18 March TA 2942
Pepper hummed to herself as she snapped cleaned linens onto Ríkin's bed. A lock of tightly-coiled apricot hair fell into her face, escaping the hair snood she'd donned hours before. She paused to tuck it safely away behind one long, pointed ear. She eyed the results of her work, bubbling over with happiness. Ríkin's room was spotless and cozy. The dwarf would never admit it, but she was certain he enjoyed the comforts she provided, just as she was convinced the other dwarves and men adopted by her brownie sisters secretly felt the same.
The muttered imprecations that they'd been greeted with at first, however, had rankled. If the dwarves and men had not appreciated the work done on their behalf, if they'd wished the brownies gone, why had they not sprinkled salt across their doorsteps? It was a simple enough measure. Instead, they had grumbled and commanded the brownies to reveal themselves, but not a one lit the candle in accordance with Etiquette. No candle, no saucer, and now, no words at all directed the brownies' way from even Prince Kíli. What was it she and her sister brownies must do to earn their new hosts' acceptance?
Setting aside her grumpy thoughts, she vibrated with giddy joy as she closed her eyes… and indulged. A brownie's ever-present awareness of place washed over her. It was a decadent sensation, one that prompted her to wrap arms around herself and wriggle in delight. All her life, that amorphous and necessary brownie sense had moaned a hungry, forlorn lament. Now, a veritable feast of place returned to her. The seeds she'd sown the first time she'd cleaned her host-family's lodgings had blossomed with every subsequent swipe of her cleaning cloth. It deepened with each act of service. After months here, she knew every item, every inch of both floors and walls of this house, and they radiated back to her questing touch with a chorus of reassuring place. And best of all, place roared back in crackling, bonfire proportions from the three dwarves comprising her host-family whenever they were present.
For the first time in her life, Pepper was warm, through and through. How glad she was that she had remained with Ríkin and his brothers after The Flour Event. Truthfully, it had been her fear of Withdrawing from lack of place that had caused her to stay and not any boldness on her part. When Ríkin had brandished his halberd at young Hyssop, and then Thorin had referred to her with such a scathing term, she'd feared for the brownies' future. But with another month now under her belt, she was much more confident that when the brownies had followed Thorin, they'd chosen wisely.
Brushing the linens smooth, she left a small sweet upon a dish by the bed, something she did for the brothers nightly. Tonight, she deposited a honeyed cluster of pecans, a treat she'd copied after watching Bombur in his kitchens.
Hands dipping into the pockets of her work apron, Pepper scanned first Ríkin's room, then Thekkin's and Eikin's. Clean, she decreed, satisfied with her work.
A low chime drew her attention to the fascinating clock upon the mantel, an amazing thing of gears and weights constructed by Hyssop's clockmaker. Pepper's brow furrowed. It was really so late? Thekkin, the eldest, was often delayed in returning due to the demands upon his time. An engineer of note, it was his task to orchestrate the repairs of decayed stairwells and fallen walls scattered through the mountain. He'd been working longer and longer hours to prepare for the arrival of the first wave of immigrants from the Iron Hills.
But where were Eikin and Ríkin?
OoOoOo
"You've been holding out on me."
Kíli pasted an innocent expression upon his face as he turned to face his brother, unable to talk for the delectable confection he'd plopped into his mouth a breath before Fíli's untimely visit. Chewing, he watched Fíli's brows climb higher and higher as his gaze flew from the tray of sweets upon the table behind Kíli, to the many carpets arrayed across his floor, and finally to the rich robe in which he often relaxed – in private – many an evening.
Fíli fingered the robe where it lay draped over a chair. "Where did you get this?" Then with more volume, "Where did you get any of this? Your rooms are richer than Uncle's."
Kíli finished chewing, swallowed, and gave his brother a bright smile. "I keep telling you, Brother, but you do not listen. Be nice and you reap the rewards." Mindful of his Uncle's stern, if baffling, admonition to never speak of the Helpers aloud, he switched to the silent dwarf sign language of iglishmêk, *Did you know our Helpers dance at night to weave the most interesting fabrics?*
Fíli's eyes bugged out. *You've seen them?* his brother demanded, his gestures turning sharp.
*Not yet,* Kíli said with a smirk. *I saw only the fabric as it formed. But they laugh and sing while they dance.* Lifting the tray of confections, he asked his brother, "Would you like a sweet?"
Fíli ignored the offering. *You've found a way to track them?*
Kíli shrugged and set the tray down. Then quirking a lop-sided grin, he signed, *Use your nose, Brother. You'll figure it out.* And if he didn't, well, Kíli could stand to retain his lofty status as the Helpers' favorite dwarf.
OoOoOo
Ríkin tossed back another pint of beer, his hale eye upon his opponent. Gloin crooned to his tankard – some silly ditty about hairy dwarf women – and then chugged his own portion of the round. Ríkin vowed he'd not be bested in a drinking competition, no matter the other dwarf's reputation. He had the Iron Hills' honor to uphold, now, hadn't he?
Aye, he declared to himself, pounding his fist upon the table and glaring at the redheaded dwarf who seemed determined to sway in his seat in a truly baffling fashion. Ríkin squinted, trying to bring the older dwarf into clarity, but Gloin remained stubbornly fuzzy.
Beside his opponent, the toymaker, Bofur, snorted and asked with raised brow, "Now, you're certain you wish to do this, lad?"
Did he think him so easily deterred from a challenge? Glowering, wondering why Bofur had taken to swaying just as Gloin had been doing moments before, Ríkin held out his tankard for a refill.
OoOoO
"I should slip salt into his ale."
At Nutmeg's frosty observation, Pepper whipped around, her eyes swift to locate her sister standing silently just inside the front door. Pepper hadn't even heard her enter. One look, that's all it took, and Pepper flew into the kitchens, placing her body between the keg in question and the riled brownie with vengeance upon her mind. What Ríkin had done this time to irritate her sister, she didn't know. It seemed Nutmeg daily had another bone to pick with Pepper's dwarf.
Not that Pepper didn't understand the sentiment. She hadn't upended a vat of honey over the dwarf's head for nothing. Ríkin, she'd come to find, was grouchy, opinionated, and irritating at times. But she'd also come to discover he was loyal, stubborn in his affections, and willing to shed his own blood to protect his fellow dwarves.
"I didn't say I'd do it," Nutmeg said with a little sniff as she followed.
Pepper arched one brow. Nutmeg was not above doing just what she threatened, and Pepper's dwarves adored sitting by the fire with a mug of ale at the end of the day too much for Pepper to allow anything to interfere with that enjoyment.
Folding her arms before her, she studied the sister closest to her in age. Like the youngest of the three, Clove, Nutmeg had inherited her selkie father's heart-shaped face and beautiful, mannered tresses that tumbled in loose, sable curls to her hips. Pepper, meanwhile, had her own, peachy-apricot mess of curls from her father – a siren who'd likely been the victim of the Old Ones' twisted games when he forced himself upon her mother. She blamed him for her freckles, too.
"Don't start, Nutmeg," Pepper warned. Out came her knitting needles.
And her last skein of yarn from Faerie.
With barely a clack, she worked out her frustration in proper brownie fashion. "These brothers are my host-family," she reminded her sister with needles racing.
"The Ri brothers are more deserving," Nutmeg countered, hands upon her hips. "You should not have stayed with these three. Do you think they will ever welcome us? They detest outsiders. The Ri brothers, I'll remind you, ventured into Faerie for that pair of naiads. They are not xenophobic."
Pepper grumbled under her breath, the scarf she'd had in mind forming beneath her flying fingers. "This is about Bilbo again, isn't it?" No real question lingered in her mind, for Nutmeg had taken a dislike to Pepper's Ríkin the very second he'd grumbled in what he thought was private to his brother that the hobbit had no place in a dwarf kingdom. That Ríkin was not the only Iron Hills dwarf to feel this way pricked Nutmeg's protective instincts. Ríkin had, Pepper suspected, become symbolic for them all in Nutmeg's mind.
"Yes, it's about Bilbo." Nutmeg snatched a cloth from her skirt pocket and swept it over the gleaming surface of the kitchen counter. The clean kitchen counter. That told Pepper in no uncertain terms that this was more serious than she'd thought.
Pepper forced her hands to still. She shoved the needles and yarn back into their proper place in her pocket. Stepping to her younger sister's side, she placed a hand upon her shoulder. "What happened?"
Nutmeg's head bowed, and her fidgeting halted. "Some worry is plaguing him," she whispered. Her head lifted, and Nutmeg's walnut-colored eyes – the same shade every brownie shared – glinted with unshed tears. "He hides it from the dwarves, but I see it when he's alone. I never expect this…this…caring to be so difficult, Pepper," her sister said in a lost voice.
Pepper hugged her, understanding exactly what it was Nutmeg meant. None of the sixteen brownies to follow the strange, bold dwarf king from all they'd known had any experience with host-families. Faerie was no safe place. With the Old Ones, or echnari, liable to pervert any ties with their games, few had dared to embrace any into their affections other than immediate family. It left the brownies frightfully vulnerable, slashing their numbers, for a brownie without place was a dead brownie. Her mind would turn inward in search of that needed security, driving her into memories or even fantasies. Withdrawing, they called it, and Pepper had seen brownies in the midst of it too many times, including her older sisters, Anise and Myrrh. The brownies in question died in days if not located and devoured sooner by Faerie's many predators.
To have a wealth of place was a joy, but Pepper knew each brownie wrestled with an avalanche of feelings they'd not expected. They'd not known how with every act of service they rendered to their chosen families, the seeds of place would grow in the family members…and with it, a deep and unwavering devotion.
"What can we do?" Pepper asked, rubbing her sister's back in circles.
Nutmeg sniffled back tears and straightened, one hand dashing away tears. Her heart-shaped face with its fine webbing of tiny white scars – an ever-present reminder of the echnari's sadistic cruelty – turned Pepper's way. "You could let me at that dwarf's ale," she replied tartly. Before Pepper could blister her ears for suggesting such a thing, Nutmeg's nose scrunched up. She took a deep breath and tossed her head. "I had a reason for coming."
Pepper flicked her in the arm. "You don't need a reason. You are my sister."
Nutmeg's lips twitched. "Poor you."
Pepper beamed. "I'm glad you finally realize the burden I bear."
A short burst of laughter broke free from her sister's constraint. "Ha-ha." Then more seriously. "Órvar was murdered."
A thrill of alarm made its frosty way down Pepper's spine. "Murdered?" She seriously considered snatching up her needles again. "I thought the healer, Nithi, declared it a rare heart ailment."
Nutmeg's head jerked in an emphatic no. "Comfrey was there," she said. "Those ghastly things that have been haunting these halls?"
Pepper inched closer, lowering her voice. "The undead creatures?"
Her sister inclined her head in assent. "One of them caused it. Comfrey said that it poured terror and despair upon Órvar until his heart gave way."
Pepper's head reeled. "So that's what he was about," she whispered.
Nutmeg's eyes sharpened. "What who was about?"
Pepper's teeth clamped about her lower lip for a moment. Then with an inhale, she said, "One of them came into King Thorin's study a few days ago." Nutmeg's eyes widened, and Pepper hastened to add, "Thorin pretended he felt nothing, but I saw perspiration bead his forehead. So I…broke Etiquette," she confessed with a guilty grimace.
Her sister's eyes somehow managed to widen all the more. "Again? What did you do, Pepper?"
Pepper's needles materialized in her hands and the quiet clacking recommenced. The tip of her tongue touched her upper lip. "I stood between him and the foul beast. It helped, but not enough, so I took hold of his hand."
"You did what?"
"I only held his hand, and he never indicated in any fashion that I had," Pepper rushed to say. "The creature didn't know I was there."
Nutmeg raked fingers through her hair. "You may have saved his life," she said at last. "Yew's orders aside, we cannot let these things harm our new people."
Pepper's shoulders relaxed at her sister's lack of censure. She'd broken Etiquette, and that was a fact. She dropped her gaze to her needlework, the rhythmic motions of the needles soothing. "What about the dwarves coming to live here?" she asked. Worry for the group traveling even now to make their home in Erebor rose up in her chest.
Nutmeg lifted a helpless hand. "We can do nothing until one of our hosts lights the candle," she said a bit morosely. With a shake, she changed directions. "Your junior captain accepted a drinking challenge from Gloin this evening."
Pepper's needles stopped mid-action. Was he addled? "Gloin never loses."
Nutmeg headed for the door, her lips curled in smug satisfaction as she glanced back over her shoulder. "Don't be expecting him back anytime soon. He's in the Second Hall. You know how this will end." The door slid to a close in her wake with the merest click – Thikkin's doing, for the engineer had insisted the stone door be set in perfect balance upon its supports.
Pepper shoved the needles and yarn away once more. Yes, she did know how the drinking contest would end. The gullible dwarf in question would lie passed out upon the floor beneath the table for hours if not the full night.
She frowned. If those monsters roaming the halls were now striking down dwarves as the mood took them, she'd not have them targeting one of hers. Firming his spine, she marched over to Thekkin's weapons chest. He wouldn't miss the dirk she intended to borrow, not unless the dwarf emerged from the fierce, focused inward thoughts that had ruled him for the last few weeks. Dirk tucked into her apron pocket, she retrieved her worn coat from where she'd hidden her things in a small corner beneath Ríkin's bed and headed out the door.
Pepper ventured down one of the broad streets making up the town of Khûr-Gorn. Like most of the small villages scattered throughout the mountain, it sat at the base of a huge, square space chiseled out of solid stone countless generations before. And like the other eighty-six other villages, her new home of Khûr-Gorn had seven streets, one for each of the seven dwarf Houses.
It was too empty for her liking. She could easily imagine its streets bustling, the marketplace once more hopping. Pepper hoped that with the arrival of the immigrants from the Iron Hills, the bereft feeling of the place would disappear.
She hurried down the central thoroughfare as it exited Khûr-Gorn's cavern and down one of a veritable maze of towering passageways, choosing the most direct route she knew to the Second Hall. This late, Erebor was dark, its sunlight-and-mirror mechanism that kept the Halls a golden glow during the day now dormant. The dwarves, she and her sisters had discovered, had excellent vision in the dark. Only a smattering of them used hand lanterns at night, but that option was not open to her until the dwarves gave permission for the brownies to live among them more overtly. Until they lit the candle, she and her sisters were perforce left to an existence of invisibility.
Uneasiness filled her. The three, ghostly creatures that had slain Órvar had entered the kingdom nineteen days past. What their purpose might be, she didn't know, but they roamed about at all hours, peering over shoulders and watching the royal family closely.
The king pretended not to be aware of the creatures when they drew near, but Pepper knew otherwise. If he felt them, why did he refuse to heed Kíli when his nephew told him they must investigate the matter?
As soon as she gained the Second Hall, her inner senses lit up with a powerful node of place. Ríkin was in the northwestern corner of the room, hidden behind crowds of dwarves milling about. Eikin, she frowned to note, was not here.
A second, lesser note of place brought a smile to her lips an instant before a female voice murmured in her ears, "Isn't he dashing?" Her youngest sister, Clove, looped her arm through Pepper's.
Who-? Pepper swallowed the question, following her sister's gaze. Sure enough, there was Prince Kíli smirking at something his brother said. Like the other younger brownies, Hyssop and Comfrey, Clove was quite fond of the charming prince. Truthfully, Pepper understood why, for he was unfailingly considerate and kind. He might not have lit the candle, but he was generous with his words of praise. Or he had been, she corrected to herself. Something had caused him to go silent, but none of the brownies knew what that might be.
Unlike the rest of the dwarves, Kíli and his family fell under the province of all of Erebor's brownies. As Yew had declared before departing to follow her chosen host-family to Dale, the Durins were royalty, and so caring for them should be a joint venture, a privilege to be shared.
"And isn't our own Prince Fíli equally handsome?" Pepper asked, curious to see how her sister might respond.
A tiny frown claimed Clove's lips. Her sister slicked back a sable curl behind her pointed ear. In Pepper's opinion, Clove was the beauty of the family with her clear skin, glossy hair, and dark brown eyes. Pepper fancied that if Kíli ever did meet her sister, he might well be interested in the brownie, but she also suspected her sister was displaying such an interest in Kíli to mask a different attraction that frightened Clove with its strength. Clove, she'd come to realize, made much over Kíli while her eyes stole time and again to his older brother. Fíli was an honorable dwarf, but Pepper worried where such an attachment might end. Would the dwarves ever welcome them out into the open? And if so, what would Thorin think of a brownie daring to yearn for his heir?
"He is ungrateful."
Pepper's brows climbed. That was high criticism from her typically shy and gentle sister. Before Pepper could respond, a stumbling figure came into view. She was stunned to see her junior captain tripping over his own feet, the sharp edge of his favored halberd bobbing this way and that with his every wobbling footstep.
He's on his feet, she thought with a measure of pride. That is more than Gloin's other victims can claim.
"Prince Fíli is more deserving than him," a second voice intruded in a murmur. Cicely, Pepper identified as her touch went out and rang back with a hollow speck of place. Cicely's note of distaste burned in Pepper's ears as they watched her dwarf draw nearer in an unsteady path towards the hall's exit.
Pepper frowned, temper sparked at the unwarranted censure. Ríkin worked hard at Dwalin's side to ensure their home and surrounding lands were free of orcs. Pepper had not yet seen one to know exactly what an orc might be, but she'd heard enough from the men when they'd dwelled within Erebor to conclude they were dangerous.
"The Ri brothers need a brownie," Clove added softly.
Pepper stiffened, recognizing a conspiracy among her sisters. The idea of forsaking the three brothers she'd adopted for others was anathema to her. No brownie ever abandoned her chosen family once place was seeded, not unless they'd done something truly reprehensible. To insinuate her three were of that nature fired her blood. "We all ensure that those from the Company that helped save us are well tended," she hissed, bunching skirts in her hands before whirling around to march after her dwarf.
OoOoOo
Clove's lips pursed as she watched her sister follow after the dour Ríkin.
Cicely muttered something unflattering, and Clove frowned at the older brownie. "She is fond of them, Cicely. Be kind."
"Kind?" Cicely said archly. "That dwarf is not kind. He's suspicious of any outsiders, even your Nutmeg's Bilbo. He makes no bones about wanting outsiders gone." With that parting shot, the middle-aged brownie flounced off, her ash-brown curls bobbing with her every step. She disappeared into the throng of revelers, invisible to all but the other brownies.
Clove sighed. No one measured up to Cicely's standards but Balin, and he alone she served. If not for the other brownies, Dwalin would be living in a sty while his brother was lavished with every comfort a brownie could provide. How Cicely could fail to understand that ignoring Dwalin was a failure in caring for Balin, Clove didn't understand. A brownie should have better sense.
Cicely's unkind words of criticism about her own daughter's host-family flitted through Clove's mind. Poor Hyssop. The youngest of them, Hyssop adored Nyrar and Nyri, her two dwarves. To have her own mother chipping away at them with her barbs… The sad situation was difficult for Clove to watch, and more for Hyssop to bear.
Clove's lips curled up as she heard Kíli hoot, but it melted away as his brother joined in. Something about the heir's deep voice sent tingles through her, and she viewed her reaction with wary suspicion. With a sniff, she left the hall.
But she was unable to prevent herself from looking back one last time. Not to find the dark-haired prince, but to seek out the blond heir. Spitting a curse under her breath, she hurried away.
OoOoOo
Thorin's eyes scanned among his dwarves. 'twas good to see them so contented. Every day, Erebor became more a home, and he was proud to be its king. As he roamed among the revelers, heavy thoughts prevented him from truly joining in.
Helpers, Kíli had labeled their Faerie-borne guests, and help, Thorin had watched them unfailingly provide. Whether they ever revealed themselves, they lived among his dwarves and aided them. Not a one of the dwarves' lives was not easier for their presence. That meant they were Thorin's to protect, uninvited or not.
He remembered the feel of a small hand wrapping around his days before when one or more of the Ringwraiths had approached. He knew not if it was the knowledge that he had an ally that had cut through the fear the wraith had stricken him with or some innate trait of the hand's possessor. Little did it matter. The end result was a boon he'd not forget.
Mahal sent us our naiads, he thought, nodding as Gloin shouted a boisterous and slurred greeting. Could he have sent the Helpers as well? It bore consideration. Cursed wizard. He'd give much to be able to reach Radagast the Brown, but that one had remained in Faerie, setting things to rights, and had given them no idea when he expected to return. Gandalf had departed months past to seek counsel from Saruman the Wise and had yet to return.
Four years. Radagast had warned the longest they'd have to endure the Nazgûl would be four years. He hoped the wizard was correct. Thorin pinched the bridge of his nose. It had seemed a simple enough task at the start. Now, four years seemed a lifetime.
OoOoOo
First, Ríkin lost hold of his halberd. Pepper grinned as it dropped to the stone floor with a deafening, echoing rattle. Her dwarf stared around with bleary eyes as if unable to determine where the noise had originated. She'd never seen him in any state but that of the in-command junior captain, and this sight was one she committed to memory. It was rare to see him look his age, for the false sternness to vanish and reveal the more expressive, youthful visage beneath.
Only his family saw him so. And her.
Next, he walked into a column, banging his forehead hard upon the rock cylinder. Pepper winced. He fell to his rump, one hand a-rub upon said forehead as he peered up at the column from beneath lowered brows. Had he been of any other race, she suspected her dwarf would have knocked himself senseless. Instead, he glowered at the masonry as if it were to blame, muttered words spilling from his lips. Pepper would have paid much to learn what he said. She smothered sniggers with one hand.
An icy finger traced her spine. Pepper snapped upright, amusement abandoning her. Swiveling around, she scanned the darkened hallway around them, her chill gaining pointed teeth upon spotting one of them: a tall, gaunt thing that reeked of vileness to her senses. Roughly the size of a man, it had skin the color of a fish's underbelly and snowy hair. It lacked lips, and its nose was a sunken depression. But what unnerved her with each sighting was the empty pits where the eyes should be, pits that swirled with black, malevolent shadows.
Were they ghosts? She'd debated the point with the other brownies before, but none had answers. All they knew for certain was that the creatures left no sign of their passage and one could see through them as if they were comprised of nothing more than air.
Pepper kneeled before Ríkin, using her body to shield him. Her lips brushed his blunt ear as she leaned close, the fingers of both hands clamping about his upper arms. "Danger," she whispered. A burst of protective anger swept through her. Ríkin did not see the creature, though she felt the strong muscles beneath her fingertips tense as he blinked down the shadowed hall, a frown taking him.
Stay away from him, she thought, glaring over one shoulder. Her right hand slipped into her work apron and settled upon the small dirk she'd filched. A wave of dread crashed over her, but as with her sisters, it found little purchase. She'd not survived decades of Faerie to be overcome by fear or hopelessness now. You'll have to do better than that. She'd endured the echnari. This thing was no match.
OoOoOo
Ríkin heard the breathy, feminine warning of danger, but it was the fear growing around him that dashed the last vestiges of ale-befuddlement from him. One small hand was wrapped around his right bicep, and a whiff of cinnamon lingered in the air.
'twas the lassie he'd caught once before. Of that, he had no doubt. Anger flared, died. Questions raced through his mind, questions he knew important, but his mind struggled to latch hold of them as the remnants of ale and the keen fear building around him combined to form a potent brew that attempted to rid him of his wits.
The fear climbed higher yet, and the wee body before him pressed closer, one small arm wrapping around his shoulders. He'd never admit it, but a part of him suspected he'd be in danger without that cinnamon scent and gentle hold reminding him of bright things like affection and goodness, things he'd not given much thought to before. He was a dwarf, not a female, he grumbled to himself – Ríkin was certain none of his brothers or warriors gave the matter much thought, either. But as the smothering darkness stole over him, that brightness became his lifeline.
What caused this terrible fear? He'd experienced the brush of it a handful of times in the last month, but naught like this. He'd heard tales – aye, he had – from others whose hands shook as they tossed back their beers. None had seen anything to explain these…these…terrors, he at last labeled. What new horror had entered their kingdom? You'll not drive us from these Halls, he vowed, knowing it was sheer dwarf cussedness fueling the oath.
A soft cheek brushed his, and cinnamon filled his nostrils. As the onslaught continued, Ríkin endured as the wee Helper held him tight.
Mayhap it was a good thing he'd not laid out hunters' snares for the invisible Helpers as he'd once considered.
OoOoOo
Minutes passed while the creature hovered right behind her. What it sought, she didn't know, but it seemed to relish causing Ríkin to quake. The dwarf's face betrayed none of his struggle, but his flesh shook as the terror pouring off of the creature escalated. It was an assault, pure and simple, and it delighted in watching him wrestle against its evil.
Pepper's arm tightened, and she eased closer and closer until the dwarf was fully in her arms and her cheek brushed against his gray beard. Should Ríkin betray any sign of physical distress, she prepared to attack the creature, though what damage her small dirk might do, she couldn't imagine.
They waited, locked in a close embrace that she thanked the All-Father Ríkin did not try to return. She did not know if the thing could prey upon her fellow brownies, but she did not wish to find out for certain. Her left hand settled against Ríkin's throat, her thumb sliding across the warm skin in reassurance.
At last, the fear abated. Pepper craned her neck around, not moving as the thing glided away. The instant it was out of sight, Pepper abandoned Etiquette without a qualm and grabbed Ríkin's arm, urging him to his feet. "Hurry," she whispered. "Before it returns." With one arm wrapped around his waist, she got the muddle-headed dwarf going, though his feet tripped over one another as he kept looking down towards her. By the All-Father, he had the bluest eyes, she thought, almost distracted by her first view of them up close. Though one was hidden now by a cloud of white, the other truly was the purest cobalt in color.
OoOoOo
Ríkin feigned a continued inebriation he no longer felt, his mind focusing upon this one chance to glean more about the strange Helpers none had clapped eyes upon. His nostrils flared time and again. Aye, the cinnamon came from her, right enough.
"Eh?" he slurred, rolling his hale eye as if unable to focus. Irritation flickered to life to find the stubborn female yet hidden from view. She did not know it, but the tables had turned. She'd not escape him a second time.
She paused, and from the feel of her beneath his arm, he knew she looked behind them. Worried about the Terrors, he deduced. Did she know what they were? Had her people brought the things into Erebor? Only with rigid determination did he keep the resulting scowl off his lips.
She protected you. That, too, he turned over in his mind. Nay, he decided. The unseen Helpers had lived among them for months before the Terrors had arrived. Unless they fled from the Terrors and were pursued. Could the new threat be hunting the lass struggling to aid him home?
He scowled at the darkened passages behind them.
OoOoOo
Throwing a glance over her shoulder, Pepper picked up the pace, prodding Ríkin to do the same. Her sisters would blister her ears with their complaints if they heard she risked discovery by the ghastly things. It was bad enough she'd broken Etiquette – again – for a dwarf without permission.
The trip home was harrowing. Her skin prickled with unseen eyes – her imagination, she hoped. Once inside the front door, she pushed and shoved him towards his bedroom. The obstinate dwarf grunted and grumbled in his native tongue, happy enough with the main room and its warm fire. He dropped onto the sturdy, wooden bench she'd covered weeks before with fur pillows.
Taking her with him.
And suddenly, her drunk dwarf went from inebriated weakling without the strength to straighten his knees to unyielding captor. Arms of iron locked around her, squashing her against a hard chest. That fast, she found herself pinned in place on the dwarf's lap, his silvery-gray mustache hiking up on one end.
"Ríkin, you drunk fool," she grumbled, twisting for freedom.
A satisfied grunt. "Not drunk, lassie," he said, every note of slurred speech or bafflement abruptly missing from his voice.
Uh…oh? She struggled all the more.
He tightened his grip enough to overcome her protests, and Pepper's heart yammered as she realized her peril. He wouldn't hurt her, she didn't think, but why didn't the frustrating dwarf just light the candle if he had questions? Anger fueled her further attempts at escape, but he easily overcame them.
Dratted dwarves and their unnatural strength.
OoOoOo
Ríkin grunted in annoyance. Silly creature. Though his eyes could not see her, their tussle revealed a dainty bone structure and musculature that were no match for a dwarf. Mindful of the ease in which he could inadvertently hurt her, he adjusted his grip.
Just that fast, she was gone with a speed that left him blinking in disbelief. He levered himself to his feet, admitting that mayhap the drinking contest had been ill-advised as the room wheeled around him. "Ye've naught to fear, lassie." Silence. With fists upon his hips, his scowl deepened. Then a confused frown. Where had his halberd gone off to?
Ríkin growled low in his throat. No matter how he entreated the elusive lassie, she did not betray her presence again, though doubtless, his dam would argue that "Show yourself," and a gruff, "Come," hardly qualified as entreaty.
Could she walk through the very walls? Nay, he decided, brows lowered as he inspected the room hours later. She'd smelled of cinnamon, and the scent remained. His pacing steps halted. Hadn't he noticed that scent wafting through his home on more than one occasion recently? His jaw tightened. Could it be the small female lived with them? He rubbed the back of his neck. 'twas an odd notion, and he was not best pleased with it. He'd half a mind to hunt down Prince Kíli to ask him what he knew of the lass.
His scowl deepened as an unexpected rush of possessiveness raced through him. He did not like the idea of the wee lass wrapping her arms around Kíli if those Terrors neared him. He did not much like the idea of her tending to Kíli's home as she did Ríkin's.
A part of him knew he made not a lick of sense, but there it was. The next time he caught the lass, he had some hard questions for her.
Mayhap he'd set his mind to finding a way to nail her down. If the invisible lassie was set upon helping dwarves, she could remain with him. And his brothers, of course. He nodded once to himself. Aye.