Dwarves grind down ore to reveal iridescent gem. They utilize the Mill to make beauty out of the hard and unyielding, bearing in and hunkering down into the solid walls of bedrock reality, and magma-summon crystalline magnificence, through hard, long, patient, Saturnian work, guided by the faith so spirit-strong embedded in the work, a work they inherently believe in. The offal dust they blow off as husk, fertilizer for the soil from the disappointments, for what remains is jewel.
Solid in their work and their ethic, they blow out the innocence from the ore so it may bloom. Dwarves were known for their virtue :
'Absit ut inter nos unquam regnaverit hace fraus! non tam longaevi tunc essemus neque sani. Inter vos nemo loquitur nisi corde doloso, hinc neque ad aetatem maturam pervenietis: pro cujusque fide sunt ejus tempora vitae. Non aliter loquimur nisi sicut corde tenemus, neque cibos varios edimus morbos generantes, longius incolumes hinc nos durabimus ac vos. Non mihi diffidas, faciam, mihi quod bene credas.’
“Forbid that amongst us we should ever be soured by the rule of crime or fraud or deceit! To that very degree, one experiences neither longevity nor health. Amongst you, nobody speaks without a deceitful and cunning heart, and because of this, they do not reach a ripe and mature age ; according to one’s trustworthiness is the span of one’s life. Do not speak in any other way except as if it preserved your heart, nor eat such foods as beget illness ; because of this, (our discipline), for a long while we have remained unharmed and alive, and so might you. Do not despair in me, for I make things happen for he who trusts well.” ( The Protest of the Dwarf, in Ruodlieb XVIII, 18 – 26, translation mine.)
Closer to the lava-flows, where the earth churns and boils its minerals until they are cooked, and cooled by the breath of dwarves, they oversee the matter-streams, in touch with the dynamism at the heart of stones, alive to the dormant sparks still sleeping in the rocks' springs.
They live at the foundational bedrock of the living cosmos, the substratum from which the roots of the galaxies-tree, branching out into endless flowers of milky ways, emerges. Stars are their ovens from which matter is baked, plasma-cooked fusion to fusion, stepping up and down the periodic table, and brought out into the cold of space to cool and find their own. They are the deep alchemists of the prima materia, and do not brook interference or interruption in their Great Work, for from the roaring chaos of the flow brought blizzard to solid ice, they carve out the crystalline building blocks for worlds. Their foundational proximity to core gives their heart and word solidity. Upon their sparse terseness and gruff rede-of-the-deep one may place one's trust. The no-nonsense of the beneath shines through as well-worked gems. Are not stars the scintillating gemstones they necklace weave above the bosom of Love? For Love descends and fills the depths with delight, so those wombs of rock and lava-lore shall birth and bloom beauty for all.
