[piosenniel]

Kransha – Dwarf

NAME: Brór Stormhand

AGE: 103

RACE: Dwarf

GENDER: Male

WEAPONS: At the moment, nothing, but he fancies himself very good with his fists.

APPEARANCE: Brór has narrow, brown eyes almost hidden between a bulky brow and thick eyebrows. His skin is rough and darkened tan from time spent in the sweltering outdoors, but that only serves to augment his already dark composure. He has a long, bristly black beard, speckled with the first strands of misplaced grey, unkempt hair of the same color which has grown long, reaching to his shoulders now, and a stony face, seemingly capable of only a few expressions. He is relatively sinewy, just as most dwarves are, sturdily built and stands with his head high, even in his current state, reaching a height impressive to some dwarves, roughly five feet and one inch off the ground, but it still not very imposing to higher-headed folk. He wears nothing but an extensive layering of multicolored, tattered rags shoddily slapped together.

PERSONALITY: Once a very jovial, merry, and talkative dwarf, imprisonment somewhat subdued his common nature. Like most dwarves, but more so than some and less so than others, he is stubborn and prideful whenever he gets the chance to be. Despite his irksome obstinacy, Brór is always staunchly loyal when he finds something to be loyal to. He is secretive about what he knows, but tries to discuss as much as he can about the old times with other dwarf prisoners, though he rarely gets a chance to so away from the watchful eyes of orcish captors. When set on a cause, he follows it through to the end, but will sometimes take dreary hiatuses from any goal, especially during his imprisonment in the Tower of Cirith Ungol. He is quick-tempered at times, and does not take insult or scorn lightly, with his fiery temperament and strength to back him up. Bror sometimes acts before thinking, but has done this much less since the date of his arrival at Cirith Ungol.

HISTORY: Brór was born in year 2916 of the Third Age, among the ranks of Durin’s Folk in exile, lorded over by their exiled king, Thorin Oakenshield. He was too young and inexperienced to fight very much, or very well, when the dwarves reclaimed Erebor, but soon became one of the many revered dwarven warriors in the halls of Erebor. He trained himself in the ways of war beside his brethren at the Lonely Mountain.

In 2989, Brór followed Balin from Erebor with a troop of dwarves to retake Khazad-dum. On the route south, a raid by goblins, barely a skirmish, resulted in the capture of Bror and several of his brethren, much to their chagrin. The few dwarf prisoners were taken at first to less well-guarded orcish camps and made to work for them, Since the goblins were an unorganized band, relying on brutality to keep order, one of Brór’s close friends who’d been captured as well began devising a plan, which he indoctrinated the rest of the dwarves and prisoners in the camp into. The prisoners rebelled but the orcs proved more powerful than before and quelled the uprising. All the ringleaders, including Brór’s companion, were brutally tortured and slain in cold blood by the orc forces, but the others were spared. Bror, determined to die with just as much honor as his friend, attempted to rally another uprising shortly after, but it was quelled with more ease.

Realizing Brór’s purpose, the orcs decided it would be best not to kill him. Instead, he and the last dwarves in the camp were taken to the dungeons of Cirith Ungol, where he was again imprisoned. Before his first month, almost all of his brethren had succumbed to the strain of life in the tower. There were not many dwarves in the dungeons, and Brór did not seek to make friends with the men and elves. The dwarf hoped eternally that he could do something so vile that it would provoke the orcs to give him to spider that lurked in the pass nearby, thinking optimistically that he might take the beast with him, but his captors never did. He spent most of his time not working for his captors trying to keep his knowledge of Khuzdul, the tongue of the dwarves, sharp in his mind, as he began to forget as years passed. He spent 19 years in Cirith Ungol, and developed two goals, each an alternative to the other. He resolved to either die fighting the orcs, or somehow manage to escape…

~*~

Kransha’s post

Bror sat, as he always did, leaning in cold and solemn silence against the rough-rocked wall of his cell, the back of his thick skull pounding, a resonating beat thumping like a drum in the back of his head as he sat, his eyes firmly shut with heavy eyelids sealed as if they were sewn together. There was very little light to let in, but the checkered shadows around him let in slim plumes of light whenever they were absent, though Bror had discovered that this was mostly a silhouette drama fabricated by his own mind, which was gnawed at daily by the insect of tedium. Even though that invisible spider was not as lethal as the monstrous being who skulked through the jagged rocks of the pass of Cirith Ungol, its omnipresence in Bror was just as painful.

‘Baruk Khazâd. Khazâd aimênu.’ He chanted slowly in his head, hearing the melodious thunder of the dwarven battle-cry pounding incessantly in his ears, the blast of it increasing as the dragging moments passed, roared by a hundred of his folk at least, a chorus that lingered in the blank corridors just before his eyes, beneath his nose, under his beard, and out of his reach. He breathed deep, the beard hair around his mouth blowing about as a sail would in a calm sea breeze. His eyes beginning to open, his ears quivered sensitively, listening to the murderous, raucous cries that rained down on him from the levels of the tower above.

There were sounds, not that there ever weren’t, but these sounds held a strange feeling in them that wafted like smoke through the rusted bars of Brór’s cell. He lips parted as he began mouthing the words inaudibly to himself, thinking even in his tongue, although he feared he would never need the language again. He knew that no one else in Cirith Ungol knew the words he spoke of save the other few dwarves, and he had long considered attempting to teach it to the other prisoners, just so he would not be alone in the knowledge, but it was a miserably foolish thought and his secretive nature would not allow him even to speak it aloud, coupled with threats from the orcs, who didn’t appreciate their prisoners saying things that they couldn’t understand. One dwarf had made that mistake and paid a most terrible price, but sights such as that no longer haunted Bror.

He managed to shift from his position, inching his way forward through the dank cell that contained him. His eyes widened weakly, his furrowed brow easing up as he looked through the bars and peered out, circumspect, observing his surroundings which he was so familiar with. Sounds of vicious mayhem had been rattling and clanging above him for a long time now, but those sounds had drifted away, out of his hearing, and he suspected that whatever struggle had occurred, it was now over. Suddenly, his keen eyes flitted to a figure scurrying down the damp hallway, busying himself with the unlocking of cells. At first, Bror could not fathom what was going on, as he ceased thinking in Khuzdul and reverted involuntarily back to the tongue so oft used in Cirith Ungol, being the only one that all races within new and were fluent in.

Was it possible? Were the prisoners being freed? Was this some sort of mass feeding session for the spider in the pass? He considered as quickly as he could, his dulled mind sharpening upon the whetstone of spontaneity in the span of an instant. He stepped back from the icy bars, half in shock and half in a pooling mixture of horror and glee, as the man, a black-haired being, lean and with the same look as many human prisoners, but with an odd glint in his eye, unlocked his cell door and hurried off as the barred object that had held Bror in this forsaken place for 19 years swung open, limp and useless, as if it were nothing. Staggering with a weight that had never been before, and another weight removed, Bror walked out, through the threshold, and into the hall.