When morning came, the bright sunlight shone through the trees. The fractured light caused rays of warm sun to shine down on the sleeping forms. Eventually the sudden light became too much and each one of them groaned quietly and sat up. Bilbo was one of the first to wake up. He stretched and clicked his neck and winced when doing so. Blinking and rubbing his eyes, he looked around as everyone looked as dismal as himself.
The nights sleep had been broken up, a few people had got woken up for the sake of guard duty. He was fortunate enough to not have this. Though that didn't mean he didn't wake up now and again because of the uncomfortable ground. He thought by now he'd become used to the uncomfortable grounds which he'd found himself sleeping on. But no, not used to it. Bilbo looked up as Gandalf walked past trying to encourage everyone to get up. It was a hard task to do. He either received narrow eyed looks or grumbles. Despite not being comfortable no one really wished to move.
"Oh, come on," Gandalf said exasperated. He leaned against his staff and watched the unhappy group in front of him. "If you're all going to act like this each morning, we'll never get to the Lonely Mountain." Which was true. If they all decided to mope and whine about having to get up, and how cold it was, or how little they've slept, or the fact that they were commencing journeying without a breakfast, they really wouldn't get to Erebor in the allotted time they had.
"He's right, get up, come on." The voice of reason came from Thorin, who if possible looked worse than he did yesterday. His injuries had slowly set in and the shallow bruising had turned to various colours of purples and greys. Even as he moved he winced slightly, clearly he was still in pain. Thorin stood up and nudged whoever decided to refuse to move with the tip of his boots. Kíli and Fíli were two of the group who got nudged. The brothers both sat up bleary eyed and looked to him confused.
It took another several moments for everyone to be fully awake, or at least as awake as they could ever be. Standing and trying to rid themselves of sleep and aches, they looked to Gandalf. "We have a lot of ground to cover." He said, he wanted to firmly remind everyone of this. Maybe if he kept reminding them they wouldn't all be unenthusiastic when it came to actually setting out in the mornings. "We only stop when we need to." His words just received agreeing nods, no one saw fit to retort to this. "Right!" He said with a smile, pushing away from his staff he turned and commenced walking. "Off we go then." The others set off after him, as they passed a few destroyed the remnants of their camp, they didn't need to leave any hints that they had even been here.
Much like before, many years ago, Náriel and Thorin were seemingly inseparable. It was something which seemingly amused Fíli and Kíli, "So," Náriel found an arm suddenly around her shoulders when they had stopped for a break. She looked to the owner, raising an eyebrow at Kíli, she looked to the side as Fíli stood on her other side.
"What is it?" She asked while looking up at the sky. The day had started off so bright and sunny, but slowly the sky had started to cloud over. Thick grey clouds appeared to be rolling in from the west. A storm was coming from somewhere, if not a storm, then just a lot of rain was heading their way.
"We've been thinking," Fíli said while putting a hand to his chin and nodding slowly in thought.
"You have to be careful with that, I hear it can hurt." Náriel smirked, Fíli frowned at her words whereas Kíli let out a short laugh. "What is it?" She repeated her earlier question. The pausing and dragging out of this moment, was starting to get annoying quite fast. She didn't want to spend her first break of the day being bothered by the brothers. For five hours they'd all trekked, it was almost noon and they were only resting for a few moments before setting off for another few hours before stopping for lunch. She was tired, and aching, and found a niggling pain setting in the back of her head.
"You and uncle," Kíli whispered lowly while patting her on the shoulder, she looked up at him.
"You're very close." Fíli stated with a nod.
"Really close." Kíli smiled.
"And?" Náriel asked dully.
"Well, like, if you two are together..." Fíli said thoughtfully while trailing off.
Kíli grinned and let out a quiet laugh. "Does that make you our aunt?"
Náriel's eyes widened, she looked between the two. "No." She wriggled out from Kíli's arm and stepped back. Waving her hands at them, she grinned, "No." She said again while pointing between them.
"Is that a no to being together?" Fíli asked curiously.
"Or to us calling you auntie?" Kíli smirked and looked to his brother who just ended up smirking too. They were having way too much fun in teasing her. Teasing Bilbo had become rather boring, but teasing Náriel, no, this was a new source of entertainment. It was even more entertaining because of how well it all worked.
"The latter of the two." Náriel said thoughtfully with a frown. "I don't want to hear either of you call me that." She crossed her arms and let out a laugh. "I am not referring to you two as nephews." She tilted her head to the side and playfully narrowed her eyes. "How about pests? That's much more fitting for you both." She smirked as they looked mock offended.
"How rude of you!" Kíli said in playful horror.
"Pests? Us, pests? No, you must be confusing us with some other siblings."
Náriel rolled her eyes, sighing she stepped forwards. Reaching up she placed a hand on each other their shoulders, looking from one to the other she smiled lightly. "Fine, not pests." Patting their shoulders she walked past them and looked over her shoulder. Narrowing her eyes, she put her hands in her pockets. "But the two of you are rather silly." She smiled and continued on her way, raising an eyebrow she stopped beside Bilbo. He was looking around with a slightly confused expression on his face. "Are you all right?" She asked.
He gave a small jolt at hearing her voice, clearly he hadn't seen her approaching. He looked up at her and simply nodded. "Yes, yes, I'm fine, you?"
"You're lying." Náriel rolled her eyes and pulled her hands out of her pockets. "What is it?"
"Well, you see," Bilbo started which caused her to nod at him to continue. "We've ran out of water."
Náriel looked around, throughout their adventure so far, the majority of their canteens had either been misplaced, stolen, or lost. So because of this, they'd all taken to sharing, only there didn't seem to be many canteens to go around the group, and as such; ran out of water. "There has to be a stream nearby." She whispered, Bilbo didn't seem to believe her. Turning on her heels she looked around, humming lightly she took a step forwards and then looked to him. "Bring them," she nodded at the canteens which were near to him, scooping them up in his arms he trotted after her.
It wasn't hard for the two of them to sneak away from the rest of the group. Bilbo just followed after Náriel hoping that she actually knew where she was going. When she stopped suddenly, he stopped too. Or rather he walked straight into her, he was too busy looking up at the large trees around them. She looked over her shoulder at him, which he merely smiled sheepishly in retort to. Smiling, she side stepped and gestured a hand forwards. "Water." She said while watching as Bilbo walked forwards towards the small bubbling stream in front of them. As he crouched down and took to refilling, Náriel turned and kept watch. They weren't far from the others, so if something were to happen, help wouldn't be too far away. Looking to the side when Bilbo appeared at her side, Náriel smiled. "All done?"
"Yes," he said while checking the items in his grasp. "I hope we don't run out again. There was hardly anything here to fill these up." Náriel looked back to the stream, she saw what he meant. It was near to nothing. The rocky bed of it could be seen and only a small trickle really made up the stream.
Frowning she nodded forwards, "Let's return." She simply said. She couldn't think of anything else to say, she too hoped they wouldn't run out of water, and that there were other streams nearby where they could fill up. There wasn't any signs of civilisation, so getting supplies was going to be hard.
When they returned Náriel stood and watched as Bilbo simply handed out the canteens that they did have. "I know that expression," she looked up, Thorin pushed away from a tree and walked over to stand by her side with his arms crossed. "Quiet contemplation." He said while giving a nod, she looked up at him quickly before looking back to the resting group. "What is it?"
"We're running low on...well, everything." She said with a shrug. "Just, if we do run out, I'm not quite sure where we'd go to stock up."
"We have enough for now?" Thorin asked with a frown, he didn't quite think that her puzzled thoughtful expression would lead to this.
"For now," she replied quietly while looking up at him. Smiling suddenly, she placed a hand on his arm. "How are you feeling?" She asked deciding to change the subject, though it didn't seem like this subject was one he wished to speak of. Mainly because he sighed, frowned and narrowed his eyes down at the ground. His whole reaction caused Náriel to laugh quietly and shake her head slowly. "Perhaps we can speak of something else?" She questioned while rocking on her heels and crossing her arms behind her back.
They rested for another several minutes before picking up walking again. There were quiet groans, sitting down on any log, rock, or tufty grass was welcomed for aching legs and feet. But sitting around wasn't going to get them any closer to their target. The silence amongst the group was a change, as before there had always been chatting and conversations; but it seems since catching sight of Erebor, the seriousness of this all had fully sunk in. They were near. But not near enough.
The thick and heavy woodland slowly started to dissipate after walking for almost half of the day. Though the rather barren clearing which greeted them ended up merging into more woodland, it still made a change to be able to properly see the open sky. The branches and canopy within the trees blotted out the sky. It was very hard to peer through such heavy foliage for the sake of catching a glimpse at the rolling white clouds and pure blue of the sky.
There were small boulders dotted about the clearing, these soon got used as seats as everyone decided here would be a good place to stay for a break. Gandalf, of course, disagreed hugely and tried to will everyone to stand and move. "Asking a dwarf to do something when they don't want to doesn't end well. Just need to give it time and they'll do it on their own accord." A quiet thoughtful voice said from his side. Gandalf stopped and looked to a boulder, Náriel stood looking up at the sky, she looked thoughtful. Like a part of her was here in the present, but another part of her was elsewhere. "Is that not what you said to me at the beginning of this quest?" She looked down at him with a smile.
"Quite right," Gandalf mumbled and quietly coughed and looked at her. "What can you see?"
"Rain clouds, or at least, clouds which are heavily laden with something. Might be snow. The air is getting cooler, can't you feel it? The seasons are changing." Náriel said quietly while looking to the resting group behind them. "That's a problem. Resting in winter...is dangerous." She said lowly. Which was true, sometimes the air got so cold that even stopping for a second could seize someone up; the snow which blanketed the ground was another thing completely. It made surroundings look different, kept tracks fresh until the next snowfall and was genuinely hard to travel in and through.
Gandalf shifted from foot to foot and leaned against his staff. He looked up at the sky too and narrowed his eyes. He could faintly see the clouds which Náriel was referring to. Much like her, it didn't fill him with much confidence. Looking over his shoulder with a thoughtful frown, he looked back up at her. "Shall we tackle this problem when it arrives? There is no point in worrying just yet."
"I'm not worried, I quite like snow." She said innocently with a smile, Gandalf smiled too at her honesty. "What I am worried about is the onset of a harsh winter."
"Well," Gandalf nodded and stepped back. "As I said, shall we tackle this problem when it arrives?"
"Yes, sure." Náriel said while watching him walk off, he too eventually sat down. Might as well join in with the group and rest. Náriel turned and looked back up at the sky. Frowning and shaking her head, she turned and jumped down from her boulder. Pulling her cloak more around herself she shuffled off and sat down with a quiet thud on the floor.
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(Reedited: 27/Oct/2023)