"So that was Thorin."
Mirra glared at the little hobbit. "Sorry?"
"That was Thorin you met," Bilbo repeated wearily. "In the woods. And those were the refugees of Erebor."
"Put a clamp on it, hobbit, or I'll do it for you."
His face wilted, but he went quiet. Mirra resumed her tale.
Three years had passed since she last saw the man with the eyes of iron.
The blacksmith's shop was as plain and old as the rest of the town, the stone chipped and the floor unswept. It was divided into two rooms separated by an old plaster wall and linked by an simple archway. The loud metallic chinks and smell of sulfur and burning from the back room saturated the air.
Before Mirra now stood a gray-haired man, his cheeks dappled with age spots but his mouth hard and stern, a proud and imposing man.
"May I help you?"
She hesitatingly approached him. Oh, how long it'd been since her last interaction with menfolk. Her sword hid the counter with a loud clang as she dropped it. "It needs sharpening," Mirra said brusquely.
The man raised it carefully. He swiped a finger up and down the blade, looked it over from pommel to tip. He raised an eyebrow at the dents, ridges, and crevices that riddled the worn-and-torn blade and shook his head.
"This blade has met too much damage. If I reforge and sharpen it, the metal will become brittle and useless. I cannot in good faith send anyone out with a blade like that."
The blacksmith spoke frankly without a bit of slime or greed in his voice. Mirra exhaled with relief; he was right. The old blade had served her well, but now it was beyond repair. "How much?"
He lifted an eyebrow at her. "Depends on what kind of sword you want."
"I haven't got a penny on me."
"Then I haven't got time to waste with you," he barked, "even if all you needed was a sharpening. G'day." Irritated, the blacksmith began to shuffle towards the backroom.
"Wait," Mirra said abrubtly. He stopped, huffed, then turned to face her again. "You limp," she remarked.
"Aren't you the sharpest of the lot?" He remarked curtly, a hint of a wince in his voice.
"I can offer you my services. In exchange for a sword."
"Ah, bartering. And what is your offer, then?"
"I can hunt. Well," she replied simply, her face as blank as fresh parchment. "And currently you cannot."
The blacksmith's throat twitched at her bluntness, but he said nothing. Her eyes were as clear as her words. She meant no insult; she merely stated the truth.
Mirra continued, "I can offer you one full-grown deer by tomorrow morning for a solid sword."
"Alright, make it a stag."
"A stag, then, if I receive a sound sword"
"On my word, I've never made a cheap thing in my life." The blacksmith lifted his chin with pride as they shook hands. "I'll have my dwarf begin your blade now. Thorin!" He bellowed into the backroom. The man who emerged sent mini shockwaves through Mirra's body.
For out came the man with the blazing iron eyes. His forehead shone beneath a layer matted grime. His thick eyebrows darkened his already steely face. The thin cloth tunic he wore was soaked and clung to rippling muscles in his arms and chest, which heaved up and down from his ragged breathing. The sleeves were rolled up, revealing rugged, hairy forearms as dark as the thick locks falling in clumps from his head. The smell of him made the blacksmith twitch in irritation, but it merely wafted into Mirra's nostrils with a quiet air of authority. In fact, everything about him radiated silently with authority.
The iron-eyed man - Thorin - did not meet Mirra's stare; his eyes fixed themselves hard on the blacksmith. Did they always blaze so bright? If his withering look affected the blacksmith, the smith did not show it. "Dwarf, I've got a order for a blade for the lady-"
The blacksmith looked at her intently, waiting, Mirra realized all of a sudden. He wanted her name. "Mirra," she added with a start, a bit louder than she expected.
"For the lady Mirra," he said with an unreadable expression. "She'll pick it up in the morning. I'll dispose of this now." But as the smith was about to hand over the sword, Mirra's arm shot out impulsively and grabbed the hilt. To part with her weapon went against a strong instinct of hers, instilled in girlhood, that was not overcome so easily.
Thunder and lightening roiled silently between the blacksmith and Mirra as each scowled at the other for a few heavy moments. Then the smith grudgingly released the hilt and Mirra quickly sheathed the sword.
"I will bring you payment tomorrow."
"I open at dawn." He did not wish to argue with a customer; so long as she brought payment, there was no reason to quarrel.
Mirra nodded her head brusquely to the blacksmith and then to the iron-eyed man, Thorin. He glared back with near equal ferocity to when he pursued her in the wood. Heat rising in her cheeks, she then ducked out of the shop into the muddy village path. Villagers in mucky clothes with yellow teeth took no real notice of her, and if they did, no remark was made. Just another vagrant, another wanderer roaming the earth.
A bell tolled for noon.
That night, at her camp outside the mannish town, Mirra laid back on a pillow of root and leaf. The air was surprisingly warm, so she went without a fire and let the darkness of the wood embrace her. She gazed at the dark forest canopy, but she did not see it. Her mind was elsewhere. Mirra could not remember what she was pondering that night, but there was one thought that ceaseless washed over her mind and then receded, then returned and fell away again. The iron-eyed man, Thorin was his name; why had their paths crossed not once, but twice?
She dismissed it; a coincidence, nothing more. And so Mirra shut her eyes and let sleep overtake her.
Notes: Sorry this one chapter was a little short, the next one will be a bit longer. This story is an edited version of .com so if you want to find out more info about Mirra of Nowhere and read ahead a little, go to that link.
