Day Six

Dain fidgeted beside Thorin's bed, looking anywhere but at his cousin who was watching him intently. No-one was speaking and the lack of answers was making Thorin grow more impatient and exasperated by the moment. Bilbo's condition had shaken him to the core, and when Thorin had stood by Bilbo's bed looking at the broken body before him, the happiness he had felt after seeing Kili awake had moulded into something else entirely. Thorin now felt worried and scared for his hobbit friend and angry at

(Whom? Who could he blame for this?)

He felt useless and hated being helpless and unable to do anything for Bilbo, anything but pray for him and hope for the best. He was determined to find out what had happened to his friend, he was determined to at least get answers and find whoever it was that was responsible for Bilbo's condition. The need to find out what had happened to Bilbo burnt Thorin's heart with all of its vehemence.

In the distance, a bell rang signaling the beginning of the second hour after midnight. It was still dark and Thorin could see his cousins only due to the two candles Balin had lighted on his bedside table to illuminate the tent. By the light of the candles, Thorin could see that Dain was wearing a striped night cap, a long-sleeved night shirt and short trousers that revealed his lumpy knees as well as his thick, hairy legs. It was obvious to Thorin that Dwalin had hauled the dwarf right out of bed without allowing him to do more than to put his heavy boots on before bringing him here, which in turn told Thorin that – for reasons still unknown to him – Dwalin was quite a lot more upset with Dain than he had initially assumed. Over the course of all his years, Thorin had learnt to trust Dwalin's ability to read people and assess situations and that was why Thorin was now studying Dain with great suspicion. Whatever had happened to Bilbo, Dain had had a great part in it, if Dwalin's behaviour was anything to go by.

Dain himself seemed to feel at least somewhat ill at ease. Despite having had his sleep interrupted, he appeared neither tired nor confused. Instead, the look in his eyes was sharp, knowing and somewhat foreboding and there was a nervous twitch in his neck muscles between his jaw and collarbone, a sight visible only due to the way his braided beard revealed that particular part of his neck. Dain kept shooting slightly pleading looks at Balin who was stroking his beard in that thoughtful manner he got whenever he was particularly unsettled by something. Balin had placed himself between Dwalin and Dain as if to keep the two apart and his gaze flickered from one dwarf to another in a quite weary, wary manner. Dwalin, on his part, stood at attention, clenching and unclenching his fists, his gaze fixed on the wall of the tent, visibly upset despite the way he was trying to keep his face blank.

"Explain," Thorin boomed for the third time and all three of his cousins winced upon hearing his order.

Balin, Dwalin and Dain all gave him a glance to determine which one of them he was talking to and Dwalin and Balin quickly resumed their original poses after seeing that he was still studying Dain. Dain, on his part, began to fiddle with the sleeves of his night shirt. It appeared that he had lost his tongue as well as his nerve. He was swallowing hard and kept opening and closing his mouth in an unbecoming imitation of a gaping fish.

"This lack of answers is trying my patience," said Thorin when no answers were forthcoming, causing his cousins to wince yet again. "I don't particularly care which one of you explains the situation to me as long as an explanation is provided right now: what happened to Bilbo?"

"Well, laddie," said Balin, clearing his throat. "There was... a misunderstanding."

For a few moments, Thorin waited Balin to say something more, but the dwarf avoided his gaze and kept simply stroking his beard. Dwalin remained stoic and silent and his gaze never once flickered from the spot on the wall, while Dain shifted on his feet, looking increasingly more uncomfortable.

"A misunderstanding," Thorin repeated eventually, slowly, letting his gaze move from one cousin to another. "A misunderstanding. One of my friends, a hero is currently delirious due to the fever caused by his inflamed wounds and you think that 'there was a misunderstanding' is explanation enough? Surely you jest, Balin!"

Balin gave a slight wince and offered Thorin something that might have been an apologetic smile, while his brother didn't move a muscle. Dain's gaze flickered wistfully towards the entrance of the tent, but he had the good sense to remain where he stood. None of them said anything, all of them apparently waiting for one of the other two to speak first.

Finally, Thorin lost his patience and banged his fist against the side of the bedside table, giving his cousins a start with the sudden loud sound. The movement strained his already worn body and Thorin was left panting, though not only from the exertion and pain but also from anger.

"Mêgh-rut avûd!" he bellowed as soon as he had his breath back. "What has gotten into you three? For grûck's sake – speak! Do not make me force every word out of you."

"It is as Balin said," grumbled Dwalin. "There has been a misunderstanding, but I don't think it should be me or my brother that should begin the... explanation."

"A misunderstanding..." Thorin scowled. "Have you lost your ability to say anything but 'a misunderstanding'? Are you dwarves or elves – pull yourself together and give me answers! What is this 'misunderstanding' that you keep on mentioning? And most importantly, why does Bilbo have wounds that have been inflicted on him several days ago but that have been left untreated until this very night? What has happened to him?"

Grunting, Dwalin gave Dain a murderous look and opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Dain had already dropped onto his knees beside Thorin's bed, letting out a strangled noise that almost sounded like a sob. The red pompom of Dain's night cap hung sadly down by his chin when he bowed his head in a resigned, submissive manner.

"Cousin," Dain said, addressing his words to the ground. "My lord Thorin. I must beg for your forgiveness. I fear that Master Baggins' illness is at least partially my fault. I misunderstood your order when you asked me to take care of him and that unfortunate misunderstanding is the reason why Master Baggins' wounds were left untreated, though the wounds themselves were inflicted on him during the battle and not by my hand."

Thorin frowned, his gaze flickering from Dain to the sons of Fundin. Balin was looking at Dain from under his brows with anger but also something akin to pity, while Dwalin had resumed staring forward, grinding his teeth as if he was only barely able to restrain himself from doing something ill-advised.

"I do require more of an explanation," Thorin said gruffly. "I asked all three of you to look after Bilbo; why were his wounds allowed to fester? According to Oin, he is also dehydrated – how that came to be? Did you not look after him like I asked you to do?"

"When you asked me to take care of Bilbo Baggins, cousin," said Dain, "I interpreted your words... in a slightly different manner. I thought you were asking me to- to execute Master Baggins for his betrayal, to 'take care of him' for once and for good, and while I am not in a habit of beheading simpletons, I considered it my duty to obey your order."

"Who are you calling a simpleton, Ironfool?" hissed Dwalin, his hand going to the dagger on his belt, his approach towards Dain only halted by the look of warning Balin gave him and the hand Balin placed on his chest.

Thorin stared at his kneeling cousin, unable to comprehend the confession.

"What?" he managed, his voice hoarse, for a lump had suddenly formed in his throat.

Dain cleared his throat and gave Dwalin a calculating look, apparently assessing the level of threat the warrior posed to him.

"My lord," he finally said to Thorin, "I tried to execute the halfling in your name and by your order. I would have done so too hadn't Balin stopped me in time and told me that I had misunderstood your words."

"It happened but hours after the battle," Balin put in, giving Dain glare. "Dain had his execution axe with him and Bilbo was already on the ground. Had I been by but a few moments later, Bilbo would have lost his head."

"What?" Thorin could barely recognize the weak, strained voice as his own.

"I know this may come as somewhat of a shock," sighed Dain, "but I'm sure this is one of those things that we can laugh at later, one day. And to my defence, I was going to execute the halfling quickly. My plan was to behead him with one well aimed stroke. I even managed to keep him calm till the very end of it by talking to him about this and that. Master Baggins trusted me and didn't put up much of a struggle. I dare claim that he wouldn't have felt a thing had I actually executed him."

Thorin's head was spinning and he could do nothing but stare at Dain with dawning horror. Dain had tried to execute Bilbo? Their Bilbo. Execute their hobbit. His own cousin had tried to behead someone Thorin owed a life debt? Thorin couldn't quite grasp the fact. He was shaking his head, looking at his three cousins and waiting for one of them to tell him the real truth, to tell him that Dain's confession had been a joke, a joke of poor taste but a joke nonetheless.

"While I talked with Dain and told him that he had misinterpreted your order," Balin said instead of admitting that they had been trying to fool Thorin, "Bilbo put his Ring on and managed to escape. We looked for him, but he was impossible to find, invisible as he was. Eventually Dain and I had to give up the search, as our other duties became too pressing. Dwalin and other members of the Company (apart from Fili, Kili and Oin) – as well as several dwarves from Iron Hills – still continued the search."

Balin and Dwalin looked far too grave to be joking.

"I found Baggins in the Lake-town fourteen bells ago," Dwalin grumbled, meeting Thorin's gaze briefly before beginning to stare at his toes as if ashamed that he had failed to find Bilbo earlier.

Thorin had still been shaking his head with disbelief, in denial, but Dwalin's words halted even that movement and Thorin froze in place. According to Balin, Dain had tried to execute Bilbo a few hours after the battle. Bilbo had managed to escape and the dwarves had begun to look for him. If Dwalin had only found Bilbo fourteen bells ago, that meant that Bilbo had been missing for almost five days. Five days.

Thorin recalled the way various members of the Company had avoided looking him in the eye and he wondered whether it hadn't been, after all, because of his shameful deeds but for the way they had been keeping information from him. Dwalin's prolonged absence, the way he had been lied to – it all made sense now. The Company had known that Bilbo was missing, but for some reason they had decided not to tell Thorin, which was why they had been so uncomfortable every time he had begun to ask after Bilbo, or Dwalin who must have been looking for Bilbo the whole time Thorin had wondered where he had gone to.

Bilbo had been missing for five days.

Mahal, five days! Dain had said that Bilbo's wounds had been inflicted upon him during the battle which meant that Bilbo had been running from Thorin and his dwarves for five days with his battle wounds untreated, most likely terrified for his life. Bilbo was still under the impression that Thorin had ordered him to be killed. For five days, Bilbo had believed that Thorin wanted him dead. If all that was true, it was no wonder that Bilbo's condition was as bad as it was.

Thorin felt sick.

Dwalin was still talking.

"Bilbo fainted shortly after I had managed to caught up with him and so I didn't have the chance to let him know that there had been a misunderstanding and that you had not ordered him to be executed. I had a healer see to him in the Lake-town, but his condition remained grave the whole way back to the camp, regardless."

"Why did you keep all of this from me?" Thorin demanded, swallowing the nausea that kept rising in the back of his throat. "Why did you not tell me what had happened to Bilbo? Why did you lie to me?"

"Dwalin wanted to tell you, initially," admitted Balin, "but I convinced him otherwise. I'm sorry, laddie, but we simply couldn't take the risk that you would have tried to find Bilbo by yourself. You were still weak and might have strained yourself to death while doing so."

"It would have killed you," said Dwalin with conviction.

"You failed to keep me informed."

"We had to," claimed Balin with a resigned sigh.

Thorin could feel his temper rising and Dwalin must have noticed it, for he crossed his arms on his chest and glared down at Thorin.

"It is better to have you alive and livid with us, Thorin," he said, "than it would have been to come to visit your grave with the knowledge that you died because we refused to keep something from you for a few days. Punish me for lying in whatever way you feel necessary, but know while you're doing so that I do not regret my decision in the least."

Thorin and Dwalin glared at each other challengingly.

It took Thorin a while to notice the dark circles under Dwalin's eyes and the bone-deep exhaustion that was drawn in all of Dwalin's features. When was the last time Dwalin had eaten anything, let alone slept? It looked like it had been several days since the warrior had got a moment of rest, and even though Thorin was still upset with his friends, he felt concern for this particular friend, in the addition to the one that was lying, feverish, in the next tent.

Breaking eye contact, Thorin sighed and rubbed his face.

"Sit down, Dwalin, before you keel over," he grumbled.

Dwalin complied without a word of objection and Thorin felt his worry increasing. It was quite telling how exhausted Dwalin truly had to be if he agreed to sit down in a situation like this. Thorin didn't miss the concerned look Balin gave his brother, nor did he miss the slight sway with which Dwalin stepped pass Dain to sit on the wobbly chair by Thorin's bed.

Once sitting, Dwalin continued talking, telling Thorin details of the past five days. He told Thorin of the way Nori had noticed an invisible Bilbo near the water barrels and how the thief had followed the hobbit into Fili and Kili's tent. Dwalin told Thorin that he hadn't been lying when he had said that Bilbo had visited Thorin's tent and proceeded then to describe how the hobbit had managed to escape capture time after time again with the help of his Ring.

While Dwalin talked, Thorin was only vaguely aware of what was happening around him. He knew that Dwalin was speaking, but couldn't concentrate on the words, as his mind was suddenly filled with images of a terrified Bilbo standing by his bedside while he slept, oblivious, of an injured Bilbo running for his life from Thorin and his people...

On its own accord, Thorin's mind created alternative versions, an image after image of what-migh-have-beens. What if Bilbo had lost his consciousness in Lake-town before Dwalin had managed to find him? He would have laid there, invisible, and he might not have been found until his body would have turned so rotten that it could have been located by the smell only.

An image of Dain beheading Bilbo forced itself in Thorin's mind. He saw Dain raising his execution axe and he saw the axe cutting through Bilbo's neck easily as if Dain was cutting melting butter instead of hobbit flesh. He saw Bilbo's head, separated from the neck, rolling away from his lifeless body. Blood poured from Bilbo's cut neck and Dain wiped his axe clean before picking up Bilbo's head by the curly, coppery hair. In his mind, Thorin saw Dain coming to see him in his tent. He saw Dain presenting him with Bilbo's head as a proof that the deed had been done. He saw Bilbo's head in detail, the eyes were still open, they stared at Thorin, empty, hollow, seeing nothing.

Had Balin not stopped Dain when he had, those images would have now been the reality.

Nausea had been lingering in the back of Thorin's throat ever since he had first realized what kind of a condition his hobbit friend was in, but now it hit him with full force. Thorin managed to roll to his side just so before he was promptly sick all over the side of his cot. He emptied his stomach on Dwalin and Dain's boots, barely registering the fact, and when there was nothing more to throw up, he continued gagging, while his cousins hovered above him, their worried voices an incomprehensible buzz in his ear. Thorin could feel hands steadying him, while someone held his hair back, away from the vomit.

Once Thorin was done throwing up, he swiped all those hands away and forced himself to get up from the bed. Staggering, he grasped Dain by the back of his neck, and when his knees gave up underneath him, he pulled his cousin down onto the ground with him. The two of them knelt there on the cold ground in a pool of Thorin's vomit, embraced by the pungent smell, their foreheads almost touching, while Dwalin and Balin crouched down by them, voicing their concern. Thorin reached out and wrapped his fingers around the hilt of the dagger on Dwalin's belt. With one quick movement, he unsheathed the dagger and pressed the blade against Dain's throat, ignoring Balin's sharp intake of breath.

"I trusted you," Thorin spat at Dain's startled face. "I trusted the safety of my friend in your hands and you used his trust in your attempt to kill him! Can you feel my dagger, cousin, can you feel the cold metal against your skin, the sharp blade pressing against your throat? I hope you are now as afraid as Bilbo was when you tried to murder him in my name."

Dain did look scared, scared for his life. His eyes were wide and pleading, his breathing fast and shallow. Thorin could see his own reflection in Dain's watery eyes and under different circumstances the rage on his face might have startled even him. As it now happened, the sight only filled him with an odd sense of satisfaction – Dain deserved to be scared after all he had done to Bilbo, Dain deserved to know what it felt like to be threatened, how it felt to fear for one's life.

"I have half a mind to put this dagger in use," whispered Thorin.

Dain blanched upon hearing his words and grasped at the hand that was holding the dagger against his throat.

"T-Thorin," he stuttered. "Cousin, what I d-did, I only did because I t-thought I was following your o-orders."

"You consider 'please, take care of him' an execution order?" hissed Thorin, tightening his hold on Dain's neck, feeling Dain's frantic heartbeat against his palm. "You would take execution orders from someone barely conscious, from someone in a confused state of mind due to pain and blood loss? You would behead someone without first having the execution order in writing?"

By now, Dain was trembling and Balin was repeating Thorin's name over and over again as well as saying things about "thinking things through" and "calming down for Eru's sake before doing anything irreversible".

"If Bilbo dies," said Thorin in a low voice, looking his cousin deep in the eye, "you shall die too, Dain. Your life now depends on his survival."

"Please, my lord," Dain pleaded, closing his eyes briefly, apparently unable to meet Thorin's gaze for longer. "I'm sorry, I truly am! Just don't- don't do anything drastic, Thorin, for the hobbit is still alive and anything irreversible hasn't yet happened. If you kill me, people will think that you have relapsed, that you are once more in the clutches of the dragon sickness. They would believe you unfit to rule!"

It wasn't until now that Thorin noted that he had actually broken Dain's skin with the dagger and that the dwarf was actually bleeding from the shallow cut. A red trickle of blood ran down Dain's throat all the way down to his chest where it smeared the white nightshirt. With a grunt, Thorin withdrew the bloodstained dagger and raised it up to Dain's forehead, which prompted Dain to swallow hard and Balin to let out a strangled noise.

"I will decide what your punishment shall be once Bilbo is well enough to voice his wishes regarding the matter," decided Thorin, taking the night cap off Dain's head and dropping it onto the ground. "In the meanwhile, let it be known that I no longer consider you my trusted kin. You have proved yourself unreliable and hasty in your actions, and I will not trust anything precious of mine in your hands again. As a sign of this, you no longer have the right to wear the braid of a Trusted One."

Grasping the said braid, Thorin cut it off from the very base. When the braid hit the ground with a soft thud, all the fine beads still intact, Dain let out a choked noise and turned grey, but otherwise he stayed still and endured the humiliation with as much dignity as anyone could have when kneeling on a puddle of vomit.

Dain lost three braids in total. In the addition of the braid of a Trusted One, Thorin cut off the braid of a Protector and the braid of a Deliberating One. As soon as he withdrew the dagger and handed it back over to Dwalin, Dain raised a trembling hand to his hair. It had to feel odd to miss three familiar braids, considering he had worn them every day for closer to six decades.

"The deed is done" said Balin in a thin, shaky voice, taking a hold of Thorin's arm. "We better get you back on the bed now, Thorin."

Thorin shrugged him off and focused his attention on Dain once more.

"From now on, cousin," he said to Dain, "you no longer have the right to carry out executions. Your execution axe will be taken from you and I will appoint another dwarf from Iron Hills to take over that task."

Dain cleared his throat and his bowed head made a nodding movement.

"Somewhat understandable, my lord."

"While I have laid here in my tent, injured, have you carried out any other 'orders' of mine, or given punishments to anyone?"

"I have," admitted Dain. "I demoted Healer Giril, for I found her defiant, and sent her to the dungeons to look after the few dwarves that have been caught stealing."

It seemed that Dain had failed to mention this to Oin, as Thorin could now recall Oin sending several of his younger healers to look for a healer called Giril. Oin had appeared quite annoyed and worried that she would disappear in such a manner, though Thorin had been too focused on his nephews at the time to pay the missing healer much mind.

"I want a list of all the punishments you have given without my consent, Dain," said Thorin, "as well as the names of the dwarves that have been imprisoned by you and the exact reasons for their imprisonment. I want this all done before dawn."

"Yes, my lord," said Dain quietly.

"Let it be known that I am not done with you," continued Thorin, fixing Dain's slumped form with a look. "Before any further punishments, however, I will wait for Bilbo Baggins to get better so that he can tell me what kind of a punishment he would like for you to have. He has been wronged and he has the right to express his wishes. For now though, cousin – be gone."

As if not quite believing that Thorin was letting him go, Dain scrambled up to his feet and took a hesitant step backwards, then another and yet another. After his fifth hesitant step, Dain turned and practically ran out of the tent, out of Thorin's range of anger.

Thorin watched the tent flaps falling closed behind Dain.


A/N: There you had Thorin's initial reaction. Would love to hear your thoughts, I hope the the chapter wasn't too disappointing!

Thanks so much for the reviews! I would have given this fic up a long time ago if it wasn't for your support.