I cannot believe this is the 100th chapter! There is more to come. I've got a vague outline of a plot going on the next 30 years or so. Just how to fill it meaningfully is the issue. Suggestions are welcome. I'm open-minded.
ErikaRexen: I PROMISE there is nothing wrong with Tir! Except a bit of gas. I don't have any kids IRL. My maternal instinct is zero, I apologize. Tir is a perfectly healthy, happy baby dwarf but perhaps with a bit of Thorin's grumpiness inherited.
AmandaBaker852: Gandalf has arrived for the official presentation of Tir to the realms (it is only a few days away!). After all, a wizard arrives precisely when he means to, does he not?
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"Send him in then, lads," Thorin finally gave order to the sentries. The head of the hall snapped hard fingers at the attending stewards and serving maids in the hall. The wizard stooped under the door to enter, greeted by the festive table and candlelight, Dwalin glaring with annoyance over the light of one toward him, seated beside his wife. Both king and queen stood to receive him, while two stewards and a maid moved swiftly with the head steward's gruff, barking order to bring a mannish-sized chair and set of plate and cutlery. The youngest, the cup-bearers, remained, offering a draught of ale from the barrel in the corner to Gandalf, rattling off its fruity properties for him.
He inhaled the top of the goblet, then sipped elegantly. "A fine evening for hints of strawberry and peach, in this good mild summer season. I do say, lads, a wise choice on the brewers' behalf."
"I shall pass along your regards personally, Gandalf," Thorin said, rising. "I expect the mild weather did your journey the service of brevity, without the mountain storms."
"Indeed, though I was eager to arrive in any case. My gladness for you, Thorin, is beyond measure."
"As is my own. Make yourself welcome, friend," Thorin offered. Dwalin made a surly face in the background, which Freyda patted his arm hard to quash.
Tir began to make a tiny quibbling sound in his pram, which was of a height that concealed it under the table from Gandalf's sight. The wizard's eyes grew wide and curious and he leaned forward on his staff toward the sound. He looked to the baby in Freyda's arms who was silent and glowering like his father. Rising from between the king and queen, the quibble became a rumbling whine.
"Could it be?" Gandalf murmured under his breath.
"Would you like to meet him, Gandalf? Our son?" Meisar asked. Her smile was broad and eager, pink with pride her face.
"I would not trouble your good ladyship to disturb him from his cradle on my behalf. No, I-"
Meisar lifted him, beaming with pride, from the pram at her side. "It would be no trouble, Gandalf. Your voice seemed to rouse him."
"He is here," whispered Gandalf. He studied Thorin's stout black-headed son resting agreeably in the cradle of his mother's arm a long and considering while. Tir looked up at his face and squinted hard, against meeting his eyes. When they did they were an agreeable blue, to Gandalf's own.
"You are absolutely radiant, my queen. It is a light that shines from you, I see it," Gandalf remarked. He saw Thorin's face to swell with color too, and what seemed to be pride, rather than possessives, or suspicion. "And this is him indeed, a very fine prince if I do say so. How very longed-for you were, little prince."
"Uzbad-dashat!" Dwalin relayed, booming enough to startle the cup in Gandalf's hand. "Means prince, wizard. Shall we toast, my king?" Dwalin raised his cup, winking at Thorin. "T'yer son, the prince."
"And to yours, nadad," Thorin ducked his head, at ease, back at Dwalin, and turned to Gandalf. "We pay homage to my friends this night, who are expecting their second dwarfling as we speak. I don't know how Brundin regards it, but we are all feeling quite blessed."
Gandalf rose and came to the head of the table while the stewards filled his cups again and loaded up his plate generously. His hand went to his heart as he bent low to see the baby comfortably ensconced in his mother's arms.
"A most honor, little prince of Erebor, to make your acquaintance. I am Gandalf, and Gandalf means… oh I suppose we will meet enough times that you will come to understand the place and purpose of a wizard. Perhaps not now, little one," Gandalf chuckled. Tir seemed to listen in mystified silence.
"He has the ears of a hawk. New presences pique him, even from a solid nap," explained Thorin.
"Undoubtedly of Durin's House; why, he is very much your image, my king," Gandalf remarked fondly. "Though I do not doubt he has shown his mother's tenacity also."
"It is her love more than any others' that livens him," Thorin murmured. "A king's son or a pauper's, it is a mother's love that alights all."
Tir's hand rose and flexed and his little fingers spread wide and made a little flick in Gandalf's direction. He beamed down on him, Tir's eyes shut again, peacefully. "Why, for what you my queen have borne upon your shoulders to give life to him at all, is… indeed tenacious." He looked up at her and quickly away.
"It is not my shoulders that endured most of the burden, Gandalf," Meisar said lightly, trying to humor him out of his vagueness.
"Take heartily of our hospitality, Gandalf. This is an occasion of joy," Thorin raised his glass pointedly toward Gandalf. "To your wisdom, friend."
"To your son, my king."
Dwalin shot him an impatient look. "And to yours, Mister Dwalin. The one here, and the child that is to come, should it be a son. If it is a daughter, the same..." he fumbled on.
"A daughter," Dwalin laughed, half a snort. "Imagine that."
.
II
When he returned to their chambers to refresh himself before the next evening's banquet, Thorin found Tir lying on the soft cushioned top of the bureau in his nursery, where the maids would often dress and change out his swaddling. Both Niva and Griet were in the queen's antechamber with Adina though, helping to fold the week's pile of clean linens, and it was Eda and Meisar that stood watch over him now, Meisar bending to kiss his restless wriggling foot on its sole. Aroin hovered, selecting tiny hose, a tunic and cap from the set of drawers.
He watched them from the sliver of open door, the way she held the tiny foot to her cheek and smiled down with dreamy tenderness at the swaddled babe. There was no austerity left in that face, no shepherdess.
"A queen does not typically attend these events. You didn't have to drain yourself like this, so, my queen," Aroin advised, gently. "You could tend to him in your chambers in peace if you desired."
"Thorin wanted us to come," Meisar said. "We should be together."
She dressed Tir, more resigned to being gussied up at that hour than she would have expected. She kissed the tip of his nose as she laced his linen cap under his chin.
"Indeed we should," Thorin agreed from the doorway, to the mirthful surprise of the dwarrowdams. "All of us."
"Then it shall be," Aroin relented, holding Tir's foot for her to slip the final bootie on. "Your majesties are certainly not your forebears, but I am getting used to it."
"No, we are certainly not," Thorin crossed the room toward Dis, half-concealed in the corner rocking chair in the low light. He held out his hand to help her up from the low seat. Her knees cracked as she rose, to a bit of her self-deprecating amusement.
"I am growing old, brother. You truly desire me at this... soiree?" Dis laughed, long and low. "The jewelers are an insufferable lot when they're together."
"Never as old as I am, and yes, I would be very honored by your presence," Thorin answered, putting his arms out for his son, whom Eda placed there tenderly. "How is my son?"
"Eda was right. A spoonful of peppermint tea with his later nursings of the day and his belly seems settled," Meisar cooed over him. Her finger gently swiped his cheek and ran a line down his stomach, demonstrating. "Sweet little tummy. 'Amad would hate for it to trouble you more." At her height she didn't have to stoop to kiss him in Thorin's arms.
"He is the picture of health, my liege," Eda hastened to assure. "And happiness."
"Even if he as grumpy as you are, Thorin," Dis jibed. "That face is just like yours, made for scowling, but a sweeter scowl I could not imagine."
"They all look squished and angry for a year or two," Thorin lightly punted back. "But myself, grumpy? No, sister, I never been less so in all of my life lately."
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Great mirth and celebrations were held in Erebor and Dale lasting for days ahead of the gathering. The first of the dwarven guests were not expected to arrive until morning. They would come from the Blue Mountains, the Iron Hills, the far-flung reaches of the east and the north. Ahead of them, the late summer nights came alive with bonfires and the whistling and crackling of pyrotechnics. Bifur and Hegi had been spotted in Dale and all along the road to Erebor, making a pretty pence. The sparklers and whistling crackers went off all night outside the gates of Erebor.
Even at night dwarves and men alike emerged from the bounds of their cities to make merry, drink and gather around the fires, as they often did in the summer, but ahead of great gatherings always peaked. The sun was nearly gone, a violet sliver in a inkjet sky, full of stars, and a heavy three-quarter moon.
Thorin watched the night braziers light up on the walls of Dale across the rugged plain between them. The line of guards on the terrace of Erebor swung a lantern mounted on a pike side to side, to send acknowledgement to their neighbors, a nightly ritual to mark the official boundary of night. A single bugle sounded on Dale, and the crier warbled "night, night is upon us."
"Easy to tell when it's night," grumbled Dwalin sardonically. "It's dark."
Balin waved off his brother's caustic wit. "A raven has come from the West. The dwarves of the Blue Mountains have set out more than a fortnight ago, and will be expected to arrive with their contingency by the afternoon tomorrow. I suspect you would like to be on hand to make greeting."
"See to it that their guest chambers are well-furnished. With extra towels," Thorin said. "And the cups that can be dropped without breaking."
"We do know our kin in those parts, do we not," Balin sighed, amused.
Thorin smiled, the first Balin had seen during the whirl of the day. "I shall receive them personally, and gladly."
There was to be another fete in Tania's Hall that night, the last of them before the official festivities. Before the jewelers' and seamstresses' guilds filed in, along with the textile merchants, weavers and spindle-masters, the foremen of the jeweled walls of the mines, he walked alone along the seam of the front gallery, the sun low to one side. Meisar tailed somewhere behind with the women, pausing to greet night sentries who craned their necks with all the subtlety soldiers were akin to, trying to catch a glimpse of the prince in his pram.
In Tania's Hall, finely attired, they divided themselves between hard and soft arts purposely on either side of the long table. The wives of the jewelers' guild rattled as they greeted each other, their beards full of precious stones. The dwarrowdam jewelers eyed them, competitively. Textile merchants and weavers wore light summery tunics and heavier formal vests, light surcoats in elaborate geometric patterns and round elegantly embroidered suede caps, showcasing all of their fabrics and wares. The mine foremen were in plainer clothes but with heavily adorned beards and braids in thick clasps. They crossed their arms and regarded the showy textile merchants with a bit of contempt.
Gandalf was watching them all with amusement; the dwarves paid him little regard. Thorin had him seated at the dais with the royal line, a jutting interruption his seat, amongst the low chairs. Once Thorin had arrived, their chatter swiftly halted. When each bowed they made a show of it, displaying their fine garments and jewels. The jewelers, who had awaited the queen more pointedly than they did Thorin, made faces of mild disappointment when she entered, attired in neither rings nor necklaces, only a small band in her up-pinned braids. For Tir was in her arms. All deflation in any seemed to melt at the sight of that little bundle.
"You have put so much into the festivities that will come, it seems only right to honor your efforts," Thorin offered, holding his cup aloft. "To the pride and abundance of our people, and those who adorn us thus."
"Emli wife of Gloin has hand-selected all of the jewels that the queen and her ladies shall wear, and worked cheek-to-cheek with our finest jewelers, that this may be a sparkling testament to us all, the Line of Durin not the least," crowed the jewelers' guild-head, to Emli's barely-contained gusto.
"I thank you kindly, but our good fortune only endures for the fine match of our king and queen, and the hale son they have given us to be our prince, and our hope," Emli added, fawningly.
Gloin gruffly raised his glass. "I praise my wife's fine taste, if not the lightness of my purse for it. Alas, I get older, it is better to carry less weight at one's belt."
"Be it gold or too many tarts," quipped Thorin.
"I for one would be much happier were it tarts," Freyda grumbled.
"She's got the cravin' for 'em already," Dwalin added, patting her midsection proudly. Freyda looked a bit green in the face, but she held Dwalin's hand there, affectionately.
"Your precious children are born beneath this mountain at a pace to bring much hope. There is a feel beneath this mountain of great... lightness. One I admit I have not felt so acutely before. Has something changed so profusely since last I enjoyed your hospitality?" Gandalf inquired as the stewards went forth, preparing to serve dinner.
"Our son, perhaps," Thorin replied, a bit sardonically.
"Ah, of course. The morale of any kingdom is naturally buoyed by such, and a dwarf prince... long awaited for certain."
The proud, opulent assemblage of dwarves regarded Gandalf silently, except for the matrons on the seamstresses' side, who were mostly elderly dwarrowdams with warmer countenances. He felt a tug on the bottom of his sleeve from the table below.
"This robe is practically roughspun," the seamstress Dagny laughed aloud, examining Gandalf's sleeve. "I could make you a very fine replacement, in a sturdy linen, even a velvet if you pleased."
"Aye, it would not hurt to have a clasp or two in this beard. Something subtle of course, perhaps diamonds?" one of the younger jeweler's guild apprentices suggested, with an air of careful sophistication.
"They would complement the gray with that desired subtlety, if you insist on going about in the same shade all of the time," a jeweler's guild dwarrowdam sniffed.
"They call him Gandalf the Gray, my lady, not Gandalf the mauve," Thorin playfully chided the jeweler from nearby. "Although that would be a sight indeed."
"Mauve? Why not bright orange like a tangerine? The dyers down in the textile works say it will be a very popular color for autumn," Meisar jibed. "Gandalf the Orange."
"That would indeed be something to reckon with," Gandalf smirked. "I would imagine an orange wizard to be of a fiery and passionate temperament, of which, I cannot say I have ever been, and thus, I might make myself appear quite foolish."
"You are capable of great courage and temper, Gandalf. Don't underestimate yourself," said Thorin, sideways-glancing.
"Enough risky ventures for but a few years, indeed, and all of the time you have given them, and for my husband's sake no less," agreed Meisar. "Your reputation precedes you, Gandalf."
"It is a sacrifice I make time to time. Just as you have made sacrifices, my queen, such admirable ones," Gandalf conceded.
"Sacrifices?" Thorin asked, piqued.
Gandalf all but choked on his smoke, looking swiftly between king and queen, and the tightened, alarmed face of the princess quickly burying her expression in her cups, her eyes still fixed pointedly on the wizard, as if trying to convey some direction, some warning.
"Don't we all in attaining what we desire, my king? Sacrifices... such as our bodily comfort," Gandalf rambled a bit. "Though I am not often in the company of women, it is an arduous burden that the growing and bearing of a child entails. Am I wrong, my queen?"
"Carry a heavy stone about your belly for a few months and tell me then," Meisar snorted.
Gandalf made a light harrumphing sound under his breath. "I think you are quite right then, my queen. Quite right."
"Dinner is concluded. We shall be serving in a few moments a light dessert of strawberry-infused creams and biscuits, the strawberries being complements of our own terrace gardens," the head steward announced sometime later. The other stewards and maids were immediately dispersed to refill the goblets in the meantime, clear away the plates.
Gandalf had disappeared in the buzz of the stewards moving about, out of the hall entirely. Thorin made small talk with the heads of the jewelers' guild, a mine foreman with a concern over the quality of the rubies of late, and Dagny, who wanted his official robes cleaned and hemmed before the official festivities began. When he turned around, Dis was gone too.
Thorin left the hall without a word once his place had been cleared. Alone, he made his way briskly from the long narrow corridor where Tania's Hall was fitted, and into the larger open hall, passing under one octagonal archway after the other along the narrow enclosed skywalk, until he reached at the end the stairway under the harsh spotlight of the lanterns above. The high mazed ceiling above echoed the excitement of young dwarflings somewhere near, and he followed the sound, tittered down toward the balcony overlooking the rest of the sectioned stair below, trailing all the way into the mountain down to the great forges if walked in full. Halls within halls, and so many places to hide.
He looked over the rail toward the excited trills of the children. Down on the landing below, Gandalf was blowing smoke rings for them. The dwarflings leapt in the air, trying to catch them in their hands, to no avail. The fathers and grandfathers in their company gruffly shooed them on.
With his long legs he could have made the walk but in a moment's time, Thorin reasoned silently, stepping back into the shadows lest he be seen. But where?
His guest chamber was not far, only the next level down. More Longbottom leaf perhaps. Besides, the wizard had always tended to wander on his own, for one reason or the other, or none at all. He peered over the rail again, watched Gandalf continue on, toward the guest halls. His singing of some folksy ballad with hums and pips could be heard even at a distance, echo and bounce as even small sounds did in the dizzying array of naves and walkways.
He was halfway back to Tania's Hall when a figure hustled out from behind a pillar and nearly collided with him. He had seen the flint of the shadow only a moment before, moving at a swift pace. The figure whirled about in a swirl of gray silk skirts and black hair, alarmed.
"Dis?"
"It is I," Dis confirmed, stiffly. "I'm sorry. I did not see you."
"I did not see you leave the hall," Thorin said, diplomatically. Her eyes were big and suspicious, then narrowed and more so.
"I went to take some air. The pipe smoke is not... agreeable to me. He smokes so, the wizard," Dis provided. She held herself with a stiff dignity, silent.
"You are nowhere near the terraces."
"I only needed to get out of the hall. There's air down here aplenty," Dis retorted. She stood shifting her weight restlessly from foot to foot before him, her arms folded to hold the elbows of the opposite. "Might I have your leave? I'm very tired. I'd like to go to bed."
"You don't need my permission, you know that. Good night," Thorin granted, avoiding brusqueness.
He watched from the terrace, high up on the overlook, as she drifted like a ghost toward the royal quarters, cloak drawn, alone.
.
"You look… lost," Meisar remarked upon his return. His distracted gaze moved from one corner of the room to the other, then stopped, blankly, focusing on the empty chair across from him where Gandalf had sat.
"Has my sister been acting strangely of late?" Thorin asked pointedly. "Her mood is odd this evening."
"I don't think so," Meisar answered. Thorin fixed on the distant, detached expression on her own face, wandering over one wall, then the next, as if in search of something. "Well, not that I have noticed."
"She may tell you of things that women share amongst themselves?" Thorin pressed on. "Is she upset with me for some cause?"
Meisar sighed, heavily. "It's not you. Speaking so much of babes may strike a sensitive part of her heart. It cannot be easy, even now," Meisar went on. "Is the most I could surmise, Thorin."
She looked down at Tir with heavy eyes, his sleeping face oblivious to the low buzz of the chattering dwarves that remained in the hall. A glimpse of the shepherdess suddenly, drawn with worry, her head tilted forward as if there lay some invisible weight, some burden there.
"It never will be. The grief of her mind may cloud it forever from pure reason," Thorin sighed, reluctantly. "I did not understand completely, but I do now. Now that… I have a child of my own."
"Only a mother can know a mother's heart," Meisar murmured in hesitant protest. Thorin touched Tir's sleeping cheek, safe in his bundle and his mother's gentle swaying motion. The beard was fine, almost like spider's silk it was so soft, the top of his head less so, wild and black with the slightest curl at the temples.
"I find I am in need of air myself. Would you walk with me on the terrace, my love? The pipe smoke in here is unbearable," Thorin urged.
"Yes. I think we would both like that."
They were formally excused although less than half a dozen remained. They each lined up to pay fealty, to showcase their adornments one last time, and the women asked just to gaze upon Tir and bless him. Oliada escorted them as far as the terrace, lined in night guards as it was, one after the other, like toy soldiers. Their backs stiffened as king and queen passed, drawing back axes and lances in unison.
"It is the dizzying pace of late, perhaps. It sends us all... out of our elements sometimes, and unexpected... arrivals," Thorin pondered aloud. "I worry for her. I always will. My sister."
"She says Tir renews the life in her. She says... his being here is a sign of her favor in some unseen eye or another, that she would be granted another kinsman to love so much," Meisar said. "But I know... I know."
"What do you know?" Thorin murmured.
Meisar's gaze drifted slowly over toward the terrace and toward the beacon burning bright on Dale's highest tower. The braziers at the city's walls flickered in a sudden strong lick of wind and nearly were put out, the beacon holding firm. They stood and watched the fires stretch and heave and finally settle again, the flaps of banners and standards over Erebor's gate rustling and snapping too.
"I know... it will be called a kingdom soon," Meisar commented flatly. "To me, when I was a very young child, it seemed a market town, no more, compared to the splendor of this. Bard will be king..."
"I will grow used to the notion, eventually. I will strive for amicably in our trades and commerce… and offer hospitality where and when we must," Thorin relented, his gaze fixed on Dale across the way. "His daughters; you say they are young women of admirable character?"
"Aye, and the boy-lord too, Bain."
"They are fond of you. And why shouldn't they be," Thorin brushed the loosening lock of plait off Meisar's forehead. His eyes were suddenly bottomless, blue and warm like a pond. "Your goodness is too much to bear sometimes. If only the world had known it sooner, if only I had."
Her gaze dropped. Thorin pulled her close to him, Tir sandwiched comfortably in between them, wriggling his cheek against the soft fur of Thorin's vest. "Our child, Meisar. He is my world, and you. I would do anything. I would even treat with a fisherman king and a boy-lord. If it would please Mahal to give us peace, and life."
"We have years left in us Thorin that we may just as easily live to see both crowned, and buried. The lives of men are so brief," Meisar pondered, woebegone. "We may yet see so much... so much."
He held her face lightly by the cheeks, rising in heat beneath his palms. "I want for many years with you, Meisar. I would that you would live to see our son wear my crown."
"Don't say that. I could not live a day without you." She kissed his palm, her lips cool and dry, rubbed the baby-smoothness of her face against it for a long while, Tir drawn even tighter to her. He could feel her breath stop and hold itself, and her, inching forward in a hunch almost as if to draw herself entirely around Tir in her arms. When she spoke again at last, her eyes would not lift to meet his, even with the intensity of the affection that radiated from him.
"Then we are at a standoff, I'm afraid. I fear more I could not live without you."
Tir reached up from his swaddling to grasp tightly around the tip of Thorin's temple braid, hanging low over him. He gummed the carven silver. Meisar, even with her head still bowed low, smiled. She lifted him up to transfer him to Thorin's arms, and Thorin put him upright and held him higher so he could see the fires at Dale, a single long whistle piercing the air and a green whirligig alight outside the walls, the shouts of the revelers below.
"They have their mirth for your sake, my son. You may find enemies someday, but for now, you bring all joy," he whispered into Tir's ear. Tir twitched away from the abrasion of his beard, kept his eyes trained upward at the flickers of light still straggling in the air from the sparkler, so big and blue, and innocent. He turned back and reached for Thorin when it was no more, braid in fist, now the tip of his nose in Tir's gummed grasp.
"I love you, Thorin," Meisar exhaled breathily. Her smile seemed pained, forcing deep lines in the corners of her mouth, her cheeks. "Anything, everything I have ever done or will do is for that love alone."
III
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"Dwalin said I should see you. He said it was important," Meisar said, entering their abode briskly. The page had brought word to her, summoning her urgently to the abode of one Lady Freyda, the First-Lieutenant's wife.
"Aye," a groan came back. Meisar pushed back the dividing curtain from the entrance hall and found Freyda slumped on the boar-hide daybed in the common room, her arms wrapped around her torso, a blanket half-falling from her frame.
"M'sorry, Meisar. I thought it would hold off a week or two, like last time." She grumbled and promptly hurled into the empty bucket by her side. Meisar sat on the empty space her curled body left on the boar-hide seat, feverish heat radiating from Freyda's body so intensely it left her too warm sitting close.
"It may be you are further along than you think," Meisar suggested, kneeling carefully by her side. Freyda's mop of lank hair spilled upward over the back of her hair, loose and tangled. "Where is Dwalin?"
"With Thorin," Gyda answered, shuffling back from the kitchen with Brundin cradled a sling at her chest. He was so large now. Gyda's frame swayed forward when he pulled and lurched in his sling. "He will be back soon. But she wanted you, Meisar. I called the page and had him dispatched."
Brundin reached for his mother, unsatisfied by Gyda's attempts to soothe him. He grabbed the long plait of her beard and began to gnaw on it fiercely. She shook her head side to side to break free but Brundin held, like Redcoat did when he snatched a stocking.
"I can't be at the presentation this way," Freyda's voice echoed up from the tin bucket, her face still buried in it. "M'sorry. It's why I called ye here. I ought ta tell ye in me own person."
All three dwarrowdam's heads sprung up in anticipation at the sound of the door swinging forcefully open on the other side of the room, heavy boots.
"Da?" Freyda groaned. "That me da?"
"Freyda, lovie," Dwalin had swooped in on his knees next to Meisar at her side as soon as his cloak was hung by the door, his boots still on. "How ye feel?"
"How ye think?" Freyda retorted sharply from the bottom of the bucket.
"There's no need for apologies. I will send my nurses to care for you. I'll not need them in my service during the day for the next few," Meisar offered.
Freyda finally lifted herself upward from the bucket, miserably, and laid her head the end of her blanket rather than the hide, her lips thick with drool. Dwalin gazed at her with pitiful affection, his own distinct brand of nurture. He took the seat Meisar had vacated in her hollow and took her hand.
"No need," Dwalin assured, stroking back her messed hair, taking the leather tie from his wrist to wrap around the thick blonde locks, holding them back in a tail. "I'll stay with ye."
"Yer not doing nothing of the sort," Freyda snorted. "My father'll keep me company, and the lads. They'll only break for a run at the ales when the barrels are opened."
"Those four goons?" Dwalin crossed his arms. "Shouldna be anywhere near a babe, or anything that can break."
He beckoned Gyda over, extracted a thrashing Brundin from the sling. In his father's arms he calmed for a few moments, then took his time examining the long forearm scar on Dwalin's left, seeming impressed by it.
Freyda spit and wiped her mouth lazily. "Me da won't let nothing of the sort happen. Besides, the goons would like verra much to have some time with their nephew. My father goes nowhere without them, ye know that."
"Aye," Dwalin grumbled. He drew back a bit from her, clenching and un-clenching his fist nervously. "Aye, I ken that."
"Will you be there at Thorin's side then, Dwalin?" Gyda inquired.
"Aye, if my wife permits."
"Permitted, and encouraged," Freyda relented. "You'll not like bein' here with me in this state. But I suppose Meisar ye will need to find a replacement for me."
Meisar smiled inside with a sudden burst of clarity inside. "It's quite alright. I think I have an idea as to who that should be."