A/N: To answer your inquiry, Anme45, yes, what I was trying to convey in so many words was that Lindir did indeed find himself in the middle of a dwarven mosh pit at the coronation feast. Trying to maintain some sense of authenticity in the Tolkien world might preclude the use of that exact phrase. But if any of the races of Middle Earth are going to mosh, I think it would be dwarves. But that of course, is just a pleasant head-canon :)

On the fourth day, when the sun began to set, the last of the revelers had gathered themselves up from their epicurean haze, rolled their pallets, stuffed their rucksacks, and began the procession toward the mouth of the mountain. Wagons in messy queues covered the winter-hard ground from Erebor to the gates of Dale, vying for right of movement. And Thorin, with Meisar, had stood since early in the morning there at the gate, seeing them off one by one. Bundled as thoroughly in their winter clothing as they were, they all looked the same. The air was harsh, but gathering moisture on the outer edge of spring.

The dwarven sentries were struggling to bring three horses to the gate- a two dark garrions and a crystal-white gelding. Elrond and Arwen and the steward, Lindir waited at the end of a long line of dwarves, humbly so. Arwen wore a light grey wool cloak with snow-white cuffs and collar, drawing the hood up over her black hair as the outer winds blew in.

"Let us meet again soon my king, and under circumstances as mirthful may it be," Elrond said finally, leaning down to Thorin to offer his farewell.

"Indeed, my lord," Thorin held the elf's smooth hands in his fraternally. Meisar smiled clandestinely; his thick fingers, his large hands made the elf's look delicate in comparison. How she loved those hands. By the time Arwen had bent to kiss her goodbye on her cheek, her scent like jasmine and the night air of summer even in these cold days, the sun was gone.

"They will ride by night?" Meisar asked Thorin, watching the three horses, Lindir with his great lantern leading, move easily amongst the bramble of wagons.

"I do not know. Perhaps they will lodge in Dale," Thorin suggested, glowering at the notion. He had commiserated with Bard too long and too intimately in the days of feasting. "And come morn, find their way west and perhaps the Woodland Realm shall welcome them more fondly than they would ourselves." He smiled edgily.

"Perhaps. But it is not our concern I suppose."

"No," Thorin smiled down at her, palpably relieved at the emptiness of the mountain of its guests. Servants, stewards, merchants behind them were furiously clearing the foyer behind. He kissed Meisar's cheek and could smell the ebullient summer scent of the she-elf on her. "My darling, I must attend to matters in the council chamber. There are many to see given their gratitude, and their pay, for these celebrations."

"I promised Emli I would help her manage the seamstresses' and the jewelers' attainders and see their payment. There are many," she stroked the outer edge of Thorin's black fur-lined surcoat, the gold thread gleaming on the shoulders. Thorin kissed her again, lingering over her lips, whispering.

"I will not be kept too late, I promise."

She stood with Oliada after Balin and Gloin had come strolling up to urge Thorin away in haste. She gazed at the shadow of Ravenhill as the last of the sun sunk behind it and rendered all black except for its small beacon. A raven's caw bounced off the spur of the mountain in the dark and echoed back toward them on the gate's upper terrace.

"Your kin keep the rookery, do they not, Oliada?"

"Yes, my queen."

"Do you keep records of all correspondences? Even those who do not send their replies?"

"I believe."

Meisar wrung her hands nervously in her gloves. "If I sent you on a particular errand, could I trouble you to do so discreetly?"

Oliada dipped a quick, succinct bow. Meisar led her quietly out the sentries' earshot.

"Could you find out find out whether a raven was dispatched to King Thranduil in the Woodland Realm? It is not of any official concern, merely curiosity on my part."

"Will do so, m'queen."

.

Parchments and envelopes of coin covered the velvets and furs of the bed, Emli bent over Thorin's pillow, which was clutched to her chest, counting stacks of coins over a neat line of receipts. Meisar performed the delicate art of folding the receipts into envelopes, filling them with coins, addressing them and sending them out to their recipients with Lulia, Virta, Freyda, Siv. The dwarrowdams all came back winded, still weighted in their fine clothes.

"How many more, Meisar? I've lost me breath," Siv complained. Her hair was beginning to fray on the slopes of its outer peaks. Freyda flung herself in agreement over the empty bottom half of Meisar's bed. "Run all the way to the jewelers'. Ye know how many stairs that is?"

"Very many."

A knock on the door preceded Oliada's entrance. The sentry shifted on her feet in silence, looking terse.

"Oh I suppose," Mesiar relented. "It is enough for today. Shall we finish in the morning, Emli? Early, I promise."

"Well, it is the that hour. I can hear Gimli's stomach rumbling for his supper from here," Emli agreed. She acknowledged Oliada, a wizened read hastening her to prod the other dwarrowdams on their way. The door closed behind the last of them.

"Did you find anything, Oliada?"

Oliada's furious gaze predicated the scroll that was half-flung at Meisar.

"Kin say too many invitations to keep all copied. Of wood-elf do not know. But dwarf letters, yes. Here, I find this," she hissed as she tossed the parchment. The sigil of the Iron Hills was scorched into the parchment's upper edge. Meisar read the slog of the diplomatic report in silence until her eyes fell where they were supposed to.

...As for this common dwarrowdam whom the king has taken in matrimony, it is true to behold indeed and more. A rough-edged quality, refined seemingly neither by dwarvish nor any civilization at all. She is possessed of an agreeable countenance for the un-regal qualities this queer sort of bride bears. But here are the facts as simply and easily as such can be conveyed under circumstances as puzzling as the ones we find ourselves in. By dwarvish considerations, she is of a smallish height, not so far from the ground as to rise to the king's shoulder at the topmost part of her head. A complexion which suggests exposure to the natural elements of a lingering length. Eyes of a heavy, dolorous quality. It is uncertain her precise age, alas the lines about her eyes and mouth suggest that the zenith of youth has long departed her. Of her behaviors they are mostly agreeable but somewhat bemusing, short of suspicious alas (for now). She exited and returned at the latter part of the evening's festivities with animal hair upon her garments and a tipped crown. It does inspire a certain curiosity. Her beardless-ness is striking, which I cannot, as a dwarf, report favorably upon, though the hair of her head is abundant and red and would make a fine beard for its coloring (though alas the cruelty of Eru's hammer thus has fallen upon the finer womanly qualities one would desire in a dwarrowdam of her stature, yea any dwarrowdam living!). Her frame is plump and does seem of some rougher-mannered strength as to suggest the possibility a future heir however small it does seem. She is a weary-looking old thing. Let it be said for near certainty that the young lord Stonehelm will inherit the throne without issue. It does please us much to report. I do believe the young lord's mother will be equally elated to know it. In spite of all however, it does seem a match which has rendered the king of a great happiness (rarely does he ever leave her side, nor remove his gaze with a certain adoring quality from her), but perhaps, by dynastic considerations, the joining of these two has been hastily, and woefully, done.

Meisar crumpled the parchment in both of her fists and held back tears as desperately. They would never see her cry, not even her loyal Oliada, who spoke to no one at all. Her tears, like their bed, were shared only with Thorin. She flung the pillow that Emli had been leaning on back up toward the headboard.

"It certainly is unflattering. But the truth is better than ignorance," she mustered herself, trembling in the back of her throat with every word.

"King should know. Two faces of kin."

"There is nothing disingenuous in this, Oliada. It is the Iron Hills bluntness of sort, they say. Thorin knows. Do me the kindness to burn it instead."

"Yes, m'queen."

In the antechamber were cross voices as the sentry made her way toward the door, one male, one female.

"…taking care of our own before others. Do you think I do not know it? What were you thinking? To impart to me some lesson, some sneaking lecture, addressing Bard with such words?"

"I meant nothing, and all of it. I want nothing of the world, Thorin. Nor should you." Dis's voice was thick with emotion.

"I'm afraid I do not have that luxury. I am a king, or do you forget that also?"

"I forget nothing, which is why I say it." Her voice stung like a whip.

"And what lesson is there, if you say so? That you blame me ? Have the gall to say it to me plainly if that is so, and not invite these mannish vultures into the heart of our weaknesses!" Thorin thundered on the other side of the door. "Tell me then!" his voice raised louder. Oliada moved closer to Meisar in the bedchamber. "If is so, say it, Dis!"

There was silence and quiet, breathy sobbing.

"The seven families would not give their blessing for a reason. They knew as I knew then, and begged you. We built a fair existence in Ered Luin, a peaceful existence. We wanted for nothing, and my sons… my sons wanted for nothing either. Was that not enough?"

"It is not a question of-"

"Of course it is! Did you not learn from Azanulbizar? Was Frerin not enough to lose? Grandfather? Father? If only you could have seen your face when you came back to Dunland. If only you could have seen what I saw then. You had our baby brother's ashes all over your clothes."

"And grandfather's as well. Balin carried his head in a box on the rump of his pony. Do you want to know what happens to flesh when it is deprived of its living body? Shall I describe the smell?" His voice dripped, baleful. It made a cold prickle on her neck to hear it.

"Stop it!" Dis cried.

"Bless my beard, gather yourself, woman. It is more for than our glory that this mountain is reclaimed. You know what Gandalf said-"

"Ah, and where are Gandalf's children? Oh, indeed, he has none. So it not so wretched to send mine to their deaths! And our father. Because he would never know what it is to lose his own. They should not have died, Thorin. Not for this mountain."

"It is our home! It is our birthright! And now that worm is dead and cannot be forced into the hands of a greater evil than ever has been known!"

"A cursed right! And now you drag this poor woman into this fray. This tomb of a birthright."

"Poor woman? I do not think she desires your misplaced pity, Dis. She is a queen, aye, and a stronger queen than I will ever be a king."

"What a duty to impart on a woman who came into this mountain with torn stockings and a pack of dogs. She has lived her whole life all but alone, like a ranger. Not even a dwarf. And to expect her to be a greater sovereign than you? What a cruel task, Thorin. To lay upon a good woman. To be queen of this necropolis."

"You are deluded to doubt her, sister. She is strong enough."

"Is she?"

"She is strong enough to have loved me. That I think would suffice enough. I can do no more than to put my trust in that."

Dis choked a dramatic sob, the door not even muffling its high dreadful whine. "Love. Oh, I loved once, Thorin. And everything I ever loved was taken from me. I held in my hands as ash everything I ever loved. I did not even get to say goodbye. To any of them. My forefathers, my brother, my husband, my sons."

"Am I not standing here before you?!"

"Are you, Thorin?"

"A few less ales perhaps you would see it clearly that I am!"

The sharp heady crack of a slap echoed through the chamber door like a knife, and Thorin's stunned wince.

"My love and loyalties to you are endless, as any should be, Thorin. But they are for my children also. And love is not blind. Nor am I for that matter."

"And what of my queen! Who loves you as dearly. Do you not know her love also? Do you doubt that too as you doubt her strength?"

"I do love her, as I love you. I love her as my sister enough to pray that you are right, and she is strong. For if she is not, it is my greatest fear. That you will feel as I have felt. What it is to lose something you love more than life itself."

A silence so grave it could have killed the very particles of the air followed, and then a door, not slamming, but only quietly closing as if closing the door to a tomb itself. Oliada let the breath she was holding out in one long, stealthy exhale, stood and moved a few steps across the room as the bedchamber door opened and Thorin entered, a red streak still burning on the bare part of his cheek.

"Thank you Oliada, for helping me with the fire," Meisar said over her shoulder, quickly. The sentry nodded in quiet collusion. When Thorin looked to the other side of the chamber though, the fire was out, and Oliada was too.

"It wouldn't... start. Odd," Meisar murmured guiltily as Thorin replaced her and tossed several logs in with a harshness to his movements, flames coming forth quickly. She sat on the edge of the bed nervously, avoiding his eyes as he swept once around the room and the back again to her, standing and leaning crossly on the bedpost.

"I did not intend for you to hear that. Dis has had too many ales," Thorin finally said, abrasively.

"You should not speak to her that way. She is your sister," Meisar scolded, grumpily.

"Does she think I not feel these losses as acutely?" he all but snarled. Contriteness pooled in his eyes at his wounded Meisar, her eyes casting downward as if struck. He sunk down on the bed beside her and buried his face in his hands.

"Aye, she is my sister, and her sons were as much sons to myself as they were to her. Kili… Kili, I brought him into this world. I buried his father whilst he was still in the womb, and I held Fili's tiny sobs into my shoulder when I had the duty to tell him. I wrapped Kili in his swaddling and cradled him by the fire the night he was born. A terrible, cold winter night I saw Dis through her labors. I loved them both more than life itself. How could I not?"

"They were your sister-sons. As good as your own, I know. Do you think I have not seen it?" She closed her eyes and remembered the cold, sharp sweat of so many nights, whether they soaked earth or bed-sheets beside her.

Thorin straightened his back and was rigid and grumpy again. "It is not the business of any man to know even a hint of our pain. It is ours alone," Thorin continued.

"Aye, but perhaps it needed to be said. You were holding it in far too long. She was waiting to say it far too long." Meisar kissed the red smarting mark upon his cheek soothingly. "It could not have been done as a pleasantry. I think you know that."

"And now it is said and we have wounded each other with such impunity," Thorin growled, lamenting.

"Those wounds will heal if you allow them to." Thorin held onto her hand as she rose. "In the morning you will offer her your apologies. And I will impart onto her that it would please me if she would do the same."

"Fair enough. I shall do so. But will you come to bed now, my jewel? I wish to be only with you now. I wish that you were my whole world."

Meisar slipped off the over-gown quietly on the other side of the chamber, hanging it, and returning remained in her sleeveless chemise with the little buttons down the front. She stood before Thorin and his eyes were as they had been the first he had seen her in such an advanced state of undress. How can I be ugly, a weary-looking old thing when he looks at me like this? her mind raced at her. Thorin wrung his hands as she sat beside him on the bed again.

"I am strong," she whispered toward him, sitting again beside him. Her hand slid into his tunic and rubbed gently over the coarse surface of his chest, journeying along the line of collarbone under his clothes.

Thorin's entire mouth and scratchy beard had enveloped hers before he even attempted a reply, suckling, thrusting tongue and closing soft bites around her bottom lip. His anger, his guilt, like molten lead spilled and was reformed against her into something else anew.

"But truly, there is too much pain here, Thorin. Too much. And she is right. I will not bear a burden of it that is not necessary for any of us to bear."

"I am in the habit of bringing others into perils they do not deserve, I am afraid," he buried kisses into her shoulder.

"A peril I have chosen, Thorin. It will lead us to a better place, I promise. A future. There must be a greater future that will balance out the memories of dwarves. We have known too much pain." Her hand searched over his clothes and found the drawstring of his sleeping-pants, plunging under their hem and seeking the same on his braies. His heat beneath the fabrics unbearable, they were each undone and shed quickly.

"And what future is that?" he half-gasped as he doffed his tunic in turn, though the answer seemed simple enough.

"The one we will make," she answered, a coyness in her, but inside the anger was turning to burning love in the pit of her belly. She reached for the button on her shift and his fingers covered hers, swiftly doing the work himself, finding the low full curve of a breast peer out and he swept her long hair away from it. The other shied beneath the fabric on the other side and gave her a wild, disarrayed look. Wild, I am. Rough and feral I am and suspect of all manner of stumbles. But a queen I am. His queen. Her anger burned at her with her lust.

A weary looking old thing. But he looked at her with such gladness, the scar above her nose and her lined eyes, her nakedness of face and of all else, zaftig in his hands, like molding clay.

"You are only good," he sighed. "You are only joy, my joy." His fingers ran simultaneously down the sides of her neck away from the pulse points and over her shoulders, slipping the chemise away in the wake of their touch. She leaned back on wrists bent backwards, sitting on the bed as he showered kisses over her stomach and lingered on each, worshipful. She moaned as if his kisses there were a healing touch, a bristled act of tribute to a shrine, her belly Aule's own anvil and Thorin his prostrating creation, praying there that his plea might be answered. And hers. And with his hammer create and grow and grow and grow.

Thorin slid his arms around the small of her back and guided her to lay supine further up on the bed. There he settled into the warm cradle of her hips and drew them up against his want. The renewed fervor of his desire fed a fire in her own belly, one he could feel through her skin and it made him weak for her touch. Her arms slipped around his back and down into the narrow part of it at its base, urging the direction of hips, the grasp of her where she had taken him as a part of herself. His hot breath suddenly on her neck and her back pressed tightly into the bed. She welcomed Thorin's weight on her and opened herself as eagerly to the thick lance that sought her, wrapped her arms sturdily around Thorin's neck and shoulders to anchor against the strokes that seemed to begin almost imminently. Her knees bent back nearly touching the bed below in taking him, her desperation muted but expressed plainly in every ardent breath she took and released like fire into his skin. Blunt fingernails anchored themselves into his back and dragged downward at his pace increased, until she loosened her hold to stroke his taut back and give gentler encouragement, an effort that stalled with her arm flinging back and his fingers following the path of it to her wrist to steady it there against the blankets above her head. He grasped her breast firmly and thrust a final effort into her, the spill giving all her want its final satiation. It was her pride and her desire and her uncertainty together, knee over the crest of his buttock slacking, widening herself as if it would hasten every particle to its duty.

"I am strong, Thorin. Stronger than you will ever know," she stroked his bearded, still-scarlet tinged cheek, pressed back his hair, braid dragging upward, the cold metal of his clasp settling on her skin. They were both mercurial, their secret individual anger and humiliation together joining and morphing into something far more precious. Something only they could create. On top of her he was breathless, and restless.

"Mizimel, what is it?" he looked down on her with concern. She held the dangling bead at the tip of his braid between her fingers and nodded a quiet negative. She could feel no anger or hurt with him; in his arms she was a verdurous maiden with all the puissance of youth and beauty, strong to bear anything, even his heirs, especially his heirs. And they would come and kiss the babe in her halls and offer him tribute, hail him as his father's heir.

They had done so once. The thought stopped her swiftly and her arms slackened around Thorin's back. Sweat plastered his long hair to naked shoulder blades and back and the furred torso to hers, sticky with need still. They had done so when Fili was born. Thorin's weight eased itself down onto her completely and then rolled slowly away, resting on the pillow beside her. Perhaps he could read her thoughts. See her sin. Her pride spitting on the beard of HIS memory.

She was relieved when Thorin draped an arm about her to sleep, laying his head upon and kissing shoulder and neck in turn. Oh, it is not him, not Fili. It is MY heir that fills my head. MY child. MY answer to an insult. That they shall kiss his head and hail him whilst he lies in my arms swaddled and not in the tomb.

Shifting on her back, she leaned and kissed the sleeping tip of Thorin's nose, one eye sliding lazily open and closed again, all sleeping still. He reached up and took her wrist to keep the cradle of her hand against his face. She waited until he was asleep to pry it gently from his grasp.

She put her bed-robe on in silence and her slippers, out of the chamber and crept silently past a dozing Oliada down the hall.

.

She knocked on the door and heard a low moan emerge from within. The ajar door creaked open, letting a sliver of light into the black-draped chamber. Dis was passed out on her lounger by a dying fire, hair and clothes strewn every which way, her head crumpled on her arm.

"Go away, Thorin!" she hissed as the light raised her eyelids against the door.

"It is Meisar."

"Then come," Dis said, almost grumpily. She was still in her day-dress, her hair a right mess, flipped up one way over her head and another way over the top of the lounger, as if she had been in a wrestling match with the piece of furniture itself.

"The coronation has been taxing I know. You shouldn't have taken up so much upon yourself," Meisar scurried across the room toward her. "Dis?"

"It is done for. Might I be left in peace now?" Dis griped. "Oh but wait, I forget it so easily. I put myself up to the task. What was I thinking?" She all but spilled off the edge of the lounger. One boot was still lodged on her foot, the other flung halfway across the room on top of her vanity, where her boxes and trinkets were scattered chaotically all over the floor below.

"You shouldn't be alone," Meisar scolded quietly, sitting on the edge of the lounger. Dis raised herself from the rumpled blanket she was laying underneath.

"You should have followed your own advice sooner," Dis groaned. "You're surrounded by too many people who have been alone, too long."

"As have I been alone too long. Now we are all here, together."

Sitting halfway up, Dis leaned her head on her hand and emitted a hiccuping cry. "I gave him a hard slap across his cheek. I really should not have, now that I think better of it. I shouldn't have." Her breath reeked of ale and a foreign sharp wine. Dried lines of it were in her hair.

"We all lose ourselves in the heat of the moment," Meisar half-lied. A slap to him was as stinging as one to her.

"Yes, but haven't we both suffered enough? Why do we hurt each other?"

"The truth is, Meisar, it is not entirely Thorin's doing, nor Gandalf's, or anyone else's. They were relentless in their desire to go on this quest, stubbornly so, both of them. At that age they are all so eager for a kind of glory, like all the tales of their forefathers. I held myself firmly in the negative, but it occurred to me at some point that dwarves reach a certain age and their mothers cannot force them either way. I let them go. I could not make them stay. I should blame myself, really."

"There are none to blame except those who put them to the sword. And they are dead."

"There is too much war, Meisar. I will not survive another I fear, and I have never seen a field of battle in the heat of it. I am only a princess after all."

"You have fought your own wars. They leave a different kind of scar, no less real."

Dis smiled, a sad wisdom about her. "We are Durin's daughters, you and I. We have no choice except to fight. There is no fleeing. It will follow us wherever we go. Such is the burden of all women in this world."

"If it is, I ask the Creator's blessing that I might bear it," she said, quietly designate.

"I say so only out of love," Dis confessed, guilt piling in her face around the brows; they sunk in contrition along with her eyes. "I did not mean to hurt you. I knew you were there."

"Then do not hurt Thorin with your words either. He loved them much the same, and grieves, very much. I know."

Dis twisted the locket in her hands again and again, rubbing the surface of the metal with a thumb. "The love of one's own children surpasses all things. You are a married woman now and... your cheeks glow a certain way for hours after.. oh... I should not say. It is not my place."

"We are diligent," Meisar smiled, awkwardly. "And loving. It is not a duty."

"As was I in my time," Dis said hazily. "Eili was so handsome, so strong. He had hair like Fili's, like spun gold, all down his back, and a beautiful beard. So reckless he was, a quick temper, a sort that would rather die than admit defeat, and he did, eventually. Yet when he was with me he was the tenderest of lovers, always, and his energy was boundless in our togetherness. I loved him from the time I lay eyes upon him. After we wed, Fili came swiftly. I pray yours will also. It is strange what children of our own can do for even the bleakest of folk."

"Thorin has his manner, but I hope you do not think me bleak."

"I do not. You're just a little rough in places, hard to read. Some read it as arrogance, others melancholia." Meisar lowered her head in silent ignominy, remembering the words of the Iron Hills envoy.

Dis was smiling with a pitiful admiration, though, through her tears. "Like any dwarf ought be, and often is. I was thinking of a taller sort. I know two things of Bard. He has spent his life as lord of no more than a hovel, and now finds himself lord of a great city. That, and he loves his children very much. Did you see the way he looked at them? I have never seen a man known so grim to be smile as he did at those children. I might even guess they are his only joy. Even Elrond, how he admires that daughter of his-"

Picking up her comb from the floor, Meisar began to relax a snarl from Dis's hair. It seemed she had dropped the piece somewhere along the way of trying to arrange the tresses for sleep herself. Ales were knocked over around it; she wiped the comb clean on the blanket. Dis let a satisfied pure slip out of her at the care of Meisar's work. She caught a look at herself in the dim light of the fire across from her lounger and frowned, the lines around her mouth deepening. She had Thorin's thin, serious mouth, so prone to melancholy. "Hair as black as jet just like my own, perhaps a little less white."

"He has two sons besides Arwen. Twins. It is what they tell me," Meisar went on, curving Dis from her self-pity as best she could manage. Her stocking foot moved into a puddle of ale and she grimaced.

"Two sons?" Dis said, wistfully. "What happens when elves lose their children, Meisar? They have seen war, haven't they, the High Elves?"

"I do not know." She remembered Tauriel's sad eyes and emaciated form, the deflation in her stomach and the gray pallor of her face. "But I suspect it is no better than we have known." She combed thrice over the same strand on Dis's hair she was fixing from its snarls, hesitant. "The wood elves too have seen war. Thranduil of Mirkwood has a son. I wonder if he has had others."

"Thranduil of Mirkwood," Dis said flatly. "I remember him in our halls many a year past. He looks just like his father, the son. A cold smirking brat. His only child, so much as I recall." She guffawed to herself in painful self-abasement.

"Where is Elsa?" Meisar inquired, Dis wobbling in sitting up. She looked as if she might heave.

"Sleeping in my bedchamber. I asked that she leave me here. She puts up with enough from me," Dis exhaled and hunched forward, head set on her knees on the edge of the lounger. "I wish I could take the things back that I said."

Meisar went into the bedchamber to wake the nursemaid, and Elsa helped her to support Dis and walk her to her bed, unlace her gown and take off what remained of her jewels, her boot, and set her into bed in her shift. Dis sat up and grasped Meisar's hand when she turned to leave.

"But you know, the wood elves are right about something." Meisar relented and sat on the bed beside her. Dis adjusted her nightcap in the chill of the chamber, struggled on a long pair of wool stockings. Elsa was already snoring on the pallet bed again.

"They kept to their own, shut their forest halls away from this world. Except where treasures come to play a role, it does seem. How predictable are each of the races are in this world. In covetousness and the unparalleled love of our children." She hugged her pillow against her chest, darkly. "Why do our makers give us these two things, which destroy each other?"

"The wood elves did not attend the coronation, not even a representative," Meisar remarked, underhandedly.

"No," Dis confirmed, her eyes shunting away. "They certainly did not."