Chapter Forty-Six

A Pebble Begins to Roll

Now normally, Nori could stay hidden in one place for days, unmoving, undetected but upon hearing the whispers that two hobbits had been recovered – and one of them being female – Nori was quick to extract himself from his hiding spot and head towards the upper city of the mountain.

He managed to go by unseen for the most part and those who did see him knew well enough to pretend that they hadn't.

He hadn't, however, truly expected for his luck to hold out for so long when he arrived at Thorin's study door without so much as one member of his old company jumping out at him along the way.

He was quick to pick the lock of Thorin's study, snorting with amusement when he saw his lord and king slumped over his desk, fast asleep. There wasn't even a bottle of strong liquor in sight.

Smirking widely, he closed the door silently behind him before moving for Thorin's liquor cabinet. Everyone in the mountain knew that their king had the best stock of alcohol around and if one had a chance; one should always try to get a taste of his selection.

He had just poured himself a large glass of mead when he heard a thoroughly exasperated sigh from behind him.

"Does no one under this mountain understand the concept of knocking?" Nori looked around to see his King slowly pushing himself off his desk and straightening his back into his chair.

"Sort of beats the point of sneaking somewhere unnoticed, eh?" He quipped back as he took a sip of the mead, smacking his lips together as the heavy alcohol slipped down his throat.

"And yet you still managed to get yourself caught." Thorin snorted softly as he tried to subtly rub the lingering sleep from his eyes.

"Ah, but who said that I was trying not to be caught?" Nori teased as he dropped himself into one of the chairs before Thorin grand desk. "Trust me Thorin, if I hadn't wanted you to catch me here, you wouldn't have." He grinned as Thorin gave him a waned little smile before his face turned serious.

"You found our burglar."

"Aye, I did. And then you lost her… again."

"We did not lose her," Thorin ground back, "we…" Thorin paused and pressed a hand to his throbbing temple all the while his spymaster grinned widely back at him.

"Is there any point of asking why both of you disappeared?" Thorin asked, fingers still pressed to his forehead, "I think I can understand her reasons for her disappearing act, but yours?"

"I knew that it would be my head on a platter if I arrived with Bilbo having disappeared upon arrival. So I felt, quite personally, that staging my own disappearing act was the best course of action until she was either found or she revealed herself."

"And hers?"

"She just wanted to see her laddie before she met up with the rest of us. Her mother bear instincts were overruling all her other emotions… and logic." Nori said and Thorin met his hard gaze.

"She is frightened then? Of us… of me?"

"She unsure of… everything." Nori said as he peered into his glass, swirling the contents of it around its glassy surface. "She didn't exactly have a pleasant trip here."

Thorin growled deep within his chest.

"Did they hurt her?"

"More mentally than anything else." Nori reassured his king quickly. The last thing either of them needed was Thorin to start breaking things. For one thing, it would create quite the mess and Nori would have to help the majestic idiot clean it all up.

Thorin sighed heavily before nodding.

"You're," Thorin looked up at his usually cool and mischief spymaster, watching as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair, "you're going to need to be gentle with her. For a little while at least. She has battle dreams and she has lost the innocence and trust that defined her character so brightly when we first met her."

"Battle dreams?" Thorin asked, his chest hurting badly as it restricted around his heart.

"Aye, and they're bad." Nori said sadly, "I thought that Bifur's were terrible but the ones that possess our lass at night…" He shook his head silently. "I've tried to get her to talk to me about them, but she's tight-lipped and stubborn about them."

"One of the others; Kili, Ori or Bofur maybe," Thorin ignored the slight arch that Nori's eyebrow took at the mention of the Toymakers name, "might be able to get her to speak about her dreams."

"Well, I wouldn't be so sure about that. Not when they've been visiting her for at least the last nine years and she's still having them."

"Oh," Thorin growled, though more exasperated than angry, "so you knew about their trips to the Shire as well did you?"

Nori shrugged, giving his King a wide and knowing smile.

"I'm your spymaster. It's my job to know the going on's of our old company."

"It is also your job to inform me of such important matters."

"Did I also mention that I'm a thief? We have our own particular code of honour."

"A code that prevents you from telling your king that his burglar is alive and well, with a child?"

"A code that speaks that we must protect those closest to our hearts. Bilbo has and will always be family to us Ri's. If she didn't wish to be found, than I wasn't going to be the one to bring the rest of the company down upon her head."

Thorin sighed heavily.

"I did… I did try to keep her safe Thorin," Nori admitted after a moment feeling his self-loathing resurfacing as he thought of all the pain their burglar had been through these past few months because Nori's eyes hadn't been watching as closely as they should have been. They had grown fat and slow, living far too well off the lands surrounding the Shire, forgetting exactly the reason as to why they had been sent there. When he had a free moment, Nori was going to knock some heads together.

"She is safe." Thorin relented gruffly.

"Just make sure that she knows that." Nori replied, "She still thinks she banished and though she won't admit it outwardly I know that she's scared stiff at the thought of how you're going to react to her being here."

Again Thorin sighed, pinching his nose.

"So she's afraid then?"

"A little, aye. Maybe not so much of you but more of what you'll be forced to do due to her banishment and also, ah…"

"Frodo?"

"Aye." Nori nodded before sitting back and evaluated his king with a small, amused smirk, "Fatherhood suits you, sire." He teased and Thorin shot him a half-hearted warning look.

"Don't start."

"Where is the little lad?"

"With his hobbit family, in one of the royal guest rooms." Thorin watched as his spymaster breathed out a subtle little sigh of relief while his face remained neutral.

"And Bilbo?"

"In another guest room. She collapsed upon our finding her."

"What?" Nori shot up out of his chair his eyes wild.

"Sit Nori, she is going… as I have been told numerous times, to be fine. She is simply… sleeping."

"Oh and that's sounds reassuring." Nori grumbled before sighing, muttering darkly to himself, "knew that it was a terrible plan." Over and over again.

Thorin allowed his spymaster to mutter away to himself as he got up to get himself a drink.

"When does Oin think she wake?"

"He doesn't know or he simply won't tell me." Thorin rumpled as he strode back to his desk with a large glass of amber liquid.

"Encouraging." Nori grumbled.

"He's adamant that she will wake, but that it will be on her terms, no one else's."

"Expect maybe her dreams." Nori replied darkly and Thorin winced. Battle dreams were terrible, terrible things, making you relieve over and over again the horror of battle, possibly tweak themselves slightly so you can watch those dearest to you die in new and more horrific ways than the last.

He knew the pain the battle dreams caused and he had hoped that she may have been spared them, now for all he knew she was dreamed in one right now and there was nothing at all that he could do to help her.

Nothing at all.

TMPoT

The dwarf guard, best known by all simply as Weasel, moved cautiously down one of the upper city corridors.

He wasn't meant to be in this section of the city, he wasn't high enough in rank for one thing. He was only a lowly gate's guard but if he did this mission correctly, without faults or mistakes, he's luck may change for the better. His employer had promised him many things for the right kind of information. Especially information of the coming and goings of the royal family and those low-born jump-start companions of the king. His employer was very interested about their movements. And Weasel had the Arkenstone of all information for his Employer today, information that was even better than that of the King having a bastard son. With a Halfling no less. And not any Halfling too he had discovered with amazement and disgust, but the one who had stolen the Arkenstone and allowed for the King's stone to fall into the filthy hands of tree-shagger king. And information about the traitorous Halfling whore was exactly what Weasel was bringing to his employer this very moment.

Only, he was going to have to watch himself as the prostitute's son of a Spymaster had returned and was sneaking somewhere around the mountain right this very moment and very little slipped by without his notice.

If the King's Spymaster caught him and found out about his little "arrangement", life would become very unpleasant for him indeed. Actually, his life may just simply end, if not by the Spymaster's hands then by his employers. His employer was very strict about keeping his name out of all suspicious activity that could possibly ruin all of his plans. Plans that Weasel had no idea what they entitled but his employer was a smart dwarf and he was certain that his plans would benefit all the dwarves in Erebor.

He tapped a series of coded knocks upon a dark oak door, trying to look as unsuspicious as possible. The door opened the moment he finished the knock coded and his entered the lavishly furnished chambers.

"Milord?" he bowed deeply to the dwarf seated behind an oak desk that had papers neatly stacked upon it. Behind him the dwarf servant who had opened the door, closed it with a quiet snap before disappearing into another chamber.

"Weasel." His lord greeted him without looking up from the paper he was currently reading over.

"I 'ave information, milord."

"Obviously," His lord snorted, "for why else would you be here?" Weasel blinked at him for a moment before shifting nervously from one foot to the other.

"Well?" Weasel's lord demanded, "What information do you have? Has the little brat run off again? Next time I see him, I will snap…"

"No, milord. Well aye, the little brat did run a way again, but that's not all the news I 'ave for ya. I 'ave news about his whore of a mother."

His lord looked up sharply, his eyes brightening with interest.

"She has arrived then?"

"Aye milord, but she disappeared 'fore she entered the Eastern Gate. As did the Spymaster, for that matter. She was found again with her bastard mongrel a short time later, but milord, the guard who caught them, and I swears he speaks the truths, he says that she turned invisible right 'fore his eyes."

"I beg your pardon?" his lord sneered.

Weasel nodded his head up and down.

"It took a long time ta get it out of him, but he swears upon his beard, that she disappeared in his arms when he grabbed 'er and then, reappeared upon the King's calling 'er name."

"Some Halfling trick?"

"He don't know, Sir." Weasel shrugs his shoulders helplessly, "but he swears upon Mahal's great hammer that this is the truth he speaks."

Still his lord looked neither impressed nor convinced.

"Many a dwarf has sworn themselves black and blue that they speak the truth when their mind is addled by liquor. Take no mind of his tales and tell me what the King has done with his whore."

Feeling ever so slightly deflated by his lord's lack of reaction towards what he considered amazing news, Weasel much more sombrely, spoke of how the king had moved the Halfling whore into a royal guest room and that she was being taken care of by none other than the Lady Dis herself.

"The nerve!" His lord spat. "Her head should be rotting upon a spike but instead she is being treated as royalty! This, this is proof enough that our King is weak. That his mind is still sick from the madness that consumed him eleven years ago. Her and her mongrel will be exactly what we need to make the Seven Kingdoms see that Thorin Bloody Oakenshield is not fit to be our ruling King. And same should be said for his nephews. You said that the youngest has a particular fondness for the bastard. And you also made mention that he had been seen associating himself with elves!"

"Aye milord."

His lord rubbed his hands together.

"Our plans have been met with many hardships but I'm sure, with Aule blessing, we will see the fruition of all our sweat and blood, we will be victorious and the dwarves of Erebor will once more be pure."

"Aye milord." Weasel agreed though truthfully he had no idea what his lord was on about but stood silently as he watched his lord continued muttering to himself.

"Weasel?"

"Yes milord?"

"You said that the Spymaster has returned, correct?"

"Aye milord." Weasel replied as his lord moved back around his desk, rummaging around in one of his drawers for a moment, "I'll 'ave ta take care now that he as returned. If he ta catch me, who knows what he'll do ta me."

"Aye and what information he will get you to reveal." His lord replied.

"Oh no milord." Weasel said with a firm shake of his head, "I'd never speak a word of my assignments. Nor a word about or against you."

His lord smiled widely at him, nodding as he twirled an odd looking quill around his fingers.

"I believe you Weasel," his lord replied, "you've been a good servant. Very useful to our cause. But…" he looked down at the quill in his hands, "I fear that your employment has comes to an end."

"Milord?" he asked, frowning deeply.

"You are no longer any use to me. And with the return of the Spymaster, it would only be a matter of time before he caught your lumbering arse, extract what little information you know out of you and all our plans would start to crumble. And we can't have that, I fear. You're a liability and liabilities," his twirling of the quill grew faster, "must be cut lose and destroyed."

Weasel couldn't even muster a cry before the quill that his lord had flicked in his direction was embedded in his throat, in the tiny space between his armour and his helmet strap.

Already chocking and his chest restricting with every breathe he took; he yanked the quill from his throat and dropped it to the ground, his knees following shortly after it.

"Why?"

"Nothing personal, Weasel," His lord replied as he started shuffling papers upon his desk, "just business. In times to come, your sacrifice will be known to all as the pebble that started the beginning of the end for the line of Durin and the creation of the golden age of the dwarves of Erebor." Weasel listened as his lord gave a proud chuckle before he called out the name of his servant to come and rid of the body. His body. Weasel's world was beginning to grow dark and his body weak but with what little strength he had, his heavy fingers curled around the quill that had killed him. Once his fingers hand managed to curl around the quill, hiding it in his palm, the needle digging almost harmlessly against his tough thumb, he dragged his weak hand to his chest, pressing his fist over his heart.

He wasn't sure why he had done this, had no plan other than forcing his failing lungs to intake another struggling breath of air. But in his final moments of life, it seemed to be important. And when the life finally left his body, the quill remained clenched tightly in his hand, the lord's men taking no noticed of his clenched fist when they lifted him and carried his body through back corridor and hidden staircases until they came to one of the hundreds of caverns where the stone fall away into one of the thousands of mine shafts.

Without a single thought, they dropped him over the edge and turned their backs upon his falling body as it plummeted down the abandon mineshaft, thought to never be seen again. But like with many things that are meant to stay hidden in the darkness, the truth always, eventually comes to light and the pebbles will start rolling, for better or for worst.


Author's Note: This chapter - and subsequently following chapter - has given me quite a bit of angst. Not the Thorin/Nori part of this chapter. That was easy to write. It's the last bit of this chapter, which I actually wrote several weeks after the Thorin Nori part and had already written several chapters, centering purely on the company and Bilbo, which I quite enjoyed writing before I realized that I couldn't just write purely company gooey-ness... not when I still had this massive plot-issue that I still need to not only fully introduce into the story but also resolve. Not to mention I gotta resolve bloody Bzog story-line too. Anyone remember him? He appeared for like a chapter, the first chapter of Part Two.
So anyway I went back over previously "completed" chapters and started reworking them and moving chapters forwards and chapters back and started putting in this whole set-up which I always planned to have but only just realizing that if I left it were I had, I would probably be introducing it too late and people would just get frustrated. So everything got moved up, but even now, I'm wondering if I've left it too late to start introducing this new plot-twist. This might just be author's angst but still I worry. But in saying that, I think I've pretty much dug myself out of the hole that I dug myself into with having purely company/Bilbo stuff and not actually having much other plot. Now I think I've got it balanced, so yay.
Anyway, poor Weasel. I created him solely to start the ball rolling and for him to die - I'm pretty sure he's the first person I've killed in this fic. I can't remember. Either way, I am terrible at writing death scenes. And the sad thing is he'll probably end up doing more good dead than he ever did alive. Weasel will be seen again... well, his corpse will be seen again, that is.
And I have been subtly hinting (I say subtly, you say 'what? that random sentence there? That's not subtle that was just random.') for awhile that not everyone under the mountain is happy with Thorin's rule but I've only now start to delve into mainly because those said people are feeling even more threaten, even more agitated with the arrival of Frodo and Bilbo. Frodo and Bilbo represent change and there are those within the mountain who want nothing to do with it and will stop it all costs. Even trying to get rid of their king... but not really... not yet at least :)