Disclaimer: Anything you recognize is not my own, yadda yadda yadda. I'm not making any money off of this. (Though I wish I could.)
A/N: We get a little more back-story on Talya's time in the military in this chapter, though I warn you, it is a bit of a downer. Hopefully, I'll get to the trolls in the next chapter! I am trying not to rely solely on the movie for my plot lines, so bare with me!
Just for a point of reference, by this point, she has been traveling with them for about three weeks.
After Thorin and I spoke that night, I distanced myself mentally, if not physically, from the company. I treated it much as I had basic training. I spoke when spoken too. I did my tasks when I was needed to do them. Before we broke camp each morning, I practiced shooting with Kili. Each night before dinner, Fili would show me how to wield a sword.
My initial luck with the bow had run out. My arms were exhausted from trying to pull back such a heavy bow on such a regular basis. I could hit the target once in ten tries, and I felt my courage and strength failing. Bilbo took it upon himself to sit with me each night and, even if I didn't speak, he chatted amicably of his home in the Shire. Thorin would not trust me to stand guard so each night, I slept as far away from everyone as I dared. Each morning, I began to wake later and later. Gandalf had disappeared for a short while and, if it weren't for Grey-mane and Bilbo, I was sure I would have been left behind on multiple occasions.
We had started to get into rougher country. We were climbing hills and crossing small rivers. Many times, we had to dismount and lead our steeds through narrow, rocky paths.
It was easy to watch the movies from the comfort of your own home. The big screen made it look so simple. It had glossed over the biting insects, the sun burns, and the gnawing hunger we often felt when we lacked game to hunt. Thorin did not want us to use up too much of our, excuse me, their traveling supplies. The sheer exhaustion of traveling from sun up and sun down with few breaks was getting to me. I had stopped eating as much, too tired to bother. I knew that in the past three weeks I had lost weight. The few times we had been able to rest at a stream, I cleaned myself the best I could and tried to ignore the hollows beginning to form in my cheeks and collar bones. I had never been fat, really, but I had had 'love handles' and a small belly from a fairly sedentary life style, army aside, and plenty of food compared to now.
The most frustrating part was the fact that I could not remember the exact timeline of the Hobbit. Okay, so I knew the events. But I couldn't tell you which days were which. I wasn't sure how close we were to meeting up with the trolls. I didn't know how far away from Rivendell we were, and I dare not ask Gandalf, even when he was present.
My attitude began to reflect my interactions with the dwarves. I ignored the jokes from Fili and Kili. I only nodded to Balin or Ori when they offered a kind word. I avoided Thorin at all costs, which wasn't difficult. He seemed to like my presence as little as I liked his. It made me angry and I could not remember why I had ever admired him. I was bitter. I wanted home.
We were heading down a particularly rocky and steep slope when I stepped on a loose piece of shale. I started to fall and immediately let go of Grey-mane's reins, not wanting to drag him down with me, or to drag him down on top of me. I slid forward and gasped as a sharp pain ripped up my left bicep. For once I was thankful I was lagging behind. It meant that I wasn't going to be crashing into anyone.
I had stumbled a few feet before I came to a stop. My arm throbbed and I knew that new bruises and cuts had replaced the ones that had healed from weeks ago. Painfully, I stood up and dusted myself off. I checked Grey-mane over to make sure he hadn't stumbled when I fell. I could feel my face flushed with embarrassment and I wiped angrily at the hot tears that threatened.
"Are you alright, Talya?" I heard Bilbo call. He had been the one closest to me when I fell. I glanced ahead to see that he and a few others had paused to check on me.
"Fine," I answered shortly. I tugged at Grey-manes bridle harder than I intended too and he snorted and tossed his head.
Bilbo, at least, hesitated.
Once camp was made that night, I made an excuse to go relieve myself when in all actuality, I wanted to see the damage done. Once out of the way of prying eyes, I tugged of my jacket and, after inspecting the torn and bloodied sleeve, tossed it down. I bent my arm at an angle and looked down at the back of my arm. A four inch gash, crusted with blood and already bruising, met my eyes. I hissed slightly. Why the hell did injuries hurt worse once you finally looked at them?
I did my best to clean it up then cut up my thermal pants that had long since been packed away to make a bandage. Once that was done, I pulled on my clean jacket. If they hadn't already, I didn't want anyone to see the blood.
After a short dinner, Fili stood and walked off from the camp and I followed, well versed with the routine now.
He handed off one of his short swords and began putting me through stances. He had made me use both my left hand and my right ever since we started, saying that it was best to build up the strength in both because you never knew when you would need to switch arms. Problem was, my left arm was so bruised and swollen by that point, I could barely lift the damn sword, let alone swing it anywhere.
Fili and Kili had set up a make shift target using old bits of cloth and a downed tree they supported in a hole in the ground. They were pointing out the weak spots one would find in most armor. Fili showed me a few moves, slowly of course, to disarm or kill an opponent.
"A downward stroke here will knock the blade from your enemy's hand. Turn the blade a hair, and it will knock the hand from your enemy's arm." He said, angling his blade in a downward stroke. I copied the move using my right arm, stopping short of hitting the target as he had. We didn't want to blunt his blades, after all.
He encouraged me to use my left and I grit my teeth against the pain.
"You're form with your right is getting better, but you need work with your left. Here," He reached out and gripped my upper arm to move it to the right position. I bit back a yelp and let my arm drop.
"Talya…?" Fili asked, pulling back his hand immediately. He frowned and looked down at his bloodied hand. "You're injured."
"I'm fine," I bit back.
"No you're not. You're whole sleeve is bloodied." Kili said, peering closer at me. "Come on. Oin can get you fixed up."
"I said I'm fine! Wouldn't want your Uncle to think I can't handle a little scratch."
"Don't be stubborn. You can not use your arm like that and the longer it takes to heal, the longer it will take you to build up your strength." Kili said, frowning, now too. Fili held out his hand for his sword and I hesitantly handed it to me.
"Alright," I finally said. I followed the two back. I stood at the edge of the camp and watched Fili approach Oin. The old dwarf paused a moment, adjusting the trumpet in his ear before his eyes looked up, searching for me. He motioned me over.
"Come on, now, lass. Lets see it," He patted the ground next to him once I was close. I sat down with my left side to him and the fire, then tugged off my jacket and the blood soaked bandage.
"You did a number on yourself, lassie," He said, gently turning my arm this way and that. Fili and Kili stayed nearby, looking close. Kili made a face.
"Tell me how you really feel," I muttered. Oin reached over into his pack and pulled out a vial of some sort of liquid, a few bandages, and a needle with thread. I pulled a face.
"You ever have stitches before?" Oin asked, pausing a moment to glance up at me.
"Unfortunately," I answered. Oin began to gently clean out the gash while the two brothers looked at me expectantly. "What?"
"When did you need to get stitches?" Kili asked.
"A few times when I was a kid," I answered, wincing at a particularly painful probe.
"Why did you need them?" Fili asked. I appreciated their attempts to keep my attention off of Oin's administrations.
"Well, there was one time I was walking barefoot through a stream and sliced my foot open on a piece of discarded glass. That took six stitches. A second time, I caught my arm open on some barbed wire fence, that took four…. Ouch!" I yelped. Whatever liquid was in that vile stung like a bitch.
"And..?" Fili asked.
"…and the last time was when I was doing a training exercise in the army. My sparring partner got a little overzealous and caught me across the forehead with her pugil stick. Normally, the damn things are supposed to be padded, but unfortunately the cloth had worn away and I took the edge of a very sharp object to the forehead. That took nine stitches. I still have a scar from that one,"
"Whats a pew-gul stick?" Fili asked.
"Its…. A staff that's about four feet long with padding at either end and a grip in the middle. We used it to do…. Fucking rat bastard!" I stopped there as the needle pierced my skin for the first time. Kili and Fili bit back grins at my curse and I flipped them off. The motion turned out to be useless, though, since apparently that was one insult that did not bridge the culture gap.
"What did you use them for?" Kili prompted, his eyes still lit up with the effort to not laugh at my outburst. I glared at him.
"Beating the shit out of each other and obnoxious dwarves who can't not laugh at someone else s pain!" I closed my eyes and grit my teeth.
"What other kind of training did you do?"
"Running. Ruck marches. That's where we basically loaded up a whole ton gear and walked and jogged long distances. We had target practice. Hand-to-hand combat. Exercise. We did drills and formations…. Ah bitch faced twat waffle!"
By now, my cursing had been heard by most of the company and I found that suddenly, I had quite the audience.
"You were in an army, lass?" Balin asked.
"Ahhhh yeah." I cleared my throat. "Was in for four, almost five years."
"Where you ever in any battles?" Ori asked softly. I looked in his direction.
"Yeah," I said softly. "I was deployed to 'enemy territory' twice. Once for 12 months, the second for 14 months."
There was a pause as Oin tugged another stitch through. He had hit the dead center of the gash now, where it was swollen and bruised the most. Apparently, the thread got stuck because he gave it a particularly hard tug.
"Mother fucking douche canoe…!" I yelled. I let out a sharp breath and tried to even my breathing. At home at least when I had gotten stitches, the shit had been numbed first. The dwarves looked at me, shocked for a moment and I realized what I had just said. Given the culture, 'mother fucker' may have been a bit crass, even for them.
"….What is a 'dou-sh canoe'" Ori asked innocently. My eyes popped open and I almost choked on shocked laughter.
"Oh my god, of all the things I said, THAT'S what you picked up on?" I fought the urge to smack my forehead.
"Alright, lads, stop makin' in her laugh. It will make my stitches crooked and it will scar more." Oin scolded, looking up sternly.
"Wouldn't be the first scar I've gotten, and it probably wont be the last," I said, wincing again.
"What kind of scars does a lass like you have?" Nori asked.
"Mostly from stupid little accident like this - ouch! - because I was a clumsy as hell as a kid. But I have a few battle wounds, so to speak." The dwarves waited expectantly.
"Well, as I was telling these guys, I took a staff to the forehead here," I said, turning my head slightly and using my free arm to push back my hair. I still had a two inch long scar there under my hairline. "I have one on my forearm from the barbed wire incident… -Ouch! Dammit, dwarf, are you almost done?"
Oin gave a dry chuckle.
"One last one, lassie." I let out a huff and watched with morbid fascination as the needle pierced my skin for the last time. He tied it off into a neat stitch, wiped away the blood, and began to wrap my arm up..
"You can add another eight stitches to your record," He said as he wiped off his hand.
"Thank you, Master Oin," I said with sincerity. He offered up a brief smile.
"You are welcome." He said simply. I shrugged my other sleeve off. Now that I was near the fire, it was rather warm. Noticing the dwarves still looking on expectantly, I turned my arm a little and pointed out the thin white scar from the barbed wire.
"The only other scar I really have is here," I said, touched the hollow under my collar bone on the right side. I tugged the collar of my shirt down just enough for them to see the small almost start shaped scar.
'Whats that from, then?" Dori asked.
"I was shot," I answered simply. I didn't really want to get into the specifics of fire arms. It would be too difficult to try to explain the sort of wars we waged at home, and with what weapons. "There was thirty of us .My team and I were in a quiet market place when our enemy sprung out of nowhere. It was supposed to be a routine march. Nothing serious. We were in what was supposed to be a safety zone, for fucks sake," I paused and felt myself growing a little distant as I remembered. "One of my team-mates was killed before we really knew what happened. We all ducked down into the nearby buildings for cover, civilians screaming and running. It was chaotic. See, where we were… Our enemies were dressed just as civilians. As normal, every day people. It wasn't until you saw a weapon in their hand that you knew who to shoot.
"We were pinned down for a few minutes before we really realized where we were being shot upon from. By then, we had lost two of our members and another three were on the ground bleeding. We took down eight, ten, then fifteen of them, but they kept coming. At one point, one of them rushed forward and was about to shoot my battle while her attention was turned on another, and I stood up and shot him. For my efforts, I was shot back. I was caught here," I said softly, touching the scar, "But luckily it came right out of the back," I leaned forward and showed the slightly larger scar on the other side of my shoulder.
"My battle, Sergeant 1st Class Alicia Andrews, dragged me back behind a low wall. She propped me up enough that I could still shoot…
"It felt like hours, but really it had only been about twenty, maybe twenty five minutes. In the end, thirty-nine of our enemy lay dead and another four would not live to see the next day. Three more were taken prisoner and who knows how many ran. Our team lost four good soldiers that day. Two more were sent home. One of them will never walk again. Eight more of us were injured. Andrews received a medal for saving my ass. She gave it to me, said I deserved it for saving her ass first. I tried to give it back but" I gave a dry laugh and felt a tear trickle down my face and I didn't bother to wipe it away, "that shit always managed to hide it back in my stuff, somewhere."
I looked up and was surprised to find the eyes of thirteen dwarves and one hobbit on me. Most of the older dwarves had far away looks in their eyes as if they too were remembering battles of the past. The friends left behind and the dead they had buried.