Gartrimm sat across from Elrond, gently tugging on his beard as he considered the matter of the foolish Greybeards. So insulted by the Noldor remarking upon their mountain homes that they took leave of their senses and violated Dawi hospitality. For anyone to feel unsafe in a Dawi hold of all places? Such a thing was nigh-unthinkable to the point of mandness. Yet such was the matter now before the Lord of the Noldor and Dawi respectively. For the Noldor and their families claimed that they were not safe in Karak Drekfut. Unspeakable! Unthinkable!
Dishonorable!
The Greybeards had clearly forgotten their histories, and would need to be taught anew. Yet there was still the stain upon Dawi honor. The Noldor did not know the Dawi. Not as Umgi and Elgi did from the Fated Place. Here in Middle Earth? They knew them only as Dwarves. Despite all claims to the contrary, it is quite likely that they be seen as Dwarves and not proper Dawi. Forgiving, flexible, greedy, uninterested and apathetic to the goings on. Content to wander where they will and take what they will. Uninterested in higher concepts such as grudges, oaths, and honor, such as the ones known as Nain and Thrain, King of the line of Durin. But we were not Dwarves, or so Gartrimm supposed. We were Dawi. To the Dawi, honor is life. To be without honor is to be without life. Without honor, there was no point to life but to seek to restore it.
Whatever reckoning Gartrimm gave, he knew that it would satisfy the Dawi. But the true question; would it satisfy the Noldor?
Gartrimm tugged at his beard a little harder. He must make them know, to understand, what awaited the Greybeards who had so foolishly bundled off the Noldor in the dead of night.
"Lord Elrond" Gartrimm began in the Sindar tongue. "Tell me, what do you know of honor?"
The Lord Eldrond leaned back in his chair, quirking a single eyebrow as he observed his Dawi counterpart.
"I suppose honor is in things that are good. That are just. There is honor in justice, and in oaths fulfilled"
Gartrimm nodded, pleased. "To a Dawi, honor is life. To be without honor, is to be without life. A proper Dawi shepherds is honor through life, protecting it from those who would slight it, and when it is slighted, righting that which has wronged him. Even if that thing be his own foolishness. The Dawi strive with every breath to right that which has been made wrong."
Lord Elrond frowned at these words, leaning forward has he considered Gartrimm's words. "I suppose you are referring to the... greybeards you called them?"
Gartrimm nodded. "I am."
"And what is to become of them, if I may ask?"
Gartrimm sat back in his seat, tugging at his beard. Reaching out he seized a mug of ale that had been set before the two Lords, though Elrond had refrained from touching his. Gartrimm tipped it back and took a swig of the sweet and bitter drink, thinking as he did. When he finally set it back down he tugged at his beard some more, grumbling as he thought. Eventually he spoke. "They have dishonored the hold, and myself, and themselves with their actions. Clearly their education is lacking. They will be given over to the Lorekeepers to be taught as beardlings on what the histories say about those who violate the guestright."
Elrond nodded. "And what do the histories say about the guestright?"
Gartrimm merely leaned back in his seat. "Lord Elrond" He began after a while. "For anyone, for anything, to feel unsafe in a Dawi hold? To claim that a Karaks walls cannot protect them? Nonsense! Madness! Yet here we are, for these greybeards have violated guestright. The histories say many things about those who violate guestright. Mostly about Umgi and Elgi and such and so forth. But there are Dawi who have violated guestright. Of them, they say one thing and one thing only." Gartrimms began tugging at his beard again as he considered Lord Elrond.
"It is a stain upon their honor that can only be righted with their deaths."
Elrond said nothing, but perhaps it was his lack of response that spoke to Gartrimm the most. Taking the silence as invitation to continue Gartrimm spoke once more. "If proper and true Dawi they be, when they learn of the histories they will learn of the magnitude of the stain they have brought upon their own honor and upon the hold and upon me. If proper and true Dawi, their hearts will ache at this dishonor, and their very beings will cry out to see it righted. They will be taken up to the Hall of Shrines to stand before the Ancestors. There they will swear the slayers oath." Gartrimm's tugging increased. "They will be shorn of their beards, the very manifestation of their honor, and cast from Karak Drekfut. Never again will they be given shelter under Dawi roofs and behind Dawi doors. They will come before me to beg me tell where my enemies lay, so that they might go there and kill them. Or die trying. In their deaths in combat against the enemies of the Dawi, their honor will return to them, and they can rest amongst the tombs of our ancestors at last."
Elrond's gaze was steady, and when it was clear Gartrimm had nothing more to say on the matter of honor, he finally spoke. "Do you not think this is... perhaps overly harsh?"
Gartrimm reached once more for the stone mug, half empty now. He stared into it, swirling the golden liquid about. "No. I do not." before tipping it back and finishing it off. He set the empty mug on the table before him.
"Lord Elrond." He said after silence descended once again upon the two. "We are few. We are not like your Dwarves. I have gone to them and spoken to them. They do not care for grudges or for honor. They act with greed unfitting of a proper Dawi. I had hope, when Glorifndel spoke to me of Kazad Dum, for in our tongue it means The Dark Hold, or The Dark City. But when I went to them I found their tongue as alien as yours. Their histories match with your telling of it. They cracked open Framburg and slew its king when he did not wish to gift them back their stolen treasures. Taking not only what was theirs, but what was not theirs. I see... hints of ourselves as though through a twisted mirror. But they are not us. We are alone in this world, we are few."
"I am King, Lord Elrond. It is my duty to uphold our honor, and when it is slighted, to see it made right again. To strike out the dishonors brought upon us. To render judgement. But even so, we are few. When they have told me what punishments they choose for themselves, they will be presented to the families of those they have wronged, as well as before your lordship. There they will beg for your judgement. Does their chosen punishment fit the wrong done to their honor? Will the families of those they have wronged understand what the Greybeards propose to do?"
Gartrimm leaned forward in his seat, tugging mightily at his beard.
"Lord Elrond." He said. His voice low and quiet. "You, they, must understand."
