CHAPTER ONE: REST

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Valadhiel had fallen asleep rather quickly after her talk with Thorin. In fact, by the time she woke up, she hadn't remembered falling asleep. Upon hearing the sounds of morning birds, as well as smelling something cooking, she opened her eyes and tiredly looked in the direction of the fire she smelled.

She furrowed her brow when she realized that she was leaning against something. She also felt something draped over her waist. She sat up, causing whatever it was around her waist to fall into her lap, then she turned her head, immediately blushing as red as her hair was when she saw what she'd been cuddled up with. In fact, it was no what, but a who: Thorin Oakenshield.

She thought back to their conversation last night, then bit her lower lip. She must have fallen asleep while she was talking to him. No doubt she'd leaned her head on him, and he, most likely not wanting to wake her, had probably just laid down with her.

"So, have a nice night, lass?"

Valadhiel turned her head when she heard someone speak, her eyes landing on Bofur, Bilbo Kili, Fili, and Balin. She blushed even more before she scooted away from Thorin. "I... I don't even remember falling asleep last night." She commented, glancing at Thorin before she reached up and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Uh huh, sure." Fili replied with a smirk, dragging the word "sure" out in a teasing and mischievous manner.

Valadhiel looked at Fili when he spoke. "What's that supposed to mean?" She questioned defensively, playing with the hem of Thorin's coat. It was a rather soft and comfortable coat, and it smelled just like him.

"Oh, I think you already know." Kili replied, grinning at her just as mischievously as his older brother was.

"Come now, lads, don't tease the poor lass so much." Balin scolded, though not harshly. He was rather amused by all of this.

"Tease me about what?" Valadhiel asked as she looked down to avoid their gazes. She knew exactly what, but she wasn't about to let them know that she liked Thorin, even if they did already know.

"For liking Thorin." Bilbo replied nonchalantly.

Valadhiel gave a small chuckle. "Liking Thorin? I like him, but... not in that way."

Bilbo raised his brow. "Seriously? You... you're going to try to deny it, even though... even though it's obvious?"

Valadhiel bit her lower lip and glanced at Thorin again, realizing that denying that she liked the dwarf was rather stupid when at least five others already knew that she did. "How... many of you... know?" She asked slowly, looking over at the others.

"Probably only us, lass." Bofur replied with a shrug.

"The others are not quite as observant." Balin told her with a chuckle. "Though I believe Dwalin has known since Rivendell."

"Though if our uncle keeps making a habit of talking to you like he did last night," Fili began.

"And makes a habit of calling you beautiful," Kili added.

"Then I'm sure others are going to start noticing." Bilbo finished.

Valadhiel blushed when Kili spoke. "You heard the conversation?"

Fili and Kili smirked, glanced at each other, then looked at her before Fili began to quote her in his best girly voice, though was obviously an exaggerated tone. "I used to hate these scars, but I've finally come to accept them as a part of me."

Kili then made his voice deeper and looked over at Fili. "That's good. Because I think they make you look even stronger, and even more beautiful. You're the perfect image of a warrior."

Fili looked at Kili in surprise, the two doing their best to jokingly yet playfully imitate Thorin and Valadhiel. "You think so?"

Kili smiled, though he was clearly trying to hold back a laugh. "I do."

Fili let out a short laugh, but quickly bit it back before continuing in his impression of Valadhiel. "Has anyone ever told you that you have a handsome smile?"

"No, no, it was very handsome, don't forget the very." Bilbo corrected, stifling a laugh until after he finished speaking.

Fili looked at Bilbo, then he nodded. "Oh, right." He cleared his throat and then continued in his "Valadhiel Voice". "Has anyone ever told you that you have a very-"

"All right, all right!" Valadhiel exclaimed with a laugh, blushing though amused by Kili and Fili's exaggerated impressions of them. "You heard the conversation, no need to go about mocking us!" She playfully threw a pebble at Kili's arm, then at Fili's arm, hitting the mark.

Bofur, Balin, and Bilbo were laughing at Kili and Fili, then laughed even more when Valadhiel threw a pebble at them and they feigned hurt.

"That hurt." Kili whined with a playful frown, though his lips kept quivering, threatening to turn upwards into a smile.

"So mean." Fili said, shaking his head at Valadhiel in feigned disapproval.

"What are you all laughing at?"

Valadhiel turned her head and found that Thorin had woken up. She blushed just a little before she looked at the others, then hesitated. What should she say?

"Fili was just, uh... just joking around and having us listen to his impression of Vala." Bilbo told him, adding in a couple of laughs in between. To keep them from sounding like nervous laughs, he thought about the impression Fili did so the laughs would be real laughs.

Fili looked at his uncle and nodded. "Sounding like a girl is hard. Apparently, I cracked everyone up."

Thorin raised his brow and gave them all an almost suspicious look, but he then nodded and gave a small look of amusement. "I imagine it is difficult to imitate a non-dwarvish female."

Valadhiel chuckled. "Especially a female that happens to be an elf." She commented. Dwarvish women sounded much like the men did, the poor things. Many other women had voices of all different sorts, but an elf always seemed to have a smooth, silky sort of voice. There was always a certain calm. Valadhiel possessed such a voice, though when she and Thorin had first met, she'd chosen to use a stronger voice to help her not feel weak or frightened.

Gandalf, who had silently been sitting nearby and listening to the conversation ever since Valadhiel woke up as he smoked his pipe, chuckled to himself. He would have never thought that Thorin and Vala would fall for each other. Neither had really shown interest in anyone before, but there was a first for everything.

Gloin, Bifur, Bombur, and Dwalin, who had woken up and overheard some of the conversation, chuckled and nodded in agreement with what not only Fili had said, but what the reptilian elf had said, too.

"Aye, especially if one is a female elf." Gloin commented. "You females of the elven race have the lightest and calmest voices."

"Well, she doesn't when she's angry." Dwalin pointed out with a smirk.

Valadhiel got to her feet, grimacing a little before leaning on a rock, then she chuckled a little. "No one uses a light, calm, silky voice when they're angry."

Thorin got to his feet when he noticed Valadhiel grimace, and he gently took her hand and began to push her back down. "You should rest, Vala."

Valadhiel would have resisted, but her ankle hurt far too much to do so. She sat back down with a small sigh. "All right, I'll rest for a little bit. But I'm sure we'll be leaving here very soon."

"I have actually asked the eagles if they could keep us here for a couple of days." Gandalf commented as he rose from the spot he had been sitting at. "They agreed. Lord Gwaihir says they will keep us fed, hydrated, and will do anything else they are able to for us."

"So we're simply going to be doing nothing up on a eyrie for a couple of days?" Valadhiel questioned, crossing her arms over her chest. "I may have gotten an arrow wound, and my wing may not be completely healed yet, but I'm fine. I can travel, Gandalf."

"No, you can't." Thorin said firmly before Gandalf could even utter a word. "After all the shifting you did yesterday despite being wounded and drained of energy, you are not well enough for travel. You need to stay here and rest. All of us will do the same. It'll do us all good."

"Thorin is right, lass." Balin said calmly before she could fire back a reply. She was looking a little rattled, and he didn't want her to start arguing and get Thorin rattled himself. The fiery-tempered elf had a way of doing that, which didn't help her calm down at all, but only made things worse.

Valadhiel looked at Thorin when he spoke and indeed had been about to reply in a sassy manner before Balin began to speak. She looked at Balin when he spoke, then around at a few of the others who agreed with them, which included Kili, Fili, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur. Dwalin said nothing, but he seemed to agree with Gandalf and Thorin on staying a couple of days.

"Fine. You're right." The elf finally said in defeat, using a quieter tone of voice, looking down at her feet with a quiet sigh.

"Sorry, what was that?" Thorin asked as he looked down at her.

"I said that you're right." Valadhiel replied, speaking a little louder this time as she looked up at Thorin from where she sat.

"Could you repeat that, please?" Thorin asked, giving somewhat of a smirk, a mischievously playful glint in his blue eyes.

Valadhiel was about to speak again, but she then caught the smirk and playful look. She gave a feigned glare and raised her brow. "Thorin Oakenshield, I won't say it again." She replied, her arms still crossed from earlier.

"Simply wanted to hear it as often as I could get you to say it, because it will most likely be the last time I hear such a thing from your mouth." Thorin replied, still smirking at her as he crossed his arms across his chest.

Valadhiel rolled her eyes, though couldn't help the amused smile. She glanced around at the other dwarves when they chuckled, then she looked up when Bofur walked over to her and handed her a bowl.

"Here, lass. You'll need plenty to eat if you want to heal up fast." He told her.

Valadhiel took the bowl from the dwarf. "Thank you, Bofur." She replied, then took a bite of the food. It wasn't anything much, though it was something different: fish. No doubt the eagles had caught and brought some up for them.

The rest of that day went by slowly. The dwarves, Bilbo, Gandalf, and Valadhiel all rested that day and spent a lot of time in conversation. They spoke of home, or of memories in Erebor, and they even talked a little about some of Gandalf's adventures, though that wasn't discussed for very long. It didn't seem that the wizard liked to talk about all of his adventures, though Valadhiel supposed it was because he was so old, and he didn't want the others to know just how old he was, or how long he'd been around.

"What about you, Vala?" Gloin asked as they sat around the fire at dinner. "What were you doing before you joined us on our quest?"

Valadhiel looked up from her meal of rabbit stew when she was addressed. "I had just finished a quest for some people in Bree. They had wandered off into the Barrow-Downs and lost a member of their group, who was the husband of one of the women. They asked me to wander into the Southern Barrow-Downs to find him." She replied quietly before she looked back down and poked at her stew. She then furrowed her brow. "Haven't I already mentioned this to you all before?"

"The Barrow-Downs?" Bilbo questioned, resisting a shudder. "I have heard many stories of that place. I never wish to visit there. Is it... is it as bad as they say?"

"Yes." Valadhiel replied with a nod, deciding she didn't need an answer to her question. "And even worse if you go to the Southern side of it."

"Well, what happened, lassie?" Dwalin asked impatiently. "Did you find the man?"

Valadhiel gave a soft sigh. "Yes. He had been turned into a Barrow-Wight, however, so I put the poor man out of his misery, and I had to break the news to his wife."

"That sounds like it was hard to do." Ori commented solemnly before he took a bite of his stew.

"Sadly, this is the world we live in." Valadhiel replied, her tone becoming a little harder than it had been before. "Death is around every corner. Darkness is spreading. All we can do is do all we are able to keep the darkness from completely taking over."

Kili and Fili looked at each other, then they looked at Valadhiel again before speaking in unison. "How long have you been a warrior?"

Valadhiel looked at the brothers, then she tilted her head to the side slightly before she answered their question. "I have lost track of time, but I have been a warrior for thousands of years. I was raised to be a warrior, actually. I may be an elf, but I'm more than that."

Gandalf stood up after a moment and cleared his throat to get the attention of everyone. "Everyone should get some sleep now, or at least let Valadhiel get her rest. She needs it, especially since she is recovering."

The dwarves and Bilbo all agreed, so they all bid Valadhiel a good night before they walked away to their own sleeping mats to either go to sleep themselves, or to quietly talk to each other. Thorin stayed behind to talk to Valadhiel once everyone else had wandered off, and most of the day the two of them talked either alone or with the others. Soon, lunch had passed, then evening and dinner came around.

Valadhiel set her empty wooden bowl down beside her after dinner and looked up at Thorin, who had walked back over to her. After he sat down next to her, she glanced away, looked at him again, then looked up at the starlit sky. "It's a beautiful evening this evening."

"Yes." Thorin replied, glancing at the sky before he looked at her. "It definitely is."

Valadhiel's face flushed when she felt Thorin's gaze on her, though she tried to calm her rapid heart as she looked over at him again. "Thanks again for letting me wear your coat." She told him in a calm and quiet tone of voice.

"Of course." Thorin replied nonchalantly. "You need it more than I do, after all."

Valadhiel smiled at him and pulled the coat around her further. He was right, she did need it more than he did. Her shirt had been torn to make a bandage for her wing, so it left her back and belly exposed. Not only did she not like her skin being exposed, but it was cold. "I'm sorry for slowing everyone down. I know we need to reach the mountain by a certain time."

Thorin looked Valadhiel in the eye before he took her hand and squeezed it. "Don't apologize for things that can't be controlled. Just focus on healing up. We can still reach the mountain in time, and we will."

Valadhiel smiled at Thorin again when he spoke and nodded softly before she looked down a little, her smile fading.

Thorin furrowed his brow, placed his thumb under her chin, and lifted her face so that she would look him in the eye. "Vala, what's wrong?"

Valadhiel looked into Thorin's glimmering blue eyes and hesitated before she answered him. "I'm just... I'm just nervous about reaching the mountain. About seeing Smaug. I know you think he could very well be gone by now, but I know he's still there."

Thorin let go of Valadhiel's chin and rubbed his thumb across her hand with his other hand. "What makes you so sure that he's still there?"

Valadhiel bit her lower lip and looked away from Thorin once more. "I... I... just know that he is. Dragons can be greedy, especially Smaug. He wouldn't leave his hoard for anything, except food every now and then."

"How do you know what Smaug would do?" Thorin questioned her, narrowing his eyes a little, though he still held Vala's hand.

Valadhiel chewed on her lower lip for a second before she looked up at Thorin again. "Thorin... can I trust you with a big secret? My deepest, darkest secret? You must not tell anyone else."

Thorin looked at her curiously, though he no longer seemed suspicious of anything. "You can trust me with anything, Vala."

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