Alris is forty years older than Bombur, but in Dwarven terms that doesn’t really mean all that much tbh. They are long-lived, after all.
Ohgosh, I had a sort of idea? That Alris, being a tanner, would have been rather, um. Well. Tanning is a smelly job. Very smelly. Animal hides are stinky at the best of times, and then there’s all the things that people have used over the centuries to cure them (the most well-known is urine, lol, but other rather less salubrious things have also been used).
Alris isn’t smelly, not when she’s not at work, and she’s a bubbly and happy and gregarious Dwarrowdam. She’s stout and clever and rather pretty, with brown hair and green eyes and a pair of truly awe-inspiring hips (she got the booty, DO SHE EVER).
But her job turned others away. She liked her job, it was interesting (Alris is not in the LEAST afraid of muck: see also, 12 kids. Lots of muck involved) and she isn’t intimidated by hard work either, but she was a trifle lonely now and then. She didn’t really resent the way people drew back when they found out she was a tanner (resentment’s not really a part of her mental landscape tbh), but she would sigh now and then in a manner that was very unlike her normal cheery self.
Alris would sell her wares at the markets on Thatrnarât (Saturdays), when craftspeople and food vendors would gather and try to make a small living from what they had managed to create through the week. There wasn’t much to go around (and the hunters and trappers charged an exorbitant price for the skins they sold her) but Alris was scraping by. She would sell her tanned leathers and furs, and now and then would have enough time to make a few pieces – a satchel here, a jacket, a hat.
She wasn’t really expecting? To meet a young, handsome Dwarf. He ran a stall a few aisles away, and he was admirably built, with the most delicious beard. But he was so shy.
He hung around her stall now and then, and she would watch him from the corner of her eye. At first she though he might be a thief, but soon discarded that notion. He was far too obvious to be any good at it.
After a few Thatrnarât of this, he managed to pick up his feet and approach her. He was so quiet when he spoke that she had to lean right in to hear him. It was as though he rarely bothered speaking. “The hat,” he said, soft as a little mouse. “Um. That one.”
She tipped her head in acknowledgement, not wanting to scare her delicious little dormouse away. She wrapped it, and then asked, “for someone special?”
Well, it didn’t hurt to discover if he was attached or not. Though a Dwarf as lovely as he was wouldn’t be…
“No – no, I’m not – it’s for. Bofur. My brother,” he mumbled. “S’ his nameday.”
“Oh.” She thought a moment, and then squeezed his hand reassuringly and gave him her sunniest, friendliest smile. “Then it’s half-price, and I won’t hear a word otherwise. May he wear it in good health.”
He looked a little poleaxed, and then gulped. “No, I couldn’t possibly…”
“You can and have,” she said firmly, and put the parcel before him and shook his hand. “Done.”
He clutched at her hand, looking at her with big, lovely brown eyes – like she set mithril in the earth. “You’re so nice,” he blurted. “Can I make you dinner? To say thank you. I mean. Oh, I should say. Thank you. Thank you!”
She smiled. “I don’t know. Can you cook?”
–Some time later-
Alris leaned back in her chair, a bit dazzled.
Bombur (his name was Bombur, her delicious dormouse was called Bombur) actually beamed at her. “I can cook,” he said, a trifle smugly.
“I’ll say,” she said faintly.
Aw Yiss 