Disclaimer: I don't own The Hobbit, or any of Tolkien's works. Nor do I make profit writing stories about them.
(AN): I had an urge.
"The fire was red, it flaming spread..."
Days after plodding on the road in filthy and tarnished crimson noble garb, Frerin dragged a hand across his tired eyes and swallowed back the urge to cry. The dwarf lad had always known in an abstract way that the world was an unfair place filled with numerous terrors. But no amount of lessons or lectures or books could prepare anyone for the desolation of a dragon.
Everything hurt. Low hunger curled in Frerin's gullet with every step, growing ever more insistent the longer the dark-haired dwarf tried to ignore it. Unfamiliar aches and pains had seeped into his muscles after long days of simply walking, and then sleeping on the hard ground. Even his mind seemed to ache between his ears, struggling to absorb the enormity of losing everything he'd ever known.
Tears were not a luxury Frerin Thrainul had access to. Even if the boy could easily see his own despair mirrored in the sobbing faces of the commoners pressing in behind him, or if Dis alternated between exhausted sleep and constant tears, the young dwarf could not afford to show weakness. 'In times of crisis, everyone depends on their lords. Be strong.' Thrain had whispered to him in the night.
Squinting gritty dark eyes over the distance as the overloaded town of Esgaroth vanished into the deep blue horizon of Long Lake, Frerin clenched his jaw. The men of Dale were in no less dire straits than the dwarves of Erebor.
Because of the nearness of their relatives, they had not fled far enough from the wrath of the dragon. The Laketown would burn beneath dragonfire, Frerin knew with a sense of trepidation. Somehow, at some time, it would blaze down into the dark lake.
Even if Smaug slept for a thousand years, and never roused his wrath against the living again, it did not diminish the sight of pure human misery Lake Town had become. Men clung to every spire, every timber, flooding every boat and crowding into every hut as they pled for salvation. Dark times had come, with darker ones to come.
Frerin turned back to stare at the tall indigo covered back of his suddenly taciturn brother. Thorin bore the same burden, with a determination that inspired the second son to offer their people the same.
Look Adad.
Look Nadad.
I am strong.
Nibbling on the last remains of a crust of dry bread, Dis watched her eldest brother sweep back into the night. Everyone and everything had changed, and even weeks later with the grass of Rhovanion between her toes and the River Running burbling merrily at their sides, Dis still wept in the night.
The blonde dwarf girl wondered if she would ever stop, or if she would cry until she died. Neither thought comforted Dis, because one meant she had forgotten the suffering of her family and people around her, where the other meant she would spend her days miserable.
'It is a hard road for Durin's Folk.' Thorin had murmured to her over the fire one night after they had passed by Men-i-Naugrim, hurrying around the entrance to a wood grown hostile with deep darkness over the long years.
Long fingers snarled through her hair as Dis swallowed down the last crumb. "It will be all right, natha mine. " The voice of her mother slipped into the bleeding cracks in the little girl's heart, soothing away for a time the hurt that came from a home in ruins.
Fris was the spitting image of her golden haired daughter. With tumbling blonde locks and laughing cerulean eyes, the wife of Erebor's crown prince had wrapped the court around her fingers. The dwarrowdam's beauty and gentle manner were well known, and from the moment of Dis' birth the young princess had been compared to her mother.
There was little laughter left in Fris' eyes any longer, save for when she could conjure up cheer and lift the hearts of Durin's dispossessed folk.
"It will be alright." Fri murmured against, stroking gentle hand's over her daughter's crown.
Who she was truly trying to convince, Fris, daughter of Freya, could not say.
"Will you send none to Nain's folk in the Iron Hills?"
The difference in Thorin was as that between night and day, Fundin decided as he watched Thrain's son pace back and forth within the tent that had been requisitioned for the use of the King. Before Smaug had come, the lad had been a merry sort. Proud, as was his right. Respectful to his elders, as was polite. Mindful, as was his duty. But also given to smiles and jests with his siblings and his friends.
This new Thorin was grim, and smiled not at all. Affection still shone in the wolf eyes Thror's line was famous for when the lad gazed upon friends and family. But there was a barely restrained wildness in Thorin, and the young dwarf prince treated his elders not as superiors but as barely equals. As if he were accustomed to giving all commands.
From the worried look on Balin's face as the father and son observed their distant royal kinsman, Fundin knew he was not the only one that had noticed.
"I have already sent away those that were willing to, and should have gone. The young, the old and infirm. But what the Iron Hills can spare is hardly enough to feed the host of our people. " Thrain knuckled his tattooed brow, sighing in tiredness. Neither Prince paid much attention to the King Under the Mountain.
Thror was weeping alone in his bed furs, fingers scrabbling over the paltry gold that had been salvaged while they had fled the mountain. Once the mightiest of dwarf lords, the King of Erebor was no longer even king of his own mind. The dragon sickness had struck deep into the old dwarf's bones, and neither Thrain nor Thorin wanted to stare too closely at what could become their own future.
"Fine." Thorin dropped the subject in a short bark, turning his thoughts back to well-hashed contentions. "Have you changed your mind as of yet regarding our relocation?"
"You know we have not, laddie." Fundin cut in, stroking his salt and pepper beard. "Dunland is a mean place for us to go. We are well aware that the existence we could eke out there would be mangy. But it is safe, and that is what our people need right now."
Temper flared dark and violent in Thorin as he turned away, seething inwardly over the wasted years his people had spent amongst those miserable hills.
"King Frealaf has been courteous enough to our diplomats." Fundin had continued. "And I have no doubt the Horse Lords would be gladder to have dwarves as neighbors than the Dunlendings."
"So long as we are safe, we are perfectly content with selling ourselves for the meanest copper, you mean?" Thorin exploded, before reigning in his temper and growling through gritted teeth "Ered Luin was once a great haven for our people, and it may be again."
"Belegost and Nogrod remain drowned." Fundin bit out testily, smoothing down his beard in a longstanding gesture that calmed him. "Unless you think to teach our folk to breathe beneath the Sea?"
"Enough." A tired voice groaned, drawing the attention of all in the tent to the bent figure of Thror. "If you have so much faith in these old Kingdoms, Thorin, then take yourself and some of our folk to find the truth of it." The gleam in the King's eye was sharp, old cunning and shrewd calculation breaking from the gold madness. "Take the old forest road, as I know you wish, you impatient boy. Do this swiftly, and return."
Face twisting into frantic fear, Thrain whirled about. "Father, that is my son! You cannot mean to send him away – after what has happened to our Kingdom!" Meaty fists clenched in worry as the Crown Prince stepped forward in entreaty. "He is just a child!"
Thror frowned, ice blue orbs seeking out his grandson's own wild pair. "No." The old King declared gruffly. "He is not." The sensibility fled then, and the King of Durin's Folk bent down to weep over his lost gold again.
A loud crack echoed through the air, and ignoring the stinging in his cheek, Thorin turned his face back towards his seething mother. To say that the dwarrowdam had taken his choice poorly was an understatement. Thrain was just as unimpressed, though his father was less apt to emotional outburst.
It was little more than an annoyance to Thorin, who had lived neigh two centuries and more than knew how to survive in perilous places. But these were his parents. His mother whom he remembered burying under a cairn of stones by the road on their travels and his father who had died mad and alone in Dol Guldur. So he would bear their contempt, if only to reassure himself that they were living once more.
( Though that was indeed, still in doubt. Thorin was entirely convinced he was living in some private hell. )
"Selfish, cruel boy!" Fris bit out, white beneath her pale beard. "You are needed here, with your brother and sister. Not haring off on some fool's errand!"
Reaching up, Thorin cupped his mother's angry face between his hands. Her flesh was warm beneath his fingertips, and that brought a thick lump to his throat that the prince had to swallow past to speak. "Amad, I do not do this to be cruel, or out of some sense of dwarfling adventure. I do this for our Folk, and their future."
Pressing his forehead to her's, Thorin shuttered his eyes. "Do not let us part in anger." He had more than enough angry partings in this world and the last, and it had taught him the future was uncertain. Thorin was tired of burying friends after hard words, or being buried himself with conflict lying unresolved.
Fris stood stiff and angry for a long, silent moment, before her fury bled away. Settling soft hands over her firstborn son's, the princess gave a rusty chuckle. "Oh my Thorin, when did you grow so old?"
"It was bound to happen, amad. Not all of us can remain ever young and beautiful as you." The jest was a weak one, but it brought a tremulous smile to the dwarrowdam's lips.
"Flatterer. Keep such honeyed words on your tongue and I may find myself a daughter-in-law sooner, rather than later."
Thorin's lips quirked. "I shall endeavor to do my best, for your sake." It was the first time he had smiled since he died.
The sun has passed away.
It was an errant thought that came into Thorin's mind as he stepped beneath the boughs of twisted trees and entered Mirkwood. With a company of fifty dwarves at his back, and the cracked stones of the ancient highway that had still spanned the once-Greenwood, the dwarf prince plunged into the forest.
The air tasted of shadows. Dark and saturated with the fell stench of the Necromancer's sorcery. It did not take long for the light to die by inches, leaving only the faint half-light and the breathing of his company in the eerie silence. Thorin loathed it even more than he had the first time he led a company through Mirkwood.
However, as much as Thorin hated Mirkwood – hated the shadows beneath the branches, and the stifling lack of wind, and the rustle of misshapen creatures just out of sight, he infinitely preferred it to time spent with his family. Even if there were poisonously coloured vines draping from the canopy and the slither of something in the underbrush, there was no Frerin here. No Thror. No Fris. No Thrain.
No Dis.
There was no possibility of waking in the night with a cold sweat, heaving from the memory of his brother's dead and sightless eyes beneath the sky at Azanulbizar, only to have his distressed living brother press against him. There was no Dis for Thorin to sneak guilty crumbs to, seeing her older face on his mother and fighting the urge to throw himself to his knees.
Fili. Kili. My boys. Dis, I failed them. I failed you.
I failed my people.
I failed.
Stones were a scarcity in Mirkwood, and saved Thorin the imagining of his mother's corpse peeking out from underneath them. Every time the prince could steel his heart long enough to help the dwarves of Erebor bury another of their kin beneath cairns on the roadside, he did. And every time he did, Thorin turned away at the end fighting the nausea that accompanied the familiar act. Every dwarrow was his father, dying alone and tortured in Dol Guldur after decades. Every dwarrowdam was his mother, bleeding beneath her skirts with black bruises around her throat after trying to scrap together coins working in a seedy bar.
Some things were forever unspeakable.
The long silences and graves in his eyes were unnerving, Thorin knew. He could see it in the way his soldiers flinched away from him when the nights came. He supposed he was fortunate that their grief ran together, and the men continued to follow him despite the edge of madness they were beginning to suspect in him. Fifty of Erebor's best and brightest whispered in the dark, passing on theories about their fifty-first. Sometimes they even misidentified whom they were speaking to, and Thorin smirked morbidly to hear their worries.
The Prince was mad with grief. Or mad with violence. His was a heart too hard, since he did not weep. His heart too soft, since he did not put the ghosts in the ground where they belong. He was leading them to doom, or salvation. Either way, they were Durin's Folk, and they would follow him to the end of all days.
Get it together, Oakenshield.
The spiders descended, and he died again, pulled to pieces screaming.
Thorin was stubborn. Some thought it his greatest of flaws – that he would attempt again and again regardless of the cost, until some unforeseen circumstance would change his mind. Others would call it his greatest strength, and that he was made to endure beyond suffering.
The dwarf prince himself was unsure. Days ran together, until they began to lose real meaning and a haze of weariness wore away the sharp edges. Deaths ran together, until waking up to his childhood ceiling grew old and even Smaug less a terror. Lives ran together, until he could tousle Frerin's hair without thinking of his corpse, and hug Dis without grieving her sons.
Being beaten into something both harder and softer was disconcerting. Thorin lost count of the times he died on the dwarf road. He rushed the company faster, and slower, and spiders consumed them. He took more soldiers, and orcs fell upon them. He took fewer men, and made it to sight of the western sun, only to be caught by wargs in the last stretch. He snuck away and journeyed alone the last time, to bleed his life and warmth away at behest of a wraith in black.
After that, he kept his peace for weeks. When Fundin suggested they journey to Dunland, Thrain agreed, and Thorin remained silent. When they passed Men-i-Naugrim, Thorin swallowed the urge to suggest they cut across the trees and make for a richer refuge. Blow by blow, death by death, life by life, he was being remade.
Iron was the greatest friend of the Khazad. Mithril the most beautiful, but treacherous in the deep. Gold the most lusty, but mad beneath the gleam. Iron was black, and hard, and strong, but brittle at the seams. Thorin was becoming something else in the forging.
Blue eyes woke, tired beneath the weight of untold lives but sharp, and gazed over hazy brown lands. Thorin blinked, and straightened. The shadow of Mirkwood fell away, and fire shone in the heart once more.
His was a truer steel.
Thrain led the dwarves of Erebor, save for the few times that Thror's mind was his own. But for all the Crown Prince was the Crown Prince, the King was still the King, and his word was still law. Madness or no madness. Experience taught Thorin the simplest and quickest way of getting permission for his continually failing expeditions was to bypass his father and approach his grandfather directly.
Thus Thorin Thrainul found himself standing stiff as a board, spine straight with fists tucked behind his back. In the heyday of Erebor Thorin would have approached his grandfather before the court in his best silks, freshly scrubbed and freshly braided, to present to the King his petition.
Wandering the wilderness with the survival of their people as they were however, propriety bowed to necessity, and Thorin came to Thror when the older dwarf's eyes were clear. Slipping in after his father and the royal council had departed for the night, and still clad in the dirt of the road, Thorin bowed and waited to be acknowledged.
"Thorin." Thror greeted, a shrewd light in the oft-witless King's mind. Before his spiral down into gold sickness Thror had been widely regarded as one of the greatest dwarf lords of the age. Courageous on the field of battle, cunning in negotiation, loyal in friendship and long in enmity. To recognize the implicit underhanded approach Thorin made took only a split second for the dwarf that had built Erebor from nothing but old ruins.
"Grandfather." Thorin replied lowly. He was not approaching Thror as a subject, but as his grandson and second-in-line. His petition was for the sake of Durin's Folk, and not for himself. "I beg your leave to depart with a small company across the Anduin."
Gears began to turn instantly in Thror's mind, suspicious of foolhardy ventures. "For what purpose?"
"It is known that there is little wealth for our people to be found among the hills of Dunland. Tin may feed our people, but there is little happiness to be found from it. It would simply be a meagre existence, begging for scraps in the villages of men, pawning the heirlooms of our people for bread. There are other caves to delve – old kingdoms that still offer hope."
The creak of Thror's bones as the old dwarf fisted his hands was shockingly loud in the quiet of the tent, making Thorin blink in surprise. "Khazad-dum is a dream Thorin. We are desperate, but not that desperate yet. I have little doubt Durin's Bane still stalks those halls."
"I would not have suggested it." Thorin reassured quickly, shoving down the sheer shock of Thror of all dwarves warning him about the dangers to be found in Moria. "I mean to travel along the East bank to the North, cross at the Old Ford and take the High Pass. Then press West until we reach Ered Luin. Belegost and Nogrod lay beneath the sea, but the Firebeards still keep halls there to this day."
Thinning his lips, Thror stared blankly into the distance as he weighed his grandson's proposal. It was a potentially dangerous journey to be sure, for an uncertain reward... but there was potential. And if the worst came to be, and Thorin was lost, his house would still continue.
The King tracked his gaze back to pin his grandson with an assessing stare. Mere months ago he would never have permitted such a thing. Thorin was too young, and yet untested. Two months after the Fall of Erebor with his people homeless and starving however, Thror found himself permitting things with he would not have before.
"Our pace will take us to the South Undeep by tomorrow evening. Discreetly gather yourself a company of thirty to take with you, and depart at first light two days hence. Tell none until it is time for you to leave." Thror lips twisted bitterly. The gold madness was strong, and this would likely be his last time to see his eldest grandson for nearly a year, if the journey went well. "I doubt I have to remind you not to tell your father."
Thrain would stop Thorin, if he could.
"As you will, grandfather."
The swelling over his cheekbone had yet to subside, and throbbed in time with every step. To say Thrain had been unimpressed with his son's secrecy would be an understatement. Angry cursing and a fist to Thorin's face however, had done much to improve the Crown Prince's temper.
The purplish bruise darkening his face made a pleasant companion for the reddened cheek Thorin endured after Fris' angry slap. It made his face such a pleasant sight, if the horrified look a painfully young Dori gave him the morning they set out was anything to guess by.
Thorin, Balin, and Dori were the only members of his Company that had been born before the Desolation of Smaug. A small part of the collection of warriors and friends that Thorin had come to rely on and trust his life with over the last year of his life. It felt painfully naked to not have Dwalin at his back, or Bombur turning sausages over the fire rather than some Ironfist he'd never met before. But to have a grey-haired Balin curled up next to him when they laid their bedrolls out, or to glimpse a red-haired Dori with a wisp of beard mingling with the others following him, eased part of that aching emptiness in Thorin's heart.
The Anduin ran thick and strong beside the trekking dwarves, winding its long way to the sea. It shone deep blue in the sunlight, and glimmered silver and dark beneath the moon, bubbling patiently past like a steadfast companion. It soothed Thorin's nerves when he stumbled back into and out of memory, waking from nightmares of dying and living in the night.
His days mingled together, bleeding away the stress that had built itself into every seam of his mind. Thorin found himself breathing in the clean air, with a thrum of life flowering faintly beneath the skin. Quiet songs of Elder Days sung lowly among the Khazad began to pull his own voice from his throat and ease the flown seemingly chiseled on his brow.
Balin was gladdened. One learnt swiftly to count their small blessings following the great devastations.
He should have expected something would happen soon to upset the quiet monotony of the jouney.
It did.
"Awake! Awake!"
With a hammering in his chest Thorin jolted from sleep, rolling to his feet and drawing his blade in a single smooth motion. Air hissed as the dwarves dozing around him burst into battle-readiness, dwarven wrought steel gleaming in the pale early dawn light. A long tense pause thrummed through the camp as they scanned the horizon for orc raiders or hunting wargs.
Low curses and angry grumbles began to fill the air when it was found to be clear of any sign of foes. Shoving his dwarven blade back in its sheath, Thorin ignored the building tumult turned a sour look towards Balin, who responded with a confused shrug.
"Shazara!" the prince roared, shoving a particularly noisy dwarrow. "Shazara!" Silence slowly descended back over the camp, and the commotion calmed enough for a red-haired dwarf to shove his way through to stand before Thorin.
"There's something I think you need to see, your highness."
Thinning his lips, Thorin followed the sentry. "What is it? Enemies"?
"Not quite."
The last of the milling dwarves shuffled out of the way, allowing Thorin to catch sight of what began all the early morning confusion.
A pile of grey-brown packs, neatly stacked in rows of five, with dark leather flasks set upon each. The material was finely woven, and looked newly made. They didn't appear sinister, but their strange and sudden appearance was absurdly eerie. If it was supposed to be some sort of trap, it was queer one.
Motioning with a thick finger at the sentry, Thorin grunted "Open one." The dwarf hurried to obey, checking a flask first. Water splattered over the ground, turning a small spot of it into mud.
"Just water."
"The packs as well."
Curious fingers quested inside the woven packs, pulling out small packages wrapped in leaves. The sentry wrinkled his nose at the greenery, but peeled it back to reveal a pale biscuit. The sight of it tickled the recesses of Thorin's memory, bringing to mind airy places and flowing falls.
Rivendell.
"Lembas bread." The dwarf prince identified with incredulity. Lembas, here?
"I should say this one's for you, laddie." Balin rumbled from nearby, shoving a satchel into his hands. The weave of it was instantly identifiable by mere touch as being of a higher quality than the others. And pinned to the flap was a slip of paper.
Thorin, son of Thrain. The envelope read in fine strokes, the runes bold and dark above a red wax seal. Flipping the envelope over to the back, Thorin felt his brows climbing in the first true and honest surprise since he'd become 'accustomed' to living and dying over and over.
Compliments of the Lady of the Golden Wood.
Raising suspicious eyes from the sealed envelope, Thorin raised over the wide Anduin to stare at the golden trees of Lothlorien waving merrily in the morning breeze.
(AN): About 4200 words. So a little more than the first chapter I suppose.
Glossary:
Adad – Khuzdul; Father.
Amad – Khuzdul; Mother.
Nadad – Khuzdul; Brother.
Khazad – Khuzdul; Dwarves.
Shazara – Khuzdul; Silence.
Belegost – Home of the Broadbeams in Ered Luin, drowned at the end of the First Age after the War of Wrath. (Sindarin; Mighty Fortress). Gabigathol in Khuzdul.
Nogrod – Home of the Firebeards in Ered Luin, drowned at the end of the First Age after the War of Wrath. (Sindarin; Hollowbold). Tumunzahar in Khuzdul.
Khazad-dum – Moria. The Dwarrowdelf.
Frealaf Hildeson – King of Rohan and nephew of Helm Hammerhand. Ascended after a war with the Dunlendings killed Helm's sons.
Currently Alive Company Members: Thorin, Balin, Dori.
On Pacing: Expect things to proceed quickly at times, slowly at others. I want to try and touch on some character development without getting bogged down in minutiae. Time skips will be abundant as well. I'll try and put some work towards fleshing out the backstory of the members of the company and dwarven history without giving you day-to-day grocery lists.
Galadriel: So Thranduil is an asshat, what else is new? I realize that it's sensible for him to avoid tangling with the dragon. But that's not an excuse to refuse to send food/medicine. I think the elf lord is just taking the opportunity to enforce a grudge. But I can't imagine every elf everywhere is going to be that much of a prick. Elrond certainly takes a "Help everyone that's not an orc" sort of approach, and we know already Galadriel doesn't hold any kind of prejudice against dwarves. Otherwise Gimli never would have become Lockbearer. Just take it that in the canon timeline, the dwarves of Erebor never ventured near Lothlorien for her to send some supplies to, so they never had aid from her rather than racist!elves galore.
Dwarven Aging: I don't think they have extended puberty/prepubescence. I rather view them as just aging "normally" for the first twenty years, and then persisting through a long adulthood and senior years. Otherwise a thirty year old Thorin would be closer to ten years old when Erebor fell.
Dworc: In Tolkien's legendarium, even having orc blood is almost as good as being an orc yourself. There's talk in Fellowship of "unsavory" men that have orcish ancestry. So I would think that it's a predisposition to commit evil and mayhem.
Balin's Age: I was going to say that him being 80 and old with young Fili/Kili at 80 could fly since "Durin's age slowly". But he's also a direct descendent of Durin. So let's just fly with him being I dunno, 50. And he just naturally has grey-black hair. I haven't actually mentioned it in the story yet as a number, and only described him as older and shorter than Thorin, and old enough to tutor him a bit, so I can work with that.
Is this Chunin Exam Day?: CED is one of the most horrific fics ever written. That being said, this is a groundhog day type of work. But rather than a day, it's "Make it from the Fall to the Reclaiming of Erebor, while doing X task set by mysterious entity not yet revealed." *cough* Illuvatar *cough*
Names: I might go and ask Determanfidd if I can borrow some of the names. Like Fris. Or Vili. Dwarven names are obviously patrio/metronymic. And there are only so many syllables to work with.
Bagginshield: I enjoy reading a female Bilbo and Thorin romance, but I wouldn't apply "unimpressed" to Bilbo. I'd probably characterize most of canon Bilbo's interactions with Thorin as pussyfooting. And yes, Thorin does need someone that tells him where to get off, when he needs to get his head on straight, but that has never realistically been Bilbo.
Kiliel: I don't really care for it. I dislike a lot of how Tauriel was used in the films – cheapening the BerenxLuthien romance, "Hands of the King are Hands of A Healer" reduced to Glowy Elvish Hocus Pocus, ect. – but she has potential as a character. If, and a VERY big if, those two end up together, it wouldn't be until near the very end of the fic. I just can't see them meeting up at any other time than the Quest, and again, I refuse to have "I could have anything down my trousers" as an acceptable pickup line.
