[Kiara]

As the chill left on the room by the haunting chant of the Wargs began to thaw, Dwarin moved towards the she-dwarf once more and nudged her in the back.

"Now is your chance, young woman!" He said in a gruff voice, though with a shade of warmth that Parin was beginning to recognize. She could tell that her presence had evoked an equivocal response in the patrons at the inn; but all it had taken was a few snide remarks from elves who had moved closer to her, menacingly?, to spark the inner fire that she hid.

"PARIN not Palin; Parin Stonemouth, thank you very much!" She said, with a flash of passion in her eyes...

"Oh ho!" cried the elves, with their usual playfulness, "A fiesty one! What would you tell today, my lass?"

Rankled by their teasing (though it had been good-natured), Parin pulled herself up to her full height of four-feet-and-three and glared at the light-hearted elven group.

"I'll have you know I am fully 100 years old, and therefore grown by the standards of my people and not a lass, as you address me," She replied testily (titterings of laughter all around the room, and a grim though amused smile from the solemn entity in the corner). "In fact, it is full 20 years since I have been called that by any save my four older brothers, which puts me in mind of a story I will submit to you, if you will condescend NOT to interrupt me!"

"Hear it we will, gentle dwarf, be not afraid of Estelarion, he speaks before he thinks. By your flaxen braids, I'll have your tale and have quiet respect for you until the finishing of it!" responded the open-hearted Menelduliniel.

"Then I begin," Parin replied with an obliging little curtsey, and then in a sing-song voice:

In the days of Smaug, great Worm under the mountain (foul beast bred by He who is not named on earth), a battle was waged between five armies for the restoration of Erebor to my kinsmen. My brothers, four there were, answered the summoning to war sent out by Thorin in his need. The youngest of these four, Davin by name, was closest to my heart and the best friend of my youth. It is his craftmanship that wrought this brooch you see now at my neck, and his song with which mine was entwined from the days of my first utterance. Davin, gentle, yet bold, the most able of intricate designs of his peers, and a dreamer of dreams more fair than the visions of elves---

"Hrmmph!" snorted Estelarion.
"Hush!" muttered Menelduliniel, with an amused grin .
She must have added that to get back at us, well done! Parin Swordtongue, it should be!.

---more fair than the visions of elves (she repeated insistantly), was, alas, chosen by Aule and Mandos to leave the realm of the living before his beard had quite reached his broad chest. Though he survived the battle, and my family and I settled triumphantly with our folk in the realm of the Lonely Mountain, he was not to walk amongst us for long. In a doomed journey, my dear brother and friend left to investigate the disappearance of a supply shipment, intented for Lake Town and Erebor. He and 2 others were lost, it is thought in the hairy grips of one of the cursed spawn of Ungoliant in the dark paths of Mirkwood; but accurate details of his demise are unknown, and my heart breaks to think of his strong voice and sure hands: hands that will never embrace me or my kinsfolk again in this world.

Listen to my tale, O Supposed Adventurers, and know that I grieve his loss and desire revenge. But who am I but a dwarf maiden, and how will I journey unless aided?

With that, she stood, fiery eyed and flushed from the exertion. She had never spoken even half so much in front of a group before....Where was an apron to hide in or that kind Miss Violet to scurry her away to the kitchen where she felt more at home?

[ December 05, 2002: Message edited by: Kiara ]