Chapter Thirty-Seven: Inconsiderate Bastards
Kili was a good kisser. Well, good was an understatement, but it was the only word Emelia could seem to think of given her current circumstances. And they were pretty wonderful circumstances, considering what had led up to them. Kili took a moment to respond to her mouth attack, which was the only way to describe it that would do the enthusiasm justice, but once he did Emelia forgot all about the terrible dream she had had for the time being.
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him in closer to her. He responded in kind by placing his large hands on either side of her waist, grabbing her by the hips in a way that made her knees buckle. She tangled her hands in his hair, doing her absolute best to not pass out from sheer happiness at what was happening. She didn't mind the fact that neither of them hadn't brushed their teeth in weeks or that he smelled like the worst possible kind of fish. She was only concerned with how much she had wanted to, needed to, kiss him. She wasn't the only one who seemed to be happy at the sudden development, if the way he was moving his mouth against hers was anything to go on.
"Why are you…"
Emelia ignored the dwarf speaking entirely, perfectly happy to keep kissing Kili until they both ran out of oxygen. Kili tangled his fingers into her hair, opening his mouth in a daring way that curled Emelia's toes.
"For the love of Mahal, would you two stop?" Emelia knew that was Fili by the mixture of amusement, slight disgust, and an overall smugness that finally caused her to pause in her campaign to snog the stubble off Kili, as Fili had so eloquently put it all those weeks ago. She attempted to step back from Kili, only to have his hands clench around the base of her neck and her hair, holding her in place a few inches from his face.
"I'm confused."
"They were snogging, Ori."
"I'm not daft or blind, thank you." Ori snapped. Emelia ignored him, fully content to focus on Kili and how he was subtly, or not so subtly, trying to lean towards her again.
"No. You two are done." Kili was pulled back from her roughly by a very perturbed looking Thorin. Kili's hands got caught in Emelia's hair, causing her to be dragged with him painfully until Thorin finally reached a hand out to remedy the situation.
Thorin was the literal personification of a bucket of ice water splashing over her and her slightly lightheaded self.
Emelia felt reality slipping back to her in the most unfortunate of ways. She first came to realize that she was standing in the middle of Bard's living room surrounded by thirteen dwarves and one hobbit staring at her like she had just told them all she was pregnant. She second came to terms with the reality that she had just kissed Kili. Literally kissed him. On the mouth. The most exciting thing for her was that he didn't push her away. The least exciting thing for her was that she had done so with Thorin and everyone else as her witness. The sheer embarrassment of that little tidbit was enough to make her contemplate retreating back to Sigrid and Tilda's section of the house. She came to terms with reality thirdly when she realized that she was wearing nothing but a slightly see through nightie.
Another thing in a long list of mortifications that she wasn't sure she would ever live down.
She scanned the room, looking for the nearest large fabric to cover herself up with. She had to settle on one of the abandoned articles of clothing on Bard's dinning table. She wrapped it around her body, listening in as the dwarves processed between them.
"I'm still confused."
"Didn't anyone ever tell you where little dwarves come from?" Fili asked, clapping a hand on Ori's back with a wicked grin on his face.
"Like I said, I'm not daft, thank you." Ori said, a slight bit of annoyance on his face. "I'm more confused as to why…"
"Why she was kissing him? I can fill you in." Fili shot a wink at both Emelia and Kili, instantly indicating to her that she needed to stop him before he could continue and make the situation worse.
"For the sake of everything good and my sanity, don't Fili." Emelia could only imagine the sorts of things Fili would say. He had the mischievous look on his face that she had come to distrust entirely. She glared at him as a way of telling him to keep his trap shut. He took the hint, thankfully, and turned his attention over to Kili, who was currently trying to wiggle his way out of Thorin's grip in an awkward way that Emelia attributed to both his leg injury and the vice-like hold Thorin had on the back of his neck.
Emelia noticed, in that moment of talking Fili down with her eyes, that they were all dressed to travel. They looked like bag ladies, really, what with their mismatched clothes and abundance of shoddily crafted bags filled with food Emelia had the distinct feeling they might have nicked from Bard. She would have laughed if she hadn't become so indescribably angry at them.
They were dressed to leave.
The inconsiderate bastards.
"What the hell?" Emelia asked, all the happiness she had felt from kissing Kili completely evaporated. "Like, seriously, what the hell?" She walked over to the nearest dwarf and snatched the bag from his shoulders. She held it up in front of her, shaking it for emphasis. "Please tell me I'm hallucinating and that you aren't all trying to leave in the middle of the night."
"You should know…"
Emelia cut Bilbo off with a raised hand, adding a glare just for good measure. "I knew it. I always knew I had some secret ability, but I never imagined I was psychic."
"I'm confused again."Ori said, wincing slightly when Emelia shot him a death glare.
"I had a dream, nightmare really, that you all decided to up and leave in the middle of the night, kind of like you are now, and leave me here in Lake-town without so much as a word." The dwarves all had the decency to look slightly sympathetic, although she imagined it was only so that she would lower her volume. They were acting sketchy and most sketchy people didn't like loud noises. She made a mental note of that and moved on. "Here's the kicker. While you were gone you all got eaten by a dragon."
"That's it?"
"No that's not it, Dwalin." Emelia crossed her arms over her chest. "It was traumatizing. You all were dead. And I had to speak at your funeral even though there was nothing left to bury."
"Are we held liable for dream scenarios?" Gloin asked, seeming to think that Emelia was being silly.
"Yes you are. Especially when you seem hell-bent on making them come true. I had to deliver a eulogy about you surrounded by a bunch of depressing shrines."
"Is that all? You worry too much, lassie." Emelia hoped Bofur could feel a slight sting from her glare. "That isn't even the proper burial for a dwarf."
"I'm sorry, are you correcting me on my dream? I have to say if you are, now is literally the worse time to do so, Bofur."
"I only thought it would make you feel better to know."
"So that's why you kissed him?" Fili understood faster than the others. "Because you thought you had lost him."
"If that's the case, where's mine? I died in your dream too." Bofur puckered up his lips playfully.
"I saw some pigs when we were coming in. I'm sure they'd be delighted to lock lips with you. Now, are any of you going to bother to answer why you're trying to sneak out, and I'm assuming that's what you're doing considering you all have multiple layers on and bags on, without informing me?"
All of the dwarves glanced back and forth between each other. Kili tried to hold her gaze with a small smile that instantly made her forget the stern gaze she was supposed to be leveling them all with. She quickly rearranged her face to be serious once again, deciding that she wouldn't be able to look at him if she was going to get them to give her a solid explanation. She wanted to be kissing him again, based simply on the fact that it was so much nicer than interrogating her friends. She did know that before she would be able to kiss him again they would have to talk about what it meant and Emelia didn't think that that would go nearly as fantastically.
"I'll tell her if you're all too cowardly to do so. It isn't like she can do much." Dwalin offered. How very gallant of him, Emelia noted to herself sarcastically.
"You mean besides being a pain in your ass until the day that I die?"
"I don't see how that is any different than the current situation?"
"Oh shut up, Dwalin."
"You're getting louder." Thorin pointed out, finally releasing Kili. He seemed to think that the moment he did Kili would attempt to latch himself to Emelia once again. He stepped in front of his nephew, effectively blocking his path. He made it seem like Emelia was some sort of vulture that was trying to steal Kili's virtue, or whatever the equivalent horror was for dwarves. "Emelia."
"Why are you leaving me here?"
Emelia had been trying to play off how much the dream had affected her. She didn't want them to know that it was actually quite hard for her to think about. They had died and it had felt as real as the scruff on Kili's cheeks or the chill that had settled over her in the middle of the night back in Alaska. She just couldn't express the way it had made her feel to have to think about what she would say about all of them if they were gone, or how she would move on. Emelia had never imagined an after with her own family and that was the same for the dwarves. Being alone was a horribly depressing existence and she had learned from experience that she was not very good at handing it.
Emelia folded her arms in front of her chest, looking at each of them for a moment. They were hairy, and stinky, and could probably learn a thing or two about tolerance, but she had come to think very highly of them in a way didn't usually happen. She didn't like people, generally speaking, and she liked them, all of them, so she knew there was something special about them.
"I thought that we," She squeezed her fingers tightly, ignoring the pain. "I thought that I was one of you guys. I mean every group needs the spunky one that sort of messes up a lot but is still endearing. I like to think that I'm endearing, in a very weird way. Anyway, why?"
"It's for the best." Thorin said, nodding to some of the dwarves. They took the instruction and walked out of Bard's house. It only left Emelia, Thorin, Fili, and Kili, although Thorin did not seem pleased to see that they had both stayed. "Erebor is not safe, Emelia."
"The goblins weren't safe. Mirkwood wasn't safe. Beorn was debatably not safe. You're going to need a better answer than that."
"Leave us." Thorin said after a moment to both his nephews. He never stopped looking at Emelia, which unnerved her ever so slightly. Neither Fili nor Kili seemed interested in moving. In fact, they both glanced at each other, having a private conversation with looks, and shook their heads at their uncle. "Now."
Thorin glanced back at them when it became clear that neither of them was listening. He waited for them both to follow his instructions, only to grow more annoyed when they didn't seem keen on doing so. "Uncle."
"Now, Fili."
Emelia felt panic once again. They didn't seem to understand what she was trying to say to them. They were leaving her, and while it might be overdramatic of her to think so, she couldn't help but feel that it was a horrible, horrible mistake on their part. Then there was the added insult of them doing so without even bothering to say goodbye. Anger mixed with the panic, making Emelia feel lightheaded. She placed her hand on her forehead, ignoring the small amount of sweat and shaking. Thorin didn't seem to notice, or he didn't seem to care. He turned his attention to his nephews and glared at them with such acidity neither of them could seem to stall any longer.
Kili glanced at his uncle for a brief moment before he made up his mind. He walked over to Emelia with a strange gait and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. He pulled her into a tight embrace, positioning his head so that he could whisper into her ear. "Emmy, I wouldn't have let you come anyway. I don't care if you think it's your decision. It isn't, because I want you to be safe. We have a great deal to talk about and we can't do that if you get eaten by a dragon."
"We can't if you get eaten by a dragon either."
"I have an incentive." He said simply, moving back so that he could kiss her on the cheek.
"What?"
"You'll find out when I get back."
"Kili, join the others." Thorin said, putting an end to their embrace. He waited until Kili was out of the room with the door closed behind him before he turned to speak to Emelia. "It was not my intention to upset you." Thorin needed to learn how to read a women's emotions, Emelia thought with no small amount of disdain for the older dwarf.
"You are so full of shit, Thorin Oakenshield." Emelia ignored the fact that she was beginning to talk louder and louder. She hardly thought she was accountable, though, considering. "How did you think I was going to react when I woke up and saw that all of you were gone?"
"I did not give it much thought." Thorin said slowly, glancing at the door.
"Well, thanks."
"I will ignore your disrespect because you are upset, but you should know it does nothing to help you. You are a supremely distrusting person and often very disagreeable, Emelia, and I think it's time you learned to think beyond yourself." Thorin folded his arms over his chest, taking a few steps closer to her. "I will be perfectly honest. I do not care how much it bothers you that we are going to leave you behind because no matter how much you resent us, me, for this decision, you will be able to do so for many years to come."
"That's…"
"Before you proceed to interrupt me again, allow me to clarify. There is a dragon in that mountain and it is a very distinct possibility that we will die. I have to be realistic and death is perhaps a reality we must face. Every single member of this company chose to be here, all knowing full well that death was possible. You did not. I forced you to come with us and I cannot, in good conscious, continue to allow you to accompany us knowing that I would be responsible for your fate in that mountain."
"Why didn't you think about this when we were in Rivendell? I'm invested now, Thorin. I don't want," She paused, feeling tears pricking at her eyes. "I don't want you all to go without me. I want to be there. I want to see the mountain that has caused so much trouble in the last couple of months for me. I want to see what is so damn important to you and everybody else that they're willing to risk their lives for it."
"You will see it. I swear to you, you will see Erebor and all its beauty."
"Unless of course a dragon prevents that. In which case my dream will come true and I will resent you even more for leaving me alone." Emelia wished she was a more phsycally intimidating person. Perhaps then they would have listened to her when she told them that something bad was going to happen to them in that mountain. She knew it all the way down to her core that them leaving without her, just like in her dream, was just asking for terrible things.
"You're being childish."
"Please."
"No."
"You can't stop me. I'll follow you there if I have to." Emelia was beginning to feel desperate. "I'll steal a boat and I'll follow you. I'm not above piracy."
"I'll tie you to a chair." Thorin said simply. Emelia knew he wasn't joking about that, so she took an instinctive step back from him, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.
"I'll chew through the ropes."
"Where do you all think you're going?" Emelia's thoughts were interrupted harshly by Bain. He was standing at the far side of the room, looking around at all the empty dwarf sleeping pads with wide eyes. "What's going on? You can't leave. Da said you have to stay here."
"Stay out of it, boy." Thorin snapped. "Emelia, stay here."
"But..."
"I am not jesting. I know you think I am a cruel and that I care nothing for whether you live or die, but in this instance I need you to trust that this is what is best for you and everyone else." Thorin moved towards the door, throwing it open. Emelia followed after him, tripping over the slightly too-long hem of Sigrid's night dress. "You will stay here. No more discussion, no more arguments. I want you to be safe, as much as you might be surprised by that notion, and in order for that to happen you have to stay here."
"I thought I was a member of this company. Haven't I had earned that after everything I've done?" Thorin paused. "I thought I wasn't just some annoying addition anymore."
"The people of Esgaroth will take care of you."
"I don't need to be taken care of." Emelia was on the verge on yelling, entirely ignoring the sounds of Tilda and Sigrid waking up or Bain standing like a statue over in the corner. "I just want to go with you guys. Please, don't leave me here."
"Stay safe, Emelia."
"I'm don't like what I'm feeling." Wenny said quietly, staring at the pile of leaves she had been steadily accruing for the last couple of hours with tears in her eyes. "Why couldn't she go with them?"
"Thorin was right to leave Emelia behind, Wenny." Gimli said kindly. He understood how she felt; as he himself had had such thoughts when his father had told him the story for the first time. "Erebor was not the beautiful kingdom that it is today. It was full of evils and dangers."
"Kili could have protected her." Wenny said, crushing a leaf in her hand. "You don't let someone you like enough to kiss die. Ada kisses Naneth and he protects her."
"That is a very astute observation, but I think you should reserve judgments until you have heard the whole story."
"I am beginning to think you lied to me. You said this was a good story and so far all it has done is disrupt my emotions and made me sad."
"It is a very good story full of very good people who do very good things. Those sorts of tales always affect emotions in some way or another." Gimli reminded her, hoping to get her to stop tearing up. He felt guilty for her doing so and he quickly thought it was best to remind her that the story was not over. "Wenny, I swear I would not tell you something that would make you only sad. There is happiness and joy."
"Do they kiss again? Is that the happiness?"
Gimli narrowed his eyes at the little elf's interest. He was still a bit unclear about elvish aging, but he was fairly certain that Wenny was far too young to be thinking so much on that sort of thing. "Why would them kissing concern you, Wenny?" Gimli almost dreaded hearing the answer. She was not his daughter but Gimli had grown extremely fond of the young elf during the last couple of weeks. So fond of her, in fact, that the thought of some young elf lad daring to kiss her made him angrier than perhaps was necessary.
"I'm not interested." Wenny said a bit too quickly. It instantly made Gimli even more suspicious.
"Your mother is a terrible liar as well."
"I'm not lying." Wenny practically shouted. "Eldarion…"
"What does Eldarion have to do with it?" Gimli asked, now beginning to put the pieces together. Eldarion, the young son of Arwen and Aragorn, had been a close friend of Wenny for years. Realization dawned on Gimli only half a moment later. "That cheeky little prince."
"What happens next? Does Emelia follow them?"
"I am wondering, Liluwen, about what your father would think if he knew."
"It was only on the cheek. Don't be nasty, Gimli." Gimli had not felt so much glee in a long time. It was entirely too perfect. Aragorn and Arwen were coming for a visit within the year, and here Wenny had offered him up the perfect pot stirrer, if there ever was one. He could only imagine the looks on all the respective parents' faces. "Continue, please."
Gimli had been distracted by his own meddling thoughts to notice that Wenny had started smashing the leaves in front of her with vigor. "Of course. No need to make you any longer for them to kiss again."
"You can skip that in the future." Wenny said, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. "If you wish."
"Absolutely not. I will tell you the entire tale. The happy bits, the sad bits, and the kissing bits." Gimli patted her on the head, smiling at her to let her know that she need not be overly embarrassed. "Now, Thorin and the company left Bard's house just past three in the morning, all thinking of Erebor, steel weapons, and the red-headed female that they had all decided was best left behind. They had no idea what was about to happen, however. If they did, then perhaps they might not have left her behind at all."
Okay, this was by far my favorite chapter to write of the entire story. Like, I literally teared up and laughed while writing it and that NEVER happens.
You have probably picked up on this, but we are now nearing the end of this chunk of the story. I tried to space out my updates as much as possible to avoid what happened last time, but I could only do that so much. I am anticipating 3 more chapters, maybe, before my break. In order to keep myself in tune with this fandom, however, I will be working on my LOTR story soon. So if that floats your boat, go check it out!
Also, just a fun fact. I mentally pair Wenny and Eldarion when they grow up. Haha, imagine the family dinners. :)
Thank you to you lovely readers. I literally cannot express how much the comments mean to me. I write my own original works so seeing what people think really helps me to know what works and what doesn't, so thank you, thank you, thank you, for all the reviews this far!