Chapter 160

Future Worries

I was the sole exception to the cheerful mood that had overtaken the whole of Erebor that night. This was the kind of celebration that gave the one in Minas Tirith a run for its money, because when dwarves threw a party, they didn't mess around. It's a dwarvish rule that if you're going to do something, you had better do it well or not bother at all.

And it is entirely alien to a dwarf's nature to throw in the towel before trying anyway.

There were people everywhere of almost every race that lived on Middle Earth – orcs excepted, because no one in their right mind would ever invite an orc to anything – and for just this once, everyone got along with everyone else. It was a rare moment of harmony that no one really expected to last long. Once the hangovers were gone dwarves would surely be annoyed with the odd ways of the men, and the men would moan about the elves' horrible communication and the elves would be offended by the brusqueness of the dwarves. That was the way of the world.

However the enmity that had so long soured relations between the different people of the region was gone. The complaints were only minor. They had all fought and won a war together and that sort of thing creates a bond that cannot be so easily broken, especially when both elves and dwarves have such long memories.

The shadow of despair had lifted and yes, while the food situation was still not entirely ideal and still far too dependent on the Iron Hills, there was a brighter future ahead, where the last remnants of the Enemy's armies would be wiped from the face of the earth and cities would be rebuilt and all sorts of land reclaimed. There was an awful lot of work left to be done, but for just one night it could wait…

Thráin

If he was going to be clapped on the shoulder one more time, he was going to wake up with bruises, Thráin suspected. He had been in high demand tonight. Perfect strangers stopped him to shake his hand, bow to him, embrace him and put a tankard with yet another drink in his hand before he'd even drained the last one.

This is why I used to run.

He'd had trouble recalling why he had done so in the past of late, but no more. All he wished to do was to find a horse to discover how many miles he could cover before sunup. Of course he couldn't; he had made a promise. And so he would stay and be polite and even dance a while until at last everyone became so intoxicated that they no longer noticed it when he slipped away in search of some peace and quiet.

That was how he had come to this empty hallway. It was just far enough from the hall to be private, but near enough to return should his absence be noticed by those who mattered. It had been a long time since he had been in such a confined space with so many people. Minas Tirith had been different; he could escape it there. But these were his own people.

He sat down on the staircase that long ago his father's company had slid a dragon down. There were still grooves in the pillars where the dragon's corpse had gauged pieces of marble out like it slid a knife through butter. It should have been mended long ago, but Bofur had once declared that this was history and it would be a sore shame to erase it.

So the damage had stayed.

As it will stay with the folk who fought for long years to come.

Not all the words Elvaethor had spoken could have prepared him for the devastation. So many people lost, so much damage done. That the food supplies were not secure even after victory was perhaps very natural, but very much felt like adding insult to injury.

What a terrible waste.

Was it any wonder that Thoren looked as exhausted as he did?

'I would have brought you a drink, but I reckon folk have been plying you with wine all night already, so I brought you a pie instead.' He had barely any warning at all before Nes appeared before him and pushed a still warm pie into his hands. 'There you go. Something to soak up all the alcohol.'

'I am not drunk,' he pointed out, although he certainly wasn't entirely sober anymore either.

'Didn't think you were.' Nes shrugged. She plonked herself down on the stairs next to him without so much as a by-your-leave. 'Besides, you need some more flesh on your bones, because you look like I could set you outside and the gentlest breeze would blow you away.'

'I have nourished myself on elf bread for some time,' he said by way of an explanation.

'There you have it then.' Nes grinned at him. 'Elf food can't be right for a dwarf, so you had better something tried and tested, with meat in it and everything. Oh, and Sigdís's compliments.'

'I have not seen her since my return.' But of her at least he knew that she hadn't been out fighting and therefore must be somewhere under the Mountain. It'd be only a matter of time before he ran into her somewhere.

Would that the same could be said for so many other missing faces.

'Barely anyone's seen her at all this past year,' Nes said. 'She's been so busy keeping all of us fed that I don't think she's seen any other part of the Mountain at all since last autumn. Rumour has it she's hidden a bed in one of the cupboards.'

He took a bite out of the pie, which was as good as he remembered from the days before the quest. 'Did you check?'

'Maker be good, of course not. She wields a fearsome battle ladle I'll have you know.'

The mental image made him chuckle.

'Oh, good,' said Nes. 'You haven't forgotten how to laugh.'

'Did you think so?'

'Was beginning to wonder, truth be told.' She was too honest to lie. 'Because I haven't seen you do it all night. And then I reckoned that maybe Mordor was so bad that it killed a body's joy stone dead, which would be a shame, because you always dearly loved to laugh.'

She was right; he had always been quick to laugh. And of course Nes remembered that; they had grown up together, with her usually tagging along while Thoren and Thráin found them some more trouble to get into, but wise enough to stay out of the way when one of their little schemes inevitably went awry.

'I ought to relearn it, then.' He pondered this for some time, munching on the pie at the same time; there was no reason to let that masterpiece of cookery go to waste. 'Mordor was bad, very bad, I'll grant you that, but what victory would we have if none ever felt joy again?'

'Fair enough. So, dancing isn't doing that for you?'

'We're not all as good at it as you are.'

She bumped his shoulder. 'You should get better at it, you know. It's all part of your royal duty, especially if you, as rumour has it, will end up running Khazad-dûm one day.'

Thráin groaned and put his head in his hands. 'Is there anyone who does not know?'

Nes shrugged. 'Your brother called a council and invited your cousin Lifur to attend, so I'm fairly sure all of Erebor knew before the sun had set.'

He didn't have any good response of his own, so one of Beth's would suffice. 'Damn and blast!'

She laughed at that. 'Oh, cheer up. It'll be fine really.'

'Will it?'

She misinterpreted. 'I always reckoned you could do anything you put your mind to. Surely you have proven so this past year. If it helps anything, I'd follow you.'

He was startled by that. 'You would?'

'Of course. Do you honestly think I'd pass up the chance of seeing Khazad-dûm with my own eyes?'

Fair enough. 'So it's not for the pleasure of my company then?'

It was only when they fell into the familiar banter that he realised that perhaps he still had it in him to laugh and enjoy himself. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

Nes certainly treated it that way; she smiled triumphantly. 'Ah, that is a pleasant bonus that I shan't decline,' she declared. 'Although, now that I've said it, I might have to get to know you again first and find out if you haven't turned into some morose recluse. The current evidence isn't pointing in your favour, I must say.'

And she was right in this as well. This was a night for celebration, not remembrance. There would be time for that, tomorrow. He privately vowed to visit Jack's graveside in the morning and until then resolved to set all gloomy thoughts aside.

'I wager your solution involves some of that dancing you're so fond of?' he asked.

'Naturally.' She stood and held out her hand.

He took it and let her pull him up. 'If you recall, I trod on all of your toes the last time you talked me into this and I have not had time to practice since.'

Nes pulled up her skirt far enough to show off the boots she wore. 'Steel-capped toes,' she announced. 'You couldn't hurt me if you jumped up and down on my toes till sunrise, which yes, one of my brothers was kind enough to put to the test. And then Víli drove a wheelchair over it a couple times. Not a mark on them.'

'You've come prepared,' Thráin observed.

'Well, I reckoned with all these elves and their odd ways of dancing, I had better be prepared, hadn't I? They've got some very odd notions about what constitutes dancing, you know.'

Yes, he did know. 'I guess I had better stick to my own then, else my toes will be in danger. Unlike you, I did not come prepared.'

'It's a sorry state of affairs.' Nes shook her head in feigned exasperation. 'Whatever shall we do with you?'

Thráin poked her side. 'Is your memory going? You were telling me just now that you wanted me to dance, remember?'

She didn't miss a beat. 'Ah, that was it. Come on, then, before I forget again.'

He allowed her to drag him back to the festivities. It didn't seem that he had been missed, for none looked up when he entered again. Oh, he was liberally clapped on the shoulder and folk would have cheerfully resumed plying him with drinks if he'd stood still long. So he made sure he did not.

Nes was eager for a dance and her enthusiasm was infectious. It wasn't long before he was laughing right along with her as at last the world returned to a semblance of normality. If he banned the whole war from his mind he could almost believe that this was Smaug's death anniversary, albeit with more men and elves in attendance.

His friends were enjoying themselves as well. The hobbits had made themselves right at home. For folk who did not like to leave the Shire much, these four had a remarkable knack for fitting in just about anywhere, Merry and Pippin in particular. Even Frodo was smiling again and his smiles had been few.

Aragorn and Arwen danced in a world of their own. If anything, neither of them seemed to regret their choices. May they have joy of it.

He danced with friends and he danced with strangers and somehow the time flew by util at last he caught sight of the child who had been entrusted to him.

That's right, another one of my new responsibilities.

'Hello, Mr. Thráin,' Harry chirped when he joined the group of children.

'Are you not tired yet, lad?'

'A little,' Harry confessed and right on cue Thomas and Nari both yawned.

Thráin beckoned his little charge over. 'Come on, then, lad, time for bed. If your father and mother don't want to take you home, that is.' He had seen both of them, but not for some time. He couldn't see them now either.

'They've gone home,' Thomas said.

No great surprise. Terrence seemed kind, but Thráin found it difficult to warm to his wife for the same reason he found it hard to get along with Duria. Something about her set his teeth on edge, and he suspected he did the same to her. She certainly didn't like this world; whenever she did visit, she made sure to leave as soon as she could.

'Well, come on then,' he told the boy.

Thomas got up quickly enough, waved to his friends with a promise to see them again on the morrow and then took Thráin's hand.

'It's so cool,' he announced as soon as they had left the hall behind and the lack of noise once again made conversation possible.

Cool, Thráin had learned, meant that something met with approval. 'What is?'

'This mountain.' Thomas made a wide gesture with his free hand. 'Do you think I could come and visit Harry?'

'I think Harry will move back with his mother, Thomas,' Thráin pointed out. 'But you would be most welcome to come and visit whenever you want.'

It was odd, though. Just this very afternoon Thoren had very much evaded the issue when it came up and now Thomas seemed to think that Harry would stay in Erebor to live. From what he had seen of him, he certainly looked very much as his ease.

He started to suspect that he had missed something.

Thomas smiled brightly at him. 'Thank you!'

'Not a problem. It seems to me that you have been making some friends since our arrival.' Dari and Nari apparently went wherever Harry went, but they had assembled a cluster of children around them in the course of the evening, most of whom Thráin didn't know. Presumably because he was never in Erebor long enough to be introduced to anyone's offspring.

'They're cool too,' Thomas agreed. 'Much cooler than the kids at school.' His face fell and then he perked up again. 'Couldn't I come to school here, Mr Thráin?'

These were deep waters in which he was not prepared to swim. 'I reckon that is a discussion you'll be needing to have with your mother.' It was however interesting that most of his mother's kin seemed to have agreed that, all things considered, Middle Earth was to be preferred over the land they hailed from, even with the world being what it was after the war.

Perhaps a mistake was made in placing them in their world, he pondered. In which case of course it could be argued that Gandalf had actually done a good thing when he first brought Thráin's mother here.

These were even deeper waters, so he turned away and directed his attention again to the boy, who once more wore an expression more suitable to a funeral than a victory celebration. 'What's the matter?'

'Don't want to go back to school,' Thomas muttered, staring at the floor.

'You can defend yourself quite ably now,' Thráin pointed out. He had not shirked the duty he had accepted. Thomas had aptitude for it too, which had made things easier, and he had not found himself short of teachers. 'Once those cowards learn that you are not an easy prey any longer, I am sure that they will cease their appalling behaviour soon.'

Thomas grimaced. 'Yeah, but it's not fun, not if Harry's not there.'

The cousin who was perhaps his only friend. Not once in all these weeks had Thráin heard him mention the name of another friend and so had come to the conclusion that he simply had none. There had been Harry, but when he had gone, there was none to stand by him and the bullies had smelled weakness as well as any orc.

What a horrible place that world must be.

Thráin struggled to think why Beth had ever been so eager to return there at all.

He didn't have any words of true consolation to offer – it was not his place to make promises that he was almost certainly not able to keep – so he put an arm around the lad's shoulder. 'I'd like to think that there must be something that can be done, even if neither you nor I know what that is yet,' he said.

In a way, he reflected, the future had become as chaotic and unknowable as it had been on the quest, with many things that ought to be done and many possibilities that had to be explored. But, he realised as he tucked Thomas into bed not much later, they could all be done without the threat of evil hanging over them.

And that was an encouraging thought.

Thoren

'He's escaped, Maker save me.'

With those rather interesting words Stonehelm invited himself into the recently vacated chair next to Thoren's.

'Who escaped?' Thoren asked, trying to recall if he had any prisoners in the dungeon who might break out and wreak some havoc. He came up empty. He'd got rid of the Easterlings weeks ago.

'Your brother,' Stonehelm clarified. 'The shorter one.'

Only in his family would Thráin ever be referred to as the shorter one. He tried and failed not to chuckle. 'Did he leave Erebor?'

'Nah, I just reckon he's gone to bed. Had that mannish lad with him.' His kinsman helped himself to the tankard of ale left behind by the previous occupant of his seat. 'He's been here for hours, but he's slippery as one of them elves, I tell you. Every time I come near him, he gives me the slip.'

'Do you reckon he's doing it on purpose?'

'Maker knows.' Stonehelm drained the rest of the tankard and placed it back on the table with a little unnecessary force. 'Does that offer to tie him down still stand?'

'If he'll stand still long enough.' He had no illusions on that account. He tapped his uncooperative leg. 'As you'll have noticed I'm not as quick as I used to be.'

Stonehelm shrugged. 'You ought to get yourself one of those contraptions your cousins are building. I've heard they can move as fast as body can walk. I've been trying to get them to make a few in the Iron Hills.'

'Any luck?'

'None so far.' He shook his head. 'Though there is a need for them at home as well as here. Though not as great a need, perhaps.'

No, Thoren did not think so either. There were folk out dancing, but there was also a disconcerting large number looking of people at the fringes who would never dance again, on account of having left behind the necessary parts of themselves on the battlefield.

All things considered, I was lucky.

Not that he often thought about himself in that way, but he knew it to be true. He was alive, about to wed. Most of his loved ones had made it through this horrid war. Aye, he had his losses to mourn, but not as many as many of his people. Some families had lost all their male kin.

He had no words for that tragedy.

'Perhaps some of your people could come here to learn the craft,' he suggested. 'They'd be most welcome.' It would be good to see people on these streets. They had been too empty of late.

Stonehelm nodded. 'I'll tell them,' he said. 'It's good counsel. And that, my friend and my King, is why it's good that you haven't given your crown away to your brother. Let him run Khazad-dûm instead.'

'Good news travels fast, does it not?' As far as he knew none yet knew for sure that Thráin was bound for that ancient kingdom.

'At miraculous speed,' Stonehelm agreed, neatly side-stepping the question Thoren hadn't asked. 'I might go and lend a hand, when the time comes.' He grimaced and spoke in tones uncharacteristically soft: 'Where my father did not.'

Dáin had come to Thoren's rescue and because of that he could never truly despise his kinsman, but because of his cowardice, he could never trust him either. On some level Dáin understood this, he suspected. He had not shown his face in Erebor since the end of the war. His son on the other hand had been breezing in and out as if he belonged.

'How fares Dáin?' Thoren asked.

'Changed,' Stonehelm replied, reaching for another abandoned tankard and draining that in one gulp. 'He is not young, but now he appears old. His strength has left him. I cannot say if it is the war or the shame that has done so.'

Thoren hardly knew what to say to that, so he chose not to say anything.

'He will not rule long now,' Stonehelm said and perhaps that was meant as reassurance. 'I know where my allegiance lies. And with whom.' As if that still needed saying.

'It was never in doubt,' Thoren pointed out. 'You are a friend; I have no need for reassurances.'

'Not reassurances then, but another drink would not go amiss,' Stonehelm declared. 'I shall have to go in search of it, which is just as well, because here come your elf and Young Harry, so I shall be quite superfluous to any requirement. I shall see you on the morrow, dear kinsman of mine.'

He was gone before Thoren could even give a goodbye of his own.

'Hello, Mr Thoren,' Harry said cheerfully, before covering his mouth with his hand to hide the evidence of a massive yawn. The hour had indeed grown rather late. Somewhat to his own surprise Thoren found that not only had the time passed significantly faster than he had thought, he had also enjoyed himself for much of it.

He had almost forgotten what that felt like.

'Bedtime, I think,' Tauriel said with an indulgent smile. One of her hands rested lightly on Harry's left shoulder in a gesture that was quite maternal. He was not the only one to have grown fond of their small guest.

'Indeed,' Thoren agreed. 'It has been a long night.' But just this once, for all the right reasons.

The fact that he had been sitting down for most of the night – which should make the healers reasonably happy – meant that he did not need to lean quite so heavily on his cane. Harry skipped ahead, while Tauriel took his free hand and they slipped from the hall mostly unnoticed by all the revellers. Most seemed determined to make the celebration last until dawn or beyond and who was he to say them nay? They had fought hard enough for it.

Yet he himself had his fill and now craved the quiet and the company only of those who shared his home. They walked there in silence. Harry still skipped ahead, but he waited every now and again for Thoren and Tauriel to catch him up.

'Did you enjoy yourself tonight?' Thoren asked when they arrived home.

Harry nodded vigorously. 'The party was so cool. And Thomas was there and all my friends.' He had indeed made rather a lot of them over the past months. And now he had drawn the cousin he so often spoke of into that group as though he had always been a part of it. The lad was utterly charming and disarming.

Which was why it kept striking him as odd that he no longer seemed to be able to get along with his mother. Beth had barely interacted with her son at all, preferring to leave him in the company of his friends rather than seek him out after such a long separation. Even stranger, Harry barely seemed to miss her.

So he asked: 'And how is your mother?'

Harry shrugged. 'All right, I think.'

What a curious answer.

'Did you not seek her out after she's been away for so long?' Tauriel asked kindly. Like Thoren, she must have noticed that something was not quite right there. 'You did tell me that you missed her.'

'Yes, I did.' He skipped ahead of them into their rooms and avoided their gaze.

Not a good sign.

Thoren joined him in the middle of the room and placed a hand on his shoulder. 'Harry, what is the matter?'

'She wants me to go with her.'

Ah. Harry's thoughts on the matter were made perfectly clear by the fact that he was staring at the rug as if his very life depended on it and the words were muttered.

This was of course not unexpected. Thoren had known from the first that if Beth Andrews could be found, she would like her son returned to her, as she had never been meant to be separated from him in the first place. And now the moment had come. It should gladden his heart that at the very least she would not take Harry back to that other world, so entirely beyond his reach that he could scarcely comprehend it at all. Yet it was but a small consolation.

And it seemed that it was the same to Young Harry.

'As your mother that is her right.'

'I thought she'd want to stay.' He looked up. 'I did ask her.'

'And what did she say?'

'She said: we shall see.' Harry pulled a face. 'Which always means no.' He sounded quite bitter about it too.

'Then perhaps we shall wait and we shall see,' Thoren said, believing very little of his own words, but what else could he truly say that was not a lie? 'It does us no good to dwell on that which we cannot do anything about. Not at this hour at least.'

'We can't?'

'Well, I reckon your mother's gone to bed.' Whatever would happen, would not happen tonight. 'I don't think she would thank me for coming to her door now to discuss the matter with her.' He gently squeezed Harry's shoulder. 'Go to bed, Harry. Perhaps it will all look brighter in the morning light.'

Harry seemed doubtful, but he let himself be persuaded to change and go to bed. Thoren tucked him in, wished him goodnight and left him. With any luck the long day had tired him out sufficiently for him to find sleep quickly.

He didn't think he would.

He undressed slowly and put the cane against the wardrobe. He even got as far as sitting up in bed, but he was still far too awake for sleep, so he reached for some reports deposited on his bedside table, as they had never failed to make him nod off before today, especially not at this time of night.

They failed to live up to expectations.

It wasn't until he realised that he had read the same sentence thrice without taking in what it had said, that he gave it up for a lost cause. He kept on wondering and now that he had started, he did not seem able to stop. Because while he may have told Harry that things might look brighter in the morning, he did not think that they would.

Beth was Harry's mother. This he had always known. When she came here, she would come to collect him. This too he had always known. Yet he had not thought about it often, especially these past weeks, when Harry became a regular fixture, so that at moments he could almost forget that he had not always been there. These rooms had seemed empty to him in the past, but they were empty no more. They were filled.

Had Jack felt this way about that lad? It wasn't hard to imagine now that he was won over the same way Thoren had been. Who wouldn't be?

But in the end he is not mine to keep.

Would he feel easier about it if Harry longed to be reunited with his mother?

And that was one thing that kept rubbing him the wrong way. Even Duria, not the most affectionate person he knew, was not as distant with her children as Beth seemed to be with her son. The few times he had seen mother and son interact it had looked awkward and forced. He had not yet spoken to her on her own, and she had given very little away about herself at the celebration, only that she seemed increasingly ill at ease in a way her relatives – and wasn't that a surprise? – were not.

Stranger and stranger.

She is not like amad, Thoren thought. Perhaps he had expected that, for her to be similar, since she was sent for to fulfil a similar role. What he had heard of her so far had increased that belief. Had she not also saved a man meant for death and then married him? He had smiled when he heard it, for it sounded so familiar.

But there was nothing familiar about her in person.

A knock on the door disturbed his musings. 'Come,' he called, expecting Harry.

It was not Harry.

'I find that sleep eludes me,' Tauriel said by way of an explanation. 'And I suspected that it would be likewise for you.'

Thoren put the documents back on the bedside table. 'Indeed it does. Will you tell me what preys on your mind?'

'Many things,' she replied. 'But Young Harry perhaps now most of all. I… I find that I have grown fond of him.'

This he understood. 'And the thought of his departure saddens you.' Although he was not quite convinced that was the right word for the sentiment. 'As it does me.'

'Were we foolish to let ourselves grow so attached?' Tauriel asked.

'Maybe.' They had closed their eyes to what must inevitably happen, so that now that it had happened it felt like an unpleasant surprise. 'Then again, is it so foolish to love a lad who is so easy to love?' He shrugged. 'We love one another, but when we chose to do so it seemed foolish and reckless. That turned out well enough.'

Why shouldn't it again?

Tauriel nodded thoughtfully. 'Yet this is not the same.'

No, it wasn't.

He tried for hope: 'His mother has not yet definitively said no. We may yet work out a compromise of sorts in which we can all be, if not happy, then at least less unhappy than we are at present.'

'You do sound quite hopeful.'

He was not entirely sure that he was, but reason dictated that he thought this through a little more and there he did find some cause for hope. 'We have fought a long war in which the odds were ever firmly stacked against us and all who had any wisdom told us that what we achieved could not be done. Yet we achieved our aims, against all belief. Why should we do differently now?' He laughed as something came to mind. 'My aunt Thora said it best perhaps, before the war began in earnest: "Your family's got a way of achieving the impossible, lad, even if it's only because they're too stubborn to listen to folk who say it can't be done." So perhaps we ought to strive for the impossible.'

'You think we ought to fight to keep him?'

He pondered that, because when push came to shove, it was not his right to do so. 'I would like to see his mother fight for him,' he said. He had seen no indication that she would do so and this did not sit right with him. 'I would like to see her… care.'

He had seen precious little of that. It might be there, but if it was so, she did not show it. And until he saw evidence of it, he found it hard to believe it.

'Either way, there is nothing to be done till morning. We should go to sleep.' Yet Tauriel lingered in the doorway, waiting perhaps. So he made the decision to ask: 'We are to be wed soon. The doors are bolted, so we shan't have Uncle Dori barge in. Will you stay?'

It was the right thing to ask; she smiled. 'Yes.'

The door closed softly behind her.

Next time: Thráin finds himself unexpectedly cast in the role of therapist. Duria and Beth both face struggles and decisions.

Just a quick heads-up: there's now only one chapter and the epilogue left. Chapter 161 will be up on Wednesday. The epilogue will be up early, either on Friday or Saturday, since I'll have a bit of a holiday from Saturday onwards and I want it to be all done by then.

I was asked in a guest review how many pages this entire story was. In case anyone else is interested, the finished product is 1556 pages long.

As always, thanks for reading! Reviews would be very welcome.