Like every other decision in my life, I regretted making my choice. As of this moment I was tearing quietly through the trees, making my way back towards our camp. I leapt into the small clearing where the ponies grazed and startled a few into rearing back but I didn't care for comforting it now.

My feet thumped hard – sending the vibration up my legs and throughout my body – and I ran up the hill to where the camp sat in silence. The soup that was being passed around had been burned and was clinging to the outside of the pot, just as much as within. It was the consistency of tar or mud, but I wasn't here for the soup. I was here for my swords, which were laying on the ground near the fire.

I bent and took them into my hands, listening to the woods around me. There was the sound of the sludge bubbling and the quiet scrambling of a small creature in the underbrush. My hands were stinging from the blisters I had sustained from using the fire from the troll's camp as a mystical punching glove.

I managed to grab my bag a pull a few small containers of white salt and sage; but I was exhausted; my head was swirling around like my brain had been washed down a thundering fall. I fumbled with the straps on my belt and found myself forgetting how to tie a propped knot. As I looked down at my hands fumbling around my belt I halted abruptly. My hands were bright red and bubbling with blisters. Second degree burns; I knew this because I had seen and treated them before.

They burned and I longed to spend what magic I had left to heal them. I stared at my hands for a moment and I could feel the strange sensation of vanity boil in my chest before I regained my sense. My friends – err my traveling companions – would endure much worse than burns; they could be bled like chickens on the rack or drawn and quartered. The horrific images born of my fear plagued my brain and I looked back the way I had come.

It took little less than a minute for me to find my way back to the troll's camp, and I slithered through the foliage of the forest floor. I found a large bolder and I quietly wedged myself in a perfectly placed crevasse and was able to just see the dwarves and the trolls that were crowded in the camp.

The dwarves were tied up in sacks and being piled onto of one another while a split was constructed. I lay in wait, and my eyes fiercely roamed about, and my ears allowed the chaotic chatter flood my head.

"You're cracking, Bert!" the taller of the tree trolls barked and grunted as be bent his knees to hoist up a log they'd probably fashioned from one of the trees they had uprooted. "There were thirteen of the dwarves, and one Burglarobbit!" He said and set the split turning long upon the stand and bushed offers large meaty hands.

"I am not cracking, William!" The aproned troll swung his ladle at the tall troll he called William, and instead he bonked the thin troll flat on N the head. "I know what I saw, and what I saw was another one of these!" he jutted his long finger out towards Bilbo who was tied up in a sack along with the others. "She hit me broad side with her 'and on fire." The aproned troll they had called Bert rattled on.

"Every side is your broad side." The thin troll grumbled, and the Bert troll turned on him and smacked him in the chest with the ladle before discarding it somewhere in the underbrush. I shuddered when I heard a clank somewhere near me and I looked up at the trolls who had begun to argue and I slowly slid out of my hiding place – crouched like a spider on its dewy web – slinking slowly across the ground of the forest floor.

Dirt and fallen leaves took a liking to my knees and boots while I slunk off a little farther into the woods; I was searching for a very common plant, and it would certainly make my daring rescue easier.

My hands dragged across the earth as I felt around the various plants and brush, searching good and hard without taking an eternity. I stopped when my hands brushed over something thick, fat, and squishy. I didn't shudder at the feeling and I immediately parted the long grass to find the plant I was looking for.

It was fat with juice that rushed under the waxy exterior and shaped in that of a star with many leaves protruding from the middle and reaching outwards. It was a soft green and it reached down from the tips of the leaves with a frosty white gradient. It appeared to be bushed with frost and there were elderberry purple flecks radiating from the center.

"Oh, thank you." I whispered reverently and inclined my head to the sky and breathed in gently to clear my head with the night air and returned to care for the plant.

This was remarkably similar in texture and appearance to a young Aloe Vera plant, but this grew more commonly in swamps and forest lands, somewhere where fog could thrive in the depths under clouds or a dense canopy. I didn't want to remember how to use it, but I had to for the good of the company. I remembered the spell grandma put of my mother's potted plants that made them produce their fog at an immensely accelerated rate.

I knew the spell and I knew the plant, Hîth Lass; literally translating to Fog Leaf in Sindarian elvish. This could create the perfect cover for me to get into the camp and pull my companions out one by one. I bent over the plant and dug my nails into the earth, crumbling the soil in my palms like chocolate cake. I uprooted the plant and winced with every snap of the slender white and purple tinged roots.

I got to my feet and unwrapped my scarf from around my shoulders and covered the plant as I turned back towards the troll camp. I ran as fast and as quietly as I could, and I knew there was no way the trolls would catch me before I was able to get every last dwarf out of there. My heart was pounding in my throat when I reached the campsite again and saw the chaos that had ensued after my brief departure.

Half of the dwarves were hauled out of potato sacks, stripped down to their tan under garment jumpers beneath and tied to the split over a pile of logs that was ready to be set ablaze. The troll called Bert was standing on – by my stance – the left side of the split, while the other tall troll that had been called William stood on the right. The thin troll that scampered about eagerly was holding a flint block and a knife in his hands as he walked around the fire impatiently.

"Cool yer 'ead, Tom!" Bert snapped and swatted at the smaller troll with his large and meaty arm. I could imagine the stressed face of my mother when I heard the terrible grammar of the rumbling beasts.

I saw that Mr Bilbo Baggins was still in a sack on the ground beside the others and I tried to seek out his mind among the millions of thoughts and verbal shouting that blurred into one loud sound around me. I closed my eyes and felt for Bilbo's mind and breathed steadily through my nose as I closed my eyes.

I latched the invisible hooks into his head and thought towards him with all my might. When my eyes opened, I found Bilbo looking around, and I directed his gaze towards me, sending him images from my own perspective until he faced me. I met his eyes, and I softened my gaze as much as I could with the boiling concentration and roaring ache that plagued my head.

"Bilbo," I spoke into his mind with tremendous effort – the strain evident in my voice –. "I need you to keep the others quiet. Stay still and don't move." I managed to rasp and broke the connection and watched as Bilbo's mouth hung open as I nodded once at him, silently asking him to confirm that he'd obey to my wishes. Bilbo's nose twitched before he nodded once.

A wave of relief washed over me, and I crawled backwards on my hands and knees. I scrambled around the campsite between the trees. I felt weak in body and no less weary in my mind. I knew I had one go at this, and if I failed – if I wasn't strong enough to get the others out before the fog would clear, then there would be nothing between us and the veil of death.

Shuddering as my nerves fired off without my consent. I knelt nearest to the dwarves all tied up in sacks. I could see Bilbo scanning the skirts of the clearing for me, but his eyes never found my huddled from, crouched in the underbrush. I unwrapped the Hîth Lass and set it on the ground before me. It was tinted with gold in the firelight that danced between the leaves of the brush around me.

I breathed shakily as I held my trembling hands out before me. I could feel white hot pain bubble up in my stomach and my forearms burned with the effort. I didn't know if I could do it, it stung me. I winced and strained to see through my blurred vision as the red markings pulsed in my skin, I could see it blur at the corners at my eyes as my hands reached out towards the plant. I felt the energy ricochet through my body as I drew the simple rune in the air.

With great effort I slammed my right palm into the rune, and it shot like an arrow into the plant. Its fleshy leaves absorbed the light and twitched wildly as the skin cracked silently and white fog jetting up into the air. Perfection I watched as the fog – thick and white – glided across the forest floor and expanded as it began to fall over roots and tree branches far above. It snaked over rocks and reached out with smoky fingers for the dwarves that lay in sacks. I faced the wall of fog and listened as there was a grumble of irritation from the trolls as they fanned the fire to chase away the smoke, only to have it cluster even thicker around the dwarves. There was surprised struggling and coughing from the dwarves and even Bilbo; I took this as my opening and I slunk across the ground, crouching like a panther in the darkness of the foggy night.

I crept through the veil of fog and felt around across the ground, struggling to keep my eyes open and my body moving. I reached forward in the white fog and my hand brushed against burlap. I pressed further and felt flesh beneath the burlap, a leg. I pursed my lips and blew hot air out into the fog. The fog curled away, and I saw the blue eyes of Bombur widen at the sight of me. I put a hand to my lips just as his mouth opened and the fog masked my face again.

Bombur stopped his wild struggling as my hands fumbled around the ties on the sack that sat far under his beard. With every moment my body began to shake more violently, and the fog began to clear. I could see the outlines of the trolls moving around the split and I realized I may have bitten off more than I could chew. I felt my body slacken against Bombur and I began to gasp with fear – my throat constricting as my stomach burned – and Bombur struggled beside me worriedly.

I knew I couldn't do it; I wasn't strong enough; my best chance was all that I had left on me. My blades and my pocket of... wait... My pocket... what did I have? I struggled as I reached into my pocket. One last spell, a simple spell, one so simple an untrained hobbit such as Bilbo could have done it, all it needed was words.

The fog began to lift as the Hîth Lass began to wither. I pulled my small bottle of salt out of my pocket and uncapped the cork stub and set a pile of it into my hands. My plan had failed horribly, and the dwarves knew it. I looked at the miniscule crystals in my pal and closed my eyes as my markings glowed like the fire that roared ten feet away from my outstretched legs. I could see the eyes of the dwarves now and the trolls were still trying to fan away the fog and didn't see me.

I cast a sideways glance at the dwarves who just noticed I was there and spoke faintly, "Hang on." I whispered and my body shuddered as I put my palm to my mouth and I croaked out the weak spell, "Visari abeir." The salt melted into my hand and seemed to seep into ever crevasse and print on my hands. Soon it traveled up my arms and I felt my body slacken as the exhaustion took hold and I let my body go limp against the ground...