It is morning. Bilbo wakes up on his bed and suddenly realizes that his house is tranquil. He walks around his house, expecting to run into the dwarves; however, there is no one there. The house has been cleaned up entirely from the mess of the party last night, almost as if it had never happened. "Hello?" he said as he looked aorund. Bilbo looks a bit lonesome. He sees the Contract sitting on a table; he looks at it, then looks up with a determined face.

Bilbo runs out the door of Bag End and down the path, wearing a traveling pack and holding the contract. He runs through Hobbiton, jumping over fences and pumpkins in his haste. His neighbors shake their heads at him. "Hey! Mr. Bilbo! Where are you off to?" A Neighbor says as he runs by. "Can't stop; I'm already late!" Bilbo says and continues to run. "Late for what?" The neighbor asks, and Bilbo calls back.

"I'm going on an adventure!"

➳

The dwarves are riding their ponies and Gandalf, his horse, down a path through a wooded area. A few words of their conversation are heard, including "waste of time" and "use a hobbit." Bilbo runs up from behind them. Silveria peeks up from Gandalf's hat bend and makes a gurgling sound like a chuckle, and a smile is in her a sky Lips. "Wait! Wait!" Bilbo calls. Some dwarves call "Woah!" and stop their ponies. Bilbo catches up to them and hands Balin the contract.

"I signed it!" He says proudly. Balin takes the contract and inspects it with a pocket glass. He then smiles at Bilbo. "Everything appears to be in order. Welcome, Master Baggins, to the company of Thorin Oakenshield." He says and gestures to the company—the dwarves cheer. Thorin doesn't look too impressed. "Give him a pony." He says and turns his to start walking.

Silveria sees that Bilbo freezes, and he starts to protest. The little dragon chuckles again and jumps down from Gandalf and onto the ground. As she touches the ground, her skin changes, and there in front of them stands a giant silver horse. Her eyes are as blue as always, and she is about Gandalf's horse height. "Come with me, Mr. Baggins," she says, her voice an octave deeper than usual.

All the dwarves, including Bilbo and Gandalf, stare surprised at Silveria, who nicker softly and bows her head towards Bilbo. But before he can grab into her mane, she lays down, so it's easier. Bilbo hauls himself onto her back and holds tightly onto her hair so he won't fall off. Silveria chuckles, and they start to go again.

➳

Bilbo is riding Silveria. She huff and tosses her head a little making him quite uncomfortable... Silveria notices this and stops. "Sorry," she whispers so he can hear her. He patted her neck gently but still held onto her mane. "Come on, Nori, pay up. Go on." Oin says, and Nori tosses a sack of money to Oin; bags of cash begin passing between the dwarves. "Hey, hey, hey!" Oin exclaims, and some of the dwarves laugh.

"What's that about?" Bilbo asks, and Silveria scoffs.  "Oh, they took wagers on whether or not you'd turn up. Most of them bet that you wouldn't." She says. "What did you think?" He asks as he looks up as Gandalf comes up beside them. "Hmmm." He hums. Gandalf catches a sack of money tossed to him and puts it in his bag. "My dear fellow, I never doubted you for a second." Bilbo sneezes loudly.

Silveria huff. "Ohh. All this horsehair, I'm reacting." Bilbo says he explains, but Silveria doesn't say anything more. Bilbo searches his pockets for his handkerchief. He is unable to find it, and he looks up in shock.  "No, no, wait, wait, stop! Stop! We have to turn around." He says, panicked. The entire company comes to a halt, and the dwarves start objecting and asking what the problem is.

"What on earth is the matter?" Gandalf aks. Silveria says, "he forgot his handkerchief" Gandalf nods in understanding. Bofur tears a strip of cloth from his clothing and tosses it to Bilbo. "Here! Use this." He says, and Silveria chuckles as she feels Bilbo's mood change. Bilbo catches the rag and looks at it in disgust. The dwarves laugh and begin to continue their journey. "Move on." Thorin orders.

"You'll have to manage without pocket-handkerchiefs and a good many other things, Bilbo Baggins before we reach our journey's end. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you; the world is ahead." Silveria says softly and looks at Gandalf, who nods at her with a soft smile. We see the Company traveling through many beautiful areas of Middle-earth, including forests, hills, and plains.

➳

The company has camped for the night near the edge of a cliff. As Gloin sleeps, tiny flying insects get sucked into his mouth every time he inhales, and they are expelled when he exhales. Bilbo watches in disgust, then finally gets up and walks around. Most dwarves are asleep; Gandalf, Fili, and Kili are awake. Silveria is still in her horse form and sleeps beside the other ponies.  Bilbo walks over to her and gives her an apple after checking that no one is looking.

He has forgotten that this horse can understand what he says, so he starts talking to her like she's an average horse. "Hello, girl. That's a good girl. It's our little secret; you must tell no one. Sh, sh" Silveria chuckles, takes the apple gently from his hands, and starts munching on it. Bilbo hears a scream in the night air and becomes worried. He runs over to Fili and Kili.

"What was that?" He asks. "Orcs." Silveria suddley says, behind him, she's now in her human form. Her face was grim, and her blue eyes were glint. Another scream is heard. Thorin, dozing, jerks awake upon hearing the word "Orcs." "Orcs?" Bilbo asks her.  "Throat-cutters. There'll be dozens of them out there. The lowlands are crawling with them." Fili chimes in.

"They strike in the wee small hours when everyone's asleep. Quick and quiet; no screams, just lots of blood." Kili ads. Bilbo looks away in fright; Fili and Kili look at each other and begin laughing. "You think that's funny? You think a night raid by orcs is a joke?" Thorin says as he comes into view. "We didn't mean anything by it," Kili says and looks down onto his lap.

"No, you didn't. You know nothing of the world."  Thorin sneers and walks off to the cliff's edge and looks out over the valley; Balin walks up to Fili and Kili. "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."

➳

Flashback of the Battle of Azanulbizar; thousand of dwarves and orcs fight in front of the gates of Moria. We see Thorin, Thror, Thrain, Balin, and Dwalin fighting fiercely. A massive, pale orc wipes many dwarves with his mace then engages King Thror. "Moria had been taken by legions of Orcs lead by the vilest 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, having defeated King Thror, holds up his beheaded head as he roars; he then flings the head, which bounces and rolls to Thorin's feet.  "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."

In the flashback, the orcs have overpowered the dwarves, and the dwarves flee for their lives. "That is when I saw him: a young dwarf prince facing down the Pale Orc." Thorin faces Azog; Azog swings his mace and first knocks Thorin's shield, then his sword. Thorin falls down an embankment and lands on the ground. "He stood alone against this terrible foe, his armor rent...wielding nothing but an oaken branch as a shield."

Azog leaps to smash Thorin, but Thorin, grabbing an oaken branch lying on the ground, manages to roll away in time. Azog continues wielding his mace against Thorin, who is still on the basis, but Thorin blocks his mace with the oaken branch, which he uses as a shield. As Azog swings one last time, Thorin, grabbing a sword lying nearby, cuts off Azog's left arm, his mace arm, from below the elbow. Azog clutches the stump of his arm as he howls in pain.

"Azog, the Defiler, learned that day that the line of Durin would not be so easily broken." Azog is rushed into Moria by other orcs; Thorin, yelling "Du Bekâr! Du Bekâr!" (not translated onscreen: 'To arms! To arms!'), rallies the dwarves to battle. They stop fleeing and return to war, fighting ferociously. The dwarves now seem 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."

The battlefield is covered in the corpses of dwarves and orcs; the surviving dwarves weep with one another over their loss. A younger Balin and Dwalin hug and put their foreheads together as they grieve. Balin, still mourning, looks up and sees Thorin framed in the sunlight, holding his oaken branch. "And I thought to myself then; there is one who I could follow. There is one I could call King." In the present, Thorin turns away from the view beyond the cliff; the entire Company is awake and standing in awe, staring at him. Thorin walks between them toward the fire.

"But the pale orc? What happened to him?" Bilbo says, and Silveria lays a hand on his shoulder. "He slunk back into the hole whence he came. That filth died of his wounds long ago." Thorin says. The camera zooms away from the Company's campsite and focuses on another cliff across the valley. A group of Wargs and Orcs is there, spying on the Company. Yazneg, their leader, talks to the rest.

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

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Thanks for reading

-Saph