Hobbit and Lord of the Rings oneshots, Book 1

Abused (Fili)

You were timid, you always had been, and no one really knew why. It couldn't have been because you had never been around a lot of people; you had used to live in Bree. It couldn't have been a trait of your kin; you were a dwarf. The company of Thorin Oakenshield eventually settled on the answer that you were naturally a shy person.

Oh how wrong they were.

The truth was that you had been badly abused for several years, from your young life until more recently. Your cruel blacksmith master had resided on the outskirts of Bree, where your parents had raised you until they unexpectedly passed away from a spreading disease. You had been lucky at first to have avoiding catching the illness, but soon after you had wished it had taken you with your dear father and mother.

There wasn't an orphanage in Bree, but there was something of a poor house for the weak and lowly. The matron that oversaw the children there had decided you would be best put to work in the local blacksmith's shop.

Oh how wrong she was.

Garven, the smith, had begun to abuse you in the first five minutes after the matron dropped you off. Anytime you'd do something he didn't like, he'd hit you over the head, box your ears, slap you across the face, or beat you with his broomstick. He always yelled at you, but he tended to only hit you when he was drunk...which was constantly, really. But, you thought, maybe this will all pass. Maybe one day he'll stop abusing me.

Oh how wrong you were.

The constant physical abuse prevented you from showing yourself in public, lest someone ask you what had happened, and then Garven punishing you for revealing the fact that he had been hurting you. This constant state of remaining indoors caused only more attention from Garven, which is the last thing you wanted.

All this abuse and overwork (as he forced you to assist him in the shop and forges) lasted for a solid seventeen years, and when you were fifty-seven years of age, you built up the courage to run off in the night, the baker's son assisting you in ridding yourself of your wrist and ankle shackles.

You were somehow able to get to the very center of Bree, but you were absolutely exhausted. You rarely got sleep while under the constant control of Garven, and rarely did you eat. You had dragged yourself into the entrance of The Prancing Pony, and begged for food and rest. The innkeeper instantly felt sorry for you once he'd heard your story, and let you stay for as long as you wanted, and after a while you began to serve him in the tavern part of the inn. It was infinitely better than being under the service of Garven. It stayed this way for another thirteen happy years, until you met Gandalf.

The old wizard was not a stranger to the content of Bree rumors, you had heard much of him. But he was even stranger and kinder than you had heard. He listened to your tales of woe, of your pain and recent happiness. Upon hearing the fact that you wished to be out of Bree as soon as possible, he excitedly told you about the need for another member in a company he was assembling. Apparently the dwarf prince Thorin Oakenshield wished deeply to slay the dragon Smaug and take back his homeland, Erebor.