When we woke at dawn, I realized that my feet were sore from how far we had walked the day before. That was a rather unusual feeling for me since I was a hobbit and never before had my feet ever felt sore from extended walking. Well, not in such a long time anyway... I was used to my walking adventures back in the Shire but notably that was also on soft tilled earth that was so far removed from the rocky passages that I found myself traversing now.

If the soreness of my feet weren't enough, the familiar pressure of snoring pushing down on my chest unpleasantly made me shift from my spot against Fili in discomfort. As soon as I moved though, Fili was woken and he looked at me in a daze before kissing my forehead and putting his head back down against his pack. While any other morning I would have enjoyed such treatment, even relishing the feel of his arms closing tighter around me, this morning was not one that would be able to. I was irritated just from the sensation of the snoring pressing down on my chest and now with Fili pressing me towards him, I felt overwhelmed.

I laid there, torn between not really wanting to move and the feeling of becoming steadily more irritated.

Unable to deal with it any longer, I untangled myself from Fili's arms, sending him a quick smile when he looked at me in confusion and waited for my hand gestures to let him know that I wanted to go to the bathroom (or something, I wasn't exactly sure what I signaled). It was still early morning, the visible light of the sky being a soft blue that streaked in patterns across the dark night sky. As soon as I was on my feet, I saw that a few of the other dwarves were up but that most were still asleep, though Thorin was decidedly absent from that pile.

The snoring pervaded my senses, making it hard to breathe, and I toed my way through the pile of dwarves until I was at the edge of the camp and happy to have the cold wind in my ears drowning out everything but its own sound. The sensation of the sound of wind was pleasant enough, a chilling taste in my mouth that helped to clear out how foul my mouth felt so soon from waking up. I reminded myself to brush my teeth as soon as I got back to the camp.

"Miss Baggins?"

I jumped at the sound of Thorin's voice behind me, twisting around to look up into his hard gaze and internally pouting over the fact that he seemed to be in just as grumpy a mood as he was yesterday. He looked at me strangely, his eyes watching me for the obvious signs of my surprise but gaze not softening even when I patted his arm in relief, "Sorry, you scared me! Yes?"

He looked at me intently before looking over to where I had been staring mindlessly into the distance, "Do you want to go back so much?"

His voice trembled over my clavicle, unsure but very much a solid presence as compared to some of his other more timid sensations. "Go back?"

I was confused by his question only because I hadn't actually been looking at anything while I stared out into the wind. It wasn't until I looked again where I had been watching and realized with a start that it was in the direction of Rivendell in which I stared so intently. Had I actually been staring at something in general, that was, which I hadn't been. I knew that my mind was a blank canvas this morning but even as I looked at Thorin, he didn't seem to believe me.

"Oh! No! No!" I tried to reassure with another touch but his gaze hardened again and he seemed to want to dismiss me as easily as he used to do in the beginning of our journey together. "I just was listening to the wind."

"The wind?" He looked skeptical but I took his eyebrow raising in curiosity as a good sign of his changing mood. "Yep, the wind. Sounds cold!"

I pointed to my mouth, not exactly wanting to explain to Thorin that I found the snores of his dwarf companions annoying and uncomfortable. It felt incredibly rude and even a bit on the offensive side given that Thorin was not in the best of moods.

He looked at me for another moment before closing his eyes against the next rush of wind. When he opened them, he was backing away from me and turning away, "Hn, well, do not stray too far from camp."

With just those words – those simple words that hardly meant a thing at all to me given all that we shared before – Thorin was gone, leaving my side and heading back to camp to probably try and catch an hour of sleep. Thinking that the idea itself was grand but unable to tolerate the sound of the dwarves' snoring, I went to where Dwalin sat on his own morning watch.

As much as I wanted to engage him in some sort of conversation given how close he and Thorin were, I was unable to really think of anything to say at all. Dwalin himself was not a dwarf prone to many words either and remained silent; it was far from a good silence though. It felt awkward at best and given that before Dwalin used to tease me, I wondered why suddenly we could not connect even on that level?

Sitting next to Dwalin, I felt lonely. I wondered if he and Thorin talked about me during the night and that was why the bigger dwarf did not want to speak with me now?

Up, we climbed, the growing inclination making my thighs burn and my pace slow because of how hard it was climbing such terrain. Up, and up until I realized that we were actually going down at an equally sharp decline that the dwarves had to take slow due to how many things they carried. All of us steadied ourselves around the rocks, our hands gripping stone when we could, a few of us sliding about whenever we lost our sure footing.

Fili and Kili were always there to make sure that I was alright but the more I stumbled, the more I noticed that Thorin seemed to grumble in a disdain over the entire thing. He looked at each of us as we passed through the harsh landscape, last to finish so that he could watch everyone and see how best to gauge whether or not to take a break.

We ate lunch when we could, though it wasn't much of a stop.

Out of the valley we went and from there, we would need to continue onward through the fields found at the high elevation, our steps bringing us ever closer to the mountain peaks that we saw in the distance. Even just knowing in passing that I would need to climb those things made me weary and grumble about wanting to go back to the Shire.

Close to sunset one day, the company stumbled upon a small waterfall that emptied into a tiny pool and we used it to refill our water skins and clean up a bit from the past few days of travel. Though we had begun to joke about the journey again, our mood eager to turn jovial again at any moment, Thorin broke up the lightheartedness easily and onward we started again.

We slept uncomfortably that night as we had done the night before. We woke uncomfortably as we had done the day before.

Onward, we continued after a quick breakfast.

The journey was hard on my hobbit feet, hard at times for the dwarves as well though they were far more used to travelling distances for the need to work, as the brothers explained to me. Though they hadn't gone out into the world nearly as many times as Thorin, they regaled me with stories of their adventures and that of Thorin's until it was time for lunch. We were a bit surprised that we were allowed to talk for so long, Thorin having been always right behind us ready to separate the three of us into more useful "endeavours".

Sometime after lunch I realized that maybe the lack of sleep had finally worn down Thorin somewhat for he was less irritated and not so quick to separate the brothers and I. He watched us all heavily out of the corner of his eye as we moved along the grassy terrain but he did not feel the need to send Fili or Kili ahead to scout the paths. Almost, it looked as if he would entertain a moment to actually join our conversation.

At some point in our walking, Fili and Kili were called up to scout the path ahead to make sure that nothing was surprising about it. Left alone while all that happened, I found myself bored and feeling the effects of the journey again without anything to distract me.

A grunt and a sharp poke on the shoulder was enough to pull me from my thoughts and when I looked over, I was surprised to find Bifur of all people trying to actually engage me in conversation! Had I looked so lonely that even the only full time native speaking dwarf would actually attempt to preoccupy me? Well, lonely looking or not, I would accept the companionship. Eagerly. I looked at him curiously as he followed in line, his guttural words pressing into my ears and making me frown with suppressed giggles.

"He's saying that the cloud looks like a pup we once owned."

I startled at the tickling of my feet and Bofur's voice on my right coming up beside me, his hand extending up to point at the blue sky overhead. Given what he said, I actually looked up, surprised when I indeed saw something that looked like a dog. I thought of the times my Mum and I played such a game while in the Shire when I was a wee hobbit lass. Once Bifur saw me nod in his direction that I understood, he grinned and pointed up towards another cluster of white clouds, another string of words that I couldn't understand following.

"That one looks like a turtle, he says."

"What language is it that you even speak?"

I asked in Bifur's direction because I knew enough about him from months of journeying to know that while he did not speak Westron, he could certainly understand it. He looked at me before sharing a look with his brother, Bofur.

"Here, ask like this."

Bofur directed his attention back at me and started to show me something with his hands, a quick gesture followed by a circle and a strange pointing back at Bifur. "Repeat."

Bofur showed me again and I mimicked it as best I could given that I really had no clue what I was doing.

When I made the signs at Bifur, he looked at me and responded back with his own words (and a tickle in his voice) and a quick series of hand gestures back at me. I looked to Bofur for clarification, "He said that he speaks Khuzdul, our native tongue."

A pinch on my rear was enough for me to turn around and grin at Fili, who had come up out of nowhere with a smile on his face. "Are you guys teaching her Iglishmêk?"

"Iglishmêk?"

"Aye, Bifur's been wantin' to talk to her for a bit now. Figured now's a good a time as any."

I chuckled at the sensation of his voice, trying to hide the twisted smile on my face that became all but impossible when Bifur started again with his own voice and hand gestures.

"What's Iglishmêk?" I repeated when no one had actually answered my question.

"It's like a sign language, for those who can't speak and the like."

"- or those who can't speak Khuzdul."

"Khuzdul...? That's what your native tongue is called?"

"Yep, look."

I listened to the roll of Fili and Bofur's voices over me, making me squirm and laugh in joy at how playful they were being, amusement from trying to teach me something like Iglishmêk but also because they both knew what their voices were doing to me. A sharp poke on my shoulder made me focus again on the older dwarf.

Bifur was back to pointing at the sky and looking down at me, his words rumbling in my ears and his hands gesturing to me quickly. "He says that that one looks like a raven."

Did it? I looked at the sky but could not really see any sort of cloud that looked like any kind of bird but I did see one that looked like a hare. I pointed up into the sky and turned to say what I thought to the older dwarf but I stopped, turning instead to look at Bofur. "How do I say that that one looks like a hare?"

Fili watched me with great interest as Bofur taught me the signs for it, explaining what certain signs meant and how it could be carried into other sentences since some were connection terms. I mimicked the gestures as best I could again until I felt ready to tell Bifur and once I did, my eyes lit up when he understood and he looked up into the sky.

With a grunt given in assent, I watched as he pointed into the sky where I saw my hare and look back at me. Fili came up on the other side of Bofur and looked at me before starting to sign, "That one looks like a cupcake."

I couldn't help but laugh at how Fili always loved to talk about food but mimicked the gestures anyway until Bifur looked up and pointed to where he saw something that he thought looked like a cupcake. He turned back to me and I watched him sign out the first part of the sentence, surprised when I realized that I was actually beginning to recognize the symbols until the final one that was new to me.

"What did that last one mean?"

"A type of flower that can be found in Ered Luin. I don't think it has a translatable name other than in Khuzdul."

Just as I was about to ask what the name was, I found myself tripping over a rock and going to my knee; more surprised than anything else, I huffed out in shock before I felt Fili's hand on my arm help me up gently. "Up we go, Miss Hobbit."

"See to it that you lot keep your focus on the road ahead!"

Thorin's harsh voice carried easily over us, his tone nearly slapping me on my shoulder and making me gasp. Given that the tone was the more normal one that Thorin used on me since we left Rivendell, I wasn't too shocked by the fact that it was like a harsh clap on the back anymore but as his moods changed, the intensity did so as well. Unfortunately for me, Thorin's moods changed so much in the past few days that the the force of his voice was always a bit of a surprise for me. I just couldn't get used to how much it was all over the place.

"It's alright, Thorin, we'll keep our attention on the road. No harm to be done teaching her."

Fili placated his Uncle easily enough, his voice a firm grope on my rear that indicated he was far from intimidated by Thorin's harsh tone. Getting back into an easy pace with the others, we continued on with our lesson and our cloud watching. I tried to ignore it, the way that I could still feel the presence of Thorin's glare on us but eventually I found that I couldn't and had to give up on the lessons entirely.

That night when we made camp, Thorin did something that I hadn't expected of him. I should have been amazed that he could still surprise me with such simple gestures but when he called me over for first watch with him, everyone looked at me strangely.

Away from Fili and Kili and the other members of the group, I didn't know what to exactly expect by taking watch with Thorin but I couldn't help the small seed of hope that maybe Thorin just wanted to spend some alone time with me. While that was enough to turn my mood happy again, it was a quickly fading dream when Thorin sat down near me and stayed silent.

The silence didn't feel like anything remotely close to comforting. It felt oppressive and harsh.

Unconsciously, I leaned away from him, wanting to go back to the group.

I suddenly wanted to avoid him desperately.

"Miss Baggins, being so relaxed on the road will do no one any good." His voice felt icy to me even as it trailed down my spine, "Tomorrow you'll walk with me."

I nodded at the request even though it was anything but, trying not to show him how much I was adverse to the idea. I found it ironic how days before I would have almost done anything for him to actively want to walk anywhere with me.

Now I just wanted him to leave me alone for a bit.

"Keep focused."

I huffed in annoyance, adjusting in my spot on the rock and looking out into the darkness of the night, already bored and already wanting to go to sleep.