Back so soon, am I? xD Yes, indeed!

This was a chapter that, like a lot of them, I've had the idea for part of it for a long time and wanted to get going with it! And actually, with this one, I'm pushing the time in Rivendell just one chapter longer xD hope ya'll don't mind!

This is a shorter chapter, but hopefully you'll all still enjoy it...especially once you get near the end! ;) No skipping ahead, now! ;D

Happy reading, dears! :)

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"Nori! Nori!"

Aelin had left her room rather in a hurry to find Nori shortly after Thorin had left earlier that morning. After learning that her sleep had been undisturbed by her usually recurring nightmares, she knew she had to tell her best friend right away. She knew he'd want to know. After a short period of time searching for him, Aelin found Nori by himself, strangely, sitting on a bench by a small fountain. He was hunched over looking at something small in his hands, but then his attention went to her, slightly limping as fast as she could with her walking stick, when he heard her call his name. He quickly put what was in his hands away inside his jacket and stood up.

"What is it, Aelin?" he asked as she approached.

A bright smile suddenly appeared on her face once she stopped in front of him. "I have something I need to tell you," she said to him.

Seeing that this was clearly something good, Nori motioned to the bench and said, "Well, come and sit. Tell me what's going on."

Once the two friends sat down, Aelin turned to Nori and told him, "I had another nightmare last night…the worst one I think I've ever had…and Thorin came to my room."

Nori suddenly looked intrigued and gave her a teasing glance.

She held up a finger and immediately replied, "I know what you're thinking and no, nothing happened!"

He snickered at her reaction to the look he gave her, but then he gave a small wave of the hand and said, "Go on, go on."

Aelin rolled her eyes and one corner of her lips twitched upward. He was always one to jump to the dirty conclusions. She exhaled sharply and then continued, "Thorin came last night and comforted me after my nightmare. I told him about it and he noticed how frightened I was. He stayed the night with me…in my bed…and he just held me the whole night."

She paused briefly, expecting another attempted wisecrack from Nori, but he gave none. When she looked at him, wondering why he wasn't responding the way she thought he would, he said to her, "I'm keeping my quips to myself on this one."

She smirked again but the gleam in her eyes told him that she was actually glad he wasn't making his usual witty remarks. This was something she didn't really want him to joke about, as it was important to her, and she was relieved that he understood that at the moment.

Then she told him, "I ended up falling back to sleep and then, this morning when I awoke, Thorin told me that I had a peaceful night's rest."

Nori's expression turned to shock, but it was a look of pleased shock.

Aelin grinned and turned more towards him. "Nori…my nightmares didn't return!" she exclaimed. "I actually slept through the remainder of the night! That has never happened before!"

"By Durin's beard, that's wonderful, Aelin!" Nori cried in gladness as he pulled his dear friend into a tight embrace.

A dull ache sprung up in Aelin's injured, though now mostly healed, arm from the pressure of Nori's hug. "Oh! Watch the arm…!" she groaned.

"Oh, right, I'm sorry," he quickly apologized as he relinquished his hold on her. He moved past his small mistake and commented, "I am very glad to hear that good news, Aelin. That is tremendous!"

Now she knew she was getting to the part that she was nervous to talk about, even with Nori. Was it because she didn't know how he would respond…or because she had never experienced any of this before? She hoped to maybe find out in talking about it with her best friend.

Shyly, she said to him, "I believe it was because Thorin was there with me."

Nori kept quiet and just raised his eyebrows in interest.

Now was the moment of truth, Aelin told herself.

She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly to keep her anxiousness down. "Nori…I think I'm falling for Thorin…and falling fast."

For a moment, Nori said nothing and simply continued to stare at her. She began to wonder if he thought she was crazy for admitting her feelings for someone she used to hate and she started to regret saying anything.

But then he chuckled loudly and proclaimed in reply, "Well, it's about bloody time!"

Her head shot back in surprise. "Wait, what?" she asked, confused.

He shook his head. "I knew it was only a matter of time before you would develop feelings for him. I've seen it coming for a long time now."

"How?" she asked.

"Remember back after your incident with Thorin in the Trollshaws when I warned you that the mind and the heart don't always agree?"

A small wave of heat rose up in her cheeks as she remembered the passionate encounter between her and Thorin from before. "Yes, I remember you saying that."

He grinned. "I knew even then that, somehow, you were developing feelings for him and I knew that eventually you would come to terms with it once you and Thorin reconciled. I've seen how you've looked at him when I see the two of you spending time together or when you're with the rest of us at mealtimes."

"Am I really that obvious?" she then inquired nervously, her cheeks turning rosy.

In response, he just shrugged and said, "To me, yes, but I don't think you are to the others. None of them are as perceptive as I am, at least when it comes to you, anyway."

"What am I going to do, Nori?" she then asked him. "I am falling hard for Thorin but I know it's not going to do me any good in the long run."

"What are you talking about?"

"I know he doesn't feel the same towards me. He only sees me as a friend and I doubt that'll ever change."

"You don't know that."

"Really? Tell me how someone like him could ever have feelings for someone like me! I am not the kind of person someone falls for."

Nori's head tilted to the side. "You have yet to give him or any of this a chance," he told her.

"Do you really believe I have a chance?" she asked back in unbelief.

"Aye, I do," he quickly replied, "but if you keep going on with that kind of attitude about it and just give up on the opportunity to be with someone you care about, then that chance will be lost and you will have no one but yourself to blame."

Aelin wanted to respond, but found herself taken aback by Nori's brashness with her. He had never been blunt like that before.

When she said nothing and looked away, Nori went on, "Aelin, I know you haven't let yourself fall for anyone before so you wouldn't allow yourself to be hurt again…but in the midst of that, you always keep your guard up and hardly let anyone in. It took me a long time before you finally let your walls down with me, but even now, you still do it sometimes and I'm your best friend! I don't want you to do that to Thorin without even knowing first how he feels about you. I don't want you to miss out on the happiness you deserve."

"There are a lot of things I deserve, Nori," Aelin spat back, suddenly getting agitated. "I deserve to be happy, I deserve to know who my father and my mother were, even though they abandoned me; I deserve to feel safe and wanted and have a life free of the misery and pain that I've lived! I deserve to be whole again; to truly belong somewhere…to have a real home, a real family." She felt her throat beginning to tighten and she breathed deeply to keep herself from letting any tears loose. Then she said, this time a bit more calmly, "There are a lot of things I deserve…but that doesn't mean I will ever receive them." Then she sighed dismally, closed her eyes and hung her head. "What makes you so certain that I will get the chance at the happiness you think I can have with Thorin? I don't deserve something that great."

Nori laid a gentle hand on Aelin's shoulder and she looked up at him. "You have been through so much, Aelin. You deserve all the happiness in the world," he said comfortingly. "I have watched you and Thorin when you've been with him and I can see the two of you together. You can't see it because you don't allow yourself to."

She looked away again, not saying a word.

"I know you have already brought your walls down with Thorin and you've let him in," he continued, "but if you want to find out how he truly feels about you and pursue what I know you want with him…then you will need to bring down your walls entirely. Let him in completely; trust him with anything and everything, show him the person that you truly are inside that he has yet to see; the person I know is within you just waiting to come out…the real you."

However, she only found partial comfort from his words. She was glad to hear him encourage her like he was, but there was still something in his encouragement that she didn't quite agree with. "What if he doesn't like everything that comes with…the 'real me'?" she asked apprehensively.

Nori answered straightforwardly, "You will never know what he'll think unless you try. Tell him the truth and you may find that there was no need for fear in the first place. And if, for some deranged reason, he doesn't like everything about you…then you will have to make him like everything about you and make him see what he's missing…or else, I will!"

Aelin couldn't help but snicker at him and he chuckled himself. However, when their snickering subsided, Nori's expression turned from pleased to grim and nervous and Aelin noticed right away.

"What's wrong?" she inquired.

His eyes darted back and forth between her and the ground as he was carefully contemplating how to word what he was going to say next. There was something now weighing heavily on his mind; something he needed to tell her.

"Speaking of…telling the truth…," he hesitantly said, "I have a confession to make…there is something I should've told you years ago. But first, I want to show you something."

Aelin wondered what was going on but decided to just keep quiet so Nori could explain. She watched as he reached into one of his inside jacket pockets and pulled something out. Without a word, he took one of her hands with his free one and then placed the small item in her palm. Then he stood up from the bench and walked a couple steps away. Now she thought he was acting strange. Puzzled, she looked down at the item in her hand. It was a gold ring with a ruby and on the ruby was an embossed Dwarvish rune; a letter rune.

Her jaw dropped, her eyes went wide and she gasped loudly in shock.

She knew this ring.

Flashbacks flared through her mind of seeing this ring and its symbol; flashbacks of her when she was a little girl with her uncle Amar, asking about the ring when she had found a drawing of it in a record book. He had told her he didn't know the name of the owner but he did know that the owner was someone she wouldn't ever need to know and should never know or meet to begin with.

Now the big question on her mind was: how in the world did Nori get possession of the ring? Did he even know just what it was; how significant it was to her?

She looked up with huge eyes at Nori, who was now facing her. "Nori…where did you find this…and why do you have it…?" she gasped out, holding the ring up. "Do you have any idea what this is?"

He put his fidgety hands on his hips and his eyes darted to the ground for a moment, but when he looked up, he simply answered, "Aye…as a matter of fact, I do."

Aelin was not expecting such an answer from him and she stared at him, confused.

Nori went on, "It belonged to a Dwarf I once knew…one I spent a long time trying to find many years ago."

She couldn't tell if he was jesting with her or not. Surely, he had to be. "Nori, do not joke with me," she told him sternly. "This ring belonged to my—"

"Your father."

That was the phrase she definitely wasn't expecting to hear from him! Stunned, she froze and almost dropped the ring in her hand. For a brief moment, she couldn't say anything. How had he known?

"Did you know my father?" she asked in a hushed voice, still in shock. Then she added, "Why were you trying to find him?"

Nori sighed and took a step forward. "In answer to one of your previous questions, I found that ring back in the troll horde. I have no idea how it got there, but I knew I had to take it with me. As for why I was trying to find him, I had many questions and he had the answers I needed."

Now Aelin was completely confused. Just what on earth was Nori talking about? "The answers to what?" she raised.

"You never found out your father's name, did you?" he asked in reply even though he already knew the answer.

Begrudgingly, she looked down at her hands in her lap. "No…," she answered sullenly. "According to Uncle Amar, my mother told him, when she gave me to him, to never reveal my father's name to me. She said I never needed to know the identity of the heartless coward who ruined her life…and helped bring me into the world."

Just thinking about her mother's inconsiderate demands made her bitter with resentment towards her; the woman who abandoned her own child as a baby without even trying to actually take care of her before deciding she didn't want her.

"That wouldn't have been the first time for him," said Nori.

Aelin looked up at him, puzzled yet again. "What is that supposed to mean?" she wondered. She was about to ask him that exact question but then he said something that halted her tongue immediately.

"And I know your father's name."

Now she was completely taken aback at the fact that Nori knew who her father was. She was too shocked to even process whether she was mad at him or not for never telling her. All she could do was stare blankly at him, waiting for his answer.

It was his next statement that she was unprepared for.

"His name is Norin…and he is my father, too." Nori then shrugged, raised his hands to his sides and declared, "I'm your half-brother."

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...how about that for a cliffhanger? xD

Did you see that coming? xD

Just you wait...there will be more shocking secrets revealed regarding Aelin's father, Norin, and also other things about Aelin as well as Nori's life in the upcoming chapter! Be prepared for next time!

Comments or questions? You know the drill! :)

Stay tuned! :)