The Sisters [A Hobbit Fanfiction]

Chapter 53

"Son," Thranduil returned passively as Legolas and Nienna joined their group.

"Another wave of orcs are coming," Legolas told Bard and Silvia, ignoring his father. "Gandalf and Thorin must be warned."

"Indeed." Bard agreed. "But we don't know where they are."

Legolas frowned and Nienna's face fell.

Just then a figure plummeted to the ground in the middle of the group, causing them to jump back and tense, prepared to fight.

However, they relaxed into perplexed expressions as the dust settled to reveal Nora. She coughed and stood with a groan, brushing the dust off her cloak.

"I need to stop trying that spell," she muttered to herself. Then, looking about for the first time, she noticed her surroundings and the people around her.

"Oh hello," she said.

"Nora!" Nienna said happily, moving to hug her friend. Even Silvia and Bard broke into smiles at the appearance of the lovable hobbit wizard.

"Where have you been?" asked Nienna as she finally released Nora from her embrace.

"Oh you know," said Nora airily, "saving kingdoms, defeating dragons, the usual..."

"You got lost again didn't you," Nienna dead panned. Nora glared and Nienna burst out laughing before going in for another hug which Nora attempted to resist while still appearing "cool".

"As touching as this reunion is," Thranduil broke in dryly. "We all have more important things to be doing given we're in the middle of a battle."

The others threw him vaguely irritated looks at his interjection.

"Speaking of gender identity," said Nora, turning to Bard while Legolas and Nienna did their best to mask their snickers. "I believe Alfrid made off with a bag of gold, two actually."

Bard groaned angrily. "That cowardly worm isn't worthy of being called a man."

"Well," speculated Nora, "I'm not sure he would appreciate being called a man anyway. He's going through a... development actually. It's quite impressive."

The others all looked at her in confusion but she simply grinned.

"Right," said Nienna after a long moment. "Moving on, Legolas and I need to find Gandalf and Thorin."

"Why?" asked Nora curiously.

"There's another wave of orcs coming," explained Silvia. Nora blanched for a moment before steeling herself.

"Right well, last I checked, Gandalf was on the tower." She pointed toward the spire rising up in the center of the town. "And I'm heading to Thorin right now with backup."

"Backup?" asked Legolas in confusion. "Where?" He looked around for Nora's "backup" only to realize she was grinning at him sheepishly. "Oh right," he said, "us. We're the backup."

"So where is Thorin?" asked Nienna. Nora answered by pointing towards the mist cloaked cliffs that were her goal.

"What's he doing up there?"

"Taking down Azog," Nora said calmly. Nienna turned to her hobbit friend, aghast.

"What?!"

"Well that's where the signals for the orc army were coming from, so Thorin probably went to cut off the head of the snake so to speak," Thranduil mused. "Almost clever..."

"Oh do shut up," snapped Nienna, only sparing a brief glance for the elven king before turning back to Nora. "Does he realize it's very probably a trap?!"