I had peed, and it felt good.

So did sitting down.

Anyway.

'Try it,' insisted Dori to his brother, Ori. 'Just a mouthful, you might like it,' he reasoned, leaning toward his younger brother.

I laughed into my drink as Ori replied with a stubborn, 'I don't like green food'. I could definitely feel that, yet it was all of what the Elves had to offer. Forget Radagast, it was the Elves who were the true hippies of Middle Earth. They ate earthy foods, they played music, they floated around like they were stoned the all time - hippies, I'm telling you.

Dwalin picked up a pile of his own food, seeming genuinely upset. 'Where's the meat?'

'I could die for some garlic chicken right now,' I decided, flicking the vegetables on my plate with my fork. Gloin stared at a mushroom on his own fork, growling at it. 'Or pheasant. No - beef. Ugh, beef is so nice, and succulent, and meaty-' I haven't a clue what I was talking about, but I hadn't felt so...merry in quite a long time. I gave up on my 'food', and took another gulp of my berry drink.

We were sat on a balcony in Rivendell, the setting sun lighting up the sky. The view beneath us was something that I can't quite describe well enough. All I can say is that the Elves had way too much free time on their hands, to make Rivendell look so dark pretty.

'Do they have any chips?' inquired Ori once again, and I snorted while attempting to swallow, only resulting in a small cough.

Fili lent across the table, grabbing my cup and sniffing it. I snatched it out of his hands, glaring. 'Elvish wine,' he announced, rolling his eyes. 'They shouldn't be giving you that, especially to a Dwarf so young'.

Gloin, leaving his dreaded mushroom behind, looked up. He looked almost gleeful. 'The lass is drunk?'

'I am not drunk!' I denied. Although, now that they mentioned it, I was feeling a little light-headed and tipsy. I'd only had two cups, how could I get drunk from two cups?

'Elvish wine is stronger than other wine,' said Fili.

Just to annoy him, I took another, long gulp. 'I'm not a young Dwarf, anyway,' I denied, regretting the drink. 'I've been drunk before, therefore I am certain that I can handle this wine, thank you'. With that, I pushed both plate and cup away from me, standing. While I was bringing my leg over my chair, my foot got caught and if Kili had not sat down at that exact moment, pulling me down with him, I would have most likely fell flat on my face.

'You can hardly walk correctly while sober,' pointed out the dark-haired Dwarf, smiling cheekily at me. 'I wouldn't try it now'.

I righted myself, opened my mouth to deny any sign of drunkenness, then closed it again. 'Whatever,' I muttered, giving in. 'Where have you been, anyway?' I asked, leaning heavily on my hand.

'Looking,' he said, shrugging. 'I wanted to get a good look at the place, before we left. I won't have any reason to come here again, I suppose'.

Unconsciously, I lifted the cup up again, only to have it snatched away by Gloin, who said, 'I think that's enough, lass'. I shrugged at him, and then turned back to Kili, who was smiling at me. I grimaced. 'I deserve a drink,' I defended quietly. 'Do you think that we'll be leaving soon, then?'

'I don't think that our Uncle will want to stay here too long,' he said.

'If anything, I imagine that we'll be gone by early morning,' added Fili, taking a gulp of ale. They were allowed to drink. He caught my stare on his mug, and grinned. 'I am far more used to drinking than you are, Millie, seeing as I have had eighty-two years of practice'.

'So you guys are considered to be young?' I'd asked, baffled by the idea of it.

'Not young-' said Kili quickly.

Fili, perhaps the more level-headed of the two, cut his brother off with a dry look. 'We are, yes. Gloin's son, Gimli - who is sixty-two - was considered to young to join us on the quest, and he is only fifteen years younger than Kili'.

The name caught my attention. Drunkenly, I said 'Gimli? Gloin has a son called Gimli?'

Thankfully, the Dwarf in question was busy talking with Dwalin and did not hear me. Fili and Kili, though, gave me startled looks. 'Yes. Do you know him?'

I knew the name, of course. Despite my complete lack of knowledge with the movies, I knew the name Gimli. '...No,' I said, feigning an ignorant look. 'I just...liked...the name'.

I put my stare quite solidly to the darkening sky outside.

'You are a horrendous liar,' said Fili, his mouth twitching. 'But we will not press the matter. Anyway, I have something that I wish to discuss with Balin'. He gave a little head bow to me, and then hard look to his brother, which I had not noticed, due to my complete disinterest in anything that was not food or drink.

When Kili turned back around, I was idly sipping from a cup of Elvish wine. He snatched it from my grasp and put it on the other side of himself. 'Where are you getting these cups from?' he asked, half laughing, half serious.

I shrugged. 'I don't really know, actually'. With the kind of bravery that you only acquire while half drunk and surviving a near death experience, I reached up touched the end of his long hair. 'You know, where I'm from, guys don't normally grow their hair this long. Normally I wouldn't like it, but you quite suit it, you know'.

Kili smiled softly. 'In case you haven't noticed Millie, Dwarves tend to have their beards and hair quite long. The women, those who do not have beards and those who do, tend to grow out their hair'.

I blinked at him, dropping my hand. 'I guess I'll grow out my hair then,' I murmured. 'I wanted to anyway. Why don't you have a beard?' I'd asked bluntly.

'Because,' he said, rows raised. 'I am an archer, and I wouldn't want my arrow to get caught within my beard, would I?' I considered this, then nodded, wondering how I hadn't figured it out before. 'Why don't you?' he asked playfully.

I touched my hairless cheek and chin. 'I don't know, actually. Gandalf had wondered that too, when he found me. I mean I'm beardless, young, and a Dwarf woman, no wonder Elrond and you lot had a freakin' fit when you first saw me'.

'It was odd,' agreed Kili. 'Other than my ma, and a few of the other women living in the Blue Mountains, I had never seen a female Dwarf before, let alone one that is not especially hairy'.

'You have a mother?' I'd asked, stupidly.

Kili gave me a pointed look as he drank, swallowed, and then said, 'most do, Millie. Her name is Dis, Thorin's sister'. He paused. 'She was very wary about letting me go,' he said, almost confided. If the others new of what he said, they would tease him, as they already did about his young age.

Feel my pain, Kili.

I smiled easily, leaning against the table beside me. The drink had been making me sleepy. 'She would, wouldn't she? You're the youngest, you are the baby. My mum still does that with me, but only because I'm the only child'.

'Do you miss her?'

I shrugged, not know what else to do. 'Well, yeah. She's my mum, isn't she? I miss everything, really. Everything's so unfamiliar here, it freaks me out sometimes'. I shrugged once again, not exactly feeling the whole emotional situation.

Kili stood quite suddenly, causing me to jump and looking up at him, startled. 'Where are you going?' I'd asked, a little disappointed to see him go.

'We,' he said, offering me his hand. 'Are going to the training yard. I saw it while I was walking around, and I thought it would be the perfect place for you to test out Snowthorn'. He nodded to my sword that was still strapped to my side.

I grin lit up my face. 'You reckon?' I asked, taking his hand.

'I do,' he replied, pulling me up beside him. 'We're going to test out Millie's skills with a blade,' he said, addressing the mess of eating, laughing Dwarves. Ori had settled with simply drinking away his hunger.

'If they exist, that is,' snorted Gloin, to which I simply kicked the back of his chair lightly.

Ugh, Dwarves.

'What time is it?'

Kili glanced up at the sky, still poised in an attack position, his thick sword held tightly in his hand. I know how that sounded, but it's near impossible to talk about swords without some innuendos coming up. 'Judging from when the sun went down, I would say that it is nine o'clock'.

I groaned loudly. 'So we've only been at this for an hour and a half?'

He grinned, relaxing his position and approaching me. I stood with my back leaning against a white stone wall, wiping sweat from my forehead. 'Yes. Come on, we've barely covered the topic of stances. Millie, come on,' he said sternly, standing in front of me.

I smiled lazily, reaching for Snowthorn. 'Oh, how I love it when you get all bossy'. He shot me a strange look, to which I simply shrugged. 'Come on, show me how to stand properly when swinging for an Orc, then'. He did, and it took around fifteen minutes for me to finally perfect a look that did not, as Kili had said, 'look like I was trying desperately to hold in my bladder'. At that, I had laughed so hard that we'd had to begin again.

'That's it!' said Kili, pulling away from me and studying my form. His scent of - strangely enough - something akin to coffee was swept away. 'Now, attack me'. My stance fell away quickly. 'Well, don't attack me. Take a swing'. I hesitated. 'Come on, I've been in Orc raids before, I'm sure that I can handle an attack from you. Don't look at me like that, you know what I mean'.

I sniffed. 'It sounded like you were trying to call me weak'.

Kili rolled his eyes. 'You are far from weak. Come on, I'll block it'.

I did as was told, and took an unpracticed swing at Kili, who blocked it easily and with barely any movement. After that, it was the repetitive dance of swing, then block, swing, then block. Half an hour later, I was practically falling over from throwing myself at him so many times (then again, who wouldn't?).

'I'm gonna die the moment I get into any kind of fight!' I moaned, holding my sword in my hands and wiping away yet another bead of sweat from my forehead. My cloak lay forgotten on the floor, and the sleeves of my dark shirt were rolled up above my elbows. 'And don't you say 'we'll protect you', because then you'll probably die all gallantly while protecting me, and ugh, is this like a Shakespearean play or what-?'

I hadn't even noticed him approach me again, but his hand was touching the side of my cheek, cutting of any of my next words. 'I would die to protect you,' he told me. 'Even if you knew how to fight. I would do the same for my brother, and for my Uncle. Dwarves have a strong sense of loyalty to those that they care about, Millie'.

I blinked at him, hyper aware of how sweaty I was, how he had said the word care and how my chest was heaving and my heart hammering. In all honesty, I wasn't totally sure whether the last two were from the exercise, or from Kili being so close to me, and saying those things.

'Oh,' I said, stupidly. Then, 'I've gotta yawn'. Kili smiled widely at that, and shook his head. I, myself, covered my hand with my mouth and let out one of those yawns that made your eyes water and droop a little.

'You should probably rest,' he told me, stepping away.

'We've barely done two hours!' I'd objected, before my brain could process the fact that he was letting me go to bed. 'Fifteen more minutes, come on'. In the end, he agreed, and we worked on swinging and blocking once again, but more specifically blocking. In all honestly, I hadn't improved that much and my moves were still sloppy. Still, it was nice to know a few more things that could, potentially, save my life.

By the end of the fifteen minutes, I was right about ready to fall over from exhaustion. I couldn't believe that I had managed two hours of swordplay, after running for what seemed like ten million miles. Then, an idea occurred to me.

'I'm gonna go snoop out some place to go for a bath. They have those here, right?' Kili was halfway through putting away his sword when he looked up at me, all sweaty and gloriously manly looking.

'I'd imagine so,' he replied dryly.

'You know what I mean. Does it even look like Elves ever need to bathe? They're like freakin' super clean Vampires, and I'm talking about the alien 'eat my way out of mummy' kind,' I said, tying my cloak back around my neck.

Kili pushed his brown hair from his face. 'I don't know how to reply to that, so I won't'.

'Probably best,' I'd agreed.

'The bath houses are not far from here, I'll show you,' he told me, already starting out of the gate. 'In all honesty, you do look like you're in need of a bath'. He looked over his shoulder, a shit-eating grin on his dirty face. 'No offence meant, of course'.

I scoffed, catching up with him. 'Says you'.

The bath houses were not far from the training ground, and in the end Kili agreed to wait for me outside, while I went into the 'ladies' bath area. Heck, even the design for a building containing some tubs was pretty extravagant, and upon walking inside, I saw that the room was filled with steam, large tubs, and plants. The walls were also pretty delightful, all intricately designed and white and just...wow.

Thankfully, the place was empty. I hadn't really fancied exposing my body to a bunch of beautiful, tall Elf women. I hadn't bathed in weeks, so let me tell you, upon ridding myself of my dirty clothes and sinking into the water...

Words cannot describe the feeling of the warm water, the freshness. I'd pretty much wept at the feeling of being clean and warm. I scrubbed away the dirt beneath my nails, in my skin, and on my hands, until I was red raw from rubbing so hard. I ducked my head deep beneath the water, emerging with wet, clean hair that smelt vaguely of daisies.

'Oh my,' I sighed, kicking my leg up above the water. Big mistake, I hadn't shaved my legs in roughly in a while, and ew. I reminded myself that hair was the norm among female here, since they didn't really have the equipment to shave their legs or, er, anywhere else. I sunk beneath the water, grumbling about how I felt like a she-wolf. 'Shakira, eat your heart out,' I'd muttered.

I hopped out of the water, dried myself on a cottony towel and slipped into my clothes as quickly as I could. After squeezing water out of my damp hair, I joined Kili, who was waiting patiently outside of the bath house, staring at the sky.

'Are you star gazing?' I'd asked, the picture of seriousness.

He shot me a bland look. 'No. You took long enough, though I suppose you do smell and look infinitely better'.

'Better than you,' I'd sassed back, flicking my hair and promptly tripping over in the process.

Kili bit back a smile.

We began walking up a pathway, leading up a small hill and back to the building where the rest of the Dwarves were. Happily, I'd expressed my feelings of being clean. 'I smell like flowers, man. Flowers. I haven't smelt of anything but sweat and dirt for the past few weeks'. I ran a hand through my wet hair happily. 'Man, I feel like a woman,' I announced, then realized that he would not get the reference and quickly shut up.

'If there aren't many Dwarf woman, then does that mean that there aren't many Dwarves in general?' I'd asked, hopping up a few of the steps. I was simply chatty because of the lasting effects of the wine, though I no longer felt drunk. I turned to Kili, who walked up beside me, not answering. 'Because, you know, when a man loves a woman-' my singing was, quite rudely, cut off my Kili's hand pressing firmly against my mouth.

'Will you be quiet?' he laughed. I licked the palm of his hand, and he snatched it away, still laughing. 'That's disgusting!'

I grimaced at him, swallowing hard. 'Ugh, don't tell me. I just licked your dirty Dwarf hands - bleh,' I gagged. That only earned a face full of hand, to which I simply swiped away. 'Come on, answer my question, you doofus'.

'What's doofus, Millie?'

I paused, not knowing what to say, and then settled with, 'you. You are a doofus'.

He sighed, shook his head, and then answered my prior question with, 'There are fewer Dwarves than there are of population in other races, yes. Many of us choose not to marry at all, seeing as many are too involved with their crafting and such. Now that I think about it, you're quite the craftswoman yourself, with your needlework'.

I winkled my nose. 'Yeah, but that's boring'.

He merely grinned and looked away from me.

The others were far quieter when we arrived, perhaps because Bilbo, Thorin and Balin had joined us once again, and were telling the others of what was to happen next. '-Lord Elrond read the Moon Letters himself. This is how I know that we will have to reach Erebor by the last light of Durin's Day-' Thorin ceased in talking, looking sharply up from the other Dwarves as Kili and I walked onto the balcony.

Well, I tripped into the balcony and over my bag, which lay on the floor.

I coughed awkwardly, raising a hand and wiggling my fingers. 'Hi'.

The King looked from his nephew, then to me. 'Where have you two been?' he asked, spying out my wet hair and my cloak, which was folded in my arms. He looked quite alarmed. 'Kili?' he asked quickly. Fili coughed out a laugh into his hand, while his younger brother looked at their Uncle, realization at what Thorin suspected dawning.

'No-'

'Oh no way!' I cackled into my hand. 'You think-? I get that I'm not exactly the most proper of all women, but jeez, I'm not that easy, Thorin! Get your mind out of the gutter, my friend. I went for a bath after training with Kili, not-' I picked my bag up off of the floor, placing it on the table. I waved a finger at the grumpy looking King. 'You should expect more than that from your own nephew,' I scolded.

'Yeah,' agreed Kili, grinning.

Balin groaned into his hand, while Thorin sent a Kili a wildly miffed off look. I, of course, was too preoccupied with stuffing my cloak into my bag. The air was cooler than it had been on the road, and I was looking forward to sleeping without the annoyance of my cloak.

'Anyway,' I said, clapping my hands. 'What was this about, er, moon letters?'

Kili agreed, pulling himself a chair and sitting heavily into it. I did the same, sitting beside him. 'Was Lord Elrond able to read the map, Thorin?' After that, I couldn't really understand a word that they were saying. There was just a lot of talk about moons and magic doors. It was all rather artsy fartsy stuff, if you ask me. Stuff that I couldn't be bothered with understanding.

They only stopped talking about the 'magic of the moon' when Elrond appeared at the arch of the balcony, smiling merrily at the Dwarves who did not return such kindness.

'I am sorry to bother your evening,' he said. 'But could I speak with Lady Millie?'

I'd blinked heavily, looking rather nervously toward the other Dwarves. I hadn't realized how much I relied on their familiar presences until then. Gloin raised his chin toward the Lord, asking a quick and rough, 'What do you be wanting with the lassie, if I may ask?' When I write what he said, it's sounds rather polite.

It wasn't.

Elrond smiled, merely a little amused. 'I simply wish to speak with her about matters that I am sure she is aware of. No harm will come to your Lady, my guests. I promise you that'.

What matters?

The way he said 'guests' must have reminded the Dwarves of whose house they were staying in, because they all quickly shut up and gave me some stern and pointed looks. Kili's stare was the hardest of all, and it made my stomach do a little flip.

'Er, right,' I said, standing and following the Lord. He waved a courteous hand in the right direction and I walked past him, sending the Dwarves and the Hobbit a startled look.

Guess I was on my own now.

I liked this chapter, because I got to make up a lot of what happened. In case you're wondering, I've decided to go along with the book after all. You can thank all the reviewers that persuaded me for that ;)

Thank you for reviewing, we hit over 200! I don't even know how that happened, but thank you! Keep going!