Calm The Fire

38

"Talk about contradiction, Náriel." Fíli rolled his eyes.

"Yes, can you make up your mind on what you want to do?" Kíli smirked. "Hide away, or talk sense, hide away, avoid fighting, talk sense and take part in fighting, seriously, make up your mind."

Náriel smirked. "I am contradicting myself, because I do not know what to do. Truth be told, I am confused on what I should be doing, or on what should be done. I don't know...I just don't."

"Well," Fíli put his arm around her shoulders and smiled. "Much like in Lake-town, we are with you, and just like then, we need a proper plan of action." Fíli gave a smile and a nod and seemed to get a smile from his brother and Náriel, beside him, Bilbo blinked slowly and gave a rather nervous smile. All teaming up on Thorin would surely have more success than Náriel just going alone, right?

—

"We're not saying throw open the doors and let them in."

"On the contrary, we're saying let a small number of people come in and then barricade the door back up; that way no one else can sneak in."

"Keep someone guarding just in case anyone gets any ideas though."

"And supervise what they take. They can't just scoop up armfuls and walk off. How's that a fair share?"

"It's not a fair share. And anyway, if anyone stumbles across the Arkenstone they can tell you, or you know, whoever is dividing the treasure up."

"See and this way we avoid a fight, and they get what they want."

"So, what do you say, uncle?" Kíli asked while smiling widely. Between them they had double teamed Thorin, who by now stood looking between them with a confused expression. The conversation literally came out of nowhere. One minute he was walking back to the barricade, and the next these two pop up. Fíli had promptly started the conversation and the brothers took it in turns between them to finish each other's sentences and explaining more of their suggestion.

"There's only so many of us who can watch them, if they come in. So, therefore they could take more than what is intended." Thorin started slowly, the brothers looked at each other and then at him. They looked rather hopeful that he'd agree, though that was surely being a little too optimistic? "And there's still the matter of there being more of them than us. If we let some in, they could easily overpower us in here. I don't think your suggestion is a very good one. Logically there's many flaws." Thorin said and turned and stopped.

"Then can you help us with said flaws?" Náriel smiled.

"We only had a small amount of time to think this up as it was." Bilbo said while huffing. The other three had rushed an idea together and wanted to get back to confront Thorin as soon as possible. Bilbo on the other hand thought they should have dwelt on an idea and refined it. The other three didn't agree. Thorin shifted his weight from one foot to the other and crossed his arms tightly over his chest. He was surrounded. He could see where this was going, admittedly he could see where it was going as soon as his nephews cropped up.

"Please," Náriel pleaded. "Help us, help you." She smiled and pointed from herself and Bilbo to him.

Thorin rolled his eyes, "What do you want me to do?" They all perked up, wearing him down didn't seem to take too much effort on their behalf. "Agree to your idea, which I stick by; is so flawed, and see it fail? Would you prefer me to just say to you all now: I told you so?"

"Bit childish," Kíli mumbled and got a look shot at him from over Thorin's shoulder. He mumbled no more and just stood by his brother silent.

Shaking his head slowly, Thorin turned back to Náriel and Bilbo. Both looked as determined as the other. "You're not going to drop this are you?"