A/N: trolls smell... bad. really bad.
Really, trolls? Could this get any filthier?
Currently, my stomach turns in disgust and fear at the sight of the three huge creatures. Fili and Kili had come running back to the camp, quickly explaining what had happened with the ponies. Now, here we were, all of us hiding in the bushes, watching the scene unfold in front of us.
"The hobbit." Thorin growls angrily, right when a troll picks Bilbo up. My heart clenches, and now I fear for his safety.
"We have to save him." I answer, keeping my voice low, instinctively grabbing my sword. I'd picked it up when we were in the troll cave, but unlike Bilbo and Thorin, I had picked some ordinary sword, not an elven one. It still cut though, so I didn't really mind.
"Why? He got himself into this mess." Thorin answers, and I glare at him as soon as I hear the words leave his mouth. He had been annoyed and grumpy all day, first pissing off Gandalf so much the wizard stomped off, and now this.
"Fine. I'll save him." I growl, then jump over the log we'd been hiding behind. The troll howls loudly when I hit his ankle with my sword, and he lets go of Bilbo. I jump, catching him during his fall, and roll further with him, until we hit a rock. All the air leaves my lungs, since I hit it straight on, and I find myself gasping for air, vision blurry.
"Cam!" Bilbo exclaims, fussing above me, worried. It's then that I hear the sounds of the dwarves fighting the trolls. So they did decide to help!
"Save the ponies." I bring out, then get up. It's a mess, all the dwarves trying to take on the trolls, but they're too big. Still, I run over to where Dwalin's cornered by one of the nasty creatures, jump and push myself off against a log that's lying there, and manage to jump high enough to slash the troll in his stomach. Blood gushes out, covering me, and I nearly gag as I land back onto my feet, the smell hitting my nose forcefully. Dwalin gives me a surprised look, but I flash him a nervous grin, and then the both of us move to attack the troll once more.
"STOP, OR THE BURGLAROBBIT DIES!"
I freeze up instantly at that, eyes landing upon poor Bilbo being held in a troll's hand. Shit. My eyes move to Thorin, whose blue eyes meet mine, and I beg him to put his weapons down silently.
"Fine." He eventually says, and drops his weapons. I'm the second one to drop them, then the rest follows. This was bad.
The trolls roughly toss us into sacks and throw us onto the ground. I whimper in pain at the harsh impact, startled when someone else inside the sack with me grunts, two hands grabbing my hips.
"Thorin?" I whisper, recognizing the familiar scent of earth mixed with sweat, his typical scent on the road.
"Cameron." His chest rumbles underneath the palms of my hands, startling me. Apparently, we were in the same bag and I'd landed on top of him, my hands on his chest, his on my hips. Why couldn't those trolls have given me a bag of my own? Shit, my heart was pounding so loudly I was pretty positive he could hear it. Shifting, I try to find a more comfortable position.
"Would you stop moving?" he eventually asks, sounding annoyed. I stop at that.
"Sorry." I mutter. Silence fills the tiny space between us.
"I'm scared, Thorin." I whisper after a moment, legitimately scared. I wasn't looking forward to being eaten by those foul creatures.
"You're safe with me. I won't let anyone hurt you." Thorin mutters back. Suddenly, another bag gets thrown right on top of us. I grunt in pain, pressed right into Thorin, causing him to grunt as well.
"Sorry!" I hear a voice exclaim, Oín I believe. I grunt, trying to push him off of me by arching my back.
"Would you. Please. Stop. Moving!" Thorin grunts out, clearly annoyed.
"I-I'm sorry. I can't breathe." I bring out, glad he can't see me blush furiously in the dark.
"Just relax." He huffs. Just relax? With trolls about to eat us?! He was insane.
Thank God for Gandalf! Bilbo had been stalling time, claiming we all had parasites, and I (of course) had been the only one to agree with him at first, protesting loudly, until Thorin realised what we were doing and got the other dwarves to shout along. Gandalf appears, and I can see him standing on a large rock.
"The dawn will take you all!" He yells epically, and splits the rock into two with his staff. I stare in awe as the trolls turn to stone right in front of our eyes, now mere statues. Bilbo is the first to rush over to the bag Thorin and I are in, a relieved look in his eyes when he pulls me out first, seeing that the blood on my clothes isn't mine. Surprisingly enough, someone else directs their anger towards me.
"I thought you said you could fight." Thorin snaps, giving me an angry look when I turn back to look at him, startled.
"Excuse me?! " I bring out, shocked by his demeanour.
"You did nothing. We were nearly eaten by trolls!" He's shouting by now, standing close to me in an attempt to intimidate me.
"I fucking saved your buddy over here from being eaten by a troll, but you were too busy to even notice! Don't you dare say I did nothing!" I exclaim, now angry. How dare he!
"It was your friend who got us into that situation in the first place!" He argues. I take a step closer to him, forcing him to look up at me ever so slightly, and by the looks of it, he didn't like that. I'm angry beyond reason, pressing my index finger against his chest.
"You listen to me, dwarf. I don't care that you're a fucking king, I really don't. You'll fucking treat me with respect or I'm gone, and trust me, Bilbo will follow me. Now shut up and shove your head back up your ass, before I hear you say anything else." I hiss, glaring daggers at him before storming off.
After a while, I'm surprised when not Bilbo, but Dwalin comes to find me.
"You alright, lass?" He asks, sitting down next to me on the stone I'd found next to the road.
"I'm fine." I bring out, but even I can hear that I sound just as angry as before.
"Don't be mad at Thorin, he's just worried 'bout ya'." Dwalin says, chuckling under his breath.
"Oh really? He has a weird way of showing that, then." I huff.
"Thank you for the help back there. You were right, you did save me." He says after a moment, wrapping his strong arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his side. I sigh, but smile nonetheless, leaning into his touch, relaxing slightly.
"Besides, you should be glad you didn't slice any more of them open. It smelled worse than anything I've ever smelled before." He adds, and I chuckle at that.
"Thanks, Dwalin." I say after a moment, realizing he'd been trying to cheer me up.
"You don't got to thank me, lass." He answers, and we wait there in silence until the others join us.
Thorin and I don't talk anymore after our fight. I stayed as far away from him as possible, and remained in the back of the row of our walking Company, since we now lost our ponies. The other dwarves clearly noticed, and tried to stay away from both him and I, in order to maintain the peace.
"So Bilbo, how did you meet Cam?" Balin asks Bilbo, attempting to make things less awkward. I appreciated that he was one of the few dwarves who actually talked to him and tried to make him feel at home in the group, but by doing this he had unknowingly asked something very personal about me. We were just taking a well-deserved break, everyone scattered across the grass.
"Cam…" Bilbo trails off, looking over to me. When I look back over my shoulder at him, he silently asks with his eyes if it's okay to tell.
"It's fine, Bilbo. You can tell him." I assure him, throwing my hobbit friend a smile.
"Ooh, I want to hear the story too!" Kili exclaims, Fili nodding eagerly in agreement. All the dwarves turn silent, all eyes and ears focused on Bilbo, and I take a deep breath. Oh boy.
"Gandalf is the one who found Cam. One evening, after I just finished dinner, there was a knock on my door. When I opened it, I found him standing there, carrying a human girl in his arms. She was unconscious, and covered in bruises, as if she'd just fallen from the sky and appeared in our world." Bilbo speaks up, his voice thick with emotion.
I can only watch him as he retells his memories, a dark look of worry in his eyes. I remembered the feeling of being carried by the much taller wizard, how even he managed to do it without struggle. I didn't remember Bilbo saying anything, but I did remember the smell of freshly mown grass, of dinner and parchment. It was a smell that always hung around him, a smell that had quickly become 'home' to me. I remember the taste of copper in my mouth, spitting out blood, the pain that wouldn't seem to go away. And I remembered falling. Falling endlessly.
"Cameron?" I'm shaken out of my own thoughts at that, my eyes drifting over to Ori, who'd called out my name.
"What happened?" He asks, an innocent look in his eyes.
"I-I don't know. My first memory is opening my eyes and seeing Bilbo hovering over me. I've never been able to figure out what happened. But when I saw him, I knew I was safe." I manage to bring out, forcing a smile when Bilbo wraps his arms around me comfortingly. I wasn't really used to talking to others about this. Everyone had gathered around us, sitting and watching with big eyes.
"Where's your family?" Fili asks, a sad look in his eyes. Kili's matches his own in pity, and it hits a nerve within my heart.
"I don't know…" I trail off and stand up, walking away before they can see the tears rolling down my cheeks. They wouldn't understand the frustration, the loneliness despite having someone who was always there for me, no father, no mother, no memories… nothing. Gandalf had estimated that I was in my twenties, counting in human years. That meant twenty years of my life that I could not remember, memories I'd likely never get back… As always, thinking about it came with white flashes that shot through my head, almost like electricity. It's a painful sensation, which doesn't help with my tears whatsoever.
"Cameron… Come here." A deep voice speaks up, full of pity, as the dwarf sits down beside me. I hadn't even noticed I'd fallen to my knees, but here I was, grass surrounding me. I'm surprised when Thorin wraps his strong arms around me, pulling me into his chest. I scoot closer to him, allowing myself to keep crying, cheek resting against the soft fur of his coat.
"Don't worry, you're safe. You're safe here." He says, repeating it over and over again until I finally start to believe him. I try to match my breathing to his, slowly managing to calm down. The two of us remain like that for a long time, silence surrounding us. He smells like earth and sweat and dwarf, and it's a nice smell. When I realize my hands are clinging to his coat tightly, I force myself to let go, pulling away from him until our eyes meet.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be."
I look up at him as he stands up and offers a hand to help me up. I take it, and a small smile breaks out on my lips as he pulls me up with ease.
"Break's over, boys!" Thorin shouts. No one bothers me about the whole ordeal again, if anything, they're even sweeter around me. Bofur tries to cheer me up by singing the most foul songs I've ever heard, making me laugh and blush, and Ori reads me a new poems he wrote. Fili and Kili aren't very subtle, simply wrapping me into a bone-crushing hug. In the evening, when we're setting up camp, no one gives me a task, and I end up watching Bombur cook a delicious smelling stew. Bombur is very proud when I compliment him on it, resulting into him explaining the entire recipe to me. Dwalin calls me over after dinner, and I approach him carefully, since he's polishing his axes and I'm still cautious after my failed training with them.
"Hey, lass." He says, surprisingly gentle.
"Hi, Dwalin." I answer, flashing him a smile. When he pats the spot beside him on the log he's sitting on, I sit down, watching him as he polishes the axes with some kind of stone.
"Wanna sharpen 'em?" He finally asks, surprising me.
"You-you'd let me?" I ask, looking at him with wide eyes. I'd never seen anyone but him touch them, and me that one time. But I'd been told he never lets anyone sharpen them.
"Ya saved me life back there with them trolls." He states, shrugging before carefully handing me one of them. It's really heavy, taking me by surprise, and I have to balance it on my knees instead of holding it up with my hands.
"Here, this is how you make 'em sharp." He says, showing me how to move the stone across the blade. Then, he gives me the stone, and I try to repeat his actions. He corrects me slightly, placing his large hand over mine, and slowly I get the hang of it.
"Good, lass. If ya want, we'll keep training with 'em. No one will dare hurt ya when they see that." He offers, a scowl on his face at the thought of anyone hurting me. Sweet Dwalin, protective as always. I remain by his side that evening, feeling strangely protected.