Chapter 13

"Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all." - Emily Dickinson

Gather your shit, Erdene put her violin away, and get back to the house. Tired as she was, being quick about gathering her things felt like a bigger chore than opening the door to Zarin's shop this morning.

Despite telling herself to get going, her legs just didn't want to. It took everything she had just to sit down and put her head in her hands and not just melt into a small stressed out puddle. Maybe tomorrow-

The gentle clink of coins being set in her purse forced her gaze up. Thorin, looking as haggard as she felt, stood back from where he placed the money.

Erdene looked into her purse, gold shining in the lamp light. "I don't want your pity." She whispered, voice rough with the want to cry again.

Thorin told her gently, "I was needlessly cruel last evening. It is our custom to make amends."

She blinked, a tear spilling down her cheek. "You could apologize."

"You would forgive my trespass so easily?" He asked, searching her gaze.

Erdene whispered in return, "I'd forgive you a lot of things."

Mahal. Does she- Could she know as he knows now?

"But what you said last night." Her voice was harsher, angrier. "You said the worst thing you could have possibly said to me." She scooped the money from her purse, holding it out to him. "You said the same thing to me my family always said. The same bullshit they always threw in my face every time I went to see my mother." Erdene with a shake of her head, held the coins out to him. "If you want to make amends you'll need to do better than give me money."

He made no move to take it back. "Fifteen gold."

Her lips parted, green eyes blown wide, "what?"

"The balance owed on the young girl's life." He did not take the money, instead bending to gather her purse. Thorin held it in the palm of his large hand as she stared at him. "I should not have said the things I said last evening. I," reacted badly, "came to a realization. It did not sit well at the time. I let my temper lash out and you took the brunt of it." Another tear slipped its way from her green eyes.

Dear Mahal, was he making this worse or better? "I did not know how your family had treated you." And if he had…the cold rage in his chest burned with the thought of it. May he never meet them. May he never meet them because he did not know the things he would do to them for trying to break her spirit with cruelty. "Which makes my words worse, because they came from someone you considered a friend."

A shuddering breath left her lips, but she said nothing.

"I cannot ask your forgiveness, Mistress Thoroughfare, I do not know that you should forgive me. Still, I would hope I am counted among your friends."

It's the least he can ask for.

The very least.

Wiping at her eyes, Erdene shook her head at him. His heart dropped into his stomach for a moment before her smile, watery and sad as it tugged his heart back into place.

"As apologies go," her voice still a rasp, but no longer quite as sad, "that one was pretty good. But the money, Thorin, I got myself into this, I can get me and Cathy out of it." She still held it out to him.

He cannot take it back. "It's a matter of honor." He told her gently and set the open purse under her hand. "I knew of your debt and created a debt to be paid. By paying your debt, I pay my own to you."

Erdene with eyes now blue-green, sniffed, shaking her head minutely. "Well shit." She dropped the coins into her purse and, without touching him, took her purse back. "And of course you're still my friend, you big idiot."

He allowed himself a small, if rueful smile in return. "I have been called worse." Much worse.

One coin shone at him in the torch light between her fingers. His gaze met hers curiously. "I cannot."

"Not even as payment for continued walks home?" She asked with a curious tilt to her head.

He almost…it was as if…he could have believed in this moment she was dwarrow. If the slightest bit. It's almost a calculated move. But, as he searched her face, Thorin found no hint of deception. Simple patience met his gaze.

It is his turn to touch her. Mahal. Can he? Thorin, keeping his strength in mind, gently set his palm atop her clothed wrist and pushed her hand away. "Use it to buy something instead."

She puffed a small breath that formed a small white cloud in the air between them. "Fine. What kind of pipe weed do you like?"

Stubborn. Obstinate. Is she not dwarrow? How can she not be? He has met many children of men and none of them were like this. "Erdene."

It is a flash of gray in her gaze, solid as the sky had been this past Monday and parted lips that made him hope for a moment. Mahal. Say something. Anything. Say something and put this question to rest. If she returned even a little of this desire to be near her, he would make a bead tonight.

Instead she once again looked away, fisting the coin. "Okay, but only because you said my name right."

His brow furrowed as she gathered her things. "I see you've a new coat." He said as they began to walk.

She nodded, "my friend made it. As partial payment for helping her yesterday."

Yesterday. Mahal. Would he ever forget the withdrawn hollow sadness on her face? "It suits you." It would look better in Durin Blue. It would bring out the red in her hair and her eyes would pick up the color. It hugged her in a way he appreciated, curving with her body rather than hiding her form beneath layers of fabric.

She smoothed her fingers over the cream color material. "Thank you."

"May I ask you something?" He said as he pushed the broken branch of the olive tree up out of the way.

"Of course."

"The skin mark on your right wrist," he asked carefully, "I have never seen markings like that before."

Erdene nodded, "no, I don't suppose you would have. It's Japanese." She stopped, pushing her sleeves up and back to her elbow on her right arm and repeating the same on her left. She held both her wrists together for him to see. "This one says true," she nodded at her left wrist, then her right, "and this one says love."

Mahal. She wrote it on her skin.

"It," her voice caught much as it had last night, "this," she indicated her wrists, "is why I refuse to marry just anyone. I refuse to be married to someone I just kind of like enough to spend time with. I want to be in love. Madly, hopelessly, desperately in love with the right person. Who will love me the same."

He dared not breathe.

"I, my cousin James, is the best example I can give you. He went to his employer's house and he heard someone playing a piano."

Thorin searched her face as she spoke.

"He thought it was beautiful. His employer told him it was his niece visiting. His employer told him to go in and watch her play. So he walked through the doors and it hit him. There was the woman he'd been waiting his entire life for. At the same time she looked up from playing and she started crying and demanded to know where he'd been all her life." Erdene broke into a grin, lowering her sleeves. "They've been married over thirty-five years, have three kids and seven grandchildren."

Thorin echoed her smile, "they sound happy."

"They are." Erdene nodded, dropping her sleeves. "But…but you get why it hurt so bad now?"

He did. Mahal knew he did.

"Aye," he murmured regretfully. Last evening's mistakes would not be repeated.

Now he would be facing a self induced punishment. Spending all of Durin's Day with thirty-five dwarrow-dam who wanted his title and to wear his grandmother's crown. While he could not spend the day with his one.

He had no doubt on the day of awakening his grandmother and mother would have words for him, and among them would be idiot and stubborn. He wouldn't blame them. This was a mess of his own making and he'd take the punishment as he deserved. .

As long as he could continue to spend his evening time with his one. As long as he could continue to learn more about her. His one. "What is Ja-pa-neese?"

Erdene grinned at him, full of mirth and mischief. "Another language. From the land of the rising sun."

Does she speak this language? "Do you speak it?"

"Hai, shi ha yotsu no gengo o hanashi masu." She said, though he didn't understand it. There was a rhythm to her words. "I said, yes, I can speak four languages. Besides common."

And for the briefest of instants, he thought her gaze strayed to his mouth. The next moment her eyes were elsewhere. He couldn't be certain. Not that he could do anything at the moment regardless. He needed to consult the texts regarding the issue of a dwarrow's one. Had there ever been a daughter or son of men that had been a dwarrow's one? Would he be able to take a woman as his queen?

He understood there were difficulties with the birth of a half-dwarrow birth for non-dwarrow. The babies weighed heavy, were larger than those of men. Were there also difficulties conceiving such children?

They came much too quickly to her door once again.

"Good evening Master Oakenshield." Erdene said with a smile that tugged at the string tethering his soul to hers.

"Good night," he bowed her head to her as he did every night save last, "Mistress Thoroughfare."

It was never part of her life plan to be a teacher. She didn't have the patience it took to work with kids. But here she was, another evening while Warren slept and the girls were gathered with her in the attic this time, going over a very old cloth map of Middle Earth. Cathy said she found it mixed in with some of her mother's old things. Erdene didn't doubt it. The pale green base cloth had begun to smell like stale dust and cedar. The white stitches were yellowing with age. The other colors looked almost faded.

She pinned it to the wall as a defiant flag of this tiny class of girls who didn't want to be like their forebears. They wanted to know how the world worked. They wanted to know about the people in the world. They wanted to know why the sky was blue and the stars twinkled in the sky at night.

Their minds were sponges.

Christ almighty.

It was criminal to keep them from understanding the universe at large. They all understood the basics of addition and subtraction, so she gave them multiplication and division. "Zero is a constant, if you have four oranges and you multiply four by nothing, then what do you have?"

"Nothing?" Alisa asked.

"Right. If there is nothing there, then there is nothing to add. But, if you have seventy crates of oranges each container has four, how many is that? Seventy times four. Four by zero is nothing so bring the zero down. Then four by seven goes next to that."

Alisa nodded, frowning at the paper before her, scratching down the numbers twenty-eight.

Gwen, however, blinked a couple of times, her brow furrowed as she said softly, "280?"

Cathy poked her sister with a finger in the ribs. "You're supposed to write it down!"

"And kept to yourself," Alysa groused. "I was still working."

"It's okay, we can do another in a minute. Gwen, usually helps tally the till with your father. It would make sense she can do the math quickly in her head." Erdene assured them. "Let's try something a little bigger. Fifteen crates of dried blueberries have arrived. Each one has approximately 100 blueberries."

All four girls nodded. Gwen, however, didn't bend her head to begin working. Her brow furrowed and her lips parted. She looked at Erdene with big green-blue eyes.

Erdene motioned for her to write it down. Gwen did, and held up the paper so her sisters wouldn't see it. Beneath the number 1500, Gwen wrote, just add the zeros, right?

She hadn't taught them numbers could go past the 1000's point, but she did teach them to put commas between every three numbers. "Okay, Gwen, do one more for me. This is a big one, write it down, okay? What is the sum of 1609 times 1260 minus 28000."

Gwen took a moment while the other three finished their work.

Alysa hummed, "so…when it ends in zeros, like 100 or 200, you can just add zeros to the back of the original count?"

"Usually yes, but always double check your math. Math can seem easy but it takes one mistake to throw everything off. Like an even number added to an odd number, the number will always be uneven. If it comes out even, something went wrong."

Gwen was staring at her paper. "I…I don't know how to begin this." She held it out to Erdene.

Christ. Al-friken-mighty.

Not taking it Erdene told her gently, "the first two are thousand, with a third number it becomes hundred thousand. After 999,999 the next number is called million."

Gwen's lips pursed for a moment as she absorbed the information before, "1,999,340. Is that right?"

Erdene asked the same when she was five. Her kindergarten teacher hadn't been very interested in the mouthy know it all named Erdene Thoroughfare. The substitute teacher, though, she saw how quickly Erdene completed her busy work. She saw how bored five year old Erdene was. She called Erdene's mother, scheduled a meeting with the principal and asked the sixth grade math teacher to sit in.

Like Gwen, the math teacher needed a pencil and paper to check her calculator work. She double checked it before nodding at the principal. The man spoke to Erdene's mother about advanced testing for Erdene. Talked about moving her up a few grades based on the results of the testing. No one planned on basically skipping her into sixth grade.

"Gwen," Erdene crouched before the girl, gently sliding the paper out of her hands. "What is half of 250,000?"

Gwen's gaze flickered to the side for a moment as she thought. "Um…125000?"

Nodding Erdene said, "Now half of that."

"62500."

"And half of that."

"31250."

"Again."

"15625."

"One more time."

Gwen hesitated, her lips parting, then closing and opening once more before, "I…it doesn't split evenly. There's one larger number."

"There are numbers between one and zero. Point five," Erdene wrote it out in the air. "Is how you split one in half. Now how much is it?"

Less than a second before Gwen said, "7812.5"

"Good. Tomorrow ladies, we're going to work on division." She patted Gwen's shoulder. "Let's work on a few more problems and then-"

Cathy's hand shot up. "Is a million the largest number?"

"No." Shaking her head Erdene tried explaining the sums. "After a million comes a billion, then a trillion. Though I doubt anywhere in this world has any amount of money over a trillion, there are larger numbers. Several million in royal coffers, maybe, possibly."

"What about in Erebor?" Alysa asked toying with her bit of charcoal. "It was enough for a dragon to want it."

If she blinked she saw gigantic Smaug, dark red with his yellow eyes and whitish-yellowish scales. The clink, clink, clink of coins falling from between his scales as he climbed over a genuinely terrified party of dwarves and one hobbit.

Which didn't matter because that could be a hundred years from now.

Erdene turned her face away. "We'll never know the answer to that. Okay, so the next problem."

The next morning Thorin sent a letter to his cousin, Balin. Clarification was desperately needed on whether Thorin could in fact put a daughter of man on the throne or not. Would he be forced to abdicate? He took no issue with abdication if that was the requirement, but how then would he and Erdene rule Erebor? Did they rule as regents until Fíli came of age?

Fíli.

The way his sister's son had looked upon Erdene burned in Thorin's chest. As if she were his to look upon. He finished the letter adding it to the small pile of correspondence Dís had going out. Then he went in search of his sister's eldest son.

He found Fíli with Kíli, wrestling in the training area behind the house next to his sister's garden. Would Erdene want her own space out here or would she take one of the spare rooms to practice music? Would she mind if he moved his standing harp into the same room?

"Fíli."

Both of his sister's sons broke from their spar, laughing at one another. Fíli wiped the sweat from his brow, grinning at his uncle as he approached. "Good morning uncle."

Thorin canted his head toward the garden, "a moment, if you would."

Fíli's mischievous streak perked up despite the gravely serious look on his uncle's face. "Of course."

They were not one heartbeat past Kíli's hearing distance when:

"You cannot choose Erdene Thoroughfare for yourself." Thorin told Fíli evenly.

"I can," Fíli assured him with a cocky smirk, "unless there is a reason? Aside from her not being dwarrow." The way his uncle looked at him. Frustrated and silently angry. He had his suspicions, one above all else. "She is your one, isn't she?"

His uncle's hands turned to tight fists. "Fíli."

"If it means anything she looked at you with as much longing as you did her." Fíli threw out, "I can't say I'm not disappointed, she's lovely," he held up his hands at the dark flash of something entered his uncle's gaze. "But if she is your one, I am happy to call her aunt."

A young, very pretty aunt. The race of men aged much faster than dwarrow. Though she seemed quite young compared to the handful of daughters of men he had met learning trade negotiations from his uncles.

"If it's any consolation, amad is going to adore her." Fíli offered his uncle.

The smallest of smiles graced Thorin's face. "Aye, your mother would." But, "I can do nothing until I know the laws surrounding courtship of a woman."

Woman? Is that what daughters of men are called? "Surely they can't be that different. Enough dwarrow chose a woman for their bride after the dragon came, didn't they?"

They did. Many did.

Affirmations of life.

Many a half dwarfling was born in that year despite the trek across Rovanion and Eriador. Though the women had long since passed due to age. And the children, half as they were, all favored their dwarrow fathers. The last he knew many had integrated into society at Thorin's Hall and were leading the typical life of a dwarrow.

Mahal.

Thoughtfully, Thorin nodded at his sister's son, one hand on Fíli's shoulder with a light squeeze. "You've given me much to think about."

A grin broke across Fíli's face. And that is why he was named heir. Or at least he'd maintain that title until his uncle had a son of age. Which, honestly, knowing his uncle, could be quite some time.

You want to know how glitchy FF net is? I don't even have any hits on this story. I have reviews (and I appreciate every one you leave, yes you) and follows, but zero hits.

Erdene used to self harm, it was her way of dealing with the stress and toxicity of her grandparents and aunt and uncle and their families. Once she began school with Monica and was absorbed by Monica's family, once she had access to healthy relationships and all but cut ties with her family, and she began therapy, she stopped.

Chapter 8 and 9 were one chapter. I had to cut them in half because a 23 page chapter was a lot for me to edit all at once.

I imagine Ery and Thorin have a very active sex life.