Once Upon A Contract

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 26: 𝕯𝖎𝖓𝖓𝖊𝖗 𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖍 𝖆𝖓 𝕰𝖑𝖋

The hobbit was a curious creature, in that Thorin had no idea what Bilbo would do next. Part of Thorin was still reeling from the trolls. Was still blinking and staring in shock at the way the little thing had climbed onto the rocks and did... something.

Part of him was still startled and stung that the Urs would follow the hobbit before they would follow him. Bifur had been one of the few to come back from the ashes that had been Azanulbizar. Bifur, one of colonists from the Blue Mountains and heralded as one of the strongest Stone Sensors in generations. His presence had been a blessing to the convoy. His wound had been a devastation to the colony. And then there had been his nephew, the little Ur pebble that had walked the mines before his time and saved hundreds of dwarrow from the collapsing stone.

When word had come that the pebble had disappeared into thin air, the whole mountain had grieved. One stone sensor was wounded and another was lost. It had only been Bifur's calm expression and the fact he had walked out of the settlement, placed one hand on the stone of the mountain, and communed in a way that made the priests and priestess weep, that had kept the search parties at bay.

Months later, the pebble had walked back into the settlement as if nothing had happened. According to legend, Bifur simply looked to the temple and smiled when the mountain chimed and sang loud enough for even Thorin to hear clearly. And Thorin had been four leagues back and nowhere near the base of the mountain.

The homestead in the Blue Mountains had been struggling for decades and Thorin wasn't sure if the two younger Urs knew it, but the only reason the ebroian dwarrow had been allowed into their halls was not because of the leniency of the lords, but largely due to the approval of the patriarch of the Ur clan. The lords had been a major factor, but Thorin had long since learned that it was the common folk that got things done in the Blue Mountains. The lords controlled the politics, but the commoners controlled the mines and the food. And even lords had to eat.

And then Thorin had gone and fucked it up by nearly getting the dwarf killed in an ambush and the Blue Mountains had all but lost the best damn sensor that anyone had seen.

If the Urs had decided the colony needed to be abandoned for ancestral lands, then there was little that would stop the common folk of the Blue Mountains from packing up and leaving. Having them along with him on this quest was a blessing, but it was also a curse. (Dis' presence in the mountain was probably the only reason there weren't caravans already spreading out across Arda. She was no diplomat, but she was a surety that the Durins would come back to the Blue Mountain if things went wrong. And that, that was enough to keep the settlement calm.)

If the Urs fell, there was little that would keep the settlement from rioting. And with the tension between the clans as high as it was, Thorin didn't need Balin to tell him that one movement of unrest would displace centuries of treaties and dozens of mountains.

Yet, even with his injury, Bifur was a smart dwarrow and a startlingly astute one at that. For him to stand behind the hobbit, to act as an honour guard... There was something else going on with the hobbit, and Thorin wasn't sure if that 'something else' was going to be dangerous or not.

When Gandalf had promised a burglar, Thorin had told the old man that there was no guarantee of safety for whatever poor fool Gandalf had acquired. Thorin had been firm, there would be no attachment to a thief and vagabond from him or his lot. But the Urs stood behind the so-called burglar, hands on their weapons, even as the Ris circled around him, fingers brushing against the hobbit's cloak not-so-subtly claiming the creature as kin. That wasn't even to mention that Nori stood behind Bilbo and smiled.