Chapter 1: Heritage
"You have to stop now," The older man frowned deeply at the girl who was currently making a mess of the cabin.
A wadded dress flew passed his head, followed by a single leather boot and then another dress. He ducked in time from getting hit by the second boot.
"Seriously, you need to stop." He stressed, rubbing his palm to his forehead to try and relieve the ache that was beginning to take place.
Untameable curls of wild raven hair were the only thing that let him know that it was his granddaughter who was currently wreaking havoc in the home and not his flighty daughter. Though this was new. Normally Rurìn was the essence of organized and calm but now she was disheveled and far beyond the contrary of calm.
"Rurìn!" He yelled, making her drop the bag she had dug out from the back of her wardrobe. Her shocking deep blue eyes which always felt like falling into an abyss of a roaring sea met his.
"Come now. What happened today?" He asked calmly. She was like a baby deer, easily spooked. "Did Joni say something?"
She gripped the frizzy ringlets in a tight fist, shaking her head.
"Then why..." He directed around her bedroom. "What gotten into you?"
Her lip quivered and then she just plopped down on the ground where she stood. Her face buried in her hands, shoulders heaving. He held his breath, and her sobs came silently. The only tell was her shaking and rubbing at her eyes repeatedly.
"Rurìn... My darlin, girl," He hobbled over to her on his cane and placed his withering hand upon her wicked hair.
It still got him sometimes that his daughter had copulated with a dwarf. His very human daughter went with a dwarf and his poor granddaughter had gotten hit with every dwarf gene apart from a beard. He was grateful for that at least. It was bad enough these blasted insane raven mop of curls for a head was stared at and the horrible relentless taunting she had to tolerate over the piercing gaze of eyes.
"What happened? Was it Perrie? Rowen? Was it the Pon brothers?" She never responded. Making him even more worried than before. What had happened to make her terribly heartbroken?
"My... My Da... Necklace..." She whimpered. "S-S'gone."
"Oh... Sweet child. Where did you last see it?" That makes sense why she's upset. It was the only thing she had of her fathers. The only thing to hold on to.
"I was in the market with Nana..." She sniffled. Good her tears were slowing down. "There was a cavern that was coming through. There... There were many... And I was... You know, curious..."
He pushed her mess of clothes off the bed and sat down. Patting his knee for her to climb up and sit. He pushed the frizzy mess away. He wished she had normal wavy hair. This was too much of a curse to even be considered beautiful but he loved her nonetheless. An abyss for hair or not. She was his little angel.
She got settled on his lap and sighed heavily. "Pops, I swore I had it when I went to the market with Nana. I never take it off..."
She was too young to understand she had been swiped in the market. Someone picked her and they were none the wiser about the meaning of that silver necklace.
Those piercing blue eyes tore into his soul, big, watery, and fresh tears were starting to fall.
"It's all I had left of him... Of my heritage."
Her pops went to fix her clothes, his fingers brushed down her frock. "What's this?"
He dug under the frock that was getting too small for her. Something shiny caught the light. When he pulled his old fingers out, he held the pendant up to the light. Her face broke out into a wide smile. He grinned down at her.
"Whoever took your necklace, child... Lost the most prized piece." He held it in his palm for her to take. "At least you still have your father's sigil. Your house name."
She held it in a tight fist, close to her chest. She vowed she would never lose it again.
Rurìn had learned over the years that people were cruel. Since the day she was twelve years old and some spineless jackass chose to pickpocket her. If it wasn't her hair, it was her soul-thieving eyes, it was her height, or perhaps her very bookish ways or her love for all things yarn and tea. Rurìn wasn't welcomed and it was made clear the very day her spinster mother returned to Hollin, unwedded and very pregnant. All she had to give her child was a silver necklace with a rune pendant that she never could grasp what it said, even years later, no one could read the dwarvish text.
Her mother liked to tell her she was a hidden-away princess... which was total poppycock because why would someone hide a princess?
Now at twenty-two, she really got the kick out of it. Her mother up and vanished completely from her life when she was sixteen. Her grandparents were the only ones who had been there to take care of her and then they died a few years ago. They had begged her to settle down, to marry a nice man but she couldn't settle. Not now, at least not here.
Hollïn was a town of men and she just couldn't fit there, not with her lineage, her bastard stamp. Everyone knew she was some bastard child of a savage dwarf who couldn't even do the honorable thing and marry her mother. Or take her in and raise her. He abandoned her just like her mother did.
Rurìn sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that day. On her horse, the cabin she grew up in was sold and all its belongings left her with a few sacks of gold coins tucked nicely under her clothes and the jewels sewn into the inside of her corset. She's learned to hide her valuables properly now. Her family sigil was treaded into a leather binding that always stayed on her wrist, hidden under her knitted fingerless gloves. Never again would someone steal her most treasured possession.
She looked back once more at the end of the path towards her old childhood home. Her grip tightened on the reigns.
"Come on, Raìn, we have a long journey ahead of us," She tapped her horse into a trot.
The damn thing was much too large for her but a pony would never make the journey she intended to do. At least, Raìn was trained to kneel for her to climb up on the saddle. The horse nagged softly and walked along, leaving Hollin far behind them. Where her past stayed behind her and her future before her. She was going to learn about her heritage. She was going to find her place in this world, and it wouldn't be with the race of men. Perhaps not even with her fellow dwarvish kin. It was somewhere and she would find it.
Rurìn's journey had started out rocky and it was not an easy experience. She was only grateful that she had begun using a bow as a child, so she didn't starve. Also grateful for her pops teaching her how to skin and gut those animals and how to dry her meat properly. And for her nana taught her how to forage for medicinal plants and how to take care of injuries.
She had been preparing for this journey long before she knew she would take it. Her grandparents made sure she could survive and for that, she was even more grateful to them.
The only thing she learned from her mother was how to use an axe and a bow. Teaching her to throw blades and build snares and nets. Her mother was hardly there but when she was, she had the grandest of stories of battles, long hunts, and all her travels from every corner of Middle Earth. Her grandparents didn't have the heart to take that away from her so when her mother was off traveling, her pops carved her some wooden swords and battled with her, letting her live her mother's stories.
He gifted her a short sword of her own, it was all he could afford for yule when she was seventeen and it never saw more than straw dummies and wooden surfaces but at least she could hold it for long periods of time.
Her second week on the road had caused her to use it on a wolf that tried to take a bite out of her in her sleep, she ultimately ended up learning how to sleep in a tree... Just to be safe.
Rurìn never kept Raìn tied up, he stayed close, and if he ran off in the night from danger, he always returned in the daylight or found her on the trek through the lands. He was a loyal friend and she would never part from him if she could help it. He was truthfully... Her only friend.
After a month on the road, through several cheap inns and many new bundles of yarn for socks because she was always getting her feet wet... She was now in the Dunlands. Wildmen scared her and she soon learned that perhaps she would be better off taking a less traveled road after she barely escaped being killed by three old scraggly men.
Maybe it was her younger agility and Raìn's hardy kicks that saved them. Killing a wolf was one thing but having to take not one but two human lives? Rurìn had learned that courage was not when to take a life but when to spare one.
She spent a long few weeks mourning her innocence before she stood taller and accepted that she had no choice... They intended to kill her.
The Misty Mountains were quite beautiful, and she enjoyed the journey through them, at least that was until she got too close to Moria. The chills were not thrilling and that lead her to really shoot for a hard and fast ride to get as far away from them as she could. Her luck would eventually run out at some point because her troubles on the road were extremely light compares to the stories she heard. Wolves and Wildmen were fine compared to Goblins, Orcs, or Wargs. That was something she wanted to keep far from as much as possible.
In a golden field full of poppies, Rurìn met her first ranger, Teragorn. He had been shocked to hear she had traveled for four months all on her own and encountered very little danger. He brought her to the ranger watch tower to rest for a few days before having her travel with him and a few of the other rangers to an elvish home for safety from the harsh winters.
He and his companions were the first humans who didn't treat her like scum on their boots. Even more so, the two Elvish twins who weren't bothered at all by her painfully staring at their pointy ears. They laughed it off, and tugged and joked all over her obnoxious curly hair. They were extremely nice and since the moment they met, they never left her side.
Elladan and Elrohir were jokers, loving, and playful and they never treated her differently for her size or her gender. They encouraged her to sword fight them, to train her for actual combat and not just fighting air. She enjoyed herself immensely with them. Under their wings, they swore to make a warrior out of her because apparently, she reminded them of their own little sister. She had courage, ambition and so much strength in her yet discovered. Or perhaps they just loved her expertise in making over-the-fire cakes that were always gooey and sweet, never dry, nor hard but perfectly moist.
Two months later and Rurìn found herself in Rivendell. The Elvish twins didn't once leave her side until they made sure she met Lord Elrond. They tracked down an elf maid to help her with a bath and to find her a new dress. The one she ended up with was meant for elflings. It was a bit tight but she made do while they washed up. When they returned, they took her to the kitchens for a warm meal before the twins brought her to their father's private study.
"Ada!" Elladan banged open their doors and Elrohir dragged in Rurìn by her hand, picking her up like she was just an old sack of feathers, and deposited her on a plushy chair.
Her mouth was wide open and her mind unable to catch up to what just happened.
"Elrohir..." The Elf man who looked not much older than the twins chided. He did not look pleased with his son's antics. He turned and smiled down at her. "I am Lord Elrond, who might you be?"
"R...Rurìn..." She said suddenly feeling extremely shy again.
She wasn't bold. It was surprising how fast she took to the twins given her poor people skills but that's not really her fault. She never got the chance to have good encounters before.
"Miss Rurìn, welcome to my home." He placed his hand on his chest and bowed his head to her.
She botched the Sindarin greeting that the twins taught her but Elrond's wide smile made it all the worth it for trying.
"Will you be staying here for the winter?" He asked, coming around the desk and holding a hand out to her to help her down from the tall chair that his son plopped her on so carelessly.
"If you, don't mind..." Her ears burned. "If-- If it's not a burden... I can pay! It's not much..." She word vomit in stutters and pauses and making herself turn red.
He chuckled and took both of her hands. "You need not worry about payment. You are welcome here as long as you wish to stay, Miss Rurìn. My home is a house of healing and reprieve. You are welcome to help around the place if you wish to do so. I am sure we can find you something to do--"
"She needs a tutor!" Elladan jumped in. "She has an aptitude for languages!"
"I do not..." She mumbled.
"You do," He insisted. "You think you are dreadful but truly you are adequately better than most."
"And she needs to keep up with her training," Elrohir pressed his palm to his brother's face. "But we can do that."
"Oh! And she needs new clothes! Those human fabrics reek. Not nearly enough blue or green." Elladan shook his head.
Rurìn didn't think she could get any redder. She didn't want to be a burden. This is too much...
"I think we should find her a good elvish blade too," Elrohir hummed.
Elrond rose an eyebrow at them. "Is that all?"
"No!" They shook their heads. "We'll think about it and make a list!" Elladan grinned.
"Come little Raven! Let us ruffle your feathers some more!" Elrohir picked her up like a child once more making her squeak and tossing her around his back like she was nothing.
She clung to him, scared to fall and get hurt. Green mother knows she would get hurt in this dress...
"Elrohir..." Elrond frowned at him. "She is not a child. She's a young woman. Put her back down."
"No." He said and jumped up so he could place her higher. "Let's go find you a nice elvish-made blade. It will be lighter and more suitable for your stature. You'll last longer in battle too!"
If you could put thumbs on a golden retriever, Elrohir would be it.