The Last of Her Kind (hobbit fanfic)

Back Down to Goblin Town

"Doth odri mi, gi bedrunna!" (Get off me, you filth!) [I just made this language up (based on Welsh) because I don't think they actually made a Skinchanger language, sorry if it's rubbish] she screamed in her mother-tongue.

All went deathly silent. It was like the grave had come to haunt the goblins until a cold cackle echoed throughout the halls. "So our missing prisoner has come home at last. Tell me, Niatha, how did your brief taste of freedom feel before these dwarves had it snatched away from you?" all of the dwarves looked to her in confusion. "Please, I would very much like your opinion on the new decor. I think Skinchanger is a lovely theme."

"NO!" she sobbed, tears pouring down her cheeks. "Don't you dare speak of my people!"

Enlightenment dawned on a few of the dwarves' faces, realising what she was, who she was. Fili and Kili, however, were even more out of the shadows in now knowing the answers to the questions they had been asking themselves since the journey began. Now they knew who had enslaved her and her race, and slaughtered them. Now they knew her experiences.

"Come now deary, no need to be so hostile when your family is present."

"What are you...? Gi bedrunna!" (you filth!) Niatha wept uncontrolably when a rack of hanging skulls was lifted into view. She refused to look upon their faces, knowing it was her parents and brothers rattling beyond her closed lids.

"Look upon them!" she felt the warty, slimy hand of the Great Goblin grasping her chin and give it a firm shake. "Look upon the bones of your old people or I will kill one of your new." He meant the dwarves... The threat had Niatha sufficiently persuaded to snap open her eyes and gaze into the empty sockets of a feline skull. "Very good. Now take her back to her old cell; I rather regret killing all of them."

Niatha's brow was now soaked with sweat, it dripped into her eyes, blurring her vision of the dwarves. Only a few seemed to be trying to get at her and save her. She guessed that must be because of their knewfound knowledge of who and what she really was. After a while despair overtook her and she stopped fighting. She knew her fate was sealed. No point in failing to change it. That would only bring her more grief.

Locked in the cell she'd long ago believed she would never see again, the last Skinchanger wept for her family, for her people, for her friends and for the dwarves. Only did she stop weeping when the goblins came back for her. It seemed rather soon but who was she to question the ways of a heartless creature.

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Meanwhile, the dwarves were muttering amongst themselves about Niatha and her secret.

"What are you doing in these parts and with a Skinchanger no less? Speak!" the Great Goblin's abundance of wobbling blubber bouncing when he shouted. His warty face contorted and distorted into different faces and emotions.

None of the dwarves, however, responded. The goblin king's face twisted into something resembling rage.

"Well then, if they will not talk, we'll make them squawk. Bring out the Mangler, bring out the Bone-Breaker. Start with the Skinchanger, bring her back!" three goblins were gone to go retrieve her. Unfortunately, that was before Thorin stepped forward.

"Wait!" but it was too late, they could not hear him, only the ones who stayed could.

"Well, well, well, look who it is. Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror; King Under the Mountain." he bent in a mockingly exaggerated bow to the dwarf king. "Oh but I'm forgetting, you don't have a mountain. And you're not a king. Which makes you nobody, really"

"But you do not have a mountain either," came a weak voice from the entrance to a tunnel. It was followed swiftly by a pained cry. Everyone turned to see a beaten and bloodied version of Niatha being half carried towards them. Her clothes were ripped in multiple places and bruises covered her fair skin