Renacida || Fili x MGIME OC ||

Truth Faced, Truth Unsaid

tw: some squicky stuff with the droplet

Twenty minutes of shivering and hand-paddling later, we reached a sloping, rocky shoreline. The bleeding had stopped, though an unnatural feeling of something sinking and hooking underneath my skin replaced it.

I wished Thorin's reaction to the light was as calm as Fili's.

As soon as our barrels scraped against the ground, he marched to me, expression stormy and frightening.

"Whoa, wait, hold on—" I tried to explain, but he put my arm into an iron-forged vise and yanked me out.

"Uncle!" Fili yelled as Thorin half-dragged a few feet away. I instinctively fought back, but I was a soggy, starved, weakened mess, and I couldn't put much into resisting.

"Let me go! Let me go!"

"Unhand her!" Bilbo demanded from his barrel, which hadn't made it to the riverbank yet. He paddled faster. "Thorin! Wait!"

I writhed and twisted my arm. Thorin grunted at the exertion, but he didn't release me until we were farther onto the rock. Thankfully, he didn't throw me, but he wasn't gentle either.

"What manner of magic was that?" he snarled.

I scrambled back from him and propped myself up on my elbows. Bilbo leaped the rest of the way from his barrel and hurried to his feet. He raced over, waterlogged but determined. Then he pushed past Fili and Thorin to kneel next to me, and he fixed Thorin with an anxious yet defiant look.

"Tell me!"

"I was fucking going to!" I yelled back, which fueled his anger even more.

The rest of Company had crawled out of the barrels by now, and they tensely watched everything unfold from their respective spots on the rock. They might have gathered closer, but the barrel riding ate up everyone's energy, and they were exhausted. I was exhausted, though, and still I had to deal with this shit.

I sat up with Bilbo's help, and in doing so, glimpsed my chest. At some point in the struggle, my sopping tunic had been tugged down, revealing more cleavage than comfortable. And though the fabric wasn't see-through, it clung tightly to my breasts—which, I realized, didn't have any protection from my sports bra or binding. And because of the cold, I was full-on nipping.

So yeah. That fucking sucked.

With a grunt, I unstuck the tunic from my titties. Thorin folded his arms and waited for an answer, fuming.

"First of all, you're welcome," I said when I managed to get my voice back. The statement did not improve his mood, nor did I expect it to.

I then opened my palm to him and displayed the embedded droplet. "Second of all, this is what did it. Not me. Not entirely. I mean, I can get it to do what I want. Shine more, shine less. But every time I hold it, the stupid thing likes to try and make itself a part of me. Do I have any idea what else it does? No! Lady Galadriel had the elves back in Rivendell give it to me, but it's not even from her. It's from somebody else—somebody that nobody in this fucking world will even talk about! So if you want answers, Thorin, you're not gonna get anything more than that!"

I wiped away the residual blood from my palm and unwrapped the chain. Thorin didn't speak, and instead watched me pull the chain up. The droplet followed—with more resistance, this time. I tugged on it harder, and something below the jewel moved. My grimace grew. I gave it one final yank—

The droplet popped out with a squelch. Thorin's eyes narrowed in a wince. Fili hissed. Bilbo gasped. But when I lifted the droplet, some friends came out with it.