Author's note: a thong in this context is a strip of leather that's used as a hair tie. If you look it up, I suggest typing "leather hair thong" or you might get some pictures of undies.

Elvish/Sindarin: Muk = feces (profane)

Dwarvish/Khuzdul: Khazad = Dwarves

Dwarvish/Khuzdul: bundanum = literally "head-kiss," a gesture of familial affection in which foreheads touch

Dwarvish/Khuzdul: mimúna = little one (female)

Then

"Watch your footing," Dwalin says, before swinging at her. They're in the forest again, training. Emery isn't quite strong enough yet to safely train with blades, so they use sticks. Soon, though, he says.

"I thought the primary focus at the moment was my grip?" she says, bringing her stick up to block his. She may be in the form of a dam, but even Dwarves need to build up their strength. Dwarven weapons are typically quite heavy, and require a considerable amount of grip strength to even hold, let alone to wield. And considering most dwarrowlings begin training the moment they can confidently carry themselves on their own two feet, she's very behind.

"The primary focus, not the only one," Dwalin replies. He swings again and she moves to block, but a stray lock of hair falls into her eyes. She instinctively shuts her eyes, causing her to lose focus as well as vision. Dwalin's stick sweeps her legs out from under her and she falls onto her back with a yelp.

"Muk, that hurt," she groans. Dwalin rests his stick on his shoulder and gives her an odd look.

"What was that you said?" he asks.

"Muk, Elvish word for 'shit,'" she answers, sitting up with another groan. His expression darkens. Not in suspicion (she's familiar with that expression on his face), but from his dislike of Elves.

"And where in the blazes did you hear that blasted tongue spoken?"

"My dreams, the ones in which the Valar speak to me," Emery explains. "Yavanna has been calling me there most nights to teach me the languages of the world, including Sindarin." He says no more about the Elvish language, but raises his eyebrows.

"You learned a coarse word from the Lady Yavanna?" he says, as though he doesn't quite believe it. She chuckles.

"Oh, I've learned more than one, and in several languages. Yavanna has a surprisingly dirty vocabulary." He chuckles and shakes his head, then offers her a hand up.

"You need to get that hair of yours under control," he says as he pulls her to her feet. "A stray bit every now and then is one thing, but yours seems to have a knack for finding your eyes. That can be deadly in a real fight." She doesn't say anything, but she knows. It's the reason Kili decided to cut bangs into his hair. It won't stay out of his eyes without braids (which he rarely wears), and it never stays in clips or thongs for very long.

Emery's hair is vastly different from Kili's in terms of type and appearance, but it behaves similarly. It's especially difficult because the front is only half as long as the back. A remnant from a foster parent (before Tiffany and Aaron) who was a hair stylist and forced her to sit as he took scissors and dyes to her hair, giving her red hair and bangs. He usually put her hair in pigtail braids, and the kids at school took to calling her Pippi Longstocking. The color faded over time and her hair grew, but length of the front is why Aulë's bead now sits at the height of her bicep rather than at her waist where the rest of her hair falls. It doesn't look horrible, but it causes problems.

"Do you not know how to put braids in your hair?" Dwalin asks. She shakes her head.

"I know how to braid, I just lose all coordination when I try it on my own hair." He nods.

"Aye, I've known many a Dwarrow to share in that struggle," he says sympathetically. He looks at the stick in his hand for a moment, seeming to be considering something.

"For us Dwarves," he begins, "our hair is not often something we allow those outside of our families to touch. The exceptions of course being trusted friends." She nods. It didn't take her long in Arda to figure out that hair is an intimate, almost sacred thing among the Khazad. Touching someone else's hair isn't exactly on the same level as groping, but it's definitely not something one does without permission, and permission isn't given without trust. "Do you trust me?" His question takes her off guard and she blinks. She looks at him in confusion, and sees him no longer looking at the stick, but at her. Upon seeing her confusion, he explains. "Your hair has gotten into your eyes and blinded you many a time, and caused you to blunder. It needs to be restrained when you fight, and the ties you use simply are not working. I am asking if you trust me enough to braid it back." Her eyes widen slightly as she understands what he's saying.

Trust has never been her strong suit. Even when she arrived in Arda, when she was found by the Dwarves and became somewhat dependent on them, she didn't trust them. Even though she loved them before truly meeting them, she didn't trust them. Fili, Kili, and Tami were young when she arrived, though, and their innocence quickly won her over. How could they hurt her? They were too young to know how to hurt. And even as they grew up and matured, they never once betrayed that trust. It was much slower with the adults and older children. It took years. But eventually, gradually, she did come to trust her family and their close friends.

Does she trust Dwalin enough that she can move past her fear of having her hair in someone else's hands?

She nods, answering both his spoken question and the silent one in her mind. He nods in response, and lowers himself into a cross-legged sitting position on the ground.

"Do you have a style preference?" he asks as he pats the spot in front of him for her to sit.

"Not really," she says, sitting in the designated spot with her back toward him and untying the thong from where it's holding a ponytail in place.

"I don't suppose you have a comb in that unnatural pack of yours?" She chuckles and turns into a monkey to access her bag. Some time ago, she discovered that whichever form she was in when shouldering it, the bag would stay with that form and disappear when she changed. It was Dwalin's suggestion to give it to a form she wasn't likely to ever need, thereby ensuring it could never be lost or taken. She pulls a comb from the bag and hands it to the Dwarf in question, then shoulders the bag once more and returns to her dwarven form. As he starts to run the comb through the tangles, she strains to keep herself from wincing. She has a sensitive scalp (though not as sensitive as Kili's), and he isn't any more gentle than Fili. Most dwarves aren't, from what she can tell. They don't need to be, as most of them have scalps that are as tough as the rest of their skin. But she toughed out the roughness of the hair stylist and even her own mother, and she can tough out Dwalin's.

"I don't think my hair's ever held a more complex braid than a simple three-strand," Emery says offhandedly. She can almost hear his eyebrows raise.

"Did your parents never braid your hair for you?" he asks, confused.

"My mother did style it for me, but she usually just gave me pigtails." She looks at the ground, picking at a blade of grass. "It was one of my foster parents who gave me braids, and he only ever did basic three-strands." He shakes his head in exasperation.

"It still doesn't make a lick of sense to me, this fostering system," he says. "If a child's parents cannot raise them, why would they not be given into the care of their next of kin?"

"Humans aren't nearly as honorable as Dwarves, at least where I come from," she explains. "Most of them will refuse responsibility of a child that isn't theirs. Heck, there are plenty of parents who refuse to be responsible for their own children. Besides, being next-of-kin doesn't make a person an ideal guardian. Sometimes, with their next-of-kin is the worst possible place for the child to be. Family doesn't mean the same over there as it does here. I've lived with children who came from families that made Orcs look like upstanding examples of love and virtue." It's silent for a moment, then she continues softly. "I guess I was probably one of the lucky ones. My life in the system was hell, but I didn't enter it because I was taken from someplace worse. I had a good family who loved me, and we were happy." She trails off, lost in thought. Neither of them say anything for a while. Dwalin's braid is past the crown of her head before he speaks again.

"What sort of place were you in when Mahal brought you here?" That...is not what she thought he would ask. She thought he would ask about the different types of places that exist in the foster system. Somehow, though, the question he did ask is worse. It's more personal, something she can't distance herself from by passing it off as a story she heard from another kid.

"It...wasn't as bad as some other places I stayed in," she begins carefully. "There was enough food for everyone...they made sure we got to school...we always had clothes that fit. I lived with a married couple and two other foster children. Two boys, Jayden and A-Anthony..." She stops. She doesn't want to be looked at with pity. Too many times, she's been looked and stared at with pity, as though her defining trait was the horrible things she endured. Dwalin's fingers pause, indicating he noticed her slip-up. Beginning to panic, she rushes into her words, trying to distract from what he heard. "Jayden was no small nightmare, he kept stealing my things. Sometimes I would be making dinner and he'd launch a spitball into it..." She laughs humorlessly. She doesn't have to look at him to know he's concerned. Thankfully, though, he doesn't ask, and instead continues to braid.

Many people consider Balin to be the wiser of the two brothers. And perhaps, to some degree, that's true. He certainly has a greater store of knowledge. But people, even people of Arda, often mistake knowledgable for wise. They forget that wisdom is not the sum of experiences, but the ability to learn from them and apply the lessons learned. Whoever would say Dwalin son of Fundin isn't wise would be a foolish someone indeed.

Now

Emery sits in a chair with Dwalin stood behind her, running a comb through her hair. It's grown even longer since the first time it was put in Dwarven braids, and now reaches her mid-thigh. She considered cutting it for practicality's sake, but he was adamant that she accomplish that with braids rather than blades. The resulting product was a sort of crown braid that morphed into a single many-strand braid that came to rest between her shoulder blades, her family braid tucked into the weaves. That became her normal style, and she hasn't gone very many days without it since. Today, however, is different. She's been cleared to walk about and eat normal foods, but Elrond and Oin both want her taking it easy for the next few days, which means no training. Instead, she'll be joining Elrond and the Company for a small banquet. She would've preferred to go as normally as possible or not at all, but she was invited to sit at the high table, which means putting actual effort into her appearance. So, for tonight at least, her hair will flow to its natural length.

"You know, my head isn't going anywhere, there's no need to - ow - yank it about," Emery complains. Dwalin usually does a relatively decent job of appearing calm and composed, but whatever emotion is bothering him is making itself known as he roughly pulls her hair into the intended braids. Her comment seems to wake him up from whatever fog he was in, and he apologizes before continuing more carefully in his weaving. Worry seeps through her as she pays closer attention to her mentor, listening to his deliberately-timed breathing and feeling the tension and faint tremor in his hands. She waits until the braid he's working on is tied off, then turns around in her chair before he can start on the next one. He dons an exasperated look as his hands move to his hips, causing him to resemble Dis when one of the boys trails mud on the floor.

"Have you decided to wear half your hair loose, then?" he says sarcastically.

"Something's bothering you," she says rather than giving a retort, "enough that you're struggling to maintain your composure. Don't try to deny it," she adds when Dwalin starts to shake his head, "your hands are shaking, so it must be something serious." His jaw clenches and he stares at the floor. She waits for him to speak, and after a minute, he takes a deep breath.

"You nearly died, and it was my fault," he mutters. She blinks in surprise, and then confusion.

"How-"

"They were all worried when you didn't follow us down the hole. I told them you'd be fine, that you'd join us later, and pressed them forward. I made them leave you behind. I left you behind." He gets it all out quickly, as though the words burn. She sighs in understanding. Survivor's guilt, it was called in her birth world. Nearly every counselor and therapist she saw ended up bringing it up. And she knows it doesn't necessarily require someone to die in order to have an effect. Telling him that won't help him, though. So she goes for a more logical approach.

"It's a good thing you did." He finally looks up from the floor to look at her in confusion. She shrugs in response. "If you had come back for me, you would've either carried me down the hole or argued with the elves until it was too late for Elrond to save me. Either way, he wouldn't have gotten to me in time and I would've died." Dwalin is still for a while, occasionally blinking. Eventually, he half-heartedly chuckles, closes his eyes, and gently lays his forehead against hers. The affectionate gesture causes tears to prickle at her eyes, and she shuts them to keep the waterworks from flowing. The bundanum is rather like a hug, but much like hair, is reserved for family and very close friends due to its intimate nature. Once, roughly three years ago, she forgot where she was and accidentally called him "dad." They both pretended like the slip-up hadn't happened, but he'd very briefly brushed his forehead against hers, the way she'd seen him do with his sons. It wasn't quite the same as being hugged by her actual dad, but it was similar enough that it brought tears to her eyes, just as it does now.

"You never cease to amaze, mimúna," he says softly. She huffs in exasperation.

"First my mother, then Yavanna, and now you. How many times must I reiterate that I'm not little anymore?" she says, no real frustration in her tone. Dwalin chuckles.

"As wee as you were when you first came to us, so shall you remain in my eyes."