Chapter Text
As usual, before dawn, the clamor from the stable next door got to be too much for the two sleeping dwarves, and they reluctantly rose to the clatter of hooves, whinnying, and general hubbub of life abruptly starting up below.
And, as usual, Bifur was the first to go to the window and look out at the stable yard while he braided his beard with careful, practiced movements.
In the pre-dawn grayness, he could see her standing between two stallions, unchanging as always. Like a stone. The breath of the two beasts and the girl rose to mingle above their heads, and it occurred to him that she must have been waiting for the owners of the two horses; they were fine animals, and well behaved. As his fingers pulled through the wiry strands of his beard, Bifur mused that the girl looked particularly grim on this morning, though her face was always set in too serious an expression, and it was not helped by the severe braid that she always pulled her hair back in. As her hands adjusted their hold on the reins of the two fine mounts, the ruddy sheen of the copper cuffs around each of her wrists reminded him of why she was so grim.
The buying and selling of slaves was not something dwarves partook in, nor found particularly tasteful. His brother had often said that it wasn't their business, so they shouldn't go poking their noses into it, but it was...unjust, especially so in the case of this girl, Bifur felt. He had overheard a conversation about her one day; she was from the wild North, Forodwaith, from deep in the mountain ranges of the frozen lands that only the bravest -- or the greediest -- ventured to. The slave traders, upon discovery of the hardy barbarian tribes there, had begun to send raiding parties, who were little more than barbarians themselves, over the mountains to capture and kidnap what they could. More often than not, however, the tribes were willing to sell their younger members for the right price.
A stranger in a strange land, this one was. Her fair skin burned easily in the long summer suns this far south, she didn't understand more than a few words of Westron -- just enough to process basic orders --, and her stout frame, all of these combined to make the picture of an obvious foreigner. She had been stolen from her home, and he pitied her.
Bifur was roused from his thoughts of her by the girl herself, who had realized his stare and had turned a frigid glare up at him.
Did he pity her? She certainly didn't seem to want it.
She always noticed him looking at her, and she always became downright vicious when she did. Her gaze could have frozen boiling water. Of course, he wasn't an exception, she glared openly at everyone, save the man who owned her, who was kind to her, at least, kinder than her peers.
The barbarian girl glowered for a little longer -- let that be a warning to him, he thought with mirth --, then turned away to circle the horses around the yard a few times.
The girl circled the horses to hide from the keen eyes of the raven-haired dwarf. He was always around, and it seemed like she couldn't turn around without spotting him watching her. She had long ago sated her curiosity about the dwarves who resided next door, but it seemed this one had not done the same with her. Many times, she had thought of lobbing a rock at him when he was outside, but she feared he would tell the man who looked after her, and she would be taken back to the trader. She hated being property, but refused to defy her current owner; she had been in worse places, and she would remember.
No, she would not throw a rock at the small man, but she would show her displeasure at being watched constantly, like a mouse under a hawk's circling gaze.