Princess Under the Mountain

Page 2

I am glad that I had been able to follow Balin in my ghost form to see my daughter. The two separate work spaces show the differences in the type of work they each do best. The old man, Solian works armor and weapons, while Thora makes pretty things and mends pots, and they both work horseshoes and tools.

Solian notices Balin first, but my old friend motions him to silence before he can be properly greeted and we all watch my beautiful girl as she works. She is so much like her mother in build and bearing, with her mother’s dark brown eyes. But her hair is black, like mine. It is long and curly, and she has it caught back from her face with a leather thong. Even in sweat soaked clothes, I see the princess under the grime. My beautiful girl grown to a woman.

She lifts the piece of metal she has been shaping to the light with the tongs to check her work before dropping it back into the coals to reheat. I watch her stretch her back and shove a wayward curl out of her eyes with the back of one hand, leaving a smudge across her forehead. She finally turns to speak to her foster father and sees Balin. We have come here many times over the years to check on her so she knows him well. She smiles brightly at him, like her mother‘s smile, before Erebor fell.

~*~*~*~

“Greetings, Master Balin! What business brings ye, sir?”

“Not of the usual sort, lassie.” He returned her smile, but not so cheerfully. “Could ye leave off your work for a few?”

“Oh, certainly.” She lifted the metal out of the coals with the tongs and set it on her anvil then removed her leather apron and hung it on a peg. “I’ll be back, Babba,” she called with a wave to her foster father. She walked to the well and drew a bucket of cool water. She washed her face and hands before facing the old warrior. “How can I be of service, sir?”

Balin took a deep breath. “I have some sad news for ye, lassie. She stood still and waited in silence for him to continue. “Ye know that Brina and Solian are not your birth parents?”

“O aye! They always told me that. They told me that when the time came for my birth, my mother was ill and weak. That she died shortly after I was delivered.”

“And what know ye of your father?”

“That he is a great man, but that he didn’t know how to raise me and that he was afraid for my safety since he was something of a nomad. They always told me that they hoped he would return for me one day. That they were sure he loved me, but thought that leaving me here would be better for me.”

Balin nodded. “Indeed, all this is true, lassie. He was a great man. And he though that leaving ye here was best for ye.”

The tense of his words were not lost on her. “Was? So he is dead then?”

“Aye, Thora, he is.”

“How?” her voice was beginning to crack with emotion as she held back tears.

“He was a man of some high rank among Dwarves. Did ye know that your parents were from Erebor?” She nodded affirmation. “He wanted to reclaim your rightful inheritance and place in that kingdom before he came for ye.”

Her breath caught. “The dragon?”

“No, lass. We did not hardly face the dragon at all. Others killed him, but we caught the dragon sickness while in the mountain and afterward started a war that nearly destroyed three races of peoples. Your father, and those of us who survived, were brought to our senses just in time, but he did fall during the battle. Many lives were brutally crushed that day. But now there is cause to rejoice because now that  Erebor is ours once again, and that your father’s place of honor is restored in it, I have come to fetch ye to fill it.

The girl’s tears were flowing now. She covered her face with her hands and nearly doubled over as her body shook with her grief. “I just wish he had let me know him…” she gasped out between sobs.

“But he did.” Thora looked up at Solian. Brina was a step or two behind him. She had not heard her foster parents’ approach.

He opened his arms to her and she ran to him for comfort as he explained. “Do you remember when I was hurt and couldn’t work for so long?” She nodded against his chest. “Your work wasn’t supporting us so you tried to do some of my work for me and you weren’t strong enough to make the armor shape the right way.”

“Yes. And your friend, Prince Thorin stopped in to see you. He didn’t know you’d been hurt.”