The Adventure of Andrea Baggins

First accident

The next morning gray clouds covered the sky. Thorin did not give them a lot of time to eat breakfast. He wanted to move on as fast as possible before the weather turned bad. Around midday, the rain eventually kicked in, leaving everyone in a bad mood. They were following a stream of a river. Andy, utterly bored, started humming to herself, a Melody, none of the dwarves have ever heard. All of a sudden, she stopped her horse.

"Thorin! Gandalf! We have to stop. The Hillside in front of us is going to come down. We cannot go one, if we do not want to get caught in a landslide. We must seek shelter for a while. "

"Nonsense!", Thorin shouted through the rain with an angry voice. "We will keep going. The ground is save. It's just a little bit of water. "

"That's not true!", Andy started do get loud. "It's been raining for hours. And quite a lot, as well. The ground has been soaked. Look there", she pointed a bit ahead. Everyone narrowed their eyes, trying to see what she saw. "Thers a delta, right at the edge of the river. There is no clear riverbank, and it is shallow. The grass on the hill is mostly covered by dirt and mud. No bushes like on the other side of the river or like we saw for the last almost two days. There were landslides! The hillside is not solid. It will slide again and burry us alive!"

"What do you know about the wild?", Thorin spoke to her patronizing. "I say we go on!" He turned his horse and led it on. Andy could not believe her eyes, as one dwarf after each other followed him. Swearing she got of her horse. Giving him a smack, she chased him of, knowing he would find a safe way for himself and come back, when the weather was good again. Pulling her cloak tighter around her body, she walked after the company. It only went well for about a quarter of an hour. Then suddenly the ground began to shake. The ponies became nervous and started kicking.

"Earthquake!" shouted Ori.

"No! Landslide!", Balin corrected. Indeed. The ground beneath their feet began to slide away. Panicked, they all looked around, trying to get their pony back under control.

"Where is Gandalf?" cried Thorin, hastily turning his head in all directions.

"This way!" called Gandalf's voice from their right. "Hurry up!"

They all steered their ponies to where the light from Gandalf's staff burned. He had found a hermit's rock. Huddled together, they tried to keep their ponies calm. A cry was heard. Thorin and Kili turned around in dismay.

"Fili!", Kili called after his brother. Fili's pony had lost solid ground and together they plunged downwards, straight towards the river. "No!"

Horrified, Fili tried to reach for something to steady them. But there was nothing, everything was slipping away. "Kili!" he called back when he heard his brother calling after him. His pony tried to struggle out of the mud and threw Fili off. He did not even have time to scream before he plunged into the river and sank. He did not know how to swim. He was not prepared for this impact with the icy water and his body froze of shock. As soon as he ran out of air, he tried to pull himself back up. When he caught his breath, he stuck his head out before sinking again.

When Andy saw what had happened, she quickly jumped after Fili.

"Andrea, no!", Kili shouted desperate. But it was too late. Digging through the mud, she got flushed into the river, not to far away from Fili, but not close enough.

"Help!", she heard a gurgling cry for help.

"Hold on!" she shouted back. Banging her head against a tree trunk, she lost control of her body for a moment and was submerged under water. With powerful swimming movements, she broke through the water again, coughing.

"Damn princess," she muttered, grabbing the tree trunk, and pulling herself up. "If he wanted to kill his nephew so desperately, he could have just pushed him off a cliff. "