So here's chapter nineteen! I'm sorry it took me so long, and I'm sorry if some people wanted me to update my other stories instead! But so far the only story I've been having inspiration for is this one! So I hope you enjoy this chapter somewhat, if you think that things are going a little slowly, they're going to pick up again soon!
And reviews would be fantastic (just saying) so I know what you think would be good as well! And what you're looking forward to. And of course because they give me motivation to write more haha.
Oh and someone asked if I was going to have all the girls (that is, I'm assuming, everyone's Ella mentioned, like Emma and etc.) in Middle Earth! My answer is no - it would be much too much, and much too coincidental, if everyone suddenly appeared! It was already a huge decision to bring Jerelee in, and she'll be the only one from Ella's previous life in Middle Earth.
Okay, this was quite a long note. Hope you enjoy the chapter!
"I thought this story was about you and your adventure," said Pippin.
Frodo, Sam and Merry all turned to the younger hobbit. "Pippin!"
"What?" he protested, voice faltering, at the sight of the three glaring at him angrily.
"Don't interrupt!" Merry said.
Bilbo, seated in his chair, chuckled.
Frodo looked up at him, thoughtfully. "He is right, though, isn't he?" he asked. "This is your adventure, isn't it?"
"Oh, my boy, it wasn't just my adventure!" Bilbo cried, looking at Frodo with horror dramatically. His gaze swept over the others. "Do you all think that?"
At their silence, Bilbo shook his head and smiled at them.
"This was the adventure of the company of Thorin Oakenshield," he told them, gently. "It is never a single person's adventure, not if they're part of a company. And Ella was part of our company – and it is her story I am telling, for that is what you've asked, and besides, you've heard my own far too many times to count."
"You hear that, Pippin?" said Merry. "Now you have your answer."
"I was just asking," Pippin said, weakly.
Bilbo chuckled once more.
The following night, Legolas discovered Ella with her eyes wide open, propped upright leaning against the wall, Fili's head on her lap, the dwarf peacefully asleep.
"Why aren't you sleeping?" he asked her, stopping outside her cell.
She shrugged. "Can't sleep."
"And he's simply drifted off into sleep without ensuring you are asleep as well?"
"Are you kidding me? It took me forever to convince him. But I did sleep for practically the whole day today, so I'm forgiven."
"He cares for you greatly."
At his words, a strange look flashed across her face – a look that Legolas couldn't read.
She looked away, glanced back down at Fili.
"How did it happen?" Legolas asked, finally, the question having burnt itself in his mind since he had left Ella the night before. "You and the dwarf?"
Ella looked back up at him curiously. "Me and Fili?"
He saw her gaze soften, saw her hand move up to stroke the blond dwarf's hair.
"I don't know, really," she admitted. "It just – it just did."
Legolas tilted his head, saw her face slowly flush, red creeping up into her cheeks.
"You are very happy with him."
She was smiling now, a faraway look in her eyes.
"He is the best thing that's happened to me here," she said.
He felt the same emptiness in his heart that he had felt the night before, talking to this strange human inter-dimensional traveller. The look on her face when she talked about the dwarf – it seemed to tug at his heart, to bring up image after image of his red-headed friend in his mind.
"Are you planning to ever tell her?"
He raised his eyes, from where they had been fixed on the floor, to meet Ella's steady gaze, her eyes never leaving him even as he stared back at her.
And somehow, in that moment, he knew that the girl was right, no matter how much he wanted to deny it.
Tauriel.
He did care for Tauriel, he always had, and he had a feeling that he always would.
But he had a feeling that his constant denial of it, his cowardice in accepting the fact that he did care for her, could have just lost her to him.
Ella was still looking at him.
"No."
"Why not?"
"She does not care for me the way I do for her."
"Don't you think that she deserves to know?"
"If I told her, it would only cause her much grievance. Surely it is better for one to suffer than for two."
Ella looked at him for a long moment.
"You really do care for her a lot," she said, finally.
Legolas said nothing.
He saw her move her hand to wrap around Fili's.
"Why don't you just kill the spiders at their source instead of having to keep killing them every time they venture into Mirkwood?"
"It is outside our borders."
"That doesn't mean you can't do it."
"It is little concern of ours – it is only when it ventures into our forests that we take up our arms."
"That's kind of selfish, don't you think?"
"How so?"
"Well, if you kill them at their source, then you're protecting not only your own borders but everyone else as well. Can you imagine how many others the spiders must have killed? I mean, if you can do something about it, and with little risk to yourself, why not help others?"
"You sound like Tauriel. She has always maintained that we are a part of this world and should rid whatever evil has rooted itself in this world, whether it be beyond our borders or not."
"Well, she sounds like the only one who has any sense around here, then."
And it seemed, Balin thought, as if Ella Aidan was the only one of them who had any sense.
Apart from Bilbo, but Bilbo was hopefully looking for them or searching for a way for them to get out. Balin had faith in the little hobbit – and he knew that Thorin did as well, even if he wouldn't admit it.
He watched as the blond dwarf – the Prince of the Woodland Realm, if he wasn't wrong – stood in front of Ella's and Fili's cell, looking down on them as he spoke with them.
He was a little surprised that Fili hadn't woken at their conversation, but then the lad was completely exhausted. It seemed as if Thorin's heir had only just fully realised that this quest was not all about adventure and glory.
Yes, the lad was growing up very quickly.
But he did at least have Ella to turn to.
An unexpected companion, she was, but she had turned out to be good for the company.
And very, very good for Fili.
Thorin may have relied on Dwalin and Balin greatly – including Gandalf, though the wizard and him always did run into conflict with each other – but it was different from having someone completely there for you.
But then, Thorin had had someone.
It was simply that she was no longer here with them.
He had to close his eyes as an image flashed into his mind – of Arvenna, bright and cheerful and laughing, with her red-gold hair and her flashing blue eyes and her easy smile.
Arvenna – how he missed her! She had always been able to make Thorin smile, to make him laugh. She was the only one who could ever convince him to take a break from his work, the only one who could ever truly get him to relax, the only one who could ever get him to open up about himself.
It had been obvious, so obvious, that Thorin had loved her.
And yet he had never mustered up the courage to tell her as soon as he had realised it for himself.
Balin smiled sadly to himself. Thorin would willingly face any danger that came his way, be it troll or Wargs or Orcs – and yet to tell someone that he loved her seemed to be a far greater challenge than any other!
It was cruel, Balin thought, that they had only one day together before she was lost to him forever.
He had to force his mind away from her, from bright, cheerful, laughing Arwenna.
It would do no good to brood on her now and only make himself upset.
His eyes turned to the blond dwarf and Ella once more.
"You know," Ella was saying, "there was something I read in a book once. And it stuck with me, because I didn't understand it then, but now it just makes a lot of sense."
"What was it?"
"There were a lot of good quotes in that book. Let me think a moment."
Balin watched as she scrunched her face up slightly, trying to remember.
"I've got it."
Legolas looked at Ella expectantly.
"To love someone," Ella said, "was not what she expected. It was like falling from somewhere high up and breaking in half, and only one person having the secret to the puzzle of putting her back together."
The elf looked at Ella for a very, very long moment, not saying a thing.
"And there was something else, too," Ella said, and Balin saw her eyes flicker over slightly towards Kili's cell, and he saw also that the elf's eyes had not missed her quick glance either.
"Yes?"
"And I never expected that you could have a broken heart and love with it too, so much that it doesn't seem broken at all."
Again, he remained silent.
"I think," Legolas said, finally, "that I like the second one better."
"Do you still miss them?"
Ella didn't have to ask Fili who he was talking about.
"I miss Emma most of all," she said. "I always will. I don't think I'll ever get over losing her. There were so many things I wanted to see her do, and to do with her – see her get into a good university, see her go and travel and do art somewhere, and watch her become a famous artist, go and see her exhibitions, and so many little things, you know?"
So many little things – movies at the cinema, movie marathons at home, baking and getting flour and whatnot all over the kitchen, sitting on the floor at the bottom of the stairs insisting it would take too much energy to climb up, arguing over books, playing music at full blast and dancing around the room. Small little things that she'd never really thought about, not until they were gone forever.
"What about you?" she asked, drawing herself back to the present, to Fili's hand closing around hers, to his eyes fixed on her.
What was it she had told Legolas?
And only one person having the secret to the puzzle of putting her back together.
"Me?"
"Yes. Your home in the Blue Mountains. Before this quest."
He shrugged. "It wasn't anything special," he admitted. "We trained, we sparred, we helped Thorin with his work. This quest – we all thought it would be this huge, great adventure, you know, like hey! We're finally going somewhere! This is amazing! We're going to the Lonely Mountain! We're going to defeat a dragon! We're going to get our gold back!"
His smile faltered.
"Turns out it's not all that, though," he said, quietly. "There's a lot more to it than Kili and I thought."
Ella squeezed his hand.
"I think you've done an amazing job so far."
Fili smiled at her. "You think?"
"Okay, maybe not." She smiled up at him, kissed his cheek before leaning her head on his shoulder. "I know you've done a fantastic job so far, and I can't imagine anyone who would be able to do half of what you've done on this quest, whether it's as part of the company or as an older brother or – or whatever."
Fili's smile had spread so much across his face that his jaw was beginning to hurt.
But somehow, he couldn't stop smiling.
"I'll wager the sun's on the rise," Bofur was saying, a few hours later, as Ella lay curled up in Fili's arms, twitching every now and then, but otherwise peacefully asleep. "It must be nearly dawn."
Yes, Fili thought. Time had run together here – it was impossible to tell when the sun or the moon was shining in the sky; they'd had to gauge based on the meals that the elves had brought them.
"We're never going to reach the mountain, are we?" Ori said, sadly.
It hit Fili then, like a blow to the stomach he couldn't quite recover from.
Never going to reach the mountain.
Was this, then, he thought, where it ended? Here, trapped in dungeons and at the mercy of the King of the Woodland Realm, doomed to stay until he finally decided he could no longer abide their presence?
No.
It couldn't end here. Not like this.
The quest could not end like this, not when they had gone through so much. Had they endured so much simply to be trapped in these dungeons?
And Ella – Ella could not stay trapped here forever.
"Not stuck in here, you're not!" a voice called out suddenly, and Fili's head shot up sharply, as the other dwarves jumped to their feet, eyes wide, faces full of astonishment.
"Bilbo!"
"Shh!" the hobbit hissed, just as the rest of the company began to exclaim in surprise and to cheer for him. "There are guards nearby!"
"Ella," Fili whispered, shaking her awake gently, and she blinked her eyes open groggily, shook her messy hair and pushed herself upright.
"Huh?"
She blinked at him again, her eyes dull with sleep.
"Bilbo," he told her. "Bilbo's here. He's getting us out."
And in that moment, as Ella's gaze snapped over to Bilbo and she turned back around to fling her arms around the dwarf, Fili felt even more grateful than he thought possible that Bilbo Baggins was a part of their company.
The quotes are from Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson. If you haven't read it, you should - it's a wonderful book, really beautiful.
Please review!
(Although, I understand if you don't, seeing as how I don't reply to them. But. Really. Reviews are fantastic. And motivation to write more, and to write faster. Just saying.)