Title: Bâhazunsh Ithirrig Oklit uru Adlag (Raven Telephone)
Fandom: The Hobbit
Challenge: Magic
Bingo prompt: Telephone
Rating: G
Length: 3000
Content notes: N/A
Author notes: Thanks go to Zana, Morgynleri & Icka for encouragement & sanity-checking.
Part of Iron and Light, soon after Thorin's awakening.
The letter to Bilbo is found in full in Deep Roots are not Reached by the Frost.
Summary: Thorin writes letters, Dis receives one.



It was not the height of the Mountain, the sheerness of the cliffs or the distance to the rocks below that was vertiginous; no, down was not, had never been, an issue, no more than over, or up any face or rock with purchase for foot or finger or tool. It was the unending depth of sky above that made Thorin's head spin in sick circles and stomach threaten to revolt. All that unceilinged air, filled with unfixed lamps that moved and changed. He knew now, as he had not as a child of 23 that he would not fall up forever if he allowed both boots off the ground, or unclenched his fingers from udad's hand. Knowing that did not always make it any easier to bear, though perforce it must be bourn.

There were more ways out of the Mountain than the Gate and the side-door, of course, though the others let onto what amounted to balconies and terraces, not paths that would lead down and away. Ravenhill could be reached from inside, though the way was -- or had been -- blocked off since well before the dragon. Perhaps that route had been restored, or a new one made, as other passages had been.

The idea of Ravenhill it seemed was a problem in its own right, Thorin thought bleakly, feeling phantom ice under his feet, slippery and treacherous, cold clench his heart as he saw Fíli jerk and fall, again and again in his mind's eye. But Ravenhill was where the Ravens of Erebor made their nests, and from whence messages were dispatched in days of order such as these were now. They were welcome at the Gate and had been known to favor particular windows and balconies above it on occasion, but to send the messages he needed to send, to Ravenhill he must needs go. It was summer. There was no ice. He could see from here on the third undeep promenade that the watchtower and water-sluice had been substantially rebuilt, and in the newer style favored by some of the Ered Luin architects and engineers. Gloin's sister-in-law likely had something to do with that.

He had regained enough strength, enough stamina, that the distance, the necessities of the path he would have to take to avoid the public halls and walkways (for that trial he most certainly did not have the stamina, nor would it be at all wise,) would not be beyond him. Bifur would be willing company, solving the issue of escort — Dain's requirement, and not without reason, for all it irked — and Elrond's advisement.

Doable, then, and it needed to be done. And after that was achieved, a visit to the Yew-wood would be in order.

But the letters needed to be written first. And that he would do in private, under stone, not under open air.

*** * ***

Dis, dear sister,

I write, knowing words to be entirely inadequate to the purpose to which I must use them. I regret I cannot say these things in person, that a letter must serve. You will have heard Caörc speak of my waking from the Sleep under Stone. You doubt this news, never one for taking an unsupported word, but it is true. I know not how you will receive it, but will not fail of telling you by my own hand.

This will not be news, but I must say it: Your sons, Fili and Kili most beloved, died defending me and this kingdom, a grief, legacy and honor-gift there is no deserving, nor denying; only going forward as best I may, honoring their memory, their choice, their acts. I do not hope for your forgiveness that they are not returned to you; I do not forgive myself.

I live. Elrond tells me to expect no lasting impairment, but that I should not venture long or far from the Mountain. Oin agrees. You are Longbeard Uzbad in Ered Luin, you decide the authority you will answer to. The Mountain, and I, would welcome you, do you choose to come.

Thorin

He stoppered the ink-pot and set down the pen, wiping the mithril nib free of the last few drops of ink with fingers that twinged less at the unaccustomed effort than he might have expected. The lines of cirth were reassuringly even, the fine strokes smooth and straight, the only wobbles in his own name, signature both like and unlike the form in Westron or Tengwar, the looping script of the distant South, the brush-stroke characters of the even more distant South-East.

(Memory fragments flitted in the back of his mind, the corners of his eyes — of sitting in this chamber, at this writing desk, struggling to shape his name in all those different letters, already knowing he would get no useful answer if he asked why he must know so many different ways to write his name or any other. "Because you are a Prince of the Line of Durin" was not an answer. It still wasn't, though Thorin had come to appreciate being able to read and write in forms in which few believed Dwarves to be either conversant or literate. Impatiently, he pushed the memories away.)

The nearly translucent paper was new, like the fresh, perfectly made carbon-black ink, but desk, pen, ink-pot, blotter and everything else was old, some of it very old. Gold and gems had held more value to Smaug than the Making that had gone into what to him were merely trinkets and ordinary things. The treasury, the raw material of the workshops, the merchant's goods, everything easily swept up into a pile had been; but crucibles, ore, gilding, inlay, structural embellishment and the like had all been too much trouble to collect, and items in rooms small or distant or otherwise inconvenient to the central core of the Mountain the wyrm had been largely content to leave where they lay. Who, after all, would dare the front gate to take them? And thus they had remained all the long years of Smaug's occupation, preserved by still, dry air, the virtues and intent in their making.

(Now it occurred to Thorin to wonder whether the bulk of Dale's wealth had been collected by the dragon, or thieved away by smaller and more nimble hands. Dale's treasury had never been kept in the Mountain, even though Erebor's coin-smiths minted their money; the metal weight and craft — not the face value of the coins — in exchange for 'goods of the Green Lady's growing', and other useful things; a fixed part of the Contract between Mountain and Vale, scrupulously observed. There had been no Men in the Mountain the day the dragon came, the coin-presses silent. More recent, fevered memory recalled a spill of red-gold Rohirric marks, dark against the electrum of Gondorian double-Lights, and a filigree box of Haradic sequin-ropes, but no more than the odd silver shilling or copper penny-piece of Dalish money, in all he had seen of the piled hoard. He had seen something of Dale's treasures though, more recently than his childhood, but the faint thought refused to resolve. He let those thoughts recede as well. They would re-emerge if important, the sooner and better for not scrambling for them.)

The new paper looked less out of place in this room than he felt. He was still half expecting to turn and see dim ruination on every side, taste burnt dust and bitter ash, hear Kíli's laughter or Dwalin's caustic commentary, but that was all past, not present. Lamps glowed everywhere one might look, the great fans and vents that moved and refreshed the air had long dispersed the miasma of dragon breath, neglect, and death. Dwalin and Bofur were half the world away; Fíli and Kíli immeasurably further than that — and yet near as thought. Grief cramped sharply in Thorin's chest and he made himself breathe through it. Not ashamed — never ashamed of deep or strong feeling, love or grief or any other — but determined not to allow it to incapacitate or overrule him. And he was as unwilling as he ever was to make a gift of his private feelings to all the Mountain. Never mind that he was as alone as might be at the moment, with Bifur at the door of the anteroom and Elrond gone off to the Library, to Ori's (and Balin's, though Balin was far more politic in his expression) great delight.

(Thorin had gone to his sister-sons’ tomb first thing upon waking, hardly yet able to stand, much less walk even the few steps to the adjacent chamber, awkwardly supported by Balin and Elrond, Oin hovering close behind. The cold carved stone was more real in that moment than any hurt of his own, and had somehow given him a very peculiar strength: if he was alive in their stead, then he must indeed live, because of, if not for them.)

And that brought him round to the letter again. Not the letter he had necessarily wanted to write, but the one that had insisted on being written. Dis would know how to read every phrase, every word; her sharp mind finding every particle of meaning, including, no doubt, some he was not aware of putting in. She would do that in any case — she had always been the brightest of their father's children. Carefully, Thorin folded the paper into a narrow slip, creasing the folds with the flat of his ring, then rolling it tightly to fit in the message-case. Bifur had made new straps for it, fine, supple leather that would fit a raven's leg snugly, without shifting or chafing. Ready to go, as soon as he took it up to the rookery and gave Caörc the office.

Balin likely would not be happy with him, writing and sending such a thing without advice or even letting him know until after it was gone. Thorin had a copy of course, the inked final draft from the slate preliminary, filed in the old letterbook he had unearthed from the long abandoned schoolroom. (Paper might be easily available again, and no need to count cost, but the lessons of long scarcity, necessary economy, were not to be lightly put aside. And slate or wax rubbed clean, leaving no potentially awkward copies to burn lest they find their way into unfortunate hands. He was not quite ready to cope with lighting even a hearth-fire just yet, and too many things had burned, still burned, in memory and nightmare for the idea of deliberately destroying something to be a comfortable one.

Now for the other letter that could not wait. The one to Bilbo.

The lamplight glimmered whitely on the mithril nib, and for a moment Thorin could only see Bilbo before him, oddly splendid in mail made for some elf-princeling long ago, and at the same time hear the sick venom of his own voice raised in insult and wrath. The Halfling should not have taken the Stone, should not have given it into the hands of those arrayed against them - him - the Mountain. His hands clenched around the remembered feel of Bilbo's shoulders in the rubbed wool of his coat, the virtue of the mithril sparking against palm and fingertip as he gripped and shook and raged.

The two moments were welded together in his mind, though they had not happened all that close to each other. Then deathbed rapprochement on both sides. Would either of them have been so willing, had they thought Thorin would live? That was even less knowable. Ore long smelted, fuel past fire into smoke, the soot made ink to tell the tale. He wondered if Bilbo would still forgive him his words, his actions at the gate, now that he was awake, alive again.

(It still hurt, what Bilbo had done, despite that the glimmering radiance of the Stone was nearly the first light that met his eyes on waking. Return did not undo taking, though it allowed for repair. (Thorin had expected no better of the Elves than to take their weapons, especially Orcrist; that was not betrayal, however infuriating. Having that blade returned was a different kind of surprise - and he hoped it had included the return of all their weapons.) But ignorance was not the same as malice, or expected enmity, and there was no changing any of it, only going forward. He could not, did not, regret his words at what would have been his end. But they had been the rare words of himself only in his own person, not Thorin, son of Thráin son of Thrór, not Oakenshield, not King-in-exile, not King Under the Mountain. He had meant them — still did mean them — for himself. But he was not just his own person. A King needed gold and gems and treasure in store for there to be a kingdom, and not chaos and starvation. Thorin had lived as a commoner, knowing want, particularly in the early years after the dragon and and after Azanulbizar, but Bilbo had never had the weight and expectation of a realm, in exile or otherwise, on his shoulders. On the whole, Thorin was glad of that.)


He would not be here but for Bilbo, several times over, not least because (the memory both fog-dim and indelible,) of small warm hands holding fast to his cold fingers as if to press in a vital measure of his green and growing force by wish alone, light-timbered voice suggesting the impossible as if it could be had for the asking, and having that confidence answered.

"There is a legend, a thing that might answer, that could be tried, yes."

Bilbo was owed a message. Taking a deep breath, Thorin unstoppered the inkwell, picked up the pen, and began again to write.

Bilbo, my friend, dear friend, for my part. I live. …

---

Ravens brought messages of two kinds: to those of Durin's direct line, the birds would speak, conveying both words as asked and their own intelligence; for other people, for messages other than just words or that wanted a more permanent record, the ravens would carry letters in little cases fastened to their legs. The same raven -- Caörc, son of Roäc -- who had delivered the news of the defeat of the dragon and the outcome of the battle of five armies flew the wide distances of Rhovanion and Eriador, from Erebor to Ered Luin, three and a half years later to tell Dis, daughter of Thráin, son of Thror, King under the Mountain, that her brother had awoken from the sleep under stone.

She had not wanted to believe the raven's harsh-spoken words or Balin's carefully penned script telling of the fall of her sons. She had dismissed out of hand the idea that sending Thorin to sleep under stone was anything other than a tale out of legend and an unkind way of not saying outright that he too was dead. No more did she now want to believe Caörc's words, but the letter was in Thorin's own distinctive hand.

The thin paper crackled under her fingers. If legend could step from story to save her brother, why could it not have saved her sons as well? But neither ink nor bird had an answer she could or would hear.

Dis had believed Dwalin. Believed Bofur. That grief and their distress had been real, not an act. Which only meant that they believed the same as she as to the efficacy of legends, and spoke truth as they understood it. Men's truth. Men's necessities. She truly did not know whether to laugh or cry or shout imprecations at Maker and fate and chance alike.

The carefully even lines of cirth caught her eye again. It was an extraordinary document. Balin would never have sent such a thing. He could not have known that Thorin had sent it, or he would have strongly advised against several of its clauses.

Decider of her own authority indeed, yet there it was, stated plain: King's Word and Hand. (And Thorin was her King, as well as her brother; had been, would continue to be, awake or asleep, dead or alive. Just as it was obvious he was still Dwalin's King, in a way Dain never could or would be -- that had been more than obvious from their conversations. That and the fact that Dwalin was yet in love with him, though brother or king she was uncertain. Dis was not sure Dwalin quite realized there was a difference.)

It occurred to her to wonder if Thorin did love Dwalin - more than he loved any of those he considered family, or that ridiculous Company of his anyway - and she realized she did not know. As far as his personal feelings went, she'd not thought past the immediate, his determination to reclaim Erebor, his choice of companions on that quest. Certainly she'd never noticed any evidence of interest on Thorin's part. It hadn't really mattered to her. She wasn't sure it mattered now, except that Thorin would likely be obliged to marry now, and didn't that change the map? Or did it? She would have to think about that, and how it might affect her own plans. She discovered she had no interest in seeing, knowing him unhappy in his marriage, but knowing he would be married off, just as she had been, did give her a certain sharp pleasure. She wondered if he had realized that necessity yet. He wouldn't shirk the duty, however little he liked it, though there were those who would expect him to avoid it. Balin's letters should be amusing on that head.

Her thoughts were all manner of scattered.

Caörc was observing her with a bright black eye in sleek black feathers, perched comfortably on the back of her chair. Doing well for itself, she thought. It didn't have to care who was King Under the Mountain, or head of the Council of Clans, or spoke most influentially for the miners. Ravens had wings. Living ravens could fly far and high and wide, their sharp beaks and claws wreak damage on foe and prey alike. Ravens worked into ring and crown and shield had no such power or freedom.

Or did they? Thorin might not (yet, again,) wear the raven-crown, but his words had bite, gave her a manner of wing and claw.

And Thorin, alive. That was surely a pickaxe in the works of those who thought to manipulate or remove Daìn. An entirely new variable to the political calculus. So very much to think on. Not least how she would reply. It would not do to keep Caörc waiting.

---