AN: Hello and welcome to the last chapter in Part One of The Second Time, otherwise known as The Hobbit: Unexpected Journey! I hope you are still entertained!

For any who missed the update last week, I have surgery the first of my surgeries tomorrow. So I might need to take another break from posting, although I will be doing my best to write, as I will be healing and kinda drugged and trying to lighten the burden of a family member who is dealing with brain cancer. I apologize to you, my already incredibly patient readers and followers who are only just getting used to me updating on the regular again.

I have a question for you though. On my last break from posting, I wrote like mad just not on either story I was supposed to be updating. Would you like sneak peeks? Or just save it until those are ready for posting?

JR

P.S. I do hope I'm bridging the gap between the book and the movie well enough. I have strong opinions about both, which I hope aren't bleeding through into the Saga, and I'm hoping I smooth out just a bit of what ruffled my feathers.

Post Summary:

Azog and Sherilynn finds her voice on her own.

Like, Subscribe, Favorite, Follow, Kudos and Review,

Much Love

JR

P.s. P-atreon and Ko-fi update: Why aren't there tiers and goals yet on either? Mainly because I'm trying to get used to writing regularly on them. I don't want to promise my patrons something and not be able to deliver. So I'm working on building slowly and getting my routine down, then I will be doing some patron-only content like polls for story design and personalized thank-yous and inspiration videos or packages that contain some of the things that inspire each story and other various things. Maybe even some world-building polls. I dunno. I'm winging it. So hang in there with me, I'm still learning, and sign up to follow me so that when the tiers and goals go live you'd be the first to know. (There are 3 tiers up on P-atreon now and a goal up on Ko-fi. I'm working on others.)

Supporter shoutout:

Thank you so much!

Nyx Thranduillion (the ever-patient and kind who I think I tested to the limit with my silence.)

K. Robbins (the ever-faithful.)

The Second Time: Escape Part 4

Sherilynn had never really been a fan of The Hobbit. Lord of The Rings was okay. Cute guys and all in the movie, and her brothers had loved the books so she did know a few things. Granted Kili wasn't that bad to look at and Thorin was super intense, but all in all, she didn't remember many things from the story of the movie.

But Bilbo coming flying out of the trees as if the hounds of hell were on his heels? Only to stop and hear Thorin badmouthing him, and that speech about getting their home back? That was one of the things that stuck. Mainly because it hit home in a way she would have preferred never to unpack. "Gandalf we have to leave. Now!"

The wizard turned to her, his great bushy eyebrows drawing together as he gazed at her abnormally set face. The forest was still around them, not even the birds sang in the trees or the bugs buzzed among their leaves. "I do believe our singer has a point." He murmured, turning again to Thorin.

"We need rest." The future king argued.

Already strapping down anything that might bounce as she ran, Sherilynn snorted. "We need to get out of range before nightfall." Stilling she turned as if pulled by invisible strings just as a screech broke through the air, shattering its stillness. They had been spotted.

"Out of the frying pan," Thorin murmured.

"And into the fire." Gandalf completed. "Run!"

Over rocks and stones, they flew as fast as their feet could carry them. Dodging trees and low hanging as the light quickly faded and night approached, the wargs ever gaining on their heels. One fell by Bilbo and Sting. Another to a great mallet and one to a sword. One to quick dual knives that very nearly sliced through its neck, and one to a violent chop against the stone.

"Up into the trees!" Gandalf ordered. "Climb!"

Rough bark bit into hands already roughened by years of hard labor. Skin tore and bled but no one stopped in their haste. Finding a spot high in the tree where two branches grew at a V, she spun and drew her bow only to catch first proper sight of the wargs that the dwarves and Bilbo hadn't slain in their flight.

They were hideous. Like giant diseased hyenas with dripping jowls, patches of fur missing from their coats, and eyes that shined menacingly in the moonlight.

"We could use a lift Gandalf!" The Singer hissed, steadying her hands as she nocked an arrow. "That's no ordinary Orc on the white one."

"Azog." Thorin gasped, his face slack and eyes wide.

"Do you smell it?" The great voice rumbled in the dark speech of the orcs, echoing off the stone to them on the cliff. "The scent of fear. I remember your father reeked of it, Thorin son of Thraine."

"Don't listen Thorin," Sherilynn ordered, using the voice she remembered her father using on recruits that he trained. "He's only trying to get to you. Your father is, was, and always has been one of the bravest dwarves alive. Stay where you are!"

Spotting them in the trees, Azog brought us his mace in his scarred claw of a hand and pointed it right at the future king. "That one is mine." He told the wargs. "Kill the others."

An arrow flew.

Spinning to avoid it, Azog's cheek bloomed with dark blood from the corner of his lips to his ear that dripped quickly down his neck and chest.

But she didn't have time to see his response for the wargs began their attack. Leaping at the base of the tree they could only get to the lower limbs but couldn't climb. But neither did the dwarves dare to lean down and stick them with their blades for how the creatures made the trees shake. Snapping powerful jaws at the branches and trunks, they ripped and snapped pieces off while Azog egged them on.

"Move!" Gandalf yelled as he heard the first tree's roots begin to snap. "Through the branches!"

The trees fell like dominoes under the assault until only the last stood at the very edge of the cliff. "We could use a distraction Gandalf!" And a moment later the fire began.

And a song began beating its tattoo in her brain. "Be careful making wishes in the dark." Unrelenting. "Can't be sure when they've hit their mark." Unwavering. "Gonna need a spark to ignite." Almost screaming at her to give it voice into the air so that it could work its own will. "My songs know what you did in the dark," Sherilynn whispered, her voice unused to the strain. "So light 'em up!"

Fallen trees burst into flame.

"Fili!" A lit pine cone fell from above and she could feel her companions scrambling for their own munitions. And the night began to rain fire at the vile creatures. Several ran with their fur aflame, some with arrows piercing their hides. More than a few could not.

Azog roared at the retreat.

But just as the males around her began to crow their triumph the tree, unused to the strain of holding dwarves a hobbit a singer and a Maiar, cracked and finally gave way under the weight of them all. "Dori!"

"Mr. Gandalf!"

Turning his gaze to the orc that like an impatient ghoul for their demise, despair and anger churned in Thorin's belly and it turned to rage. If he was going to die, it would be fighting. Not cowering on a branch waiting for death to take him.

"Oakenshield!" The singer's voice rang distantly in his ear as he picked up a hollowed branch to used like his namesake and began running along the trunk.

Steps away from his adversary, Thorin fell to his back as the Warg leapt for his head and went sailing over. He had barely made it back to his feet by the time his attacker was on him again, their mace meeting his chin in a devastating blow that sent him reeling.

Dwarves long used to battle and war screamed to their fallen king, scrambling on breaking branches to get to him. To help him. To die with him. But they could find no purchase as the warg clamped Thorin in his jaws and bit. Only the shield of wood preventing his teeth from penetrating the would-be king's chest.

It was the little hobbit who gained his feet first. A kind of insanity gripping him as he made his way into danger.

Not giving up, Thorin slammed the hilt of his blade down onto the warg's great snout with a vicious crack and went flying to the stones where he lay unable to move.

"Bring me the Dwarf's head." Azog almost purred to his Second who was only too happy to comply.

Once. Twice the sharpness of his blade tapped Thorin's neck as the fallen warrior strained for his blade. But just as he was about to bring it down a tiny body slammed into his side sending him rolling to the ground.

Throwing the tiny body off he pulled his arm back, ready to strike the little pest who took away his victory. But the pest stung first. Once to the hand. Again to the chest. And again, as deep as it could until its stinger was felt. And the Second moved no more.

Standing alone, so scared he could have wet himself, Bilbo swung wildly to ward off the giants who stalked toward him in the dark. Shadows danced along their bodies from the flames, making them seem larger than ever before. But he held his ground. If they wanted his friend, they were going to have to get through him first. Even if that would only take them a second.

"Kill him."

But Bilbo wasn't alone.

From the flames came yells of rage that nearly blinded their makers. Flashing swords and axes caught the wargs in their sides and pushed them back. But Azog kept advancing on the hobbit with single-minded determination. His pale eyes almost glowing in the darkness as Bilbo's wide-eyed focus never left him.

Until a screech rent the air in two. Then a second. Then a third.

Wargs yelped as talons longer than a human arm dug into their ribs and legs, stilling them with a single squeeze as they were lifted off the cliff. And Azog watched in open-mouthed horror when they were dropped like discarded toys off the mountain, stunned. Trees toppled around him, pinning others until their trunks. Great eagles fanned the flames with great flaps of their wings until all in their path was ablaze. More were thrown and the army of the wargs turned in confusion to run.

Thorin was rescued by the chieftain of the eagles himself while Azog screamed in his defeat.

And from the darkness, another small present to remember the encounter was given him. In the form of an arrow, straight and true, to the shoulder.

"Damn." Sherilynn cursed quietly. "I missed."

"Not enough experience shooting from the back of a great eagle I expect." Balin groused, his eyes trained on the eagle that held his king as gently as a freshly laid egg while the eagles flew through the night and into the predawn light before they circled and dropped their cargo on their high mountain eerie.

Kneeling at the fallen dwarf's side, Gandalf called his name before muttering words as the rest of them landed and waited, scarcely breathing, to see if he would live or die.

"The halfling?" He murmured as soon as his eyes opened beneath the weathered old hand.

"It's alright." He answered, straightening old and creaking knees. "Bilbo is here. We all are. It's quite safe."

Sooner than anyone thought he should be, Thorin pushed to his shaking feet with the aid of his nephews. "What were you doing?" He asked as soon as he was steady. "You nearly got yourself killed!" He scowled.

Shocked, Bilbo was still. A burden. Not survive. Those words rang in his ears like the great bells of Hobbiton. No place among them. Did Thorin really think that way still? Didn't he just risk his life for this dwarf? Didn't he just prove, without any concern for himself, that he would fight for them? Die for them if necessary, he wondered as Thorin drew ever closer.

"I have never been so wrong," pulling the hobbit into his arms the dwarf almost wept, "in all my life." Pulling back to look the smaller male in the eye Thorin breathed out his gratitude on words that would not be stayed. "I am sorry I doubted you."

But the singer didn't hear any of that. Or any of what followed. She stared off in the distance at a single mountain that stood all by itself in the lightening pink sky of dawn, a sense of foreboding pooling within her even as the hobbit smiled and said "I do believe the worst is behind us."

He just had to say it out loud, didn't he?

Song Credits:

My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark - Fall Out Boy