OK so here's the next chapter. :) STONE GIANTS AND GOBLINS! :D Enjoy
We left Rivendell around 12 days later, after finding out some apparently important information, in a haste that could only be found in the dwarves. Gandalf had been summoned to a gathering of the White Council, which I had been informed, had consisted of Lord Elrond, the wizard Saruman, and Lady Galadriel of Lorien, and, after 2 days of trying to convince Thorin that he would not 'slow us down', we managed to get the dwarven King to allow Finnick to accompany us on our journey. Peeta still did not believe me when I told him what I had heard from the elven lord and wizard.
"Katniss, it's just a sword. There is nothing special about it." He had said, as we packed up our things to leave while the council was busy. I packed my bedroll quickly and stuffed as much food in my knapsack as I could. I resigned to the idea that Peeta might, in fact, have to find his power on his own.
Making our way along the thin ledge on the mountain-side was treacherous and, admittedly, a tad scary. Walking with Fili and Kili in front of me and Finnick at my back, I felt relatively safe that, should I stumble, they would catch me.
The rain, however, was incredibly distressing, causing the atmosphere around us to plummet so low I was afraid it would crush us.
Not long into the storm, the likes of which would never have happened in Panem, The loudest bang I'd heard in my life sounded, making my heart race and I felt an arm around my waist pushing me against the wall.
Hearing the desperate voice of both Fili and Kili shouting for one another, I clamped my eyes shut and panicked, shouting for Peeta instinctively and , over hearing his voice call my name in the distance, I re-opened my eyes, noticing, first that the rock that we stood on, was moving, fast, and second that both Finnick and Fili seemed to be holding me to the wall, Fili desperately calling for his brother, Finnick keeping his eyes closed and muttering to himself, his head pressed into my shoulder, seemingly praying, to whom, I was not sure.
What I didn't seem to recognise until moments later, was that we seemed to be on some kind of giant stone monster and that there was 3 of them throwing rocks at one another, the majority of the company, being in relative safety on a stationary rock as the 7 of us hurtled through the air on the giant's shin. It registered almost immediately to me, after I'd noticed, of course, that I'd read about these creatures in the library at Ered Luin. They were rarely seen but well documented when they had been seen. 'The stone giants mold to the sides of mountains, moving only to battle one another in epic wars, often assumed, by the residents of Middle Earth, to be thunder storms, but sometimes referred to as "Thunder Battles"' I recited in my head.
I heard the shouts of each of the others in the company separately. Thorin and Kili calling for Fili, Balin for Dwalin, Dori and Nori for Ori, Bifur for Bombur and Bofur (though, Bifur's injury prevented him from speaking the common tongue, it was easy to figure out that he was calling for his cousin), Gloin calling for Oin and Peeta's and my father's voices shouting out above the others for me. The fact that I heard no-one calling for Bilbo or Finnick made me sad for the both of them, until I saw a wall coming towards us incredibly quickly and heard the, almost, screams of the company as we crashed into it.
I opened one eye, wary as to whether we had all died or something in the crash, only to find that I was propped against a wall in a cave, Peeta lying next to me, each of the dwarves lying around the cave in various states of sleep. Bofur was sat near the doorway, grinning as he half whispered-half spoke.
"Ahh, the sleeping beauty awakens, then?" He cocked his head to the side and I felt Peeta move closer to me in his sleep. I looked down to him and smiled a little as he seemed to have curled into the fetal position by my legs.
"What happened?" I asked Bofur as I stroked Peeta's hair, and saw him visibly calm himself unconsciously, before I stood and made my way over to the doorway, looking out and welcoming the cold breeze it brought in.
"We all crashed into the wall, landing, in some cases." He pointedly looked at me. "awkwardly on others." I bit my lip a little. "Yeah. You landed on young Finnick over there. Peeta was, clearly a little jealous as he came around the corner with the others. Anywho, after all the hugging and reuniting and what-not, we found this here cave and bunked down for the night. Not really all that much happened, although we almost lost our thief when he nearly fell from the mountain." I gasped a little and looked around, finding him well hidden in the back of the cave. "He's OK now though, I think. Thorin made him want to go back to the Shire though I assume after claiming he was 'lost.. ever since he left home.'" I laughed a little at Bofur's imitation of the dwarven king, and sat down beside him.
"Get some sleep Bofur, I'll take the watch from here and wake someone in a while." I pushed him a little towards his brother, smiling at the dwarf as he looked gratefully at me, stood and made his way across the cave before settling down in the empty bedroll that one of the others had set up for him.
I sat and revelled in the clear view of the sky I had from my spot near the doorway, just watching the stars. That was, until I heard a shuffle behind me and turned to find Bilbo stood, backpack ready to leave.
"Going back home, Bilbo?" I asked him, leaning back against the wall.
"Katniss, you know that the dwarves think I don't belong here, and their right, even Thorin said that I'd been lost since I left my home, and that was the most accurate thing I've heard since I left my hill." I smiled a little as I heard Thorin's words, again.
"Sit with me for a while, Bilbo, before you leave. I have something to tell you." I patted the space next to me and the hobbit, reluctantly, removed his pack from his back and sat down, leaning forward on the small staff in his hands, looking out of the door for a moment before sighing and slumping forward even more, leaning on his knees.
"I'm not from this world, Bilbo. Neither is Peeta, or Finnick… This is going to be interesting to explain but bear with me. The world that we come from is called Panem and the only reason myself and Peeta are even here, was because I wanted to find my father… There are others in this world from Panem that I know of and probably more that we don't know of yet.
"But my point is that we don't belong here either. You're suited to your green fields and 7 meals a day." I nudged his shoulder a little and saw the little smile break out on his face before carrying on. "The open road might not be what you wanted to do with your time, but it wasn't what we were intending to do either, so before you make any rash decisions, think about what the long term consequences could be of you leaving us. We most likely won't get to Erebor. Thorin won't be able to take up his rightful position of King of Erebor. Smaug will continue to rule over that mountain and the surrounding lands. The Arkenstone will remain lost and everything that Thorin's family worked for generations to gain will continue to stay in the hands of a self-righteous dragon. Is that what you want Bilbo?" I dropped my head to see he was clearly thinking about what I was talking about.
Bilbo sighed and looked to me. "Of course, but I don't want to continue to be a burden on this company." He stood and took one step. I felt the vibrations in the ground quite strongly and stood, panicking. Clearly Bilbo could feel them as well as he turned to me, eyes wide. I shouted to the dwarves immediately as I saw the sand and gravel on the ground fall into a ridge in the stone.
We were to slow however and everyone fell into the hole that opened up in the ground, sliding down the.. mud?.. and into what seemed like a basket on top of one another. I landed roughly on my father and heard the impact as I winded him. I moved quickly to stand up and saw some weird-looking creatures making their way towards us. I saw someone raise a hand, grabbed it, and pulled, raising Fili to his feet, nodding to him and receiving the same response as he helped his brother up.
I'd only just attempted to help another dwarf stand when I felt a hand around my waist and, all of a sudden, I raised into the air and pulled away from the company and placed on the ground, pushed down a slim pathway with so many twists and turns it was impossible to see anyone in the company behind me, though I heard their shouts down the corridor anyway and kept moving, afraid of the response I would receive, should I resist.
A few moments later, I was pushed along a wooden platform-like bridge. Though the air was still as foul as in the corridor, the cave- like area we were now in was wide and spacious. I could hear the out-of-tune song in the distance, at the end of this bridge perhaps?
I was pushed again as I stopped to look around, and stumbled before regaining my footing and carrying on. The not-very-nice music got louder and louder as we went until we were stood in front of a huge creature who coughed and spluttered as he sang and waved his staff around.
I'd heard the dwarves be pushed to where I was too and a few pushed to the front, subsequently, pushing me backwards and I turned to my right, finding Jed, my father, stood, fiercely glaring at the creature on it's throne. On my left, I found Peeta, looking to me, silently asking if I'd been hurt. I smiled at him, hoping that I was conveying that yes, I was fine. I took his hand and he turned to the creature aswell.
I heard a strange 'squelch' like noise and turned towards it, only finding that the creature had stepped down off his throne, onto some of the smaller creatures, subsequently killing them in the process. What a horrible person. If it even was a person.
"Who would be so bold as to come armed into my kingdom? Spies? Thieves? Assassins?" It spat as us. So it was a king then. Such a lovely kingdom to live in.
"Dwarves, you're malevolence!" One of the smaller ones yelled, proudly, as though we were some prize they'd gained. Marvellous, we are soo about to be killed.I thought to myself, sighing.
"Dwarves?!" This guy was beginning to grate on my nerves.
"Found 'em on the front porch" I thought to myself then that perhaps trespassing in the cave was not the best option in Middle Earth.
"Well.. Don't just stand there! Search them! Every crack! Every crevice!"
The, erm, creatures, took away all of our weapons and threw them in a large pile, though I managed to plant my fist in one of their faces as they did so.
I had no idea what was even happened as I zoned out for a while, thinking that being killed by 'goblins' as Jed had whispered to me, was not the way I wanted to go from this world, in fact, I had not wanted to die in this world at all. I had wanted to at least get back home before losing my life to old age.
I heard the scrambling though and heard a metallic ringing as one of the swords was thrown down onto the wood.
"I know that sword!" I heard the Goblin king shout. "It is the Goblin cleaver" The Biter! The blade that sliced a thousand necks! Slash them! Beat them! Peel them! Kill them all! Cut off his head!"
I felt someone roughly push me to the floor and I tried to roll over to see who it was, only to have a blade wedge itself in the wood beside my head. Clearly someone needed more training with a weapon.
I pushed myself up with all the effort I had and grabbed the sword that was in the wood, easily plunging it through the chest of the goblin that had pushed me to the floor, turning to slice off the head of another before I heard my name being called.
I turned to find Peeta holding my bow and quiver. He threw them to me and I swung the quiver onto my back quickly, notching an arrow and killing another goblin that was threatening to kill young Ori and, pulling another arrow out of the quiver, pushed it into the skull of an oncoming goblin, killing it in the process.
A blinding light spread over the cavern and I was thrown to the ground. All I saw was the silhouette of an incredibly tall man, wearing a hat, as the light faded and I blinked again and again to gain my vision back, finding Gandalf stood, staff and sword in hand as he stepped forward.
"Take up arms." He said. "Fight. FIGHT!"
Everyone got to their feet and followed the wizard across the bridge and away from the now empty platform. Had Gandalf killed the terrible creatures?
Wow. Longer chapter than I expected but there we go. :)