RINGS
Chapter One: Wanderer
The Road to Bree, Middle Earth. The War of the Rings Approaches
And this tale of Middle Earth, it too has to do with Rings.
Some are the kind you wear on your finger.
Some are the kind that lie in the heart of every wood.
Some are the kind you travel in, on the path of your life, for many years, going here and there and back again.
And some are made of the people in that life, how they are tied to each other, and how they are tied to you.
First you must know what a Faery Ring is, because you will meet them in this tale more than once.
I do know, and I know of their perils, and I still fell asleep in one.
A Faery ring is the nicest, greenest, softest, best-smelling spot in just the right percentage of sun and shade that you find under just the right tree on a nice, sunny day, to just lie down in and smell the flowers, without there being any bees or mosquitoes around.
The Faeries make them that way, or purpose, because they love a good joke, and the joke is on you.
Because when you fall asleep in a Faery ring, you could wake up anywhere, at any time, in any place.
And now that I have returned to the here and now, and I woke up in Middle Earth, Ranagel the Green, otherwise known as Randisbereth Took, a Hobbit, but also known as a dwarf named Thrima, daughter of Gimli, I must ask myself why.
Why would I sleep in a Faery Ring?
Perhaps I was seeking illumination.
And what kind of a fool lies down in a Faery Ring, to find illlumination?
A fool of a Took, that's who.
For I am not on my way to misfortune, but on the way to Bree, where I will stop for a night or two before continuing on to the Shire, to meet Peregrine Took, my second Cousin, at the Green Dragon.
I am going home.
Largely for the same reason most do, after many years of wandering.
I do not know what else to do, and I have no other place to go to find out.
But before I tell you of that, I must ask you a Riddle, and then tell you a tale to answer it.
Several tales, actually.
I have a riddle for you.
I am nearly five feet tall, I have dark curly hair that some will tell you is brown, others burgundy, and some might even say black.
It is very curly.
My eyes are hazel green.
And when I say that, I mean that if you look very close, you will see that one is more green than brown and the other more brown than green, but they call that hazel, don't they?
I'm stocky and strong, (but curvy, thank you) and, unfortunately, being dark-haired and olive skinned, I could probably grow a decent peach fuzz moustache if I wanted to.
And I only wear boots when I am travelling.
When I am not, I wear no shoes at all.
And I have pointy ears.
So, am I a woman, and Elf, a Hobbit or a Dwarf?
The answer is complicated, but it will explain the name my mother gave me.
Randisbereth is Sindarin for Queen of Wanderers.
I have earned that name, worked for it and toward it, all the days of my life.
Wandering is in my blood, for both my parents were wanderers, and I do not know, they may wander still.
My father, Dagobert Took, son of Clovis Took, who was the brother of Beladonna Took, well he was a Took to end all Tooks.
Dagobert the Brave stood four feet and five inches tall, he was as tall as the Old Took, his direct descendent.
A quiet life in the Shire was not what he was looking for, and he spent most of his life from the time he was in his tweens, as an explored, a soldier, an adventurer.
In his travels he met an Wood Elf from the Misty Mountains, Guldis the Seer.
She was able to see the darkness slowly invading Middle Earth, that which Gandalf had sensed and which my father firmly believed in, especially after hearing from his cousin Bilbo Baggins about the things he saw and heard on his journey.
There were not many in Middle Earth who wanted to hear that kind of talk, though.
My mother's uncle and guardian, King Thranduil was one not among the forward thinking few, and he banished Guldis from his court because he wanted to hear no more of it.
She lived for a long time on her own, in the forest of Mirkwood, seeing none of her own people but her cousin Legolas, who did not doubt her visions, and the occasional traveler.
She was already known as a seer of great renown, and even though Thranduil banished her, that did not stop travelers of all kinds from braving Mirkwood for the chance to consult with her.
My mother's visions were very often cryptic, but very seldom wrong.
She, however, had very clear news for the adventurer Dagobert Took and his comrade, Gimli, son of Gloin, who had it in their heads to return to Mirkwood and seek an audience with King Thranduil, about grievances their families still had against him that needed to be addressed.
Something about barrels, treasure and false imprisonment, I would imagine.
I'm sure she didn't need magic to explain to the two travelers that they would be barking up the wrong Elf, and might find themselves imprisoned.
Or worse, sealed up in some barrels.
My mother never explained how she and my father came to fall in love.
And I never cared about things like that, even when I was little, so I never asked.
You might see how a Hobbit could fall in love with an Elf, but not how an Elf could fall in love with a Hobbit.
My mother was much the way you might imagine an Elvin Cassandra would be.
She was very blonde, very beautiful, and very stoic.
But she wasn't all gauzy dresses and cryptic prophecies.
My mother lived alone in Mirkwood forest for some 500 years.
Even though she had in her the magic of the Wood and the Wild, that is no small fear.
There was iron in her, and spirit and fire, and I think that attracted my father as much as her beauty.
And, inasmuch as you think of Hobbits as fat, round little creatures who have eaten far too much bacon, recall that my father was a Took, thank you.
Despite his being, well, short, he was tall for a hobbit, and he was both handsome and dashing, with a bold laugh and an Elvish longbow, and a mad gleam of merry mischief in his eyes.
Like a pint-sized Robin Hood.
He was as light in his heart and his temperament as my mother was stoic and serious; everything was an adventure to Dagobert Took.
Perhaps he was the only man in 500 years to offer to give her something, rather than just take something from her.
At any rate, fall in love they did, Dagobert and Guldis, and they were married.
Dagobert didn't think his family in the Shire, not even the Tooks would be happy to welcome an Elf woman into their midst, so he accepted Gimli's offer to come and live under the Lonely Mountain, with the Dwarves.
You might think this was an odd thing, but the Elf that the Dwarves of Erabor considered their staunchest enemy was King Thranduil, and my mother had no love lost for the only father she had ever known, who had driven her into the deepest, darkest part of one of Middle Earth's deepest, darkest forests, to die.
I suppose the general idea was that any enemy of King Thanduil's was a friend of theirs.
My father and my mother both had wandering souls, though.
My father's out of a love for adventure and my mother's out of restless rootlesness, and so it was that when I was too small to travel that I spent most of my time in the house of Gimli, who was a blood-brother to my father, and godfather to me.
I was raised, cheek by jowl, with a most excellent Dwarf, my age-mate, a very fine fellow by the name of Thror, son of Dis, nephew of Thorin Oakenshield.
Also known as Thror the Younger, Thror the Bear, The Mighty Thror, Thror the Blacksmith, and Prince Thror of Erabor, Heir to the Kingdom Under the Lonely Mountain.
But I'll tell you more about him, later.
Anyway, it began to bother Dagobert Took, that his daughter wore a dwarf hood, chirped "At your service" to strangers, and so he decided, when I was five years old that I would take my first journey, and we would return to the Shire.
In his absence, he had inherited the modest Hobbit-hole of Clovis Took.
His Took relatives were more impressed than appalled he had taken an Elf to wife, and of course we were always made welcome by cousin Bilbo Baggins.
But, my father's furry feet itched him to go a wandering, again, by the time only three more winters had passed.
My mother, however, had come to love the Shire.
She liked the green, rolling hills, and the kind, quiet forest, and the kind, noisy Hobbits, and our cosy, warm, happy Hobbit home, even if she did have to duck all the time.
She was very happy there, as happy as I had ever known her to be, and she wanted to stay, so she did.
We waited a year for Dagobert to return, and then, when he didn't, we gave him another six months.
Then my mother became stoic and sad, again.
She packed me, and our things up and we travelled over the Misty Mountains yet again.
In a leaky, creaky old wagon, with a huge cart horse she'd bought in Bree pulling us along.
Dagobert had not returned to our home in the kingdom of Erebor.
My mother gave me her ring, and left me once again in the house of Gimli, to find him.
I stood holding Gimli's hand, watching that leaky, creaky old wagon pass from my sight, and the last time I saw my mother she had tears in her eyes.
I was only ten, but still I would not cry.
Not until Gimli picked me up, and I put my head on his shoulder and tangled my fists in his beard.
And even then I cried so no one could see me.
And Gimli, son of Gloin has been my mother and my father from that day to this, because neither Guldis or Dagobert were ever heard from again.
Gimli adopted me, and raised me as if I was his own child.
I must have seemed to grow up fast, to him, because elves mature, early, even though they may be considered children for 50 years, depending on how soon they grow up, and Hobbits, though they are not considered of age until they are 33, are all grown up at the same time that men are.
Dwarves are considered young and stupid until they are about 50, but they mature at about the same rate as Hobbits' or men do.
They are a very egalitarian society, in that women are not treated in any way differently from men. They dress the same, they have the same beards, and all dwarves, from the wealthiest princeling to the poorest miner, are expected to learn a trade, work hard, understand the value of hard work and good money, and pull their own weight.
Without much complaining.
I showed an interest in words, and as all dwarves are expected to be their own man, I helped the Master Librarian keep the Library.
But I enjoyed writing words too, not just reading, and I was of a bit of a musical bent, and became well known for my story telling and songs.
Unfortunately, my nickname, Thrima, didn't come from my use of a pen and a lute, it came from the use of my right fist and my left.
I didn't get to be close to five feet tall until I was much older, close to thirty, so I was always small for a dwarf, and as I wasn't actually a dwarf, but a half-Elvish Hobbit, there was always a lot of bullying going on.
But, I am also a Took to end all Tooks, and a took will not be bullied.
And Gimli was quite proud of me that I would not let myself be pushed around; he gave me some tips of how to fight.
When he was called by my schoolmaster, or the fathers of bullies to answer for the thrashings I gave their sons, he would bang his fist and bluster that the lads were cowards to pock on a poor little girl with no mother or father, and that they got what they deserved for being bullies and cowards.
I showed myself to have quite a temper, some even called me Thrima the Terrible.
Even before my parents passed, Gimli and Dagobert put an axe in one of my hands and a sword in the other before I could lift them, and made of me a disciplined fighter.
I think it was too keep me from doing myself, and the rest of Middle Earth, too much of a mischief.
Of course, never let it be said I wasn't my mother's daughter, either.
I was smart enough, in my early life, to keep my visions too myself, and never to put too much stock in them, but the power of the Wood and the Wild was very much with me.
I always felt at home in the Wood, and I never got lost in a forest, no matter how thick or tangled.
I had a way with all green and living things, and as for animals, I never feared or disliked any of them, and none of them ever feared or disliked me.
Except for certain varieties of bloodsucking and stinging insects.
But that's all of that we'll have, for now.
For ten years then, my wanderings were confined to the Shire and the Lonely Mountain.
I stayed with Gimli through most of the year, but in the late spring, when Balin would go to the Shire, for his summer visit with Bilbo Baggins, I went along.
Thror too, some of those years.
We became fairly close to inseparable, in my youth.
I said I would talk to you about Thror, later, though, and I will.
Anyway, in the Shire, sometimes it was my Took cousins I stayed with, other times the Brandybucks, and sometimes I even got to stay at Bag End.
But I was Wanderer by name and wanderer by nature, so I managed to squeeze a little adventure even into these days of my youth.
Quite a lot, actually.
But I had a most excellent companion in my adventuring and exploring, and no better Dwarf for the job than was my very best friend and most-trusted comrade, my fellow maker of merry mischief, that aforementioned Thror, the unexpected child in old age of Dis and..
Well, I can't tell you who Thor's father was, it's a family secret, as Dis was a widow at the time of Thror's birth.
But, Thror's father was a most excellent Dwarf, and a most excellent father, and I'll give you a hint.
As a young man, he wore a mohawk.
Anyway, Thror favored his Great-Uncle, in looks and temperament, right from childhood.
He is a brave warrior, a natural leader, a fearless adventurer and a man of great conviction in that everything he does is right.
People also say that Thror is, footloose, curious, willful, rebellious, mischievous and adventurous as if those were his faults, but I consider them strengths.
Like all Dwarves, he is stubborn, proud, and loyal to his comrades and his kin, but with Thror, I'd say he was a bit more so than most.
But Thror is a bit more so than most in everything.
He stands five feet and nearly three inches, a giant for a dwarf, and two grown Men, not Dwarves, could loop their arms under each of his massive arms, and he could lift them off the ground, because his shoulders and his chest are as wide, if not wider than theirs are.
His legs are like the corded stumps of thick oak trees; his strength is the stuff legends are made of.
I have seen him carry an anvil under either arm without breaking into a sweat, and in Bree, once, we won enough money to make it back to Erabor because he wrested a bear and won.
Never mind that story.
And for those of you who think all Dwarrows are funny looking, Thror is anything but; he's a good-looking fellow, unless you expect men to be pretty as women, with rather large blue eyes, a Roman nose, a strong cleft chin and black hair so black that in some kinds of light it could almost be violet blue.
Thror carries anvils under his arms because his occupation, other than the common Dwarf occupation of killing orcs, is metalwork, and his metalwork is so good that Men, Elves, and Dwarves alike value his work with swords and mail and armor; especially his work in mithril.
To meet him, you might think he was fearsome, with his black beard in two long braids and part of his long black hair in braids and another bit of it he can't tame sticking out in all direction from his head like a mane, well, that and the tattoos around his eyes, but if you are not an orc or his enemy, Thror is not fearsome at all.
In fact, he can be quite a jolly fellow, and he usually is.
Even when we were children, Thror was the biggest, but I was the fiercest.
He and he and I were the youngest, and I was the only girl in the bunch, and dwarves being dwarves, we were right at the bottom of the pecking order, so it was a fight every day just to be able to hold our heads up, and not look like a couple of spineless jellyfish.
I was the only girl in the bunch, and the last thing I would abide was to fall behind the boys.
Because we were at the very bottom, and the types to want to be, nit at the very top but to be bloody well left alone tour own devices, we had to be the fiercest, or so we decided.
In every fight I had to fight, he was there, and in every fight Thror had to fight, I was there.
Eventually, the rest of the young ones decided that we were fierce, and rather queer and resolved to leave us alone, which is what we wanted, because we had to have as much time as we could to plan our next adventure.
The next adventure was always to make it further from the Lonely Mountain without being recaptured than we had on our last adventure.
We grew up hearing stories about our famous forebears, in my case, Bilbo Baggins, and in Thror's, Thorin and Company, and the adventures they had, in the Misty Mountains, and in the very halls where we lived.
Dwarves are not reckoned to be adults until they are somewhere around 50, and Hobbits until we are 33, but that does not mean that we do not think we are just as adult as the children of men do, when we are 14 or 15.
Thror barely had peach fuzz on his chin and upper lip, and I must have only been four and a half feet tall when we planned and executed out most grandest adventure of all.
The one which would show everyone that we were not children, anymore.
Of course we were little more than children, 15 years old, the first time we borrowed axes and ponies and supplies and took off in the night.
Our search in the lands around Erebor we knew for marauding orcs were fruitless, so we decided, instead, that we would ride to Laketown in barrels.
Well, yes, it did seem like a good idea at the time, thank you.
The part of the story we never understood, thought it was told to us many a time by our sources like Oin and Gloin and Dwalin and Balin and Bilbo was that it is not so easy to get past King Thrandiul's eyes.
And the barrels were entirely uncomfortable.
We did not get a bruising ride to Laketown, rather, we were rather prematurely pulled from our barrels in front of King Thranduil.
Who looked upon us which such shock on his usually serene Elvin features that he must have clearly seen his sometime friend and sometime enemy, Thorin Oakenshield in Thror.
And his niece, his ward, Guldis the Seer, in me.
Of course, the Elvenking wanted to know just what we were up to, in his Woodland Realm.
And, of course, Thror looked to me, the great-niece of Burglar Bilbo Baggins, to come up with a damn good lie.
But he did give me a damn good start.
"I only wanted to escort Randisbereth, daughter of Guldis the Seer, to your kingdom, to meet her kin. She would have gone on her own, without me. And i could npot allow that."
King Thranduil gave him a withering look.
"The child of Guldis the Seer, the Prophetess of the Wood and the Wild, who lived for centuries, alone, in Mirkwood, and prospered, she would have got lost in the woods?"
"Tis nae the facts, sir, but the principles of the thing." Thror rejoined, solemnly.
Sometimes, though, even the best would-be burglars know when the truth is the best medicine.
"We meant your realm no harm, Milord. Thror and I are only in search of an adventure, and when we found no orcs to slaughter in Mirkwood, we decided, instead, we would ride down the river in barrels, to Laketown, like our forefathers, and find our adventure, there."
The king laughed, and not entirely in sarcasm.
In fact, I think he had been wanting to laugh for quite some time.
"Randisbereth Took, you are as much Dagobert's daughter as my ward's. Perhaps much more. And you. Thror, there is much of your late brothers, Fili and Kili in you, as there is of Thorin Oakenshield. Now listen to me. You are both little more than children, and should not be abroad in my kingdom, alone. And certainly nothing awaits you in Laketown, but trouble that your kin would have to shell out much Dwarf gold to get you out of. Come back to my court in 15 years or so, when you are closer to grown, and then I will receive you as a Prince and a Princess, not as a couple of rowdy children. Legolas, you will escort these babes in my woods back to Erabor. Thror, son of Dis, nephew of Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain, you are dismissed. Go with him, my son."
I turned to go with them, but King Thranduil beckoned me to come closer to him.
I did.
"My niece's ring. I see her face in yours. She had the same eyes, and though your hair is thicker and curlier, it is the same shade. I cannot ask the forgiveness of a child, because you are not old enough to understand why I sent your mother away. But know this. I banished Guldis because I had to. Not because I wanted to. And I have regretted it, from that day, to this. I have never stopped looking for your mother, or that fool of a Took she married. And I have never lost hope that they will be found. Return, Randisbereth, daughter of Guldis, great-niece of King Thranduil, when you are older and you understand who your mother might have been and what this ring means. And then we will have much to say to each other."
I had always heard that elves were beautiful but cold, but this kinsman of mine did not seem cold as he embraced me, tightly, and pressed a basket with a large package wrapped in colored cloths into my hands.
"Never forget that you are of the Silvani, despite what your Dwarf-kin would have you do. And that not only all the woods and wilds in all the world, but all the halls of all the Elves are your home. May the Gods of the Valar and the Aesir bless and keep you, until the day we meet again."
Legolas Greenwood conducted us home, and Gimli was indeed waiting for us, and his father, Gloin, and Thror's father, at the gates of Erabor.
You could see them trying to hide their pride, and feign anger.
"Escorted home by the son of the Elvenking! In through the gates, you little monkeys! Of course, Legolas Greenwood, we will pay you in gold for all your trouble." Gloin told the King's son.
"They caused no trouble in Mirkwood. And were no trouble to me on our way here. I had long wanted to meet my sister's child. Do not be afraid to come and find me again, Rana. Or to search in Mirkwood for your mother's house. Or to bring your comrade for company."
I was to take Legolas greenwood up on that offer, but that is another story.
Back to the one at hand.
If do not know what else he had to say, because Brunhilda, my grandmother, and Thror's mother, Dis had come to fetch us.
Back to our homes, and off to our punishments.
And then?
My father and I had a very uncomfortable conversation.
A few days after I returned, my father took me aside, and we went for a long walk, in which he hemmed and hawed about a lot of things, and then finally came to his point.
"Had you any more firsts, other than your first fortnight on your own, out of Thror the Younger, these two weeks you've been away on your adventure, my girl?"
"No, Father. After all, Thror's beard has not yet grown in."
"Not below his lip, it hasn't! But below his belt, I'll bet it has! At any rate the lack of a beard's not likely to stop a boy his age. Especially not the brother of Fili and the nephew of Thorin Oakenshield. In almost 200 years of wandering, the King Under the Mountain never paid a landlady in money. And there might be landladies of Elvish blood still waiting on him to return. And Fili? Well he was only ten years older than me and I know him to have been a chip off the old block. The Heirs of Durin have hot blood, my girl, by Mahal's hammer, they do! No you listen to your Da. Don't be goin' off somewheres with Thror and lettin' him get his hands, or any other parts of his body, under your clothes. Don't ask me any more about it. Just do what I tell you."
"Yes, Da."
It was hard for me, to lie to my father.
I had never done it before.
Lied to him, I mean.
The other, though, Thror and I most certainly had done, and I would rather have lied to Gimli than stopped lying with Thror.
Because Thror's beard had grown in, and so had mine, if you follow me.
The first time Gimli had spoken of had occurred the summer before, on the banks of the Brandywine River, during a lovely night, under a full moon in July.
But, back now to the Lonely Mountain.
Though Thror and I were punished, it was said that Thror already possessed the seeds of Thorin's greatness and that Gimli was wise to adopt Dagobert's child as his own, for no matter what blood was in her veins, she was as brave, as crafty, and as stubborn as any Dwarf who drew breath.
I was convinced I was grown, and ready to travel the world on my own, but Gimli knew better and he kept me home the best he could a few years longer.
Likewise in the summer did my Hobbit kinsmen keep one eye on me, but I still managed, sometimes, to escape, dragging along my younger cousin Merry , with little Pippin straggling behind us, but rarely did we get beyond the Brandywine River, despite my best schemes, without some grown Hobbit rounding us up and taking us home.
On my own, I once made it all the way to Bree, and swaggering into the Prancing Pony, all of seventeen, ordered up a mug of ale that proved far stronger than the small beer and table wine I had been allowed to drink, before.
Boldly, and with liquid courage, I made an embarrassingly indecent proposal to a Ranger called Strider, which he has never let me live down, all unknowing that he was old enough to be my grandfather.
The only place he took me was home, and promptly.
And since it seems to be coming up, so often, if I am going to tell you the tales of my life, we'll have to stop, and have a word about sex.
Oho, now you're listening!
Yes, I'll be talking about violence, too, eventually.
But first, I want to dispel one of Middle Earth's meanest myths.
Dwarf men are neither cruel to their women, nor are they cheap with them, or terrible lovers.
They can't afford to be, because there are three or four men for every woman, among the Dwarves. A man who is rich, smart, or lucky enough to have a woman, or a wife, would not be stupid enough to be a bad husband, a bad companion, a bad provider or a bad lover, because he knows that there are three or four other fellows who are richer, smarter and luckier who would gladly show the lady that they were the better Dwarf.
Myself, I've had a Dwarf man for one of my men since he was but a boy and I was but a girl, and I have nothing to complain about.
It may not be love between Thror and I, but he has always been my friend and comrade, he has never lied to me, I have never got up from lying down with him without a smile on my face, and he has never given me grief, or hurt me.
That is something I cannot say, about the other two.
The other two men in my life, I mean.
Unless I want to go on about shagging and sneaking out and occasioanlly drinking too much dark Gondorian ale, however, there's not much more to say for the remainder of the days of my youth, until I was 20 or 21.
That is not unless you'd be fascinated by my telling you about all the ways and means Thror and I had to resort to not to be discovered by the prying eyes of adults, or how many orcs I killed in my first foray into war at 16, or how many times Pippin and I and Merry got chased halfway into the Old Forest by Framer Maggot for stealing vegetables.
I could tell you some more of Bilbo's stories, because the older I was, the more of them I got to hear, but I think you know all of them, already.
Naturally, I thought about what I would do with my life, but just like most silly Hobbits in their tweens, it was all a great fat load of unrealistic, grandiose silliness.
Thror, of course, was going to be King Under the Mountain, and after all I was practically a Wizard.
Of course, when he was King, I was to be his Wizard, but he never mentioned the more obvious W's of wedding or wife, and nor did I, because the same was as far from my mind as it was from his.
Thror was to have many lady dwarves vying for his affections, but most of them had an eye on marriage in thirty years or so, and I only had an eye on when I could live up to my name, and go wandering.
But, by the time I was 20, it was plain to Gimli and Gloin, and the Dwarrows I had grown up with that a young Took with magic in her blood, whose mother had named her Wanderer and whose nickname was Fighter was not going to be content with just books.
I was 21 during the visit of Gandalf the Grey when my guardians suggested to him that as I would approach my maturity as a Hobbit in a little more than a decade that it was customary for me, as a Dwarf, of sorts, to be Apprenticed and learn a Trade.
They thought I would do well in the trade of Wandering Wizard.
Gandalf tried to discourage Gimli and Gloin, but dwarves are stubborn and they can't be discouraged of anything once it's in their heads.
Or so Gandalf told me at the time.
But, whether he had come to find me, or my father and grandfather had talked him into it, when Gandalf left the Lonely Mountain, off I went with him.
Typical of a Dwarf father, Gimli didn't ask my opinion in the matter, and barged into my bedroom, with Gandalf at his side, to tell me to pack myself up, I would be leaving in a fortnight.
I had just returned from a successful patrol of the outskirts of Mirkwood, in which Thror and I routed the unwelcome advances to our borders of a rogue pack of marauding orcs.
They came looking for trouble and they got it, too; dead and piled in a heap and burnt with their leader's head on one of their own spears.
They would go a-marauding no more.
The feast celebrating Thror's and my triumph lasted into the wee hours, so we both slept late.
My father had not invaded the privacy of by bedroom since I was 12 or 13, so I was not expecting him.
And I am telling you this because Thror was in my bed with me.
I still thank the gods of the Valar and the Aesir that we were only sleeping.
We were frozen like two deer before the bow of a hunter when my father burst in, with Gandalf.
As for Gimli. the expression of shock on his face turned rapidly to one of outrage.
Or perhaps, just rage.
Never before, or since, have I seen fear in the face of the son of Thorin Oakenshield's sister.
Gandalf the Grey looked away from our faces as I pulled the blankets up to my eyes and Thror threw his arm out in front of me, in an instinctive gesture of protection.
I now realize that Gandalf turned his head so we couldn't see him laughing.
My father though it anything but funny.
"Master Gimli. I can explain…"
But whatever Thror wanted to say was cut short by my father's howl of rage.
"Despoiler! Maruader! Where is my axe? Where? Ah, never mind I'll use yours!"
My father packed up Thror's axe and started chasing him around the room with it, smashing it into the walls.
I don't think he was really trying to kill Thror; or else he would have had the axe in his head. But, at the time, we were both convinced, otherwise.
"You wouldn't cut off the head of your future king?" Thror yelled .
"It's not your head I would cut off, lad! Now you mark me, boy, King or no King! By Mahal who made us and Odin who made him, by the forge of Mahal and the hammer of Thor, and by Eru Illuvatar who made both the Aesir and the Valar, I call this a marriage proposal! And I accept! The day that you are of age, the very day, my lad, you'll marry my daughter! Or I'll fix it so your father has a daughter of his own to marry off and not a son! We'll see what your father and your mother think of this!"
"I meant no dishonor to Thrima, Master Gimli! And I will seriously consider your offer of your daughter's hand." Thror replied.
He was hoping that maybe getting all high and mighty would assuage my father's anger, but Gimli continued swearing and chasing him with the axe, until he broke the head off and had to chase Thror with the handle.
Poor Thror was black and blue and bloody by the time he could grab his breeches and make a run past my father, stark bloock naked.
Gimli threw the axe handle after him and slammed my bedroom door.
And then it was my turn.
I would rather have been chased with the axe, than to see my Da so upset.
"Have you no sense, girl? Have you no shame? Did your mother never speak to you of such things? Of course she didn't. She died too soon. But did I not tell you not to let this happen? And did you listen to your father? No! Well, I'll tell you more, and you had better listen, this time! It's a fine thing for you you've got Elf blood, or I'd be up to my ears, by now, in pointy-eared, furry-footed, bearded babies! Babies, girl, that's what comes from lying with a man! You carry them in your belly for much of a year, and then, they come out of the same spot where some young despoiling marauder goes and sticks it in! And after that there's shame to you, and shame to your father, and shame to your children who grow up with their grandfather's name and no father! And they're a worry to him and a burden on him in his old age! And even if you're Elf blood fixes it so you don't create for me a lot of little extra mouths to feed, a woman doesn't go around doin' this sort of thing with every man who's a comrade! It's not like shakin' hands, Thrima, my girl! You ought to wait until you're married, but even if you don't, you pick a man, one man, in one place and you don't go hopping from bed to bed! Well, by the stone bollocks of Mahal himself, and the hairs of Durin's short and curly beard, you've picked him! And you'll marry him! And that'll be an end to it! Do you understand me?"
And I nodded, wide-eyed, because I wanted to seem like that was all news to me, and I hadn't long ago read it in a book, even before I spent some seven years practicing at it.
I had read about a great many more things in books than I had done, and rather than putting great store by my knowledge, for further study and future experience, I decided that because I had some knowledge, then I didn't need any experience, because I already knew everything I needed to know.
Well, I was to spend the next ten years learning about just how wrong I was.