Author's note: A friend of mine has been reading the chapters before I post them. Not exactly beta-ing, but just giving them an objective once-over to let me know if there's something I should reconsider or take a second look at. When he read this chapter, he informed me that I should probably increase the maturity rating, and that he didn't think about it before, but I probably should've done it a while ago. This chapter, while not explicitly descriptive, does contain a very dark adult topic. I should've done it a while ago because not only is this topic insinuated earlier on, but there's also a fair bit of gore that I had not realized the quantity of.
Trigger warning: sa nightmare. I'll mark the descriptive part so you can skip it if you need to.
Everyone has moments when they want to wring the necks of their family members. More often than not, it's a fleeting thought, easy to push away and forget. However, as Emery pushes her still-healing ribs (it'll take a few more days for them to heal fully) through a transformation so she can follow the company, it's rather more difficult than usual to push that particular thought aside. The object of her frustration? None other than Thorin Oakenshield. She bites back a groan of pain as her ribcage shrinks. Feathers sprout from her pores and her chest becomes stronger, allowing her to push herself into the air.
She isn't particularly concerned with speed while choosing her form. Even slow flight is still flight and more than fast enough to catch up to the dwarves. But all the speed in the world won't matter if she can't find them. She won't claim to be an expert on animals despite her familiarity with them, but she does know of a few birds known for their eyesight. When she shifts, her eyes become locked into place and dependent on the movement of her head. A hoot later and she's soaring away from Rivendell, silently gliding toward the Misty Mountains.
The sensory input is slightly overwhelming. As a wolf, she's used to getting more information than she knows what to do with through her nose and ears. The owl form presents a form of overstimulation she hasn't had much opportunity to become used to: visual. The colors are too obnoxious, the details too sharp, and her field of vision is too large. It's giving her a headache, but she pushes through. After all, there's a reason she chose this bird. She scans the forest as she flies, breathing evenly through the strain on her ribs. It takes longer than she'd like to admit, but she does find them. Thorin follows Balin's lead at the front, Dwalin close behind. Fili and Kili are at the rear, guarding the company's flank. The boys look tense...far more than they normally would be, even while traveling through an unsafe area. She can't see their faces, but it shows in their posture, in the way their hands grip their weapons, and in the way their heads turn sharply as they move. Concerned, she glides down, staying far enough away to avoid drawing attention but low enough to take a closer look at their surroundings. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary and nothing that would reasonably generate such unease, she shakes her head and ascends once more to a higher altitude.
Emery follows the group for several hours, occasionally stopping, flying in other directions, and changing between bird forms to avoid suspicion. When they finally stop to make camp for the night, she turns into a squirrel and scurries up a tree close by. The next few weeks proceed in much the same fashion, with her discreetly following and then holing up in a tree for the night. One night, Dwalin makes eye contact with her (probably searching amongst nearby animals for a sign that she'd caught up to them), and she winks. His shoulders relax a bit and the corners of his mouth turn up slightly, then he returns to his task. That same night, she notices Fili and Kili tossing and turning on their bed rolls, both looking uncomfortable and frustrated. It's the first night they haven't been chosen to stand watch for a shift, so they'll be sleeping through the night. Normally, this would result in the boys quickly falling asleep with grins on their faces. Not this time. After a while, Kili whispers something to Fili, and Fili whispers back. They have a short talk, speaking too softly for her to make out the words, then turn away from each other and press their backs together. It doesn't fix whatever the problem is, if their expressions are anything to go by, but they do stop squirming and eventually fall asleep.
The self-deprecating part of her wants to deny the idea that their restlessness has anything to do with her, but the logical part knows better. They miss her. Nearly every night for sixty years she slept beside them. Usually both but at least one at a time would be pressed against her side, a hand tangled in her fur, occasionally using her as a pillow. For sixty years they fell asleep with her warmth, her steady breathing, and her large presence lying beside them. If she had to guess, she'd say the space felt too empty to them. Which, now that she thinks about it, is probably why they've been so tense. The boys aren't used to her not being with them, beside them, protecting them. They're perfectly capable of protecting themselves, but her presence was as much a comfort to them as they are to each other. At best, her absence is disorienting, and at worst, it's terrifying. The thought makes her heart ache.
The closer the company gets to the Misty Mountains, the more scarce food becomes. The night Kili returns from hunting with nothing to show, Emery deliberates and then decides to do something different. She pulls several freshly dead rabbits from her pack and ties them together in a bunch, then shifts to her wolf form. She approaches the camp slowly and quietly, the string of rabbits hanging from her teeth, then stops a few dozen feet away. She waits for someone to see her, not wanting to startle anyone. It's Nori who sees her first. He doesn't make a sound - a side effect of being a longtime thief - but his sudden shocked expression is more than loud enough to announce that he saw something, and the dwarves turn to look at her. Their faces are a mix of shock, surprise, anger, and a few other choice emotions. Fili and Kili's faces are a torrent of emotions cycling through at lightning speed. Before any of them can say anything, she gently sets the rabbits on the ground, then turns around and goes back the way she came. She doesn't try to include herself in the company. That wasn't her goal. Her goal was a simple message: I understand you don't want me here, so I will keep my distance. But I will not abandon you. No matter how much you wish I would. Judging by the look on Thorin's face, she got her message across.
breathe
five things you can see...tree...grass...twig...stars...bug
breathe, come on
four things you can feel...grass...root...wind...fur
breathe, in, slow down
three things you can hear...cricket...wind...my breath
out, slowly, breathe
two things you can smell...dirt...pine
that's it, keep breathing
one thing you can taste...the beef jerky from earlier
in, wait, wait, out
-nightmare-
-nightmare-
-nightmare-
She closes her eyes as the panic attack subsides, though the shaking hasn't fully stopped. The nightmare still lingers...she can still feel...she aggressively shakes her head out of that thought and presses her forehead against the tree, eyes squeezed tightly shut. The thought won't leave, though. She can't get banish the feeling of his hands...he won't stop touching...she digs her claws into the dirt...hand clamped over her mouth...a sob rips itself from her throat...pushing her knees apart...she pulls her head back and bangs it into the tree...reaches down...her breathing returns to being erratic...brings his hand back up, smeared with blood...she slams her paw onto the trunk, her claws raking lines in the bark...he laughs..."aw, you saved yourself for me"...her body spasms with sobs that tear through her with every short breath...
-end-
-end-
-end-
"Emery?"
The voice shocks her out of the spiral. The panic hasn't left, but the memory dissolves as her eyes spring open and her head swivels in the direction of the speaker. She breathes heavily and shakily, her vision blurred with tears. She can tell he's a dwarf, but as dark as it is and as unfocused as her senses are, she can't make out who he is. Her body trembles with sobs that won't stop coming. A sudden weakness floods through her and her legs crumple underneath her. Her snout slams onto a protruding root, but she barely feels it.
She has no idea how long she stays that way, collapsed on her side and sobbing. The nightmare is gone, but the feelings it dug up are still running their course. The fear, the hatred, the feeling of being...well, dirty isn't quite the right word...contaminated, maybe. It almost makes her want to laugh. More than six decades later and she still can't find the right words. When the sobs finally wane and her body goes from spasming to shivering, her senses slowly come back to her. The first thing she feels is a hand stroking the fur of her shoulder in a familiar comforting motion. Her ears and nose resume their functions next. His breathing, his scent, the sound of fabric against dozens of hidden blades...
"Don't recall ever seeing you like that before." Fili.
She slowly sits up, shifting into her dwarven form as she does so, ignoring the aching feeling when he all but snatches his hand away.
"Haven't had a nightmare that bad since before we met," she says bluntly, wiping the tears from her face and pulling her knees to her chest. She could do the polite thing and make eye contact. She does the easier thing and stares at the ground. They sit in silence for a few minutes.
"What was it about?" he asks. She doesn't pick up her head, but her ears twitch in surprise.
"I'm surprised you're interested," she says dryly. He huffs and his braids rustle against his coat as he shakes his head.
"I'm angry. I'm hurt. I don't think what you did was malicious, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel betrayed." He pauses, then sighs. "But you're still family." That part makes her pick her head up just enough to look at him. "Whatever your name really is, you're still Lassie. And I still care about you." She observes him for a minute. He's a good actor, but not that good. She knows him too well, and she'd be able to see if he was lying or covering up his feelings. He's not. He's still angry, as he said, but he really is concerned for her. Still emotionally raw, she buries her head in her arms before the tears have a chance to return. She takes a shaky breath before answering.
"Before I ended up in Ered Luin, I lived with people who were...not good people. My family was dead, so I stayed with a couple and two other children. All of them had issues, but one of the children...he...he was especially not good. The things he did..." She can't bring herself to finish.
"What things did he do?" Fili asks when she doesn't continue. She shakes her head.
"You'd want to kill him if I told you, and there's no point. He's probably long-dead by now, anyway." She sniffs and wipes her nose. He shifts and his breath hitches in what she guesses is alarm, but he doesn't push, to her relief.
"Thorin said you were seventeen when we found you," he says instead. "You were the same age as Kili."
"A few months older, actually," she corrects. "I was three weeks away from turning eighteen when I left, and it was three days later that you found me." His mouth turns up slightly in amusement.
"No wonder you were so small." She looks at him in surprise and, to her shock, she laughs. Just a little one, but it's there. Fili's eyes soften. It doesn't last very long though, and the amusement leaves his face as his brows furrow. "Kili barely remembers being that age. He barely remembers the day we found you. I don't remember very much, either. But your memory goes back further." She sighs. Well, it was going to come up eventually.
"I wasn't born a dam," she admits. "I was born human. I lived the first nearly eighteen years of my life as a human. I was nearly grown when I left. The first time I changed form wasn't into a wolf. The first form I took was dwarven. When I changed, my physical age was adjusted. I was chronologically seventeen years old, so I took the form of a seventeen-year-old damling." He stares at the tree, and he's silent for a long time. She would think he's reeling in shock, if it weren't for the thinking face. And the brows that grow increasingly furrowed as minutes pass. And the jaw that grows increasingly clenched. She realizes he's putting pieces together. Crap. She should've been more careful about what she told him. She was nearly grown...only slightly less physically mature than she is now, and whatever the boy did that she won't describe, it was bad enough to give her terrifyingly strong nightmares, and it was bad enough that she believes he'd want to kill him.
He's not stupid.
"How certain are you that he's already dead?" He says in a steady voice. The same steady voice he uses to mask fury.
"Considering he was human and he would be about seventy-five years old by now, and the average lifespan of a man is less than that? I'd say chances are high." He says nothing. She says nothing more. That is until a few minutes later when her mind wanders. "How did you find me?" she asks. He blinks and turns his head to look at her, confused. Understandably. She isn't very far from the camp, and even in the dark Fili is a skilled tracker. "I mean, what made you come looking for me?" she amends.
"Kili and I were on third watch. We heard you. He stayed behind to watch the camp while I searched for you." She cringes at his answer.
"Did anyone else hear?" She asks. He shakes his head.
"Everyone else was already asleep, and you weren't close enough to be loud."
"You were, however, close enough to be eery and terrifying." They both jump at the sound of Kili's voice. "Seriously, either one of you could've just shouted 'safe!' to let me know you were, in fact, safe." He crosses his arms and looks sternly at them. Fili sighs.
"Right, we're very sorry. Now would you mind telling me who's watching camp?"
"It's first light, everyone's waking up." Fili and Emery both pause, then look up. Sure enough, fewer stars can be seen and the black night sky is tinted ever-so-slightly blue with the morning's first light. She looks at Fili.
"How long was I...you know..."
"An hour, maybe less," he answers with a shrug. Kili huffs.
"Long enough! You both had me worried sick!" he exclaims, hands on his hips in a truly remarkable impression of Dis. Fili rolls his eyes.
"For someone who says I talk like mother, you sound just like her," he teases. Kili sticks his tongue out at his brother, then turns to Emery.
"Are you alright?" he asks, concerned. She hesitates. She doesn't want to worry him, but she also doesn't want to lie to him.
"I will be," she answers.