Different mines had different sounds at the back of one’s head, different tastes in the air, different smells that got caught in one’s beard and betrayed one’s origin to others. Some of these sounds, some of these tastes, when suddenly met in the wild, could bring even the most hardened of Dwarrows to tears. These were the sounds, the tastes, the smells of home; the whisper of the stone and the vibrations of the minerals deep within.

Erlingur was attuned to these more keenly than any other Dwarf he’d ever met, and this from the youngest age. Yet he did not feel such an attachment to the mountains themselves, as Orc raids and the threat of Dragons had his kin flee from settlement to settlement all over the emptying Ered Mithrin. The cool touch of the rock, the solid stone beneath his feet and above his head: those were home to him.

His parents had both been miners and raised him between the pickaxe and the towel, keeping shiny pebbles for him to collect and shards of gemstones to cherish. These would always calm him down, and they had proven effective on the numerous other children his parents had adopted hereafter, as the War of the Dwarves and the Orcs started when Erlingur was but still a wee lad, and left many orphans in its trail.

When Erlingur’s parents both fell at Azanulbizar, they left him the very same wee lad— with the very same host of Dwarflings that had come after him. Sometimes wailing, sometimes giggling, and definitely putting things in their mouths that they shouldn’t, Erlingur’s adopted siblings were passed down from mining overseer to tavern-keep, from tavern-keep to bard and bard to merchant and merchant all the way back to mining overseer. And always Erlingur followed, the eldest, trying to help as best he could and to lighten the burden that his little family was putting on the widely worn out community.

Dwarflings grew up and went on their ways, but there always seemed to be others who needed a soothing word or a stern talking-to. Erlingur grew up a parent before a miner, but both of them all the same, keeping the fires lit and the doors open of wherever quarters he found himself in.

The Battle of the Five Armies saw its own influx of newly-orphaned little pebbles, although by then Erlingur had grown up into an adult of his own. He liked hard-work and a strong stout, good cheer and good company; but above all he liked the peaceful solitude of the mine, when all the others had left and he was alone to hear the whispers of the stone. He liked the company of one better than the company of many, and he’d found out he liked to be one of many bearded faces better than he did standing out.

Still he couldn’t help but feel a little at odds wherever he went; for one, the intricacies of courtship amused him but didn’t kindle his inner forge the way it did others; for two, he never held much interest for the complex gender system of the Dwarves either, gem-picking instead the parts that interested him. (And, well, there was the whole “attract all manners of parent-less children” lode to dig through).

When the last of the Five Armies orphan boldly declared that they would open their own halls to welcome any who may need so, Erlingur felt that his work was done— that this particular mine was closing down, that this vein had given everything it could, that it was time for him to steer his pickaxe in another direction. Soon after, he heard that in Ered Luin new homesteads were being built, and new workfoce was sought to replace the one left to reclaim Khazad-dûm.

He had only been there a few weeks that he heard of some foolish lads on their way to Barazinbar— and he realized that the destiny Mahal had crafted for him still contained a variation on the same theme.