The Adventure of Andrea Baggins

Journey

"Thorin, how long must we go on?", Gloin complained. He wasn't the first, and probably wouldn't be the last. Thorin, being stubborn as always, didn't even turn his head.

"Just a little further. We need to put as much distance between us and Azog as possible." He was saying that since short past lunch. Which they missed, because he wouldn't let them take a break. As the sun began to set, and Thorin's still made no attempt in stopping for the night any time soon, Andy decided to intervene. She caught up to Thorin at the front of the group and blocked his way with her pony. As Thorin glared at her, she gave him a stern look.

"Listen up, Princess. We are all tired and aching from a whole day of riding. You didn't grant us a lunchbreak and it's about to get dark. So, instead you want your company in a bad mood for the rest of the journey, I'd suggest to you, to slow down a little and... stop everything for a moment. Look at them", Andy pointed behind him and Thorin turned his head. The company had stopped behind him, some hanging in their saddles, bent over the necks of their ponies. A few were yawning like they wanted to swallow the whole world and Ori and Oin were hardly awake anymore. A sting of guilt hit Thorin as he saw them like that.

"Alright, let's stop for the night", he finally spoke. The words worked like a miracle; the company was awake again. The Camp was up rather fast and Bombur was cocking supper over a fire. By the time all daylight was gone, the most of the company were already sleeping. To everyone's surprise, Andy was the first who called it a day and went to bed.

By the time the company reached the Mirkwood boarders, Andy managed to get on everyone's nerves. The last time they travelled that long and nothing live threatening happened, was before they got attacked by the trolls. And that was a quite a while back. The dwarves have forgotten, why they were annoyed of her over the last weeks. But the following two days brought it back to their minds.

When she was not singing along with the dwarves, she spent a lot of time telling bad jokes. At one point on their journey, she got off her pony and walked. Well, she called it walking. It was more like running around and making the ponies nervous. She somehow managed to push a pony over and set all the others in a panic. As they tried to bolt, the dwarves had their difficulties with calming them down again. Andy laid next to them on the ground and laughed. Not, because she was sadistic or didn't feel bad for scaring the poor animals but because the faces of the dwarves were priceless. And Gandalf's! He already looked a little ridiculous being the tall man he was on the small pony. But as he actually fell over, she couldn't hold it. He sat back up, his hat next to him, his grey hair a mess and the most confused look on his face she ever saw. How did this little thing throw him off so easily?, it seemed to say.

Not even Thorin and Dwalin barking at her to stop acting like a child actually made her stop. She wasn't able to stop laughing for minutes. And the more they told her off for it, the worst it got. As she finally did get back onto her pony, she was bent over and a small groan escaped her still grinning lips.

"If I keep up like this, I'll have abs by the end of the week. "

Kili, Ori and to her surprise Gloin chuckled.

"Lassie, it is an advantage, that you don't immediately look like a strong girl. It keeps the element of surprise on your side", Gloin assured her. "Believe me, you don't want to look like those pointy eared elves. They're so skinny, a storm could knock them over. But we dwarves are built resilient. We are not knocked off our feet so easily." Though the topic changed rather quickly, Andy didn't mind.

"I don't know, Gloin. I think, the elves are less fragile than you think. And strong. "

Gloin stared at her grinning person with his mouth agape. "Please, the most don't even look like they had a day of hard work in teir life! Not like we dwarves. We live for hard work like craftmanship and mining. "