After everyone was well fed and watered – or rather: after Bilbo Baggins' was completely out of supplies – the dwarves cleaned the dishes while throwing them around and teasing Mr. Baggins with a sing-sang.
Suddenly, the house echoed with booming knocks coming from the door.
The air became tense.
Gandalf said: "He's here!"
And the door was opened for the last time. Outside stood another dwarf with long, raven hair and a very stern look. He was oozing dashiness and price out of every fibre of his body and I didn't need to see the other dwarves standing up and gathering in the entrance hall to realize that he was the most important of them all.
The dwarf told how difficult it was to find this house and Gandalf said: "Bilbo, Aurora, this is Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of your quest!"
Somehow, this name was familiar to me.
Thorin Oakenshield walked around Bilbo Baggins and me. "So you're the buglar to accompany us on our quest? And you are – our healer?" He snorted and pointed out how Mr. Baggins looked more than a grocer than a buglar, as he noticed straightaway that Mr. Baggins was not experienced with a sword.
"And that one!" He pointed at me. "She looks like she'd rather use her staff to pick her nose than to heal someone or anything!"
The other dwarves laughed heartily and I realized that it took me less than a minute to dislike him.
I turned to Gandalf: "So, according to you I need to go on this journey and to support HIM with my magic?"
"No excuses, no cancellations!", said Gandalf. "Remember, you will need to prove yourself!"
If my eyes could do magic I would have killed even this skilled wizard with the look I gave him in an instant. That was so great! My last chance to prove myself worthy was to travel with Mr. Grumpy and the hogs!
I noticed someone stepping behind me and putting an arm around my shoulders. "As for me, I don't mind if she accompanies us!"
I turned around and saw that this someone was this dwarf Kili.
"Will you please stop that?", I asked him coldly.
Correction: My last chance to prove myself worthy was to travel with Mr. Grumpy, the hogs and Casanova.
Finally, the time had come to exactly find out what the reason of this quest was: to conquer back Erebor, the dwarfish kingdom within the Lonely mountain, from Smaug, a huge fire dragon who currently resided there, upon a huge pile of dwarfish gold and the Arkenstone, or the king's jewel. Gandalf told me already about how the dragon had attacked Dale, a town in the victinity of the lonely mountain and then decided to call Erebor his new home causing all the dwarves to flee and to have no specific homes from now on.
This was when I started to think about things differently. I was ashamed to have initially refused to go to this journey with ... them; there was a higher meaning in this than grumpiness, lack in manners or flirtatious behaviour. And when they started to sing a song about their home I could not help but biting back my tears. Somehow, this song made me remember Gondor with their great white walls and the white tree in front of the castle, until the Orcs of Mordor attacked and killed half of the population, one of them were my parents.
Bilbo Baggins, who I found out was asked to steal the Arkenstone back from the dragon, didn't say anything either, even though, a few moments before, he could not stop complaining about how they wanted to hire him of all things for this.
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Sunlight, Afterglow, Nightsky and Snowfield
FanfictionBeing a sorceress I was used to the unexpected. Also, when I stepped out into the light that day, I thought, that it was an usual journey, even though it was also, well, unexpected. But not even in my wildest dreams did I imagined what lied ahead...
