Andrea ended up finishing the tale of Star Wars: A New Hope the next day, much to the protest of her dry throat. The Company enjoyed it, however. Balin found it in him to tell a tale of his own– one that the rest of the Company had heard before, but Bilbo and Andrea had not.
So did the day pass, with little pause in the steady pace of the ponies. Around late afternoon, however, they came upon a river that was, in reality, little more than a wide stream.
"Perhaps we should halt here, Thorin," Gandalf called. "Let your Company rest, and wash themselves. It's been some time since we saw waters great enough to bathe in."
Thorin grumbled but dismounted. "Dori, Bofur, secure the ponies." He looked up at the sky. "We'll camp here for the night."
Andrea slid off her pony. Her thighs and glutes ached, but not as much as they had when she'd first started riding. Maybe her body was finally getting used to it.
She untacked her pony and let it over to Bofur. Andrea dropped her bags at the base of a tree and squatted on her heels, digging through the bags. She pulled out the bundle of extra clothing Gandalf had gotten her, which she had yet to use.
A week without washing was a week too long. Andrea felt greasy and gross, though not as much as she would if the air were more humid. Thank god for small miracles and temperate spring climates.
Andrea tucked the clothes under her arm and set off upstream. She could already hear splashing from the river, and resolutely didn't look back.
There was a very nice spot upstream with dry rocks breaching the surface of the water. Andrea settled there, putting her change of clothes on the shore and stripping out of her old ones, shivering when her skin met the air. Her garments smelled… disgusting, to say the least. Andrea took her dirty clothes in hand and stepped into the water.
She took her foot back immediately with a few choice swear words. If the brisk spring breeze had her hairs standing on end, the water was certainly worse.
Still, she braved it, steadily moving deeper into the water. Once she adjusted to the temperature, it almost felt pleasant. Squatting down in the shallows, Andrea scrubbed her clothes against one another in the hopes of cleaning them. There was no soap to be found, not that she knew of at least, so this would have to do.
Her bra, pants, and socks were sorry things that Andrea balked at touching. Once her poor attempts at laundry were over, Andrea tucked her clothing and underwear under a rock in the shallows by the shore. Hopefully that would let them soak for a time without being swept away by the current.
She waded out until the water reached her knees– she didn't have to go very far. Sitting down on a submerged rock, Andrea ducked her head under the water and came up gasping; it felt even colder on her face. Hunching over, Andrea began to wash her hair. It would be easier to lean back, but the thought of exposing her naked front to the sky made her shrink.
Her hair wasn't very tangled, but it was exceedingly oily. Andrea had taken the liberty of divesting Kili of a leather strip a few days ago, which she'd been using thus far to keep her hair in a braid after her hairtie broke. The strip lay with her fresh clothing, and her scalp thanked her for the fresh air.
She scraped her nails along her scalp and hoped that she was doing something right. It certainly felt a little better, even though she didn't have shampoo.
The bed of the river consisted of pebbles and sand. Taking up a handful, Andrea scrubbed it against her skin. Not as good as a soap and scrub, but it would do.
So she scrubbed until her skin was red and raw. Scrubbed and scrubbed and she might actually be bleeding a little.
Andrea was alone for the first time in days. She was not the sort of person meant to be in the company of others for such a long time. Now that she was alone, just herself and her thoughts, all her pent up stress began to spill out.
Angry tears put salt on her lips. A sob escaped her. She hated everything about this. Hated that she was bathing in a fucking stream in the middle of the wilderness with nothing to her name but some clothes and a couple books.
She was so, so angry that she wanted to punch something, hit something, scream.
Some part of her mind recognized the fit as another form of panic attack. Hadn't she gotten over those? It must be the situation. It was all incredibly stressful.
With the revelation that this was, in fact, a panic attack, Andrea managed to start grounding herself. She looked for colors, listened for sounds, sought out bright objects. Slowly but surely, she came back to herself. Her lungs ached, and her chest shuddered with every inhalation.
Her left forearm was definitely scrubbed within an inch of its life. The skin of it was red, and tender to the touch. Andrea sighed heavily, burying her head in her hands.
"Stupid, stupid," she muttered.
Andrea didn't stay in the water much longer after that. Raking her hands through her wet hair, she made her way over to where she'd stashed her dirty clothes and retrieved them. They didn't look too bad, but she'd have to wait until they were dry to see if the smell of it had gone. The stains would probably never leave.
She climbed out of the water and onto one of the river rocks, sitting down to let the air sweep the water from her skin. The spring breeze obliged, whisking both water and warmth from Andrea's body. She shivered.
She could hear the sound of voices not too far away, barely audible over the rushing of the water. Suddenly, she laughed; this was almost like that scene from Mulan. Thankfully, Andrea was not pretending to be a man, and had not had to see any hairy asses or man-parts.
Alone like this, with her breakdown over with, she found that she quite enjoyed the solitude. It felt good to simply sit in silence, to be able to cast her eyes about without meeting anyone else's gaze. She almost felt happy to be here.
The childish part of her was tempted to make a game of it. To play at being a water spirit, or a wood spirit, sitting in her element and singing. But what to sing? The first song that came to mind was "Into the West" from the Lord of the Rings movies.
She wouldn't be able to sing it as well as Annie Lennox, but then, she didn't have to worry about an audience, did she. She was absolutely and blessedly alone.
It was some time before she felt ready to leave, after giving a passionate rendition of as many songs as she could remember from The Phantom of the Opera. Wading out of the water, Andrea slung her damp clothing over the slender, sleek branches of a tree that she didn't recognize.
The clothes that Gandalf had bought were fairly good quality. The seams were tight, at least, and didn't chafe. The trousers were a little too long on her, but she rolled up the bottoms and left it at that. The tunic was also too loose, so she cinched her belt at the waist and pulled the drawstrings tight. After a moment's consideration, she rolled up the long sleeves of it– the feeling of fabric against her left arm was unpleasant to say the least.
Wearing damp underwear was uncomfortable, but Andrea would bear it. She left off her bra, though.
Gathering her still-wet clothes into a bundle, she took her boots and jacket in hand and set off down towards camp. The sounds of splashing and chatter grew louder as she approached. She made sure to avoid sight of the water.
Humming under her breath, Andrea stepped into the small clearing that made up their camp. She spread her clothes over a nearby bush and dumped her jacket and boots with her bags.
Glancing up at the sky, Andrea estimated the time to be somewhere around six in the afternoon. A while still until dusk, and time enough to read. She dug out I, Robot from inside her messenger bag. Sitting back against a tree, she opened to the first short-story and began to read.
She wasn't very far in when the brush towards the river rustled and gave way to someone. She glanced up, praying that whoever it was wasn't naked.
Thorin wasn't naked, thankfully. He looked a little damp, and without his fur-lined coat he looked slightly smaller. Still, he managed to affect an air of high nobility. No one looking at such a man as Thorin Oakenshield could doubt his royal blood.
"Miss Chen," he said, looking Andrea over. His eyes lingered on the red-raw skin of her forearm. "I was beginning to wonder if I would have to send a search party to find you."
Andrea watched the Dwarf king as he set his things down by his own bags and began to lace up his boots. "Have you been looking for me?" Andrea asked, frowning quizzically.
"Kili and Ori were worried when you vanished," Thorin replied stiffly. "I dissuaded them from searching for you."
"Ah." Andrea laughed. "Yes, that's for the best."
Thorin took up a bow and quiver from his possessions, slinging them both over his back. "In the future," he said, marching past Andrea and out towards the woods, "Inform the Company of your whereabouts."
"And where are you going?" Andrea asked wryly, watching him go. He looked almost normal without his coat and layers. Like any woodsman off to hunt.
Thorin didn't reply, and soon vanished from sight.
Not even Thorin's silent dismissal could darken Andrea's mood, which was greatly improved after her time in solitude. She resolved to take more time away from the Company when she could– maybe a walk every evening when they made camp. It would probably go a long way in restoring her energy.
Smiling to herself, she settled down to read.
A few more days passed, at which point Andrea began to wonder if anything remarkable would happen– she didn't remember how long it was going to take to get to Rivendell, but she knew that the movie, at least, had scenes between the Shire and Rivendell (and the trolls). It had been almost two weeks since they set out from the Shire. Were any of those things going to happen?
She got her answer soon enough.
They made camp below a rocky overhang, up on the highlands. It was a good position, honestly. High enough to see far over the lands below. Defensible, if push came to shove.
Andrea shook those thoughts away. She'd been hearing too many of Dwalin's battle stories.
The Company had long since bedded down for the night, though not everyone was sleeping– Gandalf, who never seemed to sleep, was smoking his pipe. Andrea didn't feel tired enough to sleep; those walks she'd started taking were beginning to rejuvenate her. She hadn't realized just how exhausted she'd been as of late.
The fire didn't provide quite enough light to read by comfortably, so she was helping Kili fletch new arrows. Or rather, he was fletching arrows and letting her toy with a spare one. Andrea watched him work by the light of the low fire, trying to figure out how exactly he was doing it. He glanced up at her and flashed a grin.
"If you finish up with that one, miss, I'll keep it special." The Dwarf prince winked.
Andrea huffed, a smile touching her lips. "It would only be good for seppuku."
Kili frowned quizzically. Past Kili, Fili glanced over from his pipe-aided meditation, one brow raised.
Andrea's gaze fell to the fire. "It's a warrior's suicide. Death by his own hand rather than capture by the enemy." She smirked. "I think it would be hard to perform properly with a poorly fletched arrow, though."
Kili's gaze fell back to his arrows. "I've never heard of it before."
Fili grunted around his pipe. "No Dwarf would die at his own hand when he could die fighting."
Andrea's hands fell to her lap. She looked up at the two of them. They sat, not quite side by side, but close enough that one could tell they were familiar. Their possessions spilled together as only siblings' could, mixed up until one couldn't tell what was whose.
They were going to die. And die fighting.
"Show me how you do it, Kili?" Andrea shifted to the edge of her bedroll, leaning over as Kili obligingly displayed his hands.
Not far away, Bilbo's head popped out of his bedroll like a gopher's. Andrea glanced at him as he got up from his blankets and stretched.
"No, like this," Kili admonished quietly, holding up his hands and demonstrating the proper way. Andrea peered at his fingers, which moved with an easy skill born of familiarity.
Something echoed from the lands below. Like a screeching bird, or a shrieking pig. Andrea jolted, every muscle in her body tensing; she knew that sound. But she'd only ever heard it through television speakers.
"What was that?" Bilbo hissed from his position by the ponies.
Andrea knew this moment.
"They're Orcs," she said quietly, but too loud in the stillness of the night. Too late, she realized that it was Kili who should have said that.
Bilbo rushed back to the fire on light feet. "Orcs?" he repeated.
Cloth brushed against stone. Andrea turned her head to it and saw Thorin straighten from where he'd dozed sitting against the boulders not two meters away. He looked out over the fog that shielded the lowlands, every line of his body tense.
"Throat-cutters," Fili explained casually, taking a puff of his pipe. "There'll be dozens of them out there; the Lone Lands are crawling with them."
"They strike in the wee small hours when everyone's asleep," Kili added in a furtive voice. "Quick and quiet, no screams. Just lots of blood."
Bilbo looked back out over the horizon, a rather ill expression on his face. Silence hung for a few moments. Then the Dwarf princes chuckled, exchanged amused grins.
"Do you think that's funny?" Thorin's voice cut through their mirth like a knife. He stood up from his seat, striding forward towards the fire. "You think a night raid by Orcs is a joke?" His gaze fell on Andrea. "Orcs take more than just lives."
Kili looked at her too, as did Fili. Their expressions became suitably remorseful. Andrea would have been indignant at being used as a lesson if not for the fact that Thorin was all too correct.
"We didn't mean anything by it," Kili muttered, his gaze flicking to the ground.
Thorin only shook his head. "No you didn't," he sneered, brushing roughly past Bilbo. "You know nothing of the world."
Andrea watched him walk away, his every step hard on the dry grass. She thought of his fate. She'd been thinking about it a lot. Ever since she first laid eyes on him.
"Don't mind him, laddie," Balin comforted. He walked over and leaned against the stone cliff-face against which their camp was set. "Thorin has more cause than most to hate Orcs."
Fili frowned, looking out at Thorin, who stood at the edge of their stony ridge. Kili still stared at the fire. Andrea wished she could find some way to comfort him.
Balin told the tale of the battle at Moria. Of Azog the Defiler, sworn to destroy the line of Durin, beheading King Thror. Of Thrain's grief-driven madness, how they found no trace of him after the battle.
"That is when I saw him," Balin said, the light of memory in his eye. "A young Dwarf prince facing down the Pale Orc."
And he told the tale of the birth of Thorin Oakenshield. His valor, his courage, his ingenuity. How he cut off the Pale Orc's arm and crippled him
"Azog the Defiler learned that day that the line of Durin would not be so easily broken." Balin told of Thorin leading the charge, forcing the Orcs back. "Our enemy had been defeated. But there was no feast, nor song that night." The old Dwarf's eyes shone with mourning. "For our dead were beyond the count of grief. We few had survived." He looked over at Thorin. "And I thought to myself then, there is one who I could follow. There is one I could call King."
King under the Mountain, Andrea thought. A title for a Mountain-less king.
With his fit of moodiness apparently over, Thorin made his way back. Andrea remembered briefly how dramatic she'd found this part in the movie. Overly dramatic, to say the least.
At least the rest of the Company had the grace to at least pretend to remain sleeping or otherwise occupied.
But that meant that something was wrong, wasn't it? That things weren't going as they should. In the movie several of them had been standing, staring at Thorin in awe as though they hadn't heard the tale a hundred times before– Balin was fond of his stories, as Andrea had discovered. Here, they did not. Things were going wrong. Her butterfly wings were flapping and things were changing.
Andrea wished this were all just a story again, one she could look at from the safety of her own home and imagination.
"But the Pale Orc." Bilbo looked at Balin in question. "What happened to him?"
"He slunk back to the hole from whence he came," Thorin rumbled out, returning to his place at the boulders. "That filth died of his wounds long ago."
Andrea twisted the thong meant to fletch the arrows between her fingers. "In stories, no great evil dies the first time it's defeated," she said. "It grows in strength, and comes back, only to be defeated again."
"These are not your stories, woman," Thorin said snappishly. "Azog rots, as does the memory of him."
Andrea frowned. Some amount of temper flared up in her. She was almost tempted to refute him, to tell him that Azog the Defiler was still living, still hunting him.
That Azog the Defiler would kill him.
But she didn't. Instead she looked to Bilbo, and said, "You know, it's said that the first Orcs were Elves."
Bilbo blinked. Kili and Fili perked in interest.
Andrea didn't have much Middle-Earth lore inside of her, but she did have this. Something she picked up from greedily sifting through wikis and such while The Two Towers played in the background.
"When the world was young, still forming, the Elves were awakened and dwelt as in the Garden of Eden." Andrea realized that the reference to Eden might just fly over her audience's heads. She let that thought slide and continued. "They knew only song, and nature, and one another. Conceived by Eru alone, the Valar did not know of them.
"But Melkor, the Dark Lord, found them, and he set out to corrupt them. He sent spirits amongst them, and taught them to fear the Valar, so that when the Valar found them, the Elves hid away. Eventually, the Elves learned that the Valar meant them no harm. But there were those whom the Dark Lord took away. Melkor twisted them into a mockery of Eru's intentions; Eru made them beautiful, so Melkor made them ugly, in mind, body, and soul.
"They bred in the dark, the first enemies of Middle Earth. The first to cause weapons of war to be taken in hand. Where once they may have been pitiable, now they are only evil."
Andrea may or may not have been embellishing a little– her memory wasn't that good, after all. But all good tales deserve embellishment.
"It's fitting," Kili said after a long moment. "That Elves should be the origins of Orcs. Revealing what's really inside them." He sneered slightly, and Andrea saw that hatred of Elves he'd been taught.
"It's been a very long time since the creation," Andrea said, unsure how to refute him. "Both Elves and Orcs have diverged greatly. And besides…" she glanced at Gandalf, silent thus far. "It's only a story."
"Yes," said Gandalf. He puffed at his pipe. "Only a story."
A/N: thank you to kitcat12 and priya24626 for reviewing :) reviews go a long way for me, since they're the only way to get feedback on this website, so if you can, take a minute to write something, just a few words.
Next update next week if all goes well.