Chapter Text
On the morning of the twenty-sixth of February in the year ninety-one of the Fourth Age, Dwalin, Son of Fundin, died.
It was a peaceful death. One said to not particularly befit a decorated warrior of his standing, although all within Middle Earth who had heard his tale supposed it was the only feasible way a dwarf of three hundred and forty would pass. He was too old to fight; brought to frailty by the toll of years. His funeral was well attended, although despite his name being the stuff of legend, none of those present could claim to have known him.
His death was as much a surprise as it was predictable. Some of the younger denizens of Ered Luin and Erebor had simply thought him unkillable. A dragon and several wars could not rip him from the land, so what chance did time itself have of catching up to the oldest dwarf to ever live?
Those with more years to their names quickly quieted these murmurs. Those who knew the weight of attaining such an age. There was a reason barely any living dwarves were closely acquainted with him, after all.
For Dwalin himself, death had not been a surprise. He had felt it coming for some years; a gnawing within his bones that only grew hungrier as time passed. A longing. A guilt. Something unavoidable that he welcomed openly.
On the night of the twenty-fifth of February in the year ninety-one of the Fourth Age, Dwalin, Son of Fundin, closed his eyes, knowing it was finally time.
At some point in the next indeterminable interval, he started to grow a tad impatient.
It was one thing being dead, but surely death did not mean an eternity of hanging in nothingness, aware of his every thought and totally alone? Irritatingly enough, that is where he found himself… although perhaps totally alone was not the correct description for what Dwalin saw when he opened his eyes.
A void was a good word for it. An expanse of blackness; infinite and everlasting to the point that he himself was not certain to exist within the searing gaze of the dark. If it weren’t for the visibility of his own flesh, he would have thought himself disembodied completely.
But as for the reason he was not alone… well, that was somehow stranger than his presence here in the first place. The void was bisected by a waterfall, falling from nothing into nothing, and just behind the shimmering laminar flow lay another dwarf. And again, this assessment was not quite right either, because the face that loomed from the water was his own.
This was a dream. Some barely lucid imagining of his dying mind, conjuring nonsensical images as it faded into nothingness. A final flash before the curtain descended for good. Dwalin’s own body – the one he was currently inhabiting… although perhaps not, given the circumstances – had not tensed once since catching sight of the image, for it was too ludicrous to be real.
Regardless, that did not mean it wasn’t odd to see himself like this. A mirror’s reflection could only show a single plane of the face that peered in, but the elderly visage locked behind the water was strangely dimensional. As if he were a separate person rather than a return of light; his own image bouncing off the water in a glistening pretence.
And that was why when the dwarf before him opened his eyes, Dwalin wasn’t in the least bit surprised.
“Hello,” his reflection breathed. It sounded strange to hear himself speak like that; breathy and quiet, the rumble of his own voice all but replaced by genteel smoothness. “Or should I say at your service?”
Dwalin shrugged. “Either. Suppose this means I’m dead – or dyin’.”
The figure mirrored his motion, shoulders rising and falling slightly as he smiled. “An astute observation. You are dead, yes.”
“Not too astute. I’m havin’ a conversation with myself, and that means either I’ve finally corked it, or I’ve lost my mind.”
A laugh; quiet and low. “The first, I assure you.”
“That’s just what a figment of my mad imaginings would say.” His nose wrinkled. “Was pretty sure I’d find myself in the halls about now.”
“Not yet. I wished for a chat first.”
“And… who are you?”
His face was serene behind the water. “A part of you. The rest is for you to guess.”
Dwalin huffed. “Never was one for riddles, but I suppose I’ll indulge you. What do you want to talk about, anyway?”
“You had a good life,” his reflection said softly, the words sounding odd and flat.
Had he? It had been a long life, but endurance did not equate greatness and Dwalin had many regrets.
He thought about it for a minute.
“No,” he eventually managed. “No, I don’t think I did.”
His reflection frowned. Dwalin couldn’t hold back the tiny snort as a crease at the corner of his eye folded over. He’d often been reminded of his many tells that indicated disapproval, but it was the first time he’d laid eyes on such a blatant echo of such.
“But… it was a happy one.”
Dwalin didn’t need time to think that one through.
“No. It wasn’t. I lost so much.”
“What did you lose?”
Balin. Ori. So many of his friends and companions, lives cut short years before their time should have run out. And Dwalin had weathered it all. He’d grown old in grief; publicly celebrating passings before breaking down behind closed doors.
Few would mourn Dwalin’s own departure from the world. Few were left who truly knew him, as closeness only led to more endless pain.
The last person he’d willingly let in was Nori. Well, perhaps willingly was a tiny stretch. Nori did that to people. Had done that.
One hundred years of stupidity. Of denial. And that long-sought happiness gone far too soon.
Guilt.
There was really only one answer to the figure’s question.
“Everything.”
“Most have regrets,” the him in the water said softly. “Most are angry.”
“I’m not angry. Just sad.”
“And yet your sadness is not for your own demise.”
“No.”
His reflection sighed. “Dwarves. So much trouble. So much misplaced emotion. You are just like your father, you know. He was full of sorrow too.”
Dwalin chuckled, although why the situation was humorous suspiciously evaded him. “Aye. Sounds like him.”
“His father was too. And his father. And a certain throneless king I believe you knew rather well once. His nephews too.”
A face that blurred at the edges. Three of them; softened by age – not their own, for the trio had not grown grey and tired as Dwalin had. Mere additions to the gallery of loss that stretched out before his feet; never ending and wretched.
“And I’d still weep for ‘em a second time around. Scratch that, if I could do it all again – chuck sense out the window and start from the top – I would. I’d make it so they had no cause to die senseless deaths, so that those they left behind wouldn’t shed a single tear.”
His reflection hummed softly. “How curious. You have more loyalty than most.”
Dwalin snorted. “Hardly counts as loyalty anymore, if I’m honest. I’ve spent too long tellin’ myself that the best way to honour their memories is to go on, but now I’ve arrived at my destination, I’m not too impressed.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“This!” Brandishing an arm savagely, Dwalin waved at the great emptiness surrounding them. “This is it! A conversation with myself fabricated by my dyin’ brain. Some pathetic bit of my mind tryin’ to tell me that it was all worth it, but personally I don’t think it was.”
“Why not? You have died and your life did not have some greater purpose. The bonds you forged, the experience itself… there was never anything more to make worth of.”
Dwalin’s lip curled up in annoyance. “And you don’t understand what I meant. I don’t give a rat’s arse about higher purposes and the like; my ‘experience’, as you put it, was to stand by and watch as others died, and all I got in exchange was misery. Not even useable misery. I was a decorated hero, but for all I fought, I couldn’t save anyone that mattered to me.”
Silence. Immovable, unbreakable silence that seemed to stretch on and on forever; a lack of everything that covered the conversation in a thick blanket of sorrow.
But it was shattered by a soft laugh.
“Selfishness,” his reflection chuckled, swiping away an imaginary tear. “A trait you were not made with.”
Dwalin shrugged. “Picked that one up from someone who meant a lot to me.”
“Indeed. Few are able to state their deepest desires as such, Dwalin, Son of Fundin, and I did not expect you to be capable of such true honesty.”
“Lyin’ was never my thing.”
“I do refute that claim. You lied to yourself for far too long.”
Dwalin couldn’t help the soft smile that dragged itself over his face. “Aye. You got me there.”
“Regardless, this conversation has been… most interesting.” His reflection’s brow relaxed. “And I have come to a decision I did not anticipate. One that shall undoubtedly cause some workplace tension, although I will be forgiven. In time, of course. When the others realise just how amusing such a venture could be.”
Dwalin stared forward blankly. “Aye… I’m not going to pretend I understood any of that.”
The other him simply waved a hand vaguely. “You do not need to. I am sure the reality of what this meeting truly was will find you in due course, but for now…”
Suddenly, the wall of water before him shifted in a great whoosh. His reflection was obscured fully as the liquid rippled and thrashed, but before Dwalin could fully process it, the waves calmed and sunk back into glassy nothingness.
And then he could only really stare.
The face before him had changed. It had softened; scars vanishing back into flesh (all but the savage line that crossed his eye), those deep hollows in the cheeks padding themselves out – the very fragility that had haunted the form morphing and twisting into something as strange as it was familiar.
“Then let us try again,” the young Dwalin, Son of Fundin proclaimed with a wide smile. The kind that creased the bridge of his nose; more sneer than grin, although the joy was as plain as the verdant hedgerow and soft, green fields that had materialised behind him.
“Let us start from the beginning.”