Gates of Khazad-dûm ; T.A. 3019, January 14th
A beautiful thing lay before them, a golden glory of the days of old – when men were not but a minor power, and dwarves and elves roamed freely across the land. This was Moria, this was the Kingdom of Durin's folk.
When the Fellowship had arrived, tired, cold, and out of breath from their scrape with the wild wolves of the west– it seemed like the very gates themselves glowed with welcome for the travellers. The Dwarves that had stood guard as the gates opened had turned and smiled at them, and Aragorn was not too proud to say that he almost wept. He had been in complete agreement with Gandalf of his distrust of the Mines of Moria, for even if Balin had succeeded in conquering them, the evil there had been crowded so close to the surface. And yet on sight of those gates, he felt tremendously foolish to have thought so. Moria was not at all how it had been last time he had cause to come this way, there wasn't even water at its base, let alone a Watcher. In fact, now that he was closer, he could see the beast, or rather its head. On atop seven spears, sat the decapitated head of such a creature, that would make even a trained ranger as he bulk to pass it.
Great evil had been here, and yet great evil had been bested by the forces of mortal hand. He didn't know why, but somehow seeing that beast, half rotten and foul, gave him hope. If one small band of dwarves could fell such a monster as had once lurked near the gates of Moria, why could men not rise to a greater challenge, why could men not fell a greater beast…perhaps…perhaps there was hope to be found in Gondor.
Maybe…after this was all over, he and Boromir would return, and all would be good in the world.
A large clang and Aragorn realised that in his wonder at the beauty of the gates of Moria he had stumbled into one of the hobbits. It was not Frodo, thank the Valar for that, but it had still been knocked over as such small things where often wont to do in such mighty company.
'I am sorry.'
The Heir of Isildur said as he helped the small creature to stand, in the dark of the night it was difficult to tell the hobbits apart. They all seemed so alike in disposition when marching through the forest, that it sometimes made Aragorn's head ache. But he would not dishonour the little fellow by misnaming him.
The fellow waved him off, in irritation.
'I'm fine, I'm fine…just a right queer sight is all, half forgot to walk. Dwarves make such pretty gates…I'd half forgotten…how pretty…they could make them when they weren't fighting.'
He sounded half in a trance, as if trying to recall a faraway dream he'd had many moons ago.
Then from closer to the doors, one of the other hobbits called to them.
'Strider, Sam! Stop dawdling in the entrance and get in here…they can't close the gates to the cold if you're still standing there.'
And the light from the hall shone bright and illuminated the scared features of Samwise Gamgee.
Gimli had wanted to come here.
He had to keep reminding himself of that fact, as dwarves who had once been playmates in childhood, pushed those mighty gates closed.
Gimli had wanted this, to be here among them…the great adventurers who had taken back the Kingdom of Durin from the monsters who had snatched it off him. And yet…there was something wrong here, he had felt it as they approached the gates, which had been opened to the world, and hardly guarded at all.
Two Dwarves how was that enough to keep off the bands of Wargs that roamed the countryside around Khazad-dûm? It wasn't, it was never enough…it was almost as if they wanted the wolves to come, as if they welcomed them.
No, no, he was being ridiculous…no one would be foolish enough to welcome those wolves, not even an orc, and his people were far superior to an orc…weren't they?
The Fellowship were led down a long winding tunnel, whose walls felt too close for comfort. What was wrong with him, a dwarf claustrophobic, while the elf marched ahead his head aloft in such splendour, as if he belonged here. As if he was the one that had come home to family long thought lost. Gimli's cheeks went red, and he felt his feet stumble into the person walking beside him.
One of the hobbits…Pippin, if he remembered correctly…squawked indignantly as he was half crushed under the dwarf's weight. Regaining his own footing, Gimli caught the little fellow's elbow just before he struck the floor.
'I'm sorry, I wasne looking where I was going.'
The hobbit glared at him for a second, his small face screwed up in consternation, and then for seemingly no reason at all, he laughed. A loud laugh that resounded throughout the caverns of the tunnel, and Gimli…found himself joining in for some reason. He couldn't help it, the sound bubbled up and over him and he felt a wealth of warmth for the small creature in front of him. For someone so small, in a world where the large reign, a hobbit's laugh was a strange thing indeed.
Maybe that was why it was so infectious.
He found himself roaring with the weight of it, and slapping his own knees, to slow his mirth…but nothing could, and it wasn't long before the whole cave was laughing with them.
He'd wanted to come here, to be in these halls, where once the greatest of his ancestors had roamed.
And for the first time since he'd stepped foot into the place, he began to remember why.
They were led through a tunnel too thin for anyone but the hobbits – and maybe the Dwarf if he sucked his gut in – to walk two abreast. It was dark, it was stifling, it was everything Legolas had ever imagined a Dwarf Kingdom to be, and then they emerged, and suddenly nothing was as he'd expected it.
They were in not a small, dark smelly cave, but a glittering, glorious hall – twice as magnificent as his own father's palace. It was something beautiful, gems glowed from the walls, the shimmer of reds, blues and violet tapestry blinded the elf and in amongst them all – on a throne of simple stone – sat a dwarf, wrapped all in the white fur of a Wolf.
This must be Balin.
He did look familiar, though the elf couldn't say for sure whether they'd encountered each other before or not – dwarves had all looked the same to him back then. Back when the company of Thorin Oakenshield had crossed his father's borders. Tauriel had not thought so, why else would she have chosen…why else would she have let herself be seduced by one of those mindless mud-grubbers. That creature had stolen her from him, she didn't love Legolas not back then anyway, but maybe she would have come to if…if…if it had not come in the way.
That was the lie he told himself when the dwarf died, when he'd had to watch her fade…no, that wasn't true he'd left before that could happen. He'd left, and he'd never come back…his father might have thought it was him that kept his son away for so many years now, but it wasn't, it was her.
It was the dwarf.
All dwarves…they'd taken her from him…the company of Thorin Oakenshield had taken her, and now one of them sat here…amongst the splendour of his people…it wasn't fair…none of it was fair.
'Greetings, Legolas of the Woodland Realm to my humble Kingdom.'
While Legolas had been lost within his own memories the others had been talking, had been introducing themselves, and the dwarf on the stone throne had addressed him personally.
'This is no Kingdom.'
'I beg your pardon?'
'This is no Kingdom, dwarf. To be a kingdom one must first have a king, and you are no king.'
The Dwarf looked at him, cocking his white beard to the side like an oversized cat.
'Not a King? Tis but a title, and within these halls King or no I still rule all. And I'd like ye to remember that.'
Legolas gave a mock bow to the dwarf, all his years of diplomacy forgotten in one instance of spite.
'I do apologise Lord Balin, but of course you do, after all while a King is away the Lord shall have all the power, he deems fit.'
He felt sharp stab in the side– Mithrandir had not been subtle in his jab to the elf's left, but the dwarf to his right had slammed his elbow so hard into Legolas' hip, that the son of Thranduil nearly fell from the force of the blow.
He didn't of course, but the dwarf certainly did when Legolas struck back.
Boromir did not belong here, he'd been feeling that a lot lately, but never so strongly as he did in the stronghold of the line of Durin. This was a land of the Dwarves, it had been sculpted by Dwarven hand, dug out by their spades, and guarded possessively for longer…for longer than Boromir's line had existed. He wasn't certain of that last fact; the ins and outs of diplomacy and history had been Faramir's foray…never his.
Yet as Gimli and Legolas were forcibly separated and escorted out of this most ancient of halls, and the rest of the Fellowship were left standing awkwardly in their wake, he severely wished that it had been. Maybe then he would have found something clever to say, something that would ease the tension. But as it stood now, he simply stood there, as silent as the stone around him, as Gandalf spoke soothing words to their host.
'Hail Balin son of Fundin, Lord of Moria…I would apologise for Gimli and Legolas' behaviour, but you've met both their fathers, this should not be a surprise to you.'
For less than the time it would have taken to blink, Balin son of Fundin looked confused. As if he didn't know their fathers at all, as if they were entirely strangers to him. But then the look was gone, and he was smiling deep within his beard again.
'Hm, never thought I would see the sight of two of their spawn traveling in the wilderness together. But I suppose strange times call for strange companies. Come, sit beside me, so that we may talk of pleasanter days when the shadow of the east was not so far past one's doorstep. There were scouts speaking of a strange group indeed coming to me for aid, so I have had a feast prepared. Come let us eat and revel as we once did, my old friend.'
'Yes,' said Gandalf stiffly. 'Let us eat.'
The night moved swiftly after that, the wine and the beer and the ale flowed too keenly for Boromir, so by the time he was shown to his chambers for the night, he was much too drunk to call his guide back and request somewhere else to sleep. Somewhere perhaps that did not already have someone in it.
Which was a pity indeed, considering who was in there.
The boy had not drunk as much, yet that hardly seemed to matter, for a single goblet of Dwarven Ale had floored him. It was as if he'd never had a drop of alcohol in his life, somehow that marginally ruined the image of the boy as a savage warrior from a decrepit land for Boromir. It was easy to view the youth as a…a savage creature hardly worthy of the title of man, out in the wild. But here, in a strange city where neither of them belonged, even less than the rest of the Fellowship…it was hard not to see how painfully young the boy was.
The man of Gondor slumped into the chair by the window, if he was to have any chance of sleeping this headache off…then he had best get started.
Gandalf did not like Moria, it was the simplest way of explaining all the conflicted feelings he felt for this mighty dwarf kingdom, but it was the truest. For what he felt was not quite fear, yet he could not claim to feel calm and at ease either, despite the beauty all around him.
He'd felt it the second he'd stepped through the doors, there was something sick in the land of Moria. He almost thought, rather spitefully, that it would have been better to find it in ruins, its people dead, and its halls swarming with all manner of foul and wretched things. No, no, that was just his petty side speaking…surely it was better to find a healthy and hearty ally, ready to shelter and feast with them till the morning sun did breach the sky. Yet there was something distinctively sick about the way the dwarves of Moria looked, something about the way no one would walk alone, or the way they gazed at the fellowship with mistrusting eyes. Even Gimli, who was kin to more than many of them received downright hostile looks from the dwarves of this kingdom.
But if it were anything that made the Grey Istari suspect something, it was the Lord of Khazad-dûm himself, Balin. They had been greeted with all the pomp and ceremony such a party deserved, yet there was something in the old dwarf's eyes. It wasn't something necessarily mean or evil, but it was unfamiliar and in times like these that could be as dangerous in an ally as it was in an enemy.
'Gandalf, my old friend.' Gandalf embraced the old dwarf pretending he didn't notice the wrong inflection on his name or the way the hug was just a tad too awkward for old comrades such as they.
'Balin, I see that Moria flourishes. You didn't have any trouble with goblins, did you? I've heard terrible tales of the infestation in Moria.' Balin laughed but again it was wrong, not how Balin son of Fundin should laugh at all.
'No, no trouble at all my good Maiar.' A lie, one among many it would seem and when had Balin learned Gandalf's true species? It was impossible for him to know, something was terribly wrong with this version of Balin, so much so that Gandalf even begun to suspect that it wasn't Balin at all but someone else. Someone masquerading as the former member of Thorin's company, but who?
'You know who he feels like, Old Proudfoot.'
Merry growled and burrowed his head deeper between his two pillows, he would never get to sleep at this rate.
'I don't care Sam, go to sleep or I swear to the Valar I will knock you out cold.'
'I'd like to see you try Mister Merry Sir, but I'm just saying all this Lord Balin's oddity awfully reminds me of Faldo Proudfoot. He's shifty and did you see him during the feast? I swear on my life that Dwarf did not take one bite of the food on his plate. He doesn't eat Mister Merry, what does that tell us?'
'That you pay way too much attention to what everyone else is eating. Now go to sleep Sam, I don't know what Proudfoot's eating habits have to do with his villainy; but if Balin is like Proudfoot there's nothing either of us can do about it right now. So why don't you just go the Morgoth to sleep or I will hit you.'
The Gardener huffed a laugh into his own pillow. 'Well if you're sure Mister Merry, I'm just saying it ain't right the way he acts, and I bet you Mister Gandalf thinks just the same.'
'I don't care go to sleep. Gods why did they stick me with you, I thought I was gonna get Pip as a room-mate. Though I suppose he's a quieter bed-mate for Frodo than you would be. Sam? Sam, damn it Samwise Gamgee you kept me up with your ceaseless worrying, you don't get to fall asleep in the middle of my angry rampage. Sam, SAM!'
But Samwise Gamgee was already fast asleep.
Caranthir could feel the dwarf's spirit squirming around inside of him, he was not dead like he was supposed to be. No one ever told you what you were supposed to do when your host body was not dead.
Day in and day out the stupid pest tried to gain control over their body, but it was no use: Caranthir was the mightier of the two, he was the oldest, and in this match at least, he would not be bested. He did not deserve such a fate, to be locked inside a body which he had no control over…no, that was something that…that happened to other people…it wouldn't happen to him.
In fact, he'd been so determined not to let it happen to him that he was almost too tired to stay awake during the welcome feast that night. Humph, welcome feast, it had been his adviser's idea…if he'd had his way, they would have closed the gates and let them all freeze to death. But apparently that would look bad to the other free peoples of middle earth and Caranthir had no plan to accidentally start a war. You know, this time.
But this fellowship unnerved him. Never mind that the only dwarf amongst them seemed to share close kinship with not only this body, but one of the dwarves who he'd fed to the watcher in the water, back when it was still manageable enough to contain. Really it had been for everyone's good, a dwarf as deaf as that would only slow the herd down.
Still, it was almost good that the stupid nephew of the dwarf had started the fight with that blond elf in the green garments. The Elf wasn't Noldor blood, obviously, but the features were slightly familiar, maybe he'd come across his ancestor once…a long time ago. Really the King of Moria had no choice, the way that impudent swine had spoken to him he'd have had him escorted out even if the brawl hadn't started.
Yet it was the Wizard that unnerved him the most, a Maiar, so close to his seat of power was an uncomfortable thought even just in passing.
It hadn't helped any that that stupid round creature…one of the hobbits, kept giving him strange looks. As if it could see what he was, well the son of Fëanor could not have that, something had to be done about it.
The members of the fellowship knew too much about this vessel, and that Maiar well he had certainly been an unpleasant surprise. For one terrifying second Caranthir had believed himself caught and had been almost ready to throw himself on his own sword.
Not that that would have helped his situation a great deal, he'd have just had to find another body to inhabit. Oh, Valar why did everything bad happen to him? It wasn't as if he was even the worst of the Fëanorians. He didn't even really want to find his wayward brothers and father. Let them run amok around this realm, he was quite satisfied ruling over his own small kingdom of dwarves. So why were these creatures so insistent on driving him away from his comfort and into the cold arms of his family.
Well it wouldn't do at all; no, he would simply have to remove the unfortunate elements in his kingdom like he had so many times before. The drums were going again in the deep and they had to be satisfied, sometimes in great times a sacrifice had to be offered and if it just so happened to be someone who was a threat to him…his people, well it was all for the greater good.
Inside his chest Balin son of Fundin screamed.
They are bundled up, him and the dwarf, into a room that resembles a cell as much as Mordor resembled a Garden. It was large, and finely furnished in plums and golds, and on a small table in the middle of the room, sat two plates both piled high with food.
Strange to be so treated by such creatures as were the children of Aulë. Had they been expecting a scuffle, expecting to have their own kinsman escorted from the halls of his forefathers or were these meals for someone else. Someone perhaps, who had not had such a pleasant stay in the dungeons of Moria.
The Dwarf, blusterous and eager for food as a dog, stomped over to the table – made small by the glory around it – and bent over to inspect the contents of the plates more closely. Legolas couldn't help the scoff that escaped his lips then, the dwarf's ears were keener under the rock and he turned on the elf, his face as red as the velvet of King Thranduil's cape.
'Have you something more to say, Elf?'
Legolas looked away, unwilling to waste more air arguing with the insipid little warrior.
The Dwarf scoffed; his voice too loud for elven ears to ignore.
'Well, that's just typical of the elves. They'll scream and rage and throw a fuss when there's people around to protect them, but Mahal forbid they stand up to answer for their actions. For the lives they've ruined, the warriors they cut down.'
Legolas laughed at that.
'What are you winging on about, Dwarf, what warriors? As if any of your race could reach so high as to lift a sword to my people. You are foul master dwarf, and ignorant to boot. You speak of things you have no knowledge of, and matters you lack the capacity to understand.'
The Dwarf giggled at that, low and cruel like a spider's bite.
'And what exactly do I not have the capacity to understand?'
'How can I explain, you do not know the evil in which your kind have wrought upon the world with your greed. Have you any understanding the terror the other free peoples have suffered thanks to the folly of Aulë.'
'The Folly of Mahal was that he did not take a sword to every elf that dared to wander into his workshop. And you want to talk about evil wrought upon the world? What about the Silmarils, gems of such beauty they'd make any elf lose his mind completely, or at least enough to butcher their own kin.'
'How dare…'
'Or the Ring of Power itself, we mustn't forget that my good Thranduil. Was it not the elves that created all the rings of power, including the one, and the seven cursed to my forefathers of old? Speak to me of evil wrought by my people's hand when you have paid, for all the terror, all the horror, all the blood that you have cursed on the lands of Middle Earth.'
Legolas reeled as if struck by physical blow, but never let it be said that the son of Thranduil was slow of tongue in matters such as these.
'How quick your tongue is Master Dwarf, how well you spin your tales of woe, to make it seem that it is the First Born who are to blame. It is something that even my people cannot fully comprehend, the depths your people will sink to, to take things that do not belong to you.'
'And what have we stolen from you?'
'You stole her!'
It slipped out, he hadn't meant to say it, he hadn't meant to ever speak of it…of her again in this life. And yet he had, and in front of this dwarf no less, the kinsman of…of the creature that had stolen her from him.
'Her?'
Said the creature as dumb as the rock under his foot, Legolas should stop, Legolas should turn around and leave now, run away where not even the Balrogs of Morgoth could find him. But it had been so long in silence…so long not thinking about her that he couldn't stop. He couldn't stop talking.
'How can you not know her name, her story? The Elf who fell for the Dwarf, who cast off her people like they were so much baggage and ran away with the Line of Durin.'
'Line of…? You speak of the elf maiden of Mirkwood…Balin said once that had he not died that day Killi would have taken her to wife.'
'Wife…wife…she was meant to be my wife, that's what we agreed. So many years she had been my friend, the only one I could confide in…we'd promised each other when we were nothing more than children that we would be wed. That when my father left for the undying lands or passed on that we would rule our kingdom together…as a force to be reckoned with. It was all going to plan; my best friend would be my queen and then my father would never have to…to know…why I've never wanted any other maiden.'
'Oh.'
Legolas froze, he had been so lost in his own rage and hatred for the line of Durin, that he'd almost forgotten that he was not alone in this cell. That he had an audience, an audience that he should have been screaming at instead of just near.
'Then she is dead.'
Legolas turned away, moving his back to face the dwarf.
'It doesn't matter, the Dwarf she chose is dead, and whether you know it or not Tauriel will fade until she's nothing…nothing but a shell…nothing but a rustic creature…until at last she leaves her body to return to the halls of Mandos, where we all must go in the end.'
The Dwarf's voice sounded harsh in reply.
'You are mad, I've always known elves were mad and cruel …and yet I find myself pitying you. I've never been in love…as your kind would define it…perhaps I never shall, but I understand what it's like to lose someone close to you. Kili and Fili were my cousins…Thorin too…and I cannot say what dark place my Uncle Oin has fallen in to, the gleam in Balin's eyes speaks of nowhere kind.'
Legolas stilled, his heart beating too loudly in his own ears for comfort.
'You saw it too.'
It was in that moment, that brief speck in time when dwarf and elf where of one mind, when the guards descended.
Merry had just about given up on getting a good's night's sleep, when he was wrenched from his bed by a group of unruly and thoroughly unpleasant dwarves. From deeper within the chamber Merry could hear the startled cries of Sam Gamgee as he was unkindly startled from sleep at the point of an axe.
Merry struggled and kicked as the dwarves dragged him up and out of the sleeping chamber. Was Gimli the only decent dwarf? Oh, why had cousin Bilbo set on a journey with such terrible and spiteful creatures. If he'd believed in the old ways like Gamgee and his kin, then he might have sent many a dwarf a death curse that night, but as it was, he didn't. For unlike the Ancestors, the Valar held no curses for your enemies, short or long lived. Certainly nothing like the sort of bile coming out of the young gardener's mouth. They were technically in Hobbitish, and it was very unlikely that even a devotee of the rustic ways like Gamgee knew what they meant, since very few hobbits still spoke it. Neither did Merry technically but he understood enough to make out most of what his cousin's gardener was spouting.
'May Hobbick's screams of anguish bound in yours and your children's ears till the end of my line.'
The only word that completely flummoxed the next Master of Buckland was the word Hobbick. It could mean hobbit of course but somehow Merry doubted it, perhaps it was a name. A name of one of the Ancestors, now that would be quite something. Up until now Merry had always considered them a faceless collective entity that those of the more rustic folk tried to apply to their past. Maybe to try and explain why hobbits had none.
An odd thought certainly to have, while you were being forced out of bed at the point of a sword.
Gandalf slammed another dwarf into the wall, luckily, he hadn't been sleeping when they'd arrived in the night, he rarely slept at all these days. Too much could happen while he was out to let his guard down like that, for instance a group of dwarven guards dragging him off to be sacrificed to their Morgoth blessed monster.
The dwarf at the end of his staff crumpled to the floor, holding his midsection as he sobbed out profanities against the wizard. Strange, he had never known dwarves to be the most pleasant of races especially when they were resistant to his manipulations, even if they were for their own good – but to be so thoroughly cowardly as to attack a guest while they slept in your home, well, he'd never have thought them capable of that. It was almost as if…it wasn't a dwarf behind those eyes at all.
He had been right all along; something was terribly wrong with these dwarves. The drums were getting louder now as the blank eyed dwarves pushed the wizard back down the tunnel towards it. He couldn't drive them off, not without landing mortal blows, which he was unwilling to do to any creature not of Morgoth's creation.
You Shall Not Pass!
Those are the worlds that would echo in Gimli's mind for as long as he should live. Damn Balin, damn the whole kingdom of Khazad-dûm. But he could rage and scream at his own kin until his throat bled, it wouldn't change the truth that it had been he, Gimli son of Gloin, who had caused this. If they had only gone through the gap of Rohan, maybe then they might have been safe. Maybe then Gandalf wouldn't have had to slow the Balrog down enough for the rest of them to make their escape. Maybe then he wouldn't have fallen. And then maybe there wouldn't be a hollow in the dwarf's chest that no amount of crying and screaming seemed to lessen.
'We must make for the woods of Lothlorien before nightfall.' Aragorn said, his face grown oddly blank and distant since their escape from Moria.
'Have some Pity for Mercy's sake man, have they no time to rest?' Boromir growled
'It'll be dark before long and I do not know what creatures those were, but they were not dwarves and they meant to kill us. We must get the others up or everything he worked for will be for nothing.'
Gimli stood up scowling at the pair of bickering men as he walked over to the elf who stood on a rock a little away from the others.
'Maybe we should leave before those two bring the whole kingdom of Moria down on us.'
'Kingdom?' The elf said blankly. 'Tell me you don't consider that place still a kingdom? I thought you brighter than that master Dwarf.' Gimli bit down hard on his own tongue less he says something that would only serve to provoke another argument between the two of them. He could tell by the tone of the elf's voice that his words weren't meant to be cruel or even as a derisive of Gimli's culture as he normally was. The Elf was in as much shock as the rest of them, he just was less used to expressing it.
'I know master Elf; my cousin's realm is no Kingdom, but a thraldom and I make no great pleasure in admitting it to you.' The elf nodded then and turned back to gazing into the distance impassively.
'Right then, well I'll just help the hobbits off the ground myself, shall I?' The elf grunted in the back of his throat but gave no other indication that he had heard. The dwarf moved away in the direction of the quietly sobbing Halflings.
Damn Khazad-dûm , damn it straight to Morgoth's Fire.
A dream came to the Lord of Moria the night that he sacrificed the Fellowship to the drumming in the deep. He was back at home, in his mother's workshop and he was a child again. It was just like he remembered it, the clanking of his grandfather's old anvil, the sweltering heat and the sound of his parents raised voices.
'You truly have gone mad, my love.'
'Mad? Do you call pride in one's own accomplishments and creations madness? I must tell you wife that we have very different views of the world then.'
'Please just think for one second what you're doing Fëanor, before you plunge us into a fate that we may never be able to pull ourselves up from. Please think my love, I know you meant no ill-will to your brother that day.'
'He's not my brother. He's just a case of leftover want my father couldn't shake off. He should never have been born; it was obscene for my father to marry again. Everyone knows so, everyone says so, it is the way of our people and my father just disregarded all for the sake of simple Lust.'
His mother's voice was angry when it finally replied.
'So, you think you have the right to dictate how others live their lives Fëanor? What if your sons had a wife who died, so they married someone else and had children with her? Would you denounce them as you have your brothers? Would they be worthy enough to belong to the precious line of Finwë?'
There was a sound of a hard slap, and a body being thrown across the floor by the impact. The Lord of Moria cried for his mother and tried to go to her. But he couldn't, he was locked in his father's closet, screaming so hard that his throat began to bleed.
Blood swelled up and out of his mouth like some form of hideous saliva. He screamed but his mother's and father's voices were silent. He could no longer see for he was blind and all he could hear was the laugh of that dwarf stuck inside his skull.
'You don't belong here, neither of us do. So, what you'll do when you wake from this nightmare is disappear. You and I will leave my Moria and never return. I don't care where we go, but we cannot stay here.'
The Lord shook his head, pounding it against the back of the wardrobe, he would not listen to this pest. He would not. He had fought the dwarf's voice before; he would fight it again. And maybe this time he even would have won, finally at long last. Yes, maybe he would have if that other voice hadn't called his name.
'Caranthir'
A strange sound, a voice so old and rough that it sounded like smoke. He had never heard such a thing before, not even in his darkest of dreams.
'Feed my people to a creature like that? How degraded your spirit must have become invader – even the wretch who started this whole nonsense wouldn't have done something like that.'
His father, the voice spoke of his father – Caranthir tried not to think about what Feanor would say about all this. He wouldn't understand, he had to do it. He had to appease the creature; otherwise how would he ever be a good king to his people if their bodies were consumed. Many would just die, being mortal in nature, but many more would be cast to the elements and forced to find a new home for their wandering spirit. No better than when he had found them all.
'Get out.'
It shuddered in his ear drums, but he would not listen, he could not.
'Get out'
The voice made even the dwarf inside of him tremble, but the son of Fëanor would not give in.
And the voice seemed to laugh at that.
'Then may my screams of anguish bound in yours and your children's ears till the end of my line.'
And then a scream came to him, a scream so terrible, and so loud that the Elf was certain it would fell even a beast like the Balrog. It certainly felled him. And throughout that terrible, butchering noise the only words of comfort came from the dwarf inside his chest.
'We cannot stay here.'
Cannot stay here, those are the words that the guards heard from the royal chamber. It did not occur to them to check that their lord was alright, for he often had nightmares of such a nature.
They regretted that choice when upon opening their lord's chamber the next morning, they found his bed to be decidedly empty. The 'dwarves' of Khazad-dûm searched frantically for their lord, but he was gone. And no one would hear from Balin son of Fundin for quite some time, not until…well that would be telling now wouldn't it.