Title: Thoughts in the night chapter Four

Author: Dís Thráinsdotter

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

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

Rating: M

"What is it, my love?" Nei´s voice cuts through my thoughts, "I woke up and saw that you weren't in bed".

"It's all right" I say "there doesn't seem to be any sleep in me tonight."

"What were you thinking about when you smiled?" she asked and I answered

"How lucky I am to have you as my wife and to have our children". She nods and then said children come, looking a bit drowsy. "Is anything amiss?" Gimli asks and I tell them that all is well. "I had meant to ask you something" Gimli continues "I saw you speaking with a Man during the day and he seemed quite insistent on something".

"He was" I answer and send an arm ring around "this was meant for my father but he insisted that I should receive it because his forefather would haunt him otherwise". When I receive it again I can see why the Man had been so insistent. On the arm ring there is a text in westron saying, "There is no way that I could thank you enough for rescuing me and my people. This is but a small token of my gratitude" and now I see the images on it. They seem to tell a story of how a group of Men had been taken captive by Orcs and forced to work for them and then rescued by a Dwarf host. The last picture showed a passage, a Man leaning on a Dwarf and barely able to walk and then I recognise the Dwarf, it's my father and then the memory floods back to me. "I remember this Man" I say astonished "we rescued him and his people from an Orcden about two years before the last battle. He was barely skin and bones when he came out and his people was also so worn and tired. The healers worried for them, that they might die, but they recovered."

"I remember them also" Nei adds "when I gave them food and drink they almost wept, they said that no one had treated them kindly for a long time. Small wonder that his descendant was so insistent" she finishes.

The children look at us and we tell them about the war, they have heard the tales often enough but this time we speak about how we searched for Azog in all the Orcdens, finding these other people instead. When we found them we told them who we were because they would have tried to attack us otherwise, as they at first suspected us to be Orcs whom they were, and rightly, frightened of. Even the Elves were most grateful when we took them out of these horrible places. Finally the children say to us that they would fall of their couches if they stayed any longer and they and Nei go back to bed.

So I sit and think about father. He passed away peacefully one morning having reached the age of 252 years. He asked my brother and me to continue with our crafts and to go back to Erebor if ever we could. We interred him in a stone tomb deep inside the Blue Mountains, beside the tomb where we had interred our mother three years earlier. They had both spoken with longing about Erebor, not that they did it all that often but sometimes when the sadness became too much for them they would sing songs of the Lonely Mountain and the home that we once had. Even though our Halls were good, we always knew that they weren't our true home.

I started to think about our old Halls and once I thought I heard Thórins voice as he smote his hammer on an axe in the smithy, stating quite angrily that he wished that the piece of Iron that he hammered was Smaug. We could see it quite well on him those twenty years before we set out, that he was pondering the matter. But how were we to smite him and get our vengeance on him for all the Dwarves and Men that he had killed and eaten? That was the problem, Dragons aren't so easily slain and a good many of the Dragon slayers have been killed themselves by the Dragons falling on them or their fires and fumes. Still, it had to be done if we were to get our Mountain back. It was as we were still pondering these matters that Thórin Oakenshield made a journey that would change everything for us and finally result in the return of our people to Erebor. On his way back he came to Bree and there he met Gandalf. He told us later that the Wizards name had come to his thoughts often, as if he was bidden by someone to seek Gandalf, and Gandalf had felt the same thing. He had spoken kindly of our dwellings and Thórin said to us that when Gandalf came he was to be admitted immediately and brought to the council chamber.

When Gandalf came he had tidings with him and gave us the advice that we should bring a Hobbit with us. Thórin looked as if he didn't quite know what to make of it but finally he took the advice given and we went to the Shire. We made all preparations to be ready to go the day after our meeting with the Hobbit. One day before Gandalf went to see him in his hole, Bag End, and then we were sent to the place in groups. Finally we had all arrived at the home of Bilbo Baggins and the party that day was most splendid, even if it was given with little notice. We were finally able to persuade the Hobbit into coming with us and he did come to the Green Dragon Inn the following day. We all got on our ponies, Gandalf had his horse, and we started our journey to take back what was ours from Smaug.

TBC