Chapter Text
Chapter 9
Bilbo left his and Thorin's rooms early the next morning while Thorin still slept, closing the door quietly behind him with a fond smile. Thorin had been such a light sleeper on the journey but now, Bilbo suspected he would sleep through a dragon attacking Erebor once again. He let his husband sleep as much as possible.
Dwalin waiting outside their rooms was a bit of a surprise. Normally, Balin met Bilbo. Dwalin, unperturbed by Bilbo’s stunned expression, nodded a greeting. “You’ve been slacking, Your Majesty,” Dwalin rumbled.
“Slacking?” Bilbo demanded, his nose scrunching and his eyebrows drawing together in a perturbed scowl as he thought of all the work he'd done around the mountain and the lessons he'd been taking from Balin in various matters of all things dwarrow. “I beg your pardon!”
“Oh, aye,” Dwalin said. “Haven’t seen you down in the training yard once since Thorin was dragged off the ice. Can’t have the prince consort of the mightiest dwarrow kingdom turning to flab.”
Bilbo sputtered even as Dwalin nudged him down the hall. “Now wait just a- I am not- Now you listen- Will you stop that!” He swatted at Dwalin’s prodding hands. Dwalin folded his arms across his chest and stared down at Bilbo with raised eyebrows and a deep frown. Bilbo ignored the look and straightened his waistcoat. “Now you listen here,” he told Dwalin, “I am perfectly fine as I am, thank you very much. I don’t need you dragging me off to be beaten to a pulp by some bruiser with permission to swing a sword at me.”
“Look laddie. It doesn’t matter how much exercise you’re getting with Thorin in private.” Bilbo told himself he was imagining the slight leer Dwalin gave him at that. “If you’re not seen training alongside the rest of us, you’ll be seen as weak. We can’t have a weak monarch while we’re still so newly returned to our homeland.”
Bilbo cleared his throat, his nose twitching slightly as he realized how true Dwalin’s words were. Part of him wanted to continue arguing. No self-respecting Baggins was as thin as he was or had the hard muscles (small though they were compared to his husband’s) or trained with any sort of weapon other than the pen or a well-executed social dinner party.
But he was no longer a respectable Baggins, he reminded himself. He had yet to talk to Thorin about the particulars yet, but he still planned to take his husband’s name. Granted, Bilbo Oakenshield didn’t sound nearly as heroic as Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain, Restorer of Erebor, blah, blah, blah did, but that wasn’t the point.
According to Balin, all dwarrow trained, especially the royal family. A Baggins he had been, but a member of the line of Durin he was now. He needed to adapt to more than just accepting the part of him that loved Thorin in a way that frightened him and would have his relatives gasping in dismay at the scandal of it all.
Bilbo’s lips thinned for a moment in a grim, determined line before relaxing. “Let me get Sting,” he said and ducked back into his rooms as quietly as he could.
“Tell that lazy husband of yours to get his sorry carcass out of bed. He’s due to start training today as well. Oin’s orders.”
Grumbling, Bilbo went into the bedroom to do as ordered.
Thorin slept peacefully on his back, one arm stretched out to the side, the other hand resting on his stomach. The position begged Bilbo to climb back into bed and lay next to Thorin again as he had through the night, head cushioned on the pillow next to Thorin’s (and admittedly on top of some of that mane of glorious hair) and fingers laced with the hand resting peacefully on his husband’s body. After taking a few minutes to admire the shirtless view and knowing there was nothing beneath the blankets and furs draped across anything below Thorin’s waist except a deliciously strong body, Bilbo sighed and went to sit on his side of the enormous bed.
“Thorin,” he murmured quietly and reached out to run his fingers along the coarse beard. “It’s time to wake up Love.”
The arm stretched out along the bed reached up suddenly and pulled Bilbo down to the bed. “Too early,” Thorin grumbled. “Sleep now.”
Face now pressed against shoulder and neck, Bilbo smiled and placed an open-mouthed kiss to the stubble-roughened skin, tracing his tongue along one of the thick muscles below Thorin’s ears.
“I’m awake,” Thorin said and turned to return the kiss, slinging a leg over Bilbo’s and drawing him closer.
“Good,” Bilbo said, “because Dwalin is outside waiting for us. Apparently, we both return to weapons training this morning.”
Thorin groaned and rolled back onto his back. “Tell him he can namin men burk.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’ve just said and I don’t think I want to know,” Bilbo said. “Get up. Get dressed. I thought you’d be pleased Oin has cleared you for weapons training.”
“I am pleased,” Thorin said and sat up, “but I have never enjoyed early morning training sessions, especially after severe injuries. And all I said is that Dwalin can kiss my-”
“Thorin!”
“Ax. What vulgar things do you think I would have you repeating?”
Bilbo retrieved Sting from the chest at the foot of the bed. “Going by the things you were saying last night that I could understand, let alone what I couldn’t, I wasn’t sure.” Even thinking about their time awake in bed the night before made Bilbo’s ears redden. When he glanced up, Thorin just smirked at him in the most self-satisfied way.
“I don’t recall you complaining,” he rumbled in that horribly unfair, gorgeously deep voice of his.
“Yes, well,” Bilbo cleared his throat and turned his attention to buckling Sting’s sheath to his side. “I’ll expect you to thoroughly educate me on your language later.”
Thorin grinned wolfishly at that before climbing out of bed. He sauntered over to an openly staring and blushing Bilbo to place a deep kiss on the hobbit’s lips. “I’ll be sure to do that tonight,” he promised and went to get dressed, smirking with self-satisfaction at Bilbo’s whine at the loss of contact.
~*~*~
Thorin grimaced as he took the flat of Dwalin’s sword solidly against his shoulder.
“You’re slipping,” Dwalin said and darted away from Thorin’s return thrust. “Sitting around too long in meetings with not a threat in sight has made you slow and soft.”
“I was stabbed in the chest,” Thorin growled, panting and limping. His foot, though healed enough he didn’t feel pain from it in his regular daily activity, ached every time his weight rested fully on it during the strain of training. He grimaced through the pain, knowing the ache come from atrophied muscles he needed to rebuild. In the meantime, Dwalin was partially right. He was slow.
Dwalin charged again and Thorin met him with a snarled curse in khuzdul. He jerked his elbow up, trying to bash Dwalin’s jaw but the larger dwarf skipped backwards, away from the blow. Thorin waited where he was, knowing better than to follow the motion. Weakened as he was, tired as he was, he knew following Dwalin would only make matters worse. Better to let Dwalin move more, expend more energy and act defensively than to charge blindly at a larger opponent with greater endurance.
Dwalin darted in again, silent except his booted feet scuffing on the hard-packed dirt floor of the training arena.
“Thorin!”
Bilbo’s shout drew his attention enough to make Thorin glance aside. Still, he swept his sword up in a wide arc, knocking Dwalin’s blade aside and sending it spinning and sliding along the dusty floor. “What is it Bilbo?” he asked, ignoring Dwalin’s amused chuckle as he went to retrieve his blade.
Bilbo caught his arm and drew him to the far side of the training arena, near the archery targets where only Kili and Tauriel worked, so caught up in their little competition that they wouldn’t notice the hushed conversation behind them.
“What is going on?” Bilbo asked once he deemed them far enough away from the dwarrow in the room that he wouldn’t be overheard.
“What do you mean?” Thorin asked, one eyebrow drifting towards his hairline.
Bilbo huffed and glanced around before meeting Thorin’s eyes again. “Is there danger here? In the mountain I mean?”
“What would give you that idea?”
Bilbo scowled at the question. “I don’t know. Perhaps I’m being paranoid or perhaps you just had a fancy to watch Nori teach me how to locate hidden weapons on a person, how to notice signs of someone trying to murder me, and ways to keep that from happening,” he hissed angrily. “Now, am I being paranoid or is there a reason you seem to think I need to be able to notice assassination attempts?”
Thorin’s lips thinned down to a mulish line as he thought over what to say. “Nori has heard rumors that there may be some in the mountain that are less than pleased with our marriage and may attempt to remedy it by taking matters into their own hands.”
Bilbo sighed. “Right,” he grumbled. “Now I really am going to be paranoid about everyone around me except the Company.”
Thorin pressed a kiss against Bilbo’s forehead. “I hardly think you will be in any true danger. You are capable of protecting yourself as you have shown us all time and again. Having Nori teach you is just a precaution. And it’s not paranoia if someone really is out to get you.”
“Thank you for that wonderful thought,” Bilbo groused as he leaned his forehead against Thorin’s chest with a sigh.
Thorin wrapped his arms around Bilbo and rubbed the tip of his nose against Bilbo’s hair affectionately. “If you wish it, I will not leave your side Ghivashel.”
Bilbo tipped his head back and stood on his toes, catching Thorin’s lips with his own as he placed his hands on the dwarf’s hips. He sighed at the contact, releasing tension and as much stress as he could at the same time before leaning away a little and breaking the kiss. “You would get absolutely nothing done. No. You’ll have to continue going about your kingly duties. Brooding majestically during dull meetings, sweeping dramatically through the corridors of your kingdom, reclining nobly on your throne, that sort of thing.”
Thorin’s lips twitched up at one corner. “I can think of other things to do on that throne if you’d be willing,” he rumbled with a suggestive lift of his eyebrows.
Bilbo swallowed against the sudden image in his head before clearing his throat and licking his lips. He reached up to rub the tip of his nose, disguising the twitch of the muscles there. “Yes, well. We’ll talk about that later. For now, I think Dwalin’s ready to thrash you again.”
“If you’ll remember, I disarmed him before this conversation started,” Thorin remarked as he followed Bilbo.
Bilbo waved a dismissive hand before rejoining Nori who said something that made Bilbo glare and snap something at the spymaster.
“What had your pretty little husband’s knickers in a twist?” Dwalin asked as he came to stand next to Thorin. He didn’t even see the flat of Thorin’s blade until after it had slammed into the back of his knee, sending him into an undignified heap at the king’s feet.
“That’s my pretty little husband you’re eyeing,” Thorin remarked. “I suggest you remember that.”
Dwalin laughed as he stood up again. “Aye, I’ll remember. Forgive me for admiring the view.”
Thorin didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he said, “He wanted to know why I’d set Nori to teaching him to detect those that may be attempting an assassination.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“The truth,” Thorin said as he turned towards Dwalin. “I’ll not lie to him again if I can help it. Besides, the more prepared he is, the less likely an attempt on his life is to succeed.”
“Aye, makes sense,” Dwalin said, scratching his chin through his considerable beard as he glanced at Bilbo again, watching as Nori swung a hand towards Bilbo’s neck from the side. Bilbo blocked the blow but winced when Nori stepped into his space, his booted heal resting on the top of Bilbo’s large, bare foot.
“Back to work,” Thorin ordered after a moment and leveled his sword. “I’ll wager I can best you even with a gimpy foot.”
Dwalin hefted his own sword. “I’ll not be taking money from my injured king,” he said but lunged in to start the next bout.
~*~*~
Bilbo stood with Nori near a wall in the large room. “He’s not wrong, you know,” Nori said.
“About what?” Bilbo asked.
“You are capable of protecting yourself.” Nori didn’t even look at him, eyes tracking a dwarf that was watching Tauriel and Kili. “Tell me what you see.”
Bilbo turned, following his gaze. “How did you know what he said? You were too far away to hear us. He’s got a knife at his lower back, under his tunic.”
“Good. There’s more than one way to overhear a conversation without being within hearing distance. What else?”
Bilbo watched the dwarf closely, looking for the tells Nori had warned him about. “Boot knives. Do you read lips?”
Nori smirked. “I’ll not answer that in so public a place,” he said. “Don’t forget to check beyond your target. Don’t get fixed on one person just because I’m watching them.”
Bilbo scanned the room. “Could you teach me? To read lips I mean.” Who was carrying hidden weapons besides the dwarf Nori had been watching and Dwalin? “Oh! Fili’s here and he’s only got a cane instead of those dratted crutches. I hope he’s not overdoing it. He was in a lot of pain at the coronation. I’m sure he’s got a small armory on him. Don’t even have to guess at that.”
“Find them all anyway,” Nori ordered. “Fili’s a fair hand at hiding them when he wants to be.”
Bilbo scrutinized the prince and started listing the numerous weapons he could tell were hidden beneath Fili’s clothes. He managed to identify nine knives of various sizes. When he told Nori he was finished, the spymaster smiled. “Close. You missed four, including the one in his belt buckle and the sword inside his cane.”
“A sword cane,” Bilbo said. “I can’t say I’m surprised.” He huffed at his mistake. “Where are the other two?”
“Hidden under the fur of his coat. Those are probably the hardest to notice, especially when the blades are thin and small, as Fili’s are. His uncle’s a master at weapons smithing.” Nori nodded absently in appreciation. “For that, I’ll teach you what you want to learn."
“Wonderful. When do we start?”
“Slow down there, Your Highness. We have other lessons to finish first.”
Bilbo groaned. “Can we not take a break? All this talk of hidden weapons and possible assassins is not how I expected to spend my morning.”
“Not many other weapons to be looking for at the moment,” Nori said as he pulled one of his own knives out and started fiddling with it. “I just want you to look around the room. Tell me if you see anything of note.”
Bilbo glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Have you planted things around the room to test me?”
“Just tell me what you see.”
Bilbo grumbled under his breath before turning his attention to the training grounds. “Thorin is tired,” he said first. “He’ll fall asleep in his first meeting at the rate he’s going. I’ll have to send him back to bed instead. He’s useless in meetings when he’s exhausted. No sense of diplomacy whatsoever.”
“Is the exhaustion perpetual, I wonder,” Nori murmured almost too quietly for Bilbo to hear. He decided to ignore the remark.
“Dwalin is going easy on him. He just checked that last strike.” He pulled his eyes away from his husband and the guard sparring with him, looking around. “Kili and Tauriel are both still at the archery targets. He seems determined to best her. Fili is doing the stretches Oin has ordered him too. Looks like his leg is paining him more this morning. I’m sure the snow outside the mountain isn’t helping with that. I’ll have to bring him some rosemary tea later.”
“All good details to know, but look for the abnormal,” Nori reminded him.
Bilbo nodded and tried again. “There’s a raven in here. There shouldn’t be a raven in the training grounds unless its delivering a message. This one is just sitting there.” He waived a hand at the bird perched on a barrel on the opposite side of the room. “Bard’s son Bain is training with the guard. I’m surprised Dwalin is allowing it. Oh, and so is his sister Sigrid.”
Nori followed Bilbo’s line of sight and saw the young woman hefting a practice blade in one hand. Her stance was a little off balance, but she corrected without being told, her hand shifting on the hilt as she faced off against the straw dummies often used for sword drills. Nori was about to return his attention to Bilbo when he noticed that Fili had stopped moving, sitting on the ground, leaning over his straightened, injured leg. As he watched, the prince blinked, shook his head, and reached for his toes again. “Well, now,” Nori drawled. “That is interesting.”
“What?” Bilbo asked and looked at Fili as well.
“Looks like the Crown Princeling may have found his One.”
“Really?” Bilbo demanded. “In whom?”
“The eldest Bardling.”
Bilbo scoffed. “I doubt Fili found his One in Sigrid. From what I understand, there’s a sort of pull you dwarrow feel towards them, right?”
“Usually,” Nori said. “Not all of us feel it though. I never did. Lucky for me, my Lira had the Longing or we may never have sorted ourselves properly.”
“Clearly, I have more studying to do,” Bilbo groused. “I still don’t think anything will happen between Sigrid and Fili. They barely even glanced at each other while we were in Bard’s home in Laketown.”
Nori just shook his head. “You’d be surprised at what can be said by a lack of looking,” he said.
Bilbo shook his head. “I still don’t agree.”
“Care to make a wager on that?” Nori smirked. “I’m willing to bet the two of them end up married and happily at that within a decade.”
“What are the stakes?” Bilbo asked.
“I don’t want much,” Nori said with a shrug. “Just when Thorin gives you your garden, you grow strawberries and make me something with the first harvest of each year.”
“That’s assuming Thorin gives me a garden. And strawberries? Reallly?” Bilbo asked.
Nori shrugged. “I’m filthy rich now. Don’t have to worry about making sure Ori’s fed anymore. Coin doesn’t matter anymore. Figure I’d ask for something that does matter, even if it’s just that it tastes good.”
Bilbo smiled. “You know I would bake something for you any time you asked anyway, right?”
“But where’s the fun in that?” Nori countered.
“All right,” Bilbo said. “If you win, I’ll make you something with strawberries from my own garden with the first harvest. If I win, you return all the items you’ve stolen from me since we met, including the fountain pen you nicked from my study in Bag End.”
“I’m glad you don’t want your pen back too badly,” Nori said. “You’ll not be winning it in this bet.”
“It’s too bad you won’t be getting any of my famous strawberry crumble,” Bilbo replied. “It really is delicious.”
~*~*~
Thorin spent the rest of his day avoiding the monotony of meetings and paperwork as best he could. He started by visiting Bombur and learning of their stores.
He never made it to the kitchen.
Ori intercepted him as Thorin left his and Bilbo’s rooms, having taken the time to clean up after training.
“Your Majesty? Might I have a word?” Ori asked, standing away from the wall where he’d been leaning while he waited for Thorin. Dwalin stood a few paces down the hall, respectfully giving them a modicum of privacy.
“We’ve talked about this Ori. I wish you would not call me that.” Thorin said as he finished doing up the clasp on his cloak. He had every intention of hiding in the depths of the mountain with Bofur after he visited Bombur, where it promised to be colder without all the forges being lit. It would be all too simple to just have the miner put together a report and give it to Balin, but Thorin needed an excuse to be away from dull meetings with stuffy nobles from Dain’s court. He would learn the mountain’s condition at his friend’s side as they worked their way through and planned the next repairs.
“I couldn’t! You are my king and deserve my respect. Besides, some of the others still call you that,” Ori protested.
“Your elder brother, Bofur, and Dwalin do it out of sarcasm, humor, and spite respectfully.”
“And Dori?”
“Is far too focused on propriety.” Thorin shook his head. “I’ll convince him to stop calling me that someday if it kills me.”
“It better not!” Bilbo’s voice came from the open door to their rooms.
Thorin shook his head, amused. “The point, Ori, is that when I called for aid to take back our home, twelve dwarrow, a wizard, and a hobbit answered. I can no more ask them to defer to me in such a way than I can consider any of them as less than kin.”
Ori cleared his throat, fingers fidgeting slightly on the cover of his book. “Sir?” he asked tentatively.
With a sigh, Thorin motioned for Ori to join him as he walked back towards the library. No one seemed interested in the state of their vast and valuable knowledge held within those walls apart from Ori. It seemed an ideal place to avoid certain dwarrow and their idiotic ideas about his marriage. He could work on getting Ori to use his name at a later time. “What is it you wished to speak to me about?”
“Did you know we had information on hobbits in the library?” Ori asked quietly, casting a glance back down the hall. He waved, a nervous smile plastered on his face. Thorin looked back and saw Bilbo wave as well before heading in the opposite direction. Dwalin followed behind Thorin and Ori and Balin appeared a moment later to join Bilbo, distracting the hobbit with a paper in his hands. Ori heaved a sigh of relief.
“I was not aware of that. Why do you ask?”
Ori showed him the book in his hands. The cover, now dull with lack of proper care, might be able to be restored to what was probably a vibrant green. Its spine and pages creaked and crackled in the way old, dry books tended to when Ori opened it. “This is one of a few. I found them a few days ago and thought it might be a good idea to know a little more about Bilbo and his people. I was writing a report for you when I came across distressing information.”
Thorin paused in his walking. “Distressing? In what way?”
“Well, two ways actually. One may not matter at all in fact. It all depends on certain factors and it may just be a rumor, but why someone would want to start such a rumor is a mystery. It would only serve to damage-”
“Ori,” Thorin admonished gently when it seemed the scribe wouldn’t get to this point. “What is it?”
Ori smiled a little. “Sorry. Do you happen to know if Bilbo belongs to a clan called ‘Took’?”
“He said his mother was a Took before she married his father. Why?”
Ori swallowed and opened the book to a page he’d marked with a bit of parchment. “According to this, a member of the Took family may have married a- a-”
Thorin waited for Ori to finish. “A what?” he asked when the scribe seemed unable to continue.
Ori glanced around before whispering, “A faerie!”
Thorin’s eyebrows rose. “Oh?”
Ori nodded. “There’s no proof or real record of it happening, but members of the Took family are considered odd by other hobbits. The author suggests it may be the reason.”
“How interesting. I will talk to Bilbo about it and find out what his people think of it. Don’t take it seriously for now, Ori. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”
“There is one other thing, Sir,” Ori said when Thorin seemed disinclined to add anything further. “We may be unintentionally starving Bilbo.”
Thorin’s head whipped around so fast his hair flipped around in front of his face, one bead smacking him on the cheek. He shoved the mass out of his eyes as he demanded, “What?”
“Well, hobbits eat seven meals a day.”
“We knew that,” Thorin said with a frown. “What makes you think we’re starving him?”
Ori flipped a few pages in his book and held it out to Thorin. “That’s how much they typically eat at each meal.”
Thorin’s eyes widened as he read the page. “Mahal! It’s a wonder he isn’t skin and bones!” He looked up at Ori. “Thank you for bringing this to me. I’ll talk with both him and Bombur this afternoon and make sure these numbers are correct.”
“No reason to believe they aren’t,” Ori said. “The author was a hobbit. How it got to Erebor is beyond me.”
Thorin turned to the front of the book. “Perhaps Bilbo knows who the author was,” he said. “Do you need this back now or may I borrow it?”
“You’re the king,” Ori reminded him. “You may borrow whatever you like from the library and keep it as long as you want.”
“I’ll return it later. Thank you, Ori, for bringing these concerns to me,” Thorin said, even while thinking the excuse of returning the book would be a good way to skip a useless council meeting in the future.