Chapter Text
To her private surprise when Narvi entered the house to find the family matriarch already home from her work, and told her mother about what had happened at the royal court earlier, Ala did not scold Narvi for dancing with one of the Elven guests in front of the royal family and the nobles.
“You are still young and have not even seen the end of your first century of life since birth yet, enjoy your life while you can because you never know when it can change for better or worse. And it is not like the Elf in question should be a total stranger anymore. If you feel comfortable around him, that means he has proven himself to be a trustworthy fellow, and what better proof than him saving your life twice already and not finding us Dams odd-looking in contrast to the Elf ladies he must have met over his life?”
The widowed Dwarrowdam thought it a waste of time and energy to be upset about Narvi being in the company of Celebrimbor, given that he had saved her life on two different occasions and proved himself to be one of the rare Elves who actually knew how to act around Dwarves without any misunderstandings. Refusing them to meet and perhaps even become friends, would be idiotic and showing herself as narrowminded about non-Dwarves, something Ala herself found rather foolish given how her late husband Balder had needed to meet human merchants whatever he left their home for selling spieces and other goods on far-away markets in big cities of Men. That was part of how to survive in the more desert-like landscape where their home had been, if you could not trust your own neighbors and the nearest human villages, then there was a huge risk of that you could not survive for long because no one wanted to tell where the nearest oasis with water would be found.
No, in their part of the world, being able to cooperate and get along with non-Dwarves outside the Orocarni mountain range had been necessary for survival in the long run. Narvi simply was following in the steps of her maternal forefathers, just surprising everyone with the Elf she had formed a friendship with.
“Thank you, Amad,” Narvi smiled, and Ala was touched by how similar her daughter would smile in moments like this to the late Frigga. Without doubt, her mother-in-law had been right that her oldest granddaughter was fated for grandness, a name to be known in history with the passing of time. Ala doubted that she would live long enough to see Narvi earning that glory, but if she could see the start of that career since Narvi already was recognized several years ago as an unusually gifted stone mason whose work was hard to forget when being shown in the finished form, she would be satisfied.
“Come, let us make some nice dinner together…”
Suddenly, someone was knocking loudly on the front door to the house, as if there was an emergency. It turned out to be one of the younger Dwarves living in the neighborhood, looking very worried when Ala opened:
“Thank Mahal that you were home, Madam Ala, Miss Narvi! Bad news, Odin has gotten himself involved in a fight somewhere at the tavern called Golden Moon! And it is not him breaking up a fight between some very drunk customers, he got dragged into it when he disobeyed orders to leave it to the senior city guards who have done this work before!”
Mother and daughter looked at each other in distress over those news, and not too little alarm as well. Was Odin cursed to take after House Frost and keep getting himself into trouble that could prove fatal at one point?
“ Oh, he is getting a REAL scolding this time! My firstborn and only son or not, Odin can basically forget about any hope for a raise in rank by this! There is just no way a potential captain of the city guards can be seen in public acting like a common thug! ” Ala promised in frustration as mother and daughter dashed out from the house, wearing some long scarfs as improvised face veils for the moment, recalling that her son had ambitions to become a captain of the city guards at some point in the future, but she had spoken in person with the current captain, who confirmed that there was just no way Odin would even be able to raise in rank if he kept acting as he did currently. He would have a huge amount of luck if he did not end up being kicked out from the city guard after one mistake too many or yet another disobeying an order from someone of higher rank.
“Yes, because if he keeps repeating things like this, he will soon find himself stuck doing menial work at the guard office, or even worse, fired as punishment for not following orders!”
But it was too late already when they arrived there. Odin had died from getting his neck broken against the edge of the bar counter, which was made of hard stone, when he had been pushed towards it, and at some point prior to that, he had also lost his helmet which made him less protected from something against his neck in a fight like this. In short, the loss of said helmet, part of the uniform for the city guards, had been fatal.
“Oh, my foolish son! Why?! Why did you keep refusing to do as you were told and let your own pride rule you?!” Ala cried in grief as she knelt over the body of her oldest child where it had been placed on the floor, holding the face between her hands and her tears falling over the pale cheeks, the eyes empty of life, so unlike the moment when she first had held Odin in her arms after the birth.
“...was he provoked in some manner that made him disobey his orders to let this fight between the drunken tavern customers be fixed by his superiors? There have been…warnings about similar scenes in the past from the Captain of the city guards,” Narvi finally managed to ask in a thick voice, openly crying over the loss of her remaining sibling, but also out of anger over how careless Odin had been in his work.
“Unfortunately, yes. I do not think it was aimed at him especially, but one of the customers here tonight is a well-known trickster that is part of the street entertainment for the common people, and Odin had a habit of trying to arrest this performer on grounds of being a thief when finishing the puppet theater…” one of the other city guards admitted, nodding towards a Dwarf in slightly worn but still well maintained clothing that meekly followed along to the guard office where they would spend the night in a cell.
“But he is a registered member of the entertainment guild, right?! Poor, yes, and far from having the skills needed to be an actor on stage or the other more fancy enjoyment for the upper classes, but accusting a puppet theater-owner that is beloved by the poorer families with children for offering a less costly enjoyment for the whole family, for theft in order to expand his assets?!” Narvi gasped in horror, fearing that Odin had let his personal dislike control him.
“Aye. Never a problem before over the law with this owner of the puppet theater, Miss Narvi. And your brother was already having a bad day at work, I am afraid…”
~X~X~X~X~X~X
The next morning:
While most of the servants did not share gossip below the stairs to their employers unless it was something really important that was talked about among all social classes, it did not mean that the royal family and the nobles were ignorant of what happened outside their social circle.
“Did you hear?”
“Yes, about that tavern fight late yesterday evening, said to happen around the end of the ball? I heard that one careless city guard got killed because he lost his helmet and a push slammed his neck towards the edge of the bar counter made of stone!”
“Not only that, he was not obeying orders about letting the more experienced guards take care of the fight between some of the drunk customers!”
!I feel sorry for his family. What a senseless death!”
Celebrimbor on the other hand, thanks to the Elven hearing of his, did hear the dwarven servants as they talked and did their usual work chores, despite him standing behind a corner of the corridor. And had an unnerving feeling about how the tavern fight seemed to have happened not long after that he had enjoyed dancing with a hard-to-miss dance partner.
“Ugh…I am beginning to dread that it is that cursed Oath of my grandfather that is haunting me again…”
Given how much misfortune that damn Oath had ended up causing for his family in the long run back in the First Age, Celebrimbor really did not want it to come at him as well despite not having been swearing it alongside his father and the other Fëanorians.
Inside the Asar family home:
Letters of condolence laid on the kitchen table, delivered not too long ago by sympathetic neighbors because words about Odin had spread overnight.
“Why, Odin…why?” Ala whispered when she put down the newest one to the pile, her eyes now empty of tears but clearly visible grief in all of her face. Behind her, Narvi rubbed her swollen eyes as well. It felt so unreal for both the griving mother and her sole remaining child, to need to bring out their black clothes for the mourning period once again, and having to cut their beard and hair short as another sign that they were grieving a family member lost to death.
“I had hoped that your passing would be the next time I would wear black, Amad…and that you would be spared from having to bury yet another child of yours…”
Narvi could not speak anymore, or look towards the door that led into the room that until yesterday had been Odin's bedroom.
“I know, my sweet emerald-eyed daughter, I believed so as well…”
Out of the five Asar family members that once had been, it was only the two of them left now. Unless things changed in the coming years, Narvi would be the only one left of that family name when Ala joined the rest of their family in the Halls of the Forefathers.
It was no big surprise for the priests of Mahal in charge of burials to see the mother and daughter pair come into the labyrint of catacombs, dressed in black for mourning.
“We are here for our son and brother, Odin Asar.”
The body of Odin had been washed clean, dressed in his best clothing and placed on a stone altar where family, friends and co-workers could take their farewells before the burial in a week's time. Seven was the holiest of holy numbers among the Dwarves, after the Seven Fathers, so most burials tended to be held on the seventh day after a departure from life, unless there was nothing to prevent the usual rites at a normal funeral.
“I hope that Grandmother Frigga, Adad and Loki give him the furious scolding that we never got to tell him, for what he did yesterday.”
Ala could only nod numbly to what Narvi said, knowing that Odin would most likely displease the rest of their dead family members with his final actions before joining the afterlife.
“Narvi? Madam Ala?”
It was Chipo and Hathai that came, wearing dark grey clothing as a sign of not being that familiar with Odin himself, but they also wore black ribbons around their arms and no jewelry at all as a sign of respecting the mourning Asar family members.
“Thank you for your sympathy, girls,” Ala thanked them, accepting the two offered hand-sized rings of black onyx to be laid around the body of Odin as burial goods. It was a custom that had ancient origins, hailing back to when the Dwarven Clans was still in the beginning of forming their place in the world, and even now it was viewed as important for a burial to involve at least one item to be laid in the tomb alongside the body.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Seven days after his untimely death, Odin was laid to his final rest. Most of the neighborhood was there as a support for Narvi and Ala, his co-worker from the city guard as well.
“The priests confirmed that there is no curse upon our family from House Frost as revenge for the role we played in their downfall, but I am still afraid of how none of my family may be alive to see my skill in stone craving when I am a Master Mason for real…” Narvi thought for herself, turning an onyx ring between her fingers as the only sign of her visible emotions after crying again. She knew that the Guild Masters of the StoneMason Guild had talked about raising her to their number within a few years because her rare talent and strong stone sense simply could not be wasted on minor stone work, but as things felt now, she honestly felt no joy over such a promising future.