Two chapters for you guys today! ^^

BUT HEY SO GUESS WHAT. My English teacher made me write this essay telling about my favorite book character (who just so happens to be Eragon from the Inheritance Cycle, written by Christopher Paolini. God bless him) and she gave me back my paper yesterday, telling me that i should rewrite it in a proper document... why? SO I COULD SEND IT TO THESE NEWSPAPER PEOPLE.

I ACTUALLY HAVE A CHANCE TO GET MY WRITING ONTO THE NEWSPAPER, GUYS.

HOLY CRAP PRAY FOR MEEEEEE.

All rights go to JRR Tolkien and Peter Jackson. Except for Fheon, Elijah, Caligula, and a couple other OC's.

(p.s. i put in a tiny excerpt of the Great Goblin's song from the book, but not the whole thing. The rest of it was the song from the movie.)

Fheon did not know how much time had passed, whether any at all was passing, or if it had only just been a minute. She had been focusing on the whistling noise that would not stop. She was positive that it was coming from something—or someone—within the cave, now, for the wind blowing outside had long since stopped. Yet when she looked around at the Company, each one of them was asleep. Save perhaps for Thorin, whose breathing was rather shallow. Was there a hollow part in the cave? Perhaps. But even considering this possibility, Fheon could not force herself to calm down.

Surprisingly, Elijah was quiet. He did not rock his feet from side to side, or bump Fheon's knee with his own, or play with her hair. He was simply watching the last excesses of the rain dripping outside, completely attentive—another one of the reasons Fheon could not put herself to ease.

It was quite a while into the night when she was able to loosen her grip on her bow; just as she was telling herself that nothing was going to happen, something happened: at the far corner of the cave, Bilbo got up and buckled on his belt, before beginning to pack up the possessions he had. It seemed that he had not noticed the Rangers were still on watch. He picked up his walking stick and started creeping over the sleeping forms of the dwarves. Silent as he was while making his way to the entrance of the cave, he could not escape the notice of Elijah and Fheon.

"And where do you think you're going, Mr. Baggins?" said Elijah, using that intimidatingly kind tone he had.

Bilbo stopped in his tracks and was still for a moment, looking upwards in exasperation, before facing them and saying, "Back to Rivendell."

"No offense, Bilbo," Fheon cut in softly, "but you would not make it past three days on your own out there."

"That's exactly what I mean," he retorted, somewhat impatiently. "Thorin said I should never have come and he was right. I'm not a Took. I'm a Baggins. I don't know what I was thinking. I should never have run out my door."

Elijah shook his head and leaned forward, looking up at the hobbit with a gleam in his eyes. "Ah, but I've seen some of the pluck Thorin needs for this quest. I've seen it. If you'd just stick around until we get to Erebor, I could teach you how to use your sword and the Took in you will rise!"

"You're homesick, Bilbo," Fheon murmured. "I understand—"

"No, you don't understand!" he retorted, barely being able to keep the conversation hushed. "I heard you talking, that first night near The Shire. I know what happened."

Her eyes flashed dangerously. "If you've told them—"

"I haven't—I haven't and I won't. But y-you're missing the point. They're dwarves, you're Rangers. You're used to this life—to living on the road, never settling in one place, not belonging anywhere."

And though Fheon was much more offended by this, her brother managed a chuckle. "That came out wrong, didn't it?" he said.

"It did. I'm—I'm sorry, I didn't mean…" The hobbit trailed off, taking a deep, shaky breath. "Will you let me leave?"

Fheon regarded him for a long moment, frowning. "I won't tell you that you're right," she said, "about these dwarves not belonging anywhere. That's what this quest is for: to take back their homeland. But I and my brother… You heard right about that. We don't belong anywhere. Not anymore." She shared a glance with Elijah, and he smiled sadly.

"Which is why we wish you all the luck in the world," he added, standing up to place a firm hand on Bilbo's shoulder. Bilbo nodded, returning Elijah's small smile.

Stick them with the pointy end, Fheon was about to say, for she actually did not want the hobbit to die out in the wild. But her words caught in her throat the moment she noticed a faint glowing coming from his hip.

She shot to her feet and had pulled his sword out of its sheath in an instant. The blade was indeed glowing blue.

"Wake up!" Elijah yelled. His voice echoed loudly within the cave, and he repeated, "Wake up! Everyone, get up!"

Lines appeared in the sand on the floor, coming as if they were falling through cracks. The dwarves snapped awake from their slumber, but too late.

The whistling sound that had become so familiar to Fheon's ears stopped all together. Then, the ground beneath them opened up like doors. The dwarves lying by the entrance fell into the chasm first—accompanied by Bilbo and Elijah. As their shouts of alarm reverberated again and again, Fheon was able to catch herself by wrapping her fingers around a rock jutting out of the walls beneath the door. Yet she knew she could not abandon the dwarves.

Cursing loudly, she pulled herself upward the slightest bit in order to grab her bow, before intentionally letting her fingers slip.

She fell into the chasm in a presumably neater fashion than the dwarves had. She soon found that it was a channel of some sort, but vertically built and slippery. As she slid down the shaft, it was nearly impossible to keep her footing, but she did. Torches lined the walls and the entire passageway reeked of rot. The various twists and turns almost left her falling onto her bum. Almost. When she finally reached the end of the tunnel, she had to waste two of her arrows in order to stop her descent. By the time she had stopped moving, the shafts had all but broken off. She threw them away and carefully crawled to the mouth of the tunnel, looking down to where the dwarves had presumably landed.

It was a long fall, she had to admit. But that was assuredly the least of her problems at the moment; as she looked down from the mouth of the entrance, she saw that the dwarves were being attacked by what looked to be a legion of goblins.

The goblins started leading them away, with the Company offering much of a fight. When they had disappeared from her line of sight, Fheon noticed a form kneeling on the bridged pathway. Upon closer inspection, she was able to discern a familiar hobbit's red overcoat.

"Bilbo," she whispered, which was enough, for her voice echoed all the way down to him. Jumping in surprise, he looked around for her and she had to wave her hand to catch his attention. "Wait for me there," she told him, before returning her attention to the long fall. "I don't suppose you can catch me?"

"Uh, well, um…" He walked to her landing platform, looked down at it, and then shook his head. "No."

Nodding, Fheon remembered the "tuck-and-roll" technique Hiram had taught her and her brother years ago. She had never found the need to use it, until now. Taking a deep breath, she made sure she recalled the steps correctly before jumping out of the entrance. She made sure her feet were going to land on the platform. The moment she felt the wood make contact with her feet, she let her knees give way slightly as she tumbled forward. The world spun for a second before she was back on her feet, heart pounding against her chest from the adrenaline of the fall. She felt that her shoulder had taken most of the impact, and took a moment to catch her breath. She caught Bilbo looking at her with astonished eyes, and placed her hand on his shoulder.

"Come, burglar," she said. "The dwarves can't save themselves." He nodded, much to her grim amusement, before they started on their way, following the noise of the goblins. "Best get your sword out," she whispered to him; however, when he did, the blade was still glowing, so she told him to sheathe it again right before nocking an arrow.

Quietly, they walked across unstable bridges, keeping to the darkness. Barely minutes into their trek, though, Fheon heard a faint growling coming from above. Something dropped from a crevice above her head.

The arrow she shot missed its target. The goblin landed on her shoulders and wrapped its grubby fingers about her neck, strangling her. She was forced to let go of her bow to attempt to pry its hands off her. It was heavy, too. Eventually, she lost her balance and fell onto her back, but the goblin kept at it. "Bilbo," she managed to choke out. "Sword."

She was not sure what the hobbit did after that, but she was able to discern the faint sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath, and then the gory noise of skin being cut open. The goblin's hands vanished from her neck. Fheon hurriedly scrambled to her feet and unsheathed her own blade, only to be met with the sight of Bilbo falling over the side of the bridge. "Bilbo!" She dropped her sword and rushed forward, hoping to do with him the same thing she had done for Thorin on the cliff face, but luck was not on her side this time.

Bilbo fell into what seemed to be an endless abyss, his sword being the only light that accompanied him. Yet the time came when he was lost to Fheon's senses—be it seeing or hearing—and she was left with a heavy heart. Noises of goblins echoed down the bridged path she was on, reminding her of their original objective. She held onto the hope that Bilbo was alive, that there was a lake below he should have been smart enough to land feet-first into. With this thought in mind, she sheathed her sword, snatched her bow off the floor, and forged on.

"The Company goes first," she kept muttering to herself, trying to ignore the fact that she had just lost one of the adherents.

This time, she ventured forth with even more caution than before. With every five steps, she checked the walls to her sides and above her head, even beneath her feet, keeping in mind that some goblins were cunning when they wanted to be. Yet no attack came, and the noise of goblins was closer than ever. There was a sharp turn ahead, and carefully, she poked her head out from this. She was met with the sight of a goblin-town, with wooden shacks planted on the walls, connected together by bridges and ladders. The walls were illuminated with dozens of torches and lanterns linked by ropes.

In fact, there was a rope hanging limply not very far from Fheon. She followed it upwards with her eyes and found that it led to a vacant lot of land; with a shack but with no goblins. Using this to her advantage, she slipped her bow over her shoulder and climbed the rope. No goblin could have noticed her from so far away, but just in case, she slipped her hood onto her head. She pulled herself onto stable ground and rushed to hide inside the shack. If it could hold under the weight of goblins, it could hold her. She pressed herself against the wall by a window and peeked out from there.

Thorin and the Company were still completely surrounded by goblins, not to mention the ones looming above them in their little cabins. Their weapons had been stripped from them. Their bags were all but gone. They had been brought to what Fheon only assumed was the Great Goblin of this particular hive, but he most likely was exactly that, considering his size, his staff, and the crown on his head. He sat on a throne as well—a throne made of junk, but a throne nonetheless.

"Who would be so bold as to come armed into my kingdom?" he boomed, the baggy lump on his throat waggling disgustingly as he stepped down from his throne. "Spies? Thieves? Assassins?"

"Dwarves, Your Malevolence," one goblin replied.

"Dwarves?"

"We found them on the front porch!"

"Well don't just stand there: SEARCH THEM!"

The Great Goblin paced actively in front of his throne, watching as his minions got to work with the dwarves. "Every crack, every crevice." Fheon heard something metal hit against wood, before cringing at the unpleasant sound of grinding metal. "What are you doing in these parts? Speak!" Yet the dwarves did not speak, and Fheon could not bring herself to be peeved with their decision. Thorin knew that the goblins would kill them no matter what they said. And if not him, then Balin. She decided to wait until danger was rearing its ugly head before coming to their rescue.

However, she started second-guessing herself when the Great Goblin said, "Very well. If they will not talk, we'll make them squawk." His statement was met with the goblin's enthusiastic screeches. "Bring up the mangler! Bring up the bonebreaker! Start with the youngest!" He pointed at a dwarf at the head of the Company; Fheon could not be sure who it was. But just as she was standing in the middle of her opening and drawing her bow, aiming for the Great Goblin's head, a gruff voice boomed all across the chamber.

"WAIT!"

And the dwarves parted, revealing Thorin's dark mane of hair to Fheon. She kept her bow drawn.

"Well, well, well," said the Great Goblin. "Look who it is: Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror—King Under the Mountain!" He bowed low, mockingly, of course, for goblins did not know respect—only fear. "Oh, but I'm forgetting. You don't have a mountain. And you're not a king… which makes you nobody, really." He leaned back slightly, a sort of deranged look coming onto his face. "I know someone who would pay a pretty price for your head. Just a head; nothing attached." The goblins around the chamber shifted on their feet in what seemed to be excitement. "Perhaps you know of whom I speak. An old enemy of yours," their King continued, and Fheon's heart dropped into her stomach. "A pale orc, astride a white warg."

What Thorin said next was too low for Fheon to hear, but then he stated defiantly, "He was slain in battle long ago."

The Great Goblin seemed to whisper something to the dwarf, so Fheon was not able to hear, but the twisted chuckle that left his mouth, she heard just fine. "Send word to the Pale Orc," he said to a tiny goblin hanging from a zip wire. "Tell him I have found his prize." The tiny goblin travelled downwards and disappeared from view. The Great Goblin returned his attention to the Company and bared the few teeth he had.

"Keep them here," he ordered his minions. "If anyone but Thorin Oakenshield moves, kill them. We needed dinner anyway."

The goblins chuckled and then started hopping about, poking and prodding at the dwarves. They started sifting through the pile of weapons they had taken from them, throwing every which one to the side, for they had no particular interest in forged weapons. Fheon spotted her brother's bow and quiver atop the pile, while a fat goblin was examining his sword. She took note of where the pile of weapons lied as she carefully exited the shack she was in. To her right, there was another cabin with steady floorboards she could hop onto, but the gap was quite wide. Crouching, she backed up to gain momentum and jumped over the gap. The boards she landed on creaked slightly beneath her weight. It hopefully was disremembered, because she tumbled straight into the shack so anyone who could have heard would not see her. But there was no guaranteeing this. She drew her bow and peeked out the window again, trying to slow her breathing.

The sea of goblins had not disappeared from their places surrounding the dwarves. They were so small compared to Elijah, who towered above everyone else but the Great Goblin. Fheon could not discern the look in his face due to the great distance between them, but he had his hands behind his back, looking so nonchalant. There came a time when he started whistling. Even when the Great Goblin yelled at him, he would not stop. He seemed so smug about it. But Fheon knew the tune that he was whistling.

It was the song Hiram had sung to them during their first night as official Rangers. They had taken a trip into Bree, to drink and be merry. And Hiram had gotten up on one of the tables and just started singing this happy song about a boy named Kol. Fheon could no longer remember the words, but the melody was like a constant buzzing in her ear—Elijah would keep humming it from days on end if he felt like it.

Now he was whistling it, no doubt trying to send a message to Fheon. She dared not reply, but soon, she was going to make her presence known. Nevertheless, she winced when the Great Goblin rammed the end of his staff into Elijah's stomach, rather harshly because the man still had not stopped whistling. Elijah stopped then, curling around himself.

"Do shut your gob," said the Great Goblin. "And let me sing instead. I have a far more fitting song in mind."

And so he started singing.

"Clap! Snap the black crack! Grip, grab! Pinch, nab! Clash, crash! Crush, smash! Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!"

Fheon jumped onto another adjacent shack to her right, which offered her a better view of the scene playing on before her. She nocked an arrow; there was no way out except for through.

"Pound, pound, far underground! Ho, ho! My lad! Swish, smack! Whip crack! Batter and beat! Yammer and bleat!"

The goblins had started stomping their feet into the time of the beat the Great Goblin had set. All the while, they kept pushing the members of the Company around. Elijah had his head bowed.

The Great Goblin started singing things that made sense. "Bones will be shattered. Necks will be wrung. You'll be beaten and battered. From racks, you'll be hung." Fheon had to give it to him: his words were able to send a shiver down her spine. "You will die down here and never be found, down in the deep of Goblin-town."

Fheon took a deep breath, about to let her arrow fly to the head of the Great Goblin, for he had gone on for long enough. Then one of the goblins elicited a deafening screech, dropping something heavy in front of the Great Goblin, who stopped singing abruptly and let out a gasp of his own.

"I know that sword!" he yelled, backing away and pointing at the object the goblin had dropped. Fheon looked more closely to see that it was Thorin's weapon, Orcrist. "It is the Goblin-cleaver! The Biter! The blade that sliced a thousand necks!" The goblins hissed and ran away, as if the very sight of it burned them. "Slash them! Beat them! Kill them! KILL THEM ALL!"

The goblins surged forward and started piling on top of the dwarves. Fheon could see them pulling at their hairs and scratching at their necks. Then they disappeared beneath the sea of filthily-clad goblins. One dwarf was able to jump out, but was soon overtaken by four goblins. The Great Goblin pointed at this dwarf and shouted, "Cut off his head!" And as one of the goblins was raising his bone knife, Fheon let her arrow fly towards its skull.

Her aim was true; so were her next three. The four goblins crouching around the once-overtaken dwarf fell off the sides of the bridge. Dead, or soon to be. The chamber lapsed into a shocked silence, wondering where the shots had come from. The dwarf that was once pinned to the ground scrambled to his feet, and Fheon found that it was Thorin. She was lucky that goblins were as senseless as they were violent. They had not honed in on her position yet, but Elijah had. Then he quickly thought better and looked away.

"Who's that?" the Great Goblin demanded, sounding rather fearful. "Coward! Hiding in the darkness and picking us off." A clever coward, Fheon thought, scowling. "Show yourself, coward!" She took a deep breath, and then jumped out from her hiding place.

Just as swiftly, she released a volley of arrows upon the goblins that were piled on top of the dwarves. Two, four, six—they fell off the Company in a rhythm. And one by one, the Company got to their feet. Fheon jumped back onto the previous shack and shot from there, downing the many goblins one by one. She dealt with the ones nearest the Company first, and then the ones standing by the pile of weapons. Taking a chance, she made a shot for the Great Goblin's head, but he deflected it with the thick skin on his arm. This resulted in her position being found.

"There!" he shouted, pointing at where she was still shooting at the goblins below. "GET HIM! KILL HIM!" Because apparently, the hood of her cloak was working wonders with keeping her gender hidden.

"Get your weapons!" Fheon yelled at the Company. "Fight!"

She did not know what they did next, only hoping that she had cleared the path enough for them to get to their weapons in time. The goblins on the shacks across the chamber quickly made their way towards her. She slipped her bow over her shoulder and gripped her sword tightly in her hand, pushing away the ache that had settled on her right shoulder. When the goblins reached her, they came from either side. She hacked and slashed at them, letting them fall to the abyss below. There were dozens of them, and she was forced to make an escape. She slid past their feet and fell onto the floorboards beneath the given shack, offering the goblins much confusion. She glanced below and found the dwarves hacking their way past the legions of goblins. The Great Goblin was nowhere to be found.

And at some point in time, before, Gandalf had joined in the Company's ranks.

"Quick!" she heard the wizard say. "Run!" He and the Company started marching down the linked bridges and through an opening that was sure to lead to the next chamber. Fheon cut open the skull of a goblin that had come too near, and hastily ran after the Company. She jumped from shack to shack, panicking slightly when the gaps started getting wider. Ahead, there was a large fissure in the stone wall. Fheon cut off a hanging rope, grabbed on, and swung through the crack.

She landed on what felt like an unstable tower, and raised her head to find shacks no longer lining the walls, but pylons and turrets standing at the sides of a main bridge. Running down this path was Gandalf, leading the Company forward. Barks and growls came from behind Fheon; she looked over her shoulder to find dozens of goblins trying to squeeze through the gap in the wall, but they had gotten themselves stuck. Huffing, she got herself back on her feet and resumed swinging from tower to tower, hacking the goblins that came near.

"Fheon, get down here!" she heard someone yell from below, and then, "BEHIND YOU!"

Fheon whirled around and was barely able to dodge the club plummeting down straight for her head. So instead, it violently grazed her left shoulder. She cried out in pain, but managed to stab the goblin that had attacked her in the neck. It fell over the turret's fences as she pulled her blade out, descending to destroy the turret's fortifications. Fheon ran forward and wrapped her fingers around a rope, curling around it as her shoulder throbbed. Pricks of white dotted her vision. She tumbled through a gap in the floors of the next tower and landed hard on her back.

Dazed and in pain, she looked through bleary eyes as a goblin got on top of her. Suddenly, an arrowhead sprouted from the side of its head. Fheon pushed the goblin off the side of the tower and slowly got to her feet. She wildly started looking around for a rope. But alas, the ropes that could be used to swing towards the Company had been used by the goblins. She saw Gandalf leading the dwarves through another underpass. Cussing loudly, she surged forward and latched onto a weak-looking rope, swinging past another fissure in the wall.

When she landed on her side, she was met with the sight of the Company's path being blocked by the large figure of the Great Goblin. Behind him and behind the dwarves, the goblins had caught up and were relishing the fact their leader had returned.

"You thought you could escape me?" the Great Goblin boomed, before slamming his staff down, narrowly missing Gandalf. Then he swung, which actually made the wizard stumble backwards. "What are you going to do now, wizard?"

Gandalf surged forward and poked the Great Goblin's eyes with his staff, making the monster rear backwards in surprise. Then Gandalf swung his sword and sliced the Goblin's stomach open. Fheon, coming to the conclusion that they were not in any immediate danger, hurriedly made her way down the bridged path she was on and closer to the Company. When she was right behind the Great Goblin, who had fallen, she made quick work with the goblins rallying behind him, stabbing them and then pushing them off the side. She was staring over the fallen figure of the Great Goblin and at Gandalf, when the floorboards beneath them creaked and broke.

Fheon met Gandalf's wide eyes with her own. Quickly sheathing her sword, she jumped over the Great Goblin, passing over Gandalf's head and reaching downwards for any of the dwarves' hands. Her fingers curled around one of theirs, and she was pulled down with them into the abyss below.

all reviews are acknowledged and I am thankful for each and every one of them... as long as they ain't flames, that is.

Lots of love, ellesmer~