"Chapter 4"

"Thorin!" Gloin protested, looking very shocked. He and the other Dwarves in the company were all looking at their king in a mix of confusion and surprise where Thorin stood pacing before them in their quarters. It was two days after the Council, and the Dwarves were having the third meeting of their own to try and agree on what should be done. So far there had been plenty of contradictions in suggestions, the most that several volunteers should send messages out to Erebor while the others stayed behind, but all the while Thorin had stayed silent, saying neither yay nor nay.

Silent, that is, until now.

"My king, to leave Erebor now just as all Darkness is descending would be madness, a dooming of all we've built in eighty years—"

"As King of Erebor it is my duty to protect my people!" Thorin replied, glaring at Gloin. "If that means taking part in this Quest then I will go!" And damn the consequences! he added to himself, but kept it only to himself.

"But if you are lost in this journey, Thorin," Gloin replied, "then there will be a long battle to find a successor to the throne—and you are not as young as you once were, anyway."

Well, he was right in that regard. Thorin was well over two hundred and fifty, his once-black hair nearly all white now, and his previous wounds from the battle of the Five Armies gave him more and more trouble the older he got. But like he usually did, Thorin stubbornly refused to be told 'no'. "None of our work will matter at all if Sauron wins, Gloin," he answered as evenly as he could; his tone seemed to work—all of them seemed to rock back on their feet as the horrible impact of the truth hit them all.

The Dwarves all knew of the horrors of Sauron; the Necromancer, the Deceiver. It had been he who had taken the Dwarves' rings from them. It had been he who had almost cast all of Arda into a cloud of Darkness, and his name still threw a shadow upon everything if he was mentioned. No matter how much they argued they all knew the terrible danger Arda was facing. That was why Thorin knew he would win this argument.

And win he did. It brought him little satisfaction. With such a thing to argue against, how could it? The world itself was at stake.

00000000

"So you have decided to join Frodo on his Quest," Gandalf said quietly.

He and Thorin were alone in one of the smaller rooms far from the Hall of Fire where the five hobbits were, holding a Council of their own. Thorin wryly thought that this was the most councils he'd been part of in a very long time but again decided it wasn't worth mentioning. He stood by the wall nearest the door, arms folded across his chest in a gesture of defiance; Gandalf was seated hunched by the window so his profile was struck violently in the sun streaming gently through. The wizard looked weary. Very weary, and very troubled. It was not like the wizard to look so unsure, and that was what was worrying Thorin the most at the moment. If Gandalf the Grey was worried, he had learned that everyone else should be too. He just wasn't sure what Gandalf was so worried about. It wasn't just the Quest and its impossible nature.

"You fear for the Ringbearer?" he asked for the sake of the question. The silence was unnerving to him.

Gandalf sighed, barely moving from where he sat; but then he turned to look at the Dwarf. "It was such a close call," he said finally, and Thorin knew what he was talking about. "The thought of how close we lost Frodo to the Darkness already freezes my blood. To imagine that remarkable soul twisted and raped by the Dark…" He trailed off and shuddered, the cloth of his robes fluttering gently. Thorin felt like shuddering as well and closed his eyes briefly to recollect his nerves at the thought of the Ringwraiths. He took a calming breath through his nose and opened his eyes again.

"He seems to be recovering well enough," he replied.

Gandalf nearly snorted, a sight that was surprising in and of itself. (Who ever heard of a wizard doing such a thing, anyway?) "I'll tell you a little-known secret of Frodo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield," he said wryly. "That lad is among the most stubborn of any individual I have ever met. Frodo will strive to make us think that he is recovering better than he really is."

Thorin didn't know if he believed that. He had seen no sign of such a thing while he watched Frodo over the past few days. Gandalf saw what he was thinking and his wry grin widened.

"Frodo is one of the most remarkable beings I've ever had the pleasure of meeting," he said quietly. "I first met him shortly after he turned twenty and I had heard Bilbo first think about adopting Frodo as his heir. The lad was still living in Buckland at that point at Brandy Hall, watched over by those who lived there. Bilbo would make it a point to visit him every month or send for Frodo to stay a week at Bag End with him. It just so happened that Frodo was spending his week there when I visited." He chuckled to himself at some memory. "When I entered the smial, he was working on binding a book for Bilbo. A work of Elvish lore that he seemed to love. Hobbits normally have no love for books unless they hold recipes or herb-knowledge, you must understand. To see the lad so eager to read and know about the outside world was a pleasant surprise. The way he would talk! Always asking questions, ever curious. He had no fear of me when we met, and even asked me if it was true that I was the very same wizard who had met Bilbo at Bag End before his big Adventure."

Thorin snorted a laugh. "He asked me if I was still King Under the Mountain the morning he woke," he explained to the wizard's questioning look.

Gandalf laughed. "He meant no offense by that, let me assure you. He even had enough spirit to tell me that he thought it was very rude of Bilbo to tell me he thought I had died when I asked Bilbo where I could be."

Thorin couldn't help but feel a new sense of admiration for the young hobbit. If Frodo had been brave enough to say those things to Gandalf and to his uncle then he must be very brave indeed! "I'm beginning to think it will be very interesting to get to know him," he finally remarked.

Gandalf looked at him carefully again. "I think it will be, too," he agreed, and left it at that.