Genres: Hurt/Comfort, Tragedy

Rating: PG-13

Summary: The Sindar of Doriath are understandingly outraged with the Dwarves, with their king killed by them. But what about the Dwarves themselves? What do they think or say about it?

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Nogrod was in uproar. The children of Mahal had set out to the Enchanted Cave-lands, seeking revenge upon the insolent Elf-king. But few had come back – And such who had, spoke about it with mingled fear and fury beyond measure.

And the land itself… It was shifting even now, just some time after the fruitless attack to the Enchanted Cave-lands. It was as if the Elves could do that to the sacred earth!

Kía half-heartedly worked on her loom. Thoughts of her slain father haunted her still, and it would likely stay until she joined her ancestors in the Hall of Waiting. It was so tempting, taking arms and avenging her father and brethren, but…

Oh, how she wished she were a male! The other races had never truly known the extent of importance of Dwarven females in their own society. The axis of their culture. The life of their daily breaths. – Because Mahal did have a spouse, whose love was that of nurturing and nurrishment, of management.

And that meant, females could not go to battle. Females were highly guarded in wartime; although, other than their cultural and vital functions, they were quite like their male counterparts in skills, temper–

– Desires…

Her hand tightened on the warp. Her jawline was set. She was all that. But she was also her father’s only child, and her mother had espoused another male after his death. Someone should take up the responsibility of avenging her father, and that could just as well be she. (He had no other family left.)

And if she should seek to slay those who had slain her father, it was not clothing of wool and cotton that she should weave, but that of chains and plates of metal. And she must also forge a weapon or three…