how big, how blue, how beautiful.

you taught me the COURAGE OF STARS. how light carries on ENDLESSLY even after death. with shortness of breath you explained the INFINITE-- HOW RARE AND BEAUTIFUL IT IS TO EVEN EXIST. ind & private frerin and dis of the line of durin. semi active.

[swayer-of-dale]

THORIN OAKENSHIELD THE HOBBIT -THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES-

Random Gif Edit- 21/?

[limitlessplaylist]

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every time we open up our eyes. I guess space, and time, takes violent things, angry things and makes them kind….

[iduzbadarchive]

     Thick walls of stone around him ECHO the peal of thunder, the pelt of rain upon rock drowning out the quiet cracking of the FIRE in the hearth, slowly burning down to a crisp, while furs and QUILTS keep a young prince warm. Still to an older brother no sound could be louder than the voice of his SISTER, and Thorin glimpses at the wooden door standing slightly ajar.

                 ❝What’s wrong, mesmel?❞

        The young rings heavy with sleep, and still he merely lifts the heavy blankets for her to SLIP under; find refuge from thunder and lightning.

[durinsblue-blog]

“Just the storm,” she mumbles with a shrug, clambering up into her brother’s bed. She brings her knees up to her chest and nestles her face against her brother’s, clinging at his night gown with all her might. A part of her, so small, is ashamed of this display, of needing and wanting comfort even if she’s already started to grow her first whiskers. Another part of her, this one greater and louder, doesn’t care: the storm is loud and she is scared, and their parents’ room is too far to reach in the encroaching darkness: if one has to find refuge, one must find it quick.

“Can you sing? Please? It keeps the sounds at bay.”

[fripperiesandfobs]

Collar, late 19th-early 20th century

From Whitaker Auctions

[durinsblue-blog]

@iduzbad | so you said you wanted non-angsty interactions.

She’s the first to peek in of the two. Outside, the world crashes and burns in an inferno of water and clouds, a storm rushing down over the mountain in deep, dark waves of thunder and lightning. The mountain may keep them secure, but there’s so much she can do against a little girl’s fears.

“Thorin?” she asks, all quiet and small, “Thorin, can I come in?”

[fundinson]

“Understand what? Oi, yer bein’ unjust, lassie!” He shouts after her, fists clenching as he has to remind himself that she’s a child, she’s a lost child, she’s his prince’s sister and a king-daughter and, above all, motherless. He thinks of his own ammad then, and how blessed he is to have two. 

(Two who survived, two who live.) 

If only mothers could be shared as easily as a woollen cloak on a rainy winter’s day. 

[durinsblue-blog]

She leaves Dwalin’s shouting behind her, hoping for it to sink into the slush and the half-melted snow, down, down, down into the bowels of the Earth where the cold cannot find them. This is how it is to be a child thrust into the world without an ounce of a tool, this is how it is to live without knowing how to: you grow and all your bones are misshapen, you grow and you don’t know into what direction to bloom, and no one knows how to fix it, no one knows what to say or to do-- everything is always wrong, all wrong, from the tips of her fingers to every thought in her head. 

Which is why she doesn’t see Balin, even though she runs head-first into him. Or rather: her father’s advisor catches her by the waist, his voice a low gruff laugh. He had seen her come from afar, her face a puffy mess of tears, and had put on his kindest of smiles the moment she’d caught up with him.

“Now, where’re you running off to, lass?”

It catches Dis by surprise. She stares at the older dwarf, now almost embarrassingly aware of her own tears, and swallows.

“Just-- away.”

The answer is a surprisingly truthful one. Balin furrows his eyebrows.

“Away? And where to?”

She shrugs. She doesn’t know. Away. Away. Isn’t that enough of an answer?

[iduzbadarchive]

       Fire is ABLAZE in Thorin’s heart; his very soul burning with a fierce anger, and passion powerful enough to move mountains. This is a homesick child spitting VENOM, an older brother losing his footing, fearing he is failing – a KING feeling disrespected. The whispering, fearful ambassdor couldn’t possibly know what the loud, roaring king knows. It is not weight Frerin needs to bear, no PRESSURE he feels on his chest, no shadow hunting his dreams, whispering lies, telling him he’s not GOOD enough. Thorin the Second, Oakenshield. Son of the king that disappeared, son of the king that went mad. No, he could not afford to still seek FOUNDATIONS where none are left. The days Thorin had last been able to hide behind his mother’s skirts, cling to a memory, and WEEP for the past are long gone, replaced by a bitter truth: he now is he heart and soul of this mountain.

       And another THUNDERING roar rises in his chest, teeth grit, fists clenched; a voice slowly climbing up his throat, ready to scream YES! Yes, I am better than Thrór, better than Father. I will do what they could not! I will succeed! How he wishes to grab his brother by the collar, shake off the BLINDNESS not laying on his eyes but his mind, that painful head of his always clinging to the whispering of the ROCKS, and the humming of the wind, and the useless desire for times dead and lost. One of them at least, a mean, HORRIBLE voice in the back of his mind murmurs, has to look ahead.

      Yet it is his SISTER’S voice that suffocates any word threatening to slip from his throat, blue eyes going wide for a second. And a not quite UNFAMILIAR desire to sock Frerin right on the jaw is successfully stifled.

              ❝Don’t fret. We’re quite done yelling–❞

        Though spoken to Dís, he all but hisses the words at his brother, each one dripping with FURY, with disappointment, a silent promise that the fire in his heart still is ablaze and would not expire until Thorin’s DYING day. And it is no king that struts past the younger one, shoulder clearly, almost painfully crashing into Frerin’s. No, this is the older brother, BITTER about the disapproval of one he loves so dearly. It is a small barrel of ale he is aiming for now, the king in dire NEED of a drink to face whatever is to come. For naturally his sister does not know.

        ❝—ask him though, nan’ith. Ask him why he so stubbornly OPPOSES the prosperity of our kin. Maybe you can make sense of it, because I am also done trying.❞

[durinsblue-blog]

He laughs when his brother’s shoulder finds his, laughs when the shock travels up his neck, into his head, his nerve endings whispering to him, telling him, telling him, telling him what is happening in the world around him, the Stone in his spine edging them on, translating sensations into a language of colours that dance on his tongue, in flavours that teeter between physical sensation and taste, a body always learning how to translate signals in new ways and with other tools than the ones he was born with-- but he’s lived without his eyes for so long sometimes he hardly remembers how it was to see. Nor does he care to remember: he’s grown past resenting the ways life has changed his body. He celebrates it, now. He welcomes it, this connection to the Stone he’s honed over the years, made his in ways no other dwarf ever could, nor ever will: after all, her song is different depending on who listens. His has chosen this melody, out of hundreds. He is at peace with it.

There are other matters right now, however, with which he is much less at peace.

“I did not think you still able of childish pettiness, brother, but I figure I was wrong,” he calls behind him, follows the trail of Thorin’s footsteps like thread to hold onto during the conversation, a direction in which to hiss his words, “First your shove me, then you drag her into the middle of a conversation she’d be better off not ha--”

“Stop talking as if I were not in the room, Frerin. I am quite capable of holding my own conversations.”

She hardly ever snaps at her brothers, and if she’s snapping, it’s definitely not at Frerin. Frerin does no harm, Frerin knows how to exist around her in ways that do not annoy or irritate or aggravate her, Frerin knows her limits like the earth knows the tides of the sea. So when she does, it is because the world has slipped briefly out of her grasp, and she knows it is up to herself to set it back upon its hinges, slot it back into place, make sure the music of their lives keeps playing. A girl learned this long ago, as an exile with the cold beating its steady pain instead of her heart pumping blood, and a woman has made it her treasure and her motto. 

Frerin stops speaking and shuts his mouth, swallows his words down into the bottom of his smouldering belly. His sister does not move from where she’s standing behind him, instead looks past his shoulder to her older brother. Their eyes, the same shade of crackling blue, meet. She clenches her jaw slightly and narrows her eyes, and it is the only disapproval she will show Thorin regarding the fact he has just shoved his shoulder into Frerin’s-- that is, of course, until Frerin is out of earshot. 

That gaze means: you know he doesn’t like it if he is touched without permission.

Instead she says: “What are you talking about, Thorin? What should Frerin be asking me?”

[durinsblue-blog]

lift with your knees, atlas, the heavens are a burden but in the starlit ink of constellations you have written: endure.

indie / private / semi-active frerin and dis of durin’s folk.

previously blindmartyr. read rules before interacting.

[iduzbadarchive]

                ❝MOTHER died, nothing else!❞

       It falls from his lips before he can think about it, a sudden ANGER boiling in his chest. Born from the same stone and blood they may be, yet often the brothers could not be more DIFFERENT. The nuances of fear had always evaded Thorin; a boy raised with a SWORD in his hand and a crown atop his head, fear had never been his teacher. He lacks the subtle finesse it could grant, is blind to the POWER it holds, and deaf to it’s warning and reason. Thorin is RAGE. He is the black and white, the live or die, BOLD, obvious, daring, loud.

       And it is rage that allows him to move on, FEW, silent moments of loneliness occasionally pulling him back to the days when he had been a boy, craving nothing but his mother’s EMBRACE. Moments, he had learned from grandfather and father alike, that were naught but USELESS – for no matter how hard he had prayed and mourned, their mother had not come back to them. Nor would she, ever. A life lived for the DEAD is wasted. So why not live for something else—

       ❝These halls are no home. They are nothing but cheap SOLACE, no more, no less. My people deserve better, they deserve a home WORTHY of them. A home that is respected in the world, not pushed to the very EDGE of it’s map!❞

        With the rage filling every fibre of his being undoubtedly comes PRIDE. The very same pride that had lead to six years of battle, to LOSSES nobody could ever replace – the same pride that had lured a DRAGON to a mountain, and that Thorin had been blessed with by Durin’s will alone.

       ❝I will not be FORGOTTEN, here in these makeshift caves that are nothing but yet another exile! And neither will my people! Be afraid if you like, brother, but I will take BACK what is rightfully ours!❞

[durinsblue-blog]

The sound of the scream begins somewhere to his left, like a droplet of water hitting the surface of the pool, its song rounded and delicate. Only it doesn’t stop there, and why should it? Why should it stop? When there is no stone to keep it, the wave hits his chest, his mind, the rattle of his brain inside his skull as Thorin’s voice crests and then explodes like flame that engulfs, that burns, that breaks and turns to ash in the blink of an eye. Flame he knows all too well. Flame he has learned to take as a blessing.

His brother roars, and Frerin flinches without even noticing it, only today is a good day, and the flinch becomes the movement his body makes as he turns to face Thorin fully, warrior to warrior, brother to brother, ambassador to king.

Mother died.

Nothing else. 

Nothing else. As if she hadn’t been their foundation, their hope, the stone beneath their feet. As if she hadn’t been the heart and the soul of the Mountain herself, as if the earth hadn’t wept when her blood had soaked it, burnt to a cinder in the breath of a moment. And he hears his brother’s voice, Thorin Oakenshield, of the Line of Durin, son of Thrain, rightful king of Erebor, and hears him crack under the weight of a million souls they will never be able to bring back, the heart of a people that’s lost and has lived and has loved and has fought and fought and fought. Under the weight of a crown that he never had to bear. Under the weight of a world that’s theirs, scars and nightmares and all: they the people whose kingdom was taken by a dragon, they the people who fought against the Pale Orc on the stones of Khazad-Dûm, they the people whose homeland was ripped from them the way a butcher would tear a tooth.

Still what he hears lining the broken pieces of the pottery that is his brother’s words is pride, and pride so large and wide it makes his skin prickle, makes his tongue curl. Frerin clenches his fists and his jaw. 

“We have, ALL WE NEED! We have food, and shelter, and a title, if that is what matters to you, we have hope and a home. The Blue Mountains are enough! Dying isn’t worth it-- and you are smarter than-- than this, smarter than being cowed to your doom by a pile of gold, you are not Thror! You are better than Thror, better than Father, I know it!”

A pause where he gives his voice time to become low again, where he feels his shoulders break again,  “I know you. You may be prideful, and stubborn and ox-headed, but you are not a fool, Thorin--”

“Whatever you may be yelling about, if you do it any louder I am almost certain even the guards outside will know about it.”

He hears her voice come from behind him, where he knows a doorway is, and her voice drains whatever last rage he found in his words, and her voice only brings it back to burn stronger. But he is done screaming: screaming is for generals and kings. Strategists and ambassadors? They whisper, voices low enough to rustle like paper. 

Frerin sighs. He does not address her, not just yet, instead keeps facing his brother, and the bitterness he slathers his brief bark of laughter with is enough to shake bones back to life.

“Smith unmake me, I hope you told her. I hope this isn’t the way she finds out.”

[durinsblue-blog]

@brownowll | from here.

She looks at him, bright eyes, bright soul, this creature that was built from the stone and the blood of her bones. He has his father’s eyes-- he always had and always will. 

She brushes a lock of hair behind his ear and cups his cheek. When she smiles, it is drenched in love.

“It is a simple archery competition, and you have trained hard. You will do beautifully.”

[durinsblue-blog]

@barnowll | from here.

All of his scorn, all of his bitterness and anger and despair, all of it, the sweetest dredges of it, he has already gifted to Thorin. Spat out, snarled out, thrown at him like a spear, begged and embittered and refused.

(The quest will fail, and you will die, and they will die, just like Father, and you will leave their mother suffering with a pain she does not deserve, and it. Will. Have. Been. For. Nothing.)

But all of this belongs to Frerin and Thorin, all of this is not something Fili or Kili should ever see, all of this is theirs, their pain, their anguish and their wounds to heal.

So he smiles towards the boy’s voice (always always boys in his mind) and sighs. He does not want this quest (on the brink of beginning) to mark every one of their interactions, but fear has a way of lacing words and turning thoughts, and his voice is quiet, quiet, quiet. 

“Your mother says the caravan would not have survived, if you had not been there to help. I would hardly call a skirmish war.”

Mahal knows how many more are in this boy’s path. He wishes there were none.

[joeyspadafore]

Resolute Mountain. Alberta, Canada. 

[zhugeliangs]

Sunrise, as you enter the houses of everyone here, find us. We’ve been crashing for days, or has it been years. Find us, beneath the shadow of this yearning mountain,      crying here. Our spirits rise up in the dark, because they hear, Doves in cottonwoods calling forth the sun.

Joy Harjo, from “Sunrise”, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (via zhugeliangs)

[odafirecrownarchives-blog]

@durinsblue liked for a starter

“I’ve got a set’a jewelry that’d match that cloak perfectly.”

[durinsblue-blog]

She’s startled, snapped away from her thoughts, looks up from the locket she is holding. The metal in her hand, its weight as familiar as when it rests around her neck, slips and clatters to the floor. 

“My apologies,” she blurts out, bends down to retrieve it. When she stands back up, she is trying to smile, “It’s always such a rarity to see a dwarf frequent a tavern of men.”

She didn’t think coming home would make her hands shake this hard-- but the closer she gets to Erebor, the harder her heart seems to beat.

“Jewellery, you said?”

[sky-sparkling-with-diamonds]

{x}

[iduzbadarchive]

               ❝Crawl?❞

        Thorin undoubtedly feels the sudden BLOW to his euphoria; resentment he had not expected despite a lifetime of his brother’s doubts and worries guarding every step they had ever made. A blow so strong it stuns him into utter silence for a moment, blue eyes fixed on Frerin’s STOIC face, and Thorin briefly searches for signs of a jest; something, anything, that would explain away such an unexpected, such an IGNORANT reply. Ever since they had been forced from their home, the one now crowned king had dreamt of nothing but going back – and if anyone, it is his BROTHER who should know and understand.

        ❝To finish what our father has started, I will greet that very same history with open arms. It was his dream, it is mine, and I will do whatever it takes to see it fulfilled.❝

       A part of him may have forgotten the sudden bouts of UNREST that had befallen Thráin a few months prior to his departure. The nagging need his father had felt to go out and once more fight for what he knew belonged to him. A restless URGE that now has befallen Thorin as well; pulling at every fibre on his being, leaving him sleepless at night, filling his head with ideas and images of greatness and GLORY — a yearning of a child to honour his father’s image.

        Arms folded before the broad chest, he resists the urge to pace; a habit ingrained for he doesn’t wish to burden his brother with the ever moving ECHO of his voice to focus on.

         ❝You cannot tell me you do not wish to go home as well—❝

                    :: @durinsblue (x).

[durinsblue-blog]

It is not rage he feels. No-- rage makes things easy, makes things understandable, makes things the way they should. Rage is clear-cut, undeniable, rage is as rage does, red and burning and white and terrible, terrible, terrible. Rage burns for a moment and then extinguishes itself, annihilates itself in the silence of the moments after a scream. Rage is easy to contain and easy to counter.

Fear, however, has a million shades and none of them taste as satisfying as rage. Fear is low, and dull, and ever-present, fear like a sister, fear like a lover, fear like the bones of a mother. Fear has their father’s hands, calloused and weightless, fear has their grandfather’s voice, fear has the colour of fire that kisses him and changes every weight on his shoulders, every dent in his memories.

What happens, then, when fear and rage meet?

What happens when the flame finds the stone?

This desperate amalgam, like a coating of ink on his fingers, this thing that isn’t as simple as rage nor as pervasive as fear, this weight on his chest he doesn’t know how to name, beast with two heads and far too many teeth, seeping creature that leaks from his heart into his bones, into his skin, into his words and shaking hands. He does not want his brother to go. He does not want him to follow a lead grown cold, a trail gone barren only in the name of glory. And for what?

For what miserable hope there may be left in a mountain that’s nothing but ghosts? To vanquish the skeletons they’re all carrying like weights around their necks? In the name of a kingdom that’s been burnt to a cinder?

The ashes, votive pantomime of deaths he feels he carries on the tip of each of his fingers, those he smears on his forehead each night as he prays, because if he didn’t tell himself Erebor was lost, he’d have gone mad many, many years before. 

“Home? Home? Home died--”

And there it stops, in his throat kept most secret. There it stops, whatever he was about to say, because in his mother’s hands he’s found the name of death and ghost the sweetest to pronounce. In his mother’s name he’s found that memory can be as poisonous as a well-assessed blow to the hip. It can kill. It has killed. 

After all Frerin is, like his brother and sister, merely the rearrangement of a body around the absence of a mother. 

“Home died in Erebor for me when mother did. Our place is here, now. Your place is here. Your nephews are here, your sister is here-- your people. Your people are here.”

[st-pam]