Author's note: Sorry this chapter is uploaded so late, I had no idea how to write it. It's not the best thing I have written, but the real story starts from the next chapter and I hope things start getting more exciting. Also, if anyone wants to see what I imagine Rin looking like, I have a concept of her posted on my Instagram, coffee_loving_artist. Alright, enough self-promotion for me, on with the story.
The heavy, sweet scent of chocolate pastries lingered in the air as they stepped out on the balcony. Rin normally loved sweets, but now her stomach had twisted into such a tight knot that she doubted she would be able to eat anything.
"So, what now?" Rin asked as she took a seat. "Are we leaving?"
"Not in a few days. We need rest." Thorin said from where he was sitting at the head of the table. "If you would come with us or not is your choice."
"Why wouldn't I...?" Rin's voice trailed off. "Please tell me you don't agree with Elrond."
"I don't. However from now on, the journey will only get more dangerous. The elf was right about one thing. Being a direct descendant of the line of Durin will make you a target."
"For the…like I haven't been one all my life, Valar damn it! I am royalty, and I live in a forest filled with man-eating spiders. Somebody wanting to kill me isn't anything new. Don't even start with the "too young, too unexperienced" bullshit. I am sixty-five, I can take care of myself!" It took Rin a few seconds to realize how stupid that had sounded. Everybody here was older than her. Most of them by more than a hundred.
"That's not what I meant. You might be a Durin by blood, but you were raised as the princess of Greenwood. You can still choose to stay here and forget about the Company, this quest and Erebor. To have an easier life. A safer one. If you continue this journey with us, you will leave all this behind. I hate to admit it, but the first option will probably be the better one."
Rin stared at him for a second.
"Don't ever mistake an easy life for a safe one. Elrond can say what he wants, but Greenwood has never been safe. I have been learning how to swing a sword since the moment I was tall enough to hold one, not because of some royal caprice, but because it was a matter of surviving. So I am coming, and I don't care what anybody has to say about it."
People often thought that Rin's position made her invincible. That she hadn't had to work for a single thing in her life. In reality, life in court was just as dangerous as any battlefield, even if the weapons were words and not knives. One wrong word, one wrong step and somebody could doom an entire nation. Because when you are immortal, grudges can be held for centuries, years and years can pass before somebody decides to make a move against the ones who had once made laughing stock of them. The best way to survive on that battlefield was learning to watch, listen and keep your mouth shut.
"If that is your final decision, I won't try to stop you. But I am sure there are others who will." The disapproving glance he threw at the arc leading into the House spoke enough about who he meant.
"Elrond can't really do much to stop me, neither can the rest of the White Council. They might send a word to Greenwood, but even if they do it will take a long time until it arrives, and even longer until somebody takes action. And since we will have to cross the forest sooner or later, it doesn't really matter." After her anger had cooled down, Rin had realized she was going to have to confront her uncle once they reached Greenwood. She doubted it would be a pleasant encounter. Fights between her and Thranduil, even though they didn't happen very often, were never pretty.
"I still can't wrap my mind around how they managed to hide the fact that you were not a purebred elf for fifty years."-Fili joined in the conversation from across the table.
"Well, I look enough like an elf to pass as one, but believe me, it's not like everybody thought that. The funny thing is, no one ever thought about my father being a dwarf. There were rumors about humans, elves, some people even thought that Elrond was my father, and that's why I don't look exactly like an elf. Usually, creatures that live as long as elves do are not interested in petty drama, but life in court gets boring sometimes, even for them."-Rin and Legolas had spent hours just laughing at the ridiculous theories they had heard about who her father had been.-"That aside, Kili said that you were wondering if I remember anything from before Greenwood."
"Do you?" Thorin asked.
"I didn't two weeks ago. I have been trying to remember something, anything, for years, but it has always been just…blank. The memories started coming back the night before we left The Shire. They weren't clear, just cloudy glimpses I couldn't make sense of. But I knew they weren't ordinary dreams, because, well, I don't dream. When I finally learned the whole story, it unlocked a whole wave of them. I'm still trying to put them in order. The clearest ones are of towering blue mountains and a dark-haired woman that looked a lot like you."
"That would be my sister, Dis. Fili and Kili's mother."
"Great to know that I have one more relative I had no idea existed. Anybody else?"
"We have no more close relatives, but almost everyone here is somehow related to the line of Durin, even though quite distantly for the most part."
Rin blinked a couple of times. Two days ago, her family had consisted of exactly two people.
"Well, alright then, but…would you actually want me back into your lives?"-The same doubt that had been gnawing at Rin the night she had joined the quest suddenly came back.-"You said it on your own, I might have Durin blood in me, but my mother was still an elf. Would you really want to be associated with a half-breed?"
"Rin, your mother has won the respect of every dwarf sitting on this table. Half-elf or not, you are her and Frerin's daughter, and you have a place among us as much as you have among elves."
Kili's grin matched Rin's as he said:
"Welcome back to the family."