"Are you and my brother courting yet?"
She sighed, annoyed. "No Fili, we aren't."
"Well, tell me when you are. If he hurts you, I'll kill him."
"Shouldn't you be threatening me? He's your brother, after all."
"I figure you are perfectly capable of k...
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The ground rumbled and a loud crash was heard from across the valley. The little hobbit's head snapped up, eyes wide as he looked out across the lake. His shaggy brown hair had gotten longer over the journey, and he now had to constantly brush it aside out of his eyes. He wiggled his nose and he looked out intently and could make out the shadow of a massive dragon just as it hit the water below.
"It fell," he reported to the group. They had all gathered outside on the mountainside to watch the lake, knowing that people were dying because of them. "I saw it, it's dead," he said, turning his head towards the dwarves now. "Smaug is dead."
Gloin stood and brushed his hand through his beard thoughtfully as he looked out. "By my beard, I think he's right."
As he said this, a flock of little birds flew overhead and fluttered into little holes in the mountain, where they began building their nests. "Look there!" Gloin exclaimed, "the Ravens of Erebor are returning to the mountain!"
"Aye, word will spread," Balin said, his hands on his knees to help him stand to his feet. "Before long, every soul in Middle Earth will know the Dragon is dead!" The dwarves cheered as he said this, ecstatic that the reign of Smaug was finally over. Everyone but Thorin participated in the rejoicing. Instead, the King kept a straight face, determined as he marched back into the mountain alone.
Elvira was the first to notice him leave. She, along with perhaps only Balin, was the first to see the way his shoulders hunched over himself, how his eyes darkened with greedy lust, and the shadow of a darkness she had never seen before crossed over his face. She watched his back as he stalked towards the mountain, like a predator finally claiming its prey. A heavy feeling settled in her gut, and it somehow overturned the sickness she had felt watching the dragon consume the town below them.
Their troubles were far from over, she knew.
The sun began to rise in the sky, and the lake still burned. The townspeople crowded the shores on the shore and a wide state of panic rumbled from the beaches. People were screaming, crying, holding their deceased loved ones, scrounging for supplies, or moaning in pain. The bodies littering the ground were too high to count.
Among those wandering the shore was the red-haired elf, and she kept on hand on little Tilda as she and Sigrid screamed for Bard, trying their very best not to let the idea of what might have happened to him get to them.
Tauriel knew what it was like to lose a father. It was a pain she wished she could take away from the two girls.
"Da!" Sigrid screamed, her voice cracking as she began to fear the worst. They spun in the crowd, scanning all faces, alive or dead, for the face of the man they knew.
The two girls begin to run off to look further down the shore, but Tauriel was caught watching as the dwarves load a small boat with some things and get ready to push off back into the water. It is Kili who noticed her first, and she wished he hadn't.
