Chapter Text
“You must not go alone,” Fili pleaded.
It was not an entirely selfless plea, Thorin knew. If anything happened to Thorin, Fili was not confident that he would be the king their struggling, recovering society needed. Moreover, the responsibility and lack of freedom thrust on one so young would be difficult to bear. But Thorin, though he had been through much and learned from it, was still stubborn and proud, and he did not like to owe a debt.
”Comes the Elvenking to gloat over my weakness?” Thorin asked tiredly, looking pointedly at the canvas tent wall snapping and flapping in the wind. He would not turn his head to look at his visitor. While he had recovered much, he was still deemed too weak to carry up the Mountain.
But he did not hear an answer, only the click of metal shifting against metal, a sword rattling in a scabbard. Thorin turned so quickly the world spun round him for a moment after he had stopped moving, but when it stood still at last, the sight before him was of the Elvenking still as a statue, offering Orcrist with both hands.
Thorin watched the sword and the hands for some moments, waiting for the blade to be drawn and used against him, but nothing happened. His eyes flickered up to the Elvenking's face, but there he saw only a deliberate blankness, a diplomatic neutrality. Only a slight tension to the elf's mouth betrayed a certain displeasure. With one quiet step, Thranduil approached the bedside and set the sword into Thorin's hands as they instinctively rose to receive what was his.
“I should not have taken it from you,” said the Elvenking as he stepped back, his voice as impassive as his face. “I grant you your parole, though it is far too late now to make a difference.”
Thorin's hands twisted around the scabbard, but the rest of him relaxed into the pillows as the wariness around his heart unclenched. “Not so,” he said wearily. “Elf-king, a parole is an agreement made in honor. You had no reason to honor me when I acted without honor.”
The Elvenking's lips twitched. “You have now done so. If I was too blind to see that such a thing existed in you when we met, then there was fault on my part. I have now made amends.”
Thorin smiled bitterly and gave a dry chuckle. “You do not apologize for taking me captive in the first place.”
Thranduil acknowledged this with a shallow tilt of his head.
It hurt to laugh, and Thorin resented the Elvenking for making him do it. “Two days ago my kin and I survived a mighty battle only through the intervention of your healers. A battle you surely would have lost had the dwarves of the Iron Hills not come.” To fight Thranduil and Bard, yes, but they could well have strategically withdrawn to allow the orcs to finish off their enemies. Thranduil seemed to know this, as the look of displeasure returned again. “What is now between us, my old enemy? You regret only the least of your transgressions.”
The Elvenking spoke with a slow deliberateness. “I have done nothing in many years that was not necessary to keep my people safe. I daresay once you have been King Under the Mountain for any amount of time, you will make similar choices without regret.”
Thorin gave him a grin that must have seemed skeletal, for Thranduil looked away. “And if you had seen the honor in me? Would you have kept me then?”
“You broke my laws,” Thranduil said carefully.
“Aye, we did. And had you broken mine, I would have done the same. But I doubt I would have returned to you your sword.”
The Elvenking looked sharply at him then. Thorin was no longer smiling. He held the elf's gaze for some time before continuing softly, words punctuated with bitterness.
“I have been very foolish, Elvenking. But you must expect it of any king with little experience. I have risked the lives of my kin against a dragon. I have been blinded by gold and turned my neighbors into my enemies. And still you see honor in me! Are the Elves of Mirkwood so sheltered in their hovel as to be naïve?”
“Nay, not naïve.” Thranduil was frowning slightly. “To the contrary, King Under the Mountain, there are many honorable folk who have acted dishonorably from time to time, with or without experience to wisen them. There are many great kings who have been wrong. You have proved your great worth, and shaken a madness that consumed your grandfather. Do not judge yourself too harshly.”
Thorin looked away again so Thranduil wouldn't see his scowl. “Why offer me words of comfort? You bear no love for my people.”
There was no answer. When Thorin glanced toward the Elvenking, he found he was alone.
...Elves.
Deep blue eyes, blue as the sky over the Mountain, blue as his brother Frerin's were, glinted in the lantern-light. Fili and Balin were the only ones who knew of Thorin's mission. They had sworn secrecy, but Fili had crept into the stables the night Thorin had said he would leave and waited for him. He had begged Thorin to let him come with him, but there had never been a chance his plea would be honored.
For the hands that had returned to him his honor were bound cruelly, the bright eyes dulled, the lithe body starved and beaten, the fae-like woodland king kept in a dark cell of stone and iron. The images would not leave Thorin's mind, of Thranduil twisted and huddled into himself to protect against the cold, crusted blood gluing his golden hair to his face. The proud bearing was humbled, the long fingers broken, the sharp mind of a diplomat tormented by the spirit that had returned to Dol Guldur. An army had been sent from Mirkwood twice, the second time allied with the Men of Dale, and twice had been defeated. Southern Mirkwood was again the domain of the Necromancer, and the Elvenking was his captive, though Thorin could not imagine how the elf had been so foolish, so very inconsiderate, as to be taken.
But where armies fail, a single burglar might be of use. The burglar did not have to be Thorin, but while he had come to an epiphany years ago during the Battle of Five Armies, he was still Thorin Oakenshield, proud and stubborn and sure that if he sent another, he would be unable to rest. He wanted to be sure the job was done right. If it was his failing as a dwarf and as a king, so be it. And if a dwarf cannot find gold in a dark place, he is no dwarf at all.
So Thorin grasped Fili's shoulder in one last farewell, looking into his brother's likeness with confidence.
“But I must.”
Releasing Fili, he mounted his pony with a single swift motion and rode away.