Kenopsia
By: The Girl Who Wasn't There
And here I am, budding
among the ruins
with only sorrow to bite on,
as if weeping were a seed and I
the earth's only furrow.
-Pablo Neruda-
What good is a house when the people who could have made it a home are all gone?
Dís would have rather had her family. Now all she has is an empty castle and an empty heart and three more graves she wishes weren't so full. As her eyes pass over the mountains of hoarded gold her brother and her sons died for, she finds herself wondering is she has ever seen anything so worthless as this.
Was this the price for their lives? The price they paid for a home they would never have, that would instead be filled with cowards who turned their heads and refused her brother's call for aide but who were certainly more than willing to reap the benefits of a sacrifice which they did not make? A home filled with dwarves who dared to breathe while her family no longer could?
Perhaps she should force them all out, chase them away with the dragon fire boiling in her throat and then set the whole kingdom ablaze. In her mind, it seemed only right - her brother was King and her sons were Princes and if they could not have their birthrights, their crowns and their thrones, then was it not her responsibility to make sure that no one else could?
This mountain belonged to the Durin Sons - it should die with them too. She wanted to destroy this wretched place, to stand in the fire and let the flames consume her and take her to her sons, to her brothers and her husband and her parents, but she did not.
Instead, she turns her gaze away from gold, her mind away from ghosts, and keeps her fingers firmly away from things used to burn. She has much to do. Dain, the new King (and oh, how quickly this mountain forgets, how quickly these people bury the brave) has requested her presence and even though she feels as if her world has been torn apart, she is one of the Dwarrow.
Dwarrow are strong, they are hardy and they are resilient. And Dís? She has suffered more than most, she has been left behind by the ones she loves so many times that she has turned herself to stone and taught herself to bear the weight. So instead of crumbling, Dís squares her shoulders, walks forward, and lets herself feel nothing.
She will do as she must.
