Sansûkh (Bagginshield & Gigolas)

Chapter Twenty

"Meeting," Thorin growled, grabbing the tunic of the next passing Dwarrow he saw and dragging him to his eye-level. "Now."

It was Lóni, he dimly saw through his rage. The tall Dwarrow gulped. "Um. Yes, Thorin. I'll just go get everyone, shall I?"

Thorin let him go and stalked through the Halls like an avenging spectre, his face thunderous. He could hear footsteps skittering to catch up with him, but he outpaced them. He headed directly for his forge, his heart in flames.

Upon entering, he leaned against his workbench for a moment, his breath coming hard through his nose. Boromir was dead. Boromir had died, and the evil and the temptation of the Ring had finally worn down his nobility, and he had attacked the Hobbit. He had regained himself, and then he had died.

Merry and Pippin were captured.

Frodo and Sam were going to Mordor alone.

Gimli stood with the Elf and Aragorn – Aragorn who had finally taken up his true mantle. Time would tell whether he kept his word to his dead companion. Boromir.

Frerin had said it was not his fault. He was ill.

"He should not have died!" Thorin growled, and he pushed the heels of his hands against his eyes and tried to strangle the shout of fury that was building in the pit of his belly. His darting eyes fell on his hammer, and he took it up and threw it against the wall. There. That was better.

Mahal, but that had made a mess. A huge hole now stood in the wall of his workshop, and Thorin stood and stared at it for a moment, panting and incandescent with rage.

The Elf's face had been confused and so grief-stricken. Did Elves feel grief as mortals did? Or was it even deeper and sharper, ever-fresh and raw, as their memories never faded? The Elf had said they fled Middle-Earth when it overwhelmed them at last. Thorin could well believe it now. Lothlórien was a land filled with glory and sorrow. Did they ever move on from that bittersweet, lingering sadness?

He had handed Gimli his knife. He showed respect for the traditions of their people.

"Elves do not alter themselves or their ways for the sake of Dwarves," he snarled to himself, and sat down upon his chair with his head in his hands. His eyes stung.

He could not say how long he had been sitting there, his head awhirl and his heart aflame, when a cleared throat made him look up. "I keep finding you like this," Kíli said in a muted voice. "I heard. Are you all right?"

Thorin breathed in sharply through his nose again, and stood. "No. I am not all right. But I have little time to indulge myself."

Kíli's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "Wow, Mahal was right, you really are changing," he said. Then his eyes landed on the hole in the wall, and his mouth quirked in a crooked smile. "Or not, as the case may be."

Thorin only looked at him, level and hard and full of anger. Kíli lifted one shoulder awkwardly. "The meeting is called. It's in Thrór's forge, as before."

Thorin immediately strode from his workshop. Kíli rushed to follow, and he fell into step with his uncle as they made their way through the magnificent and yet faded world of the dead.

Where did Men go when they lost their mortal thread?

Thorin shook his head with a growl, willing his morbid thoughts to leave him. The Fellowship had broken. He must be strong.

Thrór's forge was packed once more, and every face turned to him as he entered. Voices raised in alarm, demanding and panicked.

Frerin hovered, his face drawn and pinched. His sadness lingered in his eyes. Thorin's rage froze in his breast, and he immediately went to him and pulled him into an embrace as the shouting and demands for information grew louder. "Are you all right?" he murmured against Frerin's hair.