Happy 2018 everyone!

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"Well... it is certain now I'm sure. I'm with child again," Freyda announced, less than jubilantly. Brundin swayed at her chest, her boots still stained with soot from the forge. She shucked them off and placed them by the door when Aroin's critical glance became too obvious to ignore. The other dwarrowdams were already dressed and poised, fussing over their dresses for the presentation, running in and out on errands. They all stopped and turned to regard Freyda with incredulity.

"Brundin is only a babe in arms still, and suckling! How did ye manage that?" Eda asked, astonished.

"Same the first one came about," Freyda replied sarcastically. "Sure ye ken the way."

"I am certain we do, though never thought it possible, after what you went through with the first," Emli remarked. She peered uncritically over the rims of her magnifying spectacles, toward Freyda. "After Gimli I was not myself terribly inclined, if you must know."

"Still she is in the forge," Dis observed dryly. "I would think you'd be in bed like I was with my belly turning inside out."

"Don't think I'm there yet. A week or two, I ken before that starts," Freyda's lumbering form settled beside Dis on the chaise lounger. Beside her, Dis seemed to regain some of her delicacy, her frail elegance. Both wore their hair in single plaits over the shoulder, though only Freyda's was frayed and streaked with soot.

"Are you teaching this one to forge already?" Meisar reached out from holding Tir to her breast and considered Brundin's hand in her own. "These little hands have a hammer already made?"

"He likes watching Dwalin pound out fire pokers. Ye ought to see him when he dips the metal in the water and it makes the hissin' sound. Like he's seen a sprite from a fairy story."

Emli called for Tir as Dagny sewed a line of her approved sapphires onto a small cut-work of silk. In time the silk and matching dyed leather sole would be a pair of tiny booties. Dagny gently extracted Tir's foot and measured it with a soft ruler. Tir wriggled his foot in protest.

Dagny had been kept busy enough with her two apprentices. The dwarrowdams could be ever relentless with them, their careful appropriation of every ribbon and thread of finery. It seemed frivolous, as things like it once had simply for their foreignness to her, but it was different now. She shut out the sound of their chatter and her mind to all but the sight of her son, lost in his impatient flailing, his eventual surrender to Dagny's measuring though he remained twisted up against Meisar with the sort of fright of the unknown only a newborn might know. Lost in him entirely. My world entire.

"There, little prince. All done, and none the worse for wear," said Dagny in her sing-songy gentle lilt. "Uzbad-dashat, you will be the finest in all the realm. We have not had a prince for so long."

"Little prince," Meisar repeated, breathily. She could not say it, not to Thorin especially, but to hear it panged at her sometimes. A prince was the realm's. The baby in her arms could never feel like anything other than hers entirely. And Thorin's. But Thorin's, not the king under the mountain's. Was it such a curse to have the weight of the world rested upon your little shoulders, like the fur cape to match Thorin's Dagny was making for him.

Maybe Freyda was the lucky one, she thought to herself. Brundin would always belong to her, just as the new one taking root in her belly would. Brundin reached out insistently for Tir, who slept in arms after his ordeal. He managed to catch the end of his swaddling and tug it loose from Tir's foot. The prince awoke with a grumpy start.

"Will they be good playmates ye think someday?" Freyda inquired, tugging her son back toward her, extracting Tir's swaddling from his determined fist.

"If not Brundin, then surely the next. Assuming it is a boy."

"Can assume that easy enough I suppose," Freyda laughed. She looked down at her sooty belly and smiled. "Let's see then."

Freyda set Brundin down on the warg-skin rug. He was rolling from back to front and raising himself up on his arms already, at a year and a half's time. He was growing a steady leonine mane of wiry hair on his head and the beard fluff at his cheeks connected at the level of his eyes on both sides. With a modicum of reluctance, Meisar laid Tir down on his back next to Brundin.

At first Brundin was much like the cub of some wild beast, curious and sniffing around. He took Tir's hand in his own, a larger and more insistent hand. Tir stared silently as Brundin's toothless gums began to examine his hand eagerly. In an instant Brundin had lost interest, sprung up on his hands and knees to dive across Tir and snatch the rattle tucked into the prince's armpit. When Tir screamed he laid himself flat and heavy over him.

"Tir, ye wee brute, are ye mad? That's the heir to the throne!" Freyda squawked, snatching up her son quickly. "Smush him under ye ye'll be a sorry lad, ye will."

"Perhaps when they're older," Meisar concluded, shouldering Tir against her neck and soothing him cheek-to-cheek.

"Or when the next comes and is a gentler soul, may-hap," Freyda chuckled. Brundin leaned out and extended his arms from his place in her sling, grabbing for the rattle now safely in Tir's possession.

"Ah then, Thorin may be late in coming this night. He may want to share a celebratory ale with Dwalin. Or ten," Meisar sighed. "Doesn't matter. Every one born is a miracle."

As the rest of the dwarrowdams agreed spiritedly and heaped congratulations upon Freyda, in the corner of the room, Brynja burst into tears.

"Brynja, what do ye fret for so, my girl?" Eda asked, stroking her braids, holding her in her arms like a child. They all gathered around like they did when she was carrying Tir, a suffocating conglomeration of talking heads. Brynja leaned on Eda's arm and sniffled for a long time.

"I've been married so long and we've had no children. I suppose I shoulda learnt it is time that it takes some… times. From you Meisar of all. But I'm afraid. I'm afraid I'm… an empty sorta workshop," she touched her belly ruefully. "I thought I'd have at least one by now."

Freyda looked a bit miffed, but bit her two front teeth over her lip and kept silent, giving Brundin a small rattle from Tir's daybed.

"You are far younger than most dwarves at the time of their marriages. Yavanna prefers to leave the fruit on the vine until it is ripe, perhaps. Yours may just now be budding," assured Emli.

"But you love Bofur as you did before, no?" Eda inquired.

"Aye, and some more that," Brynja's earnest, bright smile alighted her face. "Thrice a day sometimes."

The laughter from the rest of the dwarrowdams brought a brief respite to her angst, but ever brief. "We are Blue Mountains dwarves," Brynja lamented. "Family is our lifeblood. What are we if we have none?"

"It is the maker's will then, and you will always have Bombur and Bifur. But if you wish, you may employ some of the... potions Radagast prescribed to me. I have some left. I do not know if they were responsible for my good fortunes," Meisar said, glancing at Dis. "Suppose it can't be known. But you may as well try."

"Mayhap and pray be I be fortunate like yourself," Brynja replied, squeezing her hand gratefully. "They've worked for you. Perhaps there is some practical wisdom t'wizards after all."

"Wizards are merely… better translators of Mahal's will than even we dwarves are at times," Dis remarked vaguely, the dwarrowdams all turning to wait silently on her words. "They help us see our stubbornness I suppose. Curb our covetous natures for nobler causes."

"I'm a simple girl. I don't follow what ye mean, uzbadnatha," Brynja said bashfully. "Not got a princess's graces I fear."

"If you think kings are the wiser you'd be mistaken, my dear," Dis looked up perniciously from her sewing. "I find queens far better at coming to theirs. A woman's sense is a gift, after all."

"Yes," Meisar patted Brynja's hand again, distantly. "That much is true."

.

II

Mornings were his more agreeable time, hated as they had been before. They had taken on a more officious and structured nature since Tir's birth, the bedchamber once a sanctuary more of a meeting hall than not. But only then. And for the cause that there was an heir to tend. A baby who slept in the cradle he had once been safe within, and safer his own son, inches from his mother. If he woke in the night, when the hourglass on the table was half-full, he would roll over and close his eyes, absorb the movement of Meisar plucking him up from the cradle, soothing him with a long suckle, the sound of it a lullaby he had thought long hopeless. And Meisar's stilted sweet lullabies, in her halting lilt.

If the whistle down in the great forges had sounded, and woke Tir, as it usually did, then the day had duly begun.

"Ishmikh," the chambermaids had all repeated toward him, dutifully, but moving amongst the milieu of them in the morning was oddly casual. He was there when Tir woke in the morning for his bath and to nurse. The maids came like clockwork every time he cried, Adina for linens, several other in rotation to aid the morning routine. Tir dictated it more than not, depending on which hour he elected to awake and cry.

"Besâk," one of the nursemaids would call and his wash basin would be brought to the nursery with towels, the gentlest of soaps, and his garments, shirts so small they could dress a poppet. Meisar never let them take him from her sight. She never even dressed before his toilette was complete.

The morning routine had a homey feel to it, a long-lost sense of order, even with the flurry of servants. He kept a watch over Tir while Meisar and her handmaid held him steady in the warm water, a silver basin just big enough to accommodate a baby. He took careful note of his limbs, his belly, the stump of his cord that Oin had admonished them both to tend so, like a hawk to his health. Oin or Eda came every few days to assess, and so far theirs had been glowing. Tir's eyes were closed again by the time Niva the maidservant got under his neck and chin with a soft towel. Meisar presented him proudly to Thorin when he was swaddled in a towel, sleepy from the scent of lavender soap.

Thorin kissed his damp head, just visible over the absorbent swaddling. "I shall return, my son. Perhaps we will have supper together instead," he whispered, Tir waking in time to acknowledge Thorin with a glance before he buried himself against Meisar's chest to break his fast.

.

He nursed with such gusto. He was growing a bit heavier in her arms each day. Mother and child were singular; there was no world outside of them. No secrets between them, no cruel memories of a past long gone. Only mother and child. Each other's world entire.

Except for Aroin, the omnipresent stodge. Only a fraction of the time did she bother to knock when she entered a room. Dis had never been one for protocol, which Aroin might have followed stringently had she desired it, her devotion to the old ways overbearing. Aroin's own prescribed daily schedule for herself or for the Dis was the only one that had ever been strictly observed. Now that Dis was out from under her thumb, she wanted her beneath it, Meisar surmised silently, watching Aroin pinpoint everything like a hawk with her eyes, that she disapproved of.

"The Ladies Sigrid and Tilda of Dale, majesty. Will you see them today?" inquired Aroin. The withering arrogance never quite left her voice, try as she did. Like her brother, she rarely took kindly or even courteously to men, even on a fair day.

"I invited them. Send them in." Tir was still latched enthusiastically to her bosom.

"I shall give your majesty a moment," declared Aroin, withdrawing her glance from the nursing baby and pinning it firmly once again. Meisar caught the diplomatic way Aroin's disapproving twist of her mouth straightened when Meisar glanced her way impatiently. The dwarves on the road had done the same once. But they had called her Meisar the Beardless then.

"Are you a queen or are you a common farmer? You cannot be both, majesty," Aroin insisted. "It's bad form to try."

"Queens and farmers both have babies with the same needs. It's bad form to try and pretend it's otherwise."

"News that the queen under the mountain entertains visitors with her teat out like a cow are not the gossips we need sent back to Dale. Especially to Dale. We have fought our way from sleeping in mannish cowsheds too long to act like it now," admonished Aroin.

"In Dale, where a bargeman is king," Meisar regarded her minimally. She thought of Bard, who stood sometimes for long intervals at a tower window in Dale, some said, and gazed down upon his people like a father watching children learn to use sword and shield and ride in the tilt-yard. Tense and watchful, but with pride. How alike they were in some ways.

"He likes you, you know," Aroin said harshly.

"Likes me? I would hope he would, since the incident with his children," Meisar responded with a razor-thin veneer of sarcasm.

"You would be naive to think you can be so familiar with certain people. Nothing is trivial in these matters. You must think like a queen now. A queen whose king is not entirely fond of the dragon-slayer, or whatever he is called."

"Send them in then, Aroin, please." She pulled the edge of her vermilion shoulder-cape loose from where it was pinned and set it over her chest where it was unhindered beneath her dress and spotted with milk. Aroin acquiesced, wordlessly.

The girls followed an imperiously striding Aroin into the nursery a few minutes later, a longer interval than she would have liked. By then Tir had settled in his bassinet. Sigrid and she ducked their heads to each other in tandem and with familiar courtesy. It was who Tilda who slunk around her sister and peered wide-eyed into the bassinet that was placed beside the rocking chair, where Tir rested beneath the pale wicker hood with the embroidered blankets strewn haphazard about him, awake and placid for the moment.

"That's a baby?! He has a beard!" exclaimed Tilda.

"As all dwarf babes do. Must seem strange to tall folk," Meisar explained amicably. She liked the warmth and awe in the girl's deep, jovial blue eyes.

"A bearded bairn… it is sort of funny. But he is very sweet Queen Meisar! Oh I do like him," Tilda gushed. "I've never seen a baby dwarf before. I used to think they were born out of little pods of stone. That's what Dylis used to tell us."

"He is a most perfect paragon, Lady Tilda. If tall-folk had babes with a good down of hair upon their chins at birth, they might survive infancy more oft," Aroin remarked stridently, hovering in the doorway like a vulture.

"Aroin, leave us!" Meisar snapped suddenly.

"Apologies your majesty," the matron's voice came back pitched and trembling with surprise, a sound like a scolded pup that gave a dark tickle of satisfaction. The tickle fell sickly into the pick of her stomach when she saw Sigrid was still pulling in her lips and folding her hands tight in front of her.

"Please," Meisar said with her best natural charm, ill at ease as it was. "Let us perhaps sit in the other chamber." She picked up Tir from the bassinet and ushered them all out to sit by the fireplace, dormant in summer, raked clean. The girls sat in the high-backed chairs which were funnily snug for them and Meisar in hers, gently rocking Tir against her.

"I was used to raising my voice to get people to do what I asked. I've almost forgotten how. Strange… as strange as a bearded baby I suppose." Meisar chuckled, discomfited. "I am sorry. She is an arrogant fool."

Sigrid had her father's reserved grimness, though like Bard's her eyes were warm, if weary. The younger was effervescent and sweet always, eager and kind. She had grown fond of each, fonder than Thorin might ever be of their father.

"It is the sort of strange we welcome, compared to other sorts," Sigrid added, regarding the baby reverently. "I think him not strange but... dwarvish. We are enough used to dwarves by now it ought not be so strange."

"Other sorts? I've been out of the way of things since he was born," Meisar said. "Blissful in ignorance perhaps."

"Oh look at him, Sigrid. He looks... fluffy," Tilda went on, tugging her sister's sleeve.

"There, there, my treasure. You've got visitors. Aren't you at all glad?" she asked her baby with amusement. His eyes considered the beardless faces mooning high over him for a brief interval, with some alarm. He jutted out his lip and whined in Meisar's direction.

"He'll be far more receptive when he's older I'm certain. Right now he prefers to sleep and eat, and very little else." Meisar eased herself back down to sit in the chair, to Tilda's delight. Sigrid stood beside her at a reverent distance, while Tilda leaned close over the back of the chair to look closer.

"He is a very hale child. I am happy for you," Sigrid offered. "It is said your majesty was thought to be unable to have a child. It must be the greatest happiness in all the world for you."

"It is, Lady Sigrid. It is." Tilda's excitement caused the back of the chair to wobble a little. "Would you like to hold him, Tilda?"

The girl came around wordlessly and put her arms out. On her knees she was almost as tall as Meisar was standing. From the chair she eased him into Tilda's arms, already tiny in her own but dwarfed entirely in that of a mannish lass.

"There, there, little baby dwarf. You're oh so heavy," Tilda remarked though. Tir's denseness hid easily, like Brundin's. But unlike Brundin Tir was receptive, if merely passive, to the touch of strangers. Tilda made cooing sounds at him, but Tir looked entirely disinterested. When he looked up at her, he seemed to be studying her, in a way only a child with nothing else on his mind could. Whether he approved might be the only real secret between mother and child. He rolled his head around to look for Meisar. She stroked his chubby furred cheek and he relaxed.

A few seconds later he stiffened in Tilda's arms and the girl made a face. "Queen Meisar, I think he…"

Tir's face scrunched again in bearing down, following the rumble from deep in his belly. The way her son's face blinked her way, the mouth and chin that were so smug on their own in the way they were set, seemed to indicate something self-satisfied. Meisar stifled a proud chuckle. Tilda was still holding him gingerly, unsure of the polite course of action.

"Yes, I do think he is in need of tending. Griet, will you give him fresh linen and redress him?" Meisar asked.

Sigrid placed a firm hand on her sister's shoulder. "Go on and see how it is done. Better you learn now before your own come," she glanced at Meisar with furtive urgency.

"Let Griet handle the swaddling. But you can pick another outfit for him, Tilda. Griet will show you his trousseau," Meisar suggested.

"Can I dress him?"

"Of course you may," Meisar said. Tilda followed Griet into the nursery and closed the door. "I take it you wanted us to speak alone."

"For a moment, yes," answered Sigrid. "It is a strange shift in this world of late. I don't know if it is for good or ill. And father… father lingers on bad news. I have not wanted to trouble him with my thoughts, if I have no way to prove them."

"Is there some unrest in the world I have not been told about?" asked Meisar.

"Unrest? No, not exactly. I tell this to you now not only as friend but as ally. My father and your husband need to recognize together the importance of Dale as a kingdom. Our alliance need be strong. For we men may have few others to rely on, if any," Sigrid explained, her hands trying to illustrate a point even she seemed wholly unsure of.

"What do you mean?"

"I have heard rumors. They say all across the land elves are preparing to leave," Sigrid said.

"Leave?"

"Middle Earth."

"But why? Why would they leave now?" Meisar asked.

"I do not know. But if the rumors are true, then perhaps there is some change upon us, some bad omen. Or why would they depart now? I am afraid of what new enemies might make themselves known. Ever since... you never did make it to Gundabad after, Tilda and Bain. I will not pretend I do not know why. But you called something there, my queen. Perhaps the elves have too."

"Evil will always fester in some pockets of the world. It is the only thing I know. But the elves would not leave the whole of the realm for that. Not even something more sinister. Only..."

"Are you saying there is a foe darker than what we saw in that battle? Because I... I could not bear to see something so hideous again," Sigrid's breath hitched in her throat with every word. "You were not there. You could never imagine."

Meisar poured for her a small silver glass of dwarvish shine, a gift from Hegi and Bifur that Thorin always kept tucked into the cushions of his chair, which she currently occupied.

Sigrid drank politely, and her hands stopped shaking. "I would not come here and bring bad tidings to you, Queen Meisar. Not while you are… your child deserves you undisturbed."

"He will know nothing of it," Meisar smiled uneasily.

"My father will be king but a strong king? I don't know. A kingdom will strengthen our people, and our alliances. I hoped the king under the mountain might be the strongest of them."

"We are not enemies in any case, nor do I expect we ever will be," Meisar said vaguely.

"The kingdom of Dale needs Thorin Oakenshield's support, his backing. No more ally will be more important than the dwarves of Erebor should the elves leave this land. We will have no other ally in the north. And without that, we falter. The other realms of men need to see us as strong. We cannot be without you."

"Has your father discussed this matter with my husband?"

Sigrid looked down at her hands, awkwardly. "No. Well, not yet. He believes the matter may be a smoother process should the queen… have the king's ear as to the importance."

"Then shall I share with my husband what we have talked of? Surely he would be keen to know, don't you think?" There was something about Sigrid's fidgety furtiveness that was starting to irritate her.

"I thought it might be better a clandestine effort for now. Not for deception, but for diplomacy's sake."

"I don't much like secrets. If you have enough of them, they'll run you down. Eventually," Meisar warned.

"We men have counted the elves the more powerful of our allies, and our best. If they are gone, we must look elsewhere. My father knows it to be right to look to you. But does King Thorin know? Perhaps you and I might practice this sort of diplomacy quietly. It may be to the best to both our people."

"If your father is a king he will have to speak to kings on equal footing. He will have to learn. We cannot manage these matters for them, Sigrid," Meisar said more firmly.

"Yes, I know, I know you have... learned a new role too, one that must seem unfamiliar at times I imagine," Sigrid said nervously. "Perhaps it might give you some insight, I thought."

"We all learn as we go. We never thought we would see such times again."

Sigrid began an awkward silence. In the nursery, they could hear Tilda quibbling happily with Griet, Tir's hiccups. "It gladdens me to see you so happy with your child. I have liked your company even when you were... in your troubles to beget him. It almost makes me forget what we have always assumed about dwarves."

"What would that be, your assumption?"

She looked at her hands, visibly hesitant to offend. "When Lord Elrond visited our halls he told us that dwarves could not be relied upon. He says you will retreat into your halls and shut yourselves up like moles at the first sign of trouble."

"Lord Elrond may know our ancient tongue with greater skill than some of our own lords, but he has spent so little time with dwarves otherwise. I'm afraid he is not an authority on that matter."

"But will you close yourselves to the world?" Sigrid inquired more urgently.

"Dwarves understand loyalty to one's own. And taking care of one's own. Perhaps even before others. Some consider it a terrible flaw of our kind. I wonder if we might have survived at all otherwise."

"And what about you, my queen?" Sigrid's eyes were big and sad like her father's with worry.

"You are betrothed, Princess Sigrid, are you not?"

"Yes. A Gondorian. He is a good man," Sigrid shrugged back, with more uncertainty than gladness.

"And then you will be married, and if it is willed, you shall be a mother like I am. And then you will understand loyalty to one's own," answered Meisar, finally.

"Yes, I suppose I will," Sigrid murmured.

"I will choose the wiser path always, if I can. But I will never set myself against my husband. We are one, you see. When dwarves marry, we are like fitting together shards of stone that had been broken apart, once separate, now one again, and whole."

"But does Lord Elrond speak some truth? He has lived far longer than you or I, and seen much and more," Sigrid pressed on. "And you... you have seen more than some dwarves. In the wilds, on the path to Gundabad. Lord Elrond said you went back to the westlands, to the Blue Mountains when-"

"Some time ago," Meisar began, hazily wandering back to the long, dry summer on the Great East Road when Thorin had been but a melancholy figure to whom her loyalty and respect alone were pledged. "An orc pack assailed a village of men. We were traveling on the road, not even to the Misty Mountains. They were there then. And I was asked then, what orcs would be doing so far from their usual keeps."

"You knew the answer to that?" Sigrid questioned, the moonshine rendering her glassy in the eyes. "Did you ask one of them outright?"

"The battle for the mountain nearly eliminated their kind. As war for dwarves tends to. And what does any race seek to do when facing annihilation?"

"I suppose I would try and survive. And go on," Sigrid answered.

"Of course. You see, they will replenish. And we will be ready. Both of our peoples."

"What if your husband does not see to reason?" Sigrid inquired suddenly. "The wiser of things... I... we have seen him choose otherwise. To the detriment of us all. What will you do then?"

"Persuade him elsewhere. In the ways only women can."

The mood between them had lifted a little when Tilda re-emerged with Griet, Tir in her arms garbed in powder-blue summer linen, his feet in little booties.

"It is sewn together in one piece. You guide his legs and arms through and hook at the bottom here for convenience's sake. It is a perfect garment for an impatient babe," Griet was explaining to the enthralled girl as to his garment, a sleeved suit that fastened under his bottom and left his legs bare.

"Good gracious, child, what are you doing? He is the heir to the throne of Durin, not a doll," Aroin rang out in the doorway.

"I told her she could," Meisar rose, defensively. "Lady Tilda has a gentle touch with babes. And I am the final word on that, I remind you."

"I suppose we have kept you long enough, when you are undoubtedly busy," Sigrid rose swiftly, shrinking from Aroin's presence. She took her own cloak from the hook in the chamber, Niva standing on a chair to help Tilda with hers.

"Can I count on you to be friend to the Kingdom of Dale?" Sigrid asked pointedly, whirling around, her summer cape cutting through the air.

"You may," Meisar answered.

"You loathe the elves. I know it. I shan't sway you else-wise. But I fear a time of men without their friendship, their wisdom. Men are weaker vessels than they. If not the elves to uphold this world, then who?" Sigrid inquired.

Meisar glanced quickly at a gurgling Tir, Tilda's attention on him careful and sweet.

"Perhaps men."

.

-Ishmikh- Hail!

-Besâk- Wash Basins