Chapter 10: Marilla's Choice
Sneaking through the halls of the Woodland Realm, clearly prepared for travel, played on Marilla's nerves. Every odd sound: water dripping or even the echoes of her own footfalls, made her jump, looking for some shocked Elf staring at her before running for a guard.
She passed the door to the kitchens she'd reported to like clockwork. She passed entryways to cellars and storerooms she knew so well she could navigate them with her eyes closed. Her eyes caught on carvings here and there that she'd admired or wanted to touch up for as long as she could remember.
She'd been out into the forest with her mother many times, but she'd never been outside of King Thranduil's borders. She couldn't tell if the feeling that thought invoked was excitement or fear. Maybe it was both.
As Marilla approached the dungeons, she heard stifled voices below. She inched closer until she would be able to tell whether it was Dwarves' voices, or Bilbo's, or the Elf guards.
"Hush, there are guards nearby!" the Hobbit's voice said. She could hear keys clinking. It seemed she was only just in time.
Marilla took the stairs as quickly as she could without making much noise. A very short person with large, hairy feet came around a corner and looked up the stairs at her.
"Oh, so you did come!" the small man said in Bilbo's voice. Marilla blinked in surprise at the sight of him. Before she could say anything, the one they had called Kíli had joined Bilbo at the foot of the stairs.
Bilbo motioned for Marilla to join them. While she descended the steep steps, Bilbo wrestled a key off the large key ring, then handed the rest to the dark-haired Dwarf beside him.
"Here, you let them out," Bilbo told Kíli. "She'll want to talk to Thorin."
"I'm sure she does," the young Dwarf said with a cheeky grin. Marilla glared at him, but it only made him grin more.
"Shut up, Kíli," Marilla heard an annoyed voice say from one of the cells.
"Yes, please shut up," Marilla heard another voice say. She peered in the direction of the speaker and saw a glowering, muscular Dwarf with long dark hair and a bald crown.
"Come down and meet us when everyone's out," Bilbo told the Dwarves.
"But we need to go up to get out of the dungeons!" Kíli protested.
"Trust me, we're going down," Bilbo insisted. He grabbed Marilla's sleeve and pulled her behind him, down to the next landing where Thorin was kept alone.
(~ooo~)
Thorin paced his cell, the energy of the escape beginning to build in his blood as he heard Bilbo and his company speaking and moving above him. The noises from the upper landing were indistinct, for the most part.
"Shut up, Kíli," he heard Gloin say. Dwalin's recognizable voice said something he couldn't quite catch – but he could imagine what it was. Thorin chuckled despite himself.
A few minutes later Bilbo appeared at the door of Thorin's cell without a sound.
"Where –" Thorin began to ask, but then he saw her. Marilla appeared at Bilbo's shoulder as noiselessly as the 'burglar' had been.
"You're coming with us, then?" Thorin asked her as Bilbo began dealing with the lock.
"I …" she said. She looked so confused to Thorin. It made his heart clench to see a Dwarf lady looking so lost.
"You belong with us, Marilla," Thorin reassured her. He glanced up as a chorus of shuffles and thumps echoed above them.
"Of course she does!" Kíli called down. Marilla glanced back at them nervously.
"My mother is going to Rivendell tonight," she said, searching Thorin's eyes as the Dwarves began congregating on the landing behind her.
"Your mother is here, too? Why are there Dwarf women in Mirkwood? Why would she go to Rivendell?" Ori asked, looking perplexed.
Marilla swallowed hard. Bilbo tugged at her shirt sleeve; she looked down at him and he nodded at her. She took a breath and let it out, then turned to face the pack of curious Dwarves watching her: curiously, respectfully.
"My mother isn't a Dwarf, she's an Elf," Marilla told them.
Thorin watched her face as she watched his company's reactions. He thought it looked as though he was watching a bruise form on her heart. He glanced at his people. Their faces ranged from confused and shocked to disgusted. Dwalin and Gloin looked like they'd just swallowed vinegar. Kíli looked strangely excited, which was worrying, but his brother looked alarmed. Bofur, Bombur, and Ori looked dumbfounded. Oin smacked his palm against his hearing horn, certain he hadn't heard correctly.
"Come with us," Thorin repeated. Marilla returned a small frown. His company turned their faces towards him, stunned. He faced them.
"Marilla has lived for as long as she can remember with the Elves, who have shunned and abused her not for something she did, but for what her parents did. She didn't choose this. She's more like us than them – look at her. I've spoken with her. She knows the stone of this mountain the way only a Dwarf can.
"The Elves had their chance to show their true colors. They think themselves superior to all others on Middle Earth, but how have they behaved? They have been petty and ungenerous. We know they are without honor – so does Marilla. If they refuse to be her people, then let her be ours. She has shown loyalty to us as her kin, risking the wrath of King Thranduil to drug his guards so that we might escape. This she did even though she was unsure that she wished to join us. She knows what it's like to languish somewhere that never becomes home, just as we have. Let us all look for a new home together now."
Bilbo was nodding back at him in approval. Balin looked thoughtful and sad.
"That pin there, where did you get that?" Balin asked Marilla.
Her fingers flew to the large copper pin on her tunic. Thorin hadn't noticed it before. His eyes grew wide and he looked back at his company, who were beginning to soften.
"My mother said my father, my Adad, left it for me when he died. It was my grandmother's. He left this too, it has my special name in Khuzdul," she said, pulling a bit of tanned deer skin out of her pocket.
Bofur, who was standing closest to her, placed his hand over hers before she could unfold it. "You keep that to yourself," he told her kindly. "But I'm sure one of us could help you read it someday, if you don't know what it says."
"I know what it says," Marilla bristled a little. "I think," she added doubtfully.
"Do you… shave your face?" Ori asked cautiously.
Marilla shrugged, feeling uncomfortable under all their eyes. "I had to," she muttered.
"They've taken so much from you," Ori commented, shaking his head unhappily.
A few murmurs echoed through the company. Many faces had softened, their eyes growing sad. Dwalin shot Thorin a sideways glance that Thorin understood, for he'd felt the same outrage when he'd first met Marilla and heard how she'd been forced to deny her Dwarven heritage.
Bilbo patted her arm. "See?" he said quietly. But Thorin thought Marilla still looked uncomfortable. Suddenly she whipped her head upwards, staring at the landing above them urgently.
"We need to go. We can't linger here," she whispered.
"You can hear like they can?" Ori asked. Thorin could tell their recordkeeper was getting curious. Marilla nodded.
"Let's go," she said. She began padding down the stairs quietly, leading the company down into the cellar below the dungeons.
"Can we trust her?" Dwalin muttered in Thorin's ear.
Bilbo glared at him. "The guards are fast asleep, I checked. She's risked more than anyone to get you out," he hissed. Thorin made a gesture of agreement towards Bilbo and followed Marilla down the stairs.
At the bottom, he saw her glance at the guards as she passed them, then let out a sigh of relief. They were out cold, their faces pressed against the table awkwardly. She made her way to a large stack of empty barrels lined up on their sides in the middle of the cellar floor.
"Climb in," she told the Dwarves. They began murmuring in protest.
Thorin looked her in the eye. "Are you coming with us?" he asked her.
Marilla squared her jaw, looking a bit defiant. "I don't think I am," she replied, looking at the Dwarves' faces.
"I think I've enjoyed the pity of a King long enough. I'll take my chances with Lord Elrond. Perhaps another half-Elf will understand," she said proudly.
A flame of triumphant affection roared in Thorin's chest. "You are right, not to accept the pity of a King again," he told her.
Marilla shot him a look that was at once wounded and fierce. He reveled in the resilience of this woman! If there was ever a lady to help rebuild Erebor…
"But you do not have my pity," Thorin assured her, his voice full of all the conviction he felt. "You have my regard."
Marilla's face shifted from defensive to wary. She looked at the other Dwarves, who were all watching her a bit sadly.
"Do you know what that pin means, lass?" Balin asked, pointing to the copper ornament they'd noticed before. She shook her head, a small frown still on her face.
"That's a mother's pin," Bofur said. "They're passed down from mothers to their eldest daughter, or the eldest daughter in their family if they don't have one of their own. Yours looks like it was made a long time ago – that's not a modern design. You come from a family that was once rich with daughters. If your father had it, it means the line of women in his family failed. You were the first girl born in generations."
The company murmured in agreement.
"What does that mean?" Bilbo asked.
"It means she's very special indeed. A Nâthu inr - a daughter of renewal. It's proper that your father named you after a very precious gem," Ori chimed in.
Thorin felt something soft and warm beating in his chest as he watched Marilla's face as she listened. It seemed she couldn't believe what they were saying. Her? Precious?
"Do you know how a pearl is formed, lass?" Balin offered. Marilla shook her head, eyes wide. "A grain of sand gets into an oyster. It irritates the oyster. It hates that bit of sand. So it covers it with a layer of its own shell, then another, and another. By the time it's found, that annoying little piece of grit has become one of the rarest gems in the world. Do you know that in Gondor pearls are reserved for the ruling family alone?"
Marilla looked around the room at a dozen Dwarven faces nodding in respect and smiling at her. Thorin was pleased that even Dwalin was nodding, although he didn't uncross his arms.
She looked at Thorin. "My mother said that I should only go with you if you can promise that you'll protect me like one of your own ladies."
Thorin nodded seriously and without hesitation. "Your mother is wise, at least sometimes. I'm glad she is still trying to look out for you. I give you my word. I will defend you just as I would any Dwarf woman who needed it. You are one of ours now."
"Yes, me too," Kíli agreed enthusiastically. A chorus of 'ayes' echoed around the small cellar.
"Shhhh, the guards are right there," Bilbo said crossly.
Marilla looked overwhelmed to Thorin. "He's right," she agreed with Bilbo. "We've already wasted too much time. Get into the barrels, all of you."
The protests began again. The mighty Dwarves of the line of Durin whined and pleaded at Marilla beseechingly. Now they really were treating her like one of their own women, Thorin noticed with amusement.
Bilbo gestured at Thorin in consternation. "This part was my idea, by the way," he sniffed.
"Do as they say," Thorin commanded his company. They began climbing into the barrels, grumbling all the way. Marilla helped Bilbo into a barrel – it sounded like they were arguing about a lever to Thorin.
Thorin paused before he climbed in. Behind the barrels, where no one could see it, he squeezed her hand and nodded at her.
"But my mother," she whispered.
"She'll be waiting for you in Rivendell, whenever you want to go see her," he replied softly. "Come, fight with us to see our homeland returned to us. Make it your own."
Marilla smiled at him,then looked back towards the stairs in alarm. "There's no time," she hissed urgently. "Get in, Thorin!"
Thorin climbed into the barrel and looked back at her, standing strong and ready to help them no matter the cost. A flash like forge embers lit up her deep, brown eyes. He hoped she would come with them. She belonged with them. He hoped it for himself, too. He wanted to know this lady; this Pearl of Mirkwood.
Marilla pulled a lever, and the barrel Thorin was in began to roll. In a nauseating spin, he felt himself slide down and to the side, then drop into a dark, echoing cavern.
(~ooo~)
Just as the barrels fell, Tauriel arrived, alone, looking like she was ready to pounce on someone. When she saw Marilla she stopped short. The Elf glanced at the trap door, still open to the pit below.
Marilla gasped in fear. Tauriel glanced over at the guards, who still did not wake through all this commotion. Marilla followed her gaze, feeling guilty. She'd been so relieved when she saw them still breathing. She'd been worried about the dosage she'd added to the wine all day. She'd figured they might only finish one glass each before it started to work, so she'd added a lot.
"What did you do?" Tauriel hissed.
Marilla's eyes darted to the hole in the floor, and the keys that lay splayed on the ground. Tauriel shook her head in disbelief.
"You talked with Kíli a lot, didn't you? They have to go. Thranduil doesn't have any legitimate reason to keep them other than his own spite," Marilla said, carefully modulating her voice.
It was tempting to let her defiance and passion rise in a hot blaze. But this was a delicate situation with Tauriel now. Marilla wouldn't make it to Imladris or Erebor if she was captured this minute and ended up in Thranduil's dungeon instead.
"Thranduil? Not the King?" Tauriel said, surprised by this familiarity.
"He's not my King anymore," Marilla said. She felt it was true, just as the sky was blue and fire was hot.
She wished she could give a speech as passionate as the one Thorin had given, declaring her separation from this Woodland Realm forever. But this would not help her, and it would not help the Dwarves. They'd never escape if the guards were this close behind them. Tauriel had been sympathetic so far. Marilla considered her options. If she didn't burn this bridge for her own self-satisfaction, perhaps she could buy them some time.
"Let me go," she asked of Tauriel, looking the Captain in the eyes and nodding solemnly.
The Elf looked after the Dwarves. A soft, fleeting look crossed over her face. Marilla knew that look. She'd spent long decades honing her ability to tell which Elves might offer some small kindness out of Thranduil's sight out of sympathy or guilt.
"You know it's right, Tauriel. Let us go," Marilla reasoned calmly.
Tauriel shook her head once, then looked Marilla in the eye, a frown wrinkling her brow.
"I'll circle back around. You can't be here when I return," the Elf said, then turned swiftly and left.
Marilla stood in the sudden quiet of the cellar. She glanced back where she'd come from, where her mother was waiting for her before fleeing to Imladris. In the murky cave beneath her feet she could hear the sounds of the Dwarves splashing and calling to each other. Her heart beat loudly in her ears. She closed her eyes, and breathed, and opened them again. She looked into the opening beneath her feet. And she leapt.
(~ooo~)
Notes:
Thank you very much for reading! Your comments and kudos are always appreciated and never expected. If you liked it and you care to share, I'd love to hear what stood out to you. You tell me - do you want to know what happens next?