"I don't care."
"You can't be serious."
"I am serious. Very serious. Yes I want to wear a pretty dress but I really don't care what color the decorations are. It's not as if there'll be flowers."
Fraeg lifted her head from the book of color chips and fabric switches and pressed blossoms and raised a finger. "You'd be surprised. No one ever said they had to be fresh."
I made a face at her. "I don't want dead flowers at my wedding!"
"Dead does not mean ugly," Freda said through the pins in her mouth. I stood before her on a short stool as she pressed ribbons against various gathers and seams in the gown she was composing for me. My arms stuck out straight, as they had been for the last half hour (I'd have to ice them later), I didn't make a very firm debater, but I still made the attempt.
"What does it mean then? How can you have dead pretty summer flowers at a winter wedding?"
"Sugar them," said Fraeg when her mother indicated that she should answer, Freda apparently not being in the mood to impale her tongue on the many sharp objects obstructing her tongue and teeth. "It's quite easy actually, though it's more difficult to do the fancier work for a wedding, and the work that lasts that long without discoloring."
"Hmm," I said, still not convinced. Fraeg didn't care if I was convinced or not; she just smiled down at the book she was paging through, taking notes. I was supposed to be the one perusing the 'wedding manual', but it hadn't taken more than a skip and a sneeze for everyone to realize I wasn't interested. I did not like organizing events. Christmas didn't count-telling people to bring food and bring a gift to pass required only a little chatter among friends. The decorating I did for myself.
But I was not about to derail the next five months of my life to plan a single day, not even for the life of love. I enjoyed what I already did with my free time far too much. Besides-if I did the bear's share of the planning it would not reflect well on my family or friends, who must have been fools to permit me to take so much rein in this conspicuous endeavor.
Someone knocked heartily on the door. "No!" shouted both of the women, while I hollered behind them, "Yes! Whoever the devil you are, come in!"
"Lass?"
"GIMLI SAVE ME." The ladies refreshed their bellows that Gimli was by no means and under no conditions permitted in this room. They had the same opinions about men seeing their betrothed in their wedding gowns before the event that the people I'd run from had. "GIMLI SHE HAS RIBBON."
"IS SHE THROTTLING YOU WITH IT."
"Not at the moment, no."
We all heard him chuckling. "I've got to recommend you find a way to suffer through it then."
"AW, COME ON."
"YOU'RE TOUGH."
I heaved a massive sigh. "Why can't we just run off together like they did back when giant reptiles were still allowed to call on each other for tea?"
Freda shook her head. "Some of the things that drop off your lips."
I winced. "You make it sound like I've got my mouth and my rear confused. Don't do that again, I beg of you."
Sometimes they still did.
After the dreaded miserable bum-snorting dress fitting and many other things besides, I was vastly grateful and thoroughly sparkled to find that Gimli had waited for his mother and sister to finish with me, and stumbled dramatically until I toppled into his lap to the sound of his great amusement.
I sat up. "It's undignified for you to not be on my side."
"It's undignified to sit on a man's lap before you marry him too," he pointed out, hand still resting on my lower back, thumb rubbing over the cotton of my dress.
I leaned over to kiss his brow. "Yes but I'm strange, and otherworldly, and you forgive me for it."
He shrugged. "I know I've got something no one else has ever had. I can cope with that."
I rolled my eyes. "Something. Delightful."
Having not planned, for most of my 'normal' life, on ever marrying it had taken me a while to become accustomed to the concept. However by the time the day squirreled around I was internally hopping.
For the most part.
For now I sat at the end of my bed, still in my day-clothes. Dwarven weddings started at night. Resting between my cool fingers was a letter in cream, which a raven had delivered this morning. I hadn't really written with Legolas before recently, so it was only recently I'd come to recognize his handwriting.
My friends had all known there was something amiss the moment my announcement of my return home had arrived in said home. I hadn't gone quite so far as to threaten to come home alone-the elves would never have allowed it-but I was in no rush to stay either. My dwarven guards in particular gave me concerned glances up and down when first they saw me. I had never stayed for so short a time before. But I smiled at them, and they took this as permission to believe I'd simply had a change of plans. My human guards were less worried, as my humans gave me the most freedom as far as my own safety and obligations and feelings were considered. But they took a few cues from my dwarves as well.
I pretended there was nothing at all to be concerned or unhappy or angry about. I couldn't afford to have any of my diverse, powerful friends angry with each other over me. This was the trouble of being friends with people who couldn't always get along. Whatever problems I had with any group, they had to stay with that group. I couldn't ask for help from others. The only ones who could solve the problem were those who had caused it.
I'd become gently and pleasantly grateful for having people I could ask for help if I wanted it. I hated that my own choices sometimes took them away from me.
But there was no such thing as a system entirely perfect. I'd wanted protection, and I had it. Just not from those who were protecting me.
Once home Bofur's brow had crashed down at the resoluteness of my expression. "What's wrong?" he wanted to know.
I picked up the corners of my lips. "Not a damn thing."
He crossed his arms and lifted an eyebrow. "You sure about that, lass?"
"We had an argument. I'm fine, just mad."
"I see." He was still scowling, but I could see the apprehension as well. "Think you'll get over it?"
I sighed, letting him, and only him, see that I was sad about this too. "I will. I'm not sure about everyone else though."
He had nodded, and drawn me in for a hug I wasn't sure I deserved.
For my sake, Gmili hid how acceptable he found the thought of my having argued enough with the elves to have soured my friendship with them. He hid nothing of how disgruntled, to say the least, that he was with my elves for having hurt my feelings, not that I would tell him if it was an individual I had quarreled with or the whole lot of them. We'd had an argument, was all I would say. A 'rousing argument' seemed to satisfy most of them. He didn't like that I was unhappy, as it made him unhappy, but he and everyone-nearly-else was tactful enough not to pry when I made it clear I wouldn't elucidate.
And Legolas had written to me to apologize for his father's words, more or less. Elves tended not to speak for each other; Thranduil and I were both refusing to speak to each other via any means. Legolas respected that, but still he wrote, ensuring that I would not write off his people entirely because of the actions of one.
I and a few others who were available or could be spared will gladly see you tomorrow, his most recent letter promised, which he must have sent the day before. I do not know yet if Father will attend. It is my sincerest hope that the pair of you can overcome your disagreement long enough to attend a celebration together.
I dropped the letter back into my lap with a roll of my eyes. That sly bastard. No wonder he did so little talking, when he said such things as this.
Bofur banged on my door. "Mabyn? Fraeg is here to help you dress, are you going to let her in?"
I shouted back, "No! I'm just going to attend naked. Open the door."
I threw the letter into the gap behind my bed as he threw the door open to admit Fraeg, who rolled her eyes at me as I kicked my feet blithely from my mattress, grinning. "What? Not going to scold a girl on her wedding day, are you?"
She only rolled those eyes again as Bofur chortled and closed the door. She held my finished, pressed and scented gown in her arms and tapped her chin toward me. "Off with those. I've only got an hour and batting."
My turn to eye-roll. "Yes because just over an hour isn't enough to put a dress on and my hair up."
"And do your face and find your jewelry and other ornaments and locate all the uncomfortable gorgeous shoes I brought over that you're probably thinking I've forgotten about. Over here, get. Now. I'll not have you shaming the family name."
My wedding gown was burgundy, trimmed with white and flecks of a bright, leafy green, and sewn in with indigo glass beads. After lacing me up into the gown, which settled around me like the petals of a massive, untamed flower, Fraeg clipped indigo and gold drops onto my ears-since I'd never felt the need to get them pierced-handed me the pearl ring Gimli had gifted me years ago, and began her work on my hair, for the moment sparing me from wearing the shoes.
"Somehow I expected to barely be able to walk under the weight of the jewelry you'd so kindly bestow upon me," I said as she began tucking and winding up my dark hair.
"I'm not finished," she peaceably assured me, and my shoulders drooped with my groan. She lightly squeezed my shoulder when I didn't immediately right myself. "Are you all right? You don't act like a woman pleased to be getting married."
"Oh, I've got a few things on my mind," I said, rueful. I caught her glance in my small mirror. "I'll wake back up when the time comes, I promise." My smile convinced her. It convinced me too.
Fraeg coiled and braided and contoured my hair until it looked, to my eyes, like a cluster of roses adorning the back of my head, small bits coming down to swoop across the edge of my brow or to hide the tops of my ears, as she had guessed, and I had confirmed, that I wished for the gouges taken out of my right ear to be hidden if at all possible. "There's only one last bit," she said as she pointed at the pale green shoes I was meant to wear, though those weren't what she meant. Apparently I'd find out what this bit was eventually.
Bofur was smoking a pipe before the fire when we emerged, and when he saw me he slowly stood, his pipe's glowing embers dwindling down into a curling tongue of smoke as he regarded the transformation from erratic and wary child to capricious and discerning adult that I had made. I lightly smiled. His face broke into a ray of sunlight and he extended his arms and came to me.
"Just look at you!" he crowed, hands wrapped about the tops of my arms as he did as he himself told. "No scraped hands, no bare feet, fabric that can't actually tolerate grass stains, or so they tell me...." He grinned again, eyes brighter even than mine were becoming. He lifted a hand to stroke my face with his thumb. "Oh, lass, you couldn't have picked a better man, though I hate to give you up to any of them."
I tipped forward into his warm arms and mushed my face into the front of his fancy embroidered coat, burgundy to match mine, as Fraeg's dress was, as she was standing in for the mother I'd never had. "Just because I love him doesn't mean I want to go yet."
"Oh he'll make a good home for you, lass. You'll never be at a loss for exasperation."
"His house is smaller than this one." Not that I particularly minded. But I would eventually.
"I'll have you know that he's moved. You didn't think he thought more than two people could live in that little turnabout, did you?"
I shook my head, weakly laughing into his chest until he made me step back in case I smeared the powders and creams Fraeg had so delicately painted onto me.
Bofur held up a finger. "One last bit," he promised, and went to the table next to his armchair to lift something dimly shining out of the shallow box that sat upon it. I laughed when I recognized the gold and pearl necklace, the one that cascaded down nearly to my waist, from ages upon eons ago.
"You saved it!" I exclaimed. "Gods above, Da, we didn't even think I'd live this long!"
He shrugged. "When we found that out, I saved it for another occasion."
I shook a tremoring chill out of my shoulders and beamed. "It's just as beautiful as it was however many years ago. Thank you." And then I stood at the doorway, heels pressed to the stone frame-Fraeg helping me hold the voluptuous fabric behind me out of my way-because we'd delayed doing this at Christmas in favor of doing it today, so Bofur could check one last time to see if I had grown. I hadn't grown any taller in years, and even when I was growing I'd gained fewer than four inches anyway, but I'd never felt the need to stop the tradition of measuring. I liked remembering how glad he'd been those first few years to see me growing. I liked returning to a state when I was healthy enough to grow. I liked being a reason he smiled.
Bofur heaved a dramatic sigh when he saw, as we had expected, that I had indeed not grown in the last year, but that was all right with us. "At least you're no longer small enough to get underfoot," he assured me, giving my cheek an affectionate pat as I chuckled.
And then Fraeg made me put my fancy, lacy shoes back on and down the stairs we went. Betrothed are meant to be presented by their parents at their wedding, and since I didn't have a mother Fraeg was standing in for me, a position she had been honored to accept when I asked her. Runi, Byrnhild and Dila would also have been overjoyed, but I'd known Fraeg first, and she'd been more involved in the planning of my wedding than had the others. This was my way of thanking her as much as it symbolically fit for me, even if we were closer to sister-age than mother and daughter.
Having grown accustomed to the occasional draws of attention over the last several years, entering the ballroom opposite the doors through which Gimli was entering didn't give me as many sparks over my skin that it may have given others.
And when first I saw him striding toward me something gentle swelled inside me, pressing its soft edges against the insides of my skin, causing my eyes and entire being to warm, as though I were a flower about to explosively bloom. I laughed at how very strange and buoyant I suddenly felt, and Gimli shook his head at me. "Always have to disrupt a solemn moment, don't you?" he asked as we met in the middle and joined hands.
I shook my head at him, still smiling. "Am I going to have to count your beers tonight?"
He scoffed, jovial. "If you count by tankards, you'll lose track!" He had to shout as the orchestra started to play and our many guests started to riotously dance.
Dwarven marriages were backwards. The celebrating came first.
Gimli's fingers around mine tightened and he drew me to the side so we too could dance, though neither one of us did it well. Freda had nearly drawn her own blood trying to convince us to learn at least one formal dance for such a significant occasion, and if one of us had been interested the other would have caved, but much to her eternal despair neither of us could be bothered.
Our feet stomped the ground with everyone else's, the stomping mostly in rhythm throughout the hall, clapping also consistently included. And whooping. And laughter. We don't celebrate halfway, dwarves. Although I still wasn't much one for drinking I did run with Gimli to the massive kegs often enough, though he knew better than to get foam-faced when there was still our actual ceremony to be had. Every one of the members of the old Company who were still living in Erebor snatched me up and spun me in the air to congratulate me and, they said, to give me luck in my next new life. I tended to receive more of them than most.
My human friends arrived first-I had told them and my elves both that there was no set beginning to this party and that they would likely prefer to arrive after it had started, to limit the majority of the awkwardness. As it was there was little to be done about the fact that many of my guests simply towered over most of the others, and most of them knew only me and themselves, and therefore had few others to talk to or make merry with. It was easy because of this to keep an eye on the doors for them though, and the moment Tilda hauled her sister through the entrance, Sigrid's husband and daughter, Bain, his wife and Bard following with more decorum, I saw them and leaped onto my toes, enthusiastically waving.
Tilda burst out laughing as people made way for me, creating a straight gap for me to plunge through in a whirl of burgundy satin, and dropped to her knees to throw her arms out wide; it was the only way for her and I to hug properly these days, she'd grown up so well. She was engaged now too, though her betrothed was unable to make it due to an emergency in his family, as she apologized to me later. "Only you would sprint through a crowd in your wedding gown!" she said to me now, hugging me tightly from where she'd obligingly made it to my level.
"It was imperative that I embrace you as soon as possible!" I declared. "You are a vision in green, my dear. Don't fire your chambermaid."
She rolled her eyes and shook her head at me as I stepped out of her arms and beckoned toward Bain.
Bain heaved a sigh, plucked at his fancy trousers and took a knee so he could give me a hug and a peck on the cheek. "Still causing mayhem wherever you go, aren't you?" he guessed with a grin tucked into his cheek.
"As a matter of policy." I permitted him to stand and stretched onto my toes again to shake his wife Hilda's hand, still grinning. Sigrid knelt to embrace me then I shook her husband's and daughter's hands.
"Don't cry because I left you to last!" I announced, at last reaching Bard, who also obliged to take a knee for me. He merely chuckled and assured me that he knew better than to try to attach ulterior motives to my actions, as he was destined to always guess them wrong.
I stood and chatted with Bard's family and my human friends-Sirai and her husband arriving soon after-for several minutes, also introducing them to those nearby dwarves they had things in common with, so they'd all have people to talk to besides just themselves when I had to go mingle again.
A large hand wrapped around my wrist and tugged. "Mabyn!" Dwalin crowed. "Help me win a bet, and prove you can still stand on someone's shoulders even these days."
"What? Now?"
He spread his hands out to those who had overheard the challenge and turned to watch. "Why do you think it's a bet he thinks I'll lose."
I stared at the ceiling a moment to express my amused exasperation. "All right hold still." Putting my hands on his shoulders and my toe into the small of his back, I managed to heave-scramble myself up onto his shoulders far more easily than anybody expected me to be able to do in a gown this full. I stood with my hands upturned and outstretched, I believe permissibly proud of what remained of my athletic abilities. This next part was trickier, but I could tell Dwalin knew to expect the unanticipated by the way his shoulders stiffened when I adjusted the placement of my feet but showed no inclinations toward getting down. Thankfully this was the sort of trick I'd never had trouble maintaining without practice in between.
I flung up my arms and leaped, flipping neatly off his shoulders and landing with a smack of my hard-soled shoes to the stone floor, and stood to the sound of cheers.
An arm wound about my waist and whisked me sideways, making me yelp; Gimli had snuck up on my right side on purpose. He tucked me into his arms as we spun into another song, kissing my cheek. "Have I mentioned yet that you look beautiful, you foolish thing?"
I snickered, and stood briefly on my toes to dart in and lick his ear, making him jump. "Thank you, love." Over his shoulder I spotted my elves and bounced again, grabbing his hands. "Want to meet a few other guests of mine?" He'd already known my human friends, Dale being far easier to visit, and humans being less disagreeable in his mind.
He groaned but let me pull him along as we made our way through the seam that opened in our fellow celebrants, making room for us to pass.
Tauriel had been half-turned to speak to Luviel, but when she saw me break into a sprint toward her she moved to the head of the small group of my closest elven friends-perhaps a dozen people-and stooped, arms spread and smile shining.
I leaped and she caught me, straightening to fling me about as she tended to do. "And how are you on this fine day?" she asked me as she finally let our spin slow back to stationary. "Or is all this attention simply diminishing your sense of self?"
I stuck my nose in the air. "You are ridiculous."
I greeted each of my elven friends with equal warmth, and at last came to Legolas, who as per his usual had made no effort to thrust himself into anyone's focus. When I saw him standing with his hands tucked into his back, and only him, I couldn't hide the way my face fell. Some of the swelling joy inside me sank, tremblingly disappearing elsewhere inside me where I feared I'd never see it again.
Legolas's gentle smile dimmed as well and he sank to one knee, coming to my level so I could hear him when he softly spoke, taking my hands. "I am sorry, Mabyn. Perhaps another day."
I nodded, lips tightly pressed together. But this was my day, and I refused to let anyone else's actions blemish my enjoyment of it, so I threw on a smile and my arms around Legolas's neck to thank him at least for coming even if his father wouldn't.
"Gimli, come here," I said when I released Legolas, snatching my future husband by his hand and dragging his grumbling self forth. I picked up Legolas's hand as well and pressed them together in imitation of them shaking hands. "This is Legolas. He's very nice." I dragged him to the next nearest elf and grabbed her hand to do the same thing. "This is Mirinel. She's nice too. They're all nice." And thus I introduced my two families. Bofur already knew them all from when they'd picked me up, dropped me off, or when he had visited Mirkwood in my darkest day; he was chatting animatedly with Cerian about various wooden instruments.
As I had with my humans, I spoke with my elves long enough to make them feel as welcome as in my mind they were, and introduced them to dwarves and humans alike with whom I predicted they could make comfortable conversation if they so wished. I also pointed out the long table that had by now entirely filled with food, which they would have an easier time reaching than most of the party-goers, due to their size. I then returned to my party.
Runi took me aside at one point to fix my hair, which was falling, and Dila on a separate occasion to unsmudge some of the paint Fraeg had so carefully lined my eyes with. It was nice to have friends who were looking out for me when I wasn't even interested in looking out for myself.
I was dancing with Gimli again, leaning tiredly into his chest and letting him do the swaying, when he nudged my head up and turned me so I could see the same person he could see, who had entered silently yet still commanded the attention of everyone who had caught notice of his entrance.
It was Thranduil, standing in a swirling beam of the dawn's earliest whispers. Stern-faced, robed in blue and silver, and wearing one of his smaller, silver crowns that merely ringed his brow as opposed to standing domineeringly from it. When I saw him, all I could do was stare like everybody else, wide-eyed and shocked. I'd already resolved myself to his absence, and having it revoked now by his presence I found myself uncertain of what to do about it.
But when I turned to face him properly those between us parted-as was the wedding tradition, meant to signify obstacles giving way before the soon-to-be-newlyweds-and I stepped hesitantly toward him. I knew we were the focus of nearly everyone else's attention now, and at this particular moment, under these particular circumstances, I hated that, but I had to accept it, and despite wanting there to be truth between us I knew I had to be careful about what I did now.
I paused several paces back from him, fingers tangling tentatively before me, then mouthed my question because I knew he'd understand it that way and most of our watchers wouldn't. I thought you weren't coming?
He gave the tiniest shrug and dismissive expression. Might as well.
The lack of frost in his demeanor was all the encouragement I needed to break into a grin and into a run, shoving through the last few steps of space to throw my arms around him, Thranduil having to quickly bend to catch me. It wasn't appropriate for him to lift me here, not at my age and not in this company, and he knew it so he half-knelt as my other men had to embrace me, and I hid the relief in my face by burying said face into the shimmering fabric over his shoulder, arms wrapped tightly around his ribs. "I'm very glad you came," I whispered.
"I deemed it necessary," he replied in a murmur, both of us keeping our voices down for the only semblance of privacy we'd have in this crowd, which was only too eager to snatch up any words we were careless enough to drop within their reach.
"Thank you. Somehow it's strange to see you out of Mirkwood. You don't seem to leave it often."
He shallowly shrugged, glancing out over the openly curious faces of our observers. "There is rarely a need. Is your celebration thus far progressing as planned?"
"For now, which means a calamity is soon in the off. Let's go sit." I grasped his hand and towed him over to a nearby small, unoccupied table, where Thranduil reclined and somehow managed to look dignified despite the small size of the table in comparison to himself, and the fact that it was no more than a glorified picnic table with a yellow tablecloth hung over it. I sat on the table so we could be more at each others' eye level. "You know we can't keep pressing our expectations on each other, right?" I softly asked, still maintaining our quietude. "It just isn't always going to work. I'm not always going to do the most logical or beneficial thing, and let's face it-you're never going to wrap me up in a barrage of your boisterous affections. I do know that, by the way. I just....get caught up and forget sometimes." I flickered him a smile. "I know you; I just have my foolish moments."
He allowed me the tiniest flash of a smile in the very corner of his mouth as well. "We all do in our own time."
And we both knew that while our disagreements stood, neither of us cared to lose whatever relationship we'd managed to build between us-it was too valuable to the both of us to risk on anything less than an incredible breach of trust. So what it came down to, over several minutes of indirect, muted conversation, was that we were both willing to ignore our troubles for the sake of avoiding causing larger ones. Considering who we both were, we could not afford to quarrel. And continuing on in this form of conscious ignorance was far easier on everyone.
No matter what we decided or what we had done to each other, recently or in the past, I was glad that he had come.
Gimli and I were hustled outside to take each others' hands, walk in circles around each other, plant a seed in a small pot and say our promises the moment the sun was high enough to cast light on the spot outside the mountain that we had chosen for this moment. Then our parents tossed small bags of coins to us and we were chased off into Dale with cheers, it being tradition to first start one's wedding shopping in another town, as it expressed willingness to leave one's own comfort for the other.
Thanks to Dila, Runi, Freda, Fraeg and Byrnhild I knew exactly what we needed, based on Gimli's description of his-our-new house, and hauled him all through town to find said items: rugs, tapestries, cooking pots, cooking utensils, a few small pieces of furniture, bedding and blankets, and other householdy things. Gimli tolerated my enthusiasm with more or less free reign, pausing my plunge into married life with only a few suggestions, such as what color rug or how many large pots we needed in comparison to small pots. Judging by how often I felt the desire to cook for large quantities of people, he said, it was unlikely we'd need a pot larger than would feed just the two of us for a while.
His eyes glittered with something warm and bright when he said 'just the two of us', and since I knew him I knew what was already on his mind-with any luck, it wouldn't be 'just' the two of us for terribly long. I was in no rush for children, but neither was I in any way avoiding them. I did not believe I would become my father.
But I knew the statistics, and I knew that I had a temper, and I knew that I very easily could. My salvation lay in that I knew Gimli was tough enough to take away from me anyone he thought I couldn't handle, even if they were our own children.
We shopped in Dale then in Erebor all morning, placing orders for the many things we couldn't carry ourselves, with either a promise to return another day or requesting that our purchases be delivered. In the afternoon, with many of said purchases having been delivered while we were still out and about, we commenced organizing this new home. It created a spot of bother when I, ignoring Gimli's suggestion because I was caught up in my own little whirlwind of happy, was amusingly put-out when we had to move all the furniture a dozenth time to put the rugs down, as I had finally decided where I wanted it all arranged only to realize too late that Gimli had been very right in telling me that I was doing it wrong.
But we were doing very well, and despite my foolishness we were very happy thus far too, as we were meant to be. Like any normal person who'd had limited intimate contact between herself and the opposite gender, I was anxious about what the evening held-after I'd made a shockingly passable supper for us, despite the fact that we'd completely forgotten to buy food and had to go borrow from our neighbors. Gimli knew what happened when I was nudged when I didn't want to be though, and simply collapsed on his side of the bed-mine was, by request, beneath the entrancingly large window-and for all appearances fell asleep.
And eventually, over the course of an hour during which he probably did fall asleep, I came to the conclusion that I wanted what worried me out of my way and under my belt so I could get on with the enjoyment part of my marriage, sat on him and woke him up and business got done. When I explained myself he couldn't help laughing.
(pg500)