"Wake up! Wake up!"
Jasmine bolted awake, unsheathing the curved sword she had always kept by her side. She had accidentally dozed off, she realized with sudden alarm, and had been sleeping for what seemed to be several hours, judging by the darkened sky. When she saw that it was only Kili who had been nudging her awake, she exhaled a sigh of relief and sheathed the blade again.
"Why do you sleep with that thing?" he asked, nodding towards the sword.
"Why do you wake up sleeping women just to ridicule them?" Jasmine retorted, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
"Point taken," Kili said, laughing.
"Why did you wake me up anyways?" Jasmine asked, her heart still pounding from the sudden wake-up.
"Well," Kili began, glancing off towards the other dwarves, who were preparing to turn in for the night. "I-well, my brother and I-we've… umm… encountered a slight... problem."
"A problem?" Jasmine repeated, standing up. "What kind of problem?"
"Thorin put me and Fili in charge of watching the ponies," Kili said shamefully. "But we've lost two of them already."
Rolling her eyes, Jasmine asked incredulously, "How do you lose two ponies in only a few hours?"
"I don't know," Kili mumbled, averting his eyes.
"I'll go take a look," Jasmine relented, the sight of the dwarf so dejected making her want to help the poor prince.
Relieved, Kili led her through a thin layer of trees to the clearing where Fili and the pack of ponies stood. Fili seemed to be just as frenzied as Kili, and was frantically counting and recounting the ponies.
"Daisy and Bungo are missing," Fili said at last, after recounting the number of ponies for the tenth time.
"Shouldn't we tell Thorin?" Jasmine interjected.
"Best not to trouble him with such… er… lowly matters," Fili said evasively.
"What do you think happened?" Jasmine asked, looking between the two ashamed dwarves. "Did they run off?"
But at that moment, they heard the sound of voices-deep, booming voices-up ahead.
"Did you hear that?" Fili whispered, hunkering down behind a fallen log to listen more closely.
Jasmine and Kili followed in pursuit, leaning towards the source of sounds.
"Mutton yesterday, mutton today, and blimey, if it don't look like mutton again tomorrow," one voice said.
"Quit yer' griping. These ain't sheep. These is West Nags!"
"Oh, I don't like `orse. I never `ave. Not enough fat on them."
"Well, it's better than the leathery old farmer. All skin and bone, he was. I'm still picking bits of him out of me teeth," the first voice added.
"Trolls," Jasmine whispered, a split second before Kili did.
"As our official burglar," Fili said softly. "Perhaps you should take a look."
"Backing off like cowards, are you?" Jasmine hissed, glaring at the two dwarves, who shrugged at her sheepishly. "If you aren't the two weakest dwarves I've ever met," she muttered scornfully.
"We'll be right behind you," Kili said, reassuringly. "If you need any help, just hoot twice like a barn owl."
"Twice like a-what the hell? I don't need your silly signals," she snapped. And with that, she crept off into the forest, being careful not to step on any of the crunchy leaves that littered the forest floor.
She quickly and soundlessly reached the trolls' camp, but it took her a moment to get her bearings once she had done so. The trolls, put plainly, were quite enormous, and they made even Jasmine's steely heart begin to pound a little faster.
One of the trolls-the third who had spoken earlier-sneezed, sending a flurry of snot into the pot of stew that one of the others was tending to, making Jasmine wrinkle her nose.
"Oh, that's lovely, that is; a floater," one of the trolls said.
"Oh, might improve the flavor!"
"Ah! There's more where that came from," the sneezing troll said again, but before he could let loose another snot-storm, one of the trolls tackled him to the ground, screeching, "Oh no you don't!"
Jasmine tore her gaze away from the bickering trolls and towards the pen where she noticed that the bucking, anxious ponies were being kept. Carefully, she slunk over to the pen, eyeing the ropes that bound the horses with disdain. She could pick practically any lock, pry open any deadbolt, and crack the code to any strongbox, but these ropes were thicker and knottier than any she had ever seen. Checking to make sure that the trolls were still distracted, she tested the knot, seeing if she could cut it loose with her daggers. The blades cut slowly through the rope, making her grit her teeth in impatience. But the trolls didn't seem to notice, so she kept sawing at the bonds.
At last, she broke through one of the ropes, flinging it aside, relieved. The first of the two ponies strolled out of the pen, giving her a grateful squeal.
"Shh!" she scolded the horse. "You need to be quiet!"
But the other horse seemed not to have heard her. It let loose a triumphant NEIGH! as it escaped the pen, causing the trolls to glance back at Jasmine and the two horses.
"Oi!" one of the trolls shouted. "What happened to 'em 'orses?"
"There's a girl back there too!" another troll shrieked. "She was lettin' 'em 'orses free, she was!"
"Get 'er!" the third troll commanded, launching both himself and the other trolls towards Jasmine.
Jasmine always held her ground during a fight-she had long since learned that retreating showed your opponent that you were weak, and only gave them more confidence. But when three fully grown trolls came rushing at her, appearing confident was the last thing on her mind. So, naturally, she ran like hell.
Despite Jasmine's remarkable speed, the trolls were larger and faster. One of the trolls scooped her up in his massive hand, causing her to give a sudden shriek of surprise as she was lifted into the air.
"Who are yer?" the troll asked, holding her up to his brutish face. The rest of the trolls gathered around his outstretched hand, upon which the startled Wraith sat.
"I-I-I…" Jasmine stammered, trying to get her bearings. She felt around at her sides for her daggers, but found that they had fallen out of their sheaths when she had been lifted off the ground. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see them, fallen and discarded, by the ponies' pen.
"Well, out with it!" the troll shouted, grabbing her by her boot and dangling her in the air. "Speak!"
At that moment, she heard a battle cry from the side of the clearing, and, turning her head to look, saw an entire company of dwarves come rushing out from the trees. Thorin, leading the dwarves, wielded his axe, the blade heading straight for one of the troll's leg.
"Dwarves?" a particularly nasal troll exclaimed.
The troll that had been holding Jasmine dropped her. She flipped around once in the air, allowing her to land on her feet. Looking around her, she saw Kili aiming an arrow at the troll's head. Rushing over to him, she held out her hand. "Could I borrow that?" she asked, gesturing to the sword he had slung over his back.
"You want my sword?" Kili asked, surprised.
"Yes," Jasmine hissed. Behind Kili, she saw one of the other trolls come lumbering towards them, reading to attack. "Quickly!"
Kili seemed to sense the troll behind him too. He unsheathed the sword and threw it to her, giving her enough time to hurl it at the troll, the blade embedding itself in it's stomach, causing it to howl in pain.
Kili winced. "That was harsh," he remarked, watching the troll crumple to the ground.
"Harsh is my middle name," she retorted, causing him to smirk.
"Well, I think Thorin might have overestimated your thieving abilities," Kili said jokingly. "We ask you to free two ponies and you end up starting a massacre."
"If you hadn't lost the ponies, I wouldn't have had to go save them in the first place," Jasmine laughed. "So when you think about it, it's really all your fault."
"You offend me, my lady," Kili exclaimed theatrically, clasping a hand to his chest. "Truly."
Suddenly, she heard a high-pitched shriek from the other side of the camp.
It was in the hold of a monstrous, hungry (and not to mention, very angry) troll that Elle found herself contemplating her life.
The dwarves, Jasmine, and the other remaining troll were all looking at her now. Elle was being held aloft by the scruff of her cloak, the fabric gripped tightly in the troll's thick fingers.
"Lay down your arms," the troll who was holding her squawked. "Or I'll rip 'er's off!" He grabbed one of Elle's arms with his other hand to show that he was serious.
Elle watched the faces of the dwarves anxiously, praying that she'd made a good enough impression on them to ensure that they were willing to sacrifice themselves for her safety.
Thorin threw down his sword with a growl, setting an example for the others to do the same. Elle noticed that Jasmine took particularly long to stick her daggers into the sandy ground, but alas, she did so eventually.
Thank you, she silently prayed, her frightened eyes meeting Jasmine's. The other thief gave her a curt nod.
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