Dipped a little more into some AU concerning dwarrow this chapter, hopefully you guys can fogive me ;)
Special shoutout to Redhead179 for the continued support, thanks a million!
The only apparent change the drama of the morning brought, was my new Dad hovering even more, which I didn't think possible. It also made me realize just how much time I spent with Thorin. For the next two days, the only time I wasn't with the two of them was when I was sleeping. We didn't have a repeat of the night spent cuddling by the fire. Thorin was still mindfully physical though, greeting me in the morning with a hug and sending me off to bed with one too, as well as little touches throughout the day. Like taking my arm to guide me somewhere, or moving a limb to the proper position during training. Dwalin had inserted himself in the training, too, instead of doing his own thing or standing guard, he would argue with Thorin about the best stance, and how long I should work, and the best way to raise my endurance, and anything else that came up. The only thing they didn't come to an agreement on right away, was how hard to work me.
"I think that is enough for today. You can do your stretches and run, and practice more with your straps."
I glanced at Thorin, surprised.
"No." Dwalin cut in, frowning. "Not yet. She can go longer."
It was Thorin's turn to frown. "She is working hard. Any more and it will be too much for her muscles to remember."
Dwalin's frown just deepened, and he shook his head. "We don't have a choice. We don't have time."
"And when we push her too hard and she is re-injured? What then?"
"Oin has cleared her for training."
Thorin, as he got frustrated, got louder and puffed up, and started making sharp gestures. Dwalin, on the other hand, got stiffer and gruffer.
Seeing as we weren't getting anywhere, I tried my hand at diffusing the situation. "Dad, Thorin. Shouldn't I be the judge of my limits? My body, my rules. Thorin, Dad is right that we don't have time to do this the way that might be smartest. Dad, Thorin is right that we have to make sure we aren't doing too much. How about the both of you let me decide when I've had enough for the day? I'm not a kid that's going to tap out as soon as I get tired. I'm an adult that's been training by myself for a number of years, I know exactly how hard I can push before I injure myself."
Both of them turned their frowns on me.
"Seriously. Thorin, to avoid the too-much-information problem I can learn a set amount of new things per day, then spend the rest of the day on repetition. I can even spend part of the day just on strength training and core workouts. That's the other way to stretch training time: trying to use different muscle groups. I don't just have to learn how to use my weapons, I also have a lot of strength and endurance to build in the next week."
Neither of them looked very happy, but after exchanging some significant looks, gave in. Hence, the first day was spent thoroughly finding and testing all of my limits, Dwalin needling me on, Thorin asking if I needed to stop.
The funny part, though, was when they insisted on not only stretching with me, but also running.
They complained fiercely when I got tired of running circles around them and left them behind.
I banned them from my runs.
The second day, they spent the time waiting in sparring. When they spar, it really looks like they're trying to kill each other, so I was glad to have an excuse not to watch. Poor Bilbo looked a bit traumatized.
"Aria."
I glanced up at Dwalin. We were sitting a bit to the side of the company, and he was teaching me the proper way to care for my weapons - sharpening, cleaning, all the maintenance.
"Yes, Dad?"
His eyes crinkled with subtle smile lines, but his mouth didn't move from his scowl (Like, who knew the dude had smile lines? You learn something new and shocking every day). "There is one part of the adoption ceremony that we have yet to complete. I would do that tonight."
I tilted my head, curious. "Really? Okay. What do I have to do?"
He regarded me silently for a moment. "Aria found-daughter, would you allow me to put a clan braid in your hair, with a bead of my line?"
I grinned, and resisted the urge to squeal like a fan girl. But oh my God (gpds? Valar? Sidenote for later, Ar) the whole braiding thing was real and I was getting one. And a bead! "Yes father, I would be honored."
...Probably not the ritual response, but it sounded suitably formal, right?
His eye-smile (seriously, this dude would have been a master of the mask expressions) deepened, and he gestured for me to move over next to him. I did, and noticed we were half-hidden behind a pillar and a potted plant, giving us a bit of a veil of privacy from the rest of the company. Clever, Dad, very clever.
Before he started braiding, I glanced over my shoulder at him. "Can I see my new bead before you put it in?"
He grunted and held out a hand, first closed around what had to be the bead, so I held my hand out to receive it. It was a little bigger than I expected, and certainly heavier, but so finely wrought I would have thought it impossible to make by hand. "Wow," I breathed, turning it over gently. "You made this? It's amazing."
"All fathers make their childrens' beads, once they are named to the line.
Once they're named to the line… I twisted to look at him again. "You made this just in the last couple of days? How? When? We've been together the whole time!"
He raised an eyebrow. "Not when you slept, or bathed."
He did tease me about insisting on bathing every day while there were such facilities available…
"That's amazing." I frowned at him a little. "But our days have been busy Dad, you shouldn't have lost sleep."
"Dwarrow don't need as much sleep as the race of men."
I thought about that. It was true the Company seemed to always stay up late and rise early. Thorin implied they were enjoying not having to get up early, so they had to usually rise with the sun, and if that held true even not going to bed until midnight or after… Dudes were fictioning on like, four hours of sleep. I fought a wince. "I'll take you word on that one."
He gave a satisfied grunt, and a nod that just screamed "as you should."
I looked at the bead again. It had a coat of arms on one side, vine motifs that looked a lot like celtic knots around the top and bottom, and a couple of intertwined runes on the other side. It really was gorgeous. "Hey Dad?" I asked tentatively, not looking at him. "Am I allowed to know what the runes on the back mean?"
For a moment, he was still and silent. I didn't dare look up. Then, he was leaning close and tracing them tenderly. He whispered a phrase in Khuzdul, rumbling and rough, and surprisingly gentle. Then, in Common, "Aris Dwalindottïr, found-daughter of the line of Fundin. It is your dwarvish name."
"Oh." I felt myself tearing up, and leaned over to rest against my dad, my found-father, hiding my tears against his shoulder. "It's perfect."
A second later, I felt his fingers running through my hair. I couldn't help but really sniffle then, even as it sent little frissons of tingles down my spine. It had been so long since someone comforted me this way. Or even touched my hair. Covid meant I hadn't gotten a haircut in more than a year, or seen anyone but the delivery men out my window. I'd taken hermit to a whole new level, and not even realized how lonely it was.
I cried.
Dwalin hummed something low and soothing. As he did, he began to work with more purpose, portioning out some of the hair just above the ear not against his chest, my right ear, and working in the braid. It must have been terribly intricate. We sat like that for what had to have been nearly twenty minutes before he went back to just running his fingers through my hair.
Eventually, I reached up to feel it, tracing the braid from where it began, just in front of my ear, back to the bead, just above my ear, and down to the end. It reminded me of a french braid, in that it stayed close to my scalp, but the pattern wasn't one I recognized. And, somehow, he'd managed to fasten it with just a tiny leather tie. I suspected the aid of some sort of beeswax.
I pulled away a bit, then leaned up to place a kiss on his cheek. "Thanks, Dad."
He just hummed, and brought our foreheads together gently for a moment. Then, quietly, "Thank you, Aria. My child."
I pulled back a little to meet his eyes. "Aris."
His eyes widened slightly, then, to my shock, began to tear up slightly. He brought our foreheads together again, hand comfortingly heavy on the back of my neck. "Aris Dwalindottïr. My daughter." And what sounded like a prayer in Khuzdul. Or at least something similarly reverent.
We sat like that for a long time.
"Come." Dwalin eventually broke the moment, pulling back. "Thorin will be wondering what took me so long."
I grinned and shook my head. "The two of you are inseparable. It's kind of cute."
He blinked, then spluttered, "Cute?"
I shrugged, still grinning, "Well yeah. You can be totally badass and still have a cute relationship."
He groaned and clapped a hand to his face. "Mahal help me."
"It's okay, Dad." I laughed, and patted him on the shoulder. "I won't judge you for preferring dwarrow over dwarrowdams."
"What?" He choked. "What gave you an idea like that?"
Now I was confused. I mean, I didn't figure him and Thorin were actually an item, but I wasn't expecting such a, well, dramatic response either. "Is that, not a thing? I mean, being attracted to the same gender?"
He looked absolutely bewildered for a moment, then his expression cleared. "I forget that you are from a world of only men. One that is bereft of magic." (and hadn't that been an interesting conversation) "The race of dwarves is not like men. We do not court and fall in love with whomever we choose. When Eru agreed to breathe life into Mahal's creation, it was under a number of conditions. One of those, was the existence of Ones. A dwarf, or dwarrowdam, can only court and marry their One, but not all dwarves have a One. And not all dwarves who have a One, find them. There is no preferring dwarrow or dwarrowdams, because to a dwarf, there is only their One."
I thought about that for a moment, trying to wrap my mind both around the concept, and around the fact that I got to know. Guess you really are a dwarf - dwarrowdam - now, Ar. Aris.
"I think I understand. Thank you for telling me. I'm sorry if I crossed a line." I ducked my head.
Dwalin reached out to tilt it back up with a hand under my chin. "Ones are sacred, and those that have them considered very blessed."
"How do you know?" I whispered.
"It is different for every dwarf, and impossible to know unless you meet your One. Men, I think, would just call it falling in love. But a dwarf is only capable of falling in love with their One."
"Has a dwarf ever had a One that wasn't another dwarf?"
"Very rarely," he murmured, "More rare than adoptions of non-dwarves into dwarven lines - non-dwarven foundlings. However, for those who do, it has always been a foundling."
There was something more he wanted to say, I could tell by the way he opened his mouth, then shut it again, but evidently he decided not to, leaving it at that.
"Thanks for explaining, Dad."
He nodded, then stood and reached out to help me up.
The next few days passed similarly. Training, eating, sleeping, bonding. The bonding usually happened in conjunction with some sort of training. The dwarf was, above all else, a soldier after all, and very worried about the looming peril his king and princes would be in, and now his daughter, determined to defend them. He almost was more stressed than Thorin, which is saying something. The King-in-Exile exudes stress, and often I could find him at the campfire at night, just sort of staring blankly at his nephews and clenching and unclenching his fists. One such night, the third after the braiding and only two before the map would be read, I left my father with a pat on his shoulder and a gesture to our brooding King, and made my way over to sit down next to him.
He didn't seem to notice me at first, so I nudged him gently with an elbow. "Hey."
He jerked, then turned to look at me, one eyebrow raised.
I smiled gently and shrugged, "You looked a bit lost in thought."
"I was." He nodded, and turned to watch his nephews again. For a moment, we sat in silence.
"I worry too. For them, for you, for father." He looked at me. "For how my presence and my telling you will change things, for how you and father will react to things I decide it would be detrimental to our quest and Middle Earth to change, for things I may try to change, but fail. For Bilbo."
Thorin raised his eyebrow again.
I gave a wry grin and a shrug, "The book is called, "The Hobbit" you know."
"What?" He looked so flabbergasted, I couldn't help but laugh.
"Yep. The other telling divides it into three parts. The first two are "An Unexpected Journey," and "The Desolation of Smaug."
He frowned. "And the third?"
"The Battle of Five Armies." I looked him in the eye.
"Five?" He whispered.
I nodded.
"Is that…?"
I nodded again.
With a great sigh, he leaned forward to scrub at his face with his hands.
I also sighed, and patted his back. So much for coming to cheer him up, Ar.
"But you said there are actions we can take to prevent it?" He muttered into his hands.
"Yes, I did. And there are. There is, of course, no way to make war completely without risk, that's what war is, it'll just be about deciding what risks to take."
He turned to look at me, but didn't sit back up. "Spoken like someone who knows something of war strategy."
"Only what I've read," I shrugged. "There is a lot of war in my world. In fact, there's always some sort of war going on. I found out just before I landed here that there was even a war this year, in spite of everything."
"In spite of everything?" This time, he did sit up.
"Part of why I'm so touch-starved is that I was more isolated this year than usual. Oh, I'm always a hermit," I waved off his questioning look, "It's just that generally I go to the market, or see my cousins, or something a couple of times a month, but this year I couldn't. The whole world was in and out of lockdown because of the virus."
"Virus?" Balin interrupted, and I glanced up to find that he and Dwalin had joined us. I shot my father a quick smile.
"A type of disease. This one got really out of control, like a plague? We call it a pandemic. It's airborne, so the only way not to get it was to completely isolate. They found that wearing a mask and staying some distance away from people worked pretty well, but I ended up in complete isolation." I shrugged, "I didn't want to risk getting anyone I knew sick by traveling to them, and the local market is an interesting place for me even during quiet years, so I figured it wasn't worth the risk. And I was already working from home mostly, so… Yeah." I looked up at them. "Don't worry though, I've been completely isolated for nearly three weeks, not even any deliveries, so it would be impossible for me to have it so I can't spread it here. If there was even the slightest chance," I frowned fiercely, "I would have made you leave me in the woods. Middle Earth's medicine would be totally unable to handle it, and the death rate would be unfathomable."
Balin tilted his head, "Even Elvish medicine?"
"I mean," I wavered, "I guess there's no way to predict, what with them having magic, but it really wouldn't be worth the risk to find out."
"I see." The sage old dwarf nodded.
"What do you mean," Dwalin eyed me, "About the market, and quiet years?"
Oh. Uhg. Thank you, brain to mouth filter. "The virus wasn't the only thing going wrong this year-"
"The virus and the war?" Thorin cut in.
"The virus and all its social and economic fallout, the war in Azerbaijan, all the fascist world leaders, the natural disasters, the political unrest." I scrubbed a hand down my face. "It's really been a mess."
All three dwarrow regarded me with varying expressions of horror, pity, and disbelief.
"Fascist?" I turned to find Ori, frowning over the unfamiliar word, his book and quill in hand. It looked like his sketchbook though, so he must have come over for a good view of the rest of the Company, only to overhear.
"It means a person or group that supports a belief in what we like to call ultranationalism, which is like pride in ones country taken so far to the extreme as to think that all other countries are nothing, trash, even inhuman or unworthy of freedom or even life. There are, of course, varying degrees. A facist government is often violent, super territorial, some sort of dictatorship or leaning in the dictatorial direction, very controlling of citizens' social lives, rights, careers, everything. Lots of forcible suppression of any opposition, whether that's simply different beliefs, or an all out rebellion or coup. These are leaders and governments that care nothing for their people."
"Then why are they leaders?"
Oh Ori. "Because there are a lot of bad people in the world with a lot of power. Unfortunately, good people often don't want power. Those are few and far between, and to be treasured. It's extremely difficult to be a good leader and a good person, while it is also extremely easy to be a bad leader and a good person, or a bad leader and a bad person. Leaders have to make a lot of tough choices about what is the lesser evil."
"Oh." Ori subsided a bit, and glanced uncertainly at Thorin.
I smiled and nodded. "That's why we're all so lucky to have Thorin."
Ori blushed, but nodded decisively.
"Aye," Balin murmured, and I turned to find his eyes twinkling. "Lucky indeed."
Dwalin just nodded.
The King in question also blushed, just a little, but sat up proudly, nodding warmly to each of the dwarrow, then clasping my shoulder and meeting my eyes, before drawing me into a hug. "Thank you."
I grinned and patted his back, "You are most welcome." One hundred percent misquoting Aragorn, but oh well.
