A friend told me, after reading the first chapter, that she wanted to imagine Thorin smirking. Please remember that this Thorin is from before the desolation of Smaug, so he doesn't have a reason to worry. Yet. This chapter will develop the friendship between Gwyn and the royalty, but mostly with Dis. Enjoy!
The rain that fell from the sky on the following day was like a sign. A sign that she shouldn't do that. She had been warned by her parents, there was no place for a commoner between such important people. But Gwyn thought about it on the other way.
"The drawing will last longer on the mud," she thought as she ran to draw again. "Maybe I can even find her there!"
But the other girl was nowhere to be found when she got to the outskirts of town, panting from running all the way there. Not letting that bother her she grabbed a stick and started to draw again. And it was fun, so she walked around making all kinds of drawings until a voice took her attention.
"These are beautiful."
It was Dis. And Gwyn smiled her way.
"Took you long enough to get here. I thought you wouldn't come anymore."
"You were waiting for me?" Dis asked, a shy smile forming on the corners of her mouth.
"Yup. Here!"
Gwyn got another branch from a tree nearby and gave it to Dis before returning to her drawing, decided to finish it.
But Dis didn't know what to do with it. She shifted in her feet as she watched Gwyn finishing a drawing that looked like the marguerite she had left with the note.
"I don't know how to read," Gwyn said, honestly. "So whenever you want to leave me a message, you better draw," she said, finishing the last petal. "You know how to draw, right?"
Dis shook her head vigorously and Gwyn couldn't help but laugh.
"What kind of kid doesn't know how to draw?" She said, jokingly. Though the answer was obvious to her now.
While she spent time drawing and playing with the other kids from Dale the princess was studying how to read, write and other things that royalty should know. And that made her a bit jealous.
"Here, I will help you," she said, holding Dis hands over the stick. "Now, name a thing and we will draw it."
"It can be anything?" Dis asked, hopeful.
"It'd be better if you started with something simple," Gwyn answered, and the princess looked a bit disappointed, "but yeah, anything," she added in a rush.
"Then I'd like to draw a horse!"
"What is a horse?"
And this time when Dis laughed at her for not knowing what a horse was, Gwyn couldn't help but laugh too.
A couple days had passed and Dis brought Frerin along with her.
"He wants to learn how to draw too," she had explained, and the three of them had spent a lot of time that day just by drawing and trying to guess what the others had drawn.
"It's getting late, I need to go now," Gwyn said, looking at the sun's position.
"Isn't it a bit early?" Dis asked.
"I have to buy some things for my mom on the market," Gwyn explained. And she was surprised to see them getting excited at the mention of the word market.
"Can we go too?" They asked in unison, and Gwyn thought it wouldn't be too much of a trouble if they did go along.
Though she was wrong. Her father was on the market too. "Probably taking measures for his next work," she thought, being cautious to sneak around him. Dis and Frerin didn't know why they were sneaking around but they found it all too exciting to argue or complain.
The ingredients she needed were to make some sweet bread for their breakfast. Usually her mother would go and buy them herself but she had been busy cleaning the house that day and asked Gwyn to buy the ingredients for her. It was a responsibility and Gwyn felt good about doing it.
"How do you remember everything you have to buy if you don't have a list of it?" Dis asked while they waited for the man to weigh the flour.
"She always bake them, so I pretty much remember the ingredients from memory," Gwyn said, poking her own head twice with her index finger. "I will try to bring one for you two tomorrow," she promised.
"Mom could you make some extras?" Gwyn asked while helping her mother to prepare the dough.
"Why?" Her mother asked without thinking.
Gwyn remembered her father warning about making friends with royalty and pondered for a second. Only a second.
"Because I want to give some to Dis and Frerin," she said honestly, looking to her mother with the corner of her eyes, waiting for her reaction.
And her reaction, Gwyn thought, was one of the funniest that she had ever seen. At first she agreed readily and continued to knead the dough. Then she stopped. Gwyn even poked her mother's nose with her hand all covered with flour and no reaction. And suddenly she screamed.
"Mother you'll startle the neighbors," Gwyn said, not really worried with the neighbors but mostly with her father.
"Did I hear you right? Because I think you said Dis and Frerin but those are the names of the son's of Thrain and they don't even live around. Are you sure you didn't make a mistake? Aren't they for someone else?"
Her mother shoot the questions one after the other, her voice frantic and with a bit of desperation in it. Gwyn sighed, wondering if it was wrong to believe her mother would understand.
"No. They're coming to the town outskirts everyday and we're playing together. They were with me at the market while I bought the ingredients, so they were curious and I promised I'd bring some tomorrow," she explained. Then she paused and looked straight into her mother's eyes. "Did I do something wrong, mom?"
The woman seemed to ponder a lot on her words and even so, in the end she didn't get to say anything. She just nodded and smiled.
"Then that makes two extras, right?"
Gwyn smiled back.
But when she went to the town outskirts on the next day the only one there was Dis. She gave her the one that was meant for her and decided to eat Frerin's share since he wouldn't come.
"He's training," Dis explained.
"Training?" Gwyn asked, confused. "Training what?"
"His combat skills. He's not the oldest son, so the chances that he will be the next king under the mountain are very slim. Still, he said he wants to continue serving Thorin when the time comes, so he joined the training sessions."
"Sounds hard," Gwyn said, almost feeling guilty for eating his share now that she knew the reason he couldn't come.
"Yes, I'm sure he would like this. It is too good," Dis said, taking the last bite of it.
"Do you think I could visit Erebor?" Gwyn asked, curious.
"You could try," Dis said with a smile. "I surely would like to see you coming visit for a change."
Some time after that Gwyn asked her mother if she could make a whole batch of sweet breads for them and, when questioned about why she explained she planned to visit the royalty. Her mother laughed and joked with her a lot because of it but helped nonetheless. And on the next day she left before breakfast heading to Erebor.
She thought everything was fine until she got to the entrance and was halted by two guards. Straightening her back she puffed her chest and mustered her courage.
"I've come to visit princess Dis and prince Frerin."
At first the guards laughed at her face and she pouted. A minute later they noticed she was serious since she wasn't leaving. And after a little longer one of them decided to go inside and bring someone to deal with the girl.
The one who came was an old dwarf with long, grey beard and an easy smile. It didn't look like it but she would find out later he was pretty important.
"This dwarf told me you wanted to see Dis but when I asked he didn't know what to answer so," he sighed and smiled again, "why do you want to see her?"
Gwyn didn't think twice and showed him her basket, filled with sweet bread.
"We talked about visiting, so I came to visit."
For Gwyn it was normal to go and visit a friend. She could do that with almost all of her friends back in Dale. But with royalty? Things didn't work like that at all. And even though the old Dwarf was inclined to believe in her… what if the bread was poisoned?
"May I have one?" He asked, pointing to the basket, and when Gwyn nodded with her big, bright smile, the old dwarf was almost sure that it wasn't a treat. But he still took one. "Well, follow me then. I will lead you to where the princes are."