Welcome back! Sorry for the late update - this week was surprisingly busy for me and updating completely slipped my mind.

As always, thanks for all the new favorites/follows, and thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far!


Chapter Seven

Truce

For the next several days, the Company pressed down the Great East Road despite the late spring showers and storms that plagued them from dusk to dawn. Each morning they woke to clinging drizzle and general dreariness, and each night they went to sleep, sodden and cold. Their spirits were beginning to run low, Fíli knew, but Thorin led them on relentlessly. They were still a day's ride from Bree, but the rain and the chill made it seem much longer.

Though the Company remained subdued due to the conditions, no one was more dejected than Alison. Fíli had approached her several times over the last few days, encouraging her to speak, but she provided him with nothing more than the bare minimum in her replies. It seemed that the spat with Kíli earlier in the week had led her to withdraw further into herself, only speaking occasionally to Gandalf and Bilbo, and her sudden distance frustrated him.

On the fourth day since their conversation with Alison, Fíli reined up beside his brother, blinking the stubborn mist from his eyes and cursing the never-ending deluge they were trapped in. Kíli had been riding at the head of the column, his sharp eyes keeping watch for any nasty surprises that might be ahead, but he turned to Fíli when he approached.

"Come to keep your poor, wet brother company in this miserable excuse for weather?" he joked. Despite his blue hood, his dark hair still clung to his forehead and cheeks in wet strands, though his wide grin and mirthful eyes belied any discomfort he might have been feeling.

"Indeed," said Fíli, his mouth twitching in a grin; it had always been hard for him to resist Kíli's recklessly optimistic attitude. "It's good to see you smile again, Kee. It seems that all you've done since Hobbiton is scowl and brood."

Kíli's grin flickered.

"You should apologize to her," Fíli continued in a lower voice. "Put any ill will behind the both of you so this journey doesn't end prematurely after one of you has strangled the other."

"How can you stand it?" asked Kíli stubbornly. "How can you sleep at night knowing that our quest might be doomed to failure already if the Valar sent an Ashburne Hero to intervene?"

"I don't," Fíli said, shrugging. "I'm just as uneasy as the rest of you, Kee, but it's hardly fair to take out any of our frustrations or fears on her. You heard her: She never had a choice. Not like we did. It's not her fault the Valar forced her to be here."

"How could Thorin agree so easily to it?" Kíli said. His hands tightened on the reins. "We practically had to beg on our knees for him to let us come, and not to mention Mother after." He scoffed. "Yet he gladly accepted a young girl with no proper training whatsoever without batting an eye."

Fíli sighed, beginning to see where the root cause of Kíli's problem was coming from. "What would you rather him do, Kíli? Deny her and go against the decree of the Valar?" He snorted. "That's just asking for our quest to be cursed."

"It seems it's already cursed if she's here," retorted Kíli, jerking his head back toward where Alison rode at the rear of the column. "What do you think her purpose is?"

"I don't know," he admitted. He had wondered the same thing to himself many times, but he was no closer to having an answer. "But you need to stop taking everything out on her. She's done nothing to you."

Kíli's jaw clenched. He stared out into the rain for a long moment before muttering, "I know." He scowled. "I was just…angry. First at Gandalf for thrusting her upon us with some vague notion that it was the Valar's wish, and then at Thorin for agreeing to let her join when he fought against us from coming for so long. It all seemed so unfair."

"I understand," Fíli said, "but she doesn't. You should be telling her all this, not me."

"I know, I know." Kíli sighed out his long nose. "I'll talk to her tonight."

"Good." Fíli nodded, satisfied. He felt that he had handled the situation rather well—for now. However, there was still the matter of getting the two to actually talk to each other without it ending in a brawl.

Let's just hope this doesn't come back to bite me in the arse.


If there was anything that could make Alison's week worse, it was the flooded river before her that the Company had come to a halt at as the sky continued to dump buckets of rain on them.

Wonderful, she thought as she watched the muddy, turbulent water rush past them. First, I get dropped into Middle-earth without so much as a warning, then I'm forced to join a quest I read about when I was eight and have all my favorite characters hate me, and now this. If the Valar are trying to punish me, they're doing a hell of a good job.

"What do we do?" Dwalin asked Thorin, eyeing the river distrustfully.

Thorin stared at the voracious water for a few moments before shocking everybody when he said, "Master Baggins! Come here."

Bilbo looked up, startled, but he slipped from his saddle and approached the dwarf king nervously, his fingers tapping on his soaked trousers. "Y-yes?"

Thorin jerked his head to the river. "This is the Brandywine, yes?" Bilbo nodded. "How deep is the crossing here?"

The hobbit scrunched up his face, thinking. "Here? About five feet, I suppose. Perhaps a little more. But with the flooding, I'd say much deeper now."

The dwarves grumbled at this, but Thorin looked thoughtful. "Is there a shallower crossing that will not take us too far from the Road?"

"I doubt it," said Bilbo. "The spring rains always make the river too treacherous to cross on foot. But," he said quickly to Thorin's irritated scowl, "there's a ferry we can use not too far from here. Bucklebury Ferry. I'd prefer the Brandywine Bridge, but it's probably underwater now."

"How far is this ferry?"

"Not more than an hour's ride, I'd say."

Thorin nodded. "Then we will take the ferry. Master Baggins, you'll lead us."

"M-me?" Bilbo stuttered.

"Yes." Thorin gave him an unimpressed look. "You signed the contract, did you not? You are a part of the Company. Equal responsibility weighs on all of us. You know these lands; you'll lead us."

Bilbo still seemed stunned by his new role, but he nodded and remounted his pony nonetheless, waving them on with a jerky hand. Alison flashed him an encouraging thumbs-up before he turned away, and he smiled back nervously as the Company fell into step behind him.

Alison couldn't wait to be off her pony. Her wet jeans were chafing like hell on her inner thighs, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd been fully dry and warm. Though the sky remained overcast and gray, the light started looking gloomier and dimmer the farther they rode, and she guessed dusk was nearing. She only hoped they could all cross the river while there was still daylight; she didn't think she could do it in the dark.

She kept her head down for the duration of their trek, trying to stave off most of the rain with her hood, not even noticing someone was riding beside her until they cleared their throat. She glanced up to see Kíli, of all people, riding even with her, and she might've thought he just hadn't been paying attention if he wasn't sitting up straight in his saddle, tense and uncomfortable.

"Um…hello," she said cautiously. She hadn't spoken to him since the night she'd snapped at him while he was sitting watch with Fíli, and she wondered if this was going to be some continuation of their argument. "Can I help you with something?"

His eyes narrowed, though if it was from the rain or her question, she couldn't tell.

"No," he said, his tone neutral. "I just…wanted to see how you were doing."

Alison stared. "Why?"

She saw a muscle in his jaw twitch. "May I not inquire about your wellbeing?"

Suspicious, she looked to the front of the column where Fíli rode beside Balin. The blond dwarf had been watching them discreetly, but upon her observation, he quickly engaged Balin in a discussion. She glared at the back of his head.

"Your brother put you up to this, didn't he?" she said. When he said nothing, she sighed. "Is he forcing you to apologize? Because you don't have to, you know."

"I don't?"

She rolled her eyes. Dwarves, she was beginning to learn, had zero sense of discretion or subtlety.

She shrugged, facing forward. "You made your stance clear at Bilbo's, I made mine a few nights ago. What more is there to say?"

He mulled over her words for a brief moment. "Be that as it may, I've come to realize that perhaps I wasn't being entirely fair in my judgment of you."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me," she said, rubbing her forehead. Fatigue was beginning to weigh on her, both from her troubled sleep for the last week and the gloomy weather that seemed to have no end in sight. "This quest is yours, not mine. It means something to you. Like I told your brother; I know what my presence looks like for all of you. It's scary and it's stressful. I can't blame anyone for being wary."

She looked up to find him already staring at her, contemplating. "What?"

"You have a strange outlook, Miss Ashburne," he said. She raised her eyebrows. He elaborated. "You have an uncanny ability to put yourself in someone else's situation and look at it from their perspective. It's rare, especially for…"

He trailed off, throwing her a guilty glance, and she smirked.

"You can say it," she said. "I won't be offended. For a human?"

He nodded, reluctant. "Aye. Typically, Men aren't so…empathetic. Especially when it comes to the plights of dwarves."

"Well," she said wryly, "I'm glad I can put some stereotypes to rest, then."

He grinned unexpectedly, and it was a welcome change from his usual scowling, brooding look that he'd worn exclusively for her in the past week.

"So," she said slowly when he didn't speak. He looked at her questioningly. "Uh, does this mean we're cool?" He stared blankly at her. "Like, are we on the same page now? Can we be civil?"

He nodded. "Yes, I believe so. Though I do wish you would accept my apology for treating you so harshly."

"Apology accepted," she said quickly. She was just relieved to have someone else who didn't hate her guts. "I'm sorry too for the other night. I didn't mean to snap at you."

He waved her off. "You had every right to." He hesitated before reaching out a hand to her. "Truce?"

She took his hand, smiling gratefully. "Truce."

They shared a small grin, and Alison was struck then by how less dwarvish he was in appearances. He lacked a proper beard besides the dark stubble that shadowed his tanned face, and though his nose was long, it was not bulbous or overly large like many of his companions'. His dark features resembled Thorin more than Fíli, though she could still see glimpses of his brother in the mischievous gleam in his eyes and the crooked curve of his mouth when he grinned.

Disliking her sudden scrutiny, she retracted her hand quickly and shifted in her saddle, determining that the sudden heat in her face came from the pain of her thighs when they chafed again rather than anything else. Fortunately, she was spared from Kíli's odd look when Thorin called for another halt ahead of them.

"I should go see if he needs my help," he said. He inclined his head to her. "I'm sure we'll speak again, Miss Ashburne."

"It's Alison," she said, but he had already spurred his pony forward, kicking up mud and grass as he went. She sighed before following at a much slower pace.

They had reached the ferry Bilbo spoke of, a small wooden thing that resembled more a piece of floating junk with two sweep oars than an actual ferry. A dock jutted out into the water, thankfully unsubmerged, and if Alison squinted her eyes enough she could just make out the shape of another dock on the opposite shore.

"We'll have to tie a rope to the other side to use as a guide if we don't want to be swept downstream," Thorin was saying when she joined the others on the riverbank. "Fíli, Kíli, take the rope to the other side and secure it, and help the rest ferry across. We will go in pairs; our ponies, too."

Alison nodded with the rest, impressed at the ease with which Thorin gave commands and the unhesitating compliance of the other dwarves as they divided into pairs and Fíli and Kíli prepared to launch from the dock. The two princes managed to maneuver through the muddy waters without too much trouble, but Alison wished the process would go faster as she stood on the riverbank, soaked through and her teeth beginning to chatter from the cold.

When the rope was secured, Fíli and Kíli ferried back to their side of the river and began taking the others and their ponies across. Though they moved as quickly as they could, it was a painstakingly slow endeavor, and it was nearly night by the time it was Alison's turn to make her way across.

She'd stayed near the back of the line out of courtesy for the older dwarves, but when she looked around, she realized that the only people who remained on her side of the river were Thorin, Dwalin, and Bofur. Upon this observation, she sidled closer to Bofur, who was by far the more pleasant of the three, but when Fíli and Kíli came back for them, Thorin said, "Dwalin, Bofur, you next."

Bofur whistled cheerily as he walked his pony onto the ferry, but Dwalin glared at Alison when he passed, clearly distrusting her to be left alone with his king. She ignored his hostile look, however, and busied herself with her pony's wet mane as the four dwarves pushed off from the dock, soon disappearing into the haze of twilight mist and rain.

Alison and Thorin stayed in silence, both gazing out at the river in quiet contemplation. Thorin seemed much more relaxed than she did; she'd been fidgety ever since the other dwarves left them alone together, casting apprehensive glances his way every few seconds, but he remained as stoic as ever, his expression as blank as a smooth stone surface.

She thought she ought to say something—anything—and blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "I'm sorry about your grandfather. And your father."

She flushed when he glanced to her coolly, mentally slapping herself across the face. Yes, bringing up dead family members is a great conversation starter. Way to go, Ashburne.

"I mean, Fíli told me about what happened—at the Battle of Azanulbizar." Her nerves seemed to be tying her tongue in knots, for she tripped over the unfamiliar word and completely butchered it. She thought Thorin may have been holding back a smirk, but she plowed on, heedless. "It's terrible. Um, I lost my own dad, because of a war. I wasn't there, of course, not like you were, but—" She closed her eyes, suddenly wishing she could fling herself into the river and drown. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up. I was just thinking—common ground—stupid…"

She shoved her hands deep into her coat pockets, frowning at the river and finding herself grateful for the dark, for her face was surely redder than a tomato by then. Thorin didn't say anything. She hoped that meant he would never acknowledge her embarrassing rambling, but that didn't appear to be the case.

"Don't be sorry," he said. She chanced a glance at him, seeing him watching the flowing water thoughtfully. "It happened years ago. You weren't there. You could not have stopped it."

She nodded quickly, and he sighed. "However, I thank you for the sentiment. I offer my condolences on the loss of your father as well." She only nodded again. There was a slight hesitance in his voice when he asked, "How did it happen?"

She tensed. "He was shot."

He must have sensed her reluctance, for he only nodded. "I am sorry."

Brief, matter-of-fact, but she could hear the sincerity underneath. There was no pity, and for that she was grateful. She had never liked going into the specifics of her father's death. Whenever she told people he had died because of a war, it was true—but he had never died in a war. He had been shot, but not by an enemy. Afghanistan had been hell, and he was never the same afterward. Alison had been twelve when he'd taken his own life; her brother and sister only four.

"They're coming back," she said in lieu of replying. They had found a lamp and lit it, and the glowing golden light danced with the shadows on the water as Fíli and Kíli appeared out of the mist with the ferry. Thorin got her hint clearly enough, for he did not speak again until the princes had anchored at the dock.

"Any trouble on the far side?" he asked them as they loaded their ponies onto the ferry, with Thorin and Alison squeezing in after.

"None," said Fíli, giving Alison a large but tired grin.

"Aside from being hungry and cold and wet," Kíli added cheekily. At Thorin's unimpressed look, he caught Alison's eye and winked. She grinned slightly and turned away, that odd feeling from when she'd spoken to him earlier prickling at her gut again.

"We'll make camp once we are all safely across," Thorin decided, and they didn't speak again as the ferry carried them to the other shore.

Alison tried to keep her eyes from straying to the murky water below them, but it was hard to see ahead when there was so much mist. Even with the lamp, the night had closed in around them, and it was impossible for her to tell where the dock was, much less the riverbank. Facing forward also allowed the rain to sneak in under her hood, so she turned back around and hunched herself against the wind and wet. She could still see the dock they had launched from, but there was something else there that she hadn't seen before.

A large mass of shadow stood atop the dock, and through the gloom were two glinting eyes reflecting the lamplight back at her. Alison stumbled back out of reflex, knocking into Kíli and nearly sending him into the water before he caught himself with the oar.

"Mahal above, woman," he said, though his voice lacked any of its usual venom. "Are you trying to drown me?"

"There's something over there," she said, pointing to the dock. "I saw its eyes. It was watching us."

"Where?" Fíli said, squinting. "I can't see a thing with all this damned rain."

"It was on the dock," she said. Her teeth were chattering again, but not from the cold this time. "I swear I saw it. It looked big, too."

"A bear?" Kíli suggested. He glanced to Thorin, but the dwarf king was staring intently at the spot that Alison had pointed out, though the dock had now disappeared into the mist.

"Perhaps," Thorin said, though he didn't sound convinced. When he saw Alison's frown and wide eyes, he added to her, "We'll have three members on watch tonight, just to be sure it's nothing sinister."

She nodded, thankful that he hadn't just written her off as delusional. He seemed worried himself, though, frowning at the invisible shore, but she took it as a precaution, nothing more. They knew this world better than she, after all.

Still, it did not keep her from imagining those glinting eyes boring into the back of her head through the rain and the darkness.


Thanks for reading!

Until next time!