The horse stopped, and Ann nearly fell off into the chasm that lay besides the cliff.
"Keep going." She hissed. "I don't want to get off, no." Ann sat there resolutely on the horse.
It didn't move.
"Fine." Ann grumbled. "I need to set up camp for tonight anyway."
Ann hopped off her horse onto shaky legs. She unhooked her bags from the horse, and tossed them to the ground. She bent and started rummaging through them. She grabbed her flint and steel and held it up to the dying light.
There was a rumbling and Ann looked up to see a rock the size of a elf hurtling toward her.
Ann's eyes widened in surprise she grabbed her bag and dove out of the way. Ann curled up into the fetal position.
It wasn't fast enough, her foot exploded in pain. It felt like the time when she slammed it in the car door. "Mahal."
The bolder rumbled down the rest of the mountain. Ann leant against the mountain side surveying the damage. The bolder had knocked quite a bit of the path away. The stupid horse bolted her foot freaking hurt.
But on the upside she still had her pack and sword, though the bow was lost. Ann cradled her foot. She didn't think she was standing up anytime soon. Sighing Ann opened her pack and brought out her bundle of covers. She spread them over her legs and put her sword behind her, and crossing her arms and pulling her cloak tightly around her shoulders she closed her eyes.
Ann woke to a scuttling to her right, keeping her eyes closed she grabbed her sword and squinted at the mountain.
To her right was a pale pig looking creature wearing only a loin cloth. It was rooting through her bag.
Ann pressed her sword to its neck and jumped into a squatting position, ignoring the burning fire in her foot.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Ann growled.
The goblin bounded out of reach of her sword and pulled out its own curved rusted looking blade.
"Getaway." Ann shoved her cover into her pack, and slung it over her shoulder. "I don't want any trouble."
The disgusting pig thing grinned and hissed at her, shuffling forward.
"For chrissake." Ann leant against the mountain wall, her foot was like standing on a pincushion. That was on fire. And it's pins happened to actually be knives.
Ann looked at the sky, the sun had not yet risen, and somehow Ann knew that when it did that thing would go back into it's hole.
It rushed toward her, Ann brought her sword up, and blocked it's swipe. It was a game of defense, Ann was pushed against the wall, and the pig thing was intent on not going away.
Ann stepped forward onto her uninjured left foot and brought her sword in an arc. The goblin leapt away, and stumbled off the cliff.
"Stupid thing." Ann turned away as it tumbled down, bouncing off the cliff face. "I hate killing things." Ann turned and went to walk down the path, and tripped.
Ann got off her knees and looked around the path for a stick. There was a gnarled looking one, that was up to her nose, that looked pretty nice.
Ann grabbed it, and started hobbling along. She tripped once or twice, and spilled her bag the first time. Ann glared at the sky, the sun had barely crossed the horizon, and Ann guessed it was close to five o'clock in the morning, but now that she was up, she might as well get a move on. As the dwarves probably didn't wait for her and her pace was going to be greatly slowed by the fact that her foot was screwed up.
"It's nothing." Ann muttered. "I probably just sprained it.
Ann imagined what Jane would say. "A rock landed it, how is that a sprain?" Ann could just imagine Jane walking beside her.
It wasn't broken, Ann knew that much. But it was swollen and probably like a concussion, but for a foot.
Imaginary Jane snorted at her. "Your tissues are just depraved of blood, don't worry you'll catch up to us by tonight." Ann sensed an emptiness in her mind.
Ann hobbled on, and she knew that it was about midday, or it should be, as her stomach was rumbling.
Ann paused and pulled an apple from her pack, and shivered. The wind was whistling through the rocks, it made a sort of melody, like a bunch of flutes trying to tune a C#.
Ann chewed the apple thoughtfully, how did she know she was going on the correct path? Ann finished her apple and pulled the map out of her backpack and spent the next half mile contemplating it.
"Why the hell am I the one who has to get lost?" Ann grumbled trudging forward. She had decided to continue on the path that she was taking. Not because of the map though, the map was utterly useless, everything was written in stupid runes and it was sideways. Ann had figured that out awhile back.
It was getting dark out and Ann still hadn't found the company. Were they in a cave? Not likely as those were few and far between, and some were plain creepy. Like one had lichen covering the walls, and another-
Ann shivered and turned her train of thought to something happier.
Trouble was there wasn't anything happy to think about, well besides the fact that Jane had magic, and she could see white runes without the power of the moon. There was also the fact that they were going to get captured by goblins. Ann wondered how soon that was going to occur. Would it be a week? Two? Ann sighed, she really needed to communicate more with Jane.
Ann stumbled a bit, it was getting really dark, but Ann didn't want to really stop and have a remake of what happened last night.
Ann hated those thingies. Ann was sure that there were more in the mountains. With her luck the mountains were probably swarming with them. At least they weren't goblins, Jane had told her how wicked those things were.
It was pitch black, and Ann's feet were killing her. She had blisters all over her foot and the other one was throbbing. Ann had definitely lost her way now.
Ann stared desperately into the now set sun and tried to find the moon, or the big dipper, or something! But she realized with a panic inspiring sigh that this world was different than the one she knew.
There was a rustling then something was against her throat. "Who goes there?"
Ann turned in surprise and almost screamed. Taking her stick she started swinging in the general direction of whatever had spoken. She hit them three or four times before they finally moved out of range.
"GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME." She screeched.
"What, Ann?" There was more rustling to reveal Kili clutching his head and holding a torch.
"Oh," Ann was suddenly mildly embarrassed "sorry about that."
"What did you hit me with?" Kili took his hand off his head and checked for the nonexistent blood.
"Just this stick here." Ann leaned heavily on it. Her foot wasn't doing that great.
"Alright, we have a bit left over from supper, if you want it?" Kili led her silently through a sleeping camp.
"Thanks." Ann ate a cold dinner in silence.
"So what happened to your foot?" Kili was trying to make conversation, but frankly Ann was exhausted.
"A rock fell on it." Ann shrugged. "It's nothing."
Jane walked up and smacked Ann's head forward. "Idiot, take off your shoe."
Ann sighed and looked at Kili. "Did you wake her up?"
Kili shook his head. "Not I."
"Damn it, how'd you know I was here?" Ann groaned.
"I felt your presence." Jane glared at her and yanked off her shoe.
"Ow, stop, ow, ow ow." Ann yanked her foot away, set her stew down, and moaned. "Jane stop I don't want you to touch this foot ever again."
"Too bad." Jane held out her hand. "Now give me your foot or I'm getting Fili up."
Ann raised an eyebrow. "Nope, my foot has rights."
"The right to be given to Jane." Jane tackled her and continued to sit upon her knees.
"I don't even care anymore." Ann sat up against her pack and picked up her dinner.
"I think it's fine." Jane poked it, and moved her toe so the lighting was better. "You compressed it pretty well though, what did you do?"
Ann glared at Jane. "A rock fell on it."
"How?"
"Well, if you look around you," Ann gestured to the obvious mountainside, "you will see a multitude of rocks, many of which may be knocked down after a tussle with an imp."
Jane chuckled. "So nothing serious then."
"You don't believe me?" Ann crossed her arms.
"No, I just know that you can handle incidents of that sort." Jane sat down and prodded the fire.
"Why was it that you were held back? Did the elves catch up to you?" Kili said yawning.
"No, just some issues with the second guard after you guys got through."
"Alright." Kili yawned rubbed his eyes.
"What happened with the company?" Ann asked.
"Oh, nothing." Jane shrugged. "It was actually pretty normal while you were gone."
"I'm going to ignore that." Ann laughed. "But where's Gandalf?"
"Well, we don't exactly know." Kili looked over his shoulder at the company. "He hasn't met up with us yet.
"I think Thorin is planning to continue on." Jane looked at Ann.
"Oh yeah, because of Durin's day being so soon." Ann nodded.
The twins watched as Kili yawned again.
"Do you want us to take the watch?" Ann offered, ignoring the betrayed look Jane gave her. "Since I'm here and we're up and all."
"Yes, thanks." Kili smiled and got up. "I hate doing night watches." He stretched and walked over to his spot on the ground. He plopped down, and soon was asleep.
"I think you can do magic." Ann said bluntly.
"Thanks for your vote of confidence." Jane fiddled with her hands.
"When have you done it? Besides the time that you were projecting your thoughts into mine of course."
"Well before we got to Rivendell I might've killed an orc."
"While that feat is no doubt magical, I don't think it counts." Ann teased Jane.
"I threw him into a rock without touching him." Jane said quietly.
"You have the power of telepathy and telekinesis." Ann grinned.
"Why though? Why were we brought her? Why am I-" Jane looked up at Ann, feeling totally and completely lost.
"Don't worry." Ann put an arm around her. "You were protecting yourself, you're not bad person."
"No, it was protecting you." Jane looked up. "And what if I do that to one if the company and they die too?"
"You barely have done any at all. Just because it happens once doesn't mean it's going to happen every time you blink." Ann was serious. "You can't do it whenever, right?"
"I haven't tried." Jane looked out into the world, gazing at what seemed to be all the horrors of the world.
"Now's the perfect time to practice." Ann grinned and jumped up, leaning on her walking stick.
"What?" Jane swiveled to look at Ann.
"The real question is how." Ann leant upon her walking stick and looked back at the camp.
"We could try the telepathy again." Jane suggested nonchalantly. Ann grinned and plopped back down again so that her and Jane were face to face.
"How did you do it the first time?" Ann stared at Jane expectantly.
"Well, I was annoyed at you for not listening to me, and I was talking to you." Jane sighed. "That made absolutely no sense did it?"
"Some, but more than you would think." Ann put a hand over Jane's mouth. "Now try to tell me to take this off without using your mouth."
Jane glared at Ann, and licked her hand.
"Ew," Ann swiped her hand away "you have cooties."
"I can do that without your help thanks." Jane crossed her arms.
"Any time then."
They sat there, staring intently at each other.
"Of for chrissake, do it already!" Ann almost rolled her eyes.
"I'm trying, jeez what do you think I've been doing?" Jane narrowed her eyes at her.
"Certainly not trying hard enough." Ann retorted with a grin. Her vision was blurred like the one time she had poked herself in the eye and was seeing in colors and not shapes.
"Says who?" Jane stuck her tongue out.
"Me." Ann looked at Jane's face, something wasn't right. It was her eyes, they were changing colors.
"You look weird, what're you doing with your face?" Jane peered at Ann's nose.
"What're you doing with your face?" Ann mimicked childishly. "Your eyes are all purple and stuff."
"You're not using your mouth." Jane grinned at Ann.
"And you just did." Ann made a face.
"So I just have to really want to talk to you." Jane shrugged. "Easy as pie."
"Actually I was the one who started the conversation." Ann stood up.
"How does that work?" Jane rubbed her eyes. Ann's eyes still looked purple.
"I don't know you're the one with the super powers." Ann shrugged.
"It must have been the pre-established connection." Jane nodded.
"What about your telekinesis?" Ann grinned and rubbed her hands together. "Wait no, I already have something in mind, your input isn't needed."
"I only pray," Jane closed her eyes and clasped her hands together, "that I may survive this night."
"Hakuna matata my young padawan." Ann stood and hobbled off.
"What are we going to do?" Jane looked weary.
Ann grinned and bent over. "Why don't we have a fire?"
"Because it will attract unwanted attention." Jane looked around the eerily quiet camp.
Ann stood up and stretched. "Everyone here is horrible."
"I'm not." Jane deadpanned.
Ann threw a rock the size of a quarter at Jane.
Jane flinched away, and it hit her arm.
"I'm never doing this again." Jane strode toward Ann.
"Injured here, I'm calling an IOU." Ann laughed good naturedly.
Jane sighed and stretched, looking longingly at her spot of rock. "Should we get Fili up? I think it's his watch now."
"Were you even given a watch?" Ann raised an eyebrow.
"Nope." Jane grinned bashfully. "Really Kili just went to bed and didn't wake Fili up."
"That's great." Ann sighed. "I bade you never speak of this tragic and lamentable event again."
"You bade me?" Jane chuckled. "I guess this is really lamentable."
"You're lamentable." Ann made a face.
There was a silence broken only by the sound of wind shrieking through the mountains.
"You can wake up Fili, you know, if you really want to." Jane shrugged.
"What?" Ann moaned "I'm injured."
"Noes goes." Jane grinned, and slapped a hand to her face.
"Not fair." Ann sighed.
"Too late." Jane walked over to her spot of ground and laid down.
"You're a horrible person." Ann grumbled and resignedly trudged over to Fili.
Resisting the urge to kick him, she nudged him with the end of her boot which wasn't stained. Instead the brown leather just looked a bit muddy. "Get up."
Fili rolled over.
Ann's jaw almost dropped and she sent Jane a look of barely restrained exasperation.
"Fili get up now." Ann crossed her arms and tapped her toe.
"Have Kili do it." Fili started to pull the covers over his head.
"Oh, no you don't." Ann grabbed the cover and yanked it out of his hands. She looked at it for a second, it was actually his cloak.
"Give that back."Fili sat up and rubbed his eyes, and lunged for the makeshift cover.
"It's your watch, get up."Ann held the cloak to her chest, it was still really warm.
"Ann-" Fili stopped and looked up at her.
"Yeah?"
"Why were you on watch by yourself?"
Ann raised her eyebrows. "Not hello Ann, glad you've joined the company. But why were you on watch by yourself." Ann shivered, "And just so you know, Jane was on watch with me."
"Ah, it was Kili's watch." Fili sighed.
"Yeah." Ann held the cloak out.
"Keep it." Fili walked over to the cliff face and sat down. "You need it more than I do."
Ann slung it over her shoulders, and looked down. It dragged on the ground and the shoulders were as twice as broad as her.
"How did you manage to catch up to us without getting lost?" Fili smirked.
"I happen to be magical." Ann plopped down next to him and snuggled into his cloak.
"Did anything happen on your way here?" Fili pulled a knife from his sleeve and a stone from his pocket, and started running the stone over the blade.
"I ran into a imp thing."
"What did it look like?"
Ann thought for a moment. "It was short and bald and had elf ears that were really big." Ann held her hands to her face.
"A goblin then." Fili looked over at her. "Did you kill it?"
"If pushing it off the path counts." Ann.
Fili chuckled.
"What?"
"Did it trip?" Fili smirked at her.
"No." Ann glared lightheartedly.
Fili chuckled.
"I didn't trip either." Ann grinned along with him.
"Then what did you do to your foot?"
"A boulder fell on it." Ann said with a straight face.
"Really?" Fili all but rolled his eyes. "And did storm giants push it?"
"No." Ann leaned against him. Her eye's were heavy and her body ached, maybe it would be a good idea to sleep.
"Ann? Are you still awake?" Ann felt Fili nudge her, heard the wind through the mountains, felt the wind rustling her hair, smelt the despair that seemed to hang in the air.
It was then she descended into dreams.
At first it wasn't bad, she was just walking through the mountains, she could see the company a little ways off.
"Hello?" Ann looked around, something wasn't right. A goblin with ears as long as it's body and unnaturally proportioned limbs sprinted at her. Ann held up her arms, it was about to jump upon her. A bright light faded into sparks and one symbol. It looked like an H, except the vertical lines were longer and closer together, and the line connecting them was on a steep angle down. It was then she saw a person, Jane, standing off a ways. She tried to run, and it took long, so long, to get to her, and then Jane was falling. The whole company was, she watched on her knees as they fell into the dark abyss. Ann watched as the cliff seemed to fall in upon itself, then an arm made of stone. Ann turned and was standing in the middle of a burning circle of fire that was shrinking, closing in on her. Ann leapt over it to see a huge rock falling over her. Ann turned to run from it, and jumped off the side of a cliff, then she was the one falling.
Ann startled awake. She was still sitting against Fili, who was bringing his hand away from her and looking at her oddly.
"Are you alright now?" Fili curled his fingers.
"Yeah, perfectly fine." Ann looked around, the camp was still dark and quiet.
"You were having a nightmare." Fili stated, going back to sharpening his knives, he was onto a bigger one now.
"Yeah." Ann sighed.
"Do you want to tell me about it?" Fili looked at her, and Ann squirmed uncomfortably, his green eyes seemed to see into her.
Ann worked her jaw, not really wanting to open up to a stranger she had known for a month or two.
"It's fine if you don't." Fili turned away, intent on staring down the cliff.
"Nah, it's just a dream, right?" Ann pulled Fili's cloak tighter around her.
"Go on." Fili looked back at her.
"Well first I was standing on the path walking along, and a thing was there from what I told you happened last night, then a light flashed and there was a thing it looked like-" Ann used her finger to draw in the dirt.
"That's khuzdul." Fili wiped it away. "Was there any more?"
"No but there was Jane and the company falling off the cliff and, and…" Ann trailed off. The dream was already fading from her mind, was there more?
"Do you want to go back to sleep?" Fili squinted at the horizon. "The sun's about to rise."
"Nah."
They sat in compatible silence. Ann tried to sort through her thoughts but questions seemed to beset her on all sides. How did this unceremonious tale end? When would they get home, and even better how?
Ann closed her eyes and pulled the cloak up to her chin, it provided small security in this world of seemingly endless troubles.
They watched the sunrise, in silence. Fili rose to get the rest of the camp up, and Ann handed him back his cloak, which he shouldered in silence.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Fili asked, adjusting his weapons belt for the fifth time.
"Yeah, nothing to really worry about here." Ann shrugged and ended the conversation by walking to Jane, and getting her up.
"Hey." Jane turned over and rubbed her eyes. "How'd you sleep?"
Ann looked at the sun again, eyebrows raised. She hadn't slept. But when she turned back to Jane her expression was schooled back to normal. "Fine." There was a pause. "Just feeling a bit lost right now."
"Oh what about?" Jane rolled out of her makeshift bed and started packing her backpack.
"Hey do you remember the day we met Fili and Kili and you stayed behind to check if had dropped anything?"
"Yeah." Jane glanced at Ann warily. It wasn't like her to change the subject to avoid talking about something she didn't like; she usually told you straight to your face whether you liked it, or more times than the former, not.
"Did you find anything?" Ann looked around as the sounds of the company being awoken became loud in the early morning hours.
"Not particularly." Jane sighed and turned to look at Jane. "Want a quick inventory check?"
"Yep." A ghost of a smile graced Ann's face as Jae groaned and unpacked her bag.
"We have a flashlight, spare clothes, compass, first aid kit, matches, which you cannot, in fact, have." Jane grinned at Ann, placing the items in uniform rows as she took them out of her bag.
"Did we ever find the duct tape?" Ann rummaged through her own bag, and unpacked it. "Because I have the cutlery and penknife."
"No, but my journal is unscathed." Jane held up a brown leather bound journal with a clip that held it closed.
"Have you been keeping track of the adventure?" Ann cocked her head, she appreciated all literature, though often envied Jane for being the writer of the two.
"Yeah, but don't tell Ori, he's the official keeper of this."
"I have the rope that Adilyn gave us." Ann looked up, and sat back, contemplating Jane who sat rummaging in her pack.
"I the toothbrushes and toothpaste." Jane placed the holder and bottle on the ground.
"But you don't have a sword." Ann glanced at her own side at which hung her own weapon.
"I have the one knife that you bought in the market." Jane grinned impishly.
"I have four." Ann took one from her sleeve. "And my handy-dandy sword."
"And?" Jane crossed her arms.
"Take it." Ann held it out.
"Why do insist on taking every single precaution to make sure you'll be fine in a pinch?" Jane rolled her eyes, but took the blade and stuffed it deep into her pack.
"Because I have a helpful voice in my ear telling me what's going to happen." Ann went back to rummaging in her pack.
Jane watched Ann for a second, feeling as if she had grown older than her sister by a thousand years. "There are some things that you just can't prevent Ann." Jane smiled sadly.
"I found band-aids." Ann held up a pack of snoopy themed band-aids.
"I've got this." Jane held up a pirate themed bandanna.
Ann broke into a smile. "I remember that."
"Sixth birthday party." Jane raised her eyebrows.
"That was the year I got to pick the theme." Ann laughed. "I still remember that cake that mom almost burnt down the house making."
"Good thing dad had the insight to preorder one." Jane reminisced. "You definitely got your cooking skills from mom."
"And you got mom's leaden feet." Ann teased.
"And her intelligence, jock."
"Nerd." They lapsed into silence as their packs emptied.
"I have this!" Jane held up a small bottle of advil.
"Let's agree to not use it unless under severe need." Ann eyed the bottle warily.
"Yeah, medo-phobe." Jane grinned as Ann stuck her tongue out. Ann hated medicine of all kinds.
"We should pack up now. It looks like breakfast." Ann quickly started shoving her pack full of her previously strewn around the ground stuff.
Jane stayed back and watched as Ann walked over to the congregation of dwarves around the pack of dried meat and some cram, which Jane hated with a burning passion. It tasted like stale pita.
Ann fit in almost exactly with the dwarves, she looked like one of the company not a member that was going to leave when she found the way home. But that was the problem. Jane didn't think that when it came time to make the decision to leave, she wasn't sure that Ann would be down with it.
Ann laughed and punched Fili in the arm lightly, who looked like he was chuckling.
Jane sighed, knowing exactly what Ann would say if she was told her suspicions about leaving, she would laugh, good naturedly of course-
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."