Title: Ir-Rûkhuz (The Villain)
Fandom: The Hobbit
Rating: G
Length: 500
Content notes: N/A
Author notes: Thanks go to Zana & Morgynleri for encouragement & sanity-checking. Somewhat inspired by MadameFaust's implication in her stories of a serious rift between the brothers. Khazad November piece for day 18: Grór, Frór, and Náin. Posted to Fan Flashworks for the challenge 'Villain'
Summary: Grór and Thrór do not see eye to eye


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Thrór had been cast as the villain of the piece, at least in the tale as Grór told it. Dain's death did not in his mind give Thrór the authority to remove them whole and entire from the stronghold of the hard-built halls of Thafar'abbad, and Frór's death (which Grór laid entirely at Thrór's feet, despite it being Frór's own insistence and impetuosity that had led him into battle against both his father and elder sibling's express command, seen him attack the cold-drake as if it were merely a giant lizard, and not a fell creature that breathed out ice like fire, and whose wings were as the sharpest winds of winter) only aggravated the grievance in Grór's mind.

Why should Thrór, a mere twenty years Grór's senior, son of Dáin by Mimís, not yet of full age at only forty seven, have the authority to decide where they should go? Did not he, Grór, son of Dáin after the manner of Durin, twenty six and no longer a child by any count (though indeed not of age either, even he had to admit,) and thus (by the reckoning of some) the more direct heir of the Line of Durin, have a voice? Had not the Lords of Khazad-Dum taken a vote? Why seek Erebor again, and not the Iron Hills, closer to the northern Orocarni and the Dwarves there? Frór had dreamed of the Iron Hills; did that portent not have weight and meaning? Did not his dying point the direction?

The longer Grór picked at the slight he felt and not being heard, not being heeded, the more his sense of injury and injustice grew. The more he spoke with his friends, equally young and hot-headed, unhappy at not being allowed to fight, forbidden to stay and defend the home they knew, bid only to pack and that lightly, the more a general sense of unrest grew, until it was no longer one people preparing to set forth to the South, but two.

In the end, Thrór, advised by his father's counselors and stung by his own grief at losing not just father and one brother to the cold-drake, but a second brother to strife nearly as bitter, did call for a vote. That they must leave by then no longer a question, but whether one destination or two, and who would go where. Two it was, the groups were nearly even, four-sevenths with Thrór to Erebor, three-sevenths with Grór to the Iron Hills.

Grór never entirely forgave Thrór for making a success of Erebor, of having a son older than his own, then grandsons likewise. He maintained that Thrór brought Smaug down on Erebor by his own fault, and so said to Thrór's face, though he would not refuse the refugees succor in his Halls. On his deathbed (for Grór died in bed, not battle) he held that Thrór deserved his fate. Fortunately, Náin and Dáin after him were of more generous mind.