[Anarya SilverBranch]

^ ^ ^ ^ Erebor, Lonely Mountain^ ^ ^ ^

Glaven walked briskly down the hall, his long maroon robes swishing at his boots. The grey walls seemed to generate cold, making his thin pale figure shake. He had always
been a weak dwarf, ill health was his bane, but this did not hinder him from doing work.

As the King's Royal Head Scribe and an advisor in the court, he was skilled in the ways of
pen and tongue, twisting and forming words to make something seem believable or seem
like a lie. That was his specialty.

However, when he received a message from the king requesting his appearance at a
meeting, he had no explanation. There were rumours flying about the halls about dark
riders from the human country of Gondor coming to the Lonely Mountain bearing requests
from a man king. Men were a mixed lot, in Glaven's mind. They delved in the earth and
forged metal which was respectable, but they also had the unfortunate tendency to
communicate too closely with elves.

Glaven could have spit when he thought that despicable word. Elves, the disease of all
dwarfkind. He had read too much in his forty years of the ill deeds of that horrible race.
Yet now that that traitor, Gimli son of Gloin, had taken up residence with one of them, it
made him even more sick.

Glaven snorted with disgust as he turned the corner to the hall where he was to meet
the king. Then he saw another figure going in the same direction and recognized the
burly, robust form and stomping tread.

"Hail, friend Frain!" He called to the stout form of the Head Engineer, "Pray, where are
you headed?"