Bring Me With Her

Not the Enemy Yet

They hardly got any sleep the rest of the night. And they didn't have any trouble with staying awake that morning. Gollum was screaming, hollering, and wailing nonstop. Thorin had tied his Elvish rope around the creature's neck, and he was dragging him along with them.

He wanted to kill him, he wanted to end it the minute Talia saved him from his grasp. Thorin could have torn the creature apart limb from limb. But of course, Talia stopped him, and convinced him to tie Gollum up for the night so they could figure out what to do. Thorin didn't understand at first. Talia hated the creature. Though she pitied him and spared him, he knew that she didn't have any fondness for the creature whatsoever. But then she explained.

They were lost. Neither one of them knew whether they were going the right way. But Gollum had been to Mordor, and from what Thorin learned from Talia, Gollum wasn't as stupid as he sounded. He could show them the way...if he and Talia could strike the right deal with him. What that deal was, he didn't know. Either way, when he thought about it, Thorin didn't exactly mind the thought of Gollum taking them to Mordor, he especially didn't mind the creature getting lost in that place once the job was done.

He had seen how the creature had taken Talia completely over the edge...and that was before they confronted him last night. She never fully described to him what that night was like...to be trapped in that cave with Gollum, that creature being her only hope to see the light of day again. He only knew that Talia found the Ring in his cave, and that she briefly encountered a strange creature while trying to find her way out. Now that he saw Gollum, Thorin didn't want to ask about what else happened, not at a time like this at least. Even this morning, Thorin could see Talia trembling from here as she walked. What was going through her mind, he wondered.

The Dwarf king remembered how he couldn't entirely comfort her last night. That had surprised him more than he wanted to admit. Thorin had always been able to calm Talia down when she was feeling anxious or upset. He never, not once thought a day would come when it...it wouldn't work. Whatever it was, whether it was Gollum or the Ring, he only hoped that it wouldn't get any worse. Now...he just had to accept their circumstances and keep moving, which was...somewhat difficult to do when he wanted nothing more than to cut Gollum's throat to silence him.

"It burns! It burns us! It freezes!" Gollum whined. It was a struggle to pull him along. He resisted Thorin every step of the way, and Thorin couldn't help but give an extra harsh tug every now and then...he had to take his temper out on somebody. "Nasty Elves twisted it! Take it off us!" Gollum begged.

Thorin finally whipped his head around. "Shut your mouth!" he hissed. The Dwarf king then growled to see that he only made it worse. Gollum was howling even louder, and he had gotten down to his knees, struggling as if he were being tortured. Thorin finally turned back to look at Talia. "This is hopeless! Every Orc in Mordor is going to hear his pathetic wailing!" he shook his head. "If you don't want me to kill him, then I'll just tie him to a boulder and leave him!" he growled.

"No!" Gollum shot up. "That would kill us! Kill us!" he cried.

Thorin shook his head. "Then it would be no more than you deserve!" he sneered. The Dwarf king began to relax when he felt Talia's hand on his shoulder.

"Maybe he does...scratch that, I know he deserves to die. But seeing him again...I can't believe I'm saying this, but I pity the little shit all over again." she grimaced.

Thorin blinked at her statement. He knew that she meant it, but he could still sense it. The hate that she still has for Gollum. Talia admitted to Thorin that there were times, even before all this happened, that she wished that she had killed Gollum. He was a memory that she would have rather tucked away and never spoken of again. And now she had to deal with this.