Whims of Time and Fate by QuillAndInkWrites

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Chapter 2

Content warnings for chapter 2: After the first line break, in the italicized section, there is a brief fight in which one character is non-fatally stabbed. Directly afterwards, there is a public execution by beheading — the death itself is off-screen, but only barely, and the intent is clear. There is no violence outside of the italicized section.

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Days pass. Mhete continues to be the model student she has been since she was small, though she is much quieter lately than she has ever been — if Scholar Nerar or any of her classmates notice, nothing is said of it to her. During the day, she attends classes, spends time with her family in court, in spars, and at home, and goes about life just as she did before. In the evenings, however, after dinner, she buries herself in books like never before.

Durin I was given the ability to create life from stone, a power which passed itself down through the generations as the Khazâd spread and multiplied. The knowledge was eventually lost long after his death, then regained for a time once Durin II — Glain, as Scholar Nerar had said to her — came to sit upon the throne of Khazâd-dum hundreds of years later. Such a power would be a boon in any time of war, famine, or great disease, for Mhete is an only child and such a thing is so common amongst her people that one Khuzd having more than two or three children is something of a novelty. Mhete cannot help but think of this long after she leaves the page discussing it.

Likewise, there are stories of Durin II’s ascension to the throne that capture Mhete’s attention until she is left dry-eyed and exhausted. He seemed to know who he truly was before his fifteenth birthday, a detail Mhete finds pulling at her heart with a strange and unfamiliar feeling tug. How strange, she thinks, to know yourself so early on in the course of your life. To grow up with the knowledge that you are the reincarnation of the Forefather of Durin’s Folk.

Thinking those words feels somehow untruthful, so she tries her best not to think them again.

Many of the passages within the books she scours carry that same strange and unfamiliar feeling, bringing with them an odd, endless pull as if trying to tug her heart right out of her chest and onto the page. With each pull her surety grows and grows, despite the roiling pit of fear in her stomach at the thought of something like this turning her entire life over on its head that grows at exactly the same speed.

Besides, she thinks to herself, reading about Durin II’s ‘amad and fighting against the unfathomably strange urge to think of her as her own ‘amad when she already has one. How could I ever possibly know for sure?

The answer comes exactly seven days after Mhete spoke to Scholar Nerar.

The thick tome Scholar Nerar gifted her focuses primarily on Durin II, specifically his life as the reincarnation of the first — one of six reincarnations, if the legends are true — though due to the nature of his life there are of course constant mentions of Durin I throughout. Halfway through its pages, the book — titled Of Durin II, Reincarnation, and the Second Age — finally discusses how the discovery of Durin II was possible.

“Durin II said his ‘amad was the one, and so I found her and sought to ask for the truth there. ‘Kheled-zâram,’ was her answer, and one I was deeply ashamed to have not already considered in my own musings. ‘As a pebble I took him to see his forefather’s stars within the depths, a mark of his history, and when he looked within suddenly seven bright stars shone upon his brow as I watched, clearer than even the bright sun high above us. I could not see myself within the lake’s reflection, only my son. It was then that I knew.’ “

Mhete tears her gaze away from the book only after rereading the passage a total of four times. It settles further into her chest with every pass, a rightness to it that she doubts she could ever hope to explain or put to words, and the image of Kheled-zâram within her mind’s eye is clearer than it ever should be. She has never gazed upon it herself and yet still she sees it and its surroundings, clear as the lake’s surface itself, as if she was there only yesterday.

She has much to think of now, of stars and reflections and the lake nestled between Bundushathûr and Zirakzigil to the east. Her mind whirls, a staggering amount of new information to sort through and make some sort of sense of, and Mhete quickly shuts the book before she can overwhelm herself with even more new and strange information.

When Mhete finally sleeps she dreams of an endless, starry sea.

  

While by all accounts the logical progression of events would be to visit Kheled-zâram the next day or the day after to find the answer to her many queries once and for all, Mhete does nothing out of the ordinary, save a continuation of her normal daily habits from before she began to study the history of Durin I and II in the evenings. She continues on as if nothing has changed, continues to learn history from Scholar Nerar, the wielding of an ax from her irak’adad, the finer details of court life from watching her ugmil’adad rule. She learns a new way to style her thick, curly hair from her ‘adad, slowly following his instructions step by step until her first try is done — crooked and not nearly as neat as she knows she can make it with practice, but done.

The memories try to continue each day, a slow, blocked stream that she knows in the back of her mind must be building to something as she ignores the near-constant ebb and flow within her chest. She shies away from each emotion that feels only partially like her own, keeps listening to Scholar Nerar’s history lessons as she remembers the heat of a desert she has never set foot in and the feel of stone at the edges of a mountain pass she cannot even begin to guess the name of. The feeling within her chest slowly grows, day by day, and yet still she turns away from it — hoping, determined and futile, that it will simply fade away if she refuses to give it a name.

It does not fade away.

Instead, Mhete is striking down toward her irak’adad’s armor with a fierce cry and a blunted ax when a sudden, crystal-clear memory rocks her so hard that she falls to her knees in the middle of the dirt-packed sparring circle, her weapon tumbling out of limp hands with a dull thud before she follows it to the floor and all is dark.

Her hands are pale white with ginger hair across the the backs of each finger, paler than even her ‘amad’s, and there are heavy calluses against the palms and the finger pads. They flex against intricately carved stone, a familiar seat atop a few shallow steps overlooking a long hall. She looks to the three Stiffbeard Khazâd in front of her, each standing straight and proud as they address her. How she knows their clan she cannot say, though she thinks she can pick out the matching patterns embroidered into their clothes a moment later.

“Your Majesty,” continues the eldest, the only one without a coal-dark mane — their white beard is braided and tucked into their belt, rich red and gold fabric shifting around them as they gesticulate. “We ask only for a boon for our own kingdom, a way with which to strengthen our ties with the chieftans of Harad.”

“And as I said before, what of your own coffers?” she says, and like her hands her voice is familiar and unfamiliar and not her own. She gives a significant look to the many gem-topped rings on the white-haired Khuzd’s fingers. “Have they run dry, for you to ask this of me?”

“Surely, as a friend to our queen, you—”

“Enough.”

The white-haired Khuzd closes his mouth with a snap and is silent.

Mhete stands straight and strong, her hands lax at her sides, and surveys the Khazâd before her with a clever gaze. Their clothes are clearly rich, made of expensive fabrics and dyes, and their jewelry is bright and shining gold with precious gems inlaid. They seek not prosperity and peace, as they say, but only wealth for wealth’s sake. There is no other explanation.

“You will have no coin of Khazâd-dum’s,” she says in the voice not her own, firm and unyielding, her final ruling to them, and the memory flits away like a startled bird from its perch.

In its place appears a room glittering brightly with gold and gems, treasures of many kinds, sizes, and shapes. There are walkways through the treasure room, simple stone to tread upon so as to not disturb the riches in every direction, and the room is quiet and still as her own baited breath. A flash of red fabric behind a tall pile catches Mhete’s attention and she surges forward, hands outstretched at the ready.

The white-haired Khuzd falls to the hard floor beneath her weight, an ugly snarl on their lips and a bejeweled dagger clutched in one hand—

The shapes and colors around her blur as the two of them roll across the stone—

Mhete wrests the dagger from their grip with a strength she knows she has yet to gain—

A second dagger is unsheathed from somewhere within their voluminous robes—

Mhete cries out as her side erupts in liquid fire beyond any pain she has felt before—

The scene changes a second time, heavier than before, and Mhete stands on a raised stone platform before a throng of silent, watching Khazâd, her battleax held in strong hands; they are pale and foreign still. Her side aches, bandages wrapped around her middle beneath her clothing, and her face is grim. She will do what she must, though it pains her to bear such a heavy burden. The warnings and laws of Khazâd-dum are clear, and she would not be worthy of the throne she sits upon if she could not mete out the punishments she herself ruled.

To her left on the platform the white-haired Khuzd kneels, bound and shackled and clothed in white, their gaze downturned.

Mhete raises her ax above her head, sending a final prayer to Mahal as she has done many times over within the last hour, and—

Her eyes fly open, a deep breath sucked sharply into her lungs. The room is unclear as she fights to calm her breathing and the rush of adrenaline through her veins, and it takes many moments and a calming voice above her before she can at last return to the here and now; she feels as though she is drifting through a sea of past and present, unmoored, but she can at least see the present clearly now. She lies flat on her back, something cushioning her head so she does not lay entirely on the packed dirt and sawdust of the sparring circle, and above her she can at last make out the shapes of her irak’adad’s face and his neat beard.

“Mhete,” he says, his dark brows furrowed together and his clear blue eyes clouded with worry. A hand strokes her cheek slowly, gently, and Mhete slowly realizes that her head is pillowed by his strong thighs. “You fell in the middle of our spar and would not wake, do you remember?”

Mhete does, but it feels far away for a long moment of time, as if the memory of another life — and then, so slowly Mhete can feel every miniscule shift, it returns to familiarity.

Mhete does, when she searches for it, but it feels faraway, as if the memory of a life not her own — and then, with a subtle shift that feels as if the entirety of Arda turns exactly five degrees to the left, it feels distinct and familiar again.

“I remember,” Mhete says, her throat dry and her chest tight with the vestiges of adrenaline, and she can honestly say that it is the truth. “I’m sorry I worried you, Irak’adad.”

“I’m only glad you’re alright,” Thalvir says, continuing to stroke her cheek above her growing beard; the motion soothes her, it always has, and she knows this is why he does it now. “You fainted, or so it seemed. Did you feel ill?”

“I felt fine,” Mhete admits, tilting her head to the side to chase his comforting hand. “Normal. I was prepared to beat you.”

“Not so fast, not for another span of years yet,” Thalvir says, her words pulling a laugh from his throat, before a moment passes and he frowns down at her once more. “What do you think happened, then? Should I fetch a healer?”

Mhete closes her eyes for a moment, swallowing past the heavy lump in her throat. She knows what she needs, though she has been doing a mighty fine job of ignoring it up until now — or perhaps not so fine, if she considers it for much longer than a fleeting moment, considering what just happened to her. Never before has she fainted like that, lost to memories that felt too familiar and well-trodden to be anything but. She knows, deep in her heart, that to continue to avoid these memories and feelings of familiarity will only bring fear, pain, and confusion to her until the day she stops.

Perhaps following the thread will, but for herself — for the memories within her and the tugging waves trying to guide her heart in a direction she does not know — she has to try.

“I should see a healer first, but then...” Mhete steels herself with a breath. “Then I need to do what I should have already done.”

  

It takes little time at all for Mhete and Thalvir find their way to a healer, the kind dwarrowdam sitting Mhete down to assess her for any injuries — concussion or otherwise — from her fall; her irak’adad may have caught her as quickly as he could, avoiding a hit to the head, but her knees are still visibly bruised even under her dark skin. With a salve applied to her knees to reduce discomfort and swelling, and a small jar of the same pressed into Mhete’s hands to take with her, Mhete and Thalvir leave to return to her home.

“Thalvir,” Mhorbok says in surprise when he looks up from the rocking chair to find both child and brother-in-law coming through the door. “I thought you had her for another half hour at least.”

“I did,” Thalvir says, squeezing Mhete’s hand as she gazes at the floor, busy watching a slow, constant stream of deeply distracting images appear over her physical sight. “Mhete fainted, or something like it, during one of our spars.”

Mhorbok is out of his chair and across the room in an instant, his book forgotten on the arm of his chair as he kneels to look up at his child’s face and gently take it in both hands. “Mhete,” he says softly. “Are you alright?”

Mhete’s eyes begin to well with tears. She shakes her head in silence, blinking away the image of a kind Firebeard dwarrowdam to curl close to her ‘adad, and her tears begin to fall as he bundles her close like she’s still a pebble.

“It’s alright,” Mhorbok murmurs, gently rocking from side to side, and carefully guides Mhete to sit in his lap right there in the entryway — she really does feel like a pebble again, but she has not the heart nor the desire to complain against such gentle, comforting treatment. “Shhh, Mhete, you’re going to be alright.”

He repeats similar assurances at intervals through the minutes it takes for Mhete’s tears to slowly taper off, holding her close as Thalvir silently strokes her braided hair. Eventually, Mhete finds she has no new tears left to trail down her face, and she sniffles wetly against the cloth of Mhorbok’s shoulder, her arms wrapped tight around his middle as though he might disappear at any moment.

“I was Durin,” Mhete whispers into her ‘adad’s shirt, and listens to his steady heartbeat and her irak’adad’s confused inhale for just a moment before continuing. “I saw myself doing all of these things but I was also him.”

Mhorbok seems to take this in stride as much as is possible for something like this — or at least it seems that way to Mhete, who can’t see his face nor whatever expression might be on it, only hear his voice and heartbeat and feel his strong arms around her. 

“What did you see?”

“I saw myself as king,” Mhete says, just as quiet as she was a moment before. “I sat upon the throne Ugmil’adad sits on now, with pale, freckled skin and fiery hair, and before me were three wealthy Khazâd.”

She continues to tell her ‘adad and irak’adad of her vision, slow and hesitant at first but slowly gaining confidence in her memories as she speaks. At last she tells them of her place on the platform, an ax she knows like the back of her hands but had never seen before held in both, and the fate of the treacherous Khuzd.

“Oh, kurkarukê,” Mhorbok says, and presses a kiss to her forehead. Her irak’adad is silent.

“I can no longer pretend and tell myself that the memories of other lives don’t come to me easier than copper in a gold mine,” Mhete says, and her voice is raw but there runs a vein of steel through it that she knows Adda and Irak’adad will recognize as such. “I cannot, even though I wish desperately that I could.”

“What do you need, then?” Mhorbok asks, so similar to the words of her irak’adad on the floor of the sparring circle that Mhete almost laughs.

“I need to see Kheled-zâram."

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Chapter End Notes

Neo-Khuzdul Translations
Irak’adad — Uncle
Khuzd — Dwarf
Ugmil’adad — Grandfather
Kurkarukê — My tiny raven

For the purposes of this world, please consider fifteen for a Dwarf to be equivalent to about four years old for a Man (the ones on Earth, not Numenoreans or the like).