The Company was arrayed around the courtyard in tight huddles full of hushed voices. Most, if not all, of them had drinks in their hands. There was no laughter though, and I glanced at Thorin with a frown.
Turning back to the company, I pasted a wry smile on my lips and called out, "Well this certainly seems to be a merry gathering. Where's the funeral?"
The boys, of course, immediately scrambled up, expressions a mix of confusion, excitement, and 'what did we do wrong now?' They babbled over each other incoherently, something about sleeping and quiet and - the style of Nori's beard? I shook my head.
"No funeral, lass." Bofur suddenly popped up next to me. "Just a tired and upset friend with a fearsome dwarf threatening to cut our tongues out if we dared disturb her," he winked.
"Really? How interesting." I deadpanned. "Now why would he do a thing like that? I heard it was our resident mischief-makers insisting I be left in peace. I wonder why that is?"
The dwarf in question just shrugged and grunted.
Bofur also shrugged, but it was accompanied by a wink and followed by taking me by the elbow and leading me to a bundle of furs.
"Sit down, lass. The fire is warm and my fingers are itching for my flute."
I just chuckled and shook my head, then plopped down as instructed. As if that were a signal, the previously quiet dwarrow all burst into boisterous chatter, singing, and laughing. Fili and Kili elbowing each other out of the way on one side of me, Thorin watching from the other. Dwalin, about halfway around the fire and back a bit, was scowling at everyone less fiercely than usual and chewing on a pipe. Bilbo, oh Bilbo, was being accosted by Bombur and Dori. Apparently "shy" no longer applied to Bombur when there was a question of under-feeding, and Dori may as well have his picture in the dictionary under "mom-friend." At least it looked like they were discussing travel options, popular recipes, and just how much hobbits needed to consume per day to be healthy, rather than berating the poor man for not saying anything.
Bilbo even seemed to be enjoying himself.
"Here Bilbo, have another sausage."
"I told you Bombor: I'm quite full, no thank you. If I eat one more sausage, I'll burst."
"A roll, then?"
Bilbo groaned.
...somewhat enjoying himself.
For a few moments, I watched the happy chaos in silence. Thorin's pipe next to me certainly wasn't the most pleasant, but it was a lot better than anything we came up with on earth, and it fit the atmosphere. Occasionally, he would make soft interjections into Balin and Ori's conversation - all in Khuzdul so I didn't understand any of it and did my best not to listen anyway. Then, suddenly, Bofur appeared in front of me, flute in one hand and grinning mischievously.
"Well lassie, are you going to sing for us?"
I spluttered, and gaped.
"What? Why would I- who said? I don't- Y'all wouldn't even like the songs I know!"
Bofur's grin widened, and he opened his mouth.
"Not that I even know that many!" I cut him off. "And they're all sad, or at least slow. Or I don't know the whole thing."
The affable dwarf was not to be deterred, and turned to Thorin instead. "Well Thorin?"
I frowned. Well Thorin what?
"It's a tradition." Thorin's voice rumbled out slow and low, and a hush fell over the gathering.
A tradition? I turned to him with wide eyes.
"A tradition among dwarrow, to share song. As a sign of acceptance, that a hand of friendship is being held out."
"Oh." Bilbo gasped, realizing another thing he'd missed at his smile.
I stared.
Thorin's lips quirked up at the corner, "As much as my Company and I could understand it is not so in your culture, not singing for us now would be one of your faux pas's."
The smug dwarf didn't even struggle with the foriegn words, even if his grammar wasn't totally correct, and I couldn't help but chuckle and roll my eyes. But well, just him telling us was huge, what with dwarf secrecy and all, so I heaved a sigh and turned back to the group.
"I see that I have no choice." I winked. "You all will just have to suffer some sub-par entertainment. Perhaps I should sing a different song for each and every one of you as punishment."
They laughed, and there was some good natured ribbing, but mostly they just looked like eager children at story-time, all leaning towards me in their seats with wide eyes. Except Dwalin, but he was perhaps the most shocking, considering he wasn't scowling. At all.
"Then again, I probably don't remember the lyrics of fourteen whole songs."
Bilbo gaped at me a bit, then blushed and ducked his head, muttering something I didn't catch.
I glanced at all of them, and it was my turn to blush. "Um, I don't know which song, so uh, I'll just sing my favorite? It's from a legend about a woman who disguised herself as a man and joined her kingdom's army in her father's place because her father was old and crippled from an old war wound. In that country and time, women weren't allowed to fight. In fact, her actions would have cost her her life if she was discovered, under normal circumstances. But yeah," I waved off all their curious stares, "I'll stop stalling. Um, yeah."
I looked down at my lap, noticed I was wringing my hands, and forced myself to stop. The song from the new Mulan movie was actually surprisingly fitting for this particular group, and I knew it well. I'd only been singing it non-stop since they released it. I took a deep breath.
"War is not freedom…"
By the time I finished, all the dwarrow were silent, and I had my head tilted back a bit, eyes closed. Obviously, they'd drawn the same connections between this song and their quest that I had, and the haunting melody was reverberating in all our minds.
"By Mahal…"
I heard someone breathe, and cracked my eyes open to find them all gaping at me, more than a couple with tears in their eyes. Bofur, the one who I think had spoken, looked like he'd been clocked with a brick. He was sitting now, instead of standing, but it looked like he'd just crumpled like a puppet with his strings cut.
Thorin gently clapped a hand on my shoulder, turning me to face him. "Sing us another? Your voice is a gift from the Valar."
Heat flooded my cheeks. I knew my voice was good. Heck, I took lessons for years and was waffling back and forth over whether I wanted to start gigging, but I wasn't expecting this kind of praise. Maybe good voices were a little rarer for dwarrow? Or maybe just soprano voices? I glanced around at them, and they all nodded eagerly, the boys and Ori putting on their best puppy-dog eyes. How could a person say no to that?
"Um, Okay. Thanks. Let me just-" I stood and took a couple steps away. You don't sing Memory sitting on the floor. And besides, it looked like I might be running through my whole repertoire.
...Not that I really minded. Singing always brought things back into equilibrium, and was a lot healthier a way of dealing with turbulent emotions than ignoring them, running myself into the ground, hiding in my room, or any of the other currently-attractive options.
"Midnight, not a sound from the pavement…"
As predicted, I ended up working through every song I could remember off the top of my head. Except, of course, those from the Hobbit movies. While I could easily explain things to Thorin or Dwalin, the rest of the Company wouldn't know what to think. Seeing as the company was looking rather sleepy, especially the youngest and oldest of them, I made the decision to round off with a couple of lullabies I sang on the rare occasions I saw my cousins' children. I sat myself down at the fire again (the furs, I realized, belonged to Thorin. Why did Bofur…?).
"Are you going to Scarborough Faire?..."
"A dream is a wish your heart makes…"
"Edelweiss, Edelweiss…"
"Where the North wind meets the sea…
...When all is lost, then all is found."
To my surprise, only Thorin, Dwalin, Nori, and Bilbo remained awake. Dwarrow, it would seem, are suckers for lullabies. Thorin must have seen the way I glanced around, because he chuckled softly and leaned forward to murmur in my ear.
"It is not often we have the chance to hear soothing music. I do believe they found themselves unwilling to resist succumbing to it."
I shivered at the way his breath ghosted over the back of my neck, raising goosebumps, juxtaposed with his impossibly deep voice vibrating down my spine. I couldn't help but lean back slightly toward him, even as I sighed and slumped a bit. "It is the same for me. I wish…" I trailed off. "I had a friend once, when I was a kid, he would sing to me sometimes when I was upset."
Thorin hummed in the back of his throat and leaned forward and over more, so his chin was nearly resting on my shoulder. "He would just sing?"
"He would sing." I shrugged my other shoulder. "Usually a deep, slow song. And sometimes he would hold me against his chest so I could feel the song and hear it; sometimes he would play with my hair. Those were the things that worked best: feeling the vibrations of his voice, being wrapped up secure in a hug, and gentle fingers in my hair. My world, we have a study of what we call psychology: the study of the mind and how it functions and influences behavior. One of the areas of psychology is communication, and people like to organize it into neat little categories; things like types of communication based on personality and stuff like that. One of those categories, they like to call "love languages" and it's really just how people communicate affection: romantic, familial, and otherwise. Anyway," I sighed again, "Sorry for the long winded explanation, it's just-" I ran my fingers through the furs we were sitting on, "My love language is touch. That's how I communicate. I worry about how that will work in this world, with cultural differences and all." I shrugged, but didn't turn to look at him.
"Hmm." He leaned back away from me, and I heard him shuffling on the furs. "I hope my earlier assurances about hugs helped?"
"Yes," I nodded. "Thank you." There was a moment of silence, in which I could still hear him shuffling and rearranging. "You shouldn't worry though, I'm used to being a bit touch-starved. I was kind of a hermit."
"A hermit?"
"Yeah."
"What is a hermit?" His voice was suddenly right against my neck again, and I couldn't hold back my shiver this time.
"Someone who lives by themself away from other people."
"I see." Suddenly he wrapped his huge, heavy arms around me, and hauled me back until I was resting against his chest. I couldn't help but yelp and flail a bit in a shock. He just sort of chuckled and tucked my head under his chin. "And did you live that way by choice?"
It took me a moment to regain my thoughts after the way his voice shook through my collarbone. "Um, I guess? It's not like I had anyone to live with? I mean, there's a lot of reasons." I tried to relax a little bit. "Uh, can I ask what you're doing?"
He chuckled again. "While playing with your hair would be highly inappropriate, dwarrow are fully aware of the comforts of being touched and held."
"Right." I blushed. "Thanks."
He hummed again, then fell silent. Eventually, I was able to convince myself to relax into his hold, curling to the side so my ear was against his chest, listening to the powerful thump of his heartbeat. The dwarf was like velvet over stone - strong and entirely unyielding, but not hard or sharp in any way. And he was like a furnace. Seriously, I felt like I was lying wrapped in a heated blanket. Dwarrow had to run at least five degrees (fahrenheit) hotter than humans.
I quickly found myself drifting towards sleep, and only vaguely registered one of Thorin's arms lift away for a moment. There was a shuffle of boots on stone, then fur, then the sound of someone sitting down with us. Blearily, I blinked my eyes open to find Dwalin leaning next to Thorin, their shoulders brushing. The gruff soldier just gave a small nod, then reached out to take one of my hands.
Thorin started humming.
I recognized the song instantly, distracted from Dwalin starting to massage the knots out of my palms (which, what?). Holy shit I was going to get to hear Thorin sing the song. The one from The Hobbit.
I melted. Dwalin, Dwalin, chuckled, then joined in as Thorin transitioned from humming to singing. Soon, more voices joined in, and somewhere in the back of my mind I registered that some of the other dwarrow must have woken up, but I was gone. Between Dwalin's hand massage, Thorin's hug and voice in my ear, and the way the song wove together with the warmth of the fire, I was totally out of it.
At some point, Dwalin switched hands. Eventually, the song drifted off into humming again. I didn't come back to full awareness until much later.
It was quiet, except for the snufflling sounds of sleep and snoring intermingled with the dying crackles of the fire and some night sounds. The courtyard had one open wall with a sort of balcony that allowed for the whispering of the waterfalls and cricket songs to drift in freely. There were no voices though, no sounds out of place that could have woke me up, and Thorin's chest rose and fell evenly under my ear. Dwalin, still lounging next to us, had his eyes closed, arms crossed on his chest, and the quietest snoring of the bunch. Except for those that didn't snore, of course.
If nothing was out of place to wake me, I must have just done it myself. I hummed out a little sigh and settled back into my place against Thorin's chest. I could be embarrassed in the morning. For now, I would just enjoy the comfort.
There were eyes on me.
All of a sudden, I was aware of a gaze boring into the side of my head. I tensed.
Slowly, pretending to just be shifting in my sleep, I tried to get turned enough to see who it was. Standing in the entryway were two tall, robed figures. One had a pipe that would occasionally light up his grey beard and wrinkled features. The other had a circlet the moon glinted off of.
Gandalf. Of course.
And the other must be Elrond.
I stopped pretending to be asleep, and glared petulantly at them instead, curling deeper into Thorin's arms. Thorin, who had either been awake the whole time, or been disturbed by my shifting around, because he growled - yes literally growled - and tightened his hold, even going so far as to lift a hand to turn my face back into the crook of his neck, leaving it raised to block both my view of our meddling interlopers, and their view of my face. He grew steadily more tense, though didn't growl again, until suddenly he relaxed and let his hand drop to the back of my neck.
"A pox on meddling wizards and their pointy-eared elf-lords." He muttered against my hair.
I chuckled softly. "Agreed. Thanks."
"You are welcome." For the briefest of moments, I could have sworn his fingers pinched gently at the hair on the nape of my neck. "Sleep."
I shook the thought, already complying. Seriously, who knew dwarf-kings would be such perfect pillows?
Something I failed to consider, that would, of course, come to bite me later, is the possibility that song could mean more than what Thorin explained. And, that his pandering to my desire for physical affection from my friends could have consequences.
This time I woke up because of voices. More specifically because of the voice rumbling away under my ear. It was nice, and I hummed and nuzzled at the firm chest it belonged to. Then it stopped, along with the surrounding voices, and I only just managed to stop myself from whining.
I was snuggling with Thorin Oakenshield.
There were some muffled snickers, followed by an indignant yelp.
I groaned and mushed my face into said famous dwarf-king. "This is all your fault."
He chuckled. "You are the one who fell asleep on me."
"You're the one who has a stupidly deep voice and gives unfairly good hugs."
...Yes. Yes I was one hundred percent whining. I already had no dignity left, so there was no point in trying to preserve it.
"Uncle does give the best hugs." Kili piped up from somewhere behind me.
I flailed an arm vaguely in his direction. "See? Thank you, Kili."
"What?" Fili sounded highly offended. I couldn't help but peek. He was pouting at Kili. "I thought I gave the best hugs!"
For a moment, Kili looked stricken. Then, his face lit up. Literal lightbulb moment, it was kind of hilarious.
"Uncle gives the best hugs for when you are tired or scared, you give the best hugs for every other situation!" Kili bounced over to his brother and glomped him with a hug, as if trying to prove his point. The rest of the Company laughed as Fili stumbled, and both boys ended up on the floor, hug quickly devolving into some sort of wrestling match that involved both trying to wrap the other up in a bear hug. I couldn't help but smile and shake my head at their antics, finally moving to pull away from Thorin.
Only, he didn't let go.
I craned my neck around to raise an eyebrow at him.
"Training, directly after breakfast. I expect to see progress with those straps."
"Yes, Your Majesty." I rolled my eyes and stuck my tongue out at him, still smiling.
When I tried to pull away again, his arms tightened, and he leaned down to murmur in my ear. "I thought I told you to call me Thorin, My Lady."
I giggled and tried to wriggle away, mocking a gasp, "But the impropriety!"
He just grinned smugly, not even having to make an effort to keep me still. "Do you truly think I care for impropriety?"
I dissolved into helpless laughter at the haughty noble facade he pulled on, and slumped against his arms. "Ow, ow, haha I'm getting my ab workout already!"
At that moment, he let me go, smirking as I tumbled to the side with a yelp.
Dwalin, obviously tired of our antics, huffed and rolled his eyes, before standing and hauling me to my feet. "The both of ye' are behaving like children."
Throwing a wink at Thorin, I draped myself playfully against Dwalin's side. "Aw, but Daaaad, we were having fun."
That, unexpectedly, brought all activity in the courtyard to a grinding halt, with all the dwarrow gaping at me. Thankfully, Bilbo looked just as confused.
"Um," I glanced at Thorin, "Faux pas? Was it something I said?" I tried to take a step back from Dwalin, holy shit the dude's stare is intense, but he had a firm grip on my arm.
Thorin stood slowly and approached, face serious, but unreadable. I couldn't help but tuck myself a little closer to Dwalin's side. Dude may be intimidating, but he was the protector sort, and felt marginally safer than the unpredictability of Thorin; who paused when he saw that movement, regarded us for a brief moment, then gave a slow nod. Dwalin let out a huff of air. I didn't dare move or talk.
Thorin turned to Balin, and nodded again, which caused the friendly old dwarf to also get up, and join Thorin in front of us.
"Dwalin, son of Fundin, brother of my line," Balin started, very formally, "This orphan of the stone claims you as shield, as guide, as father from the stone."
...holy shit
"Do you accept her, here in front of your brother and your King?"
I gulped, and couldn't help but turn to Dwalin with wide eyes. ...Was I- getting adopted?
He met my stare for a moment, expression unreadable, before meeting his brother's gaze fiercely. "Aye. I do."
For a moment, everything was deathly still, and deathly silent.
"Aria Renwick, daughter of Dwalin, Son of Fundin." Thorin stated suddenly, and the whole courtyard erupted.
I yelped and hid behind Dwalin.
My new dad.
I hadn't had a dad since mine passed away when I was eighteen. That was what, nearly ten years ago? And I was an adult, so technically I didn't need one.
Dwalin growled, one arm protectively in front of me, and the other on his axe. The Company refrained from swarming me.
I might not technically need a dad anymore, but it was sure as heck really nice. Way to go, Ar.
Hiding behind Dwa- Dad did put me closer to Thorin, and he took the opportunity to clasp my shoulder and nod solemnly. "Congratulations, Aria."
I blushed, but grinned happily. "Thanks, Thorin," I glanced behind him at Balin, "Uncle."
The old dwarf grinned widely and came forward to pull me into a hug, gently tapping our foreheads together. "You are most welcome, brother-daughter."
I couldn't help but bask in the sense of family. Oh I had cousins back on Earth, and even a sister, but we didn't get along the best and I never saw them, and their hugs weren't half as good as Balin's.
A moment later, Dwalin pulled me away from Balin to repeat the gesture between us. He murmured a couple of words in Khuzdul, then my name. Then, after a moment, so quietly I wasn't sure if I was supposed to hear, "I never dared hope Mahal would bless me with a child. For him to bring me you… We will survive this quest. All of us."
I sighed and leaned into his embrace. "Yes, Dad. All of us."
Songs mentioned in this chapter are "Loyal Brave True" from Mulan, "Memory" from Cats, "Scarborough Faire" by (I have no idea it's a folk song), "Edelweiss" from The Sound of Music, and "All is Found" from Frozen 2
