Thank you so much everyone for your lovely reviews from the last chapter :) Now, this chapter is considerably shorter than usual as it's kind of an interlude but I won't say much more than that :P

Sorry for any mistakes, and a very happy Easter to all those of you who celebrate it!

Read. Enjoy. Review.

Chapter Forty Three # An Interlude in Erebor #

"You're pacing again."

Thorin looked up at Balin, the moon's pale light illuminating the king's tired face as he paced up and down the balcony. "Am I?"

Balin raised his eyebrows at Thorin's response and walked out to join him in the cold night air. "You haven't slept in days, Thorin, and there is a lot of work to do."

"Last I looked, Balin, you were my advisor, not my mother." Thorin's disgruntled grumble sounded childish, even to his own ears, but he would be damned before he admitted it.

"Then I strongly advise you to get some rest." Balin continued, completely unperturbed by Thorin's less than polite remark.

"If it were the correct hour to be in bed, you would not be seeking me out in my chambers," Thorin smiled slightly, raising an eyebrow at his old friend and daring him to counter that.

"Most of the city is sleeping, Thorin." Balin sighed heavily. "I came only to remind you that Dain is leaving in the morning. I suspected that you were still awake when I saw that your door is wide open."

Thorin nodded slowly to acknowledge Balin's message, unsurprised when Balin did not depart. The two dwarves stood in silence for a moment, before Balin spoke up quietly.

"You can look until your eyes bleed, Thorin, but you won't be able to see Fíli and Kíli from this balcony for a long time. Even if it wasn't dark, they're well beyond our sight now."

Thorin sent Balin a sharp look. "I know that, Balin."

"Then come inside and sleep."

"I am not out here because I thought I could see my sister-sons," Thorin glared at the dim shadow of the forest of Mirkwood in the distance.

"No, of course you're not." Balin shook his head, his voice holding no trace of sarcasm – though knowing Balin that did not necessarily mean that the dwarf was not meaning the words sarcastically.

A strange noise broke into the otherwise quiet night and Thorin looked up quickly. "Balin, did you hear that?"

"Aye," Balin frowned deeply. "What was it?"

"I do not know," Thorin turned to go back inside, sighing in irritation when he discovered that Balin had closed the doors behind him. He pushed down on the handle, surprised when it did not give way beneath his hand. "Balin…did you lock me out?"

Balin scoffed. "I didn't even close the door…"

Thorin frowned at his old friend as he trailed off. "Do you think this is funny?"

"Thorin, I swear to you, I did not close that door." Balin's face set into a hard mask, his hand wrapping around some weapon that had been hidden under his coat. "We are not alone…"

"You mean to say that someone has locked us out here?" Thorin demanded, and Balin nodded grimy.

Fury that there was someone else in his private chambers – someone who had the audacity to lock the King Under the Mountain out on his own balcony – coursed through Thorin's veins, and his mood was not improved by the recollection that all of his weapons were inside. A part of him prayed that it was Dwalin or Dain, the only dwarves who would dare to play such a prank on Thorin himself, but he doubted it.

"Open this door, now!" He ordered coldly, smashing his fist into the door twice and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

"Who would dare…?" Thorin growled, slamming his weight into the door.

"Thorin, you know as well as I do that that won't work." Balin sighed wearily. "Those doors are meant to withstand invasion if it comes down to it – they will not give way unless you have the key."

"I do not bring the key to my private balcony out with me when I wish to get a little fresh air before retiring for the night!" Thorin vented, rubbing his chin angrily.

"Well that's that then," Balin sighed heavily. "We're stuck out here until whoever is in there lets us back in."

Thorin let out a roar of anger, half-hoping that someone would hear and come to their aid. He would not cry out for help, not in a million years, but if someone overheard his infuriated roars he could live with that.

Eventually he sighed heavily. "Who do you suppose is in my room?"

"I do not know. You know as well as I do that there're few people who are allowed up here but we have no guards yet – it could be anyone."

"Wonderful," Thorin spat bitterly, returning to his pacing. There was someone in his room and they could well be poking around his possessions – stealing things or breaking things… Yes, the royal wing had felt awfully empty without Fíli and Kíli there but that did not mean that Thorin wanted to break the silence with a robbery! It was nothing short of outrageous for someone to rob their king, and he would not rest until he found out exactly who was doing it.

Thorin's anger simmered and grew as the night deepened and darkened. Snow began to fall as if to spite the two dwarves trapped on the balcony, and though neither needed to worry about the cold making them ill, it was most uncomfortable when the snow was falling so fast that Thorin was ankle deep in snow in two hours. The dwarf king continued to pace furiously while Balin prattled on about possible scenarios and solutions, and when the sun began to rise Thorin practically exploded.

"An entire night! Balin, we have been on this wretched balcony for an entire night – the sun is up and I am waist deep in snow – I do not believe this! The nerve…"

All of a sudden the door opened and Dwalin frowned at the pair of them. "What on earth are you two doing out here?"

With a wordless growl of fury, Thorin pushed past his best friend into his chambers, shaking off the snow and looking around quickly for anything out of place or missing. He growled again when he noticed that the bedroom door was slightly ajar.

"Someone locked us out last night." Balin explained as Thorin stormed towards the open door.

"You mean someone's been in here?" Dwalin sounded just as angry as Thorin felt, though the dwarf king doubted his long-time companion was quite as furious as he was.

Thorin marched across to his bedside table and wrenched open the first draw and his heart stopped beating.

"No…no…"

His hands flew to the next drawer and the next and the next, but he knew that they were gone.

"Thorin?" Dwalin and Balin lingered in the doorway with matching looks of concern.

Thorin turned to them, swallowing. "Fili and Kili... All of my records about their return to the Shire…the maps, the routes, the people they intend to meet with and when… It is all gone."

"What? Is that all that's gone?"

Thorin glanced around the room. "I do not know, but I believe so."

"Anyone who has to steal such information… Their motives for doing so…" Dwalin trailed off uncharacteristically meekly.

"My sister-sons are in danger…" Thorin looked to Balin, locking his jaw for a moment to control his fury.

As Thorin Oakenshield stormed about the mountain and began to coordinate an investigation into the intruder, he had no idea that the thief himself was already far away from the kingdom of Erebor, riding a huge black horse. Einar was far too short to be riding so large a beast, but he had little choice if he wanted to catch up with the others.

So far the plan was going brilliantly. No one had noticed when he had doubled back into the mountain two days ago instead of leaving with Dagr, Balder and Sindri – after all, he was the best burglar to ever avoid arrest, or even identification, in the Iron Hills. Sneaking into Oakenshield's room had been surprisingly easy – there were no guards yet within the mountain and for though the most part dwarven locks were all but unbreakable, the doors to both the royal chambers and Thorin's private rooms had been left open. It had been all too easy to lock the king and his foolish advisor out in the snow, and the weak, sentimental fool of a king had kept the documents regarding his heirs' journey by the side of his bed as Einar had expected. Leaving the king outside for the night had not been part of the plan, but it was a bonus. Fury and humiliation would no doubt follow Thorin Oakenshield for a day or two. A clean escape within the hour had seen Einar escape the scarcely guarded mountain without any problems, and the waiting horse was fast enough to take him away into the night unseen. By the time the sun rose, Einar was out of the range of vision of any dwarf in the Lonely Mountain.

The information now stowed in Einar's pocket would be very useful indeed – knowing exactly where the lowly princes should be at any given time would give the revolutionaries ample time to plan the perfect ambush. If Einar had his way they would simply slit the whelps' throats while they slept and cast their bodies into a lake or river along with a couple of good heavy stones to weigh the corpses down. That way no one would know of their crime until the upheaval was already underway in the Lonely Mountain, when they would deliver the evidence of Thorin's nephews' bloody deaths to a broken and defeated ex-king.

However, Einar was not in charge, Dagr was, and for some reason the dangerous dwarf was listening to his younger brother's strange plan. As hard-hearted as Einar was himself, something about Dagr and Sindri unnerved him. Sindri would childishly question the morality of their whole plan and then suggest 'twisting' Kíli's mind with a sickening amount of excitement behind his eyes. The younger dwarf thought that he hid the malice sparkling behind his innocence, but Einar was no fool. Besides, he had fought and hunted with Dagr for long enough to know that the older of the two brothers liked inflicting pain on anything with blood, and he always took a little too long in finishing off his kills. There was something wrong with those two brothers but without a doubt they were definitely the right people to be on a job such as this – Einar knew of no greater hunters.

Despite the company he kept and the desire he had to see the dwarves of the Lonely Mountain suffer miserably, Einar did not consider himself a bad dwarf. He was a revolutionary and he was loyal to his kin in the Red Mountains, though he had 'sworn allegiance' to Dain of the Iron Hills. Einar was disgusted with the way the Longbeards associated so freely with other clans and even other races and Erebor was a prime example of just how far the other dwarven clan had fallen. Thorin Oakenshield was forming allegiances with men and elves which were bad enough, but then there was the halfling…

Einar shuddered and shook such disturbing thoughts from his head. He was a good dwarf – loyal and fierce – and that was that.

At the speed he was going he would catch up with his companions in time to pass through Lake-town and they expected to catch up with the princes by the end of the first week if all went well – the hunters should travel much faster than their intended prey.

And when they did catch up with their prey, the most glorious revolution in history would begin.

I hope you enjoyed that brief chapter, we'll be back in the next where I have a LOT of action planned :D

Thanks for reading, please review if you fancy!