Dedicated to T.-chan, who challenged me.
Many thanks to Suyetsumu for beta-reading. 'The Book of Loony Tales' and Dr. Hesheid are presented to you by the 'Schreiben am Damm'-group, while Tolkien's characters, naturally, belong to Tolkien.
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He came in after a short knock on my door, swirled past my receptionist and strutted into my office as if invading Lothlorien. I half expected to see a company of dwarves march right behind him, as I specialise in group therapy and team supervision, something that is frequently needed (though rarely supplied) in groups of such stout warriors. Yet he appeared to be a lone patient – if he had not ordered his followers to appear at short intervals. Trying to suppress any kind of apprehension, I greeted him as kindly and professionally as I could.
"Dr. Hesheid, at your service."
"Thorin Oakenshield, at yours and your family's." He stood in the doorway, visibly undecided, perhaps even ill at ease.
"Please, take a seat." I indicated one of the armchairs facing my desk, making a mental note that if I aimed at interspecionary success, I'd better get myself different kinds of chairs. Oakenshield, however, must have decided to ignore my specist furniture; he cast his blue, silver-tassled hood over the hoodstand and scrambled up the chair with a grunt. There he sat, his short legs dangling, his beard swaying gently with their movement. He gave me an expectant look
"Now, Mr. Oakenshield, would you like to tell me your problem?" A request hardly ever fulfilled, but sometimes they do – sometimes they tell me their psychological ailings just because I ask them. It makes things easier.
"Problem?" he barked. "I have no problem."
Sure. "Then what brought you to me, Mr. Oakenshield?" I enquired gently.
"Gandalf sent me to see you," Oakenshield replied darkly.
Of course, I should have known. That Istari frequently sends me patients. They are often the worst neurotics east of Valinor and usually stingy as Rangers. "I see," I replied kindly. Obviously he was in a bad state of denial; insistence would not do. "Well, as you're here," I told him, "you might as well get the most out of your fee, have a nice, relaxing lie-down on my couch and tell me the story of your life."
I saw him frown perceptibly at the mentioning of a fee, but even dwarves know that therapy does not come free. I had him there, I saw: He could not bear to waste the fee he would inevitably have to pay me now, so he would consent to be my patient even if perhaps only for this one session in fear of wasting good money. Another grunt later, he was resting on my Freudian couch, filling about two thirds of its length and all of its breadth, his beard covering parts of his protruding belly like a white cloud. I sat down on the armchair behind his head, notepad in hand, out of his sight so I would not disturb his narration in any way.
"I was born in 2746 as son of Thráin the second, son of Thrór, under the Lonely Mountain of Erebor," Thorin began. "In 2770, when I was yet a beardless, careless lad, the dragon Smaug, may his wings wilt, may our gold poison him, invaded our dwelling, destroyed the works of our hands and stole our wealth. He took our gold and silver, he took our gems and trinkets, he took our swords and armours for his vile dragon's pleasure. Oh yes, and he killed most of my people. Luckily, my father and grandfather escaped by an unknown route. I myself was lucky, as by chance I was outside the mountain. However, nobody else who had been inside the mountain that day escaped."
Always on the lookout for haunting childhood memories, I had so far been amazed mostly by the complete lack of childhood memories whatsoever. Now, however, had come my chance to interrupt him. "What about your mother?" I asked.
"Mother?" His brow furrowed in thought. "Alas, my mother also died on that horrible day. My father swore to avenge her and his people, and to regain the gold that was stolen from us – the swords, the gems, the Arkenstone. This oath was passed onto his son to defeat that vile lindworm. Where was I?"
"You were telling me about your childhood," I lied.
"Yes, I had a happy careless childhood between hammer and anvil before that horrible day," Thorin replied. "After that, we were reduced to paupers making a meagre living by serving others as smiths. It was a great humiliation for the bloodline of Durin the Immortal. Always we strove to regain our own land and our treasures."
"You talk of your treasures very much," I commented. "Is it so important to you?"
"The treasure of a dwarf is the work of his hands, the honour of his family and the pleasure of his heart," he replied, audibly miffed. "We are not just talking about plain, coined gold here. We are talking about works of art, works of the masters of their craft, works of great beauty. Oh, the Arkenstone of my father – it is worth more than a river of gold in itself, and to me it is beyond price. If you had ever seen the gems my people crafted, the hearts of the mountains, you would never deem them of little importance. Alas for the loss of my people – alas for the Arkenstone. That stone of all the treasures we lost I name unto myself as my birthright, and I will be avenged on anyone who finds it and withholds it. It the wish of my heart to recover the treasures of the Lone Mountain and to take revenge on Smaug, the slayer of my people."
'Too much Aule, too little Yavanna,' I jotted down on my notepad as a first diagnosis. I replied to him: "It was not my intention to belittle the works of your people, Mr. Oakenshield. I only notice you seem to value them above your fellow creatures. You talk far more about the loss of that Arkenstone than about your own mother, I notice." I checked myself – I was sounding reproachful, I noticed, a sure sign that I was endangered of losing my professional distance. "Obviously, you treasure your gems very much," I closed matter-of-factly and somewhat lamely.
"All my forefathers have done so before me," Thorin replied, obviously battling to remain patient. "Durin the Immortal and all the Durins that came after him up to Durin the sixth, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. So did his son Náin the first, his grandson Thráin the first and his great-grandson, Thorin the first, my namesake and great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. Glóin the first, Óin the first, great-great-grandfather Náin the second and great-grandfather Dáin the first, they all honoured the beauty of gems and gold as the chief manifestation of the greatness of Aule. So did my grandfather Thór, dying tainted but not dishonoured at the doors of Khazad-dúm; so did my father, Thráin the second, who led our people into great victory in the battle of Azanulbizar only to die in Dol Guldor."
I watched his beard bob up and down, my head buzzing with so much greatness. Aule, there it was – a dwarf with an Aule complex. Tired of hearing more about his exclusively male bloodline, I asked: "How would you describe your relation to the other sex, Mr. Oakenshield?"
"Other sex? What do you mean, other sex?" He gave me a look of greatest distrust.
"The other sex, you know – female dwarves, she-dwarves, dwarves with –" At a loss, I broke short. What were the secondary sexual characteristics of female dwarves? I had to admit that for all my studies, I did not know. Luckily, he understood me without me describing what a naked female dwarf would look like.
He pondered for a moment, his short, stubby legs nervously twitching on the couch. "Alright, I guess," he replied at last, apparently believing he had satisfactorily answered my question with these three words.
"Do you have a –" A girlfriend, a wife, I was going to say, but I did not mean to be sexist. After all, he might be gay, although his clothing certainly did not suggest anything like that. However, with dwarves you never knew. Did they have such thing as queer culture? With such lack of females as is, to my knowledge, normal for the people under the mountains, there were bound to have something. Oh well. Better get that thing cleared up, even if it had to be done bluntly. "Have you ever been married, Mr. Oakenshield?" I asked.
"Married? Me? By the beard of Durin, no!" he replied.
"You sound shocked," I commented, scribbling on my notepad. "What would have been wrong with marriage?"
"A wife would have been a distraction," he replied haughtily
"A distraction from what?" I insisted.
"From my trade, from my honour, from my kingdom and my Arkenstone," he answered.
"That's exactly the point of wives," I could not help but murmur. Aloud, I said: "What kind of people are close to you, Mr. Thorin?" Maybe that would get us further.
"I cherish the memory of my late forefathers, all of whom died tragic and heroic deaths," he replied, "and I value the company of my comrades in craft and arms. Together, we may yet overcome the dragon and regain what is rightfully ours."
"Is there anyone who is very close to you?" I knew I was being a pain, but alas, that's my job.
"My kindred – truest of my followers," Thorin replied, looking as if he knew I had something else in mind.
"A lover?" I prompted.
That angered him indeed. He sat up from my couch, his beard standing on end, his legs dangling with force. "Begone, shrink, and may your beard wither," he thundered. "To such knowledge you have no claim. The price of this session I will fairly pay – in due time. But nothing I will tell, not even the meanest of my thoughts, under threat of force. While you question me with such an insistence, I will look on you as a prying foe."
"Please stay calm, Mr. Oakenshield," I hurried to say, trying to keep the shaking out of my voice. An angered dwarf is a fearsome sight, and many a shrink has suffered greatly from their hands. "I am not trying to force you in any way, Mr. Oakenshield. You will, of course, only tell me what you are willing to tell. However, it might help you if you talked about such things. After all, that's what you're here for."
"What I'm here for? Do you think I have a problem, then?" There was a dark threat in his voice.
"Well, you came to therapy, didn't you?" I hinted, trying to keep myself oblivious of the dangers of arguing with dwarves.
"Do you question my mental wealth – er, health, Dr. Hesheid?" His stout body seemed to vibrate now; his fingers opened and closed repeatedly as if groping for his axe. My finger twitched towards the emergency button hidden in my armrest, but I would not push it – not yet. I just looked at him, waiting for him to make up his mind whether or not to continue his therapy.
"Indeed, I will never come here again," he spat, obviously sensing he had to make up his mind now. So that was that, then. "I will go and gather my kindred, and I will defeat that dragon and recover my lost home – and the Arkenstone." And with these words, he stormed out of my office, past my receptionist, never to be seen again. But as history tells me, he found his mountain, defeated his dragon and finally recovered his heart of stone.