Chapter Thirty-Four: The Loofa

Emelia could literally feel the awkward. It coated the entire cellar like a blanket, seeming to suffocate her with the sheer uncomfortableness of it all. The only sound that followed Thorin's rather forceful demand was the snores that came from the two elves still slumped at the table. The dwarves stared at each other for half a moment longer before they decided that the intense look coming from Thorin was all the encouragement they needed. Emelia watched them as they chose their barrels, fighting with each other for the bottom ones, before she finally decided that she should find her barrel as well. Gloin had to be practically shoved into the last bottom row one, leaving her with no option but to climb up to one of the top ones. She had been hoping to avoid that.

"Which one is mine, Bilbo?" She noticed, with a large amount of disdain, that her voice had taken on an overall mousy quality quite suddenly.

The dwarves that were still climbing into their barrels shot her nasty looks. Normally she would have ignored them. She thought she could have if Kili wasn't one of them.

"Oh," Bilbo seemed flustered as he moved along the barrels, counting on his fingers as he went. His frustration became even more evident when he came to the unfortunate conclusion that there were only thirteen barrels for fifteen people. Bilbo ran his hands through his hair, looking at the last couple of unoccupied barrels that were meant for Fili and Kili before he turned back to Emelia. "It looks like you'll have to share with someone."

Emelia shrunk at his words. She glanced at the dwarves that were sticking their heads out of their barrels. None of them, with the exception of Balin and Bofur, seemed very eager to make eye contact with her, let alone share an enclosed space. "I'll share with you, Bilbo." She picked at the ends of her sleeves.

"You'll share with me, Emelia."

Bilbo was just as surprised as Emelia was to hear Fili speaking up. He looked over at the blonde dwarf for a moment, mouth slightly agape, before he recomposed himself. "There you have it. Now we really must go before the elves notice you lot have gone missing. Get into your barrels."

There was shouting from above them, which spurred them all into frantic movements. The dwarves already in the barrels buried themselves back far enough that they were out of sight at first glance. Fili clambered his way up to the topmost barrel, narrowly avoiding a few fingers as he went. He shifted about, turning so that he was facing outward while still leaving enough room in the barrel for Emelia. He poked his head out of the side, seeming to expect her to follow after him. Emelia, who was still standing next to Bilbo, glanced around the cellar. Fili sighed, forcing her attention back onto him. He extended his arms, gesturing for her to come with one of them.

"We certainly don't have all day for you to take your sweet time, Emelia."

She looked at Bilbo one more time before she finally decided that Fili was right. She was acutely aware of the dwarves staring at her as she picked her way to the top barrel quickly. She half expected one of them to push her off if she lingered in front of them for too long, resulting in her maneuvering her way up to the top at the twice the speed that Fili had moved at. She hesitantly grabbed the hand Fili had extended to her, allowing him to pull her inside the tight space along beside him. She instantly scooted until she was pressed up against the smooth wood, wanting to put as much space in between her and Fili as possible. He seemed to be angry enough at her without adding the stress of confined spaces.

"What happens now?" Emelia was far too busy situating herself to pay attention to who had spoken.

"Hold your breath." Bilbo said, anxiety lacing every word he spoke.

"What?" Fili asked, daring to stick his head out of the barrel. "Hold my br…"

Fili was cut off by the creaking sound of an opening door followed by girlish screaming that Emelia was certain didn't come from her. Fili shrank back into the barrel, wrapping his arms around Emelia out of, what she was sure, was reflex. She knew what was coming, considering Bilbo and her had talked about it for hours on end, but it didn't stop her from feeling an exorbitant amount of fear. Her heart leapt out of her chest when the floor sunk out from underneath them. The barrel slammed into the ground with a crack before proceeding to roll down an incline. Emelia and Fili bounced against each other painfully as the barrel rolled for what felt like a hundred feet. Emelia had no control over her vocal cords, judging by the sound that emitted from her, when the barrel soared through the air into nothingness. Emelia felt Fili pull her closer, gripping onto her like his life depended on it as they tumbled through the air.

Emelia's teeth slammed together in a jarring way when they finally collided with the water. They sunk down into it for a moment, a rush of cold water washing over their heads and down to their feet, before they popped back up like apples bobbing in a bucket. Their barrel was sitting lower in the water than Emelia would have liked, resulting in more and more water spilling over the sides. Their clothes were soaked through, leaving them both waterlogged and sick feeling.

Emelia was the first one to stick her head out of the barrel when the violent motion finally settled down. Fili followed closely after, throwing his sopping hair out of his face. Fili immediately began to look for Kili, which she had expected. He began to look panicked when he couldn't find him instantly.

"I'm right here, Fili." Kili came up next to their barrel, using his arms as paddles. He seemed slightly nauseous from the fall and his hair was soaked, but he was unhurt. Emelia felt a small knot in her chest that she hadn't been previously aware of loosen ever so slightly. She noticed that he did his absolute best to avoid looking at her from her spot from behind Fili. She pushed the hurt that it caused down. "You aren't hurt, are you?"

"No." Fili responded, reaching his own arms down to begin paddling. Thorin was already getting farther and farther ahead of them in the short time they had been talking. Emelia imagined he was about as eager to get away from the elves as she was.

"Well done, Mister Baggins." Emelia smiled at Thorin's praise to Bilbo. "You as well, Emelia." Emelia smiled even wider.

"Let's go."

Emelia gripped the sides of the barrel as Fili used his arms to move them forward. The amount of water spilling in was concerning to say the least. Emelia tried to scoop it out, but felt like she was fighting a losing battle when more water came flooding back in to replace what she had just gotten rid of. She was just about to tell Fili about the problem when they went tumbling over a small waterfall unexpectedly. Emelia's forehead smacked into Fili's back at the impact. He pulled his arms in to brace them against the sides for the impact, resulting in them losing their navigation. They bounced around aimlessly, taking on even more water as they went. Fili managed to resurface first, followed shortly by Emelia. She spit out a slew of water, coughing painfully.

She wasn't sure why, but this escape was markedly less glamorous the ones she had seen in movies.

"Emelia?" Fili craned his neck to get a better look at her.

"I'm fine." Emelia said quickly, feeling uncomfortable with him looking at her.

"You're lying again."

"Now isn't exactly the time to talk about it, Fee." She paused, looking away from him. "Fili."

He looked like he wanted to say more, but ultimately thought better of it. They were saved from more awkwardness by a shout that reverberated through the trees.

"Shut the gate!"

Emelia turned around in the barrel, eyes widening when she saw the elves standing guard at the small gate in front of them. Whatever fantasies, if that's what they could be called, about escaping from the elves in a sneaky manner evaporated instantly.

"No!"

Emelia felt all her anxiety, which she hadn't realized had lessened during her short reunion with the dwarves, bubbling back up as she watched the armed elves shut the gate in front of them. The sound of it slamming seemed to reverberate through her chest. Thorin attempted to open it by sheer force alone, but Emelia knew it wouldn't work. Nothing like that ever did, especially when Emelia wanted and needed it to. The elves guarding the gate were armed to the teeth, which made Emelia even more apprehensive about the situation. The thought of the elves forcing her back into her room for some undetermined amount of time made her insides squirm painfully. The more morbid scenario of them killing the dwarves, Bilbo, and Emelia popped into her head, making the situation about a million times worse.

All of their barrels bumbled together under the gate, ramming into each other as they stacked up under the elves feet. Emelia's hand reached down to Fili's shirt, grabbing it subconsciously as she stared up at the two elves on the small bridge.

She was staring up at them, wondering if Bacon and Eggs might be not as effective as she had originally thought, when the elf closest to them fell face first into the water. His body slammed into their barrel, knocking it sideways into the rock wall on their left. Emelia let out an involuntary gasp of pain when her hand scrapped along the rough surface. She barely caught sight of the end of a black arrow sticking out of the back of the elf before his body sunk under the surface of the water and out of sight.

Emelia couldn't tear her eyes away from the trail of blood that was left behind in the choppy water. She couldn't help but wonder if the elf had been one of her guards at some point. She blinked, forcing herself to focus her attention back on the ever worsening situation in front of her. Things were progressively worse much quicker than Emelia would have thought possible. She had imagined a surprising number of terrible things, yet somehow she didn't think there was much worse than being stuck in a barrel that was inconveniently stuck behind a gate surrounded by elves and orcs that wanted nothing more than to kill her and her friends.

Emelia felt a pair of hands on the top of her head suddenly, pushing her down into the barrel. She struggled against the hands, elbowing Fili until he finally let her back up.

"For the love of," Fili sounded very exasperated with her. "I'm trying to help you avoid getting your stubborn head chopped off."

Emelia instantly realized Fili was right to try and shield her head. She had barely had time to poke her head out of the barrel when a particularly large orc came out of nowhere. It grabbed the barrel, brandishing a sword that was probably larger than Emelia, and attempted to stab her directly in the face. She launched herself backwards, throwing her hands up in self-defense.

"Duck!"

Emelia didn't need to be told twice. She shrunk into the barrel, covering her head with her hands as she felt Fili reaching over her to attempt to kill the orc. She was shoved face first into the side of the barrel as Fili wrestled with the orc, but she found she didn't mind.

She would take a little facial bruising over a little facial stabbing any day of the week.

If it had been any other situation she would have been horribly uncomfortable with how much Fili was pressed up against her. She thought, considering the circumstances, that it was hardly something to be thinking about. Emelia felt their barrel sink into the river even more before they bobbed back up.

"Emelia?"

"Is it dead?" Emelia peered up, hands still covering her head.

"Yes."

"Is it safe?"

"No, not particularly." Fili moved back, reaching down his hands to her shoulders. Emelia could hardly hear him over the sounds of the struggle happening on the walkway above their heads. There was screaming, both elf and orc, and the strangled sounds that sounded like someone choking on blood. "Just stay down."

"Kili!" Emelia, who had been planning on listening to Fili's instructions, immediately forgot them entirely. "Take this!"

Emelia pushed Fili and his arms out of the way as she fought to see Kili and what sort of stupid thing he was doing this time.

She watched, with no small amount of horror, as Kili vaulted himself out of his barrel. He hardly seemed bothered by the orcs that were currently trying to kill him. He chopped through them one by one, sending them flying into the water as he went. She couldn't tear her eyes way from him. Her hands gripped the side of the barrel so tightly they lost all color and her tendons stuck out painfully. He looked very small compared to all those orcs, which was odd to her considering she had always thought him to be a person of substantial size, as compared to midgety self. She was thankful Fili was there holding her back, otherwise she would have done something stupid, something that she would probably live, or not live, to regret. Something along the lines of following after him and killing every last one of those monsters that even thought about hurting him.

She thought her heart was going to beat out of her chest when he didn't see the orc with the spear coming up behind him. Emelia hardly noticed the knife that went flying through the air from behind her. It imbedded into the orc's head, killing it instantly. Kili didn't even notice. He just moved on and lobbed off the head of the orc in front of him. The head went flying off, narrowly missing smacking Emelia straight in the face as it went. He moved on to the next one, hardly paying attention to the chaos around him. Emelia did not like the way he was fighting. She wasn't an expert, about as far from it as possible really, but she knew he was being too sloppy.

"That reckless…What the hell does he think he is doing?" Emelia asked aiming her question at no one in particular. "He's going to get himse…"

She shouldn't have jinxed it. He did get himself hurt just like she had thought he would.

Emelia was certain she had stopped breathing.

"Kili!"

Emelia wasn't sure what she was doing when she started pushing her way out of the barrel. She did know that Kili was hurt and she hadn't thought of that as being a possibility before now. Her vision blurred when the arrow hit his leg, clouding until all she saw was the look of pain and fear on his face. Her lungs felt like they had simultaneously dried up and flooded all while struggling to keep pulling in air. Her foot slipped on the side of the barrel, sending her crashing into the wall beside them. It seemed that was enough to draw Fili's attention away from Kili for the briefest of moments.

"Emelia Kinsington Montgomery, you leave this barrel and I will personally kill you."

"He's…"

She struggled to pull her way out of the barrel yet again. Fili was forced to wrap his arms around her waist and haul her back down. He ignored the sharpness of her elbows as she fought against him. Her legs slammed against the inside of the barrel, making it groan in protest.

"Emmy, please." Fili shoved her back down in the barrel, pinning her arms to her sides with his own arms. She noticed for the first time how panicked his voice sounded. Emelia wasn't sure how Fili expected her to be rational. It had never been her strong suit. "I can't be worrying about you and him, so please, just stay in the damn barrel."

Emelia listened to him for a fraction of a moment before she shook her head and started fighting to get out of the barrel once again.

"For the love of Mahal." Fili wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms to her sides in an almost painful manner.

Emelia felt like she was in the middle of a very unfunny sitcom without a laugh track. She certainly wasn't laughing. Every moment that Kili laid on the ground with his hands gripping his wound was horrendously awful. She just knew that at any moment an orc was going to come along and kill him. She just knew that at any moment something terrible was going to happen while she just sat there and watched.

She was too busy caught up in her own bubble of fear to notice Tauriel. One moment Emelia was watching Kili writhing on the ground in pain, surrounded by orcs, and the next he was somehow managing to pull the lever down to open the gate. He was able to crawl his way over to the edge while Tauriel, the perfect little red-head that she was, was able to kill the orcs that surrounded them.

Kili hauled himself over the edge of the bridge and into the empty barrel next to Emelia and Fili just in time before it started moving with the current along with the rest of them. The arrow snapped off, causing Kili to cry out in pain. Fili's arms slacked around Emelia as he leaned around her to check on his younger brother.

Emelia, ever the opportunists, immediately scrambled out of Fili's grasp in his moment of slacking judgment. Emelia vaulted herself out of the barrel with Fili and over into the barrel with Kili with all the agility of an overweight gymnast. Fili cursed loudly, hands struggling to grab her before she got too far away. She managed to slip herself in behind a very dazed Kili, shooting Fili a triumphant smirk.

Kili made a noise of protest, only to be silenced by Emelia.

"You are more than welcome to hate me. But that doesn't change the fact," She paused, shifting in the barrel to make it easier to grip the sides as they started to pick up speed. "Well that doesn't change the fact that I am not going to let you, well, I'm not going to let you die."

"Emelia…" Kili managed to keep himself upright despite all the rapids.

"You can hit me for this later." Emelia said, remembering the situation after the Goblin King that seemed like it had happened ages ago. He had said the same thing to her when she had been hurt. "It'll be fine, Kee. You'll be fine. I promise."

Emelia was practically supporting Kili by the time the water finally calmed down enough for them to pull themselves to the rocky shore. His body was slumped back against her despite the fact that he had flat out refused to speak to her. Their barrel was practically in pieces by the time they bumped into the rocks and so full of water Emelia was surprised it was still afloat. All of the other dwarves' barrels were much the same. Ori and Bombur were in ones that were riddled with so many arrow holes it was amazing neither of them was injured more than just a cut here or a gash there. Maybe they were injured and it all looked tame compared to Kili. Either way, she hardly paid them any attention, as awful as that made her.

She was able to support him long enough to get them onto the rocks before she collapsed, soaking wet and exhausted.

"I will not be doing that again." She muttered so that only he would be able to hear. Kili groaned next to her, sounding like he was in the worst pain in his entire life. She took that as a response, although she would have preferred that he actually spoke to her.

Emelia sat up immediately leaning over to get a better look at him. Fili, who had been shaking out his sore limbs, hurriedly sat down on Kili's other side, wrapping an arm around him to help him into a sitting position. Kili groaned again, head lulling back slightly. The sun highlighted the green tone to his face, which made Emelia fidgety.

"Kili? Can you hear me?" She debated for a moment before she reached out a hand to lightly slap his face. "Kili, if you're purposefully ignoring me…"

"Emelia stop hitting him." Fili said in an admonishing tone.

"He isn't responding. Why isn't he responding?"

"I would if you would…" Kili's voice trailed off as he chocked down what sounded like a large amount of bile. "If you would stop harassing me."

Emelia pulled her hands back instantly, crossing her arms over her chest as she pursed her lips angrily. Fili shot Emelia a look over Kili's shoulders, which she wasn't exactly sure how to properly interpret. She was saved from the inevitably uncomfortable conversation that she was sure to have with Kili by Thorin's impatient voice.

"Gather yourselves quickly, we must move on before more orcs come."

"Kili's injured."

"Bind his leg quickly then."

Emelia wasn't sure if that was the response she would have offered if she had been faced with one of her hypothetical nieces or nephew's potentially life-threatening injury, but she didn't dare question him, as much as she wanted to. Fili didn't seem to be of the same mindset, seeing as how he stood up instantly and turned to face Thorin with an angry look on his face.

"Uncle, he's hurt."

"Oin! Now!"

Emelia winced, looking away from Thorin and back to Kili. He was currently trying to subtly, or not so subtly, move away from her.

"You can't be serious?"

"I," Kili winced, hands clenching around his leg. Blood and some oozy substance that Emelia didn't care to think about spilled out over his dirty fingers. "I don't want to be near you."

"I, well, I guess that's fair." Emelia stood up, debating whether she wanted to cry or hit something. Both seemed like good enough options for her at the moment. She started to walk away from him, hands shaking before she stopped dead in her tracks. It would probably be better if she didn't say anything, considering how most of the dwarves felt about her currently, but she just couldn't bring herself to. She turned back around, placing her hands on her hips. "Actually, no. No it's not fair."

Kili seemed surprised at the tone of her voice. He wasn't the only one. The other dwarves, all of whom were in the process of attempting to slough some of the excess water out of their beards or their clothes, stopped what they were doing to look over at the two of them. Fili turned away from Thorin, a nervous look on his face. He glanced between them, seeming to hope that this little conflict would be over sooner rather than later.

Emelia ignored them all. She would deal with them later.

"I understand that you think I was living in luxury while you were in prison. I get that, I would probably think so too if our roles were reversed. And I get that when I said you kidnapped me it seemed pretty bad and all. More than bad actually, considering it kind of made me seem like a raging unthankful bitch. But, you should know before you continue treating me like week old horseshit that I was doing exactly what Thorin told me to do."

Kili looked over at his uncle with an expectant look on his face. Thorin raised his eyebrows in surprise at being brought into the uncomfortable conversation.

"I didn't tell you to pretend to be kidnapped. You made that all up on your own."

"You aren't helping, Thorin." Emelia said, sensing that none of the dwarves seemed to understand what she was trying to say. "Ugh, okay I'll make this simple. I didn't choose the elves over you. While they're all uncomfortably attractive, they aren't you and that means that no matter how perfect they debatably are, I would never ever in a million years think about choosing them."

"You looked pretty chummy with them." Dwalin said angrily.

"I seemed pretty chummy with you but I wouldn't want people to judge me too harshly for that either." Emelia said nastily, remembering the rather recent event of him slamming her into a beam. "Well, I thought we were chummy before you assaulted me."

Dwalin smartly declined to respond to her.

"I think this has been a rather productive use of our time." Bilbo cut across the palpable silence that had followed Emelia's words. Dwalin had the decency to look ashamed, which seemed to appease Emelia for the time being. "But I think we would be wise to move on."

"I think you're right Bilbo." Emelia said quietly, a small amount of hope lacing her voice. She didn't look at Bilbo when she spoke, choosing instead to stare at the back of Kili's head.

Thorin, expressing a surprising amount of silence in response to Emelia's tirade, finally took control of the situation. "Fili, your brother is your responsibility…"

"I don't need a keeper." Kili swayed dangerously as he put weight on his injured leg, before he was finally able to balance himself. Emelia couldn't help but snort, which she imagined might have been a coping mechanism to avoid stressing about the amount of blood he was losing. He immediately looked over at her, glaring at her with full force. "Emelia."

"Kili."

"Emelia." He sounded even more annoyed than before. "Keep your opinionated snorting to yourself."

"Only if you promise to stop looking at me like, well, like that." She waved her hands, very much aware of all the dwarves watching them.

"I'll look at you however I like."

"Then you have no right to tell me to stop snorting at you however I want." Emelia took a step closer, pointing her finger shakily. "Now, I'm fairly sure there are orcs still out there, so arguing with you seems counterproductive and Tauriel , the perfect little brat that she is, can only save our asses for so long."

"Then maybe you should st…"

"Just shut up. God, I can't believe I missed you as much as I did. I should have spent my time on more important things than you. You know, Kili, I really didn't like you when we met and somehow you and your stupid self managed to make me lo…" Emelia stopped mid-sentence, more and more horror washing over her with each moment that passed. She turned to face Bilbo, wanting nothing more than sink into the earth and die. "Bilbo, you said something about needed to leave, right?"

"What did you just almost say?" Kili asked, completely oblivious to Emelia's embarrassment.

"Loofa. I was going to say loofa."

"No you weren't."

"I promise I was. Loofas, they are so, so important. But Bilbo, really, I think you were right. Orcs. Big nasty orcs. We should go."

Loofa. Of all the words in the world to come up with, she had to go with loofa. However, it wasn't the part that bothered her the most. What bothered her the most was what she almost said. The words were like vomit spewing from her in the worst possible time. The. Worst. Possible. Time. She wanted to punch herself, but even more so, she wanted to cry into a bowl of ice cream like a love-struck middle schooler. She felt about as awkward as one.

"Well, I for one am happy things are back to how they used to be." Fili said, a wicked smirk on his face as he looked in between Emelia and Kili. "Nice and functional."

Nice and functional. :) Anyway, this story hit 100,000 hits! I have no idea whether or not that's good compared to others, but it feels pretty fantastic to me. So thank you to everyone who reads, whether consistent or not. On another note, I would be super grateful if y'all could slide on over to my Avengers story and check it out!

The number of reviews has been dropping lately and it's making me nervous that people are starting to dislike my story. I'm probably just paranoid.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the wonderful support. I loofa you. ;)