Chapter 8 - Glóin
Chapter summary: The Lonely Mountain was a sight to behold.
The Lonely Mountain was a sight to behold.
It rose before them tall and forbidding, its base shrouded in mist. For someone seeing it for the first time, the sight was truly impressive. As the boats slowly floated closer, the company fell silent, gazing at the mountain in awe. For those of them who had lived in Erebor the sight brought back old memories, while the others simply marvelled at the sheer size and the fact that they were finally at the end of their journey.
Glóin himself was in the second group. He had never set foot in Erebor, having been born after the dragon attack, but both Óin and their father had often told him tales about the glory of the dwarven realm when he was a child. No tale, however, could do full justice to the sheer majesty of the mountain, which only left one to imagine the piles of treasure lying inside.
"If only Gimli could see this!" Glóin said to his brother as they set up camp on the shore.
Óin nodded thoughtfully, his gaze still on the mountain.
"Aye, Gimli will be terribly disappointed that he missed this. The sight alone is something to behold. I had almost forgotten how big the mountain was."
"I will have to ask Ori to make a drawing for me," Glóin said. "It will be still some time before Gimli can move in with us."
"You have a son?" Bilbo spoke up behind him. The hobbit had been puttering around with pots and pans, helping Bombur with the dinner, but Glóin's conversation had piqued his curiosity.
"Indeed I do." Glóin didn't mind the interruption. "He's a very fine, sturdy lad, and very brave. He wanted to go on the quest with me and Óin, but I forbid it. He is much too young to go adventuring."
"Our mother didn't want us to go, either," piped up Kíli. "She said that it's too dangerous and we're too young, but we both wanted to go. It was Uncle's idea to take us with him and he was quite stubborn about it. She gave in eventually, but they had a huge argument about it. Mother still wasn't happy with Uncle when we left."
"She may protest, but you are both adults and you can make your own decisions," Glóin told Kíli. "Gimli, on the other hand, is still far too young for this."
"Oh," Bilbo said, "how old is he?"
"He turned sixty two this year," Glóin announced proudly. "I suppose he's old enough to wield an axe - younger lads than him have fought in battles before - but if something happened to the two of us, there would be nobody to take care of my dear Nora. I couldn't bear to leave her all alone."
"Your wife?" Bilbo asked, a slight uncertainty in his voice. Glóin didn't blame him – dwarves as a whole were a private bunch, and they rarely divulged personal information to outsiders. He only had to remember the "there are no dwarf women" nonsense to remind himself that there were all sorts of misconceptions held about dwarves. Bilbo was a polite lad and clearly didn't want to offend him, so the caution was not misplaced.
Glóin gave him a warm smile.
"Aye, my wife. She is the most beautiful of all dwarven ladies, with eyes like sapphires and hair like a river of gold."
In the background he could hear several of their companions mutter: "Oh Mahal, not again," and roll their eyes but he paid them no mind. Bilbo looked genuinely interested, so Glóin left Óin to tend the fire and went to sit next to the hobbit.
"Here, I can show you her picture and you can tell me what you think." He dug out his medallion from under his shirt and cracked it open to show it to the hobbit. To Bilbo's credit, he barely blinked upon seeing the beard.
"She looks lovely. I assume the lad is your son. He looks a lot like you."
"That he does," Glóin nodded. "I'm afraid he inherited my temper as well as my colouring." He gave the medallion a fond look. "I cannot wait to see them both again. I have never been away from them for this long."
"How did you meet your wife? Or should I not be asking that? I don't want to pry."
Glóin waved away his apologies.
"Ask away, I don't mind. I met my beautiful Nora when I was little more than a lad. We were trying to settle down in the Blue Mountains, where my father worked as a sword-smith to feed me and Óin. I used to run errands for him, delivering weapons." His gaze turned dreamy. "And that was when I met her. She was carrying a loaf of bread down the street, frowning at the sun and I thought she was the loveliest being I have ever set my eyes on. I proposed to her right there and then and she whacked me over the head with the bread." He grinned fondly at the memory.
"She has a surprisingly sharp tongue for such a fair creature. She called me many unflattering names and refused to ever see me again. It took five years just for her to agree to courtship and another ten before she was willing to marry me." He smiled in admiration. "She is stubborn, my Nora."
Bilbo's surprised expression made him chuckle.
"Aye, dwarven courtship can take a long time. I knew at once that she was the one for me, but she had her pride and refused to give me the time of the day. Not everyone has it so hard though – my cousin Dáli married after just two years of courting. Still, I consider myself very lucky – there are plenty of us who never marry." He turned to look at Bilbo. "And what about you, Master Baggins? You have no pretty lass waiting for you at home?"
Out of the corner of his eye he saw several of the dwarfs straighten up and turn their heads their way, but Bilbo didn't notice anything, because he was staring into the flames. He shook himself quickly, plastering a polite smile on his face, but his eyes were shuttered.
"No, I don't have a wife, or children. It's not exactly uncommon, at my age, to be a bachelor, but it's not a popular choice, especially since I'm quite wealthy. My perpetual bachelordom is a great source of displeasure for many local matrons who hoped to foist their daughters on me and I'm frequently called selfish for having such a large home and living in it all by myself." He sighed. "I'd like to say that I like the peace and quiet, but it gets lonely sometimes. I wouldn't mind having a companion."
"So why aren't you married?"
Bilbo dropped his eyes to the ground.
"I haven't found anyone in the Shire who could hold my interest, but even if I did, the union wouldn't be received well."
"Why?"
Bilbo fidgeted.
"How do I put this delicately? Hobbits marry to produce children. It is expected that a Hobbit of an adult age would find a nice woman and settle down. A certain amount of...dalliance is tolerated in youth, but heavily frowned upon when one reaches marriageable age."
"OH!" Bofur exclaimed in comprehension, sitting down on the other side of the hobbit. "You like men?"
Bilbo buried his head in his hands.
"Can you shout it any louder? I don't think the elves in Mirkwood heard you."
Glóin clapped him on the shoulder.
"There's no need to be ashamed, lad, dwarves consider it perfectly acceptable. It would be hard not to, when there are so few women among us. Many dwarves marry each other and adopt a cousin or nephew to be their heir. It's a fairly common practice."
"Really?" Bilbo looked between them, relief evident on his features. "It it's true, then you dwarves have a lot more sense than my dim-witted countrymen. We can only adopt an heir when we turn eighty and it's clear we will never get married. Other than that, you can only name heirs through a will. I had a really hard time choosing my heir when I wrote my will in Bree, because I never expected to name one so early in life."
"You already wrote a will?" Bofur asked, incredulous.
Bilbo gave him a look.
"Well, I remember someone being very vocal about the potential for evisceration and incineration and other wonderful things the dragon could do to me. I simply took some reasonable precautions. Even if I don't count the dragon - who is not dead yet, by the way - the journey itself has been full of danger. It was not unrealistic to imagine I might not return from the quest."
Bofur had the good grace to look apologetic.
"Anyway," Bilbo continued, "I had to name an heir, which was no easy task, because there are so many relatives to choose from."
"Don't you have any siblings?" Kíli had crept nearer as they spoke and now plopped down at Bilbo's feet, looking at the hobbit with curiosity.
"No," Bilbo said. "I am an only child. It's one of the reasons why I'm considered odd by the Shirefolk. Most hobbits have at least four children. My father himself had four siblings and my mother eleven."
"ELEVEN?" Kíli's yell drew the attention of the few folks who hadn't been listening to their conversation until then. "You grandfather had twelve children?" His eyes looked ready to pop out of his head.
"Yes," Bilbo shrugged, "but that is considered a bit of an anomaly even by hobbit standards. My grandfather was also the longest living hobbit in all history, having lived until hundred and thirty. As it is, I have at least fifteen cousins just from my mother's side and there are several others on my father's side, making the number at least twenty." He frowned. "To be quite honest, I'm not entirely sure how many cousins there are in total, since they live all over the Shire. I had to choose the least annoying one to be my heir, which was a pretty tough task, and I only had three days for it."
"Who did you choose?" Glóin found himself quite curious, despite not knowing a single person in the Shire.
"I named my cousin Drogo as my heir," Bilbo said. "He is young, capable and fairly clever, for a hobbit. He was supposed to get married this summer to my other cousin, Primula. I would have probably made him my heir anyway in a few years, because he is the only person around with a lick of sense."
"I think you have been spending too much time around Gandalf," Dori said from behind them. "You're beginning to sound like him."
The dwarves all started to laugh.
"Are you sure you're not secretly a wizard?" Bofur asked with a grin.
"You would look really fetching in a pointy hat," Kíli snickered. Bilbo stood up with a look of exasperation.
"Someone should help Bombur with the fish," he announced importantly and started to walk away. After a few steps he paused and threw a look at Kíli, who was still chuckling. "You know, I thought about teaching you how to make smoke-rings, but now I see that it would be a waste of time. After all, wizards don't have time for such nonsense."
He started walking towards the river, leaving Kíli to scramble frantically after him.
"Wait!" The young dwarf cried. "I take it back!"
Glóin and Bofur just exchanged an amused look and went back to their work.
°O°O°O°
Even since the rowers had left them several days ago, a hush had fallen over the company. The mountain on the horizon came a bit closer every day and while before it had been calling them like a beacon, now it just looked ominous - a towering mass of dark stone against the steel-grey sky. The lands around the mountain lay barren for miles and miles, not a bird or a blade of grass in sight. The presence of rowers and their boats had given the dwarves an illusion of protection, so now that the Lake-men were gone the Companions all suddenly felt horribly exposed as they rode through the open land by the river.
The bleakness of the devastated land made their spirits sink lower each day and in the evenings they all huddled around the fire, casting suspicious glances into the growing darkness. Only Bilbo seemed more or less unaffected, humming a tune under his breath as he cleaned and then roasted the fish for dinner. Most of the dwarves just sat in silence with a frown on their face, their minds a thousand miles way.
Glóin had no idea what sort of thoughts the other Companions used to keep themselves entertained during the more tedious parts of their journey (such as during their stay in prison or their current trek to the mountain), but the one thing that occupied his mind most these days was his family. With the mountain looming nearer and nearer every day and the threat of the dragon almost tangible in the cold autumn air, Glóin found himself thinking about his wife and son almost constantly.
He wondered what Nora was doing, which led him to imagine her baking bread in the kitchen, humming a merry tune under her breath, her blue eyes shining bright in contentment. She would turn to him with a soft smile on her face and he would wipe away the small streak of flour on her cheek with a gentle brush of his thumb. He remembered Gimli, too - the joy in his eyes when he had given the lad a new axe for his birthday - and wondered whether his son had finally been accepted into the King's Guard.
Whenever he found himself feeling disquieted by the unnatural silence that lay over the dragon's land, he would comfort himself by thinking about home and the two people who waited for him there. He missed Nora's soothing hands and Gimli's booming laugh and couldn't wait to get back home. Sometimes, but not very often, he even caught himself wishing that he had never left the Blue Mountains and that he was still back at home, sitting by the fireplace with his wife and son by his side.
He took care never to mention that particular thought to anyone though, because he still vividly remembered how much scorn the hobbit had gotten for his homesickness during the first months of their journey. He had no doubt that he wasn't the only one who was thinking of the Blue Mountains as they travelled towards Erebor, but nobody was brave enough to confess to it.
"Will you tell us another story, Bilbo?" Kíli asked one evening after they had set up camp beneath the Ravenhill. He had risen from his place near the ponies and was now hovering behind the hobbit's back, watching him work.
"I see no reason why I shouldn't," Bilbo shrugged. "Just let me finish preparing the fish first and then you can have any story you want."
The evenings of tales had started in Lake-town – Ori had come to Bilbo one night to discuss an obscure elvish legend and since their conversation had involved brave heroes and fire-breathing dragons, it had caught the young princes' attention. Ever since then Fíli and Kíli had made it a point to ask for a story every night and so far Bilbo hadn't disappointed. He seemed to be a veritable fountain of old tales, delighting the youngsters with stories of great heroics and bloody battles of old.
The others had at first pretended that elvish tales didn't interest them, but after their departure from Lake-town Bilbo's evening storytelling had quickly become the main source of entertainment for everyone, since there was nothing better to do.
Bilbo complied this evening, too, sitting down on a log by the fire while the three young dwarves plopped down on a bedroll at his feet.
"What would you like to hear?" he asked them.
"You haven't told us much about the Shire," Ori said.
"That's because there's not much to tell," Bilbo said. "Nothing interesting ever happens in the Shire. I'm sorry to say it, but I think that your visit and my departure were probably the most exciting thing to happen since the Old Took's death, and that had been more than twenty years ago."
"Surely there must be something," Fíli insisted. "Didn't you mention that the goblins had attacked Shire once? You already told us about the wolves, but you haven't said much about the goblin invasion. That one must have been exciting."
"Well, I don't know about exciting, but it does make for a pretty good story," Bilbo said. "I think Kíli especially will like this one." He gave the dark-haired dwarf a smile.
"Why me?" Kíli demanded.
Bilbo's smile turned mysterious.
"Wait and see. Have you ever heard about my ancestor Bandobras Took?"
Fíli and Kíli shook their heads, but Ori looked thoughtful.
"I think I vaguely remember Gandalf mentioning something about him on that night in the Shire, but I wasn't paying much attention to it."
Bilbo nodded.
"Yes, Gandalf spoke about him when he was trying to persuade me to join your quest. He probably meant to motivate me to follow my ancestor's example, but I have to say that he wasn't very successful. The only thing he had managed to accomplish by his little speech was to annoy me, but you don't care to hear about that, do you?" he asked when he saw their confusion. "Anyway, back to Bandobras Took and the battle of the Green Fields.
"Bandobras was my great-great-great-great-uncle and to this day he is the most famous hobbit that had ever lived. It is said that he was the tallest hobbit in history - taller even then a dwarf - and that he had tremendous strength. Two hundred years ago, when the goblins invaded Shire from the north, he gathered an army and rode out to meet them. There were at least five hundred goblins at the battle and they weren't expected any opposition from the local hobbit folk, having plundered the village of Bree before that."
His smile grew into a full sized grin.
"The goblins thought that they could take Shire easily, but boy were they in for a surprise."
"What happened?" Kíli said, leaning forward eagerly. With his hair flopping around his head like that, he almost looked like an overgrown puppy.
"Bandobras drove them out," Bilbo told them. "He charged the goblin army on his horse and swung his enormous wooden club at the goblin king's head, knocking it clear off. It flew into the air and sailed clear over the goblin ranks until it landed in a rabbit hole a hundred yards away. When the goblins saw their king defeated, they threw away their weapons in dismay and fled. A few of them stayed and put up a resistance, but those were quickly dealt with.
"And so ended the battle and my ancestor became a hero. They started calling him Bullroarer for his deed and his victory was celebrated in the Shire for many years." His eyes flew over the assembled dwarves and he didn't seem very surprised when he found out that everyone was listening to his story.
"You know, an interesting thing about Bullroarer Took is the fact that he never held any sort of official position in the Shire. The title of Tháin was held by his older brother, who had been too scared of the goblins to do anything about them. With Shire in danger and no one to lead them, Bandobras had stepped up and decided to protect the land himself."
His gaze slid back to the three young dwarves.
"I suppose that if there is anything to take away from this story, it is this: one doesn't need any fancy titles to be able to do great things, just like simply having a title of some sort doesn't make you great. It's your actions that speak for you and make you who you are, not the names that other people give you."
The dwarves sat in silence for a moment, digesting the story before Kíli spoke up.
"So this Bandobras – he was the younger brother?"
Bilbo nodded, obviously amused that this particular detail was the first thing Kíli had latched onto.
"Yes, he was the younger of the two."
Kíli's mouths stretched into a triumphant smirk and he nudged Fíli in the ribs with a meaningful look.
"See, Fíli? He was the younger brother."
Fíli shoved him back and quickly turned to look back at Bilbo in an attempt to ignore Kíli's smug grin.
"How come he was so strong?"
"He was a lumberjack," Bilbo said. "He spent most of time by swinging an axe and carrying tree trunks. I think he even won an arm-wrestling match against a dwarven blacksmith once, so one good hit with a club didn't pose much of a problem for him."
"And you are this hobbit's descendant?" Ori asked, looking a bit wide-eyed.
Bilbo sighed.
"Sadly, no. I am descended from the older brother, the Tháin."
"Who is the Tháin, anyway?" Fíli said, valiantly trying to ignore Kíli's hand that was poking him in the side. "Is he like a king?"
"No, he's the King's Steward," Bilbo said. "He's the highest authority in the Shire and the chief peacekeeper. The title has been handed down in the Took family for more than a thousand years."
"Could you be a Tháin, too?" Kíli asked eagerly. Bilbo chuckled, shaking his head.
"Possibly, but it is not very probable. I am too far down the line of succession to even be considered. My grandfather was a Tháin, but he had many children and even more grandchildren, so the title passed to his eldest son first. When uncle Isumbras died two years ago, it fell to one of my older cousins, but I'm honestly not sure which one, because there are so many of them. As far as I know, there are at least five cousins in the line before me, so the chances of me becoming a Tháin are very slim." He smiled at their disappointment. "I wouldn't want the title anyway so it doesn't matter.
"Why don't you want the title?" Fíli gave him a considering look. "Isn't it a great honour to be a Tháin?"
Bilbo snorted.
"Honour it may be, but it's far too much responsibility for my taste, and I wouldn't have any time left for my books."
That prompted laughter from several of the companions.
"Only you, Bilbo," Fíli said when he finally stopped giggling, "would turn down a position of power for your books."
Bilbo shrugged.
"I have no use for power. I am just a simple hobbit and matters like that don't concern me. No, the title is better left in the hands of someone who can appreciate it properly.
"So you don't have any titles?" Kíli asked, exchanging a mischievous look with Fíli.
"Goodness, no," Bilbo said, and the genuine horror in his voice set them off again.
"Maybe we should give you one, when this is over," Kíli suggested with a playful grin and danced away from the kick Fíli tried to give him. "Something fancy, to go with the cro-"
He didn't get to finish the sentence, because Fíli pounced on him, tackling him to the ground, where he started tickling him mercilessly. Kíli's squeals of laughter were soon cut short by Thorin, who stormed over and gave them both a lengthy lecture about danger and the importance of laying low.
Needless to say, there wasn't any more laughter to be heard that night.
°O°O°O°
Waiting on the doorstep was mind-numbingly boring. The past few weeks had been marked by bouts of excitement and feverish activity as everyone searched for the possible location of the door, but now that they had found it and nothing interesting was happening, the mood had quickly grown sombre again.
While the others puttered around the camp behind him, preparing their bedrolls beneath the standing stone, Glóin sat on a watch on the edge of the small green terrace, bored out of his mind. Today he had already polished all his axes three times, stoked the fire twelve times and in a fit of desperation even borrowed a thread and needle from Ori to try and mend his socks, despite the fact that hated sewing with the passion of a thousand burning suns. His attempt at fixing the holes in his socks had left him with several annoying lumps in places where the holes used to be, and since he couldn't come up with anything else to busy himself with, there was nothing left for him to do but sit on his arse and glare into the slowly gathering dusk.
He let his gaze slide between the camp and the valley below (and occasionally the sky), alternately watching his friends and the outskirts of Mirkwood. Nearly all the dwarves were in the upper camp with the exception of Bombur, who had stayed below to look after the ponies. As he threw another look at his friends, Glóin suddenly realized that Thorin was nowhere to be seen. Before he could make up his mind whether he should go and try to find Thorin before the night fell, Balin walked past, giving Glóin a friendly nod.
As it turned out, Thorin hadn't wandered very far – when he leaned to the side a bit, Glóin could hear the echo of his voice coming from the walkway above. He and Balin weren't talking loudly enough to be heard in the camp, but their voices carried well enough for Glóin to make out their words without much difficulty.
"Have you spoken to him yet?" Balin asked.
"I have spoken to him several times, if you must now. We talk every day." Glóin thought that Thorin sounded awfully put-upon.
"That's not what I meant."
"I know what you meant," Thorin said. A moment passed before he gave an exasperated huff. "No, I haven't asked him yet, nor do I intend to anytime soon."
"Why not?" Balin asked, obviously baffled. "What is stopping you? Surely you must know that he wouldn't refuse you, if you made the offer to him honestly."
There was a moment of loaded silence that made Glóin desperately wish that he could see Thorin's face. This way he could only guess what the dwarf was thinking. It was a while before Thorin replied and when he did, it was with heart-breaking honesty.
"I'm little more than a beggar at this point, Balin. What do I have to offer him beside my family heirloom and a death by a dragon?"
"Oh for-" Balin seemed lost for words. He recovered quickly enough. "Do you really think any of this matters to him? That you will need to impress him with your wealth or your royal title before you can make him an offer? If you really think that, you shouldn't be courting him at all, because you obviously don't know him well enough."
"No," Thorin sighed. "I know he doesn't care about any of that. He has made that more than clear. Still, I would like to be able to offer him a home and a position worthy of his status. I will ask him once I am crowned King Under the Mountain. Until then it would feel like I am begging for his affection without having nothing to give in return."
Thorin and his love of melodrama.
If Glóin's eyes could roll any harder, they would have popped out of his sockets and bounced down the mountainside all the way into Mirkwood.
Had he himself been that overdramatic when he had courted Nora? Glóin couldn't help but wonder. For the sake of his own dignity, he desperately hoped that he hadn't - otherwise it wouldn't be any surprise that she had refused him for so long, just like it was no surprise that the hobbit looked more confused than charmed by Thorin's attempts at courtship. It was clear that Thorin was really trying – he made it a point to talk to the hobbit every day, probably in the hopes of forging a similar bond with Bilbo to the one that the hobbit had with the other companions - but no one who watched him could deny that this was an area he was woefully unequipped for.
His current conversation with Balin more than proved that.
Glóin had to admire the older dwarf's restraint. If it had been him leading that conversation, he would have had a hard time keeping his face straight, but Balin just sighed. Glóin could vividly imagine him shaking his head as he did it and when he next spoke, it was in a tone that one normally uses when explaining basic concepts to small children.
"Thorin, relationships don't work like that. You don't have to drown him in gold to make him love you. Just because you have finally started to see his worth doesn't mean that he himself has changed. He will treat you the same whether you're a king or a simple blacksmith – the only thing you need to do is to treat him well. He is not hard to please."
Thorin sighed.
"I will think about it."
"That would be wise," Balin replied. "However, be careful not to dally over your decision for too long. If you don't say anything, he will leave and you will never see him again. He has no reason to stay here once the quest is over."
"No, he doesn't," Thorin said quietly.
"Then you better give him one, if you want to keep him by your side." Balin said briskly. "I am going to go and see how the others are faring. Don't brood here for too long – the night isn't far away."
Less than a minute later Balin's silhouette appeared around the corner, treading carefully along the narrow walkway. He threw Glóin an amused look as he passed, probably aware that Glóin had heard the conversation, but didn't make any kind of comment on it.
Glóin privately thought that Balin should get a lot more than a fourteenth of the treasure, for all the work he was doing for the Company. Keeping Thorin sane and getting him to behave reasonably was a full time job - one needed nerves of steel and a great deal of good humour to be able to put up with his tantrums. Glóin himself wouldn't do it for all the gold in the world. He liked Thorin well enough, in small doses, but being in his company constantly for several months on end was...trying, to put it mildly.
Despite what the others might believe, Glóin hadn't been too eager to join Thorin on his quest. Sure, he like the occasional pub brawl or a good hunt as much as the next dwarf, but there were miles of difference between the occasional fist-fight and a months-long quest that was likely to end with a nasty death by dragonfire. Glóin was a family man first and foremost and the well-being of his wife and son had always been a priority for him.
Their life in the Blue Mountains wasn't bad, but it wasn't very glamorous, either. The mountain was cramped with all the dwarves who had settled there after the fall of Erebor and while Glóin made sure that they never went hungry, there was only so much money he could make working as a sword-smith in such a small community. Although their lack of wealth had never bothered him much, he still couldn't help but hope to give his family a better life one day.
While he might have a (admittedly deserved) reputation as a bit of a hothead with a temper that could run as bright as the furnace in his workshop, he had never been one to rush his decisions when they concerned things that really mattered. He had been one of the first people to be asked by Thorin, but one of the last to give their answer. After Thorin's initial request he had spent several weeks pondering the question while he worked on the blades and axes that Thorin had commissioned from him for the journey.
His first impulse had been to flat out refuse Thorin's invitation – after all, unlike the rest of the companions, he had a family to provide for and couldn't afford to just walk off into a faraway land and get himself killed. It was only after Óin had come over for a dinner and had spent the evening reminiscing about the glory of the lost dwarven kingdom that he started to even consider it. To this day he still remembered Gimli's excitement when Óin had announced that they were all going to move to Erebor, once he helped Thorin reclaim it.
After that it had been impossible to say no when Gimli turned to him and asked whether Glóin was going on the quest, too. Nora had looked a bit worried at the news, but hopeful as well, so hopeful, so he was left with no choice but to go and inform Thorin of his decision. Dragon aside, it hadn't been that terrible a choice. If they really did manage to reclaim the mountain, it would be a blessing for everyone involved.
And so he had gone with Thorin, Mahal help him. Now he could only pray that they all survive this mess.
To be continued...
A/N: Thorin utterly fails at romance. It is so much fun to write him, because he is just hopeless at all this.
I hope you all enjoyed the peace while it lasted, because in the next chapter it all goes to hell. From that chapter onwards I stop just filling in the book and start rewriting instead, so you can look forward to the whole Arkenstone mess and the ensuing fallout of the Company.
Thank you so much to everyone who has left kudos or comments on this (my mind boggles at the numbers) – your feedback makes me incredibly happy. I was a bit worried about working on this fic, since it's so much harder to write than the Unexpected Proposal, but your support gives me the courage to keep on posting :)
The next chapter will be out on this Saturday, December 14.