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.