Savvy0X: This new chapter is completely because of you! That was one of the sweetest reviews I have ever gotten. Each of my stories showing something different, with different main characters, is something that I always try desperately to do because each fandoms and shows have such different tones so - yeah, you made me really happy! BUT I am holding you to those reviews lol.


Chapter 28: Beorn the Skin-Changer

I wished, in the following days, in the following weeks, that we could have stayed in that moment. A moment where both of us were flushed with victory. A moment where Fili had touched the beads in my hair and whispered to me in our shared language, his eyes clear and warm with so much adoration that it made my chest ache—a moment where the breath of our enemies hadn't been so hot on our napes.

"How close is the pack?" Thorin demanded as Bilbo came stumbling down the mountain pass, his face smeared with dirt, hair ruffled by leaves.

Distantly, I heard the howl of the Wargs, the mountains creating an eerie song of responding voices. Fili shifted closer to me, his face lined with the toil of too many days on the run.

We had made good time after our night of rest so many weeks ago. Gandalf had even said so. It had been…shocking when we had heard the first whispers of the Defiler on our tail. And so close. So quickly. How? How in all the Gods had they caught up to us so quickly?

"Too close," Bilbo panted, taking the mossy path at a fumbled run, his eyes wide with panic. "A couple of leagues - no more." I bit my tongue. Not good. That was an understatement. We would be fucked up the ass if this continued. My eyes met Nori's over our youngest brother's head. We might already be. "But that is not the worst of it."

My skin crawled, trapped by the fear in the hobbit's eyes, the sweat dampening his brow, and the way he nearly ran into Dori as he came to a stop in our small clearing.

"Mahal's right fucking testicle," Nori groaned.

Dori scowled. "Really? Must you be such a pig?"

"I don't rightly think that Gods have testicles," Ori threw in, looking beyond nervous, and Kili frowned, seemingly contemplating that odd reality.

"Well…" Kili's nose wrinkled. "What do you think they do in their free time if they don't have any…you know."

Dori let out an indignant bellow. "Must we degrade ourselves to this base conversation?"

"What else are we going to talk about with Wargs and Orc abominations licking our assholes right now, Dori? Huh? The fucking weather?" Nori sneered, the three peaks of his hair swaying as he jabbed an angry finger at my brother. "Let them talk about Mahal's testicles - it might be the last thing they get to have a chat about-"

"I'm sorry - what?" Kili blinked, horrified. Ori gave a sharp, panicked squeak, his hands clutching at his satchel and fumbling around until he pulled out his notepads and started to scribble frantically.

"Will you all shut up?" I hissed, trying to hear the hobbit over the hubbub around me.

"Tell that to-" Nori started to sneer and I whirled, baring my teeth at him.

"Shut up."

My mood had never been fouler than at this moment - the howl of the beasts that wanted to eat our entrails circling us, the smell of weeks of uncleaned hiking on my skin, and the pressure of everyone's fear pressing down on me so heavily.

"I'm trying to tell you there is something else out there." Bilbo pointed vaguely out into the endless mountains.

Baffled, Kili and Fili followed that gesture, their eyes raking over the scenery to our back and finding on empty sky and trees with rocks and snow.

"Lovely," Kili hummed with a humorless smile.

Fili's eyes narrowed on the hobbit as he slowly looked back to him. "Please tell me that you have a bit more of a location on that imminent danger."

Bilbo winced, giving a halfhearted gesture at the mountains again. "It was… you know…" He threw up his hands, huffing. "I didn't get out my map and tracking gear, alright?"

"What form did it take?" Gandalf's eyes had gone dark, his face tightening with barely concealed trepidation. He stepped closer to Bilbo, watching him closely. "Like a bear?"

All heads whipped toward him as Bilbo stuttered out an answer, drawing in a deep breath as he blinked up at the wizard in alarm "I - uh - Y-yes." He blinked around. Beside me, Fili let slip a foul curse in Khuzdul, dragging both of his hands through the tangled mess of his hair at his scalp. "But - but bigger. Much bigger."

"This is going to be bad." Fili's teeth ground, his eyes luminous as he glared at the wizard. "Anything that Gandalf doesn't mention leads to bad things."

Gandalf shot him a chagrined glance.

"You knew about this?" Bofur demanded, wounded. Beside him, his brother signed to him, looking lost and scared.

It had been unbearably hard for Bifur to keep up with our quick exchanges when his hearing was so bad. The only way that he had stayed in the loop was through his brother's constant relay of information and the gentle herding of Thorin to keep him in the middle of the pack so that he stayed cushioned from danger.

"I say we double back," Bofur said, his voice shaking a bit.

Behind him, his brother tried to sign to a few others and was met only by the frantic chatter of the dwarves as panic began to rise.

"And be run down by orcs?" Thorin drawled, giving the dwarf a long, incredulous stare.

Tori. Bifur waved to me, catching my stare. Tori, what's happening?

I stared at him for a moment, unsure. The truth was that I wasn't used to signing. The only ones who used it with me on a consistent basis were my brothers. Most dwarves assumed that I didn't know it because of my Elvish blood.

Another thing at our heels, I signed back slowly, my hands clumsy.

His eyes rounded, and I was barely able to catch his reply; his fingers moved so quickly. A beast? Beside the orcs?

I nodded. Bilbo says it's close. That the orcs are closer still as well. I caught the eyes of Gandalf, frowning. The wizard seems to know it. Says it's a bear.

Gandalf frowned right back at me.

Bifur frowned, gnawing at his lips. What a fantastic turn of events.

My lips cracked in an unwilling smirk which the wild-haired dwarf returned.

"There is a house," Gandalf said suddenly and I felt my insides squirm with unease. His face didn't necessarily say that this house was a good thing to us. "It's not far from here. Where…uh… we might take…refuge."

My eyes met Fili's, our gaze translating the same thought. This would probably be the farthest from refuge.

"Whose house?" Thorin said, exasperated. "Are they friend or foe?"

"Neither," Gandalf conceded unwillingly.

Fili scoffed, his teeth flashing. "We're being chased down by orcs. We need a friend, not a neutral hunting ground."

"Fili's right," Kili grumbled. "I'd rather have an open mountain range to try and escape in rather than a corner to cower."

I watched Gandalf's face for a moment longer. "Will this place just be a fancier version of this mountain? Or will he actually offer us protection?"

"It's one extreme or the other," Gandalf hedged. "He will either help us. Or kill us."

"Well, that's bloody helpful," Dori bit out.

"A 50/50 chance," Fili groaned. "I've never been good at games of chance."

"Well, I am," Kili said faintly, his face devoid of all color. "Let's hope my good luck outweighs your bad luck."

"What choice do we have?" Thorin grumbled, and, as if in response, a roar, distorted and deep, rattled through the clearing.


"RUN!"

Trees and rocks blurred around me, a few of the dwarves stumbling as we met uneven ground. We had been running for hours, and every single minute seemed to bring a new danger closer to our backs. My legs pumped as I jumped over a log, my boots splashing into the creek.

A few dwarves came to a screeching halt in the middle of the glade when a roar split the air, reverberating through every bone in my body. I didn't.

"Use those gorgeous legs and get to the front," Fili snarled to me, his breathing harsh as his eyes raked over the forest at our back.

The forest gave way to clear, green plains, an imposing wall of wood and greenery cutting the rest of the field off brutally. It was too far still to see anything that lay beyond the little door that was cut out of that, but I could only assume by the frantic pumping of Gandalf's arms that it was our supposed haven.

"Fili, the rear-" I started. My eyes flicked to where my brothers ran just behind him.

"Let's be frank, Tori, my love," he gritted out. "If we were run down by either of the two horrors that are chasing us, there's nothing we could defend at our back." His blue eyes cut into me as he sent me a hard glance. "But it would make me a whole hell of a lot happier to know that you were as far away from that outcome as possible if it came out way. Now get to the fucking front."

I grimaced at him. "I don't like your fucking tone, princeling."

"I don't like the way your feet are still pounding away at the dirt in front of me when I know you have a whole hell of a lot more speed in those muscles," he drawled back.

"You're rather bossy in our courting days. I liked it better when you were just shoving apples at me like a mute dummy."

"For the love of the Valar, get your gorgeous ass to the front."

"You better make up for this foul mood," I sniffed, doing as he said and dodging around. My arms worked overtime as I tried to catch up with Gandalf, his dark robes flying around him like some deranged flock of birds.

"This flirting in near-death experiences is stomach-turning," Kili moaned, glaring at me as I passed him up. "And your swiftness is really getting on my fucking nerves, Tori."

"Can't talk," I sang, sprinting past a few more. "On my way farther away from imminent danger."

"Oh, fuck you," Nori choked out, his face red and sweaty.

"You look stunning all the way up there, love!" Fili called. "Keep going so I can admire you more!"

I huffed, a silly smile tearing at my lips as I kept doing exactly as he said.

"It's really rather disgusting," Dwalin snarled, his arms pumping as he tried to keep stride with me and inadvertently tuckered himself back so badly that Bofur and Bifur passed him up.

Thorin barely spared me a glance, his face smooth even in the agony of our long race.

"Oh to be young and in love," Balin wheezed somewhere in the back.

I could see the house now, the wall coming closer and closer as the roaring at our back got louder and louder. It was a lovely little cottage made of a thatched roof and fine, stonework. A long greeting area shadowed the massive front door. Trees crowded the massive field around it, various plants and vegetables all clustered into organized little sections. I could see hens and ducks and paster animals all off to the side, their heads jerking up in their little fenced-in areas, their eyes wide with alarm as they caught sight of us.

"That the house?" I panted, slowing to keep step with Gandalf. He cast me a dismayed glanced before nodding.

I pushed myself harder, breaking the entrance and sprinting the last little bit so quickly that I slammed into the double doors, the thick metal knockers jingling. My head range, disorientation making me stumble for a moment before I took in the large doors fully. Latching the entrance was an even thicker metal plate.

"OPEN THE DOOR!" Gandalf roared from the entrance at the massive hedged wall that surrounded the cottage. Fili broke through, his eyes instantly locking onto me as he ran for the door.

I fumbled with it before knocking it up and out of the way just in time for Fili's much larger body to go slamming into it, the wood crashing against the interior walls with a bang loud enough to rattle my teeth. Fili's hands reached for me as he went careening past, yanking me behind him just as the other dwarves came trampling in.

He dragged me out of the way as the last few of our party sprinted in, all of them turning to the slam the door shut and shuck the large piece of wood into place. Bolted and secured, all of us waited in rapt silence for the beast that had been tailing us for so long. No longer the wargs. No. I had seen it nipping at the heels of my companions as they made it to the safety of the house - a great big beast of a creature, all teeth and claws and slobbering, foaming roars.

Only a few seconds passed before the hinges groaned, a body hitting the doors with such force that they bowed, the giant slab of wood bowing a hair. I gulped, Fili's hands curling into my jacket and hauling me back and away from the door. His body was tense beneath me as he shoved me behind him, his hands hovering over his swords.

The truth was that if that giant of a bear got into this house, it would decimate us. It was faster than anything I had ever seen, stronger and we were cornered. There wasn't much that we would be able to do.

There was another crash, a whine and then a series of scratching before the great beast gave up, huffing as it stalked away. My heart beat painfully loud in my own ears, my mouth dry. There was barely any relief in the victory, the sudden feeling of being trapped crawling along my skin.

"What," Ori wheezed, looking around wildly before focusing on Gandalf. "Is that?"

"That," Gandalf said, his eyes never leaving the door. "Was our host."


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