Hobbit Fic: Such Fair Ostents (Part 1)
Written for the Hobbit Kink Meme, as always, where I latched onto another Thorin/Bard prompt. Because, also predictably perhaps, that's the pairing I've got on the brain, despite current fandom trends and my not-so-sekrit personal ambition to ship Bard with every character I can halfway convince myself to. Originally meant to be more lighthearted crack, the fic took a decidedly serious turn in Bard's POV and has now settled a bit on the dramatic end of the comedy scale. Here's hoping some parts are still funny!
Thorin/Bard, Misunderstood Courtship Rituals
Negotiations between Thorin and Bard prior to the Battle of Five Armies take a strange turn when an ancient Dwarven tradition comes to light.
Such Fair Ostents
· · ·
Glimmering in Bard's hand was the Arkenstone, bright as a splinter of the moon caught in ice and unmistakable. Thorin was astounded. "What sorcery is this?" he asked sharply. "How came you by the heirloom of my house?"
Bard did not answer. Instead he said, "Can we not now agree to terms, Thorin son of Thráin?" His voice was even and his gaze steady on Thorin, carefully not searching out any other familiar figures that might be on the ramparts.
From where he stood watching next to Balin, Bilbo gulped and tried not to fidget. Grateful as he was that Bard, unable to convince him of the folly of returning to Thorin's side, wished to keep him from Thorin's ire by not naming him a thief, he was afraid it would only serve to anger Thorin more. And then his betrayal-and it was a betrayal, by the twisting of his heart in his chest-will have availed them nothing and failed to prevent the bloodshed he dreaded, desperately.
Thorin's shoulders were tense beneath his armor and heavy mantle of fur, his knuckles white as his grip tightened on the stone parapet. "How came you by the King's Jewel?" he demanded again, voice rising. This time, Bard's eyes darted to Bilbo, but Bilbo could see in the stubborn line of his jaw that the fool man did not intend to ever answer Thorin.
"It was my doing, Thorin." Bilbo stepped forward before he could regret it. Though he almost faltered under the stare Thorin, whirling, pinned him with, so filled was it with stunned confusion, he forced his spine straight and his head up. The splendid shirt of mail Thorin had gifted him weighed upon his shoulders as if it were wrought of pure gold, not featherlight truesilver. "I gave the Arkenstone to Bard." Had Gandalf counseled wisely? Was there need for him to fear Thorin? He didn't want to believe that.
"You! You!" Bilbo could not help it. He flinched at Thorin's strangled cry, the words ringing harsh in the still air like the sound of a sword drawn from its sheath. "I should have known!" Thorin's eyes were bright, wet with a sheen of tears, and his hands trembled where they were clenched into fists at his sides. He strode towards Bilbo in a rush, pushing away Fíli, Kíli, anyone who moved to bar his path and deaf to Balin's pleas that he not act rashly.
For a moment, Bilbo considered fleeing, but some part of him balked at the idea, like a cord of steel had, unbeknownst to him, become woven into his every fiber. Surely, he felt, if he did not run, it would not be cowardice to shut his eyes so he could remember Thorin as his friend? He did just that, his own breathing loud in his ears, and waited for his doom.
When Thorin's strong hands finally closed on him, though, they did not wrap around his throat, choking, as he half expected them to but around his middle in a bone-crushing hug that lifted him clear off his feet. Bilbo wheezed, the air that had not fled his lungs in his shocked relief squeezed out of him. His head spun, and he flailed-quite uselessly, in fact, his arms trapped at his sides, only succeeding in bruising himself on the hard points of Thorin's armor and inhaling a goodly hank of Thorin's dark hair, pressed against his face.
At last, Thorin seemed to recognize that Bilbo's need to breathe was growing dire and released him. He even rubbed Bilbo's back in small, comforting circles as Bilbo gasped, heart racing, before elation chased concern from his face and he slung an arm about Bilbo's shoulders, almost sending them both sprawling to the floor.
"You are a true friend, Master Baggins," Thorin said to him, grinning proudly, "to know my heart so well." And Bilbo thought, Wha-? He sputtered; Thorin merely looked amused and terribly fond.
"I should have known," he continued, "that I could not hide my desire from your keen eyes." His expression softened further into a rueful smile. Bilbo blinked. He could not mean that he wanted Bard to have the Arkenstone, could he? "I had hoped to surprise you"-Bilbo had to bite his cheek, a sharp retort on his tongue-"yet as always you have surprised me. Truly, Hobbits are amazing creatures." He chuckled and, with another mangling hug, left Bilbo winded but no less baffled.
Thorin had brooded long after his parley with Bard, then commanded the Company to make more haste in scouring the treasure hoard for the Arkenstone, frowning darkly at the damage done by Smaug to the Mountain's halls and stilling whenever Bard's name was mentioned or his promise to share Erebor's wealth. So frightful was Thorin at those times, eyes agleam with a feverish energy and body drawn taut as a fiddle string, that the Company soon stopped asking. Contrary to Thorin's belief, Bilbo had no earthly idea what was running through the Dwarf's mind, confound him! And neither did the others, if their gaping looks of pained uncertainty were anything to judge by.
Later, Bilbo decided one of them should have pulled Thorin aside for an explanation. But they were so occupied exchanging puzzled noises-and, Bilbo admitted, reluctant to learn what new madness possessed Thorin-that he was able to lean out over the parapet unopposed and shout, "You have accepted my suit then, Dragonslayer, and my hand in marriage?" Every head snapped around to stare at Thorin with such alacrity that Bilbo swore there was an audible sound of necks cracking.
Bard jerked in surprise, eyes widening, and nearly toppled from his horse. He righted himself with a curse but did fumble the Arkenstone, and Bilbo squeaked as the great white jewel pitched towards the ground, imagining the royal heirloom of the House of Durin shattered into a thousand pieces. Luckily, a slim, long-fingered hand, pale as starlight, reached forth to catch it with the speed and grace of Elvish reflexes. While nothing so crass as shock showed on the Elvenking's fair face, there was a... distinctly nonplussed air about him, his head tilted and one elegant eyebrow arched.
"Thorin, y-you can't be serious...?" Bilbo said weakly. Thorin, however, was too rapt gazing down at Bard, engaged in a hissing conversation with the Elvenking and now Gandalf, to answer, so he turned to Balin. Who, to Bilbo's consternation, was beginning to look as if he'd come to a sudden and pleasant realization. "Can he?" Understanding was similarly dawning on the faces of the rest of the Company, and Bilbo thought, with a sinking feeling, that Thorin was indeed as serious as ever.
"Well, that is a relief!" said Kíli. "And here we all feared-" He shared a solemn glance with Fíli, swallowing nervously, before shaking his head with a chuckle. "Mother always did warn us that he was 'prone to dramatics.' She's going to have his beard for this. Especially as she'll miss the ceremonies!" Sobering, he added quietly, "Perhaps he would have confided in us earlier, had we not been so quick to mistrust his motives." There were murmurs of agreement, and even Bilbo was given pause, though he in truth found Thorin's actions stranger than when the dragon sickness was to blame.
"Come, Brother," Fíli said, squaring his shoulders, "Let us be the first to offer our congratulations to Uncle." Watching Thorin, who seemed wreathed in smiles as he accepted his sister-sons' wishes, his grim mood of the past few days banished like fog at the sun's rising, Bilbo was quite unexpectedly reminded of his least favorite Uncle Longo.
"He's sore as a bear with a wounded paw over that Sackville chit tossing out his flowers," his mother had told his father after one visit to Uncle Longo's, stamping her foot in exasperation. "Fuming and snarling like a hungry dragon in its lair... and just as apt to take a bite out of the company!" She sighed, absently thanking Bilbo for the cup of tea he handed her as she settled into her armchair by the fire. "I'll be glad when they're finally wed, Bungo, dear, if only it'll spare Belba and me this dreadful courtship."
At the time, Bilbo thought his mother had exaggerated, for she had a love of colorful speech that exceeded any other except, perhaps, the affection she bore for husband and son; Uncle Longo was all smiles at the handfasting, graciously greeting the guests with his blushing bride-to-be on his arm. Were the trials of courtship truly so terrible? Could they turn even so stout a Dwarf as Thorin... dragonish?
But Thorin and-his mind stuttered, shying from the idea-and Bard? Bilbo knew little of how Men and Dwarves went about courting, but he did not feel it likely that their customs were so different from those of Hobbits that suitors wooed their intendeds by insulting them and their ancestors in the town square instead of with sweet endearments whispered in their ears. No, he decided, pinching the bridge of his nose, this had to be a mistake. A misunderstanding or a, a ruse, to stall the Elves from trying the Mountain's defenses maybe.
"Thorin Oakenshield," called Gandalf from below, "I think it's best that you come down for some explanations." To Bilbo's comfort, there was a note of bemusement in Gandalf's voice, too, seldom heard. Behind him, a scowling Bard, safely dismounted, waited with arms crossed for the Elvenking to do the same. His face darkened further until he resembled nothing so much as a towering thundercloud when the Elvenking held out the Arkenstone with an imperious hand for him to take back. Take it Bard did, however, like it was a coiled snake about to strike.
Until this moment, Bilbo had only half believed that Smaug was slain and by the bargeman they'd met collecting barrels on the river, his appearance worn if his aim was unerring. But the glare Bard skewered the Elvenking, the Arkenstone, and Thorin with in turn was so fierce, cold and flashing as sharp steel in the moonlight, that Bilbo thought, yes, this was one who could have braved dragonfire to fell the beast that had laid waste to cities with a single mighty shot from his bow. A slightly hysterical laugh wanted to bubble up in his chest. Thorin had best tread carefully around Bard, or Smaug's killer might just succeed where the dragon had failed.
"What a great mess you've made of things, Bilbo Baggins," he berated himself under his breath. He was a fool to suppose that giving Bard the Arkenstone would solve their problems. Still, at least there was no more talk of war and the matter was out of his too-small Hobbit hands, which were ill-suited to meddling in the affairs of kings. Gandalf will set them straight. Why, Bilbo figured that's what Gandalf did-counsel the high lords of distant lands in their halls of stone-when he wasn't at his excellent fireworks or a pipe of Old Toby, on account of being one of the less magical Wizards.
"Gladly, Gandalf," Thorin replied with an amiable nod. "Balin, Bilbo, with me." Bilbo started. Wha-? He sputtered in protest. Thorin ignored him, of course, already heading for the stairs with a jaunty spring in his step and clearly expecting them to follow. "The rest of you stay here. Soon, my friends, we shall be toasting to my nuptials!" Picturing Bard's glower, Bilbo thought glumly that Thorin was bound to be disappointed, whatever it was he wanted of the man.
· · ·
"...is indeed an ancient tradition of our people," said the white-haired Dwarf who'd this time introduced himself as, "Balin son of Fundin, at your service. I shall be acting as officiant in the suit of Thorin son of Thráin, King Under the Mountain, for the hand in marriage of Bard, slayer of the dragon Smaug and heir to Girion, Lord of Dale."
It had taken all the control Bard possessed to not snap at the Dwarves that there would be no marriage, and he sorely regretted giving the Wizard his word that he would hear Oakenshield's proposal in full before rejecting it. That had been when he yet believed Oakenshield to be in jest or pursuing some design to sow confusion in their ranks, but if so the trick had run too long and towards no strategic end that he could see. He remembered Balin from the river landing, besides, where smooth manners and the clink of coin had convinced him to folly. And now here I am, Bard thought bitterly, listening to this farce.
"Since the days of yore," Balin continued, voice falling into the cadences of story, "the great wealth of the Dwarves has tempted the greed of dragons. To slay one of these foul beasts, even a lesser wyrm, and live is no small feat and has come to be deemed a sign of Mahal's high favor." The Elvenking and the Wizard, Oakenshield, Balin, and the Halfling stood in a loose circle-an impromptu council, convened after his and Thranduil's mounts were led away and the party from Erebor descended the barricade to join them-far enough from the gathered armies that their discussions would be privy, so long as nobody lost his temper.
Which was why Bard had removed himself to one side, where he paced. And tried to ignore how Oakenshield's eyes followed him. "A dragonslayer's hand in marriage is thus much sought after, for only by this most sacred and intimate covenant betwixt two souls"-Bard growled as he felt again Oakenshield's gaze across his shoulders like a burning brand-"can that fortune be a blessing upon one's house, the heart and will that vanquished a dragon bound forevermore to one's line."
If he thought, for a single moment, that he could knock sense into Oakenshield's head, Bard would not have hesitated to throw the Arkenstone, his cursed betrothal gift, at him and damn the diplomatic niceties! But he was beginning to doubt that even so forceful a spurn would dissuade the Dwarf from this absurdity, and it might very well be taken as assent on his part, for all Bard knew. "It is also one of the few ways," finished Balin, with a nod at Oakenshield, "whereby one not of noble standing can wed into the blood royal."
His regard not straying from Bard, Oakenshield shouted, "Glóin!" While the Dwarf had been mildly disappointed-Bard raked an agitated hand through his hair, grimacing-that Bard didn't swoon at his feet, instead greeting him with a curt demand that he state his intentions, this seemed not to have cooled his ardor. Quite the contrary, after gravely agreeing that it was proper for them to first negotiate a contract, Oakenshield had bared his teeth in a slow grin and told Bard, "It pleases me to find you as unbending in this as in all else." Bard had stalked off at that, his hand clenched on the hilt of his sword.
Another Dwarf popped his helmed head over the parapet above. Bard groaned at the sight; it was the one who'd balked at paying him. "Aye, my grandfather took to wife a dragonslayer," Glóin said. "Grandmother was of no rank but was an uncommon beauty and warrior, who singlehandedly hew to death with her ax a cold-drake when Náin ruled in the Grey Mountains." Pride fairly radiated from Glóin, a touch of envy in his voice, while Bard stared in faint horror.
He would not wish battle with a dragon on his worst enemy, and the idea of his wife or daughter, his mother, his grandmother splattered with blood, plunging a blade over and again into some coiling monster as a jaw of razor teeth sought to close around them, claws like spears gouging at their flesh-it sickened him, though he did not question that they had the courage, if not the strength of arms, to face one. His mouth tightened into a thin, hard seam. He did not understand these Dwarves and likely never would.
Glóin continued, gruffly fond, "She was courted by many and refused all until Farin." He tapped the flat of his ax against his helm, a smile near hidden in his long beard. "It is to her that my father, my son, and I owe our red hair, for she was of the Firebeards, and family legend tells that 'tis a mark of her luck, still running strong in our veins." Testimony related, the Dwarf popped back down. But not before winking suggestively at Bard, who stiffened.
"And so it has proven," Balin added, nodding sagely, "for Gróin met with success in his every venture and Glóin in his craft, trade and commerce, while young Gimli shows especial promise as a warrior." He studied Bard from head to toe, a speculative glint in his eye, then sighed. Bard suspected that he was not going to care for what Balin had to say next. "A pity that you were not born a woman-"
Bard could not stay the outraged noise that escaped his gritted teeth, his hackles rising. He was about to lash a well-deserved strip from Balin's sorry hide, angry words crowding his tongue, when Oakenshield chuckled, the sound low and curling. "Balin," he chided gently, "you know that the fairer sex never held any interest for me." Bard choked.
Turning to him with a look of reassurance that Bard didn't find reassuring in the least and tone apologetic, Oakenshield explained, "My heirs were always meant to be of my blood but not of my body: my sister-sons, Fíli and Kíli"-two more Dwarves, one fair and the other dark, waved cheerfully at Bard from the ramparts; they were the ones who'd seen that his home became a sickroom and a charnel-"or in a better world the children of my brother Frerin."
Oakenshield's voice deepened, rumbling from his throat; an itch prickled at the nape of Bard's neck. "Pay no heed to Balin in this, my intended." The Dwarf's heavy-lidded eyes swept over Bard in appraisal, unhurried and distinctly more... appreciative than Balin's. Though Bard was not by nature a violent man, when that heated gaze lingered overlong on the line from shoulder to hip, such a fury awoke in him, bright and throbbing red at the edges of his vision, that he surely would've staved Oakenshield's head in with his bare fist had the Wizard not coughed, loudly and pointedly, jarring him. Unable to decide who to glare at, Bard finally put his back to them all. His mood was not improved by the curious glances the waiting Men and even Elves sent their way.
"-but that cannot be helped," resumed Balin, unfazed, "and Smaug was no lesser wyrm." He hummed in consideration. "Lord Bard's deed is unequaled in the annals of the Dwarves, forsooth, and has already brought us commensurate fortune-Erebor reclaimed by our people, the curse of the gold sickness lifted.
"While for the nonce, with Smaug's demise less than a month past and a royal suit of the highest order in force, no other offers for Lord Bard's hand have been made, I expect that as word spreads this shall be the most contested courtship in, why, almost a thousand years." Balin's speech held a scholar's excitement at a historical rarity. Until Oakenshield grunted, displeased. "Ah, my pardons, Thorin. I did not mean to cast doubt on your success."
Bard didn't know which dismayed him more: to hear himself titled a lord, his new renown as a living talisman, or the prospect of a horde of Dwarven suitors. He rubbed at his face with a weary hand, shoulders hunching. I want no part in any of this. Behind him, the Elvenking said, "What assurances can you offer that you are not afflicted as your grandfather was and this not merely a scheme to delay whilst your kin march upon us?"
Thranduil, cool disdain mantling him like a thick fall of snow, seemed wholly unaffected by this queer development, except perhaps in his stillness and silence. While Bard had paced and seethed, the Elvenking stood unmoving as a tall beech; Bard envied Thranduil his composure, though it was unsettling also. For he could read in neither fair features nor proud bearing whether Thranduil saw in Oakenshield's proposal a bloodless means to Erebor's treasure and approved of it. He was not blind to that possibility himself, but... Would I be a gold digger or a whore? His stomach knotted, and he crossed his arms, swallowing the urge to flee.
"You have my word," Oakenshield answered stiffly, "and should you deem that insufficient, Elvenking, my person." At that, Bard spun on his heel, torn between disbelief and wariness. Only to meet Oakenshield's eyes, darkened now with a candor that startled him, the Dwarf watching him again despite addressing Thranduil. Oakenshield cleared his throat.
"It has come to my attention," he said quietly, "that in my eagerness to press my suit, I may have neglected my courtesies and other matters of importance." He inclined his head at Bard. Who breathed a little easier at the polite, if solicitous, distance in Oakenshield's gaze. A trick, he thought. A mask to lull him into forgetting the Dwarf's unchanged purpose. Yet some of his tension eased, and his heart calmed from the frantic beat he had not noticed. "Ask of me what you will, my lord Bard."
His name took on a warm solidity upon Oakenshield's tongue, which had never before shaped its syllables. Bard worried at his sword belt; he'd grown unused to the weight of leather and steel at his waist since his days as a guardsman. There was, in truth, but one question that he needed Oakenshield to assent to, and it was the same as when they'd parleyed with a wall of stone between them. "What of your word that all will share in the wealth of the Mountain?"
Oakenshield nodded, unsurprised. He clasped his hands at his back and canted about slightly in an odd wobble, half a bow, then spoke, his tone and words measured. "The Master of Laketown I admit I mistrusted and might have played false, as he no doubt would have done me." Bard snorted. He could not dispute that, being no stranger himself to the bribes and alleyway deals that steered the course of trade under the Master's rule. "But a portion of the treasure I will gladly part with as a dowry, for you to spend as you desire, my intended." Though there was nothing of demand in Oakenshield's stance-the Dwarf looked as if he'd be content to wait for acceptance or rejection until they were both graybeards-still, Bard's breath hitched.
As I feared. He stared for a long moment at the milling Men, simple farmers and fisherfolk who'd been unable to keep ranks with the discipline of the Elven army, and at Dale farther across the field, where his children sheltered in ruins, cold and hungry. None of them could wait even a season for the aid the gold in the Mountain could buy and speed up the river from Rhûn. "Then why did you earlier refuse me?" he asked Oakenshield. His voice sounded small in his own ears, muffled. "Why fence yourself in your hold?"
The sudden chagrin that broke Oakenshield's calm was not enough to dispel the numbness that filled his chest, but Bard felt a tickling satisfaction to see it nevertheless. Oakenshield toed a rock aside with his boot and mumbled to it, " 'Twas a diversion." He sighed heavily before straightening in grim resolve. "I had not a fitting betrothal gift. No common gem would serve for a dragonslayer of your lineage, and the Arkenstone could not be found, hard as I bent my will towards seeking it." He clapped a hand to the shoulder of the Halfling, standing on his left.
Master Baggins had been trying his unobtrusive best to vanish into thin air since their council began but squeaked as Oakenshield gave him a brotherly shake; he so resembled a rabbit caught in a trap that Bard was moved to pity despite the Halfling's role in bringing them to this end. Played unwittingly, if he judged aright, and he hoped he did. "Little did I realize that among my company was a friend who could not only see to the heart of my doings but would take it upon himself to brave my intended's honor guard and present my suit," said Oakenshield, fondness softening every line of his body. The Halfling twitched, his eyes darting from Bard to the Elvenking to the Wizard in mute appeal.
You need not worry that we shall betray you, Bilbo Baggins. However sour the thought tasted, Bard did not begrudge-not truly, no, when he remembered an attempt at conversation, halting in its sincerity, as his barge crossed the lake-letting Oakenshield continue to believe, as the Wizard suggested, that the Halfling had knowingly offered the heirloom of his house to his... intended rather than to his enemies. Even the Elvenking readily agreed, for he would not have harm come to one who had no stake in their quarrels besides averting war so that his friends may live. An admirable sentiment, Thranduil had commented after the Halfling left to be shown his bed for the night, and a guileless one.
But what was this nonsense about an honor guard? Half a dozen of his fellow guardsmen had been conscripted as escorts when he wed his wife, but their duties did not amount to much beyond plying the guests with ale and wildly exaggerated tales of his youthful follies.
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, his bride's laughs brushing again over the skin of his neck-she had sat with her golden head tucked against his cheek, so lovely in her joy that he passed the hours in a daze-before he frowned. Bard was at a loss as to who Oakenshield could possibly have mistaken for a wedding party, unless... He stifled a groan, aching for a reprieve to bury his face in his hands. The Elves!
He dared not glance at the Elvenking. Who shifted minutely, more a ripple in the air than any movement of limb or body, yet somehow managed to convey the unfathomable depths of his displeasure. Oakenshield's insistence that Bard dismiss the Elves, as if they were Bard's to command; his brazenness in loosing an arrow at Thranduil, not daunted by the threat of a thousandfold reprisal-had they been going through the motions of another damnably obscure Dwarven marriage custom all this time? Heat crawled up his neck, until his cheeks burned with it.
When Oakenshield inhaled sharply, gaze turning molten in a flash of want, Bard had to bite his lip not to curse. A scream of frustration clawed at the back of his throat when Oakenshield's eyes simply fixed on his mouth, tracing the shape of it as the Dwarf's breathing went ragged at the edges. Was there naught he could do that Oakenshield wouldn't find...?
The words that paraded in his mind were ones he couldn't imagine that he bore well: a middle-aged widower with three children and gray in his hair; hands roughened by labor, face creased by cares, and clad in tattered raiment, a mud-stained coat shrugged on over borrowed mail. He might have preferred it when he thought Oakenshield held only contempt for him. The man whose ancestor had failed to kill the dragon. Though slaying Smaug had won him little enough. A few useless titles, a ramshackle town, a following of destitute people. And a suitor, unlooked for.
"As to the second," Oakenshield was saying, after several coughs, "you cannot be allowed entrance into Erebor with the dragon's wrack still to be set to rights." Bard stared. "It would not be seemly," finished Oakenshield, as if this explained all, and apparently, for a Dwarf, it did, Balin nodding.
The ground tilted beneath his feet with a lurch, slipping out from under him. The whisper of his wife's hair against his palms, the taste of her smile, and the spread of Oakenshield's shoulders, a strong brow and jutting nose, deep eyes that brooded upon him, hungering-it was too much, too close. He shuddered, a hook dragging at his insides.
Grasping at the idea like a drowning man would a raft of driftwood, Bard gritted out, "Perhaps it has escaped your notice, my lords, but I am no Dwarf." There was no shrinking from this-the tight way Sigrid and Bain clung to him in sleep; Tilda's trusting face, the rest of them, when winter was no beast he could fell with an arrow-though he felt a hollowed cage of brittle bone. "Of what relevance is this... tradition of yours to a Man?" He sneered and hated himself for acting as the Master, Alfrid. But he didn't have to make it easy for Oakenshield.
Both Dwarves hesitated, wincing in unison. Good, thought Bard viciously. "Yes," Balin finally admitted with reluctance, "that has caused... problems in the past." Bard waited impatiently for him to continue, but it was the Elvenking who observed, tone cutting as a wind from the northern wastes, "You speak of your feud with the Éothéod." Bard blinked. That was the name of no people he'd ever heard of.
Which meant, of course, that they were again debating events centuries before his time. He scowled. At least the Halfling was equally puzzled, sidling up with the lost air of a stranger at a family reunion to the Wizard, who hummed in contemplation. Oakenshield at last relented in his glaring at the Elvenking, who did not deign to see it, and sighed.
"Fram, slayer of Scatha the Worm, was a proud Man and not one to part lightly with his treasures," he told Bard and Master Baggins. "He did not take kindly to Dwarves asking for his daughter's hand nor a share of Scatha's hoard, as her dowry." His daughter? A certain cold suspicion was beginning to creep into Bard's heart.
"So, too, it must be said that while Fram did the Dwarves-our distant kin, not of the Longbeards-great insult by sending them a necklace made of Scatha's teeth," Balin added, "their lord was uncommonly quick to anger." Oakenshield nodded curtly, lips pursed. "Jealous we can be, and a suitor spurned will oft have none other"-Bard started, studying Oakenshield anew, who now maddeningly avoided his gaze-"yet Fram's wrong did not deserve a worse turn that saw Men and Dwarves estranged."
In Balin's pause, Bard read bloodshed and was sure that Fram died upon the ax of a jilted Dwarf. He didn't know whether to be terrified at how deadly earnest Dwarves were in wooing or comforted that Oakenshield was not toying with him to, to... Bile rose choking in his throat; he forced himself to swallow, to breathe. No, as arrogant as Oakenshield could be and unforgiving, he was not capable of such a calculated cruelty. Bard dearly hoped not.
"But you are of Dale," said Balin, cheering, "and Lord Girion respected our customs." He chuckled, a blithe noise that Bard resented. "Why, had he been the one to slay Smaug, Thrór and Thráin might well have offered Thorin's hand in marriage to..." Balin smoothed his fingers down first one tail of his beard, then the other. "Not him, as he was already wed, nor his eldest son, whose line was heir to Dale, but mayhaps his younger son, your own forefather, or a future scion of his house, the span of our lives being thrice yours." A speculative glint entered his eyes; Bard stiffened, having learnt that Balin's wiles were to be feared. "If you are averse to plighting troth with Thorin, one of your daugh-"
"No," Bard hissed, suddenly so furious he felt he might fly to pieces, his skin too tight to contain him. He was only dimly aware of the Halfling scuttling nearer to the Wizard, the Elvenking's head turning, the harsh rasp of his breath in his chest and bite of his nails into the palms of his shaking, clenched hands. But Oakenshield's voice rang clear as a trumpet at dawn in rebuke. "Balin, they are yet children."
To Bard, he said, "You must excuse Balin his untoward desire for me to beget an heir." Balin bent his head in apology, expression so sincerely contrite that it was difficult for Bard to keep hold of his rage. It drained from him, slow as a leeching of blood, and left him trembling, dizzy with weakness. He closed his eyes and wanted nothing more than to be done. Still, Oakenshield's voice chased him. Low and confiding, it lapped at his ears, colored warm by whatever mad, nameless emotions he stirred in the Dwarf's breast.
"My unwed state has been a despair to my sister since she married," continued Oakenshield, "and she is not shy in rallying my cousins, Balin here the worst of them"-a huff from Balin-"to assail me with suitable matches: daughters of the old families; men tall, dark, and dour-handed." Bard did not fail to note that this description, if it were what Oakenshield sought in a lover, fit him, as well. His mouth went dry. "Smaug's death was meant to be the object of an open courtship quest, once the seven Dwarf clans were gathered under the Arkenstone.
"I confess I would not have expected a Man to win my hand, but..." A pause. Which stretched so long Bard finally steeled himself to meet Oakenshield's regard, much as he wished he could remain blind to it. Oakenshield was smiling at him, waiting easily. "I find I am not displeased by it." How unnerving a smile it was! And one that gave Bard no doubt as to the unsaid. Or with you.
His skin prickled all over, fever-hot. Dwarves were shaped of stone and metal, the legends told. That smile-a subtle, pliant bowing of the lips upwards that crinkled the corners of eyes lit from within by some tender spark-did strange, disconcerting things to Oakenshield. Beneath crown, armor, hard strength and unyielding angles was soft flesh, blood and bone, realized Bard, coursing with feeling he could tangle about his fingers like a skein of fine yarn and rip at until it frayed.
"You are mad," Bard croaked, "To think that I slew Smaug to, to win your hand. That I would be pleased by this... this." With you. Oakenshield's face fell. Bard did not care. He didn't. "Ancient Dwarven traditions! What could I know of such, poor bargeman that I am?" He raked a hand through his hair and looked away, swallowing. "You had little good to say of me before, and I can't believe that a dead dragon has so changed your... affections."
Perhaps Oakenshield's lust was honest, though even this Bard struggled to credit, for he was surely no prize in beauty, but there was no trust between them. Oakenshield did not answer. Instead, it was Balin who said, hesitantly, "You truly know naught of the favor slaying a dragon would bring you amongst Dwarves? Lord Girion-"
Bard let out a sharp bark of laughter. "Girion? He's been gone to the grave near two centuries, and however faithfully you Dwarves keep to your customs, I assure you that we Men are more like to forget ours in that time." To his horror, Bard couldn't stop the words tumbling from his mouth. "When should I have considered marriage, my lords, and with any kind of joy? As Laketown burned? While my people are in need of shelter and food? After I've sold my-" Blood welled tangy as he bit his lip.
Oakenshield blanched like Bard had at last driven a sword into his gut; beside him Balin was white as his beard. And Bard regretted his lack of control. It is wed, he reminded himself, or war.
Thranduil and he would have the victory, should it come to battle, but not without losses, for Oakenshield's kin were on the march and he suspected Dwarves attended handfastings as prepared to fight as any army. If he could secure a share of the treasure either way, who was he to ask Men and Elves to die because he would not suffer Oakenshield to bind him and bed him?
He would have to beg Oakenshield's pardon. But Bard again put his back to them all. Just for a moment. Until he shoved the snarled mass of feeling that festered in his chest down enough so he could play his role in this farce and utter whatever vows were required of him without stumbling.
If this was to be his fate, he would walk to meet it of his own will and in as much dignity as he could muster. Just a moment more... He crossed his arms, fingers digging into his coat, and shuddered, his throat threatening to close.
The tense silence behind him was broken, surprisingly, by the Halfling, who spoke in a quiet yet firm voice at odds with his awkwardness of earlier. "I must say I agree with Bard in this. Thorin, you..." A confused, frustrated noise. Bard smiled mirthlessly, glad for the small mercy of not being alone in deeming this madness. "You and he are not even friends! How can you want to, to marry him?" Master Baggins grew louder and more flustered with each sentence, finishing with an unhappy, "I don't understand!"
"Bilbo, I thought you approved of our match," said Oakenshield, sounding hurt and uncertain. The Halfling stammered, trying to both soothe away the pained note in his friend's question and tactfully inform the very same friend that he was in fact quite mistaken. With little success in either, Bard mused, detached. Oakenshield was no more enlightened when he asked, "What else could you have meant by giving the Arkenstone to him?" more tentative than Bard had ever heard him.
"W-Well, I-" Master Baggins sighed, long and with a touch of asperity. "Thorin, I didn't even know why you needed a, a burglar until we were in the Mountain. None of you bothered to tell me about the Arkenstone or gathering the seven Dwarf clans or you being on some, some courtship quest on top of a quest to reclaim your home," he said, "So I can't see why you would think me an expert on Dwarven traditions of any sort." The silence this time took on a faintly embarrassed character. "If you were a bit more plain about what you want from the start," added the Halfling, exasperated but gently so, "I do believe we'd run into fewer of these tight spots."
"Madness this undoubtedly is"-Bard glanced over his shoulder at the Elvenking, a treacherous thread of hope waking in him that Thranduil might offer him another way-"but my counsel is that you wed the Dwarf, Dragonshooter, however... distasteful you find him." He turned from Thranduil's assessing stare, chin dropping and lip twisted in a grimace.
"Alliances of this ilk are not unusual amongst the noble houses of Elves or Men and have been forged for worse reasons than sparing one's people the ravages of war or hunger." The Elvenking was almost... sympathetic. In his steady, deliberate words, an enfolding solace that grounded Bard as though he leant against the trunk of the mightiest tree in the forest, branches spread sheltering above and a cradle of deep roots beneath.
Grateful he was for the Elvenking's support. "The Dwarf will not treat you ill," Thranduil said, and there was an edge of silken menace sheathed in his reassurance that drew a rumbling growl from Oakenshield. "Do you consent to this?" Even if Bard sorely wanted to rail, too, at the absurdity of Thranduil defending his honor like he was the maiden daughter the Elvenking, so far as he knew, did not have.
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Thorin/Bard, Misunderstood Courtship Rituals
Negotiations between Thorin and Bard prior to the Battle of Five Armies take a strange turn when an ancient Dwarven tradition comes to light.
Such Fair Ostents
· · ·
Glimmering in Bard's hand was the Arkenstone, bright as a splinter of the moon caught in ice and unmistakable. Thorin was astounded. "What sorcery is this?" he asked sharply. "How came you by the heirloom of my house?"
Bard did not answer. Instead he said, "Can we not now agree to terms, Thorin son of Thráin?" His voice was even and his gaze steady on Thorin, carefully not searching out any other familiar figures that might be on the ramparts.
From where he stood watching next to Balin, Bilbo gulped and tried not to fidget. Grateful as he was that Bard, unable to convince him of the folly of returning to Thorin's side, wished to keep him from Thorin's ire by not naming him a thief, he was afraid it would only serve to anger Thorin more. And then his betrayal-and it was a betrayal, by the twisting of his heart in his chest-will have availed them nothing and failed to prevent the bloodshed he dreaded, desperately.
Thorin's shoulders were tense beneath his armor and heavy mantle of fur, his knuckles white as his grip tightened on the stone parapet. "How came you by the King's Jewel?" he demanded again, voice rising. This time, Bard's eyes darted to Bilbo, but Bilbo could see in the stubborn line of his jaw that the fool man did not intend to ever answer Thorin.
"It was my doing, Thorin." Bilbo stepped forward before he could regret it. Though he almost faltered under the stare Thorin, whirling, pinned him with, so filled was it with stunned confusion, he forced his spine straight and his head up. The splendid shirt of mail Thorin had gifted him weighed upon his shoulders as if it were wrought of pure gold, not featherlight truesilver. "I gave the Arkenstone to Bard." Had Gandalf counseled wisely? Was there need for him to fear Thorin? He didn't want to believe that.
"You! You!" Bilbo could not help it. He flinched at Thorin's strangled cry, the words ringing harsh in the still air like the sound of a sword drawn from its sheath. "I should have known!" Thorin's eyes were bright, wet with a sheen of tears, and his hands trembled where they were clenched into fists at his sides. He strode towards Bilbo in a rush, pushing away Fíli, Kíli, anyone who moved to bar his path and deaf to Balin's pleas that he not act rashly.
For a moment, Bilbo considered fleeing, but some part of him balked at the idea, like a cord of steel had, unbeknownst to him, become woven into his every fiber. Surely, he felt, if he did not run, it would not be cowardice to shut his eyes so he could remember Thorin as his friend? He did just that, his own breathing loud in his ears, and waited for his doom.
When Thorin's strong hands finally closed on him, though, they did not wrap around his throat, choking, as he half expected them to but around his middle in a bone-crushing hug that lifted him clear off his feet. Bilbo wheezed, the air that had not fled his lungs in his shocked relief squeezed out of him. His head spun, and he flailed-quite uselessly, in fact, his arms trapped at his sides, only succeeding in bruising himself on the hard points of Thorin's armor and inhaling a goodly hank of Thorin's dark hair, pressed against his face.
At last, Thorin seemed to recognize that Bilbo's need to breathe was growing dire and released him. He even rubbed Bilbo's back in small, comforting circles as Bilbo gasped, heart racing, before elation chased concern from his face and he slung an arm about Bilbo's shoulders, almost sending them both sprawling to the floor.
"You are a true friend, Master Baggins," Thorin said to him, grinning proudly, "to know my heart so well." And Bilbo thought, Wha-? He sputtered; Thorin merely looked amused and terribly fond.
"I should have known," he continued, "that I could not hide my desire from your keen eyes." His expression softened further into a rueful smile. Bilbo blinked. He could not mean that he wanted Bard to have the Arkenstone, could he? "I had hoped to surprise you"-Bilbo had to bite his cheek, a sharp retort on his tongue-"yet as always you have surprised me. Truly, Hobbits are amazing creatures." He chuckled and, with another mangling hug, left Bilbo winded but no less baffled.
Thorin had brooded long after his parley with Bard, then commanded the Company to make more haste in scouring the treasure hoard for the Arkenstone, frowning darkly at the damage done by Smaug to the Mountain's halls and stilling whenever Bard's name was mentioned or his promise to share Erebor's wealth. So frightful was Thorin at those times, eyes agleam with a feverish energy and body drawn taut as a fiddle string, that the Company soon stopped asking. Contrary to Thorin's belief, Bilbo had no earthly idea what was running through the Dwarf's mind, confound him! And neither did the others, if their gaping looks of pained uncertainty were anything to judge by.
Later, Bilbo decided one of them should have pulled Thorin aside for an explanation. But they were so occupied exchanging puzzled noises-and, Bilbo admitted, reluctant to learn what new madness possessed Thorin-that he was able to lean out over the parapet unopposed and shout, "You have accepted my suit then, Dragonslayer, and my hand in marriage?" Every head snapped around to stare at Thorin with such alacrity that Bilbo swore there was an audible sound of necks cracking.
Bard jerked in surprise, eyes widening, and nearly toppled from his horse. He righted himself with a curse but did fumble the Arkenstone, and Bilbo squeaked as the great white jewel pitched towards the ground, imagining the royal heirloom of the House of Durin shattered into a thousand pieces. Luckily, a slim, long-fingered hand, pale as starlight, reached forth to catch it with the speed and grace of Elvish reflexes. While nothing so crass as shock showed on the Elvenking's fair face, there was a... distinctly nonplussed air about him, his head tilted and one elegant eyebrow arched.
"Thorin, y-you can't be serious...?" Bilbo said weakly. Thorin, however, was too rapt gazing down at Bard, engaged in a hissing conversation with the Elvenking and now Gandalf, to answer, so he turned to Balin. Who, to Bilbo's consternation, was beginning to look as if he'd come to a sudden and pleasant realization. "Can he?" Understanding was similarly dawning on the faces of the rest of the Company, and Bilbo thought, with a sinking feeling, that Thorin was indeed as serious as ever.
"Well, that is a relief!" said Kíli. "And here we all feared-" He shared a solemn glance with Fíli, swallowing nervously, before shaking his head with a chuckle. "Mother always did warn us that he was 'prone to dramatics.' She's going to have his beard for this. Especially as she'll miss the ceremonies!" Sobering, he added quietly, "Perhaps he would have confided in us earlier, had we not been so quick to mistrust his motives." There were murmurs of agreement, and even Bilbo was given pause, though he in truth found Thorin's actions stranger than when the dragon sickness was to blame.
"Come, Brother," Fíli said, squaring his shoulders, "Let us be the first to offer our congratulations to Uncle." Watching Thorin, who seemed wreathed in smiles as he accepted his sister-sons' wishes, his grim mood of the past few days banished like fog at the sun's rising, Bilbo was quite unexpectedly reminded of his least favorite Uncle Longo.
"He's sore as a bear with a wounded paw over that Sackville chit tossing out his flowers," his mother had told his father after one visit to Uncle Longo's, stamping her foot in exasperation. "Fuming and snarling like a hungry dragon in its lair... and just as apt to take a bite out of the company!" She sighed, absently thanking Bilbo for the cup of tea he handed her as she settled into her armchair by the fire. "I'll be glad when they're finally wed, Bungo, dear, if only it'll spare Belba and me this dreadful courtship."
At the time, Bilbo thought his mother had exaggerated, for she had a love of colorful speech that exceeded any other except, perhaps, the affection she bore for husband and son; Uncle Longo was all smiles at the handfasting, graciously greeting the guests with his blushing bride-to-be on his arm. Were the trials of courtship truly so terrible? Could they turn even so stout a Dwarf as Thorin... dragonish?
But Thorin and-his mind stuttered, shying from the idea-and Bard? Bilbo knew little of how Men and Dwarves went about courting, but he did not feel it likely that their customs were so different from those of Hobbits that suitors wooed their intendeds by insulting them and their ancestors in the town square instead of with sweet endearments whispered in their ears. No, he decided, pinching the bridge of his nose, this had to be a mistake. A misunderstanding or a, a ruse, to stall the Elves from trying the Mountain's defenses maybe.
"Thorin Oakenshield," called Gandalf from below, "I think it's best that you come down for some explanations." To Bilbo's comfort, there was a note of bemusement in Gandalf's voice, too, seldom heard. Behind him, a scowling Bard, safely dismounted, waited with arms crossed for the Elvenking to do the same. His face darkened further until he resembled nothing so much as a towering thundercloud when the Elvenking held out the Arkenstone with an imperious hand for him to take back. Take it Bard did, however, like it was a coiled snake about to strike.
Until this moment, Bilbo had only half believed that Smaug was slain and by the bargeman they'd met collecting barrels on the river, his appearance worn if his aim was unerring. But the glare Bard skewered the Elvenking, the Arkenstone, and Thorin with in turn was so fierce, cold and flashing as sharp steel in the moonlight, that Bilbo thought, yes, this was one who could have braved dragonfire to fell the beast that had laid waste to cities with a single mighty shot from his bow. A slightly hysterical laugh wanted to bubble up in his chest. Thorin had best tread carefully around Bard, or Smaug's killer might just succeed where the dragon had failed.
"What a great mess you've made of things, Bilbo Baggins," he berated himself under his breath. He was a fool to suppose that giving Bard the Arkenstone would solve their problems. Still, at least there was no more talk of war and the matter was out of his too-small Hobbit hands, which were ill-suited to meddling in the affairs of kings. Gandalf will set them straight. Why, Bilbo figured that's what Gandalf did-counsel the high lords of distant lands in their halls of stone-when he wasn't at his excellent fireworks or a pipe of Old Toby, on account of being one of the less magical Wizards.
"Gladly, Gandalf," Thorin replied with an amiable nod. "Balin, Bilbo, with me." Bilbo started. Wha-? He sputtered in protest. Thorin ignored him, of course, already heading for the stairs with a jaunty spring in his step and clearly expecting them to follow. "The rest of you stay here. Soon, my friends, we shall be toasting to my nuptials!" Picturing Bard's glower, Bilbo thought glumly that Thorin was bound to be disappointed, whatever it was he wanted of the man.
· · ·
"...is indeed an ancient tradition of our people," said the white-haired Dwarf who'd this time introduced himself as, "Balin son of Fundin, at your service. I shall be acting as officiant in the suit of Thorin son of Thráin, King Under the Mountain, for the hand in marriage of Bard, slayer of the dragon Smaug and heir to Girion, Lord of Dale."
It had taken all the control Bard possessed to not snap at the Dwarves that there would be no marriage, and he sorely regretted giving the Wizard his word that he would hear Oakenshield's proposal in full before rejecting it. That had been when he yet believed Oakenshield to be in jest or pursuing some design to sow confusion in their ranks, but if so the trick had run too long and towards no strategic end that he could see. He remembered Balin from the river landing, besides, where smooth manners and the clink of coin had convinced him to folly. And now here I am, Bard thought bitterly, listening to this farce.
"Since the days of yore," Balin continued, voice falling into the cadences of story, "the great wealth of the Dwarves has tempted the greed of dragons. To slay one of these foul beasts, even a lesser wyrm, and live is no small feat and has come to be deemed a sign of Mahal's high favor." The Elvenking and the Wizard, Oakenshield, Balin, and the Halfling stood in a loose circle-an impromptu council, convened after his and Thranduil's mounts were led away and the party from Erebor descended the barricade to join them-far enough from the gathered armies that their discussions would be privy, so long as nobody lost his temper.
Which was why Bard had removed himself to one side, where he paced. And tried to ignore how Oakenshield's eyes followed him. "A dragonslayer's hand in marriage is thus much sought after, for only by this most sacred and intimate covenant betwixt two souls"-Bard growled as he felt again Oakenshield's gaze across his shoulders like a burning brand-"can that fortune be a blessing upon one's house, the heart and will that vanquished a dragon bound forevermore to one's line."
If he thought, for a single moment, that he could knock sense into Oakenshield's head, Bard would not have hesitated to throw the Arkenstone, his cursed betrothal gift, at him and damn the diplomatic niceties! But he was beginning to doubt that even so forceful a spurn would dissuade the Dwarf from this absurdity, and it might very well be taken as assent on his part, for all Bard knew. "It is also one of the few ways," finished Balin, with a nod at Oakenshield, "whereby one not of noble standing can wed into the blood royal."
His regard not straying from Bard, Oakenshield shouted, "Glóin!" While the Dwarf had been mildly disappointed-Bard raked an agitated hand through his hair, grimacing-that Bard didn't swoon at his feet, instead greeting him with a curt demand that he state his intentions, this seemed not to have cooled his ardor. Quite the contrary, after gravely agreeing that it was proper for them to first negotiate a contract, Oakenshield had bared his teeth in a slow grin and told Bard, "It pleases me to find you as unbending in this as in all else." Bard had stalked off at that, his hand clenched on the hilt of his sword.
Another Dwarf popped his helmed head over the parapet above. Bard groaned at the sight; it was the one who'd balked at paying him. "Aye, my grandfather took to wife a dragonslayer," Glóin said. "Grandmother was of no rank but was an uncommon beauty and warrior, who singlehandedly hew to death with her ax a cold-drake when Náin ruled in the Grey Mountains." Pride fairly radiated from Glóin, a touch of envy in his voice, while Bard stared in faint horror.
He would not wish battle with a dragon on his worst enemy, and the idea of his wife or daughter, his mother, his grandmother splattered with blood, plunging a blade over and again into some coiling monster as a jaw of razor teeth sought to close around them, claws like spears gouging at their flesh-it sickened him, though he did not question that they had the courage, if not the strength of arms, to face one. His mouth tightened into a thin, hard seam. He did not understand these Dwarves and likely never would.
Glóin continued, gruffly fond, "She was courted by many and refused all until Farin." He tapped the flat of his ax against his helm, a smile near hidden in his long beard. "It is to her that my father, my son, and I owe our red hair, for she was of the Firebeards, and family legend tells that 'tis a mark of her luck, still running strong in our veins." Testimony related, the Dwarf popped back down. But not before winking suggestively at Bard, who stiffened.
"And so it has proven," Balin added, nodding sagely, "for Gróin met with success in his every venture and Glóin in his craft, trade and commerce, while young Gimli shows especial promise as a warrior." He studied Bard from head to toe, a speculative glint in his eye, then sighed. Bard suspected that he was not going to care for what Balin had to say next. "A pity that you were not born a woman-"
Bard could not stay the outraged noise that escaped his gritted teeth, his hackles rising. He was about to lash a well-deserved strip from Balin's sorry hide, angry words crowding his tongue, when Oakenshield chuckled, the sound low and curling. "Balin," he chided gently, "you know that the fairer sex never held any interest for me." Bard choked.
Turning to him with a look of reassurance that Bard didn't find reassuring in the least and tone apologetic, Oakenshield explained, "My heirs were always meant to be of my blood but not of my body: my sister-sons, Fíli and Kíli"-two more Dwarves, one fair and the other dark, waved cheerfully at Bard from the ramparts; they were the ones who'd seen that his home became a sickroom and a charnel-"or in a better world the children of my brother Frerin."
Oakenshield's voice deepened, rumbling from his throat; an itch prickled at the nape of Bard's neck. "Pay no heed to Balin in this, my intended." The Dwarf's heavy-lidded eyes swept over Bard in appraisal, unhurried and distinctly more... appreciative than Balin's. Though Bard was not by nature a violent man, when that heated gaze lingered overlong on the line from shoulder to hip, such a fury awoke in him, bright and throbbing red at the edges of his vision, that he surely would've staved Oakenshield's head in with his bare fist had the Wizard not coughed, loudly and pointedly, jarring him. Unable to decide who to glare at, Bard finally put his back to them all. His mood was not improved by the curious glances the waiting Men and even Elves sent their way.
"-but that cannot be helped," resumed Balin, unfazed, "and Smaug was no lesser wyrm." He hummed in consideration. "Lord Bard's deed is unequaled in the annals of the Dwarves, forsooth, and has already brought us commensurate fortune-Erebor reclaimed by our people, the curse of the gold sickness lifted.
"While for the nonce, with Smaug's demise less than a month past and a royal suit of the highest order in force, no other offers for Lord Bard's hand have been made, I expect that as word spreads this shall be the most contested courtship in, why, almost a thousand years." Balin's speech held a scholar's excitement at a historical rarity. Until Oakenshield grunted, displeased. "Ah, my pardons, Thorin. I did not mean to cast doubt on your success."
Bard didn't know which dismayed him more: to hear himself titled a lord, his new renown as a living talisman, or the prospect of a horde of Dwarven suitors. He rubbed at his face with a weary hand, shoulders hunching. I want no part in any of this. Behind him, the Elvenking said, "What assurances can you offer that you are not afflicted as your grandfather was and this not merely a scheme to delay whilst your kin march upon us?"
Thranduil, cool disdain mantling him like a thick fall of snow, seemed wholly unaffected by this queer development, except perhaps in his stillness and silence. While Bard had paced and seethed, the Elvenking stood unmoving as a tall beech; Bard envied Thranduil his composure, though it was unsettling also. For he could read in neither fair features nor proud bearing whether Thranduil saw in Oakenshield's proposal a bloodless means to Erebor's treasure and approved of it. He was not blind to that possibility himself, but... Would I be a gold digger or a whore? His stomach knotted, and he crossed his arms, swallowing the urge to flee.
"You have my word," Oakenshield answered stiffly, "and should you deem that insufficient, Elvenking, my person." At that, Bard spun on his heel, torn between disbelief and wariness. Only to meet Oakenshield's eyes, darkened now with a candor that startled him, the Dwarf watching him again despite addressing Thranduil. Oakenshield cleared his throat.
"It has come to my attention," he said quietly, "that in my eagerness to press my suit, I may have neglected my courtesies and other matters of importance." He inclined his head at Bard. Who breathed a little easier at the polite, if solicitous, distance in Oakenshield's gaze. A trick, he thought. A mask to lull him into forgetting the Dwarf's unchanged purpose. Yet some of his tension eased, and his heart calmed from the frantic beat he had not noticed. "Ask of me what you will, my lord Bard."
His name took on a warm solidity upon Oakenshield's tongue, which had never before shaped its syllables. Bard worried at his sword belt; he'd grown unused to the weight of leather and steel at his waist since his days as a guardsman. There was, in truth, but one question that he needed Oakenshield to assent to, and it was the same as when they'd parleyed with a wall of stone between them. "What of your word that all will share in the wealth of the Mountain?"
Oakenshield nodded, unsurprised. He clasped his hands at his back and canted about slightly in an odd wobble, half a bow, then spoke, his tone and words measured. "The Master of Laketown I admit I mistrusted and might have played false, as he no doubt would have done me." Bard snorted. He could not dispute that, being no stranger himself to the bribes and alleyway deals that steered the course of trade under the Master's rule. "But a portion of the treasure I will gladly part with as a dowry, for you to spend as you desire, my intended." Though there was nothing of demand in Oakenshield's stance-the Dwarf looked as if he'd be content to wait for acceptance or rejection until they were both graybeards-still, Bard's breath hitched.
As I feared. He stared for a long moment at the milling Men, simple farmers and fisherfolk who'd been unable to keep ranks with the discipline of the Elven army, and at Dale farther across the field, where his children sheltered in ruins, cold and hungry. None of them could wait even a season for the aid the gold in the Mountain could buy and speed up the river from Rhûn. "Then why did you earlier refuse me?" he asked Oakenshield. His voice sounded small in his own ears, muffled. "Why fence yourself in your hold?"
The sudden chagrin that broke Oakenshield's calm was not enough to dispel the numbness that filled his chest, but Bard felt a tickling satisfaction to see it nevertheless. Oakenshield toed a rock aside with his boot and mumbled to it, " 'Twas a diversion." He sighed heavily before straightening in grim resolve. "I had not a fitting betrothal gift. No common gem would serve for a dragonslayer of your lineage, and the Arkenstone could not be found, hard as I bent my will towards seeking it." He clapped a hand to the shoulder of the Halfling, standing on his left.
Master Baggins had been trying his unobtrusive best to vanish into thin air since their council began but squeaked as Oakenshield gave him a brotherly shake; he so resembled a rabbit caught in a trap that Bard was moved to pity despite the Halfling's role in bringing them to this end. Played unwittingly, if he judged aright, and he hoped he did. "Little did I realize that among my company was a friend who could not only see to the heart of my doings but would take it upon himself to brave my intended's honor guard and present my suit," said Oakenshield, fondness softening every line of his body. The Halfling twitched, his eyes darting from Bard to the Elvenking to the Wizard in mute appeal.
You need not worry that we shall betray you, Bilbo Baggins. However sour the thought tasted, Bard did not begrudge-not truly, no, when he remembered an attempt at conversation, halting in its sincerity, as his barge crossed the lake-letting Oakenshield continue to believe, as the Wizard suggested, that the Halfling had knowingly offered the heirloom of his house to his... intended rather than to his enemies. Even the Elvenking readily agreed, for he would not have harm come to one who had no stake in their quarrels besides averting war so that his friends may live. An admirable sentiment, Thranduil had commented after the Halfling left to be shown his bed for the night, and a guileless one.
But what was this nonsense about an honor guard? Half a dozen of his fellow guardsmen had been conscripted as escorts when he wed his wife, but their duties did not amount to much beyond plying the guests with ale and wildly exaggerated tales of his youthful follies.
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, his bride's laughs brushing again over the skin of his neck-she had sat with her golden head tucked against his cheek, so lovely in her joy that he passed the hours in a daze-before he frowned. Bard was at a loss as to who Oakenshield could possibly have mistaken for a wedding party, unless... He stifled a groan, aching for a reprieve to bury his face in his hands. The Elves!
He dared not glance at the Elvenking. Who shifted minutely, more a ripple in the air than any movement of limb or body, yet somehow managed to convey the unfathomable depths of his displeasure. Oakenshield's insistence that Bard dismiss the Elves, as if they were Bard's to command; his brazenness in loosing an arrow at Thranduil, not daunted by the threat of a thousandfold reprisal-had they been going through the motions of another damnably obscure Dwarven marriage custom all this time? Heat crawled up his neck, until his cheeks burned with it.
When Oakenshield inhaled sharply, gaze turning molten in a flash of want, Bard had to bite his lip not to curse. A scream of frustration clawed at the back of his throat when Oakenshield's eyes simply fixed on his mouth, tracing the shape of it as the Dwarf's breathing went ragged at the edges. Was there naught he could do that Oakenshield wouldn't find...?
The words that paraded in his mind were ones he couldn't imagine that he bore well: a middle-aged widower with three children and gray in his hair; hands roughened by labor, face creased by cares, and clad in tattered raiment, a mud-stained coat shrugged on over borrowed mail. He might have preferred it when he thought Oakenshield held only contempt for him. The man whose ancestor had failed to kill the dragon. Though slaying Smaug had won him little enough. A few useless titles, a ramshackle town, a following of destitute people. And a suitor, unlooked for.
"As to the second," Oakenshield was saying, after several coughs, "you cannot be allowed entrance into Erebor with the dragon's wrack still to be set to rights." Bard stared. "It would not be seemly," finished Oakenshield, as if this explained all, and apparently, for a Dwarf, it did, Balin nodding.
The ground tilted beneath his feet with a lurch, slipping out from under him. The whisper of his wife's hair against his palms, the taste of her smile, and the spread of Oakenshield's shoulders, a strong brow and jutting nose, deep eyes that brooded upon him, hungering-it was too much, too close. He shuddered, a hook dragging at his insides.
Grasping at the idea like a drowning man would a raft of driftwood, Bard gritted out, "Perhaps it has escaped your notice, my lords, but I am no Dwarf." There was no shrinking from this-the tight way Sigrid and Bain clung to him in sleep; Tilda's trusting face, the rest of them, when winter was no beast he could fell with an arrow-though he felt a hollowed cage of brittle bone. "Of what relevance is this... tradition of yours to a Man?" He sneered and hated himself for acting as the Master, Alfrid. But he didn't have to make it easy for Oakenshield.
Both Dwarves hesitated, wincing in unison. Good, thought Bard viciously. "Yes," Balin finally admitted with reluctance, "that has caused... problems in the past." Bard waited impatiently for him to continue, but it was the Elvenking who observed, tone cutting as a wind from the northern wastes, "You speak of your feud with the Éothéod." Bard blinked. That was the name of no people he'd ever heard of.
Which meant, of course, that they were again debating events centuries before his time. He scowled. At least the Halfling was equally puzzled, sidling up with the lost air of a stranger at a family reunion to the Wizard, who hummed in contemplation. Oakenshield at last relented in his glaring at the Elvenking, who did not deign to see it, and sighed.
"Fram, slayer of Scatha the Worm, was a proud Man and not one to part lightly with his treasures," he told Bard and Master Baggins. "He did not take kindly to Dwarves asking for his daughter's hand nor a share of Scatha's hoard, as her dowry." His daughter? A certain cold suspicion was beginning to creep into Bard's heart.
"So, too, it must be said that while Fram did the Dwarves-our distant kin, not of the Longbeards-great insult by sending them a necklace made of Scatha's teeth," Balin added, "their lord was uncommonly quick to anger." Oakenshield nodded curtly, lips pursed. "Jealous we can be, and a suitor spurned will oft have none other"-Bard started, studying Oakenshield anew, who now maddeningly avoided his gaze-"yet Fram's wrong did not deserve a worse turn that saw Men and Dwarves estranged."
In Balin's pause, Bard read bloodshed and was sure that Fram died upon the ax of a jilted Dwarf. He didn't know whether to be terrified at how deadly earnest Dwarves were in wooing or comforted that Oakenshield was not toying with him to, to... Bile rose choking in his throat; he forced himself to swallow, to breathe. No, as arrogant as Oakenshield could be and unforgiving, he was not capable of such a calculated cruelty. Bard dearly hoped not.
"But you are of Dale," said Balin, cheering, "and Lord Girion respected our customs." He chuckled, a blithe noise that Bard resented. "Why, had he been the one to slay Smaug, Thrór and Thráin might well have offered Thorin's hand in marriage to..." Balin smoothed his fingers down first one tail of his beard, then the other. "Not him, as he was already wed, nor his eldest son, whose line was heir to Dale, but mayhaps his younger son, your own forefather, or a future scion of his house, the span of our lives being thrice yours." A speculative glint entered his eyes; Bard stiffened, having learnt that Balin's wiles were to be feared. "If you are averse to plighting troth with Thorin, one of your daugh-"
"No," Bard hissed, suddenly so furious he felt he might fly to pieces, his skin too tight to contain him. He was only dimly aware of the Halfling scuttling nearer to the Wizard, the Elvenking's head turning, the harsh rasp of his breath in his chest and bite of his nails into the palms of his shaking, clenched hands. But Oakenshield's voice rang clear as a trumpet at dawn in rebuke. "Balin, they are yet children."
To Bard, he said, "You must excuse Balin his untoward desire for me to beget an heir." Balin bent his head in apology, expression so sincerely contrite that it was difficult for Bard to keep hold of his rage. It drained from him, slow as a leeching of blood, and left him trembling, dizzy with weakness. He closed his eyes and wanted nothing more than to be done. Still, Oakenshield's voice chased him. Low and confiding, it lapped at his ears, colored warm by whatever mad, nameless emotions he stirred in the Dwarf's breast.
"My unwed state has been a despair to my sister since she married," continued Oakenshield, "and she is not shy in rallying my cousins, Balin here the worst of them"-a huff from Balin-"to assail me with suitable matches: daughters of the old families; men tall, dark, and dour-handed." Bard did not fail to note that this description, if it were what Oakenshield sought in a lover, fit him, as well. His mouth went dry. "Smaug's death was meant to be the object of an open courtship quest, once the seven Dwarf clans were gathered under the Arkenstone.
"I confess I would not have expected a Man to win my hand, but..." A pause. Which stretched so long Bard finally steeled himself to meet Oakenshield's regard, much as he wished he could remain blind to it. Oakenshield was smiling at him, waiting easily. "I find I am not displeased by it." How unnerving a smile it was! And one that gave Bard no doubt as to the unsaid. Or with you.
His skin prickled all over, fever-hot. Dwarves were shaped of stone and metal, the legends told. That smile-a subtle, pliant bowing of the lips upwards that crinkled the corners of eyes lit from within by some tender spark-did strange, disconcerting things to Oakenshield. Beneath crown, armor, hard strength and unyielding angles was soft flesh, blood and bone, realized Bard, coursing with feeling he could tangle about his fingers like a skein of fine yarn and rip at until it frayed.
"You are mad," Bard croaked, "To think that I slew Smaug to, to win your hand. That I would be pleased by this... this." With you. Oakenshield's face fell. Bard did not care. He didn't. "Ancient Dwarven traditions! What could I know of such, poor bargeman that I am?" He raked a hand through his hair and looked away, swallowing. "You had little good to say of me before, and I can't believe that a dead dragon has so changed your... affections."
Perhaps Oakenshield's lust was honest, though even this Bard struggled to credit, for he was surely no prize in beauty, but there was no trust between them. Oakenshield did not answer. Instead, it was Balin who said, hesitantly, "You truly know naught of the favor slaying a dragon would bring you amongst Dwarves? Lord Girion-"
Bard let out a sharp bark of laughter. "Girion? He's been gone to the grave near two centuries, and however faithfully you Dwarves keep to your customs, I assure you that we Men are more like to forget ours in that time." To his horror, Bard couldn't stop the words tumbling from his mouth. "When should I have considered marriage, my lords, and with any kind of joy? As Laketown burned? While my people are in need of shelter and food? After I've sold my-" Blood welled tangy as he bit his lip.
Oakenshield blanched like Bard had at last driven a sword into his gut; beside him Balin was white as his beard. And Bard regretted his lack of control. It is wed, he reminded himself, or war.
Thranduil and he would have the victory, should it come to battle, but not without losses, for Oakenshield's kin were on the march and he suspected Dwarves attended handfastings as prepared to fight as any army. If he could secure a share of the treasure either way, who was he to ask Men and Elves to die because he would not suffer Oakenshield to bind him and bed him?
He would have to beg Oakenshield's pardon. But Bard again put his back to them all. Just for a moment. Until he shoved the snarled mass of feeling that festered in his chest down enough so he could play his role in this farce and utter whatever vows were required of him without stumbling.
If this was to be his fate, he would walk to meet it of his own will and in as much dignity as he could muster. Just a moment more... He crossed his arms, fingers digging into his coat, and shuddered, his throat threatening to close.
The tense silence behind him was broken, surprisingly, by the Halfling, who spoke in a quiet yet firm voice at odds with his awkwardness of earlier. "I must say I agree with Bard in this. Thorin, you..." A confused, frustrated noise. Bard smiled mirthlessly, glad for the small mercy of not being alone in deeming this madness. "You and he are not even friends! How can you want to, to marry him?" Master Baggins grew louder and more flustered with each sentence, finishing with an unhappy, "I don't understand!"
"Bilbo, I thought you approved of our match," said Oakenshield, sounding hurt and uncertain. The Halfling stammered, trying to both soothe away the pained note in his friend's question and tactfully inform the very same friend that he was in fact quite mistaken. With little success in either, Bard mused, detached. Oakenshield was no more enlightened when he asked, "What else could you have meant by giving the Arkenstone to him?" more tentative than Bard had ever heard him.
"W-Well, I-" Master Baggins sighed, long and with a touch of asperity. "Thorin, I didn't even know why you needed a, a burglar until we were in the Mountain. None of you bothered to tell me about the Arkenstone or gathering the seven Dwarf clans or you being on some, some courtship quest on top of a quest to reclaim your home," he said, "So I can't see why you would think me an expert on Dwarven traditions of any sort." The silence this time took on a faintly embarrassed character. "If you were a bit more plain about what you want from the start," added the Halfling, exasperated but gently so, "I do believe we'd run into fewer of these tight spots."
"Madness this undoubtedly is"-Bard glanced over his shoulder at the Elvenking, a treacherous thread of hope waking in him that Thranduil might offer him another way-"but my counsel is that you wed the Dwarf, Dragonshooter, however... distasteful you find him." He turned from Thranduil's assessing stare, chin dropping and lip twisted in a grimace.
"Alliances of this ilk are not unusual amongst the noble houses of Elves or Men and have been forged for worse reasons than sparing one's people the ravages of war or hunger." The Elvenking was almost... sympathetic. In his steady, deliberate words, an enfolding solace that grounded Bard as though he leant against the trunk of the mightiest tree in the forest, branches spread sheltering above and a cradle of deep roots beneath.
Grateful he was for the Elvenking's support. "The Dwarf will not treat you ill," Thranduil said, and there was an edge of silken menace sheathed in his reassurance that drew a rumbling growl from Oakenshield. "Do you consent to this?" Even if Bard sorely wanted to rail, too, at the absurdity of Thranduil defending his honor like he was the maiden daughter the Elvenking, so far as he knew, did not have.
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