Chapter 2: Denial

And in the East, a growing Shadow, the promise of Oblivion.

'To each his day is given

The time of life is short and irreparable for all.'

So the old verse went. Once, I mentioned it to Ori, and he only looked at me quizzically. Dwarves are not given to such maudlin thinking over the brevity of life. Their lives are longer and engraved in stone. But Bilbo, when told, nodded sagely and shared with me the few such poems hobbits had. Here, I transcribe a verse of one I recall most clearly:

'Remember the flower blooming

Merry in the morning

Faded in the evening

Short but fair

Time in the sun

A life well lived.'

When I had been in my teens I'd gone through an obsessive phase after the Lord of the Rings films, and had spent more weeks reading and memorising obscure lore on Tolkien's worlds. Even then, the Hobbit book had been my true blind spot, having dismissed it and the events around it as less interesting.

And now, years later, I could barely remember any of it. My life had gone on; fantasies about fleeing to another world and becoming a hero there had been steadily replaced with the dreams and aspirations of my career and life.

Some of it had stuck—odd trivia. Dates. People. Events. But nominally from Lord of the Rings and some from The Silmarillion too. From the Hobbit? That I scarcely recalled. All had faded—but for one important detail: Thorin died at the end of the story. Him and his nephews.

Why was I in Middle-Earth, in the company of the doomed dwarven king, bound as I was? Had the Valar somehow plucked me from my world to save him and his kin? Ridiculous. Not only did Middle Earth have enough champions, agents of the Valar at work already, but if it was dire enough to require intervention, then Eru himself would've stepped in, as he had with the Undying Lands and Gollum.

And even if they had, even if they had—surely the Valar could have picked any number of people, rather than me.

Eru had a song, after all, and one that could not be changed or ruined, even by Melkor himself.

And Thorin and his nephews needed to die to keep the fate of Arda intact. I still recalled the legendary defence of Erebor by his cousin, Dáin and King Brand of Dale from the books. If it was Thorin, or his nephews instead, they could fall, and Erebor and Dale with them.

Or, worse, what if Fìli or Kíli went with the Fellowship instead? What of Legolas, and the Glittering Caves, and the three gold hairs from Galadriel's head?

I was no hero, and I wasn't some foolish child with stars in my eyes who believed in chosen ones, here to right all wrongs.

People died all the time. That was life. My dad had taught me that.

—

Thorin was awake—of course he was awake. Neither of us slept much anymore. The smell of pipeweed drifted and mingled with the clean smell of trees and grass and the embers from the fire.

I sighed and wiped my eyes as I blinked up at the stars that winked in the sky. Surely it was close to dawn?

"Tell me of your life," he said.

"What?"

"Your life. Tell me of it."

"No, I heard you," I said, frowning. "Why?"

"I wish to know."

I rolled to my side to stare at him. "And because I'm your subject, I'm just going to fall over myself to please you."

Thorin was silent, and his anger burst and faded as quickly as it had come. "You spoke of being lost in my memories." When I continued to stare, he added, "Tell me of what you recall of your life, and I will tell you if you stray into my memories."

I rolled back to my back, up at the stars. "I wouldn't know where to begin."

"Start with your family," Thorin suggested when the silence grew overlong.

A sterile white room, hand cold to the touch. "I don't want to talk about them."

"Then what else do you recall the strongest?"

I blinked a few times, gathering my thoughts. My hand touched my necklace. It felt cold to me, somehow, as cold as the stars overhead and just as distant. "Steve. My boyfriend."

Thorin waited, watching me.

Carefully, I sat up, coming to sit cross-legged, Thorin's cloak wrapped around me. "We've been together for ten years, or just about," I said, slowly, piecing it together. The necklace helped. It grounded me, reminded me. I saw a crooked smile to match crooked glasses. Deep green eyes. "He's a huge dork." I smiled. I hadn't realised how much I had missed him until I spoke his name aloud and found the words pouring from me. "He's six years older than me; I tease him about how he's an old man because he didn't like our age difference when we started dating. Which is dumb, it's not a huge gap. He's one of the sweetest, kindest, most intelligent people I've ever met, and I love him to bits and pieces." I touched the necklace at my throat. "I never considered myself the marrying kind until I met him. We were going to elope, because I wanted to surprise my dad."

The silence dug in deep. In the sky, there was light blooming on the horizon and I blinked rapidly in the burgeoning light. My breath came out in a stream.

Thorin was still watching me when my eyes returned to him. "I will listen, when you are ready to talk."

My eyes dropped to the safety of the ground. "Sure. Yes, thank you. Just... not yet."

"When you are ready," he repeated as steadfast as his name.

I felt a surge of gratitude and offered Thorin a hesitant smile. After a beat, he returned it; a small one, but true.

There was a sudden burst of prescient loss. I very carefully did not examine that feeling, and let it fade away as quickly as it came.

—

Gabrielle. Gabrielle Elenita Santos. Ellie.

My name.

Me.

After we'd spoken of her—

Of me, my memories, of my world, she solidified in my mind.

She was—

I was—

I was thirty. College dropout. A freelance artist and barista. I had a boyfriend. A family. Friends.

I remembered.

Except.

I remembered why I'd forgotten.

—

The days continued in a pattern.

I was always up before dawn, as was Thorin. Thorin would ask me to tell him of myself, or my world, of my life—

Anything, as long as it was mine.

I think, now, looking back, that it helped ground him too. To have me draw a boundary around the parts that belonged to me. Not that the pride of the dwarven king allowed him to admit as such to me.

Certainly, it helped me to speak of it. Each day I would methodically find a part that was mine and wrest it from Thorin. The instances where I showed sudden skill in woodcraft and fighting decreased, but my sense for who I was solidified, and I longer wandered through the day with a hollow confusion running ramshod over me.

Not that either of us, I believe, ever fully grasped the entirety of each other's lives. There was simply too much to remember and know all at once. It was like entering a vast, unsorted library; trying to find specific memories akin to locating a paper tucked in between all the books. Perhaps there was relief there, that we could still hold secrets from one another, that our entire lives were not subject to another's scrutiny.

If Thorin had gleaned his fate from my memories, I could not tell.

I doubted it, though. With how fractured the memories I had of him were, I suspected any such foreknowledge was drowned by all my other memories.

Perhaps his attention was taken by the technological marvels or my world.

As we spoke, we would have a breakfast of dried foods, interspaced with the occasional hot food, if our snares proved fruitful. Then we would walk all day, following a trail that I could barely see, breaking once or twice, until finally encamping for the evening, where Thorin would teach me woodcraft and swordplay until I passed out from sheer exhaustion.

The weather was mild, trending towards summer. The nights were very cool. Thorin's cloak saved me from freezing, and I was grateful enough to feel bad that Thorin went without. Though he was not comfortable, he refused my return of the cloak, shutting down any attempts with stony glares. I missed showers and being clean, very much aware of how sweaty and dirty I was. I tried to take comfort in knowing that only one person could smell me, and didn't care.

My pride in my personal fitness took a large hit; at home I was a gym rat, but an hour of weights and a weekly boxing class was definitely not equal to a cross-country, all-day hike. On top of that, Thorin insisted on the fighting lessons. There, again, another blow to my pride: the muscles one builds at the gym were not the same one needed for the business of sword fighting. I wasn't even using a proper sword. Just a stick, the one Thorin had carved for me that first night. A roughly hewn branch that he deemed the appropriate length for me. That, I was made to carry with me, doubling as a walking stick.

I began stretching before I slept, doing what I could to alleviate the stiffness of tense muscles. Thorin would watch with not a little bemusement.

"What, is stretching not a thing in Middle Earth?" I'd asked, after I'd straightened from touching my toes.

To which he'd only shook his head, and intoned, utterly seriously, "No, it is not 'a thing .'"

The unexpected English slang amidst his structured Westron caused me to snort, then giggle uncontrollably. His resulting bewilderment made me near fall over from laughing, which only doubled at his affront.

When I had finally calmed down, I'd apologised profusely, realising the king did not often have people laugh at him.

My over-abundant apologies had seemed to mollify him somewhat. But it was my melodramatic promises to fall on my sword before I laughed at him again that had finally gotten him to wave me off in disgusted acceptance, muttering about impudent women.

The landscape itself was gorgeous. We traversed mainly through plains. We crossed one river that was ludicrously blue. The mountains on the horizon steadily shrunk and faded into the distance. I'd been to New Zealand for an anniversary, and Middle Earth was much the same as the place the movies were filmed—although vastly more beautiful, owing to the unspoiled nature of it, and the magic running through the land.

When we stopped for rest, I always found the time to admire our surroundings—the blue of the sky, dotted with white clouds, or the birds calling in the trees we passed. The moon in the night sky, framed by an inky black sky, lit with more stars than I'd ever seen before in my life.

"Christ," I said. "You have so many stars."

Thorin was smoking his pipe. At my words, he glanced up at the sky, then looked back to me, baffled. "Is this so unusual for you?"

"Yes, Thorin, it is," I sighed. "I suppose it's normal for you. You must realise how breathtaking it is to me."

"Worshipping stars is for the elves," Thorin said dismissively.

I was undeterred. "It's not about that. Think of what my world looks like. I wish you could see it how I see it."

Thorin did not respond. After a moment, I met his eyes, his scepticism and his disbelief the strongest in what he shared. I gave him a shrug and a slight smile, and returned my gaze to the sky again.

Above, a night sky like I could never imagine unfolded above me. Something about them seemed brighter and sadder than the stars of my world. It helped to know that they truly were points of pure light set in the sky by deities, rather than distant balls of gas. Made by the Valar, some from the dew of the Two Trees; the same beauty had first greeted the newly woken elves. And one, one was Eärendil, sailing across the sky with one of the Silmarils. Magic: ancient, beautiful and real.

Thorin turned his eyes to the sky, and while he did not speak, I felt his surprise, as my awe and serenity spilled over to him. "I believe I can," he said softly.

We fell into a silence that was comfortable.

"Aulë's Forge," he said.

I started at the break in silence. "Sorry what?"

He pointed at a set of stars.

"That one is the Hammer, and there, the Giver's Fruit," he said softly, pointing at each in turn. He paused for a moment, and his voice deepened. "And that there is Durin's Crown."

I followed his finger and sighted seven stars grouped together. There was the faintest hint of familiarity like cobwebs settling. "Durin's Crown," I repeated, as the knowledge settled. Not the knowledge of it from the books, but no, something softer, deeper; pride as I looked about those seven stars. "There's a song," I breathed.

His head cocked slightly as he eyed my face, the pause long enough that I fidgeted with my necklace. But then, he began to sing, and I recognised the words—again, not from the pages of a book, but instead I sat at my father's knee, as Frerin elbowed me and Dís to stop squabbling to pay attention, as Mother and Father raised their voices in song—

"The world was young, the mountains green, no stain yet on the Moon was seen…"

The Song of Durin, the legend of how he'd awoken and seen a crown of stars atop his head when he'd looked upon Mirrormere. Oh, Mother and Father's voices had matched each other's so well, as well as they had, and they'd made me believe I could find my match in love too—

I emerged from those memories, not flailing as though drowning, but merely raising my head from a pool as still as the Mirrormere. Pain and longing both had settled in my heart, the sad, soft warmth of family embracing me. I blinked rapidly and refocused on Thorin and his sonorous voice.

"He was your ancestor, right? You're a Son of Durin," I said once Thorin finished.

"Aye. It is an honourable legacy, for he was the first awoken. The founder of Khazad-dûm. My forefather, and that of my kin." Thorin's face was shadowed and I thought perhaps he considered speaking more on the matter, but he fell back to silence.

I sat up then, feeling an odd itch in the back of my mind, bolstered by that fading warmth. "Thorin," I began. And I did not know how to continue my sentence.

I could not say how I felt in that moment, looking about the dwarven king I was bound to. Nor could I tell, exactly, how Thorin felt.

All I knew was that I looked upon Thorin, and thought I saw beside him a dwarf with dark hair and a laughing mouth, and a dam with strong arms and eyes like fire, and there, behind him, an older couple with silver hair and beards, both of them full of pride and love in equal measure.

And, in the sky above, not the seven stars, but an empty space, filled only by darkness, and then my vision was blurry—

"Go to sleep, Gabrielle," he said, eventually, when perhaps too long had passed of us only staring at each other in silence, "and recover your strength."

I took a breath and sighed it out, letting it all bleed away. After a moment, I lay back down. "Thank you." I felt his eyes on me still. "For telling me about your people. Your family," I added more quietly.

"No more than you already know," he said, and though he kept the bitterness from his voice, it leaked into the Bond, like ink in water, staining the peace of the moment.

My heart twisted sideways.

"I didn't ask for this," I said as I turned my back to him, wrapping his cloak around me and screwing my eyes shut. As if that act alone would hide my embarrassment at having been lulled into caring—

The next morning, Thorin woke me with a nudge with his boot. "Up. Time to practice."

I groaned. "It's not even light."

"The movement will wake you," he said mercilessly.

"It's cold as fuck," I said grumpily but stood as I did. I could barely see, with only the trace of the sunrise to light the dark. I said as much aloud, and sensed Thorin's impatience.

There was a rustle of clothing as Thorin shifted his weight. "I apologise."

"What?"

"Last night. I do not mean to blame you for… this."

"...huh?" I asked, stupidly.

I could not see Thorin's expression at all in the dark of the pre-dawn, but I hardly needed it. Embarrassment, bracketed by impatience and irritation both. "You heard me."

"Yeah. I did. But I just didn't expect it. An apology, I mean. Also, I'm still waking up. Am I dreaming?" I rubbed my eyes.

That, oddly, brought a curl of amusement. "We will wait for the sun to rise more so you can see."

"Cheers, mate."

"Would you tell me more of your world while we wait?" Thorin posed the question with a kind of strained formality I was too tired to untangle.

I yawned. "Okay. What do you want to hear?"

It did not escape me that I was the only one who shared. Thorin kept much of his life to himself. I had it in my head, yes, and it faded the more I wrested my life free from his. But he was reticent beyond the occasional tale.

I didn't mind. I missed my world with a keen sharp longing and speaking of it almost made me feel like I could simply take a step and find myself back in that room on Earth.

When I'd run out of details to speak of, I moved to more personal anecdotes and stories I knew—movies and books and shows and music.

"It's a game."

Thorin was walking ahead of me, and I spoke mainly to his back, but knew he listened.

"Not that I ever finished it. But, well, okay, I realise I shouldn't have just started singing a song about dragons. If it helps, the dragons are also sorta antagonists in the game, even though you, yourself play as a Dragonborn—"

"Your world is incomprehensible," he interrupted.

"Sure is," I agreed easily.

We walked in silence for a time longer, while I lost myself in thoughts.

Thorin turned to look at me. "Will you not finish your tale?"

"Oh! Oh." I blinked several times, surprised. "Didn't think you wanted to keep listening to me babble."

"I've grown used to it."

It was delivered with his customary irritation, at me, but still—

A hesitant smile curved the corner of my mouth. "Okay, well I never finished the game, but here's what I know…"

The wary tension between us eased. Not to say that it disappeared entirely, but it was hard to maintain constant contempt when you were around a person all the time and could sense the intent behind every action; the deep understanding made true hatred impossible.

Yet I couldn't help but feel that the forced familiarity held the two of us back from truly being friends. We were both too independent, secretive and guarded. And here we were, stuck in each other's company, possessed of each other's hearts and the secrets within.

It was untenable.

Yet, perhaps most devastatingly of all—we could not help but slip into being familiar with each other.

"Okay, okay, okay, so then my Tito, he's losing his shit, he's going off about how us kids are always on computers and how back in his day, kids just ran around playing games in the park, and that's how and why online bullying never became a problem for him, and meanwhile, my brother and I were both on our laptops and just kinda looked at each other, but with blank expressions, 'cause you know, that's the most insane thing anyone's ever said, and such a boomer thing to say, but really what did we expect, he's Filo, he's conservative and old, but also it would be so disrespectful to roll our eyes openly—"

"Breath, Gabrielle." The words were stern, but Thorin's lips were twitching.

"I'm breathing, I'm super breathing! I can complain about my asshat Tito Benny for days!" My dinner was abandoned as I practically bounced around the campfire.

"Okay, where was I? Right, so anyways, Tito Benny then does that thing where he just goes on and on about how kids just need to log off if people are bullying them online and how that would solve the problem—"

"You must realise that your tale makes very little sense." Thorin stopped pretending he wasn't amused. I grinned back at him.

"Hey, you're meant to be listening, shush, I'm nearly done!"

Thorin gestured for me to continue.

I spun on my heels so I could bounce back in the other direction. "So then that's when I point out that I'm a freelance artist and my brother is a web dev, and we're literally required to be terminally online and we simply can't be offline. And he just says, 'and that's why you're part of the problem'. Can you believe that?"

A long silence. Thorin seemed to be thinking very hard. "And he was wrong?"

"Yes! Weren't you paying attention? I mean come on. If I can track the lineage of Dvalin back twelve generations, then you should be able to understand why Tito Boomer saying 'log off mate' to people whose jobs are online makes zero sense." I put my hands on my hips and attempted a stern expression, but wasn't able to wipe the smile from my face.

Thorin looked unimpressed.

I bounded around and collapsed on the ground beside him, elbowing him playfully. "Oh come on, you're the one who asked."

There was a warm spark in his eyes and I grinned to see it. Then I froze and jumped up and away.

"Did I get you?"

Thorin stared. "What is the matter, woman?"

"Just then, when I elbowed you, did I touch your skin?"

His brows knitted. "No."

"Okay, good. That's good."

Realisation bloomed. "You fear the Bond," he said succinctly.

"And you don't? What if the next time I touch you I lose myself completely?"

"I do not live in fear."

"Bullshit," I said, before I could stop myself. "You're afraid too."

"I am not afraid," he bit out. A storm, whirling with rage and, yes, terror—

"You very clearly are!" I snapped back.

"You wish to speak to me of fear?" Thorin's eyes were burning with anger. "You? You who cannot even speak of your own troubles so you instead attempt to unearth mine—"

"Fuck you," I choked out. "Fuck you! He has nothing to do with this bullshit," I said, and then could have bitten my own tongue out.

"Has he? So it was not you who fled, and came before me? Are you not indulging in your curiosity if only to stop yourself from thinking of your father?"

I found I could be cruel. "You are mad, Thorin son of Thráin, son of Thrór," I sneered.

He paled. Then he turned away, silent.

And that was perhaps the greater rebuke than had he spoken at all.

—

I refused.

Banished it all.

Every thought, every idea.

I would not, could not —

Strength was knowing how to manage oneself. How to compartmentalise. There was a time to think and feel, and it was when you were in a safe space, alone, to process it all.

Here, with Thorin so close, linked as we were—

Whatever magic had bound us, made us linked to each other so, lied to us—

We were strangers, no matter how we may have felt—

And even if either of us had felt differently, how could we trust that, knowing how we were bound against our will?

What was between us had shattered all our secrets into shining shards thrown carelessly to the dirt. We were as children mindlessly picking up the broken pieces, without once stopping to wonder to whom they belonged, and how much they could make us bleed.

—

Strange to think of two days passing by with only the barest handful of words exchanged between us.

Thorin had never been one for small talk, and I had little interest in engaging with a dead man walking.

And yet—

With the dawning of the fourth day, that hollow void inside me began to abate. The air I breathed was lighter, a hint of flowers and petrichor on the breeze.

Thorin's eyes had skated past mine that morning, rather than the normal cold stare I was treated to. I got the sense he was preoccupied. Planning for the future, or brooding over the past—it could've been either with him.

I was loath to break the silence.

I swallowed my pride. "Thorin?"

Thorin had set up a pace that was just shy of punishing. And he had his own packs and weapons. He didn't even look hazed. I didn't even think he was sweating.

He didn't look at me, but I felt his attention swing to me as surely as if a spotlight shone on me.

"I wanted to apologise. About what I said."

The weight of his consideration sat heavy upon my shoulders, while I counted my breaths and retreated into that void, my hands working at my necklace.

"You would do well to mind your tongue in the future," he said flatly.

A twitch of reflexive anger. Here and then gone. All that remained was exhaustion. "I said I was sorry, and I meant it."

He was silent for a long moment. Then it was his turn to sigh. "I know you meant it." With us linked, I sensed his reluctant acceptance, even if his insulted pride stilled his tongue.

We continued on, me focusing on keeping pace with the much faster and less out-of-breath Thorin.

"I was angry after Azanulbizar," he said suddenly.

I counted my breaths, forcing them to stay even. "Yeah?"

"Many times, Dwalin and I would wind up bruised and bloody as we took to the sparring grounds until neither of us could lift steel or fists."

"Sounds violent."

"I bear a scar from when I told Dís of her husband Virfir's death. She drank heavily and then challenged everyone to best her at arms. She took over an entire hall for hours until I finally managed to knock her on her fool head hard enough."

My eyes locked on the horizon. "Dwarves do a lot of fighting then," I said blandly. Was that a storm in the distance? Seemed so, between the darkness and the flickers in them. I hoped Thorin's cloak would keep the worst of it from me if it headed our way.

"Will you always be like this?" he asked bluntly.

"Cheerfully sarcastic and ineffably charming? Fuck yeah, mate."

"Determined to ignore what ails you as if it would disappear the longer you did so."

"Well, I know it's not working yet, but give it a few more days and you'll disappear from my life, so yeah it'll work eventually."

He eyed me with keen, knowing eyes, and continued relentlessly, "You are doing a poor job at lying to me, and yourself. You will not be able to do so for much longer."

"I think I'm doing pretty aces, all things considered."

"You truly believe that?" he asked in a voice that was almost kind, but backed by steel.

I knew then, a moment of purest hate like a bolt running through me. "Yup." I marched ahead and did not look back.

—

It was the end of our seventh day of travel. We were camped in a very green, very hilly knoll. Thorin had been more agitated and short-tempered than normal the whole day, though I wasn't sure why. When I had cautiously tried to ask why, I had been thoroughly rebuffed. I valued the peace between us too much to push, so let it drop.

The plains and forests had made way to gorgeous green hills. Mountains had disappeared into the distant horizon, swallowed by infinite blue and rolling hills. I tried to see the map of Middle Earth in my head. Did this mean we were close to Bree?

I worried about the prospect of being alone in Bree, with little more than a handful of coins, and basic woodcraft and fighting skills should I get into trouble. What could I offer? How did one job hunt in the Middle Ages? What jobs could I do? I couldn't farm or sew. I couldn't bake, at least using the simple ovens of the time. But then what? Where could I live?

I did my best to control my worry, knowing that it made Thorin uncomfortable. He didn't seem to know what to do with my anxiety.

Perhaps my constant worry had begun to wear on him, which was the root of his irritation with me throughout the day.

"Gabrielle—"

"Ellie."

"What?"

"Everyone calls me Ellie. Absolutely no one calls me Gabrielle—except strangers. And I suppose my parents when I'm in trouble. But they're more likely to full name me. Y'know, all, 'Gabrielle Elenita Santos! You go kneel in that corner on that rice and recite the Lord's Prayer—'"

"Gabrielle, try the high swing again, but move your grip down so you can pivot the blade better."

"Christ almighty, fine. You can call me Gabrielle, you great big downer," I said without asperity. I made the adjustments to my grip. This time, my swing felt smoother.

Thorin was frowning. "You are thinking too much," he declared.

"Of course I am!" I burst. "You told me to make myself small and have a wide stance. To keep my sword up but my elbows down. My feet pointed, but my knees loose—fucking make up your mind!"

Thorin waited patiently. "Are you done?" He asked when I paused to breathe.

"Also, you stink and your head is poopy," I said, and added in a rude gesture in Iglishmêk for emphasis.

He stared.

I almost smiled. "Alright, now I'm good. Come at me again."

"You know Iglishmêk," he said, and it wasn't quite a question.

"Yeah, and Westron, and Khuzdul, and some Rohirric through your understanding of Dalish. All the languages you know." I added a sign in Iglishmêk that was the equivalent of 'so what?' and laughed darkly. "What, this is a surprise to you? You understand English and I bet if I said something in Tagalog, you'd understand that too. Not to mention all the conversational French, German, Japanese, and what-have-yous I have for existing in my multicultural world."

"The secrets of my people are not a jest to be bandied about," Thorin said frostily.

I sighed, and my ever-hovering exhaustion rose to swamp my mirth. "I'm not trying to make light of this. Not really. What else can I do to cope with this impossible situation but laugh?"

"Must you turn everything into a jest? Is there nothing you will take seriously?" His words were harsh, but his voice was weighted with lead, tinged with resignation more than irritation. He looked not to me, but into the gathering dark outside of the ring of light from the fire.

I stood stock still for a moment. "No, I guess not."

That had him turning back to me, eying me for a long moment while I avoided his eyes. "I did not mean—"

"Aren't you going to show me the high guard again?"

Thorin said nothing. His disgust and frustration receded to be replaced with a watchful patience.

My 'sword' had lost the smoothness of before, my movements jerky and uncontrolled. This time, Thorin made no comment. He simply radiated a kind of rocky calm. Had he spoken at all, I think I would've snapped. But his quiet waiting eventually implored me to speak.

"Don't look at me like that. I'm fine."

"Are you?" he rumbled, uncharacteristically soft.

"Yup." I swung my sword through the air in a passable imitation of the low swing and guard combination. "Ooh, that was good, right? I think I'm improving!"

"It has been not more than a week."

"That's right," I said lightly. "And look how good I've gotten."

"You ran."

"I'm good at running. Did you know I've run marathons before? Placed pretty well too."

He made no response to that, watching me until I finally lowered my sword with a sigh. "What?"

"Why do you insist on this farce?"

"'Cause I take nothing seriously."

"Gabrielle—"

"What do you want from me, Thorin?" I snapped. "Why do you insist on trying to pry into my life? Don't you have enough of it in your head?"

I felt the edges of his anger, but he pushed it away. "It is folly to hide how you feel from someone who feels it with you."

"I'm not hiding shit. Now are we going to stand around talking the rest of the evening, or were you going to finish teaching me?"

"Your father died."

Hot and cold waves rushed through me. I found my tongue. "So what?" I asked harshly. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Everything. It is why we do this," he gestured to our staves. "Why you are here. You ran from it then, and if you had not—"

"You want to talk about my—this? Fine. But tit for tat, we'll talk about your dad too."

A charged silence. "No. We will not," he bit out, after a moment. Then, more stiffly, "I... I am sorry."

"No, fuck you. You don't get to be sorry. I'm here dealing with you, and all your stupid pointless bullshit, instead of going to my dad's fucking funeral!" I snarled. The tension thrummed between us like a live wire. I slumped, pressing my fingers to the bridge of my nose. "Fuck. I don't know why I said that."

After a long pause, he said, "I recall well the anger of those early days of mourning. It would come and go, there one moment, gone the next, as swift as a hammer striking." When I finally met his eyes, he said, "I do not absolve you of all ill-action or insult you cause with your anger. Only know that I understand."

Thorin brought training to a close. I wasn't able to focus, and he seemed consumed by thoughts he refused to share. Whatever they were, produced a dizzying jumble of conflicting emotions: uncertainty and irritation to name the strongest, that in turn, set my teeth on edge. With great difficulty, I tried to untangle my emotions from his.

Not that I was any better.

Admitting my dad's death aloud created a crack in a tightly sealed box. As if summoned by magic, the words called all the memories I tried to shut out and refuse.

My dad in a hospital bed. The sound of my mum's voice on the phone as she'd choked out: "Your dad is dead. You have to come home." My dad sleeping on the couch, breath wheezing. My brother, Mike, calling me, the sound of his voice as he cried, as I'd never heard him before. My dad's voice breaking as he admitted the tumours had returned. The doctor telling us we would have at least five years—five years— if we did the surgery.

We did the surgery. He'd lasted only two months.

I looked up to the night sky.

Would my dad have loved it in Middle Earth? He hadn't read the books, but he liked the movies well enough. He had never been the outdoors-y type, but he had an appreciation for the natural world, and I knew he would have loved the stars. I tried to picture him beside me, looking up at the stars with wonder. Would his eyes have lit up? Would he have exclaimed to see so many, so bright in the sky, like a scatter of diamonds on navy velvet?

But no, I couldn't imagine it. I could only see him how I had seen him alive last. Skeletal, eyes too big in a face gone to bone; a parody of its old self, barely more than a skull. All the fat and muscle—muscle he had been proud of as he grew old, for being able to keep himself fit—it had all melted away to be eaten by the cancer that would claim his life. The larger-than-life man who'd towered over me as a child and teen, replaced by a shell of his former self, with yellowed eyes and stick-thin arms that struggled to move.

I saw again how pale he looked in the morgue. How cold. How final. The last thing I'd seen before turning and running out the door, straight into Arda.

Tears filled my eyes.

No.

I tried to shove away that memory, refused that black pit in my stomach, the lump in my throat. I wasn't as successful as I had been before. I could still see his impossibly still face in that cold, bright room. There was a yawning emptiness swallowing me, and I looked desperately for anything else. Thorin's conflict battered the edges of my heart and it was comforting because it wasn't sad, it wasn't weak. He was angry—and I could use anger.

I reached for it. Tried to focus on it and make them my own. Anything was better than my thoughts and the way my heart ached.

Sparks on gasoline, fire racing through me. Thorin's shock followed closely by fear.

And it all melted before the ache in my heart, a flash fire burning through flimsy barriers. I felt it cut through him, deep into the core of him, where it met... itself. It bounced back and forth between us, amplifying and growing, and acknowledgement and understanding.

"Your dad." I found myself saying. "It's so awful."

He shook his head. "He is not dead, though all others tell me it could not be so." His eyes were haunted, and I heard as if it was with my own ears, the echo of a hundred voices telling me that my father was dead, that I was pinning my hopes on a fool's dream.

"He lives," I said, and believed it because he did.

"And your father? He passed to... an illness?" Thorin spoke slowly, the words shaped carefully, weighted with knowing.

"Yes. Cancer," I said hollowly like a stranger puppeted my mouth and chose the words for me. "He died within the year of being diagnosed."

"I lost my grandfather to orcs. He and I were very close."

"Before his madness, yes. And then you struggled to repair your bond only in time to see it sundered."

"You attempted to repair your relationship with your father too. To forgive him."

A bubble popping.

Pushing to the top of the terrible sea to take a desperate gasp of air.

Realisation.

I pulled free of Thorin and we were ourselves. He started and blinked, confused. "What was that?" he said and swayed a little where he sat.

"I... I..." I sorted through my thoughts. Or tried to. Everything was scrambled. Did I not have to meet my kin tomorrow? We had a task: to reclaim our home, but I came to them with poor news, a lack of allies. How could I do that with this woman wandering the wilds with a claim to my heart like a noose around my neck? Would I be safe to leave her behind? But no, I had to get my flight home to buy tickets for the magic show I'd planned to take my boyfriend to for our anniversary. Then I had to call my mother to see if she had found a public estate lawyer to handle my dad's assets; he had died without finishing his will leaving my mother to flounder through paperwork when she just wanted to grieve. How dare he leave us like that? An echo of Thorin's rage. A father should have put his family's needs first, and those of his people. Disease was no excuse. The Arkenstone had caused such a great illness in my grandfather…

I peeled my mind from Thorin slowly but surely.

This was Thorin: determination, and honour, and guardedness, and loss, and a family's madness like a lodestone around the neck and an entire people balanced on the shoulders.

This was me: fury, and humour, and cynicism, and despair, and the sick certainty that I only still lived because I could not leave my family like my dad had left us.

Across from me, Thorin looked genuinely ill.

"Will you accuse me again of casting a spell on you?" I asked, wary. The Westron seemed to roll off my tongue even easier than it had before. I cleared my throat and remembered again who I was. When I managed to speak again, it was in English. "I promise I didn't. I just…" I swallowed at the memory of my dad. Thorin's dad? I pushed it aside. "I didn't mean to."

"I—I know," For the first time, Thorin spoke to me without a hint of anger or fear, or suspicion. There was just sorrow, and I looked away from it.

"We're going to the Shire to meet your kin," I said, at last. "You said we were going to Bree."

"We will go to Bree," said Thorin stubbornly. "After we pass through the Shire."

"You lied to me," I said, but my outrage was hollow with frightful understanding, an awareness of intent that drew steadily away from me like the tide. "You didn't trust me."

"No," he said heavily. "I did not."

"I know everything about you, and you still don't trust me?"

"You feel the same," he said. "You do not trust me either."

I pressed my knuckles to the bridge of my nose. It was the start of The Hobbit. Thorin had come from his meeting in the Blue Mountains and was now going to meet the Company in Bag End. That meant—Mahal's great goaty beard, that meant Thorin was about to set out on the quest that led to his death.

In less than a year, Thorin would be dead.

I slumped, feeling a grey exhaustion wash over me. Again, again, not again. I was tired. My dad was dead. I was in a different world, and I'd never get to go to his funeral or visit his grave. The memorial stone would go up without me. My mum and brother would think I was missing, so soon after my dad. The frozen stillness of those interminable days after my dad had died was fresh in my mind. They'd go through that again, only with more uncertainty than with my dad. Hell, what would Steve do? My mind skittered away from those thoughts. And now Thorin's fate—I was just tired.

"Do you know?" I asked, and my voice sounded hollow to my ears.

"Know of what?"

"The Hobbit," I said, and watched his face carefully, touched the Bond just as judiciously.

Thorin frowned. A spark of recognition, yes, but no fear, no worry, nothing that told me that Thorin remembered what I knew in full.

I made a decision. Thorin wasn't the only one who needed to admit to a lie.

"I have to tell you something." I took a breath. "Another story. From my world. I think you should know."

Wariness entered his eyes. "Tell me."

A/N: Out of curiosity, was it obvious that Ellie's dad died in the prologue? I wanted to make that both clear, while also leaning hard into Ellie's denial.

'To each his day is given, the time of life / is short and irreparable for all,' is the English translation of a phrase from the Aenid. A section of the phrase is used in latin, in the last song of the game Journey: "I Was Born For This," which may as well be the soundtrack to this whole fic.

Tito is Tagalog for Uncle. In Filipino culture, any close male friend of the family is a Tito. Filo is just short for Filipino.

Tolkien Lore Stuff:

Durin's Crown was a constellation sighted by Durin in the Mirrormere (a great lake), which inspired him to build Khazad-dûm aka Moria, for he saw himself crowned!

The other constellations are my headcanon names for canon ones. I doubt the Dwarves are calling their constellations by Quenya names, and the Westron translations don't seem overly Dwarvish, so I made some up! There is evidence in Tolkien's writing that the different races have different names for different constellations. i.e. The Elves have the Valacirca, which the Hobbits call the Wain and the Men just call the Sickle.

So, Aulë's Forge is Remmirath. The Hammer is Anarríma. And the Giver's Fruits is Soronúmë. (The Giver is a reference to Yavanna, Aulë's wife, the Giver of Fruits.)

Ellie also makes reference to Eärendil, who is Elrond (and Aragorn!)'s ancestor, and is bound to traverse the skies forever, with his Silmaril, guarding the Sun and Moon. The light of the Silmaril that he carries is later captured in Galadriel's mirror and given to Frodo.

Azanulbizar is the last battle of the War of the Dwarves and Orcs fought over Moria, and we see it briefly in the movies-where Thorin lost his grandfather, and gained the title Oakenshield.

(p.s. I really do love Tolkien's lore, and despite my attempt to ruin it with this story, I want to make this story accessible for more casual Tolkien fans. I hope these notes on canon are interesting!)