Thorin's Long Lost Daughter

The company had camped for the night near the edge of a cliff. As Gloin slept, tiny flying insects got sucked into his mouth every time he inhaled, and they were expelled when he exhales. Bilbo watched in disgust, then finally got up and walked around. Most of the dwarves were asleep; Gandalf, Fili, Kili, and Evelyn were awake. Bilbo walked over to his pony and gives her an apple, after checking to see that no one is looking.

“Hello, girl. That’s a good girl. It’s our little secret, Myrtle; you must tell no one. sh, sh”
BIlbo said, in a hushed voice. Evelyn turned to Gandalf, and she walked over to where he was leaning against the tree.

"Gandalf...Legends have said that Thorin had a daughter, who was in the city, when Smaug attacked."

"That is correct..."
Gandalf said, absentmindedly. "They also said that she was killed in the fire..." He added.

"What was her name?"
Evelyn asked, after she pondered what he had said for a minute. Gandalf looked at Evelyn, with uncertainty in his eyes, before replying.

"Aiyana..."
he replied. Evelyn looked at her hands, before saying aloud.

"Aiyana...I have been called that before..." Evelyn said.

"Long ago...when I was very young. I lived in Dale...my father said that he would bring me into the castle later on that day. But...then...Smaug came..."
Evelyn trailed off, thinking back to her rag doll, that was burning in the streets.

"They said, that when the baby was younger she developed a birth mark, in the shape of a dragon, on her wrist..."

"That is also correct..."
Gandalf said, wondering at where Evelyn was going with this. She rolled up her tunic sleeve, and she flicked her wrist over, and there. Plain as day, the birth mark of the dragon lay there. Gandalf's eyes widened, in surprise, before he stood up, and he shook Thorin awake, who awoke a second later. Gandalf whispered something to him, and he looked over at Evelyn. He stood up, and he sat down in front of her, and he took her hand, and gently turned her wrist over, so that the birthmark was facing him, and he stared at it for a long moment.

"Aiyana..." he said, softly.

"Hi Daddy..."
Evelyn said, as quietly as she could. Thorin let go off her wrist, and he gingerly wrapped his arms around his long last daughter. They both jumped away from each other, when they heard a scream fill the night air. Evelyn stood up, and she walked over towards Fili and Kili, and she sat down between them, hoping to get warm, by the fire.

"What was that?"
Bilbo asked, as he ran over towards Fili, Kili, and Evelyn.

"Orcs..."
She replied, acid leaking in her voice, just as another scream was heard, which made her blood turn cold.

"Orcs?”
Bilbo asked, in wonder.

“Throat-cutters. There’ll be dozens of them out there. The lowlands are crawling with them.”
Fili explained.

“They strike in the wee small hours, when everyone’s asleep. Quick and quiet; no screams, just lots of blood.”

Kili added, and Bilbo looked away in fright. Fili and Kili looked at each other, and they began to laugh

“You think that’s funny? You think a night raid by orcs is a joke?”
Thorin said, venomously. Both Kili and Fili stopped laughing immediately.

“We didn’t mean anything by it.”
Kili said, guiltily.

“No, you didn’t. You know nothing of the world.”
Thorin said, with a dark tone in his voice.

"Don't blame them...They just wanted to find some light in the darkness..."
Evelyn said, her eyes not straying away from the fire.
Thorin looked at Evelyn, for a moment, before he turned, and he walked off towards the edge of the cliff, and he looked out over the valley. Balin walked up to Kili, Fili, and Evelyn.

“Don’t mind him, laddie. Thorin has more cause than most to hate orcs. After the dragon took the Lonely Mountain, King Thror tried to reclaim the ancient dwarf kingdom of Moria. But our enemy had got there first.”

Balin said, and Evelyn could see the flashback to the Battle of Azanulbizar; where thousands of dwarves and orcs fought in front of the gates of Moria. She could see Thorin, Thror, Thrain, Balin, and Dwalin fighting fiercely. A massive, pale, orc wiped out many dwarves with his mace, then engaged King Thror, and Evelyn could still hear Balin's voice in her head.

“Moria had been taken by legions of Orcs lead by the most vile of all their race: Azog, the Defiler. The giant Gundabad Orc had sworn to wipe out the line of Durin. He began by beheading the King.”

Azog, defeated King Thror, and he held up his beheaded head as he roared; before he flung the head, and it bounced and rolled towards Thorin's feet.

“Nooo!” Thorin had shouted in the flashback

“Thrain, Thorin’s father, was driven mad by grief. He went missing, taken prisoner or killed, we did not know. We were leaderless. Defeat and death were upon us.” Balin continued.

In the flashback, the orcs had overpowered the dwarves, and the dwarves fled for their lives.
“That is when I saw him: a young dwarf prince facing down the Pale Orc.”

Thorin faced Azog; Azog swung his mace and knocked away first Thorin’s shield, then his sword. Thorin fell down an embankment and he landed on the ground.

“He stood alone against this terrible foe, his armor rent…wielding nothing but an oaken branch as a shield”
Azog leaped to smash Thorin, but Thorin, grabbed an oaken branch lying on the round, managed to roll away in time. Azog continued wielding his mace against Thorin, who was still on the ground, but Thorin blocked his mace with the oaken branch, which he used as a shield. As Azog swung one last time, Thorin, grabbed a sword lying nearby, and he cut off Azog’s left arm, his mace arm, from below the elbow. Azog clutched the stump of his arm as he howled in pain.

“Azog, the Defiler, learned that day that the line of Durin would not be so easily broken.”

Azog was rushed into Moria by other orcs; Thorin, yelled “Du Bekâr! Du Bekâr!” *To arms! To arms!*, as he rallied the dwarves to battle. They stopped fleeing and returned to battle, fighting ferociously. The dwarves now seemed to have the advantage.

“Our forces rallied and drove the orcs back. Our enemy had been defeated. But there was no feast, no song, that night, for our dead were beyond the count of grief. We few had survived.” Balin said, sadly.

The battlefield was covered in the corpses of dwarves and orcs; the surviving dwarves wept with one another over their loss. A younger Balin and Dwalin hugged and put their foreheads together as they wept. Balin, still weeping, looked up, to see Thorin framed in the sunlight, as he held his oaken branch.

“And I thought to myself then, there is one who I could follow. There is one I could call King.” Balin said, as he looked over at Thorin who, turned away from the view beyond the cliff. Evelyn snapped back to the present, and she noticed that the entire Company was awake, and they were standing in awe, and they stared at Thorin with respect, glinting in their eyes. Thorin walked between them, towards the fire

“But the pale orc? What happened to him?”
Bilbo asked, curiously.

“He slunk back into the hole whence he came. That filth died of his wounds long ago.”
Thorin replied, darkly.

Evelyn leaned her head against the rock wall, and she slipped her eyes shut. A few moments after, she felt someone else slip down close to her, and a hand brushed a piece of her dark hair away from her eyes.

She lightly opened her eyes, to see Kili lying down beside her. He smiled, and he kept his hand on her cheek. "Get some sleep Evelyn..." He said, as he kissed her forehead, and he gently stroked her cheek, until her eyes slipped shut again.

~*~

Unknown the Company, on a cliff across the valley, a group of Wargs, and Orcs were there, and they spied on the Company. Yazneg, their leader, spoke to the rest.

“Send word to the Master. We have found the Dwarf-scum.”