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Glitter and Gold

Thorin x OC

by Iland Girl

'for the ones that lost their family, you can always build a new one'

Chapter 1: Not ready for goodbye

"If I miss you any harder, my heart might come looking for you." — Gemma Troy

Song Recommendation: How Do I Say Goodbye - Dean Lewis

Winter was always a difficult time of year.

The winds that swept across the Canadian Prairies was always harsh and biting, the never-ending snowfall and frigid temperatures always took me for a loop as well. I could never keep my house warm enough come January.

Today was a bit of an exception. For the first time in days, it was sunny, without a lick of wind. The sun still didn't rise until long after I had, my hands already covered in coal lines and lead. I was drawing the rising sun over top of the open fields behind my house. It wasn't fancy, but the hoar frost on all the trees made it even more beautiful.

I finished my drawing in the time that it took for the sun to rise, and proudly propped it up on the giant cork board that hung in my living room. It sat proudly between the drawings of a mountain and the design layout of a compound bow. There were fifty-three other drawings on the large board, one drawn each day of winter thus far.

My alarm rang, telling me it was time to my butt and keep going through my routine.

The routine was always the same: Wake up, have coffee and draw something, head to the gym, home for breakfast and a shower, university for the afternoon, back home, perhaps working on a project of some sort.

I rarely differed from my routine, not anymore. It was likely the only thing keeping me sane half the time. But it was winter break from university and all my classes started in three days. So, I was left with nothing else but reading as a viable option to distract me.

Don't get me wrong, I loved to read, but not nearly as much as my mother had.

My mother was the centre of all my woes though, which made reading hard. She loved reading so much that we had piles and piles of books littering the floor of her bedroom. Piles of books that were now collecting dust as they had not been touched in years.

You see, five years ago was my 18th birthday. I was officially an adult. My mother and I went out to celebrate. We were extremely close to the point that she wanted to see me the first time I ever drank. My other friends that were old enough to drink came too. My mother wasn't a hippy or 'cool' mom, but she was a good mom. She took care of us but also let us be when she took us to a club. She gave me my first shot and said to call her when I was ready to go home before heading to the exit of the club.

That was the last time I ever saw her.

When she didn't answer my phone, I thought she had fallen asleep. A friend's mom drove me home; she was grumbling the entire way since I lived outside the city. However, despite mom's car being the driveway, nobody was home. The front door was unlocked but not broken in. Nothing was amiss, nothing was missing or turned or even slightly moved. It looked like she hadn't even come home. And drunk me went to bed not thinking anything of it.

Sober me in the morning, however, was a completely different story.

I spent days just looking for clues as to where she could be. I got her put on the missing person's list, I wrote to newspapers and radio stations trying to broaden my search.

Days turned into weeks, then months.

Three years without any leads, and finally they called off the search. Mary-Anne Meilyr was officially pronounced dead.

On top of grieving for my mother, I was left with the waking reality of the struggles of living entirely on my own. I never knew my father; I was told he was 'long gone' anytime I asked. I didn't know anyone on my father's side at all, never even knew his last name. My mother's parents passed away when I was a teen, and she had no siblings. Any cousins that I looked up shut their doors on me, and of course they did, half of them I never even knew existed until I searched.

Which left me entirely on my own.

For the first time in my life, I was entirely, and hopelessly, alone. The loneliness was enough, but having to pay for a house and for food alone had me struggling to finish school and keep down a full-time job. The worst part of the entire thing was having to declare my mother dead and take her insurance payout. The struggle of proving my mother was dead without a corpse was impossible. But finally, three years later, I had done it.

Between the savings and the insurance money I was set for a couple of years. The house was officially put in my name and had been paid off when my grandparents lived with us. This allowed me to go to school again, and to pursue a career finally. At 22 I was finally able to breathe.

But today was my last day of 22. Tomorrow I would be 23. It would be exactly five years since my mother's disappearance. Every year it got a smidge easier to face the day, but not easy enough to do it sober. I would spend the day curled up in my bed, drunkenly crying at the wall, watching old home videos, or maybe flipping through a picture book from one of our adventures. Most of the time I would listen to Dean Lewis' "How do I Say Goodbye" and lay in the middle of the kitchen floor to disassociate.

That was exactly where I made it to by the evening. I didn't feel like eating, didn't feel like moving. I just played that song and the others on my 'sad song playlist' while I stared at the ceiling of my small kitchen.

It was at the end of this song though, that I heard a knock on my door.

You'll have to understand, I lived completely alone. The only other house down my lonely dirt road was a cattle farmer and his wife, but they had zero interest in me or even speaking to me. Let alone knocking on my door at 8pm on a Tuesday.

I wasn't sure who it was, or their intentions, so I pulled a knife from the block in the kitchen before making my way to the door. It was mildly perplexing to see a rather old looking man standing on the other side.

With knife in hand but hidden behind me, I slowly opened the door a crack, a gust of cold air blew across my face as I glimpsed out the ajar door.

"Hello?" I said quietly. The old man looked down at me. He was rather tall and completely garbed in grey. His eyes were gentle though as they landed on me.

"Good evening, is this the residence of Talana Meilyr?" He spoke gently, with a warm English accent. I tilted my head while watching him.

"This is she, who am I speaking to?" I carefully opened the door a touch wider. It was then that his eyes held a softer look, a sadder one that I didn't quite understand.

"My dear, I am Gandalf the Grey." He gave a gentle bow, and my brows furrowed in confusion.

"Gandalf? Gandalf... Why does that name sound so familiar?" I bit my lip, trying to think. It suddenly jumped to me then, where I had heard his name before.

When I was a child, my mother loved to study mythology and theology. She loved to read me stories like Icarus, David and Goliath, Fenrir, Odin, and others. One mythology she always loved to read though, was the tales of Arda. It was a collection of books, seven in total, that told the stories of creationism, great wars, and mythical creatures. This mythology was translated by a linguistics expert decades ago, but mother loved to read those books. A few had been left by her armchair, where she had curled up to read, the day she disappeared.

My mother loved those books so much that she would read to me different tales from each one. I had loved to read the tales of adventure, of the rise of King Elessar and how he came into his throne, or Thorin Oakenshield's great quest to reclaim the mountain of Erebor. While I didn't remember all of it in great detail, these stories had been precious to me, because of how animatedly she, my mother, would tell me them.

In most of these tales of Arda, were these supposed wizards that were sent by the gods to guide the free peoples of Middle Earth. One of those wizards was named Gandalf. Known to wear completely grey and to appear as an old man. He was the equivalent to angels in Christianity but walked amongst men. It made sense, considering there were things such as dwarves, orcs, dragons, hobbits, and elves.

And supposedly, this Gandalf was standing on my doorstep.

This was the most ridiculous thing that I had ever heard, and I couldn't help it as I began to laugh.

To my surprise, the old man looked a bit affronted.

"Does my presence amuse you?" He said back in a clipped tone. I cut my laugh short and snorted.

"Look man, I don't know what you're after, but I don't have money or anything of value. Try somewhere else before I call the cops." With that, I shut the door.

The old man swung his cane into the threshold before I could stop him, and effectively stopping me from closing my front door. I tensed up, very aware of the knife in my hand still hidden from his view. I readjusted my grip and prepared myself for him to do something.

"To think that I would have the door shut in my face by Mary-Anne's daughter as if I were a petty thief!" He sounded disappointed but made no move to force open the door. I paused in my preparation to defend myself at the call of my mother's name. My whole body froze when he said that name so easily.

Like he had known her.

"How do you know that name?" I asked with hesitance. There was a beat of silence before the old man rumbled back.

"I have had the pleasure of sharing in on many fond adventures with her. Mary is truly a kind soul... if a bit wild at times." He answered back honestly. I felt the fight leave my body at the admission. It felt so honest and true that I rested my head against the door for a moment to gather myself. Then, when I was ready, I stepped back and fully opened the door.

The cold harsh wind rushed in as soon as I gave it access, brushing across my exposed ankles and hands. Gandalf removed his staff from the threshold and took a good look at me. Whatever he saw, it brought back that sorrow from before. I could see pieces of frost stuck in his beard and hat from his breath in the cold humid winter air. A puff of hot breath blew away when he exhaled deeply.

"I am truly sorry for what her disappearance has done to you," he leaned on his staff and gave a weak smile. "But that is also why I am here."

I swallowed the lump building in my throat at the remembrance of the past 5 years. The what if's and why's and how's never being answered. And for the first time I felt the tiniest flickering of flames pool in my belly at his words.

Hope.

"Why have you come here, Gandalf?" I felt heavy as I humoured this man. I doubted his wizard ability, I doubted he was who he said he was, but there was no doubt from the way he spoke her name and spoke to me, he knew my mother, if only a little.

It was the first lead in 5 years...

Gandalf gave a smile then, less sad than before as a small light glimmered in his eyes as he stood taller from leaning on his staff. At his full height he was over a foot taller than me, and yet he looked at me like we were standing on equal heights.

"I am here to invite you on an adventure. An expedition of sorts. One that, should we complete to satisfactory, may give you all the tools you need."

Speaking in riddles, that seemed very on par with the Gandalf from the stories. I tilted my head and waited for him to continue. When he realized I wouldn't react until he explained, he gave a short sigh before continuing.

"The tools I speak of are the ones you will need to find her. Your mother."

Hi all!

Hope you're good in your neck of the woods! I am highly aware this chapter is short, but it's intentionally done as such since, well, first chapters are hard. I don't like overwhelming people with plot and back story all at the same time. So, chapters will get significantly longer in a little bit. The characters and story have been slowly fleshing out in my head over the past little while. I may go back and make very minor changes. Mostly just changing things like what weapons are mentioned, maybe a continuity change here or there, but nothing too intense/important or I would mark it in an author's note.

Anyway, hope you are all well. just a reminder that while this story is an Thorin x OC, there are huge elements of family. It's my favourite genre to write about honestly, and fits so well with Thorin. I will try my best to keep to Tolkien's ideology, but there will be some liberties taken here and there.

Also I usually give a song reccommendation to help set the mood of the chapter. You do not ever need them to help but I just put whatever I was listening to to help me set the tone.

See you all in the next chapter!

Bu-bye~