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“Can I help you, Miss Baggins?”
Isla Baggins blinked over the top of the diary, which she had opened out of habit, shaking her head to clear the bleariness from her eyes. Thorin had been exceptionally dour since their arrival in Rivendell and it was starting to get on her nerves, though she hadn’t meant to stare at the dwarrowdam quite so intently.
“No,” she muttered, then paused. “You don’t like being here, do you?”
The dwarf took a long pull of her pipe and pursed her lips, exhaling a thin-rimmed ring of smoke which glided over to where Isla sat, propped up against a bookcase. The acrid dwarven tobacco stung the insides of Isla’s nostrils and made her eyes water. She didn’t understand how any of the dwarves could prefer it to a nice, mellow hobbit blend.
“No,” came the crisp reply.
Isla knew it wasn’t particularly worth arguing with the dwarf queen, but something inside her wanted to put Thorin in her place. How could you still grouch and sneer at elves who wanted nothing more than to offer the dwarves a safe respite from all the evils that lurked outside the valley — with plenty of hearty food and drink, and beds softer and warmer than any they had slept in since they had left the Shire — all of it without asking a penny of them? Personally, she thought Thorin’s behaviour towards Lord Elrond had been less than charitable, and out of sheer hobbitish indignation she felt obliged to speak up.
“Of course not. Why would you enjoy some of the best hospitality we’ve had since Bree?” she snapped. “Getting mauled by that pack of goblins would be much more preferable, I am sure.”
She felt her face flush and she looked down towards the small, battered leather book in her lap. She hadn’t written much today except for a few lines of poetry inspired by the elven song she had heard at dinner.
“What do you mean by that, burglar?” Thorin asked lazily.
“I mean,” she stressed, “that a queen like you ought to show more respect, even to elves. I know your people don’t care for them and I’m not versed in your ways and customs, but you have done nought but — as my mother would have put it — hang around with a face like a wet cat.”
She thought of Thorin glaring and hissing, her beard bedraggled and her impressive fur coat hanging from her like matted fur. Isla smirked to herself and raised the diary slightly to cover her mouth. Yes, it was fitting: Thorin was queen of the sourpusses, if ever there was one. And if she was going to huff and puff at the hobbit for stating her mind, so be it. She’d had several glasses of beer, and they all had separate bedrooms they could retire to.
The dwarf was silent; so silent, in fact, that Isla for one horrifying moment thought that her rage was building up inside of her like an over-boiling kettle. No — she thought, that wasn’t Thorin’s way.
She couldn’t resist looking at her again.
Thorin was stroking her beard, her bright blue eyes fixed on her like a cat studying a mouse. The glimmering lantern light bounced off her pupils, and a shudder of unease rushed down Isla’s spine.
“Hobbits have some interesting turns of phrase,” said Thorin. Isla snorted.
“I suppose dwarves do as well — though I’d wager most of yours are in dwarvish,” she replied quickly.
Thorin quirked a thick eyebrow at Isla and sank back deeper into the armchair she was perched cross-legged in. One muddy boot was on the upholstery. Isla forced her mouth shut.
“So — had hobbits been betrayed and cheated by Men for thousands of years, you would drop your misgivings at the first bread you broke together?” Thorin retorted, a glint of teeth bared underneath her top lip.
Isla sighed, and then, with an air of deliberate finality, set her diary to one side. She held Thorin’s gaze and jutted her chin up, forcing the dwarf to look at her for longer than they had ever looked at one another. The dwarrowdam was strange to her — her moods and expressions often inscrutable and as changeable as weather in Spring.
Fortunately, Isla was somewhat good at solving riddles.
“Maybe not,” she said, “but I wouldn’t be as blockheaded as to presume every Man wished me ill. Not all Big Folk have been kind to hobbits, mind you, but I can use my senses well enough to tell good from bad — I know you can as well. Does Lord Elrond seem the type to deserve your mean-spiritedness? Or does he seem the type to break bread with?”
Isla drew up her diary, tucking it into her pocket, and stood. Her knees creaked and smarted, and she had a dead leg, but she wasn’t in the mood to entertain any more of Thorin’s grimness. Not when she could stroll down to the halls of feasting and become lost in the tales spun by elven minstrels.
Thorin was acting very peculiar this evening, the hobbit decided, after the long silence stretched on between them. The dwarf’s tongue seemed slower, her temperament more measured even in their disagreement. She squinted into the gloomy corner where Thorin sat. Half of the queen’s face was in shadow, but she could tell that her words were affecting her more than they usually did. On the road, anything Isla voiced her opinion about was brushed off with a haughty word or the wave of one leather-gloved hand.
“Perhaps you are right, Miss Baggins.”
“I beg— I beg your pardon?”
She hadn’t meant to sound so startled. Thorin chuckled and sat forwards, her pipe clenched between her teeth.
“I said: perhaps you are right — in this one instance — Miss Baggins.”
“Oh.”
That was strangely easier than she thought.
And then, she wondered, was Thorin joking?
No — Thorin didn’t joke. Did she?
This was all too confusing.
“Well — thank you,” she replied without thinking. What was she thanking the dwarf queen for again? Thorin huffed a laugh out through her nose and sat back, kicking her feet off the chair and letting them stick out in front of her. She still seemed moody — she always had an air of it that seemed ingrained into her very bones — but perhaps the lines in her brow were a little less creased than before. Odd, how the only thing Isla had done was chastise her.
She bowed to the dwarf and took her leave from the library. All the time, Isla couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she was being carefully watched.