"Impossible," Ori exclaimed, sitting tall astride his pony. "No one could survive a fall into such a deep and dark place. No one!"

"Nay, it is possible," Dwalin said, "If the Bandobin brothers were smart they would catch the fish, sparse as they may be, and boil the water from the underground rivers to drink."

"But even if they had survived, what of the boulders that fall into the Pit? We've all heard the roaring of the avalanches from our chambers. Surely they would have been smashed to bits within the first few days," Kili added. He nudged his pony forward so that it was next to Dwalin's.

Dwalin snorted and his pony did the same. "If they were smart they would have sought shelter as soon as they landed in that cursed place."

"If they were smart, they would not have landed themselves in that predicament in the first place," Balin interjected and Bofur grunted in agreement. He took the stem of his pipe out of his mouth and spat on the ground beneath his pony's feet. "Traitorous, unintelligent filth, they were. Dead or alive, may their souls never rest."

The other Dwarves mumbled their appreciation of his assessment but Ori was not having any of it. "Thorin," he called over the others' shoulders, "What do you think? Are the Bandobin brothers dead or alive?"

"If they survived the descent into the Pit as well as the desolation caused by the dragon, then they are living a life worse than death. As they should."

Nadi heard none of this. Her eyes were trained on the rising and falling back of the Grey Wizard riding before her. She had been shocked and disgusted by the revelation of the Bandobin's deceit at the time, and in any other case she would have agreed with her King, but her mind was currently on other things. She still did not trust the old Wizard. Indeed, she had come to believe that no mere mortal should possess so great a power as that of Magic. How was she to know that he would not lead them astray and enchant their minds, thus turning them into Dwarven slaves? Once, when she was a young Dwarve, a Wizard visiting Erebor (and she was quite sure that it had been Gandalf the Grey) had made a toad appear out of nothing in the palm of her hand. She was certain that some foul trickery had been involved, and that perhaps he had used a piece of her own body to produce the creature. It took many elder Dwarves to silence her thrashing and shouting, and ever since then, she had vowed never to trust a man who found the transmutation of living things amusing.

Then, of course, there had been the Witch in the forest…

She tightened her hands on Bella's reigns and grit her teeth. She had brought her concerns to the company of the Dwarves but they had waved her away, claiming that Gandalf was 'good folk' and 'would never hurt a fly.'

"But he's slain dragons," she had pointed out, quite smartly in her own opinion, "isn't that much worse? What's to say he won't wipe us all out with a click of his wrinkly, smelly heels, hm?"

They had scratched their beards and mumbled their 'maybe's but still maintained that he was 'a necessary addition to the journey.'

Now she watched him with open dislike. She wondered if Wizards possessed heightened senses. Could he perhaps have the hearing of a bat?

"I will not be turned into a toad, Wizard," she hissed in her most menacing and quietest voice.

"What did you say, Nadi?" The Wizard asked and turned slightly in his saddle to observe her. She jumped - I knew it! - and gulped thickly.

"I said…' and what have you to say to the plight of your Burglar?' I assume his absence must be a disappointment to you."

"Not at all!" Gandalf said, turning back around in his saddle. "In fact, I expect that Master Baggins should arrive any minute now. He's just…fashionably late to the party."

"Why the fascination with the Hobbit?" Fili asked, riding along smoothly beside her. She suddenly seemed very focused on a spot far away from his gaze. "Might I assume that you are the one disappointed in his absence?"

"Agh," she coughed and spat implicitly on the ground.

"I saw you two blowing smoke rings on his front lawn," Dwalin piped up and Nadi blushed heavily as the Company, except for Kili, laughed heartily. She could feel the heat of his gaze along the back of her neck.

"Aye," she said, placing her fingers against the base of her skull, "and so what if I did? He's a sight better than you lot. He is…gentle and...inquisitive and has quite nice….skin." She coughed awkwardly and the Dwarves laughed uproariously. "Alright!" She roared over the sound of their laughter. "By any manner, we are at a disadvantage without him."

"Oh?" Thorin spoke up for the first time in a while. He was testing her. She knew that he held nothing but disdain for the tiny creature.

"Aye," she dipped her chin respectfully. "He would have made a fantastic burglar. And, with the right training, he'd have been a formidable opponent." The Dwarves laughed again and she shushed them with an impatient wave of her arm. "It's his size and the way that he moves on his feet. They're large and carry his weight differently - he can take a blow straight to the chest and maintain his balance. That is if you can manage a blow for, despite the size of his feet, he moves like the wind on water."

"It's his SIZE, brother," Kili hissed and Fili chuckled.

She fell silent, as did the rest of the Company as they ruminated over her observation. She worried that perhaps her analysis had verged on overly passionate but she was saved from her anxiety by Gandalf when he said, "Well said, Nadi, I absolutely agree with you. I chose him for those very reasons. That, and Master Baggins is a courageous little fellow, even if he doesn't know it yet."

She startled. Don't agree with me, Wizard, you're a potential enemy, she thought. Then, just to be stubborn, she said loudly, "I bet you your Hobbit will not make an appearance!"

"Do you really, now?" Gandalf said, his one eye gleaming wickedly over his shoulder. Then, in order not to appear big-headed, she produced a bag of coins from beneath her vest and jangled it in the air.

"What do you say, old man? I tell you he is not coming."

"Very well. Any other bets?"

There was a clatter and calamity as the Dwarves called out their assumptions and named their prices as Dori quickly made note of everything. Quite proud of herself, Nadi and her pony pranced daintily in front of the Wizard. She was about to turn and offer up some insult when suddenly they all heard the sound of a small voice hailing them from behind.

"Wait! WAIT!"

The Dwarves came to a clumsy halt and turned to face the newcomer.

"Fer the love of-" Nadi cried and threw up her hands.

"I signed it," the Hobbit said happily, brandishing his contract. Nadi turned away from him as Balin inspected the paper. She caught Thorin's eye and he raised an eyebrow at her.

"Everything seems to be in order. Welcome, Master Baggins, to the Company of Thorin Oakensheild."

Thorin commanded that Bilbo be given a pony and Nadi rode behind to meet him.

"Oh no no no, that won't be necessary," Bilbo said and continued to blather along but, without a word, both she and Fili hauled the surprisingly heavy Hobbit onto a spare pony.

"Oh," he said, and then looking at Nadi, "hello again."

She frowned her deepest frown at him and stuck her hand beneath her shirt. "I was hoping you wouldn't come."

"Oh? And why is that?"

She pulled a woven hemp sack from inside a small pocket and threw it at Gandalf, who caught it without even looking behind him.

"Happy, are you?" Kili asked in a strange voice as he rode past them. Nadi pursed her lips in response. She fell behind the rest of them and continued their journey in brooding silence.

X

The first few days passed in relative ease. They encountered no enemy nor obstacle and Bilbo had begun to believe that joining their party hadn't been such a bad idea after all. If it continued as it was then perhaps it was a very good idea indeed. Over time he came to befriend or at least understand the Company that he rode with. He maintained his distance from Thorin. Bombur didn't say much, but he sure did like to eat. Balin often cast a very kind eye his way. Neither Dwalin nor Oin seemed very impressed with his presence. The brothers Fili and Kili often made him the butt of their witty jokes and often asked him bottomless questions about Hobbitfolk and the Shire. The rest of the Dwarves maintained their space and treated him with a distant cordiality. Nadi seemed to have withdrawn into herself since his arrival, though he often caught her casting curious looks his way. When she wasn't riding in the front with Thorin and Gandalf, she was to be found at the back of the group, her seemingly angry eyes flitting between the Wizard and Kili.

That was another thing that Bilbo noticed. She and Kili seemed to avoid each other as if one or the other was plagued with an infectious disease. It was a suffocating intensity that spanned between the two, and any who crossed their joint path was quick to retreat.

"Give them time," Bilbo had once caught Dwalin saying to Thorin. While pretending to content himself with the grooming of his pony, Bilbo had followed their eyes to a clearing where the other ponies were being tended to. Kili was stroking his pony's back and talking emphatically to his brother. While he spoke, a smile played around his lips and his eyes were downcast as if recalling some lighthearted memory. Then Bilbo's eyes traveled a little farther and he spotted Nadi. She was standing in a grove of trees with her hand braced against her pony's neck. She seemed as if she had been struck still by some invisible force. Bilbo looked back at the brothers again and realized that she was staring at them. Slowly, she petted her pony's side as if in a trance, her eyes never leaving Kili's grinning face. Then she looked Bilbo's way, and whatever raw emotion that had been present on her face was replaced by embarrassed rage.

"They used to be lovers, you know."

Suddenly Bofur appeared beside him, his arms crossed comfortably across his chest. Bilbo startled and tried to appear as if he hadn't been staring at all.

"Really?" He said in a voice that he hoped sounded nonchalant. The moment that he had witnessed back home in his Hobbit hole suddenly made sense. Kili and Nadi had treated each other with the grace and distance of parted lovers, not as siblings as he had first assumed. "And...what happened?"

Bofur sighed. "Well…one day she went into the forest and when she came back…she wasn't quite the same."

Without warning, Nadi mounted her pony and whipped it into a frenzied gallop. Bilbo was almost knocked off of his feet as she rode past with her scarred face set and her hair whipping wildly along her head.

"Where are you going?" Thorin demanded as she passed by him and Gandalf. She said something in Khuzdul over her shoulders and disappeared into the trees bordering the mountain before them. Thorin looked at Gandalf and he shrugged, muttering something under his breath.

"She knows what she's doing," Thorin said darkly, "It's what I brought her for."

"Ah, poor lass," Bofur said as Balin came and stood with them. "Spitting image of her father."

"May his soul rest," Balin said sadly.

Something occurred to Bilbo then and he turned to Balin. "Is it common for female Dwarves to cut their beard off?"

Balin shook his head. "Ah, you noticed. Such a thing is unheard of amongst our people. The women folk are immensely proud of their beards and can often grow them longer and larger than the men. But she, well," Balin looked at Bofur who nodded gravely, "No harm in telling you, I suppose. You would have heard about it eventually. Nadi was always a wild child. She loved to go off into the forest when she was a wee lassie and stay for days on end, hunting insects and small animals. Sometimes, when she came upon something particularly intriguing, she'd bring it back to the marketplace to sell." Balin smiled at the memory as Fili and Kili came and joined them. "Her kin were strong and proud. Their features were dark and their hair was red like hidden embers. But one by one they passed, until all that remained was she and her mother's eldest brother. There hadn't been many of them, to begin with. Then one day a group of us were sent out to eliminate a group of trolls-"

"We discovered that there were more than we had been told," Kili said suddenly, "instead of four there was a whole band of them lurking about. We followed their tracks, for we were sure that there was an infestation nearby."

"It took us forty days and nights," Fili added.

"Which was about thirty days more than expected," Balin continued, "During those thirty days, Nadi's only remaining kin died. She packed her things and set off in the forest alone, claiming that she was in mourning. But I suspect she meant to find the Dwarves who had been missing for days by then. For she had wanted to join the expedition and…someone very dear to her heart was missing along with them." Balin glanced at Kili who said nothing.

"And...and then what happened?" Bilbo asked breathlessly.

"Well, she did come back eventually," Bofur said, "after the scouting group had returned victorious. But she was different, terribly wounded along her arms, neck, and face. All she would say was that she was attacked by a bear..."

"But?"

"A bear attack meant nothing to Nadi." Fili said, "Both her father and her mother were warriors who had died in combat. She had trained Kili and me when we were wee lads, and indeed she had already had her fair share of orc encounters by then. She just...wasn't Nadi anymore."

"She wouldn't speak," Kili said so quietly that only Bilbo and Balin, sitting closest to him, heard him.

"Aye, no matter how many times we asked, she simply would not - could not - tell us what had really happened to her out there in the forest."

They fell silent then, each Dwarve steeped in his own thoughts. Bilbo, for his part, was thinking of the night that he had shared with Nadi, blowing smoke rings in the sky. She wasn't a mean Dwarve, he thought to himself, despite her distant moods and blank expressions. Perhaps she was still in mourning. She was the last of her house after all, and he couldn't imagine what that must have felt like. All of his life he had been surrounded by family. He tried to imagine what it could have been that she had encountered in the woods. He couldn't imagine her fighting off a bear, for despite her obvious strength she still retained the gentle bearing of a high court lady. Yet what else could it have been?

"Are you lot ready to eat or aren't you?" Dwalin said suddenly from behind them. "Dinner's been ready for hours now."

X

Nadi returned the next day, looking very much concerned and harassed. "Sthrusas," she said simply as she dismounted her pony and shook her damp hair away from her face. "We mustn't continue on our present course."

"Sthrusas?!" Ori squeaked.

"Aye, that's what I said."

"Are you sure?" Thorin asked.

"Yes. They're following the river. A whole pack of them."

"And where do you suggest we go?" Gandalf asked in a voice that betrayed the slightest hint of annoyance. Nadi took a large gulp of water from the canteen handed to her and jerked her wet chin at another large and imposing mountain that rose beyond.

"Eastward, beyond that mountain."

The Company groaned and Dwalin grumbled, "that'll add an entire day to our journey."

"And many more years to our lives," she turned to Gandalf, "if we continue on this way we will encounter a pack of them."

"And you are positive that they are nearby?"

"Yes," she said firmly, setting her stormy gaze upon him. He surveyed her for a moment in silence and then said, "I suppose you're quite right, Master Nadi. If we must go Eastward, then we will go."

As the Company began to dismantle their camp and shuffle their bags with worried expressions, Bilbo asked Gandalf just what, exactly, a Sthrusa was.

" Ah…" Fili said, walking past him, "Best you never find out."

No more would be said on the matter. For the most part, the Dwarves ignored his inquiry into the creatures, responding to his questions with harried 'hmphs' and grunts. It was only after he had lapsed into a grumpy silence did Nadi call his name.

"Boggins," she said, eyeing him with a curious expression. "Follow me. Take your pony."

In truth, he wasn't pleased with the idea of parting ways with the rest, but the commanding nature of her voice left him no other option. He mounted his pony and quickly rode after her into the imposing thicket surrounding. They rode in silence until they eventually reached the river where they had been fetching their water. She kept her eyes lowered to the ground, searching for something that he could not see. Then, once at the creek, she turned her pony to the left and began to follow it. After a while, she jumped down and he did the same.

"Here, look." She bent down low to the ground and pointed at an area of exposed dirt. Bilbo saw nothing save for a scattering of twigs and dirt along the ground.

"Closer," she said and he bent down beside her. As he watched, she pressed her finger to the dirt and gently began to draw out a pattern. "First, you must seek out impressions in the earth that are deeper and darker than the impressions around them. They must not be isolated, they must come in clusters. Even fleet-footed beasts will leave an impression on the ground that is different than those naturally made by the elements. Once you have found that impression, you take your finger - like so - and deepen it. This will reveal its shape." As Bilbo watched in wonder, she traced the outline of what seemed to be a circular print in the ground. "Here is the talon," she deepened a hooked groove. "Here is the finger," the groove thinned out beneath her pinky. "And here is the pad," she pressed harder against a depression in the ground and suddenly the shape of an animal track became visible. It seemed to Bilbo to be that of a large bird or reptile. "Do you see, Grocer? Look - seek out the imprints and you will see where our beasts have left their mark."

Bilbo looked up and along the edge of the river. It was difficult to spot at first, but soon he was able to pick out the distinct imprints along the ground that were indeed quite heavy and solid. He got down on his hands and knees and muttering her directions to himself, traced out one, two, three, four similar indents in the soil. His heart dropped when he looked up again and noticed, for the first time, that they were everywhere along the river. His heart seemed to leap in his throat.

"You noticed," she observed, grimly.

"Some of the prints are quite...small. Hatchlings?"

"Yes, and there are few beings more frightening than a mother Sthrusa."

He squeaked, "we have to go. Now."

"You know," Nadi said, already astride atop her pony. "I think I will take your advice."

And despite the Company's resolve to continue upon a safer path, things did not end up quite as planned.