CHAPTER 11
I awoke a few hours later, my dreams plagued by nightmarish faces of grotesque orcs trying to pierce my flesh with their poisoned daggers. I doubt I will get much more sleep tonight. I rose from the bed, rebound my wound with the bandages the maids left (sloppily, but they should hold), dressed and went out in search of my dwarves. I found them all dressed in their sleep clothes (I noticed Hannah and Kili not being present), laughing around a fire eating sausages in one of the open halls overlooking the waterfalls of Rivendell. I stopped at the doorway for a moment; these were my best friends in this world, and arguably may be better friends than the ones I left behind in the other world. Their cheerful acceptance of small joys of life like good company and good food brought a smile to my face. I was finally noticed by Fili, who without his brother at his side looked slightly out of place, though it was starting to become a common occurrence nowadays. He called my name, drawing more attention to my presence, and I stepped closer, laughing, taking the vacant place by his side.
The night was spent mostly laughing and eating meats (obviously not provided by the elves), and only a few hours were spared for sleep to strengthen us before our journey in the morning, which Thorin told me about soon after seeing me join the party. He, along with a few others, was concerned about my ability to keep up with their pace while wounded, but I waved him off and assured him I would be able to keep up- a tiny (not really) flesh wound would not stop me from helping my friends. I learned Hannah was displeased by the decision to separate from Gandalf, which I suspect was less because of the inability to learn more of arcane arts without him but more because of the need to have a reassuring presence of a powerful wizard in the company. Honestly, after her dismissal of my presence I hardly cared for her anymore. I never thought that Hannah would be the kind of friend that would leave their closest buddy for a peace of dwarf ass so easily, but one can never know with humans. From all the people I've ever met, dwarves seemed like the only ones trustworthy, elves being a close second, mostly because I haven't had the time to really understand their motives yet. I did not consider wizards as human, nor as any other group. I guess to me they were more like a force of nature, but since I knew only Radagast and Gandalf, I may be wrong with my assumptions.
The dwarven company slowly decided to head off to sleep, and with a promise to wake me when it was time to leave from Bifur, I went off to my room, if not to try to sleep than to at least rest my eyes before the upcoming journey. Before turning in for the night (again) I scoured the room for a peace of paper and something to write with. Finding the needed items I wrote a small letter of gratitude to Lord Elrond, also asking to extend that gratitude to the maids that attended to me. I did not want to leave without saying goodbye.
Not long after sunrise I found myself climbing the steep path along the cliffside right behind Bilbo. My full pack was heavy on my back and the straps were painfully digging into my injury, but I paid it no mind. I was much too distracted by the lack of handrails on this path. Did I mention I have a fear of falling? Because I do.
"Be on your guard; we're about to step over the edge of the Wild. Balin, you know these paths; lead on." Thorin warned us, taking a step closer to the ledge to let Balin through. I, worried I would nudge him off, practically glued myself to the wall on my left, passing by Bilbo and following the others.
"Master Baggins, I suggest you keep up." I glanced back after hearing Thorin's words; no doubt poor Bilbo was terrified to go on without Gandalf. The wizard must have been almost like a security blanket to him, the only person he somewhat knew before this whole adventure thing. Let's hope Bilbo can make it without him.
And so we marched on without our wizard. Our company walked through hills and trees and mountains for a couple of weeks, passing many amazing sights and ruins, the likes of which Hannah and I have only seen in pictures on the internet. I kept up training with Dwalin, though at this point it was more like sparring. Sometimes we'd switch it up, and I'd train with Gloin or Fili or sometimes even Thorin instead. I was becoming quite a good fighter. While I trained with the dwarves, Hannah would usually go off on her own, or maybe with Kili, to I assume practice her magic. No one really knows what she can really do, or honestly if she can even do anything. Someone asked her what magic she can do and if she needs a staff to actually do something once while we were sitting around a campfire, and she mentioned that a staff helps concentrate ones abilities, but avoided answering questions about magic altogether. I think that without Gandalf around she didn't know what to do with herself. I personally wasn't speaking to her at all. She did not avoid me, but acted like I wasn't even there, so it was not a hard feat. The others obviously noticed our lack of communication, but did not comment on it; it really didn't affect them, so why get involved? So we kept up the routine walking, ignoring each other.
On the seventeenth day since leaving Gandalf in Rivendell, it started raining again. It was a hard and heavy rain, strengthened by cold wind, making my eyes water and skin freeze. Worse than that- we were once again walking on a small ledge on a cliff, the stone under our feet slippery from the rain, our fingers almost too frozen to grip onto the wall for support. I kept Bilbo behind me as I walked, to shelter him as much as I could from the harsh weather, but I didn't make much of a difference. The rain kept hammering throughout the day and we kept on walking. The sun was nowhere to be seen, we had nowhere to stop and rest and I feared we wouldn't find a place for the night. With this storm it was already hard to see where we were going, but at night it would most definitely be pitch black.
"Hold on!" A strong gust of wind and rain carried Thorin's voice to us, and I resisted rolling my eyes. Like we haven't been holding on for the last eight hours. Still, I carefully followed Bofur.
"Wooouh!"
"Bilbo!" The stone under his feet had given away, and if not for Dwalin and I, he would have most definitely fallen in. I held on to him, pressing him into the wall and slightly covering him from the wind. "Be careful Bilbo. Breathe." I tried to calm him down, looking into his eyes, only turning back to keep walking once I got a nod of reassurance that he was in fact, all right.
"We must find shelter!" Obviously!
"Watch out!" I stopped my walk, startled by the loud shout behind me. I followed Dwalin's gaze upwards and my jaw dropped.
A giant boulder was flying at us.
WHAT THE HELL.
It hit the cliff above us with a thunderous crash, making me drop onto one knee and press myself as hard as I could to the cliffside, fearing for my life. Rocks dropped from above, hitting the path by our feet, breaking peaces of it off and falling down into darkness.
"This is no thunderstorm! It's a thunder battle, look!" What in the goddamn fuck was going on?! Oh, look a STONE GIANT. What else is in this damned Middle Earth?! Oh, and he's throwing boulders! FUCKING PERFECT. We're all gonna die.
"Well bless me, the legends are true!" Consider yourself blessed Bofur; can we get out of here somehow now?! "Giants; Stone Giants!"
The ground under our feet trembled and the shockwave of another thrown boulder rand through us, the noise of it almost covering up Thorin's and Dwalin's screams.
"Take cover; you'll fall!"
"HOLD ON!"
We pressed ourselves as much as we could to the stone wall, not wanting to follow the rocks down. The small path we were walking on earlier became thinner and thinner with each hit, nearing our feet, making all of us panic. And then, the ground started moving.
I barely even felt it at first, trying to keep my head down as much as possible, but even I noticed when the STONE GIANT who's legs we were on stood up, only to get head butted by another giant, making holding on so much more difficult than it already was. The next memories were a bit of a blur of swinging on a giant leg, being absolutely terrified, seeing the pale, panicked, faces of our friends, full of fear, swinging right past us, and the cliffside coming straight at us, full speed. I was completely convinced we were going to die. My last thought was "oh, fuck" and with a tremendous hit, we flew off the Giants leg, hitting the ground, falling one on top of the other.
For a few seconds, all I could do was breathe, listen to my racing heart and chant 'oh my god' in my head, but after I heard the shouts of the others, and the feeling came back to my limbs, I carefully started to shove off dwarves off of me.
"Where's Bilbo? Where's the Hobbit?!" My head shot up.
"Bilbo?!" Oh no no no.
"There!"
"Grab him!" I stood to the side, wanting to help Bilbo but also not wanting to get in the way. My heart almost stopped and I think I screamed when he almost fell. Thorin, our hero, jumped down from my side, heaving Bilbo up, away from danger. Just when I thought I'll get to calm down, I noticed Thorin's hand slipping and dropped to the ground, outstretching my arm to him.
"AH! GOD YOU'RE HEAVY!" I screamed, trying to raise him back up, my shoulder screaming from the strain. Thankfully, Dwalin was at my side and helped me drag Thorin back up. Once I made sure everyone was safe, I groaned, clothing my arm. That's so gonna smart tomorrow.
"I thought we lost our burglar." Dwalin sighed next to me, breathing heavily.
"He's been lost ever since he left home. He should have never come. He has no place amongst us." That was mean. I'll chew him out when my heart starts working again. Thorin walked past my crumpled self, nodding at me, I guess as a thank you, stepped towards a cave (finally - shelter!), and looked back at us. "Dwalin!"
Slowly, yet with haste (no one wanted to stay in the rain any longer, but no one had much energy) we all followed them inside the cave.
