Chapter Text
She eyed the short young blond, sizing him up. He was clearly angry, but he’d just been thrown in a cell by those arrogant assholes with the pointy ears. She had been angry when it happened to her, too. Hell, she was still angry and she’d been here at least a week now.
She watched as he tried to rattle the bars on the door with no success. He banged on them, finally calming when other voices called to each other from outside the cell door. The conversation ceased and her new cellmate huffed a frustrated sigh before turning away from the door and sliding down onto the floor, his head hanging low.
With his initial ire, and now his despondence, he hadn’t yet noticed her sitting silently against the far wall. She wasn’t sure whether to leave him be or let him know she was there. Then she considered how much she would hate to be surprised if she were already on edge, and she figured she’d better let him know she was here.
She cleared her throat.
His head jerked up, eyes wide and surprised. She just had time to notice that his eyes were a striking blue when he jumped to his feet and assumed a defensive posture. “Who are you?” he demanded.
She held her hands up, palms facing him, in a gesture of peace. “No hablo tu idioma,” she said softly, trying to assure him of her lack of foul intent and tell him about the language barrier.
She’d gone to sleep one night in her own bed and woken up in a dark, dank forest. As if that inexplicable circumstance hadn’t been frightening enough, she’d almost immediately been chased by a giant monster spider. She’d run for her life, right into a group of beautiful people with pointy ears who had killed the spider, then yelled at her in a language she didn’t understand. For whatever reason, that seemed to aggravate them. They tied her hands and dragged her through the woods and into a palace that would surely have triggered vertigo in someone afraid of heights. They led her to stand in front of an ethereally beautiful man she took to be their leader. She couldn’t understand anything he said, either. At that point, she was scared out of her mind and hopelessly confused. The leader had made a dismissive gesture and the next thing she knew, she was here, in this cell. She had been questioned a few more times with no results, but she was warm, dry, and fed regularly, so even though she had been an unwitting captive for far too long now, it could have been worse.
She had really been hoping it was all a dream, but the longer it went on, the less and less likely that seemed. By now, she was ready to act as though this weren’t all some fevered hallucination, just in case it was real, because it sure didn’t seem to be going away.
The short blond eyed her suspiciously but relaxed his stance. “A woman?” he said with a tone of surprise. “What do they have you in here for?”
He seemed disinclined to attack, based on his tone, so she shrugged her shoulders. “No hablo tu idoma,” she said again. There was no way for her to understand what he was saying, and she had no way to tell him about her unusual situation, even if she thought she should.
His brows drew together and she saw the tension around his mouth relax. “You don’t speak Common,” he murmured. “I bet you don’t even know why you’re in here.”
He sent her a sympathetic half-smile. He pointed to himself, then to the empty space beside her, his eyebrows raised. She gave him an appraising once-over in return and nodded. He walked across the small room and sat down beside her, maybe five feet away. He was giving them both plenty of space, she realized, enough for her to feel comfortable that he wasn’t going to try anything, and enough for him to have time to respond if she did. She nodded to herself. That was smart.
He spoke again. “I can’t imagine what you must be going through.” He paused and shook his head. “You don’t speak the language and you’re here alone…” He stopped abruptly. “Are you alone?” He’d already confirmed there was nobody else in this cell, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have friends in others.
She just tilted her head at him.
He sighed. He wasn’t sure how to ask that with no words in common, so he tried for something simpler. He pointed to his chest. “Fili,” he said.
She didn’t move.
He poked himself in his chest again. “Fili,” he repeated. Then he pointed to her and raised his eyebrows.
Ah, introductions. Yes, that would probably be all right. “Francesa,” she replied, pointing to herself. Then she looked as though she thought better of it and said, “Cessa.” She pointed to him and tried his name out. “Fili?” she asked, drawing out the syllables carefully.
He nodded, flashing some charming dimples as he smiled at his success. “Fili,” he confirmed. He pointed at her and tried her name. “Cessa?”
She smiled and nodded her head. She tried to control the ridiculous joy that was bubbling up within her. Fili was the first person to have spoken to her with kindness since she woke up here, and certainly the first who was actually trying to communicate with her instead of just yell at her for not understanding. She hadn’t realized the extent of her loneliness and fear until just now, now that someone was actually trying to connect with her. She heaved a great sigh of relief. “Mucho gusto, Fili,” she nodded at him.
He grinned back. “At your service, Cessa,” he said, bowing his head.
Fili wasn’t sure where to go from here, but he was quite pleased with having successfully navigated an introduction and wanted to keep it going. He felt for her, this strange woman named Cessa. She appeared to be human, but she wasn’t dressed like any human he’d ever seen before. She wore loose fitting, dark blue pants with a sleeveless black top. She was barefoot. Her hair was cut short, shorter than most men’s hair in Fili’s experience, and while it was mostly a rich brown, it was going grey in the front, between her temples and her ears. For having some grey hair, though, her skin seemed to have few, if any, wrinkles that he could see, and her voice seemed soft but strong. He couldn’t tell if she was as old as her hair suggested or as young as her face and voice did.
And how did she not speak the Common tongue? Fili thought all humans spoke Common. He had suspected a ruse at first, some sort of deception to learn of the Company’s reason for being in Mirkwood. But his gut told him that the scared, confused look in her hazel eyes was genuine; Cessa really didn’t know what was going on.
He heard footsteps approaching their door and scrambled to his feet. Cessa raised a hand in a calming gesture. “Tranquilo,” she said soothingly as she also got to her feet.
Fili was taken aback. He’d expected her to be taller than he, of course; human women usually were. But he hadn’t expected her to be this much taller. Why, she had to be a full foot taller than he was! That would make her a head taller than Thorin and Dwalin, even, though still not as tall as Gandalf.
She moved toward the door. Fili rushed to stand in front of her, between her and whoever it was approaching them. She was taller, but she was human and female; as a dwarrow, he was much stronger and better able to protect her, protect them both, from any threat some nasty elf may pose.
An elf guard came to a stop in front of their cell. Without even a glance in their direction, he silently slid a plate of food under the bars and walked away. Fili glared daggers at the guard’s back.
“Oye!” shouted Cessa at the guard, looking down at the single plate. “Somos dos aquí ahora! Necesitamos otro plato!”
As Fili expected, she got no response. “Oye!” she shouted again.
Fili turned to face her. “It’s all right,” he looked up at her and smiled reassuringly. “I’m not hungry.” He picked up the plate and held it out to her. She looked back at him and shook her head adamantly.
He tried again. Extending the plate toward her, he tried for a convincing tone. “Cessa, really, take it. I insist.”
She shook her head again and crossed her arms in front of her.
Fili raised an eyebrow at her. He was touched by her determination not to let him go hungry, but he really would be just fine. He was certain she could use it more than he. “You know you can’t outstubborn a dwarrow, right?”
He knew she didn’t really understand, but when she pursed her lips and raised her chin in a gesture that very much said, “We’ll see about that, mister,” he couldn’t help but chuckle.
Cessa gave him a tentative, conciliatory smile and waved her pointer finger back and forth between them. Then she pointed at the plate, then waved her finger back and forth between them again. “Compartimos,” she said.
She wanted to share the meal. Fili had an idea. “All right,” he agreed. He grabbed one of her hands, noticing how small and delicate it was, and put the plate in it. “But you eat first.” This way, he just wouldn’t eat when it was his turn and she would end up eating all of it. He pointed to the plate, then to her, back to the plate, then to himself.
Her astute gaze told him she wasn’t likely to be fooled, but he was going to try anyway. She nodded once, then took the plate and sat down against the wall a few feet away.
Cessa ate her half of the meal, watching Fili pace the small space in which they were trapped. It didn’t take long, as it wasn’t a large plate to begin with and only half of it was hers. She had a feeling Fili was going to try to get her to eat the entire thing. So far, he’d tried to talk to her when he hadn’t been obligated to, he’d stepped in between her and their jailor as a safeguard, and now he’d made sure she had the food first. He seemed like a good sort. Which was, to Cessa’s mind, all the more reason to ensure he was the recipient of some kindness, too, not just the giver.
When she finished her half, she stood up and walked over to where he was wearing a path in the floor. He stopped when he saw her coming. She stood in front of him and extended her arms, intending to hand him the plate. Fili looked up at her, trying to hide a mischievous smile but not entirely succeeding, and crossed his arms over his chest, as she had earlier.
Cessa barked out a laugh. Fair enough. So she, echoing his earlier actions, reached out and took one of his hands in hers. She set the plate in his palm, pointed at the plate, then pointed at him. “Fili,” she insisted. Then she turned and walked back to where she had been sitting.
No sooner had she sat than Fili sauntered over to her, set the plate down beside her, and walked away to the other side of the cell. He leaned against the wall, crossed his arms again, and raised his eyebrows at her.
Cessa raised her eyebrows right back. Game on, blondie. She reached for the plate as though to pick it up. The corners of Fili’s mouth turned up in a triumphant smirk. Instead of picking it up, though, she pushed it away from her. Then she pooched out her belly as far as it would go, and rubbed it, sighing heavily as though she were stuffed from an all-day buffet.
Fili’s lips twitched as he tried not to laugh.
Cessa over-pantomimed a big, overhead stretch, adding a cavernous yawn. With a contented sigh, she snuggled back into the stone wall of the cell and mimed drifting off to sleep, complete with a snore that would have made any dwarrow proud.
Fili laughed.
After a few moments, she heard him walk toward her. “All right, all right,” he sighed resignedly. “You win. I’ll eat.”
She waited until she heard him not only pick up the plate, but start chewing, before she opened her eyes. When she looked at him, he rolled his eyes at her, but she saw no actual annoyance in his expression. She gave him her own triumphant smirk, but then her face softened. She was glad he’d let her win and was eating. She smiled at him sincerely. “Gracias, Fili.”
“Mm-hmm,” Fili mumbled with his mouth full. He swallowed and continued, “Just because you won this battle, don’t think that means the war is over.”
Cessa didn’t know what he’d said, but the general idea was clear enough. She shrugged carefreely at him and settled back against the wall.