Well. It's getting to that point, folks.
The point in which the story is over.
We have like... Three or so chapters after this one, but then... It's over. That's it.
Let's make these last few chapters good ones.
Cheyanne reached the battlefield and looked around for a way to get to Ravenhill quicker than just by running. Before she spotted anything, she was knocked off of her feet to the ground with a grunt of surprise. Quickly, she jumped back up and pulled an arrow back in the string of the bow she was holding.
"Show yourself!" she commanded no one in specific.
"Cheyanne!" Bilbo appeared out of nowhere, literally, and waved his hands. He was holding something gold in one, and she let out a breath.
"What in Nessa's name are you doing?" she demanded, lowering her bow.
"I have to get to Thorin and the others," Bilbo told her. "I have to warn them."
"What are you talking about? Where are they?" Bilbo's eyes looked past her, and she turned, choking on her breath when she saw Fili, Kili, Dwalin and Thorin riding towards Ravenhill on the back of long-horn sheep. "What are they doing?" she hissed under her breath.
"They're going to go take out Azog," Bilbo explained quickly, "but Bolg is leading another army of Orcs from Gundabad to Ravenhill. It's a trap."
"Thorin…" Cheyanne breathed. She shook her head and turned to Bilbo. "Let's go, and fast."
"I-" Bilbo cut off and shook his head. "Get to them, quickly." He started to turn away, and she grabbed the back of his coat.
"Where are you going?" she demanded.
"I'll explain when we have more time, I promise," he responded. "Now go!"
Cheyanne nodded once and turned, beginning to run towards Ravenhill. She dodged beneath dwarf fighting Orc, at one point passing Bombur swinging an axe through four Orcs at once. She shook her head as blood was spattered onto her face and continued running.
It took what felt like an age to reach the foot of Ravenhill, and by the time she did, she was out of breath. She sucked in some air and looked up at the hill, wondering how she was supposed to climb up it. Determined, she slung her bow over the sheath of arrows on her back and placed one bare foot on a rock jutting out of the hill.
One rock at a time, she started her way up, chanting the name of each company member in her mind as she did so. She also chanted the names of those back in the Shire, including her friend Jon's name. She added her parents to the list, and Gandalf as well. There was no reason to not include Thranduil and Bard, either.
She reached the top of the hill and found herself standing in a ruin of sorts. She didn't know where she was exactly, but she noticed movement outside of the ruin she was in. Quickly, she scurried to the window and found herself gazing upwards at another ruin. She spotted Fili walk by a window on it, and she sucked in a breath as an Orc snuck after him.
Quickly, she pulled an arrow and aimed, just as the Orc lifted his sword to attack Fili. She released a puff of air and sent up a pray to the Valar. "Let this work," she whispered, and then released the arrow. It didn't hit the Orc, but it did hit the wall behind him, which caused him to turn away from Fili.
Fili, who must have heard the sound, whipped around and saw the Orc behind him. Without hesitation, he stuck a knife through its throat and pulled it back out. The Orc disappeared from view, and Cheyanne let out a relieved breath.
Fili looked out the window, and Cheyanne waved a hand at him. The dwarf grinned and nodded gratefully to her.
There was a noise from somewhere above her, and Cheyanne turned and headed up the stairs behind her up to the next level. As she did so, she found herself walking out onto a balcony of sorts. Thorin was there, along with Dwalin, and just as she stepped out, so did Bilbo who, again, appeared out of nowhere.
"Thorin!" he gasped.
The dwarf turned, and his eyes widened when he saw them both. "What are you two doing here?" he exclaimed, walking forward and putting his hand on the back of Cheyanne's neck.
"There is a second army of Orcs coming from the north," Bilbo told him before Cheyanne could. "From Gundabad."
"The filth!" Dwalin exclaimed. "This has been their plan all along!"
Thorin's eyes widened slightly, and he turned away from Cheyanne towards the tower opposite of him. "Fili and Kili."
"Thorin!" Fili ran up to them from another ruin attached to the balcony they were on.
Thorin let out a breath of relief and pulled Fili to him in a hug. "I'm glad you're safe." He released the dwarf. "Where is your brother?"
Cheyanne's eyes immediately turned to the tower. "Why did you leave him?" she asked Fili.
"I- I thought I could face Azog on my own," the dwarf responded. "I sent him to search the lower levels."
Cheyanne turned her gaze downwards slightly and saw Kili standing before a window on a lower floor. His eyes met hers, and she let out a silent sigh relief when he nodded and disappeared. He was returning to them.
There was a shout in Black Speech from higher up on the tower, and Cheyanne pulled an arrow out and back in the string. Azog appeared with several Orcs behind him, and she aimed, ready to let the arrow fly.
Thorin held up his hand. "No," he growled. "He is mine."
As Azog began to speak, Kili ran out of the same ruin Fili had. The two brothers embraced one another tightly, and Cheyanne, who had no idea what the Orc was saying, assumed he was threatening Thorin in some way or another.
That's when she heard the sound of marching.
The company members on the balcony all turned towards the horizon to the north. Over it came the second army of Orcs, all of them shouting something in Black Speech. Azog shouted it back, and then disappeared. Kili started to run back towards the tower, but Fili grabbed the back of his chest plate before he could.
"Don't go back over there," he said. "This is a trap. He wants us to chase him."
Thorin eyed the tower as Dwalin glanced from the army towards him. "What would you have us do, Thorin?"
Cheyanne met Thorin's gaze as he turned back to them all. "I want you to stay here and fight off those Orcs," he answered, pointing towards the oncoming army. He then glanced up at the tower. "I'm going to go and kill Azog."
"No," Cheyanne argued immediately. "Not on your own. I won't allow it."
"Cheyanne, you can't stop me from doing this," Thorin answered. "This is what I must do, and I will do whatever I have to in order to see it done."
"Then at least let me come with you!" she exclaimed.
Thorin shook his head. "I won't risk you."
"Then why do you think I'm going to risk you?" she shouted at him. Without another word, she turned and headed for the ruin Kili and Fili had come from. Thorin grabbed her vest and pulled her to a halt. "Let me go!"
"You are going to stay here and fight the army of Orcs," Thorin told her. "That's the end of this discussion."
"Thorin, don't-" She cut off and tried to find words. "Don't make me lose my battle in order to win yours."
She saw understand go across Thorin's face, and he silently placed a kiss on her forehead before he looked at Dwalin. "Make sure she doesn't leave." He let her go and ran away from them towards the tower. Cheyanne watched him go for a few seconds before looking at Dwalin.
The dwarf merely nodded, and she sprinted towards the ruin. Ducking underneath rubble and fallen rock, she worked her way towards the tower Azog had been standing in not a few minutes before. She would be able to help Thorin from up high, shoot arrows at whatever he would be fighting from a higher point of view.
As she raced up the stairs of the tower, she glanced out the windows and saw Thorin standing on an iced-over river, fighting against Orcs that ran at him from everywhere. She also noticed arrows flying into one every so often, and she frowned. Who was that?
She reached the level Azog and his Orcs had been standing on and walked out onto the balcony, pulling out an arrow. She glanced around for the source of the other arrows, and saw the blonde Wood-Elf Legolas standing on top of a statue, shooting the Orcs.
She grinned to herself and took aim. Hers wasn't nearly as good as Legolas's, but she managed to bring down an Orc long enough for Thorin to kill it. He looked up when he realized the arrow had come from a different direction than Legolas's, and he spotted her.
Cheyanne shook her head at him and shot another arrow into an Orc that was running at him from behind. Thorin turned around and finished it off. Cheyanne saw Legolas pause in his shooting of arrows as he turned in a different direction, and she allowed another arrow to fly before following his gaze.
She spotted the redheaded She-Elf Tauriel fighting against an Orc of her own. She wasn't doing to good, either. Legolas didn't like the looks of it. He jumped from the tower onto the back of a giant troll-like thing and rammed it into the statue he'd been standing on.
It fell over onto the other side of the ruin, where Tauriel was fighting, and he ran across it to help her.
Cheyanne turned away from this and continued to take aim and shoot Orcs for Thorin. There weren't nearly as many as there had been before; most of them lay dead on the ice river around him. Thorin killed two Orcs faster than she pulled a new arrow back on her string.
She watched Thorin kill off another Orc as one snuck up behind him. She reached backwards to pull an arrow from her sheath, and grabbed at air. She was out. Panicking, she hurried off of the balcony and started to run down the stairs and out of the tower. She reached the bottom floor just as Thorin shoved the now dead Orc off of him, pulling a sword free from its chest as he did so. He rose to his feet, and Cheyanne let out a relieved sigh.
The sigh was cut short, however, as a heavy weight sent her flying across the river to the other side and into the wall of a ruin there. She heard something crack, and she gasped as she landed on the ice, hard, her bow falling from her hand and skidding away across the river.
She struggled to get back to her feet as Azog approached her, wielding a giant rock on a chain in one hand, and his other arm, a sword sharpened to a deadly point, glistened in the weak sunlight. The Orc stood over her for a moment, and she almost thought she saw pity in his gaze before he started to swing his rock.
Before Cheyanne could do as much as flinch, she heard Thorin shout and Azog growl in annoyance. She saw Thorin standing directly behind Azog as the Orc turned to face him. He swung his boulder, and Thorin dodged out of the way, rolling up to his feet as the rock crashed into the thick ice where he had previously stood.
Cheyanne crawled towards her bow, grunting as she did so. Whatever had happened to her had broken something and it hurt. Really bad. She had to stop every few seconds and get her breath back before she could continue to scoot towards her bow. It seemed like it was eight hundred miles away from her, and she didn't feel herself getting any closer.
She stopped again when she realized she no longer heard Thorin grunting with every dodge, and she looked up to see why he had stopped.
Azog and Thorin were facing one another, Thorin's back to her. Azog's face was wracked with horror as he looked at something beyond Thorin. Cheyanne rolled over to see what it was he was staring at, and found herself watching giant birds fly over Ravenhill towards Erebor.
"The Eagles," she breathed when her eyes focused. She let out a laugh and continued to crawl towards her bow, the knowledge of the Eagles arriving to help giving her more strength. She reached her bow just as she heard Azog growl in rage, and she turned her head in the direction he and Thorin had been. The Orc was gone, and the ice where he had been standing was bobbing back and forth.
Thorin bent down and picked up his sword from the ice. "What did you do?" Cheyanne asked him, her voice hoarse and ragged.
Thorin turned to look at her. "I made him sink," he told her with a smirk.
Cheyanne returned it and reached over to grab her bow. Just as she was about to pick it up, she heard Thorin cry out in pain, and she turned sharply in his direction. Azog rose up from the ice and pushed Thorin onto his back against it, climbing on top of the dwarf. Thorin held up his sword just in time and pushed it between a gap on Azog's blade-arm, holding the sword away from his chest.
Cheyanne grabbed her bow and looked around for an arrow to shoot Azog with. As she rolled over to look in the other direction, something dug into her side, and she let out a gasp. Reaching into the pocket on her vest, she withdrew the crystal Thorin had given her.
Looking at it gave her an idea. She lifted her bow and pulled the crystal back in the string as far as she could from her position on the ground. With a yell, she released the string, and the crystal flew through the air.
It hit Azog on the head, and it seemed to explode when it made impact with the Orc. Azog roared in pain, falling backwards off of Thorin. The dwarf immediately rose and stabbed Azog through the heart. Azog gagged as Orcrist went through his chest, and Thorin rolled him over onto his back.
Cheyanne heard ice crack as Thorin shoved the blade so deeply into Azog it went clear through him and cut into the ice. Azog was dead.
Thorin rose to a standing position, breathing heavily. He gazed down at the Orc for a long moment before he looked up and spotted Cheyanne. She grinned at him. "Guess it's a good thing you wanted to apologize for being awful to me," she saw with a chuckle.
Thorin hurried towards her, limping badly on one foot. He fell to his knees next to her and gingerly rolled her over onto her back. Cheyanne sucked in a sharp inhale of air at the pain, her vision starting to go black from how intense it was. She forced herself to stay awake, however. She had something she needed to say to Thorin.
She gazed up at her king as he prodded at her chest with gentle hands, looking for a cause. "A broken rib," he said after he searched for a moment. "You'll be fine if you don't move for a few days."
"Thorin-" She cut off as he touched the rib, letting out a curse of pain. "Nessa that hurt!"
"I'm sorry," Thorin said quietly.
She shook her head and met his gaze. "Thorin, I have something I need to tell you."
"Cheyanne!" Her cousin ran towards them across the ice, slipping and skidding. He sat down next to her and gazed down at her in worry. "Are you alright?" he demanded.
"I'm fine," she answered weakly, not taking her eyes off of Thorin. "Thorin-"
Fili, Kili and Dwalin approached them, and Dwalin squatted down to inspect Thorin's foot. "We need to wrap that."
"Can I tell Thorin what I need to say before I faint, please?" Cheyanne asked, trying to keep a level head, but not achieving her goal. The question came out as more of a command.
Dwalin and the others retreated with mutters, and Cheyanne met Thorin's eyes. "I… I don't know why it took so long for me to realize it," she said quietly, "but I love you, Thorin Oakenshield."
She looked away from him and gazed up at the sky. The Eagles were circling over the battle before Erebor, diving down in pairs every so often. She grinned deliriously to herself as her vision darkened around the edges and then went black completely.
See, in The Hobbit, as in the book, Bilbo passes out as soon as he sees the Eagles. It happens in the movie, too, I'm pretty sure, so I was like, "Y'know, let's do that to Cheyanne, just not in the same exact way."
So, that was that.
Uh... Yeah. That was that.
I'll see you guys next week.
Thank you.