AN: I hope the format of this chapter will work. I tried to bring all threads of the story to more or less February 2986.

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Februray 2986, Breeland, Staddle, "The Den" smial at Goat Run 2

Aravir made himself comfortable at the table. The smial was quiet. Every body that should be asleep seemed to be so. He should have time enough to finally write that letter he had promised his foster daughter. Inzilbeth, learning Westron, had asked him for a very long letter so that she could read about people she knew and cared about, and not some long dead lords and their ladies. Elfish, at that. As much as she was lapping up anything Dunadan, elves left her cold. Probably her suppressed Eorling background poking through, he surmised.

He decided to go over the events of the last half year in as much detail as possible, enabling her to catch up. Thinking of it, he decided to make a copy for Aragorn. They had no other kin their age, Halbarad "Graveyard Cheer" exempting. Maybe reading about children would cheer up the poor wifeless sod? Or make him take up the suggestion of bridal abduction? At the very least he kept his nephew up to date with family events.

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Return to Staddle

The retreat from the Etten Moors south to the East Road was uneventful. They reached the area of the Ranger camps near The Last Bridge in late October. Discretion was used to keep Ashtuzual out of sight. Having experienced keen elven noses "Lady Lothiriel" spent a week in her husband's worn-in shirts and braies. She was rather snappy that week.

There they passed on the youngest and orphaned of the captives his Company had liberated from Orc and HillMen raiders to the Dunedain forces on the spot, to be fostered out among families in the Angle. The freed adults set out with them westwards, in the general direction of "home". They would then set out on their own once they arrived in Bree. He still ended up with two Haladin boys – Wyn and Trahere – in his care. At ten and twelve respectively they had been judged too old to be fostered out and yet too young to know how to get home on their own. The smial was beginning to be full of youngsters, especially after the girls arrived ...

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Almarian and Elwing

The two eldest Tarkil girls arrived in Bree soon after the Company, together with news that „five times makes it" – they had a baby brother. The proud mother – according to descriptions practically floating around in bliss – had named him Valandil. Tarkil – who had escorted them to Staddle - tried not to grin all the time and the news of a grandson made Aithon tearful. Tarkil promised to bring Valandil to his grandfather once the boy was large enough to travel.

The sisters were quite different looking. Almarian, fresh after her sixteenth birthday, looked like a Numenorean princess from the old and rare tapestries preserved in the Angle or in some of the original holds, with her angular features and raven hair. She towered over her mother. The only non dunadan element were her eyes – blue. This led to frequent misidentification as Aravir's daughter, with "helpful" neighbours rushing to inform Lothiriel of the fact. The fourteen year old Elwing inherited all of Inzilbeth's curves – indeed her body seemed not to sport a flat surface anywhere - but not her height. She stopped growing after reaching the level of her mother's ear. Her face was Numenorean, just like Almarian's, and with the requisite grey eyes. However, she was a dark blond. Never mistaken for Aravir's daughter, she was taken for a local girl instead – that is, up to the moment somebody looked in her eyes.

And looking in the girls' eyes was something which lads – locals or from his own extended household – Caradoc, Rys, Lolan - were having a problem with. Aravir chuckled at the unexpected development involving yet another new dweller of the smial. Passing on to news concerning the dwarrow, little did know that he was addressing his foster-daughters fears.

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Meanwhile in the Angle

"I keep thinking of the littles." Inzilbeth said, explaining her insomnia.

Tarkil did not need to ask which littles she hand in mind and knew better than to point out that one little was half a head taller and the other as curvaceous as their mother. But it would be the kettle calling the pot black. They will be his little girls until the Unmaking of the World too.

"I know Father is there, Aravir, Ashtuzual, Tesni and the boys. But with the baby will they be able to spare an eye for them? Will they look out for them? And that dwarf you mentioned? The girls wrote that he keeps seeking their company? Should I be worried?" She turned to face him.

Seeing Inzilbeth work herself up into a state he did not have the heart to keep the secret.

"There is something about Guntram I have to tell you about ... "

GASP – "What is it!?"

"I know him and ... "

"And what, tell me!"

"Actually Gudrun is her name."

"What?"

"Yes, she is a girl. Or rather a woman grown, I'm not quite sure, you'd have to ask Lothiriel that. She likes to know such things." He brushed the hair which had escaped Inzilbeth's night braid out off her face.

"She is one of those we rescued in 2981. In her eyes she owes me a blood-debt. By extension this includes my family. And she is an honourable person too. If she was taken by the girls then they have acquired the most ferocious – now that Ashtuzual is waddling about – nurse in Breeland. This is the dwarrow way - he continued by way of explanation of her disguise – women outside their holds dress as men for safety. Not that they have to try too hard – almost everybody, seeing a beard, think it's a man."

Inzilbeth dreamt of her girls being taken by a dragon and then rescued by a dwarf with a beard, plaits and breasts. The axe wielding dwarrowdam had fiery red hair gathered into two braids sticking out at right angles from her head above her ears, and wore a horned helmet. And had freckles. And once the dragon was dead the girls and the dwarrowdam played hopscotch on the carcass.

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Dwarrow in general, and one in particular

The Dwarrow were mustered out in Bree. They were happy – the caravan guards were content as they had been treated well, not a guarantied outcome of hires to Mannlings, had been paid as per contract, killed orcs and been paid the bonuses for it, plus the wergild for the fallen – all paid out as laid out in the terms. Just the way the Dwarrow liked it. From their point of view the Mannlings' comportment had been exemplary and they could refer them as worthy employers to other Dwarrow.

The volunteers, even though loosing two of their number, Faram and Kafli, were also upbeat - for mostly the very same reasons. The two that had fallen were both well past two hundred and were looking towards the Ageing that befell dwarrow around their two hundred fortieth year and led to their deaths some ten years later. These two had died fighting, still grieving for the clansmen they had lost to slavers. The attitude amongst the Children of Aule was that they simply brought forward their death by some two or three decades and gifted wergild on their families as a bonus. With children grown and in crafts or trades, a worthy exchange, in their opinion.

Speaking of bonuses, there was the question of the bonus earned by the "Defenders". Whether to share it out at a flat rate, or to bestow upon a single member of the company. There were various suggestions as to worthy feats of arms or bravery. However, after short deliberation Ashtuzual's suggestion that Guntram, standing up all alone to over a dozen Elves led by the Balrog Slayer, was accepted as the bravest act of the expedition.

Groin, however, was pushed into the gloom even further. Already wallowing in self-depreciation since the incident with the elves at the Ford, the refusal of his sister to come back to the Hall was a severe blow. Their separation and Guntram's stay in Bree was a very loud affair. Their roars in Khuzdul could be heard several smials away. But Guntram prevailed and stayed in Staddle with Aravir and joined his expanding household.

It was a very unhappy Groin leading his band towards the Blue Mountains. The death his father was not disquieting. The abduction of Gudrun and the other girls and boys had hit their father hard. Although nobody blamed him for their loss to his face, there was some underlying ill feeling towards his father nonetheless. He could see the pain of having failed his clan in his father's eyes and had more or less expected berserker bravery masking suicidal attempts. His father found a good death.

What made him feel low was his sister deeming him an inadequate protector, preferring not even other dwarrow, but Mannlings over him. He knew the Men in question to be honourable and meriting of dwarrow-friend title, of having saved his sister from slavery and selflessly treated her wounds, yet still it rankled. If he had failed his sister so, how could he have a wife? How could he swear to protect another if he had already been proven to be incapable of doing so? Although only one hundred seven years old he knew – he would never have a family. He did not deserve one.

All he could do was to spend his sister's bonus for standing up to the "Old Coot" on the best smithing tools he could find. And to haggle over every penny. And to make some of them by himself or with kin.

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After the girls had arrived Guntram latched himself to them and quickly became their default companion. The girls were a bit shy of him, just as they were of the other den's inhabitants. But their father and "uncle" Aravir assured them that they could trust the dwarrow implicitly, like the closest of kin, like an older brother they never had. Indeed, inside less than a week the glares and shoves handed out by Guntram at boys looking for too long – meaning more than a passing glance - at Inzilbeth's daughters were worthy of any protective older brother alive. He became their tutor in Common which, with their mother, they had began to learn only after her return from the springtime visit to Bree. Their neighbour Olwina and her children also joined in these lessons, as the other non-Dunedain wife in the village had not learnt Westron while a child in Dunland.

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At this point in writing the letter Aravir pulled up his sleeves and stretched his arms in front of him to crack the joints in his hands and fingers. He cast a smug look at his scared forearms. Being too tall to be marked on the shoulders, and after having one moob half way to bitten off, his Dark Flower now expressed her pleasure by biting him on the arms. He smiled fondly at a particularly impressive imprint of his wife's teeth – he liked to think about it as been made when they beget Thiriston. And in some cases he had vabrances on!

Radiating smugness like the Oronduin fumes he dipped his quill and started on another parchment. He was now to write about the outcome of said smugness. He put the quill back into the pot and tip-toed to his bedroom door and slipped inside. With the moon in the cloudless sky and reflections off the snow there was light enough for him to see whether Ashtuzual and Thiriston were tucked in as they should. The little honker slept in the crook of his mother's arm, the orcess rejecting cots –

"I'd never seen one until we met Hartmut and Herasvinda. Orclings have no cots. Orclings need no cots!"

Who was he to dispute that?

He kissed them gently on their heads and went back to writing.

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Thiriston (Scared Face in Sindarin)

The begetting of their son had not been a particularly romantic affair – they took to patrolling together during Ashtuzual's "heat" and - after carefully using all their combined senses to check the neighbourhood for friend and foe alike – they quickly ravaged one another, making up for half a year of denied proximity. Once in a tree, giggling about making "elf love".

When they arrived in Bree her bump was showing, as at that point she was three months gone, mid way through her pregnancy.

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She had given him a good scare one day ...

He couldn't find his wife. It was a lovely sunny day, the late Janury sun high in the sky and blazing away, with wind sheltered spaces being positively sweltering, but this did not explain her absence. She was due soon, nobody knowing exactly when. All Ashtuzual knew of gestation among her kind was „six moons" and „it varies" and „big gals sometimes take longer", which was not very helpful.

His mind was producing all sort of unpleasant scenarios. Was she conscious? Was she giving birth in some nook or cranny of the smial or somewhere else on the property? Bleeding to death?

A frantic half an hour later he finally spotted her when – after double checking everything in the smial – he began to comb the property step by step.

She was sprawled on a snowdrift in a sheltered spot. He ran to her. There was no blood nor „anything" and the „bump" looked just like the last time he'd seen it. Or did it? She didn't move so he dropped on his knee and reached to check her pulse like she had trained him to do.

„I'm all right" - she batted his hand away.

„So why didn't you give a sign when I was coming to you?" - He was so relieved he was not angry at her for all the worry she had given him.

„I smelt it was you. And I can tell your panting anywhere" - she said with a smile, eyes still closed.

„If you are all right, then what are you doing here?"

„Basking in the Sun."

He looked upon her, stunned. And worried again.

„Darling, orcs DO NOT bask in the sun. Let me take you inside ..."

„And put me in a damp cave as it is an orc's wont? Get out of the sun and stop casting a shadow over me! I am enjoying the warmth! Basking in the sun is what orcs like best", she purred to tease her husband.

„But ... but won't Angry Face harm you? I remember five years ago ... „

„Ara, that was FIVE years ago! Just like your face and hands are brown from the sun, so are mine! But as you go from pink to brown, and I go from tan to tanner, it is not so easy to see. I no longer get burned. And I got used to it, running around in the sun with tarks for five years now."

"A lass likes her warmth" - she stretched in the sun, with eyes closed, no longer in her husbands shadow.

It suddenly hit him. His wife protected herself much, much less from the sun than she did at the beginning. He hadn't noticed this as it was gradual, like cutting slices off a sausage, you never knew when one passed from almost whole to almost gone.

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Then came the big day ...

The Rangers and rangers in training were slogging through the snow of Chetwood. Even if they did not actually bag any game, they were working towards two other objectives. They would check the wood for any suspect activity and keep the smial empty of men folk. Ashtuzual was in labour and Goodwife Edelweiss Busybody had chased all males off the premises. Even Aithon was not exempted, although pardoned forest patrol duty. Together with Guntram – also absolved, in his case due to short legs and snowdrifts up to his waist – the old Ranger took position at the Pig's Grin.

Once convinced of Aravir's innocence as to wife abuse, Edelweiss had grown to harbour certain warmth towards the Big Folk, even though a Ranger, but she wanted a testosterone free house nonetheless. Excitable male hobbits – especially the fathers-to-be - she could handle, pounding them with her brolly if necessary, but not "trolls" twice her height and four times her weight. She felt much better with the overgrown brutes out of the dwelling. Birthing was a women's business and that was that. With Tesni and the two new girls at hand she had enough helpers. Only the two small boys – Wyn and Trahere - survived the gender cleansing on grounds of age. They were also to serve as runners to the tavern to bring news that "everything was done".

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Ashtuzual looked at the infant handed over by Edelweiss. A lad. The hobbitess had already counted the fingers and toes and announced – "ten and ten". And commented subtly that "he looks a tad unusual, but that's to be expected with them curse, innit?". So now it was her turn to check him for evidently orcish features. Not that she had ever examined any orc babies, or remembered how orclings looked like. But she knew that how her child looked liker would determine what his life will be like. Easy or tough. Or better – easier or tougher.

Blue eyes, that was a relief! Not red. Question – would they stay this way? Slightly pointed ears, but evidently mannish – great! Black hair – they both had it. Slightly slanted eyes – no biggy. Indeed, a honker seemed to show few orcish features at all. Or this honker at least. Brow ridges – already pronounced, but among Man often a source of pride for men. For a daughter it could be a source of grief. Teeth and claws were something which only time would tell, though. The still crumpled red face made her think of battle scars. Yes! Scarface, that'll be his name. That'd be Thiriston in the elven language. And he looked so much like a little grumpy Aravir ...

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Holding his son a few hours later Aravir could not quite understand why this smooth faced infant was called Thiriston. Must be something about the World of Women he did not understand. He loved this smooth cheeked beauty. He looked so much like his mother when she was smiling ...