The Last of the Guardians Part 2 - A Hobbit Fan Fiction

Chapter 5 - The Traitor Among Us

Bofur shot up and marched towards Sîor, yelling, "Hey! What the hell do you think you're playing at?"

The other dwarves ceased in their conversations and turned to watch, completely oblivious to what had been going on behind them. Nema heard his voice and turned watch him approach, and in the moment she wasn't looking, Sîor's blade drew a line of red down her arm from her shoulder to her wrist. She grunted in pain and dropped her sword. 

"Sîor!" Nema cried angrily. "Why didn't you stop?"

"Nema get away from him," Bofur ordered. He brandished his axe at Sîor menacingly. "Why did he stop? That's what I want to know."

"What?" Nema choked out, shocked and confused.

"He was trying to kill you!" Bofur explained, stepping between her and Sîor.

The male Guardian rolled his eyes and slid his sword into the belt which hung around his naked torso. "Actually, I was trying to train her. Clearly this one likes me not. Ignore him. He wants to drive a wedge between us, Nemaiza."

"With good reason!" Fili joined the argument. "You are trying to take Nema away from us!"

"Bofur, Fili," Kili said warily, "enough with the distrust already. Sîor was training Nema - not trying to kill her. That's his task. Yeah, maybe he went at it a little too fierce tonight but that doesn't mean he wants her dead. Does it Sîor?"

"It most certainly does not," Sîor replied. He turned to Fili and Bofur. "I don't know where you've got this stupid idea from. Why would I want to kill Nemaiza? She is my own kind. It is my duty to train her. She was not brought up among her own kind, so there is so much Nemaiza has to learn. For example," he waved his hand towards Nema's bleeding arm and whispered, "obscuro," and the wound healed over. "See? No harm done."

The dwarves fell silent. "If he wanted to badly hurt me, Sîor would have done so by now," Nema said, then marched off into the woods to find a tree to practice throwing knives at, remembering too late that her Guardian knife was probably still wedged into Beorn's house. Around the camp fire there was an awkward silence until Sîor decided to take to the air.  

Gandalf, who had been silent throughout the argument, drew his pipe from between his lips and blew a series of smoke rings while he waited for the dwarves to return to their places around the fire. As the last of them sat down, he cleared his throat and said, "I believe you have made a grave error." He spoke to no one in particular, addressing the company as a whole.

"What do you mean by that, Gandalf?" asked Thorin, his eyes narrowing.

"What I mean," the wizard began, "is that Sîor knows you are suspicious of him." He stared into the flickering flames and drew a breath through his pipe. "This may cause problems if you are not more wary."

"Wary?" Dwalin asked. "Why should we be wary? I see no need to be suspicious of him. Sîor is a Guardian, not some evil beast plotting to murder us all while we sleep."

"You would be wise to sleep with one eye open, Master Dwalin. The good will often dance with the bad when light flees and darkness holds court."

"Enough with the cryptic lessons!" Thorin exclaimed. "Tell us what you wish us to know and be done."

Gandalf passed his eyes over the dark-haired dwarf. "Nema was not raised in the company of Guardians, as is their way, but in the company of a human by the name of Sienna. When the Guardians came to collect Nema and take her to the great Guardian Kingdom in the sky, Sienna refused to let her go. The sight of the winged people made Sienna uneasy, and she wasn't going to hand over an innocent child to strangers. The Guardians tried to frighten her into giving up the child, returning to the woman's home year after year in the hope that they could wear her down. But Sienna was stronger than they thought, and so, in Nema's seventh year of life, they returned for the last time. The Guardians burned the village they lived outside of, eventually setting fire to Sienna's home with her in it. By the time they deemed it safe enough to come back and take Nema away, she had already gone. Since then Nema has been running, but never knowing what from-"

"-Forgive me for interrupting," said Fili, "but how do you know all this?"

The wizard sighed. "I read the prophecy foretelling the return of the King Under the Mountain and-"

"-There is nothing about winged beings in that prophecy," Thorin cut across him.

"The Guardians eradicated every mention of themselves at the beginning of the Second Age. But one copy of that particular tale remained and I happened to stumble upon it during my travels," Gandalf explained. "Might I be allowed to continue? Now, as I was saying, Nema was running from her own kind without knowing it. They left her alone, not wanting to turn her against them. You see, whenever the Guardians came down to take her from Sienna, they made sure not to reveal themselves to Nema. This resulted in her being terrified of them without knowing who they were or even what they looked like. A few years ago she met two friendly Guardians who she travelled with for some time-"

"If I may," Thorin interrupted again, much to Gandalf's annoyance, "Why are you telling all of this to us now? Why not sooner?"

"Because, Thorin," said the wizard, growing cross with the dwarf, "it was not relevant until now. There is a darkness gathering that not even the Guardians will be able to protect Middle Earth from, and so they have retreated into their sky kingdom, or The White Havens as they call it. The Guardians you saw with the eagles are the last who wander the earth as we know it. But soon they too will abandon Middle Earth to its fate. I believe they plan to build their strength in order to return and rid the land of evil, but that could take years."

"But they live to protect others!" Bombur protested loudly. "How can they just leave?"

The wizard shook his head sadly. "Though Guardians make themselves out to be perfect, they are - at their core - extremely selfish. Unless, of course, their protectee is in peril, in which case they are the most selfless creatures I have ever known. But anyway, the Guardians do not want to leave any of their kind behind, which is why Sîor has joined your company. He means to lead Nema away from you and take her to the White Havens. Once she is safe inside, they will seal the gates. When Sîor will decide to leave, I cannot say. He may be kind enough to wait until Thorin has been saved. I tell you this not because I fear for Nema's safety, but because I fear for yours, Thorin, and for the whole of Middle Earth. If the gate to the White Havens is sealed Middle Earth will fall."

A silence fell over the company. All that could be heard was the whispering of the trees, and the distant humming of their Guardian, who had wandered away into the forest.

"Does she know?" Fili whispered.

"She does not," Gandalf replied, "and she must not know until it is absolutely necessary."

Thorin stood and unsheathed his sword. "Then we kill Sîor and be done."

"If you do, the Guardians willl come in force," said Gandalf in an ominous tone, "and you will bring Middle Earth to its knees."