The dwarves of Erebor were a proud people. A century and a half they had swallowed all manner of indignation and held themselves highly. A dwarf could be robbed of all things, left naked and starving in the cold, and survive by the fire in their bellies, their pride a beacon ever burning through that long, dark night.
A dawn was upon them though and even as the sun began to set, their light burned. It burned on the braziers on Dale's walls and in the tapers that illuminated the terraces of Erebor against the coming night. It burned all along the road in the fires of dwarves working at small makeshift forges, sometimes no more than an anvil set upon the earth in the rough dwellings and camps of wagons that had sprung up all across the outskirts of Dale. Dwarves long in exile were returning in droves and working to restore the mountain halls. Many lodged in Dale and some even on its fringes still. The city's zeitgeist was long past, but for the time the peace was kept, and there was work and lodging for most who sought it.
"It was gaudy in its time," Thorin remarked mildly as they passed along the road that swung around the city's walls. Dale was stone and girded towers some still incomplete and riddled in scaffolding, men atop them, working well into the evening. "If not that grim bowman, than perhaps the people clamor for a taste of the old days. The marketplace brought exotic treasures and peoples from all corners of the world."
"Yes," she said grimly. "I remember."
The twin warriors that had flanked its gates stood beautifully carved and mighty again. On the front façade scaffolding still remained about gashes in the stone. In spite of it, Erebor was beautiful, a dwarf kingdom again, reclaimed in blood. Thorin looked up at the scar on the gate where it had been sealed once, in haste. To think a dragon had once burst through it also was the last thing that crossed his mind.
"I surrendered, however unwilling, all vestige of my honor in this place. Let us hope it was worth it." He had not let go of her hand since they descended from Ravenhill.
Meisar looked down at the ground around them. Parched soil scabbed over and healed, the grass dying ahead of winter but it was grass nonetheless. And trees. Little trees, no more than saplings, stood, planted in a rather haphazard way all around the flat ground and even on the base of the mountain itself. "Thorin," she said, nodding to the trees. "It lives again."
From Ravenhill they had ridden to the outskirts of Dale, where they traded the ponies to merchant encamped outside the city for a single bejeweled hairpiece, a gift for Dis that Meisar insisted upon, however simple the object. On foot they came closer and closer along the road that led to the front gates from Dale. The vale narrowed between the spurs leading up to the front gate, quiet on the edge of the gloaming hours, a cold wind scented in smoke moving imperturbably on the air. He drew the hood of his traveling cloak so that he might not be recognized.
Crossing a simple wooden bridge over the bisected, jagged stone of the old, they came to the gate and recognizing them as dwarves, the sentries parted and let them pass without further inquiry.
"Are you ready?" she asked.
"I am."
When they first stepped through into Erebor it was a flurry of noise and activity even as the hour grew late. The blood-orange sun of a cold evening came down into the great tall foyer of the city, illuminating every surface in fiery light. Where the gargantuan piles of gold had cluttered the very heart of the fortress city now great squalls of merchants peddled their crafts from wheeled stands and kiosks, and many more crowded in search of their goods, or work. They descended the stairs down into the great foyer. Miners and smiths wearing soot and sweat stood shoulder to shoulder with the richly attired as they queued for takeaway stews, meat off the bone and mead by barrel or stein. A gaggle of dwarrowdams streamed around them, their perfume tickling Meisar's nose pleasantly. They were in cloaks of fur and dresses of figured silks and rich velvets, hair elegantly beaded and plaited, or worn confined in thread-of-gold crespines. Dwarves in the matching aprons of their guilds clustered together accordingly- ruby-jewelers, lenders, iron-smiths, scribes, stonemasons, healers and toy-makers only a few of the coteries she observed. Meisar looked for any familiar face, semi-relieved to have found none in all the bustling crowd. All around the dwarves were comfortably-lived, and affluently attired, from the highest-born down to those who operated the most modest of vending stands.
"When last I entered this realm, things were very different. This was all… dark." He put his hand up, fingers spread, with wide eyes, as if he could touch the ceiling.
"Aye, and look now, there is light."
Thorin took a deep breath through his nose and stood completely still beside her in the midst of the hustle and bustle. The air was scented with spices, grilled meat, smoke, the perfume of the late fall air rolling in from the terraces above and life. Perfume, wet boots, pipe-weed, iron. It lived, as Erebor had not since he was a young prince at his grandfather's court. He squeezed the hand of the woman who stood beside him, her orange plaited hair covered in a dark shawl. They could have been a couple of dwarven refugees fresh from the road. As the dwarves streamed and bumped around him, could they have imagined him their king?
For a moment, he was relieved to think not.
"Gloin awaits us at the doors to Thror's Hall."
"I pray Emli and Gimli have arrived safely."
"I must consort with him only briefly. I desire much to see my sister."
Sitting high above the city foyer and even higher above the mines and forges were the apartments of the wealthiest dwarves in Erebor. Carved into the stone, their windows overlooked the grand terrace of the city and let in light from the outside. The great foyer, lined in towering columns of stone, led to a set of imposing oaken doors, beyond which was the great nave of the throne hall. Two sentries in armor were stationed on either side of the towering double doors that led into it. Waiting in the center of the closed doors was a dwarf with a heavily-beaded red beard and an impatient expression that she had never seen before but immediately recognized.
"Gloin," Thorin greeted him quietly without putting back his hood. The ginger dwarf came quietly and with a twitching lip to his knee and kissed Thorin's great ring. Rising quickly, he embraced him.
"My king!" Gloin exclaimed with a controlled joy. "At last."
"Have Emli and Gimli arrived safely?" Meisar blurted suddenly. Gloin gazed back at the shabbily-attired dwarrowdam, her cloak still drawn and slightly veiling her face, with bemusement. Something told her that Emli had the prudence to allow the news of their betrothal to come from herself or Thorin.
"My lady?"
"Gloin, this is Meisar, the guide who has brought us across the land. My company and that of her own had joined upon the road."
"Ah," Gloin said, breaking a smile at last. "The shepherdess whom my wife speaks so highly of. To answer your question, mistress, she is resting and Gimli too. As is my good brother Oin. A long journey it has been," Gloin held his smile with a taciturn bemusement again. "And what a splendid occasion it is, to see my wife and child delivered safely to my stead. I thank you my lady." He looked away from her toward Thorin. "Surely I hope you intend her some honor, my king, for bringing our kin, yourself amongst them, home safe."
Thorin's head dipped a bit, apprehensively. "Indeed, a very great honor, though most of the honor is mine." Gloin still blinked, with sincere uncertainty.
"Meisar is to be my queen. We will be married on Durin's Day."
"Married?" Gloin stumbled.
Thorin nodded a subdued yes. "Well then," boomed Gloin, his chest put forth with pride to conceal his shock. "A noble institution it is. As a dwarf long married, I say it is a choice befitting a king after all." Meisar hid an amused grin as Gloin stumbled over his words. "Welcome then, my queen that is to be." He put his hand out for hers to rest upon, to be kissed dutifully.
They passed through the great tall doors to the throne hall. When she looked down it appeared like honeycomb to her, a great hive made of stone. Deep below the rumble of the forges and the mines went on, industriously.
"Six forges are lit and at work. Two are still in repair and will be up soon, Mahal willing," Gloin prattled on. "Swords and axes and enough steel needles to satisfy every housewife in Middle Earth. And many fine jewels for the luckier among 'em. I've negotiated handsome pay for the best crafters in all the Seven Dwarf Kingdoms to come home. Home they have come, in many droves. Near at capacity the living quarters are but there is plenty still to be had. Some of the old mines are being re-appropriated for the purpose as we speak."
"The dwarves are prosperous here again," agreed Thorin, his body oscillating with a nervous impatience.
"Cleared of all its gold is the bottom-most cellar," continued Gloin. Thorin's lips pressed together quietly. "With the exception of that which was given, fairly as they say, to the men of the lake, it is the property of the dwarves. Every dwarf that comes into this kingdom has been generously awarded a stipend for their living. A sumptuous amount one might say. With their sums they have kept the markets in Dale and at Esgaroth as full and booming as they have ever been. For they need things. For living. Furniture and food. Good crafts. Fine clothing. There is a mighty need, Thorin, to demonstrate the prosperity generated by the skills and resourcefulness of our people, so that all might see, and prosper equally. Trade is brisk, and growing ever more."
"A practical way of dealing with this treasure horde, and not for fear that it may seduce me again."
"Well that too," replied Gloin bluntly.
"I think I could look at gold and see it only for its ugliness, its corrupt nature. I wish never to look upon it again. Alas..." His melancholy recast itself deliberately into a modest, if gratified, smile. "You have done well here, Gloin. I could not thank you enough."
The broad stairs leading toward the great nave of the throne-hall slimmed into a narrow bridge of stone ending at the throne itself.
"So this is Erebor?" Meisar said breathlessly. Light flowed down from great precipices at its vaulted ceilings. Stone likenesses, tributes to the lines of dwarf-lords before them, lined the great hall. Dwarves on tall scaffolds chiseled and hammered away at them, in determination for repair. A year had gone by since the reclamation of Erebor, and the work at restoring the great halls had been without rest. It was scarred, but it was alive, and growing stronger each day.
Thorin walked with her arm in arm. "It is. What think you, jewel of mine?"
"It is extraordinary." Even in its partial ruin, this fortress city was more breathtaking than anything she had ever seen. Stairways and skywalks stretched above in a dizzying maze of stone.
"Aye, the great lot of it is repairable. More than enough of the heavy lifting has been carting out shattered stone and dragon dung," Gloin grumbled. "A filth that shites where he eats ought not be surprised when he's taken out by a mangy bowyer," chuckled Gloin. A formidable dwarf, he had an arrogant, subdued laugh.
"Gloin, you know I am eager to see my sister."
"Aye," Gloin's face darkened a bit under his heavy red beard.
"What news of her?" Thorin asked anxiously.
"Her highness has rarely left her quarters since she arrived. She confines herself to them alone… and the tombs."
Meisar held her breath and said nothing. She squeezed Thorin's hand and the way he looked at her with appreciation in his magnificently sad eyes, she thought he understood. "She was not expecting you until much later into the evening, my king, but surely your arrival will raise her spirits, and alleviate this great burden."
"Take me to her," Thorin commanded quietly. They followed Gloin down the stairways leading into the mountain and passed through several winding corridors until they reached a door of carved oak laid in gold and onyx. Gloin knocked reverently. "My lady princess?"
"Do come, Master Gloin," a woman's voice from within answered quietly. The three of them entered on gentle feet. The chamber was large and dark, lit only by a few candles and a crackling fireplace on the far side of the room.
Thorin's sister sat in a high-backed seat of dark velvet in the corner of the room, resting by the fire. The rubies that decorated her ears and her fingers were the only shock of color about her person, grimly aglow in the firelight for their brilliant shade. Her gown was black and its high starched linen partlett black also. Bundled in a heavy fur-lined outer robe, she looked cold and pale. She wore a square ruby on a thick gold chain about her neck. Dwarrowdams wore rubies for those lost in battle during the mourning period, whether they be husbands or sons.
The door closed behind them reverently and there they stood silently in the dark, the figure by the fire unmoving. "Gloin?" her quiet, gravelly voice repeated slowly. "Gloin, is that you?"
Gloin withdrew quietly against Dis's indiscernible silence. Thorin's lips moved trying to form the first letter of her name but no sound came about. Again he pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth but nothing emerged.
"Gloin? Are you quite alright?"
"Dis."
The princess turned quietly toward Thorin and her eyes flew open. She had striking blue eyes like her brother's, cursed with that same terrible weight. Like Meisar it aged her beyond her years, but like her also, Dis's burden perhaps was also her beauty. Indeed her radiance held stubbornly through the awful grief that creased her face, her skin so milky white it was almost translucent. She crossed the room in swift heavy steps with the stiff velvet of her heavy gown and robe rustling edgily around her feet, and reaching him with eyes already soused, collapsed into his arms.
Thorin embraced his sister close as she wept against his chest, her whole body quaking in violent heaves. She looked as if at any moment she would fall and lose consciousness altogether. Thorin placed a careful hand upon her hair and stroked the dark locks. "Weep not my dear sister," he pleaded breathlessly.
"You dare ask me not to weep, you foolish dwarf."
"I am a fool. You are very right." He stayed motionless and his face a facade as stony as the idols lining the gate, as Dis wailed and pounded at his chest with clenched fists, simultaneously burying her sobs into him there. Keening wail after another seemed to rattle the very furnishings of the room. When there was no breath in her she clung both her hands to his arms and he braced tightly, supporting her, as it seemed quite necessary to do so. Under the heavy austere velvet of her gown, Meisar could see her knees buckling. Thorin held her as she caught her breath, little by little.
"A fool, but you are everything I have left, Thorin, and I love you still," she breathed on the edge another bursting dam of tears; alas it didn't come. He wiped away her remaining tears with the pads of his thumbs.
"Never leave me again. Swear it." She shook Thorin hard by the shoulders.
"I swear it." He brought her hands away and held them tightly, kissing her knuckles ardently. "I swear it with all my soul, what is left of me. I shall not leave you alone in this world, my sweet, sweet sister. I have wept for you a thousand nights."
"No more than I have, no less," she murmured. Pulling out of Thorin's arms slowly, she squinted into the corner where Meisar still shrunk into the shadows. "Who comes here with you, dear brother?"
"My queen comes with me."
"So it is true?" Dis whispered. She approached and touched Meisar's face as if she expected to find her made of something odder than flesh and bone, making her squirm lightly. "I thought it mere rumor. I hoped for something more."
What had she hoped for, this grim princess? That her brother would marry a dwarven gentlewoman with a beard as fine as hers? Had she hoped for the same thing as all the others?
"And here," Dis took Meisar's face in her hands. "I have found it realized." The princess's hands were fine-boned for a dwarf's but rough also, not quite like Thorin's but she could tell Dis had been taught to wield a weapon, maybe even a smithing hammer in lean times. "What had you hoped for?" Meisar asked cautiously, the sinking of her eyes betraying her nervousness.
"Only for his happiness, in the midst of we have suffered."
Dis reached out and embraced her and Meisar enthusiastically in return. A love in her, a deep affection, swelled up for this bereft woman as she had not known for another, even the most suffered of her own kind. Dis felt so thin in her arms, and weak of body. "My lady princess, I am told of their courage and kindness, and loyalty. I wish only I could have known them myself," Meisar whispered with cautious and earnest sympathy.
"They were the light of my heart, just as my brother is. I see your heart is good to have unlocked his in such a way. Thus, I shall love you as my own sister."
A knock came again urgently at the door and it opened without waiting for a reply. Gloin stood in the doorway but did not enter the chamber. "I am sorry to interrupt my king, but the small council requests your presence. Urgently."
"But a moment Gloin."
"Aye." He departed reverently. "I would meet ever briefly with them," Thorin yielded quietly, turning toward Dis with guilt in his eyes. "I shall leave the two of you to your salutations."
"You leave me already?" asked Dis, a wounded edge at her voice.
"I would stay if you wish."
"Nay. I am quite alright. We are well past salutations anyhow," answered Dis, the edge ebbing, a compassionate if weak smile coming over her thin lips. "I should like to get to know your bride much more familiarly. Take your time with the council." Thorin leaned and kissed his sister's hand lovingly before departing. As the door closed behind him, Dis swooned on her feet.
"Are you alright, princess?" Meisar took her arm and steadied her.
"I am fine. Fear not for me."
"No, let me bring you some water."
Dis resigned to sit in her chair by the fire again. "Mead is more to my taste. Or ale," she requested quietly. "I have even become fond of Elvish wine for its strength, but do not tell my brother that." She smiled, self-deprecatingly, her eyes heavy and tired. Dutifully, Meisar brought her a cup of ale, filling it from a small barrel of it that was tucked in a discreet corner of her room, beside her bed. A strange place, she thought, but she brought her the drink with curiosity prudently silenced.
Dis had gulped the entirety of it before Meisar had even taken a seat across from her.
"These are the old royal quarters. Deep enough in the mountain you see, so that the dragon's wrath did not entirely destroy them. Relatively untouched, I am told," explained Dis, gazing around with one arm limply aloft and pointing. "These rooms of mine belonged to my father and mother. My grandfather's now belong to Thorin. Fortunately, they have been repaired in time for his arrival, at the very basic level anyway. I am sure in time you will make them homier."
Dis's own chambers were austere and dark. She had several chairs, a small lounger and a writing table. An imposing but simply adorned bed sat at the middle of the chamber, draped in black velvet. Except for the candelabra set in jewels, Dis's chambers were elegant, almost somber, in their bareness.
"My lady princess," she fumbled awkwardly. "I have brought you a gift. A simple thing really." She held out the silver modestly-bejeweled hair barrette to her. "Made by one of the dwarven merchants of Dale."
"Beautiful," Dis answered with a girlish grin. "A kind thought for trying times; it lifts me so. I have always been very fond of silver. As you know, we of this Line of Durin have a peculiar relationship with gold." The excited grin faded into an amply self-deprecating half-smile, rendering her far grimmer in her appearance. Up close, her skin was more sallow than pallidly translucent. When she smiled, there was a peculiar light, but something about it seemed to indicate that it had a tendency to fade quickly whenever it appeared.
"My lady princess, I have thought oft of it these months. Though I can with honesty say I have little fear it shall ever conquer him again. I... I will protect him with everything that I have from the woes of these times. And past maladies. I will not let him be lost again." Dis leaned upon her contemplatively as she helped her to fix the silver clip into her hair. "Thorin was never lost," she said finally. "I refused to believe that he was; hardened yes, and stubborn, and wrathful and self-important for sure. But I always believed that shell was only so hard as to protect that last light that was dormant inside all this time. I thought him dead then. And i mourned for the fact that he had no such happiness as that love. I mourned for my sons the same, but in that respect, for my dear brother... Thorin... you must understand, he has cared for us all of his life with no care for his own desires. And when his own desires entered him, it was but for the sake of dragon-sickness. A pity I thought. But now... he has what he needs. What he has always needed. And I am comforted by that."
"Do you think so, truly?"
"I must believe it or I am lost for certain," Dis smiled grimly.
The door opened and the dwarrowdam who strode in officiously had a square, curmudgeonly face and auburn hair streaked in gray. "My lady, the hour is half past four. Time for your exercises."
"Not today, Aroin. I'm afraid other things have come up," Dis waved the dwarrowdam off as politely as she could manage. "But my lady princess, your calisthenics," the dwarrowdam urged in a high, demanding tone.
"Meisar," Dis rose quickly and brusquely. "May I present, Aroin, nathu Groin." Aroin dipped her head with a polite but curt formality about her. "My lady, it is a pleasure." Dis continued, "and Aroin, may I present, Meisar, nathu..."
"Their names are not in my memory I'm afraid. I assume they perished with the dragon. After all I wasn't more than a babe of the toddling years when it happened," she replied stiffly, feeling prodded and restless under the gaze of the formidable Aroin. "A matter of sorrow, my lady," Aroin offered with the same formality. " Uzbadnâtha, do come and keep to your schedule. Forget not the importance of regularity in your days."
"I have more important business at the moment to attend to, Aroin," Dis protested.
"Of what nature?" inquired Aroin, eyeing Meisar critically.
"To acquaint myself with the future queen of Erebor is of the utmost priority I'm afraid," Dis retorted with quiet but firmly stated irascibility.
"Well then," Aroin's face faded from red to white, betraying her embarrassment, which seemed to please Dis in the smallest way. She swept over with the skirts of her violet-and-goldenrod gown trailing dramatically, offering Meisar a long, elegant curtsy. "The pleasure is all mine then." She looked up from under her bowed brow and gave Meisar a supercilious survey nonetheless. "Tomorrow your regular schedule, my lady princess, if it pleases you."
She departed quickly enough. "Oin and Gloin's sister. Utterly intolerable woman," grumbled Dis, discreetly refilling her cup. "Alas, she is shrewd like her brother for the better. My household and my very person I dare to say would not be managed without her. Where I am... unable too, oft enough." She took a long sip less discreetly. "I would comfort you in your grief as my own sister, however I could," offered Meisar.
"A mother who has lost her children is a creature who cannot be comforted easily, if at all," murmured Dis dispiritedly. "Nonetheless, your presence is a light." Rising from her cup, Dis took a hard look at Meisar's bulky mantle, the woolen dress she had taken from Laketown frumpy and lumpy and oversized, a shade of burgundy that looked like a blood clot. Her braids hung uneven and with flyaway hairs all about from the wind on the hill. She felt self conscious suddenly under the princess's gaze. But Dis took her hand again and smiled knowingly. "Come," she said gently. "I shall make you a lady of Erebor yet."
Nathu- Daughter Of
Uzbadnâtha- Princess