Her heart was throbbing.
Her legs were burning.
Her breath was missing.
She kept on sobbing.
And yet, Andromeda did not feel tired, she did not feel worn-out as she should have been, not even after running for so long.
So far.
No. Andromeda wasn't feeling tired, she wasn't feeling anything, at the moment.
She was simply running. Running without a destination, running without a purpose, just…running.
And it did not matter where her bare feet sunk.
Soil. Grass. Mud.
Her feet did not slow down. They did not come to a stop. They kept on moving, on bringing her shattered soul where she could have found rest, even if she did not need it. To rest. To breath. To eat. To drink.
She did not need anything like that to keep on running, she did not need what a person needed to keep on living.
Because she died, many, many times, and she, she was no longer alive.
She was no longer a human, she was something else, now.
Something that was breathing without needing it.
Something that was walking without having a reason to do it.
Something that could feel nothing anymore, nothing, except the pain.
Because she could still feel it shaking her bones, biting her cheeks, squeezing her chest.
A pain so shattering to make her eyes sting and her throat tighten, but a pain that no food, or drink or could satiate, fix, because it was from the inside, that Andromeda was bleeding, was breaking, piece after piece.
Not her body.
But her heart.
Her soul.
The only thing the dark man had not been able to reach in time to crush it in his hold.
A surprised sob escaped her dry lips when she crashed to the ground, her left foot caught beneath the roots of an old tree while the shadow on her back remained still, his skeletal hands still clutched around her frail limbs as the claws of a scared, small bird.
The damp earth welcomed her hot breath as she stared at the ground with her limbs forsaken on her sides, her hair a dirty crown of pale, wild waves to cover her small back as a blanket of soft snow.
And for a moment, just for a moment, Andromeda contemplated the idea to lie down on the damp ground and let the tree around her burying her body under a layer of leaves and broken twigs, to be forgotten, because no one knew her, there. Because no one cared for her, there.
No one cared if she was dead or alive. If she was still breathing.
No one knew she was there.
And she could not let tears stream down her face for her cruel fate.
How curious.
Andromeda had always hoped for a chance like that. For an adventure, like that.
And yet, now that she had it, now that she could live it, she didn't want it anymore.
Capricious, wasn't she now?
Middle-earth.
She had been thrown in Middle-earth.
How many times had she read of that magical place?
How many times had she imagined to be one of the fictional character described as the tenth walker of the fellowship of the ring?
Too many.
And yet, despite all that, Andromeda could not feel elated by the chance to meet elves, dwarfs, kings and queens.
Because it was different from how things should have been, from how she had dreamed things should have been, if she had had the chance to become a book's character, if she had had the chance to be the hero.
But no kind elf had found her.
No eccentric wizard had come to her aid.
No brave dwarfs had lifted his ax in her name.
She had no one, there.
She was alone, and she had just killed a man.
Darkness welcomed her stinging eyes when the horrific thought made her wish to be able to conceal in the dark of her eyelids what she had done, to be forgotten along with her sins in the ground, to be buried with everything else, but she could not do anything of that.
Because, even if the leaves had granted her wish to be buried, even if time would have let her be tangled in its spiral and be forgotten, she would have remembered everything.
The world she had lost.
The people she had left.
The painful awareness that she could not die, no matter how much she wished for it, how much she craved for it, and she had craved it, death, many, many times, without never achieving it, in the end.
Because she would have survived everything despite the pain that would have broken her heart, despite the loneliness that would have shattered her soul, believing, every time, to be on the verge of dying without actually doing it.
Dying.
Because people could die from loneliness, for a broken heart, a shattered dreams, but Andromeda had always prevented to fall prey of it, of the loneliness and despair that had filled her eyes whenever she had looked at the mirror, trying to smile to the disoriented teenager who was always crying, always sobbing, always looking back at her with fatigue, but she had her mother, they had each other, she had someone to take care of.
But now?
What did she have now?
Nothing except herself, and Andromeda did not know what to do with her broken self, now, if not falling to pieces and let the world around her whirling without her in its cruel dance.
A fool, she had been a fool when she had thought to be able to do it, to believe, that she could survive the pain.
Because she could not.
It was too much.
Too much to take without going mad.
Too much to believe without losing herself.
Too much to bear without falling to her knees and crying out for mercy. For help.
A help no one would have given to her.
Not even a single hand.
So she could not do it. She simply…didn't want to do it, not anymore.
That world wasn't hers, after all.
Those people weren't even real.
That one wasn't her reality, it was a fantasy. A book.
A book she had just ruined killing its hero.
A destroyer, that was what she was, at the moment, for the people of that world, a bringer of death and misfortune, not a savior as one of the fanfictions she had read, not the heroine she had always wanted to be.
She had not been able to wield a sword or to hold a bow, or a dagger, to protect herself and defeat the enemy, only a couple of rocks to throw that had not even hit what she had wanted to hit.
Her moves had not been graceful, agile, or swift, as she ran for safety, she had just tripped, after all, on something that had not even moved or had tried to make her trip.
And the power she had received, the painful burning she was learning to control wasn't something she could use to really defend herself, even if she knew, now, how dangerous Kai's gift was in reality.
One of the Silmaril.
Kai had entrusted her one of Arda's treasures, something no one should have had, especially not a human from another world, especially not someone as clumsy as her, and yet, she still had it, despite everything else.
However, what made her so feel hopeless, what made her feel so shattered and beaten wasn't the possession she had, the curse she had received, but the man who had entrusted it to her, the question she kept on addressing to herself with a trembling voice.
Was Kai really a man, a human?
A friend?
And if not? What would have she done?
Scolding him?
Threatening him?
No, not even if she had now the power to make him feel the same pain she was feeling Andromeda would have brought him harm, because, even if it was pathetic, even if it was insane, she still trusted him, she still wanted to believe in him, in the end.
Because even if he was not human, even if his name wasn't really Kai, she would have waited for him to explain himself, his actions, before calling him a faker.
A traitor.
Because he was still her family. He was still someone she had loved for years, and despite the pain, the anger and the despair, she could not bring herself to hate him completely.
- Believe me when I say that you are the only one suitable for this.
Suitable.
Kai had always been a wise man, full of knowledge and kindness, a man who acted only with a purpose, only with a reason, who did not speak unless he had a reason to speak, and there had to be a reason behind all that, behind his gift, his choice, his words.
Her being there.
She knew it, she wanted to believe it, therefore, what she really needed at the moment weren't kind words, but answers.
She needed to find him, to save him from whatever prevented him to reach her, but… she did not have the strength, now.
She was feeling tired, even if knew that she could still run for miles, if she wanted to, the fact was that…she didn't want to do it.
To get up.
Not now. Not yet.
She wanted to bask in her own misery for a little while. She needed it.
To break, because only when everything was broken and shattered to the ground she could have tried to recompose the pieces, to pull herself together.
However, when Andromeda felt something sliding on her back, she could not prevent herself to stiffen before remembering that she was not alone, that she had involved someone else in her journey towards destruction and death, the wounded dwarf who fell on her side with a heavy breathing and unfocused eyes.
Reaching him was an instinct Andromeda could not contain, and when she felt the cold skin under her fingertips, she sunk her knees in the ground, levering on her elbow to lift herself from the ground, rushing towards the small, rackety body curled on himself as an undernourished child.
Gingerly, she helped the man to roll on his side, and she could not let a gasp of horror to leave her lips when she saw what the dark man had done to him.
What Sauron had done to Thràin, the King Under the Mountain.
And despite how unsettling still was for her knowing them, knowing what would have been, what had been before, that they were real, Andromeda could only take the man in her arms and weeping as she caressed gently the sweaty face of the dwarf she had read about.
The book had never told them what Sauron had done to him, how long the King had been tortured, but judging from what she was seeing, the damage was irremediable, and yet, he was still alive, he was still breathing heavily in her arms.
Even if he should have died.
Even if Gandalf would have found him on the verge of death.
But here he was, now, his vacant gaze focused on the sky above their head before leaving the dark cloud and focusing on her crying face, and it was then, that something changed in his eyes, that they came alive.
- You are safe now.
Andromeda did not know the reason why she whispered those words in her mind, if she was trying to comfort him or herself, if she wanted to be understood, nor she knew what to expect from him, but when Thàrin's rough and skeletal hand touched gently her shoulder before falling to the ground, his eyes now more present, more lucid, a small, trembling smile touched her lips while her hands gently caressed his battered face, shielding him with her own small body from the icy wind that began to howl around their lonely forms.
Andromeda shivered a little, but she was not really cold, her body was just acting according to its memory, to what it would have done when grazed by cold air, but if she could not really suffer for the chilly air and the trawl of the torture, the man in her arms could.
Thràin began to shiver in her arms, and to cough blood, to lose clarity, to surrender, but Andromeda would not have let him.
She would not have allowed the dwarf to die.
Even if it was not right, if it was not in the book, even if he was destined to die, but many things had already changed, the story had already been altered, because of her, and despite her fear, she would have taken responsibility.
She would have paid her debt with that world.
Because Thràin would have survived, he, who could still return to his family, unlike her.
He, who could still be saved, unlike her.
Slowly, Andromeda stood up with the dwarf still clutched in her arms, her eyes still shiny for the tears she kept on shedding, but her lips did not quiver, her cheeks did not tense, and when she crouched on her heels to let the dwarf curl on her back, the hand she used to hold him did not shake, did not waver.
Because she could be lost, she could be cursed, she could be tailed by an evil entity, but she could still try to seek redemption, to repay her debt to that world.
She would have protected the dwarf who should have died for the hobbit who, instead, should have lived in his place, she would have brought him home, and then, she would have tried to find the ring and Kai, to fix what she had broken, and then, only then she would have chosen a place where let herself be buried, be forgotten and, finally, where to yield.
Gandalf the Grey had never considered himself an easy prey of worry and disquiet.
He did worry, sometimes, but only when the time was as obscure as a starless sky, and only when troubling things happened at once, and indeed, troubling things had happened the previous night, more than what the wizard could let pass without frowning and quicken his steps at the same time.
When he had felt the wind hissing and the ground shaking as he skirted the lonely, dark road, he had put no mind to the stirring of Middle-earth.
Theirs were dark days, after all, and the earth stirred from time to time to the vicious and revolting presence that trampled on its ground, but when his eyes had been blinded by the flash of light that had torn the sky as a dark canvas and the ground had opened beneath his feet into a long, jagged crack that led to West, he had caught the hidden meaning.
The warning and the calling.
And there he was now, worried, a troubled frown to make him look older and wearier, heavy steps to led him up the marble stairs of the etheral, elfic city that he had reached on top of Shadowfax few minutes before, strengthless and breathless, a breath that the wizard recovered from the depth of his burning lungs when his eyes recognized the fair-haired lady-elf Lord Elrond was keeping from falling to the ground into a pool of white, soft silk.
- My lady!
When Gandalf the Grey kneeled before the Lady of the Light, a soft smile graced Galadriel's beautiful features as her pale eyelids fluttered, her starry, pained eyes now softer and lighter at the sight of the troubled expression of the Maiar.
- I was waiting for you, Mithrandir.
Gently, the old wizard reached for the bare shoulders of the pale lady, his heart heavy and his voice pained as he helped Galadriel to stand on her feet, his anxious gaze never leaving the stiff line of her delicate jaw.
- And here I am, my lady – he whispered softly, catching the pale, trembling hand the elf-lady was approaching to his face - What happened to you?
Something dark flashed in the clear eyes of Nenya's bearer, something Galdalf caught with uneasiness before Galadriel could hide the concern that had scratched the limpid surface of her gaze, but the wizard had seen it, and even if Lord Elrond didn't seem inclined to request an answer from the trembling lady, the wizard was too troubled to let the matter slip away.
- What happened? – the old wizard pressed in a tight voice, holding the hand Galadriel had tried to hide beneath the golden hair that encircled her form as a halo of light to camouflage the tremor that still shook her form and her gaze – What did you see?
The hard look Elrond directed to him did not prevent the Maiar to keep his eyes sharp, his frown dark, his voice as cold as steel, not when the mightest and fairest of the Elves seemed distraught for something, something that Gandalf knew, was linked to the flash of light that had burned the sky, something so horrible to scare her, somehow.
- What did you see, my lady?
- The lady is exhausted, Mithrandir, as you can obviously see. You knew better than anyone how wearing her foresight could be.
- Indeed, my lord. Indeed – the Maiar hummed under his breath and long beard, his voice low and dark - However, I fear that the matter at hand could not be disregarded any longer, my lord.
- And I think that you are going too far, Mithrandir.
- He is right. We can't waste time.
When Galadriel musical voice filled the chilly air, nor Elrond or Gandalf were prepared to see the fair lady reaching one of the pillars of marble with shaky steps, finding against the cold stone solace from the burning of the eyelids she let fall upon her broken gaze.
A gaze she let travel beyond her heavy eyelids, towards the golden skyline, beside the towering lines of the mountains, within the greenwoods where the elf could hear the leaves stirring and the trees whispering while a small figure ran amid the old roots, each one of her quick steps a small, imperceptible quiver she could feel reverberated in the air, in the ground.
In the depths of an abyss where dangerous and dark things laid.
- The Silmaril had found a bearer.
When the Lady of the Light let the whisper leave her beautiful lips, not a sound could be heard apart from the deafening silence in which the earth seemed to have entrenched itself, as it was holding its breath waiting for something to happen, for someone to speak, to ask what no one wanted to ask.
To know.
- A bearer.
Elrond's voice had been a faint, startled whisper, faint enough to be mistaken for a gust of warm wind, a trick of his tired mind, but Gandalf the Grey had heard him.
The Lord's troubled voice.
Galadriel's unspoken words.
The quivering of the ground.
The whispering in the air.
The wild thundering in his heart.
A heart the wizard felt going up his throat when he dared to speak again, to ask what the Lady wanted for him to do, a demand the Maiar accepted without a word as he began to descend the marble stairs of Rivendell with more than worry to trouble his spirit, this time.
Because dread was what made his steps quick and his limbs stiff, the ruined brim of his old hat to hide the shaking of lips the old wizard tightened into a hard line while, around him, the clattering of clogs made him aware not to be alone in his quest, in their race against time.
Because the Maiar knew, even without inquiring about, that someone else before the Lady had already demanded the same thing, the same quest, a quest at the end of which the wizard and the elves he heard trotting along his side would have brought the Silmaril's bearer to safety in Rivendell, if they had been able to find her before who, besides them, wanted the power she carried.
A power no mortal being should have had in that world, not even the mightest of the Kings, because it would not have been for her safety that soldiers would have been sent to the ends of the world, it would not have been in her defense that they would have risen their swords, it would not have been for her well-being that people would have fought, and, it would not have been her friendship what they would have wanted, asked for.
Claimed.
But her submission.
Her blood.
And despite Galadriel's hope and the reassuring presence of the elves at his side, Gandalf the Grey didn't know if they would have been the one to reach her first, or if, in the end, it wasn't already too late for them to save her and themselves from the advancing darkness he could feel clinging on his robes and soul.
Andromeda discovered soon that she had never really realized what being dirty meant until she had found herself covered in mud, dry blood, soil and dust, but before, she had never had the chance to run through thick woods, or climbing steep mountains or passing through sewage swamps.
She had read of that kind of challenges in one of her books, if she remembered right, Hercules had done something like that in one of his labours, but she was no demigod, she was simply a small girl with a dwarf on her back and a magical item to light up the path whenever she let frustration come over her.
And during her journey, she had let it come over her more than a couple of times.
Because, even if she did not need to rest, or sleep, or eat and drink, the dwarf needed all of those things, something she had tried to obtain without success, because she was no hunter, she was no explorer, she had just read something about hunting and how old races used to provide their own food with primitive tools, food she would have never got if, in one of her clumsy encounter with the hard ground, she had not noticed what, at first, had scared her to death.
Not that since her arrival to Middle-earth she had not had quite the scare, but hearing a tree chuckling while calling her a clumsy child wasn't something she had expected.
Unexpected, yes, but, for the first time, something for which Andromeda had found herself smiling hesitantly instead of screaming, because the old oak had been gentle with her, offering a couple of apples to share with the dwarf, apples she did not even dare to bite, because, unlike the dwarf, she did not need to eat to survive.
Then, the kind tree had allowed her to hide inside a small hole in his trunk when it had begun to rain, hiding her with its leaves when she had heard the howling of what she knew weren't simple wolfs, but Wargs.
Wargs that were searching for her.
The old oak had given her the sad news with a faint whisper, actually, it had confessed to her that many other creatures were searching for her.
She was carrying one of the Silmaril, after all, and Andromeda would have lied if she had not expected something like that.
Sauron was canny, sneaky, with powerful allies.
And Andromeda wasn't ashamed to admit to herself to be scared, scared to death.
Because, even if she could not die, there were many things Sauron could have done to her to make her speak, to make her surrender and praying for mercy, something she would have done, if they had caught her, and if the trees had not helped her, they would have surely found her.
She was no warrior, after all.
She didn't know how to cover their track, how to camouflage with the surrounding, she could find apples to eat and water to drink, but she could not fight, especially not against Wargs.
She had read about them, obviously, and the idea of meeting one of those monsters made her sweat cold and quicken her steps everytime she let her mind wander a little too long.
She had run for weeks, probably, she wasn't sure of that.
She had not had the time to look at the moon, she had been too busy with taking care of Thràin, helping him to recover from the mental break down that had made the King Under the Mountain scared and needy as a scared little child.
Not that she could really blame him.
He had been tortured for years, it was normal to act like that, to be so lost, so broken.
Therefore, when he had wanted to hold her hand while walking, she had been alright with it.
It was not a bother, for Andromeda, actually, it helped her to have a lucid mind, because she knew that she was close to her own mental break down, and she needed something to distract herself from thinking about her own misery.
Her own tragedy.
She was alone, after all, she could not return home or meet her family, no one was waiting for her at the end of her path, but for him, yes, there were people who were waiting for him, even if the thought to meet Thorin Oakenshield wasn't comforting as Andromeda liked to think.
He was an intimidating dwarf, from what she had read, kingly, brave, but as sharp as a blade and as deadly as a stab in her chest if angered, and Andromeda wasn't so sure that the dwarf would not have tried to stab her with his blade once he had seen her, not even if she had presented herself with his long-lost father.
He would have thought of her as a spy, as an enemy, and she did not know how to explain to him who she was without a voice to use, not that it would have mattered since theirs was a different language, but at least, she could have tried to make him understand that she was no threat.
- He would probably kill me on the spot.
When the thought left her troubled mind, Andromeda did not expect the sudden yank that made her almost lose balance if she had not grasped in time a twig above her head, but when she lowered gaze, she wasn't even prepared to meet the hard sky blue eyes that were staring at her with so much strength to make her jolt in response.
- What happened? Is something wrong?
Even before the dwarf could answer to her panicked questions, her hand had already reached the stocky body where she could see no blood, or wounds, or something that could have caused such strong emotions in his eyes.
Thràin was still too affected by the torture to be able to do anything else but gazing in the void and jumping whenever he heard a strange sound in the bushes, he barely remembered his name and where he came from, even when she had tried to make him talk about his son she had not found some kind of recognition in his blurry eyes.
He was too entangled in his own pain to be able to remember something else apart from the torture and the pain, but there were brief flashes of lucidity that allowed him to act more like he should have, like the brave dwarf she had read about.
- I…protect you…
Her eyes watered even before she could let the inarticulated thought reach her mind, a trembling smile to touch her chapped lips as her hand gave a gentle squeeze to his scrawny shoulder before the light that had made Thràin's eyes more lucid left his gaze, his eyes once again distant, unfocused, but she did not need him to be alert, she would have been the one to lead the way, to be vigilant, after all.
And vigilant were indeed the eyes Andromeda led beyond the thick clearing she was passing through, the sharp outline of the Blue Mountain a view for which she let a flash of relief brighten her eyes as she went back to walk, gently pulling Thràin towards the city at the feet of the mountain that they would have reached in the late night, and indeed they reached it when the darkness had already fallen upon their head and no stars were able to light up their path, but Andromeda needed no light.
She knew where she was going even without asking for her own light to shine, what her bare feet would have trodden upon even if she had not lowered her eyes to the dirty ground, what would have waited for her if she had dared to take the open road, but she wasn't so silly to believe to be finally safe, because they weren't, or at least, she wasn't, she would have never been.
She was still being tailed, and in danger.
Wargs and men were the same things for her, for what she carried.
They were both dangerous, both a threat, but not for the dwarf who was limping beside her, too tired to be able to stand by now.
She had to bring Thràin to his kin as soon as possible, to bring him to safety.
They would have protected him from the incoming darkness while she, she would have continued her journey without him.
That way Sauron would not have tried to hurt them to get her, they would have been safe without her, everyone would have been spared without her.
She was a burden no one would have wanted to bear, and she, she didn't want, she didn't need someone to share her tragedy, her fate.
She would have been fine by herself. She would have been fine with being alone.
It was safer. It was simpler. It was what she wanted.
To be left alone.
She deserved it.
- Wait.
Her thought left her mind even before her feet could come to a stop, the dwarf behind her back now completely leaned against her side, his hand clutched to her sweaty one while Andromeda's ears picked up as she tried to catch the sound that had made her stop so abruptly.
But except for the howling of the wind she could not catch anything out of place, nothing a normal person would have picked up, but she was no longer a normal being, she was no longer a human being, and what she was hearing wasn't only the howling of the wind, but the muttered words of who, until now, had been able to warn her about the danger, about the location of her hunter, and the whispered he is here that her ears were able to catch was enough to paralyze her.
But she wasn't going mad. Not this time.
Because, before, she had been fooled by her own madness.
She had become a little paranoid after what she had gone through, and, by now, she had become so obsessed by the possibility to find danger to see it behind every concern, every shadow, every hole in the ground, but Andromeda knew that something was wrong, incredibly wrong, that she wasn't simply hallucinating, that she wasn't simply hearing voices that did not exist, not again.
She could not explain it, but she could feel it, the danger.
It was dancing around her stiff form like a ghost, a heavy breath she could feel grazing her nape, a shiver that made her knees tremble and her teeth clash, a horror she could feel sliding in her throat as she yanked Thrain towards a barrel behind which she crouched, her eyes wide and her hands now placed on the mouth the dwarf had just opened under the cry he was going to release when he saw it.
A shadow.
Massive, clouded in the mist of the night, with a shape difficult to discern from the darkness in which he was engulfed, but Andromeda's eyes had become accustomed to the dark, her mind sharpened by the knowledge that, however, did not to do justice to it.
Because even if it had been described as a dreadful monster, what she saw crawling in the darkness wasn't even comparable to what she had imagined, what she had feared to see.
To face.
- Shh, it's ok. It's ok.
She was whimpering. And trembling. And praying whatever deity she knew to spare her that horror, that fate, to let her pass without furthermore pain, to let her escort Thràin to his family without other hardship.
But Andromeda knew, deep down, that she could not afford something like that.
To be spared.
She did not deserve it. Not after killing a person, another human being.
Not when she had condemned that world to fall prey of its doom.
She deserved to pay, for what she had done, but not now. Not now please she prayed with her eyes full of tears fixed on the dark sky.
She would have paid her debt, but Thràin did not deserve to be involved, not when his chance to be happy was so close.
Not when the possibility to redeem herself was so near.
It was cruel, too cruel to bear, to accept, but when she heard a couple of probably drunken men shout in the dark while shoving each other with silly giggles along the desert path, when her scared gaze was able to catch the towering figure cloaked in black who was escorting the two drunkards with harsh words but kind moves, something in her broken mind screamed horrified when her frozen mind recognized him.
Even if it was so dark not to be able to see her own feet.
Even if it was unthinkable to be able to meet Thorin so soon, so easily, but things, in that world, did not work according to the logic, they did not happen with a precise order, they happen when she didn't need them to happen, when she was no ready to face them, and she wasn't.
Andromeda wasn't ready for that.
For meeting the King Under the Mountain.
For returning alone.
For being forgotten by the only man who knew about her. Her name. Her misery. Her story.
She wasn't ready to act, to throw herself in the face of the danger, to let her fall prey of death's arms, because she would have died, again, if she had stepped out from her hiding.
If she had decided to warn them about the incoming danger.
Of the monster who was lurking in the dark.
She would have died.
And she was scared of that.
To realize how cruel her destiny still was.
How endless her torment would have been.
That, in the end, she had no one to call. No one to pray.
That she would have been once again alone.
It was cruel. It was heartbreaking, it was unfair, but nothing, nothing would have been more painful than failing again, than contracting another debt with that world, than losing another fragment of her shattered soul.
So Andromeda tried to collect all the bravery she could afford from inside her, her breath heavy, her eyelids tremulant and wet by the tears she let rolling on her cheeks, her heart a loud thundering in the chest she gripped with one hand before stiffening her limbs, so to prepare her shaking body to move, to prevent another death that would have been her fault, again.
Because the Warg was searching for her.
She was the one the monster had to bring back to his master, and even if the monster would have succeeded his goal, she would have tried to distract him the time necessary for the dwarves to retreat.
She could not afford more than that, than buying time for them to flee, but it would have been enough.
She would have made it enough.
- Hush.
When Thorin's hard wording reached their ears, both the giggling dwarfs who were playfully shoving each other stopped in their tracks, their lucid eyes now more vivid and alert as Kili and Fili reached for the daggers hidden beneath their crumpled robes without actually extracting them, ready, however, to face whatever their uncle was staring at with his stony gaze, as he was challenging what the darkness was concealing to come to light.
However, it wasn't from the front that they had to defend themselves by an incoming danger, but they realized it too late and too slowly when the shadow who had just thrown itself against them took them by surprise from the side.
When Andromeda felt the hard and painful impact with the ground she knew that she had not simply fallen with the young dwarfs she had tried to reach, but that something had knocked her against it, the hand she could feel tightening around her throat, rough fingers to sink in the soft skin of her jugular vein as the imposing man above her tried to discern from the dark her features.
A choked sob escaped her lips when she did not answer to his thundering questions, but she could not understand him.
She could not tell him that she did not know his language, that it did not matter how much he strengthened his grip, how long he would have tried to choke her, she would have never answered him, not in the common way, at least.
- Take him with you.
Fili raised an alarmed gaze when he saw his uncle distancing himself from the shadow he was just strangling just a moment ago while Kili was trying to restrain the old, smelly man who had just tried to knock them off.
Not that he would have succeeded in his foolish attempt.
He was all bones and frail limbs, he would have broken even before touching them, but the old, foolish man did not seem to care about that, not when he tried to bite off Kili's arms in his attempt to reach the trembling shadow who succeeded on standing up, even if shakily.
Andromeda gulped her own fear and tears when the air filled her lungs once again, a hand closed protectively on her throat to prevent the man in front of her to try to choke her to death again.
A hysterical laugh vibrated in her chest when she pondered about how people in that world seemed to love to choke her, but now she didn't have the time to have a nervous breakdown, to lose it. No. Not yet.
She would have had all the time to go mad, but now, now she had to save them, now she had to give them the time to flee.
Even if she knew that the dwarf in front of her would have stabbed her with the blade she saw shimmering in the dark if she had moved even from an inch, if she had tried to touch him so to talk with his spirit, like she used to do with Thràin, but if she could not tell him who was the man his nephew was crushing in his powerful arms, she could at least show him that the threat wasn't her, it wasn't him.
But what Andromeda knew was waiting for her in the dark.
Thorin Oakenshiled did not flinch like his young nephews when a sparkle of blue light sizzled in the air as the coughing of a small thunder.
He did not take a step back when the first sparkle was followed soon by a more solid flash of light that, for an instant, lighted up fair hair and haunted eyes.
But when the flickering of light steadied itself, when the initial flashing of light became more vivid, more solid, something in his eyes changed as Kili and Fili gasped at the sight of their attacker.
Andromeda did not look away when she caught the shifting in the dwarf's icy blue eyes, a blue lighter and piercing than Thràin's.
Because Thorin Oakenshield's eyes were like glass. Hard. Transparent. Cold.
It was like looking at the surface of a crystalline lake that could have swallowed you if you had tried to take a peek inside, if you had tried to see what was hidden beneath the hard surface, something Andromeda did not dare to discover, because it was enough the dwarf's overpowering presence to make her desist.
Different.
Thorin Oakenshield was different from what she had imagined.
He was tall, taller than she had thought at first.
His arms, although covered by a cloak, seemed able to crush the strong trunk of an old oak barehanded, as well as her waist line and arms.
His build was strong, with sharp features, thick eyebrows, thin mouth and pale skin, he was more intimidating than she had expected, but it was his eyes what surprised her, what made her breath hitch.
Penetrating. Cutting. Beautiful.
He was a beautiful, terrible man with beautiful and terrible eyes.
Someone who could make you sigh and gasp at the same time, but what Andromeda did, what she could afford with the little time she had was simply staring at him.
And for a moment, a foolish, small moment, Andromeda could not help herself to be curious about what the dwarf was thinking while looking at her like that, with so much coldness to make her tremble, but when she heard the close growling, Andromeda knew that Thorin should have looked at someone else.
Somewhere else.
The blade whistled in the air when the dwarf saw the strange creature with fair hair moving her slim and bruised arm towards him, or, judging by the way his nephew gasped in attracting the attention of the wounded, strange lady, behind him.
And even if looking back would have been dangerous, unwise, when he saw the eyes of the strange creature soften a little, it was the curiosity to discover what could make such a haunted gaze becoming so gentle to make him throw a look back.
Kili did not move when he felt his uncle's gaze upon him, he did not flinch when, suddenly, Thorin reached him with shaking steps, he did not let the surprise light up his eyes when he caught something akin to tears in his uncle's eyes, but when he heard him gasp, when he saw him falling to his knee in front of him, something snapped inside the dwarf.
The frenzy that brought Fili to grab his uncle's wrist to help him to stand up, but it was like trying to move a mountain, it was like asking for a tree to shove over.
It was futile.
Because Thorin was much stronger than them, and if he did not care to move, he would not have moved, not even from an inch.
- Uncle?
Thorin did not answer at his nephew's nervous call.
His eyes were too busy in searching in the bony face of the old man in front him the familiar features he had buried in his memory along with the pain of a loss he would have never been able to overcome.
But he was there, in front of him.
His father, the one he had lost along with his home, his sanity, his hope, was in front of him, now.
Skinner than he remembered. Bruised. Wounded. With a tormented look that made his wrists tremble and his breath stall, but he was there.
He was there.
- Where did you find him?
Andromeda did not look away from the darkness that had attracted her gaze when she heard but did not understand Thorin's Oakenshiled hiss.
Not because she did not care about his words, not because she did not want to look at him, at Thràin, one last time, but she had read, once, that it was not wise looking away from a beast's intense gaze when he was challenging you, and the Warg was looking at her in the eyes.
He was challenging her to try to escape.
- What have you done to him? Answer me witch!
Andromeda did not need to know the language to understand what he was saying to her, of what he was accusing her.
She had expected him to do it from the beginning, to blame Thràin's condition on her.
He was too bitter from the betrayal of the past and too blinded by his own pain, grief and anger to be able to see the fingertips burned on her throat, the sign of handcuffs on her wrists and ankles, to see that she too, was a victim, that she had been tortured too.
But he had been on the verge of throwing down from the mountain poor Bilbo after everything he had done for him, and if, until now, her own misery had not been able to tear her apart, the memory to have killed who would have saved Middle-Earth finally broke her.
- Protect…you…
When Andromeda heard his tremulous voice, she blinked a couple of times to free her eyelids from the tears she felt rolling down her cheeks when she recognized the word, something Thràin had already repeated in her mind to make her understand what he wanted to do, a sentence that brought the two dwarfs who were restraining the old man to look strangely at him while Thorin stared hard in his father's eyes that, however, weren't focused on him, but on the frail young woman who was silently crying with her face turned to the darkness.
- I – Thràin felt his lungs burn when he tried to articulate the word, his eyes now vigilant, afire, while his arms tried to losen the grip around his skinny limbs to let him reach her – I…protect you. Andromeda.
Like an elastic band that had been ripped from what was keeping it in place, Andromeda's head turned abruptly towards the dwarf who had just called her by her name, her eyes wide while her mouth attempted a trembling smile as the halo of light around her became brighter for the wave of warmth that reached her cheeks, her heart, unconcerned of the howl she heard just in front of her, or the hissing of the blade Thorin wielded with both hands when he recognized the shape that had just come out from the darkness.
But not even then Andromeda left Thràin's pained face and eyes.
She kept on looking at him even if she knew how close the Warg was, how silly was wasting time like that, but no one had called her name since when she had been thrown in that word, and she, she had forgotten how pleasant was being called, how heartbreaking was knowing that someone, there, would have remembered her even if for few moments, but it was enough for her.
Yes. It was enough.
- Thank you.
A gentle, broken smile.
That one was what Thorin caught in the corner of his eyes before a flash of light and the sound of quick steps brought him to raise his sword and to stare in front of him as the Warg charged, Kili and Fili at his side with a couple of daggers clutched in their hands, ready to fight, ready to defend themselves, but shock soon came over their disoriented mind and face when they saw the imposing monster crouching on his powerful paws to jump, but not towards them, but above them, ignoring their presence, their weapons, and their incredulous gaze as he kept on following the lady they saw disappearing in the woods with the Warg on her heels.
- Hey!
When Kili's shout rumbled in the silent night like a thunder, many different things happened at once.
Thràin, now free from the grip of the young dwarf, wasted no time to run towards the woods where Andromeda and the Warg had just disappeared.
Kili and Fili, despite the bewilderment that still shook their heart and gaze, had no choice but to do the same when they saw their usual impassible uncle ran after the smelly, old man with an anxious gaze that troubled them to the core.
And the people who, until then, were peacefully sleeping waked up with a start, the far howling of the Warg followed by the clattering of the weapons people began to raise in the dark while torches were alighted and men were descending on the street to hunt down the monster who was threatening their life and their home.
A monster that would have taken more than one shape and a name, that night, depending on who you would have asked.
Because, what most of the people tended to forget, was that it was thanks to light that darkness could be found, could be seen, and the more Andromeda would have burned to chase away the darkness, the more the darkness would have tried to choke the last gleam of light, blurring the delicate line that distinguished what was right from what was not.
Thanks for reading! See you to the next chapter!