The Unexpected Journey of Aurora, The Wanderer

Chapter 4: Guardian

Aurora's P.O.V

Do not kill the wizard. Do not kill the wizard. Do not kill the damned bloody wizard!

He's stalling. Probably trying to think up some sort of foolish excuse to convince me of why Bilbo is going on some silly adventure. I wait a bit more. Several minutes pass and now I'm convinced he has either had a stroke or died. Because it's almost 5 minutes later and all I've gotten from him, is; well.

I can't very well figure out much from 'well' now can I.

"Gandalf. I only have so much patience, so don't continue to sit there and think up of some ridiculous excuse when you know for a fine fact that I won't believe it. And if you think for one moment that I will, then you truly don't know me at all. I want the truth as to why you, 13 dwarves and some god forsaken quest, is here in my home and evolving Bilbo!"

Now I can only imagine what he's looking at right now. From the no bullshit look on my face, my stiff posture seated on the chair, a glare that will rival the flames of hell and the 'I am 30 seconds away from kicking your arse if you don't start talking' air around me. It looks as if he's fearing for his life but also debating something else.

"Now Aurora, this isn't exactly something I can tell you, without permission of course. I am not the leader of this company nor am I responsible for it. If you wish to know the truth, I will have to ask Thorin to be present, if he approves of informing you of this quest that is."

"Uh huh. So, you won't tell me the reason why you travelled all this way. Even though you're involved in this. And most likely the one to plant the idea, am I right?" The twitch in his eyebrow lets me know that I'm spot on with my assumptions. "Which is a bit suspicious, considering you only travel through these parts when I'm home. You've really got no other reason to come this way, considering your business is usually with myself and the fact that we are guardians, you discuss what you've come across on your travels and I do the same. You always know when I'm home. And yet you seemed very surprised to find me home, meaning you were not anticipating me being home, so early that is."

"Well, I-"

"No, you were counting on me still being away. What did you think was going to happen Gandalf? That I wasn't going to notice my brother missing when I came back home, or what if we crossed paths? What piss poor excuse were you going to come up with? Huh? Because seeing my brother, with 13 dwarves and you of all people, isn't going to naturally make me suspicious, nor want to drag Bilbo all the way back home, where he's safe?"

"That's exactly my point?" He accuses, pointing a finger at me.

"What point? Huh, Gandalf. So, far I've had to figure this out for myself. You and your merry band of dwarves want to take Bilbo away on some godforsaken quest without informing me of why, where and how in all of the gods names did you think you'd get away with this without me noticing let alone any of the other guardians."

"You keep Bilbo locked up in here!"

"That's not the damn point and no I bloody well don't keep him locked up!"

"Yes you do!"

"Bilbo is free to do whatever he wants, of which he knows of and not that he needs my permission."

"Ever since you became a guardian, I've noticed how little Bilbo seems interested in venturing beyond the borders of the Shire. And that's because of you, every time you come home and tell him of your adventures, your duties as a guardian. It scares him and I see it, that free spirit of his dulling. He's become too cozy, cooped up in this hole than living his life. Out there in the real world."

"You don't think that I haven't noticed that? He asks of my travels and I tell him. Every single detail. I don't lie to him Gandalf, I don't give him false hope. I tell him what the real world is like, all the dangers I've encountered, the evil that is trying to rot this world."