The Misty Mountains Old, March 3010
Oct 27, 2017 14:47:33 GMT -5
Post by Vili on Oct 27, 2017 14:47:33 GMT -5
It might well have been that the Misty Mountains were once the foremost seat of Durin’s Folk. In long years before the first delving of Erebor had been so much as scratched, when Durin had wandered alone amongst the Seven Fathers and saw himself crowned with a coronet of stars in the still waters of Mirrormere they were the envy of the world entire. Those years were passed now, but even were they at their height the ranges had never been an easy place to live, beaten by rock and blasted by wind the passes and pathways could only be walked by the hale and hardy. Add to that the rain and even the best of the stunted folk might think twice about walking thereabout without the promise of safe harbor to be found.
Vili sat apart from his company upon a rock worn satisfyingly smooth by time and torrent, his mighty war hammer resting across his knees as he watched the approach of their impromptu shelter from one way and then the other. They had come upon this deep cleft now lit by the flickering of their camp fire just in time, for with the first peal of thunder it had been as though the heavens had audibly split upon, the skies disgorging their flood through the shattered ceiling of the world and threatening to sweep aside any unlucky or foolhardy enough to be yet beneath. The elder Dwarf was not entirely sure whether he should be glad that they had made their way up here without incident, or whether he ought to be suspicious of it.
His instincts told him the latter and he was not like to disregard them. They all knew well that Balin of the Company of Thorin who had helped reclaim their Mountain home had come up this way, but that was not what had brought them hence. In point of fact they had been ordered to shun all thought of entering Moria, for news from there had ceased and King Dain knew that whatever could hinder or halt Balin boded ill for them all. Vili had thought that he’d seen in his liege lord’s eyes a knowing glimmer of fear but had not presumed to say so. The thought of it now seemed an echo of the glint of firelight in the cascading rainwater which sluiced noisily down the face of the mountain not four feet from him.
Now and again a great glug would discharge itself from above them and overrun its course where it struck the rocky floor, scattering like shattered glass and wetting his boots. As he grumbled again at this he became aware of Valdi standing beside him.
‘Come sit by the fire, I’ll take the next watch.’
’Durin’s blessed backside, boy, I’m not dead yet!’ The old Dwarf’s voice boomed off of the close cut walls of their improvised redoubt, making the statement seem all the more prickly for its volume. Valdi, knowing well his father’s moods merely half smiled, half scowled and moved off to take up a watch anyway. Sighing Vili at first did not shift until Snorri stood from amongst their companions to beckon him inside.
‘Here father, sit by me,’ he bid and with his mood somewhat softened Vili stepped within the camp proper, warming his hands as his son set aside his hammer for him. ‘Another day or two to the other side, I think.’
’Not if the mountain has other ideas, my lad. Don’t mistake stillness for passiveness, they’re treacherous and tempestuous as any place these paths… ah but it wasn’t always so.’ Vili froze stock still as he stared down the heart of the fire, his mind seemingly far off in the past before the gentle singing of his youngest brought him back to the now.
’Unwearied then were Durin’s folk;
Beneath the mountain music woke:
The harpers harped, the minstrels sang,
And at the gates the trumpets rang.’
His soft youthful voice was not what one might have expected, but around them a steady thrum reverberated in the throats of the assembled Dwarves to harmonize in a rough accompaniment. And where he left the verse his father took it up again in a gruff baratone more typically suited to the Song of Durin which seemed at once to fill the space they’d huddled into and it seemed to them to echo off down to the roots of the mountain.
’The world is grey, the mountains old,
The forge’s fire is ashen-cold;
No harp is wrung, no hammer falls:
The darkness dwells in Durin’s halls.’
And father and son both went on, one clasping the other’s shoulder as they sang anew.
‘The Shadow lies upon his tomb
In Moria, in Khazad-dum.
But still the sunken stars appear
In dark and windless Mirrormere;
There lies his crown in waters deep,
Till Durin wakes again from sleep.’
Much heartened by this verse the Dwarves laughed and cheered the two singers as though they thought that their ancient father may come amongst them at the call and indeed some might have felt that he dwelt there already with them in their home of homes, the hard and high mountains that had made and shaped them as surely as Mahal whom the tall folk called Aule. And while their song might not have brought the Deathless down to them that was not to say that their music went entirely unnoticed…
Vili sat apart from his company upon a rock worn satisfyingly smooth by time and torrent, his mighty war hammer resting across his knees as he watched the approach of their impromptu shelter from one way and then the other. They had come upon this deep cleft now lit by the flickering of their camp fire just in time, for with the first peal of thunder it had been as though the heavens had audibly split upon, the skies disgorging their flood through the shattered ceiling of the world and threatening to sweep aside any unlucky or foolhardy enough to be yet beneath. The elder Dwarf was not entirely sure whether he should be glad that they had made their way up here without incident, or whether he ought to be suspicious of it.
His instincts told him the latter and he was not like to disregard them. They all knew well that Balin of the Company of Thorin who had helped reclaim their Mountain home had come up this way, but that was not what had brought them hence. In point of fact they had been ordered to shun all thought of entering Moria, for news from there had ceased and King Dain knew that whatever could hinder or halt Balin boded ill for them all. Vili had thought that he’d seen in his liege lord’s eyes a knowing glimmer of fear but had not presumed to say so. The thought of it now seemed an echo of the glint of firelight in the cascading rainwater which sluiced noisily down the face of the mountain not four feet from him.
Now and again a great glug would discharge itself from above them and overrun its course where it struck the rocky floor, scattering like shattered glass and wetting his boots. As he grumbled again at this he became aware of Valdi standing beside him.
‘Come sit by the fire, I’ll take the next watch.’
’Durin’s blessed backside, boy, I’m not dead yet!’ The old Dwarf’s voice boomed off of the close cut walls of their improvised redoubt, making the statement seem all the more prickly for its volume. Valdi, knowing well his father’s moods merely half smiled, half scowled and moved off to take up a watch anyway. Sighing Vili at first did not shift until Snorri stood from amongst their companions to beckon him inside.
‘Here father, sit by me,’ he bid and with his mood somewhat softened Vili stepped within the camp proper, warming his hands as his son set aside his hammer for him. ‘Another day or two to the other side, I think.’
’Not if the mountain has other ideas, my lad. Don’t mistake stillness for passiveness, they’re treacherous and tempestuous as any place these paths… ah but it wasn’t always so.’ Vili froze stock still as he stared down the heart of the fire, his mind seemingly far off in the past before the gentle singing of his youngest brought him back to the now.
’Unwearied then were Durin’s folk;
Beneath the mountain music woke:
The harpers harped, the minstrels sang,
And at the gates the trumpets rang.’
His soft youthful voice was not what one might have expected, but around them a steady thrum reverberated in the throats of the assembled Dwarves to harmonize in a rough accompaniment. And where he left the verse his father took it up again in a gruff baratone more typically suited to the Song of Durin which seemed at once to fill the space they’d huddled into and it seemed to them to echo off down to the roots of the mountain.
’The world is grey, the mountains old,
The forge’s fire is ashen-cold;
No harp is wrung, no hammer falls:
The darkness dwells in Durin’s halls.’
And father and son both went on, one clasping the other’s shoulder as they sang anew.
‘The Shadow lies upon his tomb
In Moria, in Khazad-dum.
But still the sunken stars appear
In dark and windless Mirrormere;
There lies his crown in waters deep,
Till Durin wakes again from sleep.’
Much heartened by this verse the Dwarves laughed and cheered the two singers as though they thought that their ancient father may come amongst them at the call and indeed some might have felt that he dwelt there already with them in their home of homes, the hard and high mountains that had made and shaped them as surely as Mahal whom the tall folk called Aule. And while their song might not have brought the Deathless down to them that was not to say that their music went entirely unnoticed…