The King and Dragon Lord

Ch. 2

Far over,

The misty mountains cold

To dungeons deep,

And caverns old...

I was softly singing as I was brushing my horse while it was eating.

"You didn't eat much." I jumped and saw it was Thorin.

"I wasn't that hungry." I continued to brush my horse. Thorin walked over and rubbed my horse's face.

"He's a beautiful creature."

"Yeah." I grinned. "He was given to me when I was sent to Rivendell."

"Why were you sent there." Thorin looked at me confused.

"I don't know who my parents are. I was living on my own and someone told me I should go to Rivendell."

"Who told you that?" Thorin walked over next to me. He continued to rub my horse.

I smirked. "Gandalf."

Thorin laughed. "Of course he did." He looked at my horse for a few seconds longer before turning to me. "You should get some rest. It's late."

Once I put away the brushes I pushed by Thorin. He followed me out of the stall, I went in one direction, he went the other.

————

Laughter filled the halls which indicated that it was morning. You could hear the workers mining and the blacksmiths working down below in the lower levels of Erebor. I sat up in my bed and stretched. As I was scanning the room, I noticed a new set of clothing hanging on the door of the closet.

I walked over to it and noticed some of it was made of elven material and other parts were man mad. The vest had the elven tree on it and I immediately knew it came from Elrond. I noticed a quiver sitting on the ground, leaning against the closest. Upon looking at it I knew they were elven. I smiled and started to change.

"I see you got Lord Elrond's gift." I heard Balin say as I headed up to the front gait.

"Yeah." I grabbed the cape and looked at the outfit and then proceeded to walk on. "How did he know I was even coming?"

"Not sure actually." He seemed confused. "Lord Elrond came by at daybreak and brought it. He wanted to see you but we knew you'd still be asleep."

"So who brought it into my room?"

"Thorin."

"Thorin? He's a king doesn't he have servants."

"No actually. I mean we have people help with stuff but for the most part, we do everything ourselves."

"Huh. I guess being on your own for a while changed you guys."

"You know about the journey we had to take back Erebor?"

"Mhm. After the battle of the five armies, the story grew."

"Well, you have your students waiting for you." He walked off and when I looked at the front gate I saw Kili, Fili, and a group of dwarves with bows and quivers. Kili was looking at me smiling as he came up to me.

"I and Fili have targets set up outside."

"Okay, cool." I smiled back at him and gestured for everyone to follow me out. Some of the dwarves were tall, some short. Most of them looked to be teenagers.

"So how many of you are new to using a bow?" Most of them raised their hands.

"Alright, cool. So first things first." I started to unstring mine. "You'll need to know how to string it." They followed me and unstrung theirs.

After a few minutes of unstringing and stringing their bows to build up speed, I had them form lines in front of the targets.

"Alrighty so now I will show you how to hold and shoot." I demonstrated how to hold the bow and level the arrow, and then we practiced shooting the targets for a bit. "Okay, that's enough for the day." They all grabbed their arrows and we headed back into Erebor.

Later on in the day, a little bit after dusk, I was standing on the platform, leaning against the stone railing that went across the entrance to Erebor. Everyone was already resting, or so I thought.

"I don't usually sleep well." I continued to look over the land.

"You seem homesick." He came over and stood beside me.

"Not really. I've never really fit in anywhere."

"How so?"

"There's a lot of humans who don't like the elven in me and vise versa. Elrond was the only one who ever understood that."

"So did you come here from Rivendell?"

"No. I was already a ranger by then. Elrond didn't want me to leave Rivendell but he knew if I stayed I wouldn't be content with my life." Both of us were silent for a bit.

"Were you not happy in Rivendell?" Thorin looked at me.

I chuckled. "No, I was happy."

"Why leave then?"

"Although I was happy there I wasn't content. I knew I couldn't spend the rest of my life there." He nodded as if he understood.

"Are you happy here?"

I stood and looked at him confused. "Why do you ask that?"

He breathed and faced away from me. "Never mind that." He turned to walk off and looked at me. "You should try to sleep." When he walked past me his hand grazed mine. I didn't think much of it at first.

I waited for Thorin to be at a good distance before I started to head back to my room. When I turned to go back I heard a noise from the distance. "What the..." I saw a creature on what looked like a wolf. When it noticed me looking in its direction it turned and ran.

Curiosity got the better of me.