My mother had been deep inside Erebor when Smaug routed the halls, leaving devastation and death in his wake. What had saved my mother was seeing King Thror and his son, Prince Thrain run past the room where she had been teaching the children, keeping them all together even as she was struggling to breathe, Smaug's sulfuric breath clogging her lungs. But she kept herself low and taking the children with her, followed them, even as her eyes stung and every breath she took was like inhaling fire.
Father had made it alive, too, she said. But he succumbed from his injuries two moons later, dying in his sleep, as had all the children who had escaped with her. Smaug’s breath had burned their lungs.
They could have gone to the Iron Hills like many of the dwarves she knew. Instead she and father wanted to journey south with the king, not just out of loyalty to him, she said, but for the hope that maybe they would find themselves in the towns where merchants had claimed to have seen a dwarf child named Aleana years earlier.
By this time, I no longer had any more tears to shed, the coverlet over Lyssan’s frail form soaked from my tears. I treasured every second her hand touched my face, exploring its contours, her fingers tracing the outline of my nose and my lips, even my eyelashes, and finally my scar. Nothing in my past with Jerrel and Tadd, no matter how loving they had been towards me, could ever make up for the years I’d missed with my real parents.
They’d taken that away from me.
I could feel the anger slowly build up inside of me, the thought that my mother was slipping away just as I was reunited with her. Our time together was much too brief. The pain was unbearable, as if someone had wrenched my heart from my chest and cut it to pieces. I could not leave her now, not even when one of the dwarf women came to tell me that Lyssan was weak, that she needed to rest.
And when I shook my head, I heard Thorin’s voice behind me telling her to leave me alone with my mother, that I could spend as long as I wanted next to her. I wanted to thank him for interceding on my behalf, but when I turned to look towards the door, he had gone along with them.
“Did they treat you well?” My mother asked. Her voice was hoarse and already I knew that she had spoken too much since I’d arrived. The women were right about letting her rest, I thought, as I nodded.
“Good,” she said, turning away from me to look at the forest green walls of her tent. A breeze blew outside, ruffling the fabric. “Did the prince tell you that we searched for you for so many years? We never gave up, lukhudel,” she said. “Please never forget that.”
“He told me,” I replied. “Hush, mother, and do not speak. You need to rest.”
“One day a merchant came to the Great Hall and said that he had seen a dwarf child in a town of men, and that she had a scar on her face,” mother continued. “We sent so many dwarves to find you, but they never did. I did not care of all the jewels we paid those who had told us again and again about a dwarf-child named Aleana. Men from the south.”
As she spoke, I frowned. Twice, Lialam had sent Jerrel and I away to live with his brother northeast of Greenbanü, where Jerrel found herself inundated by so much work she looked forward to the summons. I wondered if Lialam himself had collected the reward for the information, as his wealth only continued to grow with each of our visits to his brother. But then, it didn't matter now.
“I’m here now, mother,” I said. “I’m never leaving you.”
Lyssan smiled weakly as I ran my hand along her face, my fingers running through her smooth beard. It was dark as night, just as mine would have been had I not pulled it from its roots for the last few years and I wondered if my beard would ever grow as lush as hers did. It grew alongside her jaw, combed neatly by the women who tended to her, who hovered just outside the tent for I could hear their voices still.
I sat next to her bed, ignoring the cramp in my legs as I watched her sleep. I wanted to memorize every inch of her face and stamp the vision of her inside my mind forever. She wheezed when she breathed, every intake of breath a struggle.
Hours later, she awoke with a start, as if something had stopped her from breathing and the lack of air forced her from her slumber. Lyssan saw me and smiled, though it took much effort to do so.
“Do you remember the songs I used to sing for you?” She asked, her voice barely a whisper now, and I nodded.
“I never forgot them,” I replied. It was how I remembered our language, I thought now, grateful that Jerrel and Tadd never stopped me from singing them. Instead, they’d written it down, phonetically learning it as well.
“Will you sing to me then?” She asked as she grimaced, her body wracked in a coughing fit as I held her in my arms.
It took me a few moments to get started, but when I did, the songs came as if I’d been singing them for as long as I could remember. And as the songs came, so did the memories.
Seeing my mother’s face, her dark lashes framing sky blue eyes that still glowed with life brought me back to Erebor. I saw its majestic halls, its high ceilings and pillars of exquisitely carved and ornamented rock, hewn from deep within the mountain. Stairways that went across one end of the mountain to the other, and yet more making their way down, deeper into the depths of its never-ending treasure trove of emeralds, diamonds, rubies and sapphires.
I saw myself running through its grand halls, laughing as I slipped between the legs of much older dwarves to my left and right, not hearing the calls for me to stop. For I was too young to care, too precocious to stop and listen to anyone much older than me. Behind me an older boy in royal blue robes was trying to catch me, calling out my name. He was joined by another boy, younger than him before a few more children followed suit, thinking it was probably all a game.
But I didn’t hear him. I was too fast. After all, I was after something I had seen from the high balcony, a dragon kite that flew high above the sky just minutes earlier. But its string was caught in the branches of an oak tree, tangled hopelessly among its leaves.
“It’s mine!” I had cried then. “The dragon is mine.”
I had been in the nursery with the other children when I saw it, cut loose from someone’s grip below the mountain. And as it flew across the sky, I leapt and ran out the door before anyone could stop me.
I sneaked into the Queen’s private garden, relieved to see it empty for everyone was at the Great Hall with the King. I looked up and saw the kite, flapping in the wind, awaiting its release from the branches that snagged its string. I began to climb, my fingers grabbing hold of the smallest indentations in the wood that it could find.
I had climbed this very same tree before when the children and I played our hiding game, and no one had been able to find me. The rough bark scratched my skin but I did not care. I simply wanted that kite, not caring whose it was for it was mine now. After all, it was caught in the branches of one of the king’s trees. It belonged to whoever could get to it.
My slipper slipped off my foot and fell to the ground below. I heard a collective gasp and I looked down. Dwarves were gathered below me but I kept climbing. I was so close.
“Frigga!” Thorin shouted, his voice much deeper than I remembered for it had begun to change a few summers earlier. I remembered now that he was much older than I first thought him to be days earlier, when he told me atop that hill that he knew me. I remembered how I used to call him ‘my prince,' and how he’d laugh each time I said it. For what else could he do when a five-year old girl told him that one day she was going to make him hers? I was too young to know then what I was saying.
Thorin called my name again, this time the anger in his voice unmistakable. He stood below me and I realized then just how high I had climbed. Other voices joined his and I saw my mother, her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide with fear. I recognized Frerin, Thorin’s brother, and his sister, Dis, watching me with wide eyes. But I was so close, I thought, leaning against the branch and reaching out for the kite that fluttered in the breeze. My fingers touched the crisp paper, but the breeze blew it away from me.
Thorin began to climb, his hands grabbing hold of branches much faster than I had. Just as he almost reached me, I grabbed the kite and laughed, triumphant.
“I got it, Prince Thorin! The kite is mine!” I turned to look at him, holding the kite up in my hand, even though the branches tore through its colorful paper. The branch beneath my feet swayed and creaked.
“Reach for my hand, Frigga,” Thorin said as he reached out for me carefully, his other hand holding on to a sturdier branch above him. His deep blue eyes pinned mine with an intensity I had not seen before.
“This is no longer a game,” he whispered. I saw fear on his face then, but I was too happy, much too young to recognize the danger he saw. I laughed again.
“But I got the dragon,” I said excitedly as I let go of my other hand to reach for him just as the branch that held me snapped in two..
~~~
Mother died just as the skies grew darkest to welcome the dawn. She took her last laboring breath at the same time when Thorin and the rest of the dwarf-men began their journey to Fennhill for a few days’ work in exchange for much-needed food and supplies.
I had not slept all night as I held her hand, listening to her breathing grow more faint with each passing rise and fall of her chest. I wanted to rail at the world and scream till my voice grew hoarse knowing that it would not have done me any good. It would not have changed anything.
When the women tending to her urged me to step aside so they could wash her body and dress her according to the customs they knew more than I, I asked them to show me how so I could do it myself. I was not about to let go of my mother just when I had been reunited with her after all this time.
In the end, a dwarf named Arna came into the tent, and as I looked at her face, I recognized her as my mother’s dear old friend and fellow scribe. She was one face I immediately recognized, now that being among my own people made the memories easier to reveal themselves to me.
Together we did the rituals according to our people, with Arna whispering to me whatever it was I needed to do, or say, to ease mother’s passing from this world to the next.
Hours later, when mother’s body was finally prepared and ready, the remaining dwarves in the camp laid her to rest in a cairn atop a hill. Had we been inside Erebor, mother would have been buried deep in the Halls of the Dead where I and my children, should I have any, visit her and honor her spirit. But here, I only hoped that Mahal would find her in the middle of the Wilderlands, and guide her back safely.
I was grateful that Lialam’s men, even though they eventually recognized me from behind my cloak and hood, kept back when they realized who it was I had just lost. They stood by the same boulder where I saw them yesterday, their heads bowed down for a moment. I wanted to believe that they mourned along with me, though something told me that everything between us had changed the moment I was revealed to be a dwarf — or specifically, Lialam’s ‘dwarf-bride.’
And as soon as the ceremony was over, as the dwarves led me deep in the midst of the encampment to shield me in case the men would charge and take me by force, one of the men sped away towards the town of Greenbanü. My heart sank. They would now know where I was, I thought, as I thanked Arna and the rest of the dwarf-women for their help.
I did not have to wait long. The sun was high up in the sky still and I knew I had to do it soon. With my sword safely sheathed and hidden beneath a deep blue cloak I had traded with another dwarf, I waited till two groups left the encampment — one to the north and other towards the direction of the forest to gather berries.
As their watchful eyes followed the group headed northwards to gather water, the same group that included a dwarf wearing the very same cloak I had worn earlier, I slipped quietly into the forest and disappeared from view. Arna had tried to talk me out of it, but there was nothing in the camp now that would make me stay. Not even Thorin.
Besides, I was not about to be a burden to the dwarves, not now that Lialam knew I was hiding among them.
This time, I was on my own.