So Comes Snow After Fire

25.iii

Dís had brought Thorin's harp from Ered Luin, and on this first quiet evening since the Yule celebrations, he had removed the velvet covering and played it once more. The golden instrument had sat idle for far longer still than even the year since its arrival here. In his last memories of playing it, his nephews had still been boys, and they'd been fully grown now for almost this half century.

And yet to Thorin's pleasure—as well as his relief and surprise—the strings felt the same under his hands, and the old songs drew his fingers along almost without thought. Strange, how one's muscles held the memory even better than the mind did.

It was as if his hands were still those of the young dwarf prince who had first learned the tune, hands that had not yet wielded blade against foe or labored for wages as if they'd belonged to any common workman. Of course, too much had changed, too many had been lost, for Thorin truly to return to that younger self. Yet playing the harp songs helped, perhaps, to bring that young dwarf, with his eagerness and hope and courage, into this moment now, into the new Erebor where he belonged.

Thorin was so immersed in the song that he did not register the knock at his chamber door until it was repeated.

"Enter," he called without pausing the plucked notes. Whoever it was obeyed; Thorin saw the light from the hall creep over the floor and then recede as the door was opened and shut. He did not look up for several more measures, and when he did, he saw that his visitor was none of his family: it was the elf, Tauriel.

Thorin would have stopped, but she shook her head, indicating for him to finish the song. He did, while she stood listening intently, as if each bell-toned note held some newly-revealed secret. Perhaps they did; she had surely never seen the dwarf king in such an unguarded moment as this.

When he finished, Thorin remained gazing down at the harp's carven soundbox. He was quite sure he knew why Tauriel was here, yet he still found it somewhat strange to meet her alone in such a private setting.

"I see now where Kíli gets his musical skill," she said finally, saving him from finding a way to begin conversation.

Thorin looked up to her then. She was smiling gently.

He returned her smile. "I didn't teach him. He learned to play from miners at the pub," he clarified with a chuckle. "The fiddle is not a king's instrument."

"No. But you both have the same feeling for the spirit of a song. And that sense, I think, cannot be taught."

"Perhaps not." Thorin shifted the harp from between his knees and set it to the side. "Do you play music?"

"A little." For an instant, Thorin was quite sure her expression was embarrassed. "When I was young, I was instructed in the lute. I was but a poor student, though I do very much enjoy music. Sometimes I sing."

Were elves, Thorin wondered, expected to be musical? And was she considered unusual because she was not?

"I don't suppose you came just to hear me," Thorin prompted.

"Ah, no, Thorin," she said, and for once, she did not hesitate over his name. "I came to thank you for all that you have done for Kíli. And for me." She sank to her knee before him.

"You are truly welcome," he returned.

"I love your nephew dearly and..." Her eyes brimmed with glistening tears. "You have given us more than I ever hoped."

A weeping elf—and one who was to become his own kinswoman, no less—was not a problem Thorin had ever faced, even in his wildest imaginings, and for a few instants, he did not know how to respond. But he laid his hands on her slim shoulders.

Tauriel smiled broadly, and her tears fell. Then, to Thorin's utter astonishment, she put her arms around him and her head upon his shoulder in a filial embrace.

After that, it was purely by instinct that Thorin closed his own arms about her in the hearty, warm gesture he would have used with one of his own folk. Tauriel made a soft squeak as the breath was knocked from her, but it was altogether a happy sound, and strangely enough, Thorin found that he, too, was quite glad.