Wife of a Dwarf Lord

In the Eyes of a Maid

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"Is it finished yet?" Gloin called from the door of his dressing room. One of the servant maids rushed over to him on her stout legs and handed him his freshly laundered, dark green hood. It was the velvet one he wore for special occasions.

"Here you are, Master Gloin!"

"And my boots-"

"Are clean, Master. Here they are," the girl said, helping him put them on. "I don't understand what's so important about this party," the maid added casually. "It's not as if the Lady Rowan will be there... will she?"

"Lady Rowan?" Gloin cried. "Absolutely not, I should think. Can't understand why she'd be at a banquet like this. Old Ironfoot has no reason to invite her." But his maid noticed a redness coming into his face behind the bushiness of his fiery beard, and smiled to herself, ducking her head to hide it.

She had the feeling her master would be happier to see the Dowager Lady Rowan than he would ever care to admit.

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When the maid heard the front door open and close, she jumped to her feet and went to greet her master.

Master Gloin was horrendously drunk, staggering on his feet as he half-fell on the young dwarf servant. He was grinning, though, so he wasn't drunk from depression, but high good spirits gone a bit wild.

"Master?" She'd missed something he'd said to her.

"Lady Rowan... that Sprout... what a fine woman. Holding up splendidly, under the circumstances. Always envied Fili. How he got a woman like her, and him so blasted young and inexperience... a drunkard and a soldier, that's all he was in that respect, though a finer dwarf you couldn't find..."

"So the Lady Rowan was there?"

"Aye," he replied. His voice had a strange, soft quality to it when he said that. "Aye, she was there, lovelier than the sweetest, most beautiful autumn day, all swirling gold and rich brown, dark emerald and glistening auburn. You ought to have seen her, girl. She was a vision of perfection..."

By this time, she'd gotten his boots off and gotten him to lie down in his bed. Any other night, his servant lad ought to have done it, but Halin's young human wife was having a baby. Dwarf birthing was hard on human women.

"I got to see her dance... it's been so long since... zzzzzzz..."

And Master Gloin sank into a drunken slumber. His maid couldn't help smiling. She wondered, almost absently, when the two of them, her master and the lady, would figure themselves out.

Love was certainly confusing, especially when it was one-sided. But the lady would see reason soon. Of that, the maid was certain.

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Author's Note: I came up with the storyline, the Liemuina, etc. I did not come up with the dwarves, though. Reviews are great. I love them. =D

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My sources are:

w w w (dot) t u c k b o r o u g h (dot) n e t

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien