Thorin Oakenshield was having a thoroughly discouraging week. Being King to an exiled people of refugees who were barely scraping by, and doing his best to settle their problems and disputes was not generally an easy or uplifting occupation, so discouraging weeks tended to flow together into dismal months and depressing years, with only the occasional flashes of cheer and optimism, dug out like miniscule diamonds from a mountain of coprolite.
But when Tharkun the wizard had come to him, telling him that it was time to take back Erebor, that for the first time, a non-dwarf was willing to help him and his people regain what they had lost… Thorin had done something that he was starting to think might be a mistake.
He had started to hope.
However, before the journey could even properly begin…
He had hoped to gain aid from Iron Hills.
He had hoped to find more than twelve other dwarves who were willing to come on a desperate gamble.
He had hoped that his nephews would stay behind.
He had hoped that his sister would not be furious with him for deciding to let them come when they insisted.
He had hoped that the wizard would be forthright with him.
Thorin had been disappointed a lot lately.
Still, perhaps he was foolish.
Still, he hoped.
He hoped that this time, finally, after all these years, with Tharkun the wizard on their side, it would be possible.
Possible to defeat Smaug.
Possible to take back Erebor.
Possible to take back the treasure.
Possible to bring his people back to prosperity.
He was used to having his hopes disappointed, but the possibilities made the risks worth the attempt.
The thing though about having one's hopes disappointed on a regular basis, was that one started to become a little cynical about the possibility of being pleasantly surprised.
So when Tharkun insisted that the fourteenth member (and Thorin had not been slow to note that the wizard refused to be counted as the fourteenth in their company- the potential implications of what that meant did not improve the optimism of his outlook) had to be a particular hobbit, Thorin was suspicious. His previous dealings with hobbits had done little to endear them to him. As a whole they tended to be insular, mistrustful of outsiders, and tended to be interested in things that Thorin considered to be entirely frivolous. They rarely left the Shire, and from what he could see, that was the only sensible way that the hobbits could survive in the world. They were a soft people, who knew little of the world outside their Shire, and who considered the way of the warrior to be below their dignity.
It was a marvel to Thorin that such a people could survive. A small part of him (and he would never admit this aloud) even envied them. How nice it must be to be so blissfully ignorant of the evils of the world, to think that such things never crossed the boundaries of home.
So when Tharkun had told him that the quest could not possibly succeed without taking one of these soft, silly, intentionally helpless beings along with him, to say that Thorin had doubts was an understatement.
So it was, that when Thorin finally managed to make his way to the green door marked with the etching that the wizard said would be there, he was intending on being intentionally difficult. He wanted to test the hobbit. Determine if this "Bilbo Baggins" had anything real to offer his company, beyond the wizard's say-so.
So when he knocked on the door, already thoroughly irritated by how long it had taken him to navigate through the labyrinth of hobbit holes (and completely unhelpful locals, even less friendly than normal, and Thorin was starting to wonder if someone from his company had managed to upset them on their way through, and what in Mordor they had done, because he was pretty sure that the hobbits had been actually glaring at him, which was downright disconcerting from a people who generally seemed to him to be about as threatening as a colony of rabbits) he had calculated his first impression to be intimidating.
The door swung open, and to Thorin's surprise, his best glare (the one that could stop his rowdy nephews dead in their tracks at twenty paces) met air.
So who had opened the door?
He looked from side to side.
"Frodo Baggins, at your service," said a small young voice.
He looked down.
Oh.
Well that was unexpected.
"Thorin Oakenshield, at yours and your family's," he responded, immediately dropping the glare, (intimidating younglings was beneath him,) as he looked down into wide blue eyes that peeked through a dark fringe of curls.
"Your name doesn't rhyme with any of the others," the little hobbit commented, cocking his head to one side like a small bird.
Thorin blinked.
"No, no it doesn't." And that still hurt, even all these years after Frerin had fallen (not that the runes that made up his and Frerin's names rhymed anyway, but it wasn't about how the names sounded aloud, it was about the shared kinship runes used for writing them). He crouched down so that he was eye level with the tiny hobbit, like he had with his nephews when they were a similar size, and decided to change the subject.
"Is Bilbo Baggins your father?" he asked. It seemed to be a logical conclusion.
The little hobbit's brow crinkled. "No. Ma and Pa drownded. Nuncle Bilbo's my nuncle. He takes care of me."
Oh. Thorin felt his heart drop into his boots. How cruel life was, to deprive this youngling of his parents at such a tender age. It did not matter that he had seen such things countless times before. Common tragedies were not less tragic for being common (rather the opposite, really).
Thorin wondered how it was that this burglar could justify leaving such a young one behind, to come on their quest.
"Nuncle Bilbo doesn't want to go," said Frodo, and Thorin realised that he must have muttered the last part aloud.
Thorin felt his brows raise.
"Indeed?" That was not what the wizard had said.
"The mean wizard came and wouldn't listen to Nuncle Bilbo when he said no, but Nuncle Bilbo said that he was going to say no again and make the wizard listen, 'cause the wizard doesn't know that Nuncle Bilbo has to look after me, 'cause the wizard wasn't listening," Frodo babbled, and Thorin was appalled to see that the youngling was on the edge of tears.
"Come here little one, shhh," he said, automatically falling into the old patterns of behaviour he had used when Fili and Kili had been distressed (like learning how to swim, once you learned how, you never forgot). He gathered the little hobbit into his arms, and picked him up, whispering that things were going to turn out alright (Thorin might be a cynic, but he wasn't cruel enough to think such a trait was worthy of cultivating in younglings, who were supposed to be protected from such things).
Thorin hated seeing younglings upset. It brought back horrible memories, of times on the road when it had been barely possible to fill their bellies, let alone keep them warm, or safe. Too many of Erebor's remnants were orphans, due to Smaug, the hardships of the road, and the ill-fated battle that had cost Thorin his grandfather and brother, and far too many dwarflings even with parents had died or failed to thrive. As one of the Royal Line of Durin, Thorin felt that it was his duty to do what he could to prevent his people pain, but he was only one dwarf.
He hated feeling so powerless.
This situation at least, he thought, as he gently rocked the little hobbit until he calmed, was something that he could do something about.
And it would kill two orcs with one arrow, as he would ensure that no soft reluctant hobbit would be joining his party and creating a liability for them to protect all the way to the dragon's doorstep.
Thorin was not above taking advantage of situations, especially when it created mutual benefit for all sides.
"You know what," said Thorin, thinking quickly, "I would wager that if you spoke to the wizard, then you would be able to convince him that your Uncle Bilbo needs to stay here with you." After all, it was hard to miss the existence of a youngling when they were right there telling you off. (Also, Thorin had the sneaking suspicion that Tharkun's face when confronted by the little hobbit was going to be highly entertaining. Thorin was also not above lending a helping hand to any in a position to take someone as smug as the grey wizard down a few pegs.)
The little hobbit looked up at him with shiny eyes, but Thorin was somewhat impressed to see that no tears had fallen. Tough little one. Thorin approved.
"I want to tell him now," said Frodo with emphasis. "Nuncle Bilbo has been worried. I don't like it when people make Nuncle Bilbo worried."
Thorin smiled crookedly. "Very well. Let's go then, shall we?"
And so it was that he entered the main room of the house with a tiny hobbit in his arms to see something that surprised him- an older hobbit (Bilbo Baggins, he presumed,) in the middle of giving the wizard a dressing-down.
It seemed like tonight was to be full of surprises. He was shocked that such a squishy-looking being (Thorin privately thought Baggins looked rather more like a grocer than a burglar) had the stones to stand up to a wizard like he was.
"Gandalf, I'm not sure who you expected me to be, but I'm telling you now, I'm not the hobbit for this adventure. I don't know what it is all about, but that's irrelevant. The details are not going to convince me. I'm no burglar," (Oho, thought Thorin, just as he had suspected,) "and even if I was, I can't leave the Shire," the hobbit insisted, waving his arms about in emphasis.
Thorin was unsurprised to see that the wizard did not take this well. Wizards, like most meddlers in Thorin's experience, who spent long hours thinking up plans tended to hate it when people refused to be manipulated into doing what they thought was right. Tharkun could talk about the greater good all he liked, Thorin knew he just hated it when he failed to get his own way. (Dis would no doubt have said something rude along the lines of "takes a stone-head to know a stone-head", but Thorin tried to ignore his inner Dis.)
"If I say you are a Burglar, then a Burglar you are!" the wizard shouted, and Thorin felt immediate instinctive alarm at the power underlying those words and what it could mean if it was unleashed.
(As much as Tharkun liked to pretend he was a harmless old man, Thorin, and anyone with half a brain and more than ten minutes in his acquaintance immediately knew better.)
"Nuncle Bilbo isn't going on your adventure," came the sudden voice, and everyone's gaze was suddenly on him, and the tiny hobbit in his arms.
(The tiny brave hobbit. Thorin was more than a little impressed. He was not entirely sure that he would have been able to stand up to the wizard's ire like that.)
Expressions ranging from impressed, to startled, to downright shocked. (Either not all the company had become acquainted with Frodo, or they could not believe that Thorin would pick up a youngling like this. Thorin was mildly insulted at the implications of the second possibility.)
"Thorin Oakenshield," Tharkun greeted, looking rather like he had been slapped upside the head with a fish. (Thorin stored the expression in his memory to laugh at later. Privately, and as sure as he could possibly be that the wizard wouldn't know what it was about.)
"And who," Tharkun questioned confusedly, "is this?"
The hobbit stepped forward and collected his nephew from Thorin's arms. Thorin might have been offended had the hobbit not provided him with a friendly, near grateful smile. Well. That was the happiest a hobbit had been to see him thus far this day.
How ironic.
Thorin watched as the hobbit introduced his nephew to the wizard, and Frodo took Thorin's advice.
"Nuncle Bilbo can't go on an adventure. He's gots to stay and look after me," he stated plainly, with a surprising amount of firmness for such a small being. (The little arms folded and the pout were a downright deadly combination. Looking about the room, Thorin could see that Frodo had managed to securely wrap most of the dwarves around his little finger within moments of meeting them.)
"So this is the hobbit," said Thorin. Neither of them, not the youngling, nor the burglar (or not, as the elder hobbit had said,) were at all what he had pictured. His admittedly low expectations had been rather dramatically exceeded.
(A very small part of him almost regretted that this Baggins would not be coming on the quest with them. He seemed like an interesting being.)
The hobbit responded to Thorin's words by nodding slightly in acknowledgement, then turning back to the wizard, leaving Thorin at his back. It had been a while since a non-dwarf had done so, and despite his impression of hobbits as being simple, ignorant creatures, he could not hold this against Baggins, rather taking the gesture for the signal of trust that it was. (He had not missed the assessing look when young Frodo had been taken from his arms, and he suspected had young Frodo not been so relaxed with Thorin, the reaction would have been significantly different.)
"Oh," said Tharkun, in a much softer voice than before. "Well this was unexpected."
Indeed, thought Thorin. On that point, he and the wizard were in complete agreement.
...
A/N: This chapter did not appear in the original draft of this story. You can thank Hesperis (and Greysh, who asked for the same thing, but a little later when I had already started writing it) for its inclusion. I was originally going to just let the meeting between tiny!Frodo and Thorin stay in everyone's imaginations, but I was asked nicely, and then what was supposed to be a brief drabble from Thorin's POV turned into an parallel chapter. (I somehow doubt any of you are disappointed by this).