Requirements For A Husband
By Blída Bóurrul, Age 19
Must Be Handsome.
Must Be Well Read in Books, or play an Instrument, or Write Poetry. (← Better he do them All)
Must have a peacetime Craft, and be serious about it.
Must have a nice Beard.
Must Hold Good Conversation: Interesting, Learned, and Funny.
Must Be Kind to everyone.
Must have a Good Heart.
They laughed, and she laughed as well, musical and bright, joyfully reflecting the delight of the others back upon them, glittering like a mirror of gold. For nothing amused his Blída, sweet of sweets, like giving amusement to others, and nothing made her joyful like seeing others' joy.
Bóurr could not help but smile, too, at the happiness of his shining daughter, dancing in the midst of them with her flying tresses like dark garnet a-glisten. At the workshop some would say he babied her, spoiled her — but if the result of spoilage was before him now, a creature all innocent happiness and gentleness and warmth, then he could not be but proud of his part in it. If anything, he would call her unspoiled, unfaded by the unkind sun — a child of the mountain as she ought to be, cradled by stone and gold and crystal alone, sheltered safe and sound.
Nineteen she was, as she'd written; twenty he'd been, he remembered, in his last year beneath this very same mountain, the year before it burned. There were no more unspoiled children then.
In the midst of his family's mirth, he found himself passing his hand over his eyes.
He hoped no one had seen it. Whether his wife had and so spoke up for his benefit or (as he hoped) had not noticed through her laughter, Hróda called out next, in a humorous tone: "Such a short list! I am shocked that a child of mine would demand so little of her suitor!"
"Aye," he chuckled after clearing his throat. "A child of Bóurr satisfied with such modest qualifications! Preposterous."
Blída turned to her parents, giggling, and lifted her hand above her composition as if holding a long quill-pen. "Well, you must tell me what to add!"
"It is obvious," Hróda laughed again. "Where have you written 'he must be rich'!"
Without any hesitation, Blída, too, laughed, and answered, "I do not care if he is rich."
Another great round of merriment came from that, Seimurr and Maurr and Blovurr laughing, too. "Shocking!" exclaimed Hróda, once she was able. "You care not if he is rich!"
Again Blída giggled in that light and musical way, though before answering her voice and aspect turned soft and earnest. "I do not care about wealth," she declared with complete confidence, in her peculiar and adorably stilted wise, "for wealth enough is in the Mountain as a whole, and if my people proper and my friends are full of joy, then I have riches enough."
Hróda raised her eyebrows high and snickered at her little daughter's philosophizing. "That's a very pretty sentiment, but can you eat it?"
Lightening again, Blída laughed, "But we will never have too little to eat, 'Amad, because I will bring gold enough on my own!"
"True, that’s true," Hróda conceded with a smiling shake of her head. "But while you may not care about his wealth, little Blída, I shall. He must pay the acquirement, at least!"
"Aye," chuckled Bóurr again, "I’d have a modest son-in-law o’er one who loves gold more than my daughter, but the acquirement he must pay. To do otherwise would disrespect you and the value of your labor, and never could you ask me to abide that."
"No, Dadê," little Blída answered, sweet and attentive eyes fixed on his.
"You shouldn’t let her speak such garbled Khuzdul," opined Blovurr from his seat across the room.
"Oh, hush," laughed Bóurr.
"Well," said Hróda, leaning in with a grin, "perhaps our Blída’s suitor needn’t be rich. But many qualifications are yet missing!"
"Hm!" Now Maurr interjected, tone humorous. "You've not a line about his axe-arm in there, Blída."
"He needn’t be a warrior," the little sister answered softly. "I do not care about that."
"Hm!" came Bóurr now. "But what Dwarf is ready for marriage if he’s not slain his hundredth goblin?"
Blída shivered at that, but after a moment answered again in her calm and light voice, "A Dwarf can be great without slaying anyone. A good crafter, a good husband — he can be a warrior, but he must love peace."
Bóurr softened. "A Dwarf of peace," he murmured. "Aye, I will accept that."
And Hróda also softened, looking across at her husband in his wheel-chair. "Aye, I will accept that too."
Seimurr smiled at them both in his wry way before piping up to ask, "What else is the list missing, then?"
"Hm, what else is it missing! His bloodline? Mustn't he come from a good family?"
"'Tis he who must be good, not his breeding," rejoined not Blída but Bóurr on her behalf; his daughter smiled and nodded thrice. "But very good he must be indeed! To be merely kind is not enough."
"To be kind is most important," was his daughter's thought.
"Perhaps," chuckled Bóurr, "but not sufficient. His kindness must be just to be truly kind. Now, what else!"
"He must listen well to others," was Blída's suggestion.
"He must have refined manners," Hróda's addition.
"He should read and write several scripts," Blovurr's.
"His fashion sense must be impeccable," Seimurr's, less serious.
"And his muscles must be enormous!" Maurr's, even less serious.
"Mhmm," laughed Bóurr, "and his beard must scrape the floor — and then some!"
"Of course," continued Hróda, after they'd all had a good giggle. "And what color must that beard be, hm?"
"Black!" exclaimed Blída without the slightest hesitation, sending up a chorus of Oooh, black all around the room.
"Might be hard to get a lad with all those qualifications, if the rabble I've to deal with in the market's any indication," said Blovurr humorously.
"Nonsense!" boomed Bóurr. "No trouble at all shall it be for Blída, daughter of Bóurr! Unless there lives in these days no Dwarf who meets them all — in which case she shall have none, if she pleases not to settle for a lad whose beard comes merely to his knee!"
Blída laughed with the rest of them, though her expression at the end of it had gone a bit sober and quiet. "But I shall certainly marry," she said.
"Oh?"
She smiled, but with a heaviness sudden and hollow. "Because there are not many dwarrowdams," she murmured, with an air of stoic recitation, "and I must bear children, to increase the numbers of the Longbeards."
No one laughed at that. The older boys looked at each other; Seimurr looked down. Hróda's fine brows knitted and she licked her lips to say something, but she was not as quick as Bóurr who exclaimed, dismayed, "No, child. You 'must' do no such thing."
She shook her head with its beautiful dark waves, saying again in that tone that broke his heart, "Mahal gave this body to me and not another, so it is my duty to use it for our people's sake."
He heard himself sigh sharply, felt himself shake his own head. "Oh, child," and he extended one hand towards her, patting what remained of his lap with his other. She came over with very little hesitation to perch on the edge of his seat — a privilege only for his wife and children, and the boys by now all fancied themselves too old to make use of it. "Oh, don't ever think that, my dear.
"Your body is your own, my daughter, to do with and govern as you see fit. That is Mahal's will — that we respect that right as sacred and absolute. Find your black-bearded suitor, wed him, and have just as many children as you please — but if you find him not, do not allow any other to compel you against your inclination, be he king, lord, or the entire mountain. Never martyr yourself for duty, my sweet little girl. Live virtuous, honest, and proud, and as exactly who you were meant to be, whoever and however that is; that is how you do right by the mountain, the Longbeards, and our Maker."
"Aye, Dadê," she said, and threw her tender arms around his neck; he chuckled and spent a short while combing his fingers through her soft curls. But soon she was in good spirits again, hopping down to stand in the center of the seated circle and talk animatedly, provoking great laughs from her mother and brothers.
With great fondness, Bóurr watched.
Just nineteen, his daughter was, but growing faster than her already-ancient father might like to admit. For now the selection of a husband was but a matter for jest, but soon enough she'd be twenty, then thirty, then forty, then sixty, and then — perhaps, like the beautiful mother she was beginning more and more to resemble, five-and-eighty, a fresh young master crafter, and a new bride. He felt a pang of sentiment, considering it.
He felt a further pang as he watched her chattering away, spreading her arms wide and laughing. For in studying her for those resemblances to his Hróda, he noticed certain others. He had observed to Hróda before that, of their children, Blovurr resembled himself most in face, Seimurr the both of his parents equally, and Maurr was strikingly like Hróda's own father, Hár. And Blída, of course, was growing up to look like her mother, a dark-haired beauty, small and elegant, a hint of Broadbeam in with the noble Longbeard mien. But — especially as she grew older — there was another resemblance that stood out, in the way that she laughed and spoke, the way she wept tenderly at moving stories, the way she labored hard to give comfort and joy to all who sat around.
It was a resemblance he alone could recognize, for none of the others gathered in these warm halls had known him; not even Hróda was born before Azanulbizar. It was Bóurr alone who felt that Dwarf's absence in this circle — and Bóurr alone who saw him in his young daughter's manner, heard him in the musical tinkle of her laugh. And that sweetened the pang, and it sharpened it, too.
Bíld would not see her married; Bóurr wondered if he himself would.
