“You want to build a WHAT!?” The voice was fierce, as it usually sounded, and loud, as it unusually sounded. And the smoldering glare that followed that voice was even more intimidating. But perhaps it was only natural that such a voice and such a glare should belong to such a Dwarf, despite his frail stature and long, grey beard. As he was none other than Frimgor, one of the richest Vault-Keepers in the Lonely Mountain! Also known by many other flattering titles like the “Mercantile Menace” and the “Gold-Tyrant”. But he was also known as Frimsi’s father. The vast room was dark and only dimly lit, just as Frimgor likes it when doing business negotiations. Frimsi and his father were seated at the opposite ends of a very long but barren table. They could hardly see each other in the darkness. After a few moments of tense silence Frimsi made a gesture to defend his thoroughly unusual proposition, but Frimgor spoke again, “And for HER! An elf! An elf native to Mirkwood no less! They are our enemies!”
Frimsi swallowed nervously. The last time he got his father this upset was quite a while ago, and it was a memory he would prefer to forget. Frimsi made another meek gesture to explain his reasoning, but Frimgor interrupted again, “Do you know how expensive it will be to build a GARDEN this deep underground? Bah, what am I saying. Of course you do! And that is what irritates me the most! You are knowingly willing to spend a great sum of our family’s fortune for some elf who will not even care enough to appreciate the gesture!” Frimsi frowned, but didn’t say anything. Frimgor glanced at Frimsi for a few silent moments, eyeing him as if he was evaluating something. He then proceeded his rant, “I was afraid this would happen. You have earned a great profit for our family in your business ventures into the west, but you’ve also have gotten soft! And if you don’t harden up again, it will be only a matter of time before all the gold you have earned slips through your fingers.”
Frimsi’s mother quietly scurried into the room, carrying two platters of freshly roasted meat. No ale though. She quickly placed both platters in front of the two Dwarves without a single word; she seemed to be trying to get back out of that room as quickly as possible. But as she was walking back out she looked sadly at her son Frimsi, but after a brief moment of eye contact with him she finally left the room. Frimgor seemed to have been waiting for his wife to leave before continuing his stern lecture, “Middle-Earth is a cruel and hard place, and in order to make it any less cruel and hard and instead make it slightly more prosperous and fair it requires Dwarven determination and discipline! And you are loosing both! Your generation has enjoyed an unusual time of peace and prosperity, but the history of our people is fraught with suffering and loss. I would know as I lived that. In your life of comfort and luxury you have forgotten how much your elders had to work and sacrifice in order for this life of comfort and luxury to be provided. I had to scrap a new fortune for our family from the barren caves of the Blue Mountains during our family’s exile from Erebor, and I did so without any help from the elves. And you a risking losing all of that just for your feelings for some elf maiden! I know as my beard is long that this elf does not sincerely care about or like you. I can bet our entire family fortune that she will abandon you as soon as things get difficult and unpleasant. Elves are like that. They don’t have real feelings. But what I cannot fathom is why you are so foolish as to invest any feeling into this elf other than to just use her to reach your more worthy aims? I thought you were smarter than this! This Langlirel is not worthy of your affection, much less your money! She is-”
Frimsi suddenly interrupts in a quiet but firm voice just loud enough to be heard at the other end of the table, “Her name is Linglorel.” Frimgor scoffs, but he looked as if he had been caught off guard, “I don’t care what she calls-” Frimsi stands up and raises his voice, “Well, I do! Her name is Linglorel!” Frimsi was now glaring back at his father with a slight glint of anger in his eyes. Frimgor sank back into his chair and after a few moments of stroking his long beard in silence asked, “What do you see in Linglorel?” Frimsi smirked and nodded, “That is a good question! I’ll try to keep my answer short, if I can. Essentially I feel that all of the magic and beauty of Middle-Earth is in Linglorel. I have had the honor of meeting countless elves, all of them pleasant enough. But there is something special in Linglorel. She is open to the world in a way no other elf I met has been, yet still she maintains her innocence. Ha! She surely must be open to the world if she was willing to work with a Dwarf with my sort of reputation!”
Frimsi quietly chuckles to himself and doesn’t seem to be speaking to his father anymore, though his father has his gaze locked on Frimsi. Frimsi continues, “Without a doubt I will assert that Linglorel is the fairest elf maiden in all of Middle-Earth. She certainly isn’t the wisest, though she is certainly well versed in lore in her own right. She certainly isn’t the most skilled when it comes to the making of things. I don’t think she truly knows how to make anything…except make people smile! Ha!” Frimsi fiddles with a gold coin in his hand for a few moments before continuing, “But she is easily the most beautiful…in the heart of Linglorel the primordial love for Middle-Earth lives on, that primordial love that endows everything in Middle-Earth with meaning. I will admit I can never know with absolute certainty if truly reciprocates my admiration for her. She can be fickle with her feelings. But that doesn’t matter. I am willing to take that risk! Regardless of how she truly feels about me I will always love her. She is my most precious treasure. And I would rather die than see her beauty tarnished and defiled.”
Frimsi puts the gold coin back in his pocket and he turns back to his father smiling, “That being said, if you will not grant me the legal permission to build this garden for Linglorel here I will just purchase a property somewhere else under the mountain and build it there. I have as much as a claim to our family fortune as you. I of course do mean to belittle your own contributions, just it is only fair you do not belittle mine!” Frimgor sighs, “That won’t be necessary…I will grant you the legal permission you need to build it here.” Now it was Frimsi’s turn to look surprised, “What?” Frimgor raises from his seat and looks at Frimsi, “Formerly I had accused you of losing the determination and discipline that has been traditionally associated with our people…the very sentiments that serve as the foundation of our vast hoards of wealth…but you have just proven to me that you have not lost these sentiments, if anything they have gotten stronger. As far as I can recall, this is the first time that you have deliberately decided to act against my judgement. And while most Dwarven fathers are loathe to have their sons disobey them…I am smarter than that. I can swallow my pride and do what needs to be done for the family. If you are to thrive in Middle-Earth after I pass away to join our forefathers in the halls set apart, you need to be able to make decisions on your own and commit to those decisions. Until now, you largely have done this in every other matter except in your relationship with me. But now that has changed. You have changed. And I will begrudgingly admit that you have changed for the better.”
Frimgor carefully eyes Frimsi to assess his reaction, he seems to look surprised but that apparent look of surprise cannot hide the subtle smile on his face. Frimgor sighs and continues, “Your stubborn desire to honor Linglorel is good! The stubborn desire I mean, not the person that is desired herself. That is a sort of greed. A will to act, to realize one’s goals. I wish to promote this stubborn desire. While I do not approve of the object of this stubborn desire, such a sentiment, which is crucial to any functioning economy as you know well by now, can easily be redirected towards another goal more worthy of your time and effort.”
Frimgor than slowly walks toward Frimsi and lays a hand on his shoulder. Frimsi chuckles, “I can see where I get my penchant reinterpreting an obviously bad situation in such a manner as to make it seem like a good thing! An ever reliable marketing tactic that has earned us much coin!” Frimgor didn’t laugh at all, but only continued quietly looked at Frimsi with a hard stare, though now without any hint of anger or disapproval, only firm resolve, “I do not like Linglorel. I am tempted to hate her. But I will respect your admiration for her. We shall build this garden for her. I might even help in more ways than just granting you the legal permission to build it. And you have my word that she will always be welcome to visit and stay as long as she might like in our family hold. Whenever she cares enough to actually visit, that is.” Frimgor offers one final nod and then quietly walks to his room without another word, leaving Frimsi alone in the darkness of the main corridor.
