Homeward Bound Part One: An Unexpected Journey

Chapter Thirty

Bilba crouched near Kili, watching him as he continued to try and repair his bow. She felt as badly as he did. She'd come to enjoy archery and had hoped to learn more on their trip.

"Is he still staring at you?" Kili asked in a low whisper.

Bilba risked a look across the clearing to where Radagast was seated huffily on a rock. She hadn't known there was a way to sit huffily but the wizard had clearly found one.

She rolled her eyes and focused on the bow again. Kili had been the one to drag her away under pretense of helping him. In reality he was apparently convinced she was mere seconds away from being transformed into something...unnatural.

Bilba had asked him what he meant by unnatural but he'd just repeated it in a hushed voice as though she should magically know what it meant.

Seeing as how she was still happy over the not-being-dead thing she let it slide.

Radagast was still glaring off into the distance and, really, did he have to be so thin skinned? All she had done was ask why he couldn't call the eagles back.

"They are not pack animals, Miss Baggins."

"I never said they were. I just don't understand why they can't come back. They came before."

"That's because the others were in danger."

"We're still in danger! The orcs could come back at any minute! I don't understand why they can't just come get us and fly us to Erebor like they were planning too."

"They would never have flown us all the way to Erebor, probably only halfway at best."

"......why?"

"As I said--"

"I got it, they're not pack animals. Why does flying us halfway make them not pack animals but flying us ALL the way does?"

"I believe they wish to avoid humans. They do not wish to endanger themselves."

".........................So they flew down onto a cliff with orcs and fire and wargs and attacked them? What if the orcs had archers? Or what if they'd attacked the eagles when they swooped in low to pick up some of the others?"

By that time Radagast had been turning a rather interesting shade of purple and she'd been dragged away by Kili moments later.

So, in short, she was pretty sure that meant they were walking.

She looked around at the various battered and bruised forms of the dwarves, Balin leaning on his makeshift crutch as though it was all that was keeping him upright and Thorin swaying slightly from side to side as he spoke with Dwalin.

Correction, it meant they would be stumbling, hobbling and limping...slowly...and with frequent pauses.

She sighed and focused back on Kili again. The bow was hopelessly broken so it was an exercise in futility but she could at least give him moral support.

Footsteps crunched across the dirt and Fili knelt on her other side. He raised an eyebrow at her and she shook her head. It was possible they'd have to hold an actual burial for the bow in order to get Kili to let go of it.

Speaking of letting go of things.

"I lost your knife," she told Fili, "it must have fallen off when we went down the slide thing."

He shrugged, "no problem." He shifted, his hand going behind his back. When it came back, he was holding a nearly identical sheath and knife. He grinned at her.