Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The whole of the hill positively buzzed with gossip. Spring was upon the Shire, and its lushness had drawn out all varieties of frilly rabble. Hamfast Gamgee busied his hands by straightening up his weathered apron and rearranging the various tools, bits, and bobs he kept on his person during the daylight hours. The well-to-do ladies of Bag End in their ruffled dresses and white lace ruffs paid him little mind as they wound their way through the cobbled market, clucking to one another behind their handkerchiefs.

Lobelia Sackville-Baggins had always been a haughty sort, and none too concerned with fraternizing with hobbits of so-deemed lesser status than she. Her gleaming eyes had slipped right over him hunched behind the hedge as she shot a loaded glare to the hobbit hole at his back. That, and she’d never quite been able to keep her less-than-pleasant mouth shut for any length of time especially when there was gossip to be had. He doddled about a few moments more, appearing for all the world a gardener absorbed in his daily chores, before he gathered up his trowel and tulip bulbs and got to work under his wide brimmed hat.

Hamfast found himself back at Bag End for elevensies, and supped on sugar dusted custard tarts, seed cakes glazed with honey and served with lemony raspberries, and steaming black tea while he casually mentioned what he’d heard that morn to his host.
Briella Baggins tutted at him as she blew on her tea, then plucked a cake from the tray and nibbled at it happily between sips. “Just be sure that twittering ninny doesn’t catch wind of your sharp ears, Master Gamgee. I’ll not have her add you to her ‘hobbits-of-ill-repute’ list by association.”

The corners of her green eyes crinkled when she smiled, which never failed to remind him of her mother’s upon catching a particularly daring idea in the wind. It brought melancholy to his heart; Briella had inherited Belladonna’s Tookishly fierce love for life and Bungo’s gentle steadfastness—but her looks were all her mother. She kept her honeyed brown curls tied back from her face with a ribbon, though they often escaped and curled about her ears and temples. Her plum-colored waistcoat was worn and faded around her elbows, but she had just as much skill with needle and thread as with a knife in the kitchen, and so it was covered in minute embroidered repairs that always managed to take the form of flowers and vines.

More and more as she’d grown into a young lady, he’d catch sight of her on his way home and have a double-take, thinking his dear friend Belladonna had somehow miraculously returned to the living. His heart never failed to stutter uncertainly. Instead, Briella had been forced to become the only heir of Bag End when Belladonna had suddenly fallen ill and died only for Bungo to follow her shortly thereafter. He was not taken by sickness, but those few who had visited him after Belladonna’s passing all agreed she’d taken his spirit with her.

“Never you mind it, Miss Baggins.” He tucked his handkerchief into the front pocket of his waistcoat. “If Missus Lobelia Sackville-Baggins has the time o’ day to worry about my sorry hide, then mark my words there are stranger things a-comin’ to the Shire.”

“She’ll have the sorrier hide if she so much as sneezes at you.” Briella handed him a wrapped basket of what was most-certainly delectable sweets and Hamfast grinned. “Now, take these on back home and if I hear they don’t make it to their intended recipients I shall be rather cross with you.” She fixed him with a stern eye.

He had the good sense to at least appear contrite and dipped his head, winking at her as he got to his feet. “’Canna blame a hobbit for enjoying your craft when it’s cooking of such fine quality.” He wasn’t sure how she’d known he’d kept her last gift safely tucked away from tiny, sticky hands to secretly enjoy it for himself in his work shed.

She tutted at him again, brushing aside his compliment as she bustled about the table to clear it of plates scraped clean and empty cups. “It is thanks for your well-wished eavesdropping, I should think.” She said with a sniff. “And what kind of hobbit would I be to deny those grabby little gremlins their treats?” Hamfast rather thought she just liked to spoil them at his own expense, but as this was the third basket in as many weeks she’d sent him home with, he knew it was only airs she put on to avoid excessive babysitting duty. Bag End was a large, sprawling hole of twisting halls for only a single hobbit miss, but even so, she enjoyed her privacy.

“Remember you now—while the Wizard might have proved himself friend to us hobbits, these dwarrows I’ve heard tell of aren’t oft the kindest sorts. Scruffy folk, all beards and boots and big blustery bellowin’. Should any of them stray this far into Hobbiton, it would behoove you to keep well enough away until they’ve gone.” He seemed to remember a certain Wizard having fondness for Tooks and felt his worry grow.

“I am content with my garden, teas, and status as a gnarled old spinster, thank you kindly Master Gamgee.” She held the door for him, and they both ventured into the bright sunshine where she found a bench to sit and pulled out her stemmed pipe. “But, should a dwarf stop by for elevensies, well, then it would only be appropriate to set him to rights.” She winked through a streamer of smoke and waved him on, ignoring his slight frown with a giggle. “Oh, do not look so glum! I shall be a perfectly respectable hobbit.”

Should have known straight away that Tooks haven't the foggiest what truly qualifies as respectable, Hamfast realized later with equal fondness and concern as he beheld the letter addressed to him in Briella’s neat script sat primly on his doorstep.

Chapter Text

Briella Baggins couldn’t help the twist of nerves that fluttered in her stomach as she tried to keep her legs from swinging back and forth. Lush grass brushed the bottoms of her feet and bees floated lazily between the daisies, roses and lavender that grew in a neat row just beside her fence.  

Hamfast had been correct, at least—she worried that he sometimes took far too much stock in the town babble. Every so often a rumor would surface about the Wizard traveling along the Shire’s borders, only for it to have been the ramblings of an enthusiastic child that saw a markedly spindly tree. She’d tamped down her own curious excitement until she could see the tip of his pointed hat moving slowly over the hill. Such things happened only rarely in the Shire, and she was keen to have someone other than herself take the focus of the chatter.

He was taller than any person Briella had ever laid eyes on, even during her few forays into Bree for the occasional rare ingredient. The men there were dingy, dirty things that bulged either with muscle or flabby folds, complemented by greasy hair and dull eyes. As a long-established rule, Hobbits did not venture there alone so her visits had often been short by necessity of keeping in time with her group, but something about the way their listless eyes followed her had always set warning bells to chiming in her head. The Wizard, however, appeared nobler and kinder by spades as he tipped the wide brim of his hat to each hobbit he passed, sometimes stopping for a brief greeting wherein he stooped low enough to look near painful for his looming height. Grey robes covered him from head to heel, and he carried a twisted length of ash wood that he used as a walking stick, but Briella suspected that it was also his magic staff as she beheld the clear crystal set into the curling roots at its tip.

She felt her belly churn again as she realized he seemed to be making directly for Bag End, and once he stopped to hover, she took another inhale from her pipe before offering, “Good Morning!”

The Wizard looked on from under bushy eyebrows and huffed, “What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning, or that it is a morning to be good on?”

She was quite certain he meant to ruffle her, but the morning had been so pleasant, she found his roundabout greeting only amused her. She puffed out a ring of smoke.

“To be sure, the last two. If you’ve already gone and decided it’s to be a bad day, then I kindly request you keep it’s company yourself, and leave me out of it.” She quipped.

He chuckled then. “To think I’d be so thoroughly cold-shouldered by Belladonna Took’s daughter. As if I were selling buttons at the door!” He leaned forward on his staff and seemed to take her in from top to toe, procuring a pipe for himself from somewhere within his robes as he squinted at her with eyes full of scrutiny.

Briella felt her cheeks heat with shame and crossly tried to force it back down her throat, unwilling to be cowed by this wizard she barely knew. “Can I help you?”

He was an ancient, wrinkled man—she wondered just how many years he’d known to have met the Old Took in his youth, as they murmured around the Shire. He already looked to be as old as the frailest of the elderly Hobbits in the Shire, and his beard was nearly as tall as one.

“That remains to be seen.” With an air of intrigue that seemed almost put-upon, he laid folded hands atop his staff and continued conspiratorially, “I’m looking for someone to share in adventure.”

Briella glanced about, mercifully finding no nosy hobbits seemed to be lurking nearby. Her heart had somehow jumped up into her throat. “Master Wizard, I’m afraid adventure is terribly far outside of my realm of expertise, but I do thank you heartily for the offer.”  She said with a second surreptitious look over the road.

She was already considered somewhat of a recluse, and even if it did not bother her overmuch, it still made for more uncomfortable encounters than not. Her outright refusal to marry the several suitors that sought the wealth of Bag End had started it; but her dedication to keeping out of the social circles within Hobbiton had put the final nail in her coffin. A young hobbit lass should be hosting parties or raising babes, they claimed—each and every single blasted time she spent more than a few minutes in idle conversation. Not cavorting about with a gardener’s children or playing with herbs to craft new teas. That was a ‘waste of her better skills’ Otho Sackville-Baggins had informed her once with a sneer. She’d promptly snatched up her tray of tarts and the one he held in his unsettlingly sweaty hand with nary a word and left the gathering entirely—a most wholly unnecessary insult by Hobbitish standards that had not helped her shaky reputation, but at least it had left her thankfully uninvited from a whole season of tiresome garden parties. Even so, the thought of leaving her cozy home behind for goodness-knows-what nearly frightened the pants off her.

Unbothered, the Wizard smiled, and there was more cleverness in his grin than she would have liked. “It seems the memories of hobbits are less sure than I remembered.” Before she could sputter an incensed response, he kept on, “I am the wizard Gandalf the Grey.” He tipped his hat in greeting and waited.

“Briella Baggins of Bag End, at your service. You must be the Wizard that Old Took used to get his fireworks from! I remember watching them as a child.” It had been nigh on twenty years since then. It occurred to her he’d have known her name already to have brought up Belladonna Took so easily, and frowned. Suddenly she felt as though a game was being played here, one that she was already tragically behind in score.

“I’m pleased to find you remember something about me, at least. Even if its only my fireworks.” He all but harrumphed. “You’ve changed, Briella Baggins, and not entirely for the better.” She fought the urge to stick her tongue out at him. Somehow, the words stung more deeply than she expected.

“Hmm. Well, it’s decided. It will be very good for you. And most amusing for me.” He nodded. Gandalf’s eyes were glimmering with a light that reminded her of a cluster of excited fireflies around a torch—flickering, a bit impish, and buzzing just loudly enough to intrude on one’s peace. “I shall inform the others. When do you normally take supper?”  

He can’t very well force me out of Bag End. What great harm could come from one meal? They will come, eat their fill, and be on their way in the morn, she thought, though it would have been more polite to leave the keelhauling out.

It wasn’t often that a Wizard dropped by for dinner. Certainly, she’d get an earful from Hamfast come the morn and would be absolutely haggled by the children for stories, but it might keep the rabble shut about her current lack of a husband for several more months, if she was lucky. Any friend of the Wizard could surely be trusted for a single evening, she reasoned. And she was too tempted by half to hope the ‘others’ Gandalf spoke of might be dwarves. Briella tucked her curls behind her ears and, having made up her mind, nodded briskly. She’d have to run to the market soon if she wished to have anything worthwhile on her table.

“Seven-thirty, and not a moment later. But—” Briella didn't finish.

Gandalf’s grin widened and he tipped his hat once more, puffing a smoke ring large enough to encircle her head that sent her into a sneeze. “Good morning, Miss Baggins.” He said as he meandered off, looking for all the world like a self-satisfied cat that had just snatched an unsuspecting sparrow.

00000

Plenty—that was the word Dwalin had been searching for. Green thickets surrounded him on all sides, hemming him in ways that reminded him of stone walls for their impressive height. The hedge was thick enough that he knew it would take him considerable time to hack through even with an axe, and felt himself a little safer in this nest of oddities.

Bright flowers bloomed everywhere he looked, the trees in their neat-but-circular orchards all bore fruit, and wagons bursting with fresh vegetables were pulled by fluffy cows that looked as though they’d never missed a single feeding. Their liquid brown eyes seemed put off by his strange scent and edged away from him, but the few hobbits driving the wagons were a sight more anxious. They glared his way with suspicion in the deepening gloom of dusk, though they made no move to stop him. He could hardly blame them. The hammer that poked above his left shoulder painted an unfriendly picture at the very least, and a terrifying one at worst, so he hunched down to appear less threatening as he made his way.

The little halflings—for they were a mite shorter than he, by a head or two—were more delicate in stature than he expected, having diminutive hands and no great muscle, but large fuzzy feet he found endearing if just as odd as their un-bearded faces. Tiny hobbit children were everywhere, underfoot and screeching, slight things with curly topped heads and wide gap-toothed smiles only those blessed with youth could muster.

He’d been led to believe they were lazy, ill-made creatures unsuited for battle; while the last was most obviously true, and he spied a few halflings unoccupied by naught but their pipes, most of them hurried to-and-fro with purpose in their steps and a lively sheen to their eyes. They were a gentle people, these Hobbits, he decided.

He did not condemn them for it. Long years with only the barest of their needs met had left Durin’s Folk embittered and wary. Ered Luin had become a refuge of sorts for them, but only just. Dwarf women were scarce, and their numbers steadily dwindled year over year. Sickness, frequent orc and goblin attacks, and even the occasional band of ruffians looking for an easy meal, plagued them until what little of their wealth remained was bartered away for supplies to those that would buy them. Men did not seem to respect Dwarves as they did when he was a youngling and oft looked to cheat them out of their hard-earned coin any way they could. Or perhaps this world was more fouled with greed than he remembered. In truth, Dwalin found himself oddly envious of the hobbits, as another herd of giggling children scrambled past him chasing after an unlucky, but rather fat, tabby cat.

His boots made unique prints in the dirt path below as he tromped along—no one who’d passed this way wore anything similar so far as he could tell. He did spy a man-sized set of boot prints and an accompanying staff butt imprint that he assumed belonged to the Wizard and took that for evidence that he was going the right direction. Hobbit towns, as cozy and welcoming as they were, seemed hopelessly disorganized, and he was starting to believe he’d become turned about when he didn’t immediately see the rune he was looking for. The sun was quickly descending, and he had no wish to be late.

Dwalin was pleasantly surprised when he crested the next hill just as the last light of day was fading to spot the barely-there mark against one of the round moon-doors the Hobbit folk favored. It was seemingly the largest holdfast he could see—sprawling across the hillside with circular paned windows that glowed merrily from within.

When his first knock went unanswered, he waited. Thorin Oakenshield had organized their mustering, and so the meeting would go as planned, he told himself. He cleared his throat and knocked once more.

The door was abruptly flung inward and Dwalin’s nose was assaulted with a flurry of wonderous smells, and he felt his stomach growl in complaint. The mix of roasting meat, herbs and bread baking was almost overwhelming and reminded him of many a great Dwarven feast, though it had been far too long since he’d had the good fortune to enjoy one.

“Oh! Good evening, Master Dwarf!” The hobbit lass seemed surprised, but happily so as she smiled sunnily at him with flushed cheeks and eyes the same color as her hedges.

He sketched a bow and found himself almost nose-to-toe with her large feet. “Dwalin, at your service.” She had neatly combed the hair on the toes and tops of her feet as a dwarf might brush his beard, and they were impeccably clean. She wore an apron tied about her waist over a rust-colored dress that was pushed up to her elbows, and her honey-brown hair was partly held back from her face by a matched ribbon. Curls fell free down her shoulders and across her back, and he quickly averted his gaze as to not seem rude. A lovely lass even without a beard, were I fifty years younger, he thought. He wondered idly where Gandalf meant to procure the last member of their company. It seemed a special sort of cruelty to take any of these halflings from their happy homes to face the dangers they were bound for.

“Briella Baggins, at yours. Please, come in.”  She stepped aside, quickly closing the door once more after him. The scents only grew stronger as he took a careful inspection of the hall. Even by dwarvish standards, it would have been considered sound and well-crafted. Polished, lovingly carved wood trimmed every rounded doorway and lent warmth that stone dwarven halls occasionally lacked. Candlelight seemed to brim from every nook and cranny as she showed him into the dining hall. He spied painted portraits upon the walls with renditions of what he guessed were her relatives and ancestors, seeing several with the same curly hair and similar eyes.  

His eyes bulged as he took in the laden table. Durin’s Beard, did she make all of this? Braised beef with wine, meat pies with neatly braided crusts of flaky golden brown, trays of roasted parsnips and mashed potatoes in garlic butter, and several types of soft cheeses laid centered on the oaken slab. Set around it were biscuits, fresh bread and butter, blueberries with cream, cold sliced ham, two large crocks of stew still steaming, and even more dishes Dwalin couldn’t name crowded the rest of the table. Barrels of ale had been scooted into the hall’s alcove and sat snugly awaiting opening, and it was then he wasn’t certain if he’d seen a prettier sight in all his long life.

“I apologize, Master Dwalin, if hobbit cooking isn’t to your tastes—it is my first time hosting dwarves, so I only prepared what would be ordinary fare for a meal in the Shire.” She stood across the table from him with her small hands hidden in her apron, but her eyes were clear and hopeful.

Dwalin’s hand was already reaching for a buttered biscuit when the loud grumble of his stomach carried across the room in the silence that followed her statement.

“Lassie, I think we should be honored you went through this much trouble for our company. I haven’t been treated to a feast like this in years.” With that, he popped the biscuit in his mouth and nearly wept. Several more quickly followed.

He didn’t see her pleased expression turn quickly to abject horror, “Feast?” She all but squeaked.

A ring at the door interrupted anything he might have said in response, so Dwalin eagerly went for the braised beef instead and hoped any more of the others were long in coming.

Chapter Text

Briella felt herself go giddy with excitement as she swept through her hall to answer the door. Master Dwalin, as he’d introduced himself, could have been the tallest hobbit to ever live were he not also muscled in a way she’d only seen like the Men in Bree. He seemed kind enough, if a little brusque. And hungry, she thought, having pretended not to hear the groaning of his belly. There were tattoos—tattoos!—on the crown of his head that bridged down to his ears and temple, curious runes she could not read. And by all that was Green, he was nearly as wide as a wagon in the shoulders. She could almost understand why her forebears had the ill sense to suggest they might eat stones, stolid and steady as Dwalin seemed. But no, he had been contentedly shoveling biscuits into his gullet easily enough when she left him.

She was still a tad put out by his staring at her feet—they were beautifully kept, thank you—and it was unkind to stare so at a lady’s toes. I should not be too hasty to take offense, I am likely the first hobbit to host dwarves for dinner, after all, she thought. She doubted they were any more familiar with hobbits than her people seemed to be with them, but even so she hoped she did not offend them in turn. Dwalin’s polite but stern demeanor gave her the impression he would not say so, even if she did. She realized then that she would most likely need to curb some of her Hobbitish sense of propriety if the others were anything like him.

“Good evening, Master Dwarf.” She dropped into a light curtsey, having forgotten to in her eagerness to meet her very first dwarf. He looked much older than Dwalin, having a carefully groomed white beard half as long as he was tall that pointed up at the ends, and a large beaked nose, but softer, kinder eyes that crinkled as he smiled at her.

“Balin, at your service, my lady.” He said with a grand flourish and a bow that made his snowy beard brush the ground. It seemed to be a typical greeting for dwarves to bow, she noted, but Dwalin’s had not been nearly as theatrical. Deep crow’s feet lined his jolly eyes and Briella decided she found him too charming by half.

“Briella Baggins, at yours. Please, come in—Master Dwalin is already in the dining room.”

At that, Balin chortled and bustled his way through ahead of her, shouting, “Oh-ho! Ha-ha! Brother!”, as he went. An interesting custom to name siblings in rhyme, she thought. One might be forgiven for thinking it could get confusing rather quickly.

“You’re shorter and wider than last we met.”

“Shorter, not wider. And sharp enough for the both of us.” Balin chuckled as they gripped each other’s forearms in what she thought must be another traditional greeting reserved for friends.

The resounding crack of their heads coming together was so loud she thought an empty barrel had come crashing to the floor, and she nearly dropped the ale she was carrying in her haste to see what had broken.

The dwarves kept arriving. Kíli and Fíli—young brothers she guessed based on their shared resemblance, who called her Miss Boggins so many times she was beginning to suspect it was on purpose. One was blond, the other dun. They sauntered into the entry and Kíli began to lift his foot to the wooden glory box to presumedly scrape the mud off them when Briella felt herself go hot with wrath. Were they raised in a barn?

 “If you value your supper, you’d best keep your muddy boots on the floor where they belong, and off my mother’s glory box, Master Kíli.” Briella said loudly enough to be heard over their squabbling. He looked as though he might nettle her further, one eyebrow quirked in surprise and his lips curled at the corners, a tomcat using his claws on a kitten, she thought faintly, feeling suddenly inexplicably small.

“And I’d not call him ‘Master’ Kíli, lassie! He’s but a bairn with his wee swords and missing beard!” Dwalin crowed, apparently having come up for air from the ‘feast’ as he’d called it—what nonsense, her modest supper being called a feast—and intercepted Kíli by the shoulders to give him a good shake. “Come give us a hand lad, we’ve a need for more chairs.”

Kíli grumbled but proved too small to wiggle his way out of Dwalin’s formidable grip. “How many more do you need?” Her dining table had room for at least eight comfortably, and Gandalf had only said several. Weren’t there enough dwarves in her home already? There was another ring at her door, and Briella had the wits to think, where is Gandalf, confound it?

To Briella’s dismay, a total of eight more dwarves awaited her in a pile. She quickly greeted them, hoping that there was no need to know all their names by heart as they rattled them off to march determinedly into her dining room. Óin, Glóin, Ori, Dori, Nori, Bifur, Bombur, Bofur, and finally Gandalf looming behind with the most unrepentant grin upon his aged face it made her want to swat him with a wet washcloth.

“You—you! Gandalf, I would like to remind you that you neglected to say there would be a herd of dwarves! Only several of your friends, which I remind you, is never near than ten in number, and I believe we are well past that now! You could have at least told me you invited a blasted dozen!” She huffed as quietly as she could manage, soon as said dwarves were all safely ensconced with their meal after much scraping and shuffling of chairs. Shouting and plates clattering were the least of the alarming sounds brimming from within.

He grinned and puffed on his pipe but said nothing as a well-kept dwarf with a gray braided beard interrupted. “May I tempt you with some chamomile tea, Master Gandalf?” He held her teapot aloft, writ all over with asphodel flowers, and she couldn’t help the amused smile that tugged her lips at such a surly looking dwarf holding something so very delicate. He’d had the decent sense to make the tea correctly, she noted with some surprise.

“No, thank you. Some red wine for me, Dori, I think.” He demurred, ignoring Briella as if she were furniture, and removed his hat so as to not bump the rafters. So named Dori bumbled off happily to fill Gandalf's request as the elderly wizard greeted Dwalin and Balin.

“They are quite a merry gathering, once one gets used to them. And I believe, we are missing one very important member.” He winked. As she watched them tread mud all over her carpets, she wondered dimly if this had truly been a well-thought-out idea.

With that, he wandered off to chatter and left Briella alone. From her place in the hall, she could see them quickly exhausting the food she’d spent most of the afternoon preparing, showing no sign of slowing. She’d have to empty her pantry to keep up with—oh bebother and confusticate these dwarves! They were already in it; she watched, unimpressed, as the largest, roundest dwarf—Bombur, she thought by the great red beard—returned with several wheels of her best cheese, stuffing his mouth all the while. Food and ale all but flew across the room, and the only peace to be had was when they all broke to drink heartily from their cups and goblets. So much for my worry that dwarvish tastes were choosy, she thought bemusedly, as they burped in unison.

She hurried to her pantry to scuttle away something for breakfast before it was too late and brought out the leftover tarts she had made the night prior just to catch the end of their merry song, and to find every single one of her dishes cleaned, dried, and stacked next to Balin. Her surprise must have shown on her face.

“Mistress Baggins, allow us to thank you for your hearty meal and hospitality. We’ve not had such pleasures for longer than I care to admit, and it does us good to know there is still kindness in the world.” Guests, as a rule, did not help with the washing up and if any other hobbit heard tell of it, they’d have had a fit. Even though she dreaded the chore, it was still her own to manage, and they had done it all the same as a token of gratitude. So she tried to ignore her sensibilities for the moment in favor of appreciating the gesture.

Balin seemed to be the eldest of their jolly group and bowed his head accordingly with his thanks, and the rest of the dwarves mirrored him in a quiet moment of appreciation before Kíli pitched the last roll at Bombur’s head, who turned to catch it open-mouthed much to their whooping delight.

“Speak for yourself on being old—some of us are still young enough!” Kíli said, waggling his thick eyebrows directly at her suggestively, only to be cuffed about the ears by Dwalin while several of the others cheered him on.

A laugh burst from her. Kíli was almost certainly much younger than she for the roundness she saw in his cheeks, but it was flattering, nonetheless. “Well, then it should only be right and proper for me to offer a fitting dessert for such grateful guests.” A hearty cheer went up around the table when she set the tarts out, and Briella wondered fleetingly why she’d been so irritated moments ago about the state of her home if she could bring such joy with only the labor of her hands. She caught Gandalf smirking and wrinkled her nose at him.

The silence that fell over their company at the sound of the last ring to her door was near deafening. “He is here.” Gandalf rumbled ominously around his pipe.

The others, who’d been so cheerily devouring their desserts had grown solemn, even putting down their forks to await whoever had arrived. She found it tremendously curious. Who could command their hearts more firmly than sweets?

Gandalf followed her to the door and opened it himself for the newest arrival—which she thought passing strange since it was her home after all—and found herself matched with another set of blue eyes that reminded her of the fairer of the brothers, Fíli. These eyes were as gentle as granite and wavered not; and the deep, stormy blue of them dimmed to a grey so dark it might have been black once he stepped over her threshold. Briella felt a tingle run down the back of her arms. It was as if the air around him radiated a sense of impending peril, like seeing a wolf in the woods, she thought, and knowing it has long since been your shadow. A dark blue tunic and patterned breastplate peeked out from under his fur mantle.

“Gandalf. I thought you said this place would be easy to find.” His voice was deeper, richer than she’d thought it might be. Resonant as the thrum of a drumbeat and deep as the creaking of an old pine whose boughs were heavy with snow.

“I lost my way. Twice. I wouldn’t have found it at all had it not been for the mark on the door.” Jet black hair hung thick about his face both loose and in long braids, striped here and there with the silver of age and runed beads as it flowed over his shoulders like a mane. A few others also wore beads, but on Thorin they lent him a distinguished air as they softly ‘tinked’ against his armor with his movement. The set of his wide shoulders was similar to Dwalin’s—stiff, but confident, as if they both expected a fight at a moment’s notice.  His chin and jaw were covered in a short black beard, touched with the same sprinkle of silver as his hair.

“Mark? That door was painted less than a week ago, there is no mark!” She managed to squawk, her hands finding the loose string on the pocket of her apron and twisting. She felt so terribly insignificant then, surrounded by such huge persons and personalities that could so easily overlook her.

Gandalf moved to take his cloak and in a less-than-helpful tone said, “There is a mark, I put it there myself.” She crossed her arms and huffed, indignant at the abuses Bag End seemed to be suffering on his behalf, and being so exclusively ignored.

“Briella Baggins, allow me to introduce the leader of our company: Thorin Oakenshield.”

Briella tried to ignore the unyielding cold in his eyes as Thorin Oakenshield circled her with slow, deliberate steps, looking her up and down with such careful eyes it sent her fingers trembling with nerves. She unfolded her arms and fisted her hands, hoping it would not show.

“This is the Hobbit. Tell me, Miss Baggins, have you done much fighting?”

“Pardon me?” She must have heard him incorrectly. There was no way Gandalf had put her up to be the ‘adventurer’ he’d asked after that very morning! Clot-headed, bumbling, no good, meddlesome wizard—

“Axe or sword? What’s your weapon of choice?” Seeing the faint smile on Thorin’s face, she thought he must very well be teasing her. There was no other explanation. I’ve never even held a sword, she thought with unease, and he already knows that.

“I-I do have some skill at conkers, if you must know. But I fail to see why that’s relevant.” She sniffed and found Gandalf again—grinning—and fought to keep her face even as a small titter went up around the dwarves.

“As I thought. This hobbit is more baker than burglar.” Hearty laughter did ring out then and her face flared hotly as he turned away. A more obvious dismissal there could not be, and it burned in her belly like the first time she'd tasted liqour.

“Gandalf, ye ‘canna mean to bring this wee lass—no offense intended missy as I did very much enjoy your cooking—all the way to face the beast!” It was Dwalin who spoke up from his place near Thorin’s side, his dark eyes lingering on her as the entire company hustled about to seat their leader and array themselves about him. He looked troubled, his brow furrowed deeply in a way it hadn’t been the entire evening. Several murmurs of reluctant agreement followed.

“Beast?” She heard herself say. Briella, what have you gotten yourself into?

“Oh, that would be a reference to Smaug the Terrible, chiefest and greatest calamity of our age.” Bofur, she seemed to remember, piped up from the corner with a chirp. “Airborne firebreather, teeth like razors, claws like meat hooks. Extremely fond of precious metals.”

“Dragon.” The breath left her then and Gandalf was at her elbow, ushering her into a chair as her knees abruptly became wobbly.

“What news from the meeting in Ered Luin? Did they all come?” Balin asked.

“Aye. Envoys from all seven kingdoms.” Thorin did not look pleased by these envoys from kingdoms she’d never heard of. She’d not even known so many existed.

“Ah, all of them!” Balin crowed, and the others joined him.  As her breath returned and her mind whirled with thoughts of scales and fire and teeth as long as she was tall, Briella got to her feet and fetched several of the yet untouched tarts from the table and set them in front of Thorin before returning to her seat. His fellows had already been kind enough to pour him some ale.

“What did the dwarves of the Iron Hills say? Is Dáin with us?” Dwalin spoke up.

Thorin sighed and his shoulders appeared to shrink, if only just a little. “They will not come. They say this quest is ours and ours alone.” He met the eyes of his company then and Briella heard them despair as one. She could at least understand the desolation one felt when those you called kin refused your need.

“Óin has read the portents, and the portents say it is time!” Someone claimed impatiently.

“Ravens have been seen flying back to the mountain, as it was foretold.”

“Aye, when the birds of yore return to Erebor, the reign of the beast will end.” That sounded suspiciously like prophecy, Master Dwarf, Briella thought with trepidation.  

All that and more came clamoring to a head when the number of dragons Gandalf had supposedly slain was questioned, and suddenly there were too many dwarves in her home for all the ruckus they made. 

Thorin silenced them with a roar of his own that Briella assumed would be enough to stop a warg in its tracks, had she ever actually seen one and not only read of them. “No more! If we have read these signs, do you not think others will have read them too? Rumors have begun to spread. The dragon Smaug has not been seen for sixty years. Eyes look East to the mountain. Assessing, wondering. Weighing the risk.” He paused, letting his eyes rove across the room.

“Perhaps the vast wealth of our people now lies unprotected. Do we sit back while others claim what is rightfully ours? Or do we seize this chance to take back Erebor?!” There was a wildness, a brash fierceness in the timber of his voice that drew all eyes to Thorin, she realized as she watched him corral them all under his banner with only his words.

They bellowed their assent and rallied to him. Briella let her thoughts wander back to Smaug the Terrible. To take it back, Thorin had said. How does one even fight a dragon? It seemed an act to be undertaken only by valiant heroes of the tales of old.

Then Gandalf produced an iron key—quite unremarkable looking, if Briella was asked for her opinion, which she wasn't—given to him by Thorin’s father, Thráin, and it did much for the company’s courage. As she watched, she became aware that these dwarves dithered quite a lot, which comforted her; they were only a smidgeon louder than riled hobbits on a summer’s eve after several pints.

Then the talk of ‘burglars’ began and there was much and more to be said, most of which insulting in some way or another either to her race or her person directly. They continued as if she was not there, and she was still madly trying to puzzle out the connection between herself and ‘the burglar’ when she became aware of the pause in conversation.

Balin prompted her. “And are you?”

“Am I what—a burglar? I’ve never stolen a thing in my life!” She primly corrected them.

The dithering resumed, fiercely and more contentious than before as they all attempted to dominate conversation by ever raising their boisterous voices. Thorin’s eyes burned from across the hall. She was happy to host them and liked them well enough as guests, but to face a dragon and steal treasure from under his nose? She thought not. Surely there were other dwarves better suited to this task than her, of all people. She could think of farmhands down the road more capable than she for such a thing.

“Enough!” Gandalf’s voice boomed over the cacophony, deepening the shadows behind him and silencing the squabbling. It was the first clear display of magical power she’d seen, and suddenly the doddering wizard looked a great and terrible warlock, his form all but absorbing the gloom to make himself appear huge in her now-small dining room.

“If I say Briella Baggins is a burglar, then a burglar, she is! Hobbits are remarkably light on their feet. In fact, they can pass unseen by most if they choose.” That was news to her.

“And, while the dragon is accustomed to the smell of dwarf, the scent of a hobbit is all but unknown to him, which gives us a distinct advantage." An infinitesimally small one, perhaps. Dragons do not seem idle creatures. But then again, what knowledge does a hobbit have of drakes?

None, as it should be, she decided, unsure why she even gave the matter a lick of thought.

He leveled his gaze at Thorin then. “You asked me to find the fourteenth member of this company, and I have chosen Miss Baggins. There’s a lot more to her than appearances suggest. And she’s got a great deal more to offer than any of you know. Including herself.”

“You must trust me on this. A foresight is upon me, Thorin Oakenshield, and I bid you heed me as you’ll only succeed if this hobbit joins you.”

It seemed to Briella that Thorin warred with himself, for he said nothing as he and Gandalf stared unblinking at one another for a long moment.

“Very well. We do it your way.” Thorin’s eyes flicked to her briefly, and she had a hunch that any concession, especially one such as this, was a rare thing for someone of his nature. “Balin, the contract?”

“Have I no say in this?” She found herself crossing her arms once more, to avoid playing with her apron’s loose string as all eyes returned to her. Her voice sounded petulant to her own ears, and she wanted to take back the words for how pitiful they sounded.

“Of course, lassie. You aren’t obligated to sign or join the Company.” Balin said softly. He smiled in a fatherly way that reminded her of Hamfast and patted her hand. “Just be sure you give it a good reading—the funeral rites of hobbits aren’t something I fear I’m all that familiar with.”

00000

Briella awoke later to find they’d lit a crackling fire, and several had begun to puff gently on their pipes. Bombur snored. Humiliation coursed through her cheeks once more, she'd apparently fainted upon learning potential death and dismemberment were in fact clauses to the contract she now considered. Thankfully, it seemed no one had any further interest in poking fun at her expense that evening, and so she stayed sunken deep into her chair, unnoticed.

A rumbling, lamenting voice that she realized came from the figure closest to the fire began to sing softly:

Far over the misty mountains cold

To dungeons deep and caverns old

We must away ere break of day

To find our long-forgotten gold

The others joined him gradually, hesitantly. As if they were intruding upon a man in his grief and were loath to break his lonely vigil. She realized it was Thorin as he turned, seeing the silver bead glint in his hair. Balin was first among them, his eyes glassy and distant:

The pines were roaring on the height

The winds were moaning in the night

The fire was red, it flaming spread

The trees like torches blazed with light

Briella felt her heart throbbing with empathy as she listened to the song’s closure. She could almost hear the pitch snapping as it burned in the wind of the dragon’s wings, almost feel the heat of the fire on her skin as they breathed life into their memories. Only Fíli and Kíli stayed silent, but their eyes were hard and sad at once as they watched their uncle.

Such anguish, she thought with an ache in her heart deeper than she knew possible for these dwarves she’d only just met. They had been forced out of hearth and home for no other reason than a dragon’s greed, been forced to watch loved ones suffer and die. Their grateful words echoed back at her, that ‘feasts’ like this were a treat to be savored—and her heart crumpled further. A people so lively as these should be happy and safe within their halls of treasured stone, even if she couldn’t fathom their liking for it.

She tried to imagine how she would feel, had the Shire been the target of the dragon’s wrath instead. She found she could not. What was she, if one removed Bag End and the Shire? If she could no longer cozy up to her armchair in the study to read, nor harvest herbs from her garden for drying, or even bake treats for Hamfast’s children; what was left? It would be as if she’d never existed—her person was woven too deeply into the grain of Bag End’s walls.

How must it be, then, to have all those things one held dear, ripped away by a monster so fearsome that any hope of return felt a child’s folly?

Her thoughts got the better of her then, and painted her a picture of the Shire, alight with flame. It raced across their grassy knolls, razing the clustering of hobbit holes to smoldering ruins. The shadows of great wings fell across the sky, ash and embers swirling and stinging as darkness swallowed what remained. She felt her chest seize.

Could she be so brave as these dwarves before her? Did she want to be? Briella didn’t know. 

 After enjoying the relative peace of Bombur’s soft snores and the comforting sounds of pipe puffing for a few more moments, Briella got herself up and began rifling through her spare rooms, tossing pillows and blankets out until she was certain each of them would have a place to bed down for the night that wasn’t a chair or Maker forbid—the floor.  A few of them raised eyebrows at her but otherwise paid no mind until she came to stand in front of the hearth.

“Master Thorin and Company, my home is yours for the evening. There is fresh bedding in each of the rooms down the hall, choose any except the door at the end. Good evening.” She gave a light curtsey as she felt her face warming with their half-lidded eyes upon her and turned to retire to bed. She left the contract unsigned on the hearth, its folded pages fluttering with her exit.          

Well past midnight found Brielle tweaking the threads of her nightgown with only moonlight shining through her windows. Even tucked into her bedroom at the far end of Bag End, she could hear the distinct sound of varying snores echoing through its halls and stifled a giggle. More proof dwarves were not so different from hobbits, as hazy memories surfaced of her father’s snoring, though maybe not quite so loud as thirteen dwarves.

She’d slept some, but the day’s events had woken her restless mind and kept her thinking, wondering, worrying.

A snack would do her mind some good—besides, she’d not had much to eat between the dwarves’ feast and subsequent bickering over their quest. She tossed her blankets back and, figuring that they would most definitely sleep through her padding softly to the pantry, tied a simple robe about her shoulders and crept out of her room in the darkness.

00000

Something was scuffling about in the hobbit’s hole. Thorin had seen the halfling retire to her bed, and there were no footfalls to be heard, so it wasn’t Bombur snuffling about for a midnight snack. He would have heard the jangle of his chain and the swish of his heavy beard. No, it was something else. A rat? He hadn’t seen signs of the like earlier. The Shire seemed remarkably shy of vermin as far as he could tell, due to the copious number of sleek-furred cats he’d seen lazing about.

He almost ignored the sound. The Shire was hundreds of leagues from the last reliable orc track he’d spotted, most like it was a squirrel, or a mouse, skittering within the walls in search of food. Nevertheless, it could be something else. Something wicked, come in the night to catch him unawares and rip at what little left to him he still held dear.

Silently, Thorin got to his feet out of the barely too-small chair he dozed in near the front hall and made his way toward the pantry. He passed the rooms where Kíli and Fíli slept and finding them both where he left them, continued to Bifur and Bofur’s room. Both accounted for. Bombur still snored in the hearth room, no one had bothered moving him as they had with young—and much slighter by far—Ori. Óin, Glóin, and Balin had taken the next room, with Dori, Nori and Ori in the last. Dwalin slept against their door, hammer slung across his knees.

Thorin nudged his boot as he passed and was satisfied to see Dwalin open one alert eye and raise an eyebrow at him. Thorin flicked his index finger, and his long-time shield brother closed his eye once more to lean more comfortably against his post.

It had been almost a full cycle of the moon since he’d summoned them all here, and he’d be damned if he would waste the opportunity presented to them. He only hoped it would be enough to complete their quest—Hobbit excluded of course, they would have to make do with another regardless of Gandalf’s dubious foretelling. Thirteen of the last dwarves worth their salt was enough for him to worry about.

His nephews becoming part of the Company hadn’t been his intention, but they’d been able to persuade DÍs that it was a worthy calling after months of cajoling—and a few gifts. He also suspected his sister hoped her sons would come back a touch more reserved; already Ered Luin felt too small a place to contain their devilry, and Thorin had spent a fair portion of his time there digging Kíli out of whatever latest scrap he’d found himself in, much to his irritation.

The foreign noises continued, and this time he thought there came the scrape of steel. Hand on his hilt, Thorin stepped between pools of moonlight on the wood floor, careful to stay in the dark, turned the corner and saw only the empty curve of the pantry archway. No candlelight came from within, but no pests either. He loosed his sword from its scabbard. Peeking inside, he found naught but crumbs and a few leftover loaves of wrapped bread stacked against the wooden shelves. Carefully tied herbs still swayed above as if someone had recently swatted it, tickling the crown of his head.

Continuing his search—for the scuffling seemed to have moved elsewhere ahead of him, he kept on. He would find it, and wake Dwalin if he must to deal with it. Then they could leave this strange place behind.

Crossing the threshold of yet another room within this twisting nest of halls, Thorin found the source of the racket.  He slid his sword back into its scabbard but otherwise couldn’t help himself trying to puzzle out what it was she was up to. Still no candles burned. Weren’t hobbits terribly blind in the dark? Try as he might, no other certainties about them were forthcoming, and he found himself decidedly unsettled at his lack of knowledge.

The little halfling was facing away from him as she bent, tinkering with something on the table she obscured with her form. He hadn’t taken the time to notice that her hair was so long. In the dark it looked sable, and soft as it curled loose and unbound to the base of her spine. The sight created an uncomfortable jumble of mortification and tension to flutter through his chest before he could quash it. No dwarf woman would ever be seen without immaculately beaded, braided and coiffed hair outside her home and his doing so would have brought dishonor upon them both—but belatedly he grasped that neither was she a dwarf, nor outside her home and he was intruding on what would otherwise be a private moment to herself.

Trying to smother his discomfort proved elusive as he watched the swaying of her hair while she shifted from foot to foot. Silvery light gathered about the pale green robe she wore and Thorin was not foolish enough to miss its fine make; only satin, silk and samite held the glow of moonbeams in such a way. He shook his head and thought of the strangeness of un-bearded faces to reorganize his thoughts.

Tea. She was making tea. Dwalin might have told me as much and saved me from acting a fool, the sot. She would have passed him by unless there were unlikely secret passages in hobbit holes, and he very much doubted that. Perhaps that was why he found the Shire peculiarly unsettling; it was glaringly obvious that no thought had been put into defending it. He knew it was partially due to the isolated area the Shire nestled in, but as he’d searched for Briella’s home earlier that day, he’d found himself consistently glancing over one shoulder in anticipation of an ambush.

Thorin came to a truly unpleasant thought only a moment later. Even a single pack of orc hunters could bring wanton death here. He’d seen for himself the borders of this land, if they could be called such, and would bet gold he had more fingers than there were arrows in the Shire.

As Briella stepped to the side to find her seat, the movement drew him out of his grim thoughts and she caught sight of him standing in the darkness of the hall, watching her.

She met his gaze with wide eyes that strayed to the hand still resting on his sword. He quickly moved his hand away and lifted his open palm, but the flicker of wary suspicion showed plain at the inward draw of her brows and the tiniest of shuffled steps backwards. There was a morsel of cake in her slender hand. At once, Thorin remembered the taste of lemony-blackberry tart she’d set in front of him only hours ago and thought her notion of a nighttime snack not quite so silly.

Her cheeks were dusted with freckles. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say that would not oust him for snooping about her home in the night like a thief, but she obviously did not share his predicament.

“Care for some tea, Master Thorin?” She whispered, gesturing to her tray of delectables with a hesitant curl of her lips that was so lacking in guile Thorin would have guessed her barely older than a child. That she didn’t immediately scream and toss her tea in his face was a testament to some odd sort of nerve, he thought.

Or, perhaps you have grown too used to cruelty. This place is not for you. The voice was dry as dead leaves scraping on stone in an autumn wind, and yet it served to remind him of battles lost and hard fought, blood in the dirt.

When he didn’t respond right away, she shrugged, popped the cake into her mouth and reached across her table to procure a second teacup. She poured him a spell, then settled herself into the chair behind her with a sigh. Her feet, she tucked up under her knees and covered with her robe, though to keep warm or hide them from his view, he wasn’t sure.

Unable to extricate himself gracefully or without guilt, he said, “Thank you,” in an equally quiet voice, though his was less suited for soft whispers and it came out a rumble. He took the proffered refreshment and sat awkwardly in the chair beside hers, where they could both see the light of the moon filtering in from her paned windows and the murky shadows of her garden beyond. Their porcelain cups steamed twin dancing pillars, curling as they rose undisturbed in the still air.

The only sounds were the soft snores from his company and the rustle of satin when Briella shifted to sip at her tea. For the barest of moments, Thorin could almost forget why he was in the Shire, and instead allowed the scent of black tea, honey cakes and lavender to gently lull him toward something that resembled ease.

To hear Dwalin tell it, Briella had only met her first dwarf when he arrived at her door and then proceeded to feed the thirteen of them under the assumption that there would only be ‘several’. It was no mean feat. Mahal, feeding even Bombur could be a lofty trial to one’s coin purse. If they found a way to complete their mission, Thorin would compensate her thrice over for her hospitality, he thought as he devoured his sweet. He found himself saddened that he hadn’t an entire cake to himself.

“Will your quest be terribly dangerous, even aside from the fire-breathing, airborne calamity?” Her face was contemplative and subdued, the green of her eyes black in the dim light when he glanced her way.

The taste of honey lingered. “Calamity aside—yes, terribly so, I imagine.” He answered, though his lips quirked. It seemed to him a strange question, and she’d asked it as if it were about the weather.

She turned slightly in her chair, hair tumbling over one shoulder as she peered at him. He let her gaze pass unremarked and kept still, for he’d done much the same upon his arrival and it only seemed fair. Balin had already given him an earful for ‘treating the little lass like any common fresh-faced lad new to the forges’, and Thorin was not near old enough yet to avoid the unwanted flush of shame the grandfatherly dwarf’s scolding dredged up. He suspected that not every Hobbit in Bag End could afford to host them thusly, and that even fewer would have invited a gaggle of shabby dwarves willingly into their homes for dinner.

He could see her tilt her head as she leveled her eyes at his shoulder and the pattern sewn into it. Not nearly blind in the dark, then, but certainly no scout, Thorin mused as she squinted to see it more clearly.

“Are the lives of dwarves always so?” She set her tea aside to wrap her arms about her knees but returned to staring out the window. “Dangers abound, always peeking over one shoulder for the next enemy.”

Thorin’s voice sounded to his own ears as though it was blanketed in an impenetrable fog, when he finally answered. “Not always. But for now, it is our constant, dogged companion that never fails to nip at our heels and remind us we are hunted.” Bitterness caught in his throat, and he found himself spitting the words out, as if a lump of molten iron had fallen upon his tongue.

She shuddered and stillness seeped back into their world, as the memory of ice-cold steel sliding against bone suddenly threw itself to the surface of Thorin’s mind.

“If—” Briella tightened her grip on her knees and seemed to shrink even smaller, as if the shade of his nightmares had chilled her, somehow. She cleared her throat and spoke into the night. “If, perhaps, you did have your home. Would it still follow you?”

Thorin felt his eyes fall upon her again, heavier as he considered her words. He’d just told Balin that it was honor, courage, and a willing heart that he found truly worthy—an army from the Iron Hills could sod off as far as he was concerned. Here, a Shire Hobbit lass who’d never held a sword in her life was weighing the advantages of joining this quest to face a dragon, for no better reason he could see than his people lacked for a home, regardless of the impossible odds. Perhaps he could not know if she was true, not yet—but it took bravery and willing aplenty to even hope Durin’s Folk might reclaim Erebor, and he was gratified, if only a little, by her mettle.

“I couldn’t say.” He absently rubbed a finger over the rim of his cup, and felt himself a coward for his response, but couldn’t stop the words. “It has been our shadow for so long I think we’ve forgotten what it means to live without it.” He said them without malice or resentment, but he saw her bite down on her lip in response.

“I would help you on your quest, then.” She was a halfling woman, untrained and un-blooded, and he was more like to get her killed by orcs than show her anything of worth about the world. He pictured her eyes, staring sightless as Thrór’s had while his head rolled towards him on the torn and bloody earth—Dwalin was right that these gentle folk should remain so. He felt a growing need to question Gandalf on his motives even bringing them here.

“No.” He deadpanned.

She turned and he met her eyes this time, surprised to see the fury there. “Excuse me?” Her whisper had gone, challenge now hard in her tone as warning glittered in her eyes.

“No. I won’t bring a halfling into dwarven troubles. Even my kin had the right of it. Our quest is our own.” He said firmly, more surprised than offended by her ire. Certainly, he wouldn’t need to sway her to stay? Durin help me.

“How auspicious for me that I am neither of those things, Master Thorin Oakenshield. If you’d checked, you might have found that I’ve already signed your dratted contract. Also, I am a Hobbit and a lady, thank you. I should like you to remember it if I’m going to be learning all kinds of dwarfish nonsense in the coming weeks.” She rose and tossed the folded contract onto his lap. With deft movements, she picked up her tea tray and set it against one hip, opening her other hand for his now empty teacup.  

Blinking and unable to find his voice, Thorin placed the cup in her small hand, at once noting their vast differences.  It was his first true encounter with Hobbits, after all. His fingers were thick from both callous and muscle, crisscrossed with a hundred scars and nicks and capped with the bluntest fingernails. Hers were dainty by comparison, though not without their own modest scars and a curiously long silvered one that wrapped about one wrist. Neat crescent moons of white nail tipped her fingers that gave them even further grace than his own. Freckles dotted the back of her hand, and his eyes unwittingly traced them up her forearm until they disappeared under her sleeve.

Then she was sweeping away, her robe whispering as she went. He should be furious, though, he was not certain at whom. The most he could manage was a dazed sense of impotent irritation, and even that faded away as she clinked about in the pantry before settling herself back to bed. He was more annoyed that he hadn’t heard her pass him by, only the soft snick of the door at the end of the hall closing quietly as she retreated.

Chapter Text

It was well and good that Briella needed to pack for her apparent journey, for she was quite sure that sitting still was beyond her, just now. As she dug about for her mother’s pack—her pack now, she must remember that—she tried to think of anything else light enough that she could bring, that would not cause her to slow. Fortunately, her teas and herbs hadn’t been the focus of the pantry devastation, so she had plenty to choose from. That Dori had been entirely comfortable with chamomile made her hopeful the others might be enticed to try some of her more unique mixtures.

Thorin Oakenshield aside, of course. He was bound to be rather cross with her blatant rudeness. Hardly even a goodnight and she’d snarked at him most aggressively. He has no right to dictate what doom I choose to inflict upon myself, she thought stubbornly even as she remembered how curiously dashing he’d looked as he stalked through her entryway. Not to mention the shock of him skulking in the hall behind her. Knees bent and hand on his sword as he took up nearly the whole archway to her study, she’d seen speedily what he was about. She was an unknown thing, creeping through the house—her house, but even so—without even a candle to light her way. He was a creature of rigorous habit, and of one too many ambushes in the dark. His eyes glowed in the half-light from under his heavy brows, the elegantly straight sharpness of his nose making his face seem wolfish.

This one must be paranoid indeed, to think something so evil as to need his sword could be found in the Shire, she thought. It saddened her to think he had known so much hardship.

Lists, Briella!  The pack and bedroll seemed in decent form, though she’d need to pack some leather strips for emergency repairs, she thought as she eyed its seams. Thread, needle, twine, fabric scraps if I can manage it. Piles formed on the desk as she sorted. Clothes here, sewing supplies there, then her tinderbox, a round of beeswax, Bungo’s knife. There was a coil of rope she needed to fetch from the closet and her soap could wait. Drawing up her thoughts into lists and orderly steps always calmed her, allowed her to prioritize.

How Bungo Baggins’ child had agreed to this, she had not the slightest idea, but she was trying very adamantly to ignore that niggling detail. Belladonna Took’s daughter had only an inkling, a curious desire to see and explore that had apparently been buried for far too long. It tickled the insides of her ribs and made her feel lighter than air. Strings she hadn’t known existed felt as though they’d been plucked to thrum a tune she’d never heard before deep within her chest, calling her with voices that sounded like whistling pines, like the howling of beasts and the piercing ring of a hammer striking steel and spitting sparks. As much as she tried, she could neither smother nor brush it away. Dwarves should really be more careful if their songs could hold such sway over a heart, she thought, only half in jest.

She laid out trousers, her waistcoat, a blouse and brown button vest and the sturdiest undergarments she could find.

Slipping into her adjoined washroom, she lit a candle and drew a bath as the sky lightened. She dripped lavender oil in, relishing its sweet smell and allowing that a few extra drops wouldn’t go amiss. Briella savored the feeling of washing out her hair for twice as long as was normal, knowing it may be her last to feel truly clean in weeks and mourning the impending loss of running water.

Too soon, she rose to dry and redressed, then sat to braid her hair while it remained manageably damp. She tied it with both twine and a blue ribbon in hopes it might last a few days but had no winning expectations, as her hair often proved wilier than most blackberry bushes.

The morn and breakfast brought with it the dwarves’ penchant for gambling. The signed contract had been accepted and ratified by Balin, with many a grumble and groan, though it had quietened soon enough when she’d brought out trays of sausage links and bacon.

Even Gandalf had not absented himself from the betting, and she wasn’t sure if that infuriated or disturbed her more on account of his wizardly status. He pocketed the coins with a wink in her direction and she’d scoffed heartily.

Now atop Myrtle, her new pony, Briella mused that she’d expected dwarves to be less free and irresponsible with their coin, until the later realization that the bet against her had been practically certain after her faint. Her cheeks reddened and she was glad none of them had yet been brave enough to ride beside her and see it.

The trees swayed this way and that in the breeze, taller than she was used to, now they’d passed Bree. Birdsong and butterflies filled the air with a brightness that softened her embarrassment some, and soon she was gazing about in unabashed wonder at the world. The tall grasses of green and shimmering gold were unkempt on either side of their path, and she bet that were she to hop off Myrtle’s back and dive in, it would be twice or maybe even thrice her height. Unfortunately, Briella was a touch allergic to grass, and a few other things besides, and it was not long after that she was rummaging through her pockets only to come up short. 

“Seems I’ve forgotten my handkerchief. What a bother, I quite liked it.” She said with a frown, sniffling to keep her nose from running. She’d have to dig out some of her fabric scraps and turn them into a makeshift replacement once they stopped. 

“Hear that, lads?” Kíli jeered as he rode up behind her. “Poor lass has misplaced her little kerchief! We may as well turn around now and call this day a complete and utter loss!”  He laid the back of one hand against his brow in mock faintness, rolling his eyes back into his head. Scattered laughter and an unintelligible bark from Bifur.

She might have boxed him around the ears if her arms were not so short. He’d spent the entire morning finding acorns to lob at squirrels passing by, and occasionally Myrtle’s rump to annoy her, but she dared not complain and appear even more childish. She shot back snappily, “Have at it yourself, little one. I’m sure we’d all be grateful for the freedom from your constant nattering. Even hobbit children jabber less!” They didn’t, but never mind.

Uproarious laughter from the entire column followed. Dwarf ears were sharper than she’d thought, and Kíli’s were burning red, just now.

“Aye, she’s gone and speared you through, laddie! Seems she’s got more bite than we reckoned!” Glóin howled with delight, and she saw even white-haired Balin smirking when she chanced a glance back, only to bury her face in her arm as a sneeze took her by surprise.

Thorin had ridden past her and moved to take the head of the company once more—she’d noticed he had a habit of riding to the back of the column where Dwalin rode as rearguard to check in at points throughout the morning—so she paid him little mind as the rest continued to haggle Kíli relentlessly. 

It took her a moment to notice the cloth laying upon the horn of her saddle, and longer still to note that Thorin had been the one to toss it. Briella laid it out flat upon the horn to inspect with bemusement. She’d have sewn her own kerchief once they made camp for the day, it really would have been no trouble. Tassels of silver thread hung on each corner, a clever way to keep something delicate from unraveling over long use, she thought as she ran her fingers over the fine strands. The fabric was the grey of rain-heavy clouds and slid through her hands like water without catch. A thin silver stitch along its edges was the only ornamentation. 

It seemed a shame to use fabric of such quality for Thorin’s intended purposes. She folded it neatly and tucked it into the inside of her waistcoat, patting the pocket above her right breast. She would return it to him in good time. 

He made no mention of it when night fell and their campfire was stoked to life, nor did he even appear to be aware of her as he sat against a rock face with unfocused eyes facing the horizon. He looked almost peaceful, were it not for the chilly melancholy that hung densely around him. His spoken responses had been few and stern, preferring instead to keep his silence than fill it with talk. Thorin-among-his-company, it seemed, was not the same as Thorin-of-nighttime-pantry-raids.

Well-used to surviving in the wilds, the rest of the company quickly fed and bedded down to ready themselves for more travel. She tried to mirror their behavior, but sleep did not come as the unfamiliar sounds of the night, and the others, surrounded her.

With a start, Briella was up and meandering over to her pony. Her feet pushed away the gatherings of mist about her ankles and she felt the eyes of the few still awake following her. Myrtle happily munched on the secret apple she’d stowed away for herself that morn and felt only the smallest of regrets at its loss. The mellow mare had done as well as she could with an inexperienced, panicky rider sitting atop her back as they made their way up the mountain. She’d learnt quickly to trust the mare’s footwork better than her nerves after several sharp words from Dwalin, and they’d been able to keep pace with only a few troubles after that. “Good girl—our secret.” She whispered to the pony as she rubbed her snout. Myrtle only whickered and flicked her tail but made no move to retreat.

The cliff face they camped upon eked fog out into the empty air, down to join the clouds that filled the chasm, obscuring the trees below. Moonlight lay heavy on the bloated sky above, trying to break through but only giving the night sky an eerie silver glow. Moss squished pleasantly under her toes. Kíli and Fíli sat whispering to each other, their heads close and shoulders nudged together, and Briella noticed again the resemblance they shared. They were two contrasting sides of the same coin, both bearing a similar long nose to Thorin’s, sharper and straighter than their company’s counterparts that tended toward roundness. Balin leaned against a wall opposite Thorin with eyes half closed and a smoldering pipe in one hand. Bofur whittled something she could not see in his lap.

Her face was pressed into Myrtle’s steady warmth, and she was surrounded by the familiar but pungent smell of tobacco smoke when Briella felt her eyelids begin to droop.

A chorus of unearthly screeching broke the spell. The ting of blade upon blade accompanied it, and Briella was stock-straight once more as she hopped over saddlebags and still-sleeping dwarves back towards the fire. “What was that?”

Kíli and Fíli had both frozen to listen. “Orcs.” Kíli said at a break in the sound.

She saw Thorin and several others she’d assumed asleep stir to wakefulness.

“Orcs?!” Horrified, she moved closer and whispered, “Shouldn’t we—do something?”

“Throat-cutters. There’ll be dozens of them out there.” Fíli lifted his pipe and twirled a bead on his mustachios as the fire lit his face with almost comical shadow. “The Lone-Lands are crawling with them.”

Picking up his thread, Kíli continued, “They strike in the wee small hours when everyone’s asleep. Quick and quiet, no screams. Just lots of blood.”

Briella felt her stomach drop even further, chills running down her spine as she gazed into the nothingness below and imagined monsters with great gleaming eyes and swords large enough to slice her in two, like she would a head of cabbage. She felt as though she might be green were it light enough to tell. Her right hand worried the hem of her waistcoat seam, and she was just about to ask if they should pack up camp to get further afield from them when she heard the brothers chortling to one another.  

“You think that’s funny?” Thorin’s blunt demand came from where he now stood near the edge, moving to get a better vantage on the cliff and turning his gaze expectantly at his nephews. “You think a night raid by Orcs is a joke?” Fíli had the sense to wince. 

Any anger she felt at Kíli and Fíli for her plight became sympathy as Thorin continued to glare balefully at them, his blue eyes cold and distant. “We didn’t mean anything by it.” Kíli said weakly.

“No. You didn’t. You know nothing of the world.” He bit out. His eyes managed to catch hers and hold them for a purposeful moment before he turned away to resume his vigil.  

“Don’t mind him, lass. Thorin has more cause than most to hate Orcs.” Balin, ever observant, called to her softly. His shoulders seemed pressed down by the weight of his sorrow when he spoke next.

“After the dragon took the Lonely Mountain, King Thrór, Thorin’s grandfather, tried to reclaim the Ancient Dwarf Kingdom of Moria. But our enemy had got there first. Moria had been taken by legions of Orcs, led by the most vile of all their race: Azog, the Defiler.”

“The giant Gundabad Orc had sworn to wipe out the line of Durin.” Briella felt her chest grow tight as she watched the grandfatherly dwarf’s face grow even more solemn, his eyes straying to Thorin’s lonely form on the outcrop. “He began… by beheading the King and tossing his head at Thorin’s feet.” Bilious queasiness gripped her by the throat. She had thought Orcs mindless beasts, committing their acts of savagery due to instinct alone. The cruel cunning it would take to hunt a family line to extinction was alarming and made her question the exact nature of her purpose in the company. She wasn’t sure what one hobbit could do against such evils, small and remarkably un-equipped as she was. The others are right to scorn my presence, she thought with a tinge of shame. Her gaze shot to Gandalf, who began puffing on his pipe with renewed vigor as he pointedly ignored her eyes. He knows this story and did not bother to tell me. He knew I would refuse. She thought, vexed.

“Thráin, Thorin’s father, was driven mad by grief. He went missing. Taken prisoner or killed, we did not know. We were leaderless. Defeat and Death were upon us. We were no small force. I saw many of mine kin fall that day.”

“That is when, I saw him.” Balin’s eyes were glassy. “A young dwarf prince, facing down the Pale Orc. He stood alone against this terrible foe. His armor rent, wielding nothing but an oaken branch as a shield. Azog the Defiler learned that day that the line of Durin would not be so easily broken.”

“Our forces rallied and drove the Orcs back. Our enemy had been defeated.”

“But there was no feast. No song, that night. For our dead were beyond the count of grief. We few had survived.” Briella gazed about and found the others all watching with somber faces. Her heart had become a lead weight, clamped by jaws of steel so tight it was difficult to breathe.

“And I thought to myself then. There is one who I could follow. There is one I could call King.”  Thorin had turned back and rejoined them, his glare ebbing when he found his company arrayed before him, a grim shepherd before his willing flock.

“The Pale Orc? What happened to him?” Briella heard herself say, unable to stop the tumbling of words.

Thorin was above her then, towering as he growled, “He slunk back into the hole whence he came. That filth died of his wounds long ago.” He scanned his eyes over her person, then flicked away just as quickly. She watched as he shared a moment with Óin and Glóin, locked forearms with Bifur and Dwalin, and touched his forehead to Kili’s while he murmured to him fiercely and held his shoulder in an iron grip. The youngling—for Briella had learned that Kíli was in fact the youngest aside from Ori—nodded and gripped Thorin’s opposite shoulder. Fíli bent his head at Thorin’s scrutiny and flicked his two first fingers up and then down back over his right eye in a gesture she’d never have caught otherwise had she not been paying keen attention.

 Briella added yet another peculiarly-dwarfish thing she’d noticed over the last days of travel with Thorin’s company to her growing list of curiosities. They possessed impressive efficiency at striking and breaking camp that left Briella often the only one asking ‘which pack for this?’ or ‘can I help you fold that?’ as they hurried about, focused and needing little direction from Thorin except where his nephews were concerned. Fíli and Kíli he constantly barked at, though the younglings deserved nearly half of it for all the trouble they drummed up between them.

“Master Balin?”

“Oh, lassie, I’m only Balin. This old dwarf is master of nothing.”

“Balin, then. Could I trouble you to learn a smidge more about dwarves?” Briella was becoming aware that her knowledge—and lack thereof—about the rest of their merry little band could probably use rectifying. She’d rather not be on the receiving end of Thorin’s temper if she could help it. Not that there was a modicum of surety in staying on the better side of it, anyhow. He seemed dedicated to his gloom and prickly besides. The long, brooding silences had done much in proving her right.

Balin’s answer was hesitant, and he hummed before responding, “What did you want to know?” He stroked the upturned tip of his beard with one hand.

“Oh—I’m not asking for trade secrets. Only to avoid stepping on any toes, so to speak.”  She hadn’t expected that mayhap even asking about their culture could be an insult and hoped she’d not just made her quest a thousand times harder for it.

Balin chuckled. “No, I should apologize, my lady.” He grinned good-naturedly. “We dwarves are a bristly folk, to be sure. And prone to jealousy, especially over what few treasures we still lay claim to.” He settled himself more comfortably and Briella couldn’t help imagining that plump dwarf children with stubby arms and legs must have clamored for his lap to hear his stories by the hearthfire, once. “As to avoid stepping on toes—well. I suppose that’s why we wear heavy boots.” He shook one iron-clad foot to prove it.

It was her turn to laugh, though she had to stifle herself when she remembered the screeching and slice of blades echoing from the chasm. Balin cleared his throat, then, “Aulë the Smith was our creator, unlike the other folk of Middle-Earth who claim descendance from Ilúvatar. To the best of my knowledge, Hobbits are suspected to be far-off cousins of Men, though the pointed ears have always looked more Elf-y to mine eyes.” He fixed her with an inspecting eye at this, appearing to wait for her to correct him as her fingers found the tip of one pointed ear self-consciously. Hobbits seldom agreed on their origins, Briella knew, and there was no known consensus among them other than they must be children of Yavanna, but that felt a trifle unnecessary and embarrassing to admit now.

When she remained silent, he continued, “It’s said that Aulë erred mightily by striking his forge and creating the Dwarves, as he was meant to wait for the awakening of the Children of the Ilúvatar, the Elves. He was eager, you see. Eager to create, to forge, to build and share what he’d wrought with the whole of Middle-earth. We carry some of that will to create within us. Erebor was the peak of our greatest skills, fiercest loves, our highest hopes. To see it sparkling in the sun—ach, you would have needed to see it.” To Briella it appeared as if Balin were warring between extremes of joy and despair, and she suddenly felt as though she’d been wrong footed to ask. They were a people at war with grief and the passage of time, and each year had shorn them closer to the skin until it nicked and bled them dry.

“Many and more of us felt we were dwarves no longer, when Erebor was taken. A mortal blow. Thorin never faltered. Not once in the long, difficult, years, through Orc raids and plagues and unsavory discontents. I’m certain he’d have left for this quest alone if we’d not already been on his heels. If that tenacity isn’t the most dwarfish of attitudes, then my beard be sheared and woven into a blanket. Off to bed with you now, lassie. There’ll be more time for stories when the sun is up.” Balin smiled a little sadly, but his eyes were bright.

“Thank you, Master Balin.” Briella said gently with a respectful nod of her head and promised herself she would repay him in kind for asking him to share his sorrows. She left him then and found her way back to Myrtle’s saddlebags to curl up and await the dawn, her thoughts awhirl with the thought of blackened stone underfoot and the jangled tromp of armored boots. Her fingers eventually found the grey kerchief in her pocket and worried its tassels until sleep snatched her away, her dreams full of regal dwarf kings in burnished golden armor standing valiantly against the rising tide of darkness.

00000

Briella’s nose was so cold she could hardly feel it. If it wasn’t quite so biting, she might enjoy the sight of the world with its newly-grown coat of frost in all its sparkling glory better. It reminded her of peach fuzz, but it crumpled under her fingertips. As it was, she stuffed her clammy hands into her armpits and hunched closer to Myrtle while they plodded along, making sure to rub the tip of her nose with beeswax. Her braid, which she’d had to unweave and braid anew several times over, was mussed and hung limply over one shoulder, its little blue ribbon tied as tightly as she could manage.

In the days since their night on the cliff, Thorin’s company had made what the dwarves considered ‘passable’ time along the East Road. That morn had dawned over the tips of craggy, snow-capped mountains that hulked on the edges of sight, half obscured by fog and creeping darkness. The rest were in deep debate over their appearance as apparently, the mountains marked a turning point in their journey and estimates could now be made on the timing of their arrival at the Lonely Mountain. She wondered how long it would be before ‘estimates’ became wagers.

Gandalf, who often excluded himself from their constant bickering, was assuming the role of Thorin-pesterer quite well in place of Kíli, Briella thought. She could practically see his hackles rise further with each word Gandalf spoke.

“I’ll only say it once more, Thorin Oakenshield. We must stop in Rivendell not only for supplies, but for aid. The only clue we have is writ in a language I cannot read—Lord Elrond—"

“And I’ll not have ‘Lordly’ Elvish hands sully this quest, Wizard.” Thorin all but snarled from where they sat astride their mounts. Their breath fogged in great billowy clouds and trailed behind them like forlorn, misshapen ghosts as they rode at the head of the column. Overgrown brush and crooked trees crowded the path ahead. The air was still, and thick.

Balin, in keeping with her request, had kept to telling Briella pieces of Dwarven history each evening after the others had retired. She began to prepare tea for him upon her own persistent insistence that he at least have some refreshment for his excellent storytelling. He’d not stopped her, and in fact had watched curiously and questioned her as she extracted her tins and teacups to prepare it. The ritual brought her some peace with its familiarity, and she could almost believe she was having Balin over for elevensies were it not for the distinct lack of sweets. Last night’s tidbit had been the recalling of the Elf-King Thranduil’s betrayal after the sack of Erebor. She was still trying to temper her rage. It felt like a burning ball of iron sat lodged in her gut. Rivendell was many long leagues away from Lorien and so should not be held accountable for another King’s actions, but even so Briella could understand their reticence in the face of such blatant spite.

It was, however, not the last time Gandalf would press the urgency of visiting Rivendell and the dreaded Elves, and the rest of the day passed in a similar repetitive fashion. Gandalf would change tack and try again, each attempt resulting in the same curt refusal that left him puffing and huffing on his long-stemmed pipe in silence, blowing such huge smoke rings of obvious resentment until she thought his hat might take flight with the force of it.

Briella felt a buzzing, throbbing headache beginning to take hold behind her eyes—she’d long since stopped trying to hide how hard they’d rolled each time he made another go at persuading Thorin. One might as well persuade a mountain to fall over. It might happen, given enough time, but the chances that one would still be alive to see it were null and void. Unless, she pondered as her eyes wandered over his twisted staff, there is no other option but Rivendell. What a bother.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Gandalf’s overly loud throat clearing and she sighed, resigning herself to an evening of muttering and uneasy silence. A ruffled Thorin meant the company tended to walk on eggshells—no Bofur humming a merry tune as he helped Bombur prepare supper, no Kíli practicing his archery against a nearby tree and Ori watching with huge round eyes, no arm wrestling between Bifur and Dwalin and Nori and Glóin. While she knew she could not yet be counted among them, she had grown used to their voices and their steady companionship with one another, and found she rather enjoyed their boisterous nature—most days.

What once had been a farm and its proprietors’ home sat crumbling and empty aside the road. Great wooden beams twice as long as her dining table had caved in the center of the barn and left it unusable for shelter, but there were paddocks for the ponies and cover enough in the trees that encroached upon it. Generous carpets of lush moss grew over it all, telling Briella that more than a few seasons had passed since this farm had been in working order. Men must not hold as much significance for generational holdings, she mused thoughtfully. A farm this well-built and close to the main road would have been the pride and envy of any Hobbit, to be kept in the family from parent to child and bickered over by covetous relatives.

Thorin had directed the company halt and she’d been helping Balin to unpack his saddlebags when Gandalf pushed past them in a hurry that bespoke his irritation. “Gandalf? Where are you going?”

“To seek the company of the only one around here who’s got any sense!” He grouched as he mounted his mare. A spark of alarm shot through her stomach as she realized he made to leave them.

“And who’s that?”

“Myself, Miss Baggins!” He bellowed as he rode off. “I’ve had my fill of dwarves for one day.”

She blinked. She hadn’t expected the limits of his patience to be beaten by Thorin’s obstinacy. “Do you think he’ll come back?” She mumbled to Balin, not wanting to draw their leader’s ire. She could feel his stormy eyes boring holes in her back as she watched Gandalf leave.

Balin only shrugged. His eyes spoke volumes though, and she closed her mouth and kept it shut after that. Bristly, indeed.

Night had settled across their makeshift camp by the time supper was ready. Briella had just finished repairing a small rent in the back of her pack when Bofur hailed her to bring the meal to Thorin’s nephews, smacking Bombur’s hand away as he tried to sneak more.

Hands full, she carefully picked her way through the unused paths and tangled grass to find them both staring blankly ahead. “What’s the matter now, boys? Find a grumpkin down there?”

 “We’re supposed to be looking after the ponies.” Kíli said without averting his gaze or reacting to her snark.

“Only we’ve encountered a slight problem.” Fíli followed, his blond hair glinting in the moonlight. There was nothing in the clearing she could see, and the ponies were grazing quietly.

“We had sixteen.”

“Now there’s fourteen.”

Panic bloomed in her chest, and she foisted their stew upon them to hop into the paddock, finding several uprooted trees and earth that looked as though it’d been ploughed. “And you lot were just going to stand there and gawp at the ponies we have left? Go find Thorin!” She shot at them, glad when they balked a little at her frustration.

“Daisy and Bungo are missing.” Fíli said unhelpfully—again she wondered how one of the ponies was given her father’s name, but it had to be some odd unfortunate coincidence as they’d been named long prior to her arrival. She hopped over log and brush, checking for Myrtle’s distinct mane and feeling her pulse spike when she did not immediately see it. What in all that was Green and good could steal ponies away in the night?

“We thought—maybe you might look into it? Being the burglar and all?” Kíli suggested and shrugged one shoulder in the distracted, arrogant way only youth could. His dark hair fell across his face as he smiled a little too forcefully.

Briella frowned and stuck her hands against her hips. “Unbelievable. You’re afraid of Thorin so you want I should stick my—much smaller I should note—nose in whatever’s taken them? Go!” She barked, trying to imitate their uncle’s usual brusqueness in hopes they’d heed her. They stared down at her with furrowed brows and wide eyes for half a heartbeat before turning back and scampering off toward the camp without another word. She hoped she didn’t need them to return quickly.

 She only had a moment of peace to think before a huge thing was stomping through the underbrush, crushing the moldering fenceposts under its feet and narrowly missing her as its club-like hands swung in a dangerously wide arc. It leaned over and Briella caught a glimpse of dingy gray-blue skin, a bulbous hooked nose and beady eyes as it easily picked up two more of their ponies and stuffed them under its armpits as she would sacks of potatoes. Myrtle! They screeched in terror and wriggled fiercely, the sound of it raising the hair on Briella’s arms. Lumbering away, she caught snatches of speech mumbled under it’s breath and felt her body go cold and hot all at once with dread.

In a voice that reminded her of grizzled old Men in the taverns of Bree that had hands like dry tree bark, it grouched, “Oh, an’ ain’t we lucky t’day—much better’n leathery, stringy old farmer meat ain’t we? Fresh horse, still kickin’ an’ squealin’.”

Dazedly, she realized her earlier preconception about Men and their holdings was assuredly wrong, and had the farmer that owned this place lived, he might well have given this place to his children. But most unfortunately, he’d been eaten. Briella couldn’t quite get her mind to wrap around the concept. It felt too alien, too unreal. Hobbits did not worry about being eaten. Hobbits worried about how neatly their waistcoat was pressed, how well their apple tart had been received at the family function, not about how to avoid being eaten by a giant monster living in the trees behind their house!

A watery chuckle bubbled out of her chest and she’d never heard something so manic for how it wavered in her throat. Her fingers were shaking, but she couldn’t stop her feet from taking several steps in the direction the giant had gone. What am I doing? Turn back around and wait for the others!

She continued, holding her breath and sneaking more carefully than she had in her own home weeks past to get past the other Dwarves to her pantry. She grabbed her braid in one hand to keep it from tangling in the bushes behind her or dragging on the ground as she crouched. Would have pinned it up if I knew I’d be sneaking through a forest. Closer, toward their fire—which would be considered the largest of Hobbit bonfires to ever exist—she snuck the long way round and breathed a sigh of relief when she spotted Myrtle and the other ponies still very much alive, corralled in a small pen and rather unhappy for their whickering and stamping.

Four of the massive things sat hunched on logs around the fire and grumbled back and forth about their meal, shoving and pushing at each other with gravelly voices the same as the first. She needed to get to the ponies without being spotted. Closer now, the scent wafting her way was putrid at best and she could only guess that among other things, these giants were not the most hygienic of creatures, as she beheld piles of rotted bones tossed carelessly about. Her heart thudded louder than a waterfall in her ears as she got even closer—the heat of the fire was on her side now.

Drat! The pen the ponies were in was tied with coarse rope and too tight for her to loosen. She yanked but only scraped her hands on the fiber, then gave it up. A knife, Bungo’s knife! Double-drat! It was in her pack, back where she’d left hers and Balin’s saddlebags. She stayed as small as she could and peeked about. Stuffed into a makeshift loincloth, a wickedly curved blade poked out from the scaly behind of the beast closest to her. Releasing her braid, Briella reached up with both hands to carefully pull it up and out and—she was snatched up by giant hands that held her none too gently and used as a handkerchief by a Man-eating monster.

The shock of being yanked about and covered in snot stupefied her for a moment as the beasts all panicked. “Blimey! Look what’s come out of me hooter! It’s got arms and legs and everything!”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know!”

“Can we eat it?”

She was quickly tossed down for inspection when she squirmed to get away from the huge hands—Maker she’d feel that bruise later—and quickly scooted as far as she could get from the fire behind her. If she thought facing Men made her feel small, well they should all try facing down these giants.

A club was leveled at her face, then, “What are you then? An oversized squirrel?”

“I’m a burgla—a hobbit!” She squeaked, quite offended. Her hands wiped ineffectually at the slime that covered her front. How unfortunate. She wasn’t sure she had enough soap even in Bag End to deal with this.

“A burglarhobbit? Wha’s that?” They moved closer as she tried to back further away and suddenly the bone-chilling fear of being eaten was upon her again.

“It’s Hobbit! Hob-bit!” She yelled, enunciating as loudly as she could. “We’re not squirrels!” If she lived, Kíli and Fíli were never going to hear the end of it.

“Looks tasty enough to me—Oi!” She bolted, trying to get back toward the ponies to free them before their wits could catch up to her.

“After it!” Another shouted as they grabbed with massive four-fingered hands at her.

It was a flurry of clumsy limbs and feet as she hopped and dove about, avoiding them for a lucky moment before a club struck her full in the back and knocked the wind out of her. Red and black stars bloomed in her eyes, and the world grew dim as she was dragged back by her hair, then lifted and held aloft by the feet.

One of them gurgled a laugh and flicked at the braid that dangled loosely in the air. “Any more of ya’s hanging about where you shouldn’t, hmm?” He gave it a yank, her head twisting painfully, and she couldn’t help the tiny yelp that escaped her. I should have pinned it up.   

“Maybe we could make a pie if we found a whole herd!” One of them crowed. Briella squeezed her eyes shut and hoped she’d screamed loud enough to get someone’s attention. If this was how she went, well, no other Hobbit could claim the same, at least. She regretted she’d never be able to see the company make it back to Erebor. Balin’s face alone would have brought silly tears to her eyes, she thought with a dreamy, detached sigh. He deserved to see it again.

A terrible, keening squeal tore her eyes open once more, and with her upside-down view of the world it took several moments for her eyes to make sense of what was happening. A figure had leapt into the clearing, much smaller than the rest with sword in hand. He’d clipped one of the beasts by the ankle and now it stumbled to right itself.

“Drop her!” It was Kíli, bless his darling heart. His black hair fanned about his face in a shadowed crown as he leveled his bloody sword toward them. The hand around her ankles tightened until she wanted to shout, but she clamped her jaw shut to avoid drawing attention.

“You wot?” Came the deadpan response.

“Drop. Her. And don’t you dare touch that braid again.”  Kíli spat. He readied himself and gripped his sword with two hands. She’d never seen him look so furious, his brows drawn nearly together and mouth turned down in an angry line. She realized then that Kíli’s light-hearted demeanor was what set him apart from his uncle. Had he the same grim bearing as Thorin, they might look like father and son.

Briella vowed that if she was ever so lucky as to be reincarnated into one of the Men folk—or anything larger, that she would never toss anyone bodily the way she was chucked then into Kíli’s chest. The impact itself brought fresh stars to her eyes even though Kíli had done his best to shield her from hitting the ground by encircling her in his grip. She heard him wheeze as he hit the dirt, taking the brunt of it.

Thorin and the rest of the company came roaring behind him to stave the giants off Kíli and herself. Thorin shouted guttural orders mixed in with Kili’s name—dwarvish, she guessed fuzzily through the throbbing in her head.

She thought for sure Kíli had lost consciousness as she’d been about to, but he was quickly rolling away and getting back to his feet to rejoin the fray behind them with hardly a glance backward.

The scream of a terrified pony broke her daze, and she was unsteadily on her feet once more. If Kíli could right himself, so could she. Her breath at once came in huge gasps and she was ducking down to tuck her braid under her collar, wincing at the tenderness to her scalp and willing the blackness crowding the edges of her vision to fade.

As the dwarves contested with the monsters, she wondered if Gandalf could do anything to them, and if they were yet doomed. Either way, she dove for the ponies once more and sought to find something to free them from their pen. If she could just get them out, the commotion of several frightened animals galloping about might be enough to give Thorin and his company a better chance of victory, and them all a better chance at seeing another sunrise. Dwalin shot by her, quicker than she’d imagined possible for his bulk, and swung his hammer into the jaw of one beast, splintering teeth and bone as he went but not slowing his deadly momentum. They worked in tandem with ease that only long years together could breed, with Thorin at their head cleaving his way forward. Where Dwalin was fury and fire, heavy hits and force that broke through the toughest defense; Thorin moved with purposeful grace and vicious intent, flowing easily as wind from one foe to the next as his inky black hair flew behind him.

The knife she’d nearly had sat waiting for her, forgotten on the ground and she took it for providence, quickly slicing the rope and freeing the ponies into the night. Triumph shot through her. They went screaming, pounding away and… Eyes were back to Briella. Quickly she dropped the knife, but her rather short streak of luck was up, it seemed. She was—yet again, annoyingly—hoisted by the ankles into the air but blessedly left upright, although this time the giants had gotten the gist of things.

“No!” Kíli shouted hoarsely and leapt toward her, but Thorin shot his arm out to pull his nephew back.

Horror shot through her as one reached a grubby finger under her collar and tugged her braid out from its hiding place, pulling it taught above her. “Lay down your arms. Or we scalp ‘im and eat ‘im.” She felt cold metal lay flat against the back of her neck and shuddered at its touch.

Oh. That was much worse than just cutting the braid off. Briella felt her eyes unable to tear themselves away from the company as they stared at her in useless rage, their hands gripping and regripping their weapons. Kíli looked like he might be sick. Balin was pale enough to be a ghost.

There was an awful beat of silence in which Briella prepared to die in much the same way the farmer had and hoped with some senseless, hysterical part of her that they had salt enough to make it worthwhile.

Thorin’s sword hit the dirt with a soft whump. Briella added one more wondrous sound to the list she’d only just started moments ago and felt her eyes sting. The rest of the company’s weapons clanged down half a heartbeat later. She would need to make them all a sweet treat as thanks, if they lived.

They were all lumped together into sacks, except for the unlucky few who were tied to a spit above the fire.

“Don’t bother cooking ‘em, let’s just squash them into jelly! Easy!”

“They should be sautéed and grilled with a sprinkle of sage.” The leader with a hugely crooked nose said with a fanciful air. The company wiggled and wriggled, but none of them were able to move enough to free themselves from their bonds.

“Never mind the seasoning! We ain’t got all night. Dawn ain’t far away and I don’t fancy being turned to stone!” Another growled back.

Stone? Not just giants then. Trolls, from the bedtime stories she’d been told as a youngling that were said to steal bad children away and eat them. Trolls that would turn to stone if the sun’s rays touched their skin. She jerked her head up to look about at the sky. Dark, but still lighter than it had been when she’d freed the ponies. She could at least make out clouds and their shapes. None of the others were paying mind to the trolls as they fought this way and that.

“Wait! You are making a terrible mistake!” She cried out.

Nori, from his place on the spit, “You can’t reason with them, they’re halfwits!”

“And just what does that make us!” Bofur yelled back.

Briella ignored them and wriggled her way upright so she could better get their attention. “I meant with the seasoning! You’re going about it all wrong—a—a burglarhobbit would know, we’re excellent cooks.” She preened and tilted her nose into the air in her best Lobelia Sackville-Baggins impression.

“What about the seasonin’?” Crooked-nose asked with interest, his small eyes glittering in the firelight.

“Have you smelt them? You’re going to need more than sage before you plate this lot up.” She declared as casually as she could manage. Several outraged grunts from the sacks below followed her statement, and she fought the urge to roll her eyes.

“And what would you know about cooking dwarf?” The troll concerned with time groused.

“Shut up. Let the, uh, Flurgaburburhobbit talk.” Crooked-nose was listening, she had him. Now to keep his attention for as long as she possibly could.

“O-of course—the secret to cooking dwarf is um—” Briella fumbled. The stars were disappearing on the eastern horizon.

“Come on!”

“The secret is—”

“I’m tired of waiting! I need flesh! Fresh meat! Scarf ‘em, I say, boots an’ all.” The one turning the spit heaved his bulk over and picked up Bombur off the floor, lifting him head-first towards his gullet.

A flicker of movement on the ridge and she caught sight of a pointed hat and almost sobbed in relief. Gandalf!

“He’s right!” Another commiserated and hooted his approval.

“No! Not that one! He’s infected!” Briella blurted.

“Huh?” Both he and Bombur mirrored expressions of quizzical surprise she might have found funny were she not trying to save their hides.

“He’s got worms in his… Tubes.” She winced as she finished lamely, hoping beyond hope that Gandalf would make his move before she’d be forced to embarrass herself further.

Bombur was abruptly dropped as the trolls drew back in shocked revulsion and Briella thanked all that was right and good in the world.

“I-In fact they all have! All infected!” She managed, yelping as Bombur hit the ground next to her.

“Parasites! Did she say parasites?” How Óin managed to hear her without his ear horn, Briella would never know, but she cursed him all the same.

“We don’t have parasites! You have parasites!” Kíli threw back—she could throttle the dolt. And the rest added their voices to his in their attempts to remind Briella just how uninfected they truly were, and how very rude it was to insinuate otherwise.

She sagged, at a loss of what to say that would not oust the jig. Her eyes met Thorin’s, the only one who hadn’t joined in.

He was staring, unblinking, directly at her through the cacophony as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing and was attempting to untangle it into something that made better sense. It didn’t appear to be working. She felt like a particularly difficult puzzle laid out before him, her pieces all astray and jumbled together in a confusing mash of riotous color so bright it hurt the eyes to look at for long.

Thorin didn’t say a word. But the solid kick he delivered to Óin’s side did the trick.

“I’ve—I’ve got parasites as big as my arm!” He declared suddenly. Kíli quickly caught on and joined, and then the rest.

“Riddled! I’m riddled with parasites!” The claims piled on, and she rolled her eyes in earnest now. She’d done more of that with dwarves than she’d ever done in the Shire, Briella noted with pique.

Crooked-nose was back in her face once more, leaning down to give her a face full of his rancid breath. “What would you have us do, eh? Think I don’t see what you’re up to?” He poked at her shoulder, and she nearly fell over. “This little ferret is taking us for fools!”

“Ferret?” That was unnecessary. It wasn’t as though she had a tail to speak of.

“The dawn shall take you all!” Gandalf boomed from atop a massive boulder lodged on the eastern side of the clearing. His staff came down upon it and with a thundering crack, split it in two. Bright sunlight flooded the camp as the four trolls simultaneously turned to cold stone with howling screams that made her hope it was as painful as the farmer’s death had been.

Briella leaned over and emptied the contents of her stomach onto the dirt as the swelling of her relief and the strain of the last few hours overwhelmed her.

Chapter Text

“Where’s the halfling?” Thorin’s voice was hoarse as he approached Dwalin, standing guard against a tree. Fíli and Kíli had gotten their upbraiding. He was sure they would be sharpening the Company’s swords and doing the washing up for weeks to come. While Kíli had stormed off into the trees with many a muttered curse under his breath, Dwalin had watched Fíli return unbothered and unfettered by regrets; he was certain the elder brother just hid his frustrations better under his carefree exterior. It was difficult to remain impassive when it was Thorin that one faced.

They’d been uncommonly lucky to stumble across such a laden troll hoard, coming away with heavier pockets and several other trinkets besides. A new sword hung at Thorin’s hip, clearly of Elven make for its elegant shape and deadly-sharp point. He’d had to be swayed by Gandalf to even arm himself with it, but Dwalin agreed with his choice. It was a kingly weapon; every Dwarf child knew that Elves were great smiths, if they so decided to dedicate themselves to the craft.

Briella had come to him hesitantly at first, her arms full of her pack and green eyes downcast as she struggled with the weight of her burdens. Her thick honey colored braid hung lank and lifeless over one shoulder, and her clothes were covered in a wide line of some kind of slime directly down her torso that went as far as her thigh. She looked bedraggled and weary, and he could see the beginnings of a bruise forming on her freckled cheek, but she still politely asked if he would keep an eye out while she washed clean. Dwalin had thought grimly that a few rounds training hand to hand with him in the ring would better suit the lads as punishment and quietly agreed before pointing her to the shallow stream.

“The lass is washing. Said she needed to get the smell of troll out of her hair.” Dwalin answered stiffly. He shuddered at the memory of the trolls fishing her braid out from where she’d smartly stashed it under her shirt and tightened his grip on the hammer stood between his feet. Something obscene still rankled about the entire encounter, that made him long to forget it had ever happened under his watch.

The hobbits he’d seen in the Shire hadn’t appeared all that brave at first glance, especially as they’d edged away when he’d strolled through hammer in hand. It seemed theirs might be made of sterner stuff. She looked a little roughed-up and wilted, but he was hard pressed to think of any untested dwarf that would have done better in her place. Ori would have tried his hardest, but Dwalin knew in his heart of hearts his wits weren’t sharp enough for the impressively quick thinking she’d displayed. Only a dwarf would have been foolhardy enough to go in alone. And yet…

Thorin grunted in assent and stood shoulder to shoulder with Dwalin, facing away from the direction of the stream. His features were studiously blank, and Dwalin knew that meant Thorin was struggling to find the right words to say, so he said nothing. He rubbed a thumb over the leather hilt on his hammer, a habit of one too many guard watches alone that kept his mind focused.

The silence was broken by birdsong and the chattering of squirrels in the leafy trees, and the far-off clatter and clang of the company as they bustled to make ready. Steadily, the stream burbled faintly. “It was brave.” Thorin admitted grudgingly.

 He scoffed, making no attempt to lower his voice. “Oh, aye, which part, Thorin? Sneaking up on the bloody trolls? Freeing the ponies to give us a distraction? Tricking them to buy us more time?” Dwalin crossed his arms and rested them on his hammer, allowing some of his irritation to color his tone.

 Thorin hummed. “Harkulul.” He growled in Khuzdul.

Dwalin grunted, jerking his head down in a nod.  

Thorin made to leave, and a slight fiddling of his fingers caught Dwalin’s attention. Something small and blue was hidden in his palm as he twisted it to and fro. “Keep watch over her.” He growled, so softly he almost didn’t hear.

Though Thorin couldn’t have seen him as his back was turned, Dwalin nodded once more, satisfied.

00000

Mournfully, Briella packed away the blouse she’d been wearing under her brown button up vest. It was probably salvageable, but no amount of soap she was willing to use thus far had been able to wash it clean from troll snot. The vest had been easy enough—brown was a forgiving color, after all, that’s why she’d chosen it—but she supposed she was lucky in that she still drew breath, so she tried not to dwell on it.

Her hair hung wet about her, and she could feel its cool weight beginning to seep into her bones. The sun was still shining bright, but the water had been icy cold against her skin. As quickly as the adrenaline had rushed through her only hours ago, exhaustion just as swiftly settled in.

She folded up her dirtied garments and tucked them away, then made her way back to Dwalin. Her hair had begun to curl as it air dried, falling about her shoulders in a thick curtain.

“Lass—you, uh, I’ll go further away I dinna mean to disturb ye.” He stumbled over his words and kept his gaze avoided. His cheeks even appeared pinker than usual as he coughed and cleared his throat to sidestep away from her, clearly mortified.

Maker above, had she forgotten to button her shirt? Quickly, she verified no scandalous parts of her were visible. None were.

“Dwalin, I am perfectly presentable. What’s the matter?” Briella was much too tired for this, she decided and huffed testily.

He seemed even more distressed. “Mahal curse it—you’ve been traveling with us for long enough! Bloody Balin, missing the obvious bits as usual.” Dwalin forced himself to look her in the face. She’d have to ask about Mahal.

He looked as though he’d have to bury himself in snow to make the blush go away. “’Yer hair, lassie. It’s—ach—considered mighty improper t’see a lady without her hair done up.” He made a point to stare somewhere directly behind her shoulder instead of at her once his nerve failed him.

“Oh.” Briella felt a wave of nervous laughter bubbling up in her chest and she squashed it into a small wavering titter. She’d been careful to keep her hair bound, but only out of necessity on their travels due to its unwieldy length, though she couldn't bring herself to trim it. “I had no idea—”

“I may have—err—forgotten that lady hobbits don’t always do the same—my mistake.” Dwalin choked out before he bowed and turned to quit the area with short, quick steps and a straight back.

“Well.” She said to no one, looking to find a spot where she could comb and braid in relative peace, hopefully free of beetles. As she found her way out of the trees into the sun, she recalled that her hair had been much the same the evening Thorin had stumbled on her in the study. He’d not said a word. At least she’d been correct in some regard—only it had been Thorin to leave her ignorant of dwarvish customs and not Dwalin. And Balin, she reminded herself. They really are a secretive lot.

She was partway through combing and humming a nonsense tune on a grassy knoll when she heard something tromping her way. “Miss Baggins?” Not Miss Boggins, she noted with a quirk of her lips as she saw the youngling.

He approached and gave her the same treatment Dwalin had, except Kíli took it one step further and stared in the complete opposite direction as he got nearer, sliding his feet across the ground to avoid tripping. A touch dramatic, she thought with amusement.

“Kili, I’m no dwarf. It’s quite alright, I promise.” She gentled her tone. They seemed precociously tender about it, and Kíli even more so as he furrowed his dark brow with worry at her levity.

He slowly turned as if his legs were made of stone but still couldn’t meet her eyes and bent at the waist in a rigid bow.  “I came to apologize. I dishonored my house and my family by sending you into a troll camp, and I will forever bear the mark of shame that one so unworthy should ever have threatened you in such a repulsive way.”

Briella was taken aback, distinctly reminded of children being sent to personally apologize with a prepared speech for their willful behavior by nonplused parents. She wondered if Thorin was lurking somewhere nearby.

“Kíli —”

“Please, Miss Baggins.” Kíli slumped and sat down on the grass bed with her, finally meeting her gaze. “Each time I close my eyes I see it yanking you around by the hair and—” he fisted his hands against his eyes and groaned. “I did that!” His dark hair was frazzled and stuck out oddly, as if he’d run sweaty hands through it one too many times. “I’m lucky Thorin did not banish me for my foolishness.”

That seems a stiff punishment.

“I should have gone in myself, but we let you go in alone, and you nearly died because of it.” He seemed perilously close to tears, and she wondered just how young he was.

Briella hadn’t taken the time to think about how easily one of the trolls could have just squashed her flat under their blocky feet. She was alive, and they were not. Strictly speaking. She wasn’t entirely clear on troll-to-stone-logic.

“Kíli, listen. I’m tired, and my back aches. If you’d like to atone for being an oaf, I’d appreciate some help with my hair.”  Her arms were already sore from brushing, and she wasn’t looking forward to seeing all the bruises that were certainly forming all over her.  

She might have grown three heads, for the expression of bewildered panic on Kili’s poor face. “B-but I—I don’t deserve—” He spluttered.

More Dwarfish sensibilities? “Maker above, Kíli. Is it that unheard of?” It made her reevaluate the significance of the others wearing their braids—these must be some of the ‘trade secrets’ Balin was unwilling to part with. She’d noticed he tended to lean toward great battles, but she’d been too concerned about causing offense and so accepted it without complaint.

He nodded sharply and resumed staring at the ground, “We’re taught it’s only done for family.” She sighed and continued tugging her comb through the damp locks as she pondered. His fingers fiddled with grass blades in front of his knees, and his cheeks were redder than a sunset. “It’s an act to strengthen the bonds of trust and respect… And there are other things too.” He finished hesitantly. I knew it.

“Well, I certainly wish someone had told me before today.” She said lightly, arching a brow at him, and without pressing the issue further started on separating her hair into parts.

“We all trip and fall sometimes, Kíli. You had no trouble catching a full-grown hobbit and then leaping back into the fight without a second glance.”  She joked, but there had been no hesitation, no spare thought to dodge away from her and save himself the hurt of colliding with an airborne hobbit at speed.  

Quiet fell for a long moment and she began to absently hum again while her braid took shape, thick at the nape of her neck. It was a tune she had no name for, but she’d heard it often when she was young, and it was pleasant enough. She watched Kíli’s fingers twitch with anxious energy and wished a hug wasn’t out of the question, but she’d scandalized them quite enough for one day, apparently.

“A full-grown hobbit doesn’t weigh hardly enough to stop a dwarf.” Kíli said tentatively, stubbornly. He was so lightly-built in comparison to the rest that Briella had begun to suspect this was another trait indicative of his youth. Ori also shared a similar slightness in his arms and legs the others lacked.

“Yes, well, enough to stop a baby dwarf then.” Briella said smartly, separated a lock of hair from behind her right ear and turned her shoulder toward him. “We can undo it after you’ve done.”

She would have sworn he grinned, his eyes brightening just the tiniest bit before he hid the expression. Briella continued her own work as she pretended not to notice him scoot closer and settle on his knees to better reach her. With an exceedingly careful touch, Kíli pulled his fingers through the lock to ensure it was free of tangles, then began tugging this way and that with confidence that surprised her. Silence that was much less terse fell between them, but she was happy to listen to the buzzing of bees and enjoy the pleasant feel of someone else dealing with her mane as she warmed under the sun.

“What’s your Mother’s name?” She queried after a beat, finding herself too curious by half to keep from asking. He smelled of leather and woodsmoke, and unfortunately a bit of troll, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant, only unfamiliar.

 “Dís. You remind me of her, just a little, though without the beard of course. Much smarter than me and not afraid to tell me so.” Kíli said, softer as his fingers plaited and she couldn’t help the fond smile at his innocence. “She taught me how.”

She hummed in response, unwilling to press the topic further lest she bring him more gloom. How strange I must truly be to them, then. She tried to imagine a bearded dwarf lady, but all she could muster was a horrendously inaccurate mental image of Dwalin with rouged cheeks and long, flowing hair, and gave it up as useless as it was offensive. Perhaps she’d meet one, someday.

“What about your mother?” Kíli’s eyes were focused on her hair.

“Her name was Belladonna.” Briella told him. “She was wild, they tell me.”

 “I’m sorry, Miss Briella.” Kíli’s eyes were downcast, afraid he’d mis-stepped and offended her.

“It’s quite alright. She and my father died when I was very young. Sometimes I miss them terribly, but if I’m honest, I remember very little.” She tried not to think about how much that particular bit hurt but wasn’t successful.

He nodded once. “I understand.” His voice was almost a whisper. Of course he does, she thought, they have all lost so much.

“Thieves! Fire! Murder!” The distant call of alarm and thrashing of the underbrush that tore through the forest put Kíli on his feet, braid abandoned and half-finished as he turned toward the sound quicker than she could blink.

Briella wanted nothing more than to curl up on the grass and sleep then, beetles or no. But her body betrayed her, spine pulled taught by the pounding of her instincts against her will.

“Quickly, come now!” The boy in him was gone, for now. He jerked a hand out for her to take, and he was yanking Briella to her feet as she tied the end of her braid again with the twine she had left.

They pounded through the forest to follow the sound and came upon the rest of the company, joined by a rather ragged-looking wizard—for his staff tipped with luminous clear gem could be nothing else—clothed in tattered rags and matching hat of brown, though she saw with some dismay that moss grew on the fraying edges near his ankles. He was deep in urgent conversation with Gandalf, though she could see no obvious reason for the yelling. Thorin, Balin, Glóin and Nori hung nearby, close enough to be considered a bit rude, she thought.

“Kíli!” They’d been spotted. Maker, his braid! She had no wish to cause undue dramatics—they had a penchant for it she was coming to understand—and so she reached and twisted it round her own, hoping the combined mass would be ignored in favor of the curious wizard. It was curly enough, she hoped. Kíli trotted off to join them, but Briella saw Thorin yet again, watching, with hooded eyes and hoped her face wasn’t as hot as it felt. She ignored him in favor of their guest.

Upon closer inspection, the brown-clad wizard looked even more drab than she’d first thought. Sparrows and thrushes twittered about his hat, occasionally crawling up underneath and proving that the speckling of white upon his brow was in fact bird droppings, as she feared. His hands wrung the length of his staff in ever quickening circles. What drew Briella’s curiosity further was the sledge pulled by rabbits the size of large dogs, their limpid eyes and twitchy noses impossibly cute as they whuffled to each other in dulcet whispers.

“How adorable.” She marveled with a tilt of her head, fascinated. I wonder how soft they are. Her feet took her a step toward them, unbidden. She’d had no idea such creatures existed. They peered at her with intelligent eyes. Where do they hail from? Does the Wizard raise them himself?

“Never seen the like. Bet they would make good stew.” She jumped to find Dwalin at her elbow, her pack in one hand.

Briella couldn’t help the sad sound of dismay that came out of her. “I would never—they must be magic to grow so big!” She took it from him and shouldered it, sweeping her braid to the side opposite him.

Dwalin scoffed and crossed his great gnarled arms, making the dwarvish runes inscribed on them appear even more fearsome as muscles bulged underneath. “You would. Few days without food—they’d start to look a mite juicy. Sleek fur means they’re well-fed. Rabbit gets gamey when winter’s on.”

She was about to bite back a snippy reply when she caught the twinkle of his eyes. He patted her shoulder twice with a meaty hand, then hitched his toward the rest of the group. “Come on, lass.”

Her chest warmed at the display of his fondness for her, and she felt some of her doubts recede as she started after him, her eyes straying to the rabbits as he urged her on.

It was only moments of brief peace before a howl pierced the sunny air, chilling her in a way that reminded her of the cool blade that had been laid at her neck hours before.

Chapter Text

Were she any other, Briella Baggins might have disregarded the Elves’ subtle discourtesies as too inconsequential to be noteworthy, for any hopeful gathering between two races. Hobbit as she was, a suspicion was upon her that the Elves had no intention of treating their Dwarven guests with the proper courtesy due their station. Oh, the pleasantries were all there when one cared to listen, to be sure.

She watched an elf with hair of glossed starlight lay yet another tray of uncooked carrots on the feasting table and furrowed her brows in consternation, her hands going sweaty as her irritation grew. Any of the pressed teas she carried in her pack required more preparation than the head of cabbage sat on the plate before her—and the Shire had received it in trade from Rivendell! This was surely a snub for treading foot on Elven lands without permission, but even the surliest of Hobbits would not dare serve a guest a raw vegetable and call it a meal. It irked her, both as a Hobbit and on their behalf, for she was certain she would have a better reception alone.

Pleasing flute music cascaded softly through the marble archways and out into the Elves’ painstakingly perfect gardens, but she found herself wanting for the thrum of drums and pounding feet of a tavern instead, at least there she might feel welcome. The others were far more vocal in their disappointment, but Briella could not blame them in the slightest for their grumbling.

Thorin had been practically roiling with fury since their arrival and subsequent herding through the too-tall hallways, she could see the force of it keeping him pacing back and forth in a narrow tread off the main thoroughfare. His hair flicked a bit more violently with each pass. Partially due to their rather unseemly welcome at the hands of their willowy hosts, but more so—Briella privately guessed—that Thorin had been forced to sullenly accept Gandalf’s traveling route in lieu of his own. He was not a Dwarf to be cowed even by impassible odds. Even so, their arrival had been stained with uneasy tension when Lord Elrond had all but corralled them into a tight circle while ahorse. She suspected it was meant to be cheeky for the friendly greeting that passed between Gandalf and the Elf lord, but the Company had reacted badly, and she’d been hauled by the collar to be smushed up against Ori behind a wall of Dwarven arms in preparation for an attack.

The light of sunset streamed through silvery leaves and shimmered upon the elves, making them gleam like dewdrops in the dusk as they floated placidly from place to place. The dwarves were stout and swarthy by comparison, looking grim and disheveled after their headlong rush over the moors and through the stone tunnel that led to Rivendell.

Wargs had been everything dreadful she’d expected and more, and she hoped she never saw another. Their slavering jaws were wide enough to swallow her whole, and their yellow eyes gleamed with such foul hunger that it set her fingers to shaking. She was sure she looked just as haggard as the remains of Kili’s braid twisted round her own. Loose strands frizzed about her face and tickled her neck.

Her frustration reached a boiling point when she caught one of the blonde elves cover a pretentiously sly smile to Bombur’s obvious distress at the latest tray of fresh parsnips. With a huff, Briella grabbed a carrot and marched over to the elf, pushing hands to hips.

She only felt a dim glimmer of warning in the back of her mind as she squared her shoulders to meet the unimpressed gaze of the elf before her. “That’s quite enough.” She said with the strictest tone she could manage and poked the carrot into his pastel green tunic, leaving an orange smear just below his ribs.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, long-lived and knowledgeable as Gandalf claims you are. We have not come out of desire, but necessity, and this paltry showing of your compassion makes me near sick to my stomach.”

“Shameful, I daresay. Shameful and rude. Perhaps my companions were right to be wary of Elves and their tricksy ways, even though Hobbits have long considered the Fair Folk our friends.” She’d raised her voice to be heard throughout the airy halls and heard the echo of her fury bouncing back at her as silence descended.

The hammer of her heartbeat almost drowned her next words. “If you’ll show me to your kitchens, I’ll gladly cook a meal myself since it seems so beyond your generosity.” She shoved her carrot at him, and he fumbled to receive it, face ashen.

The flutist had choked and stopped playing halfway through her declaration and now the entirety of the courtyard was smothered in an appalling hush so loud Briella could hear the clink of Thorin’s braids as he whirled to stare at her openmouthed. Bofur giggled and faked a cough to smother it. Kíli was watching with a grin so large she thought his face might split.

No one said anything. She stared expectantly up at the elf, but he only gulped and spluttered something unintelligible that must have been in Elvish for she understood naught. His face was turning a rather unbecoming shade of purple. She raised an eyebrow, and Briella was met with a curious rush of hot pleasure flooding her veins as he suddenly bowed and turned to scurry away down the hall, carrot clutched to his chest. She saw several others quit the room shortly after. Whispers ensued. Serves them right.

“Truly, Mithrandir does not misspeak on the courage of Hobbits. Though it is another matter to see for oneself.”

Lord Elrond stood behind her, hands clasped together in a gesture of goodwill. A shining circlet rested upon his brow, but not near as heavily as his years, it seemed to her, as she beheld the serene wisdom of his eyes. They hung thick upon him like a winter cloak, stifling in the lapses between words that spanned just a hair’s breadth too long. He reminded her of a god whose shining veneer had cracked, forced to witness the unending eons that had forgotten him atop his gilded throne.

She crossed her arms, unwilling to allow his ample presence to intimidate her. She was growing rather tired of height being used against her. “It’s not courage, just truth.” He regarded her coolly, eyes flickering. The fading sun glinted off his circlet and nearly blinded her as she strove to see his expression.

“Courage does not wait for us to act, Miss Briella Baggins of Bag End.” He said after she’d begun to wonder if their conversation was over. She felt the words pluck the same chord within her that Thorin’s singing had, imparting a sense of fate that rose the hairs on her arms and shivered down her spine.

He nodded, seemingly to himself. “We shall have a hot meal sent for your companions shortly. I confess, I did not see it pertinent to oversee the preparations, and one of mine own thought to play a petty jest that was… In poor taste, shall we say.” He smiled apologetically in a lopsided way, suddenly appearing as young as she despite what she guessed must be centuries of life.

Briella snorted, feeling her ire return. “I only wish it had been the Old Took and not me. He would have tanned their hide.”

Elrond nodded sagely. “Indeed? In any event, I must offer my humblest apologies for their behavior. If ever you find yourself in need, Rivendell will aid you. Only seek us out.”

He seemed earnest, but she wasn’t entirely certain she wished to stay in such an unwelcoming place as this, especially if she must contend with this portentousness daily.

“Take this, as well, and use it only if you must. Dwalin suggested you keep it, in favor of your ‘kitchen knife’. Do not part with it easily.” Elrond bent, and from his sleeve he procured a dagger of silvered steel as long as her forearm, offering it to her hilt first.

Briella marveled at it’s refined shape. It looked as though it belonged in Elrond’s gracefully long hands, and she knew any elf would wield a blade such as this better than her. I’ll slice my own fingers right off, and then what? She thought cynically.

“I can’t—”, She began to shake her head, but Elrond reached to place it in her hand regardless, closing her fingers around it with his. It was unsettlingly perfect as it sat in her limp grip, as if it wanted to be held.

He winked at her as he glided away, ignoring her protests without so much as a backward glance. I suppose I must thank Dwalin, then, she thought, puzzled.

00000

Thorin felt his smirk return as he recalled Briella’s thorough scolding for the third time since leaving the impromptu ‘banquet’ hosted by the Elves. She’d gotten them a hot meal seemingly produced out of thin air, and now his Company rested, sated and safely barricaded in the hall they’d been allotted within the sprawling corridors of Rivendell.

Deconstructed furniture barred the entry and exit, and sentries were posted at each. The Elves’ behavior, and Briella’s offense on their behalf, had made him even more wary than he’d been when they arrived. Dwalin had been on watch when he’d slipped out, aware his pacing would keep his nephews awake if he stayed.

He slept not. Night had fallen some hours past, but his limbs were full of fire unspent, and his mind whirled with the implications of recent events, hoping that the scouting party they’d narrowly escaped on the road was only that, and nothing more. The niggling, biting suspicion that he was wrong kept surfacing like bobbing driftwood.

He wandered still in the depths of an Elven garden, surrounded by moonlight and the soft sounds of water trickling in secret paths beneath his feet. The feeling of hollow stone underfoot chafed at him as he knew it did the rest of his Company, save Briella. A dwarf feels most at home surrounded by rock and stone, not this feathery ilk.

He reached into his tunic for his grandfather’s key but found her ribbon instead, remembering he’d shoved the key deep into his pockets to keep elf eyes from seeing it. He’d spotted the ribbon crumpled and grimy with filth at the Trolls’ campsite, knotted to the belt of one of the Trolls’ loincloths and immediately recognized it as the tie from Briella’s braid. The length of blue silk had been washed clean since, but as he fished it out and passed his thumb along the grain of the fabric, he couldn’t help the surge of bitter anger that filled him. The scum had taken it as a trophy, and the thought still rankled so deeply he felt as though he was bathing in steel wool.

She’d proved her bravery, and now her loyalty even after they had failed to keep her out of harm’s way. Might she have been spared, had I not been so spiteful as to ignore the old Wizard? Fresh loathing bloomed anew as he considered the thought. It was worse enough his nephews were the root cause.

There she sat against a carved bench watching the stars. He’d been so sure that she’d be abed with the others, having renewed Dwalin’s posting on Briella’s safety detail before meandering.

Her feet dangled, swinging gently, but he felt his eyes stray again to the second braid half twisted around the first, as they had all evening. It rested on her lap as she picked at it with absent fingers and Thorin felt again the absurdly unwelcome desire to run his hands through her curls, to feel their weight dragging over his skin. For perhaps the third time, he wondered exactly what Kíli meant by this small braid he’d woven just below her right ear, and why it sent hot irritation bubbling up into his throat.

Her waistcoat was gone, having forgone it for only her trousers and blouse in the mild air, and the softness of her underneath was all the more apparent in the press of her thighs against the bench and the gentled curve of her shoulders.

He’d taken care to observe their burglar keenly over the days and nights, and found several inconsistencies between her and the rest of the halflings she called kin that perturbed him. Mostly, the Shire seemed to operate in much the same way that Men did save their penchant for violence, so it went to reason that the most prominent of families would likely own such a hall as Bag End. And yet Briella lived alone and occupied no special rank he could glean. Nor did she have the bearing for politics, though she played the role of gracious host well. The pictures hung along her walls suggested that her family might not have been so few, once. He understood that well enough.

On the road, he’d also seen her tendency to keep the company of her mare more often than not, always ensuring it was the first thing she attended to each morn and night. She murmured sweet nothings to it when she thought everyone was abed. He could see that their pace wore on her by the circles under her bright eyes, but she made no sound of complaint other than for her mare. She’d flattered Balin into story-telling on their first night of travel, and now she spent her evenings listening to him recite legends Thorin had not heard since he was Briella’s height.  

Kíli plays a treacherous game, Thorin thought as he eyed the braid once more. “Has he pledged himself to you?” Durin, stop me before I become any more an oaf.

Briella turned her eyes on him but didn’t seem surprised to find him there as he parted from the shadows and stepped closer. “Kíli? Maker, no, is that what this is?” She picked up the braid and untwisted it from its partner with a long-suffering sigh.

“I’m beginning to think there is no end to dwarves and their secrets.” She muttered darkly, and began to unravel it with jerky movements, frowning when her fingers caught. “No, I am not ‘pledged’ to Kíli. I asked for his help.”

He laid a hand atop hers, stilling her movement and capturing her anxious fingers underneath his own. Her skin felt cool against his apparent heat, though he felt no warmer than normal.

“I—he was tying himself in knots with guilt, I could hardly bear it. Balin may have also conveniently left out some finer points of braiding in dwarfish culture…”, Her brows straightened into dangerously blade-like angles when flustered, he noted with amusement. She made no attempt to pull her hand back but there was hesitance in her voice when she continued, “Kíli only hopes to make you proud, I think.”

Thorin felt those words settle in his chest, warmth fluttering as if red sparks bounced against his ribs. He could feel the silk-soft strands of her hair under his palm but couldn’t tear his gaze away from how completely his hand enveloped hers, or how the dotting of freckles that danced up her wrist reminded him of the uneven flecks in cooling metal as one worked it free of impurities. It didn’t seem possible that a creature so delicate could willfully face a Troll and survive, but as he listened to her defend her choice to comfort his nephew, he felt it was ridiculous to believe she would have done anything else.

“I know.” He met her green eyes with his own before she looked down to their hands. Wispy, mussed locks of hair curled around her curiously stout-but-pointed ears at the temples, and he found himself staring at them when she looked away.

“I told him we would undo it and then there was Radagast—Thorin, he’s not to blame if this is some courting custom I’m still oblivious to. He’s only a boy.” She appeared equal parts concerned and exasperated, and he had to fight the smile that threatened to break across his face. She was a Hobbit, not a Dwarf. It matters little if she wears braids, dwarfish or otherwise. ‘Dwarfish nonsense’, she’d called it.

He’d seen young and old on his twice-lost trip around the Shire, and there were more than a few with locks completely unadorned and free, curling this way and that with no regard for dwarfish niceties. He felt momentarily drunk when his imagination helpfully supplied him with thoughts of Briella’s hair hanging loose. Veils of honey-brown curls shifting past bare skin, freckles convalescing on shoulders and across her collar.

He gave her fingers a gentle reassuring squeeze to distract himself.

“May I help you with that knot?” Her upturned nose was turning pink. She only nodded, a small dip of her head and scooted over in an invitation to sit beside her on the bench. He smelled lavender, and the earthiness of dried tea leaves, and remembered their first midnight meeting.

 Thorin lifted the unfinished braid and lightly pulled his fingers through it until the strands fell loose and wavy on her lap. He pulled back, resting his hands back on his thighs as he watched her knit her braid back together.

 “I do not know what he meant by it, as it was never finished, but braids behind an ear are typically reserved for lovers or those promised to be wed.”  Thorin couldn’t help but notice the words tasted bitter.

“No wonder he looked about to faint.” She muttered. “I thought it might distract him some.” She shrugged, pulling her twine out to tie off the braid.

When her ribbon appeared in his hands, she gasped. “Where—”

She reached for it, but he waved her hands away.

“A prize taken by the trolls.” He growled, feeling his ire return. This time she did shiver, all the way down to her fingertips, and Thorin had the urge to turn round and raze the squalid camp to the earth until all that remained was ash and bone. It still infuriated him that such an ignoble creature would even dare touch her hair, much less use it as a bargaining chip. Offenses of that nature did not happen between Dwarves, and if they did, their perpetrators were struck down and forgotten, scoured from history so that their vile crimes were cast into ignorance forevermore. He knew when he met the lowered, shamed eyes of the Company that they felt the same mix of anger and guilt he did.

He tied and knotted it as tautly as he dared—though he could not replicate the neat bow she’d worn—and allowed a moment to lift its entirety and let it fall through his hands. The dread he’d felt at seeing her held aloft by the Trolls would never leave him, but feeling the weight of Briella’s locks sliding through his fingers certainly softened the blow.

“If I never get tossed around by a troll again, it will be too soon.” She groused and he watched her nose wrinkle in an expression of revulsion, shaking her head as if to rid herself of their touch.

Thorin laughed then, deep in his throat as her hair slipped free from his grasp. “If ever you are touched by a troll again, know that I am long dead.”

He forced himself bid her goodnight then, before the night stole his wits away for good.

00000

“It is mine to protect. As are its secrets.” Thorin’s voice was challenging, insolent. The silver streaks at the crown of his head looked luminous, Briella thought even as she felt her impatience growing. Gandalf had managed to keelhaul them into visiting Rivendell, so it seemed to her the best option was for Thorin to accept his guidance when their chances involved removing a dragon from its hoard. She was apparently also among the unimpressed minority—Maker help her.

“Save me from the stubbornness of Dwarves! Your pride will be your downfall.” Gandalf huffed, “You stand here in the presence of one of the few in Middle-earth who can read that map. Show it to Lord Elrond.”

Moonbeams cut crossways into the hall-that-was-not-a-hall, open to the air as it was and graceful to a fault. The Elf-lord did not seem upset by Thorin’s impetuousness, but it was oft harder to tell with Elves, Briella was learning. Balin had told her that they were so long-lived they chose to nurse their hurts over centuries, playing intricate games of cat-and-mouse with social jabs instead of ‘having a good brawl to settle matters’ as he put it.

“Thorin, no—”, Balin leaned forward to stop the outstretched hand, but Thorin halted him. That surprised her; she’d begun to take Balin as more reasoned in nature of their happy group. It’s not as if the Elves of Rivendell will abscond for Erebor to make themselves a home of it, she thought with only a small bit of scorn. They favored the reaching freedom of trees and the singing of birds far too highly to trade it for cold stone and dwarf-sized halls. It was also difficult for her to imagine a more ethereal city than the one they currently rested in—no such elegance existed in the Shire, or Bree. So beautiful it hardly seemed real, and she often wondered if she would wake the next morning in Bag End with only fleeting memories of her journey so far, fading with the dawn.

Thorin’s mercurial mood swings were no great help, either. Each new evening encounter made her more certain she could no longer tell where she stood within his graces, favorable or otherwise. She supposed it was part of the face one must wear to lead, though no Hobbit was ever so severe. Or confusing, she mused with a frown. Nighttime, and the absence of the rest of his Company, seemed to cause some of the iron walls about him to drop. She fingered the tight knot at the end of her braid that he’d tied with her ribbon, saved from the Trolls by his apparently sharp eye, and felt her stomach flip. And then, come morn, he’d resumed his frosty attitude toward her, as if it had never happened. It’s as though he cannot decide if I’m help or hindrance. Perhaps it would help, she thought, If I knew which I was, too. 

 “Erebor.” And Briella heard the thrumming of Thorin’s singing echo in the back of her mind as Elrond curiously inspected the aged vellum. Then it was his laughter from the night before, warm and heady and so far from him now. He looks so much younger when he laughs. The thought made her pause, for she realized she wasn’t terribly certain how old he was.

“What is your interest in this map?”

“It’s mainly academic.” Gandalf cut in before Thorin could bumble his way further from Lord Elrond’s hopefully endless graces with more of his griping. “As you know, this kind of artifact sometimes contains hidden text.”

Briella thought she’d never seen any creature move so gracefully as Lord Elrond. Dwalin spoke of the Elf-folk as ‘waifish, fairy-like creatures, floatin’ cross the earth with nary a step t’be heard, pretty as ‘ya like, but cold, so-o cold’.  She didn’t find Elrond cold. He burned so brightly it hurt her eyes.

“You still read Ancient Dwarvish, do you not?” Gandalf plied him.

That struck her as strange. They speak it often enough to Bifur amongst themselves. Can they not read their own language? Briella hadn’t been listening for specific mentions of scribes or the like. Balin oft tended toward epics that had no room for such details, much to her silent dismay. She loved them of course, but there were only so many tales of Cold-drakes from the Grey Mountains she could stomach before her nerve fled her, her palms began to sweat, her hands would shake, and her face would grow so pale that Balin would insist she needed more tea to accompany the finishing of his tale. She would feign bouts of random nausea were not unheard of to keep Balin’s fussing at bay, but anytime dragons became a topic of conversation it invoked a similar panic. She thumbed her waistcoat seam and bit her lip, wishing with all her heart she had even a fraction of a chance in completing her task.

“Moon runes. Of course!”  Gandalf exclaimed.

Chapter Text

‘…it is our constant, dogged companion that never fails to nip at our heels and remind us we are hunted.’

Briella woke with a start, hearing the echo of Thorin’s words chiming angrily in her ears as if from a thousand throats at once, yammering like a thrown rock clattering its way down an endless chasm. The hair on the back of her neck and arms stood pin-straight, and a ball of ice colder than any winter she’d ever known had replaced her gut.

She’d taken to admiring her new blade from time to time, though only whilst Dwalin was off on watch—he’d already warned her that it was sharp enough to shave with, and that she should take special care not to lose a finger. As the days wore on, and she found herself looking over one shoulder more frequently than she ever had before, the little sword was a tangible comfort that she could twist and turn when nerves struck her. She rubbed a finger over its swooping hilt now.

The Dwarves’ prophecy—for now she knew without a shadow of doubt that it was indeed prophecy, curse it—rattled through her head once more, as it had been since she’d first heard Lord Elrond recite it.

It strained every bit of credulity that they should have arrived by pure chance alone at Rivendell, precisely on the eve the runes would even be legible. Briella felt no better considering its eeriness but still found herself doubting how such a thing could be possible. The whims of fate were not so easily aligned, nor ever so neatly as this. She felt dread pooling in her, filling her bones and chilling her blood.

“Stand by the grey stone when the Thrush knocks… And the setting sun with the Last Light of Durin’s Day… Will shine upon the Keyhole.” No mistake had set magical 'moon' runes within ancient vellum. The strings of fate were being tugged by men whose deaths had been sung generations past. 

Bombur sat to her left, watching a pot that steamed over the cherry coals that remained of their fire from the night before. Snores and snuffles surrounded her. The promise of dawn lit the horizon, but frightfully dark clouds hemmed the light into delicate veins of pale blue in the dimness. The air felt overfull, tepid; odd considering the last few mornings had been cold enough to leave hoarfrost on the grass. The portly dwarf was heating water for their morning coffee—Briella still hadn’t been convinced of its superiority but could admit, it had a certain bite tea lacked—and gave her a wink when he saw her rise but went back to his task without a word. Bombur was a quiet fellow and rather shy when it came to anyone of the female persuasion, dwarf or otherwise. His great red beard hung perfectly combed and braided, even before dawn, and Briella had to admire his dedication because it certainly required more maintenance than she gave her wily mane.

She tiptoed carefully around Kíli and Fíli who slept opposite her, noting the empty space where Thorin usually slept behind them. In the night following the troll incident, she’d found the youngling had arranged his bedroll near her feet, though still more than six paces back to be respectful. Endearingly, Fíli and Thorin were not long to follow, and she often found them piled together. Though she knew it was for Kíli's protection, she could not help but admire the puddle of sleeping dwarves on the rare occasion she caught them all dozing.

Suddenly taken with an idea, she dug into her pack and fished out her needle and thread, then wandered toward the eastern side of their encampment. Tall, swaying grass brushed her hips as she climbed up across from where Dwalin stood sentry with his hammer stood between his feet. He nodded but said nothing as she settled cross-legged on a damp rock.

The silky feeling of the handkerchief Thorin had given her slid through her fingers as she unfolded and set one corner against her knee, then set her needle and slowly began to push, pull and poke. She’d had enough time to study the various patterns that most of the Company wore on or about their persons; this wouldn’t be a perfect copy, but it didn’t need to be. The work distracted her mind, allowed her to focus on the straightness of her stitching rather than her impossible circumstances. There were three. So, three circuitous knots she set into the top right corner, a larger, more intricately geometric knot that wove into its smaller fellows without disconnecting.

By the time she was satisfied with its appearance, the sun had risen, but its ruddy glow seemed oddly unfriendly, and the soot-gray clouds looked even heavier than when she woke. Perhaps I’ll be able to find thread if we stop in a village. Briella thought, then snorted for the silliness of it. If they did pass any civilization, like as not Thorin would keep them far afield, his brows furrowed and stormy as the sky above her. She folded the newly-decorated kerchief once more, replaced it back in her pocket with a pat, and hopped off her plinth to make ready for the day.

They would make for a mountain pass today, and Briella felt her stomach flip as she remembered their first mountain trek in a saddle. At least she would be on her own two feet—if she tripped, she only had herself to worry about and not her sweet mare Myrtle. She hoped the pony was grazing on sweetgrass somewhere warm and sunny right now. Still, the height of the mountains was imposing, even as they disembarked from their camp atop a grassy knoll that looked over an empty valley where only eagles soared. It took them a better part of the day to cross its ridge.

The only sound for hours was the wind whispering through the grass, and the dwarves’ boots as they crunched gravel underfoot. Thorin had returned from his lone watch that morning with brows lowered and voice sharp with impatience, and the company had leapt to avoid his wrath, leaving Briella once more with only silence as her friend for the nonce.

She sighed and pulled her hood over her head tighter. Any moment now, and the dam would break in the clouds above them. There could not be a worse time for a squall, either. They descended onto a stone pathway, only several feet wide, that hugged a bare cliff face made of fracturing shale. She did not miss the way her dwarven companions glared suspiciously at it, prodding with boot and axe-handle, Bifur even giving the wall a few solid kicks as they muttered amongst themselves quieter than she could hear.

“Best be careful now, lassie. Keep a sharp eye on the path.” Balin said grimly as he glanced to make sure she had footing. He patted her shoulder and scooted past, Ori and KÍli behind her. Her lack of footwear unnerved them, she knew, but the idea of shoes disgusted her. She couldn’t feel anything with them.

Balin led them on.

It was as the path narrowed to what Briella would call a deer-track, that the storm broke. Briella felt as though it was unmaking the stone around them, underneath them, as they hurried through the sheeting rain. Thunder boomed, and she felt the stone slide under her heel before she jerked back to hug the wall, her head smacking into it’s sharp edges. Hair stuck to her face in wet clumps.

“We must find shelter!” Thorin called from somewhere behind her.

She slipped again, and Dwalin was there, bracketing an arm over her middle and across to Bofur’s shoulder. Her heart stopped, but he was nudging her forward then, firm and unyielding.

As they moved, she looked to the skies and almost wished she hadn’t.

“It’s not a thunderstorm! It’s a thunder-battle!” Balin sounded equally terrified and awestruck.

“Giants! Stone Giants! I don’t believe it!”

“The legends are true!”  Briella would be happy if they weren’t, for once.

A walking pillar of stone in the shape of a man stood poised to throw a boulder larger than her house and half of Bag End across the chasm, directly at them. For perhaps the hundredth time, she wondered how it was that Hobbits knew so little of the world. If I’d known for half a heartbeat that this was part of the deal, I would have scuttled back inside my hole the instant I saw Gandalf’s pointy hat!

And then, the cliff they were stood upon detached itself from the mountain and split their party as one column took Kili, Fíli and several others away from her sight.

Thorin’s shout of agony as his nephews disappeared made her think he’d taken a blade to the gut, and chilled her just as deeply.

“Hold on!” Dwalin shouted and yanked her as tightly back against their own column as he could, Ori squished up against her as he endeavored to shield them both. Shale rained down in great chunks, shattering against the cliffs into tiny pieces that slashed at her cheeks. She slammed her eyes closed and ducked her head, throwing an arm over Ori’s exposed neck.

The next moments were a tumultuous blur of sheeting, cold rain that she felt soaking into her bones, screaming, and leaping for her life as the mountains fought above them, heedless of the ants crawling about their enormous feet.

She was falling again. Her feet had slipped, against her better efforts. Sod it. I never was the best climber. There was only so much one could do against the elements, she supposed, as the stone ripped the skin on her grasping fingertips. She grabbed at rock, and then air, and thought of her mother.

A hazy flash of dark, curly hair and bright eyes behind a flickering torch. Lips the color of mulled wine. Wild laughter.

“Briella!” Her eyes shot open. She grasped the cliff edge with one hand, feeling immediately that her grip wasn’t strong enough, knowing she would slip and fall and never smell fresh bread again, never—Bofur, with his furry, floppy hat, was desperately reaching for her, his eyes wide. Ori and Gloin’s worried faces joined him as they leaned over the edge.

There was too much nothing beneath her, the emptiness reaching for her, grasping, pulling.

Thorin’s grip on her arm was bruising. She had a detached, wild thought that he might just take it off before he was lifting her up and over the edge. His hands were joined by several others until there was blessed rock under her back.

“Breathe, lass, breathe!” Balin leaned over her, his beard tickling her cheek. She coughed and remembered to fill her lungs with several guttering gasps, leaning on her hands as spots danced in her eyes.

“I thought we almost lost our burglar.” Dwalin groused, pulling Thorin to his feet.

“She’s been lost ever since she left home. Should never have come. She has no place amongst us.” The words were blunt, slicing through the rain with his sharpness.

No one challenged them. He stared her down as a wolf might stare down a hare, daring her to choose a doomed escape route before he set upon her throat with his teeth.

Her breath still fluttered from her too unsteadily for words, but Briella felt the thorny bite of rejection beginning to take hold of her. It wasn't as though I meant to fling myself from the cliffs, for goodness sake.

Thorin turned, beads clinking, and led them on.

This was the world she wanted so badly to see, silly girl, he was saying to her with his glare. 

Briella felt ice return to her belly. Only Balin met her eyes, his expression soft and sad. That hurt more than Thorin’s words, and she had to bite her lip to force the tears away. She would have none for him.

The company trudged, silent and sodden, into a small cave mercifully close by. They bedded down without eating supper in the damp.

Her fingers remained cold and nearly numb, sticky with dried blood. She stuffed her blanket into her pack, tied her things together, then rose to creep amongst them toward the entrance.

“Where d’you thing you’re goin’?” Bofur’s voice called in a whisper from behind her.

Blast. Briella wasn’t sure she could manage the embarrassment of talking to him. She wanted to tear the ribbon from her hair and leave this place behind, snobby elves be damned.

“Back to Rivendell.” She said stiffly. Another step toward the exit. She could forget about this place. She could forget them, surely. It wouldn’t be too terribly hard once she got back to the Shire. I can forget him.

A perturbed look on his face as he tied the silk of her ribbon back to the end of her braid, eyes downcast. His fingers were much broader than hers, but they did not snag on her hair. She felt oddly entranced as she watched his troubled expression waiver between confusion, then irritation, and back again, unable to look anywhere else.  

“No! No, you can’t turn back now!” He leapt to his feet, ignoring his sleeping companions. “You’re part of the Company. You’re one of us.”

Her temper flared. “I’m not, though, am I? Thorin was right. I don’t know what I was thinking, leaving Bag End.” Her cheeks burned and she hated it.

“You’re homesick. I understand.” Bofur’s face was kind, open—sympathetic. It was a shame that not all the company shared his empathy, but right then it only made her want to bite the harder.

“No, you don’t! You’re dwarves! Hobbits don’t leave their homes for… this! You’re used to this life, used to never staying in one place, not having a home!” She was whisper-yelling, now, gesturing wildly to the dark little cave they all slept in, her hurt and anger at Thorin spitting out like poison.

Bofur smiled sadly at her. “You’re right.” He said, and Briella felt her heart crumble. How cruel am I, to return the slap that stings my cheek. They have no home, you insufferably stupid Hobbit.

“Oh, I am sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“I wish you all the luck in the world, Briella. Truly.” Bofur squeezed her shoulder, smiling once more, then turned to go back to his fellows with shoulders drooping.

Before she could drop to the floor and cry his forgiveness, the rock beneath her shuddered. How many unheard-of events can one Hobbit endure in a day?  She thought miserably as she tumbled into the dark.

Chapter Text

The air was clammy cold when she clawed her way to consciousness. Her back, her legs, her arms, everything hurt. Briella could not remember a more painful waking. How far have I fallen? Where are the rest? And what… is that foul smell?

It was a stinking cloud of mold and death, of rot and stagnant water that filled the damp hole she’d apparently fallen into. Something shuffled nearby, slithering amongst the dripping that made her think of milky bog water and slick skin.

“Yes! Yessss! Precious!” The voice was slurred, thick as though spoken through water, but disconcertingly childlike.

“Gollum-Gollum!” Another voice choked out from a throat roughened by disuse, sounding as though it belonged down here with the terrible stench of eons currently assaulting her senses.

She didn’t move. From between a cluster of mushrooms, Briella watched a sickly creature clothed only in a loincloth hobble his way over to the body of another gray-skinned corpse—goblin, she thought, it was hard to tell for its twisted limbs and fuzzy darkness—that lay broken on the stone.

Shafts of fractured light from above splotched the ground as if through a dirty window. The blackness surrounding her was so dense that she wanted to tear at it by hand, feeling like she would come away with a fistful of evil miasma.

The creature was bald except for strands of greasy black hair that clung to the skin above its pointed ears. Slitted eyes, like a cat’s, reflected the light and made them appear as two glinting silver coins. With bony fingers it began to yank and pull the corpse towards the darkness as its broken teeth shined wetly. To eat, I assume. Is it some kind of twisted elf? She shivered.

Whatever it was, she found it off. As if the forces of creation had erred in making it, cruel magic gone wildly astray and leaving the thing befouled and misshapen. A sickness clung to it; of the mind or body she could not say, only that it felt oppressive even with several yards between them.

The goblin stirred and the sallow creature with pointed ears screeched, then found a rock and began bludgeoning it about the face with abandon.

A ring, golden and perfect, slipped from beneath its loincloth and rolled away onto the glistening rocks where it glittered warmly despite the gloom.

“Filthy goblinses!” It muttered sourly with a gust of breath that sounded near full of spit. Then it resumed its dragging, occasionally giggling to itself.

As she stumbled to her feet, she nearly tripped on her sword as she kicked it forward, sending a steely echo ricocheting off the walls and into the void. She snatched it up, horrified to see it was glowing with an intense, silver-blue light that almost thrummed as she held it aloft. I’ll be seen, sure as sunlight, but at least it’s pointy enough. She thought, regripping its hilt and lowering it to peer at the floor, almost wishing she hadn’t.

Cracked bones languished in murky puddles. Scraps of old cloth, bits of ruined armor, and mushrooms were in abundance. It was the fleshy, brownish masses of unidentifiable mush piled here and there that gave her pause, before she realized they were what remained of the creature’s recent meals. Her stomach roiled as she got a whiff of the potently sweet-sour scent of decay, and it was an oddly unpleasant mercy then her belly was empty. Fingers grasping the hilt of her blade, she crept slowly from under the mushrooms and toward the ring.

It lay where it had fallen, still and shining. A handsome thing in such a place of ugliness. Leaning, Briella picked it up and slid it into the same pocket that held her handkerchief. Then, she carefully picked her way toward the sound of wrecked singing.

The narrow cavern opened to a lake, black as pitch and still as the dead. Eerie light glimmered on its surface, though she could not tell from whence it came.

                “The cold hard lands, they bites our hands, they gnaws our feet…”

From behind a rock, Briella watched as the goblin she thought already dead gave a final, fruitless struggle from beneath its opponent before it lay still.

The sword flickered in her hands, then became cold grey steel once more and its gracious light extinguished. Thorin’s sword was named ‘Goblin-Cleaver’ in the Elf speech, she’d heard—perhaps hers only warned one of their presence. And now that the only apparent goblin was dead… She felt her fingers trembling and tightened her grip. I need to find a way out. There has to be a path to the surface. I will not be the first Hobbit to die in a dingy cave. How she was going to manage that in the dark, she was not so certain. It seemed as if she’d toppled into an upside-down underworld, and suddenly the air felt too viscous to breathe properly.

Chilly dread filled her as she realized she could not hear anything from above that might indicate the rest of the Company was near. For all she knew, they were stumbling through the dark as she was, lost and injured. She hoped not. But perhaps if she found the way out, she might stumble across them. Or, you will have to double back and go deeper into this cave to find them. She found that thought abhorrent and stuffed it to the back of her mind.

What is that creature, if not a goblin? She wondered with unease as she peeked to look for it again.

“Bless us and splash us, Precious!” The mass of pale limbs dropped in front of her as a squirrel might, landing on crouched knees and using its hands for ballast as it inspected her with its unsettlingly bright eyes. “That’s a meaty mouthful.”

Briella went hot with indignance despite her fear. She was so very tired of being considered food, and she had places to be that were decidedly not in this unpleasant hole. It leaned in, and she forced herself to lay the blade at its throat to keep it from getting any closer.

She’d never had a reason to use such a weapon before, and its weight was heavier both in heart and hand as she considered needing to plunge it into the creature—she felt badly naming it a beast or a monster, and downright ill at the thought of violence. It was intelligent enough to remember songs that could only come from some kind of civilized company, though the words were of discord and grim death. To her, it meant that he—yes, he, she could unluckily see now—was perhaps not so despoiled once, and that was enough to stay her thoughts.

If this is what I must do to survive, then so be it. But I’ll not do it unless I have no other option. She swore and hoped it was not in vain.

“I’m no mouthful for you. Even wargs have tried and failed in the attempt.” She countered him, sounding braver than she felt.

“Gollum, Gollum!” He coughed, and she pulled the tip of the blade back as his throat convulsed so as to avoid piercing him, even as he tottered to crouch an arm’s length away from her. 

When his fit ceased, his eyes looked upon her without the reflective glow, and she found them as large as walnuts. They were round and blue as sky, wrought through with the same fear she kept at bay by only a hairsbreadth as the edge of her blade stared him down.

“It’s got an Elfish blade, but it’s not an Elfs. What is it, precious?” He scuttled around her, shooting furtive glances at her sword, but then the rest of her in turn as he tried to puzzle her out. She kept the edge between them, turning to keep him before her. She had not heard him sneak up on her, and his glowing eyes reminded her that while she could not see terribly well, his sight was more than likely impeccable here.

“My name is Briella. Briella Baggins.” She wondered again at his origins as she looked on his short frame. Even standing, he could not be much taller than she.

“Bagginses? What is a Bagginses, Precious?” Am I ‘Precious’? Or is he talking to himself? I don’t think I want to stay long enough to find out.

Taking a tiny step back toward where she’d come, she said, “I’m a Hobbit from the Shire.” She swallowed and remembered her manners. “Do you have a name?”

The answering titter was instant, but mad for its lilting. “Oh, yes, Precious! We have two!”

“No, we don’t! Gollum, Gollum!” His mouth twisted as if in pain, pupils slitting to black chips as his expression shifted between excitement and avarice so quickly, she couldn’t be sure she’d seen it.

“Gollum, then?” At the sound of his name, Briella saw him stiffen.

“Hobbitses, hobbitses. We’ve never tried hobbitses before.” She’d not been meant to say that, it seemed, as he returned to circling her with renewed interest.

“You won’t be, not today.” She lowered her sword again. “Now, back up, and be respectful! I don’t want trouble here and have given you none. I just need to find a way out, and I’ll be on my way.”

He hissed in rage and was forced back a step, baring his few blackened teeth, but then piped in a gentler voice full of delight, “We knows a way out! Safe path for hobbitses in the dark!”

Then, “No, we don’t, shut up!”

“I didn’t say—” She started as he ducked behind a boulder.

“We wasn’t talking to you.” He snapped, and it clicked into place. He must have been so lonely that he’d created a persona to help deal with what must have been debilitating isolation, for however long he’d been down here. Even an imaginary companion was better than solitude in this hellish place, she imagined. Still, madder than a March hare.  

Briella’s head was spinning, but she knew the longer she spent in the cave, the less likely it was that she would ever escape.  

“Well, I’m not sure what your game is, but—”

“Games?!” He popped back up, crawling nimbly over his hiding place to perch on an outcrop with expectant eyes. “We love games, doesn’t we, Precious? Does it like games? Does it? Does it?”

The child returns. I wonder which is the real ‘Gollum’? Sensing an opportunity, she put the blade back into its scabbard, watching him closely as he waited. In place of the stalking, suspicious thing that had nearly tried to eat her, sat an innocent. His great blue eyes reminded her of children at story time before bed, eager and lively despite the rankness of the rest of him.

“I have been known to, yes.” Briella said tentatively.

His answering joy was to scuttle about in a circle before returning to his post, then declared, “What has roots as nobody sees, is taller than trees, up, up, up it goes. And yet, never grows?”

She shrugged. “The mountain, of course.” The Hobbits of the Shire loved riddles—as the yearly competition during midwinter could attest. She was no participant, but she attended them anyhow until they’d grown tiresomely repetitive.

“Yesss, yes! Oh, let’s have another! Yes, do it again! Ask us. Ask us!”

“No! No more riddles!” Her hand went to the hilt as he fought himself once more, alarm bells ringing as he suddenly turned and hopped several paces away to curl in on himself as a spider might. “Finish her off now! No more games! Gollum, Gollum!”

The slits of his eyes were pitiless, animal, hungry when they looked at her. Trolls were also hungry and enormous besides, and had threatened her much the same way, but she found she’d rather face them again than try her hand at fighting him. It was somehow much more terrifying when something her size was just as committed to devouring her.

“Hold on!” She tried to think of what she would say to one of Hamfasts’ younglings.  “I should think you’ll be much better at riddles than me.”

He was listening, she could see by the tilt of his head. When in doubt, flattery…  “So, why don’t we finish our game, yes? Just you, and me.” She whispered mock-conspiratorially, motioning with her hand between them.

It was difficult not to scramble backwards as he lurched toward her, his grin of broken teeth wide. “Yes! Just—just us.” He glanced behind him as if they were making a secret pact, wary of unwelcome onlookers.

Briella could have laughed with relief. Instead, she crossed her arms and tried to appear wise as she considered. Raising a finger, she adopted a tone of mystery and began:

“I’m roasted with butter and generous salt

A harvest-time treat for all to exalt

My skin gets caught between your teeth

But first you must remove my sheath.”

Chapter Text

Dreadful wailing chased Briella all the way out of the cave and into daylight, louder while the ring rested upon her finger. Shadows danced, shifted in ways she’d never seen before at the edges of her vision. Cold whispers that reminded her of the night she heard ‘throat-cutters’ for the first time slithered softly in her ears. She thought she heard the screams of goblins in the distance, but each time she turned her head to continue forward, they sounded only inches behind her, and she would nearly trip over her feet.

Her belly twisted in regret. She’d tricked him and run off, in her despair.

She couldn’t help but feel like she’d wronged him—even though a small voice told her there was no redeeming him, she still felt pangs of remorse stab her belly as she listened to him grieve his lost treasure.

“It’s oursss! Cursed Bagginses!” It howled in rage, breaking off to moan piteously. A child’s tantrum, if ever I have heard one. She thought, biting her lip. A creature turned so fully from goodness could only inflict further pain upon the world, surely, but it seemed so terribly small and sad.

It’s no use now, Briella. You’ve cracked the egg, now either use it or smell it rot under your nose. She wrinkled her face up, shook her head and marched up toward the light.

The afternoon sun felt better than it had any right to, warm and lovely upon her face as she crested the small knoll to the cave entrance, and she sighed in relief. Her clothes were soiled, her fingers raw and neck covered in sweat where her braid was coiled and pinned, though some strands were loose and stuck to her face. She hastily pushed them away.

Where to go? The others must likewise be trying to reach the surface. Looking about, she couldn’t see anyone but the tall pines and loose scrub that littered the forest floor. Dead needles compressed with a soft, dry bounce underfoot.

Voices in the distance—Gandalf! Briella set off toward them. She heard bickering and felt her chest swell with relief.

“Where did you last see her? Tell me!” He thundered, and she saw his lanky form marching with much more vigor than she thought an aged wizard ought to have. Then she realized she still saw the world in shades of grey. They could not see her while she still wore the ring.

“I’ll tell you what happened. Miss Baggins saw her chance and took it. She has thought of nothing but her soft bed and warm hearth since first she stepped out of her door. We will not be seeing our Hobbit again. She is long gone.” Thorin’s voice cut in reproachfully, unforgiving and icy as the stone floor of the cave she’d just crawled out of.

Briella wasn’t sure what kept her feet rooted to the ground. Not one of the Company raised their voices in opposition. Even Gandalf remained silent, his eyes bright with anger. It was an uncomfortable combination of shame and anger that filled her, burning as it reached her fingertips. I was starting my journey to Rivendell when the floor dropped out from under me… And he isn’t as wrong as I want him to be. She felt the thought ring wretchedly true within her, even as her hand went to the back of her neck, where her braid still sat pinned, tied tightly by Thorin’s gentle hands. Confused by his constant changeable attitude towards her, she thrust the thoughts aside.

It was the memory of wine-red lips and lilting laughter, dark curls and flashing teeth, that spurred her feet forward, removing the ring and pocketing it before saying, “No. She isn’t.”

She got the wildly satisfying—and brief—moment of disbelieving shock that crossed Thorin’s face, before it was schooled into stubborn solemnity and the rest of the party shouted in delight.

“Briella Baggins. I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life.” Gandalf’s smile was genuine, though worry creased his face as he looked her over. His hands fluttered about her shoulders, but he did not touch her.

Kíli sidled up to her, Fíli following close behind. “How did you make it past the goblins?” 

“Yes—how?” Thorin’s deep voice cut in, and the excited chatter stopped. “Why did you come back?” His eyes were cool, but she thought she saw a glimmer of something else hiding behind it. They lingered on her hands, and what must be a bloody cut on her right cheek, for she felt it oozing.

Her stomach flipped, and she thought of the trolls, and Kíli diving to catch her. Thought of Balin, and how much she wanted him to see Erebor again. How much he deserved it. How Thorin smiled with crinkling eyes, when Kíli and Fíli did something that pleased him.

How strange Thorin had looked, stood looming in her study doorway, his eyes nearly aglow in the dead of night. How fascinating she found the noise his runed beads made when he moved. She thought of the handkerchief, tucked safely away in her breast pocket. The burning hatred in his voice when he spoke about the trolls upon returning her ribbon.

Briella took a breath and dove. “I know you doubt me. I know you always have. And you’re right. I dream of Bag End.” She shrugged, feeling her throat tighten as she thought of little Hamson, his face covered in crumbs and honey as he wolfed down treats with almost as much gusto as these dwarves did every meal. She swallowed to keep her eyes from misting.

She met Thorin’s eyes. “I miss my books. And my kitchen. And my garden. And all my teas, and my pantry. But… That is precisely why I’ve come back.” Bofur’s sad, smiling face came rushing back to her mind and she cast her eyes to him briefly, hoping he knew how sorry she was. She would find him once they camped that night and apologize, regardless.

“My home is precious to me. I don’t know even the first thing I would do if it was gone. You’ve been living without one for far too long. You all deserve a home too.” She sniffed, and she heard Balin’s breath catch in his throat. “And I will help you take it back, if I can.” Dragons and wargs and anything else be damned.

There was a beat of pregnant silence as Thorin maintained her gaze for a long, unbroken moment before lowering his eyes in acceptance with a solemn nod. All around, she saw them mirror him, and her heart thumped hard as she realized this was as close as an official acceptance as she would ever get. Kíli bumped her shoulder with his, grinning, and she scrunched her face to try to keep the tears from coming.

She couldn’t help but nod back, feeling a silly smile break out on her face. They were a noble, loyal, strangely secretive people—she knew for certain nothing would sway them from Thorin’s side but grim death—and yet, she saw glimpses of the quiet love they bore for each other; in the way Kíli carefully scouted out campsites with stone ledges that Balin could rest his back against, for he knew the old dwarf ached most nights. In Bifur’s incomprehensible fussing as he laid out Bofur and Bombur’s bedrolls close to the fire. In Glóin as he marched dutifully about each morning with the coffee carafe to fill everyone’s cups whether they wanted it or not. In Dwalin secretly allowing Thorin to sleep through the occasional night watch duty, much to Thorin’s unremarked irritation. Those mornings, he reminded her of an especially irritable cat with yellow eyes she’d known in the Shire, that frequented Hamfast’s shed and yowled when she thought to help brush his gnarled fur out.

Her spine nearly crawled out of her body when she heard the terrible cry of a warg. And then it was worse. Dozens of howls, savage and raw in their ferocity, shook the air and rose the hair on her arms. Night was falling fast. How did they find us so quickly?

“Run!” Gandalf shouted, and adrenaline was pounding through her veins once more. She had only a heartbeat before one was on her, it’s jaws slavering and eyes wild as it charged. The sword was in her hands, and she did the only thing she could—held it straight out.

The warg ran into it headlong, spearing its skull on the blade between the eyes and killing itself instantly. Briella felt the squelching crunch of it in the bones of her wrist as she held the hilt, her grip loosening as it fell over.

All around her, the sounds of battle came flying as the dwarves and Gandalf fought off the wargs and their mounts.  She watched the Wizard spin and lash out with his blade quicker than she’d seen even Thorin move, savagely decapitating one of the four-legged beasts in a single swing. Dwalin blocked a sweeping blow from another rider aimed at her back while she yanked her blade free from the skull of the dead warg, then he pulled her on, towards—Maker, we’re doomed. The pines that stretched across the hills ended abruptly in a cliff that dropped hundreds of feet down. There was no exit, no path. No way that they could survive such an onslaught.

Up into the trees they went at Gandalf’s urging, until the assault seemed to slow, the wargs retreating to blend into the forest as quickly as they’d come.

A great, white warg perched atop the hill they had just fled, its eyes aglow. Atop its back sat a mass of white flesh that Briella took to be a man, at first glance. His pointed ears marked him for an orc, though, and his left arm had been replaced by a crudely wrought mace that had been sunken into the remaining flesh. Strange, scarred lines had been carved deep into his heavily muscled chest.

He spoke. Briella was just remembering Balin’s tales of orc vengeance, when Thorin said in a tortured whisper, “It cannot be.”

“Azog.”

Her breath came short, and goosebumps broke out on her flesh. He had been so sure Azog the Defiler was dead. This was the same orc that had condemned Thorin’s family to an early grave, who had hunted Thorin since and had pursued their Company for Maker knew how long. She felt her skin crawl as she thought back to the night she’d heard the tale, wondering if Azog had been scenting them out even then, growing hungrier for their blood over weeks as he verged ever closer to his prey.

Azog garbled out a mangled version of Thorin’s name, then laughed cruelly. Briella thought she’d never heard a more awful sound. It would remain in her dreams, replaying when fear came crawling back up her throat to choke her in the deepest darkness of night.

He pointed with his un-mangled arm at Thorin and shouted a command, then the pack of wargs was racing toward them once more, ripping at the lowest branches and throwing themselves at the trunks of the pines. Even ignorant of their language, she knew it was an order for Thorin’s head, bled through with jeering triumph. The wargs were large enough to rip branches the size of her thigh clean off, and jumped over ten paces high, forcing the company to abandon their perches and hop to other trees, closer to the cliff.

She truly felt like prey, then, terrified and cornered and hunted, only allowed to wait for the inevitable end as its jaws opened wide. At once her chest felt like exploding and hollower than the stump of a dead oak.

Fires erupted below, and she caught sight of Gandalf lobbing smoking pinecones at the wargs, who scattered back into the trees. All creatures fear the flame, she thought with some hope. She heard a roar of impotent fury from the other side, and a ragged wave of cheers went up from the dwarves.

Hurriedly, they lobbed armies of the tiny things below, creating a wall of fire between their lone pine that was swiftly weighted over the empty air of the cliff, and the pack of orcs. Already, she could see Bombur struggling to maintain his hold on a dangling branch. She too hung by the trunk, now almost sideways as it drifted further askew. Tree bark bit into her hands and the smell of smoke and sap filled her nose.

“Thorin, no.” Balin whispered. The plea was so quiet, she almost didn’t hear it over the roaring flames and groaning boughs of the tree.

She could only see the back of his head as Thorin strode forward, eyes locked on Azog, over the patched and crackling earth, alone.

“Thorin!” Dwalin shouted hoarsely, but Thorin did not turn. Their voices seemed to spur him on, faster.

Briella watched, clinging to the bark of the pine tree as he lifted Orcrist, sprinting with his inky black hair flung out behind him.

Fool! Fool, what can you possibly do alone! Briella found herself screaming in her head as the white warg snarled and launched like an arrow for Thorin. Her belly clenched tight with fear. It’s going to kill him. We will watch him die, while Azog laughs. And then he will feast his wargs on our flesh. She felt the thought brand itself like a hot iron against her throat, her mouth full of the taste of pitch and metal.

They collided midair with a sickening thud, and Thorin was thrown to the ground in the same careless manner she watched farmhands toss bales of hay. He got to his feet just as Azog made to run him down, the mace swinging to catch him full in the chest. Balin was shouting, his eyes filling with tears, but she could not turn her eyes from Thorin.

Her feet were touching bark now, deftly avoiding the cracked splinters in the dry wood before she registered that she was even moving. Oh, and what will you do, alone? She heard the part of her brain still ruled by instinct shouting with terror.

To be true, Briella did not know, only that her feet pulled her forward. The warg had picked him up in its jaws and, lifting its lips to better grip him, crunched down. That too, Briella would hear in her dreams for many nights to come. She’d watched cats do that to mice.

Screaming, he lashed out with his sword, and the beast threw him. Thorin dropped to the earth, his sword clanging with finality she could not bear.

When the blade leveled at his throat, she leapt. The orc was nearly thrice her size, but she refused to watch Thorin die. She could not. He meant too much to this little Company she’d grown to hold so dear, and she would not see them all grieve over his corpse.

There was a brief struggle, where she was certain she would die a thousand times as she wrestled with the orc while they rolled in the dirt, but her grip on her blade was strong. She stabbed and slashed down at anything she could reach.  

She felt her throat tear as she screamed and tasted blood before tearing the blade free from the thing’s stomach and staggering back to stand over Thorin’s fallen form. Blood the color of ink, covered her hands, up to her wrists, but it only felt warm and made holding her blade all the harder. Acrid smoke stung her eyes and made her vision blur.

“Stay back!” She shouted, slashing at her foes.

She thought she heard more garbled laughter, but the blood was thundering in her ears so loud she couldn’t be sure.

Dwarf battle cries made her jump, as Dwalin and Óin suddenly rushed past with Fíli and Kíli hot on their heels to fend the orcs off Thorin and herself.

Then she heard the beating of wings and knew no more.

00000

I did not know eagles could grow so large. Thorin thought with detached wonder as his eyes fluttered open and closed. The huge, curved talons that held him, ever gentle, regripped him about the middle and he felt himself grow faint. Pain stole his breath from his lungs, seeking to drag him under again. It was a coolness he desired, a void of pain and misery that yawned open with arms of blackest velvet, tempting him.

Then he remembered his nephews, and what remained of his blood froze. He could not see them, only dizzying sky and the occasional whiteness of clouds as the eagle swept past them. Try as he might, he could not force his eyes to reopen.

Wind was ripping at his hair, he could feel the beads snapping against his armor, and it chilled him where he bled. He’d never felt so unfettered, even as he felt his life’s blood draining away with each steady beat of the eagle’s wings.

Flashes of memory came barreling for him, blocking out the real world as his mind sought to free him.

Gouts of fire burst from below the seam of Erebor’s gates as the dragon Smaug tried to force his way in. Any hope that the massive doors would hold vanished like mist on a morning lake when they bulged inward from a second blast of flame.

Balin only lived because he’d been near Thorin to yank to safety behind a pillar, but it was a close thing. He mourned the others that he’d not been able to save, burnt to ash so suddenly that nothing remained of them along the ramparts except swirling clouds.

The gates burst as if kicked in by a giant, splintering to tinder that flung in a thousand directions, then the ramparts followed. Years of engineering and careful forging ruined, sent hissing back into the dwarves that had worked to put them there. Fire exploded from above, showering down upon them as an infernal rain. The strength required to cast their gates asunder as if they were nothing more than dry wheat, was more than Thorin could even comprehend.

He raised his sword, and called to the massed dwarves behind and aside him, “Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu!”

He would never forget the raw exhilaration that rushed through him as they all returned his call, fierce and furious and lending fire to his limbs. Battle-rage allowed him to forget fear, and he was in its throes now. Nothing was ever so sweet, he had thought then.

Black clouds filled the room, obscuring entirely any view of the world beyond. Out of it shot a crimson leg, scaled and alarmingly long, for Thorin could not see the rest of its body amidst the heaving smoke.

The roar of the beast filled his ears, and he was thrown aside, tossed as if he were a child into a pile of rubble by another enormous, clawed foot. The air was sweltering now, hotter even than below in the work forges.

The dragon was almost as tall as the ceiling of the inner hall as it pushed its way in, shoving dwarves and smashing pillars aside to leave both twisted and broken. We are lost. He thought, as he watched it savage his home and his people. They would all die if they stood against it, he knew in his bones. He watched, enraged but immobile, as at least seven dwarves clad in plate armor were thrown against the walls by a stray foot, seeing the unnatural way their necks and spines bent as they slid to the floor.  The dragon took less notice of the dwarves trying to slow its progress than Thorin would a fly buzzing about his head. It swatted at them only occasionally as it tore through, seeming more amused by their efforts for the laziness with which it swiped at them.

I must find Frerin and father. We must escape while there is still time…

The dream faded, leaving him with the smell of blackened ash and burnt flesh, and decades of regret.  

Azog’s laughter shook him free from his aged memories as the warg bit down, its teeth sinking deep into Thorin’s flesh. He heard more than felt his ribs shattering, his leather armor creaking against fang, drowning in anger that his nephews should need to see.

Where was Orcrist? He needed the damned thing. Let them see their uncle fight to his end, at least, if they must watch. The warg lifted him, and Thorin found the strength to slash the beast across it’s striped cheek. Weightlessness took him only for a brief, painless moment before he was rolling, gasping for breath with dust in his eyes and blood in his mouth. One of his lungs must be punctured, he thought from far away.

He saw the sky and the first stars of night, then turned to face Azog and tried to rise. He could not. He fell wheezing onto his back. I’m so sorry, Dís. They deserved better.

The steel touched his neck, and once more he reached for Orcrist, seeing the pure, silvery sheen of its length only inches from his fingertips. It was not enough. He was not enough. Again.

Thrór, Frerin, my people… I’ve failed.

He tried to search for Kíli and Fíli, but all he saw were shimmering flames and the blade falling, too quickly. He wished desperately, impossibly, that Gandalf would spirit his nephews away, save them from the same fate that whistled through the crackling, dry air towards his neck even now.

Durin’s line will end here tonight, he thought. If only his fury alone could have saved them, as it had so many years ago. He raged and wept and tore at the invisible chains that held him to the earth, but he was only flesh, and his foe steel.

A blur, then the blade was gone, and stars returned. Cool and calm and far enough away that they could not burn him. I must be dying, or dead, he thought, but the realization did not matter, only the brightness of the dancing, twinkling lights above.

Someone stood over him. Their form blocked the heat from the fire, torn cape fluttering as they brandished a blade at his attackers. Thorin thought it must be Fíli by the way the firelight gleamed on their hair, but the proportions were wrong. Too short, he thought.

It was her. Briella.

Her teeth were bared—small, white, round—and she was soaked in black orc blood up to her elbows. The same bloody cut from earlier wept anew on her cheek, and her hair was half wild, spreading the redness across the side of her face in a tangled mess where it escaped its pinning. The looming forms of Azog and his orc warg riders were closing, mocking in their harsh language.

For an uncountable, immortal moment, Briella Baggins of the Shire stood alone between Thorin Oakenshield and Azog the Defiler, and gave no ground.

How was that possible? He didn't understand. He couldn't. 

00000

Briella woke with the sun on her face, and wind in her hair. Far more pleasant than the smell of goblin, she mused, then felt herself chuckling in bewilderment that she could now safely say she knew how terrible goblins—and orcs—did smell.

Then the rush of memories came back, and she was bolting upright, fear lodged in her throat once more as her bleary eyes focused.

“Is Thorin alright?” She blurted to no one, whomever would listen.

“Lassie, Gandalf is…” Balin’s lined face came into view, and she was rising to her feet to turn and see. Enormous golden-brown wings flapped behind his head, and she had to withhold her awe as she beheld dozens of eagles easily twice the size of a horse wheeling in wide circles around the outcrop of rock they now sat upon. Their piercing, keening cries made her want to cover her ears.

Thorin lay upon the stone, one arm outstretched and bloody. His torso was a mass of punctures; his face covered in grime and his eyes shut. She had never seen him so peaceful. The knot between his eyebrows that never seemed to ease was gone. Gandalf stood over him, long limbs bent awkwardly to reach Thorin’s face.

Had she come too late? She wasn’t certain how much blood a dwarf could lose, but Thorin’s face was paler than she’d ever seen it. Dust and blood clotted his hair, turning it grey and lank. 

The Company held their breath as the wizard labored. She found she was too. Bofur wrung his hat between his hands. Fíli held KÍli around the shoulders, bracketing him so that he could not rush forward and crowd his uncle’s body.

“The halfling?” Came the garbled whisper. She felt the breath whoosh out of her chest and heard the others doing the same. Dizziness came shortly after—and she had a horrible suspicion that none of them had eaten in what must be days.

“It’s all right. Briella is here. She’s quite safe.” Gandalf leaned back on his staff so Thorin might see.

She found herself standing alone as KÍli and Fíli helped their uncle to his feet, who only briefly accepted their aid before straightening proudly, and setting his eyes upon her.

“You!” He said, accusingly. The knot was back between his brows. She twisted a seam with one hand, then remembered the blood and let go.

“What were you doing? You nearly got yourself killed.” He was furious, and she was dumbstruck. He took a single, heavy step toward her.

“Did I not say you would be a burden?” She felt her shoulders shrink at the venom in his voice, just the tiniest bit, but forced herself to remain still. “That you would not survive in the wild? That you had no place amongst us?” He had stepped ever closer, his eyes burning.

“Thorin…” She heard Balin say with warning, from behind him. She could not see anything but Thorin’s eyes, and the grim set of his mouth.

“I have never been so wrong.” He said slowly, enunciating each word carefully, his thick brows lifting. He was folding her into his arms then, tucking her against his shoulder as he hugged her close, and Briella wanted to cry for all that had happened. His hair tickled her nose, and she smelled oil, blood, musky sweat, and something else she couldn’t identify before he was pulling back to hold her at arm’s length. Her heart was suddenly louder than she remembered, filling her head with its beating until thinking felt trifling and unimportant.

“I am sorry that I ever doubted you.” He said as he drew back to check her over. Briella was again reminded how well smiles settled on his face, crinkling his eyes at the corners and heating her more than the sun on her back. In a softer voice, he said, “If only I knew keeping you from danger was as fraught as allowing you into it.”  He squeezed her arm gently, and she winced. It was the arm he’d grabbed to pull her up the cliff, what seemed like eons ago even though it had only been a handful of hours. He immediately released her, then swiped a thumb under the cut on her cheek to wipe the blood away, so quickly she only blinked in response.

“Yes, well, you did say this entire endeavor would be terribly dangerous. I suppose you can’t be entirely blamed for that.” Briella said almost airily, shoving tangled hair behind one ear and feeling giddy, almost faint with relief that their ordeal was over. Her belly fluttered uncertainly as his eyes continued to linger on her.

Thorin barked a laugh, his eyes sparkling and warm as he looked down at her, before he grimaced and leaned woozily. Groaning, he doubled, and his nephews were quick to leap forward and catch him as he lost consciousness.

Chapter Text

The eagles had won Thorin’s Company precious ground between themselves and Azog’s hunters, but it was not enough to slow their furious pace. They rested a scant few days, for Thorin to regain his strength enough to travel, but Briella was doubtful that he’d fully healed for the wan look in his eyes come nightfall.

Each morn and night brought with it fresh tension as they checked for their tail, watching closely for any sign that might give warning of their pursuers. Only once did Dori see what he claimed was a goblin scout, high in a copse of trees and long behind them, but it still set Thorin to rush the company into a sprint for the better half of that day as they fought to keep their lead. Briella hadn’t seen it, but she forced her feet to carry her ever onward, regardless of her exhaustion that seemed only to increase as the days passed.

Sleep had become a fitful, cantankerous thing that fought her tooth and claw for each scrap of rest she was able to snatch from its tight-fisted grip. Once her lids closed, it was as if she was back upon that fiery cliff, surrounded by smoke and the sounds of the dead and dying. There are monsters in this world, and now I have seen their faces, know their voices. I have even killed. Her palms would go clammy, her breath would come fast, and she felt the same panic bleeding into her belly as when she thought of Smaug.

There is nothing, silly girl. We are safe for now. You must sleep. She told herself, fisting her hands into her blankets as she stared up into the night. But it rarely worked.

It gave her some time to ponder ideas for her kerchief, at least. Once the beginning of dawn light made itself known, she’d find a lonely spot away from camp and sew, until she heard the stirrings of the Company waking. Along with the three interconnected knots to represent Thorin, Fíli and Kíli, she’d added a border of leaping rabbits to the bottom edge in white thread, using the memory of Radegast’s enormous Rhosgobel rabbits as an example. She hoped deep down there would be another chance to see them.

What had been something to pass the morning hours and keep her hands busy in the face of her apprehension, had become the beginning of a miniature tapestry symbolizing her journey with the Company so far. For Rivendell, she’d stitched a stylized spiraling oak on the kerchief’s lefthand side, its branches as long and graceful as the elves she’d seen there. Oddly delighted with her progress, she decided that it would be full by the time their quest was done. She ignored the tinny voice that waved its arms, shouting frantically in the depths of her mind: Stupid, stupid girl! You will not survive to see it completed!

She wondered how Thorin’s company had managed to survive on the run for so long. Already she felt more fatigued than she had her whole life, even after that awful summer years ago she’d helped with the hay harvest on a whim to impress a rather charming farm boy in Bag End, who’d turned out to be much grabbier than expected. Thorin’s people had been running for decades. I must be made of different, softer stuff. She thought critically as she lay awake most nights listening to them snore.

The dry mountainous terrain continued unending, it seemed to her. Rocky crevasses that spiraled down into bottomless blue lakes, dead pines dotting the tops of ridges, and boulders covered in pale lichen repeated so often she was certain she could wander forever among them and never find her way out. It was maddening, and she felt as though they were no closer to Erebor, for each day ended with the same view of… nothing. No villages, holdfasts or even a lonely crofter’s shack to be found.

She was pleased, if also slightly exasperated, however. The Company had warmed immeasurably toward her in the days since their clash with Azog, and she was still reeling from the marked change in their behavior.

It made for a much more bearable journey, though they praised her far more frequently than they needed to, in her opinion. Anyone would have done what she had.

“See how easily she hops from stone to stone, never missing her mark? Quick feet, quick fingers. Ho-ho, she’ll be a burglar yet!”, Balin said one day to her ever-expanding humiliation, only to be met with severe nods of ponderous approval all around the Company. She hadn’t the heart to deny him, and she suspected he knew it by the sparkling shine of his eyes and the dimpled roundness of his cheeks as he grinned at her.

Bifur had even taken the time, with Dwalin ever lurking nearby, to show her how to properly hold her blade to parry a sword cut without harming herself in the process. The language barrier between them had left her to assume his dislike of her—but as Dwalin translated, she realized the depths of her ignorance.

“He says, you must keep it at an angle, lay it flat against yer forearm and hold yer thumb—there, like that.” Dwalin said as Bifur had reached for her hands.

The axe-head buried in Bifur’s skull had always intimidated her, but as she looked at his wild hair and keen eyes, she wondered why that was. He was only as gruff as the rest of them. Why should that frighten her after all she’d seen?

His grip was gentle as he’d manipulated her fingers until they were just so, then tapped the blade with an index finger. Bifur’s gravelly voice rumbled in Khuzdul, lilting in odd places. She’d wondered if she could ever learn it, with all its harshness.

 “Now, raise yer arm as if the sun is far too bright and you must shield yer eyes.” Dwalin translated for him. She did, and Bifur lifted his own to mimic a sword coming down, giving another bright exclamation in Khuzdul when she blocked it, followed by his chortling laughter.

“Was that right?” It was impossible to tell with their language—everything he’d said sounded half a curse to her ears.

Dwalin had snorted and ruffled her hair. “It was, little one. He says you’ll be uncommonly good at slicing the ankles of our enemies, provided they’re short enough for you t’reach.”

Bifur had frowned and muttered more, giving Dwalin an elbow as if to prod him expectantly. “Kakhuf inbarathrag. Fine. He also says that yer future children will be lucky to inherit yer courage.”

…what. Dwalin’s cheeks were pink, and she was just sharp enough to notice that it extended to the top of his bald head. Well, that was adorable if nothing else.

“Forgive ‘im, he means well. Dwarvish compliments can be… oddly specific and forward, when translated into Common.” He’d never looked more uncomfortable. Bifur had beamed at her.

Briella couldn’t help it. She’d giggled and given his arm a pat. “Please give him my thanks. For the training, and the compliment. It was very kind.”

He’d bumbled off happily, leaving Dwalin with cheeks as red as apples and her heart bubbly with warmth.  

In recent evenings, when they stopped to make camp, she and Balin were joined by Bofur, Bifur and Bombur for tea. Kíli would find his way over before they turned in once he’d finished with his archery practice, Ori following behind with big doe eyes. Thorin even appeared every so often, keeping to the shadows as he listened to Balin weave tales with half-lidded eyes, his pipe smoking and forgotten. She tried but couldn’t keep her eyes from wandering to him occasionally, flitting away just as swiftly when she found him already looking at her, tracking her behind curls of smoke that left her heart stuttering with the intensity of his gaze.

“If ever you are touched by a troll again, know that I am long dead.”  His words echoed back at her, threat and promise both woven together so intimately she could not tell the difference between the two. Her belly tightened at the memory of his hands, tenderly sifting through the knots of her hair. So focused on his task he neglected to notice her wandering eyes as they drifted from his fingers up, up, up, to his mouth. The bitter twist of his lips marred his otherwise pensive expression; his brows were pressed together in concentration. He’s achingly beautiful, she remembered thinking dimly from some depraved corner of her brain, a corner that had only grown braver and more despicable in tandem with Thorin’s lingering glances. She found herself shaking her head often to clear it of the cobwebs, convinced she was making more of the issue than necessary—a bad habit she’d had no luck in breaking.

Briella was tickled to learn Bombur fancied tea, though he still preferred his bitter coffee. He sat and listened intently with hands folded over his portly stomach, as she showed him the herbs she gathered to dry while they traveled to supplement her stock. She suspected it was in part due to their dwindling coffee stores, and the rather readily available supply of chamomile, mint and lavender all around them, but she didn’t mind. It was pleasant to chatter away while he absorbed it all, giving her tattered nerves a much-needed respite.

Bofur whittled, occasionally adding wildly false commentary to Balin’s storytelling, Bifur sharpened his weapons, and Kíli would often fall asleep listening to them talk near the fire.

It was a similar evening that Fíli approached her, long after Balin retired to his bedroll, and the fire had become crumbling coals that hissed as they devoured themselves. She sat taking slow puffs on her pipe, legs crossed beneath her on her bedroll. She only had a small tin of pipe-weed with her, and so she only rarely indulged—but tonight she’d decided it was necessary. It calmed her wily thoughts to a dull roar, and she was grateful for it.

“May I join you, Miss Baggins?” He asked, his own pipe in one hand. His blond hair set him apart from his dun and raven-haired companions, wispy mustachios curling about his jaw where others had bushy beards.

She nodded, curiosity piqued as she straightened. Fíli had rebuffed nearly every one of her attempts to know him in the past, and while he hadn’t been unfriendly, per se, she was quite certain he was of the few that still believed she belonged back in the Shire. He followed Kíli about because it was his prerogative as elder brother but never initiated conversation with her unless it was needed to break or make camp. It was the same with Óin and Glóin, so she tried not to allow it to bother her overmuch—there was only so much that Briella herself could do to ease their reticence.  

It was only natural, she reasoned, and even she wasn’t convinced she belonged among them when she remembered the cruel cunning glittering in Azog’s eyes.

Fíli sat in front of Kíli’s sleeping form across her, loaded his pipe and took a long, leisurely inhale while watching the glowing embers. It was best to be patient, she’d learned. They did not so easily share with non-dwarves and needling them only ever met her with stony resistance.

“Thorin had a brother, once.” Fíli said, not looking up. He drew shapes she could not make meaning of on the dirt with his free hand.

“His name was Frerin, and he was the middle child of the three borne to King Thráin.”  Briella frowned. Balin had never mentioned him in his tales thus far. Why now?

“He died before I was born, slain by orcs near the Mirrormere, along with Fundin and many others in a rout after the Battle of Azanulbizar. Balin will tell you that it was abysmally bad luck; a senseless end to a brutal war that left us gasping with the vastness of our loss.” He blew a ring of smoke.

“I thought different, for many a year, once it was told to me. It must be the beginning of our end, I mourned, for how does a people recover after such a thing? We built pyres for the dead at Azanulbizar, and declared our fallen Burned Dwarves, for we had not the men nor time to bury them in stone as they deserved. Dwalin and Balin share a father in Fundin, if neither has told you.”

They hadn’t. Briella remembered Balin’s glassy eyes the night he recounted their bloody tale and knew his grief must still be too raw for words, feeling her heart bleed anew.

“I never knew them. Dís, our mother, told us of them often enough. So, while we hid in the Blue Mountains, being told stories of glorious wars fought and lost, growing weaker each year, I grew angry and embittered. What callous God would visit this fate upon us? Had we been forsaken to a life of scavenging, like the orcs we despised so much? I didn’t know. There was no enemy I could slay that would slake my rage. How does one fight poverty? Sickness?” He tamped down his pipe, then scraped a single rune away with haste.

“I went so far as to demand Thorin return to Erebor and fight, one day before my beard had even begun to grow.” He said ruefully, and as Briella winced in sympathy, she thought he might have smirked, just barely, at her expression.

“Aye, very foolish, I agree. But he did not shout, nor deny it.” His voice reminded her of reeds whispering near the water’s edge, gentle and steady. Kíli abruptly twisted about in his bedroll, turning so that his head poked out from behind Fíli’s right knee as he curled forward to press against his brother in his sleep.

“He took me by the arm and marched me out onto the ridge that surrounded our holdfast. I thought for certain I was in for the worst sparring match of my young life. A lesson in bruises to remind me of my place. Instead, he pointed at the cluster of little buildings we called home. ‘There is all that remains of Durin’s Folk, Fíli’, he said. ‘Do you not think I would return, if I could? That the same fury does not burn within me, pressing hot against my ribs until I feel there is no escape? That I have somehow forgotten what we have suffered?'" 

"'Our flame is diminished, and we must protect the embers that remain against the fell winds of fate. If that means I must forge ten thousand nails here in obscurity to keep them safe, then that is what I must do. Nothing less will suffice.’”

Kíli sighed, snuggling closer, and Fíli glanced down at him fondly, resting a hand atop his dark head. She could almost hear the words in Thorin’s voice, hard as granite.

He looked at her then, earnestly. “We all owe you a great debt, even if none of us have said it aloud. Without Thorin, we would all be dead a hundred times over. You protected him, when none of us could.” He seemed troubled, his brows knotting together in an expression of disquiet.

Briella felt herself grow hot and she shook her head, seeing the direction his thoughts were heading. “I was only the closest—”, She protested.

Fíli swiped his palm across the dirt with finality and gave her a scornful eye to silence her. “Don’t belittle yourself. You did not see what I did. I didn’t think Hobbits could be so fierce.”

She quieted and knew her cheeks were flushed from his praise, taking a draw off her pipe to calm her nervousness.  She still wasn’t entirely sure what madness had overcome her, couldn’t name the thoughts running through her mind as her feet took that first, daring step onto the branch, because there were none. She only existed, only acted as she deemed necessary before rational thought had the chance to sway her. Pure luck that we survived at all, she thought as she stared at Kíli’s sleeping face.

“If it helps. Neither did I.” She said, wanting to lighten the tension that hung heavily over him like a grey cloud.

Fíli’s brows shot up as he coughed, choking on a laugh, and a streamer of smoke issued from his nose. “Oddly enough, it does. Thank you.”

They lapsed into silence that felt more comfortable than solemn, trading smoke rings and watching the curious way they collided midair, only to be swept away by the rising heat from the fire.

Chapter Text

The moonlight sang for him that night, it seemed to Thorin, as he stared at the silvery crescent hung high in the night sky. He felt it calling, felt a vast entity grasp on to the bones holding his spine together and tug with all its might, pulling him away from sleep and the restfulness it promised. Thorin threw his arm across his eyes and rolled over with just enough force to disturb Fíli curled nearby, who grumbled and snuggled further down into his bedroll to hide his face from the cool air.

“No more, Uncle. ‘M done sparring.” The tuft of blond hair poking out of his blankets groused blearily, still sleeping.

Thorin snorted and took the hint, rising to hopefully stretch the ache from his limbs and keep from disturbing Kíli. His nephew slept only fitfully since the Trolls, and coupled with their near nomadic existence of late, he could hardly blame Fíli for wanting to help his younger brother catch a precious few more hours of rest. Slate gray mountains dotted with yellow and green lichen surrounded them on all sides, and a blooming storm bloated the clouds that hung like overfull waterskins along the horizon. They crept closer and swallowed stars with their approach.

In truth, he hoped he’d stumble across her still awake, watching the sky. One hand drifting the length of her braid as she regarded the world in quiet wonder the way she often did once the moon rose. He could admit that each of their midnight meetings had left him unusually peaceful, the curling claws of his mind subsided, if only for a little while. As he passed the Company’s bedrolls, he saw Briella’s was concernedly empty.

“Oh—Thorin, good! Come with me.” Thorin had to stop himself from starting. He hadn’t even heard her approach. How does she do that? His annoyance had long since given way to bemused curiosity. None of their company was immune; she’d caught Balin by surprise and made him spill his tea only this morning, much to her blushing chagrin.

He saw her there at the edge of camp, gifted elven cloak draped down to her ankles and a few sizes too large, surely, but warmer than a blouse and trousers. Her plum waistcoat was back, the lost-then-found ribbon still tied at the end of her braid, he saw with a sudden stab of smugness that struck his lower belly. An air of mischief clouded around her that reminded him of a woodland sprite. She tucked a few curls behind one ear and beckoned to him, eyes sparkling.

“Come on, hurry up!” She whispered urgently, another waving of her small hand and he again caught a glimpse of the winding scar that wrapped around her wrist.

Interest piqued, for he could not possibly guess what could have excited her amid the dead of night, Thorin nodded and made to follow.  She held up a hand, palm out to stop him and said with her brows drawn close and sharp, “Watch where you tromp with those heavy boots. I won’t have you crushing anything.”  She ordered, and he had to quash the insistent but wholly unwelcome urge to immediately obey as he beheld her freckled cheeks.

Feeling his brows raise with her audacity and his curiosity increasing, he said flatly but with the airs of his nobility, “Of course, my Lady Baggins of Bag End.”

She seemed to catch herself, her back straightened, smile flattening as she pursed her lips, and a flush crept up her neck that he could see clearly even in the moonlight. “Thorin!” She scolded him with such venomous affront he felt his chest being to shake with laughter.

When did she stop calling me ‘Master Thorin’, I wonder.

“Dunder-headed clod.” She muttered under her breath when she caught him smirking, though he was certain she meant him to hear as he caught the spark in her eye.

Thorin chuckled aloud, and he heard a huff in response, but her back was already turned. She hopped up a trail that doubled back up the side of the cliff their camp butted against, then curled around its edge to a steep path up to what he guessed was a rocky plateau.

He immediately felt a pinch of regret—this was not the first time that persistent feeling had reared its ugly head where she was concerned—at ignoring what he believed to be boasting on Gandalf’s part about Hobbits as he tried to keep pace, using her fluttering coattails as his guide. Not once on the half-forgotten goat track did Briella lose her footing as she hopped from here to there with agility and a surefootedness he’d never hoped to achieve, even in his youngest years. She still stopped to wait for him at every bend.

“We’re almost there.” She tossed back to him delightedly. The gravel underneath his boots had become springy moss that compacted with a strange, bouncy feeling.

“How in Durin’s Beard did you find yourself up here?” He asked as he lightened his tread and tried to step gingerly. He realized he’d neglected to ask what he wasn’t meant to be stomping on, so it was better to be safe.

“I wander occasionally, when I can’t sleep. Following animal trails is usually a safe bet. It’s just up—Oof!” She’d thrown an arm out to halt his path as they crested the ridge, but he’d been so focused on his feet and avoiding any potentially easily squished things that he plowed right into her back. She made a tiny squeak, her outstretched arm wheeling as she pitched forward.

Quicker than he’d have caught himself, Thorin looped an arm around her middle and hauled her back against him to keep her from falling flat on her face. The back of her head bumped his chest with a muted thump. She was soft and warm in ways he’d all but forgotten and smelled like tea leaves and lavender—he thought he was becoming too fond of her lingering scent around his person. It was already familiar, something expected that he found himself appreciating when she was near.

Briella laughed breathlessly and it sounded like the melodic ringing of hammers on steel as she pointed to something he wasn’t looking at. “It’s just there. Least I wasn’t the clumsy one today.” She didn’t move, though her toes barely touched the moss in his grip. His free hand itched.

“Forgive me. My mind was elsewhere.” He said, too late to be strictly polite.

She tilted her head to peek at him out of the corner of her eye.

“That so?” She asked, and the open mirth he found there framed by her honeyed curls was unfathomably disarming, rendering him mutable and feverish as soft iron in her hands. Her eyes were the same color as the moss in this light.

It had snuck upon them both tenuously at first, this dance they played at with only the barest of suggestions. Right now, though, it hung heavily as a raindrop on a spider’s web, pulling the veil further with each shared moment they spent alone.

He set her down as gently as if she were made of newly forged steel, feeling like his fingers were burning, scalding the sensation away the longer he touched her. As he retreated from her with thoughts as thick as syrup, Briella grabbed his forearm and pulled him along a few steps until she crouched, pointing once more.

“It’s a fairy circle.” There was more joy in those four words than Thorin had known could exist in the world, and it sent a pang of unexpected longing to spear its way through his ribs.

A cluster of mushrooms, the color of aged bone, had formed a delicate circle about three strides in diameter atop the moss, that only sustained itself in shade that a single scraggly oak tree provided. Each was of differing roundness and size than its fellows, some only as big as his thumbnail and milky white in their youth, while yet others were just larger than his palm and capped with bulbous brown tips. She reached a finger out to gently caress the cap of one.

“They’re a sign of good luck, for Hobbits.” Briella said matter-of-factly, giving the mushroom one last tap before rocking back on her heels to admire it. He sensed something brewing in her, bubbling just under her crinkled eyes.

He waited. “Patience, Thorin. Better your feet find solid stone than an early grave.” Frerin had told him once, too many years ago. Still his brother’s voice echoed in the back of Thorin’s mind when he least expected it and opened his heart anew to grief. Ever the mediator, Frerin had sought peace between Thorin and their father’s many clashes, and though he very rarely succeeded, he was the only Durin who could claim such temperance. Fíli was more like him than he knew.

“If I were in the Shire, I would have brought the little ones to see it.” Briella had been hunched as tightly as she could but soon gave it up and pulled the excess fabric from her cloak under her to sit, then began idly poking at the most top-heavy mushroom nearest her, making it bob slowly from side to side.

“Little ones?” Thorin joined her, crossing his legs and resting his hands palm down on his thighs. She hadn’t spoken much of Bag End since leaving, or of little ones, at least around him.

“My gardener’s children. Five of them, bless him, and his wife is heavy with their next. I baked for them often.” Bob, bob.

“Five seems… A lot, for one home. Though there were many in the Shire, I suppose.” Thorin said, watching the mushroom sway. He hadn’t realized they were quite so prolific, nor could he imagine families of such sprawling size.

 Dís had been uncommonly lucky to have Fíli and Kíli, and in such quick succession that she’d been swiftly assailed by the few dwarrow women left for ‘advice’, that left his sister grossly uncomfortable. The number of proposals he’d received after each of his nephews’ births, respectively, increased twofold, and it still put a sour taste in his mouth. It was unfortunately largely true that dwarf women both struggled to conceive and carry pregnancies to term wherein both the infant and the mother survive.

Bob, bob, bob. “Five or six isn’t all that uncommon, really. But they are a handful.” She smiled wistfully, her eyes seeing more than his.

“Truly?” Perhaps not for the first time, he felt pangs of envy needling him. Would that it was so easy for his people.

“Mm-hm. I am an anomaly with no siblings to speak of. It’s the only reason I inherited Bag End. Is it so different for dwarves?” She allowed the mushroom to still, her curiosity drawing her eyes to him.

“Very.” It explained her tendency for solitude. Thorin dared not ask of her parents. His own were tragedy enough, and he did not feel inclined to speak of them only to drain the joy from her. “What do you make for them?”

Briella gave a snort and resumed her poking, saying drily, “Nothing I can make here.” After a moment, her shoulders dropped. “I’m sorry.” She folded her hands together and sat still.

“Apple cinnamon rolls, peach tarts, sticky toffee. Though, Hamson loved my tea cakes best.” Her round nose was pink with cold.

It saddens her, to be away from them. He realized, thinking of Kíli and Fíli as her eyes remained rooted to the mushroom. An unpleasant feeling coiled coldly in his gut. Guilt, that he’d taken her away from such peace to face trolls and wargs, and all other monstrosities cloaked in crimson scales that he dared not think too deeply on.

“He has good taste.” Thorin said instead, satisfied when she laughed, though it was soft and full of yearning. He imagined she would corral them all into her cozy kitchen with easy grace while they giggled and grabbed at her skirts, covered in the sugary-sweet remains of whatever delicious thing she’d just made. Maybe even balancing the youngest on a hip as she worked, curly head dropping back to lean against her as they drifted into sleep.

The comforting domesticity of it stirred something dangerous to wakefulness in Thorin as he watched her cheeks flush. It was the same insistent tugging in his belly that he felt when he saw her hair unbound, the first night they’d met, shifting between moonbeams and darkness while she offered him tea.  

With a stuttering breath and tightening fingers upon his knees, Thorin came to the realization that it was want. He wanted when she was near, ached for things he was too craven to even put into thought for how swiftly they might be ripped away.  

Briella glanced up with welcoming eyes and a hesitant smile, and Thorin knew he was lost, for all he could think of was the snug, unbearably soft way she’d fit into his arms.

00000

Briella hunched behind a cluster of boulders in the wee hours of the morning. Fall must be coming soon, she thought as she breathed warm air on her hands. The cold had become ever more piercing over their headlong sprint eastward. At least now she could see the ending of the monotonous mountains to her left, as they tumbled down to form rolling hills covered in verdant grassland that looked silver in the predawn light.

Across the gap before her, a barren ridge reached out into the air and ended in an outcrop, atop which ran their hunters, with Azog at their head, easily distinguishable by his size if not the snowy pelt of his warg. Their mounts bounded across the earth in huge effortless leaps, reminding her that no matter how swiftly they ran on foot, it was almost inevitable the orcs would have caught them eventually. It was disheartening, considering her bone-deep weariness and the effort they’d all expended to get this far. She was not convinced that Thorin’s wounds had been given enough time to heal, though he’d be long dead before he admitted it, she knew with a sour twist of her lips. In the clear air, she could hear the scratching of their claws against the rock. Too close by half a hundred leagues.

As she ducked to keep her head from view of the orc party, she heard a rustle of gravel behind her. When she turned to look, her mouth went dry.

A beast that must be thrice the size of Azog’s white warg stood poised on the stone ledge illuminated by the faint light of morn, it’s gaze focused intently upon the valley below. Puffs of hot breath fogged like chimneys in winter, churning the chilly night air. Its jaws hung open as it scented, swinging its colossal, bear-like head from side to side, and she caught a glimpse of the yellowed fangs that jutted from its mouth. It looked to be hunting, though she couldn’t be certain it wasn’t for her. Shaggy, dark fur covered its body that heaved with muscle from every limb, and Briella was suddenly positive that she’d rather face several orc packs than tangle with such a monster.

It roared as she scrambled back down the rocks toward their hiding place, nearly shaking her out of her skin. It was a terrible sound, full of frustrated rage as though the beast had been foiled somehow, though she couldn’t imagine what creature would dare to be so foolish.

“How close is the pack?” Thorin stood shoulder to shoulder with Dwalin, and they parted to allow her to hop through and slide to a stop.

“Too close. Couple of leagues, no further. But that’s not the worst of it.” They closed behind her.

“Have the wargs picked up our scent?” Dwalin held his hammer one-handed. She’d tried to move it, once, when she’d accidentally tripped over it some nights ago on her way to relieve her bladder.  She’d barely been able to heft it back to its resting place beside Dwalin’s sleeping form without waking him—now she wondered what exactly dwarves could be made of as she watched him swing it to and fro as if it were a switch.

“Not yet, but they will do. We have another problem.” Whatever that thing was, it could decimate them easier than a terrier hunting rats under a haybale.

“Did they see you?” Gandalf asked, “They saw you, didn’t they?”

“No! That’s not it.” Briella sliced her hand down. These dwarves must be rubbing off on Gandalf—ever impatient and unable to wait for an explanation.

“What did I tell you? Quiet as a mouse.” Gandalf preened, and the Company was singing her praises then as they hadn’t ever before, but she could not care a whit less, just then.

She had to shout to be heard over their myriad compliments and congratulating one another for having ‘picked’ her to come along. “All of you, quiet down! I am trying to tell you there is something else out there, much more terrifying.” She loved them, she really did, but they were absolutely dense when the occasion least called for it.

“What form did it take? Like a bear?” Gandalf’s eyes narrowed.

“Well, yes, but bigger, much bigger.” Briella furrowed her brow.

“You knew about this beast?” Bofur chimed in from behind her shoulder as Gandalf turned to look out over the cliffs. “I say we double back!”

Briella rolled her eyes, then, feeling chagrined, hoped no one had been watching her—and there was Thorin confound it, ever observant, his eyes lingering and brow quirked in her direction. Wonderful. Now I must listen to them dither about it for the next half-hour, whilst the orcs slaver for our blood not even a stone’s throw away.

00000

The sun rose and began to warm her, but too late, as she was already drenched in sweat from running for the last hour. She’d never run so much her whole life, and even now she was sure the only thing keeping her legs from crumpling beneath her was the threat of certain death.

“Come on!” Gandalf urged, somehow leading their group despite his apparent age, as they reached a break in the trees at the base of the mountain. He stopped only to check that the entire company was with them, then was off again, shouting at them all to keep their feet moving.

“To the house! Run!” Gandalf called once more.

She saw in the distance a cluster of trees and a gate, and knew it was their salvation. She forced her aching legs to keep pumping, momentarily stunned when Bombur suddenly passed her at full sprint and the rest of their flagging company. How in the great green world did that come to pass? She wondered, too shocked to even be amused at the sight of his great round belly bouncing as he went.

There was another rippling roar, and Briella made the very-awful-horrible mistake of turning her head to look behind them. Her insides turned watery. The bear that was not a bear came crashing through the undergrowth, it’s great slavering jaws open wide as it lurched over the grassy earth quicker than even the wargs’ great strides could manage.

What does such a creature even eat to grow so big? She couldn’t help but wonder as it’s bounding leaps devoured the remaining space between them.

Dwalin pulled her shoulder, pushing her ahead of him as she regained her feet. “Go, lass!” He said, giving her another shove and sending her several feet forward.

Briella had barely enough time to note the unusually large bumblebees floating through the air as they cleared the wooden gate, then she was squished against the inner door as they fought to open it before the beast could reach them.

“Quickly! Open the gate, now!” Gandalf shouted as they fumbled. She could not see it, but she could hear the snarling getting closer. Thundering paw steps shook the earth as it approached.

It took Thorin shoving his way to the fore and lifting the iron bar that locked the door before they were piling in and slamming it closed behind them, but it was nearly not enough.

The wooden door, that was thrice her height, bowed inwards as the scarred black muzzle of the monster chasing them shoved its way inside, snarling and snapping. Yellow eyes glowed with fury as they all piled against the door to push it back out.

Kíli was suddenly just below it’s teeth, and Briella felt her heart go into her throat when he had to duck to avoid it.

With almost the whole Company pushing against the door, they were finally able to slide the iron bar into its latch. Briella tried not to think of what might have happened to them, had they not been able to hide here. If it took multiple dwarves even half as strong as Dwalin to force its head out of a closed door, what would it have done to them on the road? She shuddered.

“What is that?” Ori asked, his eyes huge and breath coming in gasps.

“That is our host. His name is Beorn, and he’s a skin-changer. Sometimes, he’s a bear. And sometimes, a great strong man. The bear is unpredictable. But the man can be reasoned with.” Gandalf turned to inspect their temporary holdings, which seemed half a barn as Briella began to look about.

A skin-changer. He certainly does not live like a bear.

Carved wooden beams held up the roof, separating a modest living area from the livestock stalls on the western side where several horned cattle leisurely munched on hay, clearly unbothered by their sudden guests. All the tools, pottery and furniture were obviously made for more immense hands than her own. She saw a wooden mug near as tall as her shin and almost laughed at how silly it might have looked, had she tried to drink from it. A chess set sat arrayed for a game atop a table with a single chair.

00000

Briella woke to the sound of wet snuffling, just above her face. A wide black nose blocked out her vision, and she was quickly scrabbling backwards with a squeak before she realized what she was looking at.

Right. She thought, remembering as a huge red muzzle came into view. We bedded down in the stables. It’s very warm, if a touch scratchy. A chorus of snores echoed about her, telling her it was still much too early.

“Sorry girl, didn’t mean to give you a scare.” She whispered to the cow, reaching out to pet her fuzzy fur and finding it bristlier than she imagined, but still soft enough to stroke. Her big brown eyes were limpid as she contentedly chewed a mouthful of hay, unfazed. Dim light streamed through the smoke hole in the roof, not yet dawn but light enough for her to see vaguely well.

She wondered what woke her if everyone else slept. Still, she felt bone-deep weariness as an ache in her lower back, and her legs felt wobbly as a newborn foal’s when she slowly got to her feet. She’d unpinned her braid before sleeping, so she set to carefully picking out the hay that had tangled in it overnight while she reviewed her surroundings again.

The door they’d barred opened, and a figure near as tall stepped through. She froze. This must be Beorn, the skin-changer. Gandalf had gone on to say he misliked dwarves but neglected to give a reason why, and that made her apprehensive. He closed the door behind him quietly, then turned and made for his kitchen. Briella took that for a good sign. Well, best be polite to our saving grace, furry monster come nightfall or no.

So much sprinting the day prior had left her much less steady than she might have wished, and she stumbled twice as she picked her way over her dozing companions. Her legs burned.

“You are no dwarf.” Beorn’s voice rumbled, deep and gravelly, but there was no heat behind it.

She hadn’t heard him come close. He made her feel little more than a mouse, so high did he tower above her.

His head was topped with a mass of brown hair that looked more like fur, growing down his back in a great ruff. His eyes were solemn pools of warm amber, inspecting her with a slight tilt of his head. A wide, flat nose, unlike any she’d seen before, almost like a spade, lent him an animal aspect that reminded her of the bear-beast. Tufted brows and beard grew wildly out from his face, silver above his eyes. He reached a huge hand down to offer an open palm, presumably to help her over Bombur, whom she surely would have tripped over in her current state. Rusted shackles, their chains long broken, jangled faintly on his wrist as he moved.

“Come, I won’t hurt you.”

Briella decided that any person with this many creatures living in his home was fine by her, and after a brief hesitation, reached to set her hand in his, trying not to be intimidated by the gross difference in size between them. She almost yelped but slammed her mouth shut as he lifted her clear off the ground, setting her down just as easily on the other side without apparent effort.

“Th-thank you.” 

He shrugged, turning to pat the nearest cow on the head. “You hungry?”

Briella’s stomach answered for her. Beorn’s lip twitched up in amusement as her face reddened.

“If I can help with anything—” He snorted and gave her his back as he went to pulling out plates and cups. I suppose that is a resounding ‘no’. I doubt I’m tall enough to reach the counter anyhow. She had no wish to insult him by intruding, so she stood still and unthinkingly fingered the seam of her waistcoat.

Finished with his task, he gestured to the door. “Come—I have a henhouse out back, you can help there.” Briella bounced on her heels as he led her into the morn, happy to be of use, and especially happy not to be prey for wargs.

The compound was, for all intents and purposes, a ringfort, with only one large building at its heart split into three: the great hall where they had slept, and two smaller sections that pointed in opposite directions, all encircled by a copse of trees and lush green grass. She saw a garden on the far side and had to stop her feet from wandering toward it as she followed Beorn.

The oddest-looking henhouse Briella had ever seen awaited her, its door made awkwardly tall for Beorn’s height.  A basket hung on its handle.

“The speckled hen is broody. Watch your fingers.” Then he meandered over to a stump and began hacking firewood from chunks nearly as tall as her.

Delighted, she hooked the basket under one arm and got to work, deftly slipping her hands under their downy feathers to retrieve near a dozen eggs in short order. It was early enough yet that most were drowsy with sleep, and the work allowed her mind to empty. The red speckled hen was indeed testy and squawked at her indignantly, trying to peck as Briella scooped her hard-won egg out from under her. She tutted at it, gave it a pat on its rump despite its unhappy cooing and slipped back out.

“Quick fingers. How did a little lass like you get caught up with that mangy lot?” He said after she returned with her basket full, shouldering his axe. 

She opened her mouth to protest, but a glance at her own rumpled clothing made her reconsider. “I volunteered. Or, rather, Gandalf volunteered me.” She lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug, unsure if she should expose the reason for their journey.

His eyes sharpened, mouth growing grim. “Meddling sorcerer.” He grunted, though the words were without any bite. “They have not treated you unkindly?”

She saw his gaze linger on the mostly healed scratch below her eye and was heartily affronted on their behalf at his suggestion. “Of course not!”

He did not seem convinced. “Their path is rife with peril. It is not unlike dwarves to see shiny treasure, take it, then throw it away once it has served its purpose.”  

Briella felt those words stab too closely to her heart, thinking of Thorin’s hot-cold attitude. It had lessened somewhat since the cliffs, but he maintained much of his aloof manner. Cold fingers of doubt that she’d thought banished came creeping back up her ankles, trying to suck her into a mire of misery. If I die while attempting this… Theft, what great loss is it to them?

No. I can’t believe that of any of them. Not now.

She shook her head, feeling her hair tickle her nose.  “Not these dwarves.” She tried to sound brave, meeting his stolid gaze and refusing to look away.

He stared. Her cheeks began to warm under Beorn’s steady eyes, feeling half a child again as she craned her neck up at him.

“Hmph.” He motioned toward the garden, keeping his steps slow and short so her tired legs could keep up. “For your sake, little lass, I hope you are right.” He ruffled her hair with one massive hand.

Beorn’s garden was keyhole shaped and bordered by stumps from trees she knew he had to have felled himself. Green pumpkins, still long from harvesting grew upon its edges, surrounded by bushy carrots, peas, blooming garlic and myriad other veggies growing in abundance. Blueberries, raspberries and blackberries threatened to outweigh their trellises, heaving with the weight of their fruit in the breeze. Briella hadn’t seen anything quite so lovely in ages.

“You have a beautiful garden, Mister Beorn.” She said, impressed by the variety and lushness of it all. A tiny, selfish part of her wished she could be in the Shire, in her own garden, toiling under the summer sun and hoping to avoid a sunburn on her shoulders.

He handed her another basket, this one shallow. “Last year I lost my pumpkins to the damned rain. Rotted them all from the inside out.” He leaned, knocking on one and nodding in satisfaction when it rang with a hollow thump.

“The pumpkins in the Shire failed too! Our sweet potatoes fared well enough, but it just wasn’t a proper harvest festival without pumpkin pie.” Briella grumbled, setting the basket against her hip to start gathering berries. She detested sweet potato pie.

Beorn nodded seriously in agreement as he plucked a gigantic green summer squash from the vine to add to his own basket.

Briella picked and pulled blackberries, careful of their thorns, dropping down into a squat to reach the ones Beorn wouldn’t see unless he was on hand and knee. The vines were tightly packed, and her fingers were fast becoming stained red in their sticky juices, but she didn’t mind. They were sweeter than any she’d had in the Shire, and she wasn’t ashamed when one out of every ten she picked ended up in her mouth. It had been too long on the road eating salt-dried meats and hard bread, and she was famished.

Under the last vine she pulled, she saw grey fluff. “Oh! Mister Beorn, come look!”

Carefully, ever gently, Briella pressed the vines with the back of her sleeve to find the rabbit’s nest, lined with fur and feathers. Three baby rabbits with patchy grey-brown fur and their eyes screwed tightly shut, curled together in their den of softness, sleeping soundly. She praised their mother for choosing such a well-defended spot under the thorny bushes—though she doubted any predator would be dumb enough to set foot within Beorn’s ringfort.

“They are young. A few days old, maybe. Mother rabbit did well.” Beorn loomed behind her, casting a great shadow across both her and the nest even as he crouched. His eyes were soft, proud as he looked the young over.

She let the vines spring back over its entrance, her heart full to bursting with their cuteness. “I saw Rhosgobel rabbits, once. Huge and fluffy, but I never got close enough to touch them.” She tried not to sound sad, but, oh, she’d wanted so badly to pet them.

“Those are magical beasts. Radagast breeds them, raises them himself. Makes for easier training to pull that sled of his.” Beorn said, rising to his full height once more. “He’s a good sort.” He added.

“You’ve met him?” Briella asked, surprised. They’d chanced upon the scruffy wizard so long ago, it seemed strange to her that they could know one another with so many leagues between them.  The sun had risen, sending rays of morning light across the grass that set it sparkling as the wind teased it. Briella sighed in pleasure. If only they could stay here for a time.

“Aye. He comes around every so often, though it’s been a few seasons now that I think on it. Doddering old codger, but a friend to all the creatures of the forest.” Beorn picked up the eggs and his own basket, then took her berry basket as well.  

She pondered that. “Has he been busy?” She remembered the frantic energy that seemed to sizzle about Radagast the last she’d seen him, all panicky fear and shredded nerves.

Beorn grunted an affirmative as they started for the main hall. “Dark things lurk in the woods, where the light grows scarce and sickness festers. Things halflings need not worry their little round noses about.”

Briella found that answer lacking, screwing up her nose at him. “What kinds of things?” She’d faced orc packs and wargs, trolls and goblins besides. What other monsters waited for her in the dark? It would only set her anxiety into overdrive, but she wanted to know regardless. Better to prepare oneself, she decided, though she quickly doubted her own wisdom as thoughts of dragon’s claws crowded her mind.

The doors to the hall burst open then, and it was Thorin who emerged, bare sword in one hand. She forgot, for a brief moment, what she had even been doing as she watched him move, caught by the deadly purpose that exuded from him. He swept across the ground in short, brusque strides, his back straight as an arrow.

Oh dear, she thought as he spotted them. He kept his sword readied as he approached. Dwalin came after, hammer ever present and eyes dark with suspicion.

This seemed to be the wrong approach, for Beorn stepped in front of her to block their path, and at once there was crackling tension in the air.

“Abrâfu shaikmashâz. What have you done to her?” Thorin growled, so low in his chest she swore she felt it reverberate in her toes. His eyes were hot with fury, and she wondered why she could not physically feel it sloughing off him in waves for how brightly they gleamed. She wasn’t sure what he’d said, but it sounded like the grinding of metal teeth against her ears, inflexible and foreign. More Khuzdul. Dwalin stood to his right, but she could barely see around Beorn’s enormous form as he leaned to keep her hidden behind him.

“I’m perfectly fine!” Briella chirped, feeling that this could only end badly if left to simmer unchecked.

No one seemed to hear her.

“Dwarves.” Beorn sneered, lifting his lip in contempt. Thorin bristled further, but his feet stayed rooted to the ground.

 “Always assuming the worst of friends and foe alike. Do you see what I mean, little one?” He rumbled grimly, sounding as though he spoke of vermin and not her friends as he cast a dark eye back to her over his shoulder.

Thorin took the bait, taking another step toward Beorn and lowering his sword as if readying for battle. “Tell me why she bleeds, ere I take your head.” He snarled; the fur mantle on his shoulders made him appear half a wolf as it ruffled in the wind. He motioned to Dwalin, who whistled loudly. A summons, she knew. This was not good.

Her heart was pounding now, but she couldn’t fathom what he meant. She was not bleeding, nor even wounded.

She reached, to try and shove Beorn aside, then saw. Her hands were covered in berry flesh, red and splotchy, looking for all the world as though she’d gotten mauled by a beast for the slick way it coated her fingers. Oh.

“For goodness’ sake, Thorin, enough!” She shouted, hopping around her would-be protector and waving her sticky hands at him just as the rest of the Company began pouring out of the hall. “It’s berries, you dolt!”

She wasn’t prepared for the disarming way his eyes softened, sword going loose in his hand as his mouth grew slack. Beorn huffed, sounding amused, and continued unbothered on his way into his home. She had the sneaking suspicion that he’d done that on purpose. But why? She saw Dwalin give another signal, and the rest all swiftly turned back without a word, leaving them alone.

Thorin stepped close, taking her wrists in hand to inspect for himself. His fingers were warm, near burning as they held her still, her palms facing upward. He smudged a thumb over one spot of red, and it wiped away to reveal her pink-stained skin beneath. It tingled, her fingers giving an involuntary twitch. He said nothing, and she was too engrossed by the sight of their joined hands to look at his face. She knew it would only make hers redder.

When she took the chance to peek, she found him shaking. “Thorin?” She asked, unsure why she hadn’t pulled her hands away.

His grip tightened as he bent over, shaking harder. He was laughing, she realized, so hard there was no sound coming out of him, only faint wheezing that slowly built into his throaty chuckle. She felt herself smile without meaning to. His joy was intoxicating, sending bubbling warmth soaring up into her head so quickly she felt dizzy.

Maker above, I’ve finally done it. He’s gone mad. She thought, wondering how she should ask Gandalf to make sure he hadn’t twisted something around in Thorin’s brain whilst healing him on the cliffs.

Mirth expended, Thorin slowly released her hands, setting his own on her shoulders. It was still too close, and she dared not even breathe for how mangled her thoughts had become. A jumble of warmth and exasperation, giddy heat and trembling fingers that made any words she might have said get caught in her throat.

Briella wanted to hear him laugh again, she thought as she looked at the curve of his lips, flushed and better rested than he’d been in weeks. “I woke and found you gone. I thought…” He sighed and shook his head, beads clinking. “I’m glad you’re safe.” He gave her shoulders a squeeze, the heat from his hands searing through her clothes and making her fuzzy all over.

For the second time in as many minutes, the lone thought that bounced around Briella’s skull was: Oh.

He was worried I’d been eaten, or worse. Oh, no-no-no, Briella.

He is royalty. A King without a crown.

Strictly, undoubtedly, off limits.

Her pulse rocketed into her throat as her thoughts whirled, but they were all made of stone, steel and inky black hair, and that did not help, damn it!  He was only worried for the success of the quest. She affirmed to herself. Only worried about his… Kingdom. Yes. Not for me. Not possibly, not certainly, no thank you! There was little conviction behind her internal nattering, but she had to distract herself from the husky tenor of his voice, else she would surely forget herself.   

“Briella? Are you alright?” Earnest concern made him sound tender, yielding. She tried to miss the way his eyes strayed down to her lips, that she knew were red as the palms of her hands. Her cheeks must be as well.

She was better than she’d ever remembered being, better than pumpkin pie on a cold winter’s night, better than fresh bread and butter—She was supposed to say something, curse it! 

“Erm. Just fine, thank you!” She extricated herself from his grip, then ducked and hurried away to go find a stream, washroom, anywhere she could dunk her face in cold water that was not already inhabited by raven-haired dwarven princes with far too much charisma—and pretty hair—for their own good.

Breakfast was a strained affair for no one, save Briella. She kept her eyes on her plate as the rest of the Company happily devoured the quaint meal, unable to even summon the courage to lift them for fear of seeing Thorin’s unnerving gaze already on her. She swore she could feel the weight of it boring into her forehead even now, and her stomach did a sordid little flip, trying to put the feeling of his hands on her skin out of her mind.

Gandalf was offering suggestions on their immediate route, but Briella didn’t hear him. She was only focused on taking small, tentative bites of her eggs, feeling clumsy with Beorn’s oversized cutlery. There were more fruits and vegetables than meat on offer, but the Company was well pleased, if their hearty belches were any indication. She couldn’t help but agree. It had been too long since she’d been able to cook a proper meal, and she was secretly still disappointed she hadn’t helped with this one. At once she felt a deep yearning to be in her kitchen, kneading dough, flour dusting her countertops and getting in the worst places possible, and a touch of melancholy grazed her thoughts.

But then her memories were invaded by the looming shape of Thorin standing in her study, taking up all the space and positively radiating sullen intensity that followed him like a cloud. The depths of his troubles had become a tangible part of him that she could almost taste whenever he passed her by, the brooding weight crushing down on his shoulders despite their steadfast rigidity.

She wondered then if his back often ached, if the tightness in his spine made him stiff with pain in the mornings when the sky was still dark and his Company slept around him, and wanted to ease it.

Her eyes flicked up, seeking him out despite her staunch attempts to the contrary.

He was well engaged in stunted discussion with Beorn, but the instant she moved, she was under his eye. Her fingers slipped, and she dropped her fork.

That’s it. I must be going mad now, too. Abruptly, Briella stood and excused herself, hoping she did not seem overtly frantic as she practically ran from the room. Hooded blue eyes watched her go, the words he'd been about to say dying in his throat.