It was raining. Not a light, easy rain, but the kind which crept through the skin and seeped into the bones. Evie felt the rain as if it was living in her very soul, as if it had sunk into her body and she was wet from the inside out. Her hair stuck to her forehead in a slick, heavy sheet, and her clothes weighed her down as she trudged forward through the storm. They were so close, too close, to turn back now, but each step seemed harder than the last. She was still with Fildur, and they were each riding a pony, yet even those creatures despaired to be in the cold, fighting against the elements to press on. The two companions said nothing to one another – there was little which could be said, no comfort to be taken in the chill of the wind and the raucous pelting rain, and even if there was, it could not be heard over the howling wind and the sharp torrent. Evie's jaw was set as she spurred her pony on – they were only an hour or two away from Ered Luin, and if they could just continue… There was no sense in going back. The storm had been light when they had left their previous lodgings, not enough to discourage them from warm thoughts of Thorin and Dis, but the farther they pressed on the worse the storm became, as if nature itself was a force against their return to the mountains.

Evie swallowed, closing her eyes against the onslaught and tilting her head down to try and look around. The rain was falling so hard she could barely see a foot in front of her pony. She only hoped that the company was still on the path and that they were going in the right direction – she could not imagine being trapped in this deluge or the consequences if they became lost. No; after everything Evie had been through, no storm could stop her from returning to Ered Luin and fulfilling the promise she had made so long ago… She thought back to it, to when she had been injured in the goblin caves and her vague, hazy memories of a night rather like this day, when Thorin had drawn her close in some sort of makeshift shelter, perhaps it had just been a rock outcropping… She remembered so little of their travels together, she had been so weak, but of it all she remembered that night. She had been so scared, so fragile, and he had been her world in that moment. Her protector, her defender, her prince. Nothing else had mattered, and there was no one to judge the dying hobbit and the dwarf intent on saving her life. How far they had come since then, she could not fathom, and yet here she was once more, prey to the terrible force of nature. But this time she would prevail on her own, and it would be her who returned to Thorin and proved herself through the trial of such a storm.

Her whole life was a storm, she supposed, and it was only in the eye of it when she could see most clearly what she wanted when the sky cleared. She had never been more resolved of her future or what she wanted from it. She would return to Ered Luin, she would marry Thorin, and she would become queen. Thorin was a great king, no one doubted that truth, and if in his wisdom he had selected her as his partner, she would accept that he knew what was best for his people. She did not, but she would learn. Evie would use the rest of her life discovering what was best for Durin's Folk and trying to achieve it. And all this would be done at her husband's side. She would support and strengthen him, and together they would help root the dwarves of Erebor in Ered Luin and reach down deep into the mountainside until a new home could be born.

"What I wouldn't give for a good ale!"

Fildur shared, and Evie barely collected his words over the whistling wind and the sound of the rain crashing down to the earth in hard, cruel sheets. She tried to smile, but it was lost on them both and collected by a gust of wind which nearly knocked the hobbit off her pony, which sidestepped and almost tripped.

"We should find shelter!"

The dwarf added, desperation rising in his voice.

"No!"

It was all Evie could muster, and the sound was lost to the storm nearly as soon as it left her lips.

"We are too close!"

FIldur shook his head, angry at the hobbit's obstinacy although he shared her sentiment. He wanted nothing more in this world than a good drink, a warm fire to dry himself by, and Dis in his arms. And while the first two might be found at an inn off the path, the last and most important was only in Ered Luin. But what good would it be to return to the mountainside ill from the storm? He worried for Evie, and for himself – he wanted to go back, but he also wanted to do it in one piece.

Just as he had that thought, his fear was challenged – he cried out as the pony was knocked from under him as if by a power not of this world. Fildur was ripped from his mount and tossed to the side of the path like a child's doll, completely powerless against the elements which seemed so intent to use him as their plaything. He was now much wetter than before, no, he was surrounded by it, by the water; it was choking him –

One moment Evie had been looking forward and trying to discern whether or not they were still on the path, and the next she was fighting to find her future brother-in-law in a terrible haze. She heard his cry, but when she looked to where he had been, the dwarf was gone. Evie fell from her horse, searching frantically through the inundation for the tailor. Her foot slipped on a rock, and she barely caught herself on a bramble at the side of the path. There was a gorge next to the trail which was slick from the rain; dirt became mud and no doubt Fildur's mount had fallen down the slope and taken his rider with him.

"Fildur!"

She called out, her voice cracking and sounding far too soft against the noisy rush of the storm around them. She tried again, shouting as loud as she could but to no avail. The hobbit's heart beat frantically, pounding through her ears and her small frame as she tried to fight her sudden panic – where was he?! What if he hit his head on the way down!? Should she follow him, or would they both be trapped below? She blinked away raindrops from her eyes, fighting hysterically to see although the sky was dark and the sleet heavy. The wind and the rain assaulted her as if on the attack, and there was nothing for it but to follow Fildur into the abyss below.

Evie sent up a desperate prayer to Durin himself to save them, to let them go home to those of his line they loved so deeply, to permit them to have the future they had so recently secured for themselves. Perhaps Durin was listening, for as Evie slid down the craggy slope, her breath caught in her throat and her fingers tearing along the uneven ground behind her, she narrowly missed those dangerous rocks stuck in the mud and thick, gnarled branches protruding from the murk. She had no idea when she would reach the bottom, but when she was suddenly plunged into the flood collecting at the bottom of the small, climate made valley, she guessed that must be it. The current sucked her in immediately, and for one terrifying, heart stopping moment the hobbit was completely submerged. Her kind were naturally very afraid of water, and although the Tooks were known for their bravery, if Evie possessed one indomitable Shire quality it was that she never went anywhere near a large body of water if she could avoid it. A lake or river was all well and good to look at, as long as one did not get too close. Her childhood had been plagued with fire, with the scorching death of Grandfather Took and the desolation of the dragon Smaug and the legacy of her family within that story, and yet in this moment Evie realized that it was that other natural force, even more smothering for its artlessness, which would take her now. She was completely underwater, her arms flailing at her sides as she struggled wildly to find something, anything, to cling to – there, there it was! Her fingers skimmed the edge of something, but it was gone before she could hold onto it. She sobbed without thinking, without controlling herself, and more of her air supply was gone. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't see – panic rose in her chest until she thought she might faint from fear far before the water could take her. Perhaps that was better… No.

No, she was Evangeline Took of the Shire. She was to wed Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thrain and King at Ered Luin. She was not going to die here in the middle of Eriador, and she was certainly not going to drown. That was not, it could not be her fate. Evie made one last desperate flailing move to find the edge of the storm made river, and with the last of her strength she was rewarded by something solid which snagged on her fingers. She locked her arms around it, holding her body close to the object of her salvation and letting the rushing waves pounding around her pass her by. She climbed up on what she realized must be the root of a tree, and when she reached the surface she choked out the water in her throat and gasped for air, praising Durin for each haggard, wheezing breath.

But this was far from over – she was still alive, but where was Fildur?! She called out to him again; her voice even more tortured than before, but there was no response. She was afraid to let go of the root, but equally afraid to reach her future brother too late. Adrenaline pounded through her small body as she tried to decide what to do, how to find him… There was suddenly a loud and ominous crack of thunder, ripping through the noise of the flood around her and the relentlessly pouring rain. It made her jump, but still she clung helplessly to the root, her anchor in the lethal storm. There was a great flash of lightening above her, igniting the dark sky and reflecting upon the water. Her heart jumped – in the brief brightness it was like a fire had been momentarily lit upon the scene before her and for a split second the healer could see everything around her. But it was not enough, her eyes had not been fast enough… Evie waited for another flash, begged for it, trying to fight the panic threatening to make her senseless… This was all her fault, if they had just turned to the side and tried to find somewhere to hide as she and Thorin had done before and as Fildur had suggested…

The storm boomed around her once more, like a stone giant rubbing his knuckles together. Evie prepared herself, knowing what would come next and trying to use the brief flash of light to her full advantage and to find Fildur… The darkness before her was illuminated for another moment, and the raindrops flashed in her eyes as the light refracted off them. Evie's anxious grey eyes scanned the area before her, but she saw nothing that looked in the shape of a dwarf. She closed her eyes after the light was gone, trying to quell her panic and keep her wits. Fildur needed her to, if they were both to survive this. The hollow sky thundered once more, and she looked in the opposite direction than the last time the lightening blazed across the tumult around her. This was her chance…

There! There, along the ridge just behind her, a little above her… There was a body. It was him, it must be him! Evie's fingers dug into the mud around her and she braced herself as the hobbit pulled her small, struggling figure out of the rushing water and snaked up the slope, driving her fingers deep into the muck and catching her skin on rocks to secure herself. She hissed as she felt something cut into her flesh, but ignored the stinging sensation. She inched closer and closer to Fildur's prone figure, her body trembling as she realized he was not moving.

When she reached his side she collapsed beside him, lifting him up onto the angle of the incline and raising his head.

"Fildur, please!"

She begged him, pressing on his chest as she had been taught and trying to clear the water from his lungs. She ignored the tears bursting from her eyes and collecting with the raindrops upon her cheeks as she fought with the dwarf's chest, pounding her flimsy hands down on it and praying with every frantic pump that he would awaken, or that she would and all this would prove to simply be a horrible dream. She was crying, her quivering hands attending to their work despite herself, even though she knew she was probably too late… If she did indeed survive this, how was she to tell Thorin, to tell Dis!? How could she possibly…

There was a sound from beneath her which was different from the gurgling of the water below them. Fildur was sputtering, choking – she pressed his chest again, helping him spit out what looked like half the Loudwater. Evie was still sobbing, this time out of sheer relief as the light came back to the dwarf's eyes and he took a few tremulous, haggard breaths.

"Ev…"

"You're alive…"

It was all she could say, it was all she could sigh as she fell beside him in the mud and sunk gratefully down into its cradle. The healer began to laugh uncontrollably, feeling it well up within her. Fildur looked down at her very seriously for a moment, trying to gauge where they were and how they had gotten to such a strange and uncomfortable place, and then as he took in her words and realized how close to death he had come, he began to laugh as well. They both lay there, on the bank of the newly made river with the storm raging all around them, laughing. Evie felt giddy, like a child amazed by the wizard's fireworks or the first time she had seen the city of Minas Tirith in all its greatness… But this was so much stronger, so much more heady and potent – they were alive.

"How silly it would have been for us to die, after everything that has happened, here, and like this…"

She joked morbidly, giggling. She looked over at Fildur, her grey eyes alight with exhausted gratitude. But there was something captured in his which sobered her, and reminded her that the relief shooting through her weary form was for a reason.

"You saved my life."

It was so solemn, so sincere, Evie almost started. She was laughing no longer.

"It was nothing… You would not even be here if it were not for me, if anything-"

"Thank you, my queen."

Evie was silenced to her soul, and as her eyes met with Fildur's something passed between them which went far beyond trifling words. He nodded to her, and the hobbit swallowed, acknowledging for the first time that perhaps she did possess that senseless sort of bravery which made one fit to be a leader. Thorin had it, undoubtedly… But until now she had not realized how strongly it flowed through her own blood. There were many things she wanted to say, but there was only one phrase which seemed wholly correct and right.

"You're welcome."

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Author's Note: We're coming up to nearly the year mark from when I started this fic, which is sort of crazy! I love this story very deeply, and while I always think I can improve my writing I am quite proud of many of these chapters… Even so, everyone gets writers block at times and life can take you away from writing – but something that has always inspired me to press on and keep following these fantastic characters on their journeys is all of you. I have gotten a couple of really special comments on this fic over the last few days, and that was what really encouraged me to sit down and write this chapter. I cannot thank you all enough for reading and commenting on this – it means so much more than I can say in mere words. Your love for these characters and their adventures inspires me and as hard as it is for me to believe that there are actually people out there enjoying my work it makes me feel so completely amazing. So thank you so much – for your follows, for your favorites, and especially for your comments. You are all amazing people and you mean the world to me! 3 There is much more to come (some of which I've written, much of which is still to be fleshed out!) and I am so excited to share it with you!