“Help! HELP!”

Thorin (who had been turning the map around in his hands for the third time – was that the arrow that meant north? or was it a poorly-drawn road?) looked up at the sound of the cry. It was a small voice, and very frightened… and it was coming from somewhere roughly over his head.

“Please!” came the next word, and the terrified little quaver in that little voice spurred something instinctual in Thorin. This was a child’s voice, and it reached right down into his bones and caused him to move, even before he was aware of it.

“Where are you?” he said, spinning around upon the spot. The little copse was fairly isolated, and he had no idea how he had ended up there when he had meant to go to the Hobbit town. Unfortunately, this meant that the child could have been calling for hours without aid. So for once Thorin did not curse his own unreliable surface-direction. “Call out again!”

“I’m here, I’m up here!” cried the little one, and a small hand waved from one of the trees. “Please get me down, please! May left ever so long ago, she was meant to find me but she didn’t and now I’m stuck!”

“Stay where you are, and don’t wriggle about!” Thorin commanded, and he slung off his pack and cloak, throwing his sword onto the map to stop it blowing away. “I’ll climb up and get you. You must stay safe in the meanwhile, and not fall out. Can you tell me about your friend May as I climb?” There, that should keep the little one’s mind on something else rather than panicking blindly.

The child audibly swallowed a sob. Brave little thing. “Ummm May is older than me, and she has three brothers…”

“Aye?” Thorin grasped a handhold and began to haul himself into the tree. “And what are their names?”

“A-andwise,” the child sniffled. Thorin could hear them beginning to calm down as he drew nearer. “H-h-hamfast… and H-halfred.”

Shirelings had ridiculous names, thought Thorin privately, amused, and he reached for the next bough as a pair of small furred feet drew into view. “Are they all your friends?”

“Hamfast is, he’s nice, but Andwise takes everyone’s mushrooms because he is the biggest,” said the child, and then there came a gasp. “You’re a Dwarf!”

Thorin, aware of the twig-scratches and dirt in his beard and the leaves itching in his hair, gave the child a tight smile. Bracing himself between the tree-trunk and a branch, he inclined his head briefly. “At your service. Now, sling your arms around my neck. Quickly now!”

This close, he could see her wide brown eyes grow even wider with trepidation. He took a breath and gentled his voice as much as he could. This was a hobbit-child, not a Dwarfling, after all. “Come now. I shall not harm you, young one. You are as safe with me as you are in your mother’s arms. My name is Thorin. What is your name?”

“Bell,” came the faltering reply, “I’m Bell Goodchild.”

“A beautiful name,” said Thorin, and he gave them a smile.

Slowly and tremulously, the child smiled back.

“And are you a girlchild or boychild?” 

“M’a girl,” she said, and stared at his beard for a long moment, before she met his eyes again. “I want to go home,” she nearly whispered. 

Me too, child. Me too. “We will get you down from here, Bell, and you will go home. But you must be brave,” Thorin said, as softly as he could. “Reach out and touch my shoulder. There, now. Not so hard.”

Her little fingers patted at the leather and fur of his greatcoat, and he nodded his head. “Keep your balance, but see if you can reach around to my neck. I would carry you, but I fear I will need both my hands to get us down from here.”

She cautiously slid her tiny hand around, and then he felt the birdlike skittering pressure of little fingers at his neck. “Your hair is funny,” she said, with the blunt amazement of all children.

“Ah, that is as Dwarf-hair should be, Miss Goodchild. It will not bite you, my word of honour upon it!”

She giggled a little damply, and then slid her other tiny arm around his neck. “You talk funny.”

Small arms clasped around his neck and a wriggly little body laid trustingly against his own woke memories of Fili and Kili that Thorin had long treasured, and he leaned his cheek against Bell’s soft curly head for a snap second, revisiting those days. Ah, but Bell was tinier than Fili or Kili had ever been, and her hair was as soft and curly as combed floss. “Hold on tightly now, and shift your weight onto me,” he directed her, and she clutched frantically at him as she slid from her branch and into his arms. “Good. Now, don’t let go and don’t look down! We shall be upon the ground before you know it.”

She pressed her face into his furs, and nodded. 

Thorin began to climb down again. His arms were shaking from being suspended from branches for so long, the muscles beginning to knot. He ignored it and focused on carefully placing his hands and feet, trying not to jostle the child.

At last he was able to drop the last few feet onto the leaf-litter beneath the copse, and Bell sucked in a huge breath and hugged him tightly. “Thank you, thank you Mr. Thorin,” she sobbed, and he patted her back carefully. She was utterly tiny: his hands could span all the way around her little ribs. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Shhh, there now,” he soothed, and brushed back her hair with his palm. “Do you need to let it out and cry?”

She did seem rather tearful still, but she shook her head nevertheless. “It’s getting so dark, I just want t’ go home,” she said, and sniffled some more. “Can you come too?”

Thorin set her on the ground, and patted her curly head. “I am afraid I have a pressing matter to attend to, otherwise I should have loved to dine with you and your family.”

She sighed. “Oh. But I want t’ do something to say thank you. Mama says it is a nice thing to do.”

Suddenly, the map thrown aside on the ground caught the corner of Thorin’s eye. He cleared his throat. “Actually, there is one thing…”

…