𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐇𝐄𝐋 || legolas greenleaf¹

EIGHTEEN; BARREL RIDE

"Everyone, climb into the barrels!" Bilbo instructed hurriedly. "Quickly!"

"Are you mad?!" Dwalin hissed again. "They'll find us!"

"No, no they won't, I promise you. Please, please, you must trust me!" Bilbo insisted, emphasizing his words. He looked stressed by the fact none I'd them would get inside the barrels.

Magauna watched him and then looked over. "Thorin." She said, turning to him.

Her and Thorin shared a look before the dwarf glanced at Bilbo and then turned to the others. "Do as he says!" He demanded quickly.

They all looked at him, then at each other, and then all started to climb inside the barrels once they heard commotion outside the cellars, no doubt a sign of the Elves coming to find them.

Each of them climbed inside a barrel. Magauna waited until most of them were inside before she slid herself into one as well. Bilbo walked up and down the line of barrels, making sure they were all in one.

"What do we do know?" Magauna asked, sticking her head out of her barrel to look at Bilbo. All of the dwarves followed in suit, sticking their heads out in sync.

Bilbo walked over to a lever sticking out of the floorboards by them. "Hold your breath." He instructed.

"Hold my breath?" Bofur questioned. "What do you mean?"

His got his answer when Bilbo pulled the lever. The floor beneath the barrels tilted downward one side and up on the other, causing them roll towards the opening, and fall several feet until they landed in the river underneath Mirkwood's Halls. The Company all yelled as they fell, and the barrels made loud thumping noises as the ones on the topper levels of the stacks fell down to roll.

Magauna popped her head out of her barrel after she landed and looked around with wide eyes. Shs was wet from the water splashing up into the barrel, but she wasn't paying attention to it. She looked up at the hole they'd fallen through, only to see it was closed now. Bilbo was still up there.

"Come on!" Dawlin said to the rest of the Company. "Let's get out of this place."

"No!" Magauna argued. The others turned to her. "Bilbo is still up there! We have to wait!"

"She's right." Throin said. "We wait until the Hobbit comes."

It wasn't barely moments after that the trapdoor opened above them again. They all looked up and saw Bilbo was the one falling through, yelling. He landed in the river next to Nori, and scrambled to grab onto the side of his barrel.

"Well done, Master Baggins." Thorin said, looking back at him.

The Hobbit, half drowned, waved his hand lazily to thank him and barely managed to splutter out a word: "Go."

Thorin, being at the front of the line of barrels, took the lead. The Company surged forward in their barrels by using their hands to paddle through the water, though the river's current was doing a well job of pulling them along on its own.

They soon emerged into the sunlight, and they all squinted at the brightness, having been stuck in the dark halls of the Woodland Realm for so long.

Suddenly, Magauna heard Thorin yell above the noise of the water. "Hold on!"

Magauna looked ahead of them, and her eyes got wide; they were headed straight for a steap five foot water fall.

The Comapny let out yells as they plunged through the rapids, getting sprayed with the splashing torrents of water. By the time they left the worst of the rapids, the Elves had found them.