[This letter is mostly written in Westron using cursive cirth, a handsome upright hand that is both elegant and crisply legible. It is also… substantially long.]
Bíld son of Bóurr to Híril Nardhwen greeting!
I send my faithful friend, Pock the Raven, with this message for you, though given the demands of your mission and the complexities of travel over the mountains in general, I cannot be sure when or where this letter shall reach you, or indeed if it will even beat my brother Blovurr with your hammer. I can report that at the time that I write, Maurr is at work with the help of some assistants; while he waits on the wood he ordered, we are considering a treatment for the cracked handle so that you may keep it as an art object.
Your letter and the concern expressed therein for my brother truly touched me. You and I met but briefly, and my brother whose beard you have never seen is contracted to serve you — yet even on such tenuous acquaintance, you care for the wellbeing of one little Dwarf, and seek to serve us with your advice. None of us could ever take offense at that; we can only be warmed by your kindness.
I would like to tell you a little about our family. I hope that some of this history will put your mind at ease, though I will not say you are wrong to worry about my brother Maurr, for I worry also.
Though he speaks otherwise, I do not believe Maurr actually thinks himself incapable or unworthy as a crafter because of the loss of his hand, or at least not only because of that loss. None of us could argue that, not after we had the immeasurable honor of meeting a Mírdan, great among the great, who works with only one flesh hand. But our own lives were also shaped by injury and its survival before our own births.
Our father, Bóurr, fought at Nanduhirion against the army of Azog. He lived, but the orcs maimed his legs, and both had to be amputated. Exactly one hundred years that was before he married our mother, who gave him four children. And none of those children would say that our father was ever deficient in any meaningful way. As a parent, he could not be more loving; as a teacher, he could not be more wise; as a goldsmith, a provider, a Dwarf whose labor builds the Mountain, he is unimpeachable. Since the making of his wheeled chair, Bóurr’s life has been chiefly limited not by his own injury but by our people’s unfortunate obsession with stairs.
It has not been without sorrow and pain. But we are Dwarves, and we were made to endure. Aulë gave us stout bodies to survive abuse, cunning hands to make tools, and stubborn hearts to refuse despair. And Bóurr gave his sons sight of life, perfectly joyous, after immense suffering, as well as sensitivity and patience for those we would meet in our own lives who have suffered, including ourselves.
Híril Manadhlaer may have to you called me a ‘healer’. I do not think the title quite accurate, as most healing I do is only a little nursing; once I pulled an arrow from a Dwarf, but I rarely do the sort of life-saving that her Houses of Healing accomplish every day. But I have a little interest in the theory of healing and in collecting lore relating specifically to the healing of the mind. It was my father and his fellow veterans who inspired me on that path originally. No one of us has seen a fraction of the pain and loss you have seen, Híril Nardhwen. Yet we carry it, generation to generation, from Unnumbered Tears, from Eregion, from Dagorlad, from the Grey Realm, from Nanduhirion, in memory passed from father to son. And in those memories I have known many who survived great horrors with so much potential still inside them, yet also many who needed help to access that potential again. I desire to improve the quality of help that we give to these people by putting together what wisdom of Elves, Men, and Dwarves I can find.
I am not any kind of expert. My studies have so far aided in only the tiniest ways for a handful of people. But — while no family wishes for son or brother to come home without a hand, at least ours was from the first moment able to enfold Maurr in the warmest support and love, and I too have helped him, as I can, back to his dignity.
Maurr says he is a poorer smith now, and perhaps it is true that a prosthesis is simply clumsier than a hand. But ‘poorer’ is not the same as ‘poor’, and in fact I believe my brother is now a better smith than he was before. He is not a renowned master under the Mountain, but I would not have volunteered him to handle Thríc’s precious hammer if I thought him unworthy. I think you and he will be pleased with the result.
Yet — all of that ink being spilled, I confess that I do worry about my brother and that he has lost his way in the dark. But while you are very generous to volunteer as his faithful client, I am not sure that is quite the medicine for his case. Though he will be very irritated to learn I have confided this, you are a soldier of Age upon Age, so you may understand, perhaps even better than I.
The life-craft that my brother Maurr has lost is not smithing. It is that of being a Longbeard soldier.
My brother is a Dwarf, so of course he makes things. But in all my memory, making has never been his true passion. His great pride, the bellows for his heart-fire, was serving alongside other Longbeards in the protection of the East Road, on which our people walk ever more since the restoration of Erebor, when Maurr was just at the age of apprenticeship. I remember him speaking endlessly of it — though not of battle, nor even the honor gained in it. His pleasure was in service to our people, in protection of peaceful Dwarves such as his siblings, and especially in camaraderie with his fellows. To protect and educate the young recruits, to keep high his fellows’ spirits during long posts or difficult times, to fight beside them and bring home as many as he could — these were the crafts in whose practice my brother delighted.
After his injury, Maurr left the King’s army. For a while he considered learning to fight anew, but in the end he did not. He says he has not the stomach for it anymore. I think it broke his heart.
My brother does not live a sad life now. As I mentioned, his smithing has improved. He is surrounded by joyful family in Erebor, ones who love him very much. My sister Rofda has a son just one year old, and it is hard for any of us — but impossible for Maurr — to be uncheerful with a beardling in the hall. He has many plans for his life, and he laughs louder than all of us.
But when widowered, Dwarves do not by custom remarry. And Maurr is widowered from his craft. And it may be that he finds a second craft — Bóurr often says the raising of his children, born to him late, is his true and favorite craft — but we cannot ask Maurr to remarry. In truth, I think he should be allowed the dignity of remaining widowered, if he so chooses.
If a shadow you sense over my brother, I think it is that. We may be able to build his confidence in his crafts, even make him a master smith in time, but unless his heart moves on its own I do not think that will cure him.
But while I do not have a soldier’s heart, you do, Híril Nardhwen. I will not beg you to help my brother, for he makes his way, smiling, without help. Even so, if wisdom you have for him, I do not think the hand of help will be taken as an insult. And if it pleases you to remain client of our family’s workshops for projects to come, it will bring us great joy regardless.
With apologies for longwindedness, I am honored to remain,
Yours truly,
Bíld.
