Chapter 4: Erosion

Notes: Welcome back! In the last chapter Lydia agreed that she would secure the tavern to host the dwarves for an evening, but unfortunately that will likely lead to an unsavory deal with the master of The Prancing Pony.

I think I should be able to upload a few more chapters this week, hope you're enjoying it so far!

"That was the last person, Master," I told Ferdinand as Joseph and I cleared off the final tables. Thorin had already headed upstairs for the night so it was just the three of us left in the tavern for the night. I was relieved that it was a slower evening than the night before, I figured that would give me even better odds to convince Ferdinand. Knowing the conversation I had to have with him made me sick to my stomach though, even with Thorin's promise in the back of my mind.

Ferdinand was by the fire, his feet kicked up on a chair with an ale in his hand. "About damn time. Finish up and get out, I am ready to go home."

"Yes Sir," Joseph nodded. He leaned over to me and whispered, "If you want to head upstairs I can finish up down here."

All of my instincts wanted to accept his generous offer and scurry upstairs to safety, but I didn't want to let Gandalf down. And Thorin I suppose.

"Um, you know Joseph, I think I'm okay tonight. You go ahead and head home and I can close up tonight. Don't worry about it." His face twisted in confusion. I just waved my hand at him and repeated, "Don't worry about it."

"Uh, alright. I mean if you're sure then I guess I will…" He stepped out from behind the bar with a ton of hesitation. "Well goodnight everyone, I'll see you two tomorrow."

"Oh," Master Ferdinand popped his head up, "I forgot to mention that we're renting out the tavern and inn tomorrow night. Lydia will be the only one who will need to be here, as long as we come to an agreement, right Miss Barclay?"

I gritted my teeth but recomposed myself. "We will reach an agreement. Goodnight Joseph, get home safe."

Ferdinand turned around in his chair and gave me the greasiest, shit-eating grin I've ever seen. Joseph scurried out of the tavern, shooting me plenty of confused and concerned looks. I just crossed my arms and waited for him to leave so I could seal my fate.

Once the door closed, Ferdinand stood up and swaggered himself across the room towards me. I stood my ground and kept my composure but I had the creeps rippling all over my body.

"Well, well, well. You've definitely kept me waiting longer than expected but I knew you'd cave eventually, you wild little creature."

He leaned to grab at me but I swerved out of the way. "Hey now, we have agreed to nothing yet!" What the hell was I doing? Having a conversation like this with Ferdinand was one thing on my short list of things I was never going to do and yet here I was, giving him an inch so he could run a mile. "You will hear me out, Master, or I will go up to bed and I will not care an ounce about the tavern tomorrow night. I swear it!"

He held his hands up. "I wasn't actually going to do anything!" Bullshit. "Well, this should be very simple. You know what I want from you, Barclay."

Thorin's words swam in the back of my mind. He promised that whatever I tell Ferdinand I won't need to fulfill as long as I don't need to repay it until after tomorrow night. I didn't want to go overboard, in case Thorin was not a dwarf of his word, however if I could get even more out of the deal that would be amazing.

"How about on top of me being the only bartender tomorrow night and allowing my friend to rent out the bar, I can also have the morning and afternoon off before that shift starts? And in exchange…I will go home with you."

"You're going to have to be more specific than that, otherwise I know you're going to weasel your way out of it."

The sick bastard just wants me to say it out loud.

I hesitated as I tried to form the horrible words in my mouth. "...After tomorrow night, I will go home with you and we will…have sex…" Another roll of shudders vibrated across my body in disgust. "I can agree to that if you give me what I want."

"You think you're only going to want one night?" he scoffed, oozing with confidence. "We will see how you feel after, I'm sure you'll come crawling back."

Trying not to gag and control my expression. "Let's just start off with one night. Do we have a deal? I have tomorrow off except for when it's rented out, and after that…you get a night with me, as I described before."

A greedy smile stretched and curved his mouth into something entirely unpleasant to me. He held out his hand, looking to seal the agreement. "You have yourself a deal, Miss Barclay. Although there's no need to be so coy about the whole thing, I know you're not a shy person."

Oh I was certainly not overly conservative about the topic of sex, I work in a tavern full of men for love's sake. It was simply because it was him that made it difficult to say the words.

I shook his hand and quickly retracted it. "It's settled then. I'm going to head to bed, the next few days are going to be…quite something."

"Why wait until after tomorrow night? Don't you think you'd like to get your 'payment' done as soon as possible?"

"I am much too exhausted tonight Master," I laughed, backing my way to the stairs. "You know what they say, 'Distance makes the heart grow fonder'!"

"I do not have fondness, I want you." He pursued after me, his greedy smile turning into a more sinister one. "Come here Lydia, your master commands it."

"We made our deal Ferdinand, nothing tonight!" I backed up further, hoping that if he lunged at me I would get to the stairs in time.

"Perhaps I was too hasty to agree to that deal."

"But we made it, goodnight Master!" Before the situation could escalate further I darted away from him and up the stairs. I didn't take the time to see if he was following after me, because I flew up the stairs and retreated to my room, locking my door behind me.

My heart was still palpitating as I stood in my cold, dark room. I stared into the darkness and just listened to hear if he was coming after me. I did hear some footsteps on the stairs, but then I heard Ferdinand chuckle and head back into the tavern. I didn't move a muscle until I heard him leave the building for the night.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

What did I just do? Making a deal with the devil for the sake of an old wizard and some dwarves I didn't know?

I grumbled, "Fuck," under my breath as I grabbed my pipe and tobacco off the desk. I thought if I was going to have even a slight chance of falling asleep, I needed to wind down and having a good smoke was going to do it.


I suppose it was a little silly to think that anything was going to affect me getting good sleep. Once I had relaxed a little and closed my eyes, I don't think I even moved once during the night. It was even better when I woke up and realized that Ferdinand had technically given me the morning and afternoon off, I wouldn't need to be back in until that evening when the sun went down. So, I got to just roll over and go back to sleep for a little while longer.

Eventually I woke up and decided to start my day. I felt less nervous than I felt the night before about swearing myself to my master, but I most certainly wasn't relieved of the stress completely. It seemed like a good reason to start my morning with a smoke as well.

I opened up my windows to the sunny day, the first one in a while. A warm breeze burst past me and ruffled the loose papers on my desk. Feeling warmth on my dark skin for the first time in ages probably did more for me than the pipe would, but that wasn't going to stop me from indulging in one of my simple pleasures.

I leaned on my elbows out the window, packing the pipe with the contents of my tobacco bag and staring down into the city.

"Good morning, Miss Barclay."

I jumped, nearing dropping my pipe into the mud directly down below from my window. I looked off to the right and saw Thorin leaning out of his window as well. I swore under my breath as I steadied myself.

"I would have been so upset if I dropped my pipe!" I took a deep breath then struck a match to light it up. "Morning to you as well, Thorin. Do you smoke?"

"Not often."

"Would you like a share?"

"No thank you, I'm sure you would drop it if you tried to pass it to me. Would much prefer you don't set the place on fire."

"Your loss, the tobacco market here in Bree is something special." I took some puffs off of it and blew out beautiful smoke rings. "Speaking of burning the place down though, I did make the agreement with Master Ferdinand. We have the tavern secured for tonight for your little get together, and I won't need to work until then. Thank goodness for that too because the bastard was instantly wanting to get handsy. Again, I don't know exactly how you're going to get him off my tail but you're going to have to work a miracle to do so."

"Don't spend any time worrying about it, it will be taken care of. For now, I appreciate your trust and what you had to do to make that deal happen. You will be repaid for all of your help handsomely. Perhaps something closer to getting you your own land?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Are you trying to bribe me into doing something else? I didn't realize you had money to burn."

"Not now, I'm just saying that doing this will have its rewards because I know how much of it has been…unpleasant."

"That would be a word I might use, but I would probably use 'vulgar', 'disgusting', and 'traumatizing' instead. But I look forward to whatever this repayment will be. I appreciate being appreciated." I laughed to myself and blew more smoke out of my mouth. "I will say Thorin, it has definitely been quite interesting to have you around the inn and the tavern. Normally I'm not even a tiny bit trusting of anyone who I don't know from Bree or Hobbiton, so it will be a shame once you travel to your next place. I didn't even get you to break down and tell me much about yourself."

"You got more than most people, so you did just fine wearing away at me."

"You're going to have to tell me something juicy before you leave, so I can at least have a crazy story to tell people. As I told you before, I collect stories and I know you have some interesting ones hiding just below the surface."

"You will have your fill of stories once my kin arrive tonight. I can't guarantee they're all going to be true but they will be entertaining nonetheless."

"Oo, so they have looser tongues than you! I'm sure if I get a couple of beers in their hands then I can get them to spill everything I could possibly want." I gave him an evil grin and blew some smoke in his direction. "I bet if I got enough alcohol in you I'd be able to get you to admit anything I want you too. I bet you're a talkative drunk, all the quiet ones are."

A tiny, amused smile touched his face and he shook his head a little. "You're nothing but trouble, aren't you Miss Barclay?"

"I will be if you keep calling me that instead of Lydia," I teased. I looked back down into the busy town of Bree and got the whiff of fresh bread that made me start salivating. "I think I'm ready for breakfast, want to go with me?"

He gave a very vague shrug that told me literally nothing. Well, since he wasn't going to make it clear to me, I was just going to interpret it however I wanted to.

"Glad you're so excited to go to breakfast! And you want to pay for it too, as the beginning of repaying me for all my services? Wow Thorin, you are such a stand-up fellow. I'm going to finish my pipe then get ready. Wait for me outside of the tavern will you?"

Not even waiting to see his answer, I leaned back into my room and closed the window. I felt like a child, digging through my chest of personal belongings to see if I had anything different to wear besides what Thorin had seen me in the past few days. It didn't take a lot of digging since I only had one other dress and then my hunting clothes I wore frequently before moving to the city. I opted for my other dress, a very plain, light blue thing but it was all I had that didn't smell like stale beer at the moment. If I wore my cape, hopefully it would just cover the dreadful thing anyway.

I lifted my head, my pipe still in between my teeth. I had realized how excited I was to get out of the Prancing Pony. I couldn't tell if I was more excited to go on an informal date with a handsome dwarf or I was just excited to get the hell away from the place for a couple hours. Why not both?

Allowing myself to be excited, I finished off the tobacco in my pipe and flicked out the ash. Then I changed out of my sleep dress and into the clean one. There really wasn't anything like wearing clean clothes before they get soiled with alcohol or puke or other unfortunate substances that someone could get covered with at a bar.

Pushing that thought to the back of my brain, I got fully dressed and threw my deep, green cape around my shoulders. I took a peak in the tiny mirror over my desk and smoothed down my curls, but there was little to nothing I could do to make them behave. I practiced my smile in the mirror as well, my dimples indenting my cheeks. I stared for a long moment, inspecting my freckles and tiny scars and fine lines then sighed.

"Lydia Barclay, why do you give two shits if this dwarf thinks you look pretty? You are not a child, pull it together."

I lifted up my old mattress and grabbed a small coin bag and a dagger. I threw the items into the pockets of my dress and hurried out of my room and down the stairs. It must have still been early because no one was in the tavern yet preparing to open. I was relieved I didn't have to fight myself past Master Ferdinand especially after his desperate attempts from the night before.

I locked the door behind me and looked out into the sunny and muddy streets of Bree. I shaded my eyes and I searched for my dwarf among the crowd of merchants and travelers. I was nervous for a moment that he decided not to come down, but then I saw him across the street inspecting one of the weapon stalls.

I hurried across the road, dodging between travelers on horses. They shouted at me to get out of the way, but I had no concerns of getting run down. I easily moved past and in between them, jumping over large mud puddles. It bothered me none to be getting my feet dirty, humans were always so sensitive about getting dirt on their toes but it's never bothered any hobbits I've known.

While I was hurrying across the street, Thorin had looked over and noticed me dodging flying hooves and slinging mud. His eyes widened as the horses ran past me and he had dropped the daggers he was examining. I think he was about to jump into the road to stop traffic but I made one final jump to the other side.

"Mahal! There is no need to be so reckless!" He took my arm and brought me away from the road. "You could have been trampled!"

I chucked, "I'm fine Thorin, I'm quick on my feet you know."

"What if you got stuck in deeper mud than you expected, what do you think would have happened then?"

"I guess I would have been trampled and wouldn't be able to bar tend tonight. Wouldn't that be a damn shame." I didn't let him take his arm back and I walked him back over to the busy weapons stall. "Looking for anything in particular?"

He shook his head, letting go of the road incident. "Not really."

"Are you sure? I know the owner of this place and I can get you a good deal." I picked up an ax that was entirely too large for me, needing both hands to wield it. "This would certainly scare off those men from the other night, don't you think?"

He rolled his eyes and took it out of my hands, easily lifting it with one hand and putting it back onto the display. "Axes aren't really my preference."

"No? What about swords, hammers," I pulled my weapon out from my dress pocket, "daggers maybe?"

He slowly pointed it away from himself. "Oh great, you're armed."

"Well of course, who doesn't go out without some sort of weapon to protect themselves? And don't act like I don't know what I'm doing, I swiped those swords off those men who wanted to gang up on you."

"I have not forgotten, trust me. Perhaps we should go get food before you harm yourself or someone else."

"Don't be silly, you sweet thing!" My stomach growled in retaliation at the wrong time. "...I guess I am ready for food though, there's a couple of stalls down the street. Will you trust me to walk on my own or do you need to lead me?"

"If it will keep you out of the street, I would pick you up and carry you but I think that would go as well as attempting the same thing with a feral cat."

"A feral cat!" I scoffed. I think I would very much like to be picked up and carried, even if he referred to me as a wild creature. "Now you most certainly owe me breakfast!"