Middle-earth, and all who dwell within it, belongs to Tolkien. I am grateful to him for growing this beautiful garden in which our imaginations can play. Please review!
Betta stood in the doorway of the cabin and looked out at the night. It had been two days since she had last seen Fili. Two days since she had bid farewell to him upon this very spot.
Nan and Gilon were not at home tonight. It was the anniversary of their own private wedding over thirty years ago. The weather was warm, and they had packed a bag and gone up into the hills that morning to celebrate it as they saw fit. Nan had told Betta that she would not see them until well into the next day. On that assurance, Betta had invited Tom to eat his dinner in the house. He had refused, of course, out of respect for Nan's prejudice, and so Betta had dined with him in the barn.
All day, he had been cheerful, but when evening began to fall, she saw the confusion in his eyes that were often glancing toward the hill, and toward the town beyond. He wanted to offer to stay at home with her, to prevent her being left alone and unprotected, but Betta knew that Tom had been courting a young woman from town, a very pretty thing, if a bit squint-eyed, and she was not yet so captivated by the sandy-haired blacksmith's apprentice that her love would tolerate a night's neglect.
Betta had ordered Tom into town, and the young man had taken his wages and gone with gratitude. Now, she could just make out the silhouette of his broad shoulders at the crest of the hill before he started down along the road.
She sighed and went back inside, shutting the door behind her. It was strange, being alone in this small but empty house. It was her house, to be sure, but it would be some time yet before she felt that it was hers. Her eyes fell upon the crossbow hanging in the corner that Frei had delivered to Betta that morning. She had brought instructions as well for its care and use, and Gilon had set up a large bale of hay behind the barn for Betta to shoot at. She had nearly hit it once.
Betta sat down in her chair near the fire and took up her sewing from the basket. She still hated the work, but thought that Nan would be pleased to see what progress she had made in the dwarf-woman's absence.
She had been at it for nearly an hour before the knock came at the door. She was startled, but glad and threw aside her work, ran to the window. The dark shape of a dwarf stood hunched up on the stoop, his face turned stubbornly toward the door so that the little moonlight that was out did not touch his face. But who else but Fili would come visiting at this hour? What other dwarf would come to Nan's cabin? Betta unfastened the latch and threw open the door.
She might have thrown her arms around the old dwarf, too, but the light from inside the cabin shone upon dark hair and a scowling face. The dwarf stared up at her. "I am Fror," he said, and bowed. There was no 'at your service' and no 'good evening', either. He stood up again and frowned at her angrily until she invited him inside.
"I know you," she said, shutting the door behind him. "If you will not pretend courtesy, then neither shall I. What do you want?"
Fror entered the house as if it belonged to him. He strode forward and set a long, wooden box down atop the dinner table. Without a word, he opened the box and took out an ink well and blotter, a brush and length of parchment. Only after he had laid out his scribe's desk did he notice her and speak to her again.
"I have been sent by my lord, Thorin Oakenshield, to negotiate the terms of your surrender," he said.
"Surrender?" she echoed in surprise and she nearly laughed, but Fror's face was so stern, that she did not dare to laugh at him. "Might I ask what battle I have been fighting, and against whom, and how goes it? Not well, if you think me ready to surrender to your lord."
She was playful, but Fror was not. "You have bewitched my lord's eldest nephew. I have been authorized to negotiate terms on Master Thorin's behalf. He wishes to know how much will it cost him to have you gone from this land. I am authorization as well to offer transportation of you and your belongings back to the southern lands from which, as my lord understands it, you have come."
Betta stared at Fror for a long while, indignant and insulted and unable to speak, but she was no fool. She had spent enough time around Dwarves to understand a little of their ways. Eventually, she forced a smile for the old dwarf and sat down at a chair across the table from him, stretching out her arms as if she did indeed mean to negotiate. Fror lifted up his pen, prepared to write down her answer that he might carry it to his master.
"So, Thorin means to pay me off," she said. "That is very… human, of him."
Fror scowled but said nothing. He did not write that down, but she did not need him to. "I see now how it is," Betta murmured to herself. "This is the Honor of Dwarves." She sighed. "You may tell Thorin that there is nothing he can give me that I would value greater than what I have here, and my leaving will not restore his nephew to him. Fili is his own and will do as he pleases."
Fror blotted the ink on his paper and scowled at her, but before he could speak, the cabin door opened again. Betta had not latched it, and now Thorin stood with the night behind him, frowning into the house that he had scorned to enter for over thirty years. He must have been listening outside; he certainly looked scornful enough to have heard.
"Leave us," he told Fror. The old dwarf needed little encouragement. He packed up his pen and ink and hurried out of the cabin.
"You did not speak so bold when last we met," Thorin said, once they were alone.
"No, but then I was in your house. Now you are in mine." Betta did not stand to greet him. She only watched him warily as he walked about the room, glancing over the fixtures and furniture with indifference.
"Not much of a house," he muttered. "Wooden walls," he said, as if it were something to be ashamed of.
"A cave is as good as a castle, if you have wandered long in the wild," she told him. "You have had some experience in this," she added matter-of-factly, and he looked at her with surprise.
"My nephew has told you some of our history, I see, and more than he should had done, I have no doubt. I would say that any dwarf who told such secrets was not my of blood, except that such words stain the honor of my sister who laid claim to him."
"I had heard that dwarves were loyal to their kin..." Betta said quietly.
"Is that your plan? And your pride!" Thorin slammed his fist down upon the table. "You hope to force yourself into my halls through this unnatural marriage? You are no daughter of mine, whatever Fili might say!"
Betta was startled by his anger, and surprised that Fili had admitted their marriage to his uncle already. He had told her that he meant to wait.
She put those thoughts aside, knowing that she could not win this battle of wits with Thorin Oakenshield if she had half her mind on other things. She met his harsh look and said truthfully, "I have had no plan, and certainly none that concern you or your halls. You will not believe anything that I say, but I tell you now that for the better part of my journey with your nephews, I doubted the lineage that they claimed. I thought that your nephew was another mercenary or blacksmith when first I began to love him… many Men claim greater parentage than they are owed."
"And what do you claim, woman?" Thorin demanded with scorn in his words and his look.
"For my family? I claim nothing at all. My mother was the daughter of a farmer, well-off but of no consequence. My father was a coward who married her for her land." Betta frowned to herself and shook her head. "For myself," she went on, "You know what I have done that is worth your gratitude and better treatment than I have received so far. Fili told you..."
"You will not speak his name!"
"Do you own the name also, as well as himself? Is that a part of your rights as King?" she asked, smiling, but there was no jest in her words.
"He is my nephew," Thorin growled, rising to his feet.
"A moment ago you meant to disown him."
Thorin clenched his fist and stared down at the small, insolent woman. She infuriated him with her smiles and her steady gaze, but when his eyes fell upon her right arm, the scar-twisted blunt end of her wrist that she had unwrapped from its bandages when she thought she would be safely alone; when he saw the wound she had taken, his anger was diminished. She was right that both Fili and Kili had vouched for the truth of how she had lost that hand. When she let go of Kili's hand to save him from an orc's blade, she could not have known that the Lossoth hunters would fish her out of the river on the other side. There was strength and honor in this woman that Thorin did not like to admit, but admit it he must. She deserved more respect than he had yet shown her.
He sat down and laid his hand open upon the table. "You must admit that I have the better claim on my own nephew," he said. "What is your price? A chest of gold? A good horse?" He looked at her with clever eyes, used to dealing in trade with Men. "Perhaps a sword, forged with a dwarven skill? Kili tells me that you are a fighter, and you might still carry a shield on your right arm. I have led armies into heated battle against overwhelming odds, but never have I been so poorly placed as this. Whatever you ask, I will pay to have my nephew back."
Betta looked at him with pity in her eyes. She shook her head. "I do not have him. He is yours to take, not mine to give. If you want to keep him, you must pay his price. Take him to Erebor. Take him away from me."
Thorin's eyes narrowed with suspicion when she named the goal of his secret quest. "If I were going that way, it is a long journey, two years at least, and there is no certainty that any who go with me will return. You have bewitched him under my very eyes, and now you expect me to believe that you would willingly let him go?"
"I told you, he is not mine!" Betta clenched her fist, for the first time showing her anger. There were tears in her eyes threatening to fall. "Fili says that there is honor in your quest. He wants it, and I want him to be happy. Is it my race or my womanhood that makes it so hard for you to believe that I could want what is best for my husband!"
Thorin looked hard at her. Even he could not deny that there was truth in her eyes. "I had already made up my mind to take him and his brother with me," he told her. "We set tomorrow, early. I had hoped that you would be reasonable, that you would agree to give up your place here so that I might name my nephew as regent to Ered Luin once Erebor is regained. Now, I see that I must keep him with me in the east. You should have taken the gifts that I offered. Now you shall have nothing."
"Perhaps," Betta agreed sadly.
Thorin stood up and turned to walk out, but he stopped short with a sharp intake of breath. Fili stood in the open doorway, watching his uncle with cold eyes. How long his nephew had stood there, Thorin could not say, but Betta knew. She had been facing the doorway.
Thorin scowled at the trick they had played, but he recovered himself quickly. "I expect you and your brother to be ready to ride on the morrow," he said. "If you are not in the Shire at the appointed hour, then I shall know that I have only one nephew who loves me."
With that, Thorin left, pushing past Fili in the doorway without looking at him. Betta did not look at Fili either. She stared down at her hand resting on the table. She did not want him to stay because she asked him to; she wanted him to stay because he wanted to, but she could not stop the tears that watered her cheeks now that the uncle had gone.
She heard footsteps and saw Fili's large hand cover her own. "I had come to tell you that I must leave on the morrow," he said. "I had hoped to break the news more softly."
She nodded. "I meant what I said. I do not mean to keep you here."
He pulled up a chair and sat down beside her. "I know. I do not know how long I will be gone, but I had hoped to spend this last night with you." She looked at him, and he smiled. "Unless my uncle has offered you a greater prize. Tell me, what did he offer you? Though I fear it will hurt my pride to hear it."
She laughed. "He offered me a sword!" she said. "As if I knew how to wield it without cutting off my own arm."
That was just like his uncle, Fili thought and he laughed.
He asked to spend the night with her, their last night together until he returned from the east, and she readily agreed. There was still sadness in his eyes, and she guessed that there always would be, but she could no more refuse his company than she could sever the remaining hand from her arm.
Fili stayed the night at the cabin, talking quietly with Betta in front of the fire and later sharing the warmth of her bed, but he rose again in the early morning hours while she was still fast asleep. He kissed her forehead before he left her and laid upon the pillow the golden locket that he had made for her, delicately filigreed and enclosing not only an etched miniature of his face, but also a lock of his yellow hair carefully knotted with black strands from his brother's head. Fili was determined to leave her a piece of both her husband and her brother-in-law to hold after they had gone. A reminder, in case they did not return.
It's always sad when I start to feel the story winding down. A farewell chapter and an epilogue, then I leave behind the Durin brothers and move on to other things.
"Books ought to have good endings. How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily ever after?"
-Paint