Bit of warning, I'm about to play fast and loose with the deeper lore of Middle Earth. Do not take my word on its accuracy, I'm pulling it out of thin air.
Dwarvish/Khuzdul: amrad asa ai-mênu = death is upon you
Orcish/Black Speech: dâgish = enemy child
The rain and wind are making it far too dangerous for Emery to attempt to fly through the Misty Mountains, which is why she's currently using the form of a mountain goat. She follows the dwarves as closely as she dares, shivering all the while. Goats are exceptional climbers, but not immune to the cold. For maybe the first time in her life, she misses Texas. She misses the oppressive heat and cloudless skies that made death by freezing rain damn near impossible.
Fili and Kili tried to convince her to rejoin the company, but she declined. Thorin is still firmly pissed off at her, and she'd rather not ruffle his feathers even more so soon after making her presence known. "Besides," she said, "I'm still watching your backs. I'm just doing it from a bit further away." So now she follows, freezing her little goat tail off, because there's no one to help her catch her balance if she slips. On the upside, at least she's not trying to make the journey as a giant wolf on the narrow path. On the downside, there's nothing she can do but watch when the stone giant stands with the dwarves still on its legs. She doesn't envy them that part...falling rocks are terrifying enough when a mine collapses, let alone while trekking a slim walkway on the side of a mountain. She manages to get across the newly made gap in the path, thanks to her nimble goat form, and watches as the group makes their way into the cave. She gets a sinking feeling in her stomach as she remembers this part of the journey.
She stands a few yards from the mouth of the cave, wondering if she should go inside. On one hand, she's cold. On the other hand, she's unwelcome. On the other hand, she's really cold. She stands there, deliberating, until a particularly strong gust of wind sends a wave of almost painful shivers through her, and she makes up her mind. She transforms into a dam and steps inside the cave, her drenched cloak audibly dripping on the ground. Several of the dwarves draw their weapons at the unexpected intrusion, but relax (sort of) when they recognize her. Thorin gives her a nasty look, and she huffs in annoyance.
"I know, I know, I'm not welcome. As soon as we're no longer stranded in the middle of a freezing torrent, I'll go back to being invisible." With that, she stalks off into an unoccupied corner. She's aware of several pairs of eyes following her, but she keeps her eyes firmly trained on the wall. She sheds her cloak, turns it inside out so the dry side is out, and rolls it up. She lies down with her back to the company and stuffs the wadded-up cloak under her head for a pillow, and closes her eyes. Might as well get all the sleep she can, it'll be a long while before they get another chance.
Except she doesn't. She can't. She keeps anticipating the floor's eventual collapse. After what she guesses is a few hours, she gives up. With a sigh, Emery sits up and leans her back against the wall. She'd like to fiddle with the knife in her boot, but there'll be enough sharp objects falling down the tunnel with them, so she leaves it be. Resting her arms on her knees, she instead picks at her nails. It's a nervous habit she's always had. As a wolf, her nails were out of reach and safe from the relentless onslaught, and they were allowed to grow and the nail beds allowed to heal. Since she started spending more time as a dam, the habit returned. Her nails aren't quite the stubs they once were, but they're still shorter than they ought to be. Occasionally, when she's particularly stressed and relentless in the picking, they bleed. She sighs in annoyance at herself at the familiar sting and pulls herself into her checklist routine.
Shire. Done.
New item: River. Done.
Trolls. Done.
Warg chase. Done
Rivendell. Done.
Misty Mountains. Done.
Goblin tunnels. Up next.
Azog.
Eagles.
Carrock.
Beorn.
Mirkwood.
Thranduil.
Dungeons.
Barrels.
Bard.
Laketown.
Dale.
Erebor.
Smaug.
Kili and Tauriel.
Fire.
Thorin.
Elves and Men.
Arkenstone.
Dain.
Battle.
Azog.
She's been reciting this checklist on a loop for decades. About fifteen years in, she had a rude awakening to the fact that her memory would eventually become an issue if she didn't take preventative measures. So she summoned the books from her pack, studied them, made notes and compared them with what she remembered from the movies, and came up with a checklist. She still has the notes stashed in the pack, but she knows better than to rely on it. And she recites the checklist like her dad used to recite pi. She smiles sadly at the thought. Her dad was brilliant, loved to play with math, the same way she loved to play with music. He tutored the whole family, even her mom, through math classes. Not that her mom really needed it before college. She was pretty efficient in math, herself. She just wasn't a prodigy like her husband. They were an interesting combination: a mathematician and a musician. Both of their daughters took after their mom in both looks and interests, but that never bothered their dad. Emery sometimes wonders how on earth they got together and stayed together. She remembers they were still very much in love, but she was too young at the time to know or care about the details of how that worked. And she never got the chance to ask.
"Where do you think you're going?" Bofur's voice jars her out of her memories. She looks up and realizes she was so deep in her thoughts that she missed Bilbo preparing to leave. She tenses, knowing they're only moments away from the next item on the checklist.
"Back to Rivendell," Bilbo says. Instead of listening to him, she nudges Dori (the closest dwarf to her) awake. She does the same with Ori and Nori, then Gloin and Oin, receiving annoyed protests from each of them. She gets to Fili and Kili, neither of whom are thrilled to be awake. She goes to move on to the next dwarf, but Kili grabs her arm, saying "wait." She looks at him, waiting for him to speak. He doesn't, though. He just stares at her, searching her eyes for...something.
"What's about to happen?" he asks after a moment, his tone dead serious. She blinks in surprise. How..
She doesn't get to ask how he knows, because right then Thorin shouts for them all to wake up, and then suddenly the floor is gone.
Kili doesn't let go of her arm. She wants to let him keep holding on, but the pile at the bottom of the tunnel will be jarring and painful enough as is without her own weight contributing to it. So she transforms. Even with dwarven eyesight, it's too dark for him to see her change, but he does yelp when he feels her slip out of his grip. She watches from her practically invisible form of a fly as the dwarves land and then get swarmed. Fili and Kili and a few others call out for her, until Dwalin silences them. He and Thorin quickly whisper to them, asking what they think the goblins would do to a woman if they had any inking there was one somewhere in the tunnels. That effectively shuts them up.
Emery winces in sympathy as the dwarves are poked, whipped, and beaten on the way to the - for lack of a better word - throne room. She flies high, avoiding torches and smoke. She watches as the goblin king antagonizes and mocks them. She can't help chuckling when the giant walking wart picks up a candelabra and reads "made in Rivendell," and Nori sheepishly says "just a couple of keepsakes" when his brothers look at him with exasperation. She cringes when the king performs his monotonous warbling he calls singing as various torture devices are brought. She holds her breath anxiously when Orcrist is found and the great goblin orders Thorin's death. She waits. Where the hell is Gandalf?! She knows he's supposed to appear, but with no sign of him and the goblin raising its blade to bring down on Thorin's neck, she decides screw it and flies down.
She's about fifteen feet over the goblin when she returns to her dwarven form. In one swift motion, she unsheathes her sword and beheads the goblin. She tucks and rolls, coming to a stop on her feet, sword ready to swing. There's a beat of silence as dwarf and goblin alike are frozen in surprise. It's only a beat, though, as the goblins immediately begin screeching and Thorin gets his feet back underneath him. She glares at the goblin king and points to him with her sword, simultaneously smiling and snarling, "amrad asa ai-mênu." Admittedly, she enjoys the confusion and fear on his face a tad more than she probably should. Thankfully, the dwarves don't need any further prompting and rush to collect their weapons.
"AMRAD ASA AI-MÊNU!" she bellows as the goblins charge her.
"Kill it!" the great goblin shrieks as she slices through another one's throat. "Kill the dâgish! Kill it!" That comment confuses her. She understands what it means, of course - Yavanna made sure of that - but why would he call her that? Unless...her blood runs cold. Orcs and goblins and other dark creatures are outrageously zealous and loyal to the forces of Morgoth, but Tulkas once explained it's not because they're stupid or insane. The first dark creatures were made by taking elves and stripping them of Eru's light. Every dark creature that came after has been made and born with that same absence of light. One of the side effects is that they are particularly adept at perceiving and recognizing divine power, so saturated in light as it is. After all, a fish doesn't know that it's wet because it spends its whole life in water, but a land animal knows right away. Dark creatures are drawn to beings like Morgoth, Sauron, and Saruman because they exude that divine light and direct it at them. It's more similar to manipulation via opioid addiction than actual control, but the effect is the same. Bloodlust and devout loyalty.
Emery isn't a divine being, but she's more saturated in light than even most elves. She's been targeted before, but she always assumed that was due to her wolf form, and she never gave any of her attackers a chance to say otherwise. If the goblins are able to recognize her for what she is, then the orcs almost certainly will be able to, as well.
Shit.