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Chapter Text

He remembers. He remembers waking up this fateful morning, the way the sun had slanted through the window and struck the cut glass mirror, throwing scattered glory across the stone ceiling in fractals of rainbow color. He remembers thinking what a good omen it must be, to have gemstones transposed above his bed, for his eyes alone.

Today, Thorin stares at the light dancing above him and is paralyzed by mounting horror. He knows that he is not in the halls of his ancestors because he feels no sense of peace. Thorin lies in his bed and recalls his death, and incalculably worse, the bloody end of his sister-sons. The extermination of their line, the ruination of Thorin’s greatest hopes, the brunt of a thousand indignities.

His fear calcifies into certainty. It shall not come to pass. Not in this life.

Thorin closes his eyes and takes a moment to plan, a one-man war council within himself. It is mid-morning, according to the angle of the sunlight pouring into his room. If Thorin is the only variable in this catastrophe, then Smaug will arrive at noon. Without a waistcoat made of his grandmother’s diamonds and his people’s pearls, the beast’s belly will be vulnerable. Perhaps an ordinary sword or arrow would pierce it, but Thorin must be swift, must be certain. He’ll take a crossbow, steal into Dale for a second time, nick as many Black Arrows as he can carry, and lie in wait on one of the hilltops he knows the Wyrm will cross over before it makes its way to Dale, then Erebor.

Thorin opens his eyes, offers a desperate plea to Mahal, and hurls himself out of bed. He yanks on his boots and dons the most unremarkable clothing he can find in a closet stuffed full of finery. Then he pulls his hair back into one lengthy braid to keep it out of the way and shrugs on a hooded cloak. He won’t be unrecognizable like this, but he won't be easy to identify, either.

He wastes no more time before he hurtles out of his chambers and down the corridor, waving off the royal guards who mean to flank him. He can’t look at them, knowing the fate that awaits them if he fails.

Thorin pays no mind to the gilded halls and lively ghosts that whirl by on his way to the armory. If he looks now, there will be no stemming the tide of memory and there’s simply no time. The burly soldiers guarding the armory bow and open the doors for him wordlessly. He immediately grabs the sturdiest crossbow he can find and, fortunately, it looks like it will accommodate the size of the Black Arrow, as well as a fistful of sturdy Dwarven arrows that he takes as a failsafe. He strides right back out again, mindless to the warriors greeting him and casting him curious glances.

He hurries down the southern stairwell toward the stables, struggling to remember, of all things, what the name of the fastest pony is. But when he arrives there, he hears the whickering of a young black one, high and unmistakable.

“Silverfoot,” Thorin murmurs. And there she is, big brown eyes blinking slowly as he opens the stall and rests a hand against her soft, soft nose. He had forgotten. She had burned with all the rest. But here she is, whole and well, her distinctive silver socks on display as she paws at the ground restlessly, detecting Thorin’s mood.

It’s the little things, Thorin realizes. The minutiae of the life he once had and may have again, if he’s quick enough to save it. He’s not sure how he’s meant to bear this. But he is young yet and this body is well-fed and refreshed after a good night’s sleep, so he slings the heavy crossbow across his back and saddles up Silverfoot as quickly as he can.

Thorin heaves himself up onto her back and, with no calm left to spare, urges her to gallop out of the stables and straight toward the open gates of Erebor. The sentries recognize him on sight and move to slow him down, to question his purpose for leaving, so he signs for them to stand down in urgent Iglishmêk. By the grace of Mahal, they do. Then Silverfoot is racing through the gates and the sun welcomes them into the world beyond as they ride for Dale at a truly breakneck pace.

They arrive at the city’s edge within the hour, and Thorin pulls his hood over his head, hating to appear suspicious but needing the anonymity all the same. He hardly recalls the minutes it takes to scale the bell tower, grab three Black Arrows off the rack, and haul them all back to his pony with the city of Men none the wiser. His adventures have made him into a sneakthief, it seems. Thorin would have loathed that once, but now it just seems useful.

They exit Dale as quickly as they came, making for the hills to the Northeast. Silverfoot begins to sweat and pant in earnest from the pace he’s set, the sun beating down on both of them. They’ve at least an hour to spare now, but Thorin can’t leave a single moment of it to chance.

Then the hills are cresting in front them, rolling lazily into distance, thick with wildflowers in full bloom. He slows Silverfoot to a halt and dismounts; he decides to let her wander, since there is nothing to tie her reins to in the tumbling green landscape.

Thorin gravitates to the tallest hill in the area and stands there, facing the Northeast, feeling nothing but his heart pound. The heft of the bow is reassuring in his hands, and he loads it with a Black Arrow, hearing it click into place with something that sounds a little like destiny.

The grass is green and sweet as it folds with the gentle winds. It is a beautiful day.

An eternity later, that enormous scaled body appears, arrowing down from the North. It’s ludicrous, entirely insane--but in that moment, Thorin thinks to himself that the drake is rather smaller than he remembers.

Still, Smaug is gallingly confident, not even using the cloud bank to cloak himself as he drops altitude. Thorin waits. He waits until he can feel the reverberation of those wings beating in his bones, until Smaug takes up the whole of horizon. And when the dragon is almost on top of him, Thorin takes aim. The bare belly of the beast is tremendous and wide open and Thorin--

Thorin lets his arrow fly.

There is a roar that that seems to rend at Thorin’s very ears and an earthquake somewhere far behind his back. A cloud of dust and debris shoots out in every direction, threatening to knock Thorin forward, but he stands firm. He holds himself still and hears nothing but wind in his ears.

The cloud settles, and Thorin turns. A hulking mass of flesh and shimmering red scales shakes out its last, desperate breath. The beast is still.

Thorin breathes, his chest filling suddenly as if he hadn’t truly breathed since he had first seen this creature blot out the sun all those years ago.

Esgaroth will never rise from the waves. The city of Men is filled to the brim with women and children who will never know the choking poison of dragon smoke, who will never know true homelessness. And Erebor…

He turns his gaze to the Lonely Mountain, where the gates of Erebor stand gleaming and whole.

The feeling of relief crushes him utterly, disbelief following so swiftly on its tail that he cannot even weep. The arc of his life, closed before it can even begin. He is dead. He is born.

He is covered in dust. Thorin wipes it from his brow and drifts over to where he can see Silverfoot shifting from foot to foot in the distance, thoroughly spooked. He lets the process of soothing her fill the long minutes it takes for the scouts from Dale and Erebor appear.

They arrive on trembling mounts that won’t come closer, burdened with fine armor that shines in the sun. No one speaks. He almost wants to laugh at the identical expressions on the faces of these Men and Dwarves, the way they goggle at the heap of greed and rotting meat prostrate before them, forming a new hill.  

The grass is sweet, the sun is high, and Thorin breathes.

The usurper is dead.

*

There is a tidal wave of celebrations, jovial and mead-filled and barely tinged by the fear of what may have come to pass. The last of the great dragons is felled, though that certainly hadn’t been Thorin’s primary concern. Nevertheless, an envoy from each of the surrounding kingdoms arrives within the week to inspect the corpse for themselves, and Thorin spends every day of it in a daze. Dís is so small and his father has not a single streak of white in his hair and Frerin--

Frerin is full of life and buoyant laughter and good-natured ribbing and he wants to hear the details of Smaug’s death over and over again. It’s all Thorin can do to sate his curiosity while others visibly listen in. Frerin is golden and perfect and when he asks Thorin how he even knew the dragon was coming, all Thorin can say is, “I just knew.”

Father claps him on the shoulder at least once a day and shakes his head, as though he simply doesn’t know what to say. And when court is held the next afternoon, the Black Arrow is pulled from the carcass and a messenger kneels before the throne, offering it up for Grandfather's inspection. The King Under the Mountain examines it with tired eyes, then glances at Thorin--no doubt wondering how the arrow he had forged for Dale's protection came into Thorin’s hands in the first place, let alone shot through a dragon’s stomach. Perhaps it’s a sign of how much his age and illness have diminished him when Thrór simply dismisses the messenger, orders the arrow to be returned to Dale along with the other two, and retreats to his coffers to recount the royal treasury. His single-mindedness is heartbreaking, but if their king is unwilling to ask how Thorin got ahold of the sacred arrow, then apparently no one else is either.

At the week’s end, a final grand feast lights up all of Erebor, bringing with it a flood of people so intense that Thorin can barely see the walls through all of the tall folk. His family surrounds him, happy and hale and piling more food on his plate, pulling him into quick-footed dances and the singing of old songs. They love him. They love him so much.

Thorin knows that this isn’t a dream, that his imagination isn’t big enough for something like this. But their obliviousness is nearly suffocating; their innocent wonder at his feat makes him feel like a dark, twisted thing hiding in their midst. Their lives are so different from his own, and they think he’s one of them, but he’s not, not even close.

But he does love them. Perhaps now more than ever before. Thorin is pondering this over his second helping of suckling pig when the delegation from Dale arrives fashionably late, and Thorin is swept up into the greeting line.

Girion is middle-aged and a week older than he ever was in his previous life. The mild-mannered Lord of Dale congratulates him, eyes him speculatively, and says, “Next time you’re in town... stop by for dinner, won’t you?”

Thorin’s lips quirk up in a rare smile at Girion’s slyness, and he answers, “I will.” Girion departs with a nod and then there is a blur of reintroductions and merrymaking as the event moves into full swing.

Two hours later finds Thorin exhausted, but too proud to show it. Balin catches his eye and chuckles a little at his expense, then he steers Thorin into a private parlor adjacent to the feasting hall.

Thorin takes advantage of the quiet moment to make sure his circlet is set on straight and to finger-comb his beard. Balin just watches him with eyes barely lined by age, and finally says, “I’m proud of you, laddie.” Balin tucks his thumbs into his belt and continues, “The future is perilous. Now it’s a little less so, knowing that you’ve matured so early on--that one day we’ll have a king like you to lead us, to increase the wealth of our mountain.”

Thorin is warmed by the sentiment, but the mention of wealth concerns him in a way that he cannot hide from his mentor. “What is it, Thorin?”

And Thorin… Thorin may have repented for his avarice on his deathbed, thinking those words to be among his last, but that doesn’t mean that he’s not beholden to them.

He knows it is too soon to have this conversation, but Balin is earnest and open-minded and, most importantly, he knows how to keep his counsel. So Thorin answers him honestly. “I believe that it would be wiser to keep the majority of Erebor’s wealth in motion, circulating rather than stationary in the bowels of the mountain.”

Balin is perfectly appalled, exclaiming, “But Thorin, why? Because of the dragon? Son, I don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but to all appearances you’ve defeated the last of them. And if there are any left, we know how to kill them.”

Thorin rails against Balin’s shortsightedness as though it were his own, his temper flaring when he answers, “And how do you think that dragon was lured here? Was it our wealth alone? What menace drove us to dig ever deeper in Moria? What made us ripe for plundering in the Grey Mountains? What dogs my family’s footsteps, poisoning us with our own pride?” He grips Balin by the shoulders and tells him gravely, “It’s not worth the risk. Nothing is worth that risk.”

Balin stares back at him, eyes wondering. Then his gaze darts over Thorin’s shoulder, and Thorin turns to see, of all people, Gandalf the Grey standing in the doorway. He releases Balin and turns to face their irksome, ever ill-timed visitor.

“Thorin son of Thráin,” Gandalf rumbles. “Those are not the words I expected to hear from a son of Durin’s line.”

Thorin falls back into the familiar exchange that is, in fact, only familiar to him. “It never ceases to amaze me how a wizard’s words have two meanings, and yet no meaning at all.”

Gandalf enters the room fully and closes the door behind him as he inquires, “Have you made the acquaintance of many wizards, then?”

Perhaps if Thorin did not know Gandalf, he would not hear his patronizing tone for what it is. So all that is left to Thorin is to name what Gandalf believes of him. “Of course not. For I am young, and foolish, and I have seen little of the world.”

Gandalf's bushy brows are raised and he frowns deeply, mumbling, “Yes, well. I’m certain that’s not the case.”

Then he pulls out his long-stemmed pipe and begins to light it even as he turns to Balin and says, “Could you give us a moment of privacy, Master Dwarf?” Balin nods jerkily and leaves, though uncertainty slows his steps.

The two of them take their seats on opposite couches, emerald to the eye and velvet to the touch. Gandalf takes his first puff on the pipe, watching Thorin through the lazy drift of smoke. And Thorin, if nothing else, would hope that he is not too proud to seek advice that could spare his people from suffering a second time. “Tell me what you know of gold sickness,” Thorin says.

Gandalf answers promptly and without even the thinnest coat of sugar: “Gold fever takes root in those who already possess some measure of greed. It occurs in many times and many places, but it is hastened by power, by fear, by gold. The bigger the hoard, the greater the risk. So it is with dragons, who are heralded by vast wealth. And a hoard bewitched by a dragon’s touch may induce dragon-sickness on top of all the rest.”

Thorin is exhausted just from hearing it, and drags a hand over his forehead, asking, “What would you do, were you in my place?”

Gandalf smiles and breathes out an irreverent little flower made of smoke. “Why, I would carry my fathers’ weight where I could and, when the day came, I would become a king that would sooner dump his gold in the River Running than keep it all in one place.”

Thorin is slightly concerned that he and a wizard are of the same mind, but the advice is sound. “I will think on your counsel,” he states.

"See that you do,” Gandalf answers briskly, and they rise as one to rejoin society, Gandalf extinguishing his pipe mere minutes after lighting it.

Thorin reenters the feasting hall, fully prepared to dance with the merry dead once more. The moment he passes into the hall, however, his eyes are drawn to the newcomer: the King of Mirkwood, frigidly conversing with Náin next to a tapestry depicting their ancestors bludgeoning each other to death.

There is no hot rush of anger. There is no cold fire of retribution.

Thorin has seen how Thranduil treats his friends in the direst hour. Thorin knows how he treated his own friends during the same.

The Elvenking glances away from the Lord of the Ironhills and their eyes connect. It would be cowardly and foolish to avoid him, so Thorin plucks a tankard of mead off the nearest tray and makes his way over to where Náin is splitting off to go dance with his cousins. Thranduil is tall and austere, and he looks down at Thorin with all but open disdain.

“Thorin, son of Thráin,” he says.

“Thranduil Oropherion,” Thorin returns. For a long time, that is all that is said. Thorin takes the measure of him and finds only what he expects to find: an Elf, towering over him and measuring him in turn.

They have the whole corner of the hall to themselves because the Dwarves are avoiding Thranduil with a ten foot radius out of pure dislike and the Men are too intimidated by him to get any closer than that. Perhaps this small measure of privacy is what emboldens Thranduil to say to a Dwarf prince he has only just met: “I warned your grandfather of what his avarice would beckon forth. It was a near thing, the destruction of you all.” He proclaims it cooly, folding his hands behind his back like he’s calmly bracing for Thorin to erupt.

Thorin searches for the words that would impugn Thranduil’s dignity the most, and promptly says them. “I will not defend the indefensible. But you are a healer. You know sickness when you see it. You know that sickness can be prevented, but that it ultimately has nothing to do with deserving it.”

“So he is not to be held accountable?” Thranduil snaps, his eyes flashing.

“No,” Thorin answers, the font of rage that always lays within him beginning to brew and bubble. “But nor is he a foul, ignoble creature, as you seem to think him to be.”

The few Woodmen of the North who have dared to skirt the outer edges of their corner cast them wary looks, and Thorin tries to stopper himself from saying anything incendiary by taking a pull of the mead he’s been ignoring. In spite of the company, he loses himself for a moment in its sparkling dryness, fragrant and crisp. He has not tasted its like in centuries.

Minutes pass as they stand in silence. Then Thranduil, gazing out at the bright, merrymaking masses, says, “You would think that a dragon had not just borne down on their homes, intent on laying waste to all they hold dear.”

This past week’s exhaustion and tonight’s mead must be making their mark upon him, because Thorin simply snorts, “Smaug would have scorched the earth itself for the sheer pleasure of it. The death toll, the wasteland--it all would have been incidental to the act itself.”

The Elvenking looks at him sharply and, disregarding the conjecture entirely, asks, “How did you come by his name?”

Thorin answers him honestly: “He could have no other one.”

“You are as incomprehensible as the chittering stoats of the Ettenmoors,” Thranduil says frostily. Thorin’s blood fails to boil. If anything, it’s a relief to converse with someone that looks and sounds exactly the way Thorin remembers him. Who disdains Thorin, and always will.

So Thorin is surprisingly at ease as he lazily ponders aloud, “Are there any stoats along the Ettenmoors? I was given to understand that they mainly inhabited Dunland.”

His father no doubt believes he’s rescuing Thorin from an immanently uncomfortable conversation when he strides over, wraps an arm around Thorin’s shoulder, nods to Thranduil, and leads him away, saying, “Come, my son. It’s time to dance the Quarter Step. Then we’ll open the good wine.”

*

When Thorin finally reaches his bed in the early morn, he lies awake and considers his position. In spite of the respect he is accorded by the mountain’s inhabitants and the abundance of family he has regained, Thorin has very quickly rediscovered the frustrations of being demoted to crown prince. When he was a pauper king with only a loaf of bread, he could at least decide who got which slice. Now, his fealty is sworn to Dwarves that he loves, Dwarves to whom he owes everything that he is and everything that he aspires to become. His father and his father’s father--whose minds will betray them, and who will in turn betray every oath they’ve sworn.

Every time he considers the problem, it turns and folds in on itself. If he aims to take the throne sooner, the process of it will change him and the political landscape of the mountain irrevocably. There is no guarantee that he won’t fall prey to gold sickness soon after his ascension, either. And if he makes no move for the crown, Erebor may fall to ruin just the same. Thorin is saturated with a sense unworthiness for the task set in front of him.

In the end, he decides to take a wizard’s approach: meddle wherever possible, but shy away from claiming power for its own sake. He will simply have to hope that his good intentions will have some bearing on the outcome. Such is the lot of Thorin, son of kings and inheritor of madness.

Twice-born, thrice-damned.

*

There are plans to mount the dragon’s teeth along the parapets, as a grim warning and proud reminder. In the coming weeks, Thorin remains adamant that no piece of the dragon’s carcass enter the mountain. Father, who makes most of the king’s decisions for him these days, fails to see his point. “You are superstitious, my son,” he chuckles.

Thorin, standing before his father's desk with his very best posture, replies, “And within the bedrock of superstition, a clear gem of wisdom.”

Seeing that the dragon’s slayer will never waver on the matter, Thráin leans back in his chair and finally sighs, “Yes, well. Best not to tempt fate, I suppose.”

“We’ll need to remove the corpse before the smell sets in,” Thorin advises as he begins to relax. Of all the things that may threaten the might of Erebor, at least dragon-sickness won't be in the mix.

So they carve up the dragon and sell its hide to the highest bidder, offer its claws to the caravan traders headed East, and bury its entrails. It is no secret, however, that he was the staunch obstacle between the Dwarves who had already begun to make bone-polish en mass and their morbid monument. Dwalin, as it turns out, is among them.

They are sharpening their knives side by side on the edge of the training grounds when Dwalin dredges up the matter, waspishly noting, “They’re just teeth. Could always tear them down if they looked bad or soured our gold.”

Thorin turns to look at him, eyeing the bare crown of his head. Somehow, he’d forgotten that Dwalin had gone bald before he was even out of his stripling years. “That would be foolhardy,” Thorin says, turning back to his blade.

“Says the Dwarf who shot an arrow made for a windlance out of a crossbow,” Dwalin returns.

Thorin grumbles, “It worked.”

That is, as far as Thorin is concerned, the end of the matter. And perhaps it's a lingering pettiness over the dragon’s teeth, but the denizens of Erebor generally begin to regard Thorin as superstitious. That suits him just fine. After all, Thorin is equally firm that hunting parties shouldn't travel in groups of thirteen--in fact, they shouldn't even travel in groups of fourteen or fifteen. Thorin is now thoroughly convinced that they should be composed of groups of ten or sixteen, and nowhere in between. His father humors him because it costs him nothing, but Thorin begins to miss not needing to be humored--the respect he commandeered, the solemnity he was owed.

He misses, too, the hard-earned calluses on his thumbs, and the scars here and there that told the story of his life. This body is all but unmarked, and it's hard not to feel distant from it, at times. The feeling builds when he converses with Dwarves of his own generation and their every word resounds with their unending pride in themselves and in Erebor, their understanding of themselves untarnished by tragedy.

That sense of displacement is somewhat soothed over the coming months as Thorin settles into the minor responsibilities and training regimen of a prince. When he finds himself in deep, meaningful discussion, it always seems to be with the eldest council members. Thorin takes comfort in the long view that they take, the way that they are veterans of everything and take so little for granted. It doesn’t hurt that they think he’s as superstitious as they are.

Thorin is just wrapping up a conversation about signs of a dust-up in East Bight with Khunri--by far the oldest Dwarf on the council, who is stooped over with a beard that only just avoids touching the floor. That’s when Frerin comes around the corner and spots them there, chewing the fat. He starts laughing, calling out, “Brother! Lingering after council meetings to trade wisdoms--you really are an old man before your time.”

Khunri pats Thorin on the back with his ancient, leathery hand, answering, “He’s an old soul. That is no bad thing.”

Thorin has no time to appreciate the irony of that observation before Frerin is shoving an envelope in his face, declaring, “It’s a letter from King Treebugger!”

“Good for you,” Thorin says.

“No, you dunderhead. It’s for you.”

Thorin takes the letter. As he tears it open, a small token slides into his palm. It’s a wax-backed stamp with an artist’s rendering of a stoat on it, a map of outlying villages near the Ettenmoors in the background. In flowing, cursive Westron, the letter reads:

Enclosed, you will find the answer to your inane question.

Thranduil
King of the Woodland Realm

And there follows a stream of titles and official seals that far outpaces the body of the letter.

“What is it?” Frerin says, leaning over his shoulder to get a better look at it.

“Evidence,” Thorin answers.

 
*

For all that Thorin is living within a fantasy of justice, of penitence, and of comfort that he scarcely could have dreamed up for himself, he falls right back into step, abiding the march of days onward into a now uncertain future. Although it is perhaps less uncertain than before.

Thorin is insistent, for instance, that Girion pull from the water every boat that Dale can safely store before the first day of winter, although autumn has given every indication that this winter will be a mild one. When the lake freezes solid for the first time in half a century and the merchants’ fleet is spared, the harbormaster sends him a tearful letter of thanks, making no mention of his own furious resistance to the precaution.

Of course, Thorin had only known because he remembers scrabbling for sustenance at the riverbank that winter, watching the weary scouts return from upriver to report that the lake was unfishable, that both the land and the water had turned them out.

In the short term, the ships that will haul his kingdom’s treasures to new shores have been spared from the elements--for this winter will have them in its snowy grip until April--and Dale has saved a fortune on varnish alone. The long term is another matter entirely. He does not know how to feel when the words seer and wise-eyed are bandied about more and more when people think that he cannot hear them. Despite the convenience of it, he refuses to speak one way or another on the matter. If anything, that seems to stir up the rumors even more.

That is not what Dís confronts him about, when she corners him in the library that spring. They discuss Frerin’s agitating new habit of chewing his fingernails until she turns to him out of the blue and examines him from head to toe. "You've mellowed. You've sharpened. You've become a little bit more, I think. Somehow. At some point," Dís says, decisiveness fading into bafflement. It’s incredible to think that she was this perceptive at such a young age, even without exile compacting her into a Dwarrowdam of diamond-sharp wit. Then she tugs on his collar, demanding, “Now where is that lovely opal rivière you were wearing last week? You hardly ever seem to wear more than a ring or two, these days.”

“The most gold-rich prince in Middle Earth and he won’t keep his jewelry on,” Khunri mutters aggrievedly from where he’s skulking among the stacks of scrolls.

And to a certain degree, he is correct. Thorin wears only the necessary number of golden armlets and jade boot-buckles and other such frippery. He doesn't look at the Arkenstone. He doesn’t look at Grandfather’s Ring of Power, shining dully with potential even in the dimmest rooms. Thorin does not yet feel the draw of any of these objects, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t.

Nár, the nobleman to whom his Grandfather is closest, staunchly maintains that gold fever is like lightening and only strikes a Dwarf once--imbuing him with immunity thereafter. As far as Thorin can tell, Nár still expects to see their king emerge from madness with newfound invulnerability any day now. While that hope has been without merit for many years, perhaps there is some truth to the general claim. For all their sakes, Thorin hopes so.

*

It occurs to Thorin, a full year after the death of Smaug, that he has never really pondered why he is in this place, in this time--reliving it and yet living it for the first time, so sharply does it depart from the life he’d known before. It’s not the sort of thing a Dwarf can search himself for and come up with a satisfying answer.

In fact, it’s at the annual trade negotiations in Dale that Thorin realizes that altering the course of history has permanently altered his own priorities, as well. The deep winter has faded into a late, waterlogged summer. Their royal procession enters Girion’s hall to the sound of whickering ponies and the pounding rain. Thorin tries to ignore the incessant drip of his hair and cloak against the stone floor. There is a damp strand of hair clinging to his cheek and, almost immediately, he feels Thranduil’s eyes boring into him from across the room. Thorin is being greeted by the Lord of Dale, however, and is obliged to not return his stare until a few moments later. But when he does glance over to where the King of Mirkwood is seated, Thranduil is gazing out the window, fingers flexing idly along the lacquered wood of his staff.

As it happens, Thorin is directed to the seat opposite of Thranduil’s and the meeting commences before a single word passes between the Dwarves of Erebor and the Elves of Mirkwood, as Girion had no doubt intended.

Thorin is surprised to find himself listening intently to the matters at hand, but somehow feeling wholly unthreatened by the tariffs Girion puts forward and the counteroffers his father proposes. He recalls these meetings from his youth; the way his eyes pinged back and forth between the arbiters, the way his heart stumbled at the potential loss of coin, how these decisions would compound over the course of an entire year’s transactions. This time, however, Thorin can appreciate the importance of the deliberation taking place, but he is also calm, with half an ear turned toward the downpour outside.

It is one thing to disparage his own greed; it is another to begin to be rid of it.

The negotiations adjourn after running several hours over, and supper is promptly served. Thorin repeatedly refuses the dark Elvish wine being poured by Girion’s staff, brought along by Thranduil as a gesture of goodwill. At the third refusal, Thranduil makes a bridge of his fingers and rests his chin on them, staring at Thorin with a strange light in his eyes. “Is it not to your liking, Prince Thorin?”

“None but the sweetest and lightest wines are,” Thorin answers, willing to defuse the situation but unwilling to make apologies for personal taste. “I am not fond of bitterness, even in the oldest of wines.”

The dinner guests around them seem to release a collective breath as both of them turn their attention back to the spread in front of them: roasted waterfowl, honeyed ham, salted parsnips, tureens of hearty stew, and a great sturgeon that’s as long as the table is wide.

Thorin eats his fill and finds himself loosening his belt later that night, when they’ve retired to their handsome guestrooms rather than brave the storm to return home. Their delegation trickles into their shared sitting room and, despite the sleepy atmosphere, Frerin starts a rousing chorus of “The Merry Miner of Michel Delving.”

When the high-spirited tune drifts off into the night, Frerin offers his silver harp to Thorin, who declines as gently as he is able. No good could come of it. The only thing his fingers will play is “Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold.” He knows. He has tried. And Thorin will not play it to an audience that, by the grace of Mahal, will never understand what it means.

Father turns to Thorin, his garnet earrings tinkling as he shakes his head and asks, “You haven’t so much as touched your harp in a year, Thorin. Why is that?”

Thorin has never been able to lie to him, so does not. “It would tempt the future,” he says.

Perhaps he truly is becoming superstitious, because he believes it.

*

A fortnight later, Thorin sends the King of Mirkwood a twenty-year-old catalogue of regional wines rated according to bitterness, in which the Elvish wines overwhelmingly scored the highest numbers due to how long they sat in the barrel. When the King of Mirkwood in turn sends him a copy of a healer’s report documenting the health benefits of consuming bitter foods, a semi-regular correspondence ensues.

Somewhere along the way, the useless scrolls and tokens evolve into items of actual use and interest. To a certain extent, the exchange becomes… aggressively extravagant. Thorin, for instance, sends the Elvenking a parcel of seeds that shine like jewels--pretty, but hardly valuable. In return, Thorin receives ten sachets of priceless blue lavender, impossible to find and harvest for anyone who hasn’t lived in the forest for a century and each one worth his circlet on the market.

It takes him a few months to come up something truly impossible to surpass, but when he does, he can feel a smirk on his face whenever he thinks of it: a jeweler’s loupe. A golden one embossed with intricate loops and swirls, with a glass so fine in it, Thranduil could find the bittering agents in wine, or see the gem-like quality of his seeds at the minutest level, or perhaps discover which one of his royal heirlooms has been fake all along. Thorin informs him of this in the letter attached.

He is still waiting for a reply when he receives an unspeakably expensive fur coat from the harbormaster on the eve of his Birthing Day. Thorin is uncomfortable with the wastefulness of it--which is odd because when Thranduil sends him something extravagant, Thorin just feels motivated. In any case, all of this exorbitant diplomacy puts him in mind of his old allies, with whom he dearly wishes he could split his treasure accordingly. Most of them have yet to be born, but one of them is nearly as old as the hills and is just as reliable.

Thorin had seen that massive black bear tearing through goblins as though splashing through choppy gray water; he remembers being carried from the battlefield, bloodied and borne to safety by the paw of a gentle giant. He would not pass on the chance to have such an ally again. So Thorin goes out of his way to befriend Beorn from a distance, sending one raven with an inordinately polite letter of introduction and its mate with precious phial of what the head cook calls “secret spice,” but what they in the West call cinnamon.

Two weeks later, Thorin gets a reply from Beorn in his big, scrawling letters that reads only:

PRETTY SPICE. I WONDER: WHAT COULD A DWARF PRINCE WANT FROM ME?

Thorin replies that he has heard tell of Beorn’s legendary strength and hatred of Orcs and that he wishes only to extend an offer of friendship and other niceties that he hardly remembers writing. The response reads:

FRIENDS CAN’T BE MADE WITHOUT KNOWING EACH OTHER’S FACES, NOW CAN THEY?

Thorin contemplates that message for a while, and decides that a creature as brusque as Beorn wouldn’t write that if he didn’t mean it. It’s been a quiet spring, so nothing needs Thorin’s explicit attention, and the royal guards are getting restless, having been confined to the mountain with their rulers for the past few years now, excepting a few customary trips to Dale. So Thorin clears his schedule and answers:

You are correct. I will arrive before summer’s eve. Reply immediately if you do not wish to have visitors.

He stamps the official seal of Durin on it with relish. After half a lifetime of wandering, being cooped up in this glorious mountain has been as difficult for him as it has been for the guards. They’ll take the Old Forest Road, which is only just beginning to fall into disrepair.

Thorin promptly starts a list of gifts that he believes Beorn would enjoy--simple, unostentatious pleasures. Unfortunately, it all ends up being food: jarred lemon curd, pounds of salt, dried mushrooms, pots of raw syrup, and tart pickled plums. And then, on a whim, he includes the useless brooch that Dís has been trying to get rid of for years: a stylized bumblebee made of jasper and onyx that was too big to be anything but cumbersome for a Dwarrowdam of her size.

He’ll be hard-pressed to explain the importance of this expedition to anyone except himself. Fortunately, people have begun to question Thorin’s strange requests less and less. As for the long term, Beorn has a beard any Dwarf could respect and is a fierce warrior besides. A friendship may seem odd now, but it will seem less unlikely with time.

 
*

And, true to his word, it’s a week before summer’s start when Thorin finds himself standing in Beorn’s sunlit yard, his guards abandoned at the front gate. They’ve spent some minutes bandying back and forth introductions, as Beorn greets him with typical suspicion. Thorin begins to wonder in earnest if Dwarves seem this secretive and wary to the rest of Middle Earth. Still, he persists: “Your home is as sizeable and beautiful as I had heard, Master Beorn.”

“And how did you hear it?” Beorn enquires amiably, but with an edge to it as he towers over Thorin effortlessly, arms folded over his barrel chest.

“Gandalf the Grey is a gossip,” Thorin answers without a drop of shame. “As are the ravens.”

“So are the sparrows,” Beorn returns. “I’ve heard that you’re a superstitious Dwarf. Do you believe that making nice with a Skinchanger will protect you from the harm of animals, or somesuch?”

“No,” Thorin says, honestly surprised. And then, curiously, “Would it?”

Beorn chuckles and says, “That it would not, princeling. Noon will cook us if we keep squabbling out here. Come inside, and bring those plums you’ve brought. The smell of them is making me miss my lunch.”

It’s a mere three hours later--once Beorn has finally welcomed the rest of his royal entourage around his great table laden with sweet breads and goat cheese and berries and honeyed nuts--when a raven arrives bearing a letter. Thorin scans it quickly, and stands.

“Father has had a grave riding accident. A deep head wound and too much blood lost from his leg. He doesn't have long,” Thorin announces, half-numb.

As they depart for Erebor, Beorn says, “The swiftest route will be--”

“The Elf-path, I know,” Thorin says, and spares not a moment for pretty parting words. They ride hard for the Forest Gate and launch themselves at full speed into Mirkwood. It’s a long week of exhausted ponies and cram and a handful of hours of sleep. Still, the forest is mercifully lighter and greener than Thorin remembers it, and the path is much more well-trodden and, excluding a few dark patches, is easy to follow--at least by comparison. Thorin knows they’re making progress when they cross the Enchanted River unscathed, but Thorin feels eyes on him after that. All the way through their trek in the wilderness, their ponies flick their ears to the side as if they hear something that the Dwarves on their backs do not. It is not to be taken for granted, using the Elf-path without permission and, thus far, without repercussion. Thorin will have to find some way to signal his thanks.

The woods finally begin to lighten again and the air feels fresher, and soon they break out into the flat green expanse, exhaling their relief at the open sky above it. They cross the river at its narrowest point. They thunder over the plains. The Lonely Mountain finally peaks into view. It is all a sense memory, for Thorin: the soreness of his legs, his panting timed with Silverfoot’s, the incredible silence of those well-oiled gates as they open, the pounding disorientation of racing up the stairs to his father’s bedchamber.

There is a high ringing in his ears and a dry, choked feeling in his throat as he sees Frerin and Dís clinging to each other at the back of the room. Then the crowd of council members and nobility parts for him and finally, finally, Thorin kneels at his father's bedside. His father, who looks so pale and miserable and blinks slowly down at his eldest son and rests a weak hand on Thorin's bowed head.

Thorin, who sees no reason to lie, says to the floor, “It is a shame, for you to leave us this way. I forgive you for it, but it still rankles.” He lifts his face to look at the gauze around his father’s forehead, the way he seems to have aged immeasurably in no time at all.

His father stares up at him with tired eyes and says, “I am sorry to do it. But… I was beginning to feel it, anyway.”

Thorin shakes his head mutely, unwilling, for once, to discuss their sickness openly, to be pragmatic about the inevitable. His father folds his hands across his stomach like an old man and croaks, “It calls to me, even now. The Arkenstone. My jewelry box. Your silver brocade. It is killing me, and it began to do it long before my fall.”

Perhaps it’s the dehydration or the presence of others, but Thorin's tears won’t come. Father begins to fumble with his earrings, fingers struggling with the sleek little clasps. “Here, take them. They’ve weighed on my mind long enough. I want you to have them, and when they make that maddening little noise when you turn your head, you will remember me. You will remember that you must surpass me, that you must do me more than proud--you must throw off our curse, at any cost. I know you can, Thorin. You’re just that stubborn.”

Thorin wants to tear his own hair out; he wants shake his father until he’s scared him back into good health. And yet Thorin’s heart is glad for it, knowing that his canny, cunning father is saying all this in front of the gathered nobility on purpose--so that when Thorin combats the gold-sickness preemptively, they will know that it was their unnamed, unofficial regent’s dying wish.

He gives a particularly hard tug on his earrings and Thorin gently pulls them off for him, saying quietly, “I will.”

Thorin tucks them into his pocket and rises to sit on the edge of the bed. He leans forward to knock their foreheads together lightly, then simply stays there with his hands resting over his father’s. He hardly recognizes his own voice as he says, “Is there anything… is there anything else?”

Thráin’s eyes are closed and Thorin watches water gather around his father’s eyelashes. And then he says, “I miss your mother, Thorin. I miss her so much.”

Thorin keeps his forehead against his father’s, even as he draws one last heaving breath and subsides, settling. After a long moment, Thorin draws back--head empty, heart numb, racing for an emergency that has already passed.

For all that there are twenty Dwarves and Dwarrowdams present, the room is as silent and still as if they had all died with Thráin. Then Thorin convinces his aching thighs to let him rise and says, “I will inform our king.”

He does not ask where their king may be found.

Thorin walks through halls already filled with the sounds of mourning and enters the treasury quietly. As he walks forward, the King Under the Mountain looks up from the stack of rubies he’s tabulating and says softly, with complete surprise, “Fror.”

Thorin doesn’t wince, hearing his king call to his long-dead brother. In the throes of gold-sickness, he too had nearly called Fili by Frerin’s name. For the illness robs them not only of sense, but also of time.

So Thorin comes closer and says, “No, Grandfather. I am Thorin. I have come to inform you that your son is dead.”

His king stares up at him blankly, twisting the ring around his finger restlessly. Then the King Under the Mountain turns back to the sorting table, silently dismissing him as the click-clack of rubies being stacked fills the room.

He does not scorn his grandfather as he leaves him to his counting and sorting. Thrór son of Dáin has succumbed after years of combatting the influence of the Arkenstone, the seventh ring, and the hoard of gold weighing on his mind at all hours. Who is he to disdain him? Thorin hadn’t lasted a week.

*

Dís pierces Thorin’s ears that very evening, and he wears his father's garnets to the funeral. She and Frerin look younger than ever, standing close together, looking inward, discovering loss as they have never known it.

Grandfather is coaxed from the treasury and sits next to Thorin for the full thirty minutes of funeral rites. Once the last word is spoken and the mourners rise to offer their farewells to Father’s body, the King Under the Mountain seems to recall that he is intended to lead the procession. He shuffles up the steps and leans over the casket to take a final look at his only son’s face. Whatever he sees there, it has him turning on his heel and hurrying back to the coffers before Nár or the rest of the council can persuade him to stay.

Thorin watches as his father is kissed goodbye by hundreds, is loaded into the burial chamber, and is set within the stone. All the while, his subjects weep openly for their regent, for the uncertainty they now face.

The Key to the Secret Side-Door is pressed into his hand by his father’s third-closest advisor, Ganir. “Your grandfather wouldn’t take it,” is all the councilman says. It is a sharp, angular little thing, with a distinctive hourglass shape within its handle. It is cold and it is memory taken physical shape, and every time Thorin touches it, he feels as though he is standing in front of a wall that refuses to become a door.

*

After that, Thrór simply… fades.

It is perhaps the longest two months of Thorin’s life, but it is quick, in the scheme of things.

He buries his grandfather with the Arkenstone set into the very center of his casket cover and with his Ring of Power on his finger. There are a few token objections, but with Nár sobbing in front of them--wailing for the heirlooms to be cast into the darkness, for their influence to die along with their king, to end this miserable cycle, Mahal condemn you--the council proves surprisingly biddable.

So Thorin stands before the halls of the dead for the second time in as many months with Frerin and Dís, pale and drawn on either side of him. They watch as the glittering casket disappears into the darkness; they watch as the stone takes their king back with a crack!

*

Thorin reclaims Erebor.

Chapter Text

All of the local regents attend the coronation a week later. Thorin the Wise, he was dubbed. He could weep from hearing it because he knows that it doesn’t ring true.

A dizzying array of guests are in attendance; there are even a few Broadbeams and Blacklocks who happened to be passing through the region, now amiably knocking their heads against young Dáin’s.

Someone must have prevailed upon Beorn to attend because he is here as well, though Thorin had not sent word to him. Dís elbows Thorin right above his sapphire belt and eyes the bumblebee pinned to Beorn’s collar, murmuring, “By the Maker, he makes that brooch look good.” Thorin pretends not to hear the appreciative tone of her voice.

Thorin spots a blond head of hair and a thorny crown, and promptly waves a servant over. “Collect the necklace and prepare it for travel,” Thorin tells him.

It figures that the next person Thorin sees is Gandalf, weaving around the entourage from Dale and headed right for him. “Trouble approaches,” he remarks to Dís.

Gandalf’s ears must be sharper than Thorin remembers, because even as the yards close between them, Gandalf answers, “Might I remind you, King Thorin, that I have wandered the sovereign realms and advised kings--your forebearers included--for lifetimes upon lifetimes?”

“And you’ve been a disgruntled old man for all of them,” Thorin rejoins, as Dís makes herself scarce.

Gandalf cracks a crooked smile and says, “You cut me to the quick, King Thorin.”

Thorin has nothing to say to that, so of course, he says nothing. Gandalf examines him, eyes lingering on the seven stars embroidered on each cuff and the crown that catches all the light in the room. Gandalf abruptly asks, “You know what the elves call you, do you not?”

Thorin answers with the first word that comes to mind: “Naugrim.”

“Besides that,” Gandalf huffs. Then he leans in and says, “They call you Thorn.”

“Explain,” Thorin demands tersely.

Gandalf sighs and grumbles, “To think that the world carries on as if Dwarves were never haughty and Elves were never greedy.” Then he leans in close again and says, eyes shining with mirth, “You are sudden and sharp; your size is powerfully deceptive. You are a deterrent; your very presence defends the flower. Do you understand?”

“Riddlesome old codger,” Thorin mutters, which is as clear an answer as any.

Gandalf only remarks, "You're quite mysterious, yourself."

“That is a grave insult, coming from a wizard,” Thorin retorts.

Gandalf rests his weight against his staff and politely enquires, “Will you take me to task over it? Shall there be a war of wizards and Dwarves next?”

Thorin hears the soul-deep exhaustion beneath his jest and--with the battlefield relatively fresh in his own memory--he attempts to reassure the impossibly tall, discreetly despairing creature in front of him. "I do not yearn for war. I know there always be more."

Gandalf raps his staff against the floor, answering, “Truer words never spoken, Thorin the Wise.” Thorin turns his face away from that name, ashamed to even hear it.

“You object to your title?” Gandalf asks.

“Wholeheartedly.” Thorin suddenly feels the death of his fathers as if they were a physical weight, reinforced by the future that may await him sooner than any will admit. “I am a fool, and a fool only.”

Gandalf tips his hat back and says, “Yes, well. Enough time as a fool can make anyone wise.”

Thorin regains some of his humor at hearing such a plain, simple platitude. So he makes a show of looking Gandalf up and down and says, “Are you certain?”

Gandalf is still spluttering and guffawing when the servant returns bearing a nondescript brass box, so Thorin takes his leave of him. Thorin carries the box between both hands and strides over to where Thranduil is quietly surveying the rest of the room. “Come with me,” Thorin tells him, and they walk silently side by side to a sumptuous side room several doors away from the buzzing crowd.

They sit across from each other on the long couches and Thorin wordlessly unlatches the box, offering it to Thranduil. The Elvenking is slow to respond, his eyes widening and his fingers clenching on his robe in a rare display of subtle, genuine emotion. Then, with slow, intentional movements, he reaches out and accepts the box, eyes never straying from the prize within: the White Gems of Lasgalen, set in their necklace and resting against dark silk.

Perhaps someone else would be mystified by Thranduil’s muteness, but even in this life, they are hardly strangers. Thorin, too, knows what it means to suddenly emerge from battle as a king, to learn to rule your people with grief as your guide, to spare your subjects suffering by heaping all of the cold-blooded decisions on yourself. To yearn for kindness, and to never trust it when it is offered. He knows how it changes you.

So Thorin says, "They call you cold-hearted, unfeeling. They don't realize: you give the whole of your heart to your people, and there's simply none leftover for anyone else." Thranduil's eyes burn.

It’s completely inappropriate, but Thorin could never ask this of his kin, of his people, of any of those kind-hearted, loyal Dwarves who have sworn their fealty at any cost, to any end. So Thorin makes his request. "If I should slip into that sickness, if I should shame myself by falling into greed," Thorin begins, then stares straight at Thranduil as he demands, "rend my head from my shoulders. Send spies to poison me at a state dinner. Do what you must."

Thranduil, if he is surprised, hides it well. He raises his chin and speaks as though from a great distance, “You would appoint me your executioner. You would charge me with that task, free of charge.”

“No. I am bribing you to do it,” Thorin answers as he rises. Thranduil doesn’t move to follow, attention fixed on the gems now, so Thorin lets his feet carry him back to the main gathering.

Try as he might, the only other thing that Thorin can later recall from that entire evening is when Náin, proud Lord of the Iron Hills, pulls him aside and says, “Take it from one Longbeard to another, as long as you take good care of your beard and take up a hobby to keep yourself sane, you’ll do just fine.”

*

Thorin is awed to discover the number of the duties of kingship he was already fulfilling. There is more pomp, more circumstance, and more paperwork, but the core responsibilities and expectations remain unchanged, though the burden has doubled. He cannot help but wonder if his father perhaps planned it that way--keeping the load light while also ensuring that no ugly surprises awaited him on the other side of the crown.

The mechanics of obtaining the council’s approval for something, for instance, are very familiar to Thorin. Whenever they’re at an impasse, he can trust Farin to wrangle his sons Fundin and Gróin into line. Gróin, in turn, tends to nudge Bragur into action by calling him an old fuddy-duddy. That’s usually enough to tip the scales. Not today.

Nár and Khunri and Ganir, the last of whom is fond of brandishing his mattock in the heat of debate, are hardline traditionalists. As far as Thorin can tell, they can only be swayed by cosmic convergence or an act of Mahal. Today, Thorin has pleaded his case until his voice is hoarse and he is spent and tired and grieving still.

Khunri, the eldest council member, is predictably the most resistant to stirring the enormous piles of gold in the treasury. At the end of hours of gruelling debate, he sums up his final thoughts on the matter thus: “It is the pride of our people, Thorin.”

“You are the pride of our people!” Thorin erupts, then he turns to address Bragur and Nár, saying, “You are the pride of our people. You are the pride of our people. And I will damn you all, given enough gold and time.”

The room falls to silence. At long last, Ganir stirs and says, “The Maker forged us to love it utterly.”

Thorin says it as plainly as he can: “I will love it. Utterly. Would you condemn me to that?”

They do not condemn him to that.

*

Drafting the ordinance takes months and months, all told, but they end up with a document they can all live with. Bragur, as head of the treasury, is now tasked with allocating funds to the army, kitchens, library, healing ward, artisans’ guild, jewelers’ union, miners’ association, merchant coalition, maintenance crews, and the truly vast emergency reserves.

Each sector is responsible for electing a treasurer or treasury body to house, account, and protect their allotment--the size of which is determined by the council in conjunction with yearly budget reports.

Of course, doing so necessarily dissolves the notion that all of the gold in the mountain belongs to the king by default; therefore, the ordinance sets aside a reasonable annual salary for the kingship and a vault to contain it. The king’s chief advisor and the treasurer are entrusted with keeping track of that vault, as well as ensuring that its contents don’t become a distraction to any member of the royal family. Balin and Bragur are less than thrilled with that responsibility, but they both seem to accept the necessity of it.

Thorin has never slept so well as he does the night that the document is finally signed and stamped, and he can still see the ink drying as he falls asleep: Let it be known that the King Under the Mountain belongs to his subjects, and the Mountain’s gold belongs to them also. Let it be known that the King shall receive his salary and not a coin more, for precious lives shall weigh on his mind rather than precious metals, and all within the Mountain shall be glad for it…

*

The following spring, apropos of nothing, the King of Mirkwood sends him a raven. Thorin knows it’s from him because the bird tells him so. She’s a chatty little thing, thoroughly disappointed with the selection of mates that the grasslands around Gladden Fields had to offer, and she’s vocally eager to find some Westron-speaking males among Erebor’s flock.

She also, as it happens, knows the way to nearly all of the kingdoms in Middle Earth, and is happy to show his own ravens the way--as most of the inhabitants of Raven Hill do not recall a time before Thrór’s isolationist rule and only know the way to close-by places.

It is… unbelievably convenient. Thorin’s discomfort with the gift only rises when he discusses the matter with Frerin, and his brother laughs, saying, “Mahal’s balls, now he's really softening you up!”

Up until this point, Thorin had not considered Thranduil's motives to be anything more complicated than simple one upmanship and perhaps the early overtures of a more amicable relationship between their kingdoms. But now that Frerin has put it in those terms, the exceptional quality of the Elvenking’s gift would, all things considered, make more sense as a form of bribery.

Thorin sets aside his concerns until the annual trade negotiations in Dale, when Girion’s cunning plan to once again commence negotiations before there can be contact and resulting contention between the Dwarves and Elves is negated by his own market leaders’ tardiness. The delegates mill around the meeting hall, waiting for the merchants to arrive. Thorin and Thranduil linger in the entryway, and find a measure of privacy as they stand before the large window that surveils the sprawling fish market, a patchwork of colorful stalls punctuated by the occasional flash of knives.

Seeing no reason to prevaricate, Thorin stares out across the spectacle and says calmly, “If there is something you require from me that I can responsibly provide, then you will have it. But if I cannot, then an exceptionally useful bird will not sway me on the matter.”

The Elvenking turns to him, anger palpable in every tense line of his body, and he quietly demands, “Yet you think me susceptible to bribery? That you can command me to slay you for a handful of jewels?”

Thorin’s garnet earrings tinkle quietly as he shakes his head.

He hears them. He remembers.

“You would not do it for a handful of jewels. You would do it because you believe it is right,” Thorin states evenly. “And it would be foolish, at this juncture, to pretend that you simply desired them as a pretty bauble to clutter up your jewelry box.”

A flustered gaggle of merchants marches into the hall, and the argument evaporates as the kings of Mirkwood and Erebor find their seats.

The exchange of ever more lavish gifts ceases after that.

*

They do, however, maintain a regular correspondence via the ravens, and their argument fails to resurface. In fact, all three kingdoms embrace the new tide of amity. Thranduil in particular has seemed ready and willing to throw a feast for each and every occasion--the winter solstice, the exceptional wheat crop Dale produced last year, Girion’s son’s twenty-seventh birthday, and even Durin’s Day.

Though one would never guess that a festival is raging within the Lonely Mountain, not when confronted with the crisp quiet up here on the mountain’s surface, watching the moon and the sun chase each other across the darkening sky. But Thorin only has eyes for the lichen and wildflowers, glossed with early frost and crystallized around the flat, bare patch on the rockface. Thorin watches the door, though it looks nothing like one, and his entourage forms a doubtful semicircle behind him--no doubt wondering why he’s clutching a key and an old piece of paper and holding them all captive up here when there’s a good time to be had below.

The curve of this circle was of course Dís, Frerin, Dwalin, Balin and Khunri—and every one of them gasp and begin to mutter as the thrush knocks and the light strikes the stone in quick succession, starkly illuminating the keyhole.

“This is the Secret Side-Door,” Thorin announces. “It must remain secret, so we will not pass through it tonight. But it is essential that you all remember its location and that it is only accessible on this day, once a year.” He hands the key to Frerin and the tightly folded map to Dís, telling them, “Should we ever be driven out of the mountain, this map will lead us back to the door and the key will grant us entry.”

“Why give this to me?” Dís asks, looking quite overwhelmed.

Thorin strides away from the door and answers, “Isn’t it obvious? You have the best sense of direction.” A few chuckles echo between the gathered Dwarves as the tension slackens; they descend the hidden stair as the moon begins to climb.

As they rejoin the party, Ganir nods to them, appearing to know perfectly well why they disappeared at moonrise on Durin’s Day. They scatter among the revelers and the night passes in a haze of mead and mutton pie and endless politicking.

It is a handful of hours past midnight when Thorin retreats to Erebor’s new flower garden, tucked away on a Southward balcony, hidden on the mountain’s steepest slope. Too tired to socialize and too keyed up to sleep, he reclines on the sole marble bench. When the party finally catches up to him, however, the universe has the good grace to let it be someone as asocial as him.

Thranduil steps out onto the balcony and, after a moment, sits on the other end of the bench, glass of wine in hand. They stare up in silence at the constellation that forms Durin’s Crown, shining down on them in the sapphire sky.

They may spend an hour like that. Thorin is too drowsy and mead-warmed to tell. When his neck aches from staring upward, Thorin looks down instead and becomes enraptured with the flowers he has no name for, the way their leaves curl coyly and their purple petals fan out like little shields. He finds himself saying, “You would think that my kind would admire growing things, for their lifespans more closely match our own, and that your kind would savor everlasting stone.”

Thranduil takes a single leaf of the ivy that hangs down around them between his thumb and forefinger, and says, “Perhaps not. It is just as inevitable that mortals find reassurance in permanence and that immortals are fascinated by brevity.” Thorin hums in answer, folding his arms over his chest as the cold finally begins to touch him.

Thranduil faces him, then, and asks, “Do you find reassurance in permanence?”

With an Elvenking, Thorin knows he need not fear sounding too flowery or nihilistic when he answers, “All is rainwater, and rubble, and wind. All is fixed in its own mutable state. If that is what you mean by permanence, then yes. I find comfort in it.”

"Your eyes," Thranduil murmurs. "They're all wrong."

Thorin has no acceptable answer to that. So they sit in silence until the sun gives chase to the moon again and they keep each other company until the dawn is gone, all gone.

*

Whenever he leaves the mountain, there’s a part of Thorin that still expects to see the Desolation of Smaug: a gray-brown expanse of loveless debris reaching as far as the eye can see. One morning, as he exits Erebor’s gates, headed for Dale with Frerin at his side, he mutters aloud to himself, “Barren, yet not. It’s galling to think that, after everything, we are still vulnerable.”

Frerin, fiddling with the reigns of his pony, blankly answers, “Wha?”

“You must understand, Frerin--the Lonely Mountain is aptly named. We have no cradle of sister mountains to shelter us; we have no high meadows to sow corn. We must take our allies where we can. Food from Dale, peace with Mirkwood, solidarity with the Iron Hills--these are not easy, nor are they replaceable.”

“Hmmm,” Frerin says, seeming to think it over seriously. And then he says fawningly, “Yes, Your Majesty! I thank thee, oh Wise One! I'm so intimidated by… your wisdom!”

“Don’t call me that,” Thorin snaps, done with the appellation since the first time he heard it.

“But you’re so kingly!” Frerin cries.

And the next thing Thorin knows, Frerin is launching an initiative for Erebor to become more self-sufficient, at least where food is concerned. The council narrowly approves his proposal to raise grazing herds of sheep and cattle that will roam along the green plains surrounding the mountain. Frerin’s even considering asking the merchants bound for Ered Luin to bring back sheepdogs to streamline the process. In the meantime, it’s been a surprisingly popular pastime with young scribes, to help shoo the lambs and calves outside and then wile away the afternoon, lying in the grass and studying one’s letters in the sun.

It is months later when Girion’s successor, Bard--whom Thorin still struggles not to call Bard I--admits his discomfort with this… rather agrarian development. “Are you dissatisfied with what we provide?” Bard asks, frowning from the head of the negotiating table.

“No,” Thorin says. “But our population is ever-expanding. Our mountain can hold many, but it feeds few. If there should ever be a shortfall in your grain or a sickness among your livestock, both of our kingdoms would suffer. Would you sell us your last loaf of bread? Even if you would, how could we ask it of you?” Lord Bard seems subdued, but not convinced. So Thorin wraps his knuckles on the table and says, “Imagine that your people subsisted almost entirely off of the food your neighbor could spare. Tell me that you would not feel vulnerable, that you would not feel a phantom pang of hunger simply thinking of what may come to pass.”

At this, the Lord of Dale finally nods his head in understanding, answering, “In memory, no such peril that has befallen us has lasted more than a year or two. That does not mean that it could not happen, or that we should not be prepared for it.”

Then he leans back in his seat and eyes Thorin speculatively, suddenly looking very much like his father. “You wouldn’t starve, you know. The Elf king would succor you.”

Thorin frowns, thrown by the direction this conversation is taking. “He would sell us what he could within reason, but even his stores are far from limitless.”

Bard begins to chuckle to himself for no reason that Thorin can tell and says, “Never you mind. Come, let us come to blows over the tariff on wheat.”

*

The fairgrounds are thick with the sound of tents being raised and the lapping of waves at the shore of Long Lake. Through the glare of the noonday sun and the dust kicked up by ponies overburdened with ale, Thorin catches a glimpse of Thranduil and idly makes his way over to him, still discussing the cost of Ravenhill’s upkeep with Khunri. Although he knows logically that it’s untrue, it really does seem like every time Thorin sees him, Thranduil has a glass of red wine in hand. Thorin walks up to him with Khunri at his side and, perhaps inadvisably, says, “You are a lush.”

Thranduil takes a measured sip and replies, “If all is but ash and the changing of seasons, then I had best take my pleasure where I can.” Thorin chuckles in spite of himself at hearing his own words thrown back at him while Khunri promptly walks away, mysteriously muttering the words “open secret” and “twitterpated forest-dweller” in Khuzdul.

Somehow, they spend the entire afternoon side by side, browsing the stalls and spectating the competitions. He learns that Thranduil carries a staff because it curbs his desire to hold a sword. He learns that Thranduil finds sleeveless shirts unseemly. He learns that Thranduil carries a letter opener on his person at all times. In essence, he begins to learn Thranduil.

Thorin couldn’t say what Thranduil learns about him, but if their ongoing amicability is any indication, then Thranduil doesn’t find him completely unpalatable.

*

The caravan to Ered Luin returns with ironworks, elaborate wood carvings, and pearls of every conceivable color. They have also brought the hounds. Dwalin calls them a howling nuisance and warg runts besides, but Thorin can always catch him feeding them scraps late, late in the evening.

It is one such evening when Thorin sits down next to Dwalin on the kitchen steps, watching the pups scuffle over and scarf down their ill-gotten gains. They say nothing for long minutes, which has always been the mark of true companionship in Thorin’s life. And then, as one pup comes snuffling up to Dwalin’s hand, it seems as though Dwalin is asking the hound when he says, “What is your opinion of the Elvenking?”

“Self-important. Tall beyond reckoning. A bit of a hedonist, but an ally we need,” Thorin says, casting out another forkful of offal for the dogs snap up. “Why? What do you make of him?”

Dwalin turns to him, eyes suddenly shining with unshed tears, looking as serious as Thorin has ever seen him. “I’ll back you, wherever that leads. I’ll follow you, Thorin son of Thráin. You remember that.”

Thorin puts a hand on Dwalin’s shoulder and says as firmly as he can, “I know.” He opens his mouth to ask Dwalin for a little more context, but that’s when Balin walks through the kitchen door, nearly tripping over them.

“So this is where you’ve been scarpering off to,” Balin says as he sits down on the last free stretch of stairs. Dwalin huffs and says nothing, clearly put out to have his affection for the hounds on display. Thorin understands that; that need to hide one’s heart. He empathizes with Dwalin, but he couldn’t say why he feels it so keenly just now.

*

The Dwarves of Erebor have not grown fond of Thranduil, but they have grown used to his frequent presence in the mountain. Thus, whenever the King of the Woodland Realm appears in the doorway of the forge, they quiet and then promptly resume their work. Thorin will lay down his chisel and the two of them will sit at his worktable to discuss the process of jewelry-making and forgework, as much as they can without disclosing any state secrets. When their proximity to the forge becomes sweltering and uncomfortable, they retire to Erebor’s cooler locales and wade through whatever festivities are on that week.

Suffice to say, Thorin’s average year is a blur of paperwork punctuated by letters from Thranduil and parties hosted between the kingdoms. It is a testament to their shared prosperity that all three rulers can afford to facilitate the constant revelry, or so it seems to Thorin.

Throughout the rest of the year, Dís helps him with his paperwork when she’s not busy trying to find her own trade, and Frerin is, of course, hard at work with his flock. He flushes terribly whenever Thorin opens a feast by announcing the new Ereborian delicacies being served: herbed lamb chops, beef jerky, succulent tenderloin, roasted bone marrow, and soft white sheep’s cheese. Beorn is an infrequent visitor, but when he does come, he has much to impart to Frerin on the rearing of happy livestock.

If Thorin had to sum it up, he’d be tempted to say that Rhovanion is becoming a smaller place, the Wilderland a little less wild.

Thus, the royal families become a little more familiar with one another and their seating arrangements solidify into contractual obligations. As such, Thorin and Thranduil see much of each other as they are nearly always placed across the table from one another. Other times, they’ll end up seated next to each other at a welcome dinner in the halls of Mirkwood and they’ll linger there as the rest of the table empties to join in the sweeping group dances. It is at one such event that Thorin is surprised to see Prince Legolas wearing the White Gems of Lasgalen, flickering in the light as he dances. The necklace overlays his tunic, distinctly feminine in design.

Thranduil follows his line of sight and ask lowly, with danger lurking deep within his voice, “Do you disdain my son for wearing them?”

“It is better that they are worn at all,” Thorin answers and--as he always does when things between them grow tense--he turns his attention to their surroundings, uninterested in bickering. Specifically, he stares at the half-demolished feast in front of them: heaps of spiced venison, misted pitchers of water drawn from the cool springs deep within the palace, buttered rolls, an unrivalled spread of fruits, and an eel caught from the Enchanted River--tangy and tender when cured and treated right.

Thorin polishes off another helping of eel and Thranduil opens a new bottle of wine, the pop! of the cork loud in their relative quiet. As Thorin surveys the partygoers, Thranduil asks, “What do you think of, when you look out on the dancers?”

Thorin, amused at the change of subject after so long a silence, says, “That you are incredibly odd, even for an elf.”

Thranduil answers with dark, accusing humor, “I suppose I must seem so, with my wooden crown and my nose always up in the air.”

Thorin is just surprised enough to say, “From our perspective, all of your kind have your noses up in the air.”

Thranduil turns to him with surprise just barely touching his face. “Do you jest about your own height?”

“No. I jest about yours.”

“An Elf and a Dwarf discussing differences in height with civility--Men will grow wings next,” Thranduil says drily, sounding like he can hardly believe it himself.

“One of us might even smile,” Thorin replies. They simply sit there in the quiet, knowing that the other is also fighting the reflex to grin, to chuckle at their own stern reputations. No one smiles, but the quiet knowledge of shared struggle is more satisfying than that.

*

There are other such moments, of course. Moments when all of Middle Earth is quiet and there is simply the two of them speaking, or else finding solace in silence.

They amble through the scattered pines north of the Lonely Mountain together. They host an excursion to one of the mountaintops near Thranduil’s palace for a day-long picnic where their respective musicians play themselves hoarse trying to best one another. Thorin leads Thranduil on a tour of the stalagmite forest deep within Erebor, where sounds multiply with one another in the darkness and the scarcest lamplight sets the cavern to glittering.

They are good days, and they are many.

And when his more stubborn subjects ask why he believes that they are stronger for their fraternizing with Men and Elves, Thorin tells them: “I have seen it.”

There are days, too, where Thorin feels like the lowest scum for misleading his people so. But in the end, what does it cost, to switch one impossible thing for another? If they would readily accept the truth, then he would share it with them. But they would not, so he does not, and perhaps he never will.

*

Dwarves are in the atrocious habit of labelling eras even as they come to pass. Thorin has always thought it an ill sign, just begging for any title to become darkly ironic in retrospect. Still, even he can find no fault in the name they have given his era in its infancy: the Flowering of Erebor. It is a period of change still emerging from its modest beginnings: with its necessary interkingdom alliances maturing into genuine, robust friendships; with its sense of worth being linked with its literal worth less and less; and with its new pastoral pursuits slowly becoming a foregone conclusion.

The signs are there in smaller affairs, too. Frerin’s beard finally comes in, thick and lovely and so very long, and at times, Thorin’s eyes ache with unshed tears to see it. He wonders what Thráin would think of it, the way Ferin styles his beard after their father’s and how very blond it is from days spent in the sun. And then Thorin can’t help but feel mystified, contemplating the conundrum: Thorin had believed for all these years that his father and grandfather had been cheated out of centuries of peaceful, productive reign, when in fact they had only been robbed of a few summers. And yet, they’ve been swindled out of more, this way--knowing Erebor as it was and never glimpsing Erebor as it could be, the momentum it carries as it continually changes.

All the same, the Seventh Kingdom of Durin’s Folk is doing well, even from Thorin’s admittedly pessimistic perspective. Thorin’s confidence in this fact is affirmed when a council meeting breaks, and Khunri and Thorin lag behind to debate the merits of Dwarves becoming fisherman. Thorin has adopted the thoroughly Elvish practice of answering questions with questions; it's been working marvelously in council sessions, which means that Khunri is at the end of his rope quicker than ever. Finally, Khunri throws up his hands and stomps off, as he is increasingly fond of doing in his later years. “It’ll be the class system next,” Khunri grouses as he exits the room, and Thorin does his best to not let his surprise show. How had he guessed?

Dís and Frerin and Balin sidle up to Thorin as he gathers his papers and prepares to leave. Dís steps forward and clasps her hands in front of her, as if preparing to deliver a speech at court.

“Thorin,” she begins, voice full of uncertainty. Then she squares her shoulders, raises her chin, takes a deep breath through her nose, and says, “Our kingdom is strong. We have stability and a higher standing than perhaps ever before.” Thorin nods in agreement, always glad to have her judicious opinion on the matter. She clears her throat and continues, “That is to say, we are at a historical and political moment where we can very well afford to take risks, if we feel like it. So if you wanted to do anything that, ah, rocks the boat... it would be perfectly alright with all of us.” Frerin and Balin nod their heads in ample agreement.

Thorin blinks. Considering the seriousness with which Dís has spoken, he weighs his words carefully before he answers, “I appreciate your support in this matter. Do you truly believe that the fishing initiatives will be so contentious?”

Dís close her eyes and fists her hands tightly in her skirts, while Frerin yanks on his own beard and looks to be moments away from desperate laughter--which is odd, considering how much he himself has gained from Erebor’s adventures in cultivating its own food supply.

Ever the voice of reason, Balin puts a hand on Thorin’s shoulder and says, “Yes, laddie. Of course you have our support. I think all we’re truly trying to say is that… we trust you.”

“And I, you,” Thorin solemnly returns. And then they all shamble down to the kitchens, peckish after the long meeting, and the talk turns to the weather, the soaring price of chalcedony, and a thousand other things that Thorin holds against his heart, for all that he can’t quite remember them.

*

On the very threshold of winter, Thorin attends a routine summit in Mirkwood. As the day’s work concludes and evening dyes the sky in its own colors, he let his dignitaries scatter to enjoy whatever amusements they may find in the Elvenking’s halls. Thorin himself is drifting through the expansive royal gardens when Thranduil appears between a pair of flowering dogwoods.

“Come,” Thranduil says, and they quietly reenter the grand hall, their footsteps echoing around the vaulted ceilings as they move deeper and deeper into the palace. At last, Thorin follows him into the absolute privacy of the king's chambers, a lush suite strewn with mirrors and fur blankets and growing things. Thorin immediately spots a jeweler’s loupe shining in the firelight from where it sits on the vanity, and a dish of seeds and pressed flowers next to it.

Beyond it, a sturdy brown chest sits in front of the fire. Thranduil kneels before the chest in one fluid movement and Thorin gets on his knees beside him, curiosity swelling in earnest now. Thranduil reaches forward with one pale, fine-boned hand and unlatches the box, pushing it open.

Thorin's first thought is that it's no Orcrist. But it lays gleaming on a bed of blue velvet like a treasure from some forgotten Age. The sword is silver and bright, polished so intently that Thorin can see his own amazed eyes skating along its length. Clearly of Elvish make, but the grip is the perfect size and shape for a Dwarf’s hand--for his hand. Angular Khuzdul runes for protection and strength circle the gentle, Elvish curve of the hilt. And, upon closer inspection, blue diamonds are embedded in the pommel. It is, without question, the finest sword he's ever seen. This is no mere bribe or parting gift. It must have been commissioned years in advance, with careful planning. It's more of a wedding gift, than anything. Why? Why on earth would Thranduil give him something like this?

Thorin takes a shuddering breath and suddenly knows.

"By Mahal," Thorin breathes, still unable to tear his eyes away from the sword. And then he can't look at it at all, so he bows his head, resting his forehead against the edge of the box so that he can stare at the carpet as the revelation washes over him. Thranduil takes Thorin’s hand from where it hangs at his side. He rubs his thumb over the dark dusting of hair across Thorin's knuckles. They say nothing for long, long minutes.

Thorin heaves a sigh that offers every content of soul and raises his head to say, "The Valar laugh at us."

Thranduil is still kneeling right next him, thumb stroking over his hand. "Perhaps," he answers. Then he raises Thorin's hand to his lips and places a soft, dry kiss right on the knob of his first knuckle. "Shall we laugh with them?"

Unable to summon a single word to his lips, Thorin looks to the sword--the alluring hybrid shape of it, the sentiment evident in every line of craftsmanship. "You have courted me," Thorin states, still trying to wrap his head around it.

“Yes,” Thranduil answers.

“How long?”

“Perhaps from the start.” It is comforting, to a certain degree, that Thranduil doesn’t seem to know precisely when or how this happened either.

Thorin replays the last decade or so in his head and gazes at nothing as he says, “Everyone knows.”

“I imagine so.”

“The runes?” Thorin asks, his question clear without further clarification.

“I remember,” Thranduil begins, and then casts his eyes toward the fire and where its shadows dance along the walls. “I remember when the Dwarves first learned Cirth, when the shape we had given it began to change in their hands, but the sounds in their mouths remained mysterious. The written form holds few secrets from me, but spoken Khuzdul remains impenetrable to my ears.”

Thranduil meets Thorin’s eyes again and says, “The stories by which we will be remembered, celebrated, or scorned--they will be writ in letters with the same mother. It is useless to say that we share nothing. It is useless to say there is no precedent for kindness between us.”

Trying to cling to some semblance of normalcy, to logic that he can understand, Thorin reaches for the foundation of the world as he knows it. “But my family's line, the curse of Durins--you disdain me for that--”

“And you have borne up under it. Gracefully.” While Thorin is still reeling at being called graceful by an Elf, Thranduil uncurls Thorin’s fingers and touches his lips to the center of his palm, where the skin is creased and sensitive.

Admiration mistaken for simple friendship. Tokens of affection misunderstood as gestures of goodwill. Thorin feels faint at the thought of it all. He’s dizzied, too, by the possibility now laid before them--a sturdy wall giving way to a secret door.

Whatever Thranduil sees on Thorin’s face, it has him threading his fingers through Thorin’s and leaning closer to say, “We drink from rivers that yearn to cleave to one another, to empty into the sea together.” Thorin has never seen such an earnest creature in all his days--an Elf king explaining himself in poetry, every agenda laid bare. But Thranduil is still telling him, “We are suspicious creatures, secretive and ill-tempered. And I long for your sweetness, if I could only persuade you to reveal it to me--”

Thorin rises from his knees to stand before the Elvenking as the firelight flickers over them both. Suddenly, they are roughly the same height, their faces impossibly close. Thorin hasn’t either the courage or the words to ask for what he desires, but it seems he doesn’t need to.

Thranduil turns Thorin’s face up with one cool palm against his cheek and he tips downward to kiss Thorin carefully, lingeringly. Their lips press chastely, part, and then find each other again, but it’s already making Thorin lightheaded from the simple fact that it’s happening. Thranduil skims his thumb over Thorin’s cheek as their lips connect again and again, their chests nearly brushing now. It is a delicate, endless thing, like descending into a dream.

When they finally part for the air that Thorin desperately needs despite the undemanding pace, there are long fingers trailing over his neck. Thranduil moves farther away so that he can watch his own fingers disappearing into Thorin’s beard as he cards through it, deftly avoiding the beads and braids. If his calm expression is anything to go by, Thranduil must have idea how lewd a gesture that is.

It makes Thorin’s gut flood with heat anyway. And as the firelight draws a bright golden line down the tendons of Thranduil’s neck, Thorin pitches forward to trace it with his lips. Higher and higher until the Elvenking’s slow breathing is right next to his ear. Then he starts working his way back down again to linger over the place where light pools golden at the join of Thranduil’s neck and shoulder, tasting the salt of his skin for himself. Thorin savors the sacred quiet of the room, broken only be the crackling of the fire and the soft sounds of friction his beard makes against the collar of Thranduil’s robes. When Thorin tugs the collar further aside so that he can get at his collarbones and starts using his teeth, Thranduil’s hand clutches at the back of Thorin’s head in a decidedly agreeable manner. For minutes, Thorin’s entire world is heat and the hitches in Thranduil’s breathing and the sheer joy of putting his mouth to work.

When he at last has the presence of mind to pull away, there are innumerable little red marks up and down the Elvenking’s neck, lurid against skin so faultless. Thorin is glad of it, to have left some evidence of imperfection on him.

Thranduil’s hair is remarkably smooth and soft and Thorin drags his fingers through it as he confesses, “I care for you. Against all reason, all instinct--” He is unceremoniously pulled into another kiss, and another, and another. His lips ache with it, the exultant thing building between them as they wrap their arms around each other, caught in the lock-step of kissing and increasingly bold hands.

They part an endless stretch of time later, and Thranduil’s eyes are bright and blue, staring down at him to say, “There is much I desire from you. But you owe me nothing, where this is concerned.” He pets Thorin’s cheek again, seeming unable to help himself from stroking the place where his beard meets his cheek.

Thorin can hear the mortar and granite in his own voice as he answers, “And if there are things that I desire from you in turn?”

Decorous beyond belief, the Elvenking replies, “Then I would be glad of it. Be it tonight or in ten years’ time, I would be glad of it. For I am old and I will persist for many years yet. I can wait, if I must.” And just hearing that makes Thorin need it now, right now.

“Tonight,” Thorin answers, as clearly as he is able. “Ours is a world of crumbling mountains and fleeting song. We haven’t the time to spare.”

His point must be well-made, for Thranduil’s burgundy outer robe flutters to the floor as he rises, looming over Thorin once more. Thranduil plucks an ever-present cup of wine off the vanity and walks Thorin over to the enormous bed, an elaborate wooden frame made plush with every pillow and pelt imaginable.

Thranduil removes his crown and places it on its bedside perch. Thorin tosses his own next to it and hops up on the high bed to start unbuckling his boots, feeling his once-infamous impatience surge within him. Those nimble fingers stop him and begin to undo the buckles for him, as Thranduil kneels once more and lets the ironclad boots drop to the floor with twin thunks. Then Thranduil is running his hands up Thorin’s ankles, cool and almost ticklish as they glide over the top of his feet and through the dark hair on his calves. The Elvenking looks up at him, then, with a truly indescribable expression on his face and Thorin is struck with a rush of relief at knowing that he’s not alone in this, in being tangled up in a desire which feels wholly greater than himself.

They stare into each other’s eyes as one of Thranduil’s hands moves higher, skirting underneath the hem of his trouser leg. There is something almost unbearably intimate about it, watching Thranduil bend to kiss his calf and then, as his hand pushes the material higher, his knee. It should look like subservience when Thranduil can shove the fabric no higher and simply rests his cheek on Thorin’s other thigh, his intention made clear by the proximity between his mouth and where Thorin would most like it to be. But there’s nothing subservient about it, between the coaxing touch he puts on Thorin’s stomach to move him further up the bed and the hungry look in his eyes.

Bare feet dragging over the extravagant bedclothes, Thorin inches all the way up the bed until he can rest back against the countless pillows. After slipping off his own shoes, Thranduil follows, laying over him like a heavy blanket. His body seems unbelievably long like this, even with his legs out of view. Thorin’s eyes close as Thranduil leans forward to draw his lips over the shell of his ear and then sucks on the silver cuff adorning it with a click against his teeth. He smooths his hands over the Elvenking’s flank, marvelling at the warmth of him. Thranduil’s fingertips are still cool however, trailing over the base of his neck before unclasping, unbuttoning, and pulling aside Thorin’s several layers of autumnal tunics, not bothering to pull Thorin’s arms out of them.

Thorin doesn’t pay that much mind, however, because Thranduil is laving his tongue over his ear and it’s making his breath come shorter, as if simply experiencing it is an exertion. Suddenly, there is night air against his bare chest and Thranduil is leaning down to drag his cheek over the dark hair curling there, his hand stroking down Thorin’s sides as though he needs to make sure that all of him is there. Then he’s coasting lower, tracing his nose over Thorin’s stomach and along the trail of hair gathering below his navel and leading into his trousers.

All out of words for many minutes now, Thorin sucks in a hard, silent breath as he hears the clink of his last belt buckle being undone. His own harsh breathing is in studied contrast to Thranduil’s seemingly unshakeable calm. And he cannot help but wonder if this is how Aulé and Yavanna felt as they took their own contradictory natures to bed and the world emerged the better for it. The thought is cast aside as his belt is carefully slid from his waist and set to the side. His trousers are pushed down to bunch at mid-thigh, his cock and balls out in the night air. When all is said and done, Thorin honestly isn’t afforded enough time to start the churn of self-conscious thoughts because Thranduil is already drawing his lips over the dark skin at the base of him, hands quietly urging thighs farther apart.

If such a thing can be done with poise, then the Elvenking certainly does it--his face perfectly serene as he wraps his lips around the shapely head of Thorin’s cock, genteelly lapping up the early beginnings of release already dripping from the tip. Soon Thranduil is painting his whole cock in a wet sheen as his mouth sucks him down, then retreats. And then he’s repeating that to the tune of Thorin’s artless moaning, his fingers clenched in the furs and blankets with bloodless knuckles.

If he had time to think about it, Thorin would have thought that their differences in size would make him feel uncertain, in this. Instead, it just makes it easier for Thranduil to swallow him down completely. All the while, Thranduil is skimming his fingers along the undersides of Thorin’s legs, occasionally whisking his own long blonde hair aside from where it had been tickling Thorin’s inner thighs. As he settles into a slow, wet rhythm that continually makes Thorin’s stomach jump and the heat within him coil tighter, Thranduil’s fingers begin to carefully prod at the delicate skin behind his balls. He rubs over it in a way that makes Thorin’s cock ache twofold and his legs feel liquid.

In a moment of clarity, Thorin suddenly realizes that he’s not going to last. So he takes a moment to appreciate the luxurious bed that he’s in, the care the Elvenking is putting into each pass of his tongue, and the strangely captivating sight of his hollowed cheeks. His appreciation simultaneously skyrockets and disappears from his mind completely when Thranduil lets his teeth graze so very lightly along the underside of his cock. Thorin does his utmost to prevent himself from pumping into that wonderfully generous mouth, but when Thranduil continues to do it, his hips buck in spite of himself. One hand splays over his stomach to keep him in place while the other strokes the skin behind his balls and that mouth moves over his cock doubletime.

Thorin is lost to the world--head thrown back, mouth open wide to let wild-sounding Khuzdul fly forth. At the third whisper of teeth against cock, Thorin’s vision goes white, his whole body surrendering to voicelessness. He climaxes with a sound that he can't hear himself make, although he can feel the hoarseness that it leaves in his throat. His breath scrapes out of his throat and saws back in as Thranduil’s mouth continues to work around him until there is simply nothing left to swallow. Only then does the Elvenking pull away, and Thorin is still floating in something of a daze when Thranduil drags his breeches back up and buckles them deftly. He leaves his tunics undone, however, placing a hand against Thorin’s bare chest as if to keep him there while Thranduil turns away to take a few sips of pale, sweet wine. Then he bends down to kiss Thorin deeply, tasting heavenly. Thorin chuckles into the kiss and Thranduil pulls back from it, asking with his eyes.

“You knew I wouldn't like the taste,” Thorin observes, sounding gravelly even to himself.

“You detest bitter things.”

“You are a bitter thing.”

“At times,” Thranduil answers. “I am sweet for now. That must be enough.”

Thorin signals his agreement by tugging him closer to touch his lips to Thranduil’s own, so very red from the taxing work they’ve been doing. As they part, they turn to lay facing each other on their sides, heads resting on the same enormous gold-beaded pillow.

Relaxed, sated, and warm, Thorin looks at him and asks, “How would you like it?”

Thranduil closes his eyes and presses a kiss to his temple before he answers, “I would not like it. My libidinous years are behind me, far in my youth. There may come the rare evening where I wish to find the very height of pleasure, but I chiefly seek to be touched and to give pleasure in turn.”

Thorin accepts that at face value and presses the cup of wine into Thranduil’s hands again, for he knows that one taste can only mask another for so long. Thranduil drinks deeply, holding Thorin’s eyes all the while, and when he sets the goblet back down, they fall into what may well be an eternity of kissing. For all that Thorin grows hard and stays hard, they kiss only.

The night passes. Time continues to play its tricks on Thorin as the fire burns low and the sun gives its earliest pink glow through the window. Apropos of nothing, Thorin finds himself saying, “I do not possess the material from which a consort is made. Nor do you. What, then, are we to each other?”

Thranduil, measuring his words, answers, “We are... beaus. Partners.”

Thorin finds those words inexplicably appealing. “Very well,” he says, dragging his fingers through Thranduil’s hair. The few tangles that had appeared slide out at the gentlest brush of Thorin’s fingers.

Thranduil asks him in all seriousness, “Will your people begrudge you a romance?”

“No,” Thorin answers, heavy-lidded and head filled with the thought of dawn. "We are only kings after all."