Well this was all very confusing. Just when you think you've done well at pushing the story forward and you notice you've made a mess of uploading chapters to doc manager. Clap clap for the dumb ass over here!

Anyway, sorted it out now (I think)

Enjoy

Rilien saw Valisilwen eventually collapse to her hands and knees on the ground, exhausted. She had been going for days and nights now. While being a Ranger would often mean going a few days at a time with hardly any rest, this journey was evidently starting to take its toll.

He stopped next to her, noticing the wound on her arm appeared to be quite deep. "Your arm, let me look at it," he said reaching for it. She pulled it away, which he was expecting anyway. "You were hit with a weapon that was obviously of dark origins, I think we should tend to that wound rather than hope for your uncanny abilities to kick in," he reasoned, looking at her pointedly.

She was still trying to slow her breathing down, when he went to reach for her arm again. She didn't pull away but grabbed his wrist this time, she turned and sat against a rock, letting his wrist go. "Rilien, I'm not of the world of men, and I'm not an elf. I've done and experienced things you could never imagine, and they've left their mark on me."

He furrowed his brow, not quite sure what she meant. She read the look on his face and sighed, before beginning to remove her coat and pull her arm carefully from the sleeve of her leather jerkin and undershirt. All across her skin were scars, much like the one he had noticed on her neck upon meeting her in the Greenwood, and not just any scars. A multitude of different scars were spread across her arm, some appeared to be cuts, others seemed to be from a crude whip. One in particular stood out to him, it was positioned on the back of her arm, above her elbow, it was quite clearly from a branding iron.

"Valisilwen, what happened to you?" he asked incredulously as he looked over her arm, reaching out to touch the brand that was left on her arm. It was the Gundabad brand. She withdrew her arm again, an ashamed look on her face.

"My kind roamed the plains for many an age, many different tribes. When Sauron came to power, he took my kind as a trophy. He made us sport, to hunt or to put us into a ring to fight to the death, whether with each other or with a disadvantage against the Orcs."

He pondered for a moment as the Ranger appeared to take a moment to compose herself. "That's how you knew Bolg?" She nodded, seemingly becoming interested in the cut on her arm. Rilien watched her as she ripped a strip of material from her undershirt and tried to wrap it around the wound herself. She fiddled with it, but was unable to do it by herself.

Rilien finally ignored her earlier protests and took the shred of fabric from her. "Let me," he said pointedly, glaring at her. She huffed but did not object as he began to tie it around her arm. He carefully knotted it, adjusting it slightly before checking over the rest of her, including her face where she had taken knocks inside Laketown. She wouldn't meet his eyes with her own.

"So you're a Shape-Changer?" he asked sitting beside her. She blinked in response, but said nothing, her eyes appeared glassy. In this moment, she appeared so vulnerable, that for a moment, he forgot that she was supposed to be a hardened Ranger of the Dunedain, some of the most fearless men in all of Middle Earth. "I heard stories of them growing up. Some of the most noble and proud people, I was told."

"They were." She looked at the ground between her legs, a pained expression on her face. "My family was taken to Gundabad, we were used as sport, they would tie boulders with chain and attach them to my people's legs and arms, so they could not fight properly. They would beat them to death."

While Rilien was horrified by what he heard, he couldn't stop looking into her face. In this moment, he was finally seeing the real Valisilwen, he had always suspected the hardened and sarcastic person was a facade, but now he knew for certain. Her face appeared far less severe and he could appreciate the soft lines of her jaw and cheekbones.

She took her gloves from her hands, before reaching into the front of her shirt, pulling out a necklace. She detached it from her neck carefully and motioned for him to take it. "This was the last thing my mother gave me before it was her turn." He took it carefully, it was a totem and he recognised it from books he had studied while an adolescent.

"You're royalty?" he asked in surprise, his eyes going wide as he looked back up at her.

"Was," she answered, looking away from him again. "It's a bit hard to be royalty of no body, Rilien."

"That doesn't change the fact that royal blood flows through your veins," he replied, and then he recalled the Shape-Changer that lived just beyond the borders of the Greenwood. "What about Beorn?"

She sighed. "I met him just recently, as I said to him, he should live on his life as he sees fit. The time of Shape-Changers is done." She reached for her necklace. Rilien felt his heart skip a beat as her warm fingers just brushed his. It alarmed him slightly, but he ignored it.

She began to try and replace her arm into her undershirt and jerkin. Rilien quickly moved to help her. "Here, let me help," he said moving. She seemed taken aback at first, but didn't argue, although her cheeks took on a pink tinge and she seemed to be gritting her teeth. He wasn't sure if that had something to do with her arm injury, but he thought it best to keep an eye on it. While helping her, he noticed the skin along her ribcage also featured scars similar to the ones on her arms.

Once she was dressed properly again, she moved to get up but was unsteady on her feet. Rilien stood and helped her up, although he could feel her stiffen under his touch. He helped her replace her coat. "Thank you," she murmured, still not looking at him. "We need to get to Rhosgobel and meet up with Gandalf."

"You need to rest. You've been going for days without rest," Rilien argued as Valisilwen began to walk away.

"I won't rest until all this is over."

Rilien stared after the Ranger. He couldn't get by what he had just seen. Not just her scars, but the vulnerability. Under that hard shell, there was actually a noble princess.

A proud one too.

oOOo

In Erebor, Thorin gazed upon the throne, over which the Arkenstone had been inlaid before it was lost. Balin, Bilbo and Dwalin stood behind him. Bilbo had found Thorin's behaviour since they had gained access to the Lonely Mountain to be far from enjoyable. He had become irritable and dark, his obsession with the Arkenstone was disturbing at best.

"It is here in these halls, I know it," Thorin muttered.

"We have searched and searched..." Dwalin spoke up.

"Not well enough!" Thorin shouted, still not looking back to his comrades.

"Thorin, we all would see the stone returned."

"And yet," Thorin said walking down from the throne. "It is still yet to be found!"

Balin spoke up quietly and calmly. "Do you doubt the loyalty of anyone here?" Thorin turned then, and began to walk towards Dwalin and Balin. "The Arkenstone is the birthright of our people."

"It is the King's Jewel," Thorin sneered before waving his hands in the air. "Am I not the King?" he shouted. He turned away, leaving Balin, Dwalin and Bilbo looking at each other uneasily. "Know this, if anyone should find it and withhold it from me, i will be avenged."

Bilbo felt disgruntled. This was not the dwarf who he had agreed to follow. This dwarf was a different person altogether.

Soon after Bilbo was wandering the halls when he came across Balin in a quiet corner, he was breathing raggedly as if he had been weeping. Bilbo knelt before the dwarf.

"Dragon-sickness, I've seen it before. That look. That terrible need. It is a fierce and jealous love, Bilbo," Balin explained. "It sent his grandfather mad."

Bilbo gulped and cocked his head to one side. "Balin, if-if Thorin had the Arkenstone..." Balin's eyes went wide with surprise. "If it was found, would it help?"

Balin sighed uneasily. "That stone crowns all. It is the summit of this great wealth, bestowing power upon he who bears it," Balin explained, before looking sadly at Bilbo. "Will it stay his madness? No lad; I fear it would make it worse. Perhaps it is best that it remains lost." He looked pointedly at Bilbo.

Bilbo sat on a bench in one of the vast halls. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled something out.

"What is that?" Thorin demands, seeing his action and striding over. Bilbo rose to his feet hurriedly. "In your hand!"

"It-it's nothing."

"Show me."

Bilbo gulped and turned over his hand. In it he held an acorn which filled the palm of his tiny hand. "It... I picked it up in Beorn's garden before we left."

Thorin looked at it in surprise. "You've carried it all this way."

"I'm going to plant it in my garden in Bag End." Bilbo could see Thorin's anger ebbing away as he smiled fondly at the Hobbit, but still felt on edge. The dwarf was now unpredictable.

"That's a poor price to take back to the Shire," Thorin replied in amusement.

"One day, it'll grow," Bilbo explained. "And every time i look at it, I'll remember everything that happened, the good, the bad. And how lucky I am that I made it home."

Thorin and Bilbo smiled at each other. A rare moment for Thorin of late. Bilbo was about to speak again and address Thorin's behaviour when Dwalin hurried towards them.

"Thorin, survivors from Laketown. They are streaming into Dale. There's hundred of them."

Thorin's smile faded back into the stern and uncompromising face that it had become in the last few days. Bilbo bit his lip, he did not like where this was going.

"Call everyone to the gate." He began to stride off, while Bilbo and Dwalin looked to each other with grave concern written on both their faces. "To the gate! Now!"

It didn't take long before Thorin was commanding the dwarves to block up the entrance and create a fortress. Several of the dwarves had tried reasoning with him, including his own nephew, Kili. Thorin would not listen to reason. Bilbo watched on in despair, his concern mounting with each passing hour.

xo

Krayzee