Arien, Lady of Rivendell

An encounter with trolls

"What is it? What's wrong?" Arien asked springing to her feet and looking down worriedly at the panicking Fili. "The ponies, some of them are missing." He replied clearly shaken. A second later she heard the whinny of another horse followed by the snapping of a branch.
"Storm!" Arien yelled, as she saw her stallion break free from his harness and gallop off into the wilderness. There was no way she could catch him. But what was he running from?
Her ears twitched as she heard soft footprints pad towards them through the undergrowth, her hand already placed on the hilt of her dagger.

Bilbo padded out of the bushes balancing three bowls of stew in his hands. Arien relaxed and watched as he stopped beside Fili and Kili as they gazed out into the distance still trying to figure out what had happened. She walked over to join them.
"What's the matter?" The hobbit asked, looking at them back and forth after they did not accept the bowls he held out to them.
"We're supposed to be looking after the ponies." Kili replied.
"Only we've encountered a slight problem." Fili added.
"We had 17."
"Now there's 15."
"14, storm just bolted." She added in and the dwarves scrunched up their faces with worry.
"What on earth could scare him away?" Bilbo asked.

A few moments later they were walking around the woodland assessing the situation.
"Daisy and Bungo are missing." Kili informed them.
"Well that's not good." The hobbit replied still wandering around with the bowls balanced in his hands. "And that's not good at all, shouldn't we tell Thorin?" He asked as the group haltered besides a large uprooted tree. Arien bent down beside it, searching for clues as to how it came to fall over, not naturally that was for sure.
"Uh, no best not worry him." Fili replied and she smiled to herself knowing that they didn't want to get into trouble.
"We can deal with this." She added to reassure him.
"And as your our official burglar, we thought you could look into it." Fili suggested and Arien looked at him. That wasn't exactly the best idea. But before she could interject Bilbo was inspecting the tree.
"Well uh, looks like something big uprooted these trees."
"That was or thinking." Kili replied.
"...something very big, possibly quite dangerous."
As they were talking Arien had begun to look ahead, and a small flickering of orange light in the distance caught her attention. Beside her Fili followed her gaze.
"Hey look, there's a light!" He exclaimed and motioned for his brother to join them. Slowly they crept forwards, sticking low to the ground and trying to get a better look. As they crouched behind one of the fallen trees a low rumbling of laughter echoed through the forest.
"What is it?" The hobbit asked.
"Trolls!" Arien and Kili snarled at the same time. Immediately her hands went to her daggers and pure hatred ran through her veins.
Without a second thought she leapt over the log and ran forward a short distance, the dwarves called out to her in surprise but they soon followed.

A shudder rumbled through the ground and they threw themselves behind the nearest tree. A giant troll came lumbering past them, with startled ponies tucked tightly under each arm.
"I'm going to kill them." She snarled to herself as the memories of her mothers death flooded back vividly. Feeling a hand on her arm Arien turned to see Fili looking at her with concern in his eyes.
"He's got Mertle and Minty!" Bilbo hissed clearly upset. "I think they're going to eat them we have to do something."
"Yes, you should. Mountain trolls are slow and stupid and you're so small they'll never see you. It's perfectly safe we'll be right behind you." Kili said in an attempt to convince the protesting hobbit.
"If you run into trouble hoot once like a barn owl and twice like a brown owl." Fili added grabbing the bowls off him and pushing him towards the light. Before he could reply the young dwarves had grabbed her hand and had begun to drag her off back towards the camp.
Arien swore and pushed them away.
"What do you think you're doing? That was so stupid, Bilbo has no chance." She retorted angrily and they both turned towards her.
"We're going to get help." Kili replied and she glared at them both.
"Idiots." She growled under her breath and turned back around to follow Bilbo.
"Hurry up and go get help, I'll keep an eye on him." She said already making her way back through the thickets after the hobbit.
She had been so stupid, Gandalf had clearly instructed her to look after Bilbo, and the first thing she'd done is let the dwarves convince him to go save the ponies from trolls.
Never the less it was now up to her to make sure he didn't get himself into any more trouble. Although that's what she told herself was the main reason for going after the trolls, anger still surged through her veins and the thought of killing them was present in the front of her mind.