Coming Of Age – Chapter 2

The twins arrived at the Palace in Erebor well before the ceremony was to start. Stepping in with the others, they were shown to the Great Halls where the ceremony was held. It consisted mainly of King Thrain making a grand speech, about how important it was for all dwarves to come together to serve their Kingdom within their capacity. For the males, when the time comes, they were expected to take up arms to protect their King, and the land of Erebor and Dale. To the women, they were expected to wed and bear children, to carry on the line of their family. And carry on Dwarf line for many years to come.

Lee looked about her in the Halls and saw to her dismay that there were not many females compared to the males milling about and they were casting expectant looks at the single young females about them as well.

"Sheep in the market." She muttered with dismay. "I certainly have no wish to wed one of these foolish men about the Halls and birth one of their foolish children."

Jora stared at her, "Oh, I presumed you'd want to wed the great Prince himself." He teased her.

She elbowed him hard into his chest, "No Jor! You know I have no desire to wed at all! I want to have the grandest adventure!"

He rubbed at the sore part as he snorted at her, "The only grandest adventure you'll ever have is to the help father with his metal making, Lee."

She gave him a resigned look, "Jora, I wish you'd stop dashing my dreams."

They began to walk about them as they moved to an assigned area for them.

Soon three guards came forward to announce the arrival of the Royal family.

King Thrain and the two Princes came forth and sat down on the dais as the citizens of Dale bowed in reverence to receive them.

King Thrain nodded and began his usual and expected speech as Lee tuned him out as she stared in space.

She was not interested in marrying or bearing children. She wished she was a man where he had more freedom; she knew that if a male dwarf had no desire to wed, it was his choice to live a single life for the rest of his life.

He could come and go as he wished.

But no so much for a female. She was under her father's protection until she is of age. So, now Lee is no longer her father's responsibility.

She felt Jora nudging her, "Lee! Will you pay attention?"

She glanced over to her twin and nodded, "I am but it's so boring!"

Jora shook his head.

Luckily the speech came to an end and everyone began to make their way to the Dining Hall where a great feast was to be served.

JoraLee nudged his sister again after a while later, "Don't look to your left but your 'favorite gaggle of friends' are behind us." He used the quotation signs with his fingers, indicating that they were not their actual friends.

Of course she had to look. And regretted that she did as the group he mentioned was actually no friends of theirs. They were a group of dwarves that belonged to a wealthy family. They were a set of proud people and thought smithers and crafters were much beneath them.

"Oh great, Shia Cimbolli and posse." Her brother grinned at her.

Luckily for the twins, a guard came and summoned the twins to their Uncle's private quarters. The guard did a double take as he stared hard at them; it had always been that way for the twins; everybody had always stared at them because they were exactly alike; even their hair! It was as if one was looking at a mirror! The only thing that set them apart was their remarkable eyes; ThoraLee's one green eye was on her left and one amber eye on her right. JoraLee's one green eye was on his left and amber one was on his right. It was the only feature that set them apart.

As soon as they met their uncle, the twins eagerly hugged him; they had not seen him for quite some time.

"Uncle, it had been a long time since you last visited us," ThoraLee remonstrated her uncle teasingly.

He shook his head, "I know, and look how grown up and beautiful you've become. That is a very pretty dress. I am glad my brother had gotten you to dress up like a lady. You are too pretty to wear breeches and look like a boy, no offense Jora." He looked at his nephew.

JoraLee shook his head.

"Father sends his love and he said that you have something of us?" She tried to bat her eyes shyly at her uncle.

He watched her a bit before laughing indulgently, "You little minx! You know he didn't say that, you just want your present and are just too polite to say so, is that right?" Wagging his forefinger at her.

Hanging her head down in shame, she nodded.

"Greedy." JoraLee muttered.

ThoraLee shot him a look, her brother shrugged his shoulder.

Crimm stood up and went to his cabinet and opened it, and pulled something out. He grabbed two small bags out and turned to them.

He handed a dark blue bag to ThoraLee and a red one to JoraLee and said, "Happy Birthing year to the two of you."

ThoraLee opened the bag and reached in and pulled it out and exclaimed; it was a ring. Not just a ring, it was made of a heavy metal called Mithril, intricately carved. In the center of the ring lay a stone, a beautiful round gemstone cut and polished till it was flawless. It was greenish in color that matched the green in their one eye each of the twins.; a very unusual gemstone.

JoraLee's ring was the same but bigger, almost twice the size as hers. When they put it on their forefinger on their right hand, it fit perfectly.

"Oh, Uncle! This is beautiful…but what is it called?" ThoraLee exclaimed, tears of gratitude slipped from her eyes as she put her arms around her uncle and hugged him tightly.

Her uncle returned her embraced tightly, a bit of tears leaked out as well, "I'm glad you like it, Lee, my dear. It's a very rare gemstone, a green diamond, found deep in the Blue Mountains a while back. It broke in two, so I had it made into two rings for the two of you, the metal is called Mithril, it is a very rare metal. I hope you'll treasure it forever."

It was an understatement for a Dwarf to not appreciate fine gemstone. Especially such a rare diamond. JoraLee, who knew the rarity of such gemstone, would be the envy of Dale. He was glad the ring fitted so perfectly on his finger, he would hate to lose such a fine piece.

"Now, off you two go, enjoy your feast. I'm sure you're hungry. Go, go…" He made to shoo them off.

Hugging him once more, the twins left his chambers and headed back to the Halls where the second part of the ceremony had begun.

The handful of maidens were 'hustled' to one side of the Great Hall, Lee tried hard not to roll her eyes as she moved along with the others who were busy talking and giggling, in eager anticipation of meeting the great Prince up close, they began to constantly swish and flick their hair. No guessing there that their purpose were to try to catch the attention of Thorin. She caught a glimpse of the prince herself who stood by the King with proud air about himself. He had refused to look at any of them throughout the speech, as if it had bored him.

Lee was incensed; what an ass. No, I take that back, a donkey had better manners than he! She had seen the look Thorin had his father was giving his speech. It was a very haughty expression and she thought it was too much for her to bear!

She had a good mind to give him a piece of her mind!

It was getting warm in the Hall, and the dress she had worn was quite uncomfortable as it was very high necked and she had worn a shift within the dress for fear that the dress was too thin; now it was too much! She wished she had stayed at her Uncle's chamber and removed her shift!

"ThoraLee, well imagine seeing you here." The young lady, Shia, greeted her.

Lee turned to greet her, "Shia, how nice to see you too. How are you?"

Shia smiled, "Oh, very well. Sold any little swords lately?" She giggled meanly as she turned to her friends who laughed.

Lee glared at them; growing up, Shia and her little clique of well-to-do friends had always showed her up with their wealth. Shia had never needed to work her entire life.

Lee had learned to ignore their petty jibes. "Plenty, Shia, plenty." She tried to move away from them but Shia and her friends had surrounded her, prevented her from escaping. Lee couldn't believe she was so bold as to try to bully her here in the Halls!

"That's a pretty dress you're wearing, I'm surprised your father was able to afford the material to make it." Shia said. Again, her friends giggled. She didn't like anyone looking better than her; her dress was pretty too but not as pretty as ThoraLee's. She added, "I bet it cost him a whole year's wages to afford the material." Her friends laughed more.

Of course it was not in our friend's nature to hold her tongue for long;

With a shrug, she muttered lightly, "If you'd loosen a few stones, you might fit into your dress better."

Shia's eyes bulged wide opened, "WHAT DID YOU SAY?" Her friends gasped in disbelief.

ThoraLee shrugged, "You heard me."

The next thing was something beyond anyone's guess.

It was at this moment when Thorin, Frerin, and a couple of Thorin's cousins, approaching them as was required of him acquaint himself with the young dwarves of Dale... So far, none made any impression. His cousins Balin and Dwalin were ogling at a few females and had kept nudging at Thorin's side much to his annoyance when they heard a commotion further down the hall. Thorin leaned forward, trying to see, his cousins did the same.

The few maidens had moved away from the commotion; they had not wanted anything to do with what was going on.

Soon the commotion grew louder.

"GET OFF ME, YOU FAT COW!" The male dwarves had gathered around the two main shouting females.

Thorin and Balin exchanged a surprised look and began to hurry down, the mingling forgotten. The maidens were in tears, as their expectations dashed; Thorin had totally ignored them!

"YOU ARE STEPPING ON MY DRESS YOU STICK WRENCH!"

There were more gasps around them.

"What is going on?" Thorin shouted as he tried to wade through the gathering crowd. As soon as they heard his voice, they quickly parted, until he reached the source of the commotion.

JoraLee who had heard the loud noise, and dreaded the source also quickly followed them. He knew as soon as he saw earlier Shia making a beeline for his sister that nothing good was coming out of it. As it turned out he was right on target.

As Thorin bent down to pick up a squirming body, Balin did likewise to the other person.

Thorin held Lee at bay despite the fact that she was still trying to push him to get to Shia. "Hold still, woman!" He tried to stop them.

Balin was having as much difficulty holding off Shia who was growling at Lee, "She called me FAT!"

Thorin turned his head slowly to look at Shia and tried hard to not laugh.

Balin shook his head as he was beginning to turn a shade of red; he too was trying hard not to laugh as well.

"All I said was if you lose a few stones. It could mean anything." Lee tried to sound rhetoric.

Thorin arched his eyebrow at her, finding her interesting, Balin caught his friend gaze.

"Which is just the same as calling me fat, wait till I tell my father. He's going to tell the others to stop buying those shoddy metals your father passes as swords!"

All Lee saw was red as her hand was balled into a fist and she reared back fast but her quick action caught Thorin in surprise as her sharp bony knuckles connected his eye in lightning flash as she swung forward and punched Shia on the side of her head, knocking her out cold.

Two things happened at the same time; the first was the crowd had fallen into complete silence and Shia crumpled to the floor immediately.

And of course, Lee's fist hurt as though she went a couple of round with an orc, that she believed she had broken some bones as it began to swell as she cradled it with her other hand.

It was then she realized that everyone was staring wide-eyed at her and it was as quiet as a tomb. She looked about her and paled when she saw what she had done.

Thorin had covered his one part of his face with one hand and she could see he was in great pain.

Frerin was holding his brother with concern, "Thorin, are you all right?" He looked from him to Lee.

"YOU!" Frerin shouted at her. "You just hit the Prince!"

A jointed loud gasped sounded out across the room as everyone began pointing at her.

Lee was shaking her head, "But…but it was a mistake! I didn't mean to hit him! I…he was standing too close." She tried to reason. In fact she tried to remember when she had hit him, and for the life of her, she couldn't remember.

By this time, JoraLee had joined her, standing beside her.

Thorin, who had been glaring at her, looked at JoraLee suddenly, shook his head, blinked his eye a couple of times began to mumble.

Frerin and Balin, looking at him oddly, "What did you say?"

Thorin muttered, "She must have hit me harder than I thought, I'm seeing double!"

The twins exchanged worried looks. By this time also, their uncle who had heard about the incident had come out and came behind them, "You two come with me, quick."

Startled, they let their uncle dragged them from the melee.

The crowd had dispersed by then. The guards had helped Shia up and her friends came to collect her and helped her to a table that was set up for the feast.

Thorin who was staring at Balin turned to look for Lee suddenly realized that they were gone, shook his head, "I think I need to lie down. She must have packed a good one on me." He was still holding his left face.

"Before you go to your chambers, go to the doctor; let him look at your face."

"I'm fine, Frerin." Thorin assure his brother even though his left eye began to throb."

Not convinced, Balin said, "Let me see where she hit you."

Reluctantly, Thorin lowered his hand slightly; he had turned away from other prying looks.

Balin's and Frerin's eyes widened as they exclaimed, "Good gracious, she really put a good one on you!"

Thorin's left eye was swollen shut, a shade of dark purple was beginning to develop.

Added Balin who was trying not to laugh, "You had better put something on it, or you're going to look very pretty tomorrow."

"Oh, stuff it both of you!" Thorin pushed at the two men and stomped away to his quarters.

….

"Crimm!" Thorin called for his valet from his quarters.

No answer.

"Crimm! Where the devil did you go?" He went in search in the halls and approached his valet quarters.

Slamming the doors opened, he entered the chambers in a foul mood, his swollen eye was really bothering him a lot now. It was throbbing painfully.

Looking around, he was shocked to see the very young female in Crimm's quarters!

"YOU!"

Lee was staring wide-eyed at him; she was holding something in front of her.

"What are you doing here? Do you know whose chambers you're in?"

ThoraLee nodded.

Thorin moved closer into the room as he stared angrily at her, the more she stayed silent, the angrier he became.

"Are you going to answer me? What are you doing here?" Then she moved slightly, trying to take a step from him. A glint sparked from the diamond ring caught Thorin's eye. He stared at it for a moment and recognized the piece of jewelry.

"That ring! I recognize that ring. Where did you get that ring?" Then he looked around the room and began to think and tried to make some sense and thought he figured it out which made angered him more.

He glared at her, "I figured you out now, you tried to use the ceremony to get in here. You're a thief and a burglar."

ThoraLee shook her head and tried to open her mouth to speak but Thorin shut her down.

"I'm not done yet, thief!" He yelled at her. "While everyone is feasting you use some kind of ruse and get into a fight, then while everyone was diverted you stole in here and burgled my valet's possession. The only thing I cannot figure it out is that how did you know he was in possession of that ring? Did you know he has another one identical to that?"

She nodded.

Thorin smiled but it didn't reach his eyes, "Of course, beautiful as you are, you must have used you feminine charms on an old man. How disgusting you are!" He spat it out.

It was then he saw her state of partial undress and began to sneer at her.

"I see, I was right about your unscrupulous behaviour. You use your body. You sold yourselves. For what, a few pieces of baubles. What? You can't find young men your age to cast your feminine wiles, you had to take advantages of older men who are twice your age? How low can you get?"

ThoraLee's eyes were big as saucers as she was shaking her head. Thorin had walked up close to her by then and grabbed the sheet from her and saw that she was wearing a thin white shift which was what she wore underneath her dress.

Thorin could see her full chest heaving up and down, the thin material thinly veiled the dusky areola of her nipples. She tried to cover them with her hands as her shame and anger slowly built within her.

Never had she been so insulted in her life. What he had said about her and her beloved uncle had disgusted her to the core. It shocked her that he could throw that kind of insults at her. It was obvious he didn't know of her relationship to Crimm. She was not about to correct that arrogant fool. Prince or not, he was an arrogant pig. Good luck to whoever ended up marrying him!

Something changed in Thorin's good eye as he continued to stare at her. He was mesmerized by the changes in hers. The swirling green in her left eye and amber in her right was drowning him as he leaned into her and before he realized what he was doing he kissed her.

ThoraLee was once again shocked! She had never been kissed by a man in her life. She didn't know what to do but he was scaring her to death! And instinctively and defensively she reacted the only way she knew by raising one knee quickly and it connected hard to his private parts between his legs.

Thorin feeling a burst of piercing sharp pain in his loins was rendered incapacitated. He was brought to his knees at once as he crouched in front of her, speechless. She pushed him off of her hard, so that as he landed on the bare floor, he hit the back of his head hard on the metal chest that belonged to Crimm's.

Thorin was knocked out cold.

Just as he fell, Crimm and JoraLee who had gone to the Royal Kitchen to fetch some poultice for ThoraLee's injured hand and to the seamstress came back just in time.

Crimm had taken her dress to be repaired; Shia had torn the dress during the scuffle. The tear was in the front of the bodice. Luckily she was wearing her shift and it covered her modesty.

JoraLee, who knew his way to the Kitchen where the doctor could be found imbibing some ale, was dispatched to get some soothing poultice.

When they returned to their uncle's quarters, they had just saw Thorin tumbled to the ground his hand clutching his groin.

"What on earth happened here?" Crimm looked from Thorin to his niece and back again before putting her dress aside and bent down to him.

ThoraLee quickly explained to them what had transpired.

JoraLee was laughing so hard by then he was holding his midsection.

Crimm was shaking his head, "What am I going to do with you, Thora?'

"Well, nothing, I should hope. I mean he attacked me…he put his disgusting lips on mine."

Crimm momentarily distracted by her explanations and realized what Thorin was trying to do, didn't know if he wanted to laugh or beat the Prince when he wakes up for trying to assault his niece. Then again; why did Thorin kissed ThoraLee?

"He was not attacking you, lass, he was kissing you," he explained.

"Kissing!" She practically shouted.

JoraLee was now laughing even louder.

ThoraLee bent down and picked up one of her uncle's shoe and flung it at her brother and it connected his head.

"Ow!" He was rubbing his right temple as he glared at her. "That really hurt!"

"Serve you right for laughing at me, moron."

"I'd better go fetch his brother…" Crimm said, shaking his head.

JoraLee moving to the door, away from her, "No, Uncle, let me. You had better stay here. There had to be a middle person for these two." He quickly turned and left the room.

As she buttoned the last button of her dress, she looked down and saw that the seamstress had done a very good job, you could barely see the tear. The thread was a perfect match to the color of the dress.

"Oooh…" There was a loud moan from the ground where Thorin was lying.

….

End of Chapter 2

Hoped you enjoy this chapter, please if you have the time, send a review here, it would be much appreciated, let me know how you feel about this story. I am up for opinions, suggestions, questions, anything!

Thank you.