Thorin crept to the edge of the railing looking down on high toward Thrain's Hall. Fifty tables, seating up to a hundred each, lined the expanse of the open floor, the ends set at a comfortable distance from four great hearths. At a long dais, the High Elves and the contingent from the Iron Hills had already been seated, at opposite ends. More were filing into the hall in a continuous queue, men and dwarves alike, in a procession that for now remained civil and mirthfully oriented.
"Are they ready, Thorin?"
He turned around to find Meisar striding at ease toward him, visibly glad to have exchanged the suffocating coronation garments for a lighter ensemble to don at the coronation banquet. The crown though remained and was so cumbersome it made her look shorter than she already was. Her silver-gray gown was cinched high on the waist in a gold-and-garnet geometric belt.
"A sight to behold, isn't it?" she sighed, dreamily even. The crowded hall below rang with music and laughter.
"And yet it still feels as if some are missing," said Thorin. A single pan-flute was joined harmoniously by pipes, as the wenches struck open the first barrels of mead and beer and ale to an eager line. More moved with laden trays, serving others at their tables. Plates of bread, skewers of chicken and mashed potatoes with garlic and butter were being brought out to the tables along with fruit and cheese. A coronation it might have been, but the food was sturdy, simple and hearty, and plentiful. It reminded him of a simpler life he had once known, even if so briefly.
"We have elves, dwarves, men, but no hobbits. A shame Bilbo Baggins could not be present." Meisar leaned into his arm and surveyed the scene below herself with restive eyes.
"Were they he were here, my queen. He of all people should be. Alas, I would do him a greater favor to leave him in peace in his own corner of the world. Hobbits are quite adverse to traveling."
"Nor does Gandalf the Gray attend. He is present at your wedding but not your coronation? Is it not peculiar he did not stay longer?"
"I suppose he surmised which was more precious to me." Thorin's hand cupped her stubborn chin and rubbed the beardless skin affectionately between his fingers.
Above on the gallery, the head-stewards were gathering in a line, blowing their trumpets in tandem to call them forward.
.
Bard made his way down the lower dais past his own men and the glaring eyes of a quartet of dwarves with beards adorned in tusks and the teeth of beasts.
"Come sit with us, my lord," an unfamiliar voice invited from the far end of the dais. An elf sat there, staid and elegant, with a beautiful elven maiden beside him, hair as black as jet. Beside her was another elf, fidgety-looking, moving the contents of his place around with a fork, warily.
"Bard of Laketown, the Dragon-Slayer and the Lord of Dale, I greet you kindly. I am Elrond, the Lord of Rivendell. My daughter, Arwen. And Lindir, a second-in-command in the Homely House if you will."
"I am pleased to make your acquaintance my lord. May I present my son, Bain, the Master of Laketown. I must say it is good to see an elf here. Though I notice the absence of one in particular."
"Thorin assures me a raven was dispatched many weeks ago to the Woodland Realm with the invitation," said Elrond.
"Perhaps the Elvenking still smarts from the insults of the Five Armies," suggested Bain. "Many of his own fell."
"More likely the dwarf had one of his own shoot the bird from the sky," quipped Percy behind him suddenly.
"If he believes he has been snubbed and learns I have been present rather than forsaking the occasion myself in solidarity, I fear he may express his unhappiness in his… distinct way. The Elvenking has never been one to forget or suffer insult, not especially from his friends," Bard sighed into his cup.
"Especially from his friends,' Elrond confirmed, grudgingly.
"Thranduil himself placed that sword upon his tomb. It alights in blue if orcs lurk near. One would think such a gesture would indicate a greater peace than has been known for some time, between them," Elrond pondered. "Or perhaps not so after all."
Percy put a hard fist onto the table. "Elves and dwarves and their grudges. The things that would be but petty squabbles amongst our kind they start wars over. Ones we are in the habit of winding up in the middle of."
"They'll only ever care about their own. Don't expect anything from them," sniffed Percy.
"As if we mannish kind are equally selfless," Bard replied, defensively.
"Do I hear you defending this mad king? I think you forget the smell of your own burning and rotting. From the dragon he woke."
"Do I see you drinking his ale?" Bard shot back.
"Well, aye, can't turn that down from even the worst of my enemies,' shrugged Percy. "And dwarvish ale, and mead, are each quite good."
Bard turned the cup around, grinding it in circles into the wood of the table. Percy's belching turned his attention back his way, and his second-in-command sighed a conclusion. "Things will change, that is for certain. They've got a queen now. Not hidden away but crowned beside Oakenshield as if she were on footing with him. And hasn't got a curly pig's tail or a goblin's face."
"I don't think the old one did either, despite what you used to tell me," Bard laughed uneasily.
"Aye, perhaps not. But what do you make of this one in honest, my lord? The dwarf-woman is lowborn as a goat they tell me. What does that say for the lot of us?"
"It is a world where a bargeman may become the lord of a great city. Perhaps it is a sign of greater fortunes to come, for those who have seen them seldom."
"Aye, it is, and I give thanks for that at least. But is also a world where dead kings rise. And that frightens me to be honest. Oakenshield was put in the tomb they say, but what sort of sorcery revived him they won't. And what sort of sorcery drives him to wed the likes of this one, well, I don't know that either. But he has made a happy wife of her?"
"In the summer months when they rested at the Homely House he kindled a deep admiration for her already, my liege, and courted her openly, and even summoned her to his rooms by night. It is not a reckless move on his part," Elrond offered. "She is a good woman."
Bard put down his cup. "What sort of woman? Well, I was threatened by her own tongue with emasculation should I touch but a hair on his head," Bard pursed his lips against Percy's blink of disbelief. "It was a tense interval. But I would not throw caution to the wind around a woman who stands as high off the ground as she does, threatening me with such a thing." Bard pondered the matter over another slice of venison cut steaming from the haunch. "I think she is as much a dwarf as he is, and I do not know whether I should be relieved of this fact, or more afraid than I have ever been."
The horn blew again and the master-steward announced the entrance of the king and queen.
The doors opened and they came forward together, side-by-side, her arm upon his. She looked even smaller on his arm than she had before, absent the heavy robes which the king still donned, dark and opulent in them. Her crown was feminine if terribly cumbersome looking, in comparison to the severity of his own. They entered together, unbearably graceful for dwarves it seemed, and her, especially, who had been as crudely dressed as he was in worse days, and as unrefined in her manner. She had a quiet command of presence, not like Thorin, Bard thought, Thorin, who carried the weight of his past with him everywhere he went, and wore it, in the dark somber richness of his clothes.
When they were seated at the dais and Dis following on Balin's arm, pale and serious, Bard rose to offer his greeting, along with his family, to each of them in turn.
"I greet you with all due reverence my king, my queen."
"And you my lord, my ladies. Be welcome in my halls."
His two daughters were sturdy and handsome girls, like their father; the elder wore a long round-necked dress of green figured silk with diaphanous sleeves, the little one prim and girlish in rose trimmed with lace all over. Bain ducked his head politely, his baby face downy at the cheeks with the first dusting of a beard. Bain stood a head taller than Bard now, a gangly but staid young man.
Bard shifted on his feet to move before Dis on the dais, putting out his hand in asking that he might take hers and offer a kiss of peace upon it. The princess obliged; her pale hand was cold against his lips. "My lady princess, I did not get the opportunity last I was here, to offer you my deepest sympathies. They were fine, brave lads, both of them. I knew their presence only briefly, but that I could see as plain as day."
"They were," Dis replied, drawing her hand back solemnly.
"I pray we shall honor them with peace in this world."
"Indeed, my lord. And do you know, how is the best manner to keep the peace?" Her sad blue eyes grew sharp and seemed to summon him closer. "I will impart an important piece of advice unto my lord, if peace is your greatest desire. Take care of your own first. Do not involve them in the cares of the world. Put your own first and protect them with everything you have."
"I desire nothing more," Bard replied.
"Good then," Dis smiled, bittersweet. "Never forget it. A dwarf cannot."
"We welcome you to sit with us, my lord," Meisar said before Thorin could break the tense bout of silence that followed. "Oliada, will you have the steward bring chairs for the children?"
Bard sat cautiously beside Thorin, where the king had directed the steward to place his chair, separating him a spot from Dis. Thorin's heavy brow seemed to predicate the blue suspicious gaze, knitting sullenly at the sight of him, though it seemed little in enmity, only a dwarf's characteristic mistrust, and memory. By contrast, the queen's serious petaled mouth and large solemn eyes were set off by a queer sort of warmth to her posture. And so gorgeously clad in silvery-white she was. Tinsel-satin edged the under-sleeves and neck of her gown. The plump wrist in a sapphire bracelet beckoning Sigrid and Tilda to sit beside her was neither glib and commanding nor graceful like he imagined a queen's might be. His daughters were cattails in comparison- tall and lithe with pale brown hair, Tilda's just coming out of its mousy stage. They sat beside her as if they had known her a long while, and Bard was relieved for a moment to see it.
This Meisar, he thought, was no beauty, maybe not even by dwarvish standards either. But something had changed in her since that night at the inn, her complexion less wearied by the elements, the eyes with their unforgiving shade not so guarded in their expression toward his daughters. She had the face of a woman who had seen much and not so much of it mirthful but not this king's madness at its darkest.
"You my queen must greet your people with your husband and the Lady Princess. We shall keep apt company with these young ladies. Go, go now," Emli shooed Meisar off the dais efficiently, dwarrowdams suddenly crowding around Bard, their voluminous skirts pressing up against him. Sigrid and Tilda stiffened. The tight flock of dwarrowdams looked down upon them, barely; they were nearly eye level with Bard's daughters seated in their mannish-sized chairs.
"Ah, and these must be them," said Emli, turning back to them. "The daughters of the Dragon Slayer himself."
Tilda stared up at her with a shrinking look that held some awe to it nonetheless, studying Emli's maroon velvet sur-coat and gold-and-mauve patterned damask gown, all of her jewels and the elaborate structure of her beard and long apple-red hair. She smoothed her lace-trimmed dress fussily in her presence.
"Mistress dwarf, it is a pleasure to make your-" Sigrid enunciated with a careful elegance to her words, dwarfed, as it would be, by the overbearing presence of the bedecked dwarrowdam who appeared the bellweather of the group.
"Emli, wife of Gloin, head of the queen's household," Emli interjected pompously.
Meisar placed a gentler hand on Tilda's shoulder from behind. "May I present Ladies Sigrid and Tilda of Dale," The words felt formal and starched on her tongue, too poised, for these girls had not long past been as ragged as she had been once. "Lady Tilda,' the little one mouthed to herself, giddily.
"Mother of Gimli," Emli continued, unperturbed, finally shooing Meisar onto Thorin's arm to make their rounds. "The one with the copper hair there. Handsome, isn't he?"
Sigrid smiled politely and nodded. "Very, my lady."
Bard gazed back over the dais toward his daughters, noted the overwhelmed countenance in Tilda's eyes surrounded by the dwarf-women of the queen's entourage, their heavy brows querulous, their hair and beards clanking noisily with the weight of the jewels and metal beading in their braids. Behind him, a separate contingent of dwarves were making their way toward Thorin, far more tempestuous in appearance than a gaggle of ostentatious bearded women half as tall as his daughters.
The dwarves of the Iron Hills who had overcome the conditions, and made it to Erebor, resplendent in their roughness, greeted Thorin as if they had known him all of their days, though none had actually laid eyes on him before that day. Motifs of boars decorated their clothing, the hilts of their short-broadswords which they kept visible. Blue runes were inked into their faces and on their hands, many more than even Dwalin possessed on any one of them. Beards adorned in bone and boar-tusk were worn in simple braids. Once he had embraced them all he summoned Meisar to his side, prouder than ever to present her; she could feel it in the way he held her hand up in his.
"May I present Eluf, son of Nagluf, the son-in-law of my great-uncle, Gror, my grandfather's brother who led his kin East to the Iron Hills and settled there. My good cousins, this is my wife and queen."
"I thank ye my queen, for rewarding my curiosity in the matter. Any who can soften the heart o' this king of its worry I am glad to welcome as my kin," Eluf dipped a bow before her and kissed her hand.
"And I am glad to welcome you as my own," said Meisar. They were not so intimidating anymore, this one's countenance boisterous and forward but merry at least. The other three studied her without any effort to conceal their calculations. What they were thinking though, was more difficult to surmise; their stony expressions never once changed.
"You do not disappoint, my queen, that is for certain," Eluf went on.
"I am happy to know, I suppose."
"Rumors, ye know, always seem so dramatic. And when ye learn the truth of 'em, a bit o' a let-down. Not so much you though. You, m'queen, do not disappoint, I'll say it again."
"Well, the lord's mother herself said King Thorin'd gone and married a stunted fat elf. I am happy to see that part was an untruth," laughed the dwarf uneasily. The other Iron Hills delegate smacked him upside his head, leaving it wobbling with the effect of drink.
"Apologies, my queen," said the second delegate, white head capped in ram's horns with hair and beard each threaded about them. His expression was softer toward Meisar with his contrition. "I am Thekk, cousin to his majesty the late king Thror. It is an honor to behold such a fine queen, as to be loved by the likes of this one," he poked Thorin in the ribs. "May I introduce the other two, Hlevang and Loni. Loni here has settled here in the Lonely Mountain for some time now, to be amongst closer kin. Misters Dwalin and Balin are two of them, on their mother's side."
Loni she had seen before, a quiet sort for an Iron Hills dwarf, but Hlevang was every bit the stereotype of the Iron Hills dwarf, fierce to gaze upon, if one was daring enough to let their gaze linger. Boar's tusks were thrust up through the forest of his beard and two more on his head were mounted like horns.
"None needed," Meisar said, assuredly. "Apologies I mean. Both Thorin and I understand and appreciate the honesty of our Iron Hills kin. You have never been known to mince your words."
"Aye, not been known to mince much, except meat," Eluf chuckled with his face still smarting. "Tell me, m'lady, what know ye of the Iron Hills?"
"The seat of my husband's kin, the late Dain Ironfoot, and now his son, my husband's namesake."
"Aye, that he is. A fine lad, as great as any, as bold as his father was," the dwarf boasted. "For a king's heir, one could want little more in a young dwarf."
"Until the queen is delivered of our own," Thorin reminded, placing his hand defensively over Meisar's. "Until."
.
Though the king and queen and Princess Dis were seated on the higher dais they came and moved about their own, their courts and their kin and the heads of the other dwarf clans that called out to them as casually as if they were greeting old friends in a tavern. And they knelt before Dis and offered the most saccharine of sympathies- for dwarves anyway- which seemed to make her sad and impatient, but soon they made her laugh, and that was a sight that could bring anyone, man or dwarf or elf, a spark of joy inside.
"Don't much like each other, Eastern clans, or any others," Oliada whispered to Meisar when they noticed the reservedness of some of the clans, holding back from the familiar enthusiasm of the Longbeard, Broadbeam and Firebeard clans, and very unlike the Blue Mountains dwarves or Durin's Folk in appearance. "They'll not sit together here."
Meisar studied the foreign-looking clans on the far tables while Oliada explained their ways and reputations quietly and cautiously as ever. She pointed out the first with her eyes over Meisar's shoulder.
"Ironfists like no one. Ironfist mean like wolves, but stay in own mountains mostly. Surprise it is to me they here. Surprise to me any Eastern dwarf here. The roads are not safe they say. But now you see?"
"See what?"
"May not speak to each other here but they are uniting, in East, putting aside old prejudice. Against greater foe."
"What greater foe?"
"Not certain. Like drums distant. Sometimes I think they are east. Sometimes south. Small drums. Uncertain." Oliada seemed to stiffen behind her, a bristling, defensive posture that radiated out and alerted Meisar, like animals did in the wild amongst their herds. Behind them, Elrond backed up a few steps, caught eavesdropping, and quite intently from the look of it. Even if Meisar managed to give him a forgiving nod (but for what is there to forgive?), Oliada did not stop glaring until he was entirely out of their periphery. Thorin meanwhile was greeting the chieftains of the Ironfists and calling her forward to do the same. The synod of Ironfists, like Oliada, were brownish in color, as if they had been in the sun a long while, but it was hard to say with any certainty for the thickness and decoration of their jet-black beards and long hair worn in elaborate plaits. The two or three dwarrowdams amongst them covered their faces in bejeweled black veils.
"Some becoming crueler now. Men with painted faces riding huge beasts. Trade with us once. Their women wear beautiful dress from 'urskhalfdam, red dye of Orocarni Mountains, red mountains some call, for soil crimson as blood, my home. Spears made by dwarf hand there like this," she rattled her red spear and frowned under her dark beard. "In their hand and in the throat of my kin. No dwarf safe. Only here."
"They say the Easterlings and even the Avari elves once traded with Erebor steadily. Emli told me they made beautiful furniture and strange works of art. The Eastern dwarves brought them to the markets of Dale," Meisar pondered quietly back toward her.
"No more. But Erebor more important now than ever, but not only trade you see. All dwarves will rally to king if darkness gathers. Even Ironfist, and loathe Durin's Folk much they do." Oliada eyed the Ironfists, who in spite of said hate, seemed to converse amicably with Thorin at the moment.
All of the the Eastern clans sat apart except for the Stonefoots and the Stiffbeards, who moved, however tentatively, into each other's tables to offer greetings. While the Stonefoots donned elaborate beadwork on their clothing and in their beards and hair in bright, exotic hues, the Stiffbeards, their closest kin, favored garments of white wolf-skin or the fur of jet-black yaks, often together in the same ensemble, creating a severe monochromatic look about many of them. Their jewels were equally beautiful, gems all like ice and carved bone and tusk adornments. And though Oliada had said they were the most isolated and narrow-minded of all dwarf clans (except for the Ironfists), they greeted Thorin warmly also.
"Do you feel it in the earth, the drumbeats you say, Oliada?"
Oliada nodded a sharp confirmation.
"Perhaps the world is changing," Meisar suggested, hiding the ominous sense that lingered on the words.
"It is," Oliada said succinctly, and said no more.
Cheers were going up again around them and dwarves queuing quickly around them. Two enormous barrels mounted on a cart were peddled from behind by Bifur into the crowd. His head poked out from behind to acknowledge Thorin with a nod and a grunt, reverently in compared to Hegi, who lifted her skirts halfway up her calves and danced a jig on top of the barrel, her shoes clanking with jewels. The men and High Elves on the dais clapped bemusedly when she had taken a bow, and Hegi bounded up toward the dais and flung her arms about Meisar when she returned to sit beside Thorin, kissing cheeks back and forth maniacally.
"Hegi, Hegi, dear woman," Meisar laughed, exasperated. Thorin was grinning into his cups. "What have you brought?"
"Man brave enough to try?" Hegi's eyes flashed a challenge at Bard, who instinctively froze in her gaze. Her Khuzdul was garbled even for a dwarf to understand.
"She asks you, my lord, if you are brave enough to imbibe. Dwarven shine," Meisar translated to Bard. "It is her own recipe I should have you know."
Hegi grunted a wordless demand for an answer so sharp it cracked in the air and startled Bard so thoroughly he nodded yes as if death might result from refusal. There was of course, a chance of that anyway, Meisar thought, trying not to let herself be amused, as Hegi filled his cup to the brim. She filled Elrond's, Arwen's, Bain's, Sigrid's and Lindir's only halfway with a derisive grobble. None dared refuse. Bifur manned the cart and filled the cups of the dozens who flocked around to imbibe, filling a whole bucket with coins.
"Talk about puttin' your money where your mouth is," Percy quipped, when he was certain Hegi was out of earshot. "Those teeth will be worth more to her dead than living. Solid diamond were they?"
"Mithril," Meisar answered for him. "Plucked herself from the mines of Moria. She's an... interesting... woman." Bard inhaled nervously at the last word.
"Moria? Got to be the oldest dwarrowdam I've ever seen then. Moria's not been in dwarven hands for centuries. We tried once at it, but..." the Iron Hills representative, Eluf, stopped and sighed awkwardly in Thorin's direction.
"She told me once she fired the orc dens for the miners to pass safely there," Meisar shrugged, a heavy dis-ease setting over her suddenly. She shrugged again, as if it were a double assurance to herself. "Well, she is a bit daft."
"Tell me, majesty," Bard studied his cup carefully. "Is this dwarven shine... well, compared to ale, how-?"
"Quite potent," the king's grin back at him seemed even mischievous.
"Stronger than, say, Dorwonion?" Bard uttered out of the corner of his mouth, an accusing eye that still dared not look Thorin in his.
"Much," Thorin half-seethed back. "But our constitutions as dwarves are well-suited to handling it."
"Then I shall try," Bard declared.
"To the kingdom of Erebor," Thorin raised his glass.
"Yes," Bard agreed warily. He gulped and forced it through the passage of his throat, bracing against a cough with both hands gripped around the arm rests of his chair. Bain and Sigrid's eyes watered beside him.
"Yes, I think that is very... strong," Bard coughed.
"Give it a few moments, my lord. You will see just how," Thorin said, a half-smile on the edge of a smirk.
The menfolk were agreeable under their stone roof, their prosperity and the unlimited flowing of the ale and malt beer beings chits in the favor of all it seemed. The widows and fishwives of Esgaroth were dressed as gaudily as the Dale noblewomen of old, the men in extravagant hats with feathers and elegant cloaks. Dylis was a gentle presence with Bain, creased and swarthy to his precocious youthfulness. Sigrid had her father's plainspoken face, but the younger, Tilda, was round-cheeked and doe-eyed like her brother. Tilda at the moment was wandering into the swirl of dancing dwarves. Anbur and Yrsa drew her quickly into their circle, the four girls and Donbur holding hands and hopping around in rotation. She was laughing with the little bearded girls in no time, touching their chins, pulling her mousy braids over her face to try the look on for size.
Bard sat with his head pounding. He watched the dwarves below with his hands gripped around the bottom of the table, steadying himself from falling over altogether or regurgitating all the venison he had devoured with uncanny eagerness after the shine had hit his belly. Watching them dance and laugh and drink. How fisticuffs quickly gave way to embraces and booming laughter that could be heard all the way across the great hall, dwarves taking the piss out of each other, or out of themselves- into the great roaring hearth fires, shamelessly, roaring in amusement at the hissing sound it made. They knew how to make merry, he thought. Perhaps it was the shine after all. He suddenly wanted to dance. Not since he had swayed with Owenna in their room, the old boards creaking, her mischievous laugh trying not to wake the children as they danced, until the sun was in the sky again.
These halls, these streets, shall ring with life again. A sapling was already growing in the spot where the Hobbit had covered the acorn in dirt and ash and blood.
Compared to the solemnity of the coronation procession, there was ample light and such merriment here as to be called rowdy even, all around. Dwarves were dancing, and men. The drink was flowing freely and the stewards scrambling to stock full barrels. The dwarven and the mannish children filled plates and gorged themselves merrily. Siv and Nori with their ridiculous hair painstakingly coordinated danced until their feet could no longer hold them and retired pink-drunk to their seats, laughing out loud at nothing in particular, and then got up to dance, again. Through all the dances, Dori sat stodgily at the table above, alternately wailing into his cups and his hands, consoled neither by Ori or by Eda.
"Lamentable! Woeful! For now the whole of the kingdom is beholden to my brother's courting of a hussy!" The steward came and refilled his empty cup stealthily.
"Dori, you waste your woes. She is not… so bad. Perhaps he shall marry her soon even. And there will be some honor in it." Eda sat beside Dori, rubbing his shoulders as his head hit the table after another cup was emptied.
"No honor! Never honor! Only disrepute shall reign over us. And then… oh! Even worse! He marries her!"
"Oh but Dori, they look... happy together," Eda sighed, reluctantly.
"Happy?" Dori garbled into the wood.
"Oh I think so," Eda reiterated. "And I think they will even be married, and soon." Drums began to beat below, slow at first, then building into a pounding frenzy. Dwarves gathered at the far end of the hall and began to whoop and cheer. Eda squinted toward the door. "And I think even sooner than Dwalin and Freyda, which may not bode well for one of them." The throngs parted below as Onar he strode through, well-scrubbed and beard painstakingly groomed, and clad in a new tunic of green velvet and embossed leather sur-coat. Lofar, Hepti, Vigg and Vestri tailed, pumping their fists in the air, all dressed to the nines in their way.
"There she is, my daughter. The jewel of my eye," Onar put his arms up to summon Freyda down to him.
"''Adad," Freyda greeted him affectionately with kisses on his scarred cheeks. She yelped as Onar lifted her off her feet from the dais and schlepped her down to the floor to dance. Freyda and her father were danced with their pale golden hair winging about, each only marginally skilled in the art; Dwalin could not take his eyes off her though. He rubbed the silver ax around his neck between his fingers until the skin chafed, envy or nervousness driving him. There were too many people, too many tall-folk, in these halls, to be of much comfort to him. Only her sight was a relief. Bard brushed past him and he winced.
"Sigrid, darling, would you oblige your father a dance?" Bard's words were slurring on the edges in the least. He stood with his hand out to his daughter, smiling.
"Yes, da," Sigrid grinned, standing wobbling from her seat to glide toward Bard keeping good pace with the rhythm of the drum as they descended toward the floor where the musicians were trading places. That cheery, determined one, Bofur, was smiling at him over his flute.
"Come my daughter," he smiled at Sigrid as the music began to play again. "Let us dance until the sun is in the sky."
.
Dwalin sat back in his seat, the music of the fiddles and the cheerier viols (cheerier than his anyhow), soothing his head of its spinning concerns. Freyda was still dancing with her father.
"Yer turn, lad," Onar appeared at his side as stealthily as he had ever done.
"Turn?" Dwalin looked around swiftly and was about to draw his dirk when he saw Onar laughing.
"To dance, ye old soldier. Come now. Take me daughter from me. I can't feel me feet no more, lad."
"Aye, look at her. Beautiful. Tell me daughter how beautiful she does look tonight," Onar's command, mooning with admiration as it was, still frightened him, that edge on his words, like a wolf presenting its pup to the pack. And Freyda, Freyda was resplendent in emerald and gold silk patterned in tiny stripes running downward under the high bodice, also gold. The sleeves being fastened in ribbons down her arms showed small slivers of the fine silk chemise underneath, and over the neckline too, where Dwalin tried in desperation not to let his eyes linger. In search of a sign for his boar-snout or something else.
Something else. By my beard, curse me, what else?
"More than any lass I have ever known."
In spite of his proclamation, Onar didn't stop dancing. Nor did his crew. The four of those waved their arms in stilted, jerking motions, out of rhythm with their feet. Freyda's head buried into his shoulder stifling her cringe-tinted laughter. "Oh Dwalin, how fortunate I am ye found me first. Else I might have one of these louts to contend with."
"I would not see such a fine lass be courted by such mouth-breathers," Dwalin growled. "Not even if ye were to deny me." He moved in time with the drums.
"I did not know ye could dance so."
"I have not in some time, but I s'pose it's hard to forget how." Freyda rested her head and murmured lowly into the furs at his shoulder. He closed his eyes and rested quietly his chin into her hair and then his cheek. She carried a sandalwood scent in her hair, neither dainty nor brawny. He had not forgotten. No. But almost. He had tried. Tried to forget what his mother's hands felt like, holding his chubby fists in them, pulling him up to his feet and walking him about the room, turning and swaying. His unsteadiness on his feet but the determination in his legs. To run. But not into battle. Only into her skirts to hold himself upright.
"He's a strong one, easy on his feet," Hertha said. He could remember her proud laugh toward Fundin, and Balin. "He will waltz as well as he carries his wee ax one day."
"Truly ye dance well. Someone must've taught ye with a master's skill," Freyda crooned. She sighed into his shoulder, rumbling once more. "Will ye come to me forge tonight, Dwalin?"
"M'lass, it's the coronation day. Shan't be tamping iron now. It'll all be dark down there."
"There won't be anyone else there, Dwalin. That's why I asked." Her eyes went dark with that peculiar hunger in them that he still struggled to understand wholly, but it spoke to him, plainly enough. She grinned as his face reddened.
"Oh..."
"We've not so much time alone. I wish for us to, most heartily. Do ye remember what ye told me in the forest? That we would complete what we started sometime?"
"I can't, lass. Well, er... maychance not tonight."
"Why not?"
"Because in spite o' how soused he is at the moment, I'm terrified still of yer da. If we... he'll know. He'll know it. He'll smell it on me. He'll take me yambags and hang 'em in his doorway."
"Aye ye are frightened, my brave soldier? Then I s'pose ye'll have to get a wee bit closer now, won't ye? Show 'em how ye protect me, keep me close."
Dwalin felt the brief pinch of feet on top of his own, Freyda's much lighter in the jeweled flat slippers with the ram-bone soles, now mounted carefully on the toes of his boots, putting her high enough to look him in the eye. He moved his feet in time with the slowing dance, the fiddles giving way to a languid ditty. Freyda's moved in careful rhythm with his own, step by step, never faltering, her feet never parting from his. Dwalin felt a separate coat, wool, not velvet or fur, brush up against his back. Bard dancing with his daughter stared back at him.
"It's how I taught my daughter to dance when she was young," Bard murmured with a careful smile toward them.
"I stood upon his feet just like so," Sigrid added, dipping her eyes down to Freyda's feet. The leonine dwarrowdam blushed back at her, a sheepish grin for the fiercest looking female she had ever seen. Sigrid was a tall, well-formed young woman, sturdy in the shoulders, but in comparison to this lass who stood but half her height, a willow that could be as easily snapped by the dwarf-woman's hands.
Yet the dwarf-woman was still smiling despite Bard and Dwalin's glare-off. Freyda dipped her head amicably toward Sigrid over Dwalins' shoulder. "Me da too," she said." "Taught me so. He is that one over there ye see. They call him the Golden Boar he is such a fierce fighter."
Sigrid gazed over her father's shoulder at Onar, his arms waving erratically in the air, four dwarves dancing about him like fools as if he were the totem in the May-Fair dance. Ale and mead sloshed all about them, drinking and dancing together and with little amicability between the two tasks.
"Shan't be afraid now, m'love. Ye are me one. And all of ye is safe with me, even yer... yambags. Me da knows better than to steal something that belongs to another."
"And do those belong to myself or you?" Dwalin asked after a moment of hesitation. Some questions needed imminent answering after all.
"We'll see."
"Aye,I s'pose we will," Dwalin swallowed, fidgeted against her. She buried a laugh into his neck.
"Amralime, Dwalin. Markhê."
"Aye, and I you. Pretty lass. Very pretty ye are," Dwalin sighed into her hair. "And we shall... complete. Come a right time, lass. We'll do."
.
The lull of the fiddles had put Onar into a drunken sleep halfway through eating a third piece of boysenberry pie with his hands. His impetuous gang of four kept a lucid watch, swaying to the music messily.
"I want to dance like him," sighed Lofar. "Dwalin dances so fine. Never woulda thought it."
"Shut your mead-hole." Vigg was sullen in his chair, sore in the belly from too much mead and spiced meat. He rose, shaking like a dog as if it would move the food through him faster. "There's cake coming about. Dinna even save room for cake. Curse me."
"You'll dance wif me won't ye Vigg?" Lofar swooned into him, catching him at the shoulders and whirling drunkenly once around.
Vigg's fist in his sternum sent him reeling. As soon, Onar had come to and rushed between them, slamming their heads together and rendering them both useless for at least a moment or two.
"Oh I'll dance with ye, ye bonehead. Gimme a moment. And a piece of cake. Oh I'll dance with ye..."
.
"You do not dance either, my king?" Meisar tugged Thorin from his lulled watch over the dancing dwarves, Dwalin and Freyda, the Boar and his posse. Dwalin looked happy.
"I do not know much how," Thorin admitted. "I may tap my foot time to time, but were I to lead you into this fray, we might look like them," he gestured below to Freyda's father. Onar and his gang had since come back to dance, or what seemed a flailing imitation of it, all five bouncing from each other's frames in tandem as the drums beat on fiercer and louder.
"I might not purposely knock you about so, but I think we would look equally silly," Thorin hastened to add. The elves did not dance either, except when the harp was strung to play in between the more boisterous sessions, when the musicians switched off to drink and eat and make merry. He had watched Elrond dance with his daughter, their elegant robes flowing like water. Hers so blue it could have been. He seemed to have to prod with some effort the other elf, Lindir, into continuing the dance with the jet-haired elf maid his daughter, and retired back to his seat to commiserate with Bard, a sight which Thorin regarded suspiciously. Meisar watched the elves dance meanwhile, their elegance almost rigid but mystifying to behold. The harpist played on to fill the background as the musicians set up again around them, Bombur's daughters crowding around him and his drum and clinging onto Tilda's hands, begging her to stay with them. Bard's daughter relented happily enough and smiled as Bombur showed her his prized drum.
The drums began to beat again and Tilda danced with the girls once more. Pipes wailed and the drums beat harder and into the circle of Bombur's dancing daughters and Tilda Onar and his four swayed boisterously in, scattering them with their wild movements.
Tilda and Bombur's children regrouped further away, Bard ever watchful. But for the first time that night, Meisar saw him smile at the sight of the girls all jumping and laughing together, Siv and Nori suddenly swooping in to clear them away from the growing spread of Onar and his gang's flailing and rough-housing, slamming into each other time and time again and laughing as they flung each other to the floor. When one was up, he rammed an unsuspecting other, and the spinning and wailing on each other went on. So eagerly they did not see the elf fleeing when the harp stopped, drawn, as if by a very vortex, into the heart of their whirlwind.
First Onar slammed him and seemed to fling his head forward right into the elf's hip bone. He winced and was bounced again from behind by Lofar. Dwarves all around began to laugh furiously as he was flung from one dwarf to the next, unable to escape. Siv holding a sleepy Yrsa on her hip startled the girl awake as she cheered them on, Bombur beating the drum faster and faster.
Finally Lindir swayed and jerked one way and then back the other, in an undignified finale tumbling down over Hepti's head and breaking his fall with his chin. The elf crumpled miserably. Elrond and Arwen both rushed in together.
"I ask you in all your mercy, my lord, to allow me be excused for the evening to the guest chambers," pleaded the elf, clinging at the bottom of Elrond's robes.
"It is granted," Elrond acquiesced quickly, against the expression of his own amusement. "I shall ask a steward to see you there."
"Let me be of service here, my lord," Meisar offered from behind him, departing from Thorin's side in haste. "I wish to check on my dogs. The guest chambers are on the way."
"May I walk with you your majesty? A breath of cool air would be desirable to me." Elrond looked around and Thorin was elsewhere engaged with a quartet of the Iron Hills dwarves.
"It is obliged, my lord. Come now. We will get this one off to bed in one piece," she looked down pathetically at Lindir, holding a chunk of ice to his temple, brought by no less than Eda herself.
"Dwarven hospitality," Eda sang, soothingly. "That famous dwarven hospitality." She dabbed at the bump on his head. "You're in good hands."
"Much obliged," squeaked Lindir up at her, drawing back from the touch of her beard over his forehead like a startled horse. "But I think I've had enough of it for one night."
.
After Lindir had been properly put to sleep, still in his formal robes and shoes, they walked along in the long half-lit corridor going back toward Thrain's hall, muffled music booming in the distance, the drums beating on and on, louder and louder as they came nearer.
"I thank you my queen, for allowing me the pleasure of your company. I have been eager to see how you fare under this mountain as queen. Dare I say you look very well," Elrond finally spoke.
"Thank you. And does my lord find Erebor the same?"
"It is a magnificent city, this place. In its old days, it was a place of such splendor, such splendor not even its darker shadows could dull the glow of its glory."
"Thorin is not his grandfather. I will never allow him to be, my lord."
"Of course not. I do not believe that evils dwells here. Not in your king's heart or in these halls. But it is a scarred place, and he is the end of a scarred line, my lady."
"Not the end," Meisar retorted suddenly.
"Is your majesty…?"
Meisar raised her eyes from Elrond's feet, pulling his from surveying her belly to meet her eyes. "No, my lord," she said after a brief, terse silence. "But I intend to fulfill my duty as queen."
"Your duty as queen?"
"I much desire to be a mother, and equally, to bear an heir for this kingdom."
"Do not think I did not take note of your oath as queen," Elrond continued. "And that your duty may lie in more than that. Perhaps."
"These remain uncertain times, my lord. I am sure you understand the need for practical measures."
"Many things we believed were left dead or to lie dormant for all times were not so. We deceived ourselves to think so. And now you are queen under the mountain, taking practical measures against old demons you are not certain would lie dead for all times? I would not err in perceiving it so, would I?"
"If it is the gold sickness you speak of, then you would not err, my lord. But you need not remind any of us here. We are dwarves. We do not forget."
"My lord speaks as if he has seen the dead rise himself," Meisar quipped, warily. She smiled as the hounds rushed out of the door toward her. Redcoat burrowed himself furiously into the hems of Elrond's bronze-and-cornsilk robe. She lifted and embraced the cur who on his hind legs was half as tall as she was. Dog hair sprinkled stubbornly over the front of her dress. "The robes of tall-folk seem to intrigue him. He did the same with Gandalf. Has he arrived in Rivendell yet?"
Elrond's brows perked and settled discreetly. "I did not know to expect him."
"Well," Meisar said, hiding her bemusement. "You do know what wizards say of themselves. They arrive precisely when they mean to."
"Then I will expect him. Though I do not know when."
"Who can predict the future, my lord? We will simply have to be prepared," Meisar shrugged.
"There are means to. Some can hear drums on a distant horizon long before others can. It is a strange, and sometimes cursed, gift. But it can be the gift of an ordinary individual as well as seer."
Meisar exhaled nervously with Fred in her arms. The dog issued a rumbling, suspicious whine in Elrond's direction. The elf stood across from her in the vast corridor and looked her in the eye. "A peculiar woman you are my queen. Care for trolls in the wild, you do. And dogs as you wear a crown upon your head, on the eve of your coronation."
"Izul kuthu barafzu tashmari ra dûmzu fuluz muneb samragi."
"But it is your coronation, my lady. Now of all times you should do so," Elrond smiled down at her, knowingly.
"How is it that my lord knows dwarvish?"
"Old dwarvish yes, enough to understand the language as you speak it now. As a matter of scholarship. At times very practical in application. Do you know Elvish my queen?"
"No. But given the... relations between elves and my kin, I should think very few do."
"Yes, of course. But High Elves and Wood Elves you see, are different. Like dwarf clans a bit. Some more closed to the larger world than others, and more hostile, like dwarves." He made a sound of hesitance that caused Meisar to give him an unnerved glance. "Does my lady know if the Elvenking-"
"Father!" a slurring voice, elegant in his overtones, rang loud in the hall behind them. "Oh father! Is that you?"
"Yes, yes." Elrond moved swiftly toward his daughter. She was swaying on her feet, alone in the empty corridor, now leaning into her father's chest to steady herself. None Meisar had ever beheld amongst Elven women could match Arwen in beauty, she thought. Nor could any, even a dwarf, deny the decency of her personage. Even so she stumbled as clumsily as any, her eyes glassy. Elrond slung her arm about his shoulder.
"Father, I fear I cannot stand another moment. I am afraid I will fall!"
"Gracious, I think the wrong cup you drank from. I asked the steward not to put the shine in front of you."
"Never trust a dwarf," Meisar sighed, helping Elrond to steady her. "We'll double back to the guest chambers, my lord. Trust in me that I know it is time she retired." Arwen half-stomped her way down the long corridor, the pale delicate hands desperately clasping onto Meisar's shoulders, leaning her weight on her. "I drank the wrong cup and the whole of my cup my queen. Dear goodness I cannot feel my face!" She had a high, nervous laugh, a bit smoky. "I thought it burned. Silly, I am."
"Fear not, good she-elf. I am a dwarf and I know these halls. Very well by now. You'll get where you need to be. A warm bed. Yes." She winced when Arwen's weight pressed down harder on her. The radiant elf maid was laughing like a common wench in a tavern. Elrond pulled her back to support her.
"It is like rolling a wheelbarrow, father! She's so small!" Arwen laughed, hiccuping. Her elegance had all been washed away in a great stream of dwarven moonshine. In the guest chambers for the tall-folk Meisar stepped up onto a stool to help lay Arwen out in bed and cover her, in her airy silk gown, in a warm fur coverlet. Her eyes gazed up like pools at her, gratefully. "Thank you my queen. What merriment I have known this night! What joy in your people. It is a sight."
Meisar sat on the stool and pulled the coverlet up around her shoulders, goose pimples prickling all along the long, fair arms. Arwen rested her head quietly on the pillow. "You should return, my queen, to the halls. Your king will be searching for you. Maybe he will not like how you keep this company with an elf."
"I do not think you are the elf whose company concerns him, or lack of company I think. But perhaps you are correct. Sleep well. I will be with my king should you wake and come searching. But please, do ask a steward to show you the way."
.
A sliver of dawn was creeping into the halls from far outside, all of the enormous doors opened all the way to the gate, when Meisar arrived back at Thorin's side. She had been gone no more than a spell of ten minutes or so, but when she came to the dais again to sit beside him, the hall was changed. A few of the men were filtering out back to Dale and Esgaroth, well-fed and mostly content. But for enough, the revelry did not end with the coming of light. They even slept, a few of them, in shifts of an hour or so on pallets hauled before the hearths, waking after a brief rest as ready as before to drink and feast and celebrate on again. Bard and two of his children had retired to their chambers, but Tilda remained, curled up by the fireplace nearby using Lulia as a pillow.
"Since that terrible day you have waited for this one. Look now, my king. Your kingdom has come."
"I would not have come to this throne without my queen," he murmured into the back of her hand. His beard tickled.
Her eyes got heavy again the way they used to. "Yes you would have. This throne is not even yours to forsake. You understand a king's duty, my love, too well."
"Perhaps, and I would be miserable all my days for it. Presiding over a kingdom of ash. Without you I am dust."
"I suppose that is fair enough."
A bevy of fireworks outside on the western spur of the mountain startled almost everyone in the hall awake at that moment with a single crack. Their yelps of shock bounced off the ceiling. Their relative courts were scattered, to their beds or into the various crevices of the great hall. And Bifur and Hegi were imagining themselves the loudest roosters of all it seemed, in the way only dwarves could, somewhere on that western spur with their fireworks. They were probably laughing as wickedly as the sight of a drunken Bard had made them. And that had been a sight, even a heartwarming one. How glad he looked to dance with his daughter that night.
"We are together in this, jewel of my heart. It is all that matters." He ran his fingertip along the edge of her jawline as the Iron Hills dwarves looked on from afar, and turning her head to his kissed her lips in the sight of all. A sight that has never been known before, surely. He felt a kindling of pride and love well up in his chest, hotly. Her hand was still clasped in his in a snug grip, forehead to his in the afterglow as if they were the only two people in all the vast hall.
"And what of Dwalin and Freyda? Look at them. They are happy." Meisar gestured down to them, leaning on each other in the dimming light of a wall sconce in the corner of the dais, his arm draped around her, his chin on her head.
"Zatagbiri ibriz khama diya," Thorin smiled into her hair.
"Best he stop short of doing that. It is a cold winter above the mountain, and some would be happy to see spring. Hasten it to come quickly, for it is the season of life renewed."
.
Markhê- My Shield
Izul kuthu barafzu tashmari ra dûmzu fuluz muneb samragi- Only when your halls are guarded and your people prosperous should you feast (duty before pleasure)
Zatagbiri ibriz khama diya- He would melt the sun in his forge for her (he would do anything for her)