A/N: GEBAR- Crucible

"Mahal be praised!" Balin burst through the door to the council hall. "It has been done!"

Balin came into the chamber with a face colored something fierce with jubilation. He raised his hands together toward the ceiling and clasped his palms together in a worshipful praising stance.

"What today, shall we praise the Creator for, my friend?" Thorin inquired, setting the crown back slightly from his forehead.

"A certain fair-haired iron-smith wears in her hair a silver clasp of courtship," the old dwarf's eyes twinkled with delight again. "My dear brother! I never imagined. And now it is true for all to behold!"

"Courage in war takes one kind of fire. Courage with a lady... quite another," Thorin mused amicably.

"I told you once, Thorin, that Dwalin would always come to understand you eventually, even in unfamiliar things," said Balin. "Whether you believe it or not, he relies on you to set an example."

They turned around together as Dwalin entered. In the firm precise movements of his stride a certain self-gratification could be read as easily as if it were spelled out and pinned to his chest on a sheet of parchment. Thorin folded his arms and gave him a familiar warm grin.

"Dwalin, I have heard news of Freyda's braid and clasp."

"Aye, it was about time," Dwalin shrugged, with his usual gruffness but one that thinly veiled ebullience, that was alternately confounding and equally charming to behold. Grumbling with some unreadable hesitation, he reached then and embraced Thorin fully, the first true embrace since he had first beheld him, a ghost from the grave, on a bridge east of the Shire.

"Nadad," Dwalin acclaimed quietly.

"Buhel. Nadad," Thorin responded in kind.

He bumped Dwalin's forehead with his but Dwalin drew away quickly, with his familiar churlishness. "About time, Thorin, and I am very glad for it. She is an agreeable lass. Bonny fair and sweet." He mumbled the last three words as if he still held some shame for uttering anything as saccharine.

"Long did I think you would be embittered for my taking of a wife," Thorin confessed quietly.

"Only lit me a path to my own," Dwalin assured.

"Dwalin, the will of the Creator could not have forged you a finer lady, and I am glad for you, nadad. More than I can say plainly either," Thorin familiarly lauded him.

Dwalin guffawed. "Then let us get this business over with and let us drink to it rather than waste our barrels in the bellies of men."

"You called for us both, my husband?" Meisar said, as she entered with Freyda beside her, in cobalt matelassé with an alabaster and gray speckled cloak fastened in heavy gold chains and brooches at the shoulders. Oliada followed, wordless as always, and with their arrival Thorin gave her the first visible smile of the day. "I did, my love. Such a tedious duty this day I thought Dwalin might be glad of certain company." He smiled to himself watching Dwalin's eyes light up for the sight of her and then grow starchy again.

"Aye, I would be," Dwalin replied succinctly. He controlled the smile in his mouth but not his eyes. Taking Freyda on his arm he walked half a pace behind Thorin, only so not to step on the train of his extant robe.

"You will treat well and with good intent, I pray," Balin counseled as they walked toward the throne hall.

"How little you know me if you think I would treat with the Lord of Dale as if I were some ignoble troglodyte," Thorin smiled a comma of a smile on the left side of his mouth.

"It is because I do know you, that I repeat my advisement," Balin was half sincere. He walked behind his brother and studied the intricate weave of Freyda's plait, four-stranded, elegant and clasped with the thick silver emblem. Slightly uneven at the very last, it had Dwalin's determination and his clumsiness written into its finer strands, and it was altogether perfect.

"I've brought my queen just in case," Thorin heartened toward Balin, half serious as well. Meisar on his arm was small and staid, the eyes and the set mouth of the shepherdess clothed in the rich austere noblesse of the queen. A handsome seat had been brought for her to sit beside Thorin at his throne. She did so, with her arms set on either rest and her women standing on either side of her, Oliada behind, armored and expressionless, her red spear a quick wound in the light-drenched hall of stone. It was the sharp, eerie light of a winter afternoon starting to go dark.

Beside her, Thorin sat upon his grandfather's throne with a look of determined impatience. "Now I suppose we wait for this bargeman lord to grace us with his presence."

In a mercifully brief time the doors were opened by the sentries cranking back the chains that held them shut, and six men of Dale escorted through. It took him several minutes to make the walk down the narrow stone aisle to the throne. Stern and sober and dutiful, the bowman turned king, his clothes alone bespoke such- black wool and leather, of durable make but without a hint of lordly adornment.

"Hail and be well met, king under the mountain," Bard greeted first.

He was in a fairer mood to make the meeting as pleasant as pulling a tooth. Bard, after all, had just come from the Elvenking's halls. He could almost smell the decaying flowers and heady wine on him. It made the king under the mountain bristle. But he dipped his head courteously to the Lord of Dale nonetheless. "Well met you are, my lord."

"Not much of a lordling, is he?" Gimli mumbled low to Thorin. His mother hushed him but nodded in quiet agreement. In comparison, Gimli was carefully groomed and possessed of a polished sturdiness beside his parents, in a long surcoat of mahogany leather with burgundy velvet panels embroidered in geometric lines, braided hair without a flyaway loose. A proud court surrounded the king on the throne's platform, less sumptuous than his grandfather's retinue had been but no less carefully presented. Before them, Bard looked a well-groomed peasant. His attire seemed rarely changed its appearance- a frock coat of sturdy black wool and breeches of dark doe-hide, high boots folded over at the knee, also black and severely shined. The men at arms that accompanied him were almost identically attired, men with stoical expressions and their noses reddened from the winter's chill.

"May I present the honored members of my court. Balin, son of Fundin, head of the small council, his brother Dwalin, my first lieutenant most honored. Gloin, son of Groin, secretary of the treasury, his wife Emli, head of the queen's household, and their son Gimli." Bard nodded cordially to each and Thorin went on. "Members of my council- the brothers Dori, Nori and Ori." He rose from the throne to summon Meisar forward and take her hand upon his own, presenting her, an imperturbable flash of pride in his deep-set blue eyes. "My queen, my wife, Meisar, herself a daughter of Dale."

"Well met, my queen," Bard offered. When he had last beheld her, she had been anything but regal, and now… seated again on the ornate, high-backed vermilion chair, she was only slightly more so, if the eye was keen to look beyond the handsome dress of a dwarven court. The king was dark and purposely broad in a long extant robe of black fur and sturdy dark velvets, unadorned otherwise except for several rings on either finger. The queen similarly was in a long embroidered linen surcoat and dark over-gown with hanging sleeves, a lighter extant petticoat visible, also painstakingly embroidered in straight lines of geometric stitches alternating black and gold thread from its hems and up the center. Her adornments were modest save for the slim jeweled fillet that was lain across her forehead, mimicking a crown that would be hers in time. The dwarven family- father, son and then wife- bridged the gap between the king and queen's respective retinues, and seemed to signify some semblance of a union, as uncanny a sight in a dwarven hall as had ever been known the likes or Bard of his forebears. They all looked upon the small, plump, orange-haired queen with genuine curiosity, bemusement and awe quietly expressed together. Few men of their city or of the entirety of their region had ever seen a dwarf woman but the tales of them after the exile of the dwarves had always tended toward the fantastical.

Still, some things had seemed solid, and suddenly were not. A dwarf woman of her status would not be seen at a state dinner, much less on official business. Bard remembered boyhood tales he had heard of old Queen Lotte, rumored by some mannish ruffians and small boys to have possessed the face of a goat and pig's tail peeping out from underneath her petticoats. He remembered Percy in the days of their youth, chewing a stick, weaving a tale of how poor old Lotte was cursed by a sorceress to have a billy-goat's face, and King Thror had hid her in the halls for the shame of it. Of course, truth be told, none had ever seen Queen Lotte, nor any dwarf woman except the merchant wives in Dale, there or on the Long Lake since the dragon's first wrath. In his mind, the tale had always been as good as true.

But times were new and different now. A fisherman's son was a great lord, and a dwarf queen was seated as if enthroned herself, beside the king under the mountain. He wanted her there, tradition and decorum be damned. Perhaps the world shall be renewed after all.

Thorin looked over the somberly-clad men quizzically. "I thought you meant to bring a delegation, my lord."

"This is my delegation," Bard replied.

"Armed men? It seems strange you would bring armed men into a peaceable stead, unless you anticipated violence," Thorin intoned, tepidly. A finger tapped impatiently against the stone arm of Thror's throne, amplified in the great cavernous hall that was so quiet in the moment.

Bard gave a placid nod. "My council double as my men at arms. I dislike large entourages. That besides, the men who are trusted to protect me are just as well to advise me."

Out of the corner of Thorin's eye he saw Dwalin nod in an almost involuntary agreement.

"I see," Thorin conceded. He flitted glances around the crowded platform of his own, wondered if Bard meant insult by it, forced himself to ignore it. "Well I should assure you, Bard, Lord of Dale, that I have no intent of violence, or any other ill notions for that matter. This time you can trust in that. I give you my word."

"Nonetheless, it is violence I come to discuss with your grace," Bard went on, taciturn, ignoring whatever sarcasm Thorin intended to ladle onto him.

Thorin looked choleric again. "A decree has already been sent out, making any skirmishes instigated by dwarves against men a punishable offense. I have heard no report of tension for nearly a week. Though I assure you in time the mountain will be able to accommodate-"

"It is not that I come on behalf of."

"There are stirring in the East that bring troublesome news to our doors. There was even rumor that an Oliphant, mounted by mannish riders, pursued and trampled a traveling train of merchants."

Oliada's spear rattled uneasily, but when Meisar looked to her, she feigned a cough.

"And does such animosity threaten our lands?" Thorin continued.

"It seems localized enough for the time," Bard wagered. "But it has disrupted trade. Certain provisions may find themselves in short supply should it continue."

Behind Meisar, Oliada shifted her weight uneasily from one foot to another, in quick nervous movements again.

"Like Elvish silk?" Thorin's voice had a hint of mockery to it.

"The elves of Thranduil's halls are not the only ones in this part of the world who have a preference for fine textiles. Silk sells as well as any polished stone in the marketplaces of my city," Bard came back.

Thorin sighed heavily and pondered it for a moment. "There are three large merchant families in this kingdom who deal in the Eastern trade routes. So far the state of the roads and the winter keep them here. Thus, I am unaware of such stirrings. But if you say so, do continue."

"If spring shall send them on their journeys east I recommend they bring armed escorts. I am also in need of such provisions, you see. That is why I have come here. My men require weapons. Swords and axes, steel arrows, armor. Enough to see an escort of twenty well-armed for every merchant caravan. I might even recommend your own be equally girded along the road."

"Very well," Thorin finally sighed deep in agreement. Ori finished the order on a sheaf of parchment, folded it and sealed it with Thorin's signet ring and wrung his cramped hand after he had sent it off with a quick-footed steward.

Bard tilted his head toward Thorin again. "This has been to agreeable ends, king under the mountain. I give my hopes that your coronation shall bring all good tidings also."

Thorin stared back at him blankly for a moment, while Meisar gave him an impatient look, a scolding mother's glare that he could only politely ignore for several or so seconds.

"You will of course be among the honored guests," Thorin forced himself to offer.

"The honor is mine, your majesty," Bard replied, gratified.

"My lord," Meisar spoke up quickly. "If you would offer your daughter my greetings. I was glad to have made her acquaintance during the petitioner's day. She is a fine young woman, truly."

Bard turned back and smiled, surprised. "Aye, she is. I thank you and will give all due praises… your majesty."

.

A dinner befitting a visiting delegation of Bard's rank was given in Tania's Hall that night, and Bard was brought a seat with the legs half sawed off and hewn again so that he might sit comfortably at the dais. Below, with the dwarves, his men were generously fed on meat and mead, plates of cheese and spicy dried sausage, long braided loaves of bread. Flutes and drums played a thunderous, merry melody on the far end of the hall.

Thorin walked out hand in hand with his queen toward the dais. Dwarves raised their glasses and tankards and made their reverence known in full-bellied whoops and belches. They hailed in their strange tongue, the words blending together uselessly as they could never seem to come into rhythm together to chant. They gave Bard and his men their regards as well, with as much enthusiasm as could be expected, when he was announced and escorted to his seat by the steward.

More of the king's court came for the evening feasting and drinking, as could be expected- the dwarf who had begged a wounded prince into his own stead he recognized for the ridiculous winged hat alone. The king scolded him for his absence from the day's duties and sent him to sit at one of the tables below. By his side was a dwarrowdam that he cosseted all night with kisses.

The king's was a long dais that accommodated a party of dwarves of whom many seemed to lack a certain regal bearing, all being elevated there nonetheless. And more dwarf women, who sat just below the queen at a table of their own, were compared to the queen almost exotic in their dress, shades of saffron and cerulean and pomegranate red. Plates of bread and cheese were brought and before the meat came. Bard had only imbibed of one tankard of heavy winter lager and felt it grow languorous in his belly when the dwarf women below were downing their second and third rounds.

A gate that had once been sealed to him had been opened as easily as the barrels of beer, ale and mead stacked on the side of the hall and tended to by several very busy stewards. He looked down at the dwarves lining the tables below, exuberant in their drunkenness, bottomless in their appetites, and elbow-to-elbow with seemingly little regard for their differences of station or fortunes in life. Their truest commonalities were ones Bard had easily expected. They've the manners of rubbish-collector's whelps, he thought. His own men couldn't have been called formal in their habits but at least they weren't waylaying each other in the head with loaves of bread. Must be some strange form of affection. The king however ate sparingly.

Bard sat forward as a tremendously corpulent dwarrowdam came before him, offering the corner of a carved tray laden with frosted tarts. The sharp sweet smell made Bard's nose twitch and the glands in the bottom of his mouth begin their deluge.

"Tarts, blackberry tarts for the dragon-slayer! A little frosting to soften the bite!" Urdlaug offered, hiccuping, inebriated enough to treat gregariously, even with him. "Wouldn't old Smaug wish a lick of my sweetness to soften the bite of that black arrow?"

Bard smiled with lips drawn thinly, taking one tart for his plate. "Quite certain, mistress dwarf," he replied politely.

"To we dwarves, hospitality is considered a sacred duty," Balin imparted lightly onto Bard. "Thorin learned it at his grandfather's knee, and my father's, in the days of yore. I assure you he has not forgotten."

Thorin glanced at Balin out of the corner of his eye, mildly irked. "Food is the most effective form of diplomacy," he whispered low to Meisar. "The more they eat, the less they talk, and everybody leaves happy. That is what I learned at my grandfather's knee."

"This wasn't so hard, was it?" Meisar cajoled, gently.

"Ya targ hurus," Thorin groused.

"M'ikhfishif targzu ni bagd," Meisar chided.

Thorin let out a controlled snort of disbelief. "A man who once insulted my wife outright and now he drinks of my mead and ale, and you think I overreact? I think it not so easy," Thorin's brow raised in annoyance.

"It is the nature of being a king," Meisar urged quietly, squeezing his forearm in a calming gesture.

"Perhaps, but not a dwarf," Thorin grumbled, took another long sip of lager.

"I praise your ales," the Lord of Dale offered, after a brief, uneasy silence.

"There are several families who tend to breweries here under the mountain. This one is the work of exiles who ran an alehouse in Dunland. I shall offer them your praises, my lord," Thorin offered, more amicably. Balin smiled placidly in relief on the other side of Bard.

Bard studied him for a clandestine moment, the stiffness of his jaw, eyes set forward. He had expected a far more sumptuous figure, a king whose eyes had been mad with lust for his treasures. He could have just as easily been made a murderer, of a winsome creature no less, the halfling, for the denial of it's crowning jewel. Instead he found Thorin mostly unadorned. And her the same. If not himself, he imagined Thorin would have at least made certain his little queen was cosseted in some richness. Rather she was darkly-clad also and the crown of her shocking hair visible but with a long plain dark veil trailing down her back. And yet there was the same warmth between them that had piqued his curiosity and in some manner his greater fears. As he had once looked upon his Owenna, a devotion and adoration wholehearted but utterly virtuous at its core.

The king and queen under the mountain exchanged conversation in their guttural tongue, her hand on his, affectionate motions of her fingers over his own but her eyes were far from comely in their expression. Dwarf women had been called many things, few of their likenesses as he had ever known. Meek was ever the least of them.

Meisar pushed one in his direction on a small plate. "You must have another tart, my lord. I can hear your stomach crying out for a second all the way over here."

"Then I praise my belly for being more forthcoming than I," Bard joked, uneasily.

"They were always a favorite treat upon the road," Meisar said. "Urdlaug always found a way to see them prepared, if the occasion called for it." For eyes that were rendered such an unforgiving shade, she had an amicability to her that put Bard slightly more at ease.

"The road?" Bard repeated.

"My company came from the Blue Mountains, and were joined upon the road by the king's own."

"Yes, you were a… guide for hire. I do remember," Bard offered her a brief conciliatory glance. "Thus destiny I suppose has guided you here from there."

"As was I a blacksmith for hire in enough dung-strewn villages of men, and no less a king for it, if our current circumstances are to say anything of destiny," Thorin rebutted, brows lowering.

"I meant no insult," Bard assured. "We all have a purpose here. A destiny in this world. A world where a simple bargeman may see himself lord of a great city. And a dwarf-maid dare I say of humble origins made queen."

"You may dare to do so, and be correct I think, though even I have little recollection of my beginnings. I may have been born to a prosperous family for all I know. After all, Dale before the dragon's time was a city stuffed to its gates in wealth, and shared by many. I remember the beautiful colors of the city, if nothing else."

"The days that my forefather, Girion, was lord of the city. Indeed. A time when peace and merriment ruled the city as greatly as its treasures." Bard let the corner of his gaze flicker toward two dwarves slithering out from the table below hand in hand, intent he knew well enough among mannish kinds, the ember of it kindling in their eyes. "Truly my lady, I meant no insult. We have all risen in this world, from ash."

"I take none my lord. Will you excuse me a moment?" The queen rose and consulted at the lower table with the mother-dwarf and the other women who appeared to be summoning her.

"I was under the impression we would have the company of Gandalf this evening. I'm afraid I did not expect his absence," Thorin said to Bard, peeved. If there was little to suggest intent of any truly malicious nature, Gandalf was surreptitious in a manner that worked its way under his skin. Nor I do easily overlook being shown up in my own halls.

"I have girded myself well for the unexpected," Bard gave a self-deprecating hint of a laugh. "Such are these times. But I have seen a delicate prosperity and mostly harmony rise from the ashes of enmity and slaughter. I would see it kept that way."

"I suppose if we were to water the ground with the tears of our grief we might as well see something grow of it."

"Tears would salt the earth and strangle anything from growing at all, my king," Bard corrected gently.

"Would they? I should have known. After all, halls of stone are so used to yielding fertile offerings from their terrains."

"You are petulant, king under the mountain. Even my children were less surly in their toddling years."

The metal of Thorin's rings tightened around the chalice, so hard they grooved into the opposing metal. "If you expected anything different from a dwarf you would be a fool," he forced a smile whose meaning was barely veiled. "But I am a king who has unlearned madness and the cruel vice of avarice and gold-lust over time, to take up the fine hand of civility. I intend to perfect my craft over time as any dwarf would, but I prefer not to be prodded else-wise."

"My king, we men yield the grain, fruit and fish of our terrains, and you yield metal. Swords, axes, pikes, armor. Without us, you starve here most likely. Without the riches of Erebor, we scrape out a living off soil nearly as poor and wrench old fish from under our nails until they are twisted with age. Survival depends on both sides keeping a promise. I'm sure you understand that, as fundamental in the art of civility, as you call it."

"You speak to me as if I shout down to you from a barricaded gate, ready to hurl a Hobbit under your horse's feet. Do you think I do not see my people now and wish their prosperity to continue but for the goodwill of our people that it relies on?"

"The last I conversed with you, you expressed a desire to tear my tongue out. I may need time to form an answer to that, my king."

"Then here is your answer: I see my kingdom now and it is not a hollow hall filled with rot and death. I see life here, taking anew. I will do all to preserve that. But I will not be mocked in my halls."

"I offer you no mocking my king, only peaceable regards," Bard insisted, his forbearance like him, cool and unwavering. "In truth, I should have offered such regards for your marriage long before. She is a good woman. I see that now, plainly."

"She is more than that," Thorin grumbled, resisting any hint of fraternity. "My wife is of perpetual strength, but I will protect her against any and all things. That best be well understood, my lord."

Bard hadn't the opportunity to make a reply when the fiddles whined to a halt and the drums petered out. Across the hall, Bofur climbed up atop the table and acclaimed the musicians, his own flute at the ready.

"Play a jig for two! Freyda, Dwalin, come dance!" Bofur called. "Can't have n'official supper wi'out a toast and a dance to this bonny pair, newly a'courtin'."

"Naisrini!" the dwarves were chanting in the direction of both, growing rowdier in their demand with every second they dwaddled. Thorin bent his head toward Dwalin, offering both permission and encouragement.

Reluctantly, Dwalin rose from his seat and came around to the dwarrowdams' table to offer Freyda his escort. She rose, the body of her cloak undulating, the brooches and gold chain fastening it over her shoulders clinking densely against her with her arm raised to hold Dwalin's. He avoided all the eyes of the dwarves who were gazing with curious benevolence upon the couple as they made their way to the musician's nook. They took their places, both timid to the task, and Dwalin giving Bofur an unforgiving glare. When he looked again to Freyda her determined pose, her staid gaze, served a welcome emollient to this public promulgation.

"Ilfimi!" Bofur prodded again, catching the heat of Dwalin's stare. Bumping the second fiddle aside, he raised flute to his lips. The drums began to thunder and the fiddle to wail again. Several other dwarven pairs- Siv and Nori, Lagert and Nifur son of Bombur and and Yrsa, Anbur and Lulia holding hands in a rollicking circle, joined. The stiffness of Dwalin's arms and of his feet could be seen a league off, but he kept Freyda close and rested his hand on the small of her back when the music slowed and the pipe alone was throwing out a high, throaty lilt.

Bard watched the fierce lieutenant and the dwarrowdam with the pale spun-gold hair move in time together to the rising and falling of the music's energies. The sight made the Lord of Dale smile, a rare smile but a warm one that caused Thorin's shoulders, voluntary or not, to ease back where they had been set forward as if to strike out from the dais at any moment. Several more of the dwarrowdams got up to dance and spun with each other, laughing, skirts swishing, their boots as heavy as the men's thumping on the stone. He noted the absence of one particular dwarrowdam, whose face he had never seen but whose lack of presence he felt suddenly, sharply and keenly aware of. And curiosity rose, but he dared not entertain it aloud.

"This kingdom prospers. New life takes here. Your folk have a jubilant spirit about them as I did not expect to see," he remarked quietly to Thorin when the music was ended, the dwarves hailed and acclaimed the troupe of musicians and raised their tankards and their voices as Freyda and Dwalin made their way back down toward the dais between the long tables, a veritable gauntlet of bawdy encouragements, which made the brutish looking dwarf lower his head like a coy little maid. Bard watched the two dwarves with the trident coiffures make for the egress of the hall clandestinely and hand in hand, a sagely dwarrowdam pushing away from the women's table to chase after them. The queen rose and started to make her way back toward the dais.

"Aye, life grows here, and it will, in many more places, my lord," Thorin peered finally at Bard over his chalice, a gaze that bore a thousand memories, petty and world-shattering alike. Bard knew which one he had in mind and felt his throat grow tight. "And do you find my queen still as misguided as you find me?" Thorin pressed on, Bard slightly relieved for his bluntness, if anything.

"Perhaps even less so," Bard quietly retorted. "You dwarves forget nothing, do you?"

"You say it is no insult, but tell me, do you still pin your hopes for a better future upon the end of my line? Upon her barrenness?"

"That remains to be seen," Bard replied, mumbling into his cup again.

.

Buhel- Friend of All Friends

Ya targ hurus- With a singed beard (narrowly avoiding a sticky situation)

M'ikhfishif targzu ni bagd- Literally: Do not dangle your beard in the wind; meaning: stop the nonsense

Ilfimi!- Play music!

Naisrini!- Dance Together!