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Old 12-12-2008, 03:29 AM   #52
Thinlómien
Shady She-Penguin
 
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: In a far land beyond the Sea
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Thinlómien is wading through the Dead Marshes.Thinlómien is wading through the Dead Marshes.Thinlómien is wading through the Dead Marshes.Thinlómien is wading through the Dead Marshes.Thinlómien is wading through the Dead Marshes.Thinlómien is wading through the Dead Marshes.
Vigdis

"Now what is all that noise?" Vigdis muttered to herself, rather annoyed. Can't they be any more noisy with their festivities? She still had the stone block to finish. After that, she thought she would go to celebrate, but only after that. She would not enjoy spending hours after hours feasting anyway.

The noises grew even louder. Vigdis halted and listened. There was wailing, and crying and angry shouts. Something was not quite right. Vigdis laid the chisel on the block she had been working on and hurried away from the cavern chambers.

When she arrived at the Twenty-First hall, people were hysteric. Children were being taken away, and adults were crying and tearing their hair. She spotted Tror slipping out of the hall. Her heart skipped a beat. So, they had returned.

"What has happened?" she asked. She feared she already knew the answer.
The ancient woman she had addressed lowered her head in grief. "Our beloved Lord Balin has fallen. He was shot by an Orc when he went to look at Kheled-zâram."

"Where is he now?" Vigdis asked. The steadiness of her own voice surprised her.
"His body has been taken to the Chamber of Mazarbul," the old woman replied.
"Thank you," Vigdis said and turned to leave. She could hear the crane break in sobs and mutter: "Cold, heartless woman..."

Vigdis joined the people waiting for an entrance to the chamber. Most of them were crying, and sorrow was in everyone's eyes. A people mourning a celebrated ruler, she observed. A valiant, loyal people to grieve so deeply.

The queue moved and Vigdis could glimpse a body draped in a red cloak. Then people moved again, and all she could see were the mourners, the faint candelight and the dark, endless roof.

Finally, there were just a few mourners on the line before her and nothing was blocking her view. She gave the body - rigid, pale, kingly - a brief glance but then lowered her head and fixed her eyes on the stone Balin was laying on. A simple, beautifully shaped block of white stone. Stone like that could be quarried from the eastern slopes of Bundushathûr and...

The queue moved again and suddenly there was no one between Vigdis and the white stone. She stepped forwards and slowly lifted her eyes from the stone to the dwarf on it. In the candlelight Balin's face was calm, neither happy nor sad, and his white beard had an almost golden shade. Vigdis lifted her hand to gently touch the man, but refrained from such act of disrespect. She let her hand fall to her side and blinked. There Balin lay, as unmoving and peaceful as a moment before. He was dead.

A loud wail escaped from Vigdis' lips. She shrank to her knees and bent her head. Tears were gushing forth from her eyes.

She had no idea how long she stayed there, kneeling and weeping by Balin's dead body. But eventually she started to become more aware of her surroundings, the cold, familar stone around her, the soft candlelight, the slowly gathering impatience of the mourners in the queue. She forced herself up to look one last time at Balin's face. She could now see a gentle smile hidden in his unmoving features. Weeping quietly, she knelt and kissed the stone like so many mourners before her. "Farewell, my Lord," she whispered, "we will never forget you, and all we do now will be in your honour and memory."

She rose and walked away from the Chamber of Mazarbul, holding her head up high, tears on her cheeks.

Last edited by Thinlómien; 04-07-2009 at 04:27 PM.
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