Chapter Text
Part One:
Dinner was possibly your least favorite meal of the day. It wasn’t the food, but rather the people you had to share it with. For some reason your uncle, King Thranduil, decided that dinner was the meal where your family would pretend to be the perfect Elven family. Sometimes you wondered if he truly was blinded by that dragon wound, because you never looked like a real family. Around the table sat your Uncle with a space empty next to him which was your Aunt’s eternal seat, your cousin, Legolas, sat across from you where he’d spend most of the evening stabbing his food and looking at you as if he wished it was you instead that he was stabbing, next to you was your mother as lovely as always, and then there was you, the halfbreed Elven-Halfling that apparently ruined the image of the perfect Elven family if your cousin’s barbs were to be believed. You’d been raised on these frosty, uncomfortable dinners most of your life, but tonight’s dinner felt different. There was a charge in the air that was waiting to go off. You could feel the energy at the back of your neck, and all you could do was hope to Eru that you were not the lightning rod tonight.
You were not lucky.
Your uncle started a casual conversation that you were only half listening to until you heard him say “and in other news, my darling niece has been included in the peace treaty with the dwarves. She shall be married as soon as her wedding trunk is packed and I’m sure it will ensure an enduring peace with the dwarves for many years to come.” He’d said it as casually as if he’d asked you to please pass the peas, but it hit you like a slap to the face.
The fork you were holding slipped out of your slack grip and clattered against your plate. “I’m sorry, what?”
“No need to apologize, dear,” your uncle said with a smirk. “A 'thank you' would be more apt as I did secure you a rather advantageous match.”
You made a noise of disgust and pushed away from the table, your bare feet slapping the stones as you ran.
“Unbelievable,” your mother muttered, throwing her napkin on her plate. She stood up to follow you. “Brother, what have you done?”
“Just my duty as the head of this house. I’ve done what you should have done when she came of age.” He stood to stare at her.
“She is my daughter. My responsibility.”
“She is my kin. I am King, and my word is final.”
They stood squaring off for a few tense seconds before Legolas downed the rest of his drink and cleared his throat. “Father, Aunt, I will speak to her.”
He found you in the study, your hands searching for the book to pull and unlock the hidden cabinet that housed your uncle’s finest alcohol.
“I don’t think a drunken stupor will change the fact that you’re getting married to a big, hairy dwarf. I don’t think it’ll even really blur his ugliness for you,” he teased, leaning against the doorway.
“You should be happy, I suppose. Getting rid of me. You’ll have my mother all to yourself,” you shot back.
He smirked, getting up off the door frame and heading over to you. “Really, you should be thanking Gandalf and father for this. I mean, you weren’t going to find love here. Who would want to marry someone as short and ungraceful as you? You’d just dilute the gene pool.” He yanked the correct book. It was two feet taller than your reach and you never would have found it on your own.
You grabbed the decanter and poured both of you glasses. You left his on the cabinet, and went to sit on the couch. “What are dwarves even like?” you asked. “I’ve never spent any time with them.”
Legolas picked up his glass and perched on the arm of the couch. He swirled the glass around, watching the amber liquid slosh before taking a sip. “Little cousin, I will tell you all about dwarves. For starters, they are terribly impatient. I mean, look at the circumstances of your pending nuptials. He can’t even be patient and woo a woman properly. No, dwarves must have what they want whenever they want it.”
Part 2:
Thorin sat at his grandfather’s desk in his old study. It was one of the first rooms he’d unearthed after they won the battle of the five armies. The room wasn’t back to its former glory yet. Dust was on the books and cobwebs still hung in the corners. There was a scorch mark on the double doors leading in. Yet, this was where he decided to set up a sort of command center for the repairs on the mountain. He could hear the chisels and banging of the reconstruction going on around him. He’d left Dain in charge while he settled this matter with Gandalf.
“Do you think she’ll resent it?” he asked Gandalf, his pen dripping ink onto the treaty spread out before him. King Thranduil’s signature was in one corner–lavish and flashy, much like the king himself. He’d barely left Thorin any room for his name.
“I think that she knows to trust me and that it is for the best for the kingdoms involved,” Gandalf said, lighting his pipe. “You never did tell me why you asked for her hand as part of the negotiations.”
“She’s too beautiful to be shunned and hidden away in his labyrinth of tunnels,” Thorin told him.
“So you’d rather hide her under a mountain instead.”
“No, old friend. I’d rather showcase her by my side.” Thorin smiled, looking up at the ceiling as though he could really see the world above. “Dwarves always delve deep–some might say too deep. I’ve learned that there is a certain beauty to the world above. I intend to build up as well as down, and she will be my guide.” He frowned, looking down at the treaty. The dwarves had not gotten much in the exchange as the elves had decided that reparations were owed since the dwarves were to blame for most of what happened. However, Thorin got what he had wanted most–the niece of the Elven King. Ever since he laid eyes on her, he knew that he had to survive the battle, and it was the thought of her that kept him from slipping away into sleep like his ancestors after fighting Azog. Thorin signed his name on the treaty and stamped his wax seal beneath it. “Here you are. Take it back to them.”
Gandalf took the treaty and nodded. He gave the king a slight bow before exiting the room. “I’ll return when I’m meant to.”
Thorin sat back in the chair with a sigh. Bartering for a woman. It left a bad taste in his mouth, but it was the only way Thranduil would have allowed it. After all, Thorin wasn’t getting any invitations into his hall anytime soon. When Thorin had asked about the beauty on the battlefield, Thranduil had just smirked and asked him what she was worth to him. That was when Thorin knew the dwarves would not get a fair deal in these negotiations. But, he had his mountain back. His people could come home. To ask for anything more would have been greedy.
He got out of his chair and strolled through the mountain, taking stock of all the repairs that had been done and what still had to be fixed. Workers shuffled around him, quickly bowing before going back to work. The dragon had done much damage both in its initial attack and during the subsequent years. A group of dwarves were washing the soot off a wall when Bilbo fell in step beside him.
“When are you returning to the Shire?” Thorin asked, feeling the warm presence of his friend. “If I recall you have an acorn to plant and a garden to tend to, Master Burglar.”
“And abandon my king in his time of need? Perish the thought,” Bilbo teased. “After all, I am the royal burglar to the king under the mountain, and you still need me.”
“We stole back the mountain. What else is there to steal?” Thorin asked in amusement.
“The short elf’s heart.”
Thorin laughed. “I don’t think you can steal that for me. I think I must steal that for myself.”
“It’ll be a hard job. She’s used to nature. There isn’t a lot of that down here. Honestly, I don’t even know how you’d get a garden started down here. There’s no sunlight,” Bilbo said, scratching his chin.
They continued walking in silence for a bit, looking at this room and that until they came into a wide cavern. The last time Thorin had been in here, it had been full to the brim with gold. Now, it was wide and empty with holes in the ceiling made by Smaug during battle. The holes created natural openings to the surface where sunlight spilled in, filling the place with a warm glow of afternoon sun.
“I think I may take you up on your offer, Master Burglar,” Thorin said with a grin.
“Which one?”
“To help me steal her heart.”
“And how do you suppose we go about doing that?”
Thorin gestured to the space around them. “We’ll plant a garden here. It’ll be a kind of oasis for her among all the rock.”
Bilbo surveyed the room for a moment before nodding. “Yes. I think it can be done. Give me a day to get in touch with Bard. I think he could help us with supplies.”
“Whatever you need,” Thorin said, feeling a renewed sense of hope that perhaps he’d be able to rebuild Erebor into something bigger and better than it was before.
It took two days for Bilbo to have the supplies delivered, and Fili and Kili complained about having to drag soil through the mountain to the cavern.
“You paid for this stuff, Uncle? You should’ve just let us out with a shovel. Could’ve saved you some coin,” Kili grumbled, dropping a bag of soil on the ground.
“Is this even stuff that’s edible?” Fili asked, looking at the flowers in front of him.
“We’re planting some herbs, but this is mostly for show,” Thorin admitted, taking the astor from him. His nephews looked at him like he had six heads and left as Bilbo strolled in.
“Ah, good! The first shipment.” Bilbo looked it all over. “Let’s see, you’ve got the astor, there’s the gladiolus, and there’s chamomile.”
“Isn’t that used for sleeping?” Thorin asked, looking at the herb.
“Yes, it is a comforting tea brew,” Bilbo explained as he started to rip open the soil bags with sting. “Let’s spread the soil for this section first and then we’ll begin to plant.”
“Normally, the king makes the orders… but since you’re the garden expert, I suppose I’ll make an exception,” Thorin said, slipping off his coat and rolling up his sleeves. The pair got to work.
Spreading the soil took longer than expected. A few days longer, to be precise. Thorin was itching to plan something–to feel life between his fingertips and not just dirt, dirt, and more dirt. When they finally got enough of the section covered, he was ecstatic, grabbing plants by the handfuls. Bilbo admonished him and told him to be gentler. Plants were fragile and needed to be tended. Thorin was sure he heard the hobbit mumble something about stupid dwarves under his breath, but he was helping him so Thorin couldn’t afford to throw a clump of soil at his head even if he really wanted to.
Working in the garden was hard work–almost as hard as working in the forge–and very time consuming. Thorin leaned back to survey what they’d planted so far and wiped his brow. They’d only managed to plant in the one corner of the cavern. “This is going to take some time.”
Bilbo looked over at him from where he was kneeling amid the chamomile. “How much time do you have?”
“We agreed that I’d wait however long it takes for her to make her bridal trunk.”
Bilbo winced. “How do you know if she’ll finish in a timely manner?”
“I don’t.”
“Thorin–and don’t take this the wrong way–but what will you do if she doesn’t want to marry you once she gets here?”
Thorin looked down at the gladiolus in his hand, stroking a bright red petal. “She will. I would wait for her as long as it takes. She will be worth the wait.”