A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Alternate Entry Seven - A Variety of Frustrations

Christmas morning I was up before the light of the sun had reached us. I knew already I’d not be falling back asleep yet, so wearily I dragged on my boots, my coat and my scarf. My hair was still braided decently from the night before so I left it as it was. The chill of the winter air as I hauled Beorn’s door open brought me to a crisper state of attention, and I smiled as I marched out through one of Beorn’s paths. The walls of the snow path were over my head by at least several inches, and there was another several inches inside the path as well. I’d only ever seen dustings of snow on even colder winds before, so all of this white was still entrancing to me. I could lose myself in it for ages.

Shoving my way through anywhere Beorn hadn’t walked was a chore, but thankfully both his man-self and his bear-self tended to be fairly active people, and they came and went from several different directions regularly. I was able to follow two different paths to what I believed to be a fir tree, which had lost a good third of its branches in a black streak down its western side; I suspected lightning. It would mean I may be able to climb with my back to that streak and without snow falling down on me from the branches my shoulders would jostle otherwise.

Since there were branches near the ground I was able to start up without getting the running start I had no room for. The bark was a bit slick, too, which didn’t let me wedge my fingers in its cracks even if I’d made the attempt. I hauled myself into the lower branches, clumsier with my bulky clothes, not that I would go without them. I no longer had a rampaging fever to keep me warm.

At least I had a nice pillow of about four feet of snow below me if I fell, I thought to myself, as my feet slid a bit on one of the branches I was dominating. I’d never climbed in snow before. This was quite fun. And it was beautiful out here, being able to see above the snow now to bask in the fresh sparkle of the snow heaped all over the trees and around and against them, and the tufts of green needles or sprigs of brown boughs poking out from underneath their snowy hats as though wondering if the winter was done yet. I decided then and there that I was always going to live somewhere there was a proper winter, like this, every year. The sight of all this somehow made me feel cleaner on the inside. Lighter.

I continued up from my pause, knowing the sights would only get better the higher I went. I stretched above me for a branch I couldn’t reach as well as I wanted to, and wrapped my mittens over it, heaving upward.

My mittens slipped off the branch like two drops of water off the tip of an icicle. I gasped, my mind erupting with a pale astonishment—this had never happened before. I had never fallen before, not like this. Not while I was climbing. These were trees—they provided their own handlebars, for crying out loud!

My balance flew back, my feet clattering sideways. I windmilled as I soared backward through the empty space left by an age-old lightning strike, as if I could flap hard enough to catch myself before the ground did, and cried out once as I plummeted down.

My arms were behind me when I landed nearly flat on my back in the snow. I sucked in air, trying to figure out why all of a sudden breathing wasn’t coming naturally to me, and realized at the same time that I couldn’t properly move my arms. They were stuck in the snow beneath me, but more than that, my shoulders were in a great deal of pain. I’d dislocated them, and knocked the breath out of myself at the same time.

Tears sparked in my eyes. “Not now,” I moaned. Not on Christmas. Not when nobody even knows I’m gone, and it’s not even properly light out. Not when the falling snow will hide me from anyone but the birds within the hour. My breath finally returned to me, though my back and lungs felt abraded, and I dragged in ragged breaths like I was reeling in sharks from a net at shore. I tried curling my fingers and my shoulders flared again, and I went stiff, fighting back the pain. I wasn’t accustomed to crying because of physical pain, goodness knew, but apparently I had sprung a leak.