Tears of Mirrormere RPG

[Thinlómien]

Ori had sent Gror away and stayed by the doors. The idea of going in and facing all the grieving people was still too much for him. He would not want to see all the silly women who had hardly known Balin wailing as if their husbands or children had just died. Men weren't as bad, but there would surely be some self-important busybodies who'd come to tell him how much his old friend had meant to them even if they hadn't even known him in the slightest. No, Ori did not want to see any of those pretending, exaggerating fools. He preferred to sit there, all by himself, and grieve in his own silent way. Maybe soon a friend would come, and he would be the only one to truly share the grief that was pressuring Ori's heart.

He gazed at the horizon, wondering how he would tell it to Óin. There was no good way of telling it, no way to make it hurt less. Ori wondered if Óin was happy not to have witnessed it, or whether he would have preferred to be there. To be there to see Balin smile one last time, to hear his last words, to see him look in the Kheled-zâram like he had always wanted to...

Ori could hardly see the horizon anymore, his vision was so clouded by tears. He let the tears run down his cheeks to his beard, didn't bother to wipe them. New ones would come to moist his eyes anyway.

There were footsteps behind him, and then someone speaking. "Master Ori?" It was the dwarf from Erebor, again.

Ori tried to hold his voice steady when he replied. "Yes?" It was more like a grunt than like a proper answer.

"Lord Trór summons you. There will be a council. Near here, by the East Gate."

Ori gave the man a cold stare behind the veil of tears. "Balin is the lord of Moria." As soon as he had said the words, he regretted them. Gror was wise enough not to say anything. Ori wiped his eyes and tried again.

"I apologise for my unrespectful words. You are right by calling Trór the lord since that is what he is now. And Mahal knows, I will follow him, even to the bitter end."

Gror nodded solemnly and there was a silence. Ori heard his own words echoing in his head. Bitter end? Where did that come from? Is that what's in front of us?