Chapter 9 Memory in Thorin's POV
Thorin glared as he sat in the yard watching Haran train with the elves. His grandfather had said that he needed to stop hiding in the shadows and spend some time with Haran. He had tried to argue that he was not really hiding in the shadows when he watched Haran train, though, he just happened to never be seen by anyone. When he said that to Thror, the king had only raised an eyebrow and Thorin was forced to step into the clearing. At first he thought that Haran would be upset seeing him there, he had practically banned Thorin last time he had followed them, but he just smiled slightly and bowed respectfully before turning to his tutors. Thorin resolved then that he'd rather not make Haran angry with him, so he would stay off to the side and not to interfere even though Haran was learning the bow from the elves.
That is, until the twins started speaking in Sindarin. While he had watched, Thorin had seen the twins speaking to Haran in the elvish language and had been surprised to see that his Intended could reply back with almost the same amount of fluency despite his thick accent, but for some reason the way the twins look as they spoke this time just made his skin bristle. They looked like they were making fun of him. How dare they speak in a language he didn't understand. "Are you offering us insult?" he growled. It was the wrong thing to do apparently as the easy grin Haran had been sporting immediately slipped away to exasperation.
"No, Prince Thorin, they were offering a compliment to my skills with a bow," Haran sighed.
"How do you know that?" Thorin demanded without thinking. Of course Haran knew since he had shown that he was quite good at speaking the language, but Thorin's frustration at not being able to understand it himself just made him angry to the point that he wasn't thinking anymore.
"I speak Sindarin," Haran shrugged as though this was nothing, but Thorin knew for a fact that Sindarin was not an easy language to learn. Balin, who as a scholar had learned some time ago, had been trying to teach him for some time, but Thorin just couldn't grasp the language. Even now he only caught snatches of words that he had heard before, but they were spoken much to quick for him to ever understand. So, of course, learning the elvish language was not nothing for his Intended, yet Haran sent him an uncertain look anyway.
Thorin wanted to tell Haran that he was very accomplished for having learned the three languages in his time. Some dwarves never even learned Westron, and only those who absolutely needed to learned Sindarin. He wanted to compliment the dwarf, but instead he found himself growling, "Why?"
"Because I wanted to learn," Haran replied before Thorin could correct his statement.
The elves spoke in Sindarin once more and Thorin scowled when Haran replied in their own language. He hated it when people left him out of conversations, but it was even worse when they were words that he couldn't understand. There was no knowing what the three of them were talking about. "Speak words we can all understand." For all he knew, they could be planning an assassination attempt on the king while he stood right next to him. Not that he thought that Haran would ever do that. The dwarf was far too loyal to ever betray the king.
"They were asking why you're so angry about something that I chose to learn," Haran explained immediately. "Aren't you supposed to learn it too at some point in the future?"
Thorin scowled. "Only because it is tradition." Otherwise he wouldn't bother learning something that was obviously outside his realm of understanding. He would much rather employ his time learning how to defend the government or run the country for when he became king.
"Why don't you start learning now?" the twins asked, finally speaking in Westron so that he could understand.
For a moment Thorin didn't know what to do. It would be rude to deny the twins outright, and his father would be angry if he did, but there was no way that he was going to embarrass himself in front of them. Especially when he was obviously the only one having troubles with the language. Luckily, Haran unknowingly came to his rescue. "There's a proper order to these things," he shook his head. "Prince Thorin will learn Sindarin when his teachers deem it the right time and not before or it might corrupt the knowledge that he's learning now." Of course that information was utterly wrong, but Thorin expected no less from someone outside of the royal family. How were they to know how the teachings actually went? What did confuse Thorin a bit, though, was the emphasis Haran had put on his title. Although his Intended had thus far shown the proper respect around his family, he had not actually called Thorin by his title. Surprisingly, Thorin didn't really like when Haran used his title.
The twins eyes glimmered and Thorin braced himself for a verbal fight, but they were distracted by Haran loosing another arrow and, unsurprisingly now that Thorin had watched him shoot for some time, hit the bull's eye dead center. The prince retreated immediately before they could come back to him.
"I thought that you were supposed to be with Haran," Thror raised a brow when Thorin happened upon him as he stalked the halls of Rivendell.
"He was with the elves?" Thorin growled.
"The elves?" asked Thror. "And what have they done that makes you dislike them. You've never shown such dislike before."
Thorin couldn't answer that. He hadn't really cared about elves in general up until now, but the moment they had walked into Rivendell the elves had just rubbed him the wrong way.
"Could it be that you are jealous that Haran seems to like them more than you?" Thror smirked and Thorin bristled. "I see. That is the reason then. What right have you to be jealous of the elves then?"
"He is my Intended," Thorin growled.
"And you have Rejected him," Thror reminded him. For a moment Thorin wondered if his grandfather had overheard his conversation with Haran the first time he openly watched the other train, but Thror continued before he could ask. "Your brother and sister tell me you rejected him because you thought he wasn't good enough for you, so what right do you have to be jealous now."
"I never said that," Thorin hissed. From what Thorin saw of Haran, he was actually impressed by the other. In fact, he was actually kind of starting to like Haran despite every attempt otherwise.
"Really?" Thror asked. "Then why did you Reject him?"
"He wouldn't be good for the people," Thorin said. "I have a duty to our people."
"Hmm," Thror hummed thoughtfully. "Perhaps you don't know him that well. I would suggest you go and actually spend time with him instead of being cruel to him."
"I haven't been cruel to him," Thorin said.
"Haven't you?" Thror raised a brow, but he didn't give Thorin enough time to answer before he walked away.
It was true that Thorin hadn't exactly been nice to Haran since the moment he met him, but it wasn't that he was going out of his way to be mean. He just couldn't help it. Still, his grandfather was right and Thorin should at least try to be kind to the other.
Thorin was beyond frustrated as he stalked through Rivendell. He had gone back to the clearing where Haran had been training only to find that it was all cleaned up and that no one was there anymore. Having no other ideas of where Haran would be, he set out to look for him and promptly got lost. Now he was not only probably nowhere near where the rooms were, but he also had been walking for hours and he was starting to get tired.
It was finally mere luck that he happened to see Haran through a door as an elf exited out of it. the dwarf was practically curled in a seat that was obviously much too large for him looking perfectly comfortable as he read a small book that was written in Sindarin. The fact that the dwarf was sitting there lazily while Thorin had been walking what felt like the entirety of Rivendell just made Thorin that much more frustrated to the point that the only think that he could think to say was "Why did you learn that language?" while glowering at the book in his Intended's hands.
Haran looked up at him with a contemplative look and then stood and walked over to one of the bookshelves. For a moment Thorin thought that he was being ignored, at this point he wouldn't blame Haran but his Intended had never showed such disrespect before, but then Haran returned and put a rather large book that was also written in Sindarin down on the table before him. "This book has never been translated into anything other than Sindarin," Haran said.
"So?" Thorin raised a brow, not understanding the other's point. Was there something important about this particular book? Perhaps it had elven battle strategies that the dwarves could use to their advantage in battle. That, at least, would make sense to him.
"I just finished reading it," Haran replied with a content smile on his face, "and I enjoyed it very much."
That still didn't answer Thorin's question as to why Haran had wanted to read this particular book in the first place. What was so great about it? "Why would you want to read something written by those tree-huggers?" Surely they couldn't think up anything remotely interesting to write about.
"Why are you so against them?" Haran asked. "They have done nothing to you."
Thorin, of course, could not tell Haran the reason that his grandfather had thought of, but he had no other to offer so he said the first thing that came to his mind. "You've never had to deal with them until now," he growled. "Those stuck up bastards don't deserve anything from me." And they certainly didn't deserve the attention that Haran had been lavishing on them the entire time that they had been at Rivendell. Okay, maybe he was a little bit jealous.
"I haven't," Haran agreed readily, "but imagine how you look to them right now."
The change of subject confused Thorin, but he had the feeling that whatever Haran had just implied it wasn't a nice thing. "What do you mean?" he snarled.
"By the way you're acting, you seem more like a spoiled child than a proud prince to me and I actually know you as my prince. I'm rather sure the twins had no clue you were the prince until I mentioned it earlier today."
The insult, however true Thorin knew it was, still hurt. Haran had never before said anything to insult him except when Thorin had first Rejected him. In fact, it almost seemed like he was actively trying to avoid saying anything negative and the sudden change made Thorin more angry than it should have. "How dare you!"
"Honestly," Haran continued despite Thorin's anger, "you threw a fit because I could speak to the elves in their own language. Just because you have trouble grasping the language, doesn't mean you should take it out on those who don't."
"You knew?" Thorin gaped. How had he possibly known that? And, because he knew that, why did he stop the twins from pressing Thorin about his learning.
"Of course I knew," Haran replied. "You recognized some of the words, though you couldn't put them together in a sentence. From what I saw, you are only just learning the basics of Sindarin." That actually said more to Thorin than it should have. Haran had been watching him. Not only that, but he had been actively trying to learn about him despite the cruel way Thorin had treated him from the very beginning. Suddenly, the way that he had been acting this entire time came back to him and he realized that he really had been acting spoiled rotten. He felt ashamed that Haran had seen him like that and he wanted nothing more than to erase it all.
"That is none of your concern," Thorin said, not knowing what else to say.
"Of course it's not," Haran sighed, "but if you should need any help in the future, I will be happy to help you."
"I don't need your help," Thorin growled before stomping out of the room. He hadn't wanted Haran to know that he was struggling with the language to begin with, but he certainly did not want Haran to actually see him do so.
"Of course you don't," Thorin heard Haran say, though he was sure he wasn't supposed to. That had not gone how he wanted it at all. In fact, he didn't think he said a single kind word in the whole of that conversation. He growled at himself. So what if he just wasn't good with words, he needed to learn and he needed to stop hurting his intended.
Later that day Thorin found himself at the library once more. He told himself that he had just gotten lost once more. It wasn't a very kingly thing to do, but that excuse was still better than the real reason that he was there. The library was empty except for an elf, but there on the table where Thorin had spoken to Haran the large Sindarin book still rested. He went to it and caressed it's cover. Haran still hadn't told him what the book was about and he found himself interested in it. He wanted to know what was it that Haran liked so much about this particular book. He wanted to know what was it that Haran liked.
"I'd like to buy a copy of this book," he said aloud to the other elf in the room. He was probably the bookkeeper and would know where Thorin could get a copy.
The elf, however, was not the bookkeeper and Thorin stiffened when he realized it was Lord Elrond. He didn't much like the elves, but he had thus far made sure to show absolute courtesy to the Lord of Rivendell as befitting of a visitor whether they be royal or not. Yet here he had addressed him as though he was a mere commoner.
Lord Elrond said nothing on the matter, however. He just came forward and examined the book. "A great adventure," he said finally. "We have several copies and you are welcome to them. May I ask why you want it."
"Haran said it was a good book," Thorin replied, not wanting to insult the elf anymore by lying to him. Though, he still refused to tell the absolute truth on the matter.
"He did seem to enjoy it when he was reading it," Lord Elrond smiled kindly. "You are welcome to take that copy. It is not the only one in this library and it is not any one of the books that I keep in my care for their protection. The only payment I require is that you promise to take good care of the book."
Thorin almost allowed his eyes to widen at that. People scarcely gave things so freely. He nodded and picked the book up. "Thank you," he said with a bow because no matter what his grandfather said. He did still have manners.
Later, when they returned from Rivendell Thorin would secret the book to Balin and beg him to teach him how to read it. Balin would fuss that that was not how things were done, but would eventually comply because he was just as curious to see what the book was about. They would read it together, though it would be a slow process as Thorin had to learn to read the language as well as understand it, but by the end of the book, which was rather interesting, he found that he actually understood the language far better than he had when he was trying to learn it the normal way. In fact, by then he could practically speak it and his family was very impressed with how much he had improved in that time. After all, Haran had been right; it was a good book.
There you have it guys. The real reason for Thorin's dislike of the elves (before the dragon fiasco).