An Unexpected Romance

Chapter Six

Chapter Six 

"Stop, or we rip his limbs off." The trolls threatened.

Bilbo's eyes had widened to the size of his tea saucers.

"Thorin," I hissed. "What do we do?"

Thorin set his jaw and plunged his blade into the earth.

Dammit.

We began to throw down our weapons, angered that we could not do more. Kili was the last to give in, pitching his sword onto the pile of weapons with a clang.

The trolls took full advantage of our vulnerable state. They put half of us into sacks and threw us into a pile. The other half was not so lucky. They were tied to a spit over a blazing fire, howling whenever an ember was spat up at them.

"How long will this take?" Whined the littlest one.

"Not long." Assured another. "I'm thinking we do a nice sage broth."

Bilbo was moving to get up, wiggling around in his sack until he could dig his feet into the ground.

"Excuse me!" He called. "Excuse me, you are making a big mistake. Huge."

"Oh yeah?" Grunted a troll. "And what might that be?"

"Well have you smelled them?" Bilbo wrinkled his nose. "You're going to need something a lot stronger than sage before you plate this lot up."

"What do you propose we do then?" Asked the one who was turning the spit.

"Yes, um- well.." Bilbo fumbled for words as the troll goaded him. "Yes, the secret- the secret to cooking dwarf is to... skin them first!" He said.

All at once the company burst out in protests, screaming at Bilbo to shut up. What on Earth was he doing?

"Get me filleting knife!" Called the big troll.

"I'm hungry now! I say we just eat them raw." Snapped the one at the spit.

"He's right." Exclaimed the smallest one. "Nothing wrong with a bit of raw dwarf!"

He reached towards us, as if to grab someone. Unfortunately, that someone was me.

I screamed and he lifted me into the air.

"Put me down!" I demanded, wriggling in his grasp.

"Don't touch her!" Kili yelled frantically.

"Hey, she's pretty!" He said. "Can we keep this one?"

"Put the lass down before I get off this spit and rip your heart out through your neck!" Roared Dwalin.

I heard a lot of shouting and muffled struggles from the others.

He brought me close enough to his face that I could kick out. My foot connected with his nose with a satisfying crack, blood spurting from the now crooked lump of tissue. He dropped me, head-first, onto the ground as he clutched his face, stumbling around.

"Feisty, eh?" Bellowed the big one, grabbing me around the midsection.

I saw three of him, so I decided to focus on the one in the middle. Gathering as much saliva into my mouth as I could, I spat at him.

"I ought to just snap your neck now." He growled.

That must have been too much for Thorin.

"HARM HER AND I SWEAR, YOU WILL REGRET IT FOR THE THREE SECONDS YOU LIVE AFTER THAT!" He bellowed. I could hear him frantically trying to get out of the bag, but to no avail.

The trolls guffawed.

"I guess I know who we're eating first!" Said the troll holding me.

He raised me up high in air and began lowering me towards his open mouth.

"Your breath is terrible." I said.

What fantastic last words.

Such bravery.

Such courage.

And now I die.

"Wait!" Yelled Bilbo. "You don't want to eat her." He said.

"Why not?" Asked the smelly-breath troll, who had now lowered me to about his waist level.

"She's got- um, worms in her tubes." He said.

The troll exclaimed in disgust and tossed me away. Once again, my head hit the ground first.

"Do the words severe head injury mean anything to you people?!" I screamed.

They ignored me.

"In fact they've all got it. They're riddled with parasites- it's a tricky business. I wouldn't risk it, I really wouldn't."

"Parasites?" Yelled Kili. "I don't have parasites! You have para- oomf!"

"I've.. Got parasites and big as my arms." Called Gloin.

"Mine are the biggest parasites, I've got huge parasites!"

It was chaos. Everyone was screaming on top of each other, all boasting about being infecting with huge worms.

Finally, the largest troll yelled, "Do you take me for a fool?"

"The dawn will take you all!" Came Gandalf's voice.

There was a huge crack and light flooded into the forest. The trolls screamed in agony, each hardening into statues of their former beings.

Of course! Bilbo must have been playing for time.

Clever Hobbit.

"Gandalf!"

"You came back!"

All were rejoicing at the wizard's return.

I could not see any of the company, as the troll has tossed me somewhere out of sight from the clearing. Thorin, however, found me quickly enough.

"Ariel!" He yelled, using his retrieved sword to cut open the bag.

I launched myself at him once I was free, wrapping my arms around his neck and sticking my face in his chest.

"They were going to eat me." I said, voice shaking.

"They would have died first." he assured me.

"His breath was terrible." I noted again.

"So I heard."

Thorin pulled me to my feet, and we walked back to the clearing. I ran over to Bilbo to thank him.

"That was very clever of you." I said and he spun around, looking embarrassed. "Thank you. For saving me."

While he tried to form a response, I leaned over, kissed his cheek, and mumbled a blessing in Dwarfish.

I went to go retrieve my weapons from the pile, when a pair of strong arms wrapped around me from behind.

"You're okay." He said.

"I'm fine, Kili." I assured him, turning to look into his face. "Just a couple bumps on the head. I've had worse."

"I thought you were going to die." He said, still clinging to me tightly. His voice was muffled by my hair.

"That makes two of us." I joked.

Kili kept me pressed to him, and finally, I gave in, melting into his arms like I had wanted to since the first moment I saw him.