Bring Me With Her

Frozen Tomb

They'd been traveling for two hours now. The fellowship had been shoving their way through thick blankets of snow for what felt like a whole week. Talia had never seen this much snow on the ground before. The young woman remembered back when she was a small child, when she would ask Jimmy if he could make it snow for Christmas, rather than having their usual grey winter sky. She was glad he could never make it snow.

It wasn't nearly as fun as people made it look in the movies. Snow was freezing, wet, and stubborn. There were so many layers that it rose past Talia's ankles...and she wasn't exactly dressed for snow. She had no hood, no hat, no gloves, no boots. She could feel the chilling bite of the snow soaking through her pants and sneaking into her shoes and socks. She could hardly feel her toes, and much of her strength for the day was used just to drag herself along the trail. But then again, maybe it would be more fun if she were building a snowman or having a snowball fight, rather than trying to tiredly travel through it.

Talia looked behind her to see Fili, Kili, and Aragorn coming behind her. She wondered how long it would be before they caught up to her. She wondered how long it would be before she'd be slowing everyone down. The supposed "leader" and "Ring bearer" would be the one nearly left behind because she was what? The smallest? The slowest? The weakest? The young woman shook her head from her thoughts, and turned around to head back up the snowy mountain. She didn't fail to miss the brief glimpse that Thorin gave in her direction as she looked ahead.

The young woman had noticed that Thorin had been doing that somewhat frequently all day. Multiple times, she caught him staring in her direction, but he always looked away whenever she came close to meeting his eyes. What was that supposed to mean? Did he want to talk to her? Did he want her to come to him? She didn't know.

Normally, if Thorin had something to say, he wouldn't hesitate to come right up to her and say whatever he needed to without any form of sugarcoats. So if he was still avoiding contact with her, did that mean he wanted her to come to him? As much as she would've loved to, Talia really didn't want to do the approaching in this case. He already yelled at her about what she had done, and what she had done to him, and she did not want to hear it more than once. Therefore, Talia kept her distance. She knew that if Thorin wanted to make up from their fight, he would come to her saying so. Until that happened, she would continue to give him his space.

Talia continued her way up the mountain when she was stopped...by tripping over her own numb feet. She let out a yelp as she tumbled down the mountain, attracting the attention of everyone else. "Talia!" When she finally stopped, she felt two pairs of hands taking her by the arms, helping her now completely numb body up. The young woman looked up with wide eyes to see Fili and Kili by her side. "Are you alright?" Fili asked. Talia blinked and nodded, bringing her hands up to her neck as fast as she could to feel for the chains underneath her shirt. She felt one remaining around her neck, but not the other...Talia looked around to catch the golden glisten of the Ring lying in the snow.

As she stepped forward to retrieve it, another hand reached out to pick it up. Talia looked up, and her eyes widened to see who it was that had the Ring in his hands. "Boromir." she tried, but he paid her no heed. He eyed the Ring as if it possessed him. Talia made her way closer to him, her eyes narrowing with worry. "Boromir, are you okay?" she slowly asked. The Man muttered something under his breath. Talia furrowed her brows at that. "What?"

"It is a strange fate...that we should suffer so much fear and doubt...over such a small thing." he slowly and quietly answered, mesmerized by the presence of the Ring. "Such a little thing." Boromir muttered, and Talia's eyes went wide as he reached out to touch it with his other hand.

"Boromir." Aragorn called, and Talia let out a sigh of relief as he looked away from the trinket. "Give the Ring to Talia." he told him, and Talia felt a lump of nerves forming in her chest as Aragorn placed his hand on the hilt of his sword.