~ Erebor, Three Months Prior ~
The appointment with the Healer seemed to be dragging on, and so Bofur tried to keep himself busy and decided to sit down and test out his new gifted tools from Harrick on a particularly complicated piece he had been hoping to carve. Whittling usually consumed so much of his focus that he could not think of much else, and yet he could not seem to prevent the worry from invading his mind and consequently distracting his fingers. The tools were not at fault, in fact they were a joy to work with, but after gouging the wood too deeply for the third time, Bofur set the chisel down with a sigh, knowing he would need to begin the project anew. He leaned back into his chair, finally giving into the thoughts that had been trying to consume him since he first sat down to work.
Something was wrong. There was no denying it. She had been off for weeks now. At first he had hoped it was nothing, just passing ailments as her more temperamental constitution tried to cope with the adjustments to her new life under the mountain. Yet her appetite became unusually unstable, stomach complaints more frequent, and then he knew things were serious when she began swooning on her feet. Aye, humans were delicate, but she had never been that delicate. He worried all his fears were to come true, that he would lose her prematurely, and that there was nothing he could do to stop it. It was all he could do to keep a calm demeanor around her, for he knew that any weakness on his part would ramp up her stress levels, and likely only make matters worse.
Suddenly he heard the door click shut, and while to him it had felt like half the day had gone by, a quick glance at the daylight flitting into the apartment suggested she had actually only left for her appointment little more than two hours ago, and he knew the walk there and back would have taken much of that time.
"That was fast." he called out as he abandoned his desk, wondering if she had been turned away before even seeing the Healer.
When he looked out at her, however, and saw her shaking hands and stricken expression, he felt his blood go chill. He was right. He was going to lose her.
He rushed up to grab her trembling hands in his own. "What is it? Is it bad?" he asked, only just managing to find his voice.
He did not expect for her to suddenly smile.
"No, no it's not bad." she replied.
Bofur barely had time to catch his breath when she embraced him, clearly overcome with some confused and overwhelming emotion he could not yet place. Her next words, however, made him freeze once more.
"Bofur - I'm pregnant."
If he hadn't been so strung out with worry and tension himself, his first reaction might have been to laugh. As it was, he could not find the humour in such a ludicrous statement, and it did nothing to banish the fears that he had been harbouring, for he knew that the prognosis could not have been accurate.
"That cannot be true." he told her, studying her face for any indication that she had been joking. He saw none.
She only nodded, still grinning. "I know, I thought so too at first, but it's true."
Bofur shook his head. He had known their life together under the mountain was going to be a challenge, and given the unwarranted response of Rida cutting off her hair in an act of hate last year, he was also aware that there would be purists and extremists among his kind that would go to great lengths to make her feel unwelcome and drive her away. And yet, he still could never have imagined anyone would conjure up a plan so personal, and so devastating.
"Bofur, what's wrong…?"
Her gentle voice, now tinged with sadness, roused him, and his heart broke to have to explain the cruelty she had been subject to, thereby dashing the beliefs and hopes she had been so utterly elated with when she arrived. He wasn't quite sure how to even begin and his words were slightly stammered.
"I thought after being married officially, and for a few weeks at that, we wouldn't have to face such ridiculous…" he hesitated, watching her face fall and wishing he could prevent it. "Ah love, I'm so sorry… there's been all manner of rumours and nonsense about us - I've tried to put an end to it all… but you must see, this has to be some sort of sick joke, though I can't believe someone would stoop that low…"
"Bofur, no. I saw the Healer. She wouldn't lie about something like this."
She sounded so confident, her words laced with a surety that made it even more difficult for him. Yet he could not allow her to harbour such fantasy, the quicker the illusion was broken, the better.
"Anyone can be bought, I'm afraid." he explained sadly. "Who knows - maybe she was offended by her time being taken up on a human. I have to get to the bottom of this."
"Bofur, wait! You're wrong-"
It was killing him to deny her this, and to slough her off, but his blood was beginning to boil and he sought to bring whatever fool conjured up the sick charade to justice. He knew she needed a proper explanation, as quickly as possible, for it would be the only way she could make sense of it all and move forward, and then they could go about figuring out what was truly wrong with her before it possibly got worse.
"I need you to lock the door when I leave, and stay here until I return, please." he begged her, knowing that discretion was absolutely necessary, he couldn't risk having her confide in anyone else, and also wanted to ensure her safety. "Barely anyone knew of your appointment. If the Healer was put up to this, it was by someone very very important, and who knows what other misdeeds they might be planning… I don't know how long I'll be gone, but please, stay put, and don't tell anyone about any of this."
He eyed up his weapon, wondering if he might need it, but then saw her expression and thought against it. She was right. They were both proper citizens of Erebor now. Any qualms they might have with anyone else in the kingdom needed to be settled under the king's justice. Violence, warranted or no, would not be permitted.
His steps, hurried, yet heavy, carried him deep into one of the oldest areas of Erebor's matrix. He'd not yet been there in person, but had seen enough maps to know where it was. The stone now around him was worn and smooth, yet would never be reworked, for it was a sacred area. When he finally reached the door, he banged on it loudly and without reservation. He'd had time during the walk to let his anger grow, to manifest in a confident bravado, damned be the consequences, for he felt he was utterly justified in his pursuit of answers without paying any heed to common niceties.
The door swung open after a moment, and the acolyte appeared, looking at Bofur shrewdly.
"What is the meaning of this?" she demanded tartly, keeping her form well within the middle of the doorframe so that Bofur might not enter. "Is there an emergency?"
"I need to speak with the Healer." Bofur replied hotly. "Now."
"I'm afraid that is not possible. One does not simply demand an audience-"
"No. She will see me." Bofur insisted, straightening up to loom over the dwarrowdam, but his quarry was entirely unphased. She was several decades his elder and outranked him by unfathomable magnitudes, but he had faced down kings before and won the day. This would be no different.
"I've been threatened by far more intimidating dwarves than you, miner." she assured him.
They stood in stalemate, until a voice called from further into the Healer's cave.
"Let him in." An unmistakable command.
The acolyte stiffened, but followed the order immediately and stood aside, though not without a glare that was met and returned by Bofur who then strode boldly past.
The beauty of the central cavern was lost on the dwarf. He had traveled almost every inch of the mountain, and had laid eyes on wonders equal to or surpassing this place long before these pretentious busybodies took residence in this particular chamber. As such, he quickly closed the distance between himself and the Healer, who was busying herself at a low shelf across the room and did not turn to look as he approached.
"Well, out with it then! Who put you up to this charade?" Bofur demanded when she did not heed him immediately.
"As dwarves," the Healer began, still not turning to look, "we like to think ourselves rather rugged, do we not? Our skin is thicker, our muscles denser, we can take damage ten times that of other mortals and yet…" she glanced over her shoulder to regard Bofur for the first time, then simply pursed her lips in what might have been the ghost of a smirk before turning away once more. "We really are quite delicate if you know the right spots. An artery here, a ligament there…" she turned and with lightning speed, catching Bofur off guard given how ancient she was purported to be, gripped his forearm just so. "Did you know that a nerve right here can cause crippling pain and immobility for hours after being pressed?"
Bofur drew a sharp breath as she pressed, unable to hold his composure in the face of the Healer's unsettling eyes and actions, instead looking down at where his arm tensed in her grasp.
A heartbeat, then two, and no pain, nothing at all.
He looked up at the Healer in confusion.
"There is no such nerve, but then you wouldn't know that, would you? Though I do imagine you've been feeling a bit of stiffness in that arm. I can feel it in you, all miners who forsake their work do, but very few admit it." She returned to bustling about, peering to consult a nearby book as needed. Finally she finished, and turned more calmly this time to regard her accuser fully. "I know such things, just as I know what a pregnancy looks like. There are pregnant dwarrowdams here in this very mountain - I have the authority to call upon them, you know. Shall we summon them this very moment to disrobe them alongside your wife so I may compare and thus educate you in my craft?"
Bofur's mouth fell agape, lost for words for one of the few times in his life. He felt like he was completely unmatched in this encounter, and he didn't quite know how to deal with it.
"Let us move past your accusation and get on to the more serious matters I have been considering." She beckoned Bofur to the central dias, speaking as she went. "You will no doubt want to vouch for your wife's fidelity, but as a healer I would ask you to set aside your bias and allow us to consider every option fairly. Every body is different, after all, so it is wise never to deal in absolutes."
Bofur caught onto her meaning, and slowly voiced his next question. "A dwarf-human pregnancy then…"
"Is one of two options." The Healer concluded.
It opened a whole new world of questions. Bofur had arrived with the assumption that this whole diagnosis was a trick, and yet now when faced with the fact that she was in fact pregnant, he was having to reconcile with these new potentials.
"I don't need to explain the other, I take it?"
Bofur shook his head, unwilling to fully go down that road of thought yet. The only possibility would be the simpler explanation: that she was pregnant from another human, and in his mind, that simply could not be true.
"It's mine, I know it is." Bofur stated with new resolve that was blossoming into his heart, but when he met the piteous eyes of the dwarrowdam, he frowned.
"Your loyalty is admirable, but let me explain the options and their outcomes more plainly. Should your faith be misplaced, the bairn will be born a healthy and happy human. A full human." She let her words sink in, then continued. "You know the scandal that will befall this mountain. For such strong bodies, we really are quite fickle things when it comes to breaking oaths... but heed this warning. If the child is in fact yours, I fear I can see no happier a fate. Tell me how you imagine your wife would handle carrying a dwarven baby?"
"She's stronger than you know." he retorted somewhat defensively.
The Healer frowned at him. "It isn't a question of fortitude. I have examined her - I know exactly how strong she is where it matters." She saw his resolve falter once again, and softened somewhat. "Alas, it is not for me to say what is possible or not, and I will not claim to know the will of Mahal. He works through me, and I am to him but a tool in his forge." she mused, and then continued more plainly. "I only know what I know as a healer. If your union were to indeed have resulted in a pregnancy, then my fear would be rooted in the considerable knowledge I have gained after study in both dwarven and human anatomy and gestation. I know everything there is to know about our bodies, how they function, how they can be mended when broken. I have seen our bones, and I have seen that of mankind as well. We are not the same."
Bofur met her eyes once more and looked at her with some measure of hopelessness and confusion. He had spent so long trying to convince himself and the rest of the damn world that there was no difference they couldn't overcome together, and yet here he was faced with the simple, undeniable truth - they were different. Still, he was not well studied in biology. He could not guess exactly what she meant, and she seemed to guess that he needed more of a detailed explanation, so she sighed slightly and carried on.
"From a purely skeletal perspective, a human woman has a narrower and differently shaped pelvis than that of a dwarrowdam. Their pregnancies are usually only 40 weeks in duration, compared to the 50 weeks for us. Their newborns weigh half a stone less than our own, and if you laid two new babes side by side, one human, and one dwarf-kind, it would be apparent even to your untrained eyes that our bairns also have larger heads and are wider about the shoulders."
She paused and looked at Bofur with a measure of sympathy. "So you see, a dwarrowdam would likely be able to carry a human bairn, if such a thing were possible, and I will indulge the possibility that it could be, even though I have not seen it occur myself. However, I feel it much less likely that a human woman could carry a dwarven baby to term, for their bodies are not designed for such long pregnancies. It would be likely that either the baby would be born prematurely, and would therefore likely perish, or the mother's body would stop functioning before she met her due date. Yet for arguments sake, even if one could carry it to term, their birth passage simply would not be able to deliver the baby anyway. I have seen firsthand the tragedy that can occur when a bairn is not in the right position, or when the labour is too difficult for the body. The babe can sometimes be saved if it is cut from the mother, but in this scenario, it is unlikely that either would survive such an ordeal."
At that she fell quiet. Bofur hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath but finally the urge to fill his lungs overtook him. He breathed in and then out with a sigh, shaking his head slightly, wanting to remain in disbelief but not quite being able to deny the logic behind her highly educated words. They both remained in a strained silence for a few minutes until the healer finally tutted somewhat dismissively and turned to begin putting away some errant bottles.
Bofur felt so much more at a loss than when he'd arrived. He had hoped to have been given an answer, if it were not the Healer herself, then a name of some angry, prejudiced dwarf that he could then track down and bring to justice for plotting such an ugly prank on his family. And yet now he was faced with something so much more impossible and inconceivable that his head was spinning and he struggled to maintain his composure.
"What-" his voice faltered slightly, so he cleared his throat and took a step toward the healer, his hands held out imploringly. "What am I to do then?"
The Healer spared him a glance, but said nothing and simply continued to look through her potions.
"Please." Bofur begged. "What do I do?"
For a moment he thought the healer was going to ignore his words altogether, until she finally turned and placed a glass vial into his open palm. She then snapped her fingers and beckoned her acolyte forward - he'd forgotten she was even still in the room with them.
"Write him instructions on the use of this. I take it you still remember the weight of his wife for the dosing?"
The acolyte glanced down at the tincture and then her gaze snapped back up at her instructor, her eyes wide. After his initial encounter with her in the hallway, Bofur was surprised that anything could break the composure of this hardened student of the Healer, yet now she seemed to be fighting to control equal parts horror and disgust. "Are you sure?"
"It is unlike you to question me, Dována, but yes, he asks for a solution and so I give it to him now." she looked at Bofur then with a cold expression. "This will take care of the problem, whatever the cause of her prognosis, if that is indeed what you desire?"
Bofur looked down at the vial, his throat suddenly dry. "This will-"
"Terminate the pregnancy." The Healer answered clippingly. "I have no desire to see your marriage destroyed, however unconventional the circumstances of it, if it is your wish to keep it intact. I also have no obligation to divulge my patient's private medical information to anyone under the mountain. If you wish to avoid scandal, then this is the solution. If you wish to ensure the longevity of your wife, this is also the solution. No, it is not a pleasant one, but it is the only one."
"Unless…" Bofur pried his eyes away from the bottle and looked up at both of the women in front of him. "Unless she is carrying someone else's child… and so I let her go."
The Healer shared a glance with her acolyte and then nodded at Bofur. "That is your choice to make." She stepped forward then and closed his fingers around the glass vial. "She must take it within the week if you decide to go that route. She will experience some pain, and bleeding. It may seem like a lot, but I assure you, she will not be harmed by it. Have her return to me for an exam, when it is all over."
Bofur nodded, slightly in a daze, and began to make his way towards the door. The acolyte stopped him before he could exit and gave him a folded piece of parchment with the instructions.
"Burn it, after you read it through." she directed. "And dispose of the extra straight away." And with that, he was directed out, and though he could not possibly make the decision alone, that's exactly how he found himself; alone and abandoned in the cold, dim hallway of the lower levels of the mountain, the weight on his heart feeling more substantial than all the tonnes of stone that lie above him.
Bofur spent many hours deep within his own mind.
In his youth in the Blue Mountains, he had been part of an exploratory force delving deep beneath the surface, following new veins of ore through natural caverns, when a massive cave-in separated him from the rest of the dwarves in his party. His lantern and spare candles were lost in the struggle to free himself from the rubble, and with the cave's ceiling still unsteady he was left to follow the twists and turns blindly through darkness so thick he couldn't see his own fingers before his eyes, even despite his superior dark vision when compared to other races. After a time, the initial adrenaline fueled panic gave way to deep rooted anxiety. Even the rocks themselves gave no comfort to ease his mind. They spoke to him, but the language they spoke was strange, foreign, down in depths never yet disturbed by the presence of dwarves or any other living being.
He was in the endless void of those tunnels once again; no visible way forward, no way back. Just the eternal twisting chasms, the mind numbing silence. Only this time, no one was coming to save him.
He returned to his rooms late in the night with no more clarity than he had begun with. Feeling he had few reasonable options ahead of him, he read over the instructions from the acolyte, numbly committing them to memory, and then tossed the parchment into the dying fire. He stood for a few moments, fighting the urge to throw the vial into the fire as well, wishing he was in a dream, a nightmare he'd soon wake from. Seconds turned into minutes, and nothing changed. He did not wake. He was stuck in the reality of his situation, and he had to make a decision. Finally, he forced himself to move and he mechanically began to brew the medicinal concoction that promised to keep his life the same as it was before, and to guarantee the safety of her own, while at the same heralding a vast upheaval of… something. He was not quite sure, but he knew this would change them both in ways he could not yet predict.
He did not expect things to unravel as quickly as they did… he did not expect everything to break so suddenly…
A part of him hadn't expected her to so vehemently embody the protective nature of motherhood when her condition to such was so new, but her wroth at him for even suggesting harm to her unborn child was a force to behold. What's worse was she also refused to take the bait he laid out, to gracefully admit a misstep and allow him to free her from the confines of the Mountain and the harsh justice she would face by staying.
He knew both of their hearts were breaking, yet he could not seem to find the right words to make her listen, and when she advanced on him with a rage so palpable yet unexpected, and her hands drove into his chest with the force he only ever before experienced on the battlefield, his breath all but left him and he stumbled. She was pushing him away with more ferocity than he'd ever seen from her, and looking at him with more disgust than she harbored for the heartless, grotesque foes they'd encountered on the journey here.
He retreated to the door with her screams in his ears and yet as he was crossing the threshold to leave, her whisper sliced through him worse than all the yelling and the physical assault.
"I hate you…"
His hand gripped the handle for a minute longer, suppressing a shiver that threatened his whole body. She had called him a coward…. and she was right, he always had been. He shut the door on her and fled their rooms.
Then he wept.
Minutes blended into hours. The remainder of the night faded away and yet Bofur remained in the darkness of his conflicted grief.
He only briefly contemplated seeking the comfort of his family. Bombur had always been a reliable and calming source of solidarity, and Melvna loved to pamper those in need, heck, even Bifur might be able to offer some insight veiled in slightly erratic anecdotes. But no, he was alone in this, and he couldn't yet even contemplate divulging his complicated affairs to his loved ones, to shoulder them with such troubling, puzzling, heart-wrenching news.
He was in agony and was not tempted by the thought of rest or food or drink. He wanted nothing, except an answer, a sign, a clear path forward. So he began to walk.
His feet carried him along familiar paths, but he might as well have been sleepwalking. Cavern walls, hallways, junctions, he passed through them as if in a dream, with a vague knowledge that he had done so but no detail to attribute to it.
After much of the day had slipped by, Bofur finally decided he had only one realistic option ahead of him; to force her hand. She could admit her infidelity and return to the world of men, where she would keep the bairn and live out a normal human life - in which case Bofur promised himself that he would ensure the man responsible would be held accountable, that she would be well taken care of. Bofur would be hurt, of course, but he could not entirely begrudge her for choosing to accept such a life. He could not deny that the thought of her becoming a mother, no matter the circumstance, made his heart feel warmer despite the ache of the betrayal that also coursed through his veins. She, of course, deserved to have a baby of her own if she so desired. However, she had seemed so adamant in her refusal of this course and, after the fight she put up, he couldn't imagine her easily changing her story now.
So, the only other option, the more selfish one, was to give her no choice but to take the brew that would effectively terminate the pregnancy. He held out hope that, after a span of healing and reforging trust in one another, they could then return to how they were, perhaps stronger for such an ordeal, and otherwise they could remain under the Mountain as husband and wife. They'd been married for so short a time and he desperately did not want their nuptials to come to such an abrupt end.
That's when he found himself in front of Balin's quarters.
It was time to involve the King.
Dain sat in silence rubbing the bridge of his nose for what seemed an eternity.
Bofur had brought his proposal to the king, filling him in on all the details of their situation that he thought were necessary to bring about a resolution to his current life-shattering predicament - to their predicament, as Bofur had been sure to stress the danger was not just to his wife, but to Ironfoot's relatively new kingship in the mountain.
"The girl is more trouble than a wizard…" Dain grimaced, and then looked incredulously at Bofur. "So let me get this straight. You want me to put your own wife on trial, for the very thing that, if made public, would ruin me for ever supporting you lot in the first place?"
"Not a real trial!" Bofur interjected, but Dain held up a hand.
"She's seen how our trials work." Dain scolded. "Look, I'm not exactly pleased to pay her a compliment after she's dropped this new heap of steaming dragon dung on my doorstep, but she's sharp as a diamond - she and that blonde twit from Gondor have that irritating trait in common. Anything short of summoning a full tribunal of loremasters would stand out."
"Summon them then." Bofur pleaded. "A secret trial, with three predictable outcomes: she returns to the world of men willingly, or she refuses and is banished, and has to return there anyways. At least there she'll be free from our laws…"
"And the third option?" Dain asked.
Bofur had specifically left the last possibility unspoken until now. It was bordering blasphemy, but it was also his only chance of keeping her.
"She…" he swallowed hard. "She decides to end the pregnancy…"
Dain was immediately uncomfortable and shifted in his seat, looking conspiratorially off to the various entrances to the room. Bofur half expected him to get up and leave right then and there, but after a tense moment Dain leaned forward, throttling one of the arms of his chair with a white-knuckled grip. "You really think the same loremasters who were reluctant to remarry you after you lost your One, to a human no less, would allow such a thing?" he hissed in half-hushed admonishment.
"They attended and blessed the wedding all the same, didn't they?" Bofur argued. "Whether they like it or not, they're as tied to her fate as you are. Either she disappears, in which case there will still be gossip to deal with, or she recovers from her illness and life continues as normal. Either way it's a problem they no longer have to deal with."
Dain seemed unpleased with the options laid out before him, and was silent for another long while - which made Bofur nervous. It was uncharacteristic for the king. Finally, Dain made up his mind.
"It could work." he admitted, and Bofur breathed a sigh of relief. Dain held up a hand and continued. "But, consider this. First, if we let the loremasters loose I can't guarantee things won't get uglier than a wargs arse. Second, we need to know any and all details of her life - before and after meeting you, no matter how personal or damning they may be. This is all a hell of a lot bigger than you, so we do this my way and you don't interfere."
Bofur nodded, but then Dain looked at him as if considering something and added with some finality: "Finally, I know this may be difficult for you, but I'll share some advice with you that I never take myself. Running your mouth will have unintended consequences nine times out of ten, so do me a favour will you, lad?"
He looked Bofur dead in the eyes. "When she's in that room for questioning, keep your damn mouth shut."
If there was a hell in all of Middle Earth, Bofur would have preferred eternal damnation to the turn the trial took.
There was a thorough questioning period where Dain and his tribunal gleaned all they could from Bofur, and then to the main event. The door to the audience chamber opened, then in she came like a lamb to the slaughter, and it took every ounce of his willpower not to call the whole thing off right then and there. His conviction held out, but barely - so long as he kept reminding himself of the consequences if she should carry the child to term.
Either she birthed a human bairn, bringing their relationship to an abrupt end and throwing the mountain into chaos, or - should it be a dwarven child, his child, there was the certainty that he would lose both in a much more permanent way.
He steeled himself, and the trial began.
What started as a presentation of undeniable facts, each one supported or challenged by Balin or Barís who must have had some notion of Dain's motives (or at least were mercifully trying to spare the accused any punishment greater than she deserved), quickly deteriorated and got well out of hand. True to the king's word, once the lore masters had a taste for blood they set into her like ravenous wolves, and when she turned to him, begged him to help her in her time of need, he knew with sharp clarity then that he would lose no matter what: If he spoke up, she would eventually be lost to him, and to stay silent meant he was losing her all the more quickly - but at least with the latter there was a chance her life would be better off in the long run.
And by the Maker, while Bofur watched her fearlessly stand up for herself through the whole ordeal, his love for her seemed to grow more fierce, as did the hate for himself for putting her through the maelstrom to begin with. What he had expected to be a clear-cut trial to force her to come to terms with her options, and the true risks she was facing, unraveled into a veritable battleground more twisted than even that of the combat they had faced months prior, and with every slander they threw at her, her or her allies managed to deflect the blows. She kept her chin up, called Dain out on numerous occasions and maintained her composure better than most would have under such unfair circumstances.
But through the king's manipulation, and the ruthlessness of his loremasters, they eventually pushed her to her breaking point. With her back against a wall, her fortitude finally broke, and when she spoke to him directly, revealing their innermost secrets, he - and apparently Dain as well - realized it was time to end the charade before they lost control altogether.
Bofur stood by his wife while Dain's final proposal rang out into the resounding silence.
"Be rid of it."
Even though it had been of his own making, seeing the instant all the fight left his wife tore his heart from his chest. It was like watching a loved one pass away - her body was there, but her spirit was gone.
To Bofur, it was what should have been the end to the whole abhorrent landslide of a trial that he himself had architected. She would know now - must know now, that there were only a few choices left. They could discuss them together. But then she walked right past him.
The room fell away around him, the smug satisfaction of Róka, the scathing glare of Dwalin, Gloin's head shaking in distaste of the outcome, Barís leaning on the back of Dain's throne with her composure more shaken than was typical for the Queen of Erebor, none of it registered at the time. His world was only her, and she was leaving.
He called to her, but he knew she was gone from more than just the physical room.
He followed her, but could not bring himself to confront her directly. She needed to speak to him on her own terms, or none of it would matter.
He called her again.
Over and over, but no matter the tone of his voice, the swirling mixtures of anxiety, pain, frustration, and desperation.. nothing slowed her footfalls as she fled through the mountain while he followed feebly behind.
And when she shut the bedroom door on him, he knew that she had closed him out for good. His heart rate spiked, his breathing grew fast, and in a panic he whirled about. Visions of the past few days swam across his eyes, no matter how hard he squeezed them shut, and he sank to his knees willing with every fiber of his being that the universe turned back time to the moment she arrived to tell him her happy, cataclysmic news.
The last rays of twilight were fading from beyond the mountain walls when Bofur rose from where he had been slumped beside the bedroom door.
There had been no sound from within for some time, and so with no way forward, he instead went back.
The abyssal maw of the mineshaft opened before him. The very mountain seemed to be drawing a long, languishing breath from deep within the earth, and as he leaned out over the pit it threatened to pull him in.
Somewhere far, far below, a single golden coin lay at the bottom.
It would have been so easy to give in to the draw of the wealth, to let her slip from his mind completely and fill the void with immeasurable wealth.
He could still feel its pull.
To succumb to it, to find that long lost gold, all it would take was a single step.
Yet there was another pull he felt, one that held him firmly to the stone precipice. He lifted his hand, and in the gloomy light flittering in from somewhere far above, his wedding ring shone brighter than it had any right to.
"The metal of these rings was mined this very day, straight from virgin stone. The metal of these rings was smelted and cast from the same vein. These rings are united, eternal and absolute, as they have always been, and as you will always be in the eyes of the maker."
Though he knew of no such magic wrought into the rings, he thought he could feel her there with him. Even as distant as she was, in body, and in spirit, he was being drawn back to her, and whether it be the hand of the Maker, or some foreign God of elves and men, he would be eternally grateful for their intervention, for connecting him to her even when all seemed lost.
After all, he had sworn an oath. Dain's words, and the sweet ring of metal on metal rang in his ears as he left the mineshaft, for his treasure was elsewhere.
"Like the Mithril upon which you forge this bond, let your marriage be worth more to you than any wealth in the world."
Bofur returned to their quarters with a nervous trepidation weighing on him. While his conviction had not waned, there was no telling how she would receive him, but he had to at least try. He hoped she had calmed down enough that they could have a discussion, to talk through the difficult options set before them and try to wade their way towards a conclusion they could both accept. He needed to know where her heart was leaning, he needed to be able to brace himself if she decided to tell him that the child was indeed another man's, and that she was to leave his life and his heart as quickly as she had entered it. He took a deep breath, his hand hovering over the doorknob, trying to strengthen himself, knowing that she would still be looking at him with the same painful hostility and revulsion just as she had the other night - if not more. He knew their relationship was now broken, crumbling and jagged, but he hoped there was enough love remaining, in the depths of her heart, to at least tolerate his presence so that he might still have a chance to fight for their marriage.
Bofur noticed immediately that something was different when he entered the main room and he felt a new breed of panic begin to set in. First, her cloak was conspicuously missing, along with her longsword. His heart was racing as he rushed through to find the kitchenette pillaged of food, noting with a pang of remorse the kettle plainly discarded in the rubbish bin, and then hurried on to see the bedroom door was left ajar. He was, indeed, alone.
He stepped into their room and his growing suspicions were confirmed when he saw that her wardrobe had been stripped of most of the practical clothing. Her wedding dress, however, was left behind; a blatant reminder of all he had gained, and then lost. He let his hand trail down the fabric, drawing in a slow, shaky breath as he lingered in the ghost of her presence. He finally managed to pull himself away and then turned to see a few remaining items scattered across the dresser top. A lone book; 'Salt Procurement in the Rhûn Region, Volume III.' Bofur snorted despite himself, he couldn't blame her for leaving behind that thriller of a read. He then stepped over and picked up the delicate silver necklace that had also been discarded, frowning as the memories flooded him. It was the one she had worn in Rivendell, where she had first confided in him, where they had connected on a deeper level, where he had first admitted to himself that he thought she was beautiful… It was also the necklace she had sacrificed to Balin, to help pay their way to Laketown, soon after which she kissed him in her grief as if he were the air she breathed. His eyes, now slightly glossy, glanced over a pair of fang earrings and he recognized Bifur's handiwork. Méra hadn't gotten around to piercing her ears yet, he expected she someday would have managed to convince her…
His frown deepened when he suddenly noticed the satchel on the bed. Confused, he set down the necklace and went to retrieve it. Upon closer inspection he recognized it as the purse he had given her, what felt like an age ago now, after she had sheepishly approached him to borrow some coin. He dumped the contents onto the bed and calculated that very little of it had actually been spent.
Bofur sat down and placed his head in his hands, guilt riding up his back as he replayed parts of the trial over in his mind. The loremasters had made it their angle to paint a picture of her as a crafty opportunist that took advantage of others to advance her own economic position. No. Even that was too kind. What they'd done was condemn her as nothing more than a greedy whore.
Despite Dain's orders, he should have spoken up, he could have at least defended her in that, and now the regret he felt was palpable. To accuse her of being solely motivated by a desire for money was almost laughable, for she was one of the most selfless and disinterested people he'd ever known in matters of wealth - apart from perhaps Bilbo Baggins… yet even Bilbo they had managed to convince to take a rather substantial payment home with him: a whole chest of coins, in fact, along with the Mithril shirt (of which the value was almost immeasurable, though as it had been given as one of Thorin's last acts as king, no one had felt comfortable questioning the parting of such a prize). The hobbit had only stammered refusals for a few moments, before realizing it was more polite to just stand back and allow it to be packed. He could not imagine his wife accepting such a visceral sum of treasure without at least as much fuss, especially not now when she'd clearly gone out of her way to leave behind all of her physical manifestations of wealth during a time when she would likely most require them.
He sighed forlornly and turned the leather satchel over in his hands, inspecting its handiwork to distract at least a small part of his mind, and yet thoughts continued to replay unbidden in his memory. At the time he'd found it so novel to see how she squirmed when asking him to borrow just a few gold coins. He'd happily tossed her the whole purse full, a trifle really, expecting it to be the first allowance of many to make her feel comfortable under the mountain - he'd failed to ever mention to her that wedded dwarrowdams oft received a very regular sum from their husbands, simply to spend at their leisure in the luxuries they so indulged in, something he had not yet had the chance to provide to her again. She never did ask him for anything more though, and simply contented herself with anything he might deign to provide for them. She had seemed so happy, with just him and the life he was building around them, and he suspected she would have been happy even if their quarters were half as grand and no further sums of gold ever found their way to her pockets.
Bofur groaned, tossing the coin purse back onto the bed. He should have just called off the whole damn farce when he saw that Róka was to be one of the loremasters involved. He wasn't quite sure what Dain had in his mind for summoning him of all people… perhaps to frighten her into subservience, as Róka no doubt held a grudge against her and would thereby be ruthless in his scrutiny.
Bofur's jaw tightened. If slandering her humble beginnings and questioning her motives ever since hadn't been bad enough, Bofur downright hated the whole lot of them for stooping so low as to attack her on a more personal level, from the manner of her dress, to her hair, and even her private hygiene habits for Durin's sake. Dwalin had been right; to treat a dam, any dwarven women, to such scroundulous treatment would have been heresy. It was nothing short of shameful.
'Dwalin… always the hero.' Bofur thought spitefully to himself, again lamenting how his behaviour in the trial would have looked to her, and wishing he could go back and change it.
He left the room, walking somewhat in a daze back to their kitchen space, his eyes inevitably settling once again on the tea kettle, which had been very strategically placed in the trash to draw attention to itself - to make sure he saw it.
No, the absolute worst part of the entire debacle, he realized, was having them all whip ludicrous accusations of infidelity about, no matter how wildly unlikely they were.
She had been honest about losing her maidenhead, and she had revealed all the darkness in her past… she was not perfect, but she had been genuine with him. He could never believe that she was simply some hormonal harlot of a girl that would lie with anyone who paid her heed. To suggest she might have been with the late master of Laketown, or his distasteful lackey, or even his own cousin Bifur… now that was laughable. He had fought the urge to rush up and give Róka a very poignant and lasting piece of his mind at that.
He didn't though.
He'd done nothing.
He simply stood there as his lass, his wife, was subject to mental warfare; attacked, belittled, insulted, humiliated…
What kind of husband was he?
He'd made so many mistakes with her. And now he had a choice. He could do nothing again, leave her to her fate, whatever it may be. Or he could do something.
"I can fix this." Bofur muttered to himself. "I have to fix this."
Bofur broke a quick pace through the mountain and bustled into her place of work, not bothering to acknowledge Baz or Darus who were sitting at the small table, sorting through a stack of documents. It wasn't until he began rather violently rustling about her desk that Baz stood up and cleared his throat.
"Anything we can help you with, mate?" he asked cautiously.
Bofur looked up at him distractedly. "Has anything been taken from here?"
Baz shook his head and approached the desk. "No, besides the maps and traveling gear, everything else is as she left it."
"Maps?" Bofur enquired, glancing at him quizzically.
"We weren't sure why some of the older versions would have been useful. Mind, none were labeled in common, so they might have just been grabbed by accident." He paused for a moment and studied Bofur in slight confusion after seeing the perplexed and dismayed expression appear on his face. "Where is she off to anyway? We didn't hear anything about a new assignment."
Bofur frowned, unsure what to say, and dropped his eyes back to the desk top. He then noticed a familiar name, written in her script, peeking out on the corner of a page underneath a stack of others, and so he quickly pulled the document to the top and waved Baz off as he scanned the words. It was a letter.
'Dear Bilbo,
I hope this finds you well. It feels as though an age has passed since we last spoke. I have much to tell you, too much, perhaps, for the span of one letter.
I would very much love to travel to visit you one day. My time in Erebor through the winter has me longing for a taste of greenery, for fresh summer air, and the feeling of the sun on my skin. I remember your tales of the Shire and it sounds like such an idyllic place to live, how envious I am of you for it…"
The letter remained unfinished, and Bofur pondered its contents a moment, before noticing another parchment by her hand, half crumpled and clearly unfinished as well as most of the page was left blank. He grabbed it and smoothed it out in front of him.
'Beorn. You once offered me sanctuary and I shall never forget your kindness and willingness to protect me from all harm. I very much hope to see you again, even though I shall never be able to repay your graciousness. It is a relief in my mind to know that I might have somewhere to go, if your warnings about the dwarves prove to be true.'
Bofur clenched his jaw, beginning to wonder if he'd been a fool to believe she only had Dale to seek refuge in. He carefully picked through and sorted the remaining documents on the desk and then went through the drawers as well. To his dismay, he found half a dozen more letters in varying states of completion. One of the longest was to the young woman named Kura from Windrest, and he ruefully had to acknowledge how she'd found such a quick and easy friendship there. In all likelihood, she may have headed straight to Windrest without even stopping in Dale, to be with human companions but out from under the thumb of the mountain. Another correspondence, however, was to Bard, also a lengthy composition outlining her admiration for him and his family, gratitude for everything he'd done and how she even considered his children as part of her own family, all with promises to visit more frequently. There was even one quickly scratched out to Tauriel, imploring her to return and fetch her so they might go on a bit of a holiday together.
The last he found while rummaging in her trash bin, and its contents caused him to let out a biting laugh in sheer hopelessness before collapsing back into the nearby armchair, allowing the letter to fall onto the floor.
Darus moved to retrieve the letter, and Bofur let him. There was no hope of covering up his strange, desperate behavior, and once word spread of her seemingly permanent absence from the mountain he knew the diplomats would begin to put together enough pieces of the puzzle to blame him. The usually dramatic dwarf cleared his throat and read the short letter aloud.
"'Thranduil, my one true love.
I forever yearn to be in your regal presence once more.
Every time I close my eyes, my dreams are only of you.
The very thought of your lips leaves me as heady as the sweet flowing wine you sent as a reminder of our night together.
I indulge in the memories of your breath against my neck, your tongue licking the sweat off my body, your long fingers…'"
Darus started strong, theatrical even, presented to Baz in bemusement, but as he read he turned to regard Bofur more critically and then awkwardly trailed off. "Okay, either the two of you are up to some very elaborate role-playing, which, hey, I won't judge, or there's something wrong. I'm guessing by the look on your face it's the latter. Bofur, what's going on…?"
Bofur closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, and then drew in a deep breath.
"Lads, I think I've made a terrible mistake." he admitted, his voice slightly strained. He then looked up at the pair, and in his brashness, he had drawn the unconventional duo into this mess. It would be unlike them to just leave well enough alone now, so they deserved the truth - and maybe, just maybe, being diplomats they would take his side of things into consideration, a courtesy he didn't imagine anyone in Thorin's Company would afford to him.
And so he told them everything. All she had told him, all he learned from the healer, what he had done, tried to do, the night of her departure, and they listened through it all without apparent judgment. They were working now, he realized, and that was fine. He didn't need them to take his side, he just needed them to help him work towards making things right, and the first step was finding her.
A fortnight into his search of Dale had brought no results, not a glimpse across a marketplace, or a possible sighting by the guards, not even a whisper or a rumor. Bofur had recruited Nori to help him search different sectors of the city as methodologically as they could. Darus and Baz had also thankfully agreed to subtly scout out the residences of both Bard and Hall while they were working in Dale, yet they saw no evidence of her at either location, nor sign of her anywhere else they frequented. Bofur then sought out Bard himself, and then his young son Bain on separate occasions, casually asking them if they had seen her (under the pretense that they had simply gone their separate ways on an outing to the city), but all to no avail. The four dwarves met nightly in the tavern, though now it was more of a ritual than anything else, as after the first week with no luck the thought of discussing possible leads and plans seemed to only discourage their efforts.
On the night of the fourteenth day, Bofur, Darus and Baz sat at their usual table in silence, waiting for the fourth member of their party. When Nori finally emerged from the cool spring evening and simply shook his head like he had on all the previous nights, the atmosphere of defeat thickened until it was finally unbearable.
"I don't think she's here, mate." Baz admitted with a slight grimace, which progressed into a full scowl as Nori, for reasons possibly unknown even to him, elbowed his way right in between Darus and Baz to claim the seat just across from Bofur.
"Grumpy-guts here is right." Nori agreed, waving to the barmaid to get her attention from across the room. "It's like lookin' for an unbred ewe in mating season out there."
"Charming. Why would you even need to know that?" Darus muttered drolly with an eyeroll, sliding away along the bench from the imposing dwarf, who seemed entirely unphased by the discomfort he was causing his fellow searchers. Nori, not discouraged in the least, turned to look right at Darus, even lifting an elbow up onto the table to face the other dwarf head on.
"Go try to wriggle a splash of milk from a dry nanny, why don't you. See how well she takes to it, then get back to me on that." He shook his head like that was entirely obvious, earning a look of further scathing disgust from his quarry.
"Enough." Bofur lamented tiredly. Normally he would have relished the exchange, but now he had no time for nonsense. Nori seemed to pick up on the uncharacteristically somber attitude, and so he stopped his teasing. "I thought she'd be here..." Bofur continued with a frown. "This was the most logical place… unless…" His mind brought forth her discarded letters, and while he knew some, perhaps even all, had been plants, still, he began to wonder if there was some truth in them. Perhaps she had gone to stay with Beorn after all.
"It's my fault, I suppose." Nori suggested after a moment as he straightened out at the table, earning himself more than one raised eyebrow from the others. "I taught her all I knew about espionage, after all."
"You mean when she was sent undercover here? Wasn't her disguise blown within a week of arriving?" Baz countered, and Nori turned the other way to retaliate
"Now see here, all I'm saying is she could be traipsing about as a man, woman or child for all I know. Come to think of it, I even heard tell of a witch haunting the slums…" This earned him deadpan stares, and so he held up his hands in his defense. "All I'm sayin' is it could be her. The wounded drunkard even swore up and down he was cursed by her evil spell, though to me it sounded awfully like he was gibbering khuzdul for 'go choke on a dragon's-"
Bofur abruptly rose to his feet at the same time that Darus gasped at the vulgarity of Nori's rather unhelpful interrupted account.
"Rumours and hearsay, that's all it's come to after weeks of looking?" He shook his head in disbelief. "We need to expand our search." he stated simply, then looked from face to face. No one voiced any objection - at least none could find the words to do so, even if they felt otherwise, for in Bofur's eyes was the desperate conviction of one whose madness was only kept at bay by his own momentum.
"Where do you suggest?" Baz asked, swirling the last of his ale before finishing it off. "Where do you think she would go? Windrest maybe?"
Bofur nodded, having suspected the hamlet as another possibility for some time now. "Best we check there first."
"And if she's not there?" Darus enquired with raised brows.
"Then I'll keep looking!" Bofur retorted, startling even himself as he slammed his mug down with more force than he intended and sloshed some of the liquid out in the process. He steadied himself, and then continued. "I'll go all the way to the reaches of the Shire if I need to."
The silence that followed seemed to ripple outwards to the surrounding tables as folks nearby wondered in whispers what drunken tirade the dwarf might be on. Bofur's last promise seemed to take on all the more gravity in the hush, but then, into the silence, Darus asked the question all Bofur's allies had been too kind hearted to ask while the search was still in its infancy, while his wounds had been too fresh.
"…and if she doesn't wish to be found? Isn't there some sort of quaint saying all you really dwarvish dwarves say, something like 'leave iron to rest before you hammer it.'?"
Bofur closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. "'Tis in the blood,' my father'd say: 'mining, tis in the blood… The vein of gold, tis the bread of life…eat, sleep, live and breathe it, she's your salvation and your downfall.'" He looked down and produced a coin between his fingers. The gold still sang to him, but it's song was distant, and so intensely coupled with a yearning for her - his One - that it brought a glassy shimmer to his eyes. "And yet, when given the choice - between the gold, and her, I chose her." He met the eyes of his compatriots and smiled softly, sadly.
"No matter the outcome now, she needs to know that I choose her, and maybe, just maybe, she will still find it in her heart to choose me, for all my faults."