God of Mischief I worship

"Right," he said. "Khuzdul lesson."

You looked at him. "Gandalf told me your language was secret." You teased.

"It is, but since it is in fact our language, we're the ones that can make exceptions." He said it with a wink and complete airiness, as though this were a minor administrative point. "Balin says it's practical. If you're going to be with us, you should know a few phrases. Useful ones."

"Like what?"

"Greetings, first." He held up a finger. "Oytarg—that's hello, more or less."

You tried it. The Y sat wrong in your mouth, somewhere between the sounds you'd normally make, and what came out was approximately in the right region if the right region were a fairly large and loosely defined area.

Bofur's expression did something heroic, in that it didnt move save for a twitch of the left corner, and barely a snort of laughter.

"Close," he said.

"That was terrible," you said.

"It was a—attempt."

"You're doing the thing Kíli does where you say attempt because you can't say good."

Bofur laughed at that, open and genuine, and Dori, riding on your other side, made a sound of agreement that he immediately tried to disguise as a cough when Bofur looked at him.

"Oytarg," Bofur said again, more slowly, breaking it into its components. "The second syllable—your tongue needs to go here." He pointed, unhelpfully, at the general region of his own mouth.

You tried again.

From behind you, Kíli said something in Khuzdul that made Fíli choke on whatever he was eating.

"What did he say?" you asked.

"Nothing," said Bofur, in the tone of a man deploying the word nothing as a very strategic manoeuvre to avoid warfare.

"It sounded like something."

"He said it sounded like you were trying to sneeze and could not commit," Fíli said, from a diplomatic distance.

"Fíli," Bofur said.

"She asked."

You pulled a face at Kíli, who was grinning with the uncomplicated delight of someone having an excellent morning, and tried—"Oytarg" again. This time it was better. Not good—you could hear the gap between what you were producing and what Bofur had said—but the Y had found its place, at least approximately.

Bofur looked genuinely pleased. Not the diplomatic pleased of a teacher managing expectations but the real kind, and it settled something in your chest that had been quietly insecure about the whole exercise. "Nan'ith,"he said. "That one you can try—it means little sister."

"Nan'ith," you repeated, and this one came out better because the sounds were closer to things you already knew how to make.

Something happened at the edges of the group—a subtle shift, a slight drawing-in. It would have been impossible to point to any single thing and say there, that is the change, but it was there. Nori, who had been riding a horse-length ahead, dropped back half a pace without any apparent reason. Glóin looked over with the quick attention of someone responding to a signal he hadn't consciously noticed. Even Dwalin, who communicated primarily through his physical presence and the weight of his general regard, angled his pony slightly inward.

None of them said anything about it. The lesson continued.

"Khemnar," Bofur said next. "That one means—well, roughly—you have my thanks. Though its a bit formal. You'd use it for something important."

"Khemnar," you said.

Ori, who had been riding very quietly nearby with his book closed—he'd stopped trying to read on horseback after the incident on day three—looked up and said something quietly in Khuzdul that you didn't catch. Balin, ahead of him, smiled without turning around.

"What did Ori say?" you asked Bofur.

Bofur glanced at Ori, who had gone slightly pink. "He said your accent is charming," Bofur said, which you strongly suspected was a generous translation.

You made it through Tâhalj—which meant friend, and which Bofur delivered with a matter-of-fact warmth that made you want to memorise it immediately—and Tharâkh, which meant something like the road or the path ahead and had a rolled r that took you six tries and a commentary from the peanut gallery, before Bilbo, riding up alongside from where he'd been thoughtfully near the back, offered that your pronunciation was markedly better than his, which was kind and probably somewhat true.

"You speak Khuzdul?" you said.

"Ah—No," said Bilbo. "Not exactly"

"Not a single word," Bofur confirmed. "He tried 'Oytarg' once and his pony bit him."

"She didn't bite me because of the Khuzdul—" Bilbo sighed.

"We can't be entirely certain," said Kíli with a wink.

"I can be quite certain, Myrtle bit me because Bombur startled her, which had nothing to do with—" He stopped. Looked at the general run of faces turned toward him with varying degrees of innocent attention. "We're not going to have a reasonable conversation about this, are we."

"No," said Fíli, pleasantly.

Bilbo made a small, undignified sound and looked at the path ahead, and you bit down on a smile and asked Bofur what the Khuzdul word for mountain was.

"'Urâd," he said.

"'Urâd," you repeated.

"There you go," Bofur said, and there was something in his voice that was not quite sentiment and was very close to it. "You're on your way."

The camp for the evening was set up at the edge of a shallow valley as the light was beginning its long gold lean toward evening, next to some sort of ruin and calling it that was rather generous—a chimney, still standing, in the stubborn way of chimneys, the stones dark with old weathering. Beside it the ghost of a frame, a few cross-beams leaning against each other without the walls that had once supported them. A handful of roof tiles had survived, some scattered in the grass with the randomness of things that had given up being in a specific order. Whatever it had been, it was a long time ago.

Thorin looked at it from his pony, said something to Dwalin that you didn't catch and gestured toward the slight depression of ground beside the ruin's remaining chimney. Good wind shelter. Reasonable sightlines.

The unpacking proceeded in the familiar orchestration of it—packs down, ponies seen to, Bombur immediately engaging with the question of the fire with his characteristic single-minded focus. You were in the middle of unloading one of the supply packs when you noticed Gandalf.

He was standing at the edge of the campsite, slightly separate from the activity, and his head was turned toward the south with the very specific quality of attention that meant he was listening to something that wasn't a sound. His staff was in his hand. His brows were drawn together—not concerned, exactly, but engaged with something you couldn't see.

Then he walked away.

Not we're stopping for the evening and Gandalf has elected to take a walk. Not a gradual increase in distance. He simply turned and walked, with purpose, toward the low ridge to the south, and kept walking until the trees took him, and then he was gone.

You looked at Balin.

Balin was watching the treeline with an expression that communicated, without any words whatsoever, that he had no more information about this than you did. He picked up the pack he'd set down and carried on with the evening.

You looked at the treeline for another moment.

Then picked up your own pack and carried on, because the alternative was standing in the middle of the camp looking at trees, which was not useful and Dwalin was already watching you.

Dinner was Bombur's barley again, with a variation involving something leafy that had been foraging-obtained by Óin during the afternoon and which he presented with the brief satisfaction of a man who considers self-sufficiency a virtue. It was good. Bombur had a way of making field food taste like something a person would choose, which was a gift you'd developed a serious appreciation for.

You'd taken over the task of distribution—it had happened organically, sometime around day nine, when you'd been closest to the pot and had just started handing bowls along and no one had objected. It suited you as much as the collection and washing of the companies many dishes. It was something concrete to do, a small shape of usefulness in a context where most of your useful skills were stubbornly inapplicable.

Kíli appeared at your elbow while you were filling the second round of bowls, with Fíli a half-step behind him and both of them wearing the specific expression of co-conspirators who had been workshopping something.

"We've got one for you," Kíli said.

"For what?"

"Khuzdul Phrases."

You looked at him. The expression on his face was the wrong kind of helpful. "How suspicious do i need to be ?" you asked.

"Don't be suspicious. It's a—it's a greeting. Respectful. You can use it when you're handing out the bowls."

"A respectful greeting," you said.

"Very respectful," Fíli confirmed, with a completely straight face.

You should have trusted your instincts, you would reflect on this later. "Abanjabl," Kíli said, carefully, with the conscientious pronunciation of a teacher who wants their student to get it right. "Abanjabl. Try it."

"Abanjabl," you repeated.

"Perfect," said Kíli, with a delight that should have been your second warning.

You picked up the bowls and moved around the fire, handing them out in the order you'd fallen into—Balin first, then Dori and Ori, then the cluster of Glóin and Óin, then Bifur and Bombur. You murmured 'Abanjabl' as you went, partly because you were genuinely trying to practise and partly because the camp was loud enough that you were mostly saying it to yourself, a quiet repetition to cement the sounds.

Ori made a sound when you handed him his bowl. Something short and sharp and immediately suppressed. You glanced at him. He was looking fixedly at his dinner.

Glóin cleared his throat. Pointedly. In a direction that was not toward you.

You kept going, filing it in the back of your mind, and reached Thorin.

Thorin was seated slightly apart, where he often sat in the evenings, looking at something in the middle distance that might have been the view or might have been a thought he was working through.

You held out the bowl and said, automatically, "Abanjabl, Be careful its hot." because you'd been saying it for the last two minutes and it was already in your mouth.

Thorin's eyes came to you, they were sharp in the specific way that meant he'd heard something he had not expected, and the sharpness was not warm.

You held the bowl out. "Dinner?" you repeated, because the silence had taken on a quality you didn't understand but were fairly certain meant you'd done something wrong.

Thorin took the bowl without a word. His gaze tracked past you to where Kíli was sitting by the fire, and the look he sent across the camp made Kíli become very interested in his own soup with an immediacy that was its own form of confession.

You turned around.

"What does Abanjabl mean?" you said as you straightened.

Kíli had found something fascinating in his soup. Fíli had his hand over his mouth.

"Kíli, Son of Víli" you said firmly, as you gave him a pointed look and what you hoped was the dwarven equivalent of his full government name.

"It's—it's affectionate," Kíli said. "In context."

"Which context makes it is affectionate?"

"A very specific context," he said. "That doesn't—that isn't this context, actually, now that I think about it—"

"What does it mean?"

Bofur, across the fire, made a helpless gesture. "Roughly," he said, with the expression of a man watching a situation unfold from what he hopes is a safe distance, "your brain is made of stones."

A silence.

"Your brai—oh shit." you repeated.

"The stone comparison is—it's not complimentary, exactly—"

"I've been saying it to everyone."

"You have, yes."

"I said it to Balin." Your stomach dropped and did a small summersault.

"Balin's a forgiving sort," Bofur offered.

You looked at Kíli. Kíli had the expression of a person who had calculated that the outcome was going to be worse than anticipated and was now processing this in real time. "It seemed funnier in planning," he said. "In my defence—"

"There is no defence for that," Thorin said, low and precise, "Neither of you will teach any maiden or member of this company words to use against another for your own amusement. You will apologise."

Across the camp, you heard—very distinctly—Balin make a sound that was absolutely a laugh that had been converted, at great personal effort, into a cough.

You turned back to Thorin, who was looking at you with an expression that you could not fully read but which had, possibly, a very faint suggestion at the edges of it that was not entirely severe.

"I'm sorry," you said. "I didn't know what it meant."

Thorin looked at you for a moment. Then he looked passed you at Kíli, and whatever the look contained made Kíli sit significantly straighter. Then he finally took his dinner, his expression shifted It wasn't warm, exactly. But it wasn't cold or dismissive either and there was something underneath it—not quite amusement, but adjacent to it, the faint suggestion of a thing he was actively declining to let his face show. "You'll know better next time."

You went back to the pot, picked up your own bowl, and sat down with deliberate calm.

"You said it to Dwalin as well," Fíli said, from what he had decided was a safe distance.

"I know," you said.

"Just—for completeness."

"I know, Fíli—could you please. Stop. Talking. About it."

The camp had wound down in its usual way—fire lower, voices quieter, the company finding its evening rhythms. You were sitting with your back against the ruined chimney stones, which retained traces of the day's warmth in a way that was very welcome as the night air sharpened, you had a book from Balin's saddlebag—borrowed, with permission—open in your lap, though you were spending more time looking at the stars than reading in the dim light.

Gandalf had not come back. This fact had been sitting in the back of your mind since before dinner and had not diminished with time. You'd asked Balin about it during the meal and he'd said, he'll be back when he's back, which was true and helpful in the way that things were sometimes true and not helpful at all. Fíli had said, he does this, which told you something about frequency but nothing about what this was. Thorin had said nothing, which told you, on this evidence, that this was a known and not entirely welcome pattern.

As the fire burned low, most of the company was in various stages of sleep—Bombur definitively, Óin with the medically useful ability to be immediately unconscious and immediately alert, Dori with what appeared to be sincere dedication to the concept of unconsciousness.

Kíli and Fíli were on watch at the northern edge of camp, a shape in the dark outside the firelight.

The southern treeline where Gandalf had disappeared was black and still.

You heard Fíli before you saw him—that sound of someone going running at speed, which was distinct enough to pull you upright before the fire had registered the movement, and then he was at the centre of camp and his voice was carrying the specific tight quality of someone delivering urgent information in as few words as possible.

"Trolls," he panted, sucking in breath from the sprint. "They've got Bilbo."

It happened almost faster than you could track—weapons were up, voices low and clipped with the particular efficiency of dwarves who had done this kind of thing before, Dwalin already moving toward the trees with his axes drawn, Thorin's voice cutting through the chaos with short, sharp instructions that the rest of the company fell into without question.

You were on your feet too, moving on pure instinct and half-formed thoughts propelling you toward the treeline with the rest of them.

"Bilbo, oh gods, Bilbo"

You made it fifteen steps before something closed around your arm—not rough, but absolute, the kind of grip that had no interest in your momentum—and you turned to find Thorin.

"Stay," he barked.

"What? No — I'm coming, I can't just—" you started.

"Stay at camp." he said, and there was nothing in it now of the warmth that had briefly flickered earlier in the evening—this was flat, immovable, the voice of someone who did not have time to argue and was not going to indulge you. "You cannot fight. You will be a body to protect in a fight that needs none. Stay here."

The word hit somewhere in the chest that it was clearly aimed at. You opened your mouth.

"Stay, please." He offered not waiting for your nod before he was gone, following the company into the dark between the trees, the sound of them diminishing quickly into the silence of a forest that has absorbed a group of armed people and given nothing back.

You stood at the edge of the camp in the firelight with your heart slamming against your ribs and absolutely no idea what to do with any part of yourself.

Okay, you thought. Okay. He's right. You'd be a liability. You know you'd be a liability. Thorin has physically corrected your grip on a sword, multiple times. You have absolutely no business—

From the direction the company had gone, you heard shouting. A clash of metal, brief. Then voices—not battle voices, something different.

Then nothing.

You paced twelve step from the fire to the edge of the camp, then turned worrying your nail with your teeth.

The fire was dying and you didn't feed it because the light felt conspicuous, and you paced the width of the camp in the dark with your thoughts

They're fine, they're thirteen dwarves and they've done this before—centuries collectively and they're fine.

You turned and paced back the length of the camp.

Bilbo is not a dwarf and hasn't done this before, shit, and they said the trolls had him—wait, trolls are a real thing ? which is honestly a lot, I wonder if they live under bridges ?—ugh, focus, the point is trolls are real and Bilbo is— and the company is—

No sound came from the trees. What if something has happened and I'm here pacing like an idiot I'll never forgive myself.

You turned, if I go in there and make it worse I will also never forgive myself.

Shit, shit ok ummm at what point do those two options change places, because right now I've been pacing for what feels like forty minutes—

You checked your wrist for a watch that wasn't there. You'd stopped doing this, mostly. It happened still, sometimes, when the disorientation peaked.

You were so deep inside the spiral of it—so thoroughly lost in the increasingly unhinged internal argument between stay and go—that you didn't hear Gandalf arrive until his hand landed on your shoulder.

You very nearly screamed—the sound that came out was closer to a strangled yelp, your entire body flinching sideways hard enough that you nearly went down, your heart slamming up into your throat with a violence that left you genuinely lightheaded.

"Where did you—Gandalf?—you can't just—" you breathed, pressing a hand to your throat. "Where did you come from?"

"Later," Gandalf said, and his voice had a quality to it that was different from usual—not alarmed, Gandalf did not alarm, but focused, in a way that its usual mild layers were not there. He was already looking toward the trees. "The company—"

"I know, I know, Fíli said trolls — they went, Thorin told me to stay—"

"Good." He was moving. "Come."

"But Thorin said—"

"Do you listen to every instruction given to you by dwarves ?"

"Well no, b-but that's because until 15 days ago—"

"Good, follow me." Gandalf said, which was not the same instruction but had the quality of finality, and you went.

He moved fast for a person with a staff, and you had to keep up rather than keep pace, and you did it without making more noise than necessary because the dark between the trees was thick and the quality of quiet ahead of you made every additional sound feel like an error.

Gandalf made no sound at all, which was—really quite strange, for someone his size and you were adding it to the growing list of things about him that you were going to think about more carefully when, or if you ever found the capacity.

The clearing appeared through the trees like something out of a dream—not a pleasant one. Firelight flickering orange between the trunks, the low rumbling murmur of enormous voices, a smell of woodsmoke and something else underneath it that you didn't want to examine too closely.

You registered the size of them first, the size and then the shape, and your brain did a brief, absolute shutdown and then rebooted with the information that these were real.

These were trolls, and they were real.

Gandalf drew you down behind a fallen log at the edge of the small clearing, and you peered over the top of it with your heart still lodged in your throat.

Three trolls. Enormous, grey-skinned, lumbering things, easily the size of a house, gathered around a roaring fire with the slack-jawed stupidity of creatures who had clearly never been mistaken for clever. And there, strung on a long spit positioned over the fire, were several of the company—Dwalin's extraordinary head, Dori, Glóin, others you couldn't immediately identify in the firelight, all of them tied at wrist and ankle to a turning pole, equally helpless and furious. The rest were crammed into a pile of burlap sacks lined up nearby, only their heads visible above the rough fabric, an assortment of expressions ranging from outrage to grim resignation.

And in the middle of it all, at the base of three enormous sets of troll feet with the desperate, improvisational energy of someone whose plan was being made up in real time, was Bilbo.

"—the secret," he was saying, breathlessly, to the nearest troll, "to cooking dwarf—properly, I mean, if you want to do it right—is in the preparation. You can't just—you can't just throw them straight on, that's—that's sort of errr amateur frankly—"

"What's wrong with how we do it?" rumbled one of the trolls, a vast hulking thing with a particularly unfortunate nose, pausing with a hand halfway to grabbing for the spit.

"Well, for one thing," Bilbo said, edging backward as the troll's attention swung toward him, "they're not —they're not seasoned. At all. You want to—you should rub them down first, get under the skin a bit, otherwise you're just—you're just going to be chewing on smelly boot leather, frankly, and who wants that—"

"He's lyin'!" came a furious, muffled voice from one of the bound dwarves—Kíli, you thought, twisting against his ropes with limited success. "Don't you dare give them ideas—"

"I'm trying to buy us time," Bilbo hissed back, with the particular strained whisper of a person whose deception is rapidly becoming common knowledge to the very people he's trying to save.

"Skin off, is it," said the second troll, considering this with the slow, grinding deliberation of something that did not think quickly under the best of circumstances. He reached for Bombur with one enormous hand.

"NO—no, not—don't take the skin off, I mean you season through it, with herbs, like—" Bilbo's voice climbed in pitch, increasingly desperate. "Like, sage, perhaps, or—do you have any sage?"

The third troll, who had said nothing up to this point and had instead been peering with deep suspicion at the row of sacks, gave one of them an experimental, contemplative poke. "What about this lot," he said. "Could just eat 'em raw."

"Raw," Bilbo said, in the strangled tone of someone watching their entire improvised strategy collapse. "No, you absolutely don't want —that's—that's how you get parasites, actually, this lot is riddled with them, you'd be sick—honestly I wouldnt risk it—"

Beside you, behind the log, Gandalf had gone very still, his eyes fixed on the eastern horizon with a focus that had nothing to do with the chaos unfolding in front of you.

"Stay here," Gandalf said, very low.

"What? No, you can't just—"

"Stay here," Gandalf reiterated, firmly and quietly and with a look that communicated that this was not negotiable in the way that Thorin's instructions hadn't been negotiable.

"This is the second time tonight that someone has—"

But he was already gone—simply gone, the space beside you empty, his shape vanishing into the dark trees with no more explanation than that, and you sat there behind the log with your mouth still open around the protest you hadn't gotten to finish and the very distinct, very uncharitable thoughts.

"—you've got to be kidding me right now."

You sat there for several long, agonising minutes, watching Bilbo's improvised culinary lecture grow increasingly strained, watching the trolls' patience visibly fraying, watching Dwalin strain uselessly against the ropes binding him to the spit, and the fear in your chest curdled, slowly, into something with a harder edge to it.

"I'm not just going to sit here."

You looked at the row of sacks. At the dwarves bound nearest you—and there, at the end of the row, unmistakable even in the dim firelight, was Thorin, jaw set, eyes scanning the clearing with the sharp, contained fury of someone calculating every possible angle of escape and finding none of them currently viable.

You feet moved, well before your brain caught up.

You stayed low, your heart hammering, every snapped twig underfoot sounding to your own ears like a gunshot, and you made your slow, careful way around the edge of the clearing, behind the cover of the trees, until you reached the back of the row of sacks where Thorin lay bound.

His head turned the instant you got close, and his eyes, when they found you, went wide with something that was not relief.

"What are you doing," he hissed, the words barely audible, furious in their quietness. "Go back. Go back to the camp."

"I'm not leaving you here," you whispered back, already working at the rope binding the sack closed at his neck, your fingers clumsy and shaking against a knot that had been tied by hands considerably larger and stronger than yours.

"This is not a place for you. You cannot fight three trolls—"

"I'm not fighting them, I'm untying you—"

"You should be back at the camp, where it is safe—"

"Shh," you breathed.

Thorin's expression had done something complicated in response to that. "You were told to stay at camp," he repeated, at a volume that was mostly breath and ferocious exasperation.

"I know," you whispered, working the knot, which was tight and your hands were not entirely steady. "I was."

"You should not be here."

"Also something I know."

"If they see you—"

"Then—well—guess I'd stop being here," you breathed, and got one loop of the knot free, which was progress. "How are you?"

"How am I—" He stopped, as though the question was too absurd to navigate in current conditions. "I am in a sack."

"Yeah, I see that. Sorry—" the knot had tightened when you pulled the wrong end — "one sec—"

"You should be at camp."

"You want me to go ? Leave you here—let you get squashed like a dwarven panini," you hissed, with the quiet intensity of someone making an important point while also committing a small act of heroism. "I am not going to leave you."

A breif pause. Thorin looked at you and his expression had changed again, though you couldn't spare enough attention from the knot to read the change. "What is a panini?"

"It's—" The second loop came free. "It's a—it's like a sandwich. That's been pressed flat. By something very heavy."

"A sandwich."

"Like—bread with things in it—you know flour water—"

"I know what bread is."

"I know you know what bread is, that wasn't—" The knot came loose. You felt it go and let out a breath that you'd been holding since you left the log. "Can you—"

Thorin was already working the sack open from inside with the efficiency of a person who had been waiting for this exact moment and had his strategy entirely ready. He came out of it in a controlled movement that barely made a sound, which was impressive given the circumstances, and crouched beside you in the shadow.

He looked at you. Close, and dark, and with an expression that had several things in it that would have been very interesting to examine if you were not currently beside a troll fire trying not to be noticed.

"Go back to the treeline," he said.

"I can help with the others—"

"Treeline." And because you were about to argue, he added, quietly "I'll get the others. You've done what you came to do. Go."

Thorin flexed his hands and looked at you—properly looked at you, in the dim light, with an expression that had shed most of its fury and left something else underneath it, something you didn't have time to examine because at that exact moment, a voice—enormous, booming, entirely unexpected—cut across the clearing, making you flinch at the suddenness of it.

"The dawn will take you all!"

Gandalf. Standing atop a boulder, his staff raised, his grey robes catching the luminous pale edge of the waking sunrise as it began breaking over the hills. He brought the staff down with tremendous force, splitting the boulder beneath his feet clean in two, and the light came pouring through the gap and across the clearing in a single decisive wave.

The trolls turned. Saw the light and froze.

You watched, with your hand still wrapped around the edge of Thorin's burlap sack, as three enormous grey shapes stiffened, mid-motion, mid-argument, mid-everything—and then, with a series of low groaning cracks that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside the rock itself, turned, entirely and completely, to stone.

It was—very strange, actually. Watching something that large and loud and present simply stop. Three shapes in the early light, arms mid-gesture, frozen in their argument, grey and still and permanent.

Bilbo sat down in the grass, you understood the impulse.

•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•

The walk back to camp had the feeling that walks sometimes have after the worst of something is over—the particular loose quality of limbs that were ready for something to happen and are now standing down, the brain trying to resettle itself into normal operations and finding the transition slightly uneven. Dwarves talked. Bilbo described his strategy in a tone of continued mild disbelief at himself. Dwalin, emerging from the clearing, had looked at you with an expression that acknowledged what he'd seen you do without commenting on it, and had moved on, which from Dwalin was a form of approval.

You sat at the fire that Bofur rebuilt without being asked, and held a cup of water that Balin pressed into your hands, and let the light grow around you, and were very quiet.

You felt, rather than saw, someone settle beside you. Close enough that your shoulder registered his proximity, not close enough to touch, facing the fire the same direction you were, one knee bent and his arm resting atop it. He said nothing for a moment. You said nothing back. The fire crackled. Bilbo somewhere behind you was still talking.

"Abanjabl," Thorin said.

You turned and looked at him.

His expression was—not warm, exactly. Thorin's expressions had their own vocabulary and you were still learning it, but there was something at the edge of his eyes that was different from his normal registered settings. "You said it to me at dinner," he said.

"I know. I'm sorry. I didn't know what it—"

"You also said it to Dwalin." There was something in the delivery that was not quite a smile but occupied the space in his voice where a smile might have been if Thorin were a different kind of person. "Dwalin has not had his brain compared to stone in living memory."

"That's—that's not—I'm very sorry about that."

"Don't be," Thorin said. "The expression on his face was—" He huffed the begins of a laugh at the memory before he stopped himself with a cough. "In any case." He shifted slightly, and his weight settled into a different posture, still but deliberate, a person choosing to stay rather than preparing to leave. "You want to learn Khuzdul."

"I want to stop accidentally insulting people."

"The goals are related." He looked at the fire. "Then we'll begin properly." His eyes came back to you with the focused directness that was simply the way he looked at things, and you had learned by now to hold it rather than glancing away. "Not from Fíli or Kíli. From the beginning." A pause. "If you want."

You looked at him. The light was fully morning now, gold and clean across the hills, and the camp was alive around you with the low movement of dwarves doing practical things, and Gandalf was somewhere producing tea, and Mindy was visible at the edge of the tether line with her blaze catching the light.

"Yes," you said, fiddling with the edge of your sleeve. "Yes, please."

Thorin nodded once. Looked at the fire. And then, with the careful, deliberate quality of someone who does not do things carelessly and is choosing to give you something that is genuinely valued. "Khuzdul begins with address," he said. "How you speak to something tells you what you think of it. In our language, this is not incidental. It is the first thing." He looked at you. "Our word for joke is Gamâk. Say it."

"Gamâk," you said.

He was quiet for a moment, hearing it. "Your vowels are short," he said. "Khuzdul holds them longer." He said it again. You said it again. "Better," he said, and it was specific rather than diplomatic, which meant it was true, and the small, precise warmth of that settled somewhere it was needed.

You held the word in your mouth. Gamâk. Felt the shape of it.

"Gamâk," you said again.

Thorin's expression did something at its edges. Not quite what you'd seen from anyone else, not Kíli's open grin or Bofur's easy warmth. Something quieter and less practised.

"Again," he said.

The morning moved on around you. The camp woke into itself. Bilbo finally stopped talking. Somewhere Bombur began the quest of beginning breakfast.

The guards along the wall jumped to attention, but their spears lowered the instant wide a spread of wings cast a shadow in a known shape.

A massive, majestic form followed. Scales harder than diamonds. Head with a crown of horns.

Golden eyes stared right at you as the dragon hovered. No guards came rushing. They knew not to come between a dragon and a person they chose.

Talons scraped along the sandy stones as the dragon curled its feet on the wide wall, resting its weight into a crouch as it brought its head closer to you.

Shaking, you slowly reached your hand forward. There was an instinct calling to run away in terror, but another pull tempted you to come forward. A new, unknown urge that you couldn't resist.

Witnesses saw. The word of it would spread within a day.

No one would stand between a dragon and its chosen rider. And you wouldn't step away.

The dragon's claws wrapped around your body with unexpected gentleness, though it was still scary to the point of nearly fainting as it lifted you and flew away.

In a few weeks you'd return to your people for a visit and proof of your new role, once the other riders taught you how to mount and communicate the dragon. At least, that's how the stories and rumours presented the process of learning the skill.

But when you're brought to the Dragon Mountains and into your dragon's lair, all of your previously formed imagines shatter into pieces.

You’d expected a lot of things when you agreed your husband’s oldest friend should come spend the holidays, but not this: naked and splayed open, your back against Bucky’s chest, and Steve knelt between your legs, focus absolute as they took you apart.

Bucky’s lips moved against your neck, not quite kissing, hand sliding to cup one aching breast. “You want to feel for the ridge, the soft roof inside. Feel it?”

Steve nodded, learning by the tremors that rippled through you.

And you? You could only moan as his fingers found the place only Bucky had touched before tonight.

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

Wiping at your brow, you stood up straight, taking a break from the boxes you were organizing. You looked around the room and took in the progress you had made the last couple of days. When you told Ms. Lange you were looking for work, she pointed you in the direction of city hall. She had an acquaintance there that had lost their assistant recently and they needed someone in the archives. It kept you out of the public eye and provided income. When they asked you your name, you gave them the same one you had given Ms. Lange – your first name along with Cora’s surname. Ms. Lange’s word on your character was reference enough. She had only known you a week, so you were grateful she had put in a good word for you.

The clock struck noon and you walked out of the room to go have lunch with your supervisor, Betty. She insisted on sitting together outside in the sun to get out of the building for a real break. And so far, she had brought two biscuits in her lunch, one to share with you every day.

Sitting outside initially had put you on edge until you realized there were tables behind the building, off away from the busy street. Betty was a chatterbox, so it saved you the trouble of having to think of stories about yourself. You listened while she again started talking about her newest grandbaby. She was proud and you could tell she loved them very much.

It was hard to not let your mind wander… wondering if you would ever be comfortable enough to settle down and have grandbabies of your own, let alone children.

Maybe some things were not meant to be.

<><><> 

As soon as Polly had given up Y/N’s address, Thomas threatened Ada to not sabotage him further before storming from the room to grab his jacket and cap. He was not going to bother even changing before going after her.

Arthur was still at a loss for words, looking at Polly and Ada in incredulity.

Raising his hand, he pointed at the door Thomas had just left from, “Do either of you know the shit I’ve had to deal with these last two weeks?”

“Arthur, this isn’t about you,” Polly told him, rolling her eyes slightly. “Y/N was suffocating, we helped.”

“And now how do you think she’s going to fare?” Ada demanded, leaning in towards Polly, fury rolling off her. “You thought Tommy was bad before?”

Polly sniffed, “It’s family first, Ada. As it always has been.”

“You’ve damn well made sure that Y/N is going to be part of the family!”

Ada made to leave the room but Arthur stopped her. “Oh, move, Arthur!”

“What are you doing?” he questioned.

“Calling the boarding house to warn her! What do you think?”

“Ada, you heard Thomas,” Arthur retorted.

“I don’t fucking care!” she snapped, trying to step around him.

Arthur grabbed her shoulders, fixing her with a hard stare. “Don’t make this worse. For anyone. He’s already riled up enough. He takes care of her. And she makes him happy. You have seen it.”

“He doesn’t make her happy! Why does no one care about that?”

“Tom needed her,” Arthur said firmly. “He still needs her.”

Ada cocked her head, searching his face. Slowly, she shook her head. “You knew the whole time, didn’t you?” Her gaze went to John momentarily. “You both did, didn’t you? She said he wasn’t alone when he took her from her flat.”

John started, “I didn’t—”

Arthur cut in, getting her attention again, “It doesn’t matter, Ada. What matters is business. Pol knows. I know. And I know you do too. Despite your reservations. Don’t make more of a mess. He’s fucking serious about taking things away from you. You’ll be able to watch over Y/N better from here anyway.”

Ada scoffed, “I can’t believe you all.”

Polly’s shoulders slumped as Ada shoved Arthur’s hands away from her. Arthur looked guilty but before he could say anything else, Thomas came back in, coat on and all. Ada looked away from him angrily, crossing her arms.

“Ada, you can see yourself out,” Thomas announced. She gave a scornful laugh, still refusing to look in his direction. “Pol, you go with her. I’ll call on you once we are settled back here.”

Polly stood, “Don’t you want us to wait to continue this discussion once you’re back?”

“No. We’ll need the night to settle. Y/N’s generally docile but I don’t want to go assuming things. It always gets me in a mess. But the conversation will happen. Arthur? John?”

Without another word, Thomas turned on his heel, strolling out of the room. Arthur and John followed, shooting apologetic looks in Ada’s direction who was still ignoring them.

“This is fucked!” Ada said after a few moments. She unfolded her arms and told Polly, “Y/N is never going to trust us again.”

“She’ll want for nothing, Ada,” Polly said, again trying to reassure someone who did not want to hear it.

“She’s going to be alone.” With venom, she mocked, “But at least Tommy gets what he wants. Damn everyone else as long as he is happy and continues bringing in cash.” She scoffed again, tears pricking once more. “Christ.”

She stormed past Polly, snatching her coat on the way.

<><><> 

Bag from the grocer tucked under your arm, you walked down the street towards home. You had stopped to pick up additions to dinner for tonight – a thank you for Ms. Lange getting you the job – as well as for your lunch the next two days.

Humming, you kept an eye out around you at everyone on the street. Some faces were becoming familiar along your route and you nodded in acknowledgement. Liverpool was not as populated and bustling as London, but it had its charm; it was a small concession to make being here instead of there. You did not feel comfortable being outside longer than necessary now anyhow.

Turning the corner onto your block, you stopped short, almost dropping your parcel. Your breath froze in your chest spotting John standing on the steps leading up to the boarding house. A second later, your knees almost buckled seeing Thomas exit the building, Arthur at his back.

As if he could sense you, Thomas looked across the way. He did a double take, recognition taking a second because of your new hair color.

Stumbling back, you fought to find your footing seeing him alert Arthur and John. You heard him shout out to you but you paid no heed. You still clutched the bag, tears beginning to blur your vision as panic threatened to overwhelm you. You wove in and out of the people on the pavement, trying to put distance between you and them.

You dove into an alley, dodging the garbage bins. You risked a look over your shoulder, hearing your name shouted again. Arthur and John had turned into the alley. Your face twisted up in confusion not seeing Thomas.

Looking forward again, you turned out of the alley.

And directly into Thomas’ arms.

You gasped as his hands clamped down on your biceps, steading the two of you after you tried to stop from colliding into him.

“Please—” you began to beg, trying to yank back from him.

He leaned in, and warned in a low tone, “Not a single word.” Your lip warbled and he squeezed on your arms tighter, making you wince. “Or a scream.”

Arthur and John ran out of the alley you heard behind you, blocking your escape that way.

Thomas glowered at you, displeasure swimming in his eyes. He was extraordinarily vexed; you could feel it radiating off his person. Your chest rose and fell rapidly, frightened of what he was going to do. People passed by without care, not noticing your predicament.

He would not dare hurt you here on the pavement.

Would he?

His eyes ran over you, lingering on your hair. Disappointed, he murmured, “Look what you’ve gone and done to your beautiful hair.” His eyes met yours. “Couldn’t hide you from me though, could it?”

How had he found you?

With a chiding tone, he said, “I don’t know what you thought you were fucking doing. But you’re going to go grab your things and we are going home.” Almost against your will, you started to shake your head in disagreement. Thomas nodded mockingly, repeating himself, “You’re going home, Y/N. Enough of this foolishness.”

He turned, bringing you to his side, beginning to march back in the direction of the boarding house.

“Making me worry for nothing other than pure selfishness,” he fumed. You struggled to keep up with his stride, holding back tears. But it was in vain. “I hope you’re proud of yourself. Driving me sick with worry that something terrible had befallen you. That you were hurt or worse, dead!”

He rounded the corner with you, bringing your house into view.

“But no. You plotted with me sister and me aunt to run off,” he sneered.

Your heart sank at that. They had told him where you were? Ada had seemed so concerned for you!

At the base of the stairs, you pulled away as Thomas reached for your bag.

“No,” you rasped, wiping at your eyes sloppily.

“Y/N, give it to me,” Thomas ordered. “John can put it in the car.”

“It’s for dinner,” you choked out. “For Ms. Lange.”

“Right. Then you give it to her and then we are grabbing your things,” Thomas muttered, leading you up the stairs. You hesitated again and he reached into his coat, aiming for his gun. "Y/N, if you make me have to threaten your landlady--"

"No!" You blurted. "Don't please. I'll do it."

His hand dropped and he scowled, "That's what I thought."

<><><> 

Arrow House loomed over you as you peered up at it from inside the car, Thomas holding your door open. You had sat stiffly when he parked, panic threatening to overwhelm you at the sight of the mansion again. Thomas had came around the car, opening the door and stood there, staring down his nose at you, impatience painted on his features.

“Come now,” Thomas sighed.

Slowly, you unfolded from the front seat and stood up beside the car. Arthur and John had already grabbed your things and were heading in through the front door.

“Don’t make me force you inside,” Thomas warned.

You took his warning seriously, remembering how he had handled you that night you called Florence when he was drunk. Your arm ached at the memory.

Elsie was standing in the entrance hall. “Dinner is almost ready, Mr. Shelby,” she informed him.

“Put it in the ice chest for now. Y/N and I have some rules to reestablish,” Thomas remarked coolly, walking past her.

As you passed her, her expression was unreadable. But you thought you sensed pity.

When Thomas slammed your bedroom door behind the pair of you, you flinched. Your bags were sitting near your wardrobe that Arthur and John had brought up. You stole a quick look around the room. Nothing had changed in your absence.

“You can forget about another show,” Thomas said, drawing your attention back to him. He was staring you down, watching as always. “Away from here of course. I could be talked into hiring some dancers to come perform with you around the holidays. I'm not a complete monster. That is… if you atone.”

He closed the space between the pair of you, coming into your personal space. You held yourself close, trying to avert your eyes. But his hand came to cup underneath your chin, lifting your head back up. His cologne wafted around you mixed with the lingering hint of cigarettes at his fingertips.

His voice was barely above a whisper, “You hurt me, love. I can’t trust you anymore.” He held both sides of your face, staring deeply into your eyes. “How am I to trust you? Eh?”

“Thomas—” you stammered.

“No. No more lies,” Thomas interjected, shaking his head. “I can’t trust what you say to me.”

His hands gripped you underneath your jawline, pulling you closer. His breath was hot as he scorned, "You need to show me again how sorry you are when you hurt me. Make me feel it."

His kiss was harsh, suffocating. Your head spun when he pulled away, dragging you to the bed. You barely avoided tripping on the rug. You put your hands up trying to stop him from forcing you onto the bed.

Thomas' lip curled and he spat, "The hard way then, eh? Maybe you aren't ready to apologize yet."

He whipped you around, yanking you back to his chest. Thomas pressed his face to your own, nose digging into your cheek as he drug his lips, sucking in roughly.

He husked in your ear, "You'll never belong to another man -- not while I breathe."

You had, in the absence of alternatives, found a routine, the dishes were your contribution, which had begun as a tentative offer on the second evening and had solidified by the fifth into something the company simply relied on, with the easy organic efficiency of people who were very good at distributing labour and not in the habit of questioning what worked.

Bofur helped. This had also settled into pattern without anyone explicitly deciding it—he simply appeared each evening at the end of the meal with his hat at its habitual angle and an expression of complete willingness, and the two of you worked through the camp's considerable collection of bowls,spoons and cutlery in a companionable division of labour that required very little conversation on your part because Bofur was capable of maintaining enough of one for both of you.

Today the light was still golden and good, the camp only half-assembled, the air smelled of woodsmoke and the cold sweetness of coming evening and Bofur was telling you something about his uncle and a goat that had clearly been funny the first time and remained funny in retrospect, and you were laughing—actually laughing, which was still occasionally surprising, the discovery that your body remembered how—when Gandalf's long shadow fell across your work.

He offered his bowl and his spoon with the slightly ceremonious gravity of a man who considered even small transactions worthy of his full attention, and you took them and handed him a cup of something warm that had been sitting near the fire—not quite tea, but hot and faintly herbed and the closest thing available to the sort of comfort a warm drink provided.

Gandalf wrapped both large hands around it and looked down at you from under the brim of his considerably sized hat with that expression he sometimes had—the one that looked like idle interest and was almost certainly something considerably more active.

"Bombur said it would help with my ribs," you explained. "I think it's just tea, honestly. But I thought—you look like you might appreciate it."

"I do appreciate it," Gandalf said, with a gravity that was not entirely serious and not entirely not. He turned the vessel in his long fingers. "And how are the ribs?"

"Better," you said. "Getting better." This was true. The sharper edge of it had softened over the days—closer to a general soreness that reminded you of itself when you moved carelessly but had stopped interrupting your breathing.

"I think another few days and I'll stop thinking about them."

"Good," he said. He looked at you over the clay vessel with eyes that had a quality you had not yet found the right word for—depth was the closest, but not quite right, because depth suggested distance, and this was more like the opposite of distance. Proximity to something very large. "You are settling in," he said.

"I'm—trying to," you said. "It's a lot."

"It is," he agreed, simply, without diminishing it. "And yet."

"And yet," you agreed, equally simply.

He took a sip of the drink. An expression crossed his face that might have been approval before he moved away.

Bofur appeared at your elbow. "He does that to everyone," he said, cheerfully, which confirmed that whatever it was had been legible enough to notice.

"Does what?" you asked, mostly to see what he'd say.

Bofur made a vague gesture toward the direction Gandalf had gone.

"The look," he said. "Like he's reading a letter you didn't know you posted to him"

You handed him a wet bowl to dry. "That's extremely accurate," you said.

Fíli found you before you'd finished, this was characteristic—he had a talent for appearing at the precise moment when you were nearly done with something and suggesting you do something else, which you suspected was a skill honed across many years of being an older brother. He had Kíli with him, as he almost always did, and Bilbo trailing slightly behind with the cautiously curious expression he deployed when he wasn't sure whether the thing being proposed was going to end well and had decided to come along and find out anyway.

"We're going to tend the ponies," Fíli said, in the tone of a person who was announcing something settled. "Come on."

"We've not finished—"

"Bofur's got it," Kíli said, looking at Bofur.

Bofur, who had not been consulted about this, looked at the remaining dishes, then at you, then at the brothers. "Yeah go on, I've got it," he confirmed, with the generosity of a dwarf who was sufficiently entertained by watching other people do things that he was willing to absorb the remaining workload.

The ponies were tethered at the edge of the camp on the far side from the fire, a comfortable distance away in the long grass, and they stood in the evening light with the calm, solid patience of animals that had made their peace with dwarves. They were short—sturdy, broad-bellied, with thick feathering around the hooves and the kind of temperament that suggested they had survived more difficult things than this journey and were not especially worried.

One of them, a pale grey with a blaze, turned her head toward you as you approached and her ears came forward with an attentiveness that was almost conversational.

"Hello, Mindy," you said, because you'd learned her name three days ago and horses were something normal, which distinguished them from approximately everything else in your current situation.

Mindy put her nose against your palm with the directness of an animal that liked you and was not shy about communicating this. You produced the apple you'd been hiding—slightly battered from being in your coat pocket, which seemed not to concern her—she took it with the efficient delicacy of a very well-mannered pony and you scratched her nose, and she leaned into it with a sigh that reorganised some of the tension in your shoulders.

"She never does that for me," Kíli observed, arriving at your elbow.

"Do you ever actually talk to her?" you said.

"I do talk to her."

"What do you say?"

A pause. "...I tell her to go faster."

"That's probably why," you said turning your full attention to Mindy who flicked an ear in what you chose to interpret as agreement.

Behind you, something landed in the grass near your feet.

You looked down at it. It was a sword. A real sword, short-bladed in the manner of the ones the brothers wore, its point stuck in the earth at a precise distance from your boots that suggested it had been placed rather than hap-hazardly thrown, but only just.

You looked up at Kíli, he's joking, said the part of your brain that processed these things. The rest of your brain looked at Kíli's expression and concluded that he was not, in fact, joking.

"I don't—" you started.

"You need to be able to defend yourself," Fíli said, arriving at Kíli's side with the tone of someone who had agreed this with his brother prior to the conversation and was here to provide backup. "Not well. Just—enough to whack something if the company is caught somewhere."

"I really don't—"

"We're going into dangerous country," Kíli said. His tone had dropped slightly from its usual brightness into something more serious. "There are things out there that—" He stopped and glanced at Bilbo, then back at you, with the specific calculation of a person deciding how alarming he should be. "Just. It would be better if you could. A little."

You looked at the sword.

You looked at Bilbo, who was looking at the sword with an expression that you suspected mirrored yours precisely.

"Apparently," Bilbo said, "we are going to learn to use swords."

"Apparently," you agreed.

The next twenty minutes were—well. Bilbo was game, which you respected enormously, and which did not entirely translate into aptitude, which you respected in a different way, because neither did yours.

Fíli had given you the very basic mechanics—hold it like this, not like that, the point goes toward the other person, which illicited a roll of your eyes—you had understood these instructions but found understanding them in motion was an entirely separate skill.

You'd been trying to do the thing Fíli had shown you—the basic deflection, with the footwork, nothing fancy—and Bilbo had moved slightly sooner than you'd expected, and the blade caught the side of his finger with the flat, which was not sharp and was not dangerous but was solid, and Bilbo made a sound and you dropped your sword immediately.

"Oh shit, I'm so sorry,"

"It's fine," Bilbo said, examining the finger with the affronted dignity of a hobbit who is not injured but has had a principle violated.

"I didn't mean to, I was trying to—"

"I know," he said. "I know, it's fine, it's not—" He looked at the finger. "Not even red," he confirmed, with mild surprise.

"Are you sure? I can—"

"It's fine," he repeated, with the kind patience of a person who was used to people worrying and had decided it was endearing rather than annoying.

"Try again?" You offered sheepishly.

"That's the spirit," said Kíli, from behind you, in a tone that communicated fond encouragement and the effort required not to laugh.

You and Bilbo looked at each other. An entire conversation passed in the glance—something about being the two people in this company who were least equipped for adventure, who had ended up in it anyway, who were standing in a field being gently mocked into action by two dwarves who meant it entirely kindly.

"I think," Bilbo said, with the measured dignity of a hobbit making an executive decision, "that we've done enough for this evening."

"Agreed," you said, and put the sword down with more care than it had been picked up with, and went to sit on the grass nearby, and Bilbo sat beside you, and after a moment Kíli gave up on the pretence of continuing and came and sat across from you, and Fíli settled beside his brother, and it turned out that what the four of you were actually good at was talking, which required no instruction and improved with practice.

It was into this that Balin arrived with the unhurried step of a dwarf who had a thing to do and had been thinking about how to do it for a while, and he was carrying something—a folded document, several pages worth, with the air of something official. He settled himself on a rock nearby with the composure of a person conducting business and looked at you with his kind, serious blue eyes.

"I've been meaning to speak to you," he said.

"Okay," you said, putting down the conversation you'd been in with Bilbo and giving him your full attention, because Balin's full attention always warranted your full attention in return.

He unrolled the document. It was—thick. He smoothed it against his knee and held it out toward you.

"Your contract," he said.

You looked at it. Then at him. Then at it again. "Pardon?"

"Your contract," Balin said. "With the company." He said it the way you said words to someone who was perhaps hard of hearing—clearly and without additional elaboration, under the assumption that the words themselves were sufficient.

"I—" You blinked. "I have a contract?"

A small pause in which Balin seemed to be recalibrating. "Bilbo has one," he said, by way of orientation.

"I know. I—yes. But that's because he's—" You gestured toward Bilbo, who had gone very still beside you with the expression of someone who had remembered something they should perhaps have mentioned sooner. "He's the—the burglar. He has a role. I just—I fell into a field."

"Aye," Balin said. "And we've brought you along. Which means—" he indicated the document, "—you ought to have the same provisions and protections as the rest of the company. In writing." He looked at you with the patient gravity of a dwarf who considered administrative thoroughness a form of respect. "It's only proper."

You took the document and looked at it. It was—comprehensive. You would give it that. There were clauses about provisions and there were clauses about the conduct of travel and there were several about the management of situations that sounded very alarming in print, and there were sections about the distribution of the—

Your eyes drifted down the page.

There were, you noted, quite a lot of clauses. Including some that seemed—unusual. Including one specific section, partway down the third page, that your eyes landed on and stopped.

"Balin,"

"Mm."

"What is—" You looked at the clause again, certain you'd misread it. You hadn't. "What's a hand clause?"

Balin looked up from where he'd been pointing out a different section. "Ah," he said, and something in his expression became careful in the way of a person who has been waiting for this question and has prepared for it. "That's simply a standard clause. For any maiden in the company who is—unattached."

"What does it mean?"

"It means," Balin said, with the particular kind of diplomatic composure that required effort, "that should anyone within the company—or encountered on the road—wish to—" He paused. "Wish to make an offer for your—"

You stared at him.

He finished the sentence with the expression of someone pushing through a door they know is going to lead somewhere difficult "—hand."

"My hand?" you said after some silence.

"Your hand," he confirmed.

"You mean they'd literally—" Your brain tried to construct the image and failed miserably. "They'd—come and—take my hand?"

You made a sawing motion across your wrist with your other hand.

"Not—no." Balin's composure had developed a faint quality of a man standing in water that was slowly rising. "An offer, for your hand. In—" He seemed to be choosing the next word with care. "In union—in marriage lass."

You stared at him for a very long, very vacant moment.

"Marriage."

"Aye, It simply means the terms would need to be—"

"I'm going to a—we're going to a mountain."

"We are."

"Why would I get married on the way to a mountain?"

"Well," Balin said, with the measured reasonableness of a dwarf who had thought this was going to be a much simpler conversation, "it's not common, certainly, but it's not unheard of, and the contract should cover all—"

"I'm not going to get married," you said. You could hear that your voice had gone flat. "I'm going to a mountain. I don't—I came through the pavement, Balin. I've been here a little over a week. I am absolutely not—" You stopped, because the end of the sentence came out much higher than the beginning, and took a breath.

"I assure you It's standard—"

"Does Bilbo have that clause?"

A pause. A short one, but present.

"Master Burglar is—" Balin began.

"Does. Bilbo. Have. That clause."

Bilbo, to his credit, looked genuinely apologetic. "I'm not sure I read mine all the—"

"Bilbo has different provisions," Balin said, which was not an answer but was delivered with the authority of one, and you recognised the architecture of a statement that was going to require more excavation than Balin appeared to be currently offering.

You looked at the contract. Then at Balin. Then at Bilbo, whose expression confirmed enough.

"Right," you said, and your voice had taken on the very particular flatness of a person who has identified an injustice and is deciding how to feel about it. "So Bilbo has different provisions, and I have a—a hand clause—because I'm—" You stopped, and rubbed your temple with your free hand.

"Because I'm a woman?"

"Excatly, you cannot be unprotected," Balin said, and there was a gravity in it that was entirely genuine, with no apology in it but also no dismissal. "Without family represented in this company, without a patriarchal representative—"

"A what now."

"Someone to—to act on your behalf. In matters of—" He looked at you. "In the traditions of the Dwarven people, a woman traveling without the representation of her family—"

"I don't have family here," you said. "I don't have family anywhere near here. I'm from a different—" You stopped, because explaining this was still a work in progress. "I'm not from here," you said instead. "I don't have anyone."

"Yes," Balin said, with a gentleness that was worse than impatience would have been. "That is precisely why the clause exists." He looked at you over the top of the contract with those blue eyes. "It is not meant as an insult, lass. It is meant as a provision. To ensure that if such a situation arose, you would not be—" He selected the word carefully. "Disadvantaged."

"And who would act as my—patriarchal representative," you said, and the words felt extremely strange as they passed your teeth.

"That is rather what I was going to ask you," Balin said, with the expression of a man who had been trying to get to this point for some time and was relieved to have arrived there. "If you have—"

"I don't," you said. "I don't have anyone to—there's no one." Something in saying it out loud landed in a way you hadn't anticipated. You looked down at the document so that the expression that crossed your face could do so without an audience. "So just—take it out, there's no one to—it doesn't apply—"

"It does apply," Balin said, patiently. "And there are—options."

You looked up at him, and something in your expression made him press his lips into a thin line.

"Moving on," he said, with the composure of a man making a tactical retreat to a better position, "there are other matters in here worth your attention—"

You let him move on, because your ribs still ached slightly when you breathed and you had decided that was your quota of difficult things for this segment of the evening.

"I may have offended her," Balin said.

He had found Gandalf at the fire, where the wizard was engaged in the practice of doing nothing in particular with the appearance of someone doing something very important. Balin settled himself nearby with the expression of a dwarf who had reviewed the entire conversation and arrived at a conclusion he was not entirely comfortable with.

Gandalf looked at him through the smoke trails of his pipe. "Did you?"

"The contract," Balin said. "I was explaining the terms. The patriarchal representative clause, and then the—" He cleared his throat. "The hand clause."

Several dwarves who were near enough to hear this exchange developed a sudden and intense interest in their various tasks.

"She took it poorly?" Gandalf said, in the tone of a man who already had a theory about this.

"She seemed—she seemed to think—" Balin looked uncomfortable, which was not an expression he wore often. "I'm not entirely sure what the lassie thought. But she went very quiet."

"Ah," said Gandalf.

Nori, who had not been invited into this conversation, offered from his position by the fire "I thought it was a fine contract, Balin."

"The terms were entirely standard," Dori agreed, from slightly further away, in the tone of a dwarf who had reviewed a contract or two in his time. "Better than standard, in fact—the compensations alone are quite—"

"She asked if Master Baggins had a hand clause," Balin said.

A small collective silence.

"...Well he doesn't need it, does he?" Kíli's voice finally broke the silence, from somewhere to the left.

"He does not," Balin said.

"Ah-Mmm," said Gandalf while slowly rearranging his lips around his pipe.

Glóin looked up from whatever he'd been doing. "She shouldn't be offended It's protective. My wife's contract when we first—well, her father negotiated the terms, but the protective clauses were the first thing he—"

"She doesn't have a father here," Balin said. "She doesn't have anyone." He looked at Gandalf. "I was wondering whether perhaps—whether you might serve as—" He cleared his throat again. "As her representative. Formally. Given that you seem to know a rather broad scope of things. I'm sure she would grow to—to trust your counsel."

Gandalf considered this for a long and slightly theatrical moment, in the way he considered things when he had already reached a conclusion and was simply allowing the appropriate amount of time to elapse before sharing it.

"I think," he said, "that this is a conversation best had with her directly. In time." He looked at Balin.

"You think she was offended ?" Balin said.

"I think," Gandalf said, carefully, "that she comes from somewhere with very different customs. And that what seems to her like one thing may be something else entirely." He drew on his pipe.

"She is not unlike our Mr Baggins in that respect. Full of assumptions that fit very well where she came from and require revision here."

Balin digested this. "Should I have explained it differently?"

"The difficulty is not in the explanation itself but in the context around it," Gandalf said. "Which she does not yet have." He looked in the direction you where sitting. "She'll understand. I suspect sooner than you'd think."

Gandalf came and sat beside you later, after the fire had been built up and the camp had properly settled, with the careful proximity of someone who has chosen to have a specific conversation and is deciding how to begin it.

"Balin is worried he's upset you," he said.

"He hasn't," you said, which was mostly true and was entirely what you intended to say regardless. "I just—that contract had—" You trailed off.

Gandalf looked at the fire for a moment. "May I tell you something?"

"Please," you said, because you were beginning to understand that when Gandalf offered information, the correct response was to accept it immediately.

"What you encountered today," he said, "and what you may encounter again—matters of representative clauses, of patriarchal provisions, of the particular administrative customs of Dwarves—these are not what they appear to be from the outside."

"They appear to be sexist from the outside," you said, because you were many things but you were not dishonest.

Gandalf looked at you with something that was not quite a smile but operated in the same territory. "But consider." He settled his staff against his knee. "Dwarven women are rare. Considerably rarer than you may appreciate." A pause, in which he seemed to be selecting the shape of the thing carefully. "For every three Dwarves in the world, there is perhaps one Dwarven woman. Perhaps less."

You looked at him. "That's—"

"Yes," he said.

"That's—that's not very many."

"No." He looked at the fire. "As a consequence, they are—not considered lesser. Not by those who know Dwarves, and who know their history. They are considered—" He turned the word over. "Esteemed. In the truest sense. To be protected above all other things. Above gold, above stone, above the great treasuries of their ancestors." He glanced at you.

"Dwarven women, in most cases are guarded better than their gold. And that, you should know, is not a thing to be said lightly of dwarves."

You were quiet for a moment. "So when Balin asked about a —a-umm representative?"

"He was not suggesting you required supervision," Gandalf said. "He was ensuring that you had the same rights and protections that any Dwarven woman undertaking something this dangerous would receive. The clause, the representative—these are not restrictions. They are provisions." He paused. "He was trying to make sure you were not left out. Or alone."

You sat with that. The fire shifted. An log fell.

"I didn't know any of that," you said, finally.

"No," Gandalf said, with the patience of a man who had expected this. "You didn't." He was quiet for a moment. "It would have helped to understand it before drawing conclusions."

He said it gently. It landed anyway.

"Yes," you said. "It would have."

The morning came cold and clear, with the sharp quality of early light in open country, and you lay awake for several minutes before the camp began to stir, looking up at the sky and constructing what you wanted to say.

Balin was by the fire when you found him, doing something with the maps with early-morning focus. He looked up when you approached, and his expression was the expression he'd been wearing since yesterday—composed, warm, but with something slightly more guarded in it than usual.

"Morning Balin,"

"Good morning," he said.

"I owe you an apology."

He looked at you. Waited.

"I didn't understand," you said. "What you were trying to do, or why, or—any of the context for it. And I was—" You stopped. "I think I was pretty unfair, and I'm sorry."

Balin looked at you for a moment with those steady blue eyes, and his expression shifted—the guardedness easing, something warmer taking its place, though it didn't reach the full warmth it might have.

He nodded, once. "Apology accepted," he said.

He looked back at the maps.

"Ahh, I'll just go get—"

"You are," Balin said, without looking up, in the tone of a dwarf delivering an observation he has been holding for some time, "far too skeptical for your own good."

You blinked.

"Strong-minded," he continued. "Which is not a criticism, it'll serve you well. But it does lead you to conclusions before you've gathered the necessary information." A pause, in which he turned the map slightly. "There are things in this world you don't know yet. A great many things Lass and the wisest thing, when you don't know a thing—"

"Is to ask before assuming," you finished, quietly.

"Aye, that's the one." he said. He turned another section of the map. He did not say anything else, and he did not look up, which confirmed the conversation was, for now at least, closed.

You walked away feeling approximately two inches tall, which was, you reflected, the thing about Balin—he never raised his voice and he never needed to.

The rest came mid-afternoon, a rocky plateau wide enough for the ponies and with a flat expanse of grass that someone had decided was useful. The company took advantage of it in the efficient way they took advantage of most things—packs down, boots checked, the small maintenance tasks of people who knew that the difference between a journey going well and a journey going badly was often in the details attended to at moments like this one.

You were sitting, trying to decide if your left boot had done something to your heel or if you were imagining it when a shadow fell across you.

You looked up.

Thorin stood with his arms crossed and his expression doing the thing it did, which was to be almost entirely unreadable while still communicating something. He looked at you for a moment in the way that made you want to check you had all your belongings about your person.

"On your feet," he said.

"I—" You looked around to confirm this was directed at you. "Sorry?"

"You practiced with Fíli and Kíli two days ago," he said.

"I—attempted to," you said carefully.

"Aye." Something in his tone confirmed that a report of this had reached him and that the report had contained specific information. "You'll practice with me."

You stood up. Not because you'd made an active decision to stand up, but because Thorin said on your feet and your body apparently responded to that tone independently of your brain's involvement.

You moved to a grassy area out of direct line if sight of the company, Thorin handed you a short blade—not the one from your last practice, a different one, slightly better balanced, maybe ? Regardless your hands immediately recognized an improvement even without understanding why.

"Your grip," Thorin said using his chin to gesture to your hand.

"I know," you sighed. "It's wrong isnt it."

"Show me how you were taught."

You adjusted to what you thought was correct. Thorin stepped forward and moved your fingers with two brief adjustments, and the difference was immediately, irritatingly obvious. The balance settled differently.

Your wrist stopped compensating.

"Strike," he said, and stepped back.

You struck, at a target he indicated with a nod—a post he'd apparently stuck in the ground at some point, which suggested this had been planned at least a few minutes in advance. It connected. Not well, off-centre, but connected.

"Again."

You went again. And again. And again.

Thorin said very little, which you found more pressuring than commentary would have been. He watched each attempt with the focused attention of someone cataloguing errors, and when he corrected you he was precise and economical—two words at most, a demonstration if words weren't enough, a slight adjustment of your stance or arm or the angle of your elbow.

You hadn’t improved, by the end of it, in any way that would help you in an actual crisis. But something had clarified—the basic shape of the movement, the intent of it, the understanding that what you were building was going to take a consistent effort and time you hadn't been given yet.

Thorin looked at you when you'd stopped. His expression did the thing it did, where it was entirely composed and told you very little, except that he was still thinking.

"You're afraid of the blade," he said.

"I'm—not afraid of it, exactly."

"You are. You pull back at the last moment. Barely, but you do." His eyes were direct and not unkind, exactly, but not cushioning anything either. "That's the thing to address. Not the grip. Not the footwork. That."

You looked at the blade in your hand. "How do I address it?"

"By doing it again," he said. "Many times." He took the blade back, and for a moment he looked at you —not the assessment-look, something slightly different, though the distinction was difficult to name. "Fíli and Kíli, they explained that this is necessary."

It wasn't a question, but it had the quality of one underneath. "Yes," you said. "They did."

He nodded once. Turned and walked back toward the company without elaboration, and that, it seemed, was practice done.

You stood on the hillside for a moment with the wind coming from the south and looked at the post in the ground and thought, with the specific stubbornness that was becoming ypur coping mechanism out here.

"Right. Many times." You muttered mockingly to yourself, in a poor imitation of Thorin's voice.

•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•

The evening camp was smaller than usual, tucked tighter into a valley that offered shelter and not much else, and the fire was lower than some nights and the company was quieter in a comfortable rather way—the quiet of people who had covered good ground and were tired in a satisfied rather than a depleted fashion.

You found Balin at the edge of the firelight after supper, doing what he often did in the evenings—the quiet administrative work, keeping the company's affairs in order as a matter of personal principle, maps and tallies and the various pieces of paper that accumulated around him like his own brand of barnacles.

You sat down beside him without asking, which you thought was probably the right move with Balin—he was the kind of person who received consideration better than hovering.

"Can I see it?" you said.

He looked at you. "Your contract?"

"Yes please."

He regarded you for a moment, then reached into the flat leather pouch beside him and held it out.

You took it. Read it properly this time, from the beginning, with the full attention and the full information you hadn't had yesterday. The provisions clauses, which were actually quite reasonable. The safety terms, which were clearly there in good faith. The distribution clause, about the gold—you read this section twice, because it was specific about what was entitled, and the terms were specific and not small.

You took up a small piece of charcoal from the pile of implements spread near Balin's feet and crossed out two sections. The hand clause, which—even understanding it now, even knowing what it meant and why it existed—you drew a single clean line through each line of text, because regardless of the intention, it remained a thing that did not apply to your particular situation and probably never would. And the distribution clause, the one about the gold, which you crossed out with slightly less certainty but with the feeling that arriving in a field and contributing very little to the actual retrieval of a mountain's treasure was not a basis for a share of it.

Balin had been watching you do this without speaking, which was one of his better qualities.

"You don't want a share of the—" he began.

"I haven't earned it," you said simply. "It's not mine."

A pause. "The clause is standard—"

"Balin." You looked at him directly. "I came here by accident. I haven't—I haven't contributed anything yet. Maybe I will. Maybe by the time this is over I'll have done something worth—" You stopped. "But I'm not going to sign for something I haven't actually earned."

He looked at you for a long moment with an expression that moved through several things and settled on something you couldn't name precisely, but he didn't argue further.

You looked back at the contract. The remaining sections, the ones you'd left intact—the provisions, the safety terms, the commitment to remain with the company and contribute what you were able to, the terms of conduct on the road.

These were reasonable. These were, if you were honest with yourself, things you would have agreed to anyway, in some form. You'd been relying on their food and their fire and their protection and you hadn't signed anything, and that felt—off balance in a way you hadn't quite acknowledged until it was in front of you on paper.

At the bottom, the signature line.

And below that, the line for your patriarchal representative.

You wrote your name on the first line, in your ordinary handwriting, which looked slightly alien against the formal script of the rest of the document.

You looked around the camp for a short moment considering each of the dwarves in turn, with the consideration of a person choosing not a family member per-say but an ally.

Then on the second line you wrote, Master Balin, Son of Fundin.

You folded the contract and held it out to Balin, who tucked it back into the leather pouch with the same care he gave everything he considered worth keeping.

"Goodnight, Balin," you said as you stood and moved to your bedroll.

"Goodnight, lass," he said, and the warmth in it was whole and unguarded, every bit of it back.

Balin opened the leather pouch one more time that evening, unrolled your contract to transfer details and dates into another leadger, and noticed the name on the second line.

Closed it again.

Curtis watched your pouting face as you climbed into the back of the town car, only relaxing when it pulled away. Even then, he kept his eyes on its tail lights until it rounded a corner. Almost as soon as it had done so, Edgar appeared at his elbow, a small tablet in his hand that he immediately handed over. Your face — from your DMV records — looked back at him.

He read your name out under his breath, eyes scanning all of the information that had been presented to him.

“She’s a school teacher,” Edgar proffered, even though it was already on the screen. “Moved here a few years ago to take up the position. Well liked and respected. No skeletons in her closet as far as I can see. Like I thought - pure as the driven snow.”

Curtis scrolled, reading it all for himself, before handing the device back. Then he rolled his neck, pulled a battered cigarette packet from his pocket and lit one up. God, he needed to give this shit up.

“So what are you gonna do? About ‘Teach’?”

“Nothin’” he grunted before taking a heavy drag.

“Nothin? You mean you’re actually listening to me? You didn’t let her out of your sight all evening. Carried her out of the club, for fuck’s sake. Then the car. And you… nothin’?” Edgar was incredulous.

Flicking the butt to the ground and grinding it out, Curtis nodded his head and turned back to the side door.

“You said it yourself - she’s innocent. Doesn’t fit in our world.”

“But you like her?” Edgar’s brows drew together in confusion.

“It’s just the price I pay,” Curtis replied, shrugging. “Plenty of other pretty women who do fit. Gloria, for example.

“True,” his brother agreed. “But Gloria will never make you happy.”

Thomas paced impatiently outside the bathroom, trying not to look conspicuous. It had been at least ten minutes, and Y/N had not come back out of the bathroom. Ladies generally took longer he knew but it was putting him on edge. Unease was creeping up his spine every time the door opened, and it was not her emerging.

His anxiousness got the better of him after a couple more minutes and the next women who left the bathroom, he approached, asking if they had seen her in there. Describing her and what kind of dress she was wearing. When the women told him no, he stiffly thanked them before storming back through the crowd to find Arthur.

<><><> 

Thomas had not slept much the night prior. Upon finding the gala venue empty of Y/N, he had searched the streets around to no avail. Thomas insisted on going to Henry’s and had banged on the door repeatedly without an answer until someone from down the hall swung their door open and demanded he be quiet. Arthur had to hold him back from unleashing his fury on them, pulling him down the hall and back out of the apartment building. Instead of staying in his own room, Arthur roomed with Thomas, trying to keep an eye out that he would not leave again in search of Y/N until morning. He sat at the desk, chain smoking cigarettes, nursing a bottle of whiskey. Arthur had drifted off lightly, keeping an ear out for the door.

Rushing into the offices, Thomas made a beeline for Henry’s desk. He found Henry was bent over his papers, looking like he also had not slept well. Henry heard heavy footsteps approaching and looked up, only slightly straightening up when he saw it was his boss.

“Morning, Mr. Shelby,” he greeted, mustering up energy.

“My office,” Thomas ordered, ignoring pleasantries, not breaking stride.

He heard Henry scrambling to follow him. He threw his door open, swinging round to hold it open until Henry walked through the doorway. He slammed the door closed and turned to face Henry who was looking apprehensive at Thomas’ demeanor.

“Where were you last night?” Thomas demanded, eyes pinned on Henry.

“I—I was out?”

“With Y/N?” Thomas spat, not beating around the bush.

Henry’s brow pinched, “No, sir? I was with a friend.”

Sneering, Thomas leaned in even closer, causing Henry to recoil slightly, “’A friend’. Y/N is a ‘friend’!”

Henry’s nose scrunched at Thomas’ breath, no doubt smelling the lingering alcohol. “Of course she’s my friend. I don’t understand—”

“I find out you let her into your flat last night, you won’t just lose this job. You’ll lose a lot more than that, I can fucking guarantee it!” Henry began to argue that Y/N was not at his flat and Thomas cut him off, raising his voice, “I don’t take kindly to other men thinking they can take what’s mine. You are the only one in town that Y/N would go to since you’re the only one currently here – and I know, oh I fucking know how close you are. Now, let me ask you again…” Thomas inhaled deeply before asking, “Is she at your flat?”

Realization was washing over Henry and he pleaded, “Mr. Shelby, I would never—”

“IS she at your flat? I swear to fucking—"

Henry interrupted hoarsely, “I don’t fancy women, Mr. Shelby!” That stopped Thomas short, his face falling. A little louder, Henry told him, “And even if I did, I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t do that to you. You’ve done right by me.”

The wind had left Thomas’ sails and he stood there, not saying anything.

“Please don’t report me to the police,” Henry begged softly.

Exhaling heavily, Thomas rubbed at his forehead. “I’m not gonna report you to the coppers, Henry. I couldn’t give a fuck less about it.” He turned away, hands on his hips, breathing deep to calm himself down again.

“Is Y/N okay? Is she missing?” Henry ventured, suddenly worried.

Thomas rolled his eyes to the ceiling, his back still to Henry. Closing his eyes, he took another couple of deep breaths. He could not have Y/N be found by anyone else but a Peaky Blinder to keep her quiet. "No. She just ran off again without saying anything to me. She’ll turn up. Last time was disappearing with me sister.”

Without another glance his way moving to the door, Thomas told him, “Get back to work.”

<><><> 

The room was tiny and smelled slightly of mothballs. And the sheets were a little scratchy. But it was clean enough and it was your own. A chambermaid had brought you a clean bowl to wash up and you changed out of your nightgown into one of the dresses Ada had packed. You eyed the fancy dress from the gala draped over the back of the chair in the corner. When you had arrived last night, Ms. Lange had seemed taken aback at your attire. You were sure she had questions, but she had kept them to herself, taking your money instead. If you did not find work, you would be out on the street in less than three weeks time.

Looking at yourself in the mirror above the basin, you studied yourself. This was not London, but someone could have easily traveled there. Seen you on a poster.

You touched at your hair, contemplating. Hair dye should not be hard to find. And it was not expensive. It was not much but it would at least be something to throw people off.

<><><> 

Maisie greeted Arthur and the family at the front door. She held out her hands for Arthur’s coat and hat first.

Shrugging out of his coat, Arthur asked, “Morning. How is he?”

“He… he’s been in his office.”

“And?”

“Been there since last night. Was making quite a ruckus but quieted down round two. I checked in to make sure he was okay periodically. He’s still sleeping as of 20 minutes ago,” she explained.

“How damn bad is it?” Polly interrupted, directing her question at Arthur.

Thomas had stopped by both her and Ada’s places two weeks ago the day after Y/N went missing. But he had not returned to see them since. Arthur and Johnny had been shouldering the burden of trying to keep Thomas afloat as he searched in earnest for where she could have gone, following him around as he made his rounds in London. Thomas grew increasingly incensed the longer it went on without finding her.

“He’s just working through it, Pol,” Arthur said.

“Sounds like he’s not.” To Maisie now, Polly asked, “How is he really doing?” Maisie shot a look at Arthur and Polly said firmly, “I’m asking.”

“Not well, Ms. Gray. Drinking a lot. He… he worries she might be dead,” Maisie told them quietly. “Heard him muttering in his sleep. He was… crying.”

“Christ,” Polly muttered, turning to go towards the office.

Arthur reached out and grasped her arm, still. “Pol, let me go first. In case he’s indecent. And to… clean anything up.”

Nostrils flared, Polly nodded before asking Maisie to fetch some drinks.

“I cleaned up the glass, Mr. Shelby,” Maisie told him. “Not the other things though to not disturb his rest further. I just didn’t want him to get up and cut himself.”

This did nothing but make Polly roll her eyes and move to go into the parlor. The rest followed her outside Arthur.

“Can you bring water and something hearty food wise to the office?” Arthur requested of Maisie before turning on his heel.

Taking off down the hall towards the office, Arthur came into the room, finding Thomas passed out on his chaise, hand hanging off the edge, loosely gripping a mostly full bottle. Various things were strewn around the room, clearly thrown around, and there was a stain on the rug by the desk that reeked of alcohol. Thomas must have dropped a bottle and found himself another to replace it. His shirt was unbuttoned halfway, his hair a disheveled mess. Arthur did not miss the line of cocaine on the desk. Or the small music box of the ballerina clutched at Thomas' chest; the small mirror was cracked as if he had thrown it as well.

Treading careful to the chaise, Arthur said quietly, “Tom?” No response. He reached out, giving his shoulder a little nudge. He said louder this time, “Tom?”

Thomas’ face tweaked, eyes squeezing shut before one slowly cracked open. He groaned quietly, hand letting the bottle go. Arthur caught it to not let it topple over. Thomas rubbed at his eyes before turning his head again towards Arthur.

“What?” he asked gruffly.

“The family is here. We had a meeting. The pier. It’s time to move in. Remember?”

Thomas groaned again, closing his eyes. “It doesn’t matter. You lot can handle it.”

“Tom, this needs to stop,” Arthur said gently.

Thomas opened his eyes and retorted shaking his head, “Not until I find her.”

“You need to lead them. You know it best. I need you. This is serious Thomas,” Arthur countered, standing up straight as Maisie came to the door with a soft knock. Arthur beckoned her in. “Got you some water and food. Sit up. Now.”

Looking piqued at being ordered around, Thomas scowled. But did it regardless, sitting on the edge of the couch, breathing deeply and slowly, head bowed. He reached out placing the music box gently on the cushion next to him. Maisie placed the tray on the desk and looked to Arthur. Thomas propped his elbow up on his knee, resting his head, his breathing shallower now.

“Give him about fifteen. Then send just Polly, Ada, and John in. The rest can stay out there.” To Thomas he asked seriously, “You’re not going to throw up are you?”

Gesturing impatiently towards the desk, head still in his hand, Thomas said, “Give me a bump.”

<><><> 

Thomas leaned back in his chair at his desk, staring at nothing. The family sat around the room, waiting for him to say something.

The moments crawled on uncomfortably before John said, “The Italians are eyeing the pier now that the Walkers are out, Tommy. Isaiah and I have seen them creeping around.”

That at least got Thomas to focus on him. Still he said nothing. Instead he reached out, grabbing a piece of sausage, eating it slowly. The silence was getting uncomfortable again and this time Polly opened her mouth to say something but Thomas finally spoke.

“It’s quite a thing… to be pulled in so many directions,” He mused. “One thing, I could very easily solve. This. The pier. The Italians. It’s quite simple.” He paused, clicking his tongue. Leaning forward, he grabbed his cigarettes, lighting one up. Exhaling slowly, he watched the smoke trailing in the air above his head. “But that’s not the thing that concerns me the most. It’s the… thing I can’t solve.”

“Thomas,” Polly cut in. “That’s precisely why we need to focus on the Italians. It’s something we can solve. You worked so hard to get this opportunity in place for us. We cannot let it slide by. Not when Michael is waiting in New York for the connection. Everything is perfect.”

Thomas rubbed at his forehead, eyes closed, falling silent again.

Polly was impatient, leaning forward in her chair. “Thomas, the family needs this business. We need to make our claim. Now. Don’t squander this.”

“What is it all worth, Pol? It’s not like we aren’t rich enough. We are just trying to get richer,” Thomas muttered.

Clenching her jaw, Polly shot a look around the room at everyone else. They all looked as unamused as she was feeling. And her eyes rested on Ada, locking eyes with her. Ada furrowed her brow, trying to discern the look in Polly’s eyes. Polly clicked her jaw before saying one thing with conviction.

“Ada.”

Ada breathed, disbelief etched in her features. She slightly shook her head and whispered, “Don’t.”

“Ada.”

“Don’t do this, Aunt Pol,” Ada begged.

“Do what?” Thomas asked crossly, tilting his head back forward to look between them.

Polly turned her attention away from her and told Thomas, trying to be reassuring, “Thomas, Y/N is fine. She’s not dead. She’s not injured. She’s perfectly fine.”

Thomas stared at her in bewilderment as did Arthur and John. Ada was staring at her, jaw slack from the betrayal. After a few moments, Thomas leaned forward up against the desk, pulling his cigarette from his mouth.

He looked like he was having trouble finding the words. “What… what do you mean?”

“Thomas, you were out of control. You were being bloody overbearing to the point I was even shocked,” Polly told him. “She needed release from it. So, she found release. She’s got her own place in Liverpool.”

“Oh my god,” Ada breathed, turning away from the scene.

Thomas was staring at Polly flabbergasted. She shifted uncomfortably and waited for him to speak. Arthur and John were standing tensely, afraid to move.

“This whole time…” he started out in a scarily calm tone. Polly swallowed sharply and stayed silent. Thomas’ eyes moved between her and Ada. He raised his hand, gesturing between the two of them, staring at them murderously. He repeated a little louder, “This whole time…”

“Thomas—”

Thomas slammed both his hands on the desk, standing up, making everyone in the room jump at the sound and sudden movement.

“This whole FUCKING time you’ve acted like you know nothing!” Thomas shouted at the two of them. “Going behind me back like this? I told you, Ada! Right to your face! I told you she needed to be left be! And you let her leave?” He sneered, “And to fucking Liverpool of all places?”

His lip curled, pointing between the two of them menacingly. “Who pays for your nice things? Your clothes? Your paintings? Your fucking rent!” He spat the last so hard spittle flew. He came around the desk and advanced on the two of them. Arthur took a step forward defensively, but Thomas came to a stop, glaring at Ada. “Who’s she staying with? You are the one with Liverpool connections. See if I ever fucking trust you to do business for me again.” Ada refused to answer him. Thomas demanded, “Eh?”

“It’s not right, Tommy,” she told him, her voice shaking.

Thomas took another step closer and threatened, “You’re either gonna tell me or say goodbye to that comfortable life I provide you.”

“There’s no need for that, Thomas,” Polly interjected, her voice wavering only slightly. Thomas turned his wild eyes to her and she said, “Can’t you just be settled knowing she is alright? And get back to the business at hand?”

He scoffed, “No.” To Ada, he said, “I fucking mean it.”

Tears were springing in Ada’s eyes and she still refused to speak.

“Damnit, Thomas. Back off,” Polly snapped at him. “I’ll tell you.”

Your handbag sat beside you, faithfully repositioned by Bilbo, who had then stood looking at you for a moment with his hands in his pockets and a slight furrow between his brows before being recruited by someone to carry water.

Balin settled himself beside you with the unhurried deliberateness of a dwarf who had decided this was where he was going to be for the foreseeable future and had made his peace with it. He was not a small person—none of the company were, in terms of the particular density of them, the solidity that dwarves carried differently to other folk—but he arranged himself cross-legged with a comfortable ease and folded his hands in his lap and looked at you with the quiet attention of someone conducting an assessment they did not wish to rush.

By the time the fire had caught and Bofur had begun the business of the evening stew, Óin had come over and crouched at your other side, and the two of them conducted a brief, low-voiced examination that was equal parts medical and simply—careful. Unhurried hands checking what Óin had catalogued on the move, breathing still even, colour reasonable, no alarming rigidity in the limbs. But in the better light of the fire, now that there was better light to see by, certain things were clearer.

"There," Óin said, and his broad fingers hovered with professional delicacy over your left side, not touching, just indicating the line of discolouration that had begun to travel along your ribs beneath the strange fabric of your clothing. Bruising, not yet fully developed, the kind that would deepen overnight and be considerably more apparent by morning.

Balin leaned forward and looked at it, and something in his expression settled into a kind of resigned, gentle acknowledgement. "From the fall?" he asked.

"Aye." Óin sat back slightly. "Won't have caused proper damage, I think—Lassie's breathing's too clean for that. But she'll know about it when she wakes." He paused, casting a considering look over the rest of you—the faint scuff along one forearm, a tear at the knee on your strange close-fitted garment that suggested the second impact had been less forgiving than the first.

"She'll be sore," he said, plainly. "All over, probably. The ribs most."

Balin looked at you for a long moment, with an expression that had something paternal in it, an old warmth of the kind that came from a person who had spent many years watching over people younger than himself. "Poor lass," he said, quietly, to no one in particular. "Didn't even know it was coming."

Óin made a sound of agreement, and then stood and went back to the fire, because there was stew to attend to or as most of the other's knew, stew to rescue from Bombur.

Balin stayed where he was while the camp settled around him, while the fire built itself into something warm and steady, while the smell of whatever Bofur was doing with the stew spread out through the cool evening air, and he was quiet in the easy way of old dwarves who had learned that sitting still was not the same thing as doing nothing.

Gandalf stood at the eastern edge of the camp with his pipe, which he had not yet lit and his eyes were old in a manner that had very little to do with the face around them as they moved over you with a quality of attention that was not analysis, exactly, and not recognition, but something that sat between the two in the particular space reserved for things he was still working out.

Your clothing troubled him. Not the garment itself—cloth was cloth, and cloth was woven in more places than most people knew existed—but the manner of its making. The precision of the weave. The particular quality of the dye. The fastenings, which were neither toggle nor lace nor made of anything with a name he could readily apply.

He had thankfully destroyed that rectanglar glowing device. He had looked at the cards in the wallet. He had read the receipt—had read it with the unsettling ease of someone who was able to read rather more languages than was strictly explainable, and what he had read had told him things about the distance you had travelled that had very little to do with miles.

He stood with his unlighted pipe and his old eyes and the particular expression of a person who has just placed the first piece of a very large puzzle and is already seeing the shape of what the rest of it might become, and said nothing about any of it to anyone.

"Gandalf."

Thorin's voice came from just behind his left shoulder, and the wizard turned with the unhurriedness of a person who had heard him coming from twenty paces.

Thorin stood with his arms folded across his chest, the firelight catching the line of his bearded jaw, and he looked at you with an expression that was doing a great deal of work to appear merely curious and not particularly succeeding.

"She has been unconscious the better part of the day," he said.

"She has."

"That is a long time."

"It is."

A silence that had the quality of a man waiting for more and a wizard declining to provide it. Thorin's jaw shifted slightly. "You know something," he said. It wasn't a question.

"I know a great many things," Gandalf agreed, with the serenity of someone who considered this a perfectly complete answer.

"About her."

"I have thoughts," Gandalf said, which was true, and communicated as much as he intended it to. He looked at Thorin, and something in his expression was almost—not gentle, precisely, but considered. "She is not a threat, Thorin. Of that I am confident."

"Confidence is not the same as knowledge."

"No," Gandalf agreed. "It rarely is. And yet we act on it, constantly, or we act on nothing at all." He finally brought the pipe to his lips, and lit it. "Let her wake. Let her speak. You will learn more from listening than from any conclusion you might draw tonight."

Thorin looked at you for a moment longer. Then turned and walked back toward the fire without another word, which was its own kind of answer.

Gandalf continued to watch your sleeping form and thought several thoughts and with the particular processing wizards had he did not share any of them.

The stew was a joint effort that had begun as Bofur's project and gradually absorbed contributions from Bifur and Oin and, at one point, an unsolicited handful of something dried and leafy from someone, who maintained it improved the flavour and was shouted down by Bombur with the feeling of a deeply held personal conviction.

The company ate around the fire in the way they always ate—closely, loudly, with the particular mix of argument and camaraderie that characterised most of what they did—while the stars came up in the wide sky overhead and the hills settled into the particular dark quiet of countryside.

"She hasn't stirred," Bofur observed, glancing over toward you from his place by the fire. He said it to no one in particular, the way you said things when you were thinking aloud and didn't particularly mind who heard.

"She'll wake when she wakes," said Balin, who had returned to the fire for his own meal but kept one eye toward the rock shelf. "Óin says there's no cause for alarm in it. The body knows what it needs."

Bombur, who was in the process of serving himself a second portion began ladling what remained in the pot with the focused generosity of a dwarf who did not like to see any food wasted.

Bofur watched him with a slight frown. "Bombur."

"Mm."

"Leave some."

"She'll be hungry," Balin said, mildly but specifically with a nod in your direction.

Bombur set the ladle down and put the lid on the pot with the air of a dwarf making a genuine sacrifice and intending it to be recognised as such.

Bofur found a bowl and set it close to the fire to stay warm, and Balin nodded once with the quiet satisfaction of a small logistical problem neatly resolved.

You came back to yourself slowly—in layers, each one slightly less dark than the one before, awareness assembling itself from the outside in. Cold first. Then the distinct press of ground beneath you, the give of something soft under your head, the smell—woodsmoke, and something savoury, and earth and grass and open air—and the sounds, low voices and the settling of a fire, and none of it belonging to anywhere you had ever been.

Your ribs told you about themselves before anything else did.

Ow.

A sharp, localised protest that radiated through your left side when you tried, instinctively, to shift position, and your breath caught on it, and you were awake—properly, suddenly, all at once—with your eyes open and the night sky above you full of more stars than you had seen in your entire life.

You stared at it for a moment. The sheer quantity of them. The complete, disorienting absence of light pollution anywhere in any direction, which meant it couldn't possibly be your lunch break, which meant you were somewhere very far from any city, which meant—

Oh no.

Oh no, oh no, oh—

You tried to sit up. Your ribs registered an objection. You got partway there and stopped, breathing carefully, and found yourself looking at a face.

A broad face, well-lined, framed by white hair and an impressive white beard, with eyes that were very blue and very kind and belonged to a person who was—short. Who was—you blinked. He was seated on the ground beside you, and you were not standing, and you couldn't be certain of the geometry of it, but the proportions were—he was short. Not a child, not even slightly—there was nothing of a child in those eyes or in the particular solid composure of him—but he was—

He was also, you realised, talking to you.

"—easy now, lass. Easy. You're all right. You're quite safe, I promise you."

"I—" Your voice came out strained and slightly strange to your own ears. "I'm—" You looked around. Fire. Grass. Hills. More faces, these ones further away, turned toward you with varying degrees of open curiosity.

"My name is Balin," said the white-haired person beside you, in the measured tones of someone who had clearly been thinking about how to begin this conversation and had chosen gentle directness as his best available option. "You're among friends. You were—you had a fall, and we brought you along with us, for your safety. Can you tell me your name?"

You looked at him. Then at the fire. Then at the astonishing sky. Then back at Balin, who had the specific patient expression of a person, willing to wait as long as required.

"I—yes," you said, carefully, and told him your name.

"Good," he said, warmly, like you'd done something well. "Good. And can you tell me—how do you feel? Can you tell me that?"

"My ribs," you said. "Something's—I think something happened to my ribs."

"Aye," he said, with the kindness of someone confirming bad news they'd been expecting to deliver. "You've some bruising there. It'll ease in a few days. Does it hurt to breathe?"

"Not —not badly. It's more—" You shifted slightly and your breath caught again. "More when I move."

"Then don't move too much," Balin said, with simple practical warmth. "Can you tell me where you're from?"

You looked at him. The question landed in a way he clearly hadn't intended—fully and with weight—because where you were from was nowhere near here, and you were beginning to understand, with the creeping, cold certainty of a person whose brain was doing the maths and producing an answer they very much didn't want, that here was somewhere you did not have a single reference point for.

"I'm from—" You stopped. "I was in the city," you said. "I was on my lunch break. I stepped off a kerb and there was—there was a crack in the ground and—I was falling and then—" You stopped again, because you could hear yourself and you sounded deranged. You pressed a hand carefully over your injured ribs, like the physical pressure might help with the other kind. "Where am I?"

Balin studied you for a moment. "You are in the Shire," he said. "Or the edges of it. We left the bounds of it some hours ago."

The word meant nothing to you. You looked at him carefully, checking for some indication that it should —some cue in his expression that this was a name you were supposed to recognise. There wasn't one. He said it the way people said the name of a place they considered self-evident. "I don't—" you said. "I don't know where that is."

Balin's brows drew together very slightly. Not suspiciously—just thoughtfully, the way a person looked when the answer they'd received didn't fit the shape of the question they'd asked. "The Shire," he said again, carefully. "In Eriador. West of the Misty Mountains."

Most of these words were English. Or—they sounded like English, which was troubling in itself—you were clearly understanding them, they were coming into your brain as comprehensible language and your brain was processing them and none of it was leading anywhere useful, because none of those place names corresponded to anything in your geography. "I don't—" You stopped. Took a careful breath around your ribs. "I genuinely don't know any of those places."

A longer pause. Balin looked at you with those very blue, very attentive eyes, and then he looked across the fire toward the tall figure at the edge of the camp in the grey hat, and something passed between them that you weren't in a position to read.

By this point, the rest of the company had arrived at varying degrees of proximity. None of them had been subtle about it. They'd redistributed themselves gradually in the way that people did when something interesting was happening that they weren't supposed to be interested in—suddenly finding tasks that needed doing near the rock shelf, or simply abandoning the pretence entirely and drifting over.

You were presented, in consequence, with approximately a dozen faces at various heights and distances, all of them watching you with the collective focused attention of people who had been very curious about you for several hours and were not at all sure how to stop now that you were awake.

Some were taller than others. There was a very tall one with a grey hat at the far edge of camp who broke the pattern entirely, and there was a smaller one—round-faced, wearing a weskit, looking at you with a worried and faintly apologetic expression—who was shorter than the others, not that any of them would be called tall.

All of them broad. Solid. Dense with a kind of physical presence that was different from people you'd known. The beards. The—

The beards where impressive.

"Hello," said two voices simultaneously, from your left, and you turned to find two of them crouched a few feet away—younger-looking than most of the others, or at least less weathered, one with braided blond hair and one with dark, both watching you with expressions of identical, unguarded interest.

"Hello," you said, carefully.

"I'm Kíli," said the dark-haired one.

"Fíli," said the other.

"Right," you said. "Uh-hi."

"How do you feel?" Kíli asked.

"Confused," you said, with total honesty.

He nodded, as though this was the expected answer. "That's fair," he said. "You did fall out of the sky."

"I—" You opened your mouth. Shut it. "Yes. I did."

"And then you bounced."

"Kíli," said Balin, without heat.

"I'm just confirming the facts," Kíli said, with the injured innocence of a dwarf who had been excluded from the initial conversation and was going to reclaim some participation where he could.

The weskit one—the smaller, round-faced one—had been hovering at a careful distance, and now edged slightly closer with the diffident air of someone approaching something uncertain. He had a bowl in his hands. He extended it across the space between you, not quite meeting your eyes, and then looked up and did meet them, and his expression went briefly through something that resolved into a kind of determined helpfulness.

"They saved you some stew," he said. "In case you were hungry. I'm Bilbo. Bilbo Baggins."

You looked at the bowl. Steam rose from it in a thin, wavering line. Your stomach, which had been completely uninvolved in the proceedings up until this moment, announced itself with the authority of something that had been ignored all day and was no longer willing to be.

"Oh," you said, and then, because there was nothing else really adequate "Thank you. Thank you so much."

You got yourself upright enough to take the bowl— ribs complaining, expression tightening, Balin's hand appearing at your elbow with a steadying matter-of-factness that you were too distracted to be embarrassed about—and held the bowl and let the warmth of it seep into your hands and ate a careful, tentative spoonful.

It was—good, unexpectedly good. The thought that came with it—I haven't eaten since this morning and this morning was in an apartment building—you tucked away to be panicked about later, because your brain had apparently identified, catalogued and was managing it.

It was while you were working through the stew, surrounded by the low murmur of resumed conversation and the settling fire, that it happened.

One of them walked across the open ground between the fire and the far side of camp. Broad-shouldered, moving with the easy confidence of someone with opinions about where they were going and how they were going to get there. He passed through the firelight, and the light caught the pale, neat rectangle of material adhered to his forearm with adhesive wings folded down precisely, which you recognised with a jolt of pure cognitive dissonance that started somewhere behind your sternum.

That is.

He has.

That is a—I do not have the brainpower to unpack that right now.

You took another spoonful of stew and elected to continue processing things in the order you had allocated for them.

You learned their names in a blur. Dwalin—enormous, watchful, he looked at you the way you imagined border security looked at suspicious luggage and who you were not planning to argue with under any circumstances. Óin, who asked practical questions about your ribs and seemed genuinely relieved that the bruising wasn't worse. Glóin, who wanted to know what craft your clothing was made by and received an answer about fast fashion that satisfied neither of you. Bofur, who sat cross-legged nearby with his extraordinary hat at an angle and asked, with the frank warmth of a person who'd decided you were worth talking to and was not going to pretend otherwise, whether you'd eaten enough and whether you were warm.

Nori looked at you from a short distance and didn't ask anything at all, which was somehow more pointed than questions.

"Where did you come from, then?" asked Glóin, who had apparently been holding this for a while and had run out of patience with the more indirect approaches.

"I—" You tried to explain the city, and found the explanation immediately and comprehensively inadequate. "It's—a big place," you said. "Very crowded. Lots of buildings. Very tall buildings. And —roads," you added, as though this might help, which it didn't seem to. "

And cars. Which are—" You paused, because explaining what a car was was its own three-hour project. "They're—fast, they're very fast, they— look, they go on roads and they're—" You stopped. Took a breath. Your ribs. "It's a very different kind of place," you finished, with the deflated honesty of someone who had failed to describe anything at all.

Glóin looked at you with the expression of a dwarf receiving answers that did not fit the category he'd asked about. "What clan Lassie?" he tried, more specifically.

"Well—I, technically—" You stopped, because technically was going to make this worse. "I don't think I have one of those ?" you said simply.

Glóin looked at Balin. Balin looked at Gandalf. Gandalf was looking somewhere else with the specific studied neutrality of a person choosing not to be looked at.

It was into this moment that Thorin arrived. He came from the perimeter of the camp where he'd been doing whatever it was that Thorin did on the perimeters of camps—he crossed the ground toward the fire in a way that was not exactly elegant but was entirely purposeful, the kind of movement that displaced space rather than requesting it.

He looked down at you with an expression that had been assembled from several components that were each, unreadable, and had not become more readable in combination.

He was—taller than the others. Still not—not what you'd call tall in the way you knew, but the overall impression was different, a particular combination of height and breadth and the gravity of his bearing that made tall a different concept here. He had dark hair, and a beard that had less to it than the others and he was wearing a coat that had clearly seen significant use. His eyes, in the firelight, were dark and direct, they looked at you with the full weight of someone who had not yet decided what threat you were and intended to find out.

You had the immediate, visceral instinct to sit up straighter, despite your ribs. You did sit up straighter. Your ribs registered the expected objection. You tried not show it.

"You are awake," he said. "And you fell?"

"Yes," you agreed. "Through the ground. Look, I know how that sounds—"

"Where were you travelling from?"

"I wasn't—I was on my lunch break," you said, and then realised this required more scaffolding. "I was—I work at a—I work, and I had time off in the middle of the day, and I was walking."

"Alone."

"Yes."

"Armed?"

"No." You blinked. "Why would I be—no, I wasn't armed, I was just walking to get a sandwich—" A pause in which you remembered the sandwich possibly didn't exist anymore, and felt briefly, disproportionately sad about this. "I don't—I don't carry weapons."

"Can you use one?"

"I—" You stared at him. "No. I mean—I've never—I did a Zumba class once, does that count?"

Zumba registered on precisely none of the faces around the fire. There was a short silence.

"What is a Zumba?" said Kíli, from behind you.

"It's—a kind of—it's like dancing. But for fitness. It doesn't— it's not—no, I can't use a weapon," you confirmed, sheepishly.

Thorin's jaw moved in a way that was not quite an expression. "What brings you to this road?"

"I told you. I wasn't—I fell through it. I wasn't coming to any road, I was walking down a completely different—" You sighed. "Look, I don't know how to explain this in a way that doesn't sound nuts. I fell through the pavement. I was in a city. I stepped off a kerb. The ground opened up and I fell through it, and then I was falling through—something, and then I landed here." You met his eyes directly, because they hadn't wavered from yours. "That's what happened."

Thorin looked at you for a long moment. "Who sent you?"

"No one sent me. I just—"

"You appeared on a road used by no one. At the precise moment this company passed."

"I—yes, ok that looks weird, but I don't—I didn't plan it—I didn't know your company existed. I've never heard of any of you. I don't know where I am, I don't know what's going on, I don't know what you're all doing out here, and I would very much appreciate it if someone could explain some of that to me rather than— rather than—" You stopped, because his expression had shifted very slightly and you weren't sure what the shift meant, and you were tired, and your ribs hurt, and the scale of your situation had been pressing on you all through the stew and was now pressing harder.

"Are you of the Dúnedain?" Thorin said.

You blinked. "Am I—what?"

"The Dúnedain. Men of the North." He studied you. "Your stature—"

"I'm—" You furrowed your brows. "I'm not from Dunedin."

A pause.

"...Dunedin?" said Thorin carefully.

"Yes? Wherever—I told the other—I've never been to Dunedin, I'm not—" You stopped. Something about the quality of the silence that had followed was different. "I'm not whatever you said," you concluded, more quietly.

"The Dúnedain," Thorin said again, with a different emphasis that made it clear he was trying to get you to understand the same word by tone and inflection alone, though it had not yet become clear to you what word he was discussing.

"They are a people. Warriors. You are—" He paused, and something in the way his eyes moved over you was not quite what it had been before. "You are tall," he said. "For a woman in this company."

You looked around at the assembled dwarves. Then at Bilbo. Then, involuntarily, upward at where Gandalf stood at the far edge of the camp, a significant distance above you in every possible sense.

"I'm not tall," you said.

A silence and an expression on Thorin's face which called into question if you hand landed on your head without need for words.

"I'm actually quite short," you added, in case the emphasis had been unclear.

"I think," Gandalf said, mildly but with a finality that carried a quality of doors being gently but completely closed, "that she has answered your questions thoroughly enough for this evening. She is injured, Thorin. She is—a long way from home." A pause, and something in it that was faintly, privately significant, in a way you couldn't quite identify. "And she is plainly not presenting a threat to this company or its purpose."

Thorin held Gandalf's gaze for a moment with the expression of a dwarf who had more questions and was being informed that they were finished for the night. Then looked at you once more—that same long, assessing look—and turned and walked back toward the fire without another word.

You let out a careful breath. Your ribs made you aware of this.

"He's always like that," said Kíli, from your left, helpfully.

"He's just being cautious," Fíli amended.

"Cautious and like that are the same thing," Kíli said.

"You're not wrong," Bofur offered, from the other side.

Balin settled the question of what was happening to you with the brisk, kind efficiency of a person who had made an executive decision and saw no reason to labour the announcement.

"You'll come with us," he said. "For the time being."

"Come with you," you repeated.

"Aye. You're not in a state to manage alone out here, and we can't in good conscience leave you." He said it simply, the way he said most things, as if they were self-evident. "The company has discussed it."

You looked around the fire. Several dwarves seemed to be suddenly very interested in what they were doing and not in this conversation. Dwalin was conspicuously not looking at you, which you suspected was its own form of acquiescence.

"Where are you going?" you asked.

"A mountain," Balin said.

You waited for more. There was not more. "Right," you said. "Okay." You looked at your hands. At the bowl, empty now, held carefully in your lap. At the fire, the grass, the enormous uncluttered sky.

"I don't—I don't really have a lot of options, do I?"

"Not many, no," Balin agreed, with a gentle honesty that had no cruelty in it.

"Right," you said again. "A mountain. Okay."

"Get some sleep," came Balin's voice. "Things always look different in the morning."

"Do they?" you asked more to yourself then anyone else.

You’re innocent bystander collateral damage for one of his back channel clients. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and witnessed something you shouldn’t have.

So naturally, Andy’s client gave him a call and the location of the abandoned warehouse where you’re currently chained up.

When Andy arrives in his expensive suit, his jaw tight and his eyes steely, he doesn’t expect to find the prettiest omega he’s ever seen curled into a ball on the floor and giving him the scaredest, sweetest 🥺 face ever.

As Andy moves closer and gets a whiff of your delectable scent, and hears your voice for the first time as you tremble, “Please, I won’t say anything, I promise.” the rumbled observation is out of Andy’s mouth before he can stop it—

“Aren’t you just the sweetest thing?”

You swallow nervously as he crouches before you, his musky alpha scent immediately filling your nose and making you a little dazed.

You don’t even recoil when Andy gently pets your head, or when he brushes his fingers down your throat then pulls aside the collar of your shirt so he can see your mating gland.

His inner alpha rumbles its satisfaction when your unmarked skin is revealed, and Andy decides it would be such a waste to get rid of you.

As you tentatively lean into his touch without realizing it, his lips tilt up into an almost smile. You’re so docile, and responsive to him already, and he’s worked so hard for so long, he deserves a spoil of war.

“You’re a good girl, aren’t you?” Andy husks.

You shiver at the deep baritone of his voice, still taken aback by how beautiful he is. “Yes, alpha,” you whisper.

Andy hums, his knuckles drawing up along the curve of your throat before his thumb is pressing against the softness of your lower lip. “I like that word on these pretty lips, especially directed at me.” His thumb trails back and forth along your lip, his electric blue eyes meeting yours. “Do you know why they sent me here, honey?”

Your eyes fill with tears as your breath catches, and your voice nearly breaks as you answer, “To hurt me?”

“To kill you,” Andy corrects, shushing you as a pitiful, terrified whine spills past your lips. “But I don’t think I need to resort to such extreme measures,” he coos. “Not with you. Because you’ll be good for me, won’t you, my sweet, obedient omega?”

And what can you do but nod and accept your fate?

“Come on,” Andy says as he rises to his feet and takes you with him. His nostrils flare when he gets a whiff of your sweet, relieved scent, a pleased purr rumbling the back of his throat as his hands fall to cup your hips. “Let’s get you home and cleaned up, sweetheart. By the end of the night, you’ll be warming my knot with my bondmark on your pretty throat.”

Despite the way your knees nearly buckle as your tears finally spill over, you know your place, and that Andy is quite literally sparing your life, so you quaver a soft, “Thank you, alpha.”