Tag: hrera

Taking inspiration from your previous ask- How did the family in the halls cope with thorin and his quest? (Particularly the hobbity bits and the going mad and dying bits) idk if you’ve answered this before. Also ur amazing and I love your writting.

Badly. 

At first, there was a certain astonished horror, mingled with unspoken hope: it is a suicidal undertaking! Thirteen and a hobbit! Against Smaug the Tremendous! But also: could it be Thorin that succeeds where we all failed? Could our people finally come home? But after Erebor was reclaimed, hope slowly dwindled and crumbled into ashes. 

Thror raged – a lot. Hrera was the only one to brave that storm. He raged at Thranduil, he raged at Thorin, he raged at Gandalf – and he raged at himself. Thror is even more wracked with guilt than Thorin is. He is slowly healing, but his levels of self-hatred are still pretty dire. Eventually he could not watch Thorin standing spellbound in the treasury any longer. His whole heart was screaming.

Thrain was sorrowful. He loves his children: Thrain is a good and attentive and loving dad. It was the desire to recapture Erebor that had led him to set off on his own, only to be captured and tortured. He couldn’t bear the idea of Thorin, his firstborn, his brave son, going through such horrors in search of the same dream. So he was full of desperation and grief as he watched it all play out. Eventually, it all became too near and he had to retreat as well.

Fris was worried. Constantly worried. She doesn’t do ‘worried’ very well. She much prefers to act, to comfort. The utter helplessness of watching is agony to her. She bit her nails down to the quick. She cried into Thrain’s beard in their bed. She held Frerin close and kissed his face wordlessly. 

Hrera watched with stony face and anguished eyes, and never said what she was thinking. If she braided her family’s hair and beards a bit more often and with a suspicious glimmer in her eyes, nobody objected – or dared to comment on it. 

Frerin saw everything. He spent hour after hour, day after day in the starpool. His face grew wan and his eyes grew huge, and he never spoke above a hoarse whisper – but he never left his brother’s side, not even for a moment. 

The hobbity bits I have answered here.

Thank you, Nonnie! I am so glad you enjoy it! Awwww, you are amazing too! *blush*

how did thrain’s family feel watching him be tortured for years and years? or could they not see it through the starpool because sauron’s magic was obscuring it?

Gimlin-zaram cannot always be directed. Thorin and Fris have a discussion about it, and it is mentioned a few times elsewhere in the fic. Sometimes the pool cannot show you what you wish to see (I suspect dark magic, yes) or sometimes it takes you elsewhere – like it did in Chapter 35. It is sometimes gentle, bathing you in starry warmth. It is sometimes harsh, blinding and as fierce as a supernova. It’s capricious. 

Fris discovered her husband’s ordeal after he arrived in the Halls. She was horror-struck and grieved beyond words. Frerin was frantic and terrified. Thror nearly howled himself hoarse in a renewed storm of grief and guilt. 

Hrera bitterly wept in private, and then she put on her business face and smoothed down her dress. Then she went and combed her son’s thick hair, humming her old Broadbeam songs and touching his face with trembling, tender fingers. 

Thrain still carries deep wounds. He prefers quiet, fine-detail work these days, the better to help him concentrate on the now. He has bad days where he dissociates, where he thinks everything around him is not real but is just another torturous vision dreamed up by Sauron. He has crying moments, and quiet moments, and frightened episodes that lead to lashing out. Fris stands by him in these terrible moments (which are growing fewer and further apart as the stasis of the Halls works its cool healing upon Thrain’s scarred soul), and has learned to draw him back. She wraps him warmly (he was never warm, never), and leaves a cup of fragrant tea – liberally doctored – nearby, to perfume the air. She plays her harp, and sings. She rubs his feet and hands. She breathes his Dark-name in his ear. 

I just realized something: Thror’s father and brother died to a cold-drake. CAN YOU IMAGINE the psychological effect when he came out of the gold-madness post-Smaug and realized that HIS BELOVED WIFE AND SISTER-IN-LAW, NOT TO MENTION COUNTLESS OTHERS, are now dead? And that he will think it’s HIS FAULT?! And then he gets to WATCH his son and grandson try to reclaim his homeland and DIE for it?! And he gets to see his sweet little baby Thorin lose his mind TOO? (Dammit, now I’ve made myself cry.)

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WHY DOES THE WORLD HATE THE LINE OF DURIN OH MY FUCKING GOD

Vili being super-exited when HreRa gives him a simple hair doodad, b/c it means that she’s accepted him. Hrera likes Vili because he makes Dis happy and he is partially responsible for great-grand babies.

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IMMEDIATE HEADCANON YES

and Vili – cheerful, unpolished, friendly and chatty Vili trying to make small talk with Hrera, and failing dismally. And Hrera directing Vili the way she does with the rest of her unruly family, and wondering why in Telphor’s name that didn’t work… and then the pair of them finding common ground on food and Thorin and the lads and Dis… and watch out, everybody, the Broadbeam force of nature and the most incredibly devoted Dwarrow in the Halls are on the case. 😀

I hope this isn’t silly but I’ve just really wanted to know for a long time – why does Hrera disapprove of her family’s hair and beard choices so much? What are they doing that’s so wrong? Is it because they aren’t wearing it in a style she prefers? What does she consider to be ideal? Do they look silly after she gets her hands on them since they seem to want to laugh at each other a lot?

I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED ACTUALLY

No, they don’t look silly after she’s got her paws on them. They look magnificent, actually.

I have headcanoned Broadbeams as having some seeeerious ways of styling. This is, admittedly, only based on Bifur’s and Bombur’s awe-inspiring do’s. 

Hrera’s own hair is very fancy. She routinely braids her beard along her chin so that it looks like icicles falling, each braid tipped with a glittering pearl or diamond. She believes that these silly Longbeards are far too lackadaisical about one of the crowning jewels of dwarfdom: their hair. When she first meets Thror, he has his hair bound in working-braids much like Gimli’s – and they offend her right down to the bedrock. She changes that, thank you very much – her husband will not be seen with his hair and beard looking so shabby! A King should look like one, and take better care of his beard, harrumph. It’s thanks to her that Thror has the super-magnificence of beardliness that can only be matched by Gloin (and Firebeards have a certain natural abundance that is to be very envied, so Hrera’s influence is not to be underestimated). 

Hrera is a silversmith, she makes the most fabulous clasps that can be imagined, and they are nearly always about hair. Thorin’s simple style sends her into a terrible tizzy. Kili sends her into hysterics. Gimli’s total distinterest in oiling and braiding at all makes her huff VERY LOUDLY.

Her Longbeard family understands that she has a cultural bugbear about this, and they accept it with love. They’re not laughing at her. Only at her fervour. It’s a sort of familial in-joke, the kind that comes from having mixed families with cultural idiosyncrasies. They’re not making fun of her, I promise – they’re really incredibly proud of their fierce Broadbeam matriarch. It’s only that she is so very intense about hair. 

I hope that explains it! 😀