Thank you again, my dear guest, for your lovely review. Hope you and the rest enjoy this chapter. Love.


Zirb looked at Brine with big eyes. She had admitted that she liked Fili.

"But this is something incredible!" Zirb sounded excited. For Brine, Fili was the first dwarf that caught her attention. "You should talk with him!"

"Zirb, I cannot talk with him like this, like Pip. He would find it creepy." Brine caressed her eyes trying to make disappeared her headache.

"Pip!" The girls shut up and turned to the voice. Bilbo was running to them. "We have a big problem. Oh, excuse me. Did I interrupt you?" Bilbo asked when he saw Zirb.

"Don't worry Bilbo. What is wrong?" Brine asked. Bilbo tried to explain everything to her but it seemed complicated. He told her to follow him to understand everything. Zirb joined them too.

"Fili will tell you." Bilbo answered. Brine's cheeks turned red. Zirb looked at her with a mischievous smile. Brine tried to control herself all the way.


They reached Fili and Kili, who were looking at the horses' place with scared faces. Brine looked at them and then back at the horses. She asked what was wrong.

"We have a problem with the poneys," Fili said without looking at her.

"There were supposed to be thirteen, but now there are only eleven," Kili explained. Brine knew then the wrong of the situation.

"Maybe they are around here," Zirb said as she looked around.

"Thorin will kill us if he finds out." Fili did not answer Zirb. He was too worried about the poneys. Brine could not stand it.

"Don't worry. I'll try to get them back." Brine said looking around and walking into the woods. Fili and Kili followed her close. The three of them stopped when the saw the scene in front of them. Bilbo and Zirb joined them talking loudly. Kili shut up Bilbo putting his hand in his mouth. Fili did the same with Zirb and holding her by her waist. Brine threw her a mean look. Zirb responded with a sorry look.

"Orcs!" Kili murmured to the question in Bilbo and Zirb's mind. "They must be the ones that took our poneys."

"Look!" Fili pointed to the two poneys that were behind one of the big orcs. They were talking about how to cook them. "We need to do something." Fili looked at them and his eyes repaired in Bilbo. "You are a burglar, Bilbo!"

"What? No, I'm not!" Bilbo seemed scared.

"Of course you are! That was what Mr Gandalf told us." Kili said and pushed him to the orcs as he told him that they would be watching him. "Just bring them back," Kili muttered and hid with Fili, Brine and Zirb behind some trees.

"If you run into trouble hoot twice like a barn owl and once like a brown owl," Fili whispered. He received a shocking look from Bilbo as an answer.

"I'm not sure about that." Brine told them as she saw Bilbo walking slowly to the orcs and the poneys.

"Don't be a fool, Pip. He is an expert in these things." Fili patted his back and chatted with Zirb. "How long are you going to stay with us?"

"Not much." Brine answered and regretted it a second later. "I mean, Thorin won't agree to have another member in the company, will he?" She excused herself.

"I don't think Uncle Thorin saw her as a mere member." Kili looked at Zirb mischievous. Brine turned abruptly to them. Zirb was looking away and Fili was with red face telling Kili to shut up. Brine tried to met Zirb's eyes but they were fixed on the ground. Brine knew that she had to talk with her seriously. Maybe she needed to talk with Fili too. "Oh shit!" Kili brought the attention back to Bilbo.

Brine remembered he had almost freed the poneys. A second later the orcs were holding him by his arms and legs. Kili took his sword. Fili did the same and together they jumped to the forest shouting to drop the hobbit. Brine looked at Zirb.

"Go and take the others here." She ordered as she took a little knife. "Go!" Brine shouted as she jumped in the back of the orcs, dipping her knife in one of the orcs legs. The orc yelled in pain and took his hands out of Bilbo. He turned to Brine, ready to attack her. She gulped the knot in her throat and thought about Fili's lessons when the rest of the company appeared in. The fight that took place there was intense.

"Come on Pip! This is not a mere lesson." Fili looked at her with a funny face. "Show me what have you learnt." He laughed as he hit an orc. Brine looked at him and nodded as she did the same things that Fili had taught her. She hit the same orc making him to kneel down. "Good job man!" Fili laughed and pat her back. His touch sent her shivers down her back. Brine could not help but lose herself in Fili's blue eyes. It was like the rest of the world did not exist. Everything was silence in her head. It took Brine some minutes to realize that the fight had stopped. They had taken Bilbo again, and there was another figure with him.

"Zirb!" Brine shouted. She could see that the girl was terrified.

"Drop your weapons." One of the orcs said. "Drop them or say goodbye to your little friends." Everyone stopped and looked at Thorin. Brine followed his eyes. They were fixed in Zirb. With a move of his hand, he ordered everyone to drop their weapons.


Brine saw the part of the company inside some sacks. The others were, like her, joined to a big trunk over a fire. In other moment, her position could be a perfect one, with Fili's head between her leg and...

"What am I thinking?!" Brine told herself as she felt embarrassed about what she was thinking. She was getting dizzy and nauseous with the movement and with all the noise around her. Brine tried to focus on something else. She tried to think about how good she had fought a moment before, side to side with Fili. That made her think about how handsome he looked when he fought with all his rhythmic movements and. "No again!" Again, she forced herself to take Fili out of her mind. She thought about a way to escape from there when she realized about a fact: Zirb was not with the other dwarfs. She did not know how but she had managed to escape from the orcs. "She must be out there." Zirb looked around as she could and saw a figure behind some trees. "Fili!" She called him. Fili met her gaze. "Zirb is out there!" She whispered and pointed with her head at the forest. Fili followed her head.

"You are right." Fili said and looked at Thorin. They did not say a word. It was only an exchange of looks but Brine was sure about what they were thinking. Bilbo saw that exchange too and walked to the orcs. He started telling them how to cook dwarfs.

"Do you want to kill us?!" Bofur yelled from the trunk too. Bilbo looked at him and made up another excuse. That time he told the orcs that those dwarfs were infected with worms. Kili was the one to complain at that time. Brine looked at them and tried to see the scene from a different point of view.

"He is trying to gain time." She muttered and looked at Thorin. He seemed to had the same conclusion as he hit Kili and pointed him to shut up. Brine turned back to the forest. Zirb was not there anymore. She looked around trying to locate her but a shadow caught her attention. "Gandalf is here!" She told everyone just at the same time he hit a big rock and let the sunlight entered in. It was then when Brine knew they were saved.


It took an hour to get them down from the trunk. Some of them had some injuries from the fight.

"Let me heal them before going back to the road." Brine told Thorin. He did not doubt it and nodded. Brine had waited for an argument so she looked shocked at him.

"Don't waste time." Thorin walked away to the forest.

Brine looked around and begun to walked around the dwarfs. Dwalin and Balin were the ones that had the worst injuries. Brine took a needle and sewed them up.

"I'm sorry." She told Balin as she saw his painful face. Balin did not say a word. He bit his lip and forced an smile just to tell her that he was alright. When she finished, she looked around for her next patient. "Now, let me help you with this." She said as she sat next to Fili. He had a scratch on his left cheek. "Don't worry, it won't let you a mark."

"It would be a nice way to start talking with a lady." Fili blinked her and Brine turned lightly red. She did not say anything more and avoided looking at him. "Where is Thorin?" Fili asked when she had finished to heal him. Brine looked around.

"He has walked away." She turned around but could not find Zirb. "Have you seen Zirb?" She asked Fili. He looked at her with a mean look.

"Pip, what is it between you and her?" He stood up and walked closer to her. "Listen, a woman like her would never lay her eyes on a dwarf like you." Brine looked at him with big eyes. She could not believe what he was saying.

"What do you mean?" Brine walked closer to him too with high head.

"That she is better with a dwarf from a higher position." He said those words with doubt in his voice.

"Do you mean like you?" Brine felt her breathing fast. She could not believe that her suspicions were right. Fili felt something for Zirb and he saw her as a mere opponent in the conquer of her heart. That thought made her own heart shattered and she ran away to the forest while Fili called her false name in the distance.