Loyalty, Honor, and a Willing Heart

Chapter 5 - Under the gentle strokes of my swords

After the incident that let most of them chattering like a flock of teenagers, they ate something and went on down the path. Lighter for the brief rest, they all walked more easily even keeping a good pace. The women kept close together, the younger ones a little confused with the earlier events. It was not expected, and they wondered what had got into their aunt’s mind to offer her services to that unnerving dwarf, although there seemed to be some logic behind it. She told them they would talk about it later, just amongst themselves, and they agreed.

 The hobbit of the Company managed to get close to them and begun to chat with Iris. They both seemed happy to have one of their same height to talk to, without stretching their necks up all the time. Soon they were laughing together like old friends, Lily with them, letting all the tension of the past few days go away with the chat. Ellen was silent, her eyes to the ground, as if the earlier battle of words with the dwarf king had cost her more than could be guessed.

Some hours latter they reached the end of the cleft, and the sight was astounding. Water, water in abundance, waterfalls in profusion, and delicate buildings made of clear stone, with magnificent gardens. The women perceived Thorin arguing with Gandalf, but it was no surprise, as he seemingly loved to argue with anyone about anything. They crossed a narrow bridge and reached a small courtyard, to where a good looking elf came down a broad set of stairs.

Gandalf did the talking, but suddenly there was the sound of hooves coming across the bridge and the dwarves put themselves in warfare mode, to which Ellen just shook her head in a “forgive them, they do not know what they do” look at the sky. The riding elves surrounded them and there would be some confusion but for Gandalf’s intervention, who spoke to their leader and set things right. There was one more tense moment when the mature elf said something in his own language, which to Ellen sounded as something that she should understand, like an old forgotten lullaby. One of the dwarves menaced the elven leader, questioning if he was offending them, but Gandalf set things right explaining he had offered them food.

The mentioning of food seemed to have a magical effect on the dwarves’ moods, and soon they were cheering lord Elrond and all his family. Their happiness endured little, as they weren’t fond of greens at all, and it looked like that was a vegan house, or something close to this, as at least there was some cheese on the table. Lily, who had always been fond of meat, found in her backpack the last three tuna cans and opened them with her Swiss Army switchblade. They still had food for two days more, maybe some extras, and being no more in the wild she thought it would be a welcomed change to eat them with vegetables instead of cream crackers. She perceived the dwarves looking at her with curiosity and offered the tuna, to what most of them tried at least a bit. It was not so much for the whole party, but everyone got his taste. All but one, and she noticed it. She served half of the last can in a dish and went to a quiet and faraway looking Thorin.

“May I serve you, my king?” She tried to be respectful. He looked up at her.

“Why do you call me your king?”

She thought if she wanted some lemon on the tuna, his sourness could be enough, but answered anyway.

“You are king to my Aunt Ellen now; so, you must be king to me, too, I suppose.”

“You suppose.” He mumbled under his breath. “Hear me, kid, no dwarven woman under my kingship walks openly in the wild, most of all in times of war. It is not proper.”

Lily lowered her eyes, ashamed for the first time in years. She was a second year architecture student, worked part time with indoors design, not even her father told her what was proper or not. Also, it had been several years since she was called “kid” by anyone, and it touched her. His seemingly chauvinism sounded to her as a very strong care. In a way, her dwarven state made her understand things from a different point of view. She left the tuna plate in front of him on the table and bowed low.