- Do you want to rest a little?
Squeezing gently the hand she was holding firmly in her own, Andromeda waited patiently for an answer that the old dwarf to her side gave with the slow shaking of his head, even if the way Thràin had begun to sway, clashing against the towering form of the other dwarf who seemed concerned as much as her about the clear fatigue in Thràin's eyes, betrayed his real condition and his real need of rest.
However, despite the failing of his body and the restlessness of mind, Thràin was still a proud dwarf who did not want help, even when he needed it, something Andromeda had discovered along their journey, when, during one of Thràin's delirious night, the old king had rambled about his shame on forcing a woman, mostly wounded, to carry him on her back like a little child.
What Thràin forgot too easily, however, was that unlike him, she could feel no tiredness or hunger, or thirst, that she was no longer a human, and that pride was unnecessary with her.
Therefore, when Andromeda stopped in her track to crouch down, she tried to reassure him with a small smile while Thorin's eyes followed her movements with his eyebrows knitted in confusion and the two dwarfs on her back slowed down to watch from a distance her strange behavior.
- I…not tired.
Few were the chances for her to act like the teenager she was in reality, to be a little childish, to do what normal people like her should have done, but Andromeda caught the chance when she had it, and being stubborn like a horse despite everything else was what a teenager did better, especially when an adult tried to change his or her mind.
- You are tired. We both know you need to rest – she retorted without malice or harshness, ignoring the gasping of the two dwarfs who had probably realized the reason why she was crouching like that and why the old, skinny dwarf was approaching her with a somber look.
- No right.
When Andromeda felt his familiar weight on her back, a relieved smile touched her lips while her hands slipped under the dwarf's bony knees, securing the old king on her back while covering both of them with the heavy cloak to keep them warm.
It was odd how reassuring it had become, carrying the old king on her back like a child, something she did not consider dishonorable or pitiful but that, instead, Andromeda needed more than Thàrin could ever think, because it was in being helpful that Andromeda could dull her guilt, that she could lull the dark voices in her head, the murderer whispered in her soul from voices she knew that wasn't real, but that could still hurt her, that could still break her soul.
Because she had killed again.
She could still feel the sticky feeling on her fingertips and the ferrous smell of blood attached to her dress, pasted on her hair, burned in her nostrils along with the stench of the carbonized carcass she had dropped in the water when she had heard someone approaching.
She had killed, and this time, she had done it, instead of causing it indirectly, unintentionally.
She had wanted to kill, and it mattered little that she had only tried to defend herself because she had become a murder, she had chosen, to become a murder, and Andromeda knew that once taken that road, there was no turning back.
That her soul was lost to her forever.
That she could not be saved by anyone. Not anymore.
When the damp earth welcomed the humid fall of her tears, an instinctive need to hide made her tilt her head to the side, so to cover with her long and dirty hair her face, especially when she felt the cumbersome presence on her side.
Thorin Oakenshield was still watching her, or he was simply trying to open a hole in her head with the intensity of his gaze, whatever the case, she would not have shown her tears, she had already embarrassed herself enough for a whole lifetime.
- Shouldn't we help her?
When Kili's troubled voice broke the silence, no one turned around to meet the eyes of the young prince, not even his brother who, despite his annoyance towards their lack of actions, could notice how easily the small woman was carrying the old man on her back, almost as she was used to it.
- She seems capable enough to carry him without our help, brother.
- But haven't you noticed them? – Kili retorted with an angry hiss, gesturing wildly towards the small woman - The sign of torture on her arms and neck? It-
- How many time should I say it for you to understand it, Kili? Be quiet.
Muttering unrepeatable words under his breath, Kili decided to keep himself busy with an interesting frayed thread in his cloak while Fili found the sky suddenly charming when Thorin's eyes traveled on him too, before returning on the back of the woman he was shielding from the howling wind with his back.
Not that she seemed bothered by the chilly air despite her ripped dress, nor she seemed to care or to be in pain for the fresh wounds Thorin could still see whenever the icy wind pushed aside the hem of the cloak he had given her, so to protect the wounded woman from the biting cold, but, above all, to hide what no man should have seen without her consent, even if, judging by the way her dress had been ripped and the way her skin had been marked with scratches and bites, the young maiden had not given it to whoever had assaulted her.
She had fought him, however.
There was still the trail of dry blood in the corner of her lips, almost as she had tried to bite off her aggressor, and Thorin had seen too many wars to not recognize that kind of blood.
Because only dark things could lose such dark blood.
She had probably tried to bite him to free herself, then, when biting had not been useful enough, she had tried to scratch him with her nails, nails that now were ruined, chipped, with the tender skin of the fingertips flayed, and when her nails had become useless too, she had pulled the chain that kept her chained to the ground with all her strength, leaving her with bleeding wrist and battered skin.
She had fought him for a long time.
The bruises on her throat were too old to be fresh, of months, maybe, he was not sure of that, but of something Thorin Oakenshield was certain.
She had been the one to free herself and his father from the claws of their jailer.
His father had always been a powerful king, a great warrior, but the trembling and skinny dwarf who the young woman was carrying like a little child would not have been able to fight, let alone to escape a dark creature he feared even to think about.
The Necromancer.
A shiver ran along his spine when his mind found the courage to call his name.
However, despite his hope and dread, something told him that he was right about it, about the identity of their jailer.
The dark blood.
The blinding pillar of light of Dol Guldur.
The appearance of a glowing woman encircled by the same light that had ripped the sky just where his father had disappeared many years ago.
Too many coincidences at once to be mistaken, to be wrong, and if there was something Thorin did not believe in that world, then, it was that coincidences could exist.
No.
The glowing maiden was there for a reason, a reason Thorin failed to acknowledge as something favorable for him and his kin.
No god had ever thought about them, no one had ever cared about dwarfs, about their destiny. Their misery. Their demise.
So why now?
Why someone should have cared about them?
They had been left alone.
By the elves.
By the Valar.
And believing that someone who did not belong to his kind was trying to help them without ulterior motives was foolish and unwise.
People were evil. Selfish. Full of greed. Hatred.
They did nothing without a profit, and Thorin feared to know what the inhuman entity who had appeared with his father wanted in exchange for the freedom of Thràin.
Because the woman wasn't human.
Thorin knew magic when he saw it, and the glowing woman was bathed in it.
A wizard, maybe, but Thorin had met wizards before, and no one had so much light around it, in her.
She was almost blinding, a beacon in the night.
The white of her hair was shimmering as the stars had melted on her head, framing gold skin who the sun had kissed more than once to give her such a strange but exotic color and her eyes, Thorin was troubled by them greatly.
Her eyes were like coins of the darkest gold, burning like newly melted metal that, instead of hardening and becoming as cold as steel, it had remained soft and warm to the touch.
No. He did not like her eyes.
They were too dazzling, and dwarfs, despite loving shining things, did not like bright places.
They preferred the comforting shadow of their mountain, the cold touch of the stones beneath the palm they would have pressed on the hard wall to steady themselves while going down the heart of the mountain.
Elves were the one who loved to bath in the light, to ran their hands in the fresh trees, they would have loved all that light but Thorin, Thorin loathed it.
Her.
For bringing it. For giving him the chance to see what the dwarf preferred to keep hidden in the shadow.
He felt uncomfortable with all that light, faulty as he knew to be in reality, deep down, where the madness was always waiting for him, where the shadows in his soul were waiting for him to unleash what he had always kept beneath.
Darkness. So much darkness to fill the entire mountain with it, to devour even the glinting of gold and silver.
No. He did not like all that light, and even his nephews seemed troubled by it, by her, even if for different reasons from his own.
They felt uncomfortable too, yes, just like their uncle, but not because they loathed the gentle light she brought with her in that dark night, but because, more than her glowing eyes and mesmerizing appearance, what made them keep their breath were the marks on her throat.
The scratched on her cheeks.
The dry blood on her lips.
The screams of pain on every inch of skin.
It was too wrong, seeing so many bruises on a human, on a woman.
It was not right, even during wars.
Women were such a rarity in their kind, that it was almost incomprehensible for them how a man could hurt a woman.
A bringer of life.
It was unfair.
It was wrong.
It was cruel.
However, despite their shock and dread, the dark marks on her skin and the prints of male fingertips on her throat were a clear sign of the horror she had faced during her imprisonment, tortures the smelly man who traveled with her had faced too, judging by the fatigue on his face and his state of malnutrition.
The glowing woman, however, seemed to care less about her dirty hair, her livid limbs or exposed skin, keeping on walking without caring for their gazes or presence, of the world around her.
It was a strange feeling seeing her walking.
It was as if she was moving a different way, at a different speed, as if she was going ahead but not like them, it was like...it was like the world failed to keep her pace, flowing around her, but not with her.
Sea waves.
The glowing woman reminded them of sea waves.
With their own will. Free to go where they wanted to go. Making a path when there wasn't one.
Bringing down with them whatever they met along the way.
Terrifying, but there was something fascinating in the way she was keeping herself despite her head down.
Her back was straight, her steps unfailing, her form unwavering despite the pain she had to endure to keep going.
Where, she didn't seem to know either, but she kept on moving anyway, on going forward, even without them to lead the way.
Even if she was too young to know how to travel alone, how to be on her own, and, deep down, both Kili and Fili feared to know, to ask, how young she really was.
But, above all, what troubled them greatly was the discomfort of not knowing how to face her haunted gaze, or how to ask something she probably didn't want to recall or talk about, especially with a stranger, but their mother would have known what to do.
Yes, their mother was the smartest one between all of them.
She was a woman, and she knew better how to handle … well …another woman.
Obviously, their uncle wasn't able to do it without sounding menacing or angry all the time.
Even now, as he towered on the glowing woman with his imposing form to shield her from the wind, his contorted way to show his concern for her could be mistaken for a gesture of intimidation instead of an awkward sense of inadequacy towards the current situation that their uncle did not know how to handle.
In fact, they could notice how his presence was troubling her instead of soothing the glowing woman.
Her back was stiff, her pace a little restless as she tried to keep a distance between them, something their uncle found offending judging by the way he hastened his own pace to return to shield her with his back.
Yes. Their uncle was hopeless when it came to other people's feelings.
He was too imposing, too rough and too stubborn to see the wrongness in his way of showing his concern, or, like at that moment, his regret.
Because he was trying to make up for his harsh words and cruel behavior, his rudeness towards a female.
Their uncle was, after all, a proud dwarf, brave, sometimes rush, sometimes stubborn, sometimes vengeful, but a dwarf who was not ashamed to apologize for his flaws, it was just that his way of apologizing wasn't so easy to understand.
His temper was too fleeting to let him keep his cool when things didn't go his way, and the way the glowing woman averted his gaze and recoiled from his presence wasn't the result he had expected judging by the stiffening of his jaw and the growing shadows in his eyes.
- I had never been so eager to meet mother.
A chuckle escaped Kili's lips when he heard his brother quiet whisper, Fili's eyes still glued on the sky, terrified as he was of the chance to meet his uncle's dark look, eyes Kili brought on the dirty ground with a start when Thorin turned back to see what his oddly quiet nephews were plotting, returning, soon, to keep an eye on the woman who, while he wasn't looking, had distanced herself, shocking the dark king and the young princes when, without even waiting for their direction, she entered the tunnel hidden by the bushes that no one should have known except them.
- I want mother.
- Me too, brother. Me too.
Great expectations tended to be quickly disappointed when you used your own imagination to portray something you had only read about in a book, however, when Andromeda's eyes adjusted to the pitch darkness that had swallowed her, in stepping in the tunnel she was following with her hand, so to have something to guide her along the way, she could barely hold her breath while her eyes tried to find an end to the rocky gorge that was opening in front of her astonished gaze as the dangerous cave of Scilla.
And just as the sinister alcove of the mythological monster she had read about as a child, Andromeda found slimy grounds to welcome her bare feet and sharp corners to cut the tender skin of the palm she collected to her chest when, in her trans, she stumbled on a rock after hearing a sudden sound on her right.
The hand she had raised in self-defense collided with something hard and sharp that made her grinding her teeth in pain, but even before she could grip in her hold the blade of who, in the shadow, had aimed for her head, a dark hiss and a surprised gasp followed the unleashing of flames that would have burned alive the dwarf if Thorin had not jerked him away in time.
The way the golden eyes were watching him through the dancing flames was scorching, almost as if they had reached him, as if the flames were peeling off his skin, melting his bones, burning his skin, drying up his breath when the sudden moves around them made her gaze grew more startled. Anxious.
Frightened.
- Intruder!
- Cut off his head!
- Rip off his limbs!
- Pierce through his skull!
- Tear out his heart!
So many voices.
Andromeda was not used to hear so many voices at once, to see so many people around her, so it was with the confusion of a surrounded animal that she backed away blindly towards the stone wall, one of her hand secured around the wrist she grasped with worry when she felt Thrain moving on her back in the attempt to help her.
However, despite the goodwill of the old dwarf, it was safer to have him pressed between her back and the wall.
She could protect him that way, keeping an eye on the king while having her hands free to push away whatever they were going to throw at her.
Axes. Blade. Arrows. Curses.
She wasn't afraid of the pain that would have come, of the weapons they would have used to hurt her.
She had already been stabbed, cut, scratched, strangled, drowned, to be scared of them.
They could try, just like Sauron, to break her, but she would have returned each time to repay them with the same coin, because, unlike her, they could die, they could not return a second time.
Yes. They could try to break her as many times as they wanted, but she, she would have recomposed the pieces to stand up and strike back again.
And again. And again, until she would have been the only one to be standing, in the end.
To survive.
That was the only that remained her, after all.
And no one, not even the dwarfs around her had the right to look at her that way after what she had been through.
As if she was the one who had caused them pain, who had burned their home, the one who had taken away their freedom.
Destroyed their future.
They had lost a home, yes, she knew it, she had read about it, but she had lost a world, a world that Andromeda knew, deep down, to be unable to reach even in spirit.
So they weren't the only one who had lost their home. Their family.
She had lost them too, and, unlike them, she could not try to retrieve it.
If only they had tried to listen, to see that she...she was just trying to help her all the time she had been there, that she was trying to bring back who had been lost, but it seemed that just like in her old world, no one wanted to listen to what she had to say, what she knew.
- Enough!
Between all the things able to make all those dwarfs fell silent as tombstone, a woman's shout was the last one Andromeda would have thought about, and yet, it had been a woman's shout what had saved her from the angry stares and sharp blades, weapons that the dwarfs began to lower as a short shadow shoved them to the side with angry moves and dark hisses.
Andromeda had never thought that a woman with a beard could be beautiful, and yet, when she reached her, when she stopped in front of her, she could not think otherwise.
Dìs had only been mentioned in Tolkien's book. No one had read more than two sentences about her, but not even words could describe how a woman so short could be so towering.
So powerful looking.
She had her father's eyes.
Andromeda relaxed the stiffness of her back on instinct, surprised to feel so relieved by her simple presence, even if she knew, deep down, that, soon, even the dwarf woman would have tried to hurt her once realized who she had on her back, and even if she recognized the flash of shock and pain in her eyes, when Dìs's sky blue irises focused on her, what she did wasn't what she had expected.
When the fist clashed against Dwalin's cheek, a sickening crack echoed in the cave, but even before the dwarf could blink away the shock, someone dragged him to his feet by his beard, and it was a whimper instead of a growl what escaped his lips when Dìs angry eyes tried to pierce his skull with the anger that was making the dwarf woman gritting her teeth like a raging animal.
- Did you do this?
- Mother, there's-
Fili's hand prevented his foolish brother to anger their mother with an explanation the young prince knew that his mother would not have cared about, not when she was that angry, not when she had that look.
No one, not even their uncle could reason with her when she was like that.
And Dwalin was right to be so scared, because if their uncle could throw you against the wall in one of his fit with his blade on your throat, their mother could cut a finger or two when she lost it.
- Did you do this, dwarf?
- I ...I didn't-
- Do not try to lie to me, Dwalin! There are male fingertips on her throat! What-
- Dìs.
Andromeda didn't know who, between her and the dwarf woman she saw stiffening in hearing Thràin's painful whisper, was the more surprised one, but she was the first to react, helping the old dwarf to stand on the ground with his own feet, even if she had to support him by the shoulder to prevent him to fall to the ground in swirl of dirty robes and wounded limbs.
- Did you recognize her?
It was silly for her to sound so hopeful, to feel so glad for them despite what they were going to do to her, but for Thrain to remember his only daughter was something she wished to see, but it was too early for something like that, she knew it.
His wounds were still too deep, his moments of lucidity still too brief, so she wasn't so surprised to feel him pressing against her side, looking at the dwarf woman in front of him with suspicion.
Distrust.
Hugging him was an instinct she followed to hide her own tears for their horrible fate, for the pain she knew the dwarf woman was feeling at the moment, but they were together, and they had time to fix things, his memories, their wounds.
Yes. They had time. She would have made sure of that before leaving.
It was with that thought, that promise, that she deprived herself from the warmth of the cloak, the gasp of horror and the hiss of anger a background sound she chose not to listen, taking time in adjusting the fur around Thrain's throat with gentle fingers, an encouraging smile to light up her face before swirling on her heels, one hand outstretched in front of her with the hope that, at least the dwarf woman, would have listened to what she had to say.
To tell.
For one who did not like to be at the center of attention, standing in the center of a cold, silent room barefoot, with nothing more than a dirty piece of cloth to cover her full chest and soft thighs wasn't a memory to remember fondly in the years to come, but there she was, badly dressed, deadly wounded, but with, at least, the comfort to have found someone willing to listen, in the end, someone willing to believe in what she had to say despite it all, someone who, however, had not been the one she had hoped, deep in her heart, to find as an ally.
Because, it had not been Thorin Oakenshield the first one to believe in her words, in her story, but a defender she had not expected to find, not so soon, not with so many bad omens to swirl around her like a heavy cloak of death, and yet, Dìs, the last dwarf woman in Middle Earth, was looking at her as if she was some kind of deity.
As if she was some kind of holy savior.
But she wasn't one, not a hero, not a savior her mind had cried in horror when the dwarf woman had almost kneeled in front of her, if Andromeda had not asked her not to do so, not to kneel ever in front of her, not to think so highly of her, and the man who was sitting next to the princess seemed to think the same judging by the way he was still looking at her, with suspicion and distrust from his throne of black stones, his cold eyes sharp as the edge of a sword that Andromeda knew, the king under the mountain would have pushed against her throat if his sister had not been present.
Not that she could really blame him.
Thorin Oakenshield had all the reason to be suspicious of her.
She would have been suspicious too.
However, there had to be a limit to how stubborn, thick-headed and ungrateful a man, a dwarf she corrected herself with an annoyed click of her tongue, could be.
Yes. She was a stranger, the most strange stranger someone could ever meet, and yes, she knew, she had read about how much dwarfs hated strangers.
And yes, yes, she was a stranger who had almost burned alive one of his companions, but he had tried to behead her, and, in her humble opinion, she was widely justified for that matter, however, there had to be a limit to it, to Thorin Oakenshield's distrust.
To his unjustified hostility. His inexplicable hesitation on believing her. Her story.
Because it was inexplicable, for her, to be still hesitant, still unsure about her goodwill after what she had been through.
She was there, wasn't she?
There, barefoot, almost naked, armless, wounded, with only the simple wish to be believed, to be listened from someone.
Anyone.
And Dìs, his sister, had believed almost immediately her story, as if she didn't believe possible, for her, to lie about something like that, about the torture, the Necromancer, Thrain's rescue, her identity and the truth about the bracelet she was wearing, but he, he didn't want to believe in her, for some reason.
Pighead.
Andromeda had discovered something books had really underestimated about the King Under the Mountain.
Because more than his bravery in battle. More than his strength and valor in war. What books and movies should have talked about had had to be his obstinacy to believe in what he believed, in his truth, not in what he saw, in what he could hear.
In what was real.
Did he need other proofs?
Really?
His sister had believed in her when she had shown the proofs of her words, of her wounds, why could not he do the same?
What was so difficult to believe?
His father was alive, he was in front of his eyes, and yet, it was like she had done nothing.
Nothing at all.
Like she had not run for months through the woods, alone, scared to death, escaping monsters that were waiting to bite her head off around every corner, fighting shadows in the night and in her head with a light that risked to burn her sanity along with her enemies, and for what?
To be treated like that?
Like she was a menace?
No. He had no right to look at her like that, to make her feel wrong, uncomfortable.
It was not one of her priority to be liked by him.
Remaining alive had been one, finding shelter during the chilly night had been one, still, it wasn't nice of him to look at her with that sneer on his face.
Did he found offending her appearance?
Maybe, but she could do nothing about it. Sauron wasn't known for being a gentleman, was he?
He was a monster, and she knew, deep down, to be lucky to have something to cover herself at all, and yet, Thorin Oakenshield was looking at her as if...if she had chosen to be like that.
To show so much of her wounded flesh.
Well, she begged his pardon if she had not had the time to find something more appropriate to wear for a meeting with a king like him, but even if she had had the time, the chance, in truth, for how things were going, Andromeda would have preferred to walk naked just to spite him.
He did not deserve her kindness, her knowledge of what was proper or not, even if his scolding look could be almost justified.
His, were different times, times where showing an ankle was indecorous, scandalous, and she, she was showing her florid chest and half of her legs casually, as if she did it all the time, even in her own time, her own world, but despite what he could think of her, she wasn't used to wear so little.
Andromeda had always been conscious of her body. She used to wear Alec's shirt and trousers to hide it, to avoid the comment of who thought that short skirts and tight shirts weren't her things, that they showed too much, that, if she wore them, she wanted to be noticed.
Bullshit.
Andromeda had never wanted to be noticed.
She had only tried, once, to be more feminine, to be confident like her sister Alecta and her mother were, and she had been criticized for that.
Her mother and her sister knew to be beautiful, to be eye-catching, and instead of feeling self-conscious about it, they used their beauty at their advantage, as something to be proud of, to bang in the face of who considered them man-eaters just because they liked pretty dresses, make-up and wearing perfume.
No woman should have felt uncomfortable to wear what she liked, what made her feel better, prettier. Ever.
It had been unfair to have to feel ashamed of herself just because she was wearing a short skirt, or a tight shirt, or simply a dress.
It was just a skirt. A piece of cloth. Nothing more than that.
And yet, people, in her time, had felt the right to condemn her for it, for trying to lure a man, to be watched, to be touched the wrong way, just because she was showing more flesh than she was used to, just like now.
But what the dwarf seemed unable to believe was that she had not chosen to wear so little, for her body and skin to be so exposed, and, maybe, if she had been the Andromeda of some months ago, she would have kept on fretting under his stern stare, she would have tried to cover herself with trembling hands, sagging her shoulder and crossing her legs in shame, but it was with an annoyed look that Andromeda planted a hand on her voluptuous hip, as if she was challenging him to speak, to say something about it, straightening her back to rise in her full height, looking straight in the eyes the dwarf who, maybe and wrongly, thought to be able to intimidate her, to make her feel ashamed of her appearance, of the way she was behaving in front of them, of royalty.
So what? her mind snarled in anger, tired to be blamed for something she didn't want, something she didn't ask for.
To be thrown into another world. To be tortured. To be killed so many times to lose the count.
No. She had not asked for any of those things, but there she was, willy-nilly.
So what?
What did he expect?
A bow?
Well, he would have died of old age while he waited for it.
She had not bowed in front of death. How could he expect her to bow in front of him?
- You are staring too much, brother.
Thorin Oakenshield did not blush.
He did not have a reason to blush, never had, never will, and yet, the faint color on his cheeks was too evident to go unnoticed.
His sister had always had the sight of a hawk and the slyness of a cat, and it was with a sly smile that Dìs looked at him, losing all the humor in her eyes when she returned to watch with solemnity the young woman who, from what his sister had told him in a hushed and trembling voice, came from another world.
Ridiculous.
As if a thing like that could happen, could exist, and yet, it didn't sound so absurd for the stranger, the entity to belong to another world.
She was, in fact, strange, stranger than anyone he had ever met in his life, and she seemed honest, truthful, but still...he was reluctant on believing in her, in her story, while Dìs, Dìs was both fascinated and grateful to who had saved their father from the Necromancer, something he could not deny it, not with the sleeping form of his long lost father two steps away from him.
Yes. She had saved him. And, surprisingly enough to make him grow more suspicious, she didn't want anything in exchange.
No gold. No silver.
Nothing.
Odd. And suspicious, a suspicion he felt shifting in concern when, after giving his sister a lock of her hair to let her hear her voice through the contact, the glowing entity had become more distant, her eyes no more attentive on them or on the sleeping dwarf she had caressed one last time before standing in the center of the room to tell her story.
Was she talking with some other entity?
Was she trying to lure them outside to kill them all?
Those ones were the question that Thorin Oakenshiled kept on asking himself, trying to appear calm despite the worry and the fear that was eating him alive.
Because she could do it.
She could kill him with a blink of her strange eyes, she could make their necks snap with the simple twist of her wrist, a wrist that his eyes failed to leave, not after learning something that could mean the demise of his family. Of his life.
Of his whole kind.
- We had to protect her.
He had expected something like that from Dìs, such an absurd request, something he, however, wasn't willing to give to his sister.
Not if doing what Dìs was asking from him would have put in danger his kin. His people.
And it would have done it.
Hiding whatever she was wasn't an option, something to be even considered.
She could be a Vala for what it mattered, they would not have offered her shelter.
They would not have risked their lives for who, for him, meant nothing.
- Don't you see, brother? She had been sent from the Valar to help us. She is say-
- I don't care and I don't want to know what she says, Dìs. She had to leave. Now.
A frown darkened Andromeda's face when Thorin's booming voice echoed around her with the violence of a thunder ready to strike her, and even if the coldness in his eyes was hard to return, she did not avert her gaze.
She lifted her chin in response to the way his hands had closed in fists around the edge of his throne of black stones, his back tense and his knees bent as a rapid animal ready to hurl on her at any sign of threat.
And just like an animal ready to defend himself from the attack, she stiffened her position, her hair a crown of swaying flames that began to billow around her shoulder like a halo, her hands ready to parry every blow he would have struck.
Because she was ready.
Ready to fight. Ready to strike. Ready to defend herself. Again.
He was not different from them, in the end.
Little, naive Andromeda.
How silly could she still be?
Had she forgotten that she no friend or ally there? No one if not herself?
No, she had not forgotten it, but Andromeda would have lied to herself if she had not admitted that she had hoped, until the very end, for things to be different, for the dwarf, to be different, just like he had been in the river, when he had given her his cloak to keep her warm.
When he seemed to believe her, to care.
Why not?
She had read many things about him.
About how brave he was.
How kind he could become, and she had hoped, deep down, that he could at least show that bravery, that kindness with her too.
But wasn't kind, he wasn't brave, he was just...cold, and angry and cruel, his eyes full of a hatred she knew that she did not deserve.
She did not deserve any of that.
And maybe, it was for the false hope he had given her with his small, kind actions, or for the shame to know, deep in her heart, that she had really wanted to be liked by him, even if a little, even if for a moment, that Andromeda let the darkness in her head took over her bleeding heart.
- You are a hypocrite.
Her voice whipped the air like the crackling of a thunder, and had she been less angry than she was, Andromeda would have noticed, by the way the dwarfs had stiffened, that they had heard her, that they had understood what she had hissed in her mind without touching her or the lock of hair Dìs had let go in shock after hearing her story, but alas, she was beginning to lost again to the voice in her mind, to the kill them someone had returned to chant in her head like a wicked doggerel she was failing to ignore.
Not to abide.
- You are the same like him, like the one you had accused to be a coward for abandoning your kind to the wrath of the dragon. Hypocrite. Liar.
Few had been the time for the King Under the mountain to fear for his life, to feel threatened by someone, but it was fear what flashed in his eyes and dread what ran on his spine when he saw the woman's slim finger point him with the impetuosity of a stab through the heart, the flames around her now blinding as if the sun had just risen in the room to show his sins.
To condemn his soul.
And finally, to let him burn like his home.
- I had not asked for your help, and yet, you are ready to throw me away after saving your father as if I have done nothing at all, as if I am the one who had abducted him, as if I am the monster here. But you are the monster, Thorin Oakenshiled, not me. You are.
Ungrateful. Cruel.
Andromeda had not expected kind words or a thank you, she had just wanted to be acknowledged for what she had done, for her attempt to be good despite it all, to be still whole, and yet, no one wanted to see that she was trying her best, that she had always wanted to help. Just that. But maybe, maybe they did not deserve it. Her.
Maybe, maybe what they deserve was just to fear you.
Blinking away the shock to hear the male voice overlapping her inner one, Andromeda fought against the confusion in her head to separate what she was imagining from what was really happening around her, what she knew wasn't real, but when her eyes focused on the dwarfs in front of her, their startled gazes and the way Thorin Oakenshield had just unsheathed his sword told her something different. Dreadful.
Something she did not expect, something she feared to accept, but they had heard it too, she was sure of that, and if they had heard it too, it meant that-
- Mother! There are elves outside the mountain! There is a wizard with them and- hey!
Kili fell with a huff to the ground when someone pushed him away from the door he had just opened, but as if things could become stranger than they already were, and they were already quite strange with a bunch of elves to knock at their door, when the smelly dwarf his mother had called father woke up screaming them to flee, Kili knew suddenly that things were going to become deadly if the petrified look on his uncle and mother's faces was a sign of the coming of something darker.
But even before Fili could follow the glowing woman who had just disappeared around the corner, something prevented each of them to make a move towards her, to follow the path that none of the dwarfs dared to take, not when the floor, just as the rising tide of a sea of darkness ready to swallow them whole, began to move, to shift, as if something darker was stirring beneath.
As a lurking monster was trying to resurface from the abyss just to eat.
- What was that?
No answer came to the young elf who was trying to sooth his horse after the strong earthquake that had shaken the ground, but it was not to the ground that Gandalf the Grey bought his gaze, but on the sky, there, where everything seemed quiet, in place, but he could see them, the darkness, wrapping the sides of the mountain as hands of smoke ready to crush the tip to see what treasures were hidden within.
What, after slashing who dared to meddle in his search, he could keep.
And, then, what and who down with him he could bring.
- He is here.
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