Author's Notes:
TULMU- Forbearance
Dearreader: Yes, or the Middle-Earth equivalent of a onesie. I suppose they're mostly the same regardless of realm. I do try to keep accurately with a pre-modern society, but the dwarves seem pretty advanced as a culture. If they can engineer entire cities under mountains, I don't think it's a stretch to imagine them figuring out leg holes :)
Erika: Aroin IS a piece of work. I gave Oin and Gloin a sister and fellow chip of the Groin block with the sole purpose of providing a grating persona that you can have fun hating, but maybe (hopefully) have a nagging, reluctant notion that her intentions just might be alright, and valid, in spite of her dwarvish-ly flawed manner of expressing it. I think she has some good points if you really consider the political reality. Meisar does have her blindspots in that way.
"A Lady Aroin, one of the queen's ladies, here to see your your majesty. She is a tad... upset," the guard at king's receiving hall door said.
"Send her in," Thorin replied, unenthusiastic but curious in the worst way. Aroin came before the imposing desk half-whimpering. Her brother regarded her witheringly.
"My king, the queen has, she... she yelled at me. I, who have served the late queen, the princess, and your own dear lady mother faithfully all these years." Aroin's clunky jewels rattled indignantly with her gesturing.
"I am certain my grandmother had choice words for all of her ladies in her time. I think my wife the far less frightening mistress. Nonetheless, what seems to have prompted this... reaction from my wife? That I may do justice for?"
"I do not wish to displease her, your majesty," proclaimed Aroin. "I serve her with the same loyalty, and I care for her as truly as I did your good mother and grandmother. But your majesty, the queen is… new to this sort of task. I only meant to help. And now I am most terribly wounded."
"What can I do for you, Lady Aroin?" Thorin asked, annoyed. "To remedy your indignation?"
"Speak with the queen perhaps? Convey a message of peace on my behalf?" Aroin requested meekly. "I think it best I did not disturb her further myself."
"Nana' as you can see, the king, myself, we are very busy," Gloin said, eyes narrowed condescendingly toward his sister. "The queen is your mistress. Best you settle up with her yourself."
Aroin crossed her arms about her chest and drew back at the neck, hot with indignity. "As if you, brother, would not be in a tizzy should some mannish sort have ever handled your Gimli so," protested Aroin.
"Unless there are men under the mountain this day aggrieving my son, I don't see the point of-"
"But there are!" Aroin exclaimed suddenly. "The queen has let the dragon slayer's daughters handle the prince like he was a poppet for them to play with. The little one means no harm I'm sure but as adviser should I let this slide as if-"
"Sigrid and Tilda were here?" Thorin's brows rose in surprise. He fixed a more stoic look quickly on his face, Aroin's reconnaissance of the slightest shift of mood fox-like as always. He could see her storing it in her mental dossier already, for later or sooner.
"Yes, they came to visit the queen the afternoon. Was your majesty not aware?" Aroin inquired innocuously.
"My wife keeps her own calendar. She does not need my permission to entertain guests," Thorin replied flatly. "If she had orcs to tea I might have a word with her. Bard's daughters are not of any concern."
"It is my duty to be concerned with all, majesty," Aroin quibbled on. "That is all I meant. I didn't-"
"Nonetheless, Lady Aroin, I appreciate you keeping me informed," Thorin concluded for her. "I will speak with the queen. You have my word."
.
"I did not know Sigrid and Tilda were under the mountain today," Thorin said, shucking off one boot nonchalantly.
Standing across the room with Tir in her arms, Meisar's smile was wide and placid. "They wanted to see the baby. They quite adored him," she kissed Tir's plump cheek. "Tilda has never seen a baby dwarf before. You should have seen her eyes. Big as tea saucers."
Thorin kissed her reservedly on both of her cheeks. "The noble maids of Dale may have thought the same of myself at that age, had my mother been so keen to offer invitation. My grandmother would likely have refused her request though."
"Would you refuse mine?" Meisar asked pointedly.
"You never asked."
"The girls sent a raven, in Tilda's own hand. I told them they could come. What harm is there?" she stiffened, defensively. There was a hint of disapproval in his face, one that glared all the sharper when his attire lacked its usual somber shading. Summer had lightened Thorin, in both senses of the word, in spite of the shelter the mountain offered from the dry, intense heat of the northern season. A paler blue surcoat with half-sleeves of embroidered summer linen were worn as lone extant garments, and embroidered tunics in pearl-white and raincloud-grey with modestly jeweled leather jerkins or vests.
"I think it best we communicate more diligently, where our son is concerned. Who might handle him and," he drew back and halted slightly from Meisar's hurt expression, and sighed guiltily. "It would be best if outsiders kept their distance for the time, or at least, less intimately."
"Will we always keep our distance?" Meisar asked, Sigrid fresh in her mind, the earnest grip of her hand, her plainspoken eyes.
"My love for him is so that I am perhaps protective beyond reason," Thorin sighed. "My child, our child, there is no jewel in this kingdom worthier. I would do all to keep him safe, and in good health."
"'Tis not now the season of fevers amongst men," Meisar started, as if to protest. "Alas, I do see your point. I am sorry. I should have told you... asked you."
"Aroin came to me this afternoon. She conveys her apologies for any misunderstandings," Thorin conveyed, hesitantly.
Meisar's eyes widened and glared daggers. "Aroin should not speak to my guests like a pompous old stooge. Or presume to tell me what I can and cannot do."
"I think she was only trying to help, in her way," Thorin responded, with a practiced calm. "I told her I would speak with you... but that she best sort her business out with your herself."
"She thinks my manners rough. She could use some polishing in the way she treats people."
"My darling," Thorin slid into her protest quietly. "Your manners are far from rough. But the queen is the queen, after all, and Erebor is very different than... other places."
"I am not your grandmother. I suspect I never will be," Meisar grumbled. "I have prayed to my forebears in this office for guidance so oft, but if they have laid a path for me, I cannot see it."
Thorin cradled her cheek in his palm, reassuringly. "And I am not my grandfather, and the paths they laid for themselves are not the paths they meant us to take. I am certain my father and grandfather would have wished their own much different, if only for our sake."
"I want to take Tir for a walk about the terraces before supper then. The air is fine tonight, and warm. The freshness of it would do him good," Meisar proposed suddenly. "I wish for the people to see their queen is honest. To the best of her abilities…"
"You look as if you will be faint," Thorin remarked, concernedly. She looked as if she might sway, Tir in her arms, but he saw her ankles stiffen and lock determinedly against it. Tir was drawn close on her shoulder, her cheek in his hair. She was halcyon, positively, drawing his tiny clenched fist up to kiss.
"I told you I needed the air," Meisar smiled faintly. "It feels like it has been a season since I've left these rooms. Days and nights, they just blend together now, now that I am with this little treasure of ours all of the time."
"We will take our leisure then. And they will see us as we are, a mother and a father and a son, before anything else."
.
His voice, perhaps, was what brought Tir to full wakefulness again, rattling Meisar from her dreamlike stance. His cries were deep, throaty howls that burst forth and doggedly dragged on, one wave after another.
"He has been a bit unsettled all day. Eda thinks it's gas again," Meisar murmured a resigned sigh into her son's head, growing hot from his crying. "He's burped every time he's fed. I don't know what more to do."
"Let me try something. Come, sit here with me," Thorin suggested gently.
Meisar sat beside him with Tir in her arms and Thorin with his harp upon his knee. He began to play a few simple, fluid notes and pluck a little flourish at the end of one. His deep, rich voice began to unravel out a tale of ancient fathers and a lake so clear it was like glass, humming each of the words he forgot. Tir's cries settled a bit with each note, until he was placated, his eyes fixed on the glint of his father's rings in the candlelight, moving over the strings, also illuminated in tiny shimmers.
His attentions divided with such care between the puttering out of Tir's wails and the placement of his fingers upon the strings of the harp, so not to pluck a single note astray. I have let him outside of his father's protection and his trust. The Dragon Slayer's daughters were innocent, caring and familial like the dwarrowdams that attended his personage each day, some of them as much strangers to him as Tilda or Sigrid. But they were dwarves, and kin thus as they dwelt in Erebor. Tir was their prince and he belonged to them as much as he would ever to her.
Poor sweet little child, who would never have a choice.
But he took it on so courageously, with a admirable taciturn way, he did. Tir was calming, beholden to his father's presence. Perhaps he recognized him already, the blue of his eyes and the black of his hair. And perhaps he would be so fortunate as to learn from him.
She held him upright upon her lap while he watched, rapt, toward his father and his instrument, the inglenook of their seats and song the world entire. Thorin had completed the last of the words and swept a hand halfway over the line of strings when Dis swept in unexpectedly. Her summer silk was shockingly pale a shade on a frame used to donning blues and blacks, her pearl-studded gown and bodices aurulent without being gaudy, worn long hanging sleeves of powder-blue. She donned a heart-shaped headdress under which was fixed her long hair in a caul of matching blue at the nape of her neck.
"You are looking very lovely, sister. Do you have company this evening?" Thorin inquired, a flash of annoyance on the stiff line of his lips. Tir was beginning to calm but he awoke with a cheerier aplomb at least for his aunt.
"We do indeed. We will sup with Freyda and Dwalin this evening, and more of our friends. I have arranged it in honor of the child they are expecting," Dis announced jubilantly. She smiled; Thorin instantly had a more pleased expression.
Dis turned toward Meisar with a bit of a knowing smirk. "I apologize for Aroin. She clings to the memory of a court of old. I suppose it comforts her to keep some semblance of it up. Or quite simply she cannot unlearn our grandmother's ways of things. Which were occasionally loathsome."
"You need not apologize for anyone," Meisar assured dispiritedly. "Those who do what they do alone ought to assume that burden."
"A brisk walk might do us all some good," relented Thorin. "You are welcome to accompany us, sister."
"Strange, I had the same intent before supper," Dis said, her eye roving over at Meisar, as if she already knew and expected it.
.
"Make way for their majesties! Make way for her highness! Make way!" the guards hollered ahead of them, clearing a path through the foyer.
"I wish for him someday to walk freely of all this ceremony and fuss," Meisar sighed low to Dis. "I don't suppose Aroin, or your grandmother, might approve of that notion."
"We had our ways as children," Dis smiled clandestinely back.
"Indeed we did," Thorin concurred. "Frerin was the most talented at escaping our minders, truly a scamp that way. I was forever chasing him, when grandfather's knees couldn't bear the task."
"You on the other hand were always the most reverent," Dis quipped.
"A king in wait must always know his place, and his duty young," Thorin said lowly back, in flat truth or lament tone did not discern.
All around the trappings of a great celebration were being assembled, new grand tapestries, the scuttle of workmen and stewards and maids carting amenities to guest chambers, kitchens and workshops. A team of dwarves above were polishing the great lanterns, dropping coal dust and wood-ash all about on great tarps laid on the floor of the foyer up ahead of them. The creak and wobble of the lanterns seemed to catch Tir's eye in his pram, distant as it was above from his fledgling sight.
Fili always had good eyes, sharp and clear like a hawk's she remembered Dis had told her, about her son. Her prince. Then Tir, truly, she thought, may indeed be so staunchly of his father's line, for what it meant in all its ways, good or ill. Ahead stewards were drawing handcarts packed tight with gold plate, the cutlery and cups in the next rattling. Thorin barely acknowledged the glittering cache as it rolled by, except to regard its bearers with his hand to his chest as they passed, hurried along by the guards.
The eyes of his cousin and the heart of his father, I pray. When his heart was true...
Ahead, Gloin irritably summoned Thorin to catch up with him, Gloin trailed by his treasury lackeys, young apprentices of the financial crafts who always looked afraid of him. Only the sight of Gimli in his polished ceremonial armor could draw a smile from that one, Gimli standing tall and proud opposite Oliada on either side of Tir in his pram. A group of dwarves on the landing above waved their caps and pumped their tools aloft.
"The prince! There is the prince! Mahal bless him!"
More dwarves began to gather around the boundary the guards had made around their procession, stopping to watch them pass and calling out their own salutations. The dwarrowdams especially jockeyed for position on the long narrow pass to get a glimpse of Tir, so zealously some of them it made her fear for a moment one might push another over the edge of the walkway.
"You will get used to it, believe it or not," Dis assured, to Meisar's suddenly nervous stance. "When Fili was born I dreaded going out amongst the people. They were always clamoring about him, rubbing his head. They say it's good luck or the like, but I wanted no one to touch him."
"Were you the children of Thrain and Tania or the children of Erebor? Who possesses them?"
Dis considered for a moment, serenely. "The ways of the world possessed us, the consequences of my grandfather's illness. Dragon-fire owned us, and cold and sweat and hunger. And sometimes destiny decided for us whether we should live or die."
"I am not the queen these people desire, am I? I love my child so much... I wish he would only belong to me, and Thorin of course but... I am unprepared to raise a prince I fear," Meisar lamented calmly and quietly, but there was a rising panic in her voice that drew Dis closer to her side.
"Come, come up onto the terrace. You need air," Dis urged.
"Yes, that is what we came for, was it not? I could scarcely remember for a moment."
Dis eyed Gimli with a look that politely demanded discretion of the lad. Gimli had always seemed the sort to pay reverence where it was due, Meisar assured herself. The lad was scrappy and didn't lack for bluster, but he had always seemed to lack his mother's thirst for scuttlebutt. He fell back a pace or two, out of earshot.
"Destiny decided long before that you would be my brother's wife and a queen no less. None of us are ever prepared, but it is meant to be."
"Sometimes we decide for ourselves, sister, our destinies," Meisar sighed. "After the festivities are done for a spell, we should be honest with ourselves, and with Thorin."
"Does it trouble you?" Dis inquired pointedly.
Relieved to reach the stair leading up to the outer terrace, Meisar adjusted the wheels on the pram so that they disassembled to climb the stairs. The journey up had a bumpier quality than usual (perhaps the wheels needed oil, ask Bofur). The smell of the summer air, warm and fragrant like dried grass and sun-dabbled stone, gave her succor while Tir began to grow restless. There were more dwarves above at the next landing, all eager to see him. Thorin had fallen behind with Gloin by a whole section of the stair.
"Yes, much so," she answered Dis flat and plainly.
"I suspect it is not the only thing."
Meisar inhaled deeply through her nose. "I have been dishonest with Thorin... more since that night. I did not tell him about my guests. I think he was unhappy about it. It was irreverent a thing, for a prince."
"It was a gesture done in kindness only," Dis reassured. "I am told the Dragon Slayer's daughters were delighted by him. It fosters good relations besides."
She exhaled, as Tir calmed himself, his eyes closing, a tiny yawn marking his descent to sleep again. "Thorin takes my silence for duplicity, I know it. It is not who I am. Or at least, it wasn't..."
"You are reading far too much into this, and that besides, the time will come," Dis said, a snip of impatience on her voice.
They had reached the final landing of the stair, the sunlight slanting in brightly from above, when Tir awoke from a hitch in the pram and began to cry. It stopped the dwarves in earshot on the stair in their tracks, and they listened to the cries of their future king, marveled and gaped agog as if they had never heard such a thing, or thought it possible. She stood at the landing with her wailing babe in her arms, the eyes of the dwarves up on the mezzanine above and in the foyer all focused at her. His cries whiplashed off the stone harshly the longer and more strenuously she tried to calm him. Tears built in her own eyes the longer he cried, until Dis stepped in and hustled her up toward the terrace, pushing the pram while Meisar carried Tir.
Free the confinement of the city, she peered over the stone to take in the sound and sight of the children shrieking at play by the river and the pond to the east. Families, dwarf and man alike, lounged on its banks and rims, taking their meals from baskets. The children plunged into the waters wholly, the mothers wading precariously after them, with their skirts up their knees. If she squinted she could see them clearly, the relaxed basking of the men and constant, harried attentions of the women.
Tir was quiet again; the sunlight seemed to calm him. He put his arms up toward it, shielding his eyes, but turning one cheek toward it, tugging his blanket down. Down on the stair she could hear the sound of the guards' armor and heavy feet, Thorin's detail, as he made his way up after her. She turned to Dis, wistfully. "I miss being only Meisar the Shepherdess sometimes. I could feel the elements of the world moving, in a way they do not on the surface. I fear I cannot anymore. Now that others feel it to, I have nothing to say to them. I feel more impotent than… when I was barren of a child."
"You have been cooped up too long is all," said Dis.
"Sigrid heard a rumor that the elves were preparing all over the lands to leave Middle Earth for the Undying Lands."
Dis smiled. "We will have a chance to inquire then. Balin tells me the King in Mirkwood has sent word that an emissary of his will be present at the festivities. He will remain in Mirkwood of course. The Silvan elves have shut out all the world it seems. But it is a sign for something better."
"Perhaps they will bring a gift of their famed wine," Meisar muttered, cautiously.
"Forbearance, sister," Dis smiled, still looking out ahead over the horizon. "In time we may all be in need of a strong spirit. But for now, I ask only that you trust me."
.
In Tania's Hall the long table was draped in evergreen and gold-leaf runners, sturdy candelabras stationed at the two quarter-lengths of the table, with a centerpiece of battle axes carved of marzipan. Dis looked over it carefully when they arrived, clapping her hands like a delighted young girl, praising the efforts of the two serving-maids that were just finishing setting out the plate and cups.
"I do believe we ought sup like this more oft," remarked Balin. "To come together in a more leisurely capacity for one."
"We have been somewhat isolated lately, haven't we?" Meisar concurred, drawing Tir up from his pram. The sun had left his cheeks just slightly pink under the dark fluff of his beard. But when she kissed them he did not draw back and they did not appear sun-sore. He had slept after his last meal and woken in perfect harmony to join them at supper.
"You, my queen, are at the more important duty of us all," Balin said. "It is a rare time the little prince will let you far from him."
"I assured her he would be fine with the nursemaids for a spell, but you cannot pry her from this child for a moment," Dis laughed.
"She loves him so," murmured Thorin, affectionate and almost dream-like. He leaned over and let Tir wrap his hand around his finger. His eyes full of pride, and joy.
More arrived in pairs, Brynja and Bofur, Emli and Gloin, Siv and Nori on the outer edge of fashionably late, their hair immaculately matched and braids beaded and plaited tight. He was starting to adopt her garish palette, to Dori's ruffled disapproval. Oin, Ori, Donbur and Urdlaug with trays of tarts, arrived shortly thereafter, and when seated, ales were poured for all, except one cup.
Balin looked up and smiled broadly at the hall doors, which were bowing open for Dwalin and Freyda. Freyda beamed on his arm, her hair loose and in stubborn curls from her plaits, tumbling all the way down her back. Under her dress her belly had a slight appearance of fullness. Dwalin carried Brundin in the crease of his opposite arm, balancing him against his shoulder.
"Your little one coming deserves a fete of his own, before the realm's to be fussing again over Tir," Meisar relayed in greeting.
"I thank ye kindly so," Freyda gushed. "Yer looking verra lovely, and yer babe so too." Meisar donned a gown of green with a pointed stomacher and beaded girdle, a black silk sur-coat with short puffed sleeves, and a kirtle of eggshell-and-gold damask. Tir was comfortably enveloped in matching green in her arms with little tassels at the hems of his swaddling, his linen gown and cap unadorned. Next to them Brundin had managed to fling off his own head covering, and doff one of his booties, which he promptly flung at Tir.
"They'll be as close as brothers when they grow, I promise," Freyda laughed uneasily.
"If they are anything like Dwalin and Balin we will have to make sure they are armored at all times," Meisar added.
Stewards came about and served tenderloin of elk with sweetened parsnip garnish, baked tarts stuffed with pork, onion and cabbage, and crisp summer ales from great barrels. Hegi and Bifur were selling fireworks that burst into yellow and blue shades, they boasted, and sold so many they were pouches of gold richer. The people were of great joy they said, the mithril grill of Hegi's teeth glinting with her every maniacal belly-laugh.
"Joy for the prince, and joy for the king and queen, and for the free beer and ale," Hegi acclaimed in her enthusiastic Khuzdul. She swept around the room in her big, gaudy skirt, paying homage to Tir at the side of his pram on her knees. Tir regarded her shiny mouth with fascination, then utter boredom. Bifur's ax piqued more fascination; he reached up toward it, shrieking when Bifur declined to bend and let him grasp the edge of it.
Meisar lifted him from the pram and immediately the sight of Brundin, bigger and grumpier, rendered him silent again. Thorin and Dwalin looked up at each other with knowing amusement.
"He suspects something of me, 'tis made him grumpy all the day," Freyda complained. Brundin grunted, unclear whether in denial or confirmation of his mother's notion. Freyda was starting to get the blush about her cheeks that expectant mothers attained in the precious early weeks before it all went toward a greenish hue.
The head steward of the hall was a dwarf that seemed young for the post, a haughty stripling. He strode before Thorin and bowed. "My liege, I am informed of the arrival of a… prominent one of our guests. Shall I show him to his chambers in the guest halls, or would your majesty prefer I send him here to meet and take refreshment?"
"Who is it?" Thorin asked.
"A tall fellow. Calls himself Gandalf the Grey."