When Sveilrun awoke next, the sound of dwarves bustling around their camp met her ears. She cracked open a single yellow eye to glare out at the camp and found all of the dwarves packing up their equipment and preparing breakfast. She slept on the outskirts of the camp and was relatively alone for once. Thorin was nowhere in sight and she was glad for that. Just the thought of the hard-headed, rude dwarf made a low growl rumble in the wolf's chest. Sveilrun was not in the best of moods, and the thought of her conversation last night with Thorin was making it worse.
Sveilrun could hear boots clomping against the ground coming towards her and closed her eye again, hoping that if she looked asleep they might leave her alone for a few more minutes.
"Are you awake?" Kili's voice asked tentatively, "Sve- Sver, Seil- ah, your name is too long, I'll think of something later. Are you awake? . . . Are you?"
Sveilrun huffed in frustration. He wasn't going to leave until she answered, so she gave a low voiced response, "Yes, I'm awake."
"Oh, good," He replied happily, "Bombur and Bilbo are making some breakfast, it should be ready soon and then we're heading out. Thorin said to make sure you're ready."
"I have nothing to 'ready'. Do not awaken me again until there is either food, it is time to leave, or someone is dying" Sveilrun growled, before rolling over so her back faced the dwarves. She closed her eyes once again and let her mind swim in the place between reality and the world of dreams.
The skin-changer could faintly hear conversations from the dwarves behind her, and was tempted to cover her ears with her paws, if not to block out the sound than because of the embarrassment they were causing her.
Kili's voice sounded first, "I don't think she's much of a morning person. She said not to wake her up again unless someone is dying, it's time to leave, or there's food ready."
Balin let out a quiet chuckle, "I guess she's regretting staying up so late last night."
"She was awake on your shift?" Kili asked, "She was on mine too. I just thought she woke up sometime in the night. How much sleep do you think she got?"
Sveilrun could faintly hear Balin grumble underneath his breath, "Not sure, but not as much as she should. Thorin, was she awake during your shift?"
"Yes," Thorin's hesitant reply came, "Fili?"
"She was awake in mine too," Fili's voice sounded, all of the dwarves were silent for a moment before Fili asked under his breath, "I didn't want to ask her . . . but where do you think those scars came from? It looks like an animal tried to have its way at her arms."
"Maybe one did," Kili's sounded this time.
"It is none of our concern where they came from," Thorin's stern voice put an end to the four dwarves conversation, "Back to work, we need to be ready for travel within the next twenty minutes. Food rations are getting low, so breakfast today is going to have to be halved today. Don't whine, Bombur, you eat the most of us all. Once we pass through Mirkwood we might be able to find something to hunt."
Sveilrun wasn't pleased that the dwarves were speaking of her private matters behind her back, but what caught her attention most was the lowering food supply. If she had known they could have taken vegetables from her garden before they set out. Snarling angrily at herself, Sveilrun got to her feet and shook out her fur. Listening intently to the movement made outside of the camp, in the forest and the fields, she found what sounded like a small group of hoofed creatures nearby. Probably deer or elk, she thought to herself. She began walking in their direction through the long grass.
"And where are you going?" Thorin's raised voice called out to the wolf, catching all of the other dwarves attention.
"I will be just a moment," Sveilrun's rough voice ground out, "I have some business to attend to."
"Don't be long," Thorin's stern voice called again, but she ignored him.
The wolf quickly disappeared from the dwarves view, sinking down into the long grass and making its way steadily towards the group of unsuspected prey. Once Sveilrun was close enough, she could see them properly and her pale yellow eyes gleamed in excitement. There was a small group of four deer; a doe and its fawn, a young buck, and an older stag. Sveilrun considered the dow and fawn unacceptable prey and ignored them, and instead kept her attentions on the two males. The young buck only had the smallest of antlers poking from the top of its head, and they were covered in a soft velvet, it couldn't have been older than two. The older stag head had large antlers with many points, and held its head up high with pride. It was nearing the elder stage of its life, and Sveilrun was surprised another predator hadn't caught it already. Especially so close to the forest.
Narrowing her sights on the elder stag, Sveilrun slowly crept through the long grass, her belly practically dragging against the ground so that she might not be seen. Her paws dug into the earth and she felt her heart hammering against her chest with the excitement of the hunt. The baser part of her brain that came with the animal within her was practically purring at the act she hadn't performed in many days. Once she was close enough, she lunged forward and slammed against the stags chest, getting her jaw underneath its head so she could sink her teeth into its throat. The deer let out a loud cry of distress, making the others run into the cover of the forest. The old stag tried to kick its hooves against the wolf's body in an attempt to free itself, but the attempt was half-lived as its life was already slipping away. The wolf's teeth had managed to sink into the stag's jugular and hot blood was pooling into the wolf's mouth. The wolf jerked its head violently every time the deer moved, trying to give it a swift death, and eventually the deer stopped fighting back. Sveilrun peeled her teeth from the stag's throat and pulled away to find dead eyes staring back. Saying proper thanks in her native tongue, she picked up the deer carcass from the back of the neck and made her way back towards the camp.
"Where do you think Sveilrun has gotten herself to?" Thorin asked Balin, his arms crossed over his chest stiffly and a scowl pressing his eyebrows together, "Damned wolf has better not run off."
"Who knows, that lass is a strange one," Balin replied absentmindedly as he ate his breakfast, "Besides, yesterday you seemed happy to have your leave of her, what do you care?"
"Gandalf expects her to lead us through the forest, that is all," Thorin replied stiffly, "She's more familiar with these woods than us."
Bofur sat near them, facing the direction that Sveilrun had left in, and spoke up to the two other dwarves, "Here she comes now- what's that she's got?"
All of the dwarves turned in time to see the wolf stalk towards them, the limp body of a stag hanging from her teeth and her front drenched in crimson blood. Her eyes still held a malicious yellow glint to them, but she kept them lowered to the ground. Once she was close enough she dropped the deer onto the ground and asked in a more garbled voice than usual, "Is that enough?"
The dwarves all looked on with widened eyes. No one spoke, or even moved, until finally finally Dwalin muttered, "Aye, I think that will be enough."
The deer was huge in comparison to the dwarves, and would have enough meat on it to last all thirteen of them a week if not more, including how much Bilbo and Sveilrun ate in one meal. All of the dwarves watched as Sveilrun slowly wandered away, leaving the deer for them to deal with, needing to clean herself up. Bombur was the next to break the silence with a meek, "Would you like some breakfast? There are some cooked eggs and-"
"Not hungry," The growling voice was so distorted most of them didn't fully catch what she said, but understood once they looked back at the deer and found most of its throat had been torn away.
"Remind me not to anger Sveilrun," Bilbo mumbled, pushing his breakfast away. Any intention he had of eating had all but disappeared.
"Especially in the morning," Kili added.
Sveilrun returned to the dwarves once they had finished treating all of the meat they could get from the deer. She was much cleaner than the last time they had seen her, and the wolf's expression had lost the much more animalistic savageness it had carried before. No one in the company spoke of the deer that Sveilrun had brought them, but they were grateful all the same. Especially Bombur.
With the company packed, fed, and energized for the day ahead of them, Thorin turned towards the archway revealing the path through the forest and commanded, "Come on. We must reach the mountain before the sun sets on Durin's Day."
"Durin's Day," Dwalin repeated with a firm nod, "Let's go!"
"This is our one chance to find the hidden door," Thorin said aloud.
Sveilrun understood the basics of what the dwarves were trying to accomplish and the impending time rush, so she made her way to the front of the group so she could lead them through the forest as quickly as possible. Thorin was right on her heels with the dwarves and hobbit following close behind him in a line. Once he caught up with Sveilrun's longer strides he said to the wolf in an authoritative tone, "This is my company, I lead."
"I don't think so, dwarf," Sveilrun replied, "I know the forest, I lead."
"There's a clear pathway, only a fool would need help following a pathway," Thorin said in a low, frustrated tone, "I'm capable of leading my own dwarves."
"You are a fool if you believe that traveling this forest is that simple," Sveilrun growled, "Do not argue with me, we are wasting daylight."
Sveilrun began stalking into the forest, passing Thorin, and grumbled a few snarled curses under her breath. Of course Thorin followed close behind her, and when he stepped a little too closely Sveilrun used her tail to flick him on the head, making him stumble back. A chuckle rolled in Sveilrun's chest as she heard Thorin spout a few dwarfish curses at the wolf's back.
"You think me incapable of leading my company?" Thorin growled at the wolf once he managed to catch up to her, "I am a king!"
"You are not my king, dwarf," Sveilrun's low voice replied, "Do not expect me to treat you any differently. Besides, you couldn't even find the hobbit's home properly, you got lost twice."
Thorin sputtered angrily, trying to find an argument.
"The lass has a point," Balin chuckled, a ways behind the two 'leaders'.
Sveilrun made a short barking laugh, and raised her head higher so she could look down at the dwarf king with a triumphant, wolfish grin.
"But," Balin continued, scratching at his white beard, "You get lost easily too, Sveilrun. Even needed stone paths around your own house."
"Traitor," Sveilrun grumbled at the elder dwarf.
"Ha! You are no better than I," Thorin laughed.
"I am more familiar with the woods than you are," Sveilrun argued, pausing before continuing down the path.
"That counts for nothing when there is a trail!" Thorin counters.
"Well I'm taller," Sveilrun argued childishly. She could faintly feel a lightheadedness filling her skull, making it difficult to decipher where she was going, but she couldn't tell this was happening to her. Looking down at the path, she had to take a moment to decipher which of the paths was the real one before continuing on, "The path goes this way."
Unbeknown to any of them, it was the wrong path.
"Don't bring height into this!" Thorin snarled, with just the slightest dizzying slur to his voice, "Besides, if we were basing leadership skills off of physical appearance, than I win because I have a beard!"
"Air. I need air," Sveilrun could faintly hear Bofur say somewhere behind her, followed by Oin saying with a voice affected in the same way as Thorin's, "My head, it's spinning."
"Stop your complaining, there's plenty of air!" Sveilrun snarled before turning her head toward Thorin, "And you, I am covered in fur that adds up to more hair than all thirteen dwarves combined, so shut your trap and let me think!"
Sveilrun was suddenly forced to stop as she took in the path ahead of her. Or to be more appropriate, the complete lack of path. Thorin and the other dwarves had to suddenly stop as well, bumping and fumbling into each other. Thorin ran into the wolf's back leg, falling backwards because of the sudden impact.
"What's happening?" Oin called.
"Keep moving," Thorin said as he clambered back onto his feet, "Why have we stopped, wolf?"
"The path," Sveilrun said, her golden eyes wide in fear, "No, no, no. It's gone. We've gone the wrong way."
"This is why I should lead!" Thorin yelled angrily.
"What's going on?" Dwalin's voice called.
"We've lost the path!" Oin yelled.
"All of you be quiet!" Sveilrun hissed back at the dwarves, earning compliant silence with the exception of Thorin grumbling underneath his breath, "We are not the only ones in the forest. Here's what we're going to do; we are turning back around and finding the original path in an orderly fashion. No one step out of line, and you," she snarled at Thorin, "Keep your trap shut and let me think or we'll all become beast food!"
Sveilrun turned her back on the rather surprised dwarf king, and began the walk back towards the original track, but it was becoming difficult to walk straight. The wolf's head was filling with a fuzzy, lightheadedness that made concentrating on her task difficult. While she knew the forest well and had walked through it many times, facing various beasts along the way, nothing like this had ever happened before. It was as if the forest had become toxic, curling its fingers around the wolf's mind and making her feel weak and disoriented. A fury of senses suddenly filled her that she had never experienced before. For the first time in years a wave of scents filled her nose, but she was not able to partake in the returned sense as it only tripled her disoriented mind. The wolf stumbled and had to slump onto the ground for a moment, her back legs giving out.
"Wolf, what is wrong with you?" Thorin's voice called out, but he sounded distant and the voice echoed across the edges of her mind.
"Som- something is," the wolf's voice slurred and wavered and she had to swallow the bile that was rising in her throat, "Something isn't right."
Thorin stepped closer to the wolf. He was caught off guard when Sveilrun suddenly dropped down; the wolf's head was hanging low, its legs shaking as it barely managed to keep its body somewhat upright. She was breathing hard, and he quickly stepped forward to stand in front of her. He grabbed the sides of the wolf's face in between his hands to lift it up and stare into her eyes. Sveilrun's eyes were unfocused, and the colour was changing between the pale yellow of the wolf and the light brown of the woman. Thorin didn't know anything about skin-changers, but he knew that probably wasn't supposed to happen. He was having as much difficulty thinking as the wolf currently was, and couldn't think of anything to do.
"We need to get out of here, now," Thorin commanded to the other dwarves, keeping a light hold of the wolf incase she dropped to the ground, "Find the path. All of you look. Look for the path!"
At that point, Thorin couldn't even tell that the dwarves were so out of their right minds that they began to simply wander aimlessly looking for an unseen pathway.
Sveilrun could faintly tell that someone had grabbed onto her, and she wished to pull away from whoever it was. Skin-changers did not fancy being touched in their animal forms, and that applied double for her, but she felt like she was floating in an empty space. She could actually smell everything around her and it was so confusing. The scent that filled her senses the most resembled some of the baser smells she could remember from years ago; earth, leather, metal, and the smell that trees gave off in spring time. She couldn't properly place what she was smelling, but it was heavenly, and it wrapped around her senses like a warm blanket.
"Sveilrun! You have to get up!" a voice shouted near her.
Soon, as if something had snapped back into place in Sveilrun's subconscious, she felt herself becoming grounded. Her sight slowly returned to her, first blurry, but then firm and crisp, she could hear all of her happenings correctly, and the feeling began to return to her straining limbs. But as those senses returned all of the wonderful scents retracted and all but disappeared into the farthest corner of her mind. Once she was fully grounded again, she awoke to find Thorin's face uncomfortably close to hers. Thorin could see the awareness return to her gaze as her pale yellow eyes narrowed on his blue ones, and he quickly dropped the wolf's head.
The wolf stood on shaky legs and huffed when she managed to get herself standing at full height. She quickly took in her surroundings and found all of the dwarves gone from the path, wandering around the forest doing who knows what. With a growl of frustration, she looked back down at Thorin and found him wearing the same blank expression as the other dwarves as he turned towards the forest and muttered something about finding a path way. Strength recovered, Sveilrun growled out a, "Where do you think you're going?"
The large wolf picked up the dwarf king, using her powerful jaws to latch onto the back of his jacket and lifting him up in the air the way wolves pick up their cubs. If it weren't for the serious circumstances they were in, she would have laughed at how comical they both looked. Ignoring that, she carried a strongly protesting Thorin towards the closest dwarf within eye shot, Nori, who stood staring intently at a tree. Dropping the dwarf king there she took off to find the next dwarf. She continued like this for longer than she'd care to admit; running back and forth and herding the dwarves along into a big clump. Eventually it became apparent that the woman's mind was stronger than the wolf's, so she took a brief second to shift and cover herself with her grey cloak with the wolf's harness fastened around her waist. Unfortunately after that she could only herd the dwarves back to the point she had left Thorin at, that they thankfully stayed in, by dragging them along by their cloaks. Luckily enough, she managed to get them all in one large group. It was just as she had the last missing dwarf, Bofur, that she heard rapid footfalls circling around the group. Sveilrun's brown eyes searched frantically through the forest for the source of the sound, but she couldn't see anything. When the eight legged beasts attacked, she didn't see them coming.
Sveilrun's body felt heavy and boneless, as if she hadn't slept in years. She could recognize a painful throbbing behind her eyes and could hear the ground shift as if she were being dragged along it, but that was all. Everything felt as if it were suffering from extreme fatigue, and even just moving a finger seemed like an impossible task. When she finally did try to move, she found herself bound somehow and unable to do anything but wriggle underneath whatever held her. It wasn't for another few minutes until she was able to crack open her eyelids. She could see two bodies being dragged along next to her through blurry eyes. The two bodies were covered head to toe in some kind of semi-transparent white material, but she could faintly see a head of dark brown hair and a head of blond hair through the odd stuff that bound the two people. In Sveilrun's confused state, she let out a muffled, "Ronan? Favian?" before succumbing to another unconscious state.