An Unexpected Journey? You Better Believe It!

The Trolls Weren't an Inconvenience to Me~

They hadn't been traveling for long when Jael got out Bilbo's bag of things and said, "Here. I'm pretty sure that you forgot all this stuff when you left."

Afterward, she continued on as if nothing had happened, ignoring their surprised looks. What? I can be kind when I need to be. Nope~ I wasn't being a stalker! I was kind! KinD!

Although she was trying to convince herself, her inner rational being told her that she had made absolutely no progress on that front.

About half an hour later, she pulled open her bag, placing on her heavy winter coat and boots, not having any interest in getting soaked. Although she was now hot, it was better than getting soaked and becoming ill.

She didn't have the physique of the dwarves; she wasn't able to get drenched for hours and not get ill. She rolled her eyes at the thought. A human's body was seriously stupid. They had almost no benefits over the dwarves except for height, and she didn't even have that!

She grumbled under her breath even as the rain began pouring down, and the others got drenched before they managed to pull out their coats.

However, her mood instantly lightened up as the rain poured down. Both places she'd lived (England and Florida) had rain almost every day, and it reminded her of home. A smile lit up her face as she watched them struggle to get their coats on. Petty revenge is the best~

She glanced around to see that Gandalf had vanished. Great. So this is following the book. Lovely.

Thorin muttered something about eating, and Jael rolled her eyes.

She mouthed along with him, "Where shall we find a dry patch to sleep on?"

Nori realized that Gandalf had disappeared only now and groaned, "Just when a wizard would have been most useful, too."

Realizing there was no help for it, they huddled under some trees where it was relatively drier. Desperately, they tried to light a fire. But even the dwarves, who could light a fire with almost anything, couldn't light one.

Jael, feeling extremely smug, pulled out her lighter, and handed it to Dwalin.

"What's this?"

"It's a lighter from my world. It's got something inside it that creates fire."

Taking it back, she showed them how it worked. Then, she tore a strip of cloth from her pajama shorts-it wasn't like she could ever wear them again in this world anyway-so that they could use it to start a fire.

The fire that she started burned brightly for just long enough to raise their hopes before a passing squirrel's badly timed jump dumped water on it.

Glaring up at the hapless squirrel, she sighed. "Well, I'm out of ideas."

Grumbling under her breath as they began to argue, she hoped that they wouldn't notice the fire burning in the distance. However, as the dwarves' voices took on an excited tone, she knew that that was a vain hope.

"Should we go look at it?"

"But they're trolls~" She sang behind them as they crept toward the fire. She was quiet, but that didn't mean that she couldn't protest this retarded decision.

"How could you know that without checking?"

"I'm psychic?"

"What does that even mean?" They were all confused, but she simply shrugged.

"It's a thing from my world. I can, sometimes, see the future." That seems like a better explanation than saying, 'Hey, you're all book characters, and, quite frankly, I liked you better as characters since you didn't get on my nerves as much.' Yeah, that's not happening.

They stopped and stared at her, in utter shock. "You can-you can see the future?!!!!"

"Sometimes." She sweatdropped. Their eyes are so...sparkley. I feel like I just lied to my dogs. I'm a horrible person.

She sighed, "That doesn't matter right now. I told you who was at that fire so what are you going to do about it?"

They pulled back, falling into a long argument. While they argued, she noticed that Bilbo seemed to be extremely uncomfortable. She grinned at him, and he offered a tremulous smile back to her.

Finally, the dwarves decided to send their "burglar" to check out the troll situation. Jael rolled her eyes. I've already told them that they're trolls. Why are they bothering to "check out the troll situation"?

However, taking a glance at the sky, she felt that she had managed to stall them long enough that the trolls would still turn into stone.

Before Bilbo headed out, she pulled him aside. "There are three trolls there. Trolls' purses can speak. Watch out for that. Also..." She leaned in, whispering that last bit of advice with a small smirk.

Surprised, he looked up at her, and she nodded at him with a beaming smile.

Slightly less worried about his first try at being a burglar, Bilbo set off.

Using his Hobbit-quietness, that he was extremely proud of, even to the point that he had secretly disdained the dwarvish racket, he quickly crept towards the flickering fire.

Just as Jael had said, there were three trolls, two of which were still eating giant haunches of some sort of meat. Bilbo wasn't sure that he wanted to know what the meat was.

But the trolls soon enlightened him, complaining that they'd already had mutton yesterday, and they were having it again today, and there was an extremely high chance that it would be what they'd be eating tomorrow as well.

Bert berated William, but William simply replied that he couldn't expect people to just come up to him, waiting to be eaten.

As Bilbo had already been warned against trying to pickpocket a troll, he simply watched as they argued with each other over their journey down from the mountains.

However, when it seemed as if they were about to begin packing up to avoid the sun, Bilbo deliberately stepped on a twig.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When the dwarves could no longer wait, they headed out to see why Bilbo had not come back. Jael, who already knew what was going to happen, decided to wait another ten-twenty minutes before checking to make sure that nothing had gone wrong.

She arrived in time to hear the boys confess to having fleas and diseases, and she nearly broke out into laughter, barely managing to hold it in by biting her lip and burying her face into Everest's fur.

Soon, the trolls were stone. Instantly, Jael stopped trying to hide her laughter, collapsing onto the forest floor, almost in tears. The dwarves glared at her, but she didn't care, especially since she had warned them that there were trolls.

When she finally calmed down, she grinned up at them, her entire face lighting up. "Well, trolls are a pain, but at least I wasn't inconvenienced~"

They all sighed, but before they could berate her, Gandalf stepped out from behind a tree.

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I am so sorry. I have no excuse!