Emerge the Dragonborn | The Hobbit

Chapter 7 - Troll Supper

    "Trolls," Kili spat with disdain. The brothers and Anaynah took off in the direction of the commotion to get a better view.

    The Ranger however halted in her tracks when she noticed Bilbo was not following them anymore. She was baffled to see that he had turned around only to retrieve bowls of soup he was adamant about delivering.

    "Blast, Bilbo! Just leave them!" the Ranger urged the Hobbit as he caught up with her, back to balancing the there bowls.

    "Nope, I was sent to deliver you supper so I will see that I deliver it to you." The Hobbit stated with a stomp of his foot in protest. Anaynah sighed in defeat at the halfling's stubbornness.

    "Will you manage?" she gestured to the bowls as if offering to help.

    "Yes I'm fine," he said quickly before having second thoughts, "well, actually-"

    "Good! Come on then!" The Ranger cut him off as she ran deeper into the woods, Bilbo rolling his eyes slightly before pursuing behind her to where Fili and Kili had been observing.

    They jogged through the branches until they found the sight of the brothers crouched behind another fallen log. Anaynah moved forward towards them, that is until her eyes caught the giant creature that carried two more ponies, shrieking in panic, in each hand.

    Alarmed, she leapt behind a tree trunk, snatching Bilbo and yanking him to hide beside her as he tried to run across, allowing the beast to move past without picking up on them.

    "He's got Myrtle and Minty!" Bilbo whispered in alarm, Myrtle was his pony that he got assigned so he was even more worried about her wellbeing. They all peeked their heads up as they watched the Troll return to his camp, "we have to do something!"

    "Yes, you should!" Kill exclaimed in a hushed tone as he grabbed his bowl of stew from Bilbo's hand and pushed him forward. Bilbo's face went pale as he began protesting against this absurd plan, "Mountain Trolls are slow and stupid and you're so small!"

    Anaynah couldn't help but agree if Bilbo wanted a chance to prove himself, this was it. Though she was terrified for him, she has had her encounter with mountain Trolls in the past and Kili was right, dumb as ever.

    "Me? No."

    "They'll never see you!"

    "It's perfectly safe, we'll be right behind you." Kill reassured him. Fili carried on, taking no heed of bilbos objections.

    "If you run into trouble, hoot twice like a barn owl and once like a brown owl." Fili grabbed his and Anaynahs bowls before she gave Bilbo a pat on the back and a push forward which sent him stumbling.

    Bilbo began muttering Filis's instructions back to himself, trying to make sense of everything. Much to his shock, by the time by turned around, the trio had already taken off.

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    The three ran back to their base camp at full speed, trying to think of what they were going to tell their leader, how to explain that they left their burglar alone with three mountain Trolls. Anaynah began to regret her decision by the second.

    "Where is Bilbo?" Bofur questioned as the trio burst through the trees into the clearing of their campsite. The rest of the Company too perked up at the mention of their missing Hobbit. Anaynah was flustered, as were Fili and Kili. The Ranger decided she would be upfront about neglecting their duties, no matter the penalty for doing so.

    "I'm sorry Thorin but we-"

    "We were attacked!" Kili cut in, clearly having no intention of telling the truth, "There we were, watching the ponies as you told us!" Kill went on as he held up his finger to try to show the seriousness of his claims.