"The things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember that."
Fairies are one of the oldest race of beings in Arda -once they called Numenór home- but Arethusa watched as the sea claimed the island from the helm of a ship as the survivors fled to...
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BILBO crouched behind stone boulders, just the size for a hobbit or a fairy to hide behind. He skimmed the ridgelines attentively, keeping low as Azog and his orc pack was too close for his liking but they had yet to be spotted. Arethusa bit her bottom lip as her friend came barreling back down the stone path. "How close is the pack?" Dwalin had asked the question the entire company was eager to know the answer to.
"Too close. A couple of leagues, no more, but that is not the worst of it." The hobbit was breathless, his words came out near jumbled from panic and excitement.
"Have the Wargs picked up our scent?" Dwalin asked.
"Not yet, but they will. We have another problem." Arethusa's hand rested on the hilt of her blade, something in the air unnerved her.
"Did they see you? They saw you!" A look of panic crossed over the dwarves faces at Gandalf's claim.
Bilbo shook his head. "No, that's not it."
The gray wizard smiled and turned back to the dwarves and fairy, a smile on his wrinkled lips and a titter in his voice. "What did I tell you? Quiet as a mouse. Excellent burglar material." The dwarves chuckled in appreciation.
Arethusa crept off to the nook where Bilbo had been looking. Orcs and wargs alike could still be seen, the beasts would turn their noses to the air and inhale. Her friend had been right, it would not take long at all for their scent to be picked up.
"Will you listen-," the hobbit was exasperated beyond words, the fairy was quickly becoming the same way. "Will you just listen? I'm trying to tell you there is something else out there."
Gandalf's attention had been reclaimed alas. "What form did it take? Like a bear?"
"Ye..." Arethusa's attention had been caught at the mention of the bear. Few bears were left in Middle Earth and she knew this area, it was no normal bear that the hobbit had seen. Bilbo looked up a Gandalf curiously. "Y- yes. But bigger, much bigger." A look of panic crossed the company's faces, all except the wizard, of course, he never seemed to show panic over anything.
The fairy tugged on the wizard's grey robes to draw his attention to her but before she could speak Bofur did, "You knew about this beast?" he accused and regardless Arethusa and Gandalf walked naught even a full five feet away but despite their silent conversation the voices of the grumbling dwarves drowned at anything she could have said. "I say we double back."
Thorin shook his head, "And be run down by a pack of Orcs?" Even she had to admit that facing a bear sounded like a much better idea than being chased down by Orcs. It was then Gandalf understood Arethusa's gaze and what she had been attempting to say. The wizard stepped away from the company, his eyes trained on the horizon. "There is a house, it's not far from here, where we might take refuge."
"Whose house? Are they friend or foe?" Arethusa knew the skin-changer's mannerisms, depending on the behavior of the company he could be either.
Gandalf looked down at the dwarf king, "Neither. He will help us, or he will kill us." But he is my friend, she dared not make mention of her knowledge of the skin-changer at the moment, especially knowing his opposition to dwarf-kind.
