Disclaimer: I don't own The Hobbit!

A/N: Oh, my goodness, thank you everyone so very much for all the reviews, favorites and follows! I AM SO EXCITED THAT PEOPLE LIKE THIS! :D *bounce bounce* I'm floored by all of the positive response! I'm also really sorry that I didn't update sooner; I was super sick last week and then it's just been crazy busy. :( But I'm good to go now, so here's a new chapter! I should be updating every few days unless everything gets insanely busy.

Like Everything That's Green

Chapter 2

Camy winced, although she supposed that freezing in place would have been a more appropriate response. If she could have done both at the same time, that might have been an action that would appropriately express how she felt about the situation she had found herself in. The sword was bobbing in the dwarf's hand, and it was far too close to her throat for any kind of civilized conversation. She opened her mouth but no words came out. They seemed to have flown off, and if she could have followed them, she would have.

The dwarf narrowed his eyes, and the trembling sharp edge of the sword licked her throat. A trickle of warmth slid down her neck and along her collarbone. "Who are you?" he repeated.

"Chamomile," she answered him in a rush, "That's my name. Like the flower, spelled the same, but Mim calls me Camy, which isn't a flower at all, it…it's just a name..." Her voice had wound itself up high and tight and then trailed off. She looked down and then glanced back at him.

He was staring at her as if he was actually seeing her now. His face twisted in confusion, which probably hurt a lot seeing how it he had that nasty gash on his cheek.

When he let go of her hand, she pulled it back to herself and then threaded her fingers together. "I'm sorry, that was too much. It's just that you've got a sword at my throat and you're the first person I've met besides Mim and I don't even remember meeting her and…" Oh, this wasn't going well at all. It certainly wasn't how she wanted to meet her first stranger; she had always imagined that to be a merry event where everyone was pleasant and charming but now it seemed that it would be a memory marred with blood and babbling. Camy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Can you put the sword down, please?"

"You—you're a hobbit."

She opened one eye a bit. The dwarf had lowered the sword and rested it across his legs but he hadn't let go of the handle part yet. His eyes were suspicious, pained and more than a little puzzled. Camy looked at him fully, nodding slowly.

"And you're a dwarf," she said, "Also, you're very hurt." Her hand lifted a bit, on its way to his wounds, but she immediately turned it into a fist and thrust it into the folds of her skirt. "Was it the goblins?"

"Yes…" A grimace passed over his face then a flash of terror that made her gasp with how suddenly he wore it. "Kili!" He whipped his head to look over his shoulder at the wide, gaping hole in the tree that he had been sitting in front of. With some effort, he shifted so he could look at the hole, and Camy scrambled back, away from him and all of his sharp edged things, but she didn't go far. If she left him here, the goblins would be here as soon as night fell to get him. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She had only seen goblins from the safety of the vale, and she had no delusions of being able to fend them off if they caught her or this dwarf out here in the open.

Moving around seemed to have taken too much out of the dwarf. He took a few shuttering breaths, one hand on his side, before he slumped against the tree. His blue eyes glanced at her for a second before they fluttered shut, and she was certain she had seen pleading there.

Camy stood up and looked around, half expecting a goblin horde to come tearing at her through the forest. She spun in a circle, but the only thing she saw was a jack rabbit run into the bushes. Quietly, she walked over to the dwarf, clasping her shaking hands together. When she knelt by him this time, he didn't move to snatch her hand or accost her with a sword. He stayed still, breathing shallowly. Broken ribs, possibly, poor fellow. Sighing, she looked into hole in the tree, wondering what the dwarf had been doing, talking to the hole.

"Oh, dear." She sat straight down on the forest floor, feeling a little faint herself. A second dwarf was tucked into the hollow of the tree, looking about as well off as the first one. Although he dark as the other was fair, with long, tangled hair the color of rich earth and dark scruff on his face and neck, there was something similar in their appearances. Maybe they were brothers? It was hard to tell…

She put her hand to her mouth as she looked back at the first dwarf. The way he had placed himself in front of the opening in the tree, how he had had his swords ready at hand—she would have never seen this second dwarf or even known he was there unless the first one moved. And if the goblins had come for them, the first would have died before this dark-haired one…

Well, no one was going to die here, not if she could help it. Camy looked up toward the mountain, noting the growing shadows and the sinking sun. She would have to move fast, though she wasn't sure how she was going to get two injured and undoubtedly heavy dwarves back to the vale on her own.

And yet, she wasn't alone.

"Bert!" Darting to her feet, Camy tore back over to the old donkey, nearly tripping over a branch the same way her brain was stumbling over the plan that she was forming. She leapt into the cart and flung out all of the twigs and tree bits she had gathered; she would need all the room in the cart for its new, non-botanical occupants. When she was finished, she jumped out again. "Time to make yourself useful, come on!"

Pulling the donkey and cart over to the tree, she let go of the halter and hurried over to the first dwarf. She tilted her head to the side and bit her lips, considering how to go about this. "All right, now…" She bent down, slipped his arms beneath his and stood up. Or at least tried to. He might have moved a few inches when she hauled backward, but she wasn't sure. Dwarves must be made of the metals they worked with, as heavy as this one was.

Panic whispered at her edges. If she didn't work quick, they were all going to be goblin fodder. This had to work, she had to make it work. Why did they have to weigh so much? Her eyes darted over the dwarf with golden hair, and she tried to focus. Oh…oh! Armor, they were wearing armor!

She threw herself into the task of snatching all that armor off of the dwarves, first one, then the other. Arm pieces, leg pieces, bits of mail, all confusing and jumbled; she unlocked, unhinged and undid it all and threw the pieces into the box in the front of the cart. When she was finished, she tugged the golden-haired dwarf inch by hard-won inch to the cart. She had to tip the cart back, climb in and then pull him the rest of the way into the cart. Getting the second dwarf into the cart was a much more difficult affair; she had to weasel him out of the hole in the tree then get him into the cart, which almost upset the whole thing until she tied the first dwarf into the cart with a bit of rope. Not to mention she was quite terrified that she would either hurt him more or that he would try to attack her. On a whim, she scurried about and grabbed up the weapons that had been by their sides, guessing that if they lived through their wounds, they might want them back.

When she was finished, she flopped against the side of the cart, resting as she looked at the darkening sky. She felt like lying down on the ground and sleeping, but the woods were growing dim and they had to move on. Also, neither of the dwarves had woken up the whole time she had been moving them, and that worried her almost more than their impeding nighttime death by the hands of goblins. Exhausted, she clucked to Bert and headed back toward the vale, the wagon creaking in protest against its heavy burden.

Shadows were pooling around the gate as she approached, and when she looked back over her shoulder at the mountains, she could almost swear that she saw tiny dark shapes creeping through the trees. Her heart pounded so hard that it ached against her ribs, and she whipped back around to the gates to quietly say the words.

Sorrow and anger bind thee,

The past no more shall be,

In solitude lives the iron lady,

Open again, whispers me.

The instant the last word passed her lips, she darted through the gate, Bert quick on her heels. Camy was instantly more at ease but fear for the health of the dwarves drove her on now. The wheels of the wagon clattered on the rocks embedded in the path that headed straight for the tiny cabin she and Mim shared in the center of the vale.

"Mim!" Camy cried as they approached, "Mim!"

A moment later, the door swung open, and Mim stepped onto the porch, rubbing her hands on her stained, once-white apron. The human woman was tall, and her old age hadn't yet stooped her; on the porch of the small home, she still towered over Camy at the age of sixty-nine, which was apparently old for humans. Her dark-grey hair, streaked with wide swatches of white, was tied back in a severe braid, and her wrinkled-lined face became even sterner as she looked down at Camy.

"Are you hurt, child?" Mim demanded, coming down off the porch, looking her up and down for any harm. "Why are you yelling?"

Camy rushed forward and took Mim's hand. Mim would know what to do, how to help, she was a true healer, Camy was just in training. She tugged the old woman over to the cart, nearly bouncing on her toes with urgency. "Oh, Mim, please, you have to help them! They're hurt, and I don't know what to do—"

"Dwarves," Mim said as she looked into the cart for a long moment then glanced down at Camy. "Young ones. And where did you come by a pair of half-dead dwarves?"

"In the woods," she answered, knowing now was not the time for subterfuge. Before Mim could lecture her on the dangers of going beyond the vale, Camy interrupted any chances of it. "Are they truly half-dead? Can you heal them? I'll help, I swear, please just try?"

"Oh, dwarves are as hearty as beef stew and as durable as the mountains they dwell in. You can find one beaten within an inch of its life, and it still just wants a mug of mead and a hunk of ham." Mim said, waving away Camy's concern, though there was a slight frown about her brow that Camy knew meant she wasn't as sure as she sounded. "They're bad off but not unsalvageable. They'll make it through the night, I think, but we'll need to ward off infection." She crossed her arms and looked toward the mountains then down at Camy. "And the goblins will be down from the hills tonight, if this is their work."

"The gate will hold," Camy replied. It was a saying between the two of them, something Mim had said to her when she was just a wee little thing and afraid every time a goblin came near the edge of the vale.

"The gate will hold," Mim repeated, and she glared down at the two dwarves. "And these two may yet live to eat us out of house and home. Now, lass, let's get them inside. It'll be a long night ahead of us."