The small hobbit continued to silently giggle as she saw her neighbor riding a pony for the first time. Oh, what she would give anything for him to make that exact same facial. In truth, she was extremely terrified to ride a pony; the only existing hobbit in history to have ever rode a horse on his own was Bilbo Baggins` own great-great-great-great uncle, Bullroarer Took. Though she was afraid, she couldn't show her fear. How would she have the strength to make it all the way to Erebor if she complained that she had slightly hurt herself and was afraid to ride a pony?

After recounting her own fear, her giggling had stopped and she wiped the smirk off her face, contemplating whether she should continue her pace and build more relations with the dwarfs, or slow down to try and make small talk with her fellow hobbit she hadn't had a proper conversation with in a while. She chose the latter.

With a genuine smile on her face, she pulled on her reins, her intention for her pony to slow down. But, the pony had stopped in her tracks, instantly worrying Liesel of making a fool out of herself again. Beyond her panic, a few chuckles from the younger dwarfs could be heard. Others had shaken their heads in impatience, or sympathy for the child.

Bilbo had pulled his head up to the shaking form of the girl. "Liesel, are you alright?" He asked her when she finally got her pony to start up again, and he had ridden to her right.

"Huh?" She spoke, slightly alarmed by his voice, but looked to him with a slight smile "Oh, yes, I am fine."

A tiny grin went to Bilbo`s lips, "Well, that is nice to hear."

"Come on, Nori, pay up. Go on." A voice belonging to Oin had teased with a laugh. Nori tossed a sack of money to Oin; sacks of money began passing between the dwarves.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Oin said when the bag had slightly torn and a few coins had fell out. Some of the dwarves laughed as bags were thrown to each other.

"What's that about?" The confused elder hobbit turned to Gandalf, who was to his right and little Liesel was to his left, and asked.

"Oh, they took wagers on whether or not you'd turn up. Most of them bet that you wouldn't." Gandalf told. The Baggins side of the hobbit was shouting 'How rude of them to bet on me!'; but, thankfully the Took side was stronger, and did not repeat the Baggins` phrase.

"What did you think?" Bilbo instead asked. Unknown to him, a small, wry smirk was on the little girl`s face behind him.

The wizard let out a small 'hmm', before catching a sack of money a dwarrow had tossed to him.

"My dear fellow, I never doubted you for a second." The man set his winnings in his bag, then continued slightly ahead of the two Halflings.

As the wizard went away, Bilbo turned his head to the small girl. "Liesel Hayward," He began in a slight scolding tone "don`t tell me you made a bet."

Liesel`s face fell "What? Mr. Bilbo, I would never bet on something you-." Her words were cut short when Kili`s voice had come from behind her.

"Lise, catch!"

She was met with a tiny bag full of money hitting just above her shoulder and landing in her lap. Bilbo cocked a suspicious eyebrow up at her when she picked the small sack up by the top and refused to look at him for a few seconds.

"Well, would you look at that?" She said slowly, followed by her obvious uncomfortable laughter.

Bilbo sighed. In a flash, it turned into a sneeze; a very loud sneeze.

"Ohh. All this horse hair, I'm having a reaction." The elder hobbit searched his pockets for his handkerchief. He was sadly unable to find it, and he looked up in shock.

"No, no, wait, wait, stop! Stop! We have to turn around." He shouted all the way up for the front to hear, raising his hand up to stop them.

The entire company came to a halt, and the dwarves started objecting and asking what the problem was.

"What on earth is the matter?" Gandalf slightly grumbled.

"I forgot my handkerchief." The frazzled Bilbo responded and continued to search every crook and cranny of his pockets and rucksack.

"You have got to be joking," She muttered under her breath in annoyance.

Bofur piped up "Here. Use this!" The miner ripped a peace off of his shirt, and threw it to Bilbo.

Mr. Baggins caught the filthy rag, and scowled at in in disgust. Liesel could not banter on him to much now; just by simply looking at it, it was the one of the grossest things she has ever saw, and she would be facing orcs, goblins, and countless other disgusting creatures. The dwarves laughed and continued moving.

"Move on." Came Thorin, at the front of the group.

As the others passed by the two hobbits, Liesel hesitantly reached for the rag, then quickly snapped it out of Bilbo`s grasp and threw it on the ground behind them.

Still staring at it, Bilbo asked "I wouldn't suppose you have one on you?"

She shook her head "I only have the clothes on me, and a few others in my sack." She gently kicked her horse to keep going.

The elder hobbit turned his head around to see her leaving. He mimicked what he supposedly heard her do, and quickly caught up to her.

"I`ve been meaning to ask you, Liesel-."

"What?" She asked, still looking ahead, forcing herself not to look at him struggling on how to control his pony.

"Why did you come?"

This was when she slightly turned her head to look him in the eyes. She shrugged. "I don`t really know. Many reason, I guess."

Even with his mostly selective isolation, Bilbo noticed her change in mood, and deduced that she had no heart of talking about it; strange, she hadn't want to talk about what happened the same night she came to him, completely chilled to the bone, and her face red from crying.

He had decided to change the conversation to a much lighter topic. "Liesel, the day when I understand how to put up with these dwarfs like you do, is the day I will teach you how to sew and knit."

In an instant, the girl`s face snapped to look at her neighbor "You knit?"

He nodded "Why yes, I do." He noticed her unmoving face, then saw out of the corner of his eye that a fairly tall, rocky hill was perhaps several meters in front of them.

"Liesel?" He asked, tilting his head to the approaching hill they had to climb

"You knit?" was her first response.

He slightly furrowed his eyebrows to her, "Yes, I do knit and sew. I would be more than glad to show you, but-," He searched through his large bag again. Gandalf had seen this and pulled back just a bit from the group.

"-it seems I have forgotten my yarn and needles as well." Bilbo had ended the conversation with a sarcastic grin.

"You'll have to manage without pocket-handkerchiefs and a good many other things, Bilbo Baggins, before we reach our journey's end." Gandalf had spoken ahead of them, without turning "You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you; the world is ahead."

The two hobbits only shared one glance of looking at each other, before continuing on through forests, plains, and hills before they had finally stopped for the night.

"These rocks seem to be decent shelter," Balin had gottten off his pony, along with the rest of the company, and treaded around the small area at Thorin`s side.

"That they be." Thorin mumbled. He then proceeded to command every one of them to search for firewood, pile rocks into a circle for the fire pit, feed the ponies, or just to set up camp overall.

The only person that wasn't pulling his weight was Gandalf the Grey. Just after Thorin ordered his fellow dwarves and two hobbits to get to work, Gandalf had leaped off his horse, gathered the familiarity of the area, then sat himself up against a tree, took his usual pipe out of his bag, then lit it with tobacco and smoked it even after dinnertime.

"Girl," Thorin`s voice came behind of Liesel after she passed what little twigs she found to Bifur. She turned around to face him, and bit back to say "I have a name, if you don`t know."

The Dwarf king continued to the child "Go help Bombur with supper." He slightly tilted his head over to the fat dwarf.

She furrowed her eyes at him, slightly rolled them, then pushed past him, almost accidently hitting his shoulder with hers.

Once the stew was finished, Liesel couldn't help but mention to herself that it wasn't as bad as she thought it would be. Bombur was in fact a nice dwarf, and she had even learned a new recipe that she would certainly write in her mother`s cookbook when she returned home.

Mother. Home.

She shook the two repeating words out of her head as she helped Bombur serve the meal to the company. Only one day into a perilous journey, and she was homesick? She couldn`t be; she shouldn't be!

Whence she finally blocked out the small concerns of her mother and her home, she put on a smile and continued to serve the dwarves. They were unintentionally cheering her up so much, that when Kili had made a joke (I shan`t repeat), Liesel was the one to laugh the loudest, and had almost completely fallen over and spill soup all over herself!

The girl decided when she was finally done serving the meal, she had sat next to Bilbo and slightly teased him that, "Maybe there`s another way for you to teach me how to sew." To this, a chuckle escaped his lips. The young hobbit was quite shocked herself when she made her quite unsocial neighbor giggle.

After everyone had eaten, Thorin pulled his sack over his shoulders, and made his way to the edge to only place it down and to take his bedroll, and set it up.

"Get some rest now, we leave when tomorrow dawns." He responded to the looks of every member when he attracted small attention to himself.

The company responded by unloading the small bedrolls; all except Bilbo and Liesel, who had none.

Instead, Bilbo had opened his bag and laid a brown blanket near a few of the dwarves, then tidied it by pushing down whatever small bumps there were.

The little girl, on the other hand, had only clothes in her bag (as mentioned before). She couldn't simply use one of her dresses as a mattress, and the other as a blanket; so, she used nothing, but laid down where Bilbo`s feet were about a few several inches away from hers. From time to time, as they rested, she could feel his feet push up against hers for a few seconds. This had reminded the girl of when she was younger, and where her mother had dropped her off at a local child care business when she had taken small jobs. During naptime, her first best friend, Opal Mulligan, had laid in the same position, and pushed her feet up against Liesel`s; to which Liesel would return.

As she tossed and turned to try and get at least a few moments of sleep from the dwarves` constant snoring, she had finally given up and counted every fly that was sucked in and out every time Gloin inhaled.

Because of this boring pastime, she had easily noticed Bilbo pulling his head up to stare at the dwarf in disgust. He then got up and off of his bedroll, and walked around the small camp; the only people awake besides Liesel and Bilbo, were Fili and Kili, who were keeping watch, and Gandalf was still resting against a tree and smoking his pipe.

As the hobbit wandered to the clump of ponies, Liesel turned her whole body around to see the exchange between Mr. Baggins and the pony he rode.

He had stopped in front of his pony, and turned from side to side if anyone was staring at him. When he was doing this, Liesel shut her eyes tightly; thankfully, he hadn't noticed, and pulled out an apple and fed the pony.

"Hello, girl. That's a good girl. It's our little secret, Myrtle; you must tell no one. Sh, sh." He shushed her as her smacking got louder.

The little girl couldn't help but silently giggle; that is, until she hears a scream echo into the night. As if waking up from a nightmare, she pulls herself up in a flash to inspect what the noise was.

Bilbo could see Liesel`s regret of getting up so quickly, and felt a small pang of sympathy for her, but his terror of the scream soon took over.

"What was that?" He asked as he passed Liesel to talk to Fili and Kili, who were wide awake and behind the warm fire.

"Orcs." Kili responded, as his eyes went from the two hobbits.

Another scream was heard in the distance, sending shivers up the child`s spine. "Orcs?" She and Bilbo asked at the same time.

Fili put it bluntly "Throat-cutters. There`ll be dozens of them out there. The lowlands with them."

"They strike in the wee small hours, when everyone's asleep. Quick and quiet; no screams, just lots of blood." Kili had said with a voice as if telling a ghost story.

Bilbo had looked away from them, attempting to hide his fright, but Liesel had gawked at the two of them. The brother`s laugh from the hobbit`s reactions. "You think that's funny? You think a night raid by orcs is a joke?" Thorin had surprised the lot of them with his deep voice.

Kili sighed "We didn't mean anything by it."

The dwarf shook his head "No you didn't. You know nothing of the world." He walked off the stand at the age of the cliff. At the commotion, Balin woke up and walked over to the group.

"Don't mind him, laddie. Thorin has more cause than most to hate orcs. After the dragon took the Lonely Mountain, King Thror tried to reclaim the ancient dwarf kingdom of Moria. But our enemy had got there first."

Liesel could only imagine what the battle had been like. She could see thousands of dwarves and orcs fighting in front of what she pictured to be the Lonely Mountain.

"Moria had been taken by legions of Orcs lead by the most vile of all their race: Azog, the Defiler. The giant Gundabad Orc had sworn to wipe out the line of Durin. He began by beheading the King."

Liesel had almost gasped at the thought of an orc four times her size beheading someone only a few inches taller than her.

"Thrain, Thorin's father, was driven mad by grief. He went missing, taken prisoner or killed, we did not know. We were leaderless. Defeat and death were upon us. That is when I saw him: a young dwarf prince facing down the Pale Orc."

The hobbit had pictured Thorin and the orc to be dueling each other.

"He stood alone against this terrible foe, his armor rent…wielding nothing but an oaken branch as a shield"

She could see it. Azog leaped to smash Thorin, but Thorin, grabbing an oaken branch lying on the round, managed to roll away in time. Azog continued wielding his mace against Thorin, who was still on the ground, but Thorin blocked his mace with the oaken branch, which he used as a shield. As Azog swung one last time, Thorin, grabbing a sword lying nearby, cut off Azog's left arm, his mace arm, from below the elbow. Azog clutches the stump of his arm as he howls in pain!

"Azog, the Defiler, learned that day that the line of Durin would not be so easily broken."

Liesel then pictured the dwarves of rallying and charging into battle. "Our forces rallied and drove the orcs back. Our enemy had been defeated. But there was no feast, no song, that night, for our dead were beyond the count of grief. We few had survived." And I thought to myself then, there is one who I could follow. There is one I could call King."

Liesel was the first to turn her head to see Thorin turning away from the view beyond the cliff; the entire Company was awake and standing in awe, staring at him.

"But the Pale Orc?" Bilbo began.

As if reading his mind, Liesel finished for him. "What happened to him?"

Thorin walked between the two of them to approach the fire. "He slunk back into the hole whence he came. That filth died of his wounds long ago."

He treaded to the front of the fire and sat with his back facing the rest of the group; and without even seeing it, the little girl knew that he was avoiding eye contact with Fili and Kili, his nephews.

As the dwarves and the other hobbit slowly made their way to their own bedrolls, Liesel couldn't help but keep staring at where the two screams had come from. Like the brothers had said, they strike when everyone`s asleep. If they had attacked that night, she wouldn't even be able to cry out for help before dying.

Even with the thought, she couldn't bring herself to turn away from the place where the scream echoed. She had even believed for a second she saw a large pair of eyes staring at her like a toy for a dog.

Bilbo was easily the first one to recognize her off behavior, since she was directly a few meters in front of him.

"Liesel, are you alright?" He gently asked the girl.

She snapped out of her worrying and looked to the hobbit, then nodded.

Not convinced of her vague answer, he looked to where she was staring at for a quick second. "Ah, so she`s afraid too." His Baggins' side had thought. Why of course he was still beyond terrified that orcs were lurking, and rightfully so, the only connection he had to the nasty, disturbing creatures were what he read in books; but in reality, the idea wasn't even in the back of his mind.

Ignoring his Took side calmly tell her to snap out of it, he decided to side with his Baggins side, just maybe this once.

"Hey, don`t let those two get to you." He attempted to comfort.

She drew her eyes off the blank ground and to his. "Who, Fili and Kili?"

Being anxious of the brothers hearing, he nodded, the continued to whisper "Yes, yes them. Just don't listen to them, they were just trying to scare us."

"Why?" She thought, but accidently spoke.

He shrugged his shoulders and slightly shook his head "They think we`re the weakest links out all of us." He attempted to joke to slightly cheer her up.

It had partially worked, for a barely noticeable grin tugged onto her lips.

He returned the grin, not just to keep cheering her up, but at the slight satisfaction of helping anyone, and not being completely useless (as he believed himself to be).

"Well," he moved away from her and up to the tip of his makeshift bedroll "goodnight." He said with one last smile.

Her smile also grew a little, and nodded in response. She lied down on the rough, rocky ground, but lied on her side, and instantly fell asleep with the same smile on her face.

Even after a few moments of after saying goodnight, Bilbo had felt a pang of guilt for her a hobbit her age and her size to be sleeping on the freezing ground.

With that slight guilt, he had urged himself to open his bag and gather blanket to drape over her; but, it seemed Fili had beaten him.

The blonde dwarf with more braids than you could count, had silently walked over to the tiny girl and gently wrapped her in the blanket.

"Goodnight, little princess." Fili had ever so quietly whispered.

Bilbo had heard as they rode the first day, that the dwarves, mostly Thorin`s nephews, had called the little hobbit 'Lise' or 'The Little Princess'.

The hobbit hadn't been jealous, oh heaven help us if he was; he hadn't just seen Liesel to have a shorter name. From the small times he talked to her when she was more of a child, he had always seen her with her given birth name, and nothing else.

Heyo, everybody! Okay, so, I`m sorry I haven't updated in a bit. I`m not even going to try with excuses. So, how did you guys feel about the (somewhat) interaction Bilbo and Liesel just had?

More on the matter, how many of you happened to see the new Sherlock episode? I`ll give everyone a moment to wince at the entire episode for those who have seen it *tiny wince*. Okay, but oh my gosh, that was a rollercoaster! Yes, there are a few plot holes with the season, or maybe you just need to be Sherlock Holmes himself to understand.

I had even contemplated writing a fanfic of an OC I created (I know, big shock). But, since I`m a lazy piece of trash, I don't necessarily feel as if I have the confidence or patience to write a fic based on a TV show.

Alright, the lot of you, have a good rest of the week, and hopefully you won`t slip and fall on any existing ice you may have!