Authors Note: This story has been years in the making. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I have loved writing it.

Kill Your Heroes

Chapter 1

It was today. It was today.

Marigold Bolger mimed her way through the day, her thoughts far from the weeds in the garden, far from Mrs. Bungul, the friendly baker, far from the last dinner she shared with her parents. One lone thought hammered away in her head.

She was leaving today.

Her stomach turned violently in some mixture of excitement and anxiety. And anger—an ever burning anger.

Resentment smoldered in her chest. Even after all these years, she had never fully accepted her place in this world and what she had to do. The ache had never gone away—the ache for her family, for her friends, for her life, for her world.

She hated, but she didn't know who or what to hate. Instead, she hated everything. She hated whatever being had put her there. She hated her parents who did their best to raise a child who wasn't truly theirs. She hated Gandalf for not being able to send her home. She hated herself for being too small and too soft. She hated the Shire for being too green, too rural, and too not home.

But more than anything, she hated Thorin bloody Oakenshield.

He was the reason she had been dragged into this shitty situation, into this strange world. She was here to clean up his fuckup. He would fall to the dragon sickness, refuse help from the elves and men of Dale, and then get himself and his nephews killed.

Oh, how she hated him.

Her blood pumped faster; her hands trembled.

She took a deep breath to calm down. She needed to focus.

She grabbed her pack and began to take everything out, making neat piles of all her belongings.

Two extra tunics; two pairs of pants; five pairs of socks; five pairs of undergarments; a thick outer layer for when they reached the Misty Mountains; an extra cloak for the downpour after Bree; a sturdy, scratchy blanket to sleep on; rips of cloth for her monthlies; a comb; an old pot Belba wouldn't miss; all the coins she had left; a week's worth of dried meat and fruit; a slab of cheese; a water skin she swiped from Rudigar; a bright blue ribbon Belba had given her for her tenth birthday.

And that was it.

She stared at the small piles a moment more before she began repacking it all. She had gone through the same process nine times already that day.

Finished, Marigold sat back and looked at the bag that held everything she owned in the world. The sight stirred something inside her: a boiling mixture of excitement and sadness.

She glanced once more at the crack under her door. It had been almost an hour since the light had disappeared, which meant it had been an hour since Rudigar had retired. She had given him ample time to settle into bed and fall asleep. She could not put it off any longer.

She stood and patted herself down one last time. The two short swords from the twins were strapped securely to her waist. A smaller sheathed hunting knife was tucked into the children's boots she had bought off some confused traders from Bree. A kitchen knife hid under her trousers on her thigh she hoped Belba wouldn't miss.

She didn't have much to work with, and she wasn't even sure if the hidden knives would help, but she felt safer with them on her nonetheless. And quite a bit more badass. She was going to need all the false bravado she could get.

With one more lingering look around her bedroom, her sanctuary for the last thirty odd years, she crept out into the hall with her pack slung over her shoulders. She paused and held her breath. Not a sound. She moved down the hall to the round front door but hesitated on the threshold.

Once she stepped outside, there was no turning back. Her hand trembled.

"Marigold?"

Her heart nearly exploded. She begged any god listening to let her be imagining her voice.

"Marigold?" Belba repeated, voice raspy from sleep.

She turned around slowly and found Rudigar and Belba standing in their bedroom door, clad in night gowns. Their faces twisted in confusion.

Marigold steeled herself.

"I'm leaving," she said simply.

"Leaving? Leaving where?" Belba questioned.

She spoke tonelessly. "I have something I have to do." Maybe if her voice sounded heartless enough, she could trick herself into not feeling anything.

"What are you talking about, Marigold? It is the middle of night. It is not a proper time to be leaving anywhere," Rudigar reasoned.

"I'm not going back to bed. I'm leaving tonight, and I am not coming back."

Belba's face fell. Her mouth opened and closed in soundless confusion, but Rudigar's countenance grew stern.

"This is preposterous. You cannot just leave, Marigold," Rudigar argued—a normal reaction when thinking your barely adult daughter was sneaking out to romp about the countryside doing god-knows-what. However, in this case Marigold was mentally older than both of her "parents" and most definitely not romping about anywhere.

"I have to," she said.

Tears began making a shiny trail down Belba's face.

"Please, Marigold, please," Belba begged, but Marigold didn't think she even knew what she was asking for. Marigold simply shook her head.

Marigold wondered if it was a mother's intuition that made her realize the gravity of the situation. Rudigar had yet to catch on.

"Now, Marigold, you have given your mother and I a terrible fright. Nothing can be so important that you must sneak away like a thief in the night. You will return to your room, and we will discuss this madness in the morning over a nice cup of tea. As my father used to say, rash decisions are always regretted."

"There's nothing rash about this. I've been planning this moment for years. Don't make this harder than it needs to be. I'm leaving, and that is final."

"Y-years?" Rudigar stammered. His confusion turned to indignation. "You are our daughter, and you will do as I say!" he shouted.

Marigold snapped.

"I am not your daughter!"

Her head snapped to the side.

Rudigar breathed heavily, arm outstretched as the slap burned into her cheek. Marigold was dumbfounded. In all these years, Rudigar had never once raised a hand to her. Belba let out a great sob from behind him.

"How could you say such a thing?" he demanded.

A tidal wave of anger washed away her shock. "I am not your daughter, and I never have been!" she yelled.

Hurt colored their faces.

She took deep heaving breaths and tried to get a grip on this train wreck of a conversation. "Look, this couldn't have come as a surprise. You had to have realized it at some point. I was never a normal child."

She said the words and knew the only person she was fooling was herself. Rudigar and Belba never treated her as anything less than their own child, but she selfishly held on to the hope that somewhere, some part of them realized she was not theirs so that she would not feel so damn guilty leaving them.

Belba sank to the floor, gasping beneath her tears.

"Marigold, do you see what you're doing to your mother! Stop this madness!" Rudigar cried.

"She is not my mother. And you are not my father." Her heart felt as if it were going to burst. "I am leaving, and I am never coming back." she told them stonily.

Rudigar reached out again, but Marigold was quicker. In one motion she drew her left sword and held it as a warning in front of her. True fear shown in Rudigar's eyes, and something in her chest shattered.

"You will not touch me again."

She reached behind her and opened the door to her home of the last thirty years.

"It's better this way. I promise." She told them softly. It was better that they hated her. Better that they thought her a monster. "Have another child. It won't be like me. It will be yours from the beginning. Fate could not be so cruel as to give you another monster."

She closed the door and took off at a sprint into the night, tears wetting her cheeks.

Hours later, she stood in front of a familiar round door. She had not been there since Belladona had died nearly ten years ago.

Bag End.

She had thought of this moment for the last twenty-five years. Countless scenarios had been considered. In one version, she was mysterious and allusive, sneaking in and scaring them all. They would all immediately realize how vital it was that she be on their quest.

In another, she would not speak at all, just rush the nearest dwarf with her daggers. They would have a good fight, which she of course would win, and they would all be impressed with her swordsmanship. They then would insist on having such an experienced fighter on their side.

But the Marigold who dreamed of these scenes in the comfort of her warm hobbit bed was very different from the Marigold who stood on Bilbo's lawn in the dark. This Marigold had just forsaken the only two people who had ever cared for her in this world so that she could traipse across the world with a bunch of strangers, most likely getting herself killed in the process.

The calm, collected version of herself she had imagined standing before Bag End did not exist. She was exhausted from running across what felt like half the Shire for hours and mentally strained from a cry fest that lasted nearly as long. To make matters worse half of her face had swelled up like a balloon. She was sure there had to be another moment in her life when she had felt this shitty, but none were coming to mind.

Lights were still shining in the windows, which likely meant everyone was still up. She knew the meeting took place late at night and that the leader of the company did not arrive until much later, but she still wasn't sure she'd make it before everyone had passed out. In fact, for the last hour, she had prayed no one would be awake to see her dirt, sweat, and snot covered person. This was about to be the worst first impression in the history of the Middle Earth. Maybe her Earth too.

Screw it, she thought finally. She would collapse right on the doorstep if she stayed there any longer.

So she knocked.

Moments passed before she heard the sound of steps approaching the door. There was a certain hesitance to them, and she almost considered taking the chance to run away.

Before she could bolt, the door swung open, and the slightly aged face of her cousin appeared.

Bilbo did a double and then a triple take before he was able to speak. "Marigold?" His jaw dropped to somewhere around his knees.

She shouldered her way past him partly to get into the warmth of the house and more so to deflect all his questions onto Gandalf, who was hopefully close by.

"Marigold, what on earth are you doing here?" Bilbo demanded. "Do your parents know where you are at this hour? And where did you get those swords?"

She dropped her pack by the pile of weapons in the entryway and did her best to wholly ignore Bilbo's flapping.

She knew Bilbo must be losing his mind when she spotted the dirt and mud tracked all over the foyer. Poor hobbit. It's only going to go downhill from there.

By the time she had finished folding her cloak neatly on top of her pack, dwarves were crawling out of the woodwork, a loud stomping mass of leather, metal, and hair. She tried counting them to make sure they were all present, but when Gandalf ducked into the hall, he consumed her vision.

"Marigold!" he greeted warmly. He bent down and wrapped her in a tight hug which, she reluctantly admitted to herself, she sorely needed.

Gandalf pulled back and gave her a once over. "My, you sure have grown since I last saw you. Quite a handsome hobbit lass if one were to ask me," he teased, well aware of her feelings about her new body. He gave a slight squeeze to the muscles on her arms. "Stronger too, if I may be so bold."

"You always are," she tried to say in exasperation, but the relief she felt at being in his presence was overwhelming.

"You know each other?" Bilbo spoke up but was ignored when a voice boomed out over the chatter of the hallway.

"Gandalf, what is the meaning of this?" The tight space of the entryway amplified the demand, and all talk abruptly stopped.

Without looking, Marigold knew who had just spoken, and she tensed. Gandalf sent her a sharp look of warning before turning back to the watching crowd, his charisma in full force.

"May I present Marigold Bolger, cousin of our dear Bilbo here," Gandalf declared, as if that actually answered anything at all.

"Another hobbit?" came an exasperated voice, somewhere from the left of the group. Another round of murmurs began.

"And just what is she doing here?" the same booming voice asked.

Marigold stepped out from behind Gandalf. "She is right here. You may ask me yourself."

She finally made eye contact with the dwarf in question and saw red. He cut an imposing figure, a proud tilt to his shoulders, a severe brow, and a dark scowl. The blue hood and gold chain made his identity impossible to deny.

It was Thorin Fucking Oakenshield.

Piercing eyes shifted to Marigold. He barely hid a sneer at her appearance, clearly unimpressed with what he saw.

"What is your purpose here, girl?" His voice dripped with condescension.

A small part of her cowered under his stare, which caused the rest of her to take up arms.

She drew herself up to full height. "I am the sixteenth member of this company," she declared haughtily.

A crash of protests broke upon the hallway.

"Absolutely not! You are barely even an adult!"

"One outsider is enough! How many strays will we take on?"

"The wild is no place for a woman!"

"Shall we be adding children to our numbers next?"

The only dwarf with a white beard stepped forward. "Gandalf, surely this is a mistake?" His question made the others fall silent.

"There is no mistake, Master Balin. You have asked for my assistance on this quest, and I am providing you with such."

"The hobbit was enough. I will not have another liability on this quest," Thorin argued.

"She is most definitely not going anywhere. She is not even of age!" cried Bilbo.

Marigold finally lost it. She rounded on her cousin. "Shut up, Bilbo!" she hissed.

She turned back and stomped towards the crowd of dwarves. She got as close as she could stand to Thorin Oakenshield.

"And, you." Had she not seen a blonde dwarf reach for a dagger at her approach, she would have likely stabbed a finger at his chest. "I will be damned if I am told I am not coming from the likes of you!"

Thorin looked at her in a way that made it clear had she been male, she would have found herself summarily decked.

"The likes of me?" he replied, indignant. "I am the leader of this company."

She scoffed. "I have been preparing for this quest long before you even knew there was a key."

He looked her up and down and let out a dark laugh. "The girl is mad," he declared turning back to the other dwarves.

"Mad—you want to speak of madness, Thorin Oakenshield?"

He whipped around so fast his coat brushed her shins. Thorin's countenance became thunderous. "Do not speak of things beyond you," he hissed.

"Make me," she challenged.

"Enough!" bellowed Gandalf.

He grabbed Marigold by the shoulder and dragged her back.

"You," he turned on Marigold. "I do not know what has caused such an ill-mannered temper, but until it passes, you will keep your mouth firmly shut," his voice lowered to a hush, "and until I have repaired the damage your foolish tongue has done."

Gandalf turned back to address Thorin. "Despite her current foul temperament, Marigold is probably the greatest ally you may have on your quest. Greater than myself, in fact."

A tall tattooed dwarf snorted. "The creature is as big around as my arm. If you look at her wrong she'd topple over."

Marigold growled.

"Wizard, I refuse to be mocked," Thorin warned.

Gandalf looked affronted. "You once asked for my assistance. Does my word now mean so little?"

"It is your judgement I am questioning. First the grocer and now a woman? You make a mockery of our quest."

Balin cleared his throat and sidestepped Gandalf. He addressed Marigold directly. "Just what can you possibly do for us, lass?"

All eyes turned to her. She stared stubbornly back, crossing her arms.

"Oh, am I permitted to speak now?"

Gandalf groaned, "Marigold…"

"Since I am so ill-mannered, why don't you explain, Gandalf?" she snarked.

The wizard heaved a great sigh.

"Marigold is a seer," he said simply. A beat of silence passed before an explosion of talk sounded.

"A what?"

"What's that mean?"

"Witchcraft is what it is! Get behind me, Ori."

"She does look a little queer, don't you think, Fili?"

Gandalf raised his voice above the talk. "She knows the future of your quest." The voices simmered down. "She has known for a long time now—long before plans were ever made, truthfully."

"That is impossible," Thorin stated.

"Unlikely, but not impossible."

"I do not believe it," the tattooed dwarf declared.

Gandalf was well and truly annoyed now. "Whether you believe it or not does not matter, Master Dwalin. It's the truth, nonetheless."

Dwalin stepped forward challenging. "Oh, and what proof do we have? How do we know she is not some trickster attempting to take a piece of the treasure for herself?"

Marigold sneered. "There is nothing in this world that appeals to me less than your cursed gold."

"I hear no proof."

Marigold was ready to rip out her hair. "For god's sake, where do you think the bloody key came from?" she shouted.

Gandalf interjected before she got herself hit.

"I came to Marigold twenty-two years ago. She was but a child, barely eight winters old. She told me of a quest of thirteen dwarves to retake their home. And she foretold that sometime in the future I would meet a dwarf who no longer remembered his own name, but would implore me to give a key to his son. I was to go to her then, and she would tell me who he was," Gandalf explained.

"Years passed and the comment had almost faded from my mind, but then I found myself in the dungeons of Dol Guldur. There, a dwarf, on the brink of death, handed me a key. I returned to her then. This was five winters ago. Marigold told me that the dwarf was Thrain, heir to the kingdom of Erebor. And the son he spoke of was you, Thorin Oakenshield, who I could find in the Blue Mountains. Without her guidance, I am uncertain I would have ever known the key belonged to you."

Marigold kept her mouth shut at that. Gandalf would have eventually figure it out himself, but a little indebtedness never hurt anyone.

"Truly, the key would have never made it to your hands, Thorin, if not for her. I would have had no reason to search you out."

A hush fell over the group. It seemed as if they turned as one to look to Thorin for guidance. If he was shocked by the story, he hid it well. His face stayed resolutely unmoved.

"Then she has served her purpose." Marigold had to bite her tongue to keep from lashing out. "What reason does she have to join us? The wild is no place for soft beings."

Marigold bristled. "Soft? You do not know me, Oakenshield. And don't you dare to presume otherwise. As far as my purpose, it's none of your business."

"I am the leader of this company."

"So you keep reminding us…" she mumbled.

Thorin continued as if she had said nothing. "The safety of this company is my business."

"Safety?" she replied. "You are leading these dwarves across Middle Earth to win back a mountain of gold from a dragon. Do not pretend to care about their safety."

Marigold watched with satisfaction as Thorin ground his teeth. "Smaug has not been seen in many years. He is presumed dead."

She smiled darkly at him. "Oh, he is very much alive."

Dwalin butted in. "How can we trust anything she tells us? She could tell us any sort of lies to slip her way on the quest."

Marigold ignored him and stared Thorin down. "If you truly care about their safety then you would seize any possible advantage that comes your way. I am the best chance you have at all of them surviving this quest."

She should have stopped there. She should have kept her damn mouth shut, but she couldn't help getting on more jab in.

"And even if you tell me no, I know the route you will take. I will follow you regardless."

She could hear Gandalf practically facepalm in the background. Yells of outrage rolled through the room like thunder.

Marigold smiled sardonically at the sight. "I'll be outside when you come to a decision."

She then turned and marched outside, slamming the door behind her.

"Thorin, you can't possibly be thinking of letting the girl come, can you?" Dwalin demanded.

Thorin stood staring stonily at the closed door.

"Of course he is not. Such a slight thing would not survive a day in the wild," Gloin declared.

"Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea," Bofur put forth. "I mean, if she can truly see the future, we should be able to avoid all sorts of danger with her help."

"It will not matter if she gets herself killed before that," Oin countered.

"We could protect her," Kili volunteered. Fili elbowed him.

"We will have enough trouble watching each other's backs," Dori argued.

"Dwalin, Balin," Thorin barked. "With me." He nodded his head towards the parlor.

They followed without pause and closed the door behind them.

Dwalin spoke first. "You're not seriously entertaining the idea?"

Thorin sat heavily in the chair by the fire and crossed his hands under his chin. He gazed into the fire for a long moment before speaking.

"Balin, what say you?"

Balin gave his beard a few strokes. "It rests on whether you believe she is speaking the truth or not." Dwalin opened his mouth to comment, but Thorin held up a hand. "But to doubt her," Balin continued, "is to doubt Gandalf, and I do not believe he would lead us astray after all of this."

"So you believe her to be a seer?" Dwalin accused.

"I believe Gandalf when he says he believes her to be a seer," Balin countered.

"So you would have me bring a female into the depths of the wild to face a dragon?" Thorin challenged.

Balin huffed. "I would not have you take on this quest to begin with. You have done right by our people. We have a good life in the Blue Mountains."

Thorin remained silent, and Balin sighed. "I know there is no changing your mind on this matter. We will help you the best we can, but I am afraid it will not be enough. There are few warriors among us…" He stopped and chose his next words carefully. "It is selfish of me, but I would like to see you alive on the far side of this errand. If bringing that lass with us across Middle Earth improves those odds, then I would see it done," Balin declared.

Dwalin's mouth opened, but just as quickly snapped shut. He instead simply huffed and crossed his arms. Thorin turned back to the fire. They stood watching its flames chase the wind.

Finally, Thorin stood and walked to the door. He paused first to lay a heavy hand on Balin's shoulder. "Then I will see it done."

Marigold was having a nervous breakdown.

She didn't know what had happened, but the moment she had laid eyes on Thorin Oakenshield, all common sense left her. Her blood boiled just thinking that he was the reason she had been taken from her family. And then he wanted to tell her she wasn't coming on the quest? Her entire purpose in this stupid world was to go on the damn quest! What about seer did they not understand? What more do they want? A handwritten note from Aule?

She took a moment to imagine stripping down for them to see the mark on her back. Regardless of how hilarious their reactions would be, she could not imagine that ending well for anyone. Even she still spent a majority of the time pretending it did not exist.

She flopped onto the damp ground and screamed into the earth. She didn't stop until her lungs screamed for air, and then she sputtered for the next minutes trying to get the dirt out of her mouth.

Her anger drained, she lay her head down and breathed in the smell of Bilbo's garden. The cold earth soothed her swollen cheek.

She had lied. Even though she knew the route the company was going to take, there was no way she could survive by herself in the wilderness of Middle Earth. She had never gone camping (the elves' version did not count—the tents they set up were nicer than her apartment back home), and she did not know the first thing about navigating terrain or tracking or hunting. If they did not let her go with them, the last thirty years would have been for nothing.

The hurt faces of Rudigar and Belba flashed through her mind. All that pain would have been for nothing.

She curled into a ball. She wanted to disappear.

The door opened and closed from afar, but Marigold could not bring herself to look up.

"Well, my dear, you certainly make for a pathetic site."

Marigold wished that the middle finger meant something in Middle Earth because she wanted nothing more than to flick Gandalf off.

"I never imagined your meeting with the company going over particularly well; however, I also never imagined it going so poorly."

"If you're trying to make me feel better, you're doing a right terrible job."

Gandalf huffed. "I feel no need to make you feel better about your own mistakes. You put a great deal at risk with your performance, just now."

Marigold shot up. "I'm doing my best!" she exploded. "I didn't get a bloody guide book on 'how to convince strangers you know the future and are here to save them so would they please let you come on their super-secret quest'!"

The wizard stared at her unamused. "You had twenty-five years to prepare for this meeting."

"I know that!" She began ripping up grass in frustration. "Don't you think I don't know that? This has been my life, Gandalf! My life for the last quarter of a century! I've thought of nothing else!

"When I dream, I see the quest. I see Smaug; I see the battle; I see them dying. I wake, and I think of nothing but preparing and training and planning."

"Then why jeopardize it?"

She threw her hands in the air, a shower of grass following. "I don't know! I just saw Thorin, and I-" she cut herself off. Her voice got quiet. "There's things about him you don't understand, and I can't tell you. I just-"

The green door creaked open again.

Both Gandalf and Marigold turned to see Thorin standing in the threshold.

"Girl, come. We have much to discuss," Thorin commanded before stomping back into Bag End.

Marigold sputtered in a strange combination of shock and indignation.

"Well, I do believe this is a good sign," Gandalf beamed. He motioned to the door. "After you."

Marigold scrambled up, brushing the dirt and grass off with limited success. This time when she entered, the entryway was empty. She followed the murmur of voices to the dining room, but, before she could walk in, a hand caught her arm and jerked her back.

She did not know how she had missed his hulking frame lurking in the hallway, but she did not miss how he used his size to intimidate her.

Thorin leaned down to harshly whisper in her ear.

"If you endanger this company in any way, I will be the first to strike you down," he threatened.

He then let go of her arm as if it had burned him and marched ahead of her into the dining room.

Heart beating its way out of her chest, Marigold realized that this was the first time in this life she was well and truly afraid of another person. In all honesty, she had never actually been threatened by anyone in either lives.

Just what the hell was she getting herself into?

She swallowed the lump in her throat and squared her shoulders, marching into the room with her head held high.

All thirteen dwarves sat around the table with Thorin imposing and dominating at the head. She resisted rolling her eyes at the sight.

"The hobbit woman will be accompanying us," Thorin announced with a finality to his voice that denied all protest. Many traded surprised looks nonetheless.

Balin caught her eye and gave her a sad look. "I expect I will have to draw up another contract then."

"No," Marigold shook her head. "I want no piece of the treasure."

Balin turned to Thorin for guidance.

"Have her sign a contract forfeiting any right to the gold," Thorin told him.

Marigold did roll her eyes this time. "How many times do I have to say that I don't want your cursed gold," she grumbled.

A dwarf with a goofy looking hat gave her crooked smile. "Aye, we dwarves are a distrustful lot. Better to just accept it and move on then dwell."

She took an instant liking to him. He was the first dwarf to speak to her without accusing her of being a witch or a thief.

"Marigold," she said, holding out a hand for him to shake, avoiding the hobbit kiss on the cheek greeting.

"Bofur, at your service," he replied with a cheeky wink. He leaned over to kiss the back of her hand.

"Wait—no!"

He stopped and looked up her horrified. "I didn't mean no offense—"

"No—I just. You're meant to shake it," she explained. "Like this."

She grabbed his hand and positioned it with hers. She gave his a firm squeeze and shake. "Like that, see?"

Bofur looked delighted. "Aye. Is this a hobbit greeting?"

Marigold sputtered for a moment. "Uh—yes, it's a hobbit thing."

She mentally banged her head repeatedly against a wall. First interaction, and she was already mucking it up.

"Oh, I think Bilbo needs help in the kitchen!" she blurted and fled through the nearest doorway.

She found herself in the parlor, an area of the house that appeared mostly untouched by its recent invaders. A strong fire warmed the hearth and cast light on the soft brown and greens of the armchairs.

The room had not changed since she last watched her mother cry upon the sofa after Aunt Belladona's funeral.

Marigold sagged against the nearest wall. She was zero out of three on positive, normal interactions thus far.

"Marigold?"

She closed her eyes. It was about to become zero out of four.

"Yes, Bilbo?" she grimaced.

She turned to find her very cross-looking cousin with arms firmly folded across his chest. His scowl cut deep lines across his face. He would have looked more threatening had he not still been wearing his velvet smoking robe and slippers.

"I believe I deserve an explanation at the very least," he scolded. "What are you possibly thinking accompanying a group of dwarves to fight a dragon?"

"The same as you I imagine," she stated simply.

Bilbo sputtered. "But I am much older, and, well, I am—"

"A male?" she deadpanned.

"Well, yes," he concluded, hands tucking into his robe. "It's just not proper. Which is why I have decided against it. Adventures, quests—no proper hobbit would participate in such a thing. And speaking of proper—do Aunt Belba and Uncle Rudigar even know where you are right now?"

The exhaustion was really beginning to hit Marigold hard, and she just could not be bothered to even try to humor him. "They know I've left."

"And they allowed this?"

Marigold pushed off the wall and faced Bilbo. "They didn't have to allow anything. I was leaving and that was final. No one was going to stop me." She gave him a pointed look. "And no one is going to stop me."

She pushed past him into the hallway. "Now if you don't mind, I'm exhausted. I'm going to find myself a nice chair by the fire to sleep in. We'll talk more tomorrow on the road."

"But I'm not going!" he corrected.

"Uh-huh, of course," she dismissed with a wave of her hand. "Goodnight, Bilbo."