The skeleton of the dead dwarf clattered down the well shaft, deafening echoes following its progress all the way down to the bottom until, finally, a splash when it hit water. And all the while, Sybil stared at her hands as if doing so with enough concentration would rewind time and undo what she'd just caused.

Worse still, as she felt the disbelieving, aghast eyes of all of her companions on her, she couldn't explain why she had done it – inciting the very disaster she was sure she'd just averted.

Upon entering Balin's tomb, they had all stood in solemn silence, save for Gimli who wept bitterly, as Gandalf read aloud from the book he'd taken from the fallen dwarf. All stood still, that was, bar Pippin. When she spotted him suddenly take notice of the corpse that sat atop the well, she saw what was about to happen play out – more common sense than the sight, really, for he had a knack for finding trouble and looked just a tad too morbidly curious over the damn thing – so she'd grabbed the back of his cloak and pulled him away with a firm shake of her head.

Impulsive, perhaps, but certainly not an idiot, Pippin recognised the damage she'd prevented swiftly enough, nodding his thanks and turning towards less precarious curiosities.

And after that, there'd been…nothing. With no desire to rush Gimli as he mourned his cousin, they drifted apart to different areas of the hall which housed the tomb, skirting the many skeletons, all the while keeping their eyes from their companion as he wept. It was the most privacy they could afford him, although Aragorn did approach and murmur his apologies.

It was a heavy moment, there was no denying that, but it still felt like something was…missing. Somehow.

Usually that absence was good. Sybil had come to find comfort in nothingness. In the empty wilderness at the foot of the Weather Hills, in the silence of the cabin – once Bera had tired herself out, or when there were no sick or injured to tend to – and more recently, in the quiet nights at camp. These days, nothingness was a luxury in increasingly short supply, replaced by mortal peril.

But now? Now it felt…wrong. Like the absence of a heartbeat, or the silence that followed harsh words that couldn't be unspoken. And her eyes kept drifting back towards the skeleton, that tell-tale ache behind her eyeballs hinting that something was going on with it.

So she stood, she approached, and she inspected it – all with no idea of what she was seeking. Another set of final words? Instructions on how to get out of here without running into their foes? It seemed unlikely. These bodies were so old that ways that may have once been open could very well no longer be…and if they knew of any secret escape tunnels available from here, they would have used them.

But the nagging feeling would not leave her. Was following those instincts not the point of her presence on this quest?

"What is it?" Boromir's voice was barely above a whisper as he joined her, peering at the skeleton.

"There's something about it…" she murmured, deep lines between her eyebrows as she inspected it.

"We cannot linger here," Gandalf was saying somewhere behind her. "We must move quickly, and we must move silently, if we are to complete our journey through Moria."

The words added to her sense of urgency, utterly unwilling to hold them all up just so that she could squint at a skeleton.

"Be careful," Boromir warned. "I've little wish to rescue you from that well."

"You don't want to see me fall, or you just don't want to do the rescuing?" she asked drily, turning her head to arch an eyebrow at him.

He offered a tired smile in response. "I will rescue you as many times as is necessary. But for the sake of my nerves, I ask that you limit that number."

Behind her, the others were having some trouble getting Gimli to move, affording her just a little more time. Turning her head back towards the skeleton, she leaned around it to see if there was anything at the back that she might have missed – entirely unaware of how her thick plait had begun to slide forwards over her shoulder until it swung forth and whacked straight into the skeleton. It jostled, position already precarious, and as it began to topple backwards, Sybil lurched with it, wrapping her arms around it.

But most of what she grabbed at was armour, and when the body began tilting back, the bones slid from that armour like a hot knife gliding through butter. When she tried to tighten her grip, she felt it crumble further beneath her grasp, more bones slipping free and adding to the dreadful clatter that began to sound – and as she clung to the armour, all she could think of was how heavy it was. How had the dwarf managed to stand in it, much less move without being crushed beneath its weight?

Shouldering her out of the way, Boromir tried to save the armour from falling where she could not, but the damage was done. The helmet was gone, along with the pauldrons, until all that was left to pull back from the edge was an empty cuirass, along with the bones of the dwarf's legs.

Her hands were filthy, streaked with grime and decay, but she found she much preferred looking at them when her eyes lifted and she took in the horrified stares of the Fellowship. Aragorn's gaze was just as disbelieving as her own was, as if they might undo her actions if they just gawked at one another intently enough. Her actions were too ridiculous to be real. How could she have been so stupid? It wasn't real. It couldn't be real. Her instincts were meant to help all gathered her, not bring danger down upon them!

"Sybil, what have you done?" Aragorn breathed in disbelief.

She had no right to feel hurt by that.

"I-I…I…" it was impossible to conjure any more words beyond that.

"It was an accident," Boromir snapped where she could not speak, dropping the armour that he'd managed to grab and haul back.

It was good of him to defend her, but she wished he wouldn't. Aragorn was right.

"I was-"

Pippin tried to jump in as her mouth continued to open and shut without a single sound springing forth, but a growl and a gesture from Gandalf had them all falling silent. A low, rolling rumble – at first too faint and halting to be distinguished from the way her heart pounded in her skull, but steadily growing louder with each beat…and followed by terrible, grating shrieks that could come from no creature that was not foul.

The stares of the Fellowship moved from her to one another, almost as though they all collectively hoped no other could hear it, and that they'd made it up. Instead, all they found in the eyes of the others was dread. And dread on the face of a warrior such as Boromir was no small thing at all.

She'd as good as killed them all with her foolishness.

"Mr Frodo!" Sam gasped and they all turned as Frodo drew his sword a little, the blade glowing blue in the dim of the crypt.

"Orcs," Legolas grimaced.

And their screeches were drawing nearer still.

Turning and running for the door, Boromir took the measure of the hall outside, rearing back a little as arrows pierced the space where his head had just been. His lip curled as though he'd avoided the bite of a gnat, rather than certain death.

"Get back!" Aragorn ordered the hobbits. "Stay close to Gandalf!"

The words might've been intended for her, too, but she didn't hover and dither over trying to work it out, instead bounding forward to help Boromir and Legolas shove the doors shut and begin barricading it with whatever weapons they could find strewn about.

Any hope she had that the barrier might hold long enough for their foes to lose interest – as if an entire eternity would allow for such a thing – died with Boromir's next words.

"They have a cave troll," he said drily, as though the matter was a mere inconvenience and they'd acquired such a beast simply to irk him.

His eyes met hers and she hid her fear as best she could, but this time when he nodded in the direction of where the hobbits were clustered, Sybil obeyed. Taking up a spot at the forefront of the group, she was afforded a view of all of the Fellowship – and knew that whatever blood was spilled in the fight to come would be on her hands, and hers alone.

That was the last thought that entered her mind before Boromir, Aragorn, and Legolas all drew back and the doors began to bow under the rattling of the orcs outside.

All drew their blades, and she shoved down the nausea that did its best to clench at her insides. This was the worst of it. She knew that from the fight against the wolves. The moment before the fight was when the fear was at its worst. There was no room for it during.

"Let them come!" Gimli sprang up onto the tomb in the centre of the room with a growl. "There is one Dwarf yet in Moria who still draws breath!"

A panel in the great double doors splintered and Boromir turned his head, seeking her out, and when their gazes met he paused and then offered a nod. This was the moment, she knew, he'd dreaded when she'd insisted on joining the Fellowship – and all out feared since that moment when they'd kissed on the edge of the mountain, and set themselves down a path that was always going to lead here, to this moment, where all they could do was fight hard and hope they'd both live to see the other side of this newest fight. That this thing between them wouldn't be cut short by the blade, teeth, or claws of the enemy long before they were even able to act upon these feelings burgeoning between them.

Sybil returned his nod. And then the orcs broke through.

With nowhere to run, and none yet close enough to fight, all she could do was watch. One breaking through the gap made room for the second, then the fifth, the tenth, until orcs spilled into the room with no sign of stopping. The arrows of Aragorn and Legolas cut down some as they ran through, but for every one that was felled, two or three more sprang over its corpse before it had even finished offering up its final breath. Boromir sprang forth and cleaved two apart with one strong stroke of his sword, Aragorn was forced to abandon his bow for this own blade, and Gimli brought down his axe to cleave the skull of the first one that reached him in two.

That was the last chance she had to notice any other, before the onslaught reached her and the world narrowed down to the next attacker, and how she might put her blade between herself and them. The first couple were felled easily enough – too easily, for they marked her as a woman swiftly enough, and an easy mark swiftly thereafter. But after her blade had sliced through two or three, they approached her with more marked, concentrated furly.

And then the cave troll barrelled into the room. The few seconds of staring almost cost Sybil her life, staring in horror at the monster as it was dragged into Balin's tomb, tearing down stone in its wake like the pillars around it were of little more consequence than dead tree branches. She almost missed the whisper of iron flying at her face until muscle memory alone had her ducking out of the way of the nearest orc's blade, her own flying up to deflect it at the next slash.

The fight felt an impossible one – messier than their rallied effort against the wolves, every dodge and dive took her out of the path of one enemy and right into the attention of another, fighting off orcs at every angle while keeping half of her attention upon the cave troll and the rocky projectiles it heaved in the direction of any and every member of the Fellowship it could.

It was chaos, and yet with every moment narrowed down to each and every movement she made, that chaos slowed to a disorienting, slow-motion crawl. One of Legolas' arrows felled one orc before its club could be wrenched down upon her skull, and then she whirled and parried a slash that would have severed her arm from the rest of her, had instinct not sent her whirling. An upward jab of her blade made its mark through the throat of the nearest orc, but she was rolling from the slash of another before she could celebrate.

The fight in its entirety was an out-of-body experience, moving purely and numbly on survival instinct and the muscle memory instilled by Boromir's gruelling training. Only when the numbers of the enemy dwindled – that of the Fellowship holding, thank Eru – did things get decidedly grittier, the orcs fighting harder as they noted their numbers dwindling, and the fights narrowing down to lengthier one-on-one fights, rather than random jabs flung out at whomever was nearest.

A rolling dive through the chaos took her out of the path of the rampaging troll and directly into a hissing and spluttering orc. It tried to stab at her while she was still down low but she weaved away from the blow easily enough, rising smoothly and easily – thanks to Boromir's tireless stair training, and all of the walking that had followed since, no doubt – just in time to parry another slash of its sword. Her hair stuck to her face as she deflected hit after hit, too many raining down upon her in such quick succession that it was impossible to find an opening to deliver a strike of her own.

Only when it reared back, ready to deliver a blow that would shatter bones if it met its mark, did she spring forth. Aiming at the handle of its axe rather than the orc itself, she wrapped both hands around the grip of her sword and brought it down. The axe was cloven in two, the pieces clattering to the ground at their feet.

Roaring its outrage, the orc sprang. Tumbling messily to the ground, the wind knocked from her in the process, Sybil tried to scramble away but claws hands dragged her right back beneath the foul beast. When she brought up her blade blindly before her face to ward off any incoming bites, the orc wrapped its hands around the blade and wrenched it from her grasp, uncaring of how the steel shredded its fingers to ruins, black blood dripping down the blade and splattering across her face. More followed, still, when it struck her across the jaw.

Black spots danced before her eyes at the impact, her boots scrabbling uselessly on the stone floor as she tried to scramble away from beneath it, but it had too tight a hold on her where she was sprawled. Inhaling sharply, rather than continuing to try and herself away with her feet, she instead planted them firmly on the ground and used that leverage to shove with her hips, jerking the orc upwards and rolling them.

One moment of surprise. If she managed to seize that, it would be all she'd have. So she had to make the most of it. From the moment they began to jolt and roll, the orc gave a grating cry of outraged shock, and Sybil closed the gap between them – allowing it no room to strike first. Lurching forward, still barely able to see or think coherently after its blow to her face, she flew at it with whatever she had – nails, fists, headbutts, stopping only short of teeth because she dreaded to think of what manner of diseases that could bestow upon her.

The orc fought back, of course, claws slashing at her throat and face and whatever soft bits it could sink its hands into, and it had no qualms about gnashing its teeth at her whenever she made the mistake of getting too close. As they continued their gruelling skirmish, she was only barely aware of the cave troll's death yowls, the only reaction she could muster being one of faint relief that it was one less thing to worry about as she fought.

What turned the tables, in the end, was Boromir's voice, his advice from their training sessions drifting through her mind. Your elbows are some of the hardest points in your body. You'd do well to make use of that fact. One of the orcs hands snaked around to the back of her head, catching her hair in a vice-like grip. Sybil cried out – a feint, for while it did hurt, it didn't hurt that badly – and the orc did as she hoped, hissing out a terrible imitation of a laugh between blackened teeth. Until she reared back and brought her elbow down, hard, upon its snubbed nose.

And then she just…kept going.

Her muscles burned and protested against the strain, blood that may or may not have been hers mingling with sweat as it dripped down her face, but she fought against the burn and the fatigue, refusing to allow it to slow her. When it threatened to overwhelm her – when it began to demand to be acknowledged - she grabbed her wrist with her other hand so that she could drive her elbow straight into the orc's face with even more force with the strength of both arms, barely noticing how the beast's teeth tore through her sleeve and then the skin beneath it as she continued her assault, fearful of allowing herself even a second's respite in case it was all her opponent would need to turn the tables on her. Eventually, it stopped bucking and jolting about beneath her, but she didn't dare trust it, too fearful that the moment she stopped would be the moment it retaliated.

Only when a large set of hands hooked themselves beneath her arms and dragged her back did she notice two things – that the battle was over, and the orc beneath her was quite dead.

Boromir's grip on her was ironclad, holding her tightly with her back against his chest until she stopped fighting both his grip, and the imaginary next assailant, and only when her body slackened in his hold did he loosen it, allowing her feet to touch the ground. Her chest heaved as Legolas retrieved her blade and pressed it back into her hand. The orc she'd been fighting was little more than a pile of mush on the floor. Her stomach lurched, the torn skin of her arm burning as she regarded what was left of her foe.

Only when she gripped Boromir's hand and murmured some incoherent noise did he release her, his hands hovering about her person until he was content that she could hold her own weight in the aftermath of the adrenaline.

"You fought well," his voice was rough in her ear – impressed, even, standing as a sharp contrast to the utter destruction and gore at her boots.

The knowledge that they'd shared a mountain with such a creature, however vast that mountain was, walking and sleeping in its vicinity since entering Moria, did nothing to settle her roiling insides.

When she finally was able to look at him with vision not fogged by shock and adrenaline, she found that he regarded her with…pride? He was certainly impressed, there was no mistaking that, his eyes fixed on her like he couldn't believe what he was looking at, his hand returning to her shoulder when he saw that she would no longer jolt at any and every touch.

On the other side of the now-ruined room, Aragorn was crouched over Frodo, helping him rise to his feet. All looked a little worse for wear, but they all lived.

The relief at that fact almost died entirely when yet more orc-cries rang out through the halls, drawing nearer still.

She didn't know if she could repeat what she'd just done. In fact, she was almost certain that she could not.

Straightening where he stood, Gandalf took only a moment to register the fresh onslaught, that strange look of heavy resignation back on his face yet again. It was a look she'd grown used to seeing on the faces of patients, or loved ones of those patients, who knew that whatever they suffered from would be the end of them, but were merely waiting to hear it from the lips of a healer. Something about seeing it on Gandalf's face, though, was deeply unsettling.

He met her eye then, and that resignation was gone, replaced by the steely and determined wizard who had led them through the mountains these last few weeks.

"To the Bridge of Khazad-dûm!" he ordered.

And at his shout, she managed to run - despite not being able to fully feel her legs. It was better than more fighting.

A/N: I wasn't sure whether Sybil's rapier would really be enough to cut through the handle of an orc-axe, but a YouTube deep-dive into some mad lad using a narrow sword against different chunks of wood laid my fears to rest.