A Willing Heart

Twenty-Two

Though I wasn't able to finish my food for I'd lost my appetite after what I'd seen in King Thror's quarters, I did my best to be happy around Bernd and Inge. It was the least I could do for two people whom I loved so much and who I was now leaving - and if Dwalin was right, never to see them again.

It was a bittersweet reunion, one that I treasured every minute of as I gave them each one last hug before they returned to the inn down the hill for Master Renner's inn was without any occupancy available till the next morning, when the dwarves were scheduled to leave. Besides, Master Renner's dining hall was beginning to fill up with dwarves eager to spend their last night in Fennhill celebrating before heading out into the wilderness and Inge, still recovering from her wounds from the goblin raid, was tired.  There would have been no way she would have gotten any rest, knowing how hard dwarves can celebrate.

After leaving the sword that Jürgen made for me in my room just before they left, Bernd suggested that I sew little pockets in my tunic and coat to hide the coins and jewels that he gave me. This, he said to me after telling me what he had just learned from one of Lialam's former soldiers, about the day Tadd and Jerrel were killed. It was enough to cause a chill to go up and down my spine, the realization that ever since Lialam recognized who I was when I first arrived in Greenbanü, everything about my life had always been under his control.

But even now that he was dead, the ripples of his discovery and the everything he had done to take advantage of my parents' love continued to travel across the surface of an otherwise calm pond.  There was, after all, the tattooed dwarf.

Using whatever time I had alone before Thorin would return to the room, I pulled out my pouch of sewing implements and sat down by the fire to quickly reinforce a strip of pockets along the hems of my tunic and coat with leather. I sewed a similar lining in Thorin's coat where I stored a few of the jewels just along the line of the fur trim as I sat by the fire in the bedchambers wearing only my thin chemise.

I had no idea how to tell him about the jewels but for now, I knew such information would have to wait. As I sewed, dwarves were singing and dancing in the dining hall, the music drifting into my chambers through the window. I recognized a few dwarf songs and I smiled as I heard the stomping of boots upon the wooden floors and the clapping of hands to go with the music.

The dwarves were certainly celebrating their last night in Fennhill, I thought, and what better way to do it than with raucous laughter and song. A part of me wanted to join them, to hear their laughter and even dance, if I could, to the music they were playing. But it felt strange for me to do it alone. As Thorin's wife, wouldn't it be more appropriate if he were with me?

After checking the seams to make sure that the hidden pockets were reinforced and sewn shut with sturdy thread, I folded my tunic and coat by the bed, leaving Thorin's coat by the armchair where he'd left it last. It made me nervous hiding the jewels this way, but it also made sense. I could not be carrying them all in one pouch from around my belt and not have it foremost in my mind throughout the entire journey. This way, as long as the reinforced pockets held fast, the jewels could remain hidden all the way to Dunland.

Once I was satisfied with what I'd done, I sat down in the same chair that Thorin had sat in the night before to smoke his pipe, curling into a ball and dangling my bare legs off the arms of the chair. I stared at the logs crackling in the fire for a few minutes and yawned.

Though I didn't want to weigh myself with thoughts about King Thror and the madness that had somehow taken over him, the thoughts came unbidden nonetheless. I thought of Prince Thrain and Thorin and the burden they both had to carry - that of keeping the king's madness hidden from his people. How long would they be able to keep it away from everyone else, I wondered. And with the journey beginning tomorrow, how could they ensure that the king would not have any more outbursts like what I had just witnessed?

My thoughts went to the tattooed dwarf and about what Inge had said. How could I have forgotten him, I wondered. But then, why would I want to remember times when I was afraid? Times when a dwarf's stares made my skin crawl and when I wished that I would never ever be alone with him for fear that he would do something, even though he watched me like some prize he longed for, his eyes narrowing as he planned his plans for Lialam. I remembered him, but at the same time, I didn't.

For I couldn't go back there without plunging myself into an abyss of uncertainty and questions never meant to be answered.

The knock on the door interrupted my thoughts and I opened it a crack to see Lady Mani and Frerin standing outside. When Lady Mani saw that I was not exactly dressed, she said something to Frerin who turned to look away, his attention towards the sound of music and merriment in the main building.

"What are you doing inside your room?" Lady Mani asked, smiling. "Will you join us at the dining hall, Lady Frigga? I want to celebrate our last night in Fennhill with some drinking and dancing."

When I hesitated for a moment, Frigga peered over my shoulder. "Is Thorin here?"

I shook my head. "He is with the king," I replied.

"Well, then come with us anyway," she laughed. "Frerin and I were just thinking about how we could either sit dourly inside our rooms or go out there and join everyone else. Even Arna and the nephews are in the dining hall for it is too noisy for the nephews to sleep."

At the mention of Arna and the nephews, I brightened. "Well then," I said. "If they're all there, then give me a few minutes and I shall be right out."

I shut the door and quickly got dressed. Lady Mani was right. Did I really need to sit here alone all miserable while the rest of the dwarves were celebrating outside? The answer, I thought as I smiled to myself, glad that I had not undone the braids in my hair, was quite simple.

~~~

The dining hall was indeed filled wall to wall with dwarves celebrating their last night in Fennhill. Master Renner was ensuring that there was no shortage of mead and ale when he saw us and led us to an empty corner table before he left for the night. It was a good day for business, he said. Besides, whatever had been paid for the previous night's wedding dinner had been enough to cover for three kegs of ale for tonight as well. He only hoped that he would have enough left over till his supply would be replenished.

At the front of the room, a group of dwarves with musical instruments were busy playing a fast song that sent dwarves stomping their feet and a few dancing where they stood, although some of the tables were pushed to the sides to make more room for couples willing to take the floor. Lady Mani and Frerin downed their mugs of ale before getting up to join some of the dwarves dancing just as Arna arrived with Fili and Kili on either side of her.

There was definitely no early sleep for the nephews, I thought, for they were wide awake and enjoying themselves immensely. Even Arna was laughing at something a dwarf-woman said in her ear. At least she had some help this time, for some of the dwarf-women who had been helping us stock the food wagon stood next to her as she enjoyed herself with a mug of ale, keeping an eye on the nephews as well.

"Will you dance with us later, Aunt Frigga?" Fili asked loudly as he stood up on the bench next to me. He almost had to shout at the top of his lungs for me to hear him, and I nodded, laughing. Kili crawled on my lap and sat down, trying to grab my mug of ale to sneak a sip from.

"Oh no, you don't," I said, grabbing the mug from him and taking a few sips that warmed my throat instantly. "Would you like to dance with me and Kili later, Fili?"

"I'm Kili," the dark haired little dwarf on my lap said as he pointed to his brother. "He's Fili."

"Oh, yes, you are indeed," I said, smiling as I took another sip and holding it away from his prying hands. "So will you dance with me then, little Lord Kili?"

He nodded, clapping his hands and together, the three of us turned out attention to the dwarves dancing in the center of the room, the music playing even faster now. Lady Mani and Frerin were lost in the crowd, though I could see glimpses of them as they danced together, lost in each other. I envied them their innocence, and for a moment I wondered if Thorin would ever laugh the way Frerin easily did, as if the world did not weigh on him as heavily as it did his brother.

I missed him dearly, feeling his absence more keenly now that as I watched Frerin hold the lovely Mani in his arms, oblivious of anyone else around him. But I forced my attention to the rest of the dwarves in the hall, looking at their happy faces and realizing that this was all real - this time, I was really among my own kind.

For a few minutes, we sang and laughed with everyone else, and slowly, I finished my ale before Arna replaced it with another mug, and yet another when that was done. Soon, I was warm all over, free from even my own worries about King Thrain's madness, and the tattooed dwarf, and even of what lay ahead of us tomorrow. An hour or two later - I could no longer remember - I gathered the nephews and together with Arna and the other dwarf-women, we joined everyone else in the middle of the hall to dance even though there was barely enough room to really move around.

But we didn't care. We were all enjoying ourselves.

When the tune changed to something I remembered from Erebor, the memories of having to learn the steps for the court dances suddenly rushed through me like a strong wind that almost yanked me off my feet. Tears blurred my vision and I gasped at the emotions it wrung from me as I forced myself to be present, carrying Kili in one arm, my other hand holding his hand as if we were both waltzing together. We twirled around the floor as I became oblivious to anyone else but the memories that returned.

The familiar songs filled the room, becoming louder than normal and soon the songs echoed inside my head, the voices of the dwarves around me catapulting me back to a time when I was a child just like Kili before me. Maybe it was the combination of the strong drink that burned inside me now, the music, the songs, the laughter and the dwarves that surrounded me - as if all of them combined tore through the layers that I'd been taught to put over me as I grew up believing I was someone else - a human child borne to human parents.

Then I heard a child's laughter echoing in my mind, recognizing it as my own when I was just a child, and another dwarf's, this voice deeper as he counted the steps I was to take - left foot forward, then back, then twirl and hold hands. The memories made my chest feel heavy as if I were an empty vessel now filled to the brim with memories of a time when I wasn't meant to be hidden, and forced to be someone I wasn't.

How could I have forgotten all of this, I wondered, when they were memories of home?

Faces around me began to blend together, my face burning as I moved about the floor, listening to Kili laugh in my ear and feeling his small arms circle my neck tightly as he held on to me as I moved. The smell of the boy's skin and hair brought me even deeper into the darkest corners of my memories, now unlocked and threatening to spill over, engulfing me and everyone around me.

The sob escaped my throat then and the tears spilled down my cheeks as Kili was pulled from my grasp and then someone else stepped in front of me, a pair of strong arms holding me and pulling me against his broad chest. I clung to him then, not seeing him for I did not need to. My body knew right away who held me against him, whose lips touched my hair, and whose fingers pulled me even closer, his scent filling my nostrils as I let him lead me through the throng of dwarves from the middle of the dining hall and out of the hallway, through the corridors that led to our bedchambers.

And when the door shut behind us, he continued to hold me close as I sobbed against his chest, feeling his hands stroke my hair tenderly as he simply stood there and stayed with me. And when my legs crumpled beneath me, he carried me in his arms and lay me upon the bed, lying next to me as I continued to cry and talk and talk and talk some more about the things that I had always known.

About the things I had been forced to forget.

~~~

I am a dwarf, I know that now. I know it for it was a dwarf who took me away from the marketplace of Dale, where I was skipping along the cobblestones away from my mother like I always did, for she always managed to run after me and reel me back in, laughing as she did so as she called me by the pet name she'd christened me with - Lukhudel - 'light of all lights'.

The dwarf who grabbed me from a darkened corner that smelled of blood and guts bore the tattoo of a skull with its jaw open, marked upon the back of his hand that covered my mouth as he pulled me into the shadows where blood flowed upon the stones. This was where they slaughtered the animals and he'd been watching me, he said, waiting till I ran along with all the other children of Dale, running after the merchant with the colorful kites that I loved so much.

No one would miss me, he said, for I was too ugly to be wanted. Ugly because of the scar that ran across the side of my face even though it was closer to my ear than that of my cheek. But he had use for me, he said, for he knew I was the daughter of the high counsel, and recently gifted with a circlet made of pure mithril, emeralds, rubies and diamonds by the young prince himself. Maybe I was the betrothed, he muttered then. What a prize, what a prize you are, dwarf princess.

And so he took me away, binding my hands together, gagging me and tossing me into a wagon that smelled of rags and oil. I hit my head upon something hard then and darkness overtook me. When I came to, it was almost dark and he was whistling a merry tune as the city of Dale and the kingdom of Erebor became smaller behind us. I squirmed and rolled and hoisted myself up to the edge of the wagon. I threw myself off the edge, hitting the ground with a sickening thud just as thunder rolled in the distance, muffling my fall.

I don't know how long I hid beneath the leaves of a giant fern, my hands still bound behind me but my gag loosened when I saw the lamp light of a wagon in the distance. Three wagons had been forced to stop for the night, waiting till the storm ended and as the winds blew, the lamp that hung from the roof swayed and creaked. And I heard the soft voice of a woman singing a song.

I was in a fever by then, hungry and scared. But I was desperate for help. The wagon from where the singing came from smelled of fresh wood and inside I could see a tall thin man carving something in his hands. A woman singing the song I heard was sewing something close to another lamp close to her inside the wagon.

I called out for help then and after a few minutes, my voice drowned out by the rain and the thunder, the man brought down the ladder for the woman who opened the back flaps. And there I was, struggling to balance myself on the steps as I scrambled towards her and her eyes, wide in shock, staring at me as if I were a ghost.

They took care of me then - Tadd and Jerrel. But first they had to untie the binds around my wrists and tend to the cuts and bruises that marred my face. They said I had strained my shoulder and that I had been barely able to move it for almost a month and that they had to put it in a sling to let it heal. But all that I no longer remembered, for I only spoke Khuzdul and nothing else. They said I kept saying Erebor but it was one city they did not want to return to, for they said an alarm had been sounded about a missing dwarf-child, and that anyone caught with her would be put to death.

They said dwarves showed no mercy.

And so they hid me for some time till the richest man in Greenbanü took notice that I was different - that Tadd and Jerrel did not have a sister with a child she could not care for. And when the dwarf appeared in Greenbanü, it was then that everything changed.

Lialam offered Tadd and Jerrel his protection from the dwarf he called Rodrick - but unknown to them, he'd offered Rodrick a deal. Spare the child, and I will offer another to take her place. For as long as she stays in Greenbanü, my wealth will grow if her parents continue to hand out the reward for information about her. For though King Thror may have been merciless with his handling of those seeking dwarven gold, the high counselor and his wife were willing to give everything they owned for any news of their only child.

After the dwarf came and went - that same summer when Lunara disappeared - I no longer played with the children. I was kept hidden from everyone else, most of all from any visitors who came to Greenbanü, and sometimes Lialam would send Jerrel and I away to other towns where he offered my mother work for a month or two, till he deemed us ready to return. It was Jerrel who taught me everything I knew then - from how to write, and how to sew, and how to sing the songs that she said I used to sing after writing everything down phonetically as she caught them. She asked me to write the way I always knew, and to teach her what each rune meant - and always to keep it a secret between the two of us.

"One day," she said, "you will know what you are. But until then, you are who we say you are - but I promise you that we will take you back to your home after this last trip to Dunland. And you will be home again."

But that promise never came to be. For it was during that merchant trip back from Dunland, when Tadd and Jerrel had planned to take me back to Erebor on the tenth year since they found me, that their caravan was attacked by goblins. And the goblins, I knew now for this was the last thing that Bernd told me tonight before he left, had been led by Edgard, Lialam's right-hand man.

And after that, life had lost its meaning. I accepted my fate, telling myself my memories of the past no longer mattered - that life from here on meant only Bernd and myself tending to the animals in the stables and sewing clothes for the townspeople. Each morning blended with the next, even as Jürgen tried to entice me with so many trinkets that he'd make, though none of them could match the beauty of the circlet that lay hidden beneath my bed.

Even when Jürgen began teaching me how to fight and how to hunt, resigning even to the idea that this was going to be my life, each moment was as uneventful as the next. Memories began to turn into dust for they were of no use to me anymore, even if I still sung the songs that I knew in Khuzdul, or wrote simple words in Cirth, their meaning slowly fading.

I'd given up.   it was as simple as that.

Even after I saw you walk past my window, I was too afraid to say anything, too afraid to ask your name. And even after I learned your name I was too afraid of the memories they conjured, for now they were nothing but dreams of a life once lived so long ago.   A life that was too dangerous to hold onto.



~~~



"And are you still afraid?" Thorin asked me as he lay on his side next to me, his face mere inches from my own.

"Not since the day you came looking for me in the cave and kissed me - even if you said it was only to keep me quiet," I replied as I felt his thumb trace the path of tears that had long dried on my cheeks.

Thorin chuckled at the memory of that day, and he bent his head to kiss me, his lips soft against mine. His hand cradled my neck, the heat of his body warming me more than the fire that burned in the hearth. He had undone the clasps of his tunic, and I brought my hand inside his shirt, running my fingers through the silken hair that curled about his chest. The need for him arose from deep within the pit of my belly and I arched my body against him, parting my knees and allowing him to position himself between my legs.  But as his kiss deepened, I pulled away, not wanting to lose myself just yet.

"How is the king?" I asked.

Thorin sighed, closing his eyes for a moment as I let my fingers drift lower down his torso, undoing the clasps on his shirt as I went.  My face burned and I suddenly felt tired.  "He is well," he replied.

"Why you, Thorin?" I whispered, as I brought my hand back up towards his face, gently tugging on the braid on the side of his temples. "Why can't anyone else appease him?"

"My father can only do so much before even he himself fears that he will fall into the same madness. And then he has to step away, for even he can't forget the wealth of Erebor.  None of us can," Thorin said. "We are not blind to what has happened to us, Frigga, that now we have nothing - we are nothing. And one day, even I will not be immune to the same madness that plagues the king now."

I brought my hand up to touch his face, his pained expression causing my chest to tighten. "Yet you will not succumb to it, Thorin," I whispered. "I know you won't."

Thorin watched me for a few moments, not speaking. His eyes narrowed for a second before a faint smile graced his lips as he stroked my face, his fingers moving down the side of my neck, making me tremble in anticipation.  Yet my face burned, heat suffusing down my neck.

"Maybe you're right," he whispered, smiling faintly as his fingers continued to play with the hair that splayed upon the pillow. "But right now, the only thing I shall succumb to in this life, Frigga, is you."