✓ | Forget-Me-Not ~ Fili FanFiction / Hobbit FanFiction / Fili FF

「 Chapter 19 」

Two dwarfs marched out the door.
Beorn raised his axe defensively and more than confused.
Both of them stopped next to each other with a huge safety margin in front of Gandalf, Bilbo, Beorn and Ilèyn.
"Dwalin" The dwarf pointed to himself, then to his brother. "And Balin." Balin waved with a big smile on his face.
Bilbo and Ilèyn looked at each other with wide eyes. That was it. They're dead.
"And I uh, I..." Gandalf tried to get back on track, even he did not prefer to be beheaded by a giant with an axe "I must confess that... uh... several of our group are, in fact, dwarfs... "He sounded unconvinced that his words would limit the damage.
Ilèyn slowly took two steps back.
"Do you call two... several?" Beorn growled reproachfully.
"Well... uh... now you put it that way..." Ilèyn watched Gandalf pretend to think "Yes, there could be more than two..." He started at the hand counting as a murmur came from the stairs.
"Go, go... wait, that's us."
Gandalf sighed. He turned around and Oin and Gloin just stumbled out of the house, stood bolt upright next to Balin and Dwalin and bowed more out of fear than politeness.
"Oh!" Gandalf said mock amusement "And here are some more of our, uh, happy troop." He pointed to Oin and Gloin.
Ilèyn couldn't help but twist a little grin as she looked at the four dwarfs, smiling, even Dwalin. Out of fear.
She raised both eyebrows in amusement.
"And do you call seven a troop?" Beorn's horrified and increasingly angry voice pulled her back into the predicament they all were in if the skin-changer didn't calm down.
"What are you, a traveling circus?"
"Oh..." Gandalf began to laugh unnaturally, as if trying to show Beorn how entertaining they all would be. This grimaced in an angry growl when the next two came tapping out.
"Dori and Ori." Dori said "At your service." These two also bowed hastily.
"I don't want your service!" Beorn replied angrily.
"Absolutely understandable." Gandalf said quickly and waved a hand.
"Oh, Fili and Kili!" Gandalf said happily when the young dwarfs came outside and lined up in front of the group. "I'd quite forgotten. Yes."
Ilèyn looked carefully at Beorn, who by now no longer knew what to make of the situation.
"Oh yes..." The wizard became more and more meek when the rest of the company stumbled out, really clumsy, "Nori... Bofur, Bifur and Bombur..."
"Is that it?" Beorn said, utterly contrite, "Are there any more?"
Ilèyn looked around for Thorin. Just as she looked over her shoulder, the dwarf king stepped out of Beorn's house into the garden. Beorn eyed him seriously.
As no other unwanted guest came out, the giant leaned his axe against the stump on which he had chopped the wood and carefully stepped into the gap between Gandalf, Bilbo and Ilèyn and the rest of the group.
"Come in with me." he just said and went ahead.
"That was unpleasant... and close," Bilbo muttered to Ilèyn as they both approached the others and entered the house behind them.
"Indeed." she said with lowered voice.

The skin-changer offered the dwarfs seating at the huge wooden table and distributed vessels for some milk.
Ilèyn lifted her mug and looked at it skeptically. She wasn't going to get even half that amount down. She thanked Beorn when he had filled about a quarter of her jug. Next to her he poured Fili some milk into the jug. The dwarf waited patiently until the vessel was completely filled.
Ilèyn looked at him in disbelief. When the blonde saw her amused, doubtful look, he just grinned at her and took a long drink. Ilèyn smirked, but she just noticed Thorin's extremely critical look, the dwarf was leaning right next to the table and looking at her. The archer quickly looked over at the others and avoided Thorin's skepticism.
"So you are the one they call Oakenshield." Beorn said at that moment and continued his round around the table "Tell me... why is Azog the Defiler hunting you?"
"You know of Azog?" Thorin asked the counter-question "How?" He turned to the skin-changer.
"My people were the first to live in the mountains. Before the orcs came down from the north. The Defiler killed most of my family..." Beorn stared into space for a moment, as if in a trance "But some he enslaved."
The dwarfs at the table listened to him with interest, nobody made a peep.
"Not for work, you understand." Beorn continued. "But for sport. Caging skin-changers and torturing them seemed to amuse him."
Embarrassed silence in the group.
"There are others like you?" Bilbo asked softly.
"Once there were many." answered the giant.
"And now?" Bilbo asked uncertainly.
"Now... there is only one."
The hobbit looked down.
Fili was taking another huge swig from his mug when Beorn also sat down.
"You need to reach the mountain before the last days of autumn." he said.
"Before Durins Day falls. Yes." Gandalf agreed.
"You are running out of time."
"Which is why we must go through Mirkwood." Gandalf said.
One Moment.
Mirkwood?
Had Ilèyn misheard?
No. She didn't.
She felt dizzy, her ears began to rustle, and her breathing quickened. She tried to calm down as inconspicuously as possible and clung tightly with both hands to the bench on which she was sitting next to Fili and Kili.
She didn't get what Beorn, Gandalf and the others were discussing, too much she was overthrown by Gandalf's testimony.
The place she was trying to avoid. Which she had always avoided. The place she hated.
She would never set foot in this forest. Never again.
"Ilèyn..." Fili hissed next to her. She looked up at him, trying to look normal. She failed miserably.
"Is everything okay with you?" the dwarf asked softly. The others continued to listen to Beorn, who was talking about the Elves of Mirkwood and warning the group about the orcs in this area.
Without a word to Fili or the others, Ilèyn swung her legs over the bench, got up, and disappeared into the back of the house.
Confused looks from the company, but no one asked questions. Gandalf frowned and Beorn paused in his descriptions.
"I'll check on her." Fili said with lowered voice to his uncle and got up.
"You won't, nephew." Thorin tried to forestall him, but Fili was already out of reach. Thorin looked after him morosely, then turned back to the conversation at the table.

Fili walked from the dining area past the front door, behind to the stable area where the company had slept.
He didn't have to look far to find Ilèyn, hastily packing up her belongings, throwing her coat over her shoulders and just about to take her weapons.
"What are you doing there?" the dwarf asked, completely surprised, and took the bow from Ilèyn's hand. She didn't seem to have noticed him at all and winced when he suddenly appeared next to her.
"Could you make a habit of announcing yourself before you scare me any more?" she asked reproachfully. She came up to him and wanted to get her bow back.
"I have to go. Urgent. I've been here far too long."
"What threw you off track?" Fili asked.
Ilèyn rolled her eyes.
"By the time I have explained this to you, your uncle has already retaken Erebor." the dwarf replied sourly. She wanted to push past the dwarf in the direction of the exit, but Fili stood in her way.
"And you should make a habit of answering my questions." he said critically, but his voice never lost its calm. Ilèyn looked up at him loaded and tried to get past him again.
"You won't go." he said emphatically and looked at her seriously. She wanted to avoid his gaze, but she lost herself once more for a moment in his blue eyes as she looked up at him. It was like a compulsion. She just had to look at him as if she were looking for safety in his warm eyes.
"Stay." he said softly "Please."
As close as Fili Ilèyn was right now, no one had ever been so close to her without her intention to stab the one. The woody scent of pine needles and leather rose to her nose and mingled with the scent of the straw at her feet.
How did he make her feel so powerless?
She felt how her breathing involuntarily quickened and how this strange feeling began to spread within her again. Before it could get out of hand, she took a few steps back.
"I'm not going into this forest." she said in a trembling voice.
"We are with you, nothing can happen to you." Fili tried to calm her down.
"You don't understand..." Desperately Ilèyn searched for the right words.
"Then explain it to me." Fili came a little closer again.
"It's way too easy to say that." Ilèyn said.
At that moment Kili, Thorin and Bofur turned the corner and stood in Fili's back. Thorin scowled from Ilèyn to his nephew and back again.
"We are leaving." he said dryly and pushed himself between the two of them. "Put everything else together, we have to get out of here immediately."
Ilèyn grabbed her bow, which Fili was still holding in his hand, but instead of rushing away she just walked to the door and waited restlessly for the rest of the time. She seemed to be annoyed with herself. Because she gave in?
Fili was about to set about sorting his luggage when Thorin pulled him towards him.
"What did we talk about, Fili?" his uncle asked quietly and with a biting undertone.
"I don't see the problem, uncle..." Fili sighed uneasily.
"I don't like the way you look at her. The way she looks at you." Thorin growled.
"Thorin..." Fili started, but his uncle had stomped past him and was taking care of his luggage. The blonde looked after him helplessly.
"Told you..." Kili mumbled beside him and bent down for his quiver. "Put your thoughts in order, brother."
"My thoughts don't need to be rearranged, Kili." the older replied.
The younger looked at him doubtfully.
"Did she want to go again or what was going on here?" he asked.
"She doesn't want to set foot in this forest." Fili explained "Don't ask me why, she does not come out with the language."
"Thank Mahal we have you with us." Kili grinned provocatively "You can get that out of her too."
Fili looked slightly annoyed at his brother. However, when the younger one had to start laughing, it made the older one laugh too.
Both joined the others, who were now waiting for Gandalf and Beorn, packed and ready to leave.