Everything around me stood still as Thorin looked at me. And for a brief moment, I saw him as a child looking at me much the same way, sending chills up and down my spine. I had seen that gaze before, I thought, as I barely heard the sound of Jürgen's voice sternly calling my name. But it had been so many years ago that I'd been the subject of that gaze, before my whole life changed and I was forced to stop being what I was. 

It was something that had nagged at me for so long. The differences between the other girls in town and myself had been so glaringly obvious that I learned to hide them all beneath my hooded cloak. Mother had tried her best to tell me that I was simply shorter, stockier and hairier than most women she knew - even all young girls we knew.  

While there wasn't much we could do regarding my height, though I'd developed an ample bosom that attracted more attention than I wanted, mother knew there was something we could do about the beard that grew on my face even as a young child. And so she used father's razor to shave my face first thing in the morning so that no one would see, checking it at night to make sure it did not need another shave the next day. And when Inge taught mother what melted sugar, water and lemon could do to pull the hairs by the roots, she taught me how to do it, till it no longer hurt me each time I did it to myself. And the hairs that once filled the the sides of my jaw eventually grew sparser as the years went by, rendering my face as smooth as the next woman in town - except the Mathilda sisters. 

"Aleanna," Jürgen growled. "Leave! Now!" 

Thorin glared at the older man as Dwalin stood alongside him. "How dare you order her like she was a child?" Thorin asked angrily. "How long did you think you could hide Frigga from her own kind, Master Jürgen? She is a dwarf, not a human you can order about." 

I took a step back, Thorin's spell over me finally broken as Jürgen whistled for his horse, mounting it fluidly as it cantered past him. I'd known Jürgen for as long as I could remember. His voice had always been one of authority that I knew better to refuse ever since my parents died. 

But at the thought of the people I had long considered my parents, I hesitated and I glanced back at Thorin.  

"I know who you are, Frigga," Thorin said. "I gave you that circlet that you wear now as a necklace when you were only four or five years old. I chose the jewels myself. Ruby and emeralds, set in a sea of diamonds. Fiery and earthy, because that's what you were. You and my brother, Frerin and my sister, Dis, used to play together in the Great Hall." 

As Thorin spoke, I held my breath, his voice holding me captive. And when he continued, I felt the beating of my heart only grow louder, the pulse hammering between my temples.  

"That scar that you hide behind your hood," Thorin continued as his finger traced the outline of the scar that spanned from my right cheekbone down along my neck, ending just above the collarbone. "You were too impatient to wait for a royal guard to retrieve your new kite stuck in the branches of the yew that grew along the side of the courtyard. And so you climbed up the tree and fell, cutting yourself so deep you almost died from your wounds."

"I was too young to know any better," I whispered, the memory of the fall slowly coming back to me.  But as quickly as it had come, it faded.

"Too young and already too precocious. You were four when you fell," Thorin whispered. "So much time may have already passed since then, but I know in my heart it's you." 

I did not know why, but in that brief second when I looked into the prince's eyes, the world I once knew crumbled around me. The place I had long called home had been nothing but an illusion, a well-crafted story to make me believe that I was one of them, in this town of men.  

Suddenly Jürgen was by my side and he swung off the side of the horse, lifting me up unceremoniously onto the saddle in front of him, his firm grip on my waist making me gasp for air. Thorin and Dwalin tried to run after him but we were halfway down the hill by the time they reached the start of the trail leading down into the forest. I shouted for Jürgen to let me go, frightened by the suddenness of his actions. Just minutes earlier, he'd been laughing, I thought. And now Jürgen's face was grim, his grip on my waist so tight that I could hardly breathe.  

Then I saw it.  

On the other side of the hill, along the path where Thorin and I had walked, men on horseback made their way up to where we'd just been on top of the hill. I recognized Bernd in the front of the group, and alongside him was Lialam, the burly man's frame towering over his own horse. As Jürgen spurred the horse onwards, deeper into the forest, I saw them surround Thorin and Dwalin. 

"Don't make a sound," Jürgen hissed as he drove the horse faster into the forest, losing ourselves beneath the shelter of the trees and deeper still. 

"What's going on?" I asked when I finally caught my breath and Jürgen slowed the horse's pace, moving farther away from the path that led to the town. "Jürgen, please tell me. Where are we going?" 

"I did not expect you to bring the dwarf prince with you this afternoon, or I would have told you sooner. But I didn't want to frighten you. Besides you were glowing, child, standing next to the prince." 

"Tell me what?" I asked, feeling my face burn with embarrassment. "Whatever could frighten me?" 

"Berndt just gave your hand away in marriage, Aleanna," Jürgen said grimly. He pulled on the reins and I scrambled off the saddle, falling on the ground as my knees gave way beneath me. "Or should I start calling you Frigga, now that you know what you are?" 

I stared at him, the name he spoke sounding so familiar yet it had been so long since I'd heard it spoken. Frigga meant beloved in the ancient tongue, I thought.  

"You knew all these years?" 

"That's the name of the dwarf child countless merchants and travellers from Erebor who passed through Greenbanü sought for years," Jürgen continued. "They said that she'd been taken from the grand marketplace in Dale, and that she was the daughter of a high counselor of Erebor, a princess in her own right." 

I dusted my hands on my skirts as Jürgen ordered me to turn around. As I did so, he slipped the sword he had made for me back into its sheath that was still secured on my back. As the blade settled in its scabbard, its weight across my back made me realize just how vulnerable I'd felt without it. I turned around to face him again. 

"How long have you known?" I asked as Jürgen dismounted and began checking the saddlebags for its contents. He'd filled the bags with bundles of food, two leather bladders filled with water, and a blanket. The other saddle bag was filled with other supplies as well, as if he were leaving for a long trip, a pot and wooden utensils hanging from it.  

"I knew what you were the moment your parents brought you home from a trip to Dale. They said they found you on the roadside, but I knew better," he said. "They'd been trying to have a child since Bernd was born and each time, Jerrel either miscarried or it was stillborn. And then one day, they had you, so beautiful and petulant in your dress and precious crown. You were only five years old, I think. At least that's what you told me then." 

"I told you? About me?" 

"You talked a lot in the beginning, though I barely understood you for you spoke a different language," Jürgen said, smiling faintly though his eyes were wistful. "Then eventually you hardly talked at all." 

I sighed. "Because I had to learn to speak the language of men," I said softly. "And I didn't know how to get back home." 

Jürgen nodded. "Jerrel and Tadd were good people - even you know that, child - but they were desperate for a little girl. I pray you'll forgive them one day for what they did. I know that they loved you till their last breath, and I always feared that the time would come when you would learn the truth." 

For a few moments we did not speak. I was too overwhelmed by what had just happened, and by what I had just heard Jürgen say. Then I remembered what he said about Bernd. 

"So who am I supposed to marry?" I asked, trying to smile even as Jürgen's face remained as grim as ever. 

"Who else?" Jürgen replied, frowning. "Lialam made Berndt an offer he could no longer refuse. I doubt if any man could. I heard the news when I went to the stables to saddle Clara." 

"Did he sell me in exchange for that horse from Rohan?" 

Jürgen shook his head. "That would have been an insult if he had, child," he said. "Lialam offered Bernd something ten times better. He is going to make Bernd mayor of the town. It will give him the privilege of living in the second largest abode in Greenbanü, and in time, become rich, second only to Lialam." 

I was speechless. I'd always known how Bernd hated our circumstances, that we had to work hard with our hands every day while others like Lialam simply sat back and watched life go by all around them, waiting for rents and debts to be paid, seizing property when people couldn't pay him. I knew how Bernd envied Lialam for his power, but I never realized just how badly the desire had burned deep inside him. 

"He can't just trade me like cattle," I said stubbornly. "I'm not even his sister!" 

"It does not matter what you are, human or dwarf," Jürgen said. "What matters is that you are his to give away in marriage according to our customs. This was one arrangement I was helpless to stop, child, and I am sorry." 

"But what does Lialam want from me?" I asked. "I have nothing to give him. I am not even of his kind. Even you agree that I'm a dwarf. I'd be nothing more than a trophy, like his two wives, to be paraded inside his house for his own pleasure" I said, tears blinding my vision as I shook in anger at what Bernd had just done.  

I had sewn the dresses Lialam had designed for his wives, gowns that left little to the imagination and at first I had thought it all a joke. But when the women had to try them on, in front of Lialam and his trusted friends, I could only imagine the humiliation they felt, being paraded like ornaments as he laughed and pointed at them. Since then I had refused to go to Lialam's house for any reason. If he had wanted a gown sewn, he had to come to my little house in the poor part of the town, knowing he'd never dare have me sew such shameful dresses again. 

Jürgen looked up, as if hearing something in the distance. He lifted me onto the saddle. "That is exactly what Lialam wants you for - as a trophy. That necklace alone, or whatever it is, is enough to buy the whole town, child. But to know that you will just become a plaything to someone like Lialam," Jürgen spat angrily. "I would rather slit your throat first before I'd let you be a toy to that monster." 

I stared at him. Jürgen meant what he had just said, and it made me tremble as I watched his fingers grip the handle of his sword.  

"Go, child," he said. "Go to that place I showed you, the one we've long prepared for that hunting trip I've always talked about, though this time you're the one being hunted. I will come for you and lead you out of the town when it is safe." 

"You mean I can't go back home?" I asked stubbornly, refusing to believe that this was happening. But as I saw the look on Jürgen's stricken face, , the gravity of the situation finally dawned on me.  

"Greenbanü is no longer your home, Frigga," he said, uttering my name for the second time that I took a deep intake of breath as my new reality finally sank in, turning my mouth dry. "This never was your home, no matter how hard Tadd, Jerrel or I taught you how to fit in." 

In the distance, I heard the voice of Lialam shouting orders for his men to search the area, and to bring his "dwarf bride" to him when they found her, laughing as he said it. I paled and stared at Jürgen, wishing this was only a dream, and that if I'd only pinch myself, I'd wake up and find myself back on my own bed, never having known what I truly was.  

"There is no time, Frigga! Go!" Jürgen said as he struck the horse's hindquarters and it bolted through the forest, galloping beyond the trail and into the cluster of trees that grew denser as I kept going. My heart beat wildly inside my chest and though I wanted to turn to look back at Jürgen, I knew I needed to keep my wits about me and focus. One false step and I could fall off the horse and break my neck, I thought.  

It was getting dark and I needed to get to the waterfall that lay deeper into the forest. Jürgen had shown me the cave just behind it, kept dry from the overhanging rocks and overgrowth that hid it from view. He and I had cleared the space inside it many times as we rode through the forest, with him naming the trees and shrubbery, instructing me on what was edible, and what was not.  

I could never understand then why he insisted on keeping its location a secret, even to Bernd. But as I spurred the horse named Clara forward, I finally understood. I'd been too complacent, accepting my fate for so long to be guided by men around me, for even mother - no, Jerrel - left most decisions up to her husband, while I left mine in the hands of Bernd and Jürgen.  

Yet with the coming of the dragon that stripped the line of Durin its home and power, the changes traveled far and wide, like ripples upon calm waters. And now the ripples had reached to disturb Greenbanü and my own little unspoilt world.  

But Jürgen had known this would happen - that one day, Lialam would finally name a price that Bernd could not refuse. Though he never foresaw that one day, the prince of Erebor would come and find a long-lost member of his court, one who used to taunt him, play with him and one day, even tell him boldly that when she'd grow up to be a woman, she'd pick him to be her husband.