Title: Thoughts in the night chapter Three

Author: Dís Thráinsdotter

Disclaimer: I don't own Tolkien´s characters, I merely borrow them.

Rating: M

Summary: Glóin sits thinking about his life one night when he can't sleep. Post Hobbit but before LotR.

I wonder, now that I think back about it, if Thórin didn´t from the moment he heard about it suspect that something horrible was at work in the matter. I know father did, "I have fought alongside Thráin in many battles" he said "and I know that he would have fought anyone trying to attack him. I wonder what could have happened" and to that I could give no answer, neither could Balin or any of the other of Thráins companions.

Still, life continued as it always has done. It was during the following years that I came to meet a Dwarf woman named Nei. I first saw her when she, her father and mother, and her brothers and sister came to live with us in our Halls in the Blue Mountains. They had long been wandering but now that they had heard about the Halls of Thórin they asked leave to dwell there. "I do give my leave, and gladly" Thórin answered, "you are all most welcome" and we made a home for them. During those days I helped them shaping the chambers and after a while it became quite natural that Nei and I worked together. We also journeyed together, trading things that our families had made and it was during these journeys that I realised that I had found my love. When she told me that she loved me as well I was most happy.

When I finally asked for her hand in marriage, her mother told me that she had thought that it would happen eventually. "You worked so well together," Mundin said, and when I asked when we had done that mother told me that we had worked together in the war. "Now I remember," I said, "when we were making all those rings for the mail of our warriors". Mother smiled when she saw my confused appearance and both father and Lîm looked happy. Óin, my brother, was by then already married and had two children so he was pleased to see that I had also found love. Our wedding was a happy one and when we retired to our home both Nei and I felt such joy that we hadn't done before.

That first month together passed in a haze, all I remember is that we took every opportunity to have each other. When our first son, Gimli, was born I was as nervous as any becoming father could ever be. A group of Men had come to trade with us and their healer was among them. Mundin had asked the healer, named Úrwen to help with the birth and when she saw me she said "this must be the first child, I see it on the father. When the first child is born you could almost believe the father to be giving birth as well" and everyone laughed, but it was a gentle laugh filled with knowledge. Their chief said to me "I have been through that as well, it is always hardest the first time" and held a comforting hand on my shoulder. I felt most happy when I heard that we had become the parents of a fine lad, and when I saw him for the first time I couldn't contain my joy. We named him Gimli, as we could see a flame in his eyes, and I have always been happy to have him with me.

At the naming ceremony Thórin said to me that he was happy for our sake, "I think we can expect great things from him," he told me. In the following years we had two more sons and two daughters. During the years when we still hadsmall children Nei couldn't go with me, but when Lît, our youngest, reached the age of ten she could again go with me and take the children with her. At first we made only short journeys but fairly soon we went all over Eriador. We came fairly often to Bree and were met by the people there with kindness, as all people who come to their town. The Prancing Pony in Bree is a good Inn and has been owned by the family of Butterbur longer than anyone cares to remember.

One day when we had traded things in the market of Bree and came to the Inn for the night, the Innkeeper asked us to come with him. We went to his chambers and he handed us an axe. "One of my customers gave me this yesterday, he said that he had been going along the outskirts of Mirkwood when he and his party had been forced to seek shelter in the forest. They found it in a clearing and it was covered in Orcblood. They cleaned it and brought it with them. It is clearly a Dwarf axe so I was asked to give it to the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains when you came the next time. Do you know to whom it belongs?"

"Covered in Orcblood, you say?" I asked and he nodded. I did remember the axe, I had seen the owner of it holding it often enough. "This is the axe of Thráin, our missing Father" I said "I will bring it with me to Thórin". He knew as well as anyone else that Thráin was missing.

"At least you know now that he fought with them, those bleaming Orcs," he said and I nodded.

When we came back to our Halls I gave it to Thórin who looked at it and said, "I don't know whether I should feel happy or worried. At least I know that he fought those creatures who took him but where they took him is still not known." That was true and it also worried father when I told him about it. To know that Thráin had indeed been able to fight whoever had attacked him was still heartening so we thought that he might indeed be still living. "He is a Dwarf with a hard neck if ever there was one" father said, "I don't think that he would give in to anyone, not even to the Dark Lord himself" and all of us agreed with him.

TBC