Wandering into the wild

by Risa Zugva

Thorin had his life all planned up but then some dragon-fire later everything changed. Was it all for the worse? Or is there something bestowed for him? Much later Bilbo thought he knew everything there is to know of life. These two unrelated men seemed destined never to meet, but then again. What had life in stored for them they could never predict.

56. Careful Steps

Thorin marched on leaving his kin behind, leaving a royal Thorin which tells royal lies, leaving the sanity of their new life. It was as he was really going to face that dragon, that he didn't just lie to those humans to fill the greed into their hearts.

He felt lightheaded from that thought like they already won succeeding to come this far. Now the Lonely Mountain could be seen almost daily as they progressed on the hard terrain.

The Company was quiet without Kili and Fili to cast jokes, and the melancholy crept into their songs they were finally able to sing. The melancholy laid hard upon Thorin's chest. Soon the journey will be over and they will know whether they won or they lost.

Losing wasn't a hard outcome for Thorin to imagine. It was the more common one. They have lost so much and so many over the years that the winning seemed out of grasp, hard to believe.

One thing that was sure was that their hobbit, Master Baggins, was going to enter the lair and try to find their Arkenstone. Thorin had no real worries about that if anything proved to win every time that was Master Baggins. He managed to overcome every task they have given him, every obstacle that came their way.

Thorin became so accustomed to him winning that the thought of him losing seemed far away, but still. The dragon provoked fear in dwarves and Thorin wasn't immune to it either. Master Baggins didn't manifest that fear, but he never saw the dragon. If the luck stays on his side he might go in and out of the lair without seeing the beast at all.

They were two days from the mountain when Thorin got restless with their easy progress. He started to think about what could go wrong and all the things which could surprise them. All the silence made him nervous.

When they were on the crossroad he couldn't help but think about the gorge in the next intersection where dwarves always kept guard. It was an invisible place from which you could oversee the whole valley. Surely Orcs weren't smart enough to use it, but it would be extremely stupid to ignore such a trap just before their success.

Thorin looked at the paths thinking of them, retracing his youthful memories of the passes and perils and a plan formed in his mind. It was a sound plan but it also had some possible appeals to it. Thorin suppressed a smile and informed his troop about their next steps.