The Hobbit: An Unexpected Reunion

Chapter 4

The next day, the two companies traveled together at a steadier pace. Thorin's company intermingled with the sixty dwarves under the leadership of the two she-dwarves. Bilbo found himself tagging along with Fili and Kili, who had jogged along the conjoined mass to find Mira.

The she-dwarf welcomed their company and the four strolled through the remnants of the forest as they neared an open prairie. Mira inquired the two brothers about their lives in the Blue Mountains. The two brothers narrated their lives with their mother and uncle; neither mentioned their father. She and Bilbo learned that the two young dwarves had not seen most of the world outside of their home mountains. They often served as guides for merchants through the rocky ranges and were trained in the art of sword-making by their uncle. Kili and Mira had a brief exchange about archery, as the two were the best archers of the two companies. It remained to be determined which was the best.

As he and Fili listened to the two challenge each other to a competition at the next break, Bilbo noticed that Thorin had managed to march beside Fróia. The two were obviously deep in conversation and he saw Fróia laugh and Thorin smile. He was not the only one who noticed this interaction.

Mira had ceased bantering with Kili as her green eyes fell on her sister and the company she walked with. Fili picked up on what had captured her attention and asked, "What do you know about what passed between our uncle and your sister, Mira?"

The she-dwarf sighed, "My sister was different from all the other she-dwarves in the mountain. What didn't help was that she was beautiful. Everyone talked about her, Grigin's odd daughter, whose head was filled with stories from other peoples and images she could not wait to sketch. People whispered things about her. Mean, horrible things.

Our parents gave up on the possibility of anyone coming forward to woo her years before she and then Thorin started to spend time together." She glanced at the two brothers who marched beside her on either side. "You both are too young to understand, but two dwarves that were interested in one another could not spend time together in private. They had to constantly be under supervision of their family and carry out rituals that were sometimes outrageous.

What Fróia and Thorin did, broke tradition. They saw each other. They talked with each other. Spent hours together in private. Many people noticed their interactions, but thankfully nothing made it to the ears of our parents."

"Do you know if it was love?" Kili inquired. He couldn't help but wonder if the reason his uncle had never taken a wife in his exile was because he already loved another. One who had been separated from him. Thorin had never shown any interest in the few she-dwarves in their community and he could see why his uncle would have been attracted to a dwarf like Fróia. She was brave, inquisitive, stubborn in her beliefs, capable of leadership, not to mention invoked warmth and laughter whenever she spoke or even looked in someone's direction. Above all, she was just peculiar; a dwarf that wanted to know about elves and other races and cities and who was not afraid of allying herself with wolves. Most dwarves would have viewed Fróia's strangeness as something to be avoided and distrusted. But Thorin, Kili knew, was one of the more forward-thinking dwarves of the community, though he did not often show it. Kili would not have been surprised if Thorin, as a young prince, would have found Fróia's personality appealing.

Mira watched as her sister appeared to be enjoying herself in the company of the prince she knew long ago. "I don't know. I do know that no other dwarf treated Fróia the way Thorin did. He protected her, outside and inside the palace walls. Fróia didn't say much about what she learned about Thrór from Thorin, but I got the notion that he feared how his grandfather would respond to my sister's actions. But on top of that, he respected her. He didn't try to change her, as so many other dwarves had made recommended our father to do. 'Restrain her curiosities! Keep her out of the stone shop and your parlor! Hide your books and sketches and send her to work with her mother and sister on the looms!' But my father, rest his soul, didn't have the heart to change his daughter from the beauty she had become.