Disclaimer: It's not mine if you recognise it!

A/N: Wow two chapter in one day! I apologise in advance, this chapter starts off fairly light hearted, gets a little "aww" in the middle then rapidly goes into a sad dark corner at the end. Hopefully this gives a little more background to chapter 9 and why Dumbledore was a dick. Explanations of chapter 10 will be later, along with anything I missed from chapter 9.

I apologise if there is any glaring mistakes :)

Chapter 12

Fíli POV

The company was silent after Ariana's declaration and none of us seemed to want to be near Uncle, especially as he was ranting under his breath about someone putting a piercing in Ariana's tongue. Kíli, little brat that he is, was pestering Ariana to see it. I rode up next to him and flicked his ear, careful not to touch the braid she had put in his hair last night, that he didn't seem to have noticed. Ariana simply laughed and stuck her tongue out. Kee and I stared at the small emerald set in what looked like silver just sat near the tip of her tongue.

Kee turned to me and I shook my head, "Amad would kill you if you got one." I said not even having to wait to know what he wanted. He pouted and Ariana giggled, "You wouldn't want one sweetling. Your tongue swells up for about a week and all you can eat is coldish soup. It's a pain in the ass." She said and I stared at her. "Why would you have it done?" I asked and I saw Thorin twitch a little, listening to her answer. "I was fed up of being told what I could and couldn't do. I wanted to have some control and the only thing I did have control over was my body. Hence the inkings and the piercings." She said, smiling at us and holding up three fingers, slowly lowering them.

I followed her gaze to Thorin and he turned around as her final finger dropped, "Inkings? As in more than one?" He asked, Kee and I flinched at the tone, that was his 'I am seriously considering beating you into the ground' voice, we both stared as Ariana just giggled and nodded, her face showing a completely innocent look. I rolled my eyes, Kee was going to want to copy that look as soon as he could. "How. Many?" Uncle seemed to choke on the words and Ariana looked up and began to count on her fingers and aloud. "Well there's the one on my wrist, then the one behind my right ear and there's two, well individually three across my upper back. Then there's that one that likes to move around, never get a magical tattoo, then there's the one on my hip and the one on my foot. I think that's it." She said and Kee and I just watched as Uncle's face went red under his beard.

He turned back around and rode off, Ariana turned to look at us, "I think I broke him." She muttered and Kee laughed, "Quicker than we ever did." He bragged and she flicked his nose, before turning to me and tugging on my moustache braids. I wiggled my nose and she chuckled, "Don't frown. It makes you look old." I looked over at her, gently steering the pony away from a few larger tree roots. "I am nearly 80." I said petulantly. She stared at me, "So it has been 80 years. Do you know how long after I disappeared you were born?" She asked me quietly and I nodded, "Amad said about five months. Kee was actually born on the fourth anniversary of your disappearance. Adad died almost six years after you left, the mine he was working in collapsed." I said, pain tugging lightly at my heart.

Ariana's horse snorted and I glanced over at her, shocked to find her face so pale. "Aunty? Are you alright?" Kee asked tentively. She blinked and turned back to him, nodding. "Jemut men." We nodded and watched as she rode to the front to speak to Thorin, "Do you think we should have just told her like that Fee? She seems really upset about it." Kee said from beside me and I squeezed his arm. "She needed to know, but maybe it would have been best to wait. I don't know." We both watched Ariana as Thorin filled her in on the news within the family, within the mountain and I watched as she went from sad to angry to what looked to be guilty.

She turned away from Thorin and said something to Gandalf, before speeding off on her horse. Kee and I froze for a second before riding up to uncle. "Is aunty alright?" Kee asked and Thorin shrugged, "It's a lot for her to take in I think, knowing that we have lost so many that she used to know. She is delighted that Frerin is married and hadn't been caught in the mine, but hearing that an old friend of hers and his son had been injured in it, I think that upset her just as much as hearing about your adad's death. She feels guilty about it for some reason." Thorin sounded so confused at that, I thought for a moment.

I looked over at him, "Maybe she feels that because she had magic then she could have helped to prevent it or helped in the aftermath. If it's not her magic then maybe she just feels bad that she couldn't be here for us, as part of the family." I said and he nodded, before urging on his pony and Kee and I moved back to ride near Bilbo and Ori. I barely listened to their conversation as Kee rode alongside me, my gaze studied the path in front of us, looking for any sign of Ariana. "Stop worrying Fíli I am sure Ariana will be fine." Bilbo said from next to me and I turned to look at him, he smiled over at me. "She just needs some time to think. She'll be back before we make camp later." Bilbo seemed so sure of it.

He was right though, Ariana came into the clearing we had settled in for the night, carrying a full brace of rabbits and smiling sheepishly. "Sorry for running off, I brought dinner." Kee darted over to her and took the rabbits off her and went to skin them, eager to finish the task uncle had set us, without doing a lot of the work. I rolled my eyes at him and went to set up our bedrolls. Bombur and Bilbo were cooking the stew for dinner and Ariana was sat next to Dwalin, who seemed a little worried that she didn't have any weapons on her.

Ariana laughed and opened up her fur coat, taking out a small bag, reaching inside and pulled things out of it. We stared at her in shock as over a dozen weapons were pulled out of the small bag. She had two small axes, a dwarvish short sword, a pair of long thin blades, a larger double headed axe, two curved tipped swords, two broad swords, two single edged long swords that ended in a curved point, a huge quiver of arrows and a wicked looking bow that seemed to have leather wraps around each end. She then pulled a dagger from her boot, "These are hidden, well, all over my person and there is another sword strapped into a sheath on my spine. I think I'm ok." She smirked up at him, but he only seemed to have eyes for the small axes and the dwarf made sword.

She squeezed his wrist as he picked them up, "Ye kept them?" He asked gruffly and she nodded, flicking his scarred ear. "Of course I did, you great bald ninny. I wasn't going to get rid of them. If Daín had given them to me that would be a completely different story, asshole that he is. But no these were my first weapons and I still have all the daggers you made me too." She said flipping the one in her hand around and showing him the hilt. He grinned and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Good, nice to see they're still sharp. You got that fancy assed letter opener?" He asked and she froze, frowning before nodding. Her lipped curled up into a sneer as she pulled a short sword from the sheath across her back, although she wore it with the hilt facing down.

The reason behind the sneer became obvious when we saw the sword, it was clearly Elfmade and besides looking pretty didn't really look like it could do much. Thorin growled at the sight of it and Ariana's face morphed into a disgusted look when she gazed at the blade. This seemed to confuse Thorin, "Namanith?" Was all he needed to say before she turned to him, "Why did you never tell me? Why did I have to hear it from a third party?" Kee and I looked confused at the question, but the older dwarves seemed to know what she was talking about, the Ri family especially.

Uncle scrubbed a hand across his face, "Grandfather didn't want us to tell you, didn't want it to hurt you." Ariana snarled out and hurled the blade at a tree, watching as it sank almost to the hilt, "Well not telling me hurt more. I am entirely used to their behaviour. I am used to being abandoned and then forgotten, the prick will probably accuse me of stealing it if he finds it on my person." She snapped out and Dwalin choked on a breath, before beginning to laugh. We all turned to look at him, "Please can you call him that? I really want to see the look on his face when he realises who you are, it will be even better than you biting him the first time you met."

Dwalin seemed entirely too happy at the thought and the picture whoever the elf was made in his head. Kee just looked over at Ariana, "Who did you bite?" He asked and she turned to him, showing her teeth as she smiled, "Who didn't I bite?" She asked back and out of the older dwarves only Balin and Gloín raised their hands. "You bit Dwalin?" Nori asked, seemingly intrigued by this and Ariana grinned widely, walking over to Dwalin and lifting up his hand. We all gazed at the patch of skin that could be seen under his knuckle-dusters. There was a bright white set of small tooth marks around the flesh of his thumb, "I got too close during a 'sparring' match and she bit me for tickling her." Dwalin said proudly.

Uncle seemed to be laughing silently and Dwalin span to him, "I don't know what your laughing at, she bit you several times as well. There's a nice scar on your uncles upper arm where he tried to reach for the cake Ariana wanted and she sank her teeth into him, got him through his furs too." Dwalin seemed to be crowing about it and Ariana smacked the back of his head, hard. "Oh shut up you dickturd. I bit you more than I bit Thorin. Are we going to meet Daín at any point? I owe him a bite." She said and Balin chuckled as Thorin growled, "I hope not, bastard refused to help us several times after you disappeared." Ariana's eyes narrowed, "In that case I owe him at least three."

Thorin chuckled and moved to get her elvish blade out of the tree. It took him several attempts to pull it all the way out, Ariana looked sheepish when he finally did, "Sorry nadadugmil, I must have been angrier that I thought." Thorin just shook his head and handed her back the blade, which she sheathed and then put away all her other weapons. "Don't you want to keep some of them out?" Balin asked and she smiled over at him, moving away from us all turning her back to us. She then span around quickly and in that blink had one of her broadswords in her hand. "Magic means I don't have to always have them out." She told us, smirking slightly. The sword vanished again as she sat back down.

After we had eaten, Thorin cleared his throat, "Balin and I will take first watch, Fíli, Kíli you two will take second and Dwalin and Gloín will take third." Both Kee and I groaned, we hated doing second watch, it meant you could sleep for a little bit, then have to wake up and then by the time it was ok for you to go back to sleep, you were too awake. As soon as we could we were curling up on our bed rolls, wanting to get at least some sleep, before we had to get up again. It seemed like no time at all, before we were being woken up by Uncle.

We moved over to the spot that Uncle and Balin had been sitting on, Kíli grumbling all the way over. He never had been very good at getting up, it always seemed to take him forever to wake up. We sat huddled close to each other for warmth and it was just as Kee was beginning to doze off again, that we both sat up at the sound that came from the far side of the camp. We looked over and I saw that Ariana was sat up, clutching her head in her hands. She wiped a hand over her face and stood, moving silently over to us, sitting down in front of us and leaning back against our legs. "Are you all right aunty?" Kee asked and stroked a hand through her loose hair, absently twisting some of the strands into a braid.

She tilted her head to the side and shrugged, "I am alright I guess. It's just that sometimes my life catches up to me in my dreams." She said cryptically and I frowned, looking over at Kee. He looked down at her, "What do you mean?" She sighed and leaned back, "My parents died when I was a week old, they had told a powerful wizard that they would not be part of his war, that they didn't want me to be part of it. They knew that he would try to make them raise me to be a weapon, because they all seemed to know that I would be powerful. He wasn't doing well in his war, he was losing ground to the opposing side and he wanted a weapon to tip the balance in his favour."

She paused and looked up at the sky, "When my parents refused they fled the country and moved to another, hoping that with distance they would be able to escape him. They didn't. I found out just before I came back that he had organised my parents deaths, he then left me alone for a while. I think he hoped that if my childhood was difficult and pisspoor I would be easier to mould. Just before I came to Middle Earth and was found by Thrór, I had had an awful man looking after me. He didn't like that I was so magic strong so he beat me. It was at this time that the wizard found a book of spells that he was assured would do the hearts desire, he couldn't actually read these spells, but read one out loud anyway. He had wanted to use the spell on me, so as is magic will I was caught in the spell. Had he known what it would do I don't think he would have cast it."

She paused again and shifted slightly, Kee's fingers still combing through her hair. "What did the spell do?" I asked and she smiled, sleepily up at me. "The literal translation of the spell is 'The desires true home' and because I was the focus of the spell, it brought me here. This is my home, where I will always belong. To recall me he had to edit the spell, he had to change it to fit his desires. He wanted me to end up in an area of the world I am from that would lead someone to me. It was his hope that the someone who found me would be capable of breaking me and making me weak and easy to manipulate. He was wrong, it just made me stronger." She said yawning and lent her head against my knee, finally falling asleep.

Kee and I looked at each other, how could someone put another living being through hell just because they wanted a weapon? I let my finger's join Kee's combing through Ariana's hair, we moved for weapons at another sound, staying them when uncle sat down next to her. "I should have been there for her." He whispered out and Kee and I just shook our heads. "There wasn't a lot you could have done about it brother. I wouldn't have wanted you to see me like that. Just the thought of coming home kept me going." Ariana's voice was sleepy, but her eyes were clear. Thorin studied her face and in a move that uncle rarely used, brushed her hair back tenderly from her face.

She sighed and leaned into the gesture, "Nadad you should be asleep." She murmured and he grunted, "What happened to you? I heard you tell the boys and the burglar that they weren't very nice." Ariana sighed and looked at the three of us, "I only want to tell this story once, I will tell it too you. Just not now ok, when everyone is awake. I need you all to be aware of some things about me." She said and uncle nodded clearly not happy about having to wait. He clambered to his feet, before tugging her with him. She stood, bent to press a kiss to our foreheads and followed uncle across the camp.

We watched as uncle lay down, tugging Ariana down with him and wrapping her up in a hug. "Uncle Frerin said that he used to do that with her after uncle had left for Moria. He said it used to keep her nightmares at bay enough for her to sleep." Kee muttered from beside me and I turned to look at him, "What I hear things. I never said he had said it to me directly. I think it was more to amad and uncle Thorin when they were telling stories on one of the anniversaries." I nodded, knowing the practice within our house, no matter what we were doing around the time of adad and Ariana's death/disappearance we all gathered back at the house and the adults told stories to us about them, it made it seem a little less painful to have lost two people that we hadn't really known.

We finished our watch huddled together in silence before going over to wake Gloín and then Dwalin, from a distance because we both knew that if you touched Dwalin while he was sleeping you lost your beard. We settled back down on our bedrolls, squeezing them even closer together. "Fee?" Kíli whispered over at me and I nodded, our foreheads brushing. "Don't ever leave me. I don't think I could be as strong as uncle was if I lost you." He murmured out and I wrapped him up in a hug as I used to do when we were little. "Hush nadadith, I'm not going anywhere. We are in this together remember?" I told him and he nodded, falling asleep like that.

I woke to the sound of Bombur and Bilbo heating up a light broth and nudged Kíli awake, knowing it would take him forever. I moved and sat down near Ori and Bofur, both were watching Thorin with confused expressions as he stalked around the camp. "What's wrong?" I asked and Ori looked over at me, shrugging, "We don't know, Nori and Ariana went to get us some fresh water and when they came back Thorin was just pacing like that." Ori said quietly, watching everyone. Ariana finally sighed and stood from where she was sat next to Nori. She stepped in front of uncle and simply pressed her forehead against his, murmuring something. He nodded and she sighed, coming to sit back down near us.

We ate in silence knowing that something big was coming. Ariana put her bowl down and cleared her throat, "Before we continue on with this quest there are several things you need to know about me. Many of you know that I am adopted into the Durin family. Before they found me I was an orphan from a world that is vastly different to this one. While to many, children are cherished, there are a few that think children are a means to an end." She paused and we all nodded. "That world that I come from, only a select few have magic and those that do hide it from those that don't, for magic has become a thing of myth and legend to those that don't have it."

"I was born with magic, but did not know that I had it. My parents were murdered when I was a week old and I spent the time between then and arriving in Erebor moving between orphanages, homes full of children like me or living on the streets always surrounded by people who had no magic. I know what it is like to be homeless. Sometimes the people I lived with were nice, most however were not. The worst was the man before I came here, he was aware that I had magic, but didn't have it himself so he took his anger at that out on me. Not many of you will remember what I looked like when I first arrived, but it wasn't pleasant."

She paused and Thorin and Dwalin made to move closer to her. She shook her head and I just leaned further into Kíli who had come to sit next to me. "While I was here I was happier than I had ever been. I had found a home and was loved. That all changed the day after you all returned from Moria. My parents had died because they had told a powerful wizard that they would not be part of his war, that they didn't want me to be part of it. They knew that he would try to make them raise me to be a weapon, because they all seemed to know that I would be powerful. He wasn't doing well in his war, he was losing ground to the opposing side and he wanted a weapon to tip the balance in his favour."

She paused and looked up at the sky, "When my parents refused they fled the country and moved to another, hoping to escape him. They didn't. I found out just before I came back that he had organised my parents deaths, he then left me alone for a while. I think he hoped that if my childhood was difficult and pisspoor I would be easier to mould. The wizard found a book of spells that he was assured would do the hearts desire, he couldn't actually read these spells, but read one out loud anyway. He had wanted to use the spell on me, so as is magics will I was caught in the spell. Had he known what it would do I don't think he would have cast it."

"The literal translation of the spell he used is 'The desires true home' and because I was the focus of the spell, it brought me here. To recall me he had to edit the spell, he had to change it to fit his desires. He wanted me to end up in an area of the world I am from that would lead someone to me. It was his hope that the someone who found me would be capable of breaking me and making me weak and easy to manipulate. He was wrong, it just made me stronger." She paused, twisting the Durin bead around in her hair. "This is where it will get difficult for many of you to hear and I don't want you to pity me or treat me like I'm breakable after this, because I am not." She said looking around at us all.

We all nodded, "After I had been pulled away from Ered Luin, I was in an area of my old world that I knew I could navigate around, but it wasn't familiar. Unknown to me and the wizard that had cast the spell, in that area there was a man. A normal man who had a devotion to what on my old world is called genetics, which is what makes you well you, what is in your blood. He was fascinated by the fact that different combinations of genetics produced people with powers that were unusual. Now this man was also a healer, he was supposed to have dedicated his life to helping people. Instead he was taking children like me, orphans and runaways, and using us for his experiments. He wanted to see if he put a serum into our blood would our blood react favourably and give us the powers, but only the ones he wanted."

She paused to allow us time to think. "Did it?" Nori asked quietly and Ariana grimaced. "I was one of 26 children that he kept in small cages, chained to the floor like animals. We were starved and beaten before he even gave us the serum. When we were rescued over two years later, there was 8 of us alive to give evidence in his trial. One died in the courtroom, the rest were dead by the end of the year. Only 13 of us made it out alive, one died during the rescue and three more in the following day, many of the other 13 didn't even make it past the first year, I think only three made it to maybe a year and a half. What you have to understand is this serum he gave us tried to re-write who we were, it twisted us to make us what he wanted."

She dropped her hand from her hair and began to itch at her left forearm. "The serum made it feel like you were burning from the inside out, that there were a million white hot daggers stabbing you in every speck of you body. It felt like your mind was boiling, ready to explode and through all that you were stuck in this cage, crying, screaming and for most of them begging for it to stop. They had all lost hope, I refused to beg and lose hope. I wanted to survive to come back here, so I swallowed the pain as much as I could and then I realised that the serum had worked on me, but only because my magic had accepted it." She was scratching harder at arm now and Kíli moved quickly, pressing his hand over hers and I could see where she had scratched right through the skin.

Kee wet a rag and placed it over her arm, just sitting quietly next to her, completely at odds with my bouncy playful brother who was never still. "The hardest part about it for me, wasn't that I now had these powers or that I now knew what this force inside me was, it was that as the serum and the strange genetics settled into my blood, I got the memories of the people they'd been taken from and that would cause me to lie awake at night, screaming out as they settled into my brain." She paused. "When we were finally rescued and he was sent to prison, I found that I hated being enclosed, I hated being caged in. It didn't happen often that I was somewhere that I couldn't get out of, but I remember once being pushed into a cell in a castle dungeon, by a spoilt bratty bitch and it made me panic so much I nearly brought the castle down on her head. I can't be caged not like that, not again." She finished and we all stared at her.

I moved over to her and sat on the other side of her to Kee, gripping her other hand, "Amad always said that you were the strongest person she had ever met, now I can see why." I said softly, looking up at her, "I will do everything I can to make sure you never end up in a cage again." Uncle rumbled from behind her and soon she was encased in a large group hug. It was Bilbo that surprised us most, hugging Ariana tightly and making sure she looked at him. "I think that I speak for us all when I say, I hope that absolute bastard excuse for a being died in even a hundredth of the pain you did." She stared at him then blinked, laughing softly. "Oh he did my dear Bilbo, he did." Her eyes holding a wicked gleam.

A/N: Well that got dark and sad quickly. Don't worry it will lighten up in the next few chapters :)

Translations:

Jemut men - excuse me

The next chapter will be the trolls, troll cave and then escape from the wargs and will be a little bit of Nori :) I would have added the trolls in this chapter, but I think we all need a brain break :) Also Ariana's tattoos will be seen and explained in Balin's chapter because, fountains and scandalised elves are hilarious.