By the time I had finally wandered back into camp, dinner had already been cooked. That was a massive bonus for me, because I didn't have to pretend to be super helpful and offer to help Bombur with the cooking. Instead I got to waltz into camp - my hair damp and slinging to my back, not that I cared because I actually felt clean for once - and pick up my dish.

I settled down next to Bilbo. "Did I miss anything good?" I asked him in between mouthfuls of stew. I had realised pretty early on that it was better not to actually taste the food. I suppose it wasn't too bad, all things considering, but I was known back home as being a picky eater to begin with. So every night I shovelled down the stew as quickly as possible and tried not to gag.

"Bofur was telling us a story, but other than that, no," Bilbo answered, giving me a quizzical look. "Where did you go?" he asked as an afterthought.

I just shrugged, not really fancying relying my conversation with Thorin just yet. "Down by the river. What was the story about?" I asked, changing the subject. If Bilbo was suddenly confused by my sudden interest in the goings on around camp, he didn't like on.

"Oh, about some warrior dwarf. Or maybe it was about some war. I can't remember. They all sound the same to me, if I'm being honest," he replied honestly.

Ori, who had been hovering around my shoulder - probably having come up with twenty more questions whilst I was gone - perked up at our mention of stories. "Do you have any good tales, Miss Naomi?" he asked, his little face brightening up.

I was going to say no. I mean, it was one thing being forced to come along on this stupid adventure, but it was another having to become an entertainer for the dwarves. But unfortunately Ori's voice carried through camp and every single dwarf had to hear his question. "Oh yes," Bofur said, clapping happily, "you've got to tell us one."

I sighed heavily, racking my brain for something that would be dwarf friendly. Only 'dwarf friendly' seemed to mean tales that included, but were not limited to, violence, death and lots and lots of blood. I smiled triumphantly, thinking of a great story to tell them. Something Greek. And something that was so horrifying to their small, little brains that they wouldn't ask me to tell them a story ever again.

"I might have something," I said mysteriously, placing my empty bowl on the ground. As soon as I looked back up, I was surrounded by dwarfs. Not all of them, but the majority swamped around me. Luckily, Thorin had decided that he had had too much time in my presence for one day and ignored me; Dwalin, Balin, Oin and Gloin keeping him company.

"It's set in an ancient time, in a place called Greece. Or Thebes, to be more precise," I explained, hoping that the dwarves would be able to keep up with my tale. "The King and Queen of Thebes were very happy, because they had just given birth to a baby boy and they're having a great time being this nice, little family. But then the Oracle prophesises that the baby boy will end up murdering his father and marrying his mother."

I paused, both for breath and to try and create drama. As I glanced around, I noticed that some of the dwarves already had a disgusted look on their face. Okay, so technically my story wasn't exactly 'dwarf friendly', but it was amusing to see how the dwarves would react to my tale. Smirking, I was about to open my mouth to continue, but Ori interrupted me. "What's an Oracle?" he asked.

"Someone who predicts the future," I answered, not really thinking to hard about it.

"Like you? Are you an Oracle?" he asked, excitement gleaming in his eyes.

I bit my lip and glanced over to Gandalf. And then to Thorin. Both seemed to be ignoring me, but that didn't mean they weren't listening in. Cautiously, I said "Er, yeah. Sort of. They no longer exist where I'm from," I hurriedly tried to explain. "Anyway, so the nice, little family doesn't seem as nice anymore. More like creepy and weird. Of course, the King of Thebes decides that this cannot happen, so he orders one of his servants to take the baby away and kill it, because he doesn't want to be involved in any creepy shit. So the servant does. Only, his can't kill it, because it's just a baby. Instead, he abandons it on a hill in a nearby kingdom and hopes it will eventually die on its own accord. Unfortunately, the baby doesn't die. A Sheppard finds the it and brings it to his King and Queen - who rule a place called Corinth - and they adopt it and name him Oedipus."

"So Oedipus grows up and one day decides to visit the Oracle, because the Greeks didn't like surprises and always had to know what was going to happen. Oedipus goes to visit the Oracle, and is pretty freaked out when he is told that he will murder his father and marry his mother. Because, you know, it's not exactly the future he was hoping for, because murder and incest aren't exactly what most people look for in life. So, Oedipus can't go back to Corinth, because that means the prophecy might come true. Instead, he stays on the road and ends up crashing his cart with another cart, which had been carrying the King of Thebes. And like typical men, they have typical road rage, and end up blaming each other and neither of them bothers to ask the other for a name and before you know it, they're fighting and then the fighting turns bloody and then the King of Thebes ends up dead. Still unaware that he has killed the King - and his own father - Oedipus heads to Thebes to try his luck there, not knowing that this was where he was born. The Queen is mourning her husband's death, but then this new stranger comes along and it's like, 'oh well...time to move on'. Now the reason the King of Thebes was on the road in the first place was because the town was under siege by a creature called a Sphinx."

Noticing that that Ori was once again about to open his mouth - probably to ask what the hell a Sphinx was - I hurriedly explained. "It had a head of a man and the body of a lion and gave out riddles to everyone passing it by. If you failed to solve the riddle, then you died."

"But why?" Ori asked, causing me to groan inwardly.

I shrugged. "It doesn't matter. Now, where was I? Right, so no one could solve it so everyone died and Thebes was basically cut off from the outside world. Only then Oedipus comes along, manages to solve the riddle of the Sphinx and defeat it, and as his reward, he gets to marry the Queen and become King of Thebes. And so the prophecy is complete, only they don't realise it. And so they live happily ever after and have two children, until one day they finally realise who they actually are. That the Queen is Oedipus' mother and that his wife is actually his mother and then they both freak out and the Queen kills herself and Oedipus gauges his eyes out because he can't deal with what he's done. And then the surviving members of the family carry on and live an unhappy and miserable existence. The end."

Again, I glanced around at the dwarves, grinning at their reactions. Some looked confused. Some looked disgusted. And Bilbo looked like he was about to throw up, bless him. Unable to help myself, I laughed aloud, knowing that I would never be asked to tell another story after this farcical.

"That was..." Fili said, the words to describe my tale dying silently on his lips.

"Interesting, to say the least," Bofur finished for him.

I shrugged, still laughing to myself. "But why would there be a tale so cruel?" Bilbo asked me, and Ori nodded, as if the question had also been on his lips. Despite the fact that he had run over to the other side of the camp to before I had started telling the tale to get his notebook, I noticed Ori hadn't written anything down. Which was strange, because he idolised me and wrote everything I ever said down. I frowned, but quickly shrugged off my worry. I mean, the dwarves had been the ones to ask me to tell them a story. It wasn't my fault if they didn't like it.

"Because it shows that no matter how hard you try, you can't change fate," I said, not really focussing on my answer. But as soon as I realised what I had said, I sobered up. My amusement turn to grave seriousness, as I realised the impossible nature of my task.

Fate couldn't be changed.

"Shit," I mumbled to myself, my brain begging to whirl as I entered a mad panic. This whole quest was going to be a failure. I was going to be a failure. I couldn't go up against fate and win. It didn't happen like that. It wouldn't happen like that. There was literally nothing I could to change what was going to happen.

I couldn't do this. I wouldn't do this.

People were going to die and it would be my fault. I would be to blame. I couldn't deal with that shit. How could Gandalf expect me to be responsible for something so massive as someone's life? Thorin's life. He was going to die, and it would be entirely my fault.

And with that terrible thought, blind panic entered my head.

I hitched a sharp breath, trying to calm the swelling tide of emotion that had attacked me, but all I managed to do was enter a hellish cycle of hyperventilation. I blinked, trying to rid the black spots, but all I succeeded in was forcing the tears to begin falling freely down my face.

"Are you alright?" Someone - Bofur - asked me, but it was a stupid question. I was quite obviously not alright. It was quite obvious that I was having a fucking panic attack. Again.

It wasn't something I admitted to suffering to. I mean, it had only happened on a handful of occasions. Like my French A-Level speaking test. I had froze and panicked and ended up having to retake it at a later date. Of course my mother was sympathetic - not. She had assumed I had failed on purpose. That I was being spiteful. I mean, why else would someone whose own mother was French - who was perfectly fluent in French - fail a French module?

But that wasn't the case. I had frozen up. My mind started to race and my throat had felt like it was constricting; swelling up and suffocating me from the inside.

Then there had been the time when I went for a job interview, or when I had to do a presentation at university.

And now. Now I was having another panic attack.

I didn't want to fall apart in front of the dwarves though. Crying was a weakness. And I couldn't be viewed as being weak. "I'm fine. I just need some space," I said in a rushed breath, standing up suddenly and causing my head to spin. Pushing past the dwarves who tried to help me steady myself, I made a beeline for the river again.

Unfortunately, that meant running past Thorin and his little clique, but I was seriously past caring what he thought of me. I just needed space. I just needed to breathe.

Only I couldn't. All I could do was cough and splutter and try not to choke. I wheezed out a shaky breath, leaning my head against a tree once I had left the dwarves' line of sight.

The bark was rough, but cool, and helped calm the clamminess that had appeared on my forehead. I tried to count my breathes; tried to calm myself down. But I was failing. That shouldn't have surprised me though, because I was a failure. And this whole adventure was going to be a failure as well.

I wiped my face clean of the few tears that had managed to run down my face, glad that I wasn't currently wearing any makeup. I desperately needed to get a grip on myself. I despised this feeling of weakness; hated the fact that I was feeling so crap about myself; hated that I was feeling so worthless. That wasn't who I was. I refused to be that person.

I spun around and gasped. "Fuck," I muttered, giving the dwarf who had managed to sneak up on me a dirty look. "What the hell do you want?" I asked, not bothering with niceties. Of course I was on the attack. Of course I was going to redirect attention away from me.

Dwalin just studied me quietly; as if I was some sort of injured animal about to make some suicidal, last-ditch attempt to attack. And I guess he was sort of right with that assumption. I was going to deal with my emotions the best way I knew - by being a bitch.

"Well?" I asked, praying that my face wasn't red and blotchy from my tears. I ran my fingers through my hair; pushing it away from my face. It was a nervous habit I had, but he didn't need to know that.

Still. Dwalin studied me. I sighed heavily, and leant back on the tree I had just been cradling my head on, trying to relax my tense form. I wanted to come across as nonchalant. I wanted to be able to not care about what happened to these stupid, idiotic, suicidal dwarves. But after the last few hours, I was really starting to doubt my ability to not give a damn.

"Just thought I'd check on you, Lass," Dwalin finally grumbled out.

I quirked an eyebrow, not really buying his concerned neighbour act. None of them cared about me. Not the dwarves, or Gandalf, or even Bilbo. I was just some nuisance that they probably wanted to get rid off as soon as possible. I was used to the feeling of being unwanted thought; my entire childhood had been based on being unwanted and unloved.

"I'm fine," I said, narrowing my eyes and silently daring him to contradict me.

"Could've fooled me," Dwalin replied, obviously not scared of me.

I rolled my eyes at him and shrugged. "Well it's a good job that I really don't give a fuck what you think, isn't it?" I barked out, sighing heavily and leaning further back into the tree.

Unlike some of the other dwarves, Dwalin looked unaffected by my rather colourful language. In fact, he was probably the only dwarf who wasn't weary of me. Sure, he probably distrusted me, but I doubted I could embarrass him or make him blush like I did with the others. In fact, he just continued to stare me down. "Why are you here?"

"Just checking on you."

I laughed, but there was no humour in it. "And why do you care?"

It was Dwalin's turn to shrug this time. "Normally I wouldn't be concerned over the welfare of some gobby lass, but Gandalf and Thorin seem convinced of your usefulness in this quest. And I care about this quest," he said, choosing his words carefully. "So I'll ask again, are you alright, Lass?"

"I don't recall you ever asking that," I muttered darkly. I hadn't noticed it, but the conversation with Dwalin was helping my heart beat at its normal pace; no longer did I feel like I was suffocating. Dwalin rolled him eyes at me.

"Thorin mentioned he had a talk with you," Dwalin said, quickly realising that I wasn't going to answer his question. Only, his new topic infuriated me more than the other one.

My eyes grew bigger as I stared at him, mouth gaping wide. "What?" I all but screeched at him. "If you think that this," I said, gesturing wildly about myself, "is about him, then no. No. It isn't."

Dwalin quirked an eyebrow up, but said nothing. "You want to know what this is about," I hissed, balling my hands together in frustration and taking a step forward towards the dwarf. Dwalin didn't seem fazed by me - even in my heels he infuriatingly had a couple of centimetres over me - but that didn't stop me from stalking forward, eyes narrowed. All the pent up anger and annoyance and seething irritation from the past couple of weeks started to seep out of me.

"This is about the fact that I'm stuck in the wild with a bunch of dwarves., who, no offence, I don't really like. Not all the time, at least. This is about the fact that I've been kidnapped against my will by some know-it-all wizard and forced to go camping. Who the hell goes on a several month long camping trip? I don't even like camping. I like electricity and wifi and mobile coverage. This is about the fact that I am sick constantly being referred to as being a 'lass' or 'Miss Ainsley'. My name is Naomi. How hard is it to remember that? And do not get me started on his pain in the arse majesty, who refuses to let me help with anything. Not that I'm particularly surprised, because he's just a bloody typical male. Won't ask for directions. Won't listen to me because I happen to be a girl. All I want to do is help. Actually, that's a lie. You've all annoyed me so much that I don't want to help any more. I don't care what happens to you. Go get your mountain. Go wake up the fire breathing dragon. Yes, go do that. Because that's such a bloody fantastic idea. Go do whatever you want to do and don't stop and think about the consequences, because you guys are so obviously too important to let small things such as a chain reaction affect you."

I breathed out heavily, my words rushing out in one long, elongated sentence. Dwalin blinked at me; a look of uncertainty entering his face. But then, with a blink of the eye, it was gone. Instead, there was a hard, empty look that replaces it. "Are you done?" he asked, watching me carefully once again.

I nodded. "Yes."

"I'll go tell the others that you'll be back in a moment," Dwalin said, turning away.

"You go do that," I said, tone slightly scathing, not bothering to follow the dwarf back to camp. Dwalin didn't seem to care though, for he just continued walking back to the others.

At the last moment though, just when the trees started to thin out, he turned to face me. "You feeling better, Lass?" he asked, eyebrow arching, as what seemed like a small smirk appeared on the edge of his lips.

"Yes." And it was true. Because despite the fact that I had just had an emotional breakdown - and despite the fact that I had just had a massive, nonsensical rant at Dwalin, I was feeling much better. I was feeling a lot more like my usual, not so delightful self.

And sure, the normal me was a nightmare. She was bitchy and sarcastic and manipulative. But she was also stubborn and always got what she wanted. And despite the fact that I loathed Thorin, a small, tiny, illogical bit of my brain wanted to save him. And like I said, I always got what I wanted.

AN: I'm so sorry with the delay in getting this chapter out. I know I promised it a week and half ago, and I had the first half already written...but then life kind of got in the way and I didn't get chance to sit down and focus on it until today.

Why have I been busy? None of you are probably asking, but I'll tell anyway. I graduated from University last week. I mean, I finished university last April, but I finally got to graduate this month. Plus I've been given an extra day at work, so I've had less free time in total. And I've applied for a voluntary role and I've been preparing myself for the interview for that. So yeah. Life is good, though a little hectic.

Anyways...

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE HOBBIT!

I do own a nice new certificate that says I'm a graduate though...so I guess that's something =]