The Hobbit Novels & Stories

Chapter 19: The Council of Stone and Shadow The Hold, built for defense, not diplomacy, transformed into a theater of power. The great hall, once a shadowy cavern, now blazed with torchlight. The clan banners were displayed with pride beside the royal standard. The air was thick with conflicting scents: beeswax polish, roasting meat, the metallic tang of nervous sweat, and the ever-present, cold breath of the mountain.

The day our family went on vacation to an island resort, my younger sister, Alana Fisher, climbed over a safety railing to get the perfect photo. She lost her footing and, in her panic, dragged me into the ocean with her. The rescue crew was about to pull me out first since I was closer when Mom suddenly took a yellowed paper coupon from her wallet and tossed it toward me. "Corinne, let Alana get on the rescue boat first! This is the last thing your father and I will ever ask you to grant!" When I was seven, I couldn't afford birthday presents for my parents, so I drew a hundred wish coupons by hand. Each one read: [Redeem this coupon for one wish. Corinne has to say yes, no matter what.

I was not so silent following in his shadow, my shoes slipping in the mud and my cloak catching on twigs. “There were servants, but…” He shook his head. “They either don’t last long, or they’re not very friendly. There were some brethren in the forest, but they’re not same as around the castle here. They’re wilder, less trusting of humans. There was a hobgoblin that I was trying to win over. I’d bring him cakes from the village. They like honey…” He smiled slightly at a memory.

He pathetically begged for her to stay. “The name of the protagonist was Bilbo Baggins. He was short, face so comely and he does not like anything related to traveling. So he is indeed a home kind of a fellow. I mean all the people in Shire share the same perspective as him. They are just simple folks in that simple town.” He had read the book too and was pretty sure that it is not translated to any language rather than into Romanian dialect. How can this woman read those kind of books?

Mommy and Daddy were dead. Cobra might be dead. Tyron might be dead. I was tired. So tired of running. Maybe if I died, I would see them again. That thought made me feel sad but happy. I opened my mouth and swallowed the liquid on purpose. It burned down my throat like hot pepper. My eyes watered. My chest felt tight. The world started moving strangely. The trees leaned sideways. The red glow stretched into a long line. The men’s voices sounded far away, like they were underwater.

The mountain stronghold was unrecognizable. When Elif had left weeks ago, it had been a half-finished construction site, walls still rising, towers still unroofed, the great hall still echoing with the sounds of hammer and saw. Now it was a fortress. The stone walls had been completed, their surfaces carved with protective runes that glowed faintly in the torchlight. The towers stood tall against the sky, their banners flying in the wind. The great hall was warm and welcoming, its long tables filled with half-bloods who had come from every corner of the continent to join the new order.

Wait that's a bad thing, they've actually just shown me their identities, they're not planning on letting us go. "Can you please shut that thing up?" Small robber dude shouts from the front, I look down at the baby I didn't know how, I wasn't a mother and that's who she wanted right now. I bounce her but it wasn't working again she didn't want me! Tall robber dude leans over to the front opening the glove box, while smacking the other dude up the head. "She's a baby idiot! Here don't worry it's clean" he says sitting back holding a pink dummy in his hand, I take it from him putting into her mouth which slowly makes her calm down.

she adds. Anna climbs down the tree and walks towards the boy who's still holding his strange stick, or a staff? Or is it a wand? Anna gapes at the boy again. He is wearing a long sleeved shirt all the way to his hips with pants tucked inside his boots all in the shade of brown. His outfit makes him look like one of the hobbits from the adventure movie Jo and Anna watched, except that he is not barefooted, and of course not as short. But he is definitely good looking. Anna smirks a little.

Bree and Lana are counting on me to save them. Taking another deep breath, I rise from my perch and continue to walk. I run my tongue over my dry lips, trying to lubricate them. That's when I see a large shadow from a distance. I blink my eyes taking a few steps closer when I see that it's actually a large mountain. It has jagged ridges that stick out menacingly from the top and a large crevice in the middle. The mountain is not connected to the ground, though. Its surrounding area is a drop-off. It looks like a moat, but instead of water, it’s surrounded by small rock needles. It reminds me of the mountain in the movie Lord of the Rings with its foreboding veneer and spooky-looking rock moa