The Journal of Turri and Yurri
The Undoing's of a Dwarrow
Entry Six Hundred and Ninety Three
Yurri's edit: The thirty fourth.
I at last return to the rotted pages of this leather wrapped book. I read my father's work's, found after the great Battle of the Five Armies. The halls of my family were emptied, slowly beginning to refill with Dain and his Dwarves. This book was why I fought so hard, why I bled so freely. It is why I have entered an old tomb, instead of the mighty fortress that was Erebor. I found this ghastly thing beside charred remains. I read it as the hammers of rebuilding echo in the dark. A single lantern suspended over my head, it's flame a forgotton relic of the fire serpent that resided here. I begin to regret it's reading. Part of me hoped it had burned with him.
I had not time to find my son. I had not time to set my error's right. This Dragon is my reckoning, my end. He breathes flame that only burn's my failures with Yurri Yurri deeper into my heart. The fire Drake speaks, it's laughter booming through all Erebor, drowning out the cries. Worse than any war drum any Goblin could build or hammer, or any Dwarf could conceive in mind. We Dwarves were solid steal steel, and fire melts steal steel. This Dragon forges our hardness to ashes. This feeling I will forever know.
Beyond the iron door ahead, only fire and ash awaits. I huddle with my kin, grown Dwarves wailing, and I join them in a grief I never thought I could feel. An impossible enemy had found us in our caves, punishment for our greed and transgression. The door is burnt orange at it's outline, it's very structure contorting itself as if being looked upon by the reflection of a silver spoon. My doom is scarcely thought upon by me, only the last of my line's. I love you greatly, Father.
We have moved back with a flicker of hope, between crevises crevices and tunnels as the roar's of Middle-Earth's mightiest signal but more demise of my kind. Another dead end. The last. I have wretched more than I knew any Dwarf could, red finding it's way into the palm of my naked hands as the ash coats our lungs, once pink, now blacker than the blood of Orc's. Our bodies are dressed in our dead. It is an honour to wear you in my end, brother's and sister's. You were impervious to the smell, father? Honour finds you in queer tidings.
I saw it's claw stamp out Hemdal, merging him with the stonework forever thereafter. I saw it's inferno engulf Rygha, gone in but an instant, snuffed out with all the rest. Nothing can penitrate penetrate it's hide. None can stop it. It is coated in the armour of which a thousand mithril plates could not hope to equal. For the first time in years, the Dwarves sprint for hope of a continued life. But how could any call themselves truely alive, after this chaos? None could hold such an answer.
I canot writ fo m wretching , I cannot write for my wretching, the smok is thic an m y throt ror the smoke is thick and my throat raw, I can onl only hopE hope my son.
My father's quill moved no further, the thick book lying empty. The following pages are coated in dust, his bones slumped to a wall and crumbling with the rest of this wretched tomb. He died not a warrior's death, no weapon found in hand. He choked with the five with him, each skeletal hand encompassed in the other. Interlocked.
Our legacy will live on, Father. Through this book and through me.
