A/N:
RAMÂSH- Preparations
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"OW!"
The needle jabbed against her skin through the heavy fabric. Meisar nearly pulled away from the seamstress.
"If you wouldn't fidget so much it wouldn't prick," Emli harrumphed below, one eye squinted at her from behind her scope, setting jewels across the out-laid bodice. "Besides, you best get used to being pricked."
The dwarrowdams standing about her nodded in agreement, humming about her with sewing needles much like bees in a hive. Three seamstresses stood about Meisar, piecing together against her the heavy, luxuriant fabrics of her wedding dress. Layers of skirts from the outer damask to the stiff linen under-skirts and petticoats and her lace-trimmed chemise were pinned stodgily to her hips, and she dared not move too suddenly lest the pins remind her of her position.
Gyda stood on a footstool across from her, the pale blue of her dress a serene disruption to the chaos of bright jewel tones and rich reds and blues of the fabrics being waved and measured about. Pale sleeves of a silvery sheen were being fastened to the powdery blue bodice with its shimmering similarly silvery panel. The seamstresses were similarly working around Freyda, who stood beside her. Dagny chastised the iron-smith each time she leaned to Gyda to whisper this or that.
"A pretty shade don't ye think?" asked Freyda, turning around, again to Dagny's chagrin.
"Aye, Dwalin won't be able to keep his eyes off ye in that dress," giggled Gyda. "How ravishin' ye look, he'll be graspin' and keepin' you soon."
Freyda put out her lip lamentably. "I'll be buried in this dress long before he tells me so himself," grumbled Freyda, swishing the cape behind her again, its dark viridian green like some exotic tide rolling out. Her dress was a paler teal bordering on grey and complemented her eyes, with little gold studs down the front and a round embroidered neckline. Long trailing sleeves of deeper turquoise flowed out like wings when she raised her arms for the sleeves to be sewn fully under the armpits to the rest of the gown. She smiled at the uncanny femininity of herself in the mirror to her left. "Dwalin liked me fine in mail. We'll see how he likes me in silk. Enough to stop bumbling about?"
Gyda nearly sprung off her footstool with her eyes all bright. "I've got an idea, Freyda. A fine idea." The seamstresses threw up their arms at last and drifted across the room to join Dagny and the two mistress-apprentices of her guild who were taking in the length of Dis's blue gown, only its skirt assembled. The princess was thin and drawn in her stiff linen bodice, a sea of blue rolling down from her waist.
Meisar listened to Freyda and Gyda commiserate in hushed, anticipatory tones across the room.
"I have a small matter I should attend to," Dis announced, adjusting her cap and veil. She wore a gray gown of raincloud gray velvet with the sleeves slashed, turned up to reveal the soft white fur lining underneath. Her mourning garb had all been put away in the back of her armoire; now she smiled gently at the gathered dwarrowdams. "The bridegroom is the least skilled in seeing to it that his home is properly made for married life. A sister is a good thing to have," she beamed.
"A week without the sight of him," Meisar sighed dreamily, her arms aloft and bracing with each pass of the sewing needle to her sleeve. "I don't know if I can bear it."
"You'll be kept quite busy, fear not," Dis replied. "I will tell him how beautiful you look in white."
.
Thorin looked up as the door to his antechamber creaked open with a slow motion and a figure half clad in shadow slipped through. The sound of heavy shoes shuffling over stone.
"Who comes?" he squinted against the half-light.
"Your dear sister, nadad."
Thorin smiled out of the corner of his mouth, relieved for her sight. The paler gray of her dress and its white fur softened the severe, weary visage of her. She looked beautiful.
"I would have imagined you far too busy with the matters of this wedding to call upon me," he sighed.
"Indeed I am. Hence, I have come to help you in this small matter, Thorin," said Dis with a hum. She took a quick inventory of his chambers with blue eyes flashing in disapproval.
"And what small matter would that be?" Thorin didn't look up from a stack of parchments. The air smelled of ink.
"You are not much for hominess," she observed wryly, wicking up the dust from his bedpost on her finger. "Have you forgotten your duty, in making a home for your bride? This will not do, Thorin."
Thorin looked around his chambers, elegantly bare like his sister's own. Dark. "Do you forget that you must make a home for your bride? That it must be approved? Balin and Dwalin will do the honors in the absence of our father or Meisar's. But do not think these gloomy rooms will do."
"What do you propose, dear sister?"
"Perhaps something cozier," Dis suggested. "A few brighter tapestries, a good rug, wouldn't hurt."
"Suppose not," shrugged Thorin. "If you expect that I will become an interior decorator in the spare time I have none of, I think you will find yourself disappointed."
Dis patted his shoulder from behind. "I will worry about the ambience for you, nadad. Your job is too show up on Durin's Day. And treat kindly with the seamstress in the meantime."
"That I shall do."
"I'll have an armoire brought for her, a vanity, and some trunks for her things. Some big goose-feather cushions for those dogs of her to bed on, if you'll have them in your chamber. A strange thing for a dwarf to keep so close, those excitable creatures."
"She doesn't have many things," Thorin chuckled affectionately.
"She will soon, whether she wishes or not," replied Dis. Her smile made her cheeks rosy. Thorin's eyes surveyed her with a creeping concern in spite of it. "I am told you came to her room in the middle of the night. Elsa was concerned for you."
Dis's smile receded quickly, a flicker of something more turbulent flinting over her face. "Were it mine to deign, I would never touch her with my grief. Nor yours," Thorin sighed sadly.
Dis took a hard step back. "She will always be burdened with our grief. Mine, yours. Its shadow will never cease to follow wherever we are. And I... I would become but a shadow myself." Thorin turned around and grasped Dis's hands tightly as the tears began to crest on her heavy eyes. Those beautiful blue eyes, he thought, Durin's blue, the blue of a line unbroken yet, should never weep, alas but for my doings...
His sister pressed the lump in her throat down, wiping her eyes with the back of one finger. "But she has chosen it," Dis concluded with a determined stoutness. "She has chosen you with her eyes open, and bears it willingly. There is true love, Thorin."
"Aye." The skin at the outer edges of his jaw prickled pointedly and he steeled his thoughts to refocus on Dis's purpose for being there. Her skirts swished behind him as she moved, light on her feet, like a ghost. She crossed the room and flung back the heavy curtains that hung over the side of his bed. "Your bed is…"
"Big enough to sleep three, my dear sister," Thorin smiled at the corner of his mouth.
"Perhaps, but you'll need some better pillows. Sleeps three perhaps but the arrangement is for one. You'll better understand when I have some new bedding brought, pillows for her, you see."
"Aye." Thorin's eyes blinked blankly around his chamber. His mind was void, for what Meisar might have preferred there.
"It should feel like home, Thorin. Home, and comfort, and serenity. I fear you will find little outside this chamber. Make the best of it," Dis recommended, eyeing the walls, the struggling embers in the hearth critically.
"I would lay with her on a bed of stone and straw in a hovel and find my happiness," Thorin declared to his sister. "She is my home."
"You love her, truly?"
"I always imagined you would be jealous should I have taken a wife."
"In a time long gone. Not now. I am in need of female company that is as unpretentious as this shepherdess. She will occupy my thoughts well, in teaching her what she must know."
"Of queenship? She has long proven herself a fine leader to many."
"Perhaps. But also how to dress herself not like a vagabond. And other things," Dis's lips curled in a coy smile at the end of it.
"Other things?"
"I asked you if you loved her, Thorin. You didn't answer my question," Dis reminded quietly.
"I do, with all that I am."
Dis smiled, satisfied. "In that case, I think you best pick your side of the bed now, and assert it discreetly if you have a preference. Sharing a bed takes a bit of getting used to. But to love is find it a happy adjustment."
.
As promised, Dis returned to him in the evening when the business of the mountain had let up in his chambers, night drawing in, and the seamstresses, fingers numbed, had retired for the evening. She was accompanied by Griet and Bertha, arms full of things- tapestries and boxes, a rolled rug carried on one of each of their shoulders. Dis took the box of candles from Bertha's burly arms and set it down on the trunk at the foot of Thorin's bed. Looking upward toward his bed, she turned and directed the girls toward it. The chambermaids climbed onto the king's bed, avoiding making eye contact with him, and waited for further instruction. Their knees sank into the sea of velvets and furs atop it. "The pillows," Dis said finally. "Make a bed for two, not one. That's a start."
Griet and Bertha took the pillows they had brought for Meisar and arranged them with Thorin's, carefully coordinated. There were two stations on the bed now, with neck roll and goose-down with velvet casings and little tassels, arranged side by side and identically. Another large pillow was arranged in the center between them, a gorgeous silver damask. Griet and Bertha climbed off when Dis was satisfied. She then summoned them to help her hang a few tapestries on the opposite wall, brighter in color, geometric patterns run through in hues of crimson and eggshell white, Wool and silk, the eggshell silk shone luminously however subtle in the flicker of the braziers nearby. "My ladies, do fetch the candelabras that were brought this morn; these chambers shall be alight, not a tomb, for work and for pleasure too." The chambermaids curtsied and went to their task. Dis looked back at the bed with one eyebrow raised with a pointed curiosity. The girls returned shortly with the candelabras and another box of stubby beeswax candles. "By the bed is well, and the candles on that trunk there, if only for the time being," Dis directed. She turned to Thorin with an uncannily serious look. "Well Thorin, do you wish to look upon her or fumble in the dark as Eili and I did so long ago?"
"The former I imagine," Thorin swallowed, awkwardly.
Dis locked into his gaze. "Tell me Thorin, is she prudent a Sanzadkh? Wholly?"
Thorin cleared his throat again, vocal cords rendered silent by his own heated discomfort, neither his sister nor himself willing to meet each other's eyes fully by then. "Yes. We were... close at one time. Disrupted alas."
"That is Mahal's way of chastising you," Dis tut-tutted. "All things are as they are meant to be. And when you come to each other at first, whether one or neither of you knows what you are doing, it should not be like blind mice, don't you agree?"
"Indeed, though I fear I would not wish to ask advice of you Dis, on certain matters," Thorin asserted gently, high flush at his cheeks growing hotter by the minute. He eyed his own bed and began to feel a stinging, inconvenient heat growing. Dis turned halfway to him, a limpid grin visible on one side of her mouth. "Go slowly," she murmured, smoothing the edge of the velvet top-cover. "Worship her completely. I will say no more than that but it is truly sufficient."
Red-faced, they avoided each other's eyes for a long moment. "Anyhow, the furniture will come tomorrow, dear brother. I saw to it that it was made a priority with the guild. They are quite honored," Dis broke the silence, rising, quickly regaining herself. She came and held and leaned into Thorn's arm. "Oh Thorin, it is a thing of such joy. When I wed Eili, I wept for you. I had a weight in my heart then seeing you, never imagining you would know the joy it is to love a One as I loved him."
"I think of him oft," Thorin murmured, kissing Dis's head as she leaned closer into him. "As I do Fi... Fili... and Kili." Dis wriggled in his arms and raised her girdle, withdrawing the small portraits and kissing them. "Such joy," Dis mused. "Such joy and such sorrow. It seems our lot as the dwarves, to have one or the other, never a plain-lived lull where there is a flatness to the mind, a stability of sorts."
"Perhaps we shall have that now," Thorin hoped quietly. "There will be a time of peace beneath this mountain."
Dis smiled quietly. "There already is." She touched his face with her cold pale hands. "I had my joy in my time. Now it is your turn."
.
II
"The whole of the week," sighed Meisar in the morning. "Without his sight I feel bereft already."
"It is tradition," Gyda piped up. "Before a dwarven wedding seven days shall pass before the day of marriage, when the bride and groom shall know no sight of each other."
"In that time, the bride is more or less reckoned to her chambers. But whilst she cools 'er heels there, dwarves from all over who've had news of the marriage will come to her home and bring her gifts and words of kind luck. You being a queen and all, I expect to see a mighty queue fer ye. They'll keep ye busy and occupied well enough," prattled Eda, cheerfully. "In the meantime, Thorin will be kept busy enough himself. A week of drinking and revelry with his men, bawdy jokes, real talk, lots of mead, and stumbling about late into the night making his chambers all proper fer ye to dwell in as marrieds."
"Why's that?" asked Lulia, fidgeting on the footstool where she was circled by seamstresses. Virta was similarly rigged nearby, Anbur and Yrsa watching with wide-eyed amusement and wonder, running their little hands over the bolts of fabric that would be their own dresses.
Gyda shrugged. "Don't know. It's tradition."
"Tradition," the seamstresses all repeated firmly in unison, as it if warranted no further explanation and frowned upon inquiry altogether. Meisar spun as Aroin flew into her chambers with a whoosh. "The visitations will start soon," she announced. "Why my lady, you're not even dressed! Come, come! Where is Emli. I thought she was managing your days," prodded Aroin again.
"Bringing the wedding garments to her husband and child. They were only just finished this morning," Meisar lent a grateful eye to the seamstresses, who nodded in return, pleased. "They shall look very handsome in your work, ladies, I am confident." She flashed Aroin a look of cool confidence. "She shall return shortly, bringing my own." She wiggled her toe from under her sleeveless sleeping tunic and her old calico braies, in full view of Aroin so she could see the scraggy wool stocking with the thinning part at the big toe displaying it through the fabric. Aroin stiffened and said nothing.
"Speakin' o' gifts," Brynja reminded, back of her hand to her blushing face. "It's tradition to be sending each other sweet ones, even... suggestive ones during the week of the wedding." Aroin looked on disapprovingly as Brynja whispered into Meisar's ear. The two laughed together as they managed to get Meisar at least into her good chemise and stockings, Meisar hiking the garter on hers up and Brynja winking and giggling in her way.
Emli did come and bring a simple dress of rum-raisin silk, the upper sleeves puffed and the lower fitted and of a subtle patterned damask. Silvery fur was trimmed about the neckline and Emli brought one of her own brooches for her to wear at the chest of the gown. "When the people see you this day and pay their tributes to you, you best look the part of a queen, but I think it best they see you as you are, not given to fripperies and fobs. As the much as the lot here swoon for fripperies and fobs."
"Will they think me a vagabond unworthy of a king's hand?" Meisar chewed worriedly. "It is what I am, after all. A vagabond."
"As are we all at one time or another," assured Freyda gently. "A queen might ye be in the days to come, but ye shall always be Meisar, the shepherdess I trusted with me life upon that road, good and simple, authentic, lovie. That goes further than any wee bauble or fancy dressin'." "The people will be glad for your sight," cooed Brynja, crouching at her side, placing a loving hand on her arm, as Freyda went about fixing the last strand of her hair into its elaborate coiffure. "You look most beautiful my lady. They will love you I promise," Brynja offered kindly.
"The first have arrived!" Aroin announced and the women took their places. Meisar sat in the chair that was beautifully carved and lined all in plush crimson velvet, a throne for a queen un-crowned. Her neck grew stiff quickly in the weight of the jewels but she greeted each dwarf who came with geniality. Mothers brought dwarflings in swaddling clothes to be touched and held by her. Dwarves that had come on her previous caravan brought her gifts of new boots, hair clasps, home cooked food.
Later Bofur came with Bifur and Hegi then in tow. With his dimples shining and Brynja blushing finely with every wink he tossed her, Bofur presented Meisar with a lavender blanket of pure angora wool. "A gift from the sheep to the shepherdess," winked Bofur. He leaned and whispered clandestinely in her ear. "Brynja made it herself. I'm just giving it. This is from me." He laid in her hands a box carved of wood so dark it was almost black with a cherry-wood varnish about it. Its handle, on top, was a shepherd's crook with a wee emerald in the curved tip. "A jewelry box," Bofur explained. "A plain gift I know," he shrugged, self-deprecatingly. "A miner's tastes for small gestures and gifts is hard to tame."
"It is beautiful Bofur. I shall need it for certain I think." She stood to embrace him. "Thank you... thank you ever so much." She looked over Bofur's shoulder at Bifur, who was waiting and shrinking back like a shy boy. "Do come, Bifur."
Bifur presented her with three wooden birds, each perched along thin poles with strings on the tips of their wings. At the base that held them was a small lever. "Bahazanâsh," Bifur explained. When she studied it more closely, she could see they were indeed ravens. Bifur pressed at the lever and urged her to moved it up and down. The birds' wings flapped in an elegant choreography with each other, to the delight of the gathered dwarrowdams. "The ravens will only return when the king returns," he rambled in Khuzdul. "And the king could not have returned without a queen."
Hegi clapped her hands in delight behind him, her proud smile so broad all her teeth were showing. Mithril glowed on one of her incisors. She winked at Meisar and coyly informed her that her gift would make an appearance on Durin's Day. "If this one's silly poppers don't try and upstage me!" she hissed suddenly at a tall figure making his way into the chamber. Hegi and Bifur slid out around Gandalf, eyeing him. He shrugged merrily against her Khuzdul.
"Gandalf," Meisar smiled. "Welcome." Her hounds rushed forward out of the antechamber and burrowed furiously into the hem of his robes. He knelt and petted each with a gentle laugh.
"I do feel quite welcome," he replied, chuckling. "I have of course, brought you a gift. Or I would be presumptuous and rude to have come at all."
"Your company is quite enough," Meisar beamed. She liked him already.
"I thank you my lady but tradition, I am told. To bring a gift is the correct action. And as they say, when in Erebor do as Durin's Folk do." Gandalf crouched on his knee before her and offered her a two wooden boxes. The opened the first to find a long-stemmed pipe inside, beautifully carved. "It is a craft of the Shire my lady," Gandalf explained proudly. "As is the pipe-weed in that box."
She opened it and was assailed by the sweet scent of the Western weed. "Aye, Frogmorton," she sighed happily, taking a long inhale once more. "A favorite of mine, dear wizard."
"So I was told," Gandalf said, chuckling. "I came to visit you for this purpose and to offer you my sincerest congratulations. And apologies for disrupting you the day before last. I was only told that you would be there, not that... well..." He raised his own pipe to his lips and trailed off into a ribbon of smoke against the curious prickling ears of the dwarrowdams that surrounded the queen in wait.
"You owe me no apology Gandalf. I am glad you are here."
.
In her chambers later that night, after offering Gandalf a round of tea and ale and cakes brought by Bombur's daughters, she summoned Brynja quietly to her side out of Dis's sight before the last two of them departed. "I have a gift for my bridegroom." She slipped the garter from her thigh and into the silk pouch Brynja had given her. "Tell Bofur to bring it to him."
.
Thorin hadn't expected to find Bofur at his chamber door that night. But he came with a certain giddiness and Thorin was warmed by it, tired from all the paperwork and mundane tasks of kingship that were strewn before him at his desk.
"Brought ye a gift," Bofur chortled. "Aye, a gift, from yer beloved. He pulled out the silk pouch. "It's fer you, m'king," he said jauntily, handing it to Thorin. "Direct from yer betrothed. My own bride did ask take it from 'er and ask me to bring it here to you."
"Thank you Bofur."
"Reckon I take me leave then, majesty. My Bryn be waiting and wanting no doubt by this time," winked Bofur. Thorin threw him a knowing smile and dismissed him kindly. Alone at his desk and in his darkened chambers he emptied the light pouch of its flimsy content. A single garter, lace-trimmed, white silk, a ribbon running through it to cinch it. He took it and ran it across his mouth and his face and inhaled the soft skin scent of it. Her own.
He could almost hear the stacks of contracts and formal requests piled at the great desk turning a disapproving eye toward him. Thorin took up the garter again and pressed it to his face. He drifted over to his bed and placed it on the pillow beside his own before returning to his labors of kingship, stirring where he was ill in want of being stirred at the moment.
.
III
"Ales are a'comin' my king," trumpeted Dwalin, his massive frame lumbering over and sitting in the chair beside Thorin's in Thrain's Hall. "Mead's about gone. Don't worry, got more on the way. Planned this well fer ye my king, so we'll not run out of the important things. Mead and meat. S'all we need."
"You've arranged me a fine revelry, Dwalin," Thorin answered approvingly. "The twilight of an unmarried dwarf, worthy of such a thing I suppose."
Dwarves of all walks gathered below them in the feasting hall that had been named for his father. Thorin watched them, their boisterous revelry, their laughter, their back-slapping, and thought of the days of old when Thror would give such fetes, seeing that all were stuffed with mead and good food. Even as the gold was nipping at all of their heels like an ember rolled from a fire, they had loved their king still. They had loved him still.
Ales were brought by the stewards and Dwalin grunted thanks at them and put a full one before Thorin. "Drink up one at least before they come all queuing up asking this or that." "Duties of a king never end," Thorin sighed, imbibing quickly. "Got yer scribe here by yer side to see that their wants are all in writin', shan't be a problem I don't think," grunted Dwalin, slapping Ori's back hard. A stack of fresh parchment papers were set before him in expectation. Ori called for a second round from the dwarven steward.
He eyed a flimsy ribbon of something peeking out from Thorin's belt and without thinking, tugged it out. Thorin cut him a shocked look as Dwalin studied the garter in his hand, eyebrows thrown together in such a way to indicate he had no idea what it actually was. Thorin put his hand out impatiently for its return, which Dwalin quickly obliged, shrugging a wordless apology.
"Well, what is it, my king?"
"A gift," replied Thorin. "From my lady."
Dwalin's brows knitted again and then raised, seeming to make a vague realization. "Strange gift," he grunted.
"Not really," Thorin countered quietly. "It is of her."
"Got one of yer own to send her back?" Dwalin roared suddenly with laughter. "A romantic one of yer woolly socks to tie about her stockins' while ye have this one!" Thorin buried his face into a tankard of mead to hide his amusement but failed, sputtering the frothing drink all over the tankard and staining its side, leaving droplets on the table runner. He embraced Dwalin, laughing. "You are good company in so fair a mood my friend, and not, all the same," he cajoled, catching his breath. His sides ached. "In honesty, Dwalin, what gift should I send in return?"
"A gift for a lass? I'm at a loss fer that one." Dwalin slurped his ale dramatically.
"Your lucky boar snout told me otherwise," Thorin came back quickly, seizing the moment. "Think it is having a lovely time tucked next to Freyda's bosom at night."
"She say that?" Dwalin piped up suddenly, eyes raised in unmasked hope.
"No," Thorin replied flatly, guilty to see Dwalin's face go straight and sullen again. "Alas, Dwalin, I think she would rather have you there."
Dwalin's face wriggled awkwardly. "Aye, I suppose she would. In time," he said, patting Thorin's shoulder reassuringly. "In time... when I'm... feeling right for it."
.
The first night of the celebrations had left Thorin drained but not entirely without enthusiasm for some task. He returned to his chambers, where the empty vanity had been brought already, her armoire and a few empty trunks. He looked at the vanity and found it strangely bereft. Gathering a pouch of gold coins and feeling them cold and without sensation in his hand, he tucked them quietly into his belt and slipped out of his door, toward the marketplace in the bottom-most cellar.
.
"Tonight we shall come to render our approvals, if it is timely for you, and ready," offered Balin with a placid chuckle. It was the second night of celebrations. Several more would follow before Durin's Day. He missed Meisar. He wanted to hold her, to kiss her.
The dwarves of Erebor would have feasted and drank for a week before the time anyway, but there was a different essence of revelry in the air now, for his return had rendered the kingdom of perpetual geniality of atmosphere, and his wedding, even more so. Dwarves came this evening not yammering on requests and petitions and business but merely bowing low before him with eyes full of mirth, offering their congratulations. Those who had visited Meisar to offer gifts and greetings extolled her gentle, wizened beauty to him, her quiescent rawness of manner, giving them comfort that she might rule beside him with an empathetic ear to the peoples' needs. "A shepherdess after all," one dwarf called Valrin who had come east on her first caravan, gushed to Thorin, "and how proud we are to be her flock for all times now."
"I have readied it well, I think, Balin," Thorin decreed when the night was winding down in Thrain's Hall, and all the dwarves had departed except for the ones too drunk to return to their quarters, all curling and percolating down by the great hearth fire. "Well then, brother, come," agreed Balin, rousing Dwalin from where he had half-passed out beside Thorin, bent over on the table, arms as a pillow. He snorted loudly as he came to. "Were that our fathers were here," the old dwarf sighed, rising.
.
"Kind of you to do so, Balin," Dis remarked graciously as she leaned on his arm in the corridor. "I have done my mightiest to help. A dwarrowdam's touch is necessary. But for his own, he has been diligent in it."
"You are the finest sister any dwarf could ask for," beamed Balin. "His gratitude for you is boundless, my lady. As is mine." "And you, Balin, are too kind for words. It is truly a shame no dwarrowdam ever took you in marriage, to have such a wise and prudent dwarf to spend her life beside. A fine husband you would have been."
"Whatever the reason I have remained amongst the Binashhânuzrak, I have felt no great absence for it. As you know, the fewer of us are cut out for marriage," he chuckled. "It is too late for me whether I wish it or not. My brother on the other hand, still has time," Balin intoned, jerking his head discreetly toward Dwalin, walking several paces behind them. Dwalin shot him a sheepish glare.
They knocked several times at Thorin's chamber doors before he came to answer them. Balin first stepped into the warmly lit room of the antechamber, his desk arranged neatly however crowded it remained. There were several more chairs there, warm rugs. A shelf held cutlery and a set of dishes for each, another table where they might share a meal in private. A rack for their cloaks, a mat for their boots. "And your other living quarters?" said Balin, gesturing to the bedchamber door.
The bedchamber was large with a sitting area off by the fire-side. Beds for the dogs were lain by the fire. Thorin's own bed was at Dis had left it, two tables now on either side, stocked with water basins and soft hand towels. On the walls the tapestries were hung and many rugs laid down upon the stone floors, warming them tranquilly. The room was full of light. Braziers on the wall blazed, a fire in the hearth steadily crackling, with a neatly-stacked pile of logs arranged to its side. Before the fire, a cozy rug, two chairs now, arranged before the fire. Her vanity, flanked by tall candelabras, was no longer empty but set out with a handheld mirror, a set of jeweled combs, a wash basin and picks for the nails and teeth and ears, her hand towels, soaps and perfumes, a new horsehair brush and her braid clasps all held on a small rail, and a jewelry box set in sapphire, a rune that read simply queen.
"A fine job you have done, Thorin. I think it is wonderful," Dis beamed. "You have all the things that shall make a proper home. I am so very impressed by your efforts, brother." Out of the corner of her eye she could see Dwalin standing slightly at a distance, his eyes seeming to catalog every item in the room. His lips moved under the heavy wiry beard but no sound came out. Talking to himself about something, but what? Dis mused. Never had she thought of him as the contemplative kind. At the moment, he seemed to be taking a frentic study, the way his eyes darted around, his lips took note.
Dis glanced into the shadows to see what was tucked there- an infant's cradle, ready and waiting.
"Yes," Balin agreed, with tears in his eyes, fingertips at the end of the cradle which had been Thorin's own, rocking it gently. "Yes, I think I can approve this home."
.
"A gift from your betrothed," trilled Brynja that night, trotting merrily into Meisar's chamber with a package wrapped in raw silk. The seamstresses had just left her; her gown was nearly complete. Brynja handed it to her with anticipation giddily stuck into her warm eyes. She leaned over Meisar as she opened it. In the flimsy wrapping was a fine linen underskirt. A replacement for one lost, the note said, but she hid that punctiliously from Brynja's sight. More to come if ever needed.
"An under-skirt," Brynja remarked, bemusedly. "That is a fine and practical gift."
"I needed a new one I suppose," Meisar admitted coyly, the flutter of her heart starting to roll in waves.
.
IV
"Tomorrow you shall be a bride," crowed Dis as the morning dawned with the sounds of merrymaking and the scurrying work-forces of dwarves penetrating the stone of Meisar's chambers. At once a thunderous boom in the distance made her leap from her bed and all three of the dogs yowled and snarled running in circles around her feet as she crossed the room toward the plates of cheese, bread and cinnamon cake that the maidservants had brought. "What in Mahal's name was that?" Dis asked, momentarily exasperated as the aftershocks of it rumbled and hiccuped overhead.
"Hegi," Meisar answered flatly. "Taken up with Bifur on one of the mountain flanks. They're in the business of Khuzd-denâk I've heard and making a fine sum, especially for Durin's Day's coming. Hegi was a miner once; she blew orc dens in the Misty Mountains around the mithril veins."
"A dwarf and a dwarrowdam? Living together? And unmarried?" Dis gasped, raising the back of a pale hand to her face.
"It's not like that," Meisar protested quickly. She knitted her brows trying to think of what it actually was . "He's got an ax in his head from an old accident; it's done odd things to him but far from dead between the ears the way Oin likes to thinks. And she's... well... mad for sure but not stupid. I wouldn't worry for it." She patted Dis's arm, still trembling from the boom. "Shall we dress, my dear sister?"
"Aye," Dis rose as Griet and Bertha entered with her garments. "Will this one suit you, my lady princess?" Griet asked, holding out a burgundy-and-gold gown toward her for approval.
"Yes. Yes, I think it shall do. We shall both wear shades of red today, my dear sister. For it is tradition upon the feast of Durin's Day Eve," she hummed toward Meisar. Her own dress was borrowed from one of Dis's ladies. In the corner of the room, her wedding dress stood immaculate at its stand, awaiting the coming morning. It seemed to call to her in want of her in it.
Today she was to be gowned in red velvet with pale fur trimming the sleeves and the collar. A matching cloak was draped about her shoulders, fastened across the front in chains of gold and a pair of jewel-studded brooches at either shoulder. Her courtship braid, her betrothal braid with its sapphire clasp were fixed, and her hair covered with a round velvet cap latticed in gold thread.
"Do you think the greetings yesterday went well?" Meisar asked Dis with a halting self-consciousness. Dis looked up from fixing her thick black hair.
"Of course! I can scarcely believe how many queued to see you, and this is only the first day," Dis chuckled reassuringly, fixing her cap.
"I have heard it said I am a strange choice for a queen."
"Aye, and these are strange days. Listen not to those who doubt you. You have the love of a king, for whom love has not been abundant. At least of this sort. That is all that matters," Dis insisted, a gentle maternal quality about her voice, almost a soothing coo. Meisar wondered how often that voice had soothed two princes.
Dis sat heavily on her chair again and glancing at her half-full ale, pressed it away disdainfully. "I never thought Thorin would marry. Too much anger and pain and single-mindedness toward this one mission. It is not to say I do not fear for the two of you," she said.
"Thorin is impenetrable… as are you in your way. It takes the right time and place for it to happen. Nobody can stay sealed up forever. The air in such a tomb… runs out eventually."
Meisar grinned wryly out of Dis's sight, supple cheeks fairly blushing. "I do not think you mean that the same way."
Dis took her hands and turned to her swiftly. "Promise me that you will love him forever, and love him with special vigor. For if you turn your back on him, he will truly have nothing. And there is great danger in kings who have no purpose at life."
"I promise that I will. I love him, Dis. I love him more than I have ever loved anyone or anything… I… have learned to love because of him."
"I know," Dis did a serene smile then. "And no, I do not mean impenetrable in a separate way at all, Meisar. People are like keys. It takes a particular one, perhaps suited only to one door, to open that chamber and let the light in that place, which has been dark for far too long." She smoothed her skirt and did a serene little grin. "On the morrow you will be a bride. Now, let us celebrate the eve of Durin's Day, and pray be spare on the meat. The bodice must fit tomorrow morning," Dis laughed.
Arm in arm, they departed the chambers and met the cadre of their ladies together at the head of the stair, going all together toward the drums and fiddles and the laughter and clanging of glasses in the great hall.
.
Two high tables there had been set beside each other and facing slightly away, not that it was of any real purpose. Between the great high tables was a thick velvet curtain drawn and with two sentries standing at its edge. On the right table Thorin was seated centrally and flanked by his cadre on either side- Dwalin, Balin closest, fanning out each way seating Gandalf, then Oin and Gloin and Gimli, Dori and Ori. On the opposite end sat Bofur, Bifur, Bombur's sons Nifur and Donbur.
On the other side of the curtain, visible to all who gathered in their finest clothes and heartiest moods for the Feast of Durin's Day Eve, except Thorin and his cadre, were Meisar and her ladies. Meisar's eyes drifted toward the heavy curtain. He was right there. She could hear his voice, the rich baritone of it making her heart thump in her chest like a drum just to hear it. To hear him laugh was the sweetest sound; she knew it by now. To have his sight she would have given all, but imagining his face when he first beheld her in her gown come the evening next, tempered the urgency of her aching, at least for the moment.
A rattling of jewels and swishing fabric pressed aside the velvet curtain to the sentries' chagrin. "What'ya mean no lads on the side o' this curtain?" a familiar voice complained but none could see whom it belonged to, pressed by the sentry to the male side as he was being. His protests ebbing, a dwarrowdam ostentatiously dressed stepped through, over-gown of the palest saffron-yellow split and trimmed along the deep red forepart, a tapestry border along the part all studded in jewels of every hue as was her bodice. Her girdle was a chain of pure diamonds and it tinkled like a soft bell when she moved toward the table of women. The dwarrowdam held a fan of great white plumes over her face showing the frilly lace cuffs of her sleeves and the garnets as big as fingernails on every finger, sleeves rich scarlet like the part of her skirts.
Only visible were a trio of strawberry blonde peaks molded upon her head. When the kittenish laugh finally escaped, the un-chewed grape fell from Eda's lip.
"Igyidi!" cried Eda. "You have come!"
She raced down from the dais and threw her arms around Siv.
Holding the girl back to survey her closely she eyed the finery of her attire with a japing suspicion. "You have spent your stipend well I see."
"My stipend? Mahal, no! Nori's riches have clothed me finely fer a lass of plain origins. Born in a mannish stable, will die in a bed of diamonds!" "Nori?!" yelped Eda. Siv pressed the edge of one hand coyly to her coiffure. "My courtship braids," she announced with a dramatic swish of taffeta skirts. "Nori's asked me proper."
"He's… he done it proper?" Eda's wide eyes began to fill with tears half of pride half of shock.
"Even a sticky-fingering rapscallion's got a sensible head 'round a lass. Think I might'a stolen something from him- his heart!" Siv threw her head back and laughed. Eda embraced her again and didn't let go.
"Never leave me! I missed you so!"
"I won't," whined Siv, wriggling in her grasp.
"Mahignit!" demanded Eda.
"I promise," Siv chuckled as she embraced her back in full. Siv turned around and ran her finger along the edge of the velvet curtain, flicking it with her fingertip. "What's with the curtain? Ain't a bathhouse, is it? No carousing with the lads?"
"Too busy tangling up with that knave ye are girl. Haven't ye heard? Tomorrow's 'er wedding day," scolded Emli, jerking her head to Meisar.
"Who's the lucky one?" Siv sidled up toward Meisar with her impish grin all broad.
"The king!" Emli replied indignantly for her. "Betrothed at Lake Town they were. Married on Durin's Day. Shouldn't have run off now, should we? You miss a lot that way, Siv."
Siv's eyes lit up scurrilously. "So yer to be queen, Meisar? That's a big step up in the world, ain't it?"
"One I need a footstool to climb it seems," Meisar joked, legs still aching from hours of standing with the seamstresses. Siv's eyes sparkled back at her. "Got a spot in yer household for an old friend? Courted proper now I am, won't bring no scandal to ye."
"I'll believe that when I see it," Emli grumbled, crossing her arms. Meisar leaned delicately toward her, hand on Emli's shoulder, whispered something to her that rendered Emli's expression suddenly disagreeable, but resigned nonetheless.
"You'll be lady in waiting if you wish," Meisar acquiesced. Siv curtsied dramatically, all her jewels rattling, and flounced up to the table, where a retainer quickly set out a chair for her. She sat daintily beside Eda. By the time Emli glanced Aroin's disapproving lips pursing toward Siv, now face-first into a tankard of mead, she was smiling again very quickly.
On the other side of the curtain, Dori was similarly greeting Nori, Ori's arms thrown around from behind while Nori checked his face for cuts, his pockets for anything of value. Thorin watched from the table as the brothers embraced, all together again at last, to be parted not again, they vowed, over and over, and over.
Below the musicians played on and the dwarves were dancing in circles and in rows. But all he could hear was the soft laughter and talk of the women on the other side of the curtain, the sound of it more beautiful than the harp that played and the dwarves who sang in deep, rich lilts a song of strength and loyalty, kinship and mead.
Aye, he thought, Aye, the world was fair on Durin's Day.
.
Thorin stood on the terrace deep in the night, littered in scaffolding from its repair, in the same spot where he had answered Balin's fearful inquiry with that one most dreaded word. Dragon.
It felt like home again.
"Thorin?" a gentle voice echoed behind him. He had not expected it to be Gandalf. Alas, there the wizard stood.
"It is I," he replied quietly, not turning around. He gazed out over the dimming lights over Dale. By the next evening, bonfires would dot the land to the borders of Mirkwood.
"A good evening it is," Gandalf remarked, lips closed around a pipe he was fumbling to light. "A very good evening. And next evening… even better I should think."
"Aye." Gandalf's brow raised at the dreamy quality of Thorin's sighing response. He watched as Thorin leaned forward over the terrace and smiled into the night, moonlight on his crown.
"I visited her today with a gift of my own. She is a fine lady," trumpeted Gandalf with a smile. "A fine lady indeed."
"Did you come here, whilst I am alone, to bring your usual honesty? Tell me, Gandalf, if you wish to say something which I am ill in want of hearing, you may so freely, if you like," Thorin offered gently. Gandalf's brows again wriggled, friendly, unthreatening. Thorin looked back at him waiting for an answer but he stood there still, smoking, as if searching for some word that would not rise in his mind the way he wanted it to. "Gandalf?"
"Love has a strange way of changing things. One's heart. The world itself," he intoned finally. "You, Thorin, have no idea yet what good has been done by this. But do not get ahead of yourself too soon."
"What do you mean?"
"This is your sanctuary. She is your sanctuary. Protect it, all of it, with your life need be. But do not forget there is a world outside, and it goes ever on and on, for better, for worse…" Gandalf's words muddled in another breath of pipe-weed. He exhaled and glanced down at Thorin out of the side of his eye, hesitating at first to try and meet his eye.
"Gandalf?" Thorin's curiosity was beginning to chafe. He knew when there was more to say.
"I once told you Thorin not to cling onto the past."
"Yes, you did."
"No more. You must remember the past, even if it seems to do no more than haunt you. You must remember it, all of it, for only the memory of what was, will make what is to come all the sweeter." He patted Thorin's shoulder gently. "When last I saw you, you were delirious, barely conscious, bloodied, your wounds I feared each time you moved would open and spill your innards into the back of my cart, which I did not relish the thought of cleaning up and I-"
"It heals well, my friend," Thorin smiled thinly, impatiently.
"You cried out in your delirium. You cried out for them, but I was afraid to answer any of your pleas, whether they were directed to me or not. I don't even think you I was there…"
Gandalf's pipe ran dry and he grumbled under his breath. "Thorin, I left you in the Shire with Bilbo Baggins because I had no choice. If you were to live, you would have to live slowly at first. I could not leave you to recover under the mountain, not then. I am sorry I saw you so seldom after that time. I owe Bilbo Baggins a great debt, perhaps more so than even you."
"I roared in my grief in the night and frightened his neighbors I am told. Suppose I owe them at apology," Thorin sighed, tightly.
"You owe none an apology. You have paid your debts, and with them… with them…" Gandalf began to choke up. "You have made a new life greater than ever I would have hoped." He pulled Thorin sideways to him with an arm at his shoulder. Together they looked out over the dark landscape. "A great blessing you have, my friend. A marriage is a thing of good and only good. And tomorrow," Gandalf smiled broadly down at him. "Tomorrow you will know truly, how resplendent it is."
Igyidi- Rejoice!
Mahignit- Promise!
Nadad- Brother
Khuzd-denâk - Dwarven Fireworks
Binashhânuzrak- A Dwarf Who Chooses to Remain Unmarried
NEXT CHAPTER- THE WEDDING!