Chapter Forty-One: Warm Death, Cold Death

Emelia was concerned at how not concerned she was. The initial shock of being told a dragon was waking up and coming towards Lake-town had worn off pretty quickly, only to be instantly replaced with a feeling that she could only describe as numbness.

Bard's home was filled with a flurry of movement, panic being the most prevailing emotion. Bard was gone, taking some ancient looking iron arrow with him, leaving his children in the care of the dwarves and Emelia. Bain had followed after Bard shortly after, saying something about helping him. Tilda was crying quietly, sitting at the table that Kili had been moved from. Sigrid, showing an amount of emotional maturity that Emelia wouldn't have thought possible, was helping clean Kili's wound the best she could. She kept mumbling things about the dragon and how she didn't want to die. Oin and Fili were still trying to help Kili, while Bofur had gone in search of herbs that might help stop the spreading of the infection.

And then there was Emelia. Standing in the middle of the room like a useless lump, looking out of the window like it was going to tell her something that she didn't already know.

A dragon was till coming and Kili was still dying.

Emelia winced, wondering what was wrong with her. She should be freaking out, crying like Tilda maybe. She should be horrified at the thought that she might die, possibly for the second time, in a blaze of fire. She should be a mess, having a nervous breakdown or something, at the idea that Kili might not make it to morning. She wasn't though, and she thought there was something wrong with her.

Emelia's eyes trailed down to the floor, half out of shame, half out of worry for her own lack of emotion. Her mother would be ashamed of her.

"Emelia, come help me." She blinked three times and looked up. "You need to hold him down." Fili's hands were covered in blood. Oin's were much the same, although he was taking the time to wipe some of it off on a rag to his left. Fili gestured down to Kili with a tired look on his face, eyes narrowing when he noticed Emelia and her lack of movement. "Emelia, please."

Her eyes trailed over to Kili.

She walked over to him instantly.

Kili looked like death warmed over.

"Where should I hold him?" Emelia asked, hands shaking as they hovered over Kili's body. She moved them towards his shoulders and instantly pulled them back. "I don't want to hurt him."

Fili didn't see how she could, any more than he already was. "Hold his shoulders down."

Emelia grabbed his shoulder lightly, holding his down like she was told. He was sweaty and breathing heavily. She looked away from him, away from the paleness of his face and the moisture that was leaky from his mouth and eyes, and focused on Fili and Oin. The blonde was holding Kili's injured leg, turning it so that Oin could look at it better. Oin, who was currently burning the end of a needle over a flame, looked grim.

"Is he going to be able to feel this?" Emelia asked, squeezing his shoulder when Kili let out a particularly painful sounding moan. "Shhh." She tried to soothe him, feeling the regret of ignoring him earlier building up inside her. She looked at the pillow she had shoved under his head shortly after the first shock from the dragon, feeling as if it wasn't enough. She wanted to do something more to make him more comfortable. "It will all be over soon. You'll be up and walking again, just like before. I promise."

"I wish we had something for the pain." Oin said, pulling the needle out of the flame. He held it up in front of his face, inspecting it with narrowed eyes, before he started threading it carefully, meticulously. Emelia had never seen someone with such steady hands. When he was done he placed it on a clean rag next to a small knife, already sterilized the best it could be. She didn't like to think about what it was for, although she knew that some of the skin, now dead from the poison, would need to be removed somehow. "Girl, does your father keep poppy seeds in the house?" Oin asked Bard's daughter.

"No. The moisture…" Sigrid trailed off, moving towards the wooden shelves. She searched through numerous little bottles, tossing some aside. "We don't have anything."

Oin cursed, shaking his head. "Poor lad. We'll have to do without."

They had been putting off this part for the better part of the day, hoping to clean out the infection before they closed the wound. They hadn't been able to, leaving with no other alternative.

Emelia looked at Kili's face, seeing the way it twitched and twisted every single time his leg was jostled or moved. She remembered the pain she had felt when they sewed her chest wound, how blinding it had been. Thinking of that and imagining someone else going through it, magnified tenfold she thought, made her mind rather quickly. "I'll go."

"What?" Fili looked up from Kili's leg. "Don't be ridiculous. You can't go out there alone."

"He needs pain relief doesn't he?" Emelia removed her hands from Kili and took a step towards the door. "Bofur isn't back yet and Kili's only going to get worse. I can go get some, Oin what did you ask for?"

"Poppy seeds, lass."

"Poppy seeds. I can go get some and come back."

"Where do you think you're going to get them?" Fili did not seem convinced. Emelia didn't care.

"I'll find some. I'm crafty. It'll be fine, I swear." Emelia said, walking away from Kili. Her hands felt cold when they left his shoulders. "I'll be back before any of you have time to miss me and my charming presence."

"It isn't safe." Emelia rolled her eyes. She passed Tilda on her way towards where she had thrown her jacket. The girl was sniffling to herself, staring down at the table with a hopeless look on her face. Emelia patted her back before she slipped on her jacket. "Emmy, I don't think this is a good idea. Something could happen and I can't come to help you."

"I don't need help to find some seeds." Emelia laughed it off, pulling her jacket around her body. "Besides, what's the worst that could happen?"

"Off the top of my head I can think of a few things, the most pressing being a fire breathing dragon."

"An oversized lizard, Fee." Emelia said, opening the door. She didn't really think a dragon constituted as an oversized lizard, but she didn't take her words back. "Seriously, you'll hardly even notice I'm gone."

Poppy seeds. Poppy seeds. What the hell did poppy seeds even look like, Emelia wondered. Poppy seeds. She thought those were the things that made people fail drug tests by eating the wrong bagel, but she wouldn't have been able to identify them if she tried. They could have looked like anything from a sunflower seed to a coconut, for all she knew.

Her first stop took her to the small market in the middle of this side of Lake-town. When she arrived, everything was closed and boarded up, everybody having gone home hours ago. This was the second time she had been snooping around Lake-town in the middle of the night and it was doing nothing to endear the city to her. It was being extremely unhelpful, on purpose it felt like, and she was left with the only option of going door to door.

Like a pain reliever-needing girl scout.

She stuffed her hands into the flaps in her coat, looking around for homes that had lights in them. Three houses were black and silent. Two only had one light with a pair of shadows that showed people getting into bed. The last one was lit all the way up, light coming from every single room in the home. Emelia immediately started towards it. She ducked underneath the awnings, slipping around the barrels and through all the tables that she imagined were full of wares during business hours, and sidestepped a few piles of trash that she thought was meant to go into the water.

The house had a private set of steps that led up to its front door. Emelia took them two at a time, skidding to halt in front of the worn wooden door. The ground was covered in ice, which she wasn't thinking of, making her almost slide off the other side. Her boots, made for that sort of thing, gripped the ground stopping her just before she plummeted off the side. She made a fair amount of noise when she did so, drawing attention to herself from the owners of the house.

"What was that?"

"Some pest infested dog."

"It was too big to be a dog."

Footsteps, muffled like the person was wearing socks, started towards the door. Emelia straightened herself up, smoothing out her jacket and her hair quickly. She smiled, hoping that she appeared sweet and trustworthy and waited for the person to open the door.

She had to bite her lip and squeeze her hands underneath her jacket to keep from laughing when she confronted with an elderly man wearing nothing but a night gown, very thin she noticed, and a pair of wooly socks that had holes in the big toes. A woman that Emelia assumed was the man's wife was standing behind him, peering at Emelia with wide eyes and pursed lips. Her nightgown matched her husbands, all the way down to the stains on the front.

"I told you it wasn't a dog." The man said, smirking over at his wife.

"Very good Minwin. You're smart enough to recognize a thief when she comes to steal some of our braised fish."

Emelia swallowed her laugh at the idea that she was there to steal fish from them. If there was anything that people wouldn't need to steal in this place, it was fish.

"Oh no. I'm not here to steal form you." Emelia said after she was able to get her laughter down to a more subtle, more suitable level.

"Oh, well in that case." The man, Minwin, started to close the door, right in her face. Emelia threw her hand forward, catching it before he did. "What are you doing?"

"I've been out searching for hours." A little lie didn't hurt, she thought. "Do you happen to have poppy seeds. A friend of mine is hurt really bad and he needs poppy seeds to help with the pain."

"So you thought you would steal from us and then ask us for something?" The wife snapped.

"No. I just said I wasn't trying to steal from you." Emelia said quickly, removing her hand from the door so that they wouldn't smash it if they decided to slam it in her face. "Look, I'm sorry I'm interrupting you. I'm sure you were about to go to bed, but I really need help." The man looked like he was contemplating it, mulling it over in a way that caused his lumpy face to look even lumpier. It was sort of mesmerizing, in a weird way. His lips were so thin they were almost nonexistent but they somehow found a way to press into an even thinner line.

"Do you have gold, girl?" Minwin asked, earning a scoff from his wife.

"A pretty face shows up…" Emelia couldn't hear any more, not that she wanted to, when the wife started walking away, muttering angrily about Emelia and her face. Minwin shook his head. Emelia could sympathize.

"So, the gold?"

"I don't have any." Emelia admitted, hoping that his humanity would win out over his greed. "But, I can pay you back later, twice if you want." She figured she would have some money after she tapped into the International Bank of Thorin Oakenshield. It was the least he could do. "I have a rich friend, well friend-ish man, who will happily pay you back. It's his nephew who needs the seeds."

Minwin looked to be thinking about it. She could see the lure of gold in his eyes, working him over to the point that she thought he would give her what she needed. She smiled again, extra wide, and batted her eyelashes in such a way that normally would have made her cringe with embarrassment. She didn't care and kept doing her best to be charming, although she couldn't help but think her efforts were lost on him. His lumpy face turned up for a moment and she thought he might be coming around. The glimmer of hope she had for getting the seeds was lost when something broke on top of his house, startling them both.

Emelia leaned back, peering up at the roof. She could hardly see anything. She shook her head and chalked it up to some sort of enlarged pigeon and turned back to look at Minwin. He was gone, having shut the door while she was distracted, taking the light from his house and his possible poppy seeds with him.

She huffed and turned away from his house, hoping to see another one with lights. Minwin couldn't be the only person who stayed up late.

"Why couldn't they just have some ibuprofen?" Emelia said bitterly, walking down the icy steps with care. Her feet crunched on some of the freshly fallen snow. "This dark ages crap…"

Something creaked just above her head. Emelia paused on the last step and looked up, using the knotted wooden railing to steady herself. She could see snow, ropes, and wood. Nothing out of the ordinary. She started walking again.

She knew that she should go back. She didn't know how long she had been gone, but she knew that Fili was expecting her. She didn't think he expected her to find anything in the first place. She wanted to check one more place, one more house before she went back. Something was telling her that she was going to find what she was looking for if she went to one more place.

Emelia picked a walkway and started moving along it carefully. Lake-town was creaky at night, and creepy, and stinky. Maybe that was why no one was still awake.

She turned a corner, about to give up the search, when something kicked her directly in her back. She slammed into a barrel face first, lip splitting from the force. Blood smeared down her chin and onto the collar of her coat, staining it permanently. She spat some out as she turned around, hands slipping on the ice. She looked up, blinking back some of the fuzziness that had sprung up when she hit her head, and screamed.

An orc, larger than she ever remembered the being, shoved a knife at her, aiming for her stomach. She scrambled out of the way just in time, barely catching the end with the loose fabric of her shirt where her jacket didn't cover it. She crawled backwards as fast as she could, narrowly avoiding more blows from the orc. She kicked her legs out, catching the orc's ankle hard enough to slow it down. She used a nearby rail to pull herself up before she bolted.

The orc followed her, grunting like a morbidly obese pig. Emelia sprinted down the walkway, glancing over her shoulder every other second. The orc was almost twice her size and was quickly outstripping her. She wrapped her hand around a loose wooden rail, using it to spin around a corner. She underestimated how much she weighed, apparently. It snapped in half, throwing her off balance and slowing her down enough for the orc to catch her.

Its knife sliced her across the back before she could jump away from it. The jagged weapon snagged her skin, cutting through the layers just enough to make blood gush out. Out of reflex she swung the broken piece of railing around, catching the orc in the side of the head. It staggered and fell to the side, stumbling over its own feet and the ice. She lifted the piece of wood up like a baseball bat, ready to hit it again. Her back screamed, her muscles almost unable to support the weight of her arms and her makeshift weapon, as she waited for the orc to attack her again. She steeled herself, moving towards the orc cautiously. It lurched, unable to stay balanced on the thick sheet of ice on the wooden ground, and fell sideways.

It impaled itself on the broken railing, bones making a horrendous crunching noise that drowned out her own involuntary gag. The orc's arms twitched for a second as the creature struggled to remove itself before it started gagging on its own black blood. It stilled after a moment. The blood seeped out of its mouth and dripped onto the white ice, pooling in a steamy puddle that made Emelia sick to look at.

She dropped the makeshift bat next to her, hissing at the pain in her back. She dropped down to her knees and backed towards the side of a building, out of sight of anything but the dead orc. Not that it could see her, even if its eyes were still open. She reached her hands up to her back, tears slipping out of her eyes.

She could feel where the cut was through her torn shirt. It was a mess. Sharp and mangled, warm and excruciatingly painful.

The sound of the orc's blood dripping onto the ice was the only thing she could hear. She knew that she needed to get back to Fili, Oin, Kili, and Bofur, who she expected was back by now. She tried to sit up, reaching forward to grab the bloody piece of wood to use as a cane. Her hands slipped, sending unbearable pings of pain that practically immobilized her.

She knew this was her fault. Like it was the universes way of punishing her. Maybe for being mean, or selfish, or petty. She shouldn't have put those walnuts under Kili's head, just like she shouldn't have blamed him for being so stubborn. Maybe this was for insisting on going to Erebor when she knew she had no place going, not with all the trouble she caused. It could have been for not telling her parents that she loved them enough, or for resenting them and their lack of funds to send her to college. This was her fault for being so ungrateful, for not appreciating what she had.

She leaned forward, squeezing the rail so that she could stand up once again.

A noise to her left set her on high alert. She hoped it wasn't an orc, but she didn't allow her hopes to get too high. Where there was one, there was probably two or three or thirty. She was finally able to stand up, only to have her vision blur. She told herself that the cut wasn't that bad, unaware of how much like Kili she was in that moment. She leaned against the wall, depositing a streak of blood that she wasn't able to prevent onto the sidding, and pulled the rail closer to her body. It was all she had, as crude and dull as it was.

A soft padding sounded just above her, softer than any orc would be.

When a shape dropped down in front of her she did the only thing she could think of and kicked the person, or orc, straight in the stomach. The person only took half a step back before they advanced on her.

"Emelia?"

The kick was about all she had left in her and she sunk back, avoiding touching her back to anything.

"Emelia, look at me."

She blinked rapidly trying to decide if she was really seeing Legolas or if it was someone less handsome and her mind was filling in the rest.

"Legolas, hi." She slurred a bit. "What are you doing," She chocked back a wad of thick spit. "Why are you…"

"What happened to you?"

"Nothing. Well, not nothing, but…" Her back panged, sending her bending over at the waist, strangled noise of pain emitting from her involuntarily.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, feather soft and cautious. "Let me see your back."

He turned her around, fingers pulling back the material of her shirt and jacket so that he could see. He sighed heavily. "I'm going to take you back to the dwarves. Tauriel is with them still and she will help you." Emelia tried to say thank you but the words came out as nothing more than a garbled mess. She felt him pick her up. She clutched the rail to her chest, closing her eyes for a moment. Just a moment was all she needed and then she would be able to find those poppy seeds for Kili. And maybe a few for herself, if there was enough.

Legolas was a good walker. He was steady and graceful and didn't jostle her too much.

Something stopped Legolas after a short walk. He stood there for a moment, causing Emelia to peer up at him through heavily hooded eyes. "Why are you…"

Emelia could've gone a lifetime without being tackled by another orc. This one was a particular kind of asshole, with the way it ran into Legolas, sending her crashing to the ground for the second time that night. Her back hit first, which was really all that mattered to her, sending her into a pain induced stupor. She started crying, rolling so that she was off her back and on her stomach. The place where she her shirt had been cut by the first orc was open to the ice, the coldness washing over her and adding to the pain that was wracking her body. She dared to look up at Legolas, to see if he was alright, only to see him chasing after three orcs that had appeared out of nowhere. She watched his blonde hair until it was gone from her sight, leaving her alone one the ground. She fought the blackness in the corner of her eyes, feeling herself relaxing into the cold wood even if she didn't want to.

Poppy seeds, she needed to get poppy seeds.

Someone needed poppy seeds and her mind was making it harder and harder to remember who for.

She closed her eyes for a moment. Just a moment.

Or longer than a moment.

She blinked, lifting her face up only enough to not cause back pain. She knew she needed to get up, for some reason, she needed to get up. The pain was unbearable, but she moved, pushing herself until she was sitting, and then standing, and then walking. If she looked at it like a series of little steps, she wouldn't fall back to the ground. Legolas was forgotten from her mind. He was chasing down orcs and she couldn't wait for him. She might die if she waited for him, her brain was able enough to tell her that much at least.

She would die in the cold if she waited. She might be dying in the cold anyway.

She walked about ten feet before the ground started rumbling again, more violently than before in Bard's house. That was tame compared to this tremor. Like child's play. This sent barrels rolling into the water, large sheets of ice sliding off the roofs and into the water, small boats rocking on the dark water. The wood that made up the town creaked and groaned as the vibrations racked the buildings, cracking some of the weaker wood.

Oh right, Emelia remembered something very important in her haze.

There was a dragon coming.

The ground shook again.

"Well shit."

Welp. That's all I have until the next movie. I hope you guys don't hate me too much for the cliffhanger, but hopefully it will draw you back in for the third part! Speaking of which, I have already started working on it so it will be extra good when BOFA comes out. I know I say this a lot, and I'm sure you're all tired of hearing this by now, but literally every single review I get makes writing this that much more worthwhile. I don't write this for myself, I write it for you guys so the support has just made it a truly fun and rewarding experience!

So long story short, thank you all and I can't wait until December!

Bis dann!