Iron and Oak

Chapter Ten

SPOILER ALERT!! 

ALL OF THE REMAINING CHAPTERS IN THIS STORY CONTAIN EVENTS FROM THE END OF THE BOOK, THE HOBBIT.  

LOTS OF SPOILERS!

Esja gazed up at the cliff face, wishing she could see into the small recess where she knew the dwarves to be. The sun had sunk below the horizon to the west, and the shadows were growing deeper, slithering up the ravines and veiling the lower face of Lonely Mountain. She turned back to the fire; using a stick, she spread the coals, covering them with dirt. She didn't know how long it might be before anyone came back. She looked up again, imagining that the darkness swallowing the mountain was something far more sinister than a sunset. Bombur watched her quietly as he cut hard-crusted bread, filling it with butter and thick slices of cheese. He wrapped them in cloth and laid them on the hot stones around the fire.  

Esja dropped her stick, "I'm going to go check the ponies, Bombur." 

"You think they've opened it," he said. 

Bofur looked at them both, then went back to quiet playing on his flute.  

"I think it would have to be something rather important for Bilbo to miss dinner," she said, trying to lighten the pall that seemed to have fallen over them with the darkness.  

When she reached the ponies, her own little Grassley came and nuzzled her head against Esja's arm. Esja turned and pressed her face to her pony's furry neck.  

"Please be careful," she said, looking up at the mountain again. "Please, Gods, be kind to him." 

Almost a week ago, now, Bilbo had noticed ridges that looked like stairs cut into the side of the southwest spur of the mountain. The company, minus Bombur and Esja, had climbed the stairs and followed a treacherous and barely discernible path to a small grass-floored, steep-walled recess. There they had discovered what they knew to be the work of dwarven craftsmen—a perfectly flat stone wall, without crack or crevice. There was no jointing to be seen. They knew they had finally found their door.  

She remembered that night well; she had been with the ponies, finding welcome distraction in their care. In the days since Thorin had told her his part in that tragic time after Erebor's destruction, her emotions had fluctuated a bit wildly. She was, at times, utterly despondent then, without warning, filled with rage. She was most distressed during the quiet days as the dwarves searched the mountainside, and she spent long hours alone. She struggled to keep her mind occupied and found herself visiting those final hours in her mind again and again. Her bitterness toward those who deemed her life theirs to command led her to torture a very innocent, though likely already dead, tree violently. The torment she suffered, remembering that even Thorin had not spoken a word of explanation to her as her brother dragged her from his feet, gnawed at her. Had he always thought her so weak? She pondered that as she sharpened her short sword, dulled by the thick bark of the tree.  

But then he would walk into camp, tired and dirty and discouraged, and the last one hundred seventy-one years would vanish. He would kiss her forehead and slide his fingers along the veil she knew he despised. With a shake of her head, she would catch his hand and send him to wash as she dished out dinner.

Esja knew that her unveiled face discomfited some of his company and would not set it aside unless they were alone.  

When Bombur started staying at the camp with her, she found a new way to please Thorin. After she and Bombur had prepared the evening meal, she would fill two bowls and excuse herself to care for the ponies. Asking Bombur to let Thorin know where she was. She would drop her veil near the feed sacks and water bags, find a brush, and curry ponies until he came. The first night he had come down looking angry and concerned until she smiled at him and kissed him.