Chapter Text
- One more round! – A hoarse voice screamed
- No way, lads! I’m going home now!
The dwarves started murmuring, dissapointed. The air was warm on the tavern, and smelled like ale and bacon. A piece of meat was being roasted by a waiter. The wooden furniture was crude, in contrast with the elaborated metallic glasses, cutlerly and pots, made by the hands of the dwarves that went to the tavern every night.
- I had to go home several ales ago! – exclaimed one of the dwarves. He hardly stood up and dropped some copper coins over the table. Then he said goodbye to his friends, who were trying to convince him to stay a little longer. At least, the dwarf reached the door and went out, where the winter cold slapped his face.
“I think that I need this temperature change” though the dark-haired dwarf, called Bofur. “I’ll have a walk and then I will home and sleep, I don’t want to go to bed this drunk”. He adjusted his multicolored scarf and started walking to the forest, on the outskirts of the town. Bofur was a humble and hard-worker dwarf, a miner, who lived with his brother Bombur and his cousin Bifur. Long time ago, Bifur was wounded by an orc, and now he lived the best he can with an orc axe on his head.
Bofur walked between the houses furthest away from the tavern and, without knowing why, he got into the pine wood that was around the town. His hands and nose was reddened by the cold air, but his mind was clearer and now he wanted to go home and stay warm under his bedspread.
Suddenly, a strange figure, moving slowly between the trees, gets his attention. He though he was dreaming, or maybe very drunk, but he watched carefully and moved closer to the shadow. He realized that it was a woman dressed in green and gray, a human lady that hardly walked on the undergrowth. The woman meets Bofur’s eyes and fell into the snow. The dwarf run for the aid of the girl while a scream broke the silence of the night: A crying baby, almost a newborn, who was wrapped on a blanket on her mother’s arms.
It was too late to save the young woman: While her baby was crying, she had passed away. Maybe because she found another living being to take care of the newborn was enough to her tired heart to stop beating. Bofur felt like the alcohol had stopped running on his veins, just like if somebody had punched him on the face. He hold the baby and run away into the town with the little girl wrapped on his own scarf.
- Bombur! Wake up, you lazy! – He screamed on the doorstep of his own house – Take care of this, I have to go!
Suddenly, the fat red-haired Bombur had a small girl on his arms, wrapped on a red blanket and his brother’s scarf. Bofur picked up two shovels and run into the tavern searching for his friend Nori, who was delighted to have a pretext to go away without paying his drinks. Both dwarves went to the forest and spent all the night digging a grave for the dead lady.
The finished the tomb at dawn.
Some friends and neighbors started searching the baby’s family on the surrounding area, but they didn’t find anything. Not a horse, not a nomad settlement, nothing to know why the dead lady was alone with her baby on the forest. And nobody asked for her on the nearest villages.
Bofur, exhausted, arrived home when the town bubbled with vitality. He could smell the baken bread and saw the snow glittering with the sun. He gets into his house to find his brother cooking the breakfast and the baby sleeping on a wooden box near the fire. Bofur sat at the table and let his brother to serve him some bread, cheese and soup. Bombur sat down with a questioning look.
- Would you be so kind to explain me why we have a baby on a wooden fruit box? – Bombur asked. His brother sighed.
- Last night I went to the forest to clear up my mind… I saw a woman with this baby on her arms… She died before my eyes, and Nori and I spent all the night burying her in the same place that I found her. Have you gave her something to eat?
- Only a bit of warm milk. I don’t know what else she can eat. Bifur went to the mine early, but he spent all the night watching the baby, keeping vigil while she slept. What are you going to do with her?
- I don’t know, brother. I feel responsible of her. I have to work, I’ll think about it. Can you take care of the girl today, please?