Gimli's rare letters provided me with small quirks of amusement. He moved too much, and too quickly, for me to ever be able to write him back. And as time heaved onward, his letters became fewer and farther.
I sometimes can't believe the nerve of this princeling, he wrote to me once. Suggesting that we are the lesser beings. Just because he can walk on snow doesn't make him any better than the rest of us. Do you know I've never even seen that elf sleep? It's unnatural. You can't trust a creature that doesn't sleep.
I chuckled and wiped tears out of my eyes every time he wrote.
At least he fights well, for all he's far too aware and far too proud of that fact. It's been nice to have something to thrash of late. Lets a dwarf work off steam. I can't say I appreciate the running though. The running is utterly wretched.
And then less decidedly cheerful things.
Our Fellowship is splintered. The Hobbits have gone in two separate directions, two by choice and two by theft. We must follow those we believe wish to be followed, because the others we must trust to take care of themselves. I doubt I'll be able to write much unless we pass through a town and happen to not be accosted, but I don't hold out hope. Trouble surrounds us like a swarm.
And yet here we lay safe, with no trouble to jostle our waters, as if half our population had simply vanished and no one questioned why.
The last time I heard from him my bones began to turn to ice I couldn't let anyone see. He wrote and told me that Aragorn had died, and that the city he and Legolas had found shelter in was in such a disarray he couldn't take what little parchment they still had to send further letters.
I didn't know who Aragorn was, but when I wrote to Thranduil, he told me I was lucky to not have loved him, if he no longer lived. I told him I was sorry he had lost a friend. He said Legolas had known him better. I promised to give Legolas my condolences when they all came home like they were supposed to.
"It's getting worse, isn't it," I said one day to Dain.
He heaved a great sigh, and sagged in his mighty chair. "Yes, lass, it is. You've been reading the reports as much as I have though, why bother with a second opinion?"
I was sitting at my desk organizing aforementioned reports. "I don't know much about war."
"And I pray soon your education on it will end," he murmured. "War has no place for old men like me or young ones like you. War is unnatural. No creation of the gods or ghosts, that's all the doing of sentient creatures who don't understand that this world is the only one there is. There are no second chances, just bad things that decide to give us a break for once." He set his quill so gently aside then eased his head into his hands, elbows on the edge of his heavy, whorled desk.
I eased past my own aches and came to stand beside him, rubbing his shoulders as I'd rubbed Bard's. Everyone was getting old. As I worked the knots and cables out of his own aching self I read the lists he'd had before him—lists of the dead and wounded coming home. Well, the dead didn't come home. Sometimes bits and pieces of their lives could. Sometimes only bits and pieces of our people came back, even though they still lived, and some even wished they didn't. Some were only missing a leg. Some had lost an arm. But some had lost their eyes, their hands, their faces, to fire or blades or worse.
Some of the ones who came home died in our arms. Some of them had lost the only family they'd had in the war we hadn't seen until the ones we loved started coming home, and we realized they'd come home with more missing than bone and skin. Pieces of their hearts had been ripped out too.
I didn't recognize anyone on the lists today, either one. Well, I recognized a great many names—I read a great many names every day for years in my work with Dain—but I wouldn't recognize the people if I saw them.
Well. Even their family didn't always recognize those who came back.
Something pinched my eyelid and I wiped at it, starting back into the proper world, and leaned over to give Dain's shoulders a squeeze.
For once I was aware I was dreaming, there was just nothing I could do about it, as usual when one is in a dream. Just as one can't make the choice to leap down into a dream while awake, while dreaming there is nothing one can do to climb out of one. Something cold and metal pressed flat against my back and gravity felt a bit off, but I could still walk. As the metal feeling faded I sprinted slowly forward, through a field of torn grass, with rough hillocks heaving and valleys sharper than broken crockery. I heaved my way up one only to tumble down another, dodging torn and blackened armor that only appeared as I focused on each piece.
It was wrong. I didn't know much about battlefields, but why would armor simply be abandoned here in random scattered pieces? There were no bodies. There was no blood. The armor wouldn't fit any creature I knew, and that included the races I'd never met which Dain had told me about. This armor was large enough to fit a being at least twelve times the mass of your average dwarf.
I woke up feeling like someone had recently been holding my wrist, and immediately lurched out of bed, going to the desk opposite it to scramble until I'd found a piece of paper and a charcoal pencil. I had to scratch a lamp into flame but I'd gotten skilled with a flint and oil lamp.
Dain, there was a battle commander from my world, called Alexander the Great, who once created massive pieces of armor and beat them to hell and scattered them over his battlefields to convince his enemies that came afterward that if they chose to battle him they would be going into battle against giants. Can we do the same? Do we have enough ore to use it on psychological warfare as opposed to weaponry?
Mabyn
I wrapped myself in my orange robe and tucked my feet into slippers before folding the note in crisp lines and shooting out my front door, closing it quietly behind me. Being well familiar with these corridors I was able to not plunge down any stairs, though it was an exhausting long way between my home and Dain's. I didn't bother waking him up—he needed his sleep—but slid the note under his door instead and hastened back to my room for what little sleep was left for me.
When I tried to bring the sleep back however I couldn't. So instead I rolled back out of bed, relit the warm lantern and settled in at our desk with a blanket wound tightly around as much of me as didn't have to be spared. I uncorked the inkwell for this one though.
Lord Elrond,
Is that plant sphere I made still alive? I wonder if you've just been sparing my feelings or it's slipped your mind but it has in fact died.
In other news, I've been having some rather odd dreams about my world. Not the sort of dreams I can recall having before. Sometimes I don't know where the dream stops.
Does this have anything to do with what you and Lady Galadriel did to save me? Are you sure you saved all of me or are there pieces that got left behind? Thranduil has always spoken highly of your various skills. I wanted to ask you because of that and because you don't know me as well as any of the other very skilled people I know.
There was more I had to say of course. Genuine fears that had been taking root for longer than I would acknowledge, intermixed with chit chat and inquiries after Rivendell's health. This was why I wasn't allowed to draft any of Dain's messages for him unless I was following a predetermined template; I couldn't organize my thoughts in writing, nor did I have any of the elegant, flowing transitions typically necessary in formal letters.
I hoped Elrond didn't mind.
"It should have occurred to me to plumb your mind for help from your world years ago," Dain chortled as he turned up the next morning in his office, late. "It turns up some interesting things every now and again. Would you consider writing a history?"
"Absolutely not." I put his stack of personal mail on his desk and pointed him to it.
"But you'll keep mentioning relevant things like this?"
"Of course. I rather like this place you know. I want to keep it safe too."
He quirked a smile. "Good to hear. We do have enough ore to spare to see if your little twist of psychosis has any merit, which I think it does."
I shook my head. "Don't give me any credit, all I did of merit was remember and think it was worth mentioning."
He harrumphed. "Right well no one else had it in their head to begin with, so don't argue too much."
"Fine. Don't mention it too much."
"We'll see. It'd be a grain of sand in the face of those who are still sour about your involvement in our politics if you win us this war. Come in!" he called to a light knock at the door that I hadn't heard. Even with two functional ears I don't think I'd have heard it.
"Good morning." I smiled pleasantly at the woman who stepped through, hand still resting on the door, and continued my work seated at my desk, streamlining Dain's mail for him so he didn't have to read every missive himself but could still know all that was required of him. I kept the woman in the corner of my eye as she approached; the combined tentative grip of her hands around each other and the firmness of her bearing intrigued me.
"Lord Dain," she began, in a voice clear and smooth, "might I have a private audience?"
Dain, who would typically cease his readings and writings when approached, out of respect for those who desired his attention, was too busy these days usually to bother, but evidently he perceived similar things to what I did, for now he stopped, and looked up at her through heavy brows. "Lady Mabyn is a trustworthy ear, if that is your concern."
She glanced down at the embroidered toes of her boots. "It is not, My Lord."
Dain shrugged, and since I'd been keeping an eye on him I tapped the ink off my quill and stoppered the well, leaving the quill to drain into its jar. I took a few of the letters and a charcoal pencil with me, to underline important things for me to come back to later, and closed the door to a private study behind me. There were several rooms attached to Dain's main office that I kept telling him he ought to find a use for. His predecessor had apparently found them quite useful, but with the rooms belonging to Dain and currently serving their lifespans empty they were merely taking up space. Private audiences were no uncommon occurrence however, so I had a sparse desk and stool in here as well. I'd been offered better, but for a few hours out of every month of what worth was it?
Eventually Dain hollered me back in, and I was surprised to find the woman still standing before him, having forgone his offer of a seat in one of the armchairs. Dain was rubbing his brow, and the woman looked no happier than when she'd crept in. I looked slowly between the pair of them. "May I be of some service?"
Dain lowered his hand and extended it politely toward the woman. "Mistress Helitta has voiced concerns for a number of my subjects, and has been bolstered to bring said concerns to my attention by a recent discovery of her daughter's. Mistress Helitta, please correct me if ever I do not summarize your fears accurately." He folded his fingers together, elbows against the hard edge of his desk.
"Mistress Helitta's daughter, Mistress Lionane, recently traveled to Mirkwood to look over their pearl imports for business—but what's wrong with our pearls?" he interrupted himself.
I rolled my eyes. "Dain, they were likely the wrong color for her intentions, or had a different luster. Am I not correct?"
Mistress Helitta nodded. "Indeed, Lady Mabyn."
Dain sighed. "And she heard—gods only know how—of your earning of the right to Thranduil's name."
My eyebrows rose, and he nodded his agreement.
"As you are aware, there have always been those who were at best discomfited with your association with many diverse, high-ranking officials of our three nations, and at worst they have outright opposed you, even if they were too polite to tell you so directly."
This much was true—as brash and blunt as they tended to be with their friends, one would not expect that the same could not, for the most part, be said of how dwarves expressed themselves among strangers, at least of their own race. Impersonal disagreements tended to be kept to oneself, or voiced to the one with the power to affect change. I was not the person most people brought their disagreements to when I was the topic of said disagreement.
"However, those who were unhappy with your position with me before are downright uncomfortable with it now, as news of your attachment to King Thranduil has indubitably spread. They do not see it as right, fitting, or proper that the official foster-daughter of another king, of another race, who bears the right to another's title, should serve so closely with me."
My shoulders drooped with my glance in Helitta's direction; Dain had represented her concerns well. She would not look at me. I was still looking at her when I spoke next. "May I state a response?" At his nod I continued. "Mistress Helitta, what do you know of my childhood, and how I arrived in Middle Earth?"
"I know the story that has circulated since Erebor was repopulated, Lady."
I waved a light hand. "Just Mabyn will do, or Mistress if you don't care for a first name. So you know I was shipwrecked, taken captive by goblins, rescued by the Company, and traveled with them for several weeks before we were captured by the Woodland elves?" Her unchanging expression invited me onward. "Then I expect you will also know that I spent a great deal of time among the elves, admittedly more than I had thus far spent with the dwarves, by the time of the Battle. However did you also know that when the dwarves escaped, I attempted to go with them?"
Her eyes flicked up.
"I was suffering a curse at the time, and had two broken ribs. I was retaking all the injuries my birth father had given me in the last year I spent with him—he came to hate the very sight of me because of how much I look like my mother, who repeatedly broke his heart. With broken ribs I couldn't run. Fili tried to carry me but I slowed him down too much. I told him to leave me behind. After some arguing, I managed to convince him that this was for the best, for I didn't want the rest of them to be captured again just because I was too damaged to keep up. I was dying—what difference did it make where I did it?"
I heaved a sigh, and cast about. "May we sit? I slept poorly last night." I angled one of the two armchairs in front of Dain's desk toward hers, but not so sharply that she would feel she were being interrogated, or I were. "So I remained Thranduil's prisoner, and that is why I spent so much time among the elves when the others did not. Of course I wasn't happy about it, but I was happier than I would have been if I'd caused the rest of the Company to be imprisoned again. Thranduil interrogated me again about the activities of the dwarves, and I denied him, and began singing to him songs of my realm. They intrigued him, I think, because they're so very different from the songs native to Middle Earth. I began requesting to sing for him every day, until it became an unspoken routine. We spoke a great deal, about this realm and bits of mine, and some of my history.
"Do you see yet what I was doing, Mistress Helitta? Most kings would hesitate to continue to imprison someone they now see as a person, someone with their own unique takes on life, their own wishes and dreams. I was purposefully making him see me as a person and not a prisoner, because nobody wants to die in a cell, even if they don't have much still to live for.
"Over time though I began to enjoy Thranduil's company as he began to enjoy mine, not that he shows it, to be honest. That elf is roughly as expressive as snow. But my endeavor worked, and I was being treated less and less like a captive. He was furious when I went back to the dwarves while they were laying their siege to Erebor. But he saw that they were my true family, and he let me go."
She was watching me closely now, eyes narrowed as she cogitated my words. "You were able to forge so great an alliance over a span of a few weeks that you continued visiting him like family and then became family?"
"About two or three hours every day for a few months is a lot of time when you consider it. And I am not family in the usual sense. Thranduil told Bard and Thorin I was his daughter because he wished Bard not to argue about a child's presence in an oncoming war and because he wished to infuriate Thorin, and he succeeded in both endeavors. I played along because I had little choice and wanted Thranduil on my side. I was just a child, Helitta, dying and alone, with no family, only people I couldn't decide if they were my friends or my keepers. Thranduil is powerful, and I needed power on my side to make me feel a little less vulnerable in your great wide world. Eventually, forged through war and my continued visits—because we did genuinely enjoy each other's company—I did become like family.
"However his making of me an official member of aforementioned family is more for my protection than anything else. I still intend to travel someday when my life settles back down to a simmer, now that I am enough of an adult to do it without an entire retinue of guards, we shall hope. My having his seal allows me the protection of his people should ever I need to call upon it, or some of his funds if ever I need to ransom myself again. However I have no political power among the elves, no say in their sayings or doings, and I cannot and will not inherit any piece of their lives should anything unfortunate befall either Thranduil or Legolas. My title among the elves is a form of security only—no one ever uses my title or acknowledges it, so I'd be quite interested to know how Mistress Lionane came across that particular bit of information. The title isn't important in my day-to-day life, it isn't even relevant. It is just there if ever I should feel vulnerable again and need it."
I paused for a breather and helped myself to a cup of water Dain hadn't touched. "I understand your concerns regarding the appointment of a mixed-blood foreigner as the personal assistant to the king, and your concerns are entirely valid and rational concerns. However before working yourselves into true fear I would beg you to remember that I was but a child when I arrived in Middle Earth. I also believed that I would soon die, and was protecting myself as best I could by purposefully making the acquaintance and friendship of every powerful man I had the strange fortune to meet. I never intended to live this long, Helitta, I never planned for any of this. I fought Dain on the matter dozens of times and it took me years first to work with him, then years to even think of enjoying myself in his presence. I was no longer looking for protectors and therefore had no interest in his friendship—apologies, Dain. He also offered me the position of ambassador because of all of my inter-city associations, and I declined it because I was indeed too closely associated with all of those people. I had a conflict of interest and I knew it, so I declined the post.
"Instead I spend my days sorting mail, pouring wine, fetching ink and assisting in coming up with solutions to local affairs. Very little of my involvement with Dain has anything to do with humans or elves, as the dwarves are my people in my heart as much as they are in yours. It simply saddens me that my choice of friends causes others distress." A pause. "Does this in any way help?" I asked, melancholy.
Now Helitta was rubbing her brow. "It is a different perspective, one which I appreciate having, and will do my best to relay accurately. You know it won't convince many though. An opinion, once ingrained, is difficult to eradicate."
A smile quirked up one cheek. "Oh I know. But it's a start, and it's better than nothing."
She was shaking her head as she stood.
I rose with her. "If you don't mind me asking, how on earth did Lionane hear about my title from the elves? We were keeping it quiet for a reason."
Helitta rolled her eyes. "She is a bit more familiar with one of their merchants than a mother would prefer."
I suppressed the majority of my smile for her sake. "I see. Well, the bird is out of the nest now, no point denying it. I do hope this can assuage some of your concerns, Mistress Helitta. Please don't hesitate to bring them to either Dain or I in the future."
As the door closed behind her Dain snorted. "This wouldn't be such a persistent problem, these people all flustered about your loyalties, if you'd gotten on better with my son."
I just shook my head at him and drew a slip of paper toward me. "I've changed my mind. I very much need the tedium of harvesting violets this afternoon and Eydis told me a group of ladies are going. Can you spare me?"
He waved a generous hand, already immersed back among his own documents. I wrote my note to Eydis and took it to a runner, then returned to work.
Many women I knew were out on the hills surrounding Erebor, up to our hips in emerald grass where the goats and sheep hadn't gotten around to trimming it yet. We held shallow baskets in our laps and scooted around on our bottoms, plucking the purple, lavender and sometimes white violets by the bud and flower, trying to leave the stems behind.
"You're quiet," Eydis said after some time had passed in the sunny warmth and gentle press of the breeze.
"People are learning things about me I didn't want them to know." I pinched the stem off a purple bud with my fingernail and dropped it into my woven basket. "They're taking it entirely the wrong way because I hid it, but if I'd advertised it it would have looked even worse."
"What, do you mean the elven princess thing?"
My head shot up. "You knew about that? Why didn't you ask me?"
"Because I'm not a gossip! I'm not supposed to have my ear to the wall like all these other silly hens. Plus I was surprised to hear of it myself—people don't usually talk about you around me, they know we're friends. But a friend of mine who doesn't know you heard, and was brave enough to ask me."
"And that wasn't enough cause to ask yourself?"
"Just because one friend wonders a thing about another doesn't mean I have the right to pry into the other's business," she said, chin high. Her eyes flashed and a smile rose. "Besides, if it was something you'd felt like sharing you would have. You're a fairly honest person, Mabyn, but you usually don't share much about your times with the elves because, frankly, most dwarves don't want to know. I'd have thought you would have mentioned it to me though. I'm interested in hearing about the elves."
I gave her a pained smile, wishing it had occurred to me to confide in a friend. "Dain and I thought it was better left tucked tightly in a drawer. I know you're no whispering cricket but I can't assume everyone has as terrible of hearing as I do."
She shrugged. "I've got better things to do than be offended by your ingrained habits. Are you actually going to make violet jam like all the rest of us or are you just picking because it's a gorgeous day and you wanted to see an old friend?"
"I'm donating it all to your cause," I told her, lofting my petal-dusted basket, still plucking and sifting through the grass. I edged my way a few steps up the hill, not even bothering to properly stand. "I tell you, these longer skirts sometimes make me pine for childhood again."
"But I bet you're glad your bustle is gone," she quipped, chuckling. "No I agree, the shorter skirts definitely had their benefits. I rather like the way the longer skirts are put together though, with all the extra fabric and folds. I could ride a horse in this and not reveal a toe."
I raised an eyebrow sidelong at her. "Are you looking into riding a horse anytime soon?"
"Fine, a fat pony. How's Villy doing by the way?"
"She and I have been going on many more long, romantic walks since the menfolk left. Sometimes I put a beard on her so I feel a little less strange telling her about my day."
"As if you ever cared. With all the talking you do to that ladyhorse I wonder why I don't ever catch you talking to your pots and pans when they've vexed you."
"What because most people who talk to things and beings who can't talk back generally talk to both things and beings and not just the beings? How very general you are." She paused in her picking, raising her head, turning to listen. I didn't bother trying—it wouldn't help me. At last she stood and gazed back in the direction of Erebor, then beyond it to the road from Dale, and from Mirkwood. She spun back to me. "You didn't tell me there was another caravan coming!"
I hastily stood, leaving my basket on the ground. "There wasn't—we've had no word."
She grinned, throwing a cloth over her basket. "Come on!"
I did the same and we hefted our skirts in our spare hands as best we could, trotting, tumbling and traipsing down the long hill as best we could.
"Dila, Runi!" Eydis hollered when she saw them still picking. She pointed. "Look!"
The women turned, then they too hurriedly packed their baskets up. We weren't the first ones down the hill, and neither were we the last—women and children were streaming out of Erebor as well to see who had returned, and from Dale's many entrances. As usual, a contingent of elves accompanied our wounded; Thranduil had not yet sent aid to the war effort, so he had warriors to spare, and we were ever grateful that he chose to utilize them in protecting those of ours who might not survive even yet. I had told him this more than once, just so he was sure of how appreciated his actions were.
There were equal numbers of dwarves and humans flocking to the road and running up it, the sooner to possibly greet their loved ones. Many looked like they had rushed in from nearby farms.
When we knew a caravan was coming we always created lists of those in attendance and posted them in central areas so others could see who was on their way home—I knew Bard did this as well—but we couldn't always know exactly when they would arrive, and nearly always chose not to speculate down to the day. Messenger birds were being shot down by the dozen, we couldn't train them fast enough, and there were many hazards on the roads for a long trail of wounded and broken men even in peaceful lands. Best not to raise everyone's fears when a caravan was late.
Eydis and I got caught up in a swell of humans, so I grabbed her by the hand, wishing I had Villy with me to help give us some space, as we squirmed our way to the front of the crowd edging this part of the road. We could fight our way further up, but it was even busier up there.
Children cried their parents' names when they saw them, rushing into the slow trod of those aching their way home, and wives cried too, entire families dashing into the street to be united. But the injured and ill were moving too slowly for anyone to be in danger of being run over.
The first half of the shattered parade had trudged by us, and my eyes warmed to see many men I recognized, but grew damp when I saw the abysmal condition many were in. Some had injuries no worse than a hand with too many breaks to wield weaponry for months. Some had no hands. And some appeared, at first harried glance, to have lost nothing yet. But when you saw the sag of their spines, the dull gloss over their eyes, you knew there were pieces inside that weren't right any longer, that were no longer firmly held together, but jostling sharply against each other and hurting in ways no herbs could touch. I ached the most for those men, as I knew there was nothing I or anyone could do to help them unless they wanted to be saved.
Eydis grabbed my shoulder and shook me, shouting something, leaping in place, eyes alight, but there was too much commotion for me to be able to understand her.
I snatched her hand, looking away from the gray parade. "What is it, Eydis? Slow down!"
She made a visible effort to be calm for my sake, but when I still focused on the movement of her mouth and not where she was frantically pointing, she yanked me sideways by my sleeve and planted me before her, slapping her hands to my cheeks and turning me so I faced in the correct direction. She shouted from behind me, into my left ear, "It's Bofur, Mabyn! It's Bofur!"
I plunged in among the injured, swiftly skirting men and dwarves and elves until I came to the dwarf I wanted most, lying on his back in a stretcher, an elf at either end carrying him. He appeared to be chatting animatedly with the elf at his head, who was replying with equal enthusiasm. "Bofur!" I cried, and stumbled against the stretcher, causing the elves holding it to lurch and chuckle.
"Mabyn!" He reached up to cup my face, beaming, but I tore the blanket over his legs away to reveal the splints over both of his shins, tears on my cheeks.
"What happened?" I gasped. "What did you do? Will you be all right?" My legs were trembling, and with a word from one elf to the other they lowered Bofur's stretcher onto its pegs and I collapsed on my knees beside it, the dust of the road swirling around us.
Bofur stroked my tears away, wetness in his own eyes. "I'm fine, Mabyn, I'll be just fine," he assured me. "Got in a fight with a wagon and lost."
I choked on a laugh that wasn't sure if it was on its way up or down. "What did you go and do that for?" I swiped at my cheeks, adding dust to the wetness. "Have you seen Gimli?"
His expression grew somber. "We've had no word of where the Fellowship is these days, Mabyn, I'm sorry. When's the last time you've had word?"
"It was dated to about two months ago," I sniffed. "Have you heard from anyone else?"
"Gloin, Bombur, Bifur and I were stationed together—Dain's doing, I think—"
"I'll bake him a pie."
"And he was doing well, last I saw him."
"Dwalin is in the far south," I said, "right where he wants to be." Most correspondence not sent to a specific person came to Dain, so he could unfold a deeper understanding of the war. Dwalin, when he had time, wrote two drafts of each of his letters, sending one to his mother and the other to us. "Oin wanted to be with Gloin but they need healers on the southeast front. Bilbo seems to be fine, he's written a few times, he's in Rivendell." I sniffed again, sinking back into the wealth of despair that war brought. "And Gandalf—" My insides wrenched. This was the part of Gimli's last letter that had been so very hard to read. "Gandalf is dead. He died in Moria. Gimli and the others found what....what was left of Balin, and Ori. Dori is likely dead as well. They had been for quite a while."
Bofur's face creased in pain, and then mine caved in as well, and I tipped over to lay myself across his chest, his arms around my back as we cried over people who, in some cases, had been dead for so long there was nothing left of them to mourn.
(pg650)