The King And The Dragon

Trolls: Part Three

Thorin's POV

I, along with all the members of the company shout as Saphira's body drops to the earth. I shout the loudest among us.

I worry about her as I did earlier, except my worry has filled to my very core.

As the Trolls bicker amongst themselves, I don't even listen to them. I try to see if I can see Saphira.

Suddenly, "Wait!" yells the least likely one in our company to act, Bilbo. "You are making a TERRIBLE mistake!"

He struggles to get to his feet. He continues, saying:

"With the seasoning, I mean."

What is he doing?

"What would you know about the seasoning?" Burt asks him.

"What- Have you smelled them?" Bilbo asks them. "You're going to need something a LOT stronger than sage before you plate this lot."

All of us start to shouting rude things and insults at Bilbo.

"What is he doing?!" Fili asks me, outraged.

"Hell if I know..." I trail off.

"No," Bilbo starts again, ignoring us. "There's a secret to doing it."

"What's the secret?" Bill asks, obviously not buying Bilbo's story.

"The secret... Um..." Bilbo stammers.

"Well, tell us the secret!" Burt demands, impatient.

"Yes yes! I'm telling you!" Bilbo's unsure about what he should say. "The secret is... tooooooo... skin them first!!"

At this, our small chatter turns into shouts. I become so angry that I cursed at him in Khuzdûl.

Instead of preparing to skin us, Tom picks up Bombor and hangs him over his mouth.

"No, Bombor!!" I yell.

"Wait!! Not that one! He's infected!" Biblo intercedes.

Tom stops starting to try put Bombor in his mouth and looked at Bilbo.

"Wat?" he asks, very confused.

"He's got worms in his..." Bilbo stammers again. "TUBES!!"

Disgusted, Tom throws Bombor back to the ground!

"In fact, they're all infected! They all have parasites!" Bilbo says, in a as-a-matter-of-fact sort of way. "I wouldn't risk it, I really wouldn't."

"Did he say parasites?" Kili asks.

I can not believe what I'm hearing. Bilbo's not betraying us, it seems like... he's buying us time. And at the moment, we're not helping.

"We don't have parasites!" Fili says before they both say in unison:

"YOU have parasites!!"

I kick Kili and Fili and they both look at me, along with everyone else. And they all know what I mean.

"I've got parasites as big as my arm!" Ori instantly yells.

"I've got the biggest parasites!! I've got HUGE parasites!" Kili shouts, not wanting to be showed up.

"I'm riddled!" Nori shouts from on the spit.

The Dwarves all start screaming that they had parasites. Bilbo looks at all of us and nod his thanks for helping him, at which some of us nod back.

However, Bill isn't convinced.

Damn Trolls...

"What a woad of wubbish!" he says.

But, he is way too late.

"May dawn take you all!" Gandalf shouts, standing on a boulder and rising his staff above his head.

"Who's 'at?" Burt asks.

"Can we eat him, too?" Tom adds.

And at that moment, Gandalf brings his staff through the rock, allowing dawn's new light to pour through. The trolls turns to stone, the very thing that they were made of, to stay forever frozen.

Every one in the Company cheer. And I don't blame them.

I never really liked trolls much myself.