Umm...Is this the right time to say "don't shoot me?"

To be frank, I am amazed people put up with my ridiculous upload rates nowadays. An immense apology to all those who actually like this story. I try, I really do. Perhaps not hard enough, but I still do try.

I will try to be faster in uploading. I cannot promise anything, though.

Here is your fill for the first time this year.

Enjoy.

The setting of camp was a standard affair to the dwarves that night, and gladly free of Orcs and the other foul things of mountain and forest, to their west and east.

It was already quite late into the night then, and the stars peeked out behind dusty clouds, giving the Company little light. They had tried to start a campfire, but quickly found they had no dry wood to burn, and had lain down to sleep, uncomfortably wary, even with a watch of four.

Bilbo sat to the north of their camp, his eyelids heavy and mind sluggish from being woken. Oín had already dropped off to sleep, taking his sleeping-roll by the attempts of a fire-pit, and leaving the hobbit to sit on the damp grass.

As he watched the reedy plains in the darkness - or, rather, what he could make out-, Bilbo's attention whittled away slowly. He was tired, and although Beorn's honey cakes were filling, he did not think them a good substitute for a good dinner by the fireside.

By the south side of their camp, he heard Fíli – or was that Kíli? – was likewise lacking diligence. Here and there, the hobbit caught snatches of speech, hurried and hushed, but muffled by the steady breeze. That got Bilbo interested. Turning around on the spot, his eyes caught on Thorin on the east-lying face.

Thorin's back was straight, and his eyes were watchful. He hadn't spoken much as they set up camp; just enough to set his companions his order for the evening. After that, Bilbo had seen him ponder awhile by himself, with what seemed like a map in his hands, until the light of the moon had been covered by cloud, and then both of them had laid down to sleep.

Now, unseen by Bilbo, Thorin sat with no map, but Eragon's blue sword across his legs, as he pondered what Gandalf had told him.

Perhaps, most strangely, he found the claim of magic the most credible. The flames upon the elf's sword could – could – have been trickery, with oil hidden in the handle. But closer inspection revealed no channels or switches, and no fuller to let the oil run. But surviving such a fall to the outcropping? Or skewering Azog with roots?

No, there was nothing else it could be. And Thorin allowed himself a vicious smile, the more he mulled it over.

Assuredly, that had been agonising for the Orc.

And it may have actually killed it.

The prince wasn't sure what to make of that. His enemy, the very one that had taken his grandfather's head, lifeless and drowning in a pool of his own blood, but at the hands of another. At once, it lifted his spirits immeasurably, and wounded his pride grievously.

Whenever his mind wandered to that subject, he had always imagined himself; in some way or another, standing over Azog's corpse. Some beheaded, others crushed. By dagger or sword or hammer, on the field of battle, or in the dead of night, when the orc's guard was low, it hardly mattered to him.

Though sometimes, in his younger years, he courted the idea of trapping the filth in the Mountain and letting the drake burn it to a crisp. If he was lucky, Smaug would die of the Orc's maggoty flesh.

But idle jest aside, it struck a nerve. That he would never see vengeance for his forefathers by his own hand was…unfulfilling.

'But then', Thorin mused, 'perhaps it is better this way.'

If they were lucky, Azog had bled out on the outcrop, and the remains of his pack would be leaderless. They would fight amongst themselves to establish their dominance, and lose time in pursuing the Company.

But, it wouldn't be wise to hope for that too vehemently, thought Thorin. Azog had already survived one such torment. If another pack found him, there was a fair chance he would survive, lick his wounds, and set out again.

Both ways, that meant distance to gain on the orcs.

They would need all of that they could get before passing through Mirkwood.

As he sat there, eyes delving through the darkness, and piercing shallowly into the trees, the breeze died slightly, and a few whispered words floated over to him.

"What if…what if they're already dead?"

The voice was unmistakably one of his nephews, but the question may have well been his own.

What if Eragon and his drake had already succumbed to the wilderness? It made him pause, to consider of what they would have to do with the elf's weapons.

The royal cobalt blade was a majestic piece of weaponsmithing, which even Thorin's eyes, like all dwarves, could appreciate for its beauty. But it was long and heavy, and Thorin knew it would be too unwieldy for all in their company except Gandalf.

As for the other sword, Thorin didn't even bother. Not only did it suffer the same issue as Eragon's sword, but Gandalf's little speech in the troll-cave had made them all just slightly wary of the blade; too wary to put the weapon to good use.

It reminded Thorin of something the captain of the guard at Erebor had said once to him;

'If you can't trust your tool, can you trust yourself to bear it?'

Thorin didn't know, and he didn't care. It wasn't a dilemma he was going to delve into, not while on the march.

And as for the bow, it would be the first day of never before he even picked that up.

And if – just if – Gandalf was right.

What would happen if only one survived?

Thinking on it made Thorin realise, surprisingly, that he would almost prefer it if the drake survived.

A maddened drake after his blood was, of course, nothing something to forget. No, not at all.

But it was infinitely more familiar to him than the alternative.

A grieving elf. And for once, his first reaction wasn't a sneer.

It was guilt. A faint prick of guilt, but guilt nonetheless.

Regardless of his race, Thorin could accept there was some respect in the depths of his mind for Eragon, if only as a warrior.

Not trust, no. Never that.

But respect, for any being that led, or chose to take up arms and defend his people, was telling of a being's character, be they man, elf, or dwarf.

Thorin could attest to the truth in that view, even if part of him didn't want to; the part of him that had watched that faithless sprite sit atop his steed, on that wind-blasted ridge, and do nothing!

The grass rustled in the chill wind, cutting through Thorin's armour and overcoat.

He didn't shiver. Cold like that was normal in Erebor, in the mining chasms. Any dwarf worth his trade wouldn't react any different, either.

But there was something else, something that put him ill at ease. For the briefest of moments, the ghost of a chill crept through the hairs on his back, parting them with just the least touch, like frozen fingers grazing skin.

Unsettling.

Wrong.

Thorin craned his face into the breeze, and stared suspiciously at the dark tree trunks and the dense shrubbery.
This wasn't just his mind on elves, this was more. It was faint, yes; a certain part of him scoffed, and bade he let the matter rest and put it from his thoughts.

His instincts as a warrior insisted otherwise, however. The uneasiness in his gut spoke volumes.

"Thorin?"

Behind the prince, Balin had set himself down, legs sprawled out between the grass blades, chilled with the damp of the soil.

Thorin did not reply immediately, instead choosing to lift the blade in his hands, finding a strange sort of solace in its beauty.

Perhaps the image of the moon reflected in its scabbard, a circle of silver peering through dark cloud, or the burnished wire that coiled the handle like moss, or so many small ropes.

He could not tell. It was a singular piece; a part of him knew he would likely never see another such so fair.

But Balin sat still behind him, and he had not answered the obvious question hidden in the silence he had drawn out. Beckoning his old friend to sit down beside him, Thorin gazed out on the plains again, at once full of words and without a voice to speak them.

This Balin saw plainly, and kept his own words within his chest, content to wait for Thorin to answer in his own time.

Perhaps only a minute passed.

Maybe it was ten. However long Thorin let the wind speak in his place, his words clamoured to be spoken, grappling with one another to be the first.

And even besides that, a good part of him merely wished to keep what he knew to himself, for fear of Balin's response.

For fear of the Company's response, he supposed.

The Company was loyal - of that he had no doubts in his mind at all, and it always warmed his breast, just a little - but even with that, any time wasted arguing within themselves would divide them, tantamount to giving the Orcs a blade, and practically begging to be killed.

Not to mention they needed to be upon the mountain-slope before Durin's Day.

But Balin still waited on an answer, even if it was only to be told to have patience; that, in time, Thorin would reveal the truth.

"You were right." Thorin muttered, almost amazed that, of all things, those words slipped out first. "About his age."

Balin said nothing still, feeling, perhaps, that this was something his friend needed to work through, to come to terms with.

Perhaps not. Thorin couldn't tell.

"Gandalf did not say much." Thorin continued, his voice a rumbling whisper, quite like the clashing of granite in the mines of Erebor, and just as loud in the dead of the night, as if heard by the mountaintop. "But there are a few things I now know."

Thorin collected himself once more, steeling his resolve to divulge the things he knew; things, he knew, that may not be well-recieved.

"For one, he seems to come from a land not dissimilar to our own."

There was no outburst from Balin, no outrage, nothing that spoke betrayal. And the silence, too, did not seem forced, and so Thorin kept speaking at a slow pace.

"By how he came to find us at our meeting-place, I am unsure." Thorin muttered. "The wizard was not specific with most of Eragon's life before we met him."

And here, Thorin's, son of Thrain, throat grew dry. What he would tell next was not something Balin would take lightly, for good or ill.

"He..." Thorin trailed off, and switched tack.

"There..." Thorin shook himself and clenched his fist hard, the sharp pain reminding him that those particular wounds had yet to heal.

'Enough of this!' he berated himself. 'They are only words. It is not as if you are about to fall upon you own sword.'

Those words did little to bolster his courage.

"There…was conflict in the land he came from."

So far, so good. Very soon though, Thorin knew, that would not last.

"And…from what I could gather…" Thorin muttered this, as if his body did not wish the words that came next. But he soldiered on, determined, that for good or ill, at least it would not just be he and the wizard in possession of this knowledge.

Damn it all! Why was this even so difficult?!

"Eragon was a figurehead to one of the sides. He may have even been the leader."

This.

This was the silence Thorin had feared, when he began this speech. It was tense, frayed with thoughts desperate to be voiced, opinions warring with reality.

Even the chill breeze seemed to have abated, like it watched and knew of what they spoke.

This sort of silence never boded well to the response of those addressed.

"How old was he?"

A shudder near well went up Thorin's back. Balin's voice was low and quiet, but no longer with the easy lilt that so often graced his speech; it was instead thick and deep with raw, jumbled emotion.

Answer or no, lie or no, there was no path Thorin could take here that would escape all judgement. Balin would no longer be content to wait. This had become more than just a runaway elf. This had morphed into something that spoke badly of all their judgements, Thorin's chiefly of all.

"As he is now, Gandalf thinks him to have seen eighteen summers." Thorin admitted ruefully, tracing the strange rune engraved into the scabbard with unease. There would be a reckoning from Balin, not undeserved, for this.

"I meant when he started fighting, Thorin." Balin replied gruffly, grasping his oldest friend by the scruff of his jacket and drilling him with a deep stare.

For some inexplicable reason, the question raised in Thorin feelings of anger, rather than guilt (which he supposed, later, that Balin had been attempting to conjure).

"What does that matter to the Company?" Thorin whispered brutally, shaking off Balin's grip. "He is of age now! We are not responsible for him picking up a sword when he was still a child." Thorin argued. Balin fell deathly silent. There was no competing that point. No argument to be made.

"It may not matter to the Company." Balin agreed wearily. "But to sate my own curiosity, I suppose. I feel there is nothing deeper to be understood, but I wished to know nonetheless." The elder dwarf's eyes glimmered uncertainly, perhaps with anger, Thorin thought, or sadness.

"Will you tell them?"

Thorin spoke not for a while, contemplating just whether he should.

Would it hurt their travel? The Company would hardly stop from this revelation. The wizard knew, and Bilbo Baggins was hardly that sort of Hobbit. Possessing of traits not usually seen in burglars, yes. But not so confrontational.

His kin…some may be surprised. Glóin seemed to have an idea of what secrets Eragon kept, to Thorin's slight curiosity. Most of the others did not seem to, or had not voiced their suspicions.

Perhaps he should. But not everything. That was a tale for another time.

"You may tell them, should they ask." Thorin replied at last, voice finally resembling his usual, stony tone, locking Balin with a firm stare. "But do not bandy it about."

Balin nodded once, and sat himself down at his Prince's side, gazing out on the grassy plains.

"You should rest, Thorin." Balin spoke, and gently prised Brisingr from Thorin's steely grip.

Thorin scowled, as he often did, but did not reply. He merely stood up, and trudged over to Balin's sleeping cloth.

On the camp's other edge, Bilbo averted his gaze sharply, lest Thorin see him neglecting his watch.

Curiosity welled up in him. Secretly, he'd reckoned Eragon young, but by the standards of an elf, no younger than five-score years.

But eighteen? Only at eighteen, and already fighting wars with a dragon at his back?

Bilbo's stomach churned dangerously.

What sort of terrible place did Eragon come from, that children were sent to fight?

Violence was something very few Hobbits understood, and fewer tolerated. And even the thought of letting a child anywhere near danger was abhorrent, such as was testified by Bilbo Baggins' reaction.

Pushing down the small meal that had threatened to escape him, Bilbo set his gaze firmly on the grass in front of him, quelling his disordered thoughts as best he could.

In that, he achieved little.

'Saphira!'

Eragon's mental calls echoed down the mountaintops, repeated from second to second, never ceasing, never fading.

The grasses still whipped past him, swatting him with rough hands, as an old farmhand would chastise his sons.

The stars had slowly faded, step by step, heartbeat by heartbeat, the moon slipping down into the abyss below the curved horizon, but Eragon never stopped.

Ahead of him, far beyond the reach of a man's eye, Eragon could make out the arched gate of the Forest path, with ivy-wreathed statues and waterbowl for the weary.

'Saphira!'

Perhaps she heard him. Perhaps not. Ever further her star flew, across plain and to the mountains of the north, quick as the wind and the rain.

As his foot lifted, and fell, and lifted again, Eragon felt little of it. Not the hard-packed ground he trod, not the grass receding, nor the thicket of trees approaching, obstructing his path to the forest gate.

'Saphira!'

Lift…fall…lift…fall…lift…

Why was there no fall?

Before he realised, Eragon found the breath knocked out of him, bruising soreness on his chest and tearing pain in his ankle.

Pushing himself upright, Eragon grunted, biting back the curse on his lips, breathless and shaking.

Every second wasted, ad only further away she flew. The star that, though unfading, was slipping from his reach, with every heartbeat.

Scrabbling upright, Eragon hissed, and staggered into the closest sapling, his cheek grazing the bark. The pain did not abate, did not recede, did not fade. It only flared, especially when he stood on that foot.

Grimacing, Eragon took a step on the injured foot. It was shaky, and the pain stabbed at his calves like icy hooks, but it was bearable.

He took another step, relieved to have the pressure off his injured foot.

And another.

Eragon crashed to the ground again. Clots of soils scraped under his nails as he clawed his way over to another tree. Pulling himself up, Eragon grabbed at one of lower branches.

It didn't give.

He pulled harder.

Under his Elven strength, the branch gave way with a shrieking crack. Eragon examined it judiciously.

Not too heavy, but too long for a crutch.

The set of his features determined, Eragon limped off again, legs still shaking and chest airless, leaning heavily against his lichen-crusted staff.

And still, he cried out silently, a wanderer in a lonely land, with no-one to guide him.

'Saphira!'

Can someone say tone-shift? Yikes.

I feel like I may be on a writing streak at the moment, so perhaps (perhaps, fingers crossed) there'll be something soon (for a given value of 'soon')

Enjoy.

RS.