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The child has been screaming all the way from Bree to the Misty Mountains, or that’s how it seems to Gleli. “Should’ve brought along a wetnurse.” he complains to himself in the few blessed moments when the fauntling subsides into doleful sniffling.
He knows they’ve only saddled him with the little one because he’s the youngest, and if it were a shorter journey he wouldn’t mind, honest. True, the route from west to east is much swifter these days, what with the mountains cleared of goblins and the new thoroughfare up around Mirkwood, but the days wear long, and the child in his lap makes no bones about expressing her own displeasure at leaving the Shire.
“Want mama!” is her most common refrain, usually accompanied by a missile of some sort- food, most often, or the clods of dirt and rock she is apt to pick up by the road when they stop to make camp, and palms inside her sleeve as would any dwarf child desiring the cool and deep of a mountain.
After all, Gleli tells himself, they are only bringing her home. He says as much to Toinar one day, despairing of ever convincing the girl to trust them, and Toinar gives a rare, gruff laugh from behind his neatly trimmed brown beard.
“Well, our little princess don’t know that, does she lad?” Toinar manages momentarily to put his pony into line with Gleli’s, and reaches out to pat their cargo on the head.
“If anyone else had done that she’d bite ‘em.” Gleli says, semi-resentfully. He himself has been the victim of the little girl’s snapping mouth on occasion, and although they’ve reached an uneasy truce, he knows better than to risk too far. Fierce little thing, she is, and the other dwarves have taken to calling her snapdragon, in the absence of her real name.
Gleli thinks it’s distasteful, given the very real and actual dragon that had been the plague on Durin’s folk for longer than he’s been living, but he doesn’t speak up. The dwarves he’s travelling with are warriors, hard and strong as the rocks they spring from, and he owes them due deference.
Toinar though, will own to no such thing, and he calls the child princess even at the risk of Hanr’s wrath. Their mission and the child’s true identity must stay a secret until they are safe at home, their leader insists. Gleli can see the wisdom in that, and who is he to question Hanr?
No, he will leave that to Toinar, partly because it’s funny when the old devil goes out of his way to raise Hanr’s ire- Toinar is lowborn but old as stone and battle hardened, and see’s no reason to show Hanr, younger than him by a few decades and of noble get, the courtesies a captain is due.
They get into some right funny fights most days from Toinar’s intolerance of Hanr’s whims, and the company learns to hang back until Hanr cools his heels. Not something that happens often, mind you- Hanr has a high opinion of himself and his fancies, and Toinar no patience to indulge them as the others do.
Debur, who Gleli knows from back home, likes to hang back whenever Toinar sets Hanr off; and takes particular pleasure in teasing both Gleli and Snapdragon. Gleli rather thinks they’ve entered into solidarity against him, and he tells the little one about the time he bested Debur in a bare knuckle fight over Debur’s little sister and Gleli’s cousin Voili.
He doesn’t know if she understands him, but she listens, and quiets a little. It’s during those times he feels a little guilty, for it’s then that he misses home, perhaps just as she does. Home for her is the Shire, thanks to her mother’s duplicity, she knows nothing of the halls she should have been born to.
“We’re taking her home, just as you say.” Toinar waves a brusque hand when Gleli voices these fears to him. “No point, otherwise, lad.”
He doesn’t want to argue with Toinar- he likes and respects the old warrior, more than he does Hanr if the truth be told, for though Hanr is a good dwarf and noble in his intent, Toinar has more of what Gleli’s Da calls grit, and Gleli’s never known his Da to steer him wrong.
But still it grates on him, and Snapdragon cries for her mother. That is another thing that lays heavy on the mind of Gleli son of Gali- any dwarf mother would not suffer her child to live in ignorance of their father, not if he were a dwarf such as Thorin Oakenshield, and yet the halfling has done so to little Snapdragon.
In truth, Gleli cannot fathom what it was between Thorin, the cold proud King his little sister Gwun had sighed over from up on Gleli’s shoulder’s the day he was crowned; and the soft faced hobbit woman who they have taken Snapdragon from. Moreover, he cannot understand why Thorin took her into his bed in the first place.
“Brown eyed goldenheads.” Toinar declares gruffly when Gleli voices this thought. “One of Mahal’s better ideas.” The old dwarf sounds almost thoughtful as he rubs at his beard, eyes misty.
Gleli considers this- the hobbit girl’s hair was nice looking, soft and shining a clear golden brown that any dwarf might covet, but apart from that she was so odd looking, from what he’d seen of her- no beard to speak of, unless you counted the one on her feet, ears like an elf of all thing and even the poorest miner’s daughter should be able to afford jewels of some sort, yet he hadn’t seen a single gem on her- he can’t credit it.
Mind, when Gleli thinks of beauty he thinks of his own Dwlla, with her intricate black braids and sharp shining green eyes, the soft ropes of her beard tied up in the gold net he’d gifted her when they first started their courtship. No girl is like her, no girl could be.
That is how dwarves love, though- deeply and completely, and he supposes that King Thorin loved Snapdragon’s mother- and if he didn’t, if she was only a bedwarmer on cold nights in the wild, well, it doesn’t change their duty. Their path is clear, as Hanr is so fond of reminding them- return the child to her father, as would be wished.
They hadn’t been sent to do so, of course, but how could they have been when they had no knowledge of her existence? When they had found out, and it became clear Prince Fili had no intent of doing right by his Uncle, Hanr had taken matters into his own hands.
The crown prince has been remiss in a lot of things, it seems, or so says Debur, who was set to watch the halfling’s house for a few days whilst the rest of them made their plans.
“Thick as thieves, they were.” he is fond of reminding everyone, and Gleli risks his fingers by clamping his hands over Snapdragons ears. She does not need to hear of her mother’s treachery, any more than she has done already. “I’ll fancy they were at it even before she was banished.”
“You can’t know that.” Gleli protests, because it though he doesn’t know Prince Fili well, he hardly thinks he would take liberties with the halfling whilst she was still sharing sheets with his uncle. Now, though….and after what Gleli himself has seen, there is closeness between the Prince of Erebor and the halfling that is more than simply kinship.
Debur swears he saw Fili son of Vili lay hands on the mother of his uncle’s child, and much and more besides. “Kissed her right on the mouth he did, bold as you like. What d’ya make o’ that?”
“S’not for us to make anything of it, lad.” Toinar growls.
“Ah, c’mon.” Debur seems to find this whole sorry mess uproariously funny. “He’ll be due a royal sword through his guts when I tell the king.”
“And that gives you cheer, does it?” Toinar asks, whilst Gleli tries to distract Snapdragon from her nasty habit of understanding more than anyone expects, even without hearing.
“He’s a traitor to the King Under the Mountain, he’ll get what he deserves.” Hanr breaks in. “Westron born weaklings, both o’ those boys, no better than they should be given who fathered ‘em. The younger one’s mad as Lord Frerin ever was, and now the elder’s shown his true colours.”
“They’re crown princes.” Gleli says, beginning to feel uncomfortable with the look in Hanr’s eye.
“So? Bad blood will tell, and if Fili son of Vili thinks to take his king’s woman, he’ll suffer the consequences.”
Even Debur looks slightly sobered by the thought of what those consequences might be. Gleli bites his tongue, and then speaks up again- a consequence of what Dwlla likes to call his ‘honesty illness.’ “But the King renounced her…di’nt he?”
“So what?” Debur replies, reclaiming some of his bravado in an obvious attempt to impress Hanr. “Don’t change a thing. He threw her out, don’t mean he’ll take kindly to his precious nephew rifling under her pretty little skirts.”
“Alright, that’s enough, lad. Princess’ll go deaf if Gleli keeps her lugs blocked for too long.” Toinar points out. Realising he’s had his hands clamped around Snapdragon’s head this whole time, Gleli frowns and lets go. However, a telltale quiver in her lip belies her, and he hastily reaches for the stuffed toy she likes to cling to.
When they’d taken her from the round roomed house, the little one had been sleepy and quiet. Rilin, the fifth member of their party, had dosed her with milk and herbs to keep her docile till they left the borders of the shire to meet up with Toinar and Debur, whilst Hanr had found the evidence they needed to lay before the King Under the mountain, evidence he has not yet consented to show the rest of them.
Gleli had been responsible for seeing that nobody noticed them, but it had been a doddle once Prince Fili was out for the count, and he’d found himself grabbing the toy off the table as he and Rilin prepared a pack for Thorin Oakenshield’s daughter, thinking of his own little sister and how she cries when her doll gets lost.
If someone were to take Gwun, he thinks to himelf as Snapdragon inserts the bear’s paw into her mouth and stares balefully at him, what would he do? Get her back, is the obvious answer.
Get her back, and kill the ones who took her.
But then, who would try and take Gwun? Their father Gali is a good dwarf, strong and hardworking, does no harm to nobody who doesn’t ask for it. They’re not nobly born, just smiths and soldiers, no stakes in the affairs of the great and powerful.
So no, there would be no one who would concern themselves with the house of Li. But snapdragon, their little princess…well, what did the halfling woman expect, her whose name is unmentionable under any mountain that is home to Durin’s folk, who is instead called burglar, traitor, and very occasionally whore.
It’s the right thing, Gleli knows that. They have a duty to return the King his property, and the little girl is his no matter what Debur says about Fili’s activities with the mother. She is the spit of Thorin Oakenshield, even Gleli who has only seen him once or twice in his life can’t be ignorant of that.
“We’ll be home soon, little one.” he tells her.
“Want mama.” the girl mumbles around the bear paw. “Want mama n’ Fifi ‘n aunt Pwrim.” She is already crying a little, Gleli can feel it through the links of his tunic, and he knows this is going to be another night sat up trying to calm her till past dawn.
“Want me to take her, Glel’?” He looks up to meet Rilin’s eyes, and thinks a moment. Maybe…but then he feels the child’s hand fist onto his sleeve. She may scream when he holds her, but she’s worse with the others.
“Nah. She’ll sleep soon.” he tells his friend, making an attempt at a smile.
“Proper little madam, ain’t she?” Rilin says, almost fondly.
He nods his agreement. It’s to be expected- she is of the royal line of Durin, and so to her royal father they must return her. (Mahal help him, he sounds like Hanr).
Gleli sets his jaw, and reminds himself of his duty. Even it does make a thief and a craven of him, to have taken a child from it’s mother and laid hands in subterfuge on a prince of the blood.
It is only stealing back, after all.