The half-breed could feel the eyes of her companions on her. Beorn took a few steps forwards, causing the wizard to back out of his way with the hobbit before they both got stepped on. " Bella I thought I made it clear the last time we crossed path that I didn't want you anywhere near this place." Beorn stated, coming closer, his axe still firmly in his grip.

"The truth is Beorn we didn't really have a choice. It was either come here or be killed by the pack of orcs that has been hunting us down for the last few weeks."

"You know how I feel about your race in my house."

Thorin snapped his head in Bella's direction. "Your a Dwarf?" The others all started murmuring amongst themselves, until Beorn let out a chuckle.

"Yes she's a Dwarf, as if the attitude wasn't proof enough. Stubborn this one is. Though she hasn't told me what else she is. She's too pretty to be just a dwarf." Beorn grunted with a smirk.

"Well that sure explains a lot." Dwalin stated looking at her. Bella rolled her eyes, she knew she was going to have come forward about this sooner or later. She was rather hoping later.

"Yes I'm a dwarf. Lets all not get too excited about it." Bella barked. The woman yanked her arm out of Thorin's grip and walked down the steps with a bit of difficulty.

Beorn did a quick look over the woman and noticed something quite different about her since the last he saw of her. " You look terrible Bella. Tell me, what sort of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time?"

"Well, that's a long story." She stated and the skin changer raised an eyebrow at her and nodded with a smirk.

" You all are welcome in my home, as long as you don't touch anything and do not harm my animals. Or Ill assure you, that will be the last thing you ever do." Beorn informed with a warning as he lead the way back into his home. Bella was about to somehow hop on her one good leg back into the house when Thorin grabbed her by the arm and dragged her a side and shoved her against the tree.

"You and I need to talk." Thorin said bluntly, his eyes flaring at her.

"About what?" She challenged.

"Well for starters. Who are you? If Bella is even your real name." Thorin demanded.

"Nobody important."

"Bella, enough with the dumb answer. I've ignored them long enough. Now. Who are you really? And why would you not even tell us you were a dwarf."

" Yes. My real name is Bella. And I'm only half dwarf." She hissed.

"Don't push it Bella. Now why all the secrecy? Do you not trust us? Or me for that instant?"

"Is everything alright out here?" Beorn's deep voice asked. Thorin stepped away from the young woman and looked up at Beorn briefly before turning back to Bella.

"Yeah, everything's just fine. Were finished." Thorin grunted and left to go into the house where is men, Bilbo and Gandalf had disappeared to. Once Thorin was gone Beorn looked at the half-breed.

"You alright?"

"I've been better." She admitted with a grin, but it quickly fell.

"By the way. You wouldn't happen to know who was rummaging through my cupboards? Do you?" He asked, giving her knowing look. Bella shrugged her shoulders with a smug look on her face and Beorn helped her inside his home.

Thorin was leaning against a post as the half-breed and skinchanger came in and began serving his guest and filling their mugs. "So. You are the one they call 'Oakenshield'. Tell me. Why is Azog the Defiler hunting you?" Beorn asked, looking at the dwarf for only a second as he continued to go around the table.

"You know of Azog? How?" Thorin asked, curiously.

"My people were the first to live in the mountains, before the Orcs came down from the North. The Defiler killed most of my family. But some, he enslaved. Not for work, you understand, but for sport. Caging Skinchangers and torturing them, seemed to amuse him." He explained as he searched in his cupboards when he found a jar and looked at the young woman. " I believe this is what you were searching for last night Bella." He stated tossing the jar at her and as she caught it, her legs gave out on her and she fell to the ground. The half-breed gave Beorn a slight glare as she nodded to him in thanks.

"There are others like you?" Bilbo hesitantly asked.

"Once there were many."

"And now?" The hobbit pressed.

"Now. Now there is only one." The skinchanger grudgingly answered and the hobbit shrunk even further in between the dwarves that sat on either side of him. A long silence filled the home. No one really knowing what to say. "You need to reach the mountain before the last days of autumn."

"Before Durin's Day falls, yes." The wizard confirmed.

"You are running out of time." Beorn pointed out.

"Which is why we must go through Mirkwood."

"A darkness lies upon that forest. Fell things creep beneath those trees. I would not venture there, except in great need." Beorn informed.

"We will take the Elven Road. That path is still safe." Gandalf declared.

"Safe? The Wood Elves of Mirkwood are not like their kin. They are less wise and more dangerous. But it matters not." The skinchanger warned.

Thorin had stopped pacing about and turned around to look the giant man in the eyes. "What do you mean?"

"These lands are crawling with Orcs. Their numbers are growing and you are on foot. You will never make it to the forest alive." Beorn muttered before getting up from his chair and began to tower his way over the dwarf King. " I don't like Dwarves. They're greedy and blind. Blind to the lives they deem lesser than their own. Beorn snatched a mouse that had been crawling around the table and held it in his grip as he slowly got closer to Thorin. " But Orcs, I hare more. What do you need?"

The skinchanger agreed to supply them with the stuff they asked for. They would be leaving tomorrow. Thorin turned to see Bella leaving to another room, carrying the jar Beorn had so nicely tossed to her. Though he had no idea what was in it. The dwarf had been debating on whether or not to approach the skinchanger about Bella. He had hoped she'd come clean with him about things, but it was clear she was not going to give it up that easily and he walked over to the giant man. Beorn heard the approaching footsteps as he stood in area where he kept all his animals and saw the questionable look on Thorin's face and had a pretty good idea what he was wanting to know.

"I take it you want to know how it is I came to know Bella?"

"It did cross my mind."

"I met Bella nearly 20 years ago. She was passing through my lands at the time. Told me she was a distant traveler. I was scouting the area when I found her being tortured by a bunch of wild men. They had her arms tied to a tree. Demanding information that they thought she would have. On who? She never did tell me. She was nearly half dead by the time I got to her, I was sure she wasn't going to last the night. Those awful men did a number on her in the short a mount of time they had with her. They really wanted whatever it was she knew. Stubborn girl wouldn't give it up. She's a tough one." Thorin had to agree on that, seeing what she had already been through with them so far. So many times he thought she wasn't going to make it through, but she surprised him every time. It had also just occurred to him that last night when he was rebinding her wound on her stomach, he remembered seeing some old scars. Which made him even more surprised that she had been through this before. None of them saw it the first time because she was covered in too much of her own blood.

Thorin was staring at the ground, letting this all sink in. He was beginning to understand all the secrecy this woman had. She didn't trust anyone so easily. The leader also began to think that maybe his aggressiveness wasn't the exact way to go to gain her to trust any of them or at least him. " I know Bella can be very unforthcoming and secretive a lot of the times, as most dwarves are, but for a dwarf she is one of the most loyalist people I have ever come across in a very long time. She'll tell you when she feels ready to." The skinchanger proclaimed. " Now, what happened to her this time?"

The leader took a few steps away from the giant man, he blamed himself more then anything for what happened to her. "She was tortured by the goblins in the mountain, because we would not reveal are intentions for passing through. They did that to her face and the rest of her body with our weapons." The dwarf king divulged. " And then Azog had his turn at her, after she was already wounded when she followed me off the tree and still protected me...when I fell unconscious." Beorn could hear the disgust in the Dwarf's voice as he mentioned that fowl creatures name and even a hint that he blamed himself for this. The skinchanger nodded his head in understanding

"As I said before, and I don't usually defend your race very often. Bella might not be willing to divulge anything about herself, but she is very loyal and you can trust her."

Bella closed the door of the room she was in and locked the door. She removed the lid of the jar. Then she took of her long sleeve, exposing just some of the many new cuts she had gained. The sight of her made her feel disgusted with herself. She was ugly. Bella began applying the stuff to her wounds, it was supposed to help prevent them from bleeding out any further and help heal them faster. Only one thing entered the young woman's mind as she continued to look at herself in the mirror. And those were the word of the goblin king after what he and his hideous minions did to her. 'Who's going to wanna look at your hideous face now!?'