Chapter 8

"Maybe all the people who say ghosts don't exist are just afraid to admit they do." - Michael Ende

Her palms stung with nervous energy. There's no reason she should be nervous, she's spoken to Thorin before but somehow, this morning feels different. She wasn't there yesterday, at all. Her corner stood empty all day Sunday because of the errands she had to do. And now, wearing the dress Valis made her, she felt nervous.

What if he isn't there?

She had so much nervous, anxious energy she made more cookies than she planned to this morning. It was supposed to be comfort food for the girls after last night. Half way through she decided the eight extra would go to Thorin.

Erdene rounded the corner to the steady thrum of bodies on this early Monday morning. Lots of humans today, not as many dwarves. She never saw elves in the city, but that was probably by design. Elves seemed like the kind who stuck to their own. Arwen marrying Aragorn was probably far, far outside the norm. Halflings were few and far between as well. She'd seen two hobbits or hobbit-like people her first month in Arda. Then never again.

The autumn cool was setting in quickly now, with trees having shed all their leaves and the crunch of said leaves underfoot. The streets were lined with small, windswept piles. Alisa told her this morning there would be snow soon enough. It always came before the end of October, which was at most, four and a half weeks away. The seasons were different here with winter beginning so early.

Zarin told her yesterday the new boots, wool lined and leather would be ready before the snow began to fall. Then she thrust a pair of low heeled slippers at Erdene, stating they were not exactly her size but they would be better and safer than walking around in linen slippers stuffed with cloth. She also muttered something about not dying in the rains when they come. On Earth they could have been a loafer with a low heel. Erdene left a deposit and added a little more for the shoes.

They were a soft deep cedar brown, only a little bit larger than her feet and lined with thin tan fur. The chill she had felt in the old slippers was gone. The wool dress and her under garments held out against the cool air. She'd probably need something thicker come deep winter but this was good for now. The cloak was the only thing the same.

Walk and breathe Ery.

Several people said good morning to her. She smiled brightly at familiar faces returning their good morning with one of her own. Everyone seemed so pleased to see her.

Once she was standing on her box, violin in one hand, bow in the other people slowed around her. She smiled at those who usually stopped for part of a song. Fatboy Slim's Demons. It made her nostalgic for Sense8. Kavinsky's NightCall. Christian Kane's Spirit Boy. The last one was more difficult, she had to pluck the strings and stomp her foot and make up for the lack of guitar by humming. Tori Amos' A Sort of Fairytale.

Just like normal at noon she broke for lunch. The day was cooler, more overcast than it had been in days. There was a lot of silver sparkling in her purse today.

Okay. Here goes nothing.

The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. That's usually true. With men. But Thorin isn't a human being, he's a dwarf. The little package of her mother's cinnamon oatmeal cookies (with a slightly modified recipe) might go over like a damn lead balloon. She had no idea what his customs were.

Breathe. The worst he can do is say he doesn't like cookies. Or that he can't take them. Or that-

Anxiety made her palms sting. There was no turning around now. She was already standing in one of the arches of the blacksmith's shop.

"Miss Erdene." The blacksmith, whose name she never actually learned, mispronounced her name (Er-den). "Good afternoon. I don't think you've stopped in since you took the corner from that lout."

And now this guy put her on the spot. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool.

Breathe.

"My fault," she said with her sweetest (if entirely fake) smile, "you'd think I was raised in a barn, where are my manners?"

He smiled back at her. "A new dress?"

Her fingers touched the embroidered hem of her sleeves for grounding. "Better than hand-me-downs." She caught movement from her right eye. A dark blue, almost blue-black linen shirt today. She opened her mouth to bid him a good day when the blacksmith asked:

"I've been meaning to ask, Miss Erdene."

Thorin witnessed her wince at the blacksmith mispronouncing her name. The man didn't seem to notice at all, and kept on.

"Where do you come from? Your accent."

She touched the edges of her cloak, pulling it in on one side. Her other hand was occupied by a small white bundle of something. "I'm from the deep south, you may not have heard of it. Savannah." Her voice was much better, there was the slightest of creaks to it as she spoke.

The blacksmith in turn both nodded and shook his head. "Rohan?"

"Something like that." Erdene's smile was the polite one she learned to wear as a child. Nothing so common, baby, as being sweetly fake. Her mother had given her what Erdene's tiny five year old self labeled 'the look'. Especially 'round here. She nodded at the blacksmith and turned the slightest bit to see Thorin.

"Good morning Thorin," she said.

Mahal. He hadn't expected hearing his name in her accent would sound so. It's only his training keeping a neutral expression that saved him from showing any sign of how his name from her lips struck him.

He cannot.

She is a daughter of men.

"I don't know how thank you gifts work for dwarrow," and she used the correct term for him. It meant more than she could possibly understand. "But," she held the small package, a handkerchief wrapped around a small stack of something, out to him. "Oatmeal cookies can't be against anyone's rules." Her small shrug and the tiny bashful bite of her lower lip between her teeth before an equally bashful smile. "Least that's what my mama always told me."

No. Gifts were not forbidden as a thank you, but food. Food. There are expectations associated with food. He hesitated to take it, she couldn't possibly know. Could she? She held it with a smile of shy innocence.

No. She couldn't.

He avoided touching her, taking the handkerchief from underneath the package rather than where she held it at the tight knot on top. She let go once he had the weight of the small stack.

"Sorry," she flushed the same deep pink that now he saw colored her neck, her collar bones and the tips of her fingers as she tucked a curl behind her equally pink ear.

Did it color her pink everywhere?

That is not for you to wonder.

Her skin already had a rosy under shade to it, the pink blended seamlessly. Again, he could appreciate her form (better now her dress fit, it left him with a new [not unwelcome] view of her), and the color of her skin, and those mahogany curls. His fingers formed a fist.

She is a child of men. She is not for him to covet.

Those curls in his hands, would they be the softness of feathers?

She is young and grateful.

Too young.

"Well, it's also a bribe I guess?" Her fingers twisted themselves in a nervous gesture. Does he make her nervous? "Where I'm from," Savannah, was it in Gondor perhaps? Or further south? He could not remember his people having a trade route that went further south than Gondor. Was she from Umbar or Far Harad?

"Walking alone at night, at least for women, is a no." Women, is that how she calls herself? "And I understand if you say no. It's probably out of your way," it isn't entirely, "could I ask you, Master Oakenshield," Mahal his name of honor from her mouth in her accent, "if you would be so kind, might I ask you to walk me home if it's not too much trouble?"

He should say no.

He said, instead, "I will think on it, Mistress Thoroughfare."

She supposed that was probably the answer she was going to have to live with until later this evening. Do not pout. You are not five. A pout, baby, her mother held her then seven year old chin while her mother applied a little pink gloss to Erdene's lips, can wreck an ego or stroke it. Don't waste a good one on nothin'. And not exactly getting rejected by your crush is technically nothing.

Even if it feels downright awful. Like, really awful. She did her best to hide her disappointment, bowed her head at him and smiled at him, turned and with her head high walked back to her corner. She put her instrument back under her chin and got back to work.

After nearly two and a half months of work she had almost twenty-three gold. Twenty of which went to the monster who tried to buy Cathy.

Shadow Academy's White Whale, The Heavy's Short Change Hero, Halsey's Castle. Several repeats of other songs she'd played previously. She was in the middle of The Who's Teenage Wasteland when the sky decided to open with a ripping crash overhead. Half a second later a downpour began that had people scattering like nervous goats. Thunder rolled with an ear splitting boom.

Holy shit.

She snagged her purse and violin box, ducking under an awning, her hair already sticking to her neck and cheeks. Chin. And somehow chest!

She held one hand out to catch fat raindrops as they fell, smiling. Thunderstorms always reminded her of her mother. They used to curl up under blankets and read by flashlight. So many books. Ever increasing difficulties so her mama could try to keep up with Erdene's reading level. Those were the days her mama was good all the time.

Sometimes it made her wonder, if Erdene's father had lived, if he had gotten his visa and had moved to America to be with them, would her mother have been okay? Or maybe if Erdene and her mother had moved to be with him?

They met during her mother's first year in the Peace Corps.

I saw this guy, my age, maybe a little older, drawing in a notebook. Baby I watched him drawing for an hour and by God, I knew it was him. I knew, same as I see you now. That was the man I was going to marry and have kids with. He didn't even notice I was standing in front of him until I asked him to ask me to dinner. He blinked at me with these big hazel eyes, just like yours, and blushed like I asked him to… her mother had laughed trailing off. Boy was so unprepared to have a girl talk to him, he stuttered and fumbled and dropped his notebook. Guess who he'd been drawing baby?

Erdene at eight years old grinned at her mother. You mama.

Dang right he was. He made me look so pretty. He took me for coffee, then to dinner and we ended up talking the whole night, so he bought me breakfast too. He asked me to marry him a week later. I said yes, we got married a week after that and you were already in my belly by then. Her mother had stroked little Erdene's hair and kissed her forehead. Baby don't take this wrong, but I cannot wait to see him in the next life. Her mother sighed as they turned into the high school parking lot and took a spot.

We split our names up to make yours. So if any of those big kids or your teachers act like they just can't manage to say your name right, remind them you're too smart to deal with any of their stupid. You're smarter than everyone here thanks to your daddy. You were born during the storm of the century so you're stubborn as hell. You are my daughter and tough as nails, got it?

Little Erdene, who didn't have an anxiety disorder yet, nodded and unbuckled herself. Yes mama.

Okay. My baby's first day of high school. Thought I'd have a few more years before we got here. She kissed little Erdene's forehead. Let's go.

Heart sore, she sighed. She told her mother years later, years after her mother had stopped responding to anyone or anything that the name her father and mother had come up with was a real name. In Mongolian. She wondered if her parents would have found it funny or if they'd be surprised. Or both.

Erdene lifted her violin, checking the strings. Damn. Damp. The bow too. Shit. Well that ended making money today. It was late enough, maybe she should just call it-

You have such a pretty voice baby. Her mother's voice came unbidden in her left ear. Erdene, for half an instant fully expected to see her mother standing next to her under the awning which now was so heavy with water it began to drip on her.

She looked at the space next to her, toward the other people further down the wall where they too were sheltering. Over twenty feet away. It must have been a stray memory of her mother having surfaced because she was thinking about her.

Above, the storm rolled, cracking lightning. There was so much rain now there was a thin puddle forming on the ground. Mud and wet leaves. Ozone.

Other people were taking a chance and darting off and away.

"Miss Erdene." The blacksmith called from across the street. He motioned from the archway, "Come away from there!" Spend another minute near her crush? Don't need to ask twice. She darted across while the man fussed. "Warren would never forgive me if you caught your death out there."

She smiled brightly at him, "thank you for your concern, but I was born in a hurricane." Erdene moved her wet hair over one shoulder, her eyes crinkled in mirth. She held a hand out to catch more of the rain. "This is my kind of weather."

The blacksmith looked at this small woman who might have been a little mad. Not terrified of a thunderstorm? "Well," he had no words, "just nearer to the fire if you please miss Erdene. A cold is still a cold."

Mother hens clucked less.

Rather than fight him she did step further in, the pounding of the hammer ever steady. Thorin was facing her, his eyes and concentration on the work before him, hair bound at the base of his neck in a simple leather tie. Strong arms, wrists with protective leather wrappings.

Don't stare. Or lust after.

She returned her gaze to her hands and the simple brazier the blacksmith directed her toward. The low flames flickered with the gusts of wet wind sweeping through the open plaza. Cloth snapped elsewhere as wet awnings flexed with the wind.

"Riders on the storm," she murmured as Thor rumbled in the sky above the city, throwing mjölnir at frost giants or maybe his brother Loki. Maybe it was Odin's wild hunt in search of stray souls.

"What was that Miss Erdene?" The blacksmith asked.

"Riders on the storm," she told him, them, because even if he wasn't looking, Thorin was within earshot and he could hear her. "It's an old story, the wild hunt led by the God Odin, rides on a storm like this, searching for those unlucky enough not to find a hiding spot when they rode past, lost souls or warriors brave enough to join the hunt." She caught the briefest of movements from Thorin's direction.

"Your gods?" The blacksmith asked, sounding quite perturbed.

She smiled to herself, fingers over the fire now as the cold was leaving her bones. "No, just a story I liked as a child." As if Odin and his son Thor heard her, a snapping whip of lightning cracked the heavens lighting the darkened archways followed immediately by a hard rolling boom.

"The first storm of the season is always like this." The blacksmith told her, the tight nervous sound of his voice told her he didn't quite believe it. "There will be snow in a month or less."

She hummed in response but said nothing, the braiser popping gently before her. There was something missing. She listened. The steady pounding of the hammer on the anvil had stopped. Of course it did. The anvil was a giant conductor and the hammer a lightning rod. Lightning can jump.

Another lightning crack, Erdene began to count, "one, one thousand, t-"

Boom

The whole building felt as if it shook. "Right over head," she whispered looking up at the soot stained brick ceiling.

Nervously, the blacksmith said, "why don't you play something Miss Erdene to pass the time?"

She adjusted the strap on her shoulder, "wet strings, wet bow. I don't want to," can't afford to, "snap them." Not if she was going to stop Warren's sale of Cathy.

She'd already spent too much getting herself clothed properly, on buying oils for the bow and violin and real soap to wash herself daily. If she had to spare more money to replace her gut core with whatever passed for steel core, who knew how much it would cost. And she still had to pay off her boots. She would need at least another few gold to get a spring into summer wardrobe, if not a complete winter one.

Maybe she could skip the-

The gods must have heard her thoughts because a cold blast of wind snapped into the storefront, whipping at her legs despite her thigh high wool stockings. Cold and bitter and wet. "Okay, okay, jeeze." She muttered with a glower at the bit of solid dark gray sky she could see.

The blacksmith grumbled as the little bit of paper he had on his desk went flying.

The rain was letting up though. If only a little since that last boom. She should just try to head home and chalk this day up as an awful one. She caught Thorin moving around, putting things away from the outer edge of her vision. Nothing said desperate for attention like just hanging around your crush like a sad puppy.

Erdene moved to one of the archways and poked her head out of the shop. Mistake. Raindrops pelted her like someone throwing caltrops. A big warm hand pulled her back by the elbow as lightning crashed once more, "one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, fou-" The sound of a thousand angels bowling a strike. "Three miles out. It's moving away fast at least." She whispered mostly to herself.

Thorin, whose hand was solid, and very warm on her arm only gave her a brief hum, before releasing her.

Lord. She could still feel the imprint of his hand on her arm and the radiating heat of him just to her left at her back. "Thank your Master Oakenshield, my sense of self preservation can be a bit questionable at times."

The corners of his eyes, and the edges of his mouth turned up, blue eyes holding no small amount of amusement.

He's cute, baby. Her mother's voice in her opposite ear sent a shiver down Erdene's spine. She snapped her head to the side away from Thorin, fully expecting to see her mother standing there. Instead she saw nothing but wind and sheets of rain moving with the wind.

"Did…" Erdene began with a whisper, "did you just hear a woman speak?"

Green-amber eyes searched the plaza then back to him.

He hadn't heard anyone but her speak. "I did not, no."

She shook her head, drying curls falling into her eyes. "It's so weird. I could've sworn I heard my mama."

There was no one out in the rain. Everyone who had been, had moved on already. "Was your mother coming to see you today?"

Her head shook once more, "no, my mama she…she's not…" a low puff of air from her lips that could have been a sigh of frustration or sadness. "She's gone." Erdene said, glanced at him before quickly looking out at the empty plaza. She didn't want to see sympathy or pity in his eyes when she looked at him. She'd had enough for a lifetime.

Again, thunder rolled and crashed and this time, it sounded less like a bowling ball hitting a strike and more like horse hooves pounding dirt. She laughed to herself. Maybe by talking about the wild hunt she summoned them. Her grandaddy was supposed to be half Swedish (thus her mother, aunt and uncle all being over five foot eight, various shades of blonde and light eyed) which technically did mean Odin was a God her ancestors probably prayed to once upon a time.

Maybe she accidentally pulled an American Gods and helped form a Mr. Wednesday on Arda. Well that would suck for the Valar. A lot.

The blacksmith asked Thorin something, drawing him away. The moment he was gone she felt familiar, if cold fingers in her hair.

What. The. Fuck?

Erdene felt the cold at her back, but the archway was in front of her. Fingers gently combing through her tangled, drying curls to loosen them. Her mama used to do that when she was little. Still as stone, she waited while the ghost she suspected was her mother fixed her hair silently.

"I miss you like crazy mama." Her whisper was swallowed by the sound of the storm, a little more distant now. There was no reply this time. The sky was getting lighter and the wind wasn't whipping quite so violently. The fingers in her hair freeing up a decent size knot at the base of her skull were getting softer, less present.

Thorin was coming back, heavy wood and leather shoes on the floor.

He reminds me of your daddy. Her mother's voice came once more and for a second, right before the storm broke above she felt her mother's arms wrap around her shoulders before the cool energy of her dispersed in a small shower of barely perceptible sparks of blue light.

Christ almighty! That's why her mama wasn't there anymore. Arda had taken Erdene whole but only took her mama's soul. Sure a human body could work as long as all the electrical signals kept going, but the lights never came on because the body lacked a driver. Trains still needed engineers, planes needed pilots, a body needed an occupant and her mama, bless her soul, hadn't been driving her own body since Ery was a child.

The worst part, she had to be quiet about everything she figured out because this world was superstitious as hell. She didn't have a desire to be labeled a witch. Or shunned. Especially not by-

His gaze took in her hair, the rain water having transformed it into a halo of springing mahogany curls and bouncing waves. She turned green eyes on him, a small thin smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

The sun wasn't coming back out anytime soon. It had been almost a good thirty minutes. The walk home was going to be damp, cold and lonely. Rip off that band-aid.

"Guess I'll pack it in for the day." She said, mostly to herself. "Have a good evening gentlemen and thank you for letting me dry off."

Tonight you are going to walk home alone. You are going to walk home alone and not think dirty things about Thorin.

And his big hands.

Whether his beard is soft.

If he liked human women.

Why would he? Honestly? Why would he when he had his choice of willing dam? Dam who had ties to nobility. Whereas she, Erdene, didn't have an ounce of blue blood, dwarrow blood, noble blood or otherwise. So why on Middle Earth would dwarven royalty, even in exile, want anything from her?

The near instantaneous hollowing depression that thought brought down on her was awful. An ache in her chest that she had no right to have. He wasn't hers. He never had been and he never would be.

Don't give him a second look, just walk. Walk. Don't drag your feet, don't look back. Kill this stupid crush before it crushes yo-

"Mistress Thoroughfare," Thorin said her name.

Please don't give me back the cookies. Please don't. I don't think I can handle rejection right now. She plastered another smile on her face, pausing in her walk to turn back toward him. She'd made it all of six feet. "Yes Master Oakenshield?"

Blue eyes, completely unreadable, looked back at her.