Chapter Twenty-Three: The Mental Case of Miss Emelia Montgomery

Elf beds, Gimli decided, were a bit too soft for his tastes. He did not like how it felt as if he wasn't careful he would be sucked into the mattress without much hope of getting out with his dignity still intact. As a result he spent much of his time snoozing in places that more often than not ought not to be snoozed in. Legolas found it amusing. Gimli wasn't sure how it his actions were amusing, but he paid little attention to his old friend. Elves were odd. There was no point in trying to understand them.

Wenny found him approximately six hours after she had been sent to bed, leaned back in the same chair by the fire that he had been in previously, snoring loud enough to wake the entire kingdom of Mirkwood. Gimli had hoped that she would give him a little time, but he quickly realized that thought was rather foolish. She was more stubborn than dwarves and more ornery than most people he had encountered in his travels through Middle Earth.

"Gimli." Her voice was a forced whisper at first, like it was paining her to speak so quietly.

He pretended to still be sleeping. He wasn't sure if it was more for his own benefit, or hers. He knew she wouldn't leave until he woke up. He knew she would pester him, voice increasing in volume, until he finally responded to her in the way she wanted.

"Gimli." Her voice was louder the second time, and closer to his ear.

He shifted in his chair, joints aching from being in the same position all night. He felt her little hands grab onto his arm, shaking him roughly. Perhaps he had made a mistake in moving. "I know you can hear me, Gimli."

Gimli couldn't stop himself from laughing at her tone of voice. The words, so mature, sounded very odd in her high-pitched child's voice. He cracked open one eye, meeting her expectant gaze for the first time. She was still wearing her nightgown, over which she had been forced to wear a robe and jacket. Her hair had been brushed for her and swept back away from her face. She looked like she had been awake for quite some time, waiting, almost assuredly impatiently, for the time in which it was considered appropriate to wake up Gimli.

"Naneth says I have to feed you before I'm allowed to ask for more of the story." Wenny did not sound happy about the fact that she had to wait for Gimli to be 'fed'.

Gimli nodded at her, a large smile on his face. "Lead the way, Lassie."

Breakfast was already being served in the royal family's private dining room when Wenny dragged Gimli in. Legolas was already halfway through his typical meal of eggs and a bit of elvish bread, which Gimli still hadn't developed the taste for, when they arrived. He looked up at them, a knowingly bemused expression on his face. Nim had a very similar expression on her face, save for the fact that hers was directed at something a female elf to her left was saying.

Gimli had never met the red-headed she-elf before. She was tall, almost as tall as Legolas and his father, with keen eyes and high cheek bones. He supposed she would be considered pretty, even by elf standards, but he knew he wasn't exactly the proper judge on that. To him, all elves seemed a bit hairless. Her hair was so long it trailed the ground when she was sitting. Wenny seemed to know her, judging by the way she dropped Gimli hand and bolted over to greet her.

"Liluwen." The female elf stood up, revealing her green hunting garb. She bent down to wrap Wenny in a hug, a warm smile playing on her face. "You are twice as big since I last saw you."

"And twice as annoying." Gimli grumbled, taking a seat next to Legolas without introducing himself to the she-elf. Legolas smiled at Gimli's comment, meeting his gaze. The she-elf looked over at the source of the noise, eyes narrowing ever so slightly for a moment before she inclined her head.

"I had heard Legolas had an old companion visiting. We have not had the pleasure. I am Tauriel."

Gimli looked her over once again as he served himself breakfast. He had heard the name Tauriel before. He had heard she was fierce amongst other less desirable things, but he did not expect her to look as she did. He wasn't sure why, but he expected to her be much larger and much more manly looking. All the same, he knew he was a guest and for whatever reason, Wenny and her parents were fond of Tauriel.

"Gimli son of Gloin, at your service."

"Nim was just telling me you are in the process of telling Liluwen the story of the Company of Thorin Oakenshield." Tauriel threw a long sheet of red hair over her shoulder. "I would be most interested to hear a dwarf's perspective on the debacle, if you would allow me to sit in while you tell her."

Nim, at that point, turned to give Gimli a very hard look. It was clear he was meant to say yes, as indicated by her narrowed eyes and the set line of her pale lips. Gimli glanced over at Legolas, only to be met with a matching expression, laced with only slightly less amusement than before. Legolas was amused by the entire situation, it seemed, regardless of how Gimli felt. As much as it pained him, Gimli knew he would have to agree.

"Of course. The more the merrier." That wasn't entirely true, but he imagined the elves around him already knew that without him needing to say as such.

"Wonderful." Tauriel smiled over at him, sharp eyes taking in Gimli. "Shall you continue now? Liluwen seems to have waited for what," She paused shooting a playing smirk down at Wenny. "Six grueling hours?"

"It was awful. I want to know what happens." Wenny said, seemingly oblivious to the sarcastic implications behind Tauriel's words. "Please."

"Where were we?" Gimli asked after a prolonged silence in which Wenny thought he was contemplating not telling her. In all honestly that was the farthest thing from his mind. He would never admit it, but it made him immeasurably happy to see someone, some little elf, taking such an interest in one of his people's stories. It wasn't very often that he got the chance to share them with someone.

"The stars. They were looking at the stars."

Emelia was not a sack of potatoes. Or at least, that's what she had to keep telling herself in order to not get annoyed with being passed from dwarf to dwarf as they made their way down from the perch the Eagles had left them on. They, meaning mostly Fili, had insisted she wasn't able to support her own weight to lower herself down the mountain. Apparently, being carried like a child was going to help with her recovery. When she had left Kili, blushing horribly at the fact that they had held hands for hours, she had wished she had tried to sleep more. She wasn't sure it was possible to be so exhausted without being borderline dead. She struggled to keep her eyes from lulling into the back of her head every time they paused long enough to take a small break. She did her best to stay awake, knowing full well that it would annoy the rest of the company if she dozed off and let them carry her all the way down.

She could only imagine what sort of things Dwalin would say.

Emelia, who was currently being passed from Dori to Gloin, reached a hand up to her chest, worrying at her stitches once again. They still hurt and were starting to itch worse than ever. Her nails, which she had long ago chewed to the nub, attempted to scratch her skin without aggravating Oin's needlework. It hardly did anything, and she imagined it was slightly psychosomatic, but she felt better every time she was able to discretely slip her hand into her tattered shirt and scratch her skin.

They were almost three-quarters of the way down when Thorin and Gandalf suddenly called them all to a halt. Emelia, who was in the odd limbo between dwarves, scrambled to the ground as quickly as possible, all too happy to have time to sit on the ground.

"Mr. Baggins." Thorin's deep baritone cut across the company, drawing all attention over to him and Gandalf where they were standing at the front. Bilbo, looking slightly alarmed at being addressed so suddenly, made his way over to them, hands in his formerly smart looking coat. Emelia still thought it was a shame about his jacket. It had been so nice to look when put in comparison to what the dwarves wore. "You will scout. Gandalf has assured me that you would be better suited for this than a dwarf. See where the orc pack is and report back. Do not be seen."

Bilbo nodded, not seeming nervous. Emelia was surprised. She would have expected him to be slightly green at the thought of going off on his own, knowing full well what was hunting them. She would have been, if it had been her. The news that they were still being followed, even after everything that had happened not two nights ago, did not sit well with her. They just got done running from orcs. Was it too much to ask that they be given just a little bit off? Just a moment?

"Stay on guard." Thorin informed all of them once Bilbo was gone. "The danger has not yet passed."

Emelia, for her part, knew that she would be able to be alert from the ground. And she did just that, plopping down against the edge of the cold stone jutting out from the side of the mountain, leaning back against it heavily. Her hand ran over her cut. She knew it was going to become a nervous habit, but she couldn't stop her fingers from ghosting over the puckered edges of her skin. It did not seem like it had only been two days since the Goblin King cut her. It seemed like it had been months. She felt old, sitting on the ground. She didn't feel like she was eighteen. Normal eighteen year olds didn't have to deal with the sorts of things she was dealing with. Normal eighteen year olds wouldn't be afraid of being eaten alive.

"Stop touching it." Emelia looked up, feeling very dirty being caught with her hand inside her shirt in front of a bunch of men. Fili eyed her hand, smiling enough for his dimples to show, before he took a seat next to her. "I could take a look at it for you, in private of course." He waggled his eyebrows at her, seeming to try and force her to smile.

"Tempting." Emelia closed her eyes, not bothering to take her hand out of her shirt. "But no, thank you."

Fili let out a low whistle. "Right. We wouldn't want to upset Kili."

"Exactly." Emelia said it before she had even thought about it. It took her approximately half a moment to realize what she had just said. She immediately sat up, eyes wide. Fili laughed, looking very proud of himself. "No."

"You're blushing."

"I'm not." Emelia knew she was.

"You are. You're redder than your hair."

"This isn't funny. You're not being funny, Fee." Emelia said, crossing her arms over her chest, only to realize her mistake and cry out loud in pain. The dwarves around her looked over at her in alarm, some raising weapons out of instinct. Fili waved them off with a flippant hand, smiling slyly at her out of the corner of his eye. Kili, who had been speaking with Ori, saw them and moved to sit next to them, a look of curiosity on his face.

"Why have you gone all red?" Kili asked, taking a seat in front of the two of them.

"Anger." Emelia said, delivering a resounding kick to Fili to indicate that it would probably be best if he kept his mouth shut. Emelia avoided looking directly at Kili, knowing full well that she would blush even more. She wasn't exactly sure why she was blushing, but she filled that away as something to revisit on another day very far into the future when she wasn't so tired and didn't smell like death. "Fee just told me a terrible joke."

"That doesn't seem like something to be angry about." Kili said, seeming confused. Emelia blinked, fully thankful for the first time that Kili wasn't overly observant when it came to her sarcasm. "I mean, his jokes are bad, but they aren't that bad."

"It's not, you're right, Kee."

She reached her hand up to her chest once again, feeling suddenly very awkward sitting next to the two of them. Kili followed the line of her hand with dark eyes, narrowing them slightly. "Is it hurting?"

"Hmm?"

"Your chest?" He gestured with his hand, scooting closer to her in the process. "I don't think Oin has anything to make it hurt less."

"No. I'm fine."

"Are you lying to me?" Kili asked, fixing her with a very disbelieving look. "I think she's lying, Fili." Fili looked up from where he had been inspecting once of his knives, fingers halfway through digging out some congealed blood and dirt. Emelia eyed it with distaste, turning her gaze on the rest of the company. They were all sitting by that point, talking very quietly amongst themselves. They kept glancing over at her, she noticed, which seemed rather odd.

"She is undoubtedly lying." Fili said, returning his gaze back to his knife.

"Oin doesn't have anything to relieve my pain, so why complain?" Emelia said, catching Ori staring at her. She gave him a look, to which he responded by turning away quickly, a blush spreading all over his face.

"You complain about everything else." Kili said simply, bracing himself for the punch that he was sure was going to be aimed his way. She did not respond to him. She kept watching the dwarves noticing that more and more of them were beginning to shoot her looks when they thought she wasn't looking. Bofur was especially obvious considering he didn't bother to look away. He smiled widely at her, waving a cheery hand, before he continued to watch her.

"Why is Bofur looking at me like that?" Emelia asked, completely ignoring Kili's comment about how much she complained. She did complain more than everyone else. She thought she had earned it, considering the circumstances of her inclusion in the company. There would be no point in her trying to deny it when she knew it was about the most honest thing Kili had ever said to her, even if he himself didn't realize it. "In fact, why is everyone looking at me like that?"

Kili looked up at Bofur. His eyes went wide for a moment as he shook his head at the other dwarf. Bofur immediately looked away, as did many of the other dwarves. Emelia felt her face scrunch up in confusion. "What's going on?"

"Nothing." Fili said quickly, slipping his knife back into his shirt. He looked up at Emelia. She was glaring at him, not believing him for a second. "Honestly, Emelia I wouldn't lie to you."

"Yes you would."

"Well, I wouldn't." Kili said, reaching out to touch her arm. There was something in his voice that made Emelia believe him. "You'll ruin the surprise for yourself if you keep asking too many questions."

"There's a surprise?" Emelia sat up fully, suddenly feeling very alert and awake. She scooted closer to both of them. "Am I getting a car?"

Kili looked over a Fili, confusion etched all over his face. Emelia realized her mistake almost instantly. She looked away, feeling a pain in her chest that wasn't related to her cut. They didn't know what cars were. They didn't know what anything like that was. The thought that they didn't know anything about her hit her so suddenly she felt tears well up in her eyes did not like that thinking of something as simple as a car caused her so many sad emotions. It was silly. She was silly. She shouldn't burst into tears after every little thought of home, as hard as she knew that was. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment at her sudden bout of over emoting. She hurriedly reached her hands up to her face, scrubbing away the few tears quickly. She was being stupid, she told herself. It was her own fault for bringing it up, not theirs. She should have known better than to think about that sort of stuff. It just upset her more in the long run.

"What's a car?" Kili asked, breaking Emelia out of her thoughts. "Whatever it is, it obviously upsets you. I don't think I would want to get you something that intentionally upsets you."

"In fact, we could eliminate this 'car' thing, if it truly upsets you this much." Fili chimed in, a very serious look on his face.

And just like that, Emelia was laughing. The dwarves would probably think she was mental. She did look slightly mad, having just started crying not two minutes before. She reached out her arms, pulling a very confused looking Fili into a hug. She laughed into his shoulder, squeezing him tightly despite the pain in her chest. He seemed unsure of how to return her gesture for second, before he finally wrapped his arms around her, pulling her even closer. She felt him laughing with her after a moment. It sent vibrations through her chest, making her smile into the fabric of his cloak. She sat back from Fili, turning her attention onto Kili. He did not seem to expect her to hug him. It made her laugh even more at the sight of his surprised face when she wrapped her arms around his neck.

"You don't have to murder a car." Emelia said.

"You're being weird, Emmy." Kili said into her hair. "At least, weirder than normal."

"What did you see? What is the matter?"

Emelia immediately moved away from Kili at the sound of the urgency in Thorin's voice. All around her the dwarves were standing up, pulling their weapons closer to their bodies as they did. Bilbo stood in the middle of the small circle that was being formed, slightly out of breath. He placed his small hands on his hips, regaining his composure. Emelia knew that look. She had sported it about a thousand times in the past couple of months. He had seen something. That was enough to make a new wave of panic wash over her.

"Did they see you? They saw you didn't they?" Thorin sounded more concerned than she had heard him during their entire journey. She did not like it. She was so used to him sounding unemotional and distant this new tone of voice alarmed her greatly.

"What? No, they didn't see me." All of the dwarves let out noises of appreciation of that little fact. "They are moving away from this area." Bilbo said, causing all of the dwarves to relax even more.

"What did I tell you all?" Gandalf sounded a bit too smug in Emelia's opinion. "Mr. Baggins is remarkably light on his feet and stealthy, when he needs to be. You all had nothing to worry about."

"Listen." Bilbo struggled to get out the rest of what he was trying to tell the company. "Would you all just be quiet for a moment? There is something else."

Bilbo finally had to shout before the dwarves quieted themselves enough to hear what he was trying to say. They all looked over at him, some sporting surprised expressions in response to the exasperated look on the Hobbits face. Emelia shifted on her feet, hand sliding up to her chest involuntarily. She rubbed at it until she felt a hand reach over and pull her hand away from her chest. She followed the arm attached to the hand, only to be met the sight of Kili shaking his head at her.

Apparently, she had been bothering the wound on her chest more than she realized.

He leaned down next to her ear, moving away a bit of her hair. "Emmy, you're going to make it infected if you keep touching it."

"What did you see?" Gandalf moved to stand over Bilbo, peering down at him.

"Well, I don't really know. It was huge and furry and…"

"Was it a bear?"

Bilbo seemed confused for a moment. "How did you know?"

"I thought as much. We must move quickly. There is a house, not too far from here, that we will be able to find lodging at. Gather what little things you have. We will need to move with all haste if we are to make it there before nightfall." With that he turned and began to sprint off down the remainder of the slope, calling for the dwarves to follow along behind him.

Emelia wasn't sure why, but she found she was more upset about the prospect of more running than she was about the giant bear-like thing. She despised running and it seemed that that was all the dwarves liked to do as of late. They had only been stopped for a moment. It had been so nice being able to relax and now it was taunting her as she took off with the rest of the dwarves, hand scrubbing at the edge of her cut the entire time.

That and getting into more trouble than they could handle. They were experts at that.