The company of Thorin Oakenshield is on the quest to reclaim their homeland, Erebor from the fire breathing dragon, with the help by Gandalf the Grey. The Wizard knows that the company will need all aid they can get to win the Mountain back; he bri...
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Life before the Quest to re-claim Erebor
Valerie's great-ancestors once lived on an island in the Great Sea, the kingdom of Númenor. But that was centuries ago and an island that is now lost beneath the sea. Valerie was born in the Vales of Anduin, north of Mirkwood between the Misty Mountains and the forest river.
Where she grew up and was raised by her father and grandparents peacefully on their farm. She didn't have the chance to meet her mother who was one of the last survivors of Númenór as she had passed away shortly after childbirth, which meant for Valerie to be raised by her father and grandparents, but it was without any difficulty.
Their family wasn't Noble, they lived fairly well on their own, however, her mother's bloodline used to be Nobel many years ago and history turned into legends among many other things. Valerie's father and grandparents had no relations to either a King or to any Lords in the Vales of Anduin at this time and age, they were wealthy and independent on their own. With a lot of work for their lands and the house alongside the farmyard living peacefully in the open landscape with an array of different animals.
The day when the young prince of Erebor, Thorin, and his people had come to the farm only a few weeks after the day they had lost their home and Kingdom to the fire-drake, Smaug. And it was when Valerie was still in her youth, but still old enough, much like Thorin himself when the two were first introduced to each other.
The young Dwarf Prince along with his Kin and family, had been roaming landscapes in the hope of finding shelter but they had almost given up hope. It was not until Valerie and her family crossed their paths. Valerie was shocked to see Dwarves out so far from their homeland, and out on foreign lands like they were. She was taken aback by how ill they were, and suffering greatly. Tired and hurt from their injuries, dehydrated, and on empty stomachs.
They didn't even need to ask her for help as Valerie quickly acted and called for help as her family stopped doing their chores and hurried to the Dwarves' aid. Valerie and her family sheltered them without questions and let them inside the farm. Where they gave them everything they could provide medicine, comfort, food, drink, rest, and empathy. Valerie even helped to nurse the ill among them back to their health as they had walked for weeks without any food or water left in their skins. Some were badly burnt from the fire, some were fallen sick with fever and Valerie nor her family had ever seen burning wounds like some of the Dwarves carried, even some battle scars they witnessed.
A few months passed and during their stay at Valerie's farm, the Dwarves of Erebor had been helping her family with the chores and paid back little by little with what they could at the time as they had taken in strangers into their home and letting them stay, sharing their food and taken care of theirs who was sick and injured. It was however time the Dwarves would be on their way, planning and finding a new home for themselves.
They said their last goodbyes and thanks to Valerie as she and her family were the only ones who had cared for them when no one else had. However, Valerie and her family didn't ask the Dwarves for any payment in return for them aiding them, the only thing that mattered was that they would live through this and come out stronger. Valerie had only asked Thorin before he left that he would write her when he and his Kin were all settled in their new home.
They left the Farm following the the green forest, and river. For their travel, they were given plenty of food, water, and supplies for their journey ahead of them, supplies which they needed better than Valerie and her family needed at the moment. Eventually, the Dwarves of Erebor found their new home and it was in the Blue Mountains.
Thorin kept his promise to Valerie as he sent her a black Raven with a letter that he wrote to her they had settled down in the Blue Mountains and were forever thankful to her and her family's aid, it was heart-warming for Valerie to know they were safe and sound when she got the Ravens' letter. And she missed him and his Kin's spirit with each passing day since they left the farm. They had rebuilt the mountain to become their new home, and the Dwarves were trying to move ahead from the traumatic past of Erebor.
The peaceful times at Valerie's farm would come to an end soon, however, as a man who held high titles miles from her farm had grown stronger in power within a small amount of time and he had risen his kingdom led by the race of men.
He had grown madly infatuated with Valerie and the tales that she and her family took in Dwarves had spread fast across the lands, and his interest in the family had only grown an interest in them, or moreso in the young woman herself.
In his attempts to make her his concubine, Valerie's father defended her and opposed the Lord but the Lord called his guards to slay her father, and they did just that in front of her very eyes. As punishment for not reciprocating his feelings, the mad Lord slew the rest of her family and friends, burned their farm down to ashes and chained Valerie deep in the castle dungeons, only to be brought to him at his bedside when he asked.
She never complied, and always fought back as hard as she could, but the mad Lord was so madly infatuated that he couldn't bring himself to kill her.
The day came when Valerie was being whipped by the dungeon guards for not obeying her lord, that she screamed in such agony that the great spirit of Akandir woke inside of her very being. In a blind fury, Valerie used the sliver of power granted to her, melted the chains that bound her, and then burned the guards from inside their guts. Akandir's pleas for Valerie to calm down reached her only after the woman had burned down the castle and killed all its guards.
However, the mad Lord himself was not present in his room and for this reason, Valerie's thirst for revenge still lingered in her heart, even after she stumbled out of the smoldering castle and onto the open plains of landscape.
Mithrandir, also known as Gandalf the Grey, found her beneath a rocky outcrop. She was dressed in rags, revealing the still open wounds on her back from the torture.
Ash covered her body and the wizard could observe clouds of smoke that boomed upwards on the horizon. He picked up the unconscious woman and draped her in his robes, determined to nurse the young woman back to health by the help of the powerful healing of Lord Elrond in Rivendell.
