IF YO CHICK COME CLOSE TO ME, HE GON WANNA RIDE OFF IN THE GHOST OF ME-
i'm sorry. COPYRIGHT MUCH HAHAH those lyrics aint mine.
All rights go to JRR Tolkien and Peter Jackson. Except for Fheon and my other OC's. Hands. Off.
The river carried them onward through the night. At times, Fheon was able to fall asleep in her exhaustion, but the rapids ramming her barrel against a boulder always woke her, if it was not the cold early morning air or her rumbling stomach. Elijah offered her his cloak very soon in the journey, knowing that he had left hers in the Realm of the Wood Elves. She accepted it, and though it was as wet as she, she was grateful for the extra cover.
For hours on end, they followed the current. Sometime at dawn, Ori was able to tug a tree root from out of the ground. Thorin used this to paddle, for at that time, the current had become weaker and they were travelling much slower than they had hoped. But even when the sun rose, it was not for another four hours before they lost the current completely.
Thorin spotted a small strip of land ahead of them, and called over his shoulder, "Anything behind us?"
"Not that I can see," Balin replied, for it so happened that their positions had gotten switched up overnight; he was now at the very rear, with Gloin, Dori, Nori, and Bombur. Fheon and Elijah had found themselves floating in the middle of the Company.
To Fheon's right, Bofur popped out from within his barrel, spewing out water from his mouth. He glanced behind them, as if just finding out that the orcs were far behind, and said, "I think we've outrun the orcs!"
"Not for long," said Thorin. "We've lost the current."
"Bombur's half-drowned," Dwalin exclaimed.
"Make for the shore!"
"Aye," the Company replied.
Elijah leaned forward in his barrel and started paddling towards the shore using his hands. Fheon followed suit, albeit propelling herself much slower than he, for she only used one arm.
The light current of the river aided her in reaching the shore, where her brother helped her out of the barrel. Water continued to stream out of her soaked clothes and her boots, making her feel as bare as the day she was born. But she felt none more so than the freezing cold. Her tunic hung limply on her abdomen, resulting in the continuous morning wind to draft up onto her stomach. She wrapped Elijah's cloak tighter around herself, scrambling out of the water and onto the small, stony islet. As she set herself down on the ground, she felt something scrape against her thigh. She dug her hand into her pocket and pulled out three dripping wet pouches.
Her stomach clenched. She looked into one pouch and found that the parsley and rosemary had been reduced to soggy, brown leaves. It would do nothing for her breath now. She threw them into the river and then looked into another pouch, where the coneflower had practically turned into mush after being inside water for so long. But she no longer had her canteen, and the herbs would prove useless after a given time. Scrunching her nose, she poured the remainder of the wet coneflower into her palm and flicked her tongue out to lick some of it; not being mixed in water, the flavor was even stronger. Yet its effects on her metabolism were sure to have remained. So, mentally preparing herself, she threw her head back and swallowed the coneflower slush in one gulp. The strong, bittersweet taste of it erupted at the back of her throat and she quickly retreated into her mind, thinking of calming, faraway thoughts.
Amidst her musings, Kili fell to his knees somewhere to her left. Elijah and Bofur rushed to him immediately, the latter tearing a small part of his shirt and handing it to the injured dwarf. Kili pressed the cloth against the gaping hole in his leg, trying to halt the bleeding. He hissed in pain, but then followed with, "I'm fine. It's nothing."
"On your feet," Thorin snapped.
"Kili's wounded," Fili explained, taking his place beside his brother and Elijah. "His leg needs binding."
"There's an orc pack on our tail. We keep moving."
"To where?" asked Balin.
"To the mountain," said Bilbo. "We're so close."
Fheon opened up the final pouch and looked into it, washing her mouth with some water from the river (which she spit out eventually). The lemon balm had been reduced into little more than powder mixed with water, which was how it was supposed to be applied. Thinking better of just throwing it away, Fheon stuck some of the mixture onto her three fingers and, readjusting her brace, dabbed it onto her purple bruise. Immediately, the relieving effects of the herbs eased onto her skin. Then, seeing Kili in pain, she walked over to him and handed Bofur the pouch.
"It's lemon balm," she said. "Just dab it around his wound. It might help with the pain."
"Lemon balm," Bofur murmured, somewhat to himself. "Of course, of course! Thank you, Fheon."
"No problem."
Meanwhile, "A lake lies between us and that mountain," Balin was saying. "We have no way to cross it."
"So then we go around," said Bilbo.
"The orcs will run us down, as sure as daylight," said Dwalin. "We've no weapons to defend ourselves. If it hadn't been for our scouts and those damned elves, we'd be dead."
Elijah scooted closer to Fheon and muttered into her ear, "No thanks required, right?"
"Right," she quietly, and half-heartedly, replied.
Thorin passed by them and looked down at Kili; behind his firm expression, Fheon was able to discern the growing anxiety within him. "Bind his leg, quickly," he told Bofur. "You have two minutes."
Sighing inwardly, Fheon moved to sit by the edge of the islet, on the shore, where she took off her boots and spilled the water out of them. Ori watched her before sitting down to do the same. She regarded him for a moment, and through her fatigue, reminded herself exactly why her brother had wanted them to join such a quest in the first place: help a Free People get there safely, so that their families would be able to return to their homeland. So far, their journey had been nothing but smooth-sailing—or, at least, smooth-sailing considering their circumstances. Fheon could not help but to wonder when things would go wrong, because eventually, things always went wrong, no matter how prepared they might be.
Just as she thought this, her ears perked up at the sound of a bow being drawn. She turned her head and found the wide form of Dwalin blocking her view, with Thorin's large tree root in his hands. Warily, she tilted her head to the side to find a man standing in their midst, armed with a longbow and a quiver of arrows. A jolt went through her when she realized that he was a human.
Meanwhile, Dwalin had raised the tree root and was about to swing, but then just as fast as Fheon or Elijah could have done—well, perhaps a bit slower—the stranger released an arrow that hit the stick, right between Dwalin's hands. Kili grabbed a rock off the ground, but then the man turned halfway to his right and shot it right out of the dwarf's hand. He nocked a third arrow and said, "Do it again and you're dead."
Elijah was on his feet, as well as Fheon, and they eyed him with attentiveness. It had been a while since they had seen a being other than dwarves or wizards or elves that seeing one single man brought them great interest. Fheon noticed that Elijah was fascinated with the man as well as his bow, no doubt missing his own very much.
"Excuse me, but, um…" Balin started, taking a few steps forward before the stranger pointed his arrow at him, to which, he raised both his hands in a sign of innocence. "You're from Lake-town, if I'm not mistaken. That barge over there"—he pointed to a small vessel that Fheon, to her dismay, had only just noticed—"it wouldn't be available for hire, by any chance?"
Hearing this, the stranger lowered his bow, and after a few more moments, returned his arrow to his the quiver on his back. The Company relaxed slightly. The man regarded them for a long while, his eyes lingering on Fheon longer than necessary. She returned his gaze blankly, easing the nonchalant expression back onto her face and straightening her back.
The man turned and made way for the barge that he had tied to place at the dock on the other end of the islet. As he went, he waded into the water to retrieve two of the barrels floating there. He glanced over his shoulder and nodded at the dwarves. Wordlessly, they helped him carry the load. At Elijah's request, Fheon hung back and watched him carry her and his barrels in each of his hands. They trailed after the unnamed man to his barge and followed suit in setting down the barrels on the stone dock.
"What makes you think I would help you?" said the stranger, moving the barrels from the dock to his barge one by one.
"Those boots have seen better days," said Balin, "As has that coat. No doubt you have some hungry mouths to feed. How many bairns?"
The man looked at Balin for a moment with furrowed eyebrows before saying, "A boy and two girls." And seeing as he had been humoring Balin for such a considerable amount of time, Fheon decided that they should let the old dwarf do the talking.
"And your wife, I imagine she's a beauty," said Balin.
"Aye, she was."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"
"Oh, come on, come on," Dwalin suddenly exclaimed. "Enough of the niceties." Fheon turned to look at him, as did the others, in slight vexation.
"What's your hurry?" asked the bargeman.
"What's it to you?"
"I would like to know who you are, and what you are doing in these lands."
Balin shrugged one shoulder. "We are simple merchants from the Blue Mountains," he said, "journeying to see our kin in the Iron Hills."
"Simple merchants, you say?" Again, the man's gaze turned to look at Fheon, and then at Elijah. "I know they are not from Lake-town, yet where else could they have come from? Surely they did not come from the Blue Mountains as well? Nor are they your kin."
"We were hired by a friend to protect these dwarves during their journey," Elijah half-lied. "Some of these dwarves have old bones, you see, and it does not help that the wilderness is a dangerous place."
The stranger's eyes flickered to Fheon's dripping clothes, but not to her cloak. If she had to guess, he still had not been able to discern that she and Elijah were of the Dunedain. Subtly, she brought her hands up to cover the six-pointed cloak-clasp, pretending to pull the cloak tighter around her. His gaze wandered.
Thorin stepped up. "It does not help that we are empty-handed either, bargeman," he said. "We need food, supplies, weapons. Can you help us?"
The stranger lowered his head and started fingering the splinters jutting out from the wood of the barrels. "I know where these barrels came from," he mused seriously.
"What of it?" said Thorin.
"I don't know what business you had with the elves, but I don't think it ended well. No one enters Lake-town but by leave of the Master. All his wealth comes from trade with the Woodland Realm. He would see you in irons before risking the wrath of King Thranduil." He threw the docking ropes to Balin, who did not catch it.
To her right, she heard Thorin say, "Offer him more," and turned her head to find him and Balin sharing exasperated looks.
Seeing the expectant expression on her brother's face, Fheon spoke up, "I'll wager there are ways to enter that town unseen."
By that time, the stranger had finished loading all the barrels onto his barge. He had just retrieved his bow and arrows and turned to venture on, when he glanced at her over his shoulder. "Aye," he said. "But for that, you would need a smuggler."
Unfazed, she added, "For which we would pay… double."
The bargeman halted altogether and turned around, surprise crossing his face before he scrunched his eyebrows together in seriousness. He regarded her with a calm expression, and then Elijah, and then the Company. "Double?" he said. "Fifty silver pieces, then."
Balin rushed onto the barge and shook his hand. "It's a deal."
By unspoken consent, the dwarves got onto the boat one by one. Bilbo trailed behind, with Fheon and Elijah at the very back. When Elijah passed by the bargeman, he smiled brightly and patted his shoulder. When Fheon passed by him, however, she only met his gaze for a short moment before proceeding to the transom of the barge, where they took their seats on the single thwart there. The dwarves would not have minded, for they were too busy silently conversing amongst themselves at the foredeck of the boat. Oin, Gloin, and Ori had taken to sitting cross-legged on the floor, no doubt less wary than their kin.
As the bargeman gave a hard push to free the boat from the dock and take his place by the tiller behind them, Fheon was able to discern that the dwarves were discussing whether or not they should trust the stranger. She could understand their suspicion, but their meeting on the islet had been explanation enough that the bargeman was as wary of them as they were of him. He had set the conditions of payment himself, which meant that he had not been hired by any of their enemies. Else, if he had been hired and he was looking for money from both his employer and the dwarves, then Fheon was to be the fool. But he did not look like someone who was greedy. He had asked for fifty silver pieces, and that was not much to begin with, considering he was smuggling a band of dwarves. Perhaps he just wanted to provide for his three children.
Perhaps.
The boat did not travel fast, and so it took them several long hours. At some point, Bilbo wandered away from the foredeck and came to sit by Fheon. Elijah had taken to standing up, looking across the lake with admiring eyes.
The Company aboard the boat had lapsed into a comfortable silence, with short chats erupting now and again, here and there—even with Bilbo and the Rangers. But they were careful not to let slip of anything with mentions to their quest, who they were, or where they came from. This resulted in non-logical discussions, which Fheon did not mind at all. But she let her brother do most of the speaking, and closed her eyes to fall into a half-sleep.
She heard the exchange of Elijah and Bilbo, and made sure to take in every word. When there was a lapse in their lighthearted conversation, Bilbo inquired the bargeman what his name was, bringing a small smile onto Fheon's face. The man said that his name was Bard, though that was all he said. And when Bilbo asked the names of his children, he answered with only their names—Tilda, Bain, and Sigrid. Subconsciously, Fheon swiped at Bilbo's knee and shook her head slightly. He stopped asking questions. A few minutes afterwards, he stood back up and returned to the foredeck with the dwarves.
Fheon remained in her half-sleep for three more hours, occasionally drifting deeper into her consciousness and dreaming—which had not happened for quite some time. But then coldness settled over her, though not unnaturally. When she opened her eyes, a heavy fog had appeared over the lake. She could not see past four feet of the barge. Glancing down, she saw that her breaths could be seen rolling off her lips in wisps of mist.
"Watch out!" she heard Bofur yell, and raised her eyes to find a large pillar of stone in front of them, and they were heading straight for it. Then, at the last second, Bard maneuvered them away from the column, seeming to glide past everything else that stood in their way. Fheon discerned that they were wading through what seemed to be the remains of a large monument, perhaps what was once a bridge or a gateway—little more than ruins, now.
"What are you trying to do, drown us?" said Thorin, glaring at the bargeman.
"I was born and bred on these waters, Master Dwarf," Bard retorted softly, but with firm eyes. "If I wanted to drown you, I would not do it here." He turned the tiller again, and Thorin retreated back to the small mass of dwarves that had taken their seats on the crates they could find on board. Fheon eyed them as Dwalin muttered something gruffly to the others, almost angrily, but none of them made any move.
She glanced over her shoulder to look at Bard for a short moment, and then looked away when Thorin softly called her over. Dutifully, she walked to him and, reading his expectant stare, took a step closer and bent her head close. He spoke in a hushed tone that tickled her nose, saying, "What do you think of this… bargeman? I saw you speaking with him a while back. Can we trust him?"
After a moment of thought, Fheon replied, equally quiet, "I believe so, yes. As long as he gets his pay, I do not think he will betray us." The Dwarf King nodded, and then she added in a soft tone, "And his name is Bard."
To which Dwalin grunted. "We know what his name is," he practically snarled. "I don't care what he calls himself. I don't like him."
"We do not have to like him," said Balin. "We simply have to pay him. Come on now, lads. Turn out your pockets."
As the dwarves did as was asked, Fheon was able to hear Dwalin mutter, "How do we know he won't betray us?" And surprisingly, Thorin looked to Fheon, as if she knew better, as if he trusted her enough to say the right thing. But she said nothing, and neither did he.
When the time came for Balin to ask her for her share in the fee, she turned out both of her half-dry pockets and showed that they were completely empty. Elijah was sure to have nothing as well, for his clothes had come from the Wood Elves, and they would not have left a single coin within its compartments. Balin ended up laying down eight coin stacks of five, and he said, "There's just a wee problem. We're ten coins short."
Thorin moved away from Fheon—and it was only then that she realized just exactly how close they were standing—to cross his arms and say, "Gloin." The authoritarian tone had returned to his voice so easily. "Come on, give us what you have."
The red-haired dwarf swiftly raised his head and looked at Thorin with questioning eyes. "Don't look to me," he protested. "I have been bled dry by this venture. What have I seen for my investment? Naught but misery and grief and…" Here, he trailed off from his half-hearted lying, finally noticing that all of the Company had gotten to their feet and was staring at something to their left, very high up. Fheon turned as well and raised her head, and was left breathless in wonder.
Past the fog, she was able to make out the silhouette of what apparently was Erebor. She was not able to see much of its glory, but the shadow of it was enough.
Throat convulsing, she managed to say, "We're so close."
"Aye," Thorin replied; his voice barely a whisper. She looked at him from the corner of her eyes and might have seen a glimmer of a tear behind the crinkles at the sides of his eyes; he was smiling, very, very faintly.
"Bless my beard," said Gloin, before proceeding to dig into his coat pockets and taking out a pouch full of coins. "Take it. Take all of it." Balin took it, chuckling lightly, and then poured the rest of the coins into the same pouch.
As the dwarves slowly receded to return to sitting on the floor, Thorin tore his gaze away from the Mountain and said to Fheon, "How is your shoulder?"
"In the mend," she quietly answered. "Without Beorn's medicines, I fear it will take longer to heal than finishing this quest."
"You are a fine warrior with a sword."
"But a bow would be helpful if we are to remain furtive in Esgaroth. If anyone was to approach us and we were in hiding, a sword would not help me kill him silently." She noticed that he was looking at her oddly, and hastily shook her head. "Sorry. Protecting you dwarves has taken quite a toll on me and my brother. It seems that with each passing capture, it becomes harder for us to keep you alive."
The corner of his lips tilted up in a subtle smile. "Should I apologize?" he said, making her chuckle lightly.
"No. But it would help for you to be more careful."
He opened his mouth to say more, but stopped himself when Bilbo suddenly cleared his throat and rolled his eyes to the right, where Bard had left his position by the tiller and was rushing towards them. Bard held out his hand and said, "The money, quick, give it to me."
"We will pay you when we get our provisions, but not before," said Thorin.
"If you value your freedom, you'll do as I say," Bard retorted. His eyes veered ahead of them. "There are guards ahead."
And indeed, only a few dozen more feet ahead of them, Fheon was able to make out the silhouette of a dock amidst a sea of wooden splinters jutting out of the lake. She nodded to Thorin, and he told Balin to give the bargeman the money.
"Get into the barrels, now," said Bard, hurriedly taking the coins from the dwarf and returning to the tiller. "You, hide beneath that blanket. Make sure it covers all of you." He pointed to Elijah and to a wide square of cloth that was on the floor. It looked to be wet too, but Elijah did as he was told. The docks were coming completely into view now. Seeing nothing else to do, she was the first to slip into a barrel. A mere second later, she heard the dwarves start to do the same.
She felt the boat hit something, and then it stilled. "Stay quiet," murmured Bard. "I'll be back."
Fheon shifted uneasily inside the barrel, trying to find a position that suited her and did not offer discomfort to her shoulder. It seemed that there was none, and she ultimately had to stop because she was fairly sure that her barrel had almost fallen over once or twice. Someone was bound to notice if a third time came around. She grit her teeth and breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. An ache started at the juncture where her shoulder met her neck, and soon it started throbbing.
A minute in, she heard Dwalin whisper in his gruff voice, "What's he doing?"
"He's talking to someone," came Bilbo's soft reply, followed by, "He's pointing right at us," followed by, "Now they're shaking hands!"
"What?" Thorin growled.
"The villain," another dwarf said.
"He's selling us out!" said another.
"Hush, men," Elijah finally said. "He's coming back."
The barrel beside Fheon moved slightly. "You can see?"
"Quiet!"
A metal creaking sound pierced through the sudden silence, and then footsteps. An itch came to existence on the back of Fheon's head, and she had to resist the urge to bring her hand up to scratch it. When the creaking sound came to its peak and the footsteps stopped, she held her breath.
Something heavy, slimy and wet dropped onto her head. As it slipped past her nose and she came to realize that it was a fish, four more fell on her; and then a dozen, and then three dozen, five dozen. In less than a minute, she was completely buried in them. She shifted within the pile of fish, tucked her arms and legs into her chest, and bowed so that her forehead rested between her knees. Unconsciously, she started shaking. She felt the barge start moving again, and wanted to start breathing again, but could only get a thin amount of air through her nostrils—freezing air, at that.
Her quaking did not stop for a single moment. Around her, she was able to register the unhappy grunting of the dwarves. A loud thud was able to reach her ears, through the layers of fish, and Bard whispered, "Quiet. We're approaching the tollgate."
Minutes afterward, Fheon heard an unfamiliar man's voice: "Halt! Good's inspection! Paper's please! Oh… it's you, Bard!"
"Morning, Percy," replied their bargeman.
Fheon tried her best to stop shaking, but nothing changed. Both her arms had gone numb from the cold.
"Anything to declare?" said Percy.
"Nothing, but that I am cold and tired, and ready for home," said Bard.
"You and me both… There we are, all in order."
Then another unfamiliar voice came, saying, "Not so fast." He made sure to pause after each word, giving Fheon the assumption that he was not to be a friend of theirs. "'Consignment of empty barrels from the Woodland Realm.' Only, they're not empty, are they, Bard?" A second pair of feet boarded the vessel, the footsteps making the wooden floorboards tremble. "If I recall correctly, you're licensed as a bargeman, not a fisherman."
"That's none of your business," said Bard.
"Wrong. It's the Master's business, which makes it my business."
Fheon cursed under her breath. Her body remained in its numb and trembling state.
"Oh, come on, Alfrid, have a heart. People need to eat!"
"These fish are illegal." There was a loud splash. "Empty the barrels over the side."
"You heard him," said a fourth voice, "In the canal." More footsteps resonated through the wooden floors of the barge, encircling Fheon and the Company.
"Folk in this town are struggling," Bard continued to reason. "Times are hard. Food is scarce."
"That's not my problem."
She clenched her stomach and prepared for a fight when she heard more than one barrel being rolled, followed by the flapping sound of fish being dumped into the water. It was just her luck that she had entered a barrel in the middle of all the others, which might buy her more time.
"And when the people hear the Master is dumping fish back in the lake, when the rioting starts—will it be your problem then?"
She could have sworn she heard a single grunt of the dwarves, or it might have been the men handling the barrels. In her position, it was impossible to know for sure.
A few more seconds of dumping fish and holding her breath, and the man named Alfrid finally said, "Stop." The splashing stopped. Fheon felt the floor quake slightly as the barrels were straightened up once more. "Ever the people's champion, eh, Bard? Protector of the common folk." One by one, the half a dozen pair of feet receded until there was nothing more to be heard but the antagonistic voice of the Master's assistant. "You might have their favor now, bargeman, but it won't last."
Then came the voice of Percy. "Raise the gate!"
A sound of metal chains and creaking iron echoed around them, similar to the sound of the portcullis opening and closing back in the Woodland Realm. For a moment, Fheon felt as if she had returned to that time, but she had not been inside a barrel filled with fish and slowly freezing to death, then.
"The Master has his eye on you," Alfrid threatened, somewhat hurriedly. "You'd do well to remember: We know where you live."
"It's a small town, Alfrid. Everyone knows where everyone lives," Bard easily retorted. And then the tiller was paddling through the water again, the hull riding the still waves effortlessly. After almost a minute of pure silence, the bargeman finally said, "Welcome to Lake-town."
Fheon's teeth chattered together and she closed her eyes and tried her best to imagine the warmest place she knew. But then, the warmest place she knew turned out to be a very bad memory, and she ended up returning to the cold and gritting it out.
poor Fheon... Make sure to review as thanks to her for a good read, yeah? =)))