A Willing Heart

Five

Everything around me stood still as Thorin looked at me. And for a brief moment, I saw him as a child looking at me much the same way, sending chills up and down my spine. I had seen that gaze before, I thought, as I barely heard the sound of Jürgen's voice sternly calling my name. But it had been so many years ago that I'd been the subject of that gaze, before my whole life changed and I was forced to stop being what I was. 

It was something that had nagged at me for so long. The differences between the other girls in town and myself had been so glaringly obvious that I learned to hide them all beneath my hooded cloak. Mother had tried her best to tell me that I was simply shorter, stockier and hairier than most women she knew - even all young girls we knew.  

While there wasn't much we could do regarding my height, though I'd developed an ample bosom that attracted more attention than I wanted, mother knew there was something we could do about the beard that grew on my face even as a young child. And so she used father's razor to shave my face first thing in the morning so that no one would see, checking it at night to make sure it did not need another shave the next day. And when Inge taught mother what melted sugar, water and lemon could do to pull the hairs by the roots, she taught me how to do it, till it no longer hurt me each time I did it to myself. And the hairs that once filled the the sides of my jaw eventually grew sparser as the years went by, rendering my face as smooth as the next woman in town - except the Mathilda sisters. 

"Aleanna," Jürgen growled. "Leave! Now!" 

Thorin glared at the older man as Dwalin stood alongside him. "How dare you order her like she was a child?" Thorin asked angrily. "How long did you think you could hide Frigga from her own kind, Master Jürgen? She is a dwarf, not a human you can order about." 

I took a step back, Thorin's spell over me finally broken as Jürgen whistled for his horse, mounting it fluidly as it cantered past him. I'd known Jürgen for as long as I could remember. His voice had always been one of authority that I knew better to refuse ever since my parents died. 

But at the thought of the people I had long considered my parents, I hesitated and I glanced back at Thorin.  

"I know who you are, Frigga," Thorin said. "I gave you that circlet that you wear now as a necklace when you were only four or five years old. I chose the jewels myself. Ruby and emeralds, set in a sea of diamonds. Fiery and earthy, because that's what you were. You and my brother, Frerin and my sister, Dis, used to play together in the Great Hall." 

As Thorin spoke, I held my breath, his voice holding me captive. And when he continued, I felt the beating of my heart only grow louder, the pulse hammering between my temples.  

"That scar that you hide behind your hood," Thorin continued as his finger traced the outline of the scar that spanned from my right cheekbone down along my neck, ending just above the collarbone. "You were too impatient to wait for a royal guard to retrieve your new kite stuck in the branches of the yew that grew along the side of the courtyard. And so you climbed up the tree and fell, cutting yourself so deep you almost died from your wounds."

"I was too young to know any better," I whispered, the memory of the fall slowly coming back to me.  But as quickly as it had come, it faded.

"Too young and already too precocious. You were four when you fell," Thorin whispered. "So much time may have already passed since then, but I know in my heart it's you." 

I did not know why, but in that brief second when I looked into the prince's eyes, the world I once knew crumbled around me. The place I had long called home had been nothing but an illusion, a well-crafted story to make me believe that I was one of them, in this town of men.