Part 1: Chapter 9: The World was Fair, the Mountains Tall

Thorin's eyes trailed back toward the Thief's rooms as he went the other way and entered the dining hall, stopping in a giant atrium where the guests gathered before being seated at the tables to the sides and one above. Tharkûn and Lord Elrond had just filed in from an adjoining hall in front of him, with Balin right behind. Balin sidled next to him, smiling success. 'We meet after dinner,' he signed as they paused a moment just beyond an arch they had passed beneath. Guests filed in from at least three directions, all the paths organic, like branches on trees. Strains of a gentle harp mingled with flutes and other stringed instruments with Elven melody, rather boring but the sounds were fine; he located the harp, curled and rounded and edged with vines, not like his angular geometric upright in the Blue Mountains, but clearly a fine instrument. He eyed it briefly, rubbing his fingers––wishing he could play. Perhaps later.

His Company was already seated at one of the side tables beneath Lord Elrond's high place, where Thorin was to go. He was about to ask Balin to join him when the Thief stepped into the room and filled his senses with all of her. She stood regally, her back to him, partly exposed from the low cut neckline, strong and full of life, the movement of her skin, her muscles beneath––how would this feel––under soft fabrics, jewel toned––blues and gold––the sent of lavender and sage pulsing in the air about her, alighting on his tongue through his partially opened mouth.

Blues and Gold? Did she choose with purpose? Could he possibly even think–– No. Not possible.

She had altered the gown to something he had never seen, striking, with gathers and twists to the silk that now twirled around her body, with extra fabric falling over her left arm in a sweeping fashion, dark blue trimmed in gold, highlighting her movements. And her arms, they were mostly bare now, but for the sweep of long drape. Her skin was golden-toned like her face, and soft, and strong, the touch of that skin, he knew it. Every part of him wanted to confirm it.

Why?

But she looked so lovely, hair free to her waist, loose and curling, Mahal help him. Loose.

He turned to Balin to excuse himself, but his Advisor was already gone. He returned his gaze her way, and he saw her all-so-subtle slight of shoulder as she surveyed the room ahead of them. But just as quickly she squared them and was about to step further along, and there was nothing for it.

"Will you join us." He stated an invitation, keeping his hopes in check.

On his first word she was twirling, eyes wide as she gracefully stopped just in front of him, her dress taking its time to catch up around her. She took a deep breath, and he swallowed just watching her breathe, so soft, so strong. She hadn't expected this. He hadn't expected this.

"Yes, thank you," she said politely, and he wondered if she wanted to. "That would be lovely." He hoped she meant it. And then she gently put her hand in his as he came up along side her and began leading them toward the stairs. Her hand was cool, soft but for the calluses, he remembered them from when she cut the rope––that touch.

He stole a glance at her, smiling as he caught her looking back at a pair of Elves who stared too openly for her comfort.

"I almost did not recognize you," he teased slightly, but this seemed to confuse her.

"Oh," she said, her voice quiet. She looked down at her dress, and her free hand gestured along it. "I am not as tall as Arwen, so I had to modify things a bit to make her dress work, and well..."

His humor was too subtle, Dís would say. He leaned toward her when they were almost at the table. "It suits you," he said, trying another way to bring her ease in this strange place. This worked better; she smiled back at him as they took their seats.

Dinner commenced without incident, with wine and plates of meatless dishes passed in abundance. The Thief seemed to enjoy the selections of vegetables, legumes and fruits mixed with various types of cooked breads, lightly spiced. Thorin took a sip of the wine, a rather good one, and settled into listening to the conversation, until the topic came around to them and their presence in Imladris. Tharkûn deflected the question with one of his own, asking Lord Elrond if he could help place the identity of the swords they had found in the Troll Hoard. Lord Elrond looked to Thorin, and he procured the sheathed blade and passed it over, however reluctantly. To his great surprise, he had grown fond of it in their flight from the Orcs and Wargs.

Lord Elrond pulled the blade from its scabbard, examining it with clear admiration. "This is Orcrist, the Goblin-Cleaver."

Orcrist. Of legend. Thorin had learned of it in Genealogies in his youth. Last known to belong to Turgon, an Elven King who ages past had used this blade to kill Orcs in the many hundreds. And Tharkûn held––

"A famous blade, forged by the High Elves of the West. My kin," the Elf continued, quickly sliding the sword inside the scabbard and passing it back.

Startled slightly, Thorin took it in hand. He looked between the blade and Lord Elrond with mild suspicion, waiting, wondering. Would he give this up, no questions?

"May it serve you well," Lord Elrond said, bowing gently with a serious face. The Elf's jaw tensed at the words, and Thorin remembered more of its previous owner, Turgon. The fallen King of Gondolin had died defending his city, most likely wielding this sword along with the other when he fell. When, for his people, all was lost. Lord Elrond, with his expression so grave and full of assessment, seemed to be thinking similar thoughts. The loss of Turgon's city had been through a close familial betrayal in the end, through Turgon's own Sister's Son, and not due to the failure of any sword–– This truth was far worse than any possible superstition. And yet the blade had not served its last king well in the end.

Thorin nodded in response, saying nothing. He would have expected the Elf to reclaim it, and swallowed a bit of his surprise with an open look back at him. Well, as open as he could make it: most likely he only managed his stone face, but that was better than a scowl. And then his gaze wandered back to the table, where he took a sip of the wine and tried to relax.

Now and then through the evening Thorin caught the Thief looking back over her shoulder at the table where his Company sat; she would smile and nearly laugh every time she looked back. It cheered him to know that she liked them, and her smile––he only wanted to look at it, at her. Nothing else. So he mostly looked at his dinner, though he would steal a glance at her every time she turned back, keeping his head still so as not to be noticed.

Since when did he act this way? His eyes were back on his plate, where he saw he had not eaten much. He picked at it, particularly enjoying the mushrooms.

After a while Lord Elrond was speaking again, introducing the sword Tharkûn had acquired from the Troll Hoard. "…this is Glamdring."

Also one of Turgon's swords, Orcrist's mate.

The Thief stiffened next to him, sitting up straight, her face suddenly all the more bright with excitement, just as she had looked after they found the sword in the Troll Hoard, and she had named it–– "Glamdring, the Foe-hammer, sword of the King of Gondolin. Made for the Goblin wars of the First..." She grew quiet, turning as she glanced at the faces around the table. Lord Elrond laughed lightly and her cheeks darkened with embarrassment. She stopped turning when her eyes rested on Thorin.

Somehow it pleased him that she knew these facts of history. Even if it was about Elves.

He kept as still as he could, looking nowhere else but in her eyes, unable to hide his elation completely, unsure at all why he was elated in the first place... unwilling to think too much about it.

In spite of the fact that he did not laugh, she looked away, to her own plate, and began eating at a rapid pace. Well. That was one sure way to keep her mouth from speaking.

A wild Cat at her meal. She was not cowed, just… determined. But Thorin could no longer help the tug of his lips. He let the smile settle there and he relaxed, taking another sip of wine.

"How did you come by these?" Lord Elrond was asking Tharkûn about the blades.

"We found them in a Troll Hoard on the Great East Road, shortly before we were ambushed by Orcs."

Thorin nearly snorted. Fine way to keep our path secret, to name the road, Tharkûn.

"And what were you doing on the Great East Road?" Lord Elrond asked as pointedly as his ears. Of course he would ask that now.

Thorin would not answer to this.

He moved to get up when, just then, the Thief's hand jerked. Or had she slightly jumped? Thorin wasn't sure, but her wine glass upturned and he was on his feet and out of range within a multi-fractured second. The Thief soon stood beside him, both of them behind the table. She looked to his kit with oversized worry in her eyes. "Oh my gosh I'm so sorry, did I get you?"

Get me? With the wine? "No. I am untouched." Somehow that was a lie. He felt touched in more ways lately than he ever had before, always in ways relating to––her. "Are you?" Do I touch you?

Her eyes dropped like stone in water, scanning her gown as they sank, until finally they came to rest at the edge of the draping fabric that wrapped around her, where a four finger span of gold trim was hand stitched along it, just like the trim along her low cut neckline.

Or are you merely touched by wine?

There were spatters of it tarnishing the edges, dulling the gold with dark wading splotches.

"Crap!" she cried out.

Crap? She cried out crap? At Lord Elrond's high table? Thorin pressed a thumb to his lips and chin to keep from laughing aloud. Who would have thought he could be so amused while dining with Elves? With her as company he could sit with them for hours––

"I don't suppose I can get access to some boiling water, salt, and vinegar?" she asked, listing common methods of wine stain removal, but the stress in her voice knocked the mirth from Thorin's chest, and he stepped closer to her, hands fumbling before he stopped again and waited. She did not seek his aide. She stared with sorry eyes toward the Elf Lord. "I'm afraid I may have stained your daughter's dress."

Thorin frowned slightly, remembering the light-hearted and expressive smile of Lady Arwen Undômiel. Somehow Thorin knew she would not care about the stain. He studied Lord Elrond, waiting.

The Elf smiled in kind and motioned for her to be seated. "Arwen told me she gave you the dress." The Thief opened her mouth to protest, but the Elf would have none of it and held up his hand to stop further discussion. "The is certainly not the first time something has been spilled on it. We will set it to rights later."

Sure they would. Some dry air method aided by powder bonding sands, a thing known at least since the time of Narvi.

The Thief returned to her seat. Thorin watched her as she moved there, her hair cascading loosely down her back, the thick rolls shifting as she settled in, imagining his hands––

He forced his eyes shut and quickly sat back down.

She caught his gaze as he slid into his seat. Was that–– admiration in her eyes?

He blinked, wondering what he'd done to deserve it, returning his focus to the table, where the spilled wine was quickly wiped away by two attending Elves, somehow almost invisible in their movements amidst the continued conversations around them.

"Mithrandir tells me you are from the West," Lord Elrond addressed the Thief, "though you have the look of someone from the East."

The Thief grew more flustered as her eyes landed on the Elf. "Er… yes. Well." She glanced over her shoulder at the pinch-faced Elf who had just shooed off the two who had cleaned the table of spilled wine. "Perhaps I can tell you the full story later?" They all stared at her, waiting, some faces fallen at the not-so-subtle dismissal of Lord Elrond's question. "But I'm not an Easterling if that's what you're asking. I'm not really from around here at all."

Lord Elrond's face was neutral at first, covering a great deal of care, if Thorin were not mistaken, though he knew he had little experience reading the nuances of Elven expressions, flat as they usually were. But then a smile turned the corner of the Elf's lips and he nodded slightly toward the Thief. "I did not for a moment think you were an Easterling. Or from Arda."

The Thief paled in her seat as her jaw dropped.

Thorin's eyes narrowed on Lord Elrond, bristling at his manner of 'knowing everything' without anything having ever being said.

"Your manner of dress is quite different, but more than that, so is your bearing."

Thorin resisted the urge to snort as he set his wine glass down. This Elf and his focus on 'bearings.'

Enough. Thorin turned to the Thief. "Your style of dress––" Her eyes were on him, brightening as she took hold of the escape he provided. "Is it common to your people?"

"Oh, you mean my sari?"

Sari–– what a lovely word. His brows furrowed, waiting for her to speak more as she looked down at her dress, her sari. In blue and gold. Why the blue and gold?

"Yes, and no," she answered, and he had to remind himself what it was he had asked her before. "Where I'm from is actually a melting pot of culture and dress and manners. I'm Indian––"

Indi? A people of Kaleforn'ya? He wondered if Kaleforn'ya was anything like Gondor, where cultures of Men met from far corners of the world, corners off most maps he had ever seen outside of the ones stored in the libraries of the Mountain before it was lost to the Dragon.

"And this is common dress for women… well, kind of." She was flustering again, hands running over the folds of the gown. "It's not exactly right, and depending on the formality of the event I would wear a lot more jewelry, maybe some henna––"

Henna?

"But yes, this is a decent approximation."

Decent? Above and beyond that, Thief. You have stolen the evening.

"Can somebody change the tune?" Nori blurted from the Company table below.

Thorin smiled slightly at Nori's timing, signaling his loss of patience, a loss shared undoubtedly by all the Dwarves now dining in Imladris. Thorin hadn't been paying attention, but now that he listened he had to agree–– The music would serve well at inducing sleep among the insomniacs. He looked over in time to see Óin sign to Glóin about funeral dirges as he stuck a napkin in his hearing horn to further dull the sound. Thorin nearly laughed aloud.

"Oy, Sona!" It was Bofur. Thorin's smile grew, knowing what was coming. The Miner was standing at the Company table below, smiling beneath his big bouncing hat. "You promised to play us a song!"

"Yes, well––" The Thief was not excited, and Thorin suspected he knew why, but he could not help watching this play out.

"Yeah!" Kíli sprang up in his seat beside Fíli, nodding briefly toward Thorin with a dopey grin on his face before he looked over at the Thief with a mock frown pasted over his smile. "What about us? You owe us a jig."

"Okay, but I don't think––"

"You'll play for Trolls but not for us?" Dwalin nearly had his war mask on.

Sona's color had returned from before, and then some.

Thorin's jaw tightened over his smile. She thought they were being rude. Maybe his Dwarves just needed to lighten the mood.

"I left my guitar in my room." She said, sitting back in her seat with a look of hopeful satisfaction.

"Surely they have a spare you can borrow," Thorin offered, refusing to let go of the mirth turning his cheeks up.

And then she stared at him, but not like she had before; he knew she wasn't truly angry. He leaned in, ever so slightly, basking in the warm sweetness of her glare.

"Yes, absolutely we do," Lord Elrond intoned dryly. Thorin suppressed his desire to smile openly while he kept his eyes on the Thief.

She had not yet looked away. "No, it's okay, I'm really enjoying the current selection being played…" Then her eyes grew wide and she cringed ever so slightly.

Silence greeted her, as all the Elves had stopped playing and all the Dwarves waited to hear her response.

"There is no requirement for you to play, of course." Lord Elrond added in a lame attempt to put her at ease.

Thorin knew that wouldn't work. His Dwarves grumbled and muttered from the table below while he only continued to look at her, unable to keep his eyes from smiling.

"But if you wouldn't mind, I believe we would all love to hear a song of your people," the Elf added, likely seeing the futility of his efforts.

"Aye! Something from Kaleforn'ya!" Fíli chimed in, his voice like sunshine.

"Oh…" The Thief's mouth rounded. Thorin tried not to look down at it, keeping his eyes on hers, stilled, remembering her breath on his throat as she cut him free from the Troll's ropes. He wanted to hear her sing again where no Trolls breathed the same air. Her unease increased, but Thorin would place a bet against Nori that she would calm again once she had a guitar in her hands.

Something the pinch-faced Elf was about to provide–– He approached the Thief from behind with a guitar, and her face lit up when she saw it, a beautiful cherry wood carved with rounding curves favored by the Elves. The headstock of the guitar was particularly ornate and carved into three interlocking Mallorn leaves, with its tuner knobs carved into tiny white Mallorn blossoms. A bemused smile flashed across her face as she accepted it with a shake of her head.

Then she made her way slowly to the stool previously occupied by the Elf playing Harp. Once she sat with the guitar wrapped in her arms, her face cleared and she breathed out, ready. And Thorin smiled. This was her element, as he knew it was. And now he could watch her and listen and be still, unlike before in the Troll's sack with the rainbow knife she gave him in his hands, cutting through ropes. Without looking away from her, he pulled her knife out of the new sleeve pocket Fíli had just sewn in, and cradled it in his palm, rubbing his thumb up and down the side.

She strummed the open chord with her nails in one hand, as she positioned her other hand around the neck. He was captured by those fingers as she began to play, how they deftly found their way unseen to where they should go. He felt his own calluses, and remembered the feeling of strings beneath his fingers, her knife hidden in his palm.

And then she began to sing.

"Why are there so many songs about rainbows?"

Are there? He smiled, having never heard one…

"And what's on the other side?"

The mist? Sky Sun and Star. He looked at her without hiding.

"Rainbows are visions. They're only illusions"

Water shifting light. She performed. It was allowed.

"And rainbows have nothing to hide."

Allowed? Since when did he need permission to look?

"So we've been told and some chose to believe it…"

She is a Widow. He dreamt at his peril. Was he dreaming?

"But I know they're wrong wait and see…"

She sang sweet in her sureness, that jovial tune woven to magic by her voice––

"Someday we'll find it. The Rainbow Connection…"

He could hear it for days and not tire. Mahal, what is this?

She was looking around the room slowly, engaging the Dwarves and Elves watching on. Thorin gazed from her face to her hands, how they caressed over the guitar with a gentle endurance he could see.

"The Lovers, the dreamers, and me…"

What? He was looking back at her face, her lips, realizing he'd stopped hearing the words for a few bars.

"Who said that every wish would be heard and answered?"

Did someone say such a thing? He smiled again.

"When wished on the morning star?"

Ask the Thief. She stole the star.

"Somebody thought of that and someone believed it… And look what it's done so far?"

And here he could look at her freely, if for just a little while, at ease except for the Elves with then in the Hall.

"What's so amazing that keeps us star gazing?"

Who needs stars? She was smiling.

"What do we think we might see?"

Her eyes seemed to know where he was, but not find their way to him.

"Someday we'll find it, that Rainbow Connection…"

How does this poet know?

"The lovers, the dreamers and me…"

How her mouth made an O over 'lover'...

"Have you been half asleep?"

Not lately. He gripped the blade in his closed palm and brought his hand up to his chin.

"Have you heard voices?

I hear yours. It is like silken-sand––

"I've heard them calling my name…"

Sona. Song. The air of a low-toned flute––

"Are these the sweet sounds that called the young Sailors?"

The tremor I can feel: You slay me with it.

"I think they're one and the same."

I cannot move. And what does this song mean?

"I've heard too many times to ignore it."

Now he knew why he lost track of the lyrics. This song made no sense, and was not nearly as lovely as she––

"There's something that I'm supposed to be."

Yes; not this. He sighed against the fist on his lips.

"Someday we'll find it, the Rainbow connection."

Could someday come for us?

"The Lovers the dreamers and me."

The song was over, the evening winding down. She had stopped singing when she played a last chord and looked at him. At him. She was frozen there and he couldn't move, and then her eyes flitted briefly to his mouth, then his eyes, then to a wide area behind him. Did she––want his lips? Absurd. What's got into me? And see, she doesn't even look at me now. Her entire face and neck had gone dark with color as her gaze moved all about the room as though looking for purchase. He swallowed the awkwardness, looked away and reached for his wine, brows creasing, unsure what he had done to offend, when just then she started up with a bawdy bar tune, "beer, beer, beer, tidaly, beer..."

And to his left Balin motioned, they were to meet with Lord Elrond now. His glance lingered on her as he rose and left the table, vexed slightly by the tightened feeling in his chest and the sadness he felt at leaving.

/T\oSo/T\oDo/T\