Author's Note: I own nothing.

25 Towards the Mountain

Bella couldn't help her slight blush around the others as they had all glanced at her new braid at the celebration. It was a complex thing. She swore Thorin had some sort of magic to completely untangle her hair and weave it. Half her hair was up in the braid, pulling it all out of her face, what she'd seen of it in the tarnished mirror in Thorin's room was beautiful. She had not returned to her room since meeting with Thorin in his room. That was another thing that made Bella's face go red.

Hobbits were not prudes, especially when they found the source of their Tuning. Bella knew when her cousin Drogo and his wife Prunella, then still a Brandybuck, had discovered they were singing to each other they had not left Drogo's small Smial for nearly a week. It had been a bit of a scandal. Bella and Thorin though did not have the option. She'd gotten less sleep than they'd planned that night, but Bella could not regret anything that had happened, even if it did still make her blush. Thorin was asleep beside her when she woke the morning they were to leave. She didn't want to leave. She didn't truly know what to expect when they reached the mountain. Several of the younger people of Lake Town had talked about the dragon wasting away under the mountain, but Bella privately thought that was too much to hope for. She was pulled out of her thoughts as an arm snaked around her pulling her back into his warm embrace.

"You worry loudly Ghivashel, even when you are silent." Thorin muttered into her hair. She rolled her eye and swatted him on the chest. He let out a low chuckle.

"What does that mean?" Bella asked looking up into Thorin's sleep blurred blue eyes. He raised an eyebrow at her. "Ghivashel. You've been calling me that for days but I don't know what it means." Thorin buried his head in her hair again before speaking.

"It means, treasure of all treasures. It is one of our words for those precious to us." Bella pulled back slightly, a grin on her face.

"Only one? How many words of endearment do dwarves have?" She asked, slightly amused. She'd never before really thought of her rough and tumble dwarves as soft in any way. But she could not deny the soft look in Thorin's eyes now.

"We have many, Ghivashel. Amrâlimê. Kurdel. Muhudel." He whispered them into her ear and though she did not understand them his tone made her shiver. It didn't help when Thorin inched just slightly forward brushing his lips against her ear. "Madtubirzul." He leaned forward to capture her lips with his only for a loud knock to interrupt them.

"Sorry to interrupt the love birds but we need to head out, and we have a bit of an issue. The blond elf is here, heading for the house as we speak." Nori's voice echoed from the hall. Bella swore scrambling out from under Thorin who was muttering darkly in Khuzdul.

"The blond elf?" Thorin called to the door.

"Tauriel's friend?" Bella asked, blushing bright red at confirming that she was indeed not sleeping in her own room.

"I don't know about friend anymore, the elf lass seems convinced he's come to arrest her for abandoning her post." Nori's voice was completely serious. Thorin and Bella shared a glance as they dressed. By the time they made it downstairs Legolas was already inside arguing in Sindarin with Tauriel.

"You should not have left."

"If I had not left he would be dead!" Tauriel snapped back at him.

"If I may." Bella said in Sindarin, making the pair of them jump. "Why are you here? You're clearly not here to arrest her, so what are you here for?" Legolas regarded her in confusion.

"You speak Sindarin?"

"And Silvain." Bella said switching between the languages. "That does not answer my question." She said in common for the benefit of the dwarves who all looked concerned and were growing restless. Legolas glanced around at the dwarves and seemed to decide that common would be the best language to use at the moment.

"I took a small band of elves to hunt down the Orcs chasing your company." He was addressing Bella not Thorin and under other circumstances she would have laughed. Tauriel frowned.

"Your father allowed that."

"I do not know. I did not exactly ask permission first. Something I learned from a friend of mine." He said glancing at Tauriel who grinned. "Several of the Orcs escaped, they look to be heading to Dol Guldur, but we know not why. I need my best ranger if we are to venture close to that place." He said turning to Tauriel.

"I cannot leave him again Legolas." Tauriel said glancing at Kili.

"So you would wait for the Orcs to regroup and march on the Mountain." Legolas asked. Bella broke in again.

"I will look after him, if this is as serious as it sounds we need all the information we can get." She promised and Tauriel looked between Bella and Thorin before glancing at Kili again.

"Alright I will go with you, but I will not return to your father's halls." She said with finality. Kili threw cation to the wind. He stepped up to Tauriel catching her hand in his eyes begging.

"I know what it is to not have a place in this world, please do not give up yours for me Amrâlimê." Thorin's eyes widened at his nephews words and Bella caught his hand to stop him from doing anything rash.

"My place is not in the employ of one who would despise us for the love the Valar has gifted us." She said and Kili smiled, then frowned at Legolas.

"If you must go, take this." He slipped something into Tauriel's hand. "You know what it means." She nodded and they pressed their foreheads together as if no one else was in the room.

"We need to go, or we may lose the trail." Legolas said and there was a hint of jealousy in his voice, but Bella couldn't help but think it was not for the couple themselves, but more-so a longing for what they had. The couple broke apart and Tauriel left with Legolas. The Company was silent for a moment but Dwalin was the first to speak up.

"If we're leaving this morning we need to go now." He said his voice gruff. With that the company rushed to gather their supplies. They only had a few days until Durin's day and it would take a full day at least to reach the ruins of Dale. They set out in two boats, Thorin steered the first one, Fili the second. In the first boat sat Bella, firmly between Dwalin and Balin. Bofur, Bifur and Bombur sat in their boat as well. Ori, Nori, Dori, Kili and Oin sat in the second boat, though from the look on Kili's face he would have rather left with Tauriel. Thorin had said nothing about Kili's obvious connection to the elf as they'd left Lake Town the people singing a song about the Lord of Silver Fountains as they left heading towards the shadow of the mountain. After what felt like hours Dwalin turned to Bella.

"Now that we're out of the company of Men I have to ask, how do you keep vanishing into thin air lass?" Balin nodded at his brother's words.

"That is something I have been wondering. If you could do that all along why didn't you use it against the trolls lass?" He asked and Bella slipped her hand into her pocket with a slight frown. Thorin glanced at her and a frown came over his face. It looked for just a moment as if Bella's clear brown eyes clouded with something he could not name. But in a moment they cleared again and she shook her head.

"I'm afraid it's a bit complicated. I never did get a chance to tell you how I escaped Goblin Town, not in full." She said and paused. "If I recall I only managed to get through the first bit. When we all fell through the goblin's front porch I slipped into the shadows. I had just drawn Sting trying to figure out how I could help you lot when…"

"Sting?" Bofur asked. Bella patted her sword.

"Sting." That got a few laughs, Bella rolled her eyes. "As I was saying, I had just drawn Sting and was trying to decide how best I could be of help when this goblin barreled out of nowhere and lunged at me. I swung at him and we fought for a moment but the blasted thing took us both over the side of the cliff." The dwarves were listening with wrapped attention, Thorin's knuckles were white on the pole he was using to steer the boat downriver. Here in her story Bella paused for a moment her hand wrapped around the ring in her pocket. Her ring, it had been Gollum's, his precious he'd called it and yet she still did not wish to share the full truth with her companions, not even Thorin.

"When I woke up I was in a patch of mushrooms, they softened my fall you see. The goblin wasn't so lucky. It was found by this thing, I know not what it is truly. Only that it spoke to itself, calling itself precious." She painted them an image of Gollum, hideous and mad, half blind from the dark. "But I had no choice you see. Hobbits are not renowned for their climbing so trying to go back up into Goblin Town was out of the question. So I made to follow the thing. That is when I found it. A simple gold ring. If I had to guess I would say some other unfortunate visitor to Goblin Town dropped it. I made no thought of it at first, just slipped it into my pocket. It wasn't until later that I realized what it could do. But first you must hear of Gollum, for I did follow the creature back to its lair."

Bella painted the game of riddles a little differently than it had actually gone. She changed none of the actual riddles but the intent of the game shifted in her telling. In her version of the story Gollum made no mention of his precious, only referring to himself as such. She painted him as desperately hungry, but cunning as she suspected he had once been before he had become whatever he was now. The deal in her telling was that he would guide her out of the caves if she won, as had been the deal then. But in this retelling when she'd asked the fateful question he'd attacked her, forcing her to run.

"I see now he'd never meant to keep his end of the deal. But as I was running I fell and the little ring came flying out of my pocket. I tried to snatch it from the air only for it to slip onto my finger. When Gollum came around the corner he could not see me." She said twisting the ring around in her palm. "He of course knew nothing of this funny little ring lost in the dark and wondered if I had made it all the way out, in doing so he accidentally led me to the back door." She said with a laugh.

"You spin quite a tale lass." Bombur boomed with a laugh. Bella smiled releasing the ring to rest back in her pocket.

"It may yet be of some use against the dragon as well, this little trinket of yours." Thorin said as a shadow passed over them. Bella looked up. They had passed fully into the shadow of the mountain.