Chapter 155

Return to Life

Everything seemed gentler and kinder now that it was no longer so cold, windy and wet. Almost without warning, summer was upon us and with it friendlier weather. The roads – such as they were – were dry and easy to traverse. Moods were bright and tempers flared but rarely, even in such a mixed company as we were. Oh, dwarves would tease elves and elves would provoke dwarves, but it came to blows only once and, surprisingly, it was Thráin who put an end to it with a few choice words about friendships between their people and we had fought side by side to defeat Sauron only so that we could resume old feuds after?

He had changed, I reflected. I'd seen the potential leader in him even back in Rivendell – and he'd certainly been quick enough to take charge from the get-go – but it was more pronounced now. He carried himself with more gravitas, more authority. It was nothing very pronounced, but you'd sense it in the same way that you can sometimes feel it when eyes are on you, even when you cannot see the eyes in question. The changes were subtle, but they were there and no one missed them.

Thráin put his uncle and cousins out of their misery by telling them about his Durin-shaped destiny before some pesky elf could get round to it. If there was by some chance some soul who was not aware of it before, they certainly were after Kíli voiced his astonishment at a volume probably audible in the Grey Havens.

Thráin thanked him kindly for that.

With quite a heavy dose of sarcasm, which Kíli chose to ignore.

Even as we made our way north, the Free Folk there were putting their time to good use to ensure that their heroes – with some alarm I realised that I might well be counted among said heroes – had something to come home to. The farming was coming along in leaps and bounds, at least according to those who knew what they were talking about. The men of Dale had quite a substantial number of unskilled labour to direct and supervise.

Those who could be spared from farming however turned their hands to the war clean-up and it was here that Thoren sought to make himself useful…

Thoren

Dale was gone. That statement was as true now as it had been when he arrived home from Mirkwood, with elven refugees at his back. He had not lingered then at the place where that great city had been, nor had he done so since the war ended.

Now here he stood, in what in better days had been the city's central square. There were few visual indications, but it was more or less in the correct spot. Here and there small patches of pavement remained, but all else was gone.

'What a waste.'

It was turning out to be the refrain of the year and it remained unfailingly true. The orcs had not even left the stones that made up the buildings behind. What they had done with those only the Maker knew, but they were no longer here.

Rebuilding Dale was going to be a lengthy process.

It will not be completed while I am King.

A little rubble however remained. It was mostly hidden under the piles of wastage the orcs had left behind. It was knee-high in some places. The stench they left behind was not pleasing to the nose and Thoren was by no means the only one who wrinkled his nose in disgust.

'One hardly knows where to begin.' Tauriel put into words what he thought. The orcs' encampment had stretched out for miles and had covered a great patch of land where once Dale had stood.

'We begin where we stand,' he said.

It was not the most methodical, but this venture was never going to be that at any rate. Everyone who was not needed in the fields had flocked here today and they had all seemingly chosen a spot at random and dug in. Literally. Fíli had managed to at least organise a central point where all the waste was to be collected.

He wasn't supposed to do this. Aunt Thora had told him in no uncertain terms that he was doing himself no favours and that his recovery was complicated enough already. He might do more damage. He knew this. But for now at least he was still King and he ought to lead by example. He may not be able to fight for his people with a sword in his hand, but this he could still do. He would pay for it in pain, but pain had been his constant companion for many months and he was learning to live with it.

So he shovelled up orcish excrement and other unidentified matter and stubbornly ignored the growing pain in his legs. Tauriel knew, of course, but in this he had ignored her advice as thoroughly as Aunt Thora's.

It was the right thing to do. Folk nodded respectfully at him as he passed with a wheelbarrow full of waste and generously ignored it when he had to stop to catch his breath or when he stumbled and had to grasp the handles for some much-needed support. He had always led by example and so long as the crown was his, he would continue to do so.

Besides, he was hardly the only one pulling his weight. The maimed and old were chief among those who were hauling the excrement off the field. They weren't working very fast – some of them had to stop to catch their breaths quite regularly – but they were working and that was what counted. Not one of them had left yet and so, neither would he.

'After you, my lord,' said an old woman who came to empty her wheelbarrow at the dumping ground at the same time Thoren did.

'No, after you,' he insisted. She was older and decidedly more infirm than he was. She certainly looked older than he did. Especially for one of her race she must be of far advanced years.

'A true gent,' she said. 'Like your brother.'

This took him somewhat by surprise. She could not mean Thráin, because he had never behaved kindly unless held at sword point. And she couldn't mean Jack either, because until the war he had avoided men whenever he could. This only left Elvaethor, but he had not been his brother for very long. 'Which one, may I ask?'

'The tall one,' she replied, which yes, did rule Thráin out, but did not otherwise enlighten him much. 'Jack,' she added, as if sensing his confusion.

'You met him then?' Thoren asked for lack of anything more intelligent to ask. It seemed hardly the time to remind the old lady that Jack certainly never behaved as a gent, not even to his own folk.

'It was him who came to fetch me to the Mountain when the orcs first came,' she replied, nodding vigorously every inch of the way. 'I didn't want to come. Didn't seem right to take food when the young ones needed it more, but he insisted. He let me ride his horse. That never happened to me before.' She stopped and looked Thoren right in the eye. 'He was a good sort, your brother was.'

'I know.' He only wished that Jack had known it sooner about himself. Perhaps he would have known more peace.

'I was that sorry to learn he passed,' she carried on. 'Didn't deserve it.'

'No, he did not.' His own folk would never say that. Jack had died a hero. He had fallen in battle, saving the lives of his companions. There was no nobler way to go. Many mourned his passing, but all were agreed that this was a good and dignified way to go. It was a war after all and Jack had known what he was doing.

Yet this truth remained: he had not deserved it. A good death though it was, Jack had been deserving of life. He should have lived for many years yet. That his lifeless body now rested in a tomb was an injustice he had not known how to give words to until this woman did.

'Thank you,' he told the woman, who only looked at him in bewilderment.

To his dismay the tears burned behind his eyes, so he turned and walked away before she could either see or ask what he meant. Jack may not have known it, but his actions shaped the world he saw today. It was a better place because of him.

How I wish you would have lived to see it.

He had his tears under control by the time he re-joined Tauriel and she was gracious enough not to ask what had happened, though of course she must have known. Like as not she had overheard the entire conversation, even from such a distance away.

'Your uncle approaches,' she announced instead. 'It seems he is in search of you.'

Thoren glanced in the direction she indicated and indeed saw Uncle Dori bearing down on them with singular intent.

'Like as not he'll have heard I've gone out to work against the healers' advice,' he surmised. It was a miracle he'd got away with it for as long as he had.

'Are you not old enough to know your own mind?' asked one of the healers whose advice he had also disregarded. Unlike the others, though, she had come out with him and worked as hard as he did.

He wondered if she knew that this had not gone unnoticed.

Thoren would have answered, but Dori was upon them and there was no time. 'There you are!' he exclaimed. 'I've been looking high and low for you since dawn.'

'I have been here since dawn,' Thoren replied. Long gone were the days that he feared his uncle's disapproval – and the lengthy lectures that inevitably accompanied said disapproval – but that did not mean he liked it. 'What can I do for you?'

'Answer a few questions.' Dori crossed his arms over his chest. 'You've been engaged for some time now and since your intended lives with you, there's the matter of propriety to consider. When is the wedding?'

'Not yet.' Obviously.

It had only been a matter of time before the subjects was broached, of course. It was testimony to how out of sorts everything still was that none had brought it up before now. Had this been a normal time, folk would have whispered behind their hands about the King's scandalous behaviour. Not that there was anything like as scandalous happening as they might imagine; Tauriel had a bedchamber of her own and she would remain to sleep there – alone – until the wedding.

Dori frowned. 'I didn't ask when not, lad.'

Answering seemed like the quickest way to get his uncle off his back, so he elaborated: 'When Thráin comes home.'

Dori frowned some more, but if the answer had not been to his liking he would have frowned more. 'Don't reckon you've got a date for that, do you?'

'I ought to have asked the Lady Galadriel before she took her leave from us.'

It was a mere myth that only Nori gained some private amusement from winding Dori up; Thoren and Thráin had turned their hands to it as well. But that was in a long ago time, before the war, when Dale still stood and their people still thrived. Long ago, and yet not long ago at all.

Can we be truly victorious if we allow the joy in us to die? Can we be truly victorious if we will never laugh again?

No, was the only possible answer. Too long we have dwelt under the Shadow. Too long have we mourned and grieved and lost. If they were to rebuild, they would have to rediscover the joy for life, the humour and the carelessness they used to take for granted.

Today was as good a time to start as any.

Dori considered this and realised perhaps that chasing after that Lady to ask such an inconsequential question was unlikely to prolong his life by any great measure. Finding his nephew a much less perilous target for his questions, he continued: 'Have you given any thought to the preparations then?'

'A few.' In passing and always with an immediate following thought that he ought to find some time to think more thoroughly on it. This delay was not born from reluctance – in fact he would be glad to be married – but rather from preoccupation with more pressing concerns. Just like his father before him, he had not chosen a quiet time to wed.

Perhaps I am more like him than I thought.

He was not allowed to dwell on that thought, for his uncle whipped out a list and prepared for an interrogation. Tauriel's eyebrows shot up in astonishment as she looked to Thoren for clarification. He shook his head, hoping to signal to her that she ought to let him handle this in the way he saw fit.

'So,' Uncle Dori started, without ascertaining that Thoren did indeed want to organise his wedding standing up to his ankles in orc-generated filth, 'clothes?'

There was a simple answer to that: 'Definitely.' He would prefer it if folk turned up dressed at any rate.

'Guests?'

'Almost certainly.' It didn't take much to get dwarves to turn up for a party. Just a few words in the right ear ought to do it.

Uncle Dori frowned, as though this was not quite the answer he expected, but consulted his list and then carried on regardless: 'Music?'

'Preferably.'

From the corner of his eyes he saw Tauriel try and fail to suppress a smile. It was just as well Dori had eyes only for his list and so did not see it.

'Paperwork?'

'Oh, yes,' said Thoren, glad to have a definitive answer. 'Presumably lots of it.'

'Food?'

'Hopefully.' One never quite knew with the state of their stores at the moment. He did not think he could offer a feast, but neither did he think he would need to send guests home on an empty stomach.

Uncle Dori finally realised that while he may think he had a productive discussion, Thoren was amusing himself at his poor uncle's expense. 'You truly are your mother's son,' he declared, sounding much put-upon. It was not a mystery where Duria had got that tone from.

Thoren feigned surprise. 'Was it in doubt?'

Apparently this was not the appropriate answer either. Dori put away his list only so that he could whip out the Finger instead. 'Now, see here, lad,' he began. 'I know you're the King and that you've gained much leeway with our people, but they will expect to see their King properly wed. It was bad enough with your parents practically eloping and your mother already pregnant with you at that.'

He cast a suspicious glance at Tauriel's abdomen, wondering if history was about to repeat itself. Tauriel, on whom this was not lost at all, flushed as red as her hair.

'Uncle,' Thoren warned.

Dori huffed. 'Yes, you'll say that it's none of my business, I'm sure, but I recall the wretched business of making sure your parents didn't plunge the whole kingdom into scandal because they never learned to do things in their proper order and didn't much care to listen to good sense either. I'll be glad to see you properly wed.' He stared at Thoren so intensely that he was half-minded to do a step backward in a vain effort to escape his oncoming doom. It would be a sore shame to survive the war only to find his death at the hands of his uncle, he reflected. 'And I shall see you properly wed, if it is the last thing I do.'

With that threat – for a threat it was – he turned around and marched away, leaving his intended victims to ponder the depth of the trouble they found themselves in.

'Did he…?' Tauriel began before she halted and attempted to form a coherent sentence yet again. 'Did he… offer… to organise our wedding?'

'He announced that he was going to organise our wedding.' Thoren rubbed the back of his neck against the oncoming headache, for all the good that was going to do him. 'Something I am sure we will live to regret.'

She blinked.

'It seems that I still have much to learn about your people.'

'This is not something commonly done among them,' Thoren pointed out. 'This is purely Uncle Dori's prerogative.' And one he not so secretly relished. He studied her face. 'Do you mind it much?'

She gave this question the consideration it deserved. 'Not much,' she replied. 'Though I fear that perhaps I am underestimating your uncle.' She smiled at him. 'Perhaps he is not wrong. I too should like to see us properly wed at last.'

And not least because it would put an end to the need for their current sleeping arrangements. Uncle Dori – and most of the Mountain besides – may imagine all sorts of improper behaviour going on behind closed doors, but nothing could be further from the truth. Thoren had learned from the mistakes made by his parents. He would do things in their proper order.

Having said that, he sincerely regretted putting it off until Thráin was home.

He took her hand in his. 'So should I,' he told her and, just in case his words were not convincing enough, he kissed her on the mouth and cared not who saw.

Thráin

Even if his eyes had not told him that he drew near to his people's ancient homeland, Thráin would have felt it in his bones. It had begun some days ago and had steadily grown stronger with every mile he travelled. By the time Lothlórien became visible on the horizon, it had become too hard to resist and so he told his companions that he would undertake a brief detour and would re-join them later.

That was where his plans, such as they were, met with an obstacle in the form of his friends, who absolutely refused to let him go there alone.

'The Balrog may be gone, but the orcs are not,' Aragorn pointed out. 'If you ventured there alone, I do not care to discover what might happen to you.'

Thráin was quick to point out the error in his reasoning. 'I do not intend to enter those gates.' Not yet and not without an army at his back. 'And I shall go when there is daylight, only to the shores of Mirrormere and no further.'

He did not truly doubt that he would see that crown again when he looked into those waters, but at the same time that first time now felt like a distant dream, something that could hardly have happened in the waking world. Either way, he could not come so close and not go there once more.

'Even so, it is not safe.' Aragorn crossed his arms over his chest.

'And I think it would be remiss of us not to come,' Legolas added without missing a beat. 'Did we not spurn the sight of that place before? And were we not wrong in doing so, given what transpired there?'

Maker save him from the verbosity of the elves. 'If you would invite yourself along, I reckon that there is not much I can do to stop you,' he pointed out.

And so they all came. The Galadhrim turned their feet for home, with a promise to make them welcome once their business was concluded, but the Fellowship and Thráin's kin went to Azanulbizar instead.

Part of him was glad they came. Aragorn was right, of course. The orcs may have lost their leaders and most of their motivation, but they would certainly not turn up their noses at a lone dwarf wandering into what they still considered their territory. Having his friends with him might deter at least a few of them and, if not, would at least even the odds.

Someday soon they shall no longer be allowed to walk there, he promised himself. Someday soon dwarves will be able to walk there unarmed and not be harmed.

But that happy day was not yet upon them, so he entered the valley with his friends. They were good company and he could not begrudge them anything and yet he would have liked to look into those waters on his own. He misliked the notion of having an audience.

It was as though Beth had read his mind. 'We could… ehm… look around and admire the trees for a bit if you wanted to go on ahead,' she offered, stomping on her brother's toes when he opened his mouth to disagree. 'And then we'd come and take a look at the lake when you're all done?'

'Are you not afraid that the orcs will attack me?' he asked.

She made a bit of a show out of looking at the landscape, which, given that it was daytime, was blessedly devoid of orcs. 'What orcs?'

It was unexpectedly kind of her. 'Thank you,' he said and meant it.

'Don't mention it,' she said. 'Seriously, don't.'

Every so often he would remember that she was in fact related to him by blood and that sometimes it showed. We're not that good with kindness, he knew, but we may know a thing or two about decency.

Beth, he was beginning to realise, was quite decent indeed.

And she must have had this plan brewing for some time, for when he separated from their company, no one called or came after him. He left them to eat a meal in the shadow of some bushes the orcs had not got round to uprooting yet and made for Mirrormere himself.

It hadn't changed. Of course it had not, but he had almost expected it. It felt like a century had passed since he last stood on its shores. He certainly felt as though he had aged a century in the span of months.

And, when he looked into the waters, he certainly looked as though he had aged a century.

In Minas Tirith Thráin had mostly stayed away from mirrors. He wasn't given to vanity in any case, but after looking at his own reflection once shortly after his return from Mordor, he had not felt the need to look again.

There was no escaping his own face here, not if he wanted to see the crown again. He knew he'd gone a little grey at the temples, so that part was no surprise. The little wrinkles near his eyes however were a new development. His face looked more angular too, probably because he still hadn't regained all the weight he'd lost. He no longer looked desperately unwell, but neither was he the very image of health.

I have changed and must change more still if I wish to take on this burden.

And take on that burden he must, for even as he thought this, the stars reappeared, all of them, sitting above his head like a crown.

'It is real,' he said and even though he had never truly doubted – and he had never forgotten either – his last misgivings fell away. Here he knelt and here he saw. He wasn't on the run now, pressed for time, looking over his shoulder. The mission was completed and now the way was clear.

'Soon,' he promised, though to whom he was speaking, not even he could say.

He sat there for a time, looking but not entirely seeing.

Why me? Thráin wondered. He'd briefly asked himself the question before, but hadn't received an answer then either. Nor had he had time to ponder this at leisure either. Why out of all my people? Why me?

He'd never had troubles with his parentage, not like Jack had. But he knew he was only half a dwarf, even though he looked almost nothing like the mannish mother who bore him. It never made sense to him that one like him should be this fabled figure of myth and prophecy.

'Why me?'

'Don't know,' Beth's voice replied.

Thráin turned around abruptly.

She held up her hands, although only Maker knew why. 'Sorry, didn't mean to startle you. Only it's been two hours and Aragorn's getting antsy. I think he's imagining that you fell into the lake and drowned or some such. And there's only so long Legolas can remind him that he would have heard that and he hasn't, so I thought I'd come and give you a little advance warning.'

'It has been two hours?' It was very much unlike him to lose track of time.

Beth nodded, concern on her face. 'You all right?' When he didn't immediately respond, she added: 'Not that you need to answer that, obviously. I know you like your privacy.'

His first instinct was to cut off her line of inquiry, but then he thought better of it. Things were no longer between them as they had been the last time they were here. They had both changed since then. For his part he would call her a true friend. He wondered what she made of him these days.

'I do not understand it,' he said. It was the first time he had given voice to it. 'Only my father was a dwarf. My mother was not. It makes no sense that I should be… destined for this.'

Beth pondered that a while. 'I may be wrong,' she began, biting her lip. 'I mean, I haven't met very many dwarves, all things told.'

'Although you have read much about them.'

Beth snorted. 'Yeah, because those books are always so reliable.' She shook her head. 'But from what I've seen and, all right, read, it seems like it's not really possible to get more dwarvish than you are. Maybe that's why you are exactly the right person for the job.' She made another wide arm gesture in the general direction of Khazad-dûm.

Thráin shook his head. 'I am not much like what a dwarf ought to be.' This never bothered him before – and it still didn't bother him now – but he never closed his eyes to inconvenient truths either.

Beth shrugged. 'Like I said, it's not like I know that much about it. Only I think I remember reading or hearing – can't recall which – that the first Durin wandered around a lot before he got to this place. Sounds quite similar to me, really. And I'll bet you anything that he was just as abrasive, loyal, stubborn, hard-working and maddeningly confusing as you are.'

He wasn't quite sure that this was intended as a compliment. 'You think I am confusing?'

At this she laughed. 'You are the single most confusing person I have ever met.' There was no hesitation whatsoever before she answered. 'Maybe because I am not a dwarf and there may be something I am just not getting about your people, but with you I'm always caught on the back foot. I can never tell what you're going to do – let alone why you're going to do it – so yes, you're confusing. But I also know you're the good sort. I also know that you would lay your life on the line for your friends without a second thought.'

'Have you not done the same?' he asked.

'Not like you,' she returned. 'But that's a bit beside the point really. The only thing I meant to say was that maybe it's supposed to be you because you are everything that dwarves were meant to be. Maybe you're like what the first Durin was like.'

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that this was nonsense, but he found he could not. How often had he not cited Durin the Deathless and his wandering when his own conduct raised eyebrows wherever he went? He was the father of their people, he'd say, so if wandering was good enough for him, why should any of his descendants turn up their noses at it? Yet somehow he had never once followed that thought to its logical conclusion.

Because Durin's wandering had ended.

It had ended right here.

Beth shrugged. 'Like I said, I could be wrong.'

'No, you are not.' He feared not. He feared that she was altogether too right. And still. 'Yet I am not entirely dwarvish in blood, because of my mother.'

'Don't see how that matters, not really.' Beth was doing a lot of shrugging today. 'You're not her. You're you. And you're a direct descendant from that first Durin, right?'

Yes, he was.

'So why shouldn't you be Durin?'

He shook his head. 'It matters not.' The why did not matter, although it would have helped him to make sense of something so big and so important. 'It is what I am and what I must become.' He looked around him. 'And it is here I must return.'

'Yeah, well, you'll have volunteers aplenty,' Beth pointed out. 'Because the way I've heard it, all of the Fellowship is planning to reunite for it.'

'All of the Fellowship?' he asked.

Beth looked a bit sheepish. 'Well, maybe not me.' She bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder. The others were a fair distance away, although there was no doubt in Thráin's mind that both Legolas and Elvaethor had overheard all that had been said. The same thought had evidently occurred to Beth. 'Oh, it's not like it matters. The elves probably know already, so to hell with it.' She looked him in the eyes. 'I may not be there for that reunion, because I am about ninety per cent certain that I am pregnant.'

He digested that for a few seconds.

That was about as long as she gave him, because now that it was out, she couldn't seem to stop. 'I'm not entirely sure yet, but it seems like it, so I haven't told Boromir yet. But if I am right, well, then I am not going to drag a baby or toddler into a warzone. It's not that I don't want to come and help you, because I do, but…'

He stopped her there. 'You are not at all obliged to come and aid me.'

'Yes, I know.' She crossed her arms over her chest. 'But you're my friend and I'd want to.'

'Then that is all the help I need.' Truthfully, he didn't want her anywhere near a war either, child or no. He had seen her fight. 'If you wish to be certain, speak to Elvaethor. He is kin now and will not shame your confidence.'

Beth smiled slightly. 'I might,' she said. 'Right, I'll be heading back to the others. Are you coming or would you like a few more moments?'

He would have to leave soon, but for now he could not yet bring himself to turn his back on this place. 'A few more moments,' he requested. 'I shall not be much longer.'

Beth nodded. 'I'll tell the others and delay the Mongol hordes for as long as I can.' She was gone before Thráin could ask her whatever it was that she meant by that.

In her absence he returned once more to the waters of Kheled-zâram. He looked into the depths once more and, as before, the crown appeared.

'I know,' he said, though to whom he spoke he was not quite certain. 'If this is what was meant for me, I shall not shirk my duty.' He took a deep breath. 'I shall return here and restore this kingdom for my people. This I swear.'

He felt calmer for having done so.


Next time: Thoren drops some news, Cathy has opinions and Beth is not at all pleased to find another one of her visions come to life.

As always, thank you for reading. Reviews would really make my day.

Until Sunday!