Chapter five

It poured for the next few days. We were all soaking and dripping and cranky. The fires never started unless Gandalf used his powers and the food was generally cold and seasoned by the rain. The path became so muddy that sometimes we had to dismount and lead our ponies and horses carefully through the churning mud. All of us were caked in the black stuff up to our knees. Dori, Ori, and Nori however, where completely covered in the stuff. When we had to walk our horses off the path to get around a particularly horrible stretch, Nori had patted his pony and sent it off in our line and decided to hop across the mud. I supposed he was sick of the huddling and wanted to stretch and move, so he leapt from some bigger stones in the puddle to a long and very thick branch in the middle of the path that had fallen there. He skipped along, sometimes even jumping and turning in the air and landing facing the path behind us.

"Show-off," muttered Gloin behind me, whose beard was matted and little rivets of water poured off the ends.

We suddenly heard a, "Ori, don't!" from Gloin.

The silly little dwarf had decided to follow his older brother into the mud. He teetered and swayed from one rock to the next, but he still made it onto the branch wobbling like a man on stilts. Nori was laughing and beckoning Ori to walk towards him.

Dori cursed and let go of his pony. "Nori! You bring him back here!"

Nori gave his older brother a cheeky little grin and did a cartwheel on the branch. Ori gasped and quivered but still stood. Dori was fuming.

"Don't do it," Oin warned, but Dori began to negotiate his way towards his little brothers.

I heard Thorin groan from up ahead. "All three of you –get back to your ponies, now,"

"Nori!" I yelled. What on earth was he doing? He was jumping on the branch and Ori, like an idiot did the same. I scrunched up my face and prepared for the ensuing damage.

Splat. Dori had put his foot on the bouncing branch, and (surprise, surprise) had lost his footing, kicked the branch and sent all three of them flopping into the mud. No one laughed. Except for Fili and Kili, who both emitted a bark and a shout of laughter before they realized they were the only ones doing so. The three of them waded out slowly and brought back a stinking ton of the muck on them. Poor little Ori was on the verge of tears as I tried my best to scrape the gunk off of him. Thorin was on the verge of cutting down a tree.

It was like this we journeyed until we passed over the bridge of the River Hoarwell and the clouds finally scattered and the sun beat down on the forest of beeches around us. The path opened up and the trees receded back and meadows of mountain flowers were seen through the sparser trees.

We dried out and our spirits were renewed.

"We'll stop here tonight," Thorin found an abandoned farm that seemed to have been burned down.

We all staggered after him and threw down our bags. The ponies were being herded up behind us by Dori, Gloin, and Dwalin. Bombur flopped onto his back and from where I stood; I could only see the rounding of his belly at the top of the wild brother Bofur walked by and gave him a slap on his rotund middle but Bombur only moaned. He was too tired to retaliate.

Thorin was wandering towards the fallen timbers of the farmhouse. "Fili, Kili," he threw over his shoulder, "Watch the ponies and make sure you stay with them. Oin, Gloin, get a fire started."

Gandalf strode past me as I unpacked my bag. "I knew the farmer and his family who once lived here," he looked troubled. "I think it would be wiser to move on." He came up to Thorin, "We could make for the Hidden Valley."

Thorin suddenly turned, a note of hate in his voice. "I've told you already, I will not go near that place."

"Why not? The elves could help us. We could get food, rest, advice."

"I do not need their advice." Stubborn fool.

"We have a map that we cannot read. Lord Elrond could help us."

"Help? A dragon attacks Erebor, what help came from the elves?"

"I did not give you that map and key so you could hold on to the past."

"I did not know they were yours to keep."

Gandalf spun and walked towards us again. He did not stop though, he kept right on going.

"Everything alright, Gandalf?" Bilbo asked, clueless as can be. "Where are you going?"

"To seek the company from the only one around here who makes any sense." The wizard snapped.

"Who's that?" Bilbo asked.

"Myself, Mister Baggins!" With that, he marched off back from where we came from.

Night came quickly. Thorin still paced in the frame of the ruined house. Sitting by the fire, I watched his stony form until I decided to bring him his share of the food. I ladled some stew into a wooden bowl and picked my way over towards him.

"Are you hungry?"

He turned, startled. "No," he replied immediately.

"You mean: Yes." I corrected and passed the bowl to him. He took it a little too roughly. He was hungry. Giving him a reproving look mixed with amusement, I found a fallen timber and sat down on it after running my hands across to check for any wayward nails. Thorin joined me and settled with the clinks of his brigandine mail shirt. I turned to him and found his unsettlingly closer than I expected. My breath caught for a moment, but his clear eyes stared into the darkness ahead of him and did not hold me in their thrall. I took a halting breath and looked up at the stars. They shimmered warmly in the spring sky.

Words tumbled out of my mouth. "Do you remember watching the stars from the cliffs of Ered Luin?"

He glanced sharply at me, the bowl in his lap untouched and still steaming. His face softened. "Yes,"

I could feel the reverberations of his voice of velvet stones in my chest. His eyes found mine. Trying to search into the depths of his gaze, I blinked in disappointment as he broke away first. I wondered if he was remembering.

I was.

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I had been in Ered Luin for about a year. It was high summer and the forges blazed by day and night time came surprisingly with little relief from the heat. I had tossed and turned on my bed with a nightgown for an hour. Stripping off the gown and lying on the ground helped for a little while, but the air was stagnant wherever I relocated myself within the confines of my room. In desperation, I had put back on the gown with disgust and gone to Thorin's forge in search of a smaller set of bellows so that I could get the air in my room to move a little. However, all that accomplished in the end were lines of sweat running down my back. I had slunk back to the forge to return the bellows and tripped over Thorin who had fallen asleep on his workbench.

"Thorin!"

There was a blade in his hand.

"Thorin!"

He had blinked at me in the darkness and dropped his dagger. Heart pounding, I picked myself off the ground and sat down heavily next to him. He rubbed his eyes blearily.

"What were you doing with my bellows in the middle of the night?"

"I was... I was trying to cool down my room,"

He chuckled sleepily. "You won't find any relief anywhere down here."

A sudden idea sparked. "Let's go," I had shoved him playfully. He didn't even lean over. It was like shoving a rock.

"Where?" he muttered.

"Outside. Let's go see the stars."

"You can see the stars from the halls through the smoke holes,"

I groaned. "Smoke holes?" I scoffed. "Please, I need to feel the air on my skin." When he didn't reply, I gave him a mischievous smile. "I promise never to hum that elvish tune again while I'm working," with that, I fumbled for his hand and pulled. I nearly toppled into him.

His hand had tightened around mine.

Something opened a sweet hollowness in my throat. Unguarded, his eyes held me mercilessly as I felt my lips part.

"Fine," he whispered and got up. "I will hold you to that promise."

He lead me through the quite halls of the city and up a set of stairs that wound up the side of the caverns until we reached a tunnel that wormed its way to a set of stone doors we both had to push to get open. It was only then that he had let go of me. We stepped onto a cliff carpeted by long mountain grass and a spindly looking pine clung to the edge of the rock. A puff of wind swept my hair right off of my sticky neck and I laughed outright at the delicious feeling as I spun. I stopped suddenly, feeling dizzy as I realized I was nearer to the edge of the cliff than I expected. I backed up slowly.

Thorin came up to my side, concern on his face.

"I don't like heights," I explained breathlessly.

We sat down in the grass and lay down. The stars winked at us merrily and the wind sometimes would catch the ends of my curled locks and sweep them over my face teasingly.

"They look the same,"

I had turned my head to look him lying beside me. I knew what he was referring to. Erebor. I turned up to the sky again. "They look almost the same everywhere. But they were very strange when I first came here. They have different shapes back home." We lay in silence for a while. I had cooled down, but I could feel the heat of his body though we were not touching. His hair was still all black then and a little shorter than it was now, though he had barely changed physically.

"Do you ever feel alone?" his voice was sad.

"No." I belonged with myself. I wasn't travelling and living in all these different places because I was looking for a place to belong. Learning made me wise. I wasn't looking for my happiness, I was maintaining it. At ease with myself, I knew I could be solitary and not be lonely and belong anywhere and everywhere. But with his words, my reply had suddenly felt empty and untrue.

He turned to me, his lips softly making his words. "Not all who wander are lost,"

I smiled at him then and my chest expanded with something light and dulcet but so bitter and piercing all the same. Swallowing it, I closed my eyes. "Goodnight, Thorin," I whispered. He was the only one who understood. A friend like this was hard to come by.

"Goodnight, Tallis," I shivered sweetly as he said my name and felt safe.

As I had drifted off, I was not sure whether he had brushed my hair from my face, or if it was just the wind.

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"I'm sorry," I whispered. The stars dimmed a little. I could hear a dwarf yelling about ants off by the fire.

His jaw clenched.

I didn't know what else to say. I was afraid he was going to say something that would hurt, but he kept on looking away from me. I wanted him to look at me. I wanted him to look at me the way he did when he held my hand in his large, calloused ones that devilishly hot night in the forge and spoke to me with his heart though his fingers though at the time I was too stupid and too self-absorbed to see what was in front of me. My fingers found the delicate chain around my neck.

He stood abruptly. I did not stop him as he made his way to the fire. Instead, I stared off into the darkness with an odd soreness in my throat that I could not swallow.

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*trolls up next!