Chapter Forty-Nine
"Bilbo," Thorin called the hobbit to his side. The dwarf lounged on a cot in a separate tent near where Dain's healers had been treating their wounded. Bilbo was currently staying with him while his Company was off scouting the Mountain for any latent threats as well as any useful supplies that would make their intended transition to living within the Mountain easier.
"What is it, Thorin?" Bilbo asked, hurrying to the dwarf's bedside from where he had been pacing by the foot of his cot.
"I need you to do something for me," Thorin began delicately. He was still too weak to do much more than sit up in his little makeshift bed. He could not do as he wished. Yet. But Bilbo was just the person to help him accomplish his next goal. "I need you to bring Mirilas to me."
"Thorin, are you sure?" Bilbo asked, knowing the elleth very likely did not want to see Mirilas, and with good reason. Thorin had very well started a war between the elves of the Woodland Realm and the dwarves in an ultimatum demanding her marriage! What better reason was there than that to avoid him? However, he owed Thorin his effort at the very least.
"I am sure. Please, I have a request I would ask of her," the dwarf said, surprising the hobbit. Thorin asking for something? This was nearly unheard of, particularly where it concerned this particular elf. His manner of dealing with her or anyone concerned with her involved unilateral decisions and harsh, though certainly not unforeseen, consequences.
Bilbo nodded and hurried away. It took more than a little convincing as well as trading on his good name in a way he was not entirely proud of, but he returned over an hour later with the elf in question at his side, reluctantly willing to hear Thorin out.
"Thorin," Mirilas acknowledged coldly. Her tone was no surprise. She had sounded much the same when he had said that Thorin had sent him for her.
"Mirilas," he returned much more warmly. "I know our acquaintance did not start well, but I wish to mend our relationship." There. That should be a safe enough way to start.
"Really?" Mirilas asked in surprise. Perhaps the battle had changed him.
"Do you remember when we met?" Thorin asked, clearly leading to some point. From the look of determination in his eyes, Mirilas doubted very much that she could dissuade him from whatever it was that he wished to tell her. Still, she thought she should give him some warning as to his chosen topic.
"That is not the place to start if you wish to mend our relationship," she warned him coldly.
"It is the perfect place. None of this had yet happened," Thorin said, wondering if she even remembered when they had truly first met. If she did, he doubted she would be so resistant. Or not. He seemed to be rather poor at guessing her thoughts. Even Bilbo seemed to have a better understanding of what the elf princess thought.
"Very well. I first remember you saying, 'Take her!'" Mirilas supplied with raised eyebrows to hint at her annoyance with both the topic and with him.
Thorin frowned and shook his head. "We met long before then. You came to Erebor with your father." He remembered the day well. His world had changed forever on that day. Actually, Smaug had come only days later. The dragon seemed to be able to sense her somehow, if his odd behaviour regarding Lake Town was anything to go by. Could it be that she was why Erebor was attacked? No. That was ridiculous. Erebor had a large enough hoard of gold to attract a dragon even without her. It must be a coincidence.
It was Mirilas's turn to frown. "You were there?" she asked in confusion. She knew that Thror's male relatives had been present at the meeting, but had one of them been Thorin?
"Indeed. That first time I saw you, I knew," Thorin said, fairly glowing at the memory. She had been beautiful then, though nothing could be as beautiful as her now. She must be every dwarf's dream: a powerful sorceress in the form of a woman whose skin looked like living diamond.
"Knew what?" Mirilas asked. What could he possibly mean?
"That I wanted you to be mine," he said.
This explained much. For instance, he had already known of her when he had ordered his dwarves to take her and bring her with them. That was why he had refused to let her go.
"And after that, you appeared from nowhere in front of your father's throne," Thorin continued, remembering how her sudden appearance had cooled his ire at her father in an instant.
"You were there?" she asked. She had admittedly been in no condition to look around and see who was present. She had been lucky enough to spot her Ada before she fell unconscious.
"Yes. I knew then that you had power, but I never even dreamed of the sort of power you have shown this day."
"And what do you make of it?" Mirilas questioned coldly. If most of his regard was centred on her power, she wanted nothing to do with him. Then again, was that not the basis of Smaug's regard for her?
"You are magnificent, fit to be a queen," Thorin said warmly.
"What do you mean?" Mirilas asked sharply. Her brother was set to take over the Woodland Realm should their father either fall or pass away to the West. Not her.
"Marry me," Thorin said bluntly.
"What?!" the elleth shrieked.
"Marry me. Be my queen," the dwarf insisted.
"I do not think that-" she started to protest
"I have loved you since I first saw you! Please!"
"But I-"
"You would be free of that dragon!" No. She could not let that happen.
"No, Thorin. I will not marry you," she said firmly, turning to leave before he could say more.
Thorin caught Mirilas's faceted arm in a weak grasp and said pleadingly, "Please. I love you."
Mirilas pulled her arm from his grasp and left, leaving Thorin to stew in his bitterness and rising resentment for who he believed had taken her from him: Smaug.
