Grudge

The company shivered wet and cold in the downpour, squinting into the distance to follow the red light of Aureth's wing as the thick clouds and trees around them cast the forest in shadow. Sheets of rain came down so densely that the fairy's figure several meters in front of them blurred and only the pulsing glow of her wing which she had extended out as a light source could be seen.

Most of the dwarves had endured the beginning of the storm by holding coats over their heads but as the rain kept pouring, the coats became more and more useless.

Making a noise of frustration, Oin gave up holding up his cloak and shoved the soaked through fabric away because at this point, it was contributing to the cold rather than preventing it.

"Mr. Gandalf, can't you do something about this deluge?" Dori demanded as politely as he could, given that he was about ready to follow Oin's example.

Unlike the rest of them, the wizard had a hat with a rim wide enough to actually keep his face relatively dry and he replied is a tone far too breezy for the rest of the company's liking, "It is raining, Master Dwarf! And it will continue to rain until the rain is done."

"Can someone ask Miss Aureth to come back here?" Ori squeaked softly, voice trembling with the cold. "We could really use that fire right about now."

"For the last time," Aureth yelled from somewhere farther up the forest trail, "however much my wing looks like fire, it is not."

"How did she hear that?" an alarmed Dori whispered.

"There are probably many things Aureth has heard that you don't know about, Master Dori," Gandalf supplied helpfully, going to light his pipe but then realizing he couldn't because both his pipe and the herbs inside were too wet to catch fire.

"Just the visual would be enough!" Gloin called out to the fairy. "Don't you know the body can be tricked into feeling warm if it thinks a fire a close by?"

"Do you think she heard what I said yesterday about her cooking?" a suddenly flustered Kili whispered urgently to his brother.

"I'm hired as a scout, not a fake heater or a cook," Aureth responded, revealing that yes, she had also heard what Kili was whispering about, and her tone making it clear that she was done with this conversation. "Please do not make outrageous requests, Master Klein."

Several of the dwarves badly hid their snickers while Gloin's face heated up.

"My name is Gloin! And what do you mean outrageous—"

Even Thorin cracked a smile at Aureth misremembering Gloin's name which was so blatantly on purpose. "Enough, Gloin," he held the red-haired dwarf back before he could ride forward and give the fairy a piece of his mind. "You can surely endure a few hours more of this weather. The fairy was hired her recon ability, not for her wings."

Gloin opened his mouth to reply but then paused before reluctantly closing it out of respect for Thorin, just settling with grumbling to himself quietly.

"I agree," Balin nodded to Thorin, "I can't help but feel it disrespectful to the lassie to rely on her wing too much. We should all understand that a fairy's wings are not a plaything."

Up ahead, Aureth appeared to have disappeared over a hill as the red light of her wing could no longer by seen, and suddenly it became painfully clear to the dwarves how lost the company would have been without the warm glow to lead them.

"I just wanted you to know that I defended your cooking, Miss Aureth!" Fili called desperately—albeit a little late—into the rain, hoping to strongly differentiate himself from his brother who now had a strong chance of being on the fairy's blacklist given the choice words he had for the stew she had been in charge of making for dinner last night.

"That's cute. You all think I have feelings," Aureth's responded indifferently as she reappeared over the hill and began to walk back towards them. "Judging by the wind direction, the rain will lighten soon. Over that hill, there's a descent down a medium sized cliff. From there, it looks like the next landmark is an abandoned village and beyond that, the forest ends at the Ford of Bruinen."

"How far to that abandoned village?" Thorin asked.

"I reckon three leagues."

"You could see that far?" Ori asked, amazed.

"We'll wait a few hours after the rain settles and then descend the cliff safely," Thorin said, an unreadable look in his eyes. "Afterwards, we'll head for the village and decide our direction from there."

"We are not heading for Bruinen?" Aureth, whose mind had automatically identified Bruinen and the Hidden Valley as good stop locations, asked, genuine confusion furrowing her brows. "How else will we pass through Rivendell?"

Thorin's gaze was coolly detached as he looked her straight in the eye, his slight height over her on his mount making his expression look unbelievably arrogant, "Why do you assume we will naturally pass through that place?"

"Tch," Aureth's eyes narrowed at the sudden unpleasant tone with which he addressed her and the end of one of her eyebrows twitched as she replied in the most condescending manner she could muster, "Excuse me for looking for the easiest, most efficient route to the Lonely Mountain and keeping an eye on our bloody supply inventory."

"I am ordering you to find a route that avoids that place," Thorin hardly wavered despite Aureth's protest and if anything he seemed to become even haughtier with each word much to Aureth's agitation.

The fairy glowered as she quickly lost the will to even try to understand such a stupid decision, and she directed her attention to Gandalf, hoping he would back her up, but one look at the sympathy in his eyes and Aureth could tell that the wizard had already exhausted this argument with Thorin.

Seeing as no one else had any objections to voice, Thorin turned away from Aureth and briskly rode past her. It took all of Aureth's willpower not to startle his pony has he passed.

Following Thorin's orders, the company reached the abandoned village Aureth was talking about—which turned out to simply be one home with a couple of farmhouses than an actual village—by the end of the next day. Although there were still a few hours of daylight left, Thorin gave the instruction to set up camp for the night there, and the majority of the party sighed in relief at the early rest.

"Fili, Kili, look after the ponies. Make sure you stay with them," Thorin was saying as Gandalf curiously wandered over to the ruins of the nearest farmhouse. "Oin, Gloin, get a fire going."

Aureth narrowed her eyes at Gandalf's strange interest in the ruins and quietly approached him, half interested in what he was looking at and half hoping she could skip out on getting ordered to help with setting up camp, uninteresting grunt work that Aureth subconsciously felt herself above. "Gandalf …?"

"A farmer and his family lived here…" the wizard murmured, tilting his head up to get a good look at the old structure.

Aureth followed his gaze but couldn't see anything noteworthy. "And that means…?"

When the wizard at last met her gaze, Aureth detected something quite foreign in his eyes, a deeply rooted discomfort that she had never seen disturb him before. "I think it would be best for us to move on…"Gandalf raised his voice for the last part so as to catch the attention of the dwarves scattered in the vicinity. "We can make for the Hidden Valley."

That's what I said. Aureth couldn't help but sigh as this circular conversation started again.

"I told you already," Thorin marched up the steps to where Gandalf and Aureth were, "I will not go near that place."

"Why not?" Gandalf demanded, "The elves could help us. We could get food, rest, advice."

Aureth felt like throwing her hands up in the air to cheer the wizard on.

"I do not need their advice."

While Thorin's voice grew progressively more aggressive and dangerous, Gandalf did a better job at staying calm, presenting his arguments objectively, "We have a map that we cannot read. Lord Elrond could help us."

"Help?" the word evidently triggered Thorin's rage and the dwarf stepped up closer to the Gandalf, nudging a sour Aureth out of the way. "A dragon attacks Erebor and what help came from the elves? Orcs plunder Moria, desecrate our sacred halls… the elves looked on and did nothing. You ask me to seek out the very people who betrayed my grandfather and my father."

"You are neither of them," Gandalf kept his voice low, perhaps to not make a scene as most the dwarves and Bilbo haven't noticed the argument yet, but he practically bit out his next words, "I did not give you that map and key for you to hold on to the past!"

"I did not know they were yours to keep."

Thorin barely finished his rebuttal before it became evident that Gandalf's patience had snapped, and the wizard was already stomping away in anger much to Aureth and Bilbo's—who had just taken noticed of Gandalf's foul mood—horror.

"E-Everything all right?" the hobbit called as the wizard stormed past him, "Gandalf, where are you going?"

"To seek the company of the only one around here who's got any sense!" was Gandalf's exasperated reply which he spoke without even turning around.

Am I not right here? Aureth made a bewildered face, wondering what the hell she did wrong for Gandalf to not consider her sensible.

"Who's that?" Bilbo asked.

"Myself, Mr. Baggins! I've had enough of dwarves for one day."

The company watched Gandalf disappear into the woods nearby and while the dwarves didn't show much concern, shrugging before going back to their work, Bilbo was a ball of nerves, looking around for any sort of reassurance, "I-Is he coming back?"

Neither Aureth nor any of the dwarves could answer him. Instead, the fairy plastered the most plastic smile on her face before chirping to Thorin, "Well, that was handled spectacularly."

Thorin shot her a hooded glare before turning and walking away without dignifying her comment with a response.

Deep into the night, Aureth sat by the fire where Bombur and Bofur cooked soup, occasionally glancing to her left where Gandalf disappeared off to and then to the right where she'd last seen Thorin before he too—she assumed—vanish off somewhere to brood.

"Look at them, sulking like children," Aureth muttered darkly when once again, she saw no sign of either of their returns.

Bilbo who had been hanging out around the edge of their camp, looking out for the wizard's reappearance, came stumbling back a moment later, very much trying to keep his anxiety under control, "He's been gone a long time…"

"Who?" Bofur replied with nonchalance as he tasted the soup he had been stirring.

"Gandalf," the hobbit answered somewhat exasperated by the lack of concern his companions were showing.

"He's a wizard! He does as he chooses," Bofur said dismissively as he focused on not spilling the soup as he scooped two bowls. "Here, do us a favor and take this to the lads."

Bilbo sputtered a little as the two bowls were pushed into his hands, and he was given a gentle nudge in the general direction where Fili and Kili had been sent off to look after the ponies. He looked like he wanted to protest but when it became clear that no one was paying attention to him anymore, the hobbit huffed and dutifully marched off with the soup.

"Do you think Thorin's calmed down by now?" Aureth asked no one in particular, as several dwarves began gathering around the fire, lured by the smell of food. The fairy turned the idea of going to look for him over and inside her head. Between a dwarf and a wizard, the former would no doubt be much easier to find, and Aureth needed at least one of them to come back and direct the party because she wasn't a leader and Bilbo definitely wasn't one either. "Maybe I should go search for him."

Meanwhile, Bofur scooped several more bowls of soup, "I would imagine so. Sometimes he just needs some time to himself. If you're going to go look for him, bring this to him, will you?"

Aureth frowned down at the bowl of soup the dwarf shoved at her and thought about just how stupid she would look wondering through the woods at night holding it. After making an unimpressed face at Bofur, however, she reluctantly got up; at least delivering the soup made a good excuse if Thorin didn't want to see her.

As expected, Thorin didn't hide very well, and Aureth found him seated against the base of the farmhouse furthest away from where the company made camp. From there, the leader could keep an eye on the company by their shadows around the cooking fire while staying out of their sight.

The flash of gold that disappeared into his coat as he noticed the fairy's approach told her that he had probably been fiddling with the key he got from Gandalf and quickly put it away to keep it from her prying eyes.

Not that Aureth really cared about his family heirlooms and whatnot enough to look, but she at least had the decency to pretend she didn't see if only to make Thorin relax. "Soup," she said as a greeting, bending down to hand him the steaming bowl.

Thankfully, Thorin's mood seemed to have settled to a more agreeable level, and he looked more pensive than annoyed when he looked from the soup to Aureth's face before taking the bowl. Mild skepticism flashed across his countenance though as he examined its contents with his spoon.

"Don't worry, I didn't make it," Aureth said drily as she straightened and leaned her back against the building behind her, looking out straight ahead and making no move to leave. "Bofur did."

"I see," Thorin chuckled and Aureth knew she had guessed his thoughts correctly. He had a nice laugh, mellow and low.

A surprisingly comfortable silence fell between them save for the singing of summer crickets, occasional bird call, and muffled chatter of the company far away but Aureth purposefully spoke up before the quiet could truly settle.

"You know, if you really hated Rivendell that much, you could have told me sooner. We could have avoided the forest and traveled along Hoarwell instead."

Thorin paused in the middle of blowing his soup to cool it down, sharp blue gaze flickering up to gauge Aureth's expression. "I did not expect you to be so compliant."

"I am not on the wizard's side if that's what you mean," Aureth replied, still not meeting his gaze and instead keep her eyes fixed at the forest and sky before her, "at least not after I know exactly why you wish to avoid Elrond and his kin. It may be difficult for me to relate to such grudges, but I think they are a valid reason. I just wish you made it known to me sooner so these last few days wouldn't have been wasted."

"They are not wasted. There are plenty of ways to go around Rivendell even from here."

There is a fine line between stubbornness and blindness. Aureth sighed and closed her eyes momentarily as if to calm herself down, "This is where you will find that I have the empathy capacity of a teaspoon." After pushing herself from the stone wall which she was leaning on, she turned to face Thorin directly, eyes cool as glass. "I can accept a detour to satisfy your grievances, but I cannot accept purposely going around a gold mine of information and supplies when we are already at its doorsteps. Is it too much to ask that you act like a leader and use your head instead of your broken heart?"

"Do not act as though you are above me," Thorin growled, flickers of blue fire returning to his eyes. "With a life as long as yours, I wouldn't be surprised if you have more grudges than all the rest of us combined."

For some reason, the more Thorin accused her of arrogance, the more prideful Aureth became if only to push his buttons more. Tilting her chin up even though she was already taller than Thorin, she spoke coldly, "It is precisely because I have lived so long that I don't hold on to such petty feelings."

"You are trying to tell me there is no one you resent in this world. Looking at your left wing, I cannot believe that."

Aureth's back instinctively tensed at the sudden mention of her maimed left side, the sharp jab of Thorin's words hitting a part of her so unguarded—for she never thought someone would dare to strike there—that the fairy lost her breath for a moment and barely restrained herself from subconsciously taking a step back.

Looking at Aureth's reaction to his words, Thorin's glare wavered ever so slightly at the sudden turmoil and panic in the fairy's usual calm, watchful eyes, a horrific reaction that Thorin himself caused, but he quickly looked away and repaired his resolve. His lips pressed together stubbornly, refusing to let himself backpedal.

A long moment passed in which the dwarf was sure Aureth would turn away and be done with him, but the fairy didn't move.

Finally, she spoke, but her lowered voice and significantly slower speech made it clear she was holding everything under very tight control, choosing her words carefully, "If you must know, the man who did this to me is dead now, not because I killed him but because time took him."

Thorin didn't show any reaction to her unexpected honesty other than a subtle tensing in his shoulders.

"Time will take you too, believe it or not," Aureth, gaze faraway, cracked a smile-not a smile that made fun of Thorin's mortality but one that seemed to indicate somewhere deep in her soul, she had made peace with this truth. "Just as it does nothing for me to hate a man who will eventually inevitably meet his end, your mortal resentment toward the immortal elves does nothing. Do you plan to hate them for the rest of your life?"

Although there was still a subtly superior tone to Aureth's voice that rubbed Thorin the wrong way, this last question at least sounded like a genuine inquiry, and the dwarf subconsciously felt the need to truly consider his answer. Somehow, when put into such simple terms by the fairy, the situation seemed almost shallow, and Thorin paused as he sensed the implications of his answer.

Aureth seemed satisfied when Thorin couldn't give an immediate response and some faith in his good judgement returned to her. She glanced over at the dwarf for the first time in a long while to make sure he was listening as she opened her mouth again, "My life is too long to be spent hating a mortal. Your life is too short to be spent hating the immortal. I may not be the most qualified person to say this, but… Why don't you open your eyes and use them to take a good look at what is in front of you before they close forever?"

As Aureth fell silent, the wind blew, carrying the laughter of the dwarves around their campfire from far away and masking the sound of Thorin's soft sigh. He closed his eyes as if in contemplation, but Aureth could not tell for sure what he was thinking.

The dwarf wasn't immediately coming back at her with a retort, and Aureth supposed that was a good sign. Even if Thorin's pride was keeping him silent, Aureth considered herself satisfied.

"Look," she began, "Whether I look like it or not, I want this mission to succeed."

"Why?" Thorin's gaze flashed at her, and the intelligence in his eyes has never been more prominent.

Aureth thought about what the most strategic answer was, and then thought for sure that Thorin would be able to tell if she lied, so she replied without a beat of hesitation, "The prize money, of course."

He held her gaze for a few seconds as if making sure her answer was truthful before turning away, something about his demeanor relaxing but also growing a bit more distant, "As I thought. What other reason do you have to remain loyal to us?"

An uncomfortable formed in Aureth's throat, and she swallowed thickly, finding it strangely difficult to force her next words out, but she did, "I will not try to justify myself, but it is good to know we are on the same page here."

"You will get your treasure," Thorin assured, but it sounded like a cold, begrudging business promise rather than anything warm or reassuring.

"Yes," and Aureth meant it.

For all his obstinance and arrogance, Thorin did not seem the type of man to go back on his word. He is much too proud, had too much self-respect to sully his honor, and Aureth found that no matter how unpleasant he is in other aspects, she could never truly hate him as long as those qualities remained.

The silence between them became suffocating quickly, and Aureth was just in the middle of deciding whether to try remedying the situation or just abort the mission when the sound of hurrying footsteps approached behind her.

Both Aureth and Thorin looked up to see Dwalin jogging toward them, his face pale as he came to a stop before them.

"Thorin, we've got a problem."

A/N: Hello, dear reader! Thanks for your patience and for making it to the end of this chapter ^^ I'm afraid nothing really happened in this chapter, but I hope you liked these original scenes~ How am I doing writing Thorin and Aureth? Please let me know in a review! I'm always so self-conscious about their interactions because this is a Thorin/OC/(eventual) Thranduil fic and I know how painful it is to read a romance story where the interactions are kind of "meh." Please give me your honest opinion! I'll do my best depending on what you all tell me! Again, thanks for reading~ See you next time! 3