I recently left to visit some of my family and friends and while on this trip one of my longest friendships sat me down and basically slapped the shit out of me for quitting these stories. So in the hopes of ever being invited back into her household, I'm updating.
Thank you to the people that still encouraged me even when they were disappointed.
Chapter 16: Halls of Fear
I glowered at the slim elf over Fili's shoulder. There was something about watching someone like Thorin stiffly ask someone like Elrond a favor that made my skin crawl. Maybe it was the halting, almost mechanical words that were coming out of my king's lips, each one received by the elegant elf with an air of false reassurance. It reminded me, in almost vivid clarity, of a teacher trying to encourage a student during a presentation.
"Stop glaring," Fili whispered to me, his fingers threading through the messy, sweaty mass of my hair, pushing it away from my face as an elf gently took my injured hand and placed it on a raised table. His eyes caught mine, a single brow raising at my scowl. He had been absolutely insufferable about the whole ordeal, his tone cajoling at moments, commanding at others.
"I'll do what I please," I snapped right back, my voice low as I tried to keep Ori's attention away from my exchange with Fili. The whole notion was laughable. With the display this morning, there was little chance that all of the others didn't suspect that something - well, I didn't rightly know what was happening but the whole thing was terrifying enough to make me want to risk getting kicked out of the quest just to preserve some semblance of pride. I forced my mounting agitation down, pressing out a tight, "my lord," at the end.
Fili's eyes danced, the lighter blues in his eyes swirling together with the tang of silver until it looked like metal melting into water. It stole my breath. It reminded me of his lips against mine and those eyes so close that they felt like my new sky. His breath blew against my lips, sending warm tingles down my spine. "Be good, hamamhul amrul."
He stole things from me without even meaning to. He stole my words with little more than a thought. Did he realize the power he had over me? How his very touch took a hold of the deepest parts of me? As he moved away, his smile soft, I thought that he couldn't possibly know. No other living creature could know the raging of a heart captured.
The softest lights of Rivendell caught the golden strands of his hair as he paced away, his stride sure as he went to speak with Thorin and Elrond.
"Nori and Dori and I love you." I blinked, startled and more than a little bewildered by the sudden words from my youngest brother. He had crept closer while I hadn't been looking, the journal in his hands closed, ink dripping to stain his mittens. A soft blush dusted his cheeks, his eyes holding the same earnestness that had gotten him bullied when we were younger.
The elf started to gently take off the shoddy bandages, making me hiss softly as I tried to refocus on my brother's words. "Wh-what?"
Ori's eyes narrowed slightly, brows furrowing. "You know that, don't you?" he pressed. "That we love you?"
"I-" I searched for the right words - something to tell him how much I knew. Something more than just a short agreement. Because the only thing that had tethered me to those lonely mountains was their love. It was my reason - my reason for everything. But in the end, all I could do was blink up at him and whisper: "Of course."
He stared down at me for a moment longer. "Good." His hands tightened on his book, throat bobbing. He nodded. "Good." His eyes drifted down, staring at my knee for a moment before he opened and then closed his mouth again. He stared a bit harder before starting again, softly. "And… and you know that I missed you, right?"
My brows furrowed, all thoughts of how much my arm was burning from the elves gentle cleaning flying from my brain. I tried desperately to understand where he was going with this. "What - what's going on, Ori?"
HIs brows furrowed further over his brooding eyes, the braids at his chin quivering softly as he tried to rack up the courage to go on. My stomach tightened, taking in the defensive tilt to his shoulders. He had looked like this often when we had been growing up. He wasn't like the others - something that he and I shared. It was a thread that had always made our bond stronger, closer than my other siblings. I understood him in a way that most others couldn't.
That's why it hurt so much that he looked like this - so defensive when he was talking to me.
"Ori?" I prodded gently, reaching out, my fingers skimming along his ink-stained hands. His eyes snapped up to mine, uncertain.
"Why did you leave?" he finally whispered, his voice low, almost guttural. I reeled back, feeling like someone had just slapped me. In the depths of the familiar brown, I could see the betrayal, the heavy line of pain that I somehow had never noticed. How had I not noticed?
Beside me, I felt the elf pause and my nape prickled as I suddenly realized that more people were here than just us. Just a short distance away, FIli and Thorin looked like their conversation was drawing to an end.
Ori's eyes searched mine. "I missed you so much, Tori. And you just - you never even talked to me about it. I thought-"
His voice wavered and I flinched away from the fresh humiliation that I saw there, something inside of my twisting to the point of pain. Had I just… left? It had been so long- I gulped, my face burning. I remembered that day, packing up everything inside of that canvas bag, Ori's eyes on me, silent as he watched from the door. I hadn't thought about anyone but myself that day. I hadn't stopped to think about who I was leaving - how the brothers that I was leaving would feel. Dori had Ori afterall.
"I thought you would have-" He gulped, looking away. "Dori tried to laugh it off - I mean, we knew that you couldn't stay there forever. We knew - we knew how much it hurt you to be in that mountain… But I thought-" He blinked a few times, those ink-stained fingers creating little ebony moons on his journal cover. "I thought that you loved me enough-"
"Don't you dare say that." The words wrenched from me harshly and just a few feet away I saw Fili's head turn, his eyes alert. But I couldn't look away from Ori. Hurt twisted his face pathetically and it tore out my insides. I reached out, ink slicking my skin as I threaded my fingers through his. "I loved you both so much - so much that I thought about going home every day - back to both of you. Not back to that mountain - I never would have called it home. Not without you both. You three - you're my home." I gulped, hot needles pricking at the back of my eyes as he finally looked up again and I held on desperately to his gaze. "I was selfish that day and continued to be selfish after that. But I thought it would be better for all of us if I was away…" My lips twisted bitterly, old wounds opening once more. "No one really wanted me there anyway."
His brows furrowed further as he took in the painful twist of my lips, the clear anguish in my softened words. More than anyone else - more than any other dwarf on this trip he knew. My fingers curled further through his, each of us tightening on each other like two sides of the same knot being cinched.
"It's okay to be selfish," he finally whispered, letting out a slow breath. "Then you needed to be selfish - I understand that. We all understand that." His eyes bore into mine, forcing each word into me and knocking a little bit more breath from my lunges with each one. "That's not all of who you are. You think about other. So if that was what you needed - if that was who you needed to be to find yourself - then I can't be mad. I love you so much."
Tears burned at my eyes, an uncontrollable urge to cry making me bite down on my lip until I could taste metal. The fingers curled through his were white, aching from the desperation of my grip. I didn't want to be selfish - never wanted to make them think that I didn't care about them more than I cared about myself. But - my stomach locked down at the memory of the days that had led up to the one where I had to walk away, the crushing judgement of those halls. I had hated every minute of those days - every hour of having to train with Dwalin followed by the scathing criticism of those who thought me beneath the attention. People hadn't needed to say anything to me - it was there in the way they had brushed past me in the halls, the sideways glances when I ate my meals within their eyes sight, the compliments shrouded in loathing. I could feel myself growing mad from it - expecting it even when there was no avenue for it to reach me. Could you imagine a life like that? Someone so used to the cane that they expected it to strike in even the smallest interactions?
"I would do anything for you," I breathed out shakily, trying to force every ounce of my love into those words, trying to hold onto him tightly enough that he could feel it in the shaking of my fingers in his.
His lips quirked, auburn hair lighting in the dying light of Rivendell. "Just tell me the next time you need to be selfish."
There wouldn't be a next time, I wanted to say. There wouldn't be a time when I disappointed him again like this. When I made him question me in this way. But instead I pressed my lips together, forcing the words back. Words weren't good enough. Someday - somehow, I would show him.
"Lady Tori." The words were smooth like pressed sheets, deep a lilting and belong to an elf that I had been glaring at only a moment before. My eyes snapped up, up, and then up some more into Lord Elronds quietly smiling faces. It was supremely bad luck that I was halfway to bawling my eyes out, the familiar aching in my eyes flaring to life at the compromising position. The circlet curling around his head glinted in the light, shining a dazzling gold. Briefly, I wondered how upset he would be if I stole it. "Unfortunately, we don't seem to be meeting upon better circumstances this time."
I didn't say anything, lips tightening petulantly as Fili stepped around the elf to stand beside me, his eyes flashing a cool, calming blue. Behind them both, I saw Thorin drift back, his face decidedly blank, allowing him the off privilege of being part of the pillar just behind him. His thundercloud eyes moved over the scene with a decided attachment, whatever kinship we had fostered pushed to the side.
"Basina," Elrond continued on, his voice strangely upbeat, disposition unearringly unruffled as he gently turned the torn mess of my arm this way and that. I finally took full notice of the slim, dark-haired elf that had been taking care of me. Her face was a lovely oval, soft and pleasant, her smile giving very little of her personal thoughts away as she met my gaze. "Is one of our best healers. She's healed some of the most gruesome of injuries."
The air was running along the exposed skin of my wound, every caress a painful reminder of what the troll blood had done to me. And also that what I was asking wasn't a small feet.
"I-" The words stuck in my throat, hardened stone as I tried to force them past stiff lips. Ori and Fili were watching me with guarded worry, each looking like they were hoping that what I was about to say would be nice. I grimaced, lower my eyes to stare at the smooth, clean stone beneath our feet. "I thank you for your help."
There was something about humbling yourself to people that you detested on emotions alone that made my stomach turn.
Elrond's words were soft, his hand cool and sure as he spread my palm flat against the cool stone. "I hope this will make amends for my earlier carelessness."
I can't explain what happened next. I can't explain the way the hairs on the back of my neck stood, my whole body freezing as Basina spoke softly, her eyes intent on my mangled flesh , her hands cupping the air around it like she was trying to keep the smallest flame alive. I couldn't explain the bone deep recognition that ran through me, my head snapping around to stare up at the elf as she started to chant in Sandarin.
I knew the words - not in the sense that I could speak them to anyone but in the sense that they spoke to me on a base level, too deep for me to fully understand. I knew that she was calling on the light. I knew that she was asking my body to heal itself and without a second thought it was obeying. I knew that if I died tomorrow, I would remember the way that she was speaking now. I would remember the way that something inside of me kindled, lighting and burning along with her.
"You heal quickly." I jerked, breath rushing out of me in a gasp as Basina's eyes caught mine, whatever spell she had woven disintegrating like cobwebs in high winds. Muscles in my back and shoulders jumped, sweat coursing down my spine and throat in rivelets.
I was shaken, thrown to the ground and trampled on.
Basina's brows furrowed, her hands wavering as they hovered over the fresh skin of my forearm. "Much quicker than other dwarves I've treated-"
I jerked my arm away from her so quickly that her nails scraped along the freshly-healed flesh, her eyes widening as I jumped off of the table, moving a bit closer to where Fili was watching me closely. The end of her sentence hung between us, pregnant with all of the undertones. This place continued to remind me of what had always been so painfully apparent in my life among the dwarves. A lump pressed against my throat, my eyes catching Elronds moments before he could safely hide the pity there.
"I thank you again, Master Elf," I forced out, my tongue feeling numb, heavy in my mouth. The beds of my nails vibrated, the very skin of my injured arm tingling. It shouldn't have been that easy. It shouldn't have felt like that. I didn't look at Ori as I skirted away. "I'll find a way to properly repay your kindness someday."
At my side, I could feel the twin piercing stares of bothe Fili and Thorin, each keeping their guarded silence.
Fresh, glistening stone yawned up at me, my eyes unable to move from the gleam. Everything hear… everything here was so different from my life in the mountains. The water, the trees, the glow of daylight just above the ridge.
I hated it here.
I hated it here because it made me think of an alternate life.
Like I coin me flipped and landing on it's side.
Like a book falling open after you had read it to completion.
I hated it because it made me think about who my parents could have been. It made me think about how they would look laughing together, walking along these halls, up those stares, meeting in secret under the waterfall just out of sight.
And then I would despise myself even more because I had never seen them. That image in my head of them laughing was an illusion, a farce created by a pathetic girl imagining happy ever afters out of brutal truths. The truth was that they had left me. The truth was that their relationship was an abomination and I was the monster born from it.
"You do not have to fear so much, lady dwarf." My insides ran cold, my feet stopping as I tried desperately to get as far away from everyone as possible. "These halls are not here to torment you."
Fear. I nearly threw up at the sudden whirl of recognition, the monster revealed. Because I was afraid, afraid of so much and unwilling to face even half of it. My eyes didn't leave the glinting floor. I needed to get out of here.
"You might find clarity in looking to the elves of the woodlands," he called after me, his voice sure and all-too piercing. "I suspect your bloodline might mix with the Silvan elves."
Woodland elves - we would never go through their lands. And I would never go out of my way to search them out. I was fine with the questions of my past. Perfectly fine.
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