Born from Stone (A Thorin Oakenshield story)

Brothers in arms

That night Thorin locked himself up in his study denying to speak with anyone feeling truly angered by Eilin's disobedience that led Valdis to her evil sister and subsequently almost killed her. He tried to understand why his wife decided once more to work against his command, especially in a very serious matter of state. He didn't expect Eilin to follow his lead in the confines of their privacy, but he did expect her to understand that she couldn't put her finger in every single affair that troubled the King's mind. Especially when he was strictly against sharing anything with her. Even though in their personal relationship Thorin held Eilin far above himself, in his job he demanded to be allowed to act like a King and not have to look above his shoulder to see if his wife was going to trip him up again. The damage that was done to the poor girl was heartbreaking and his relationship with a valued ally and a dear friend had been shaken from the roots exactly because Eilin decided to disobey him and created a chaos around her.

Eilin was given rather suddenly a lot of power and her deepest wish was to use it in order to help people, but she lacked on experience. She didn't know how to process every information, weigh the pros and cons and then decide based upon her logic and not her emotions. She apparently helped Valdis because of the goodness of her heart, but this affair didn't need neither her nor him to act on heart. It needed cold blooded calculation because there were too many balances and alliances at stake. This heinous affair was much bigger than them, but his One had failed to understand that. She was led by her emotions, without being able to recognise every single moving piece of this bloody puzzle in order to avoid the setbacks. He could acknowledge that Eilin lacked not only in experience with ruling, which at the end of the day was not her job, but also she was much younger than him. She had lived fewer years and she had seen far less during them.

So he had an array of excuses for his beloved to use with anyone who might have tried to throw the blame on her, but he made sure that would never happen by taking it all upon himself. He didn't want this mishap to stain Eilin's reputation. His skin was much tougher, it could take much more on it before cracking. She had just gained that precious self esteem that he admired so much. He didn't want her to retreat again into the shadows, beating herself up, even though what she did was seriously wrong. This was not the way he wanted his marriage to work. He didn't want to end up distrusting her, still what happened was not reason enough to throw his beloved in the fire.

With these thoughts in mind he remained in his study, musing at the fire and studying his scrolls for most part of the afternoon. Dis knocked on his doors as a envoy from his wife, who was probably too afraid to face him after what she had done. He denied her the opportunity to speak on Eilin's behalf. What concerned his family was to be dealt only by him no matter his sister's caring intentions. That night he fell asleep on his armchair in front of the fire and Eilin thankfully didn't try to see him again. A small flare of remorse nudged his soul when he became aware that he left his very pregnant wife to sleep alone, but he silenced it easily. If this was the worst punishment he could give to Eilin then she should consider herself very very lucky. What woke him up the next morning was the pain on his back and of course a tenacious knocking on his doors.

He didn't plan to get out of his office soon as he had a lot of things to consider concerning Karunn and Fain, but when Gloin entered with the brightest smile Thorin had ever seen from him and related the surprising news, Thorin decided to break his seclusion and use this small interval to calm down his spirits. He followed Gloin down to one of the mining caverns of the deepest levels and Dwalin found the opportunity to tag along, mostly because he wanted to calm Thorin down after that incident with Dain.

"This way your Royal Highness, this way," the brakesman held up the torch that lighted up the path of the drift, leading Thorin and Dwalin through the dark passages.