The Fifteenth Member (Thorin Oakenshield/OFC)

Chapter 2

The yell woke up the dwarves and I was surrounded in seconds. It turns out that it was not Kili on guard, but in fact the leader, who stood in front of me and began to question me.

"Who or what are you and why are you here?" I wasn't about to listen to this dwarf and just answer his questions so I snapped back at him.

"I think you already know that first part, just ask Fili and Kili and unless you're stupid, you should be able to guess why I'm here." His jaw dropped, I smirked at him, knowing now that he was not used to having people stand up to him, he looked absolutely furious! I snickered inwardly at this but before he could reply, the old man stepped in.

"Dwalin, get off her, she isn't a threat to us", to my surprise, the dwarf got off me and offered me his hand. Still suspicious, I took it and he pulled me to my feet, I stood at least a foot taller than him but only about half a foot taller than the leader-who's name I still didn't know.

"Now Thorin", the old man continued, "Must you be so harsh with everyone? What has this girl ever done to you?" Thorin was speechless for a second but as soon as he opened his mouth to say something, I heard the shouts of men. I turned in horror to see torch light coming our way and I knew I wouldn't stand a chance against them so I took a chance with Thorin.

"If you pretend I'm not here until those men go away, I'll tell you everything." Before he could answer, I dove head-first into the pond. I resurfaced for a second while I waited for my tail. Thorin nodded at me and then nodded at the other dwarves. They seemed to get the message and went back to their bedrolls and laid down like nothing happened. Thorin also resumed his post at the fire. As soon as I felt my tail, my went underwater.

I couldn't hear much of the conversation, but I recognized the voices of my parents and older brother. I was saddened when I realized I would probably never see them again but the other villagers would be too dangerous for me. True to their word, the dwarves played dumb about me and after a few minutes, the hunters ran off and about five minutes after that, I boosted myself out of the pond.

The dwarves had out their weapons away and their expressions held only curiosity. A few of them looked rather old, a couple looked rather young but most of them were middle-aged and all looked strong and healthy.

"Now fulfill your end of the bargain." Thorin said harshly, "Who are you and why were they hunting you." I sighed, there was no escaping this.

"I was just a normal teenage girl until a couple years ago, I was out on a hunt with several teens my age when we realized that we wouldn't make it back to town before dark so we decided to stay out in the wild to prove to our families that we weren't babies. Since I was the only girl and I knew that several of the boys I was with fancied me, I slept further away from the group. Later that night, just before mid-night, I woke up very unsettled and I couldn't get back to sleep so I decided to take a walk. Slipping away was simple and I walked for a bit until I came across a cave that was not on any of the maps I had ever seen of the area and I knew I wasn't that far because I could still see the light of the fire, it was far but I could see it. Figuring I was within a shouting distance, I decided to go inside the cave. I walked for a couple minutes when the tunnel widened into a small cavern with a pool of water in the center and strangely enough, there was light shinning into it. The pool was so big that even when I went near the edge I couldn't see the light source so I decided to get in. When I got to the center of the pool, I could see that light from the full moon was shinning through a hole at the top. Just then, the moon reached it's highest point in the sky and the pool started to bubble. I was too scared to move but it only lasted a few seconds so when it was over, I walked towards the entrance. The pond was only waist deep so hiding my wet clothes from the others wasn't a problem. When we got back to town the next day, the first thing I did was draw a bath for myself but to my surprise, about half a minute after I touched the water, my legs turned into a tail and it didn't go away until I dried off completely. I've been like that ever since."

The dwarves stared at me, completely awestruck. Thorin was the first to get over it.

"What of your tail, I have noticed it changed color while you told your story."

"That may be a little harder to explain, as far as I've seen, it changes color according to my mood but if I concentrate really hard, I can change the color at will to blend in with my surroundings."

"But why were your people hunting you", one of the other dwarves asked, "Couldn't you just tell them your story?" I winced, somehow I knew this would come up.

"Well," I began tentatively, "I told no one my secret once I found out because my town is very poor and I feared they would bargain me off to the highest bidder and I didn't want that. I ran away because one of the boys still fancies me but I hate him and he's the one who exposed me. He somehow got me alone and dumped water on me, too much for me to wipe off before it took effect. He then said that the only way he would keep my secret would be if I married him but since I didn't want that, I distracted him, used my powers to dry my tail and fled." The dwarves all took several steps back and a couple reached for weapons when I said 'powers' so I quickly added, "Nothing too dangerous, I can control water, freeze it, and heat it up so it turns to gas, that's how I dried my tail, even though I hate doing it. Now that you know just about everything there is to know about me, why don't tell me about yourselves."

"No", Thorin said instantly, "absolutely not, that is our secret to protect."

"Oh, come on Thorin", one of them protested.

"Yeah, she told us her secret and it's much more risky for her to tell us than it is for us to tell her." Another added.

While they were busy arguing, the hobbit approached me.

"Where will you go now, Lady Mereniver? My name is Bilbo Baggins by the way and I'm a hobbit." I smiled at him

"It's nice to meet you Bilbo, but I must ask you to call me Mereniver. As for where I'm going now? I didn't really have time to think about it but now that I do, I realize that I have nowhere to go, no place to call home, so I'm just going to keep heading east until I find someone willing to help me." By now, the dwarves has stopped arguing and were listening intently to our conversation.

"You can come with us Mereniver, we are heading east ourselves and seeing that you have no weapons or supplies and all dwarves were taught to respect all women, it would be a crime not to invite you along." I thought about it for a moment, I knew very few of these dwarves by name and I would be the only female but he was right, I had no supplies or weapons and I would feel much safer with others around to protect me.

"Ok, I'll come with you, thank you for your kind offer."

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