Chapter 5 - Dwalin
Chapter summary: Two emotionally stunted dwarves try to talk about feelings and Bilbo reveals some unexpected skills.
The journey through the forest was miserable. The air was humid and stuffy, the gloom of the forest oppressive and the endless lines of trees gave no hope of coming to an end. Dwarves had never liked forests and tended to avoid them when they could, so being forced to spend weeks on end in Mirkwood was akin to torture for the majority of the company. Even the halfling, who normally seemed to enjoy trees and grass and green growing things of all kinds, looked depressed by all the trees, futilely craning his neck in search for a sliver of daylight.
"God, I hate this forest," Bilbo exclaimed one evening after Glóin's third failed attempt to start a fire. Several heads turned to him in surprise.
"Aren't you hobbits supposed to like trees and greenery?" Fíli asked with a frown. Bilbo grimaced.
"Not when it looks like this," he threw a dark look at the looming trees around them. "You know, all this gloom and heaviness reminds me of the Old Forest that stands on the eastern borders of the Shire. The trees there are half awake and aware of every visitor, and when you enter, you can feel them watching you. If you don't pay attention, they start trying to trip you up, or make you lose your way by changing the paths."
"Trees can do that?" Ori asked with alarm, looking around nervously. Bilbo shrugged.
"Some of them can move, yes. The forest near Shire is very old, almost as old as the land itself." He glanced at the nearby trees. "I would guess that Mirkwood is nearly as old as that, but at least the trees here are asleep."
"They are?" Kíli asked, valiantly trying to hide the uneasiness in his voice. Bilbo gave him a reassuring smile.
"Yes, they are. Or at least they seem to be," he added quietly. "The Old Forest in Buckland has this sort of sinister watchfulness when you enter it, but this one is quiet. A bit too quiet for my taste, and the eyes in the darkness make everything a hundred times worse."
"You've seen them, too?" Ori asked, sounding almost relieved. Bilbo nodded.
"They are a little hard to miss, what with them being everywhere during the night," Bofur chimed in.
"Oh, thank Mahal," Ori breathed. "I thought I was going mad."
"You're not the only one," Fíli told him. "When I had my watch the other night, I saw these huge milky white eyes, staring at me from one of the branches on the other side of the path. They were the size of small saucers and looked almost like they belonged to..." he trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence.
"A big spider?" Nori said, raising an eyebrow. "Yes, there are plenty of those in this forest. What do you think made all those webs? They watch us during the night sometimes. It gives me the creeps."
"It's not just spiders," Glóin spoke up from his place on the ground, where he was still trying to light a fire. "There was something hiding in the bush when I went to take a leak the other night. I almost pissed on my shoes when it growled at me. I don't know what it was, but it was big and had glowing red eyes."
Seeing the rising uneasiness among the Companions, Thorin took a step forward, drawing their attention to himself.
"This path is protected," he told them firmly. "I do not know whether it's done by magic, or some other force, but it is protected. As long as we stay on the forest path and keep together, we should be able to pass through the forest unscathed. Pay no heed to the eyes in the darkness. They cannot harm you as long as you stay on the path."
Thorin's attempt at calming them down seemed to have worked on some of the dwarves, their frowns clearing up as they went back to whatever they had been doing before the interruption, but a few of the companions still looked unconvinced and kept watching the forest in suspicion.
Though Dwalin hated to admit it, he too felt deeply unsettled by the forest. Normally he would scoff at the notion that a few pieces of wood could rattle his composure in any way, but this forest was just creepy. There was no other word for it. It was too quiet, too eerie and when the night fell, there were eyes in the darkness – dozens of eyes all around them, watching, waiting. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end and more than once he'd had to stop himself from reaching for his axe out of reflex.
Dwalin had spent the first few days in the forest by trying to talk himself out of his growing sense of paranoia – after all, what did he have to fear in the forest? In his life, he had survived numerous battles, slain foul beasts of all kinds and fought enemies of all shapes and sizes. What was a couple of trees, a few shadows and some spider webs compared to that?
It quickly turned out that this place was worse than any enemy he had ever fought. At least those had had fleshy bodies that he could sink his blade into. This forest, however, was a faceless, shapeless menace that couldn't be destroyed by any warrior or weapon. As days wore on, he caught himself looking more and more often over his shoulder, the heavy atmosphere driving his mind into a state of permanent alertness. His hand was never more than a hairsbreadth away from his axe, and he soon started to volunteer for most of the night watches, unable to sleep with all those eyes on him.
The lack of sleep certainly didn't help his temper. Even under normal circumstances he could hardly be called amiable, but now he fell into a foul mood, barely speaking a word to anyone, and spent most of his time by watching the forest.
One could never be too careful.
°O°O°O°
When he had signed up for Thorin's quest, Dwalin had had a pretty clear idea what was expected of him – protect the company, protect Thorin and his family, slay everything in their path and maybe help with killing the dragon, if no other option presented itself. Nowhere in his contract did it mention "teach a halfling how to use a sword". He still couldn't believe that Thorin had been serious when he'd asked him to do it.
Despite his earlier stunt with the Pale Orc, in his core the halfling was still the meek little creature who had nearly had a fit when he'd forgotten his handkerchief. He held the sword like a cooking spoon and it took all of Dwalin's self control not to snatch it out of his hands before the hobbit accidentally cut himself. Dwalin had to admit that the halfling had pretty good footwork and that he was very nimble, but the idea that Dwalin could turn him into a warrior was laughable.
For one, the halfling looked deathly afraid of him. In the heat of battle, fuelled by fear and rage, he had been willing to face down the Pale Orc himself - now, however, with no danger to drive his courage Bilbo Baggins turned back into the gentle soul he was, reaching for his weapon with great reluctance. He handled the sword gingerly, like it was a snake that was going to bite him if he made a sudden movement. Normally Dwalin would be mildly amused by it, but with the wretched forest driving him half-mad he had precious little patience.
"No! No, no. No!" he said for what felt like the hundredth time. "You are supposed to deflect the blow to the side, not push against it."
The hobbit gave him a weary look.
"And how am I supposed to deflect a weapon that is twice as long as my entire body and three times as heavy? Even if I took the blow I will be crushed to a pulp." He didn't sound very happy with that idea.
Dwalin ran a hand over his face.
"You won't get crushed if you do the move properly. Now do it again and put some force behind it. My grandmother has more strength than you."
"Your grandmother sounds terrifying," Bilbo mumbled, but obligingly raised his sword for another move.
They had been training for more than two weeks now and so far the hobbit wasn't showing much improvement. It frustrated them both to no end and Dwalin privately though that it was only a matter of time before one of them snapped and killed the other in a fit of temper.
Looking at the puny hobbit before him, Dwalin couldn't help but wonder what he had done to deserve this. Had he gotten drunk and insulted the gods? Had he accidentally molested Thorin in his sleep? Both of those things had happened before, on separate occasions, and they had a tacit agreement to never speak about it. Maybe this was Thorin's way to get silent revenge for that incident with the dress at his hundred-and-fiftieth birthday party. Thorin had never forgiven him for that.
Still, if nothing else, their training matches had one unforeseen benefit – they were providing plenty of entertainment for the rest of the company, who often came to watch and shout advice and encouragement at the flustered hobbit. Fíli and Kíli usually spent the training by sitting on the sidelines and watching the hobbit fumble around. Occasionally they helped Dwalin demonstrate a particular move, but mostly they just sat around and snickered, whisking the hobbit away when the training was done.
On one such occasion Fíli walked over and slunk a companionable arm around the hobbit's shoulders.
"Come on, Bilbo. I'll show you how to properly clean a sword."
Dwalin saw the hobbit shoot a quick glance in his direction before he leaned closer to Fíli.
"Didn't you say he was patient?" Dwalin heard him mutter.
"He's on edge. We all are."
Dwalin didn't hear any more, because they walked out of earshot. He remained standing in the clearing, gritting his teeth.
In the evening his frustration finally boiled over and he cornered the halfling after dinner.
"How on earth did you manage to survive this long without knowing how to fight?" Dwalin asked him without preamble. "Didn't you say you used to travel? The lands of Eriador are not very hospitable to travellers, especially not hobbits."
Bilbo blinked in surprise at the unexpected question.
"Well, when you put it like this, it does sound rather improbable. The truth is, I rarely wandered very far, and when I did, I usually travelled with a group of elves or dwarves going in the same direction. Safety was never much of a concern for me, really, and there was no need for weapons on my trips around the Shire – the Shire is very safe."
"But how can you hobbits survive in the Shire without an army? The surrounding lands are full of wild beasts and wandering packs of orcs. How do you protect yourselves without any weapons?"
The hobbit fidgeted a bit, clearly uncomfortable with all the questions.
"We're not very keen on weapons in the Shire," he said slowly. "The land itself is peaceful and there's no need to fight with anyone. The worst thing that can happen these days are quarrelling drunks in a pub. We have never had a problem with orcs. The goblins tried to invade once, long ago, but my great-great-great-great-uncle Bullroarer Took killed their king and drove them out. Nobody has tried to attack Shire ever since."
"What about the beasts?" Dwalin asked, relentless. "Wolves and bears? You can't tell me none of those ever cross your borders."
Their argument was starting to draw a lot of attention from their companions. Several of them had come closer, probably prepared to pull them apart if they came to blows, but Dwalin paid them no mind, focused as he was on getting answers.
"The Dúnedain Rangers guard our borders," Bilbo explained patiently. "They usually kill or scare away most of the beasts. They do a really good job of it too – nobody has seen a bear in the Shire for more than half a century. We only had a problem with the wolves once –during the Fell Winter thirty years ago, when the Brandywine River froze over and the hungry wolf packs came down from the lands around Fornost. I was but a lad then, barely in my tweens. We eventually managed to drive the wolves away, but a lot of hobbits died that year."
"How did you get rid of the wolves? You just told me that you have no weapons." Dwalin tried to imagine those tiny creatures fighting huge northern wolves, but couldn't come up with any scenario that didn't end in a hopeless annihilation of the halflings.
The hobbit shot a nervous look around, probably realising that he was now the centre of attention of the entire Company. Bofur gave him an encouraging smile and Bilbo relaxed a bit, turning back to answer Dwalin's question.
"There are a few weapons scattered across the Shire, swords and bows and such, brought from their journeys by a few adventurous Tooks, but they are all considered mathoms – something to put in a museum so the hobbit folk can look at it. Most of us just used what we had on hand – hoes, scythes, some of the lads had slingshots. You can imagine how that went."
The dwarves grimaced. Kíli butted in, eyes alight with excitement.
"Did you fight too, Bilbo? What did you do?"
To everyone's surprise, the hobbit smiled at the question. It wasn't a pleasant smile.
"My mother had a very nice cutlery set. I only had to sharpen the knives a bit. They were very effective."
"You threw knives at the wolves?" Ori asked with amazement, his eyes growing the size of saucers. Bilbo shrugged.
"Well, throwing stones at them was no good. Most hobbits are good at throwing stones. It's a favourite pastime among the children, to hide in a bush and throw pebbles at various birds and passersby. Most hobbits can hit a sparrow sitting thirty feet away with a stone. But in this case, stones were useless, so we switched to knives. It was actually an idea of one of my Took cousins and it was much easier to kill the wolves from afar than to try and slit their throat with a scythe. Most of those who came close to the wolves didn't survive it."
The dwarves sat around with dumbstruck expressions, trying to imagine those fussy creatures slaughtering a pack of wolves. A few months ago they might have laughed at Bilbo's story, but having seen him take down a warg and an orc, they no longer had any doubt that hobbits could be fierce when provoked. Oblivious to the stares, Bilbo continued.
"After the idea with the knives, it was only a matter of time before we got rid of all the wolves. There are thousands of knives in the Shire. Those wolves didn't stand a chance."
A collective shudder ran through the assembled dwarves. Dwalin found himself warring between interest and irritation. Irritation won.
"Do you mean to tell me that you have a potentially deadly skill at your disposal and you didn't care to mention it until now? It wouldn't save us from your sword lessons, but we could have found you some decent knives to carry."
The hobbit fidgeted.
"I'm not very comfortable with weapons. And the episode with the wolves happened thirty years ago. I have almost forgotten about it, because it's not a memory I revisit often."
Dwalin gave him a sharp look.
"Can you still throw those knives?"
Bilbo nodded with some reluctance.
"I suppose so. I haven't tried it since then, but it's not much different than throwing a stone and I can throw those well enough."
"That little sword of yours is too big for you to throw and I don't have any small knives on me, but Nori should have plenty, don't you, Nori?" He turned to the brown haired dwarf with a smirk and enjoyed the look of irritation that passed over his face at the insinuation. "Be a good lad and lend master Baggins some of your knives."
That's what he gets for stealing from me, Dwalin thought with satisfaction as Nori reached for his backpack, drawing out a few of his throwing knives with some reluctance. Serves him right, that shifty-eyed weasel.
Bilbo took the offered knives, looking unsure.
"Where should I throw? There are no wolves around."
Dwalin chuckled.
"And be mighty glad for that. A tree will do. Or, if you're feeling adventurous, you could try shooting down one of those wretched squirrels."
The hobbit turned to survey the trees, eyes narrowed in concentration. He took one of the knives into his right hand and just held it for a bit, feeling out its weight. The first knife flew slowly and hit the tree with its dull side, falling down into the dead leaves below. The second one was a bit better – it hit the tree right in the centre of the trunk and stayed there. By the time he reached for the fourth knife Bilbo's face smoothed out and he threw the knife with confidence, the weapon slotting neatly into the tree below the previous two.
He paused when he took the fifth knife, his eyes scanning the branches around them. They barely saw him move. The knife left Bilbo's hand in a flash and embedded itself deep in the bark of the moss-covered tree twenty feet away, pinning a large black spider to the bark. The dwarves gaped at the Halfling like he'd grown a second head. Fíli went to retrieve the knives and came running back, excited. He showed them the dead spider, which was the size of a hand.
"Look, the knife went straight through the middle. The spider didn't know what hit him."
Dislodging the spider, he handed the knife back to Bilbo along with the rest.
"Impressive," whistled Bofur.
Dwalin was looking at the halfling with newfound interest.
"I suppose we will have to get you some knives. It would be a shame for a skill like that to remain unused. I'm sure Nori won't mind if you borrow his knives, will you, Nori?" he shot a look at the spiky-haired dwarf, who scowled at him, but didn't say anything. He turned back to Bilbo. "You can buy your own set of knives in Laketown."
"I could teach him to use a bow," Kíli offered, looking excited. "With aim like that, he could become a pretty good archer."
"We still have the bows from Beorn, do we not?" Thorin said. "Give one to Mr Baggins, he can start learning tomorrow."
"That won't be necessary," Bilbo tried to protest, but Thorin ploughed on.
"You should be able to wield as many different weapons as possible."
Bilbo sighed.
"No, I meant that it won't be necessary because I already know how to shoot from a bow."
"You do?" Thorin looked incredulous. Bilbo shrugged.
"I used to go hunting with my cousins when I was younger. I was never terribly good at it, though."
"Never mind, I can help you train," Kíli offered, excited. "Oh, this will be so much fun."
°O°O°O°
Over the years, Dwalin had imagined his death many times. An early death was almost certain in his line of work - the only question was how. He had always thought that he would die in battle, standing on a pile of orc bodies that he had killed, an axe in his hand and a smile on his face – a glorious death worthy of songs. He had never guessed that his death would come in the form of slow suffocation, wrapped in a sticky cocoon of webs to become a dinner for Mirkwood spiders.
He remembered how they had scoffed at Radagast's words about giant spiders, dismissing his tale as a product of too much weed and mushrooms. He also remembered Gandalf and Beorn's numerous warnings not to leave the path. He wondered what would have happened with the dragon if they had managed to make the journey. Would it have been a similar disaster? They had also been warned about him, but they didn't listen, pride and gold-lust driving them forward. Now they had finally paid the price for their arrogance.
The spider poison was pure evil – it paralyzed muscles, making them stiff and unmoving, but his brain stayed intact, leaving him fully awake so that he could better appreciate the horror of being eaten alive. It was maddening and there was no way to escape. In a desperate attempt not to go completely crazy, Dwalin turned his thoughts in a different direction, deliberately choosing to ignore the situation for the moment.
Naturally, his mind turned to Thorin first. Dwalin wondered how his closest friend was faring – it must have been unbearable for Thorin, a man of action and heroic deeds, to be reduced to spider food. The indignity must have been driving him mad. He wondered about the others, too, how they were coping. Maybe some of them had suffocated already. It would be certainly a more merciful fate than what awaited them.
Aware that his thoughts were turning morbid again, Dwalin tried to think of something else. The hobbit. Had he been caught with the rest of them, or did he have the presence of mind to slip away, as he had done with the goblins? If he had, Dwalin could only congratulate him. There was no need for all of them to die here.
Dwalin had been highly doubtful about the hobbit for a long time, brushing away Balin's praise of Bilbo's cleverness and generosity. The halflings he had met on his travels had always been a queer bunch, mistrustful of dwarves and unwilling to think of anything but their own interests. Dwalin found it highly unlikely that this particular halfling would be willing to follow them on a dangerous quest purely out of the goodness of his heart.
Balin seemed to think otherwise, claiming that the hobbit had no need for gold, but Dwalin privately thought his brother's mind was clouded by his fondness of the halfling. One fourteenth of the hoard was an enormous sum and Dwalin had never met anyone, dwarf, human or elf, who had been able to resist the call of wealth. Still, if the halfling was motivated by the dragon gold, Dwalin couldn't blame him – he wouldn't be the first member of the company who had joined them purely out of greed.
Dwalin himself had been pulled along on the quest by Thorin and Balin, their lifelong ties making him unable to deny their request when they had asked him for help. It had been Thorin's idea to reclaim back his throne in Erebor and restore the mountain to its former glory, but Dwalin had no doubt that Balin had helped feed it – his brother had always liked reminiscing about the good old days.
Unlike those two, Dwalin barely remembered Erebor. He had been a small boy when the dragon attacked and his memories of the mountain kingdom were hazy at best. He still occasionally woke up with the smell of dragon fire in his throat, but those dreams were rare and usually dissipated before he could make sense of them. Having spent most of his life as a mercenary, he had plenty of other, fresher horrors to dream about, so the dragon only occupied a minuscule place in his sleeping mind. Still, dragon or not, he would have liked to see Erebor again.
Speaking of horrors...all those thoughts of Thorin and the hobbit inevitably brought to mind memories of the conversation he had had with Thorin at Beorn's house – a conversation he had been desperately trying to forget ever since:
Thorin had come to him after breakfast, looking rather uncomfortable.
"Come for a walk with me," he said quietly. "There's something I want to talk about."
Dwalin followed him out of the house at a sedate pace, trying to figure out what Thorin could possibly want to discuss that required such secrecy.
"I have a favour to ask," Thorin began once they were far enough from the house to avoid being overheard. Dwalin's brain instantly went on alert. Thorin rarely asked for favours and when he did, it was usually something Dwalin wasn't very keen on doing. The simple fact that Thorin had posed his question as a polite request instead of an order suggested that he wouldn't like it. He wasn't wrong in his guess.
"I want you to teach the hobbit how to fight," Thorin continued. "He needs to learn how to use a sword."
"No." Dwalin's response was instant. "No way in hell. Ask Fíli or Kíli. They are friends with him and they know enough about fighting. I'm sure they would love to teach him." Thorin's face pulled into a scowl at the mention of Kíli.
"No," Thorin said. "They would go too easy on him. I can't trust them to do the job properly."
Although Thorin was trying to sound casual about his request, there was something off about his tone. His voice sounded strange and it took Dwalin a moment to figure out what the undertone was. Fear.
"Thorin what is going on?" Dwalin asked, feeling apprehensive. He had never known Thorin to be afraid of anything.
"I simply want him to survive this," Thorin said, but he didn't meet Dwalin's eyes.
"Bullshit," Dwalin replied. "There has to be more to this than what you're telling me. You wouldn't do this just for anyone. You don't give a toss about the rest of the Company. Why is he any different?" Thorin opened his mouth to answer, but Dwalin cut him off before he could say anything. "And don't try to feed me any crap about self-defence or him being a member of the Company now. I can always tell when you try to lie to me."
Thorin's scowl deepened, but he didn't deny that he had been intending to do just that. Dwalin folded his arms.
"You know, even if I did agree to teach him, it wouldn't make much of a difference for him in the end. If we end up facing the dragon, we will all die anyway. There was never a big chance of us surviving this whole thing."
"Any chance is better than nothing," Thorin murmured. He took a while to ponder his answer, obviously reluctant to share the real source of his worry. When he finally looked up, Dwalin's breath caught at the urgency he saw in his friend's eyes. "Dwalin, I need him to survive this."
Oh. Oh.
Something in Dwalin's brain clicked and everything suddenly made sense. It was the sort of revelation that made wish that he had never figured it out, but now that he knew he couldn't stop thinking about it.
"No," Dwalin breathed in horrified disbelief. "Please tell me you're joking."
Thorin shook his head, lips pursed, face deadly serious. A horrible sense of certainty settled over Dwalin. He took a few steps back and sat down heavily on a tree stump, trying to process the information.
"Well, shit," he breathed, too overwhelmed to offer a more coherent answer.
Everything suddenly made so much sense – Thorin's strange behaviour ever since that night in the Shire, his irritability, his frequent mood swings. It all added up and Dwalin mentally cursed himself that he hadn't figured it out before. He had suspected of course, but a part of him had always hoped that he had been reading Thorin's actions wrong. Now he knew that he had been right all along.
Thorin's behaviour around the hobbit had been highly peculiar from the start. At first Dwalin had thought that it was just Thorin's own distrust of strangers that was making him behave that way – in public Thorin had treated the halfling with barely contained disdain and yet he had often watched him when the hobbit wasn't paying attention. Dwalin had dismissed it as paranoia until Rivendell, where things had taken turn for the truly bizarre.
Asking Ori of all people to spy on the hobbit for him, creeping in the shadows, glaring at the elves that spoke to him – Thorin had seemed torn between scorn and obsession that Dwalin couldn't wrap his head around. Leaving the elves had only made everything worse, since he no longer had the excuse that he had to watch Bilbo because he could be betraying their quest to the elves.
The most baffling thing of all had been that hug on Carrock. Thorin was a very private person who had never been fond of public displays of affection. In all the years Dwalin had known Thorin (and century and a half was long enough to know someone well), he could count on his fingers the number of times Thorin had embraced someone in public - and those had always been members of family. Dwalin had never seen Thorin willingly touch someone not belonging to his small group of friends.
The others had taken the hug as a sign of Thorin accepting the hobbit as a full member of the company, but Dwalin knew better - it had been Thorin's way of staking a claim on the hobbit without being too obvious about it.
Dwalin had avoided thinking about this particular direction for a very long time, opting for denial, but he could hardly ignore the evidence when all the signs were right there in front of his eyes. All the attention focused on Bilbo, the worry, the possessiveness, the jealousy when Bilbo preferred to spend his free time with Ori and Bofur – it all added up, plus now he had a confession from Thorin himself. There was no running from the truth now.
Before he could think better of it, he found himself blurting out: "The Halfling? Really?"
Thorin, who had walked to the edge of the meadow while Dwalin had been lost in thought, whirled around.
"Do you think I'm happy about this?" he asked sharply. "Do you think I was ecstatic when he opened that door and I found out that the Fates have decided to give me a green grocer for a mate? A dainty little hobbit, who has never held a weapon in his hand and who almost cried when ran out of handkerchiefs?"
"Thorin..." Dwalin tried to butt in, but the dark-haired dwarf continued, ignoring him. It looked like now that the secret was finally out, he needed to vent his frustration. Dwalin closed his mouth and sat back down, letting Thorin fume on his own.
"What do you want to hear? That I can't stop thinking about him? That I'm drawn to him every waking minute, every second, despite all rational thought and my own distaste? What would you say to that?" He looked at Dwalin in challenge. "That I should know better than to be obsessed with someone who is both horribly unsuited to my way of life and completely uninterested in me? Believe me, I know." He drew himself to his full height, as if he was preparing for a fight. Dwalin sighed.
"No, I wasn't going to say that." He gave Thorin a curious look. "Is it really so horrible?"
Thorin ran a hand through his hair, deflating a little at the lack of opposition.
"No, but it is most inconvenient. I cannot focus on the quest properly if I'm constantly preoccupied with thoughts of him. I should be focusing on my duty towards my people and the success of our quest, but instead I am aware of his every move and have to battle jealousy that flares up anytime someone as much as speaks to him. I am overwhelmed by a mindless need to take, to possess and protect and it makes me feel like a brainless ogre." He shook his head. "I can't understand why anyone saw this as an inspiration for poetry. It's more akin to torture in my eyes."
Dwalin gave him a crooked smile.
"Listening to you makes me almost glad that I never met mine. For all I know, I could have ended up with an elf."
Thorin gave him a weak glare.
"This is hardly better. He avoids me like plague."
"At least he saved your life," Dwalin pointed out.
Thorin sighed. "So he did."
Seeing his friend's unhappy face, Dwalin could feel his resolve crumbling. He resisted for another minute before he gave in with a sigh.
"All right, I will teach your Halfling, if you insist, but I'm not happy about it."
Thorin looked up in relief.
"I didn't expect you to be." He walked over and put a hand on Dwalin's shoulder, squeezing once in gratitude before he let go. "Thank you for doing this for me. I would teach him myself, but..." he trailed off, looking a bit embarrassed. Dwalin tried to find the words to respond to that, but found none. In the end he settled for a nod. Thorin nodded back.
"I will go and tell him about my decision."
Dwalin couldn't have kept the smirk off his face even if he'd tried.
"I'm sure he will be thrilled."
Thorin's lips pulled into an amused smirk of his own.
"If it's any consolation, he will probably hate those lessons as much as you will." He started walking back towards Beorn's house. Before he could disappear between the bushes, Dwalin called after him:
"I hope that you know what you're doing."
Thorin shot him a look over his shoulder.
"So do I, Dwalin. So do I."
And so had ended the most awkward conversation of his life. Dwalin still couldn't quite believe that it had really happened. To see Thorin so unravelled over a hobbit of all people had been...disconcerting, to say at least. While Dwalin didn't quite understand Thorin's choice of partner, he couldn't begrudge him for it. Dwarven hearts were often rule by the hand of Fate and once it decided to strike, there was no fighting against it.
Despite his own reservations (based mostly on the abysmal way the hobbit handled his tiny sword), Dwalin had to admit the hobbit had some potential. There were few who would willingly place themselves right in front of the great white warg, risking nearly certain death for someone who barely tolerated them. To this day, Dwalin still blamed himself for not getting up from that hanging tree fast enough. If it weren't for the hobbit's bravery, Thorin would be dead.
And so would they, Dwalin though suddenly as he heard Bilbo's voice somewhere below him. Despite all odds the hobbit had managed to find them and was now hard at work to free them from the spider webs. Listening to the groans of the newly-freed Companions around him, Dwalin smiled.
Thorin had chosen well.
To be continued...
A/N: There you go – your typical One Destined Soulmate subplot, with a twist. I always wondered why none of the characters in the stories I read ever put up a fight against having all their thoughts scrambled by Fate/crazy chemistry of Love at First Sight. The soulmate stories almost always feature a near-instant love, where the people are simply perfect for each other without any greater doubts or questions. So it got me thinking - what if they fell in love with someone truly horrible or someone they couldn't respect as a partner? Or what if one of them simply wasn't interested in a relationship? Since I have rarely seen this particular theme used in a romance (I haven't read much fanfiction these past two years), I have decided to tackle it myself.
I'm sorry for the slight delay in posting – this chapter was really hard to write. I wrote three different versions of it and made countless edits before I was finally satisfied with the work. The rest of the story is mostly written, but Dwalin proved himself to be most uncooperative :) Thank you everyone who has left comments or favourited this story! You support gives me the energy to plod my way through the endless hours of editing.
The next chapter will be posted on Saturday, December 7.
Fanart for this chapter can be found here: nazgullow dot deviantart dot com / art / Discovering-Mr-Baggins-Dwalin-425697924