The Halfbreed

She stared at herself in the mirror and sighed, why was she even bothering to do her hair? Her father never let her outside of the palace walls let alone try to attract the opposite sex. Although when you’re the shame of your family, and race what male was there to attract, all the elves looked at her with open disdain and disgust, sometimes vague curiosity. As if she hadn’t lived with them for roughly a hundred years, because elves are immortal but humans are not much.
Cause she was half of both and as she was informed her ‘condition’ would last another couple hundred or so, she missed her mother very dearly for Devna, her mother, would always take her to a new land when people would stare for too long; she would always make sure her daughter was happy; and back then she had many a suitor approach her. But she didn’t want to settle, for she had never felt any real connections, and the fear they may find out. And the look in their eyes when they do, which she saw plenty of now. Which was one reason why she had tried to escape this terrible place, but when her father had caught her he had almost chopped her head off. If she hadn’t begged and told him what a crime patricide is for an elf, which seemed to gain his attention.
“My lady,” her maid said. She was a nice women and she never gawked or stared, sometimes Mirra would treat her like she was all elven, not a despicable half breed and she thanked her for it, her for her ability to put up with her shame.
“Yes, Mirra. What is it?” she asked turning away from the mirror.
Mirra looked at the dress she had picked out, and then faced her, “Your father is expecting you soon, but now he needs you to sit in the throne room. We have prisoners, and he would wish you to sit with him and your brother Legolas.” Thranduil always wanted her to be there when they punished someone so she would know what would happen upon her next attempt, if she found a good enough opening.
She nodded to Mirra as she turned around to leave, looking at the mirror she decided to braid her hair it was too messy down, as it was oddly curly. While changing she thought about the apparent differences between her and her family, while Thranduil and Legolas had blonde hair she had in fact a light brown. Their blue eyes and her brown, their height and her short stature even for a human as she was only 5 feet tall, and not to mention her stocky shape. Although her mother Devna had said she was beautiful and curvy but she did not feel it especially now when she was among her other family. After getting dressed she braided her own hair in an intricate braid, her weaving skills surprised her other failures, she had once weaved for a king no less.
She took one last disappointed look in the mirror as she noted her braid trailed down well past her breasts. She left her room and made her way to the throne room taking a short cut to maybe see the prisoners, and was not disappointed as she saw a bunch of dwarves in the cells being manhandled by the guards.
She had no real quarrels with dwarfs and a few rough men had taught her bar songs back in Dale, well when Dale was still a thriving city. And even a few dwarfs had seeked to make her their wife, she had wanted no part in drunken men offering themselves to her. As she and her mother had worked at a tavern in the great realm of Rohan, she had met many drunkards and learned that the bar maid was the most popular women in town. But she was waiting for the one well that’s what the dwarf men had called it back when.
She hadn’t realized she had stopped to stare until the young brown haired one looked at her curiously, and under his gaze she felt uncomfortable more so than usual. She felt heat rise to her face and to hide her fierce blush she straightened and squared her shoulders gave him a pointed look and moved on, she had to be strong if she was right about her calculations then she was to live at least another couple hundred years, as she barely looked 25 years old. She had to be accepting that people stared and she had to make my heart stone she had to survive. Besides the prisoners never lived past her father’s rage, he such a temper and it blinded him too much, even that young dwarf.
Thranduil looked at her as she entered and she lowly curtsied to acknowledge him, Legolas gazed at her with amusement, she could tell that today was one of his good days when he would suffer her. Others she was not so lucky like when he had tried to push her off of the path to tumble to her death, here she was no safer than a mouse in a loins den. Sure she knew her way around weapons but she could not draw them here her father prevented that.
“Vanya Please come here, we will be receiving the head of their party soon enough and he will bow to my powerful might. As do all.” He gave her a knowing look as she nodded her head and kept her eyes downcast. For he was referring to when she would not come here to live with him after her mother had died and he then came for her himself. He had taken her here in chains to keep his embarrassment inside his palace not gallivanting around the world, where everyone could see.
She took her usual place on his left side and pushed herself slightly behind his chair as she had learned to do in the past. She knew now that she was only here to witness his rage and not to say anything for she had gotten looked in the cellars when she spoke for a wandering man trying to get to Laketown. She looked to her half-brother as he stared at the captured dwarf coming towards them and said to their father, “I apprehended these myself my lord father.”
Just like Legolas to suck up to her father she had spent a hundred years to memorize his mannerisms and he always tried to prove himself to Thranduil. As her father had more of his attention and concerns towards himself and his wealth.
The guards reached us and tossed the dwarf onto the ground by her father’s feet, and as he looked up she was shocked. She had never seen anyone look at Thranduil with such malice and such fight in his eyes. She knew this man would not bow down to him and she felt a kinship with him, for Thranduil had her here by force. But for that same reason she wished he would do what her father wanted so he would live, something about this dwarf was familiar but she did not know why.
“And who might you be? No don’t answer I already know for I knew your grandfather and your father in turn too. Thorin, all I want to know is what is your quest? Just one question is that so bad.” Thranduil had walked past him while talking and then turned to look at him expectantly.
But when the dwarf only looked forward through her father’s throne as Thranduil grew mad. “You know this quest your on is no secret as the great lord Elrond has informed me to look out for your party I just wished for you to say so yourself.” He paused as he got Thorin’s attention of the mention of the other elf lord. “Ah yes I know of your noble quest to reclaim your home land and I think that you would have us all deceived. For I know of the riches that lie under that mountain and I would offer you my help if you do something for me.”
Thorin looked on Thranduil becoming vaguely amused and decided to ask, “And what might I do for the mighty elf lord Thranduil?”
As soon as her father mentioned the riches she knew what would come, she knew he would want some of it and he would threaten and maim to get it. She now looked towards this dwarf with small pity, as she realized who this was and that she knew him although he did not recognize her. For two hundred years ago her mother was a women of Dale and her father met her in a tavern and well his finest mistake was made.
She had been raised there and even seeked some refuge when she was 10 years old in the lonely mountain. She had met Thror and Thrain when she was barely a child, they had seen some work in my mother and put her to cloth making where Vanya had learned to weave and they even had her working too by the time she was 16 and she remembered when Thrain had announced his son Thorin then she had been 30, and the babe had been a very rosy one. Now as she stared at him she could not believe that it was the same child, but no doubt he was.
She had not seen him grow older than 5 as she and her mother had to leave Thranduil was mad that Devna had dared to take his shame into a dwarf mountain, when he had found out. So to escape her father’s rage she took her and they ran far away from the lonely mountain past Rivendell when the lord Elrond had helped them along the journey.
“Well,” Thranduil’s voice snapped her out of her memories, “there are some white gems that I would wish to have and some other things that belong to my people.”
When Thorin took down her father’s deal and spit at him she smiled slightly but got rid of it as her father sat down to curse him and say that he could wait. She was then excused as her brother and father wished to talk men talk, which she didn’t mind she thought she would go to her room to read when she found herself across from the prisoners. She paused again and this time paid some attention to the young dwarf, and she decided that he was fairly handsome and that he did not look like the typical dwarf.
She then analysed the other dwarves, noting that they were all different shapes and sizes, literally as she looked at the round one and smiled. Then she noticed that two dwarves were conversing and staring at her, a blonde one and the young brown haired one. She felt her mouth grow dry and her palms begin to sweat as all three of them stared at each other. She felt a strong connection to them, but then if they were Erebor dwarves she should anyway right? She tore her gaze from them as she went to leave giving Thorin a sideways glance, as she went to her room.