Chapter Twenty-Four

Distractions and Unwanted Memories

Thorin looked up from his mountain of paper work and turned his bleary-eyed in the direction of raised voices moving steadily in his directions.

Good, a distraction, he thought trying to contain his gleeful grin at the thought of getting out reading and signing papers, if only for a few moments.

"Cousin!" Thorin had barely stood up from his chair when his huge and larger than life cousin came striding purposefully into his office, followed closely by Dwalin and Balin.

"Hello Dain. Wasn't expecting you til Wednesday." Thorin greeted his cousin.

"Thorin, it is Wednesday." Balin offered with a slight roll of his eyes.

"Is it?" Thorin asked feeling a little sheepish but hid it well behind his customary scowl.

His large cousin however did not seem to notice his sheepishness and instead simply threw himself into the nearest chair in Thorin's office.

"Bovin's at it again." Dain boomed once he had down his first mug of ale that Dwalin had offered him.

"Bovin? Bovin son of Brovin?" Thorin asked as he sat back down at his desk, his brows forwarded. "Didn't you banish him?" Thorin knew that there was a long and somewhat ugly history between his cousin and Bovin son of Brovin. He himself had met the dark haired dwarf several times during his years of exile and hadn't thought much of the dwarf.

"Banished," Dain grunted, "shouldta slit the blighters throat."

"Why?" Thorin questioned, "What's he done?" now, he added silently to himself. He noticed that both Balin and Dwalin were both glaring at Dain, trying to convey in their own way that they wanted his cousin to remain silent about whatever it was that had brought him from the Iron Hills to Erebor.

"Consorting with Orcs, for one." Dain rumbled with disgust, his scarred face twisted into a dark grimace beneath his heavy mane of hair.

Thorin felt his face twist into a dark scowl. How could any full-blooded, self-respecting dwarf consort with Orcs of all evil creatures in Middle-Earth?!

"And not just any Orcs, either, cousin." Dain added with a severe note to his thick tone.

"What do you mean?" Thorin demanded, ignoring Balin deep, long-suffering sigh.

"Bzog, Azog the Defilers spawn."

Thorin's hands curled into fists, his nails digging deeply into his palms. Would he never be free of Azog, the Defiler? Even in death, the pale orc still tormented him.

"Bovin," Thorin took a deep breath to calm the rage that was brewing within his chest, "Bovin is consorting with that-that creatures spawn?"

"According to my sources, yes." Dain replied with a sharp nod of his head.

"For what reason?"

"Business partners of some kind. Bzog ás apparently hired Bovin and his dwarves to retrieve sum'thing for him."

"What? Retrieving what?" Thorin growled out in frustration.

Dain simply shook his head.

"Didn't hear that part," Dain admitted looking apologetically back at him, "only that it is something of great importance. And Thorin…"

"Dain…" Balin warned stepping forward, giving the Lord of the Iron Hills a hard look.

"What Dain?" Thorin demanded, ignoring the two brothers who were glancing at each other with worried expressions.

"He wants to finish what his father started, to end the line of Durin."

"And he thinks he will, does he?" Thorin asked, forcing himself to keep his face neutral.

"With whatever he gotten Bovin to retrieve, he certainly thinks he will."

"Where's the wretch now?"

"Bovin? Somewhere over the Misty Mountains, I believe. Bzog?" Dain simply shrugged his massive shoulders, "my source could not tell me, no matter how he tried to keep track of him and his pack."

Thorin ran a hand over his scarred face.

He thought that it was all over. That all the reminders of his past had either been destroyed or resolved after he had taken his rightful place as King under the Mountain.

"I've sent dwarves after Bovin." Dain was saying and Thorin forced himself to focus upon his cousin's words.

"Will they catch up to him?"

Dain shook his head ruefully.

"But they will catch the bugger on his way back and then," Dain eyes glowed like burning coals as he cracked his fists, "then he'll tell us where the foul bastard is."

"And what it was that he was hired to retrieve." Thorin growled.

"Might find it on him." Dwalin added, "Might be able to use it against the orc."

"We don't even know what it is," Balin said patiently, ever the diplomat, "it might not even be a weapon of any kind."

"What else could it be?" Balin rolled his eyes at the three dwarves who were all looking back at him with sceptical looks.

"Knowledge, information, could be anything." Balin retorted, his mind conjuring up a multitude of ideas as to what Bzog had asked Bovin and his dwarves to retrieve. "Could be anything." He said again, "we must keep an open-mind about this."

"A dwarf who is already considered a traitor by his kin is said to be consorting with one of our greatest enemies. I don't know how much of an open-mind one can be about such a matter, brother." Dwalin replied.

"I meant we must be open-minded about whatever it was Bovin has been sent to retrieve. It might be something we least expect."

"Like?"

"Haven't the foggiest," Balin said with a shrug of his shoulders, even though his mind was still conjuring up ideas with every passing moment "but that is why I say we keep our minds open to whatever it is and not simply class it as weapon. Knowledge can be far more dangerous than any kind of weapon in the world."

"Fine." Thorin said with a growl before turning his attention to Dain, "I want you to bring the traitor and his men here as soon as your dwarves capture them."

"'at was the plan." Dain said as he stretched his arms above his head, causing his shoulders to pop, "In what condition?" he asked with raised eyebrows, obviously hoping for permission to beat Bovin a few inches from death, keeping him alive just enough to tell them what Bzog was about.

"In whatever condition you find them." Thorin replied making both Dain and Dwalin grumble. "I want them brought to me with the ability to speak."

"They'd still be able to speak; jus' walking might be an issue or two for 'em." Dain said with a grin causing Dwalin to give a loud bark of laughter.

Thorin rolled his eyes at the pair of them.

"Bring them to me in the condition you find them in, don't add to it in anyway."

"You're taking all the fun out of this, cousin." Dain rumbled, sounding quite dishearten by it all.

"He always does, getting soft in his old age." Dwalin replied in a mock-whisper, his eyes glinting as he snuck a glance at Thorin who was mulling over how best to lodge his letter opener in Dwalin's skull.

Would just bounce off anyway, what with how thick his head is, and break a perfectly good letter opener as the only result, he thought with a slight grin.

Dain left Thorin's study shortly afterwards, followed closely by Balin and Dwalin while Thorin sank back into his chair, his mind drifting over all that Dain had informed him.

A part of him – the warrior and unforgiving prince part of him – wanted to take up his old armour and Orcrist and hunt down the foul spawn of Azog the Defiler. The king part of him knew that while he trusts Dain and his information, he still needs more information to go on before he can go charging off in the vague direction that Bzog might be in.

What he really needed right now was to come up with a strategy, a course of action. He really would like to come out of a battle with a white orc being able to walk on his own two feet. Because all his confrontation with Azog, they had been spurred of the moment on his part and had almost always very nearly resulted in his death.

And you don't have your burglar around to save you from death now, he thought grimly, feeling the familiar surge of raw pain shoot threw his heart at the thought of her.

She too, had never had much of a plan whenever she went up against Azog and yet she always ended up better off than Thorin himself, she at least managed to walk away… at least the first few times…

With everything else she did, she always had some kind of plan worked out in her head beforehand. With Azog? It had been pure instinct that had driven her after him when he had foolishly tried to take the Pale Orc on after their escape from Goblin Town.

His fight with the Pale Orc had lasted mere seconds before he was knocked down and unable to rise again. He would have died if she hadn't come running after him, running after him and into the certain jaws of death.

She had showed her true bravery to him that night. Her bravery, her stubbornness, her loyalty, her foolishness.

In fact, he did believe he heard Gandalf call her a Fool of Took on their way to Beorn's house for her actions. He had meant to ask her, as he had done when she first reappeared to them after being lost during their captivity by the goblins, why? Why she had done it?

Why had she risked her life for a dwarf who had not once said a kind word to her, had offered her nothing but criticism and harsh words, even in moments when she deserved praise?

Why had she put her life on the line for a dwarf who would have, at that moment in time, left her fate unknown, without so much as a second thought, if she had not returned to them when she had.

He shook his head, sighing.

Now he could not go a single day, hour, without thinking of her. How dramatically ones thoughts about another living being could change.

He hadn't fallen in love with her that night but her actions and her words had started those feeling growing within his heart and soul.

Again, he shook his head.

Now was not the time to dwell upon her. He had too much to do, to think over, to plot. She had no place among these thoughts.

So wincing slightly as he did so, he locked her memories, her face away in his heart once more. With each time however, it was growing harder and harder to do so. He didn't know why. Why it was suddenly all the harder to stop thinking of her and it seemed to be growing all the worse.

He would close his eyes and he would see hers, wide and frighten, calling his name, calling for him to help her.

He lifted himself out of his chair, his hand moving to his inner coat pocket. Once his hand had closed around the small object within his pocket he moved over to his wine cabinet and poured himself a large mug of his favourite wine before returning to his chair behind his desk.

After taking a sip of the wine, he pulled out the only thing in his possession that truly meant something to him these days.

A simple ring hanging from a cord necklace.

It had been hers. Or more correctly the ring had been her mother's wedding band. She had worn the ring around her neck for all of their adventure until she presented it to him as return gift for the mithril coat he had given her as her first payment for being the companies' burglar.

She had said it had been her good luck charm throughout the whole journey and that she hoped it would do the same for him.

He had been, admittedly, more than a little taken aback; he knew how much the ring had meant to her. It had been her last true link to her mother and home and yet she had presented it to him with a bright and warm smile, her eyes full of certainty and affection.

He had been close to throwing it away after her betrayal but had found himself unable to do so and as the last of the gold madness left him, he had held on to the ring closely as a reminder of everything he had lost because of his pride and the sickness of greed.

He stared down at the simple band of gold with a heavy heart before returning it to its rightful place within his inner coat pocket, right over where his heart beat.

I fell in love with you.

I don't know when or how and I don't know why but I will love you til the day I die.

Author's Note: So Thorin has finally learnt about Bovin and his association with Bzog and probably more importantly the existence of Bzog, which he didn't know of before.
I can't say I'm entirely happy with this chapter. It was one of those chapters that suffered many rewrites - Bovin doesn't even appear in this chapter and he still affected my writing. Bloody dwarf!
But I can't bear to rewrite it again just to pacify my OCD and I did promise that as soon as I finished writing Chapter 28 I would update.

Oh yes, the ring that Thorin has, is obviously not the One Ring, but rather its a reference to a hobbit fanfic that I was planning to write before I started writing this, which is essentially the hobbit with a fem!Bilbo. But as I haven't written any of that fic up - been too caught up with this one for starters - I've been taking elements that I was going to have originally in that fanfic and threw them into this one. Bilbo and Lotho getting married and then not because Bilbo does a runner on their wedding day to go on her There and Back Again adventure is a good example of me nicking something from that other fanfic idea and throwing it in here. Bilbo's mother's ring was another idea that I had but I've only just know managed to work it in. In some ways it might be a bit late in the game to be throwing in new plot points, but it's so small and I hardly think Thorin would be boasting that he has the wedding of the mother of his one true love who in the eyes of his people is a traitor. And Bilbo doesn't think about the ring because it brings back too many hurtful memories. The ring will make a reappearance at a later date. It really wasn't a prop that I threw in there for the hell of it, I just couldn't find a place to put it any earlier.