Once there was a Dwarf named Snorri who was very unusual.
When other Dwarves were engaged in healthily digging ever-deeper towards the promised Center of All Things, growing paler and paler but spending eighty per cent of their waking hours down in the mines, Snorri sometimes went to the surface. AND she spent something more like seventy per cent of her waking hours in the mines.
It was unusual, but, of course, her compatriots honored her right to behave as she would, and if she were truly willing to reduce the likelihood that her hand would be the first to hold some never-seen gem, some long-lost artifact, some fragment of map or mine-lore… well, such was her right, and her loss, frankly.
Now, Snorri had the usual number of axes for a Dwarf of about a hundred, which was five. She had her little baby teething axe; her first axe for her first day of splitting Kobold skulls in the mine; her family axe for doing chores and fighting her brother; her graduation axe, which was a pick on one side (a bit of a hint from her family, that one)… and of course, her every-day axe, which was a lovely, lovely thing indeed.
You never really know the real heft of an axe until it’s been blooded. Snorri could actually speak a bit of Orc (yet another of her peculiarities; usually only ambassadors and traders learned anything beyond, “DEATH FROM BELOW!” in most dialects of Orcish. Snorri had some good Orc friends from a reasonably neutral tribe. Nevertheless, she’d split a few Orcish skulls in her young adulthood, and the axe proved to be everything we hope our axes might be: well-balanced, sharp and ready to hold an edge, shiny but not flashy, firmly connected to the long, heavy handle.
It was a fine axe.
Now, Snorri also had a husband. We presume that he looked a certain way and did certain things, but we didn’t pay attention. Did we mention that the axe was two-sided? The other side was a a smooth stone, counterbalancing the blade. It also had a lovely leather strap which allowed one to carry it easily. The husband…was…handsome? He was probably handsome.
The husband often cooked meals for Snorri, and cleaned the cave, and worked the mines alongside her. She was said to be very fond of him. On their anniversary, she even considered staying home instead of heading out to split Hob-Goblin skulls. She didn’t, of course, but she considered it.
Snorri was a bad person. Don’t be like Snorri.
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“It’s a little-known fact, but Unicorns are something like 20% paint, and their horns are stolen exclusively from endangered species.”
― There and Never, Ever Back Again
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