"Mind you she had no business teasing me about my boy's slipping in the mud when her own son tripped in the sod last spring and accidentally speared the neighbor's passing ale cask from Dale. Never mind the fact that he must have had a good arm to start with to even get it that far but it's not as if my Gillard's arm is any better or worse so I've no idea why she feels the need to harass me." Dila grunted as she hefted up her end of the rolled tapestry we'd taken down from her wall. We were working our way out into the crisp, blue spring light to hang it over a tree and beat the dust out of it. It had been five years since the last beating-it was time. This was why I was glad Bofur hadn't brought any tapestries home. Rugs were smaller. They were easier. It was only a true friend who helped you lower, carry and beat out a dusty tapestry.
"I think she's just got a need to belittle," I said as we heaved it out over the grass. "Best to avoid her then, I think. People like that just drain you, I swear."
"Wait," I gasped as we hauled the tapestry up a hill to a tree with a strong enough branch we could reach. "What's Gillard still in training for? I thought he was beyond all that."
"Oh he is. But he's got a severe case of what his captain calls 'Recent Recruit Rockheadedness' so he sent him back to training to deflate him for a bit before it turns terminal. A humbling, if you will."
I chortled. "Well that's what you get when you tell people off for doing their job properly when you don't know what the job is yourself."
"Fully agreed," she grunted. "That branch look good enough for you?"
"I don't think it's tall enough."
"Neither are we."
True story. "We can hoist it piece by piece." I regarded the tree in question. "I can climb up and help move it."
She nodded. "Can you lift it?"
I dug my teeth together. "I got this. You've got to help me out though."
"How'm I going to do that?"
I began hauling myself up the tree, strength of my fists and legs making up for what my arms lacked. "Use that stick there," I said, nodding toward it as I gradually rose. "Prop it up and use it to help me grab it once I get to that branch there."
Dila was rethinking this. "You'll never reach it, sitting up there."
I flung my leg out over the branch in question and crawled to the middle. "I'm not gonna sit on it." I dropped my legs over one side and slipped backward, making Dila shriek.
"What in Arda are you doing, giving me a scare like that?" she demanded, looking ready to beat me with the stick I'd had her fetch.
I grinned at her, upside down. "Sorry, Dil. Forgot you haven't seen me in my element before."
"I've heard enough," she grumped. "I should know better too. Here, you hellion." She grimaced and began angling a corner of the tapestry up toward my hanging hands with the stick.
"Little further." My fingers swirled as though trying to pull in a fishing net. One of the tassels brushed my finger and I wound it into my grip. "All right, got it."
"How are you going to drape it over the branch without falling off?"
I had gathered an armful of the heavy fabric by now and was beginning to curl back up. "Call it a balance of properties."
"A balance of what?"
"Dila don't panic." I righted myself, the bundled fabric over my shoulder, and slid off the opposite side of the branch.
"Will you stop that!" she berated me.
Slowed by the weight of the tapestry, I landed lightly, and smiled at her as I began shaking the tapestry so it hung flat. "Sorry love. Don't hate me."
She pursed her lips and tossed me a beating racket, and we got to work.
Dusty and disheveled, and damp despite the cool afternoon the day was in the process of becoming, finally Dila and I wrested her freshly rolled and assaulted rug up to her house, where we hung it back on the wall with the ropes and pulleys, sat down to a cold cider, and got our wits back together.
"You want to wash up before going home?" Dila asked when I finally stood up, suitably refreshed.
I scraped a few stray hairs back into my braid. "Nah. Bofur's seen me far worse."
She shrugged. "And I'm sure he's the only one who will see you between my house and yours. But carry on. You always do."
I had a light step on my way home, and had taken off my boots and carried them by the strings. I'd also picked up a few bottles of the early-season tea I knew Bofur liked. I'd brew it myself but the blossoms were notoriously tricky to brew properly, and I'd wasted a great deal of time and product trying.
I opened the door and stood in the entrance for several seconds, eyebrows raised in bemusement.
Bofur and Gimli were rolling about in our armchairs before the hearth, drunker than a pair of oysters, cackling. I let the door fall shut behind me and they jumped to look at me, almost guiltily.
One of my eyebrows lifted above the other.
The two of them burst into laughter.
I rolled my eyes. "Right." Dropping my boots at the door I continued on into the kitchen. "You two idiots hungry? It's a bit early to be this tossed, isn't it?"
Gimli chuckled. "You don't know the half of it, lass."
"Aw go easy on her," Bofur said with a chuckle of his own. "She'll catch up soon enough."
"I said are you hungry?" I repeated myself with no small amount of exasperation. "Get your shit together. I'm hungry, so whether or not you like my food you better eat it if you are."
With a steady influx of food and having run out of ale they sobered up by supper time, and then I had to get up and make food all over again, but I managed. There was a great deal of eye-rolling involved though. Those two.
"And don't even consider griping about it," Gimli said the next night once we had both finished our work and I'd fed myself and Bofur, procuring a single, snug-petalled red carnation. It sat comfortably in my cupped hands, verdant stem poking down between my fingers as I smiled up at him.
"I'm not complaining, do you hear me complaining?"
He leveled a heavy finger at me, eyes aglimmer. "You usually do when someone gives you something."
My smile widened into a grin. "I'm getting so much better though, see?" I un-cupped the blossom and wound it into the top of my braid so it could garnish my dark hair. "See how so much better I've gotten?"
Gimli rolled his eyes at me and waved a hand to indicate that I should continue upward, as we'd been going before he'd come out with the carnation. "You impertinent wench, you."
"You feisty dwarf, you. I don't know why I spend time with you."
"Because I'm one of the few who gives you as good as you get, assuredly."
"Aye that's probably it. We going to the usual spot?"
"Eh, why not." He patted about amongst his pockets and I turned to walk sideways and raise an eyebrow at him. He merely grinned confidently back at me. I rolled my eyes.
"So what were you and Bofur on about yesterday? That fool wouldn't tell me anything."
"Ah." He wagged a finger at me. "That there is a secret, my dear lass."
"Well then, my dear lad, I suppose I won't be able to tell your sister how I make those biscuits you love so much, not that she'd bother to make them for you anyway. But I can still torture you with the knowledge of what might have been if you'd only not been keeping secrets."
"Some secrets come in handy."
"That's a tossup."
"Liar."
"Meh fair. So did you have a good day?"
"That I did, milady. And yourself?"
"Dain and I shouted a bit. It was all very satisfying on both ends."
"You two fools."
"You should join us sometime; you'd fit right in."
When we reached the lookout Gimli threw out his coat for us to sit on, as the stone up here was damp and chilled, and just to vex him I sat just off of it. "Come on, you minx, you know how cold that stone is."
I smiled and very obligingly moved over to where I could lean comfortably into his wide arm. It was a surprisingly pleasant way to be. Gimli tugged the edge of my braid and I told him about Dain's and my shouting match. We did it just to make sure we were still on the same page.
"Good to know the two of you have sorted out your preferred battlegrounds."
"Oh yes. Most certainly." I stared contentedly out over the shoulders of the mountains and the helmets of the statues built into its sides. Despite the warmth of the day the stone was indeed cold, so I took advantage of the broad fellow at my side and settled into his shoulder, crossing my arms. He gave an exaggerated sigh and adjusted so he could better support my weight without exerting too much effort.
I raised my arm to point out a string of stars above us. "Where I'm from, that constellation represents a queen the gods placed in the stars as revenge for claiming her daughter was more beautiful than the gods themselves."
"Being enthroned among the stars is a punishment?"
"They set her throne on an angle so she'd never be comfortable and never sleep again."
He nodded. "Ah."
"That one is called the 'Northern Crown'," I said. Sometimes I could see my constellations here. Sometimes entirely alien stars filled the sky I took solace under. "There was a rich king called Minos whose wife had a terrible, half-human creature as a child, and he couldn't stand the sight of it so he locked it up in a maze underneath his house. Every now and then he sent townspeople down as a sacrifice to keep the creature from starving. The daughter of the king fell in love with one of the men about to be sacrificed though, so she gave him a ball of yarn to unwind so he could find his way out of the maze, but only if he promised to take her with him when he escaped."
"And did he?" Gimli asked when I paused.
I nodded. "Yes. They made it off her father's island. But then he left her behind on the first bit of shore he found." I heaved a sigh of my own. "One of the gods found her and took pity on her, and threw her crown into the sky so the sky would give her the honor the man she'd loved should have given her." I nodded again. "And that's all."
Gimli lightly jostled me. "Something on your mind again, Mistress Mabyn?"
I sat up. "Eh? No sorry. Mind ambled off."
"Where'd it go? Anyplace you'd introduce me to?"
I folded my fingers together and closed my eyes, settling back into his shoulder. "Maybe someday."
"Someday soon perchance?"
I shrugged. "Maybe. No point to it just now though."
"I could think of a few."
My lips twitched. "Enlighten me, my friend."
He dug one hand in his pocket and I felt his arm move as he twirled something through his fingers. "So if I feel the need to give you something else do I need to take back the flower?"
"Dear gracious me. It's my flower, I'm keeping it."
"Well you get to choose whether or not you keep this next one."
I sat back so I could see what it was he was twirling around his finger. Part of it appeared to be glimmering, which baffled me. "Shoot." I was eyeing him strangely, as he was smiling at me strangely.
He stopped his twirling, a bit of pale blue ribbon wrapped around his thumb, the glimmering end hidden in his fist. He spun it once again, and my eyes popped wide as he revealed pinched between his fingers an indigo sapphire ring.
"Gimli," I said.
"Mabyn," he agreed. "Would you do me the questionable honor of marrying me?"
My warm eyes filled with astonished tears.
Gimli threw his hands up in frustration, grumbling as he stood and stomped off back toward the stairs, this having not been the reaction he had anticipated. Or at least not among the list he had prepared for.
I was on my feet in an instant pointing after him. "Gimli, you come back here this instant!"
He stopped and half-turned, eyeing me warily. He knew how I felt about crying. And I knew how he felt about having been the one to make me do it.
I watched him with eyes still wide, heart stammering, skin feeling gray with fear. Was he being serious? Yes, he definitely was, based on his response to my reaction. But did he know his own heart well enough to let me risk mine? I found it so hard, so terribly painful, to truly love anyone. I'd be hurt if many people died, there was no doubting that. But death did not frighten me.
Disappointment frightened me. Betrayal. Enemies aren't the ones who betray you; your loved ones do. They don't have to do it intentionally-that's the terrifying part. If someone is inclined to betrayal you can see it, you can hide from them. If they can't help themselves you have to forgive them because your forgiveness is the only thing keeping you alive, even if it can't keep you sane.
But Gimli meant it, and to his mind he was sure. Once upon a time I wouldn't have been willing to risk my heart on his knowledge of his own. These days I was less certain of misery. It was worth it to me too.
I grinned at him. "Yes."
A slow smile spread across his beardy face and he put one foot back, spreading his arms and beckoning. I ran for him, taking the last step at a leap until I landed gleefully in his arms, Gimli spinning me around with a whoop. "That's my lass! What've you got to go vexing a poor fellow like me for?"
"I don't do it apurpose!" I insisted, laughing as he whirled me about.
Gimli planted a whiskery kiss on my cheek and I laughed again, grabbing him by said whiskers so I could bring his face in front of mine, where I made the point to kiss him properly, not that I knew from experience. My new fiancé, not having expected this either, jumped and stilled his turning, but he returned the affection just the same. Apparently a little audacity didn't go amiss with him. Of course I had always known that.
"We weren't even courting," I insisted, a minute later.
"You hate courting. You think it's boring."
I tipped my head sideways. "That is true."
It was quite a while before we went back, beaming like a pair of sunny grasshoppers, to find that both of our families were waiting for us at Bofur's home. Our families saw the linked hands and the sapphire ring-the ribbon still bowed around it, as apparently was tradition for the first twenty-four hours, and then the ribbon's color had some traditional significance that Gimli promised to explain-and toasted us with their mugs and cheered. I hid my face in my other hand and blushed.
"Pay up, you old lout," Gloin said to Freda, smacking her arm with the back of his hand. Freda sighed and tossed him a small leather satchel containing, as we soon saw, a pair of silver earrings. He laughed as he cuffed them onto the rims of his ears.
"What's this?" I asked, accepting a mug that Gimli handed me.
Fingering his new ornamentation with a smug grin, Gloin explained. "She bet me you'd never choose to willfully put up with him for an entire marriage. I won."
I clucked my tongue at Freda, who was playfully refusing to look at her husband as he admired his sparkle in the reflection of his bronze tankard. "Oh Freda, haven't you learned by now that I thrive on a bit of chaos?"
Freda rolled her eyes, huffed and crossed her arms, but I could see her faintly smiling. She then straightened suddenly, attention rapt. "You are going to be consulting Fraeg and I on the wedding, aren't you?"
"Actually I was kind of hoping you'd be doing most of the work."
Freda pointed at me. "We will help. A great deal, I'd imagine. But the decisions have to be yours. What color's your ribbon?"
I lifted it and looked to Gimli, who yet remained at my side despite having been vigorously shaking Bofur's hand-Bofur had stood to accommodate.
"The jewelers who sell such ornaments choose a ribbon with their eyes closed," Gimli explained. "The color signifies the month in which you'll have the best luck when you marry."
"And this month is?"
He looked to Freda, who helpfully supplied, "January."
I beamed. "Excellent! I love winter. Wait what do you mean by 'such ornaments'?"
"Well it's customary to give your chosen lady some bit of frippery to mark the occasion," Gimli further elucidated. "Doesn't have to be a ring. But you said in your world it did." He shrugged.
Bofur flapped his hands at me, interrupting another of my wide smiles. "Enough of that! You've got plenty of time to sort out your celebrations. Get over here, love." He beckoned, grinning, and I released Gimli's hand long enough to leap into my da's arms.
Dain had to hug me too, when he heard, and we were close enough by then to do so. As exasperated as Gimli was by my sudden desire to go tell my human and elven friends in person he only rolled his eyes when I dove down to Dale the very next day, and wrote that night to Thranduil to announce my desire to visit.
"So I have something to tell you," I said very seriously to Tauriel when she and Cerian met me in Dale with the brothers Hemingr and Hagen, and the human soldiers Garit and Tommit, who coincidentally were also brothers.
She put her firm fists on her hips and regarded me with equal gravity. "Is something amiss?"
I lifted my left hand. "I'm engaged."
Tauriel laughed, delighted, and caught me up to spin me once. "Mabyn, that's wonderful! To whom?" She threw me to Cerian as I yelped, and he spun me once too. My dwarven guards shook their heads, hiding smiles, and my human guards snickered.
"To Gimli! Gloin's son. Gloin's family and Bofur and I have been friends for years. Possibly in part because his wife Freda was certain I needed a positive female influence in my life. I suppose she's not wrong. Will you be letting me down anytime soon?" I hung in the loop of Cerian's arm as he smiled down at me as though having forgotten I wasn't just standing there.
"Oh was that what I was supposed to do?"
I pried at his fingers. "Down, oaf. Anyway keep this under your hats until I spread the word in Mirkwood, all right? I want to tell people. It's about damn time I got to spread some of my own news and that the news was good. Hallelujah."
"I do not see how we will possibly keep such a significant announcement under wraps," Tauriel teased. "But we shall give it our best efforts."
"I have high expectations of you two. Now we shall be on our way."
I knew Legolas knew I had something wonderful brimming under my skin by the way he raised an inquisitive brow at me when first I saw him. He was on his way out with a scouting party while I was on my way in, and he stopped to exchange pleasantries with my dwarven and human guards, always attentive to keeping the peace between us all, considering our shared interest. But I only grinned up at him, swiped a bug out of my eye and asked, "See you at supper?"
"Most likely."
"I'll tell you then."
He merely nodded, a small smile reflecting a glimmer of my own. It always pleased me to see him smile. He glanced over my shoulder at Tauriel, and I whirled to make sure she wouldn't give anything away.
Tauriel looked between us, barely suppressing her own smile, and merely said, "It is not my place to say." To me she said, "Will we see you for the midday meal?"
"Yes. If you all can promise to behave yourselves."
Her lips flickered upward. "I am certain we are adult enough to do so." With one more mischievous smile to Legolas she and Cerian departed, their farewells to my other guards already said.
At midday I didn't expect to catch as many people as I would have at supper, having forgotten that the suppers in the guardroom were typically the only formally attended meals. Cerian and Tauriel must have put some form of word out though, because many of my guard friends who were off duty were there in addition to the usual handful who ate together between shifts, mostly sitting about sipping at drinks and carrying on their own conversations until I turned up.
I stared down the long table, about even with their shoulders as they sat, and fisted my hands to my hips. "This won't do."
Visilyen, with whom by now I was able to communicate often without direct translation, threw down a pair of crates for me and extended his hand graciously toward them.
I lifted my chin, satisfied. "This will." Up onto the crates I scrambled, and once at the top I threw out my hands. "I'm getting married this January, my dear fellow fools!"
As we sat down to supper Legolas gave me a tasteful side-eye again, reminding me of his interest in knowing what great joyous secret it was that I kept, but I pretended that I didn't notice and waited until we'd finished our main course to speak up, suddenly concerned.
I knew Thranduil still didn't like the dwarves. He was getting on with Bofur now that they'd been introduced, though as far as 'getting on' went with him it simply meant he no longer sneered when I spoke of him. While Thranduil's opinions on this matter could in no way influence my own, they did have the power to sadden me at least a little. I cared about Thranduil more than I'd ever intended to in the beginning, back when I needed his attention as opposed to wanting it. Caring about powerful, opinionated people could be dangerous.
At last however I sat down my fork. "Will the two of you have some free time in January? I'd like you to come visit me."
Legolas watched me with interest, but his father's pale eyes merely slid sidelong and awaited my clarification.
I nibbled the very tip of my middle finger, looking between the two of them. "I'm getting married to Gimli, Gloin's son."
Legolas's lips spread into a smile, and mine adjusted to match, relieved to know that at least one member of this family could take joy from my announcement. He nodded. "That is festive news indeed," he agreed. "And when you send us the date I am sure we will organize the time. May I inquire why you chose January?"
"It has to do with a ribbon randomly chosen by the jeweler who sold Gimli the ring." I flattened my hand on the table so he could see the ring in question if he was so inclined. He glanced politely over it, though clearly jewelry had never been an area of particular interest for him. "The month chosen is considered the most fortuitous month for said couple to marry in. I'm glad not to have gotten August. I don't care for the heat, and I've seen the wedding dresses the dwarf women wear and they're hideously layered and complicated. I'd probably never make it to the altar. They'd have to carry me on a litter and just assume I meant my vows even in my unconsciousness."
"I do hope you have chosen carefully."
My head snapped up and my relief into pieces at Thranduil's tone. I stared at him with hurt unhidden in the first seconds of my gaze, though it was quickly supplanted with antagonism. "Do I strike you as the sort of person who makes such decisions rashly?"
"I think you are determined to do what is least expected of you."
"Oh yes because everybody expected me to live out my days unmarried and unattached and everyone I know has just put that much thought into my future as far as a husband goes!" I shot back. "Might I ask just what is it to you? Or are you just offended because I didn't choose an elf and I could have?"
"It would have been the most advantageous to you."
I was standing on the seat of my chair in an instant, hands fisted at my sides. "You think I ought to decide who to spend the rest of my life with based on how much they can offer me?" I shook my head. "You must think very poorly of me and my situation these days if you still think I would be desperate enough to do such a thing."
"Then I am surprised you found any of them worthy enough," he drawled.
My skin was filled with coals. "No you aren't. You're either put out because you don't have as much influence over my choices as you want to have or you're envious of the fact that I chose you out of desperation and them I loved on my own terms."
Down I dropped from my chair and plunged through the halls to the front door, ignoring Legolas as he called my name once after me, and disappeared into the many caverns of the mountain.
I had phrased myself more sharply than I ought to have. But that didn't change my opinions of his opinion.
Knowing my way around quite well by this decade I bolted down to the training rooms with great ease, where I let myself in, footsteps echoing, and dug my toes in to drag the door shut behind me. It wasn't as exhilarating as it used to be, but I could still climb a bit, so I grumbled and snarled my way up into the ropes, found one a bit like a swing, and began bobbing it back and forth to help me think a bit.
I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed swinging. Drifting without having to go anywhere. The ability to move without having to leave. Pretending I was running away without the fear of becoming lost.
"Mabyn darling, do you truly intend to attempt to fly today or could you content yourself to coming down to a more common level?"
My lips twitched despite the weight of all the other drooping muscles in my body. I'd met Inladris, the woman who had cared for Legolas when he was young and had remained a close friend of the family since then, several times over the last several years, though to be honest we didn't have much in common. She made for a good conversation partner though. "Do I really have to?"
"It would be easier to speak with you."
"I don't want to speak right now; I'm in a bad mood."
"Understandable. However I will strain my neck eventually."
I sighed and flopped backward, releasing the ropes to Inladris's indignant gasp of surprise, and soared straight down into the woven net beneath it, where I flopped in relative comfort and stared at the scalloped ceiling. "Sorry Inladris. Didn't have the energy to do it the right way." I breathed. "What's up?"
"We can't escape from him sometimes," she said, recovering from the startle I'd given her to sit beside me, the net sagging.
I closed my eyes. "I don't even have anything to say about it, to be honest. He has his good moments. But I wonder if he's even capable of seeing anyone beyond what they can do for him. He's.... I just want to forget the things he says sometimes. It's easier to go back to pretending to be content just because that's what's the least distressing and I just don't have the stomach for distressing anymore."
She leaned back so our heads were together, hair falling through the rope. "Darling, I don't even know what to tell you. Some days I think we know him. Other days I think he forgets that protecting oneself from pain is not meant to be one's first priority in this life. On some days perhaps. But not as a lifestyle." Inladris turned to face me, still speaking softly. "We can never forget that he may be many things, but sympathy has never been one of his leading traits. Not even when he was young."
"If he can't be happy for himself, by all the gods, why can't he try being happy for other people instead of being the reason their happiness runs and hides?"
"Oh love," Inladris wearily sighed. "Don't you remember how vain he is? How prideful? He thought he'd won you, once. He saw the value of you. Your particular ability to find the most influential people for your cause, whatever it may be, and endear yourself to them. And you look so very trustworthy, no matter what face you're wearing. Be you happy or downtrodden or absolutely livid."
My lips were trembling together. "I did wrong. I messed up." My eyes had warmed. "I told myself for years and years I was using him just as much as he used me and I wasn't actually that dependent on him, that I didn't actually need him. But I went and convinced myself he was real and that maybe I was just different enough to make a difference to him when really I'm just an infinitesimal piece of a much larger world that I don't really belong in. That's why I don't fit and I can't change anything." I wasn't even supposed to be here. Of course it was right that I couldn't make any changes.
"Is this why you're unhappy? Because you thought you'd protected yourself against him, just as he protects himself from everyone else?"
I shook as a bit of my insides crumbled against each other, entertained in some macabre fashion by the irony of the truth in how Inladris presented my displeasure. "Yes. I think that's exactly it. I thought I knew me better than that. I thought I had things....more under control."
"Then the two of you are more alike than I think either of you have realized," she said with the brush of a smile in her voice. "Minnow, it is entirely acceptable to be hurt throughout our lives, you above many will I believe understand that."
"Oh of course," I shakily agreed, wiping underneath my eyes with fingers that were far more wan against our dim surroundings than I would have liked. "Being in pain proves this is what being alive feels like. But there are so many different kinds of pain. Don't you see?" I twisted to the side so I could face her for the first time. She knew Thranduil, by all accounts, better than anyone else in Mirkwood did. And she and I didn't know each other so closely that my problems would become her problems, as they would if I discussed them with Bofur or Tauriel or Legolas, who worried too much for his own good about the troubles of certain others. Whispering, I told her what it was that made the fire I thought I'd smothered years ago rekindle to slowly ruin me again. "I thought I was done with this sort of pain. I thought I knew by now how to love certain people without letting them hurt me. This is exactly the sort of thing that brought me here in the first place. And I don't want to run away again."
Inladris folded her warm hand around my own. "Knowing you, now that you have identified the problem, you will have no other response but to tickle its fancy until all it wishes to do is to please you enough to keep you."
I weakly chuckled, shaking my head at her nonsense, then sat up and crawled to the edge of the net. "Do you think the aviary is still open?"
"I can open ours for you, if your message is urgent."
"I want to go home."
(pg480)