Iron and Oak

Epilogue

Dara had expected more of her daughter.  

She would have liked to witness more fight, more rage, at the very least, more common sense.  

Instead, there was nothing.  

There were no words, no tears, and when their eyes met at an unplanned moment, there was no life.  

When Dain offered Esja a queenly suite of rooms in Erebor and told her that Thorin had left instructions that she was to have anything she desired even to one-fourteenth of the treasure, she had merely stared at him. Her serious green eyes, eerily vacant.  

Dara had stepped forward, thinking to shake her daughter into the present, but was brought up by that hulking dwarf that seemed to be with her everywhere she went for the past two days.  

Dara stepped back, eyeing him and his twin axes.  

"There is a small chest of remembrances that should go to Dis, and my personal things that I would take with me," Esja said. "I will need two ponies if any can be spared." 

Dain nodded thoughtfully.  

They were standing in the King's Hall, and he had felt her discomfort as soon as she had walked in the room.  

"Gwaihir, the Windlord, has offered you an unprecedented honor. He would fly you to the Blue Mountains to carry word to Thorin's people there,"  Dain told her.

Dwalin shifted slightly in his position just behind Esja, remembering his complete and utter terror at flying with the eagles.  

"I would accept his offer," Esja said.  

Dain nodded, "I believe he would like to leave today." 

"That would be fine for me, as well," Esja said. 

Dain looked around the room then held out his hand to Esja, "May I have a word with you, in private?" he asked.  

She bowed her head in acquiescence but declined his hand, following him into the King's Chamber, her jaw clenched.  

Dain was puzzled; she seemed no more at her ease away from the milling crowds than among them.  

"Thorin instructed me to give you whatever you desired. You have asked for two ponies; surely there is something more you would take from Erebor," he said. He watched her as she let her gaze wander the room, finally coming back to him. Her bleak eyes disturbed him.  

"I would only hope that Erebor takes nothing further from me," she said. 

Dain cleared his throat and bowed low before her, "If ever anything changes, you have only to speak, and whatever you desire will be granted." 

Esja nodded her head to him.  

Dain knew at that moment that once she departed, he would never see her again.  

*** 

Dara watched until the soaring eagle disappeared in the west.  

She turned to Balin, a dwarf with quite a splendid head of white hair and a very long beard to match, "It is time," she said. 

Balin looked at her with distrust, or perhaps it was fear, but he said nothing, only nodded as they turned and made their way into the bowels of the mountain.

***

Esja had never been so weary.  

She slid off her pony and leaned her head against her saddlebag. Her entire body ached with the effort to bear the weight of her leaden heart. Leading Mardie and Pepper into the stable, she was grateful to see Nordren, the only blacksmith/stable master in Westhand, walking toward her, a look of concern on his face.