Cassia closes her bedroom door behind her and sets about packing and putting out some travelling clothes to the sound of the dwarves singing. Her plan is simple: she needs to wake before the dwarves, sign her contract, and con her way into the Company. Easy.
It's late now, too late to climb into bed, so she sits down on her armchair, cracks open a book of dwarven fairy tales she bought from a caravan last spring, and tries not to fall asleep.
The story she's reading is a familiar one, about a prince with hair of gold. Before today, she'd always imagined said prince to be rather hobbit-like in appearance, but now he looks like the one in her living room. She shuts her book. That's no good. It won't do to have a crush on one of her travelling companions. Cassia chews on her thumbnail and draws her knees up to her chest. But he is rather nice. She's never kissed anyone with a beard before and wonders what it would feel like.
Cassia awakens in early morning to birds singing softly and the front door closing with a slam. The sun is just starting to peek over the horizon and she peeks out her window to watch Fili, taking up the end of the line of dwarves, shut the front gate. She swears softly and dresses quickly, arranging pillows under her blankets to buy her time if Bilbo comes to investigate. She hurries to her bedroom door, and then pauses, eyeing the sling on her bedside table. It's a toy, really, something her cousin Paladin made her so he could have someone to beat in stone throwing contests (not that he ever did beat her). After a moment of indecision, she snatches it up and stuffs it in the deep pockets of her skirt. It may come in handy.
The dwarves have left piles of dirty dishes from what must have been a hurried but hearty breakfast piled all over the kitchen, and the two contracts and a note (written on Bilbo's best note paper) on the mantelpiece.
Cassia fetches the note down and reads it. It thanks her and Bilbo for their hospitality and arranges to meet at the Green Dragon Inn in Bywater at 11 a.m. sharp after the dwarves gather amenities for their travels. Cassia checks the clock. 7 a.m.
She packs what little food the dwarves didn't eat in her shoulder bag, signs her own contract with a flourish (and Bilbo's best pen), tucks her book of dwarven fairy tales into her pack and hurries out the door.
Cassia is trotting through the main square of Hobbiton, already rather busy, when someone calls her name. She pauses and turns around. Her dear friend, Delphinia Greenholm, comes up, a basket on one arm.
"Oh, hello, Phinney," Cassia says with a grin.
"Where are you going?" Her friend asks.
"I'm going on an adventure."
Delphinia raises an eyebrow. "Again?"
"A real adventure," Cassia declares, "Out of the Shire this time."
"What? On your own?"
"Of course not, Phin, I'm meeting a company of dwarves at the Green Dragon at 11. And Bilbo is coming as well. And a wizard."
Delphinia sniffs like she has opinions on wizards she's much too polite to say aloud. "I'm not sure about this, Cassia. It sounds dangerous."
"Well, of course it's going to be dangerous!" She laughs, "That's the point! Besides, if you're so worried, why don't you come along?"
He friend sighs, something almost wistful in her green eyes. "You know I can't do that, I've my mother to think of."
Cassia winces, abruptly remembering the other girl's sickly mother. "Oh, Phin, of course you're right. I'm sorry. How is she?"
"She was up all night with a cough, and complaining of her joints. I've just had to run down to Matron Goodbody's for painkillers."
"Oh, how awful! Tell her I said hello, won't you?"
"Of course. She wants to know when you'll settle down and find a nice lad to marry, you know."
Cassia laughs. "What, like you did?"
Delphinia snorts. "I'm too busy to get married."
"You're married to your work."
"Yes, but being a midwife can't get you babies, much to Mama's chagrin."
"Well," Cassia says, "technically…"
Her friend smacks her with her basket and Cassia skips out of the way, cackling. "I'm not wrong!"
"Ugh, I hate you."
"No you don't."
"Unfortunately. Have you had breakfast?"
"I was planning to get some at the Green Dragon, why?"
Delphinia pulls a wrapped muffin from her basket. "Because I doubt dwarves are civilized enough to eat seven meals a day. Here, Matron Goodbody gave me a baker's dozen. Eat up."
Cassia takes the confection gratefully. "Don't worry, I'll remember to eat all my meals and go to bed on time and all that."
"No you won't."
"I'll try!"
"Sure. Make sure you come back, all right? I don't know what I'd do if you died."
Cassia throws her arms around Delphinia for a tight hug. "Of course I will, Phin, and I'll have all sorts of stories to tell you, too."
"I'll count on it. You'd best get going. Be safe."
"All right. I'll see you later." Cassia kisses her friend's freckled cheek and hurries off with a wave.
She makes the Green Dragon with plenty of time to spare and orders a hearty breakfast as she waits for the dwarves, tucking her muffin from Delphinia in her pocket for later. She's sipping her tea comfortably when Fili and Kili burst in. They spot her immediately and wave excitedly, hurrying over and sit down across from her.
"Hello," She says brightly, pushing a plate of muffins towards them. "Muffin?"
"Thanks," Kili says, taking two and stuffing his face. "'M starving. Are you coming along with us?"
"Yes," She says.
"I thought we'd agreed to see each other again after the adventure," Fili teases her.
"So we did," She replies, "But I couldn't pass up on this opportunity. It's the first time anyone's wanted me to adventure."
Kili laughs at that. "Are you a troublemaker?" He asks. She beams at him.
"You could say that."
He grins back. "Me and you are going to be great friends," he tells her. "I can tell."
"I'd like that," Cassia says.
Fili nods, working on his second muffin.
"D'you think your brother'll come, too?" Kili asks, grabbing another muffin.
"I'm sure he will," she replies. "Do you want to order something more substantial than muffins?"
There's a thump under the table that must be Fili kicking his brother. Kili shakes his head. "No. We had a big breakfast. Oh, look! There's Ori and his brothers. Over here!"
Pretty soon, almost the whole company is squeezed around Cassia's table, and they end up ordering a light meal as she finishes her tea. Balin looks over Cassia's signed contract and declares it sound, as well.
"Alright then," Thorin says, wiping his mouth and pushing back from the table, "Everyone get your ponies, Fili, show Miss Baggins to hers and make sure she knows how to care for her. We leave at 11 on the dot."
"What about Bilbo?" Cassia asks.
"If he's not here in 15 minutes, we will assume he isn't coming," The dwarf informs her.
"He'll come," Cassia assures him.
Fili introduces Cassia to the smallest pony of their 16, a chestnut mare with a white blaze, just the right size for her, and she is immediately smitten. "Oh," she coos, stroking the pony's velvety nose, "what's her name?"
"I don't think she's got one," Fili says, checking the straps of the saddle.
"Well, that's hardly fair. I'll call her Trixie. Is that good with you, sweetie?" The pony whickers. Cassia nods. "Good."
"Y'know she can't understand you, right?" Kili asks, leading his pony past. Cassia scoffs.
"Of course she can. We're friends, aren't we, Trix?" The pony blinks. "She said yes."
Fili laughs softly. "Alright, come here and try these stirrups," he says, and she comes over. He shows her how to lengthen and shorten them and how to check the girth and throat latch and put in the bit and lots of other things Cassia promptly forgets.
"You'll get it eventually," he says, helping her mount up.
"I hope," she says.
That's about when Bilbo comes dashing up at exactly eleven o'clock. He's explaining between pants that he only saw the dwarves' note about fifteen minutes ago. He does look rather frazzled as Kili leads the other small pony over for him to get up on.
"Hello, Bilbo," Cassia says with a grin. Bilbo glares.
"What," he says, "are you doing here?"
"Going on an adventure," she explains.
"No you aren't," Bilbo hisses. "Go home right now!"
"I won't! I already signed my contract! It's legally binding."
Bilbo opens his mouth, meaning to say more, then closes it, because he can't really argue with that. "You're a menace," he says finally, resigned. Cassia sticks her tongue out at him.
The adventure starts off very merrily indeed, on a fine spring day just before May, and as the days pass, even Bilbo starts to enjoy himself. They're travelling through Hobbit country, green beautiful, with gentle rolling hills, and even the occasional inn for them to stay at. As the days pass, so do the lands, changing slowly but steadily, full of strange people telling strange stories, and the farms and inns become less and less and the roads worse and worse until its but a faint, rocky, muddy trail and there are no people around at all but the Company. The Lone-lands, these parts are called. The weather, which had been as fine as May can be, takes a quite sudden turn for the worse, just before June, becoming gloomy, cold and wet, and everyone is quite soaked through.
Cassia can hear her brother grumbling and cursing behind her and she feels rather like doing some of that herself. All day it had been raining and everyone was much too grumpy to talk, let alone sing or tell stories. It's beginning to get dark as well, and Thorin leads them down into a deep valley with a river at the bottom. "We'll camp on the other side," he calls back.
There's no bridge, just a section of river shallower than the rest to ford. Cassia peers at the rushing water, swollen with rain, with trepidation. The ponies do not like the idea of crossing the river at all, so Thorin, still insistent on crossing that night, orders everyone to get off and lead their mounts across.
"Will you need help crossing?" Fili asks, as Cassia climbs down from her pony.
"What, the river?"
"Yes. Kili or I could carry you."
"No," Cassia shakes her head, determined not to be a burden. "I can do it on my own."
"Are you sure?" Kili queries, eying the water. "We don't know how deep it'll be, especially in the middle."
"I'm sure," she insists, "I can do it."
"Well," Fili says, somewhat reluctantly. "If you're really sure…" Cassia nods, checking the straps on her pony's saddle.
The fording isn't that deep, luckily, it only reaches the middle of her chest. It's going pretty well, Cassia holding tight to the pony's saddle and Kili carefully leading it, Fili just behind her. Then, the pony stumbles, and the water, which has been fighting them this entire time, grabs them. Kili and Cassia don't have a chance to let go of the pony.
They say your life flashes before your eyes when you're about to die. That doesn't happen to Cassia. She doesn't have time to think. She manages to let go if the pony and fights to get her feet underneath her. The terrifying thing is that if she could just figure out which way was up, she could probably touch the bottom of the riverbed. In theory. But the water is moving too fast and she's just a leaf in the wind. Her lungs are burning by this time, and suddenly, there's cold air on her face, and she gasps, looking around frantically. She catches sight of the pony and Kili, both of them seeming to be faring far better than she. Above the roar of the water, she hears faint shounting, and then something slams into the back of her head, sending her under. The last thing Cassia remembers is someone on grabbing her around the waist.
