A Purpose At Last
by Andi Newton
Inspired by the adventures of Dwaloin, son of Glamoinly, in the world of LOTRO
Dwaloin had never felt comfortable in the sculpted caverns his kin called home. From an early age, he knew he wasn't made for life under rock.
His father, Glamoinly, made it no secret that he found his son to be strange for a dwarf. Dwaloin's brothers and sisters -- all thirteen of them -- would have professed him odd, too, had he been at all close to them.
Instead, he spent the first years of his life in near invisibility, plucking out tunes on a lute he crafted himself and exploring the magic those songs wrought.
When he decided on the morning of his fortieth birthday to leave the Grey Mountains, his departure went as unnoticed by his fellow dwarfs as everything else he had done during his time there. But standing under the open sky, the sun and clouds the only things above him, he knew this was the path for him. He would never live under rock again.
Many a dwarf has fallen to orcish sword, Corcur axe, or Angmarim arrow. Dwaloin found himself felled not by steel, but by a single glance from a beautiful maid. She was not a dwarf nor, in fact, any race Dwaloin had seen before, but he didn't care. She was beautiful, and he loved her. As soon as their eyes met, he knew he always would.
But first he had to find her again.
Accompanied by Harmur, a stout dwarven warrior he'd met at the Twinspire Inn, Dwaloin knew his purpose at last -- to travel to the Shire, win the hearts of the people who lived there, and find the hobbit lass who had stolen his own.