A/N: Gasp! I'm not dead! And it's a new chapter! Things are slowly getting better all around. However, with hubby recovering from surgery, it leaves it to me to pick up the breadwinning slack. That means less time for fanfic'ing. However, I'm hoping to resume my schedule and my usual around 1500 word chapters. Yes, yes I know this one is on the short side, but really, would you rather meat, or filler? S'what I thought.

as always, Wren appears courtesy of kkolmakov and I own no Hobbity goodness, that's all Tolkien's.


Beryl was dead on her fuzzy little feet. It had taken the better part of an hour and a half to sooth the savaged feelings of her mead muddled friend, Wren. It took another thirty to get someone to help pour Wren into a bed. How that woman's bones turned into water with just a touch of alcohol still boggled Beryl's mind.

However tired she was, she was also mad at herself and Thorin. She'd spent an evening feeling sorry for herself, when she at least had Fili's braids to remind her how serious he was. Wren hadn't even that reassurance. Before she would see her bed tonight, she was bound and determined to give Thorin a piece of her mind. If she could find the blasted Dwarf, that is.

She finally made her way to Laketown's forge. There, bent over a workbench, was Thorin. He seemed to be etching something small and delicate. Her curiosity was now at war with her anger. She made her way closer, it was the only way to settle both or either.

"What has you out this late, Beryl Baggins?" How did he know she was there? He hadn't even turned around yet.

"So much for the silent feet of Hobbits." Beryl huffed. It was supposedly her one claim to fame, and even that wasn't proof against Thorin.

"I saw you in the shield, there." He shrugged a shoulder at a round metal shield hung on a nearby beam, his attention never leaving the item in his hands. The quiet scritch of the etching tool the only sound for a moment.

"I saw Wren tonight, so sorrowful she tried to drown in a children's mug of mead." Her foot began tapping upon the boards. Thorin huffed.

"Beryl." Again the shoulders heaved, but this time with a bone deep sigh. He tried again. "Beryl, do you remember a certain conversation we had?"

"Yes?" She drew the one word out as she wondered where this was going.

"Given what you know, would you expect me to keep courting beads on my person?" He went back to his task, letting his words digest.

"So, you don't have any beads to braid her hair with? That's what's the matter?"

'I assure you, it is a problem, and one that I'm working diligently to remedy." His dry reply was almost enough to make her wince. Beryl silently moved to his side, peeping over his forearm, which he lowered so she could see what it was he worked upon.

"Oh my stars and garters." It was beautiful. Beryl hadn't seen the like. The bead was an oblong gold piece. Copper chased knotwork decorated the edges in minute detail, the strands weaving seamlessly in and out of each other. In the center of the bead, a wren could be seen alighting on an oak branch, complete with acorns and leaves. The detail was so fine, she could see the scaling on the acorn caps and the bright eye and feather detail on the wren. Thorin chuckled at her gape jawed awe.

"Thorin, it's beautiful!"

"When we lost Erebor, I knew I'd lost my chance. The rest of my life would be spent regaining what was lost to our people. There would be no room for a wife or child in the rebuilding, not for me. So I threw my courting beads into the River Running as we crossed."

"Thorin!"

"That I am only now replacing them proves how much of what I thought was true." His potent blue stare met her stubborn brown glare over his arm and courting bead. Beryl tapped his hand lightly.

"That you're replacing them at all tells you how much it was hogwash to begin with!" Beryl's hands found their usual perch on her hips as her foot started tapping again as she warmed to her subject. "And! If you'd kept them, your One wouldn't be laying in that tavern thinking she's just a momentary fancy, and one you're losing interest in, at that!"

"What?" The thunderstruck look on Thorin's face would have had Beryl absolutely howling with laughter if only she were less incensed. Perhaps once she settled for the night she'd indulge in one good laughing fit over it. No time for it now, though. Now she needed to press her advantage.

"Well, what is she supposed to think? Have you talked marriage? Have you told her she's your One? Even with Fili's braids, I had a moment of doubt, and here she hasn't even that solace!"

"She will know in the morning." As Thorin turned the small piece over in his hand, his shoulders again rose with a silent chuckle. " As will everyone else." He met her eyes again. "The trip up Erebor is not an easy one, as I remember it. Get what rest you can for the coming day."

What could Beryl say to that dismissal? She nodded, turned on her heel, and went to find what sleep she could before morning came.


"Beryl, Beryl love." Someone was shaking her blanket covered shoulder. The voice low and melodious. Beryl still wasn't impressed.

'Go 'way." It was unclear if the voice heard her, what with her head hidden under two pillows. But the chuckles shaking her bed seemed to indicate that yes, her words were heard.

They just weren't being heeded.

"Come love, I have a fresh and hot coffee here just for you." Beryl eyed the beaming blonde Dwarf with all the exhaustion in the world, but it did no good. He was still there, steaming mug in hand.

"Honey?" Her voice sounded worse than Hissycroaker's. The harshness of it made her wince.

"Yes? and yes, there is honey in it." Fili quickly amended when he got a good look at the deadly glare Beryl leveled at him as he handed her the steaming mug. She sipped her coffee, while he combed and braided her hair into some semblance of order.

"Mmm. Good stuff." Beryl's brain was waking up, something was buzzing in the back of her mind, wanting her attention. Some reason today was especially important.

"Thorin said we needed to hurry. Said you especially wouldn't want to miss it." Beryl leaned back into Fili, enjoying his hands in her hair while she drank her coffee.

"Well, then, I guess you better hurry up with that hair, there." She leaned back, grinning at him. The caffeine percolating through her system doing its job. He dropped a kiss on her nose.

"Very funny. I'm done. Up with you, get dressed and come down to the Leaky Dingy. Boat's waiting and everything."

"What?" Beryl wasn't that awake yet.

"Barge across the Long lake, ponies up the mountain. What's got you confused?" His amusement at her expense was getting old.

"Don't try to make me make sense before I've finished, you. It was a long night with short sleep." She clutched her mug tight, wishing it were full again. This was looking to be a two cup morning.

"Short sleep? you should be fine then." The lips twitched, the braids swayed, the dimples winked, and Beryl was still not amused.

"Out! I must dress in a hurry, per your say so, so out!" Beryl shooed the laughing Dwarf out of her room, and quickly changed. She finally remembered what was coming, and was fully looking forward to a company of pole axed Dwarves. The morning was suddenly promising to be much brighter than it had been a cup of coffee ago.

Beryl entertained the image all the way to the boardwalk in front of the Leaky Dingy, where a sight as far from what she'd imagine could be was playing out. A very bedraggled looking Wren, red faced and shaking was facing down a confused and angry King of the Longbeards. If the air of palpable tension in the air was anything to go by, she'd gotten there just in time.

"What in Yavanna's name are you people doing?" As everyone started yelling at once, Beryl realized her question probably wasn't the best way to handle the situation.