Tag: hrera

At some point after he arrives in the Halls, Dori accidentally tries to mother Hrera. There is a massive indrawn breath. Everyone waits for the inevitable explosion.

LOLOLOL, OH DEAR! I love it Nonnie! Everyone waiting for Hrera to blister Dori with the sheer force of her personality.

Except the explosion probably wouldn’t come.

Hrera would be all

There is a collective, unspoken “uh-oh.”

And then she would suggest, rather stiffly: “Dori, dear. Tea?”

And Dori would likely draw himself up and nod, and there would be tea and maybe cake. Polite, stilted conversation would eventually become sympathetic nodding as they chatted about the utter impossibility of relatives. And the Halls would quake, because that is one hell of a formidable team.

(Hrera understands. This is something she has in common with Dori, in fact. She understands that urge to care for people that is so powerful that you cannot help but become a fusser. She understands what it is like to ache for those you love, never able to care for them ever again. And she understands what it is like, those first few months having them back – how all-consuming it can feel, how frantic the need to look after them, look after them. She gets it.)

The glitter plan totally backfired – Gror decided that he likes having a sparkly beard, and deliberately brushes in (more discreet) sparkly bits into his beard afterwards. Gror’s spouse is nonplussed, as the sparkles got everywhere. Everywhere. They begin immediate plots with Hrera to give their husbands their due comeuppance.

PFFFFT HE’S SO FAB.

Hrera is only doing it because NOBODY OUTFABS HER. NOBODY.

(aaaaand now all I can see is the Glitter sketch by Ross Noble, omfg)

I am imagining Hrera and Forra bonding over tea. Because Forra is a tea person. So many embarrassing-baby-Thror stories were told in the years after Hrera entered the Halls. Also Dain 1 might like fiddle knitting? And so Thrain has a cuddly blanket his grandpa made him. And (durin-blue) socks to help keep him warm ;)

OH MY GOODNESS HAHAHAHA

I just realised I have never given anyone anything about Forra! And I like her so much ❤

Forra is a heck of a Dwarrowdam. She was poor. Very poor. Bombur-and-Bofur poor, in fact. The kind of poor that never really lets go of a person. She instilled a little of that urgency in all of her children, actually – she didn’t mean to, but that kind of thing bleeds through and children are perceptive. She was probably the most earthy Queen the Dwarves have ever had. She looked like a mine full of diamonds all dressed in her full regalia, of course – but wouldn’t hesitate to roll up her dazzling sleeves and hitch up her jewel-studded skirts (and tuck them into her drawers!) to help birth a litter of piglets, or help an old Dwarf with their washing, soap-suds soaking her arms to the elbows and staining the silk.

The conservative element that so protested Dis’ marriage to Vili had not yet arisen. That was more a matter of timing, than anything. After three exiles from as many homes, the newly-homeless Council in Ered Luin were clinging even more tightly to very rigid tradition, trying desperately to hold onto a sense of continuity in the face of disaster. 

In Forra’s day, however, things were somewhat more relaxed. 

Dain I met her utterly by accident, while he pretended to be someone else (a habit of his). It wasn’t too hard to figure out who ‘Danin’ really was, though. Forra played along, though she had to shake her head at times. I mean really. It was blindingly obvious that this Dwarf didn’t know a damned thing about living in the poorer quarters of the Grey Mountains. 

She swears like a trooper, Forra. She doesn’t have an elegant bone in her body. She will kick anyone’s arse – heck, she’ll kick her own arse. And absolutely, Forra would definitely drink tea! Hot, sweet tea please, with plenty of milk. And she’ll have it in a battered old tin tankard. 😉

Hrera would have been utterly dismayed by her at first. And then she would have recognised that for all their external differences, they are very very alike. Forra just wears a very different sort of armour.

And so Hrera would sip tea from her porcelain cup, and Forra from her tankard, and they would chat amicably (and Hrera would ignore all the swearing, and Forra would ignore all the prim fussing). Because as different as they seem? Here’s a Dwarrowdam who gets it.

I love the idea that Dain I was a knitter! I bet none of his three kids ever got cold tootsies. ❤