To the person that made a Legend of Zelda reference in the reviews, good on ya. To the rest of you, as well as that guy, I wanted to apologize for not uploading this yesterday. I didn't get home until very late, and I passed out as soon as I did.
Anyway, regularly scheduled chapter uploading will resume next week.
Let's finish this.
Cheyanne paced restlessly before the door, gnawing on a thumbnail. She hadn't been able to see Bilbo off, and the fact lay uneasily on her shoulders. What if something were to change suddenly, and send Bilbo to his death? She would never speak with him again, and that would be it. She would have lost her cousin forever.
She stopped walking abruptly, shaking her head. "Not my cousin," she whispered hoarsely. "He is not my cousin."
"Cheyanne." She winced as someone rested a hand on her shoulder, turning to see who it was. Dwalin was watching her, eyebrows drawn. "Are you alright?"
"H-He's in there. By himself. With a dragon. Do you really think I'm alright, Dwalin?" she asked him, voice breaking. It wasn't until she brought her hands up to cover her face that she realized she was trembling. She clasped her hands to try and stop them from shaking so violently.
"Cheyanne, you need to relax," said Dwalin. He took her hands and rubbed them together between his comfortingly. "You know Bilbo is going to be fine. You are worrying yourself over nothing."
Cheyanne attempted to let out a breath. It came out in different clips, harsh and gravelly. She saw Thorin glance over when he heard this, and he approached, eyes clearly searching her for signs of sickness. "What is the matter with you?" he queried gently, taking her arm.
She shook her head quickly. "N-Nothing. I'm fine. I-I promise." She tried to stumble away from him, but her feet wouldn't cooperate.
"That's the worst lie you've ever told, and I know when you've told lies," Thorin told her. "Maybe you should go back to Lake-town."
"No." Cheyanne pulled her arm from his grasp. "I'm already here, and I'm not leaving until Bilbo is safely out of that mountain!"
Before Thorin could say anything in response, a tremor went through the whole mountain. Cheyanne bounced on her feet, and she turned her eyes towards the door.
"Was that an earthquake?" Dori questioned, standing up in fear.
"That, my lad," Balin began, taking a step away from the mountain, "was a dragon."
"Bilbo," Cheyanne whispered without meaning too. She started forward, but Thorin grabbed her and held her back.
"No."
"He's-"
"We knew all along the dragon was awake," Thorin said, turning her around, away from the door. "Bilbo knew, and he went down there all the same."
"He went down there because he didn't want to disappoint you!" she exclaimed, all fear forgotten. She struggled against the hold he had on her shoulders, trying to get away. "Bilbo is terrified you don't trust him."
"Why?" asked Thorin. "Haven't I made it clear that he's very important to this quest?"
"The quest, Thorin." Cheyanne sighed and bowed her head. "It's always about the quest, right? You don't think about anything else. If Bilbo were to fail at his job, you would go mad, and not with grief." She pulled against his grasp again. "I hate to think of what you might do if I'm wrong."
Or what you'll do if I'm right.
Thorin started to say something in response, but he changed his mind and let go of her arms. Cheyanne backed away from him with a shake of her head. "You're changed, Thorin. It wasn't always about getting the Arkenstone. It used to be about winning back Erebor. Do you not care about that anymore?"
As a reply, her stepped forward and took her chin in his hand. "In order to win my back home, I need the Arkenstone," he told her firmly. "You've always known that."
Cheyanne began to shake her head, but Thorin moved his hand to the back of her neck, and she relaxed at his touch, remembering the night before, and how sweet he had been. The warmth of his hand seemed to seep right into her skin, and he gave her a small smile. "Cheyanne, I need you to trust me. You know what happens, yes? You know everything is going to be fine."
"Thorin, you don't need the Arkenstone. Smaug is not killed by the armies of dwarves. The King's Jewel gives you nothing," she blurted out, in one last vain attempt to change his mind.
She saw something change behind Thorin's eyes, and for a moment, she thought she had done it. Thorin glanced towards the secret door, frowning, before he looked back at her again.
"The King's Jewel will give me the right to rule," he said. "Without it, no one will see me as King Under the Mountain."
"A shiny rock doesn't give you the right to be a king, Thorin," she whispered quietly. "What you chose to do is what gives you the right. And at the moment…" She pulled away from him. "I don't see you as a king."
Orange light burned out of the passage, reflecting his eyes, which were locked on her intensely. Cheyanne turned sharply towards the mountain, and she choked out a gasp before running towards the door.
Dwalin was standing near it, and he grabbed her before she could sprint through. She struggled as he pulled her backwards, away from the door, and Balin stalked towards Thorin. "What about Bilbo?" the dwarf asked him.
Thorin glanced in Cheyanne's direction. She gazed at him in desperation, and Thorin turned back to Balin. "Give him more time," he decided. Cheyanne slumped against Dwalin's arms, all fight evaporating from her.
"More time to do what?" demanded Balin. Thorin stopped walking away. "To be killed?"
"You're afraid," Thorin said dryly, not turning to look at him.
Yes, I'm afraid," Balin said bravely. "I fear for you. There is a sickness on that treasure hoard, a sickness that drove your grandfather mad."
"I am not my grandfather," Thorin said under his breath.
"You're not yourself!" exclaimed Balin. "The Thorin I know would not hesitate to go in there-"
"I will not risk this quest for the life of one burglar!"
Immediately, the fight returned to her when she heard how easily Thorin had discarded Bilbo. She struggled against Dwalin's arms, rage turning her vision red, but the dwarf held fast. Clearly, he wasn't going to let her claw out Thorin's eyes.
Balin didn't get angry. Instead, he stared at Thorin in disappointment and pity. "Bilbo," he said softly. "His name is Bilbo."
Thorin didn't turn to look at him. He instead walked away from them all and went to the edge of the cliff, staring out into the night. Cheyanne continued to pull against Dwalin's grasp. He wasn't budging.
"I'm not going to go into the mountain. I promise," she swore to him.
Dwalin held onto her for a moment longer before he let her go free with a grunt. She cast a glance towards the secret entrance before she slowly stepped towards Thorin.
"Balin's right," she said quietly. "You're already thinking about the treasure. It's going to tear you apart, Thorin."
"I will not let it do to me what it did to my grandfather," responded Thorin. His voice was gruff, annoyed.
"You already are," Cheyanne said. "As soon as you decided to retrieve the Arkenstone, you were putting the treasure before the company and the quest." She gazed at his back. "That wealth is going to be the death of you."
Thorin turned around sharply and gave her a look that clearly said she'd spoke far out of turn. "I suggest you keep any further thoughts to yourself," he growled dangerously.
Cheyanne bowed her head and said no more on the matter. She was doing nothing but making him angry. She wasn't, however, about to let Bilbo die because of him. "If you won't go to help Bilbo, I will." She turned and started for the mountain, but her steps faltered as she got closer and the whispering came back. She retreated slightly with a shudder before she steeled herself and started forward again.
Someone grabbed the back of her shirt and pulled her to a halt. "You will not go into the mountain." Thorin's voice was in her ear, breath hot against her skin. Without another word, the dwarf pulled his sword from its scabbard and released her before heading into the passage.
It wasn't until Balin shook his head sadly that she realized her fear for Bilbo had just brought an end to Thorin's own safety outside the mountain.
"What have I done?" she whispered to herself as the rest of the company hurried into Erebor after Thorin. She stared blankly at the passageway entrance, all thoughts evaporating. Thorin. She had just sent Thorin into Erebor. She'd just set the sickness into motion, like a sneeze started up a cold. She had fired the gun, and the race to insanity had begun.
She snapped back to attention, realizing the whole company was inside the mountain now. Thorin had told her not to go in, but she couldn't just let them stand up against Smaug without her, even though they had done it perfectly well before. Cheyanne quickly swallowed a breath and hitched up her pants in mock bravery. "I'm comin' for ya, mountain!" she shouted, putting serious emphasis into her accent.
She stormed into the passage, blocking out the voices. As soon as she was inside, the voices disappeared, stopping, and so did she in surprise. She then started to laugh at herself and how ridiculous her accent had just sounded. "Jon would kill me," she breathed, slumping forward with laughter.
She let out a breath to calm herself down and straightened up, the task at hand returning to her mind. "I have to save them!" she told herself firmly.
She crept down the passage, and the mountain shuddered again. A loose stone fell from the roof and landed on the ground in front of her, clattering down the tunnel noisily. Cheyanne paused and waited until the sound had faded away from continuing on.
She reached the end of the passage and had to stop as it opened out into a wide open space. High ceilings were way above her, and walkways dotted the whole area, most of them higher up than her, but some were parallel to the one she was standing on. Each one connected a level of doors, which probably led to bedrooms of some sort. They would have needed a lot of them. It was then that she realized she had absolutely no idea where she was going.
Just as Cheyanne was about to sigh and give the walkway she was already on a shot, she heard someone shout in the distance. She looked up in surprise, recognizing the voice. "Dwalin."
Cheyanne sprinted up a set of stairs leading to another path above her. She followed the sound of Smaug's heavy footsteps as he chased after the dwarves, whom she knew were leading the dragon to the forging room. It wasn't hard to navigate once she pinpointed the sounds of shouts and the source of the smoke drifting through Erebor towards her. She walked into the forging room just as the company rushed through the tall pillars between the furnaces and the giant pit they had dropped Smaug into.
Bilbo spotted her first, and his eyes grew. "Chey!"
"Bilbo!" she exclaimed happily.
"Enough!" Thorin hissed. He hurried past the others to her and grabbed her arm. "What did I tell you? Why are you in here?"
Before Cheyanne could respond, there was an angry roar from the nearby pit. "The plan's not going to work!" Dwalin shouted from where he had run to the furnaces. "These furnaces are stone cold."
"He's right; we have no flame hot enough to set them ablaze," agreed Balin.
Thorin glanced away from Cheyanne in the direction where the company had come from, and Cheyanne saw orange light coming up from the pit. "Have we not?" Thorin asked darkly. He released her arm and hurried towards the direction of the light. "I did not look to see you so easily outwitted!" he shouted down into the pit.
Smaug appeared, and Cheyanne stumbled backwards in shock and fear. She hadn't imagines him to be that big. "You have grown slow and fat in your dotage," Thorin taunted the dragon. Smaug snarled at the dwarf, and Thorin frowned in disgust. "Slug."
The dragon crawled fully out of the pit and started towards them. Thorin ran backwards and behind one of the pillars that was standing between them and the dragon. "Take cover! Go!" he shouted.
Cheyanne grabbed Bilbo and yanked him behind a pillar just as Smaug unleashed his flame. The fire went by the company and into the furnaces. Cheyanne's face broke into a sweat, and she clenched her teeth at the pain as some of the fire singes through her jeans and burns her leg. Groaning, she fell against Bilbo, whom she'd pressed between herself and the pillar.
"Chey," he said, holding her up, "not today."
Behind her, the furnaces fwoosh up with fire and start to work. Bilbo helped her up straight again and pulled her away from the pillars as Smaug smashed his head against them in rage.
"Bombur, get those bellows going!" Thorin ordered.
"Alright!" the big dwarf agreed. He ran and jumped onto a chain beside one of the forges. The chain is yanked down by his weight, and he landed on the handle of one of the giant bellows. The flames turned blue from the air fanned into them.
Cheyanne swallowed back a curse as she glanced down at her leg to see the damage. The skin where she had been burned was black and blistering already. Not to mention how badly it hurt.
"Bilbo," Thorin said, causing her to look up again. He pointed to a lever that was built into the top of a tower-mound thing. "Up there, on my mark, pull that lever."
Bilbo glanced desperately at Cheyanne, clearly not wanting to leave her. She waved her hand. "Go, I'll follow." The hobbit scampered away towards the tower, and Cheyanne hobbled after him. Bilbo waited at the bottom of the stairs to help her up them, and they were halfway up when Smaug destroyed the pillars and rushed through. He began to walk towards them menacingly, and Cheyanne had to force herself to keep going without freezing in fear.
"Bilbo!" she said as she reached the top, and hurried over to the lever, waving her hand. "Come on!"
Bilbo rushed over to her and she boosted him up to the lever. He grabbed onto it, just as Thorin shouted, "Now!"
Bilbo yanked it downwards, and water immediately started to pour from the giant head fountains built into the wall around the tower Cheyanne and Bilbo were in. It poured all over Smaug, dousing the fire that had been burning in his throat. The dragon slid into the side of a furnace from the force of the water pushing against him. He roared in anger and flapped around, unable to do anything else because of the water. The water stopped abruptly, and Smaug stood, dripping, with a snarl.
He began to stalk towards Thorin again, and Bilbo waved his hand at Cheyanne. She struggled up to her feet and started after him down the stairs. A flash of light appeared in the corner of her eye as she did so; it was Balin with his flash flame, chucking jars of the stuff at the dragon. Smaug was unfazed by this, and he continued forward without even flinching. Just as he was about to reach Thorin, a ton of rocks fell on top of the dragon from a mine-cart that someone had cut the cable off of. Smaug fell to the ground with a roar.
Cheyanne watched Thorin sprint over to a furnace and yank a chain. Molten gold poured from the door in the side that slid open and into troughs that are built into the floor. "Lead him to the Gallery of the Kings!" he shouted, turning and running away from the furnaces.
"The what?" Bilbo exclaimed from beside Cheyanne. A bucket flew towards them both, and Cheyanne pulled Bilbo down in a crouch. It sailed over their heads and crashed into the wall behind them, sending stone in a many different directions.
Cheyanne clambered back to a standing position, and, holding her burned thigh, led Bilbo towards the others. Thorin rode past them in a wheelbarrow down a stream of gold in a trough. Smaug whipped his head and tail, still stuck in the conveyor belt of rocks that had been dumped onto him. He managed to rid himself of it and roared.
He spotted Cheyanne and Bilbo, and snarled. "Keep going!" Thorin shouted at them as he went through the entrance of the forge room. "Run!"
Bilbo glanced around in worry, and Cheyanne shoved him forward. "Chey, no!" the hobbit cried. Smaug charged right at him.
"Go!" Cheyanne screamed, hopping away into the shadows.
Bilbo turned tail and sprinted out of the forge. Smaug passed right by the place Cheyanne was hiding, running after the hobbit. The dwarves had disappeared as well. Cheyanne stumbled out of the shadows and hurried in the direction Bilbo had gone, stopping and glancing down a side hall as she came out of the forge.
As a last minute decision, she turned and headed down the hall instead, praying it would take her to the Gallery of the Kings, and get her there before Smaug and Bilbo.
(*)
She halted as soon as she ran out of a long hallway into a great hall. Stopping in the middle, she gazed around at all the tapestries hanging up, each decorated with something commemorating a King Under the Mountain. By some miraculous turn of events, she had managed to reach the Gallery of the Kings before Bilbo and the dragon.
Almost as though her thoughts had summoned him, Bilbo sprinted through a tall archway at one end of the hall, slipping and skidding along the smooth floor. He drew himself up short as soon as he entered, panting.
"Bilbo," Cheyanne said. Her voice reverberated off of the walls of the empty hall, and Bilbo looked up in surprise. He started to move towards her, but the ground shook as Smaug neared the room. Cheyanne quickly ran out of the center of the hall towards the passage she'd come out of.
She ducked around the corner just as Smaug thundered his way into the Gallery. Cheyanne closed her eyes tightly and pressed her back against the left wall of the passage, praying Bilbo had managed to hide. Smaug's footsteps set an earthquake through the ground as he walked down the hall, and Cheyanne released a breath of relief.
The evil, gravelly voice of Benedict Cumberbatch seemed to shake the hall as a whole. "You think you could deceive me, Barrel-rider?" he asked, speaking to Bilbo. Cheyanne pressed herself further back against the wall as the dragon moved closer to her hiding spot. "You have come from Lake-town. There is some sort of scheme hatched between these filthy dwarves and those miserable cup-trading Lakemen. Those sniveling cowards with their longbows and black arrows."
Cheyanne heard his voice break as he mentioned the black arrows. He stopped moving just outside of the hall she was in. "Perhaps it is time I paid them a visit," he mused, and Cheyanne shuddered internally.
"No," she decided in a whisper. She stepped out of the hallway right in front of the dragon, planting her feet. "You are not going to go to Lake-town!" she told Smaug. She was trying to sound firm, but her voice was shaking as she gazed upon the dragon fully.
"Who are you to tell me no?" Smaug questioned, looking down at her, more curious than angry.
"Someone that you don't want to burn with fire?" Cheyanne attempted. The dragon's throat burned orange, and she quickly said, "If you do, you won't know what I can tell you."
She glanced upwards and saw the light disappear from the dragon's neck. Smaug tilted his big head in question, and Cheyanne said, "If you go to Lake-town, you will be killed."
Immediately, Smaug let out a laugh. "Do you expect me to believe you, human?" he asked, leering down far enough to stick his snout in her face. Cheyanne gazed bravely into the dragon's eyes, flinching when she met his stare. "You lie to your friends about who you are, why would you not lie to me?"
Cheyanne frowned. "How do you know about that?" she demanded.
Smaug ignored the question. "What would you do if the lie you coated yourself in was stripped away, burned right off of you like the flesh from your bones?" He grinned toothily when she didn't respond, and rose back up to his full height. "I would suggest you discover why you are here, human," he told her, shaking out his wings, preparing for flight. "You don't have much time."
He started to walk away down the hall to the archway at the opposite end, which would lead him out into Erebor and towards the main doors. Cheyanne stood dumbly in place as the dragon strolled right past her. How had he known there was a reason for her being there?
"Wait-"
"Here!" Thorin's shout cut her off, his voice booming around the Gallery of the Kings. Smaug stopped and slowly turned around, a snarl growing on his lips.
Bilbo skirted around the dragon as he stalked back towards where Thorin was standing on a stone statue, and he tackled Cheyanne into the hall she'd been hiding in. They landed on the ground, and Cheyanne winced at the pain in her leg as the hobbit shook her. "What were you doing?' he demanded, glaring at her angrily. "You could have been killed!"
Cheyanne blinked. Bilbo had basically repeated the very thing Thorin had said to him on the Carrock. "I thought that… Maybe I could stop him," she whispered, closing her eyes and pushing the hobbit off of her. She crawled to the wall and stood up before looking down at him, more important matters in mind. "Bilbo, listen to me. I need you to keep-"
"I am King Under the Mountain!" Smaug's voice rattled around inside her brain, and she wobbled slightly. The shout was still echoing around the hall when Thorin met it with a shout of his own.
"This is not your kingdom!" he yelled. "These are dwarf lands, this is dwarf gold." Cheyanne poked her head out from around the wall and saw the dwarf grab the chain hanging next to him. "And we will have our revenge!"
She ducked back as he shouted a commanded in Khuzdul just as Smaug's throat began to turn orange. Cheyanne leaned out again. The giant golden dwarf that had been hidden by the stone mold gleamed despite the shadows of the Gallery. It seemed to have an inner glow.
Cheyanne almost stepped out of the passage in awe, but Bilbo grabbed the end of her shirt and pulled her to a halt. "No, Cheyanne!" he hissed to her.
She snapped back to focus and looked from the statue to Smaug. The dragon stepped closer to the statue, his greed almost like tangible pulses in the air. There's a momentary pause as dragon stared into the eyes of dwarf before the gold of the statue's eye explodes. It poured molten out over the hall, and Smaug.
The dragon roared in rage and pain as the force of the gold pushed him further into the hall. Cheyanne turned and shoved Bilbo down the passage as the gold goes past the archway. Smaug fell from the burn of the gold on his scales and roared loudly in desperation when he cannot stand back up.
The gold washed over him completely, covering him like a blanket, and then lay still.
Cheyanne studied it for a moment, and then shook her head. "Fire cannot kill a dragon," she whispered quietly before giving herself a kick in the behind with her good leg.
Smaug burst up through the gold with a roar. He shook out his wings briefly, screeching. "Revenge? Revenge?! I will show you revenge!"
He ran down the hall before spreading out his wings and taking flight. Cheyanne and Bilbo exchange a look before they turned and hurried down the passage they were in. "He's going to the doors!" she told the hobbit as they run, or rather, he ran and she hobbled.
The two of them raced through Erebor towards the main doors just as Smaug flew from another hall, wings spread out to their full length. He flew past them both, ignoring them entirely. Cheyanne knew it was pointless now. She held out her arm and halted Bilbo.
Smaug flew through the doors of Erebor with a crash. Rubble fell to the floor, shattering on impact to smaller pieces. Once the dragon was out of the mountain, Cheyanne allowed Bilbo to continue running. Cheyanne didn't follow immediately. She lifted her head and let out a breath of shock. The main hall of Erebor was giant. Three layers of pathways lining the walls were above the main level she was on, and there were more below her. To her left was an archway leading up to a set up stairs that most likely led to the throne hall.
She couldn't believe it. Erebor was spectacular.
She shook her head and hurried towards the doors to her left, pushing her way through the wreckage and outside. Bilbo had crawled up onto the top of a fallen boulder. Cheyanne raised her eyes to the sky and watched Smaug twirl through the air, ridding himself of gold on his scales. It rained down towards Cheyanne and Bilbo, and Cheyanne covered her eyes with her arm for a moment to keep them safe of hot gold droplets.
She uncovered her eyes and saw Smaug was flying away in the direction of Lake-town. It was sitting innocently on the Long Lake in the distance, unknowing at the moment to the destruction that was flying towards them. Not for long, though.
But all will fail in sadness, and the lake will shine and burn, Cheyanne though to herself bitterly.
She could almost hear Smaug's final lines of the movie as she watched him fly away, and they seemed to come back to her from the distance. "I am fire. I am… Death."
Bilbo gaped up at the dragon, unmoving. He looked terrified and his eyes widdened in despair. "What have we done?" he whispered to himself, though Cheyanne shook her head in response.
She gazed up at the dark mass of dragon that was flying through the air. He had known she was human. He had known she was there for a reason. What reason?
And who else knew?
Hmm, who else knows, I wonder.
Well, guess we'll find out in The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies (Maybe I Won't Go Back Again).
See you guys next week.