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IV. Bow

There was a chill in the air that not even the fire before her could quite diminish as the company rested in an alcove overlooking the plains. Athena was huddled between Kili and Fili in silence, trying to ignore the snoring that she already knew was coming from Bombur. After watching him inhale and exhale moths with each of his snores she refused to look over in his direction for the rest of the night. It didn't surprise her when Bilbo was woken by the loud sounds he created in his sleep and she paid little attention as he made his way to his pony.

She looked up when a shriek pierced the air and swallowed the last of her food while Bilbo asked what the sound was.

"Orcs," Kili told him, causing her to raise an eyebrow but otherwise remain silent at the lie he was telling.

"Orcs?" Bilbo asked as he hurried over to them, her unable to hide the chuckle at his reaction as she glanced away from the curious Hobbit and back to the fire.

"Throat cutters. There'd be dozens of them out there. The lowlands are crawling with them," Fili joined in his brother's jest without missing a beat.

"They strike, in the wee small hours, when everyone's asleep. Quick and quiet, no screams. Just lots of blood," Kili finished, she was unable to help the soft chuckle that escaped her when their laughter made it apparent that it was a joke.

"Leave him be, he's scared enough as it is," she scolded them, though her chuckles made her sentence come out less serious than she had intended. The trio's laughter was soon put to a standstill when Thorin spoke up.

"You think that's funny? You think a night raid by Orcs is a joke?" He asked, no humour in his tone but instead only a quiet rage that dwelled within him, one that no doubt stemmed from pain.

"We didn't mean anything by it," was the closest thing to an apology that left Kili's lips, acting as if he had been scolded by a parent, but instead it was his uncle.

"No you didn't, you know nothing of the world," Thorin responded before he walked away from them all to take some time for himself.

Though she begged to differ with his words because Orcs had once taken something dear from her in the past. The memory of learning of her father's fall was one she could not forget.

"Don't mind him laddie. Thorin has more cause than most to hate Orcs," Balin reassured the trio as he approached and used his arm to lean against the cliff face, Athena raising her head to look over at him curiously. This was a tale that she was not familiar with despite the extensive amount of time that she had spent in the Blue Mountains with Thorin and his nephews. And by Fili and Kili's expressions, she figured that they had not heard it either.

"After the dragon took the Lonely Mountain, King Thror tried to reclaim the ancient Dwarf kingdom of Moria. But our enemy had gotten there first," Balin began to explain, "Moria had been taken by legions of Orcs, led by the most vile of all their race, Azog the Defiler. The giant Gundabad Orc had sworn to wipe out the line of Durin. He began by beheading the king," at those words Athena lowered her head once more, witnessing the death of a loved one was never easy and she understood that pain all too well. "Thrain, Thorin's father, was driven mad by grief, he went missing, taken prisoner or killed, we did not know. We were leaderless. Defeat and death were upon us. That is when I saw him. A young Dwarf prince facing down the Pale Orc," she felt the atmosphere shift from one of heartache to one of hope, finding herself enthralled in the story as if it were from a folklore instead of one of truth, "he stood alone against this terrible foe. His armour rent, wielding nothing but an oaken branch as a shield. Azog the Defiler learned that day, that the line of Durin would not be so easily broken. Our forces rallied and drove the Orcs back. Our enemy had been defeated, but there was no feast, nor song that night for our dead were beyond the count of grief. We few had survived. And I thought to myself then, there is one I could follow, there is one I could call king."