"You just won me ten gold," Dwalin comments as they walk, his tone warmer than the cool and cautious one that she knows he reserves for strangers.
"You planning on sharing?" Nori replies, falling too easily into her old ease of speaking with him. It is a little bit distressing all things considered.
"I might," Dwalin shrugs, and the gesture would be nonchalant if Nori did not know him so much better than the large guard realises. There is a tightness to his shoulders that shows he is not as relaxed as he might want to pretend. "I was hoping to use it to persuade you to give me a second try."
"I told you I would let you know if I changed my mind," Nori says as she stops in her tracks. Dwalin sighs.
"I know," he replies, "but I liked you when I met you," he rubs the back of his neck a little awkwardly, which is far more adorable than Nori wants to admit.
"You had a funny way of showing it," she grumbles, falling back on barbed responses instead.
"Aye, well you can't expect a dwarf to shove their own morals aside just because a tumble might turn into more," Dwalin responds.
"Can't expect them to break their own code either," Nori shoots back. "Besides, now I've got to look out for the lad, I don't need to be mixing with the guard while I do that. It's bad for my image." She huffs, but does not point out that it does not fit with Dís' request for discretion either.
"You telling me to back off?" Dwalin asks her.
"Do I need to?" Nori demands in return.
"No," Dwalin looks down at her, neither having moved from the middle of the corridor. "I can hear what you're saying well enough, but you blow so hot and cold from one moment to the next…"
"Do you blame me?" Nori snaps and he gives her a startled look, reminding her that this is not the Dwalin who hurt her. "I know your type, Guard. The honourable warrior in service of his lord or king, you would promise a lover the world, but when it matters your master will always come first."
"That may be for some, lass," Dwalin says as he takes a step back, "but not me."
"You'll forgive me for not being willing to risk it again," she sneers. "Lets go to your king and get this over with."
"Maybe that would be best," Dwalin agrees, stalking ahead of her.
She can tell she has insulted his pride. Dwalin rarely loses his temper with others, unlike his cousin, all too aware that his size and strength makes him intimidating enough without raising his voice. Then there is the fact that he is most often found guarding Thorin, Dís or the boys and that is something that requires a clear and level head. For her to get such a rise out of him when he barely knows her in this life means that she has touched some deep nerve, and that is likely a nerve that has something to do with Thráin. She knows how petty it is to touch that deep sense of failure and poke at it, especially when this is not the Dwalin who wronged her in the future, but that petty part of her feels satisfied with it all the same.
She really should try not to spend any time near him for the foreseeable future, it will not reflect well on either of them, and there is plenty in her life to reflect poorly upon her.
Dwalin takes her to Thorin's private office, a room that Nori is very familiar with given how much time she once spent in it before falling into her own past. It is as richly furnished as she remembers, with a large fire that burns even in the summer. Across from the door is a solid desk of dark wood, one side of which is piled high with books, papers and scrolls. Thorin sits behind it, his chin resting on the back of his interlocked fingers as he watches her enter.
"You shouldn't sit with your back to the window like that," Nori remarks simply, noting the twitch in Thorin's cheek which has always been a sign that he is keeping a tight control of his volatile temper. "Makes you an easy target for an assassin. Keep your back to a wall." Icy eyes look her over slowly and she shrugs.
"This is her?" Thorin asks Dwalin and Nori narrows her eyes.
"Aye, this is Nori," the large guard says.
"You can go," Thorin dismisses him.
"With everything I've heard," Nori cuts in, "I think I would rather he stay."
"You distrust me?" Thorin's tone is deceptively mild.
"I just don't want to be in a position where I'm accused of anything I didn't do," Nori smiles sharply, "and don't try and say you haven't considered it. In my experience, wealthy families will do everything in their power to prevent their children from apprenticing in my trade. And since they have most of the money, they have most of the power."
"You have a sharp mind," Thorin observes softly, as though surprised.
"You don't last long in this trade if you don't know how to use your brain," Nori responds. "Fortunately, the lad isn't as stupid as he likes to pretend. As long as he gets the right training, he'll do very well at his trade."
"His mother tells me that you intend to train him to spy and kill for his brother," Thorin says softly.
"Every good king should have a spy and assassin who is unfailingly loyal to him," Nori sits in one of the chairs on the other side of the desk. Thorin raises an eyebrow at her and she smirks at him. "As I understand it, your grandfather was the one to abolish the practice as he sunk into the depths of his lust for gold."
"I heard something similar," Dwalin mutters, his support almost begrudging. "And I've been telling you for years that you need someone more versed at the less honourable side of things to watch your back. I can't always be around, and I've told you about that window too."
"You do not speak as I would expect one of your kind to," Thorin observes, ignoring Dwalin.
"I know how to blend in," Nori shrugs, "which includes changing my manner of speech to fit where I am. It isn't something that the lad can learn here."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning I'll be taking him out of the mountains with me when I leave in two weeks," Nori states, glancing at her fingernails. "He needs to learn to be someone else, and too many people know him and are familiar with him here."
"He's too young," Thorin shakes his head.
"It sounds like you think I'm asking permission," Nori snorts. "I'm not. People in my line of work, and Kíli's, don't ask. We do." Thorin's face takes on an expression that Nori is too familiar with and she suspects that if Dwalin were not present he would have already reached for whatever blade he always has tucked away. "Look, if I leave town and don't take him with me, he won't be training. If he isn't training he isn't safe from the Guild's retribution when he messes up again. And he will mess up again before I get back, we all do in the first six months."
"Odd that you mentioned nothing of this to my sister," Thorin remarks.
"Would you?" Nori arches an eyebrow. "His best chance is to learn somewhere that isn't here."
"You will take Dwalin," Thorin orders after a moment in which he is obviously getting his temper under control.
"I won't," Nori shakes her head. "Away means away, no guards. I can take care of him myself, don't need help. He isn't exactly hard to miss, is he?" She uses her thumb to point over her shoulder at the large guard.
"That's the point," Thorin replies dryly.
"And it's the opposite of what the boy needs to learn to be," Nori points out. "Not to mention your guard's morals. They're inconvenient."
Dwalin huffs behind her.
"That's the first time I've heard them called that," he mutters. Thorin gives him a frustrated glare. "Regardless, the lass has a point, I would only be in their way and if her blades are as sharp as her tongue she will have no need for me. Let her take the lad. It will do him some good."
"My sister would disagree with you," Thorin leans back and Nori watches curiously.
She has seen Dwalin standing against Thorin's orders before when he believes that his king is being particularly pig headed, though it happens rarely and never in front of strangers. Which Nori now is. And yet… and yet there is something about her that seems to have drawn Dwalin to her far more rapidly than it had in her past. He does not know her, she knows that much, but their evening in the bar together seems to have made far more of an impression on him than she had realised.
"Your sister would have been happy to let the boy run around the city picking pockets until it got him killed," Dwalin snarls, "and then she would have blamed me and mine for not stopping him rather than let him be trained as he needs to be. Even three days of it has seen him more settled than he has been in years. That boy will never grow up and accept his place in life if you keep trying to keep him from everything that he's meant to be."
"That was some speech, Guard," Nori comments with an arched brow and a half smile.
"You had your chance," he tells her curtly and she nods.
"Very well," Thorin sighs. "Take him, I will deal with my sister." He waves his hand, then looks at her sharply. "Know, Thief, that if anything happens to that boy under your care there will be no place in this world that you could hide where I could not track you down. I will utilise every resource I have, I will face Durin's Bane if I have to in order to take vengeance for the loss of that boy."
"If he falls, Thorin," Nori replies, planting her hands on the desk so that she can lean close, "I will have already fallen trying to protect him."
"It would be best if that were the case," Thorin hisses. "Take her." He waves a hand at Dwalin, although the expression on the king's face tells Nori that he will be having words with his cousin later. She almost wishes that she could see it, but she has other things to do and so she follows Dwalin without a word until they are further from Thorin's office.
"Thank you for speaking for the lad," Nori says gently, though she knows that the words will be unwelcome.
"I didn't do it for you," Dwalin huffs.
"I know," she shrugs, "but it's not like Thorin will tell anyone that you said it." He gives her a startled glance. "It's my job to know things, Guard," she points out. "Teaching the lad to be a thief isn't the only skill I have, and it won't be the most important either."
"He has a name," Dwalin mutters, "you haven't used it more than once since you got here. Always calling him the lad or the boy."
"That's because out there he isn't Kíli, he can't afford to be," Nori explains. "Kíli is a prince; foolish, headstrong, spoiled, his only care is that his Ma and Uncle won't let him become what he's meant to be. It's the perfect personality to hide behind. Out there he can't afford that. Out there he has to be someone else, with a different name and a different personality. He isn't my first apprentice, but he's the first one I've had with so much raw talent and potential. One day he might even be better than me, but only if he starts on the right track. Which means that he needs to learn to keep work separate from home, and I need to get accustomed to calling him by his work name and not his public name. So it's best that I don't use it at all. Not for the moment."
Dwalin nods in thoughtful silence.
"It's also best that I avoid complications," she adds. "For his sake more than anything. I promised his Ma I would be discrete, this is the best way I know how."
Dwalin nods and they part ways in silence.
A.N: I can't sleep. Have a chapter