks."

"How is your head?"

"It's throbbing a fair bit, but it's dealable. It could've been a lot worse. We all could've been eaten." She chuckled. "Not exactly a problem I used to worry about at home. And I have a feeling it's not the last time we're gonna have to worry about it."

"Yes, I know what you mean. You never had to worry about anything like this in the Shire."

"Yeah, I got that feeling." Willow gave him a gentle smile, before putting her head on her hands and closing her eyes. It seemed finally sitting down and resting had led to her body clocking onto the fact it had had very little sleep in the past day. She'd just managed to dose off when she felt a hand rest firmly on her shoulder. Snapping her head up, she turned a glare towards the offender. Fili.

"Sorry, ghivashel." He smiled, bashfully. "I searched for a suitable weapon for you. We can't have you travelling without one the further into the wild we go. Although what was in there were hardly useable, so I've had a look through my own."

"I can't take one of yours." She argued.

"I told you, I have many more. And I'd much rather give one to you than it just sit unused." Fili reached into his coat to full out a small sword that looked around the same size as the one Bilbo had just been given by Gandalf a few feet away. "How the hell did that fit in your coat?" Willow asked with a fascinated look.

"Another of my many secrets." Fili smirked.

"It might be one you want to teach me. I'm not carrying this for the rest of the trip." She quipped.

"I said I hadn't found a suitable weapon. I did however find you a scabbard. It should fit nicely on your belt."

Willow stared at him as she took the sword from his hands. She didn't know if it was from his gesture, her tiredness (or perhaps a bit of both), but she found herself tearing up. Clearing her throat, she wiped her eyes and tried not to sniff. "Thank you. It means a lot. Even if it does smell of troll."

"You're very welcome." Fili smiled. "And when you've had a rest, I'll teach you to use it."

"Yeah." Willow replied through a yawn. "I think I'll end up accidentally stabbing someone when I'm awake, let alone half asleep."

"Yes, I think I'd definitely fear for everyone's safety."

A/N: So I've kinda cut it off a tad earlier than I was going to, but it's been aaaages since I've updated, and I've had the most terrible couple of weeks, so I wanted to put something out at least! Enjoy!