The Book of Short Tales by Lyra

B2MeM '12 - I18 - Birth

Written for the "Dwarves in the First Age" prompt, Durin the Deathless remembers coming to life and his maker Aulë, and for the "In a Manner of Speaking" prompt, "for pity's sake".

Durin recalls what must have been, on the whole, a really weird and disconcerting experience...
Officially my first piece of Dwarf fanfic! Yay!

Birth

The Maker was proud of his creation and overjoyed at its accomplishment, and his pride and joy were the first things we ever felt.

I say "we", for in those moments the seven of us thought and felt as one; and we thought and felt as the Maker did. He gave us names, to each his own, and spoke to us separately: That is how we learned that we had separate bodies. The Maker gave us words for the things around us, the cave-hall and the furnace, the tools and metals and gems. He spoke to us, and we treasured his words and answered as he bade us. He was pleased, so we were happy. He showed us how to use his tools and apply them to his materials, melting ore from rock, casting it into bars, and shaping it anew. He loved his work. So did we.

But then his joy was clouded, and we froze still. We felt that something was going on in the Maker's mind, but for the first time, we could not share it, for it was beyond comprehension. We understood that something was making the Maker feel unhappy. We felt that it distracted him, so that we could no longer work nor speak. All we knew was the strange, powerful presence in the Maker's mind, and the guilt it caused him.

Then everything was loss and confusion. Suddenly the connection between us, the connection to our Maker, was cut. Without warning, we were on our own in a world that no longer consisted of joy and pride, but of loneliness. I found that I could look at my brothers of my own volition, and that I could see on their faces the same fear and bewilderment that I myself felt – but I no longer felt with them. And I no longer felt with the Maker. Instead, there were new, sudden sensations: The hardness of the ground, the heat of the fire, the suppleness of the leather apron on my skin, the coarseness of my beard.

But that was not the worst yet, for now the Maker raised his hammer. He was weeping, and although I did no longer share his mind, I realised his purpose. He was going to destroy us. I did not understand why – had he not loved us mere minutes ago? were we not his pride and joy? - but I saw his great hammer descend. Such a lovely and useful tool, but it caused me terror.
Mercy! I found myself crying, and Please, no, begged one of my brothers. Despite my imminent death, I found myself surprised, for the Maker had not taught us such words: Whence had they come?

Then the terrible moment was over. The hammer's movement stopped in mid-descent. I had thought that I would be flattened like metal bars between hammer and anvil, but here I was, cowering with my hands over my head. Alive. I was flooded by a new feeling - relief, I thought, and that was another word that the Maker had never told us. I heard my brothers sigh. Barazturg and Falakzugul (1) embraced each other. We had survived the crisis. We would live.

We must have fallen asleep then, giddy and relieved, for I do not remember what happened next. For a long time, there was only darkness and rest. When my eyes opened to a new life, the Maker had disappeared. From the feeling of the cave around me, I was in a strange land far from the Maker's hall, deep underground. The rock was different, harder than those familiar walls had been, unsmoothed and unloved. It smelled of dampness and of raw, unrefined ores.
It was cold.

My brothers were not in the cave with me. I was alone.

Chapter End Notes

(1) As far as I know (and could research), Tolkien never gave us the true names of the seven Fathers of the Dwarves, so I made something up.
Barazturg is presumably the father of the Firebeards, for his name consists of the elements baraz "red, ruddy" and *turg "beard" (following the assumption that if khazâd "dwarves" is the plural of khuzd "dwarf", and rakhâs "orcs" is the plural of rukhs "orc", then the missing singular to tarâg "beards" might be turg - I feel validated at least in that Helge Fauskanger of Ardalambion fame came to the same conclusion...). Falakzugul is shameless conjecture, really; the F-L-K radicals are stolen from felak, a broad-bladed chisel used for hewing stone, hoping that every other broad things might also have an F-L-K root. Z-G-L was stolen from zigil, which may mean "spike" (or "silver", but I prefer the "spike" version), assuming that other longish, narrow things – like beams – might have the same radicals. Voilà: *falakzugul, father of the Broadbeams (*falakzagâl).

Great. More footnote than story...