Sunlight, Afterglow, Nightsky and Snowfield

Chapter 5 - The den of the skin-changer

Before we went on, we decided to explore the situation in order to prevent further attacks. We assumed the orcs were following us. Gandalf suggested that Bilbo would be best for it. Thus, Bilbo went away and came back, panting and with an ashen face.

"Our enemies are still lurking out there. But there is something else!", he said.

"Were you seen?" Gandalf asked.

"No, but -", began Bilbo and Gandalf interrupted him: "What did I say? He is as quite as a mouse!"

The others laughed, but Bilbo shouted frantically: "Will you just listen? There is something else out there. Something very big!"

Gandalf gaped at him. "What exactly is out there? Does it look like a bear?"

"Well ... yes!", Bilbo answered. "But bigger than that!"

"Gandalf, do you know something about that beast?" Bofur wanted to know, but Gandalf just stared at him with a shocked expression.

Someone suggested to go back, but Thorin wanted to avoid to run into the pack of orcs again.

"There is a house ahead. I say we take refuge there", suggested Gandalf.

"What house? Does it belong to a friend or to a foe?", Thorin asked.

"Neither. Either he will take us ... or he will kill us!" said Gandalf.

We had no other choice. We ran after Gandalf as fast as we could and soon, we were followed by that huge beast. I tried my best to communicate with it but I couldn't read his thoughts. We ran into the house and closed the door behind us just when the beast tried to put his big snout in.

Panting, we looked around at Gandalf. Some dwarves even slumped on the floor in relief.

"This is our host. He is Beorn, a skin-changer. When he is in his beast form, we can't reason with him. But we can try it when he is human again. Therefore, let's wait until next morning, when he takes his human form!", said Gandalf.

After a few minutes, everyone lied down and fell asleep. I wasn't tired and I decided to memorize my notes I took from the elven books in Rivendell until I became drowsy.

"Hey, Aurora!" Someone whispered.

I looked up and saw Kili standing in front of me. "I need your help!"

"Sure, what can I do for you?" I asked, putting my notes aside.

"My hair became all messy because of all the ruckus happening lately!" He held out a fair amount of his hair to me. "Could you braid it for me?"

Back then I didn't notice his cheeky grin he wore on his face, since I was confused: We were here in a den of someone we still didn't know whether he was an enemy or not and all he thought about was his hair?

Aurora, put yourself together, said a voice in my head. Maybe it is important for a dwarf not to have unkempt hair? Look, how the others take care for it!

"Um ... why me?" I asked.

"Well, all the others are asleep!" Kili said.

I sighed. "Well ... allright then!"

He flashed another cheeky grin towards me before he sat down in front of me with his back turned.

"Um ... I'm warning you ... I'm not much of a barber!" I said, before I parted his hair and braided it. "And I don't have anything to tie it up!"

He held out one of his golden clips he used to wear in his hair. "Here, take this!"

"Ok, then ... you're finished!" I said.