Random AU headcanons

morgynleri:

Because I can, because I hurt, and because last night, I spent a couple hours making a list of potential names for wargs in the AU where Frerin survives Azanulbizar, and later brings home a warg puppy (he thought it was a regular puppy) for Thorin.

1. Wargs from the north have a roughly human lifespan, barring injury or illness or genetic defects. Most of them don’t actually live that long because orcs and raiding and an environment that really doesn’t lend itself to living that long. (Wargs like those in the southern Misty Mountains have an entirely different physiology, just going from the movies, and thus may well have a different life-expectancy, and I’m not dealing with them right now.)

2. The first warg is Little Thief, usually called Rab because that’s an easily shouted syllable from the khuzdul for that same name.

Rab sneaks off three separate times and comes home pregnant because clearly her people need more wargs to keep them safe, because they do not have enough. And bringing home adult wargs is probably Not Safe.

In total, 13 live pups over three litters (4, 7, 2), with three that are important enough to have names** (Lucky, called Salu; Queen, called Melin; and Little Warrior, called Miza). Rab dies in 2875.

3. Salu dies in the same orc-raid that Víli does, when Kíli is a year old. They find Víli’s body half-under Salu, as if the warg was standing over him when killed. (They’re not wrong thinking that.)

4. Melin has 7 live pups over two litters (3, 4), with one that bears a name (Rabbit, called Ginush). Melin was very protective of Fíli and Kíli when they were little, and was often regarded warily by any adult dwarf because she was not above attempting to use those she thought were a danger to her tiny dwarves as furniture. (She’s well aware that actually chewing on them would get her killed, and then who would look after the little ones?)

5. Miza has 16 live pups over three litters (5, 6, 5), of which four did not survive to adulthood, and two are named (Storm, called Lâk; Iron-Tooth, called Zirakh). She preferred to spend most of her time patrolling the edges of the settlement, and tends to think of intruders as chew toys. Orcs killed her in 2898 while she was further out than usual.

6. Ginush was named Rabbit by a very tiny Fíli, and grew up with the boys. She dies in 2935, six years before Thorin goes to take back Erebor. She has at least two offspring, but I haven’t figured out more than that about her yet.

7. Lâk wanders off and brings home a mate, to the consternation of pretty much everyone, his mate included. She thinks dwarves are dangerous enemies, they think she’s going to eat them, Lâk is a very confused warg. He and his mostly stay at the edges of the settlement, because it is safer for everyone that way. Of the 9 live pups (4, 5), one has a name – Ember, called Liwiz.

8. Zirakh is Thorin’s companion warg at the time of the Quest, and has taken Liwiz under her wing, so to speak, and is training him up to be Thorin’s companion when she dies, like Miza did her, and Rab did Miza. Thorin still finds this whole thing disconcerting, because the pup Frerin dumped on him a century and more ago was supposed to be just a hound, not a blasted orc-bred warg.

9. Yes, I’m treating the wargs like actual characters with thoughts and plans and intelligence and sentience. Because I can. Because I like that headcanon. Because I’m pretty sure there’s stuff in canon that supports it if I have the energy to go hunting it down again.

10. There are only going to be two wargs on the quest to take back Erebor, because Thorin is not going to take the whole damned pack, they’d be too obvious. As well as making him – and everyone else – nervous, despite knowing these wargs are theirs and not enemies.

11. This is going to make life interesting on the quest.

12. I have not at all figured out what it means for them in the settlement, and if it means that Thorin and others end up living a bit away from the others, because wargs.

**Granted, all of the wargs are actually named in the AU, they just don’t all need names for the story, only the important ones right now. I’ll name the others later, if I need to.