The Dwarf: The Unexpected Heir

Prologue

All her life Lillian had heard consistent rumours and malicious gossip about her mother, the lonely Elf captain Tauriel. The town in which they had called home was a trading port for the city of Minas Tirith, the beautiful white stoned city that overshadowed everyone who lived in the town. Being a town of trade meant all kinds of tradesmen would gather and sell their goods. There was hardly a day that went by that Lillian did not meant someone new, someone to tell her a tale or two about the world beyond the town. As long as Lillian could remember, she knew her mother did not like her talking with strangers. It brought attention to them and further rumours about her mother's past as it was not often in these parts did you find an Elf-maid by herself without a home.

After all, her mother did turn up seventeen years ago on the verge of death with new born twins strapped to her and no one knew where she had come from or why she was so far from the closest Eleven lands. Luckily for Tauriel all those years ago, a young man who had recently lost his family felt a duty to take in the elf and her children and care for them as he would have for the family he had lost. Gideon, did not pay attention to the old crows in the town who sat around gossiping all day and warning him of the doom that may have followed Tauriel and her babes.

To Gideon's luck that impending doom they warned him about never followed the strangely quiet Elf or her children. The Elf Tauriel was simply ill and after a time of healing and bed rest, she was able to become comfortable in her surroundings. Even if her new home was at the back of Gideon's tavern. Her children, a beautiful young lass named Lillian and a charming lad named Gillian soon became Gideon's second family no matter how much the town disapproved of his new guests.

But as the years went on Tauriel and her children did not move on, they became quite comfortable living in the town even with the horrid people.

Then…

A few days after Lillians and Gillians ninth birthday, a boat of sick men entered the town. Within days the young and the sickly began to die. This fever swept through the town like a plague, one moment Tauriel was happy and then the next Gillian became ill.

Tauriel tried everything she knew, every herb and every potion. But nothing worked, his temperature was so high and his body was so weak she was at a loss. Gillian died during the night with his mother by his bedside clutching his hand and praying to her gods and his sister sleeping peacefully next to him. Tauriel gently carried her son outside and just sat there with him in her arms, crying and moaning in agony over her son's death. Nine years with him was not enough, his dark brown eyes and oaken coloured hair along with his father's charm was something she was never going to get back.

The day that they buried him was the day Tauriel lost a piece of herself, to love someone so much only for it to mean nothing. No mother should ever be forced to outlive her child, it was another cruel twist of nature in Tauriel's long life.

This bitterness from her son's death brought an opportunity to be useful, since so many died. The townsfolk needed a new captain of the guard. A role, Tauriel took too quickly for her to even think about the daughter she was leaving at home all day in the guardianship of Gideon. Now her time was consumed by watching the distant lands of Mordor and trying to keep the tradesmen from killing one another.

The more Tauriel worked the more Lillian was forgotten about. It remained like that for years to follow, the guardsmen were a higher priority than her own daughter. Something Gideon and Tauriel fought over endlessly and what Lillian cried over regularly.

Though Lillian loved her mother, she never truly understood the abandonment that she endured over most of her childhood. This distance only seemed to get worst and at the height of it Lillian was out in the fields after a snowstorm had passed with a stray dog she had picked up only days before. Lillian was barely fourteen when a pack of Orc scouts had seen her playing in the fields. The three Orcs on their Wargs chased her down within moments Lillian didn't even bother to run or scream.

The foul breathe of the Wargs was nearly enough to bring Lillian to her knees, she did not even know that Orcs were in the area. Usually her mother would have seen them off long before they even got close to the farms surrounding the town. Pity she missed the ones that were going to murder her and send pieces of her back to the town.

To Lillian's poor good luck the Orcs did not murder her, nor cut her up into pieces. Instead they branded her face. They burnt the flesh to the bone on the left side of her once beautiful face, leaving her in the fields bloodied, beaten and half blind in the snow.

By the time Lillian came to the Orcs were long gone and she was lying in the snow all alone with the Sun fading into the distance. Tauriel remembered that day like no other, she had returned home to find Gideon panicking that her daughter had not returned from the fields. Then by chance she heard Lillian scream for her in the distance, by the time they found her outside of the town she was covered in blood and in a daze.

Now just passed her seventeenth birthday and the height of winter, Lillian acted if it never happened. Just a simple accident that was easily forgotten she had thought. But in truth, Lillian hated the winter snow when her birthday came around. Not only did it remind her of her mutilation but another birthday spent without the love of her deceased brother and her distant mother. Tauriel had long since banned any reflective mirror in their house to help with Lillian's recovery and had applied all sorts of herbs, lotions and potions to curb the scaring that may occur. It was done in vain and her mother's efforts did little to help, a horrific ugly scar covered the left side of her face, her left eye was now pale and blind. Tauriel had never heard her daughter complain about it, but it bothered Tauriel every day as such a scar would ruin a lot of her daughters future prospects. Lillian would never become one of the guards, nor a healer… and her marriage prospects had long been forgotten about. Once her daughter was the beauty of the town, long red hair, tall and willow like figure and beautiful green eyes. Now her daughter was mocked by all, a monster she was often called.

What made the taunting worse was now the villagers, had managed to gather up all their ill thoughts and give it all to her daughter. Stones were thrown at her daughter on a daily basis to and from her schooling and the other children referred her to a half-breed. Again Lillian never complained about it, she was often seen laughing and being social to those who wondered into the tavern. Those that were served by her were often too stupid or drunk to notice Lillian's questionable heritage or her scar.

Tauriel despised her daughter being labelled a half-breed, but since Tauriel was quite obviously an elf and her daughter did not have any of the typical elven traits it was obvious that Lillian was only part elf and part something else. No one knew what other part was pf course, most assumed she was part human hence why the slightly meaner passer-by's calling Lillian a half-breed.

Only Tauriel knew of her heritage. Lillian had known for quite a while that her mother did not want to talk about her father, who he was or what he was. But Lillian knew that her mother was a highly disciplined being and one who had seen too much death and heartbreak. So she never really pressed her mother for information about her father.

Lillian looked very similar to her mother, Tauriel was extremely beautiful and often lured many men into conversation with her. None passed her mother's standards of course, so for as long as Lillian could remember it had only been her and Tauriel. Not even Gideon their closest friend in the village dared to charm the she-elf. Lillian often thought that perhaps her mother had never gotten over her father and that she mourned the loss of their companionship. The only truth to this Lillian had ever seen was that her mother Tauriel had kept this small rune stone with some sort of language on it, perhaps her father had given it to her. But for all she knew that small stone could have been picked up from some drunk in the tavern some night long past.

Lillian often avoided her own reflection, but she knew she did not have one single trait of her father in her. She had her mother's fiery red hair, almost the colour of the copper metals that Lillian saw traders bring in. Apart from the damaged eye, both of them were originally the same hazel exquisitely decorated with shades of green the same as her mothers. There was only one thing that was different… and that was her height. She was shorter than her mother, not by a lot but enough to question if her mother fell in love with someone shorter than she was.

At seventeen now, Lillian did not care about what the town had to say about how odd her mother was or the many rumours that involved the pair of them. She often took particular means of avoiding the more snobbish townsfolk who often made cruel remarks about the scar upon her face, Lillian knew that they called her a 'ghoul' or their favourite a 'monster' and it hurt her feelings for the months that followed her run in with the orcs. But she was just as able as anyone else in the town working harder than anyone else in the town so that she may one day be useful to her mother

Lillian was an incredible swordswoman but her down fall was her archery, the lack of depth perception prevented her from a precise murderous blow. So she had learnt to fight with two finer swords rather than just one great sword

Tauriel had watched her daughter practise nearly every day, not that Lillian noticed. She had her father's persistence and enough stubbornness to not know when to give up. But to her credit, Lillian was a talented swordwoman.