Chapter Text
He has heard rumors, the whispers of stories. Mirkwood has fallen, and the Necromancer (they say) has found something he once lost, and orcs and darker things are crawling through every acre of land between the Misty Mountains and the Iron Hills. Rumor says that some great elf-enchantress has been drive from her grove, and now rests in Rivendell; rumor says that blond horsemen with fell faces have been sweeping up from the south, and dealing with the dark power at Dol Goldur under the leadership of their decrepit king.
For Thorin, King Under the Mountain, this means little. The Dwarves are for the Dwarves, and he is the lord of them, now that Dáin is dead. Dark things move in the world; and dark things whisper in Thorin's heart, rumor and suspicion.
Yet in this growing dark, there are a few things Thorin will not stand, the chiefest of these being dwarves enslaved to orcs; so when the slave-drivers come, Thorin sends his unruly nephews out to hinder them, and to bring home the lost children of Mahal whenever they are found.
Most of these caravans are populated with men and elves, and they will die quickly, Thorin knows; no use to waste his strength upon them, who will not give him aid even if they live, and who will not suffer long. But dwarves were made to endure, and they are precious to this Necromancer with his machines and strip-mines, which must be run in the dark and deep places, reeking with foul vapors, filthy and loud; and dwarves can endure them.
And if this gives his nephews something to do, to placate their unrest and their growing ill-temper, it is only a secondary blessing. Most of all Thorin wants them to see-- these loud brash dwarves that his lads have become, with their strange foreign friends and their gold-heavy eyes-- what an alliance with the Necromancer would become.
For he has sent envoys, oh yes he has, promising safety from the coming war, promising tools and engines that plow the earth more efficiently than the knowledge of dwarves, promising bushel-baskets of sapphires and cities made of gold. And Thorin has seen his nephews' faces, and recognized the ancestral gold-madness there; so it is for the best, that Fili and Kili learn who are the true foes of Erebor.
Now they stand before him, dark triumph glittering in their eyes, and besides their rescued kin they have taken one more, an elf in chains and hooded with a rough sack, as if they bring him to the headsman instead of to their uncle's throne. White-gold hair falls from beneath the filthy cloth, and Thorin's mouth goes dry.
"We've brought you a gift," says Fili, smirking. "Almost left him, but Kili recognized his face."
"What have you done," says Thorin, hoarse, knowing that what he feels in the next few moments will destroy him; and Kili laughs and pulls off the hood, and it is after all these dark last days Thranduil kneeling chained and filthy at the foot of his throne. His face is thin, but still beautiful; he is draped in rags, and still more haughty than any king.
Old familiar rage uncurls in Thorin's chest like a dragon awakened upon its hoard, and his worry for the souls of his sister-sons vanishes in a tide of greed and punishing rage and half-forgotten sorrow. He is off his throne in a heartbeat, and he nods voiceless to the lads as he takes Thranduil's chain, hauling the elvenking upright.
He has never ended an audience so abruptly, but then he has never needed anything so urgently, not gold nor throne nor Arkenstone. He has imagined this before. He has spent some time poring over old scrolls and tomes, feeding the dark fires of his heart with the histories of captured and tortured elves and how their fates were spelled out; and if deep in his heart some more innocent self is protesting, he knows-- he is sure he knows-- exactly how far he can push and still keep his revenge.