✓ | Forget-Me-Not ~ Fili FanFiction / Hobbit FanFiction / Fili FF

「 Chapter 6 」

Crouching and deliberate, Bilbo Baggins put one foot in front of the other, he pushed further and further into the wooded area. What he didn't know, next to him in the trees, another figure jumped from branch to branch to keep up with him.
Ilèyn's curiosity could not outstrip her caution, she had to remain hidden.
The growling and rumbling laughter of the trolls could now be clearly heard. Definitely more than one, thought Ilèyn.
"Hrrrrr, mutton yesterday, mutton today." thundered a deep, rough voice, "And blimey, if I don't look mutton again tomorrow!"
Ilèyn overtook Bilbo in the trees and reached a fire-lit clearing which was filled by three huge trolls.
"Quit your griping." one of them shouted, "These ain't sheep! These is fresh nags!"
The beasts had wrinkled skin, bad teeth, small eyes, and knobbly fingers. They were dressed in tattered leather.
"Trolls as they are in the stories and books." Ilèyn grumbled very quietly, watching carefully what was going on in the clearing.
The dwarf made out the missing ponies behind a makeshift fence directly behind the three ugly creatures. The third in the group made a disgusted tone.
"I don't like horse. I never have! Not enough fat on them."
"Well, it's better than leathery old farmer. All skin and bone, he was." replied the troll, who was stirring around in the huge cauldron. "I'm still picking bits of him out of me teeth."
Ilèyn had reached a tree, which the glow of the fire could not reach and climbed a few centimeters down onto the branch below her. She was now about eye level with the trolls and hid behind the trunk of the tree. At that moment the troll, who was in her field of vision directly opposite her, sneezed and scared Ilèyn so much that she almost slipped off the branch.
The bushes moved to her left and Ilèyn spied the hobbit, who had stalked so far that he now discovered where the ponies had ended up and where they had been trapped. The dwarf did not understand how the hobbit intended to free these ponies. The trolls would crush him and not even notice.
Ilèyn's attention was drawn back to the trolls, who by now had gotten quite a fight. The troll with the large wooden spoon grabbed one of his companions by the nose and admonished him not to do something again. The reprimanded troll plopped back on the stone on which he had been sitting the whole time and now blew his nose loudly and long into his handkerchief. Ilèyn grimaced in disgust.
Again she was distracted by Bilbo, who meanwhile bowed around the trolls and slowly crept up to the fence.
Ilèyn found herself a slight twinge of concern reaching her consciousness. She quickly brushed her thoughts aside. This hobbit was just a hindrance, why had she only chased him this far? She had a job to do!
Slipping away now, however, was the worst possible time. Bilbo had reached the fence and was searching the ropes for a knot.
"Well, I hope you're gonna gut these nags." said the troll who was facing Ilèyn and turned exactly in the direction in which Bilbo was crouching with the ponies. This reacted and... well... hid behind the fence in the shadow of the ponies.

Lucky him that mountain trolls weren't the fastest and smartest. Apart from their non-existent visual acuity.
The troll with the trowel hit his comrade on the head with the same one and ordered him to sit down. Ilèyn watched the hobbit, who began to crawl in front of the fence, straight towards the middle troll.
What was he up to?
Why was he putting himself in danger?
Ilèyn could hardly believe her eyes. She felt every muscle in her body tighten. The hobbit reached the troll, who was just getting up, only to drop back on his stone a moment later.
The dwarf had lost sight of the hobbit. What came next.
The troll in the middle made another sneeze attack, reached behind him and blew his nose again, only to let out a horrified scream shortly afterwards.
"Blimey! Bert, Bert! Look what's comes out of me hooter! It's got arms and legs and everything!"
Only now Ilèyn could really see it. In the troll's hand, accompanied by unsavory nasal fluids, Bilbo Baggins lay rigid as a pillar and looked in shock into the eyes of the hideous creatures above him.
These looked back with their ugly faces.
"What is it?" asked one of the trolls.
"I don't know." replied the second, who was still holding the hobbit, who was beginning to wriggle in the oversized troll fingers. "But I don't like the way it wriggles around." With these words, the troll dropped the hobbit roughly to the ground.
Ilèyn ventured forward so that she now had the tree trunk behind her. She crouched down and drew an arrow.
Bilbo got up and staggered backwards. One of the trolls pointed his knife at the hobbit.
"What are you, then?" he asked "An oversized squirrel?"
"I'm a burglar... uh, hobbit!" answered Bilbo restlessly.
"A burglar hobbit?" asked the troll with the cold.
"Can we cook him?" it came from the third.
"We can try!" The second tried to reach for the hobbit. Bilbo ducked and tried to flee into the forest, where he ran right in front of the first troll's knife. This now pushed him back into the clearing.
"He wouldn't make more than a mouthful! Not when he's skinned and boned."
The third troll switched on again: "Perhaps there's more burglar hobbits around these parts. Might be enough for a pie!"
Bilbo stumbled among the trolls, trying quickly to find a way out of the clearing. When he slipped under the legs of one of the trolls and tried to slip past the ponies into the forest, one of the other trolls grabbed him by the legs and lifted him upside down into the air.
"Gotcha!" the troll said triumphantly.
Ilèyn tensed the string of her bow slightly and steadied her footing on the smooth tree bark.
"Are there any more of you little fellas hiding where you shouldn't?"
the troll asked, knife held up.
"No." Bilbo replied meekly.
The second troll came up to him "He's lying!" he said.
"No, I'm not!" the hobbit cried in panic.
Ilèyn stretched her bowstring as far as it would go, the target of her arrow being the eyes of the troll who held the hobbit in the air.
"Hold his toes over the fire. Make him squeal!"
The moment before Ilèyn could shoot the arrow was filled with a loud scream, which definitely did not come from one of the three trolls. Ilèyn looked down hastily. A young dwarf, one of the two whom Ilèyn had just observed in the forest with the hobbit, came running out of the bushes and hit the first troll that came in front of his nose. He twisted the cold troll's foot and toes until it stumbled to one side, hopping on one leg.
"Drop him!" the brown-haired dwarf shouted to the troll, who was still clutching Bilbo's legs tightly. Ilèyn drew her bow again.
"You what?" replied this troll.
Ilèyn shot.
The arrow struck with full force in the shoulder of the troll, who turned in amazement and roaring in pain to the tree from which the shot came. Ilèyn rose on the branch and was already laying the next arrow on the string.
"He said," She tightened the string again until she felt the fletching of the arrow on her right ear, "Drop him!" The next shot hit the troll in the back of the hand. The troll opened his hand in pain and Bilbo fell to the ground a second time.
The brown-haired dwarf and Ilèyn looked at each other for a split second, a mixture of determination and surprise in his eyes as he looked up at the tree.
Then there was a wild roar and a horde of dwarfs came out of the undergrowth and started beating the trolls with hammers, swords, axes and hatchets. Ilèyn immediately got down on her knees and watched the spectacle from the branch.
She spied Oakenshield in the bustle as he and three other dwarfs were smashing on the feet and legs of one of the trolls. Ilèyn was so close to her goal now, she couldn't allow herself to lose her bounty to something like a troll. But shooting Oakenshield now was the wrong way to go. She had to help the dwarves.