The mist pulled back just to deliver the sight of heavy storm clouds looming above us. For the first half of the day, they only threatened a downpour. Without the thick fog to hinder our sight, we made better progress. Things were looking pretty good!
Then rain burst from the clouds, and everything went to shit.
Thunder clapped so loud and close that it nearly deafened me. Lightning cracked through the black sky, running rampant as it offered split-seconds of harsh, deadly white light. Sometimes, struck so close that if I reached my hand out, I could grasp a bolt.
But it was only in those moments that I could really see. Between the strikes, I was completely blind. Dwalin kept a firm grip on my shoulder, and Bilbo hung tightly onto my hand. He was ahead of me this time around, and I placed my trust in him to guide me through the craggy mountain pass.
Tonight. It was going to be tonight, wasn't it?
"Ah!"
Lightning arced through the storm. Its temporary, unkind light showed Bilbo slipping right off the path. He yelped and twisted in an attempt to use me as an anchor, but it only threw me off-balance as well. Bilbo careened over the edge, and I followed close behind.
Dwalin's large hand dug into my shoulder, hard enough to bruise. He hauled both of us from the brink of falling hundreds of feet. I accidentally yanked Bilbo so hard that he slammed into the mountain wall.
The whole near-death was over by the time the last of the electric light faded, returning me to the cold, pitch black.
I found Bilbo's face and pressed a hand to his freezing cheek. "Are you okay?" I shouted over the wind and thunder. Another bright crack sheared through the sky, and I glimpsed Bilbo's wide-eyed terror.
"We gotta keep moving, lass!" Dwalin yelled. I wanted to cling to the light given to me, but it slipped away and left bursts of afterimages in my vision.
I moved my hand down and found his, blinking the rainwater away. "Lead on, Baggins." I thought I heard a shaky breath, but in the stormy chaos, I wasn't sure.
Bilbo tugged on my hand, and we skirted against the thin path once more.
Whenever I had eaten almonds on accident, I was always hit with that Sense of Impending Doom before the anaphylaxis set in. But after all the years of being in my line of work, that same sense matched up with the moments before disaster struck.
And the Sense of Impending Doom crawled up and down my spine, sickening my stomach.
"We must find shelter!" Thorin bellowed. An instant later, thunder swallowed the world, and lightning tore the sky open.
In the terrifying radiance, a massive silhouette of black rock sailed through the storm.
I appropriately screamed, "HOLY SHIT!"
"Look out!" Dwalin shoved Bilbo and me against the wall just as the rock collided with the mountain. It shattered upon impact and shook the earth so violently that I was afraid the ground would come right out from under us.
As chunks of stone rained from above, I entered a state of panic-induced calm. Where existence slowed and sped up, sounds faded but became louder, and my body went into hyper-awareness. I stopped thinking. Stopped fearing.
The only thing that mattered was coming out of this safely.
"This is no thunderstorm!" Balin cried. He pointed to the opposite canyon wall. A piece of the mountain tore itself from the rock, grating and groaning in an ethereal language too wondrous for the sheer brutality it embodied. "It's a thunder battle! Look!"
YOU ARE READING
Renacida || Fili x MGIME OC ||
Fanfiction[Fili x OC] Bilbo finds kinship with her. They're both so very far from home. He doesn't realize just how far away she is. [available under the same name on ao3]
