There were a great many in the Royal Hall who remembered me well, but not with kindness. 

I could feel their eyes on me, suspicious and wary, but still curious, like wild animals pausing to assess how dangerous another creature was before they chose to fight or flee.  

I was aware of that as I made my way down the long hall surrounded by the cluster of guardsmen, but it did not affect me in the same way it would have when I was younger. I'd been welcomed with exactly the same amount of cautiousness so many times in the forges that it did not tear at my pride, nor make the goblin inside me stretch and moan. 

The Royal Hall was much as I remembered it. The hearths along the walls cast out their light, illuminating the carved stone of the walls and the arching ribs of the ceiling. Here and there, I spotted a new section of tiles on the floor, or a new style of lantern. 

Children still sat at the  trestle tables doing their lessons, the younger ones playing on the floor in soft piles of dried sweetgrass. The adult dwarves went about their business, entering and exiting the side tunnels, carrying things, stopping for chat or to exchange news. 

They all stopped what they were doing as if frozen in mid-action to watch me and my escort pass. Conversation hushed and by time we had reached the far end, the entire hall was as silent as I ever remember hearing it.

My escort halted, and I saw those who had gathered around looking at me, waiting for some sign. I hadn't wasted a thought on how the members of the court would receive me as I had never paid much attention to them. They were not entirely real to me, but more shadows that drifted in and out of the light around my father and mother, whispering next to their ears and pointing out this or that word on a document. It was my immediate family that made up the largest bundle of worry in my mind. In truth, however, I was not as concerned even about that as I should have been. 

I believed that because I had risen, I would be forgiven whatever it was that I had done so long ago, and be lovingly welcomed back into the family to take up my rightful position again. Why should it not be so? I was the oldest child, heir to the throne, and I had done my penitence.  

What tingled my chest and made me breathe a little harder was how I would express my feelings about my decades in the forges to them.  And how they would accept -- or reject -- my words. Secretly, I also wished to learn why I had been sent Underfloor in the first place. It did not matter greatly to me anymore, but it was a small, nagging curiosity. Was it really because I had been so wild? Perhaps it had been. 

Or perhaps not. 

Although it should have been my family, what I most wanted to see again was the Upper World. I wanted to feel the press and tug of the wind on me again. I ached to lay among the long, slender blades of summer grass, watching the clouds drift across a sky of blue the exact colour of which I could no longer recall. The sheep and the mountain goats, the birds and the insects, the small creatures of the fields and hills, all of them I couldn't wait to see again. 

But first, I had to deal with my father.   

"Welcome," he said from his throne in the shadows after the guards had saluted and stepped back. "You surprise me. Fafnir. I wouldn't have thought you would rise from the forges, and yet here you are. I have been informed that you are now an accomplished smith, inducted into the secrets of the Uppermost Forge. The Overseer himself has sent us an attest of your accomplishments which he guarantees with his own name. Quite impressive." 

There was nothing warm nor welcoming in his voice. The compliments sounded forced, almost as if he were having difficulty speaking them at all and there was no murmur of approval from the dwarves standing by.   

The king was in no way pleased to see me. 

And neither was anyone else. 

I peered into the darkness in an attempt to make out his features, but to no avail. He sat in a shaft of utter darkness and I could not discern as much as the outline of his ear. I was unsure of how to proceed and I felt a frown forming between my eyes which I was sure was visible to everyone. I looked around to see if I could gain any clues from the faces of those standing nearby, but they were just as stone-faced and unwelcoming as the icy tone of the Kings voice. 

For the first time, the burrs of doubt that I would indeed be restored to my rightful place caught painfully on the soft flesh inside me, and even the wave of disbelief and surprise that washed through me could not dislodge them. Would the words I had so carefully prepared make any difference?  Without thinking, I began to speak. 

"Thank you, Father. If I left you as a rash and violent child, I return to you as a mature and successful young man. The years have been long and I have laboured hard to rise and learn the lessons laid out for me. I wanted to thank you." Here I paused,  hoping what I would say next would provoke a more positive response. 

"For without those lessons, I would never have become a man. I would never have come to know myself and what I am capable of. Over the years, I have come to greatly appreciate your wisdom and foresight in sending me below the floor. And as a token of my thanks, please receive this gift from me." 

I reached into my pack and pulled out a small, silver raven. Tapping it three times on the head, I waited until it opened its diamond eyes and cawed a greeting before giving it its orders.

"Fly," I commanded, and it flapped its wings and took to the air. There was a gasp and a few of the courtiers pointed, following the flight of the raven with their fingers as it swooped and dove above our heads, glinting prettily where the firelight reflected off its metal body. 

After four rounds, it sank and landed, making its way over the tiles towards me in that jerking step that so characterises real ravens. It had taken me months of head-scratching how work that ungainly gait into the silver and I was immensely proud of it, even if perhaps only a few other dwarves in the hall could appreciate the skill. 

Once the raven reached my foot, I commanded it to wait. 

"This raven can tell riddles, remember any sentence you give it and even fetch things for you, Father. Simply tell it what you want. It is not alive, but it's very close to being."   

The King leaned forward to get a better look at the gift, and I was shocked at what I saw. He was wizened and wrinkles ran in deep, furrowed lines that fell like rain in straight down his cheeks.  His beard was scruffy and heavy bags had formed under his eyes. Although he couldn't have been more than 250 years old, he looked 400. 

"Tell me a riddle, bird."

"Who is that shrill one, who rides a hard road, has fared that way before. He kisses hard who has two mouths and goes only on gold," said the raven, flapping its wings a little as it spoke in a scratchy caw.  

"That's easy," said a voice from the darkness, a tone of intense distain colouring the words. "A smith's hammer." 

The King of the Mountain laughed, but it quickly transformed into a dry, hacking cough like the grinding of metal on a whetstone. 

"Are you not well, Father?" My words escaped me before I could catch them and bundle them up in my throat. 

A dwarf stepped out of the shadows, a long cloak of wolf fur draped around his shoulders and clasped with a silver brooch. I almost didn't recognise him. He was full-grown, with long braids and a blond beard ringing the lower half of his wide face, but those piercing eyes I'd recognise anywhere.

"The King has long been suffering ill health," said my brother, Regin, the distain still lingering in his deep, adult voice as our father continued to cough. "Given that you've been under the floor tiles for so long, you can perhaps be forgiven your ignorance. However if you--"

The King must have raised his hand, for Regin fell silent and half-retreated into the shadows where I could no longer see him clearly. The king placed a hand on his chest and waited a few moments until the hacking subsided. 

"A mild winter chill. No reason for concern," he said, his voice much weaker and gasping than it had been. "Show me what else that. . .bird. . .can do."

I looked from the king to Regin, who was observing me intensely, before I demonstrated the rest of the abilities I'd worked into the gift. The longer I went on, the more I felt an odd shift in the atmosphere of the hall. The courtiers and royal servants were lowering the heavy cloth of suspicion the more they saw, while the king and Regin were only lifting theirs higher. 

How could that be? What had I done to arouse suspicion other than to thank my father and present him with a unique, magical product from my own hands? If my kinsmen were starting to warm to me, why was my father drifting further away? Was it his illness, or age? I didn't know. When I finished the presentation and after the applause from the court had petered out, I received the brush off I knew was coming, but did not know enough to understand the deeper significance of the king's words. 

"Thank you, Fafnir. That is a gift worthy of Odin himself."

Odin. 

I have ransacked my memory for the reason I chose a raven as a gift, and yet I cannot find one. Was I anticipating seeing the Upper World again and my feelings overtook me? Was I thinking of the eagles and hawks which nested in the cracks and shelves of the Mountain, sometimes finding their way down to us? Possibly. Or that old grey-beard might have had his hand in it somewhere, manipulating me to deliver another of his thousand tiny stings. 

Today, I understand the significance of those words and how my homecoming must have appeared to the king. I do not blame him for his chilly welcome; I would have done the same. But I didn't know, and it confused and hurt me. 

And then there was Regin.