Here it is! The flight from the Wargs. I hope you all enjoy it. Like I said, I'm terrible at writing battle scenes so, any pointers for what I could do better would be appreciated.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, I don't make money from this, and I only want to have fun with the characters! :)
Chapter 8: Wargs and Revelations
There was indeed a cave. A "dark, stinking, festering hole in the ground" was more descriptive of it Arianna thought. The girls absolutely refused to go in it and waited outside with Kili, Fili and Bilbo while Gandalf, Thorin and a few others ventured inside. Arianna noticed that the two brothers were looking at her awkwardly and didn't seem to be as talkative. Shooting Isabella a confused look, to which she just got a shrug in return, Arianna tried to think of what must have upset the brothers. Nothing was coming to mind until- "Did you two think I was serious about juicy dwarves and knowing a better way to cook you than Bilbo?"
The brothers shot her a look, which she couldn't quite read, before straightening up. "You could have been." Fili answered, Kili nodding beside him. "You must admit, we really don't know any main details about your life, perhaps you all eat dwarves back in your world." 'Well… he has a point, I suppose' Arianna thought, smirking. The thought of eating a dwarf was revolting however, her smirk turning into a grimace.
"I just didn't want the trolls to skin any of you" she said out loud, looking between the brothers and sparing a glance for the dwarves that had remained outside. "I agreed with Bilbo's plan, as I've already told him… I was just trying to stall for more time. In our world, the trolls aren't that intelligent. I mean, we did have one break into Hogwarts once, but he had been helped by a professor or so the rumor goes" she rambled a little more about dunce turban-wearing teachers before Isabella elbowed her in the arm. Shaking her head, Arianna continued. "I just… got a little nervous at a semi-intelligent and hungry troll being told that the best way to eat you was to skin you first." She finished with a small chuckle.
Seeming satisfied with her answer, even with all the rambling, the brothers smiled and started sharing their favorite parts of the night. Kili's of course was when he overheard Arianna call Thorin a potato, something which Fili hadn't heard. The girls thought the blonde prince was going to fall over when Kili recited exactly what she had said, he was laughing so hard. "What was your favorite part of the night brother?" Kili asked the still laughing dwarf. "Oh I especially liked the ending, when Gandalf split the rock and the trolls turned to stone, unable to eat us anymore. Best moment of my life by far." Nodding, both girls agreed. That had been their favorite part too.
Eventually, Gandalf, Thorin and the rest of the company came out of the cave. Bofur, Isabella noted, looked extremely happy. He walked over to them, whispering conspiratorially, stating that he had just made a 'long term deposit'. Both girls wrinkled their noses, clearly misunderstanding him, but the confusion was cleared up by his next words. "It wasn't anythin' too special really, not too large, but not small enough to be entirely worthless. It's definitely not the amount of treasure that I'll get when we win back Erebor."
Oh. He meant treasure. Isabella and Arianna quickly nodded, silently vowing that they wouldn't ever share what they had thought he meant originally.
The brown wizard certainly was a sight to behold. Arianna was convinced that if Hagrid was here, the two would become close friends, as they both cared more for the creatures in their respective forests more than anything else. Arianna felt a slight pang of homesickness, thinking about the giant but gentle man. She and Isabella had been guests in his cottage numerous times for tea, and she rather enjoyed the first (and only) lesson she received from him on hippogriffs. The book that he assigned them however, was another story. It nearly bit her fingers off! 'Monster Book of Monsters indeed' she thought with an exasperated snort. Isabella looked over quickly with a raised eyebrow. "Thinking about Hagrid and that damn textbook." she answered her friend's unasked question. "Why couldn't he have added something in our letters informing us that we were supposed to stroke the book?" Isabella shook her head, smiling. Her friend had moaned about the same thing over and over this summer, mainly because she was annoyed she was unable to read on of her textbooks. "One would think' Isabella muttered back, 'that with all that Ravenclaw brain power and your habit of petting your books that you would have figured it out on your own."
Arianna's "hmph" and crossed arms made Isabella start laughing, causing several of the dwarves to look at the girls. Fili and Kili just stared at them, amused and slightly confused. Who was this Hagrid?
A strange howl broke their thoughts though, as a huge, wolf-like beast lounged at the dwarves. Cries of "Wargs!" ran out through the group, as Thorin stabbed the beast before it could harm any of the company. Suddenly, there was one behind him, leaping with its jaws wide open. Kili quickly drew an arrow and shot the beast in the heart. "Who did you tell about your quest, besides your kin?!" Gandalf roared, coming to stand in front of Thorin. "No one!"
"Who did you tell?!"
"No one I swear Gandalf. What in Durin's name is going on?!"
Looking very grave, Gandalf said "You are being hunted. We must leave at once!"
"The ponies! They've bolted!" Ori shouted, running up to Thorin.
"Go, I will lead them away!" Arianna heard the brown wizard say. "These are Gundabad Wargs!" Gandalf answered, "They will run you down!"
"And these are Rhosgobel Rabbits" the other replied. "I'd like to see them try." With that, he took off through the forest.
"This way! Quickly! Run!" Gandalf shouted, leading the company into the rock-littered plains.
The girls found themselves running with the brothers, Fili having grabbed Arianna's hand, while Kili had one of Isabella's. Slightly comforted by the dwarves, the girls tried to focus on not tripping, a feat made almost impossible by the treacherous terrain. They watched in amazement as the brown wizard zipped around in his sled, faster and more nimble than the wargs and their riders.
Their riders! About half of the wargs had a creature on its back. Their skin was black and they had the most horrid appearance. "What are those things!" Isabella asked once they stopped behind a large boulder to take cover. "Orcs" Kili said, looking up at her terrified eyes. "Don't worry- I'm not my uncle. If you get into trouble, I'll run to help you." Slightly taken aback by his admission, Isabella didn't have time to respond before they were all sprinting across the plains again.
At the next large rock outcropping they stopped at, the company realized that there was a warg and its rider above them. Isabella saw Thorin look pointedly at Kili, who dropped her hand, grabbed an arrow and darted out away from the cover of the rock. He shot the warg and the orc, but both made terrible screeches in their dying moments, no matter how quickly the rest of the dwarves managed to kill them.
Realizing the folly with trying to sneak around now, the company started sprinting across the plains, Gandalf in the front and appearing like he was trying to find something. Arianna risked a glance behind her and saw the warg pack spread out behind them, slowly gaining. 'Not good not good not good' she chanted in her head. Shouts of "Gandalf?" and "Where'd the wizard go?!" reached her. Frantically looking around, she saw that they were on a slight hill and that the wargs were closing around them quickly. Fili and her had become separated, and she could see Isabella standing over by Balin now, looking about wildly. Kili was standing farther away from the group, firing arrow after arrow into the wargs.
"This way you fools!" Whipping around, Arianna saw Gandalf standing half out of the ground. The company started running for him, Arianna included. Upon reaching where everyone was disappearing, she heard a cry from Thorin "Kili get back here!" Turning to look, she realized that Isabella had come up alongside her and was watching Kili run towards them as well. Suddenly, an orc-less warg sprung up the hill, snapping at Kili's heels as he ran as quickly as possible.
"Leave him alone!" Arianna heard and before she could stop her friend, Isabella was running towards Kili, her wand out. "Merlin's saggy grey underpants!" Arianna cursed, sprinting after her friend, grabbing her wand from her pocket as well. She could vaguely hear Thorin and Gandalf shouting for them to come back, but she ignored the two men in favor of reaching her completely-Gryffindor friend and Kili.
Isabella raced to Kili and sprang between him and the charging warg. "Protego!" she shouted, jamming her wand forward and almost falling backwards at the strength with which the warg hit her shield. The warg had bounced backwards as well from the impact and was flailing around on the ground. Not looking behind her to check on Kili, Isabella kept all her focus on her shield, knowing that it was only a matter of time before it would weaken. The warg had gotten up from the ground at this point and was once again throwing itself into Isabella's spell, trying to get to the girl and dwarf.
"Arianna! A little help here if it wouldn't be too much trouble!" she screamed, her nerves getting the best of her. Something in her left periphery moved and she turned her head just as another warg, this one with a rider, leapt at her. 'Bloody hell' she thought.
"Stupify! Flipendo!" she heard, as two brightly colored spells crashed into the orc and warg respectively. Looking to her right, she saw Arianna's face, pale but determined. "Walk backwards towards Gandalf and Thorin" she ordered. "I have an idea." Nodding to her friend, Isabella turned her head to glance at Kili. He was standing behind her in shock, his mouth open and eyes wide. "Um…" she started.
"Isabella, move! We'll explain everything to them later!" Arianna shouted, standing behind Isabella's still holding protego, having stopped the charging warg in front of them with a Petrificus totalus. 'Who knew how long that would last' Arianna thought
Steadily, the three of them moved backwards. Isabella glanced over at Arianna, wondering what her plan was until- "Reducto!" Arianna cried, her spell hitting a rock outcropping. It would have been considered a miss, if it wasn't for the fact that the rock blew apart with a deafening 'Boom!', chunks flying in every direction and effectively taking out the three wargs that were running around and over it. "Bloody Brilliant you are!" Isabella exclaimed, jumping a little in excitement. "Yes well, I think it's safe enough for us to just run now. Release the protego and head towards Thorin" Arianna told her friend, pushing Kili to start running. The girls quickly followed him and then jumped and slid down into the cave with the rest of their company.
"Pretty sticks indeed." Gandalf said, looking down at the two now-revealed witches. "It seems you have been hiding some of your talents from us." Isabella and Arianna stood next to each other, defiance on their faces. "In our world Gandalf, parading around the fact that you can control magic will get you killed. We have lived in secret from those that cannot use magic for hundreds of years. We decided not to inform any of you of our skills, even though you yourself can use magic, nor did we decide to keep them to ourselves to the detriment of the group." Arianna answered, making eye contact with the Grey Wizard before her, not without giving Thorin a sideways glance first of course, just to see his expression. 'Yep' she thought and inwardly smirked, 'slightly gobsmacked once again.'
"And don't even think about burning us or I'll bat boogey hex you so hard you won't know which end is up." Isabella added passionately, clutching her wand and looking dead serious.
"My dears, why would we burn you? You just saved Kili's life. I'm sure Thorin is terribly grateful, as are Fili and the rest of this company. I must say though, I've never met a female wizard before."
"Witches. We're witches." Arianna corrected him, stealing a glance at the rest of the company now. No one looked furious or upset, even Dwalin she noted with some amusement. They all just looked at the girls curiously. Kili was of course standing over by his brother and Fili looked like he wanted to ask Arianna a question. Before she could acknowledge him however, a horn and hoof beats were heard and an orc tumbled into their cave, killed by an arrow.
"Elves" Thorin spat out, having ripped the arrow out and looked at the tip. This seemed to set the company into action, as Dwalin headed to the back of the cave, only to come running back. "I cannot see the back of it. Looks more like a pathway than anything else. Should we follow it?" Cries of "Yes!" were heard, as the company set out through the cave.
"Remember when you said you would save me from the orcs?" Arianna heard Isabella ask Kili. "Well, I'm not sure if you got all that stuff before," here Arianna rolled her eyes and shook her head at her friend-of course he had got it! "But I'm a witch and it would appear that I'm slightly better at saving you than you are at saving me." Both girls started giggling at Isabella's blatant bragging, the shock of the morning starting to wear off. "Sorry for not telling you sooner" Arianna found herself telling Fili. The blond just smiled and shook his head. "It's understandable. With what you say about your world, I probably wouldn't have told me either if I had been you. You did save my brother after all, so I know you were telling the truth about not keeping it a secret to harm us" he finished, giving her arm a slight squeeze before continuing to travel through the rockway. Smiling back at Isabella, Arianna felt complete since arriving at this strange world. They had their magic, friends, and each other. 'Nothing could ruin this' she thought.
She was, of course, wrong.
I hope the girls battle was realistic. I could not see them charging the wargs and orcs, wands blazing as they fired curse after curse at them, eventually destroying the whole pack. I could however see Isabella running out to save Kili, and Arianna running out to save both of them, with their one goal to get back to the others. Which is why I only had them use spells to buy some more time, not to maim and kill.
Although blowing up that rock most definitely killed those wargs lol.
I'm thinking about going an interesting direction with this story... mainly because of how the girls arrived in Middle Earth. The next chapter should be out sometime tonight or tomorrow morning!