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Every day, she had found, was a long day when you had two dwarflings to watch, all by yourself. Of course, others would try to help. Dwalin would offer to take them out to the ring. But, what self-respecting mother would let her sixteen and seventeen year old sons be herded off to a weapons range for the day? Balin had, on occasion suggested the little ones spend the evening with him. Of course, considering the dwarf’s age, she was unsure that the graying dwarf would really have the patience to deal with her two little rascals. Idna had graciously offered up her home. With her being youthful enough, and quite secure in home with Gloin as her husband, Idna’s cottage was indeed, a likely candidate. However she was quite pregnant, a little one on the way any day, so she was off the table.
Now, Dis wasn’t totally alone in this battle against her sons. Thorin had a deep fondness for the children, contrary to his usual stony countenance. However, he was often out most of the day at the forges, or at meetings, leaving Dis little time when she wasn’t trying to look after the boys.
She’d never let a bit of this show, of course. The last thing she needed was a herd of dwarven women (or Mahal forbid, Dori) fawning over her, trying to console her. It had been bad enough, directly after Kilhon’s death. The last thing she needed was that kind of attention again. She was a dwarf of the line of Durin, however female and a widow. At the very least, she could handle herself.
And she could handle her two demon-sons. At least well enough.
A loud crash of wooden furniture broke her out of her slight stupor, and she abruptly dropped her spoon into the pot of stewed cranberries she was stirring in startling. She swore softly, both at her thudding pulse, the fact that her best wooden spoon was now disappeared in a vat of bubbling berries, and the fact that she could hear Kili starting to sob.
Mahal help her.
“Fee! Kee!” She called, ears alert to any further sound coming from the back room as she searched the drawer for another spoon. “What was that?”
“Nothing!” Fili cried back, his already high voice pitchy with nervousness.
Dis heard the beginnings of a wail from her younger son, before Fili snapped, not quite quietly enough, “Quiet, Kee!”
“But—“
“It’s not even a bruise! Just stay still!”
With that, Dis had heard enough, and set her new spoon down on the counter hard before hurrying towards the back room. The door was only cracked open, but Dis sighed as she pushed it open all the way. Next to the wardrobe in the corner, a pile of furniture had collapsed, looking to contain a chair, an old work stool, and two battered crates. Underneath the chair, which her older son was trying to lift, her youngest, tears welling in his dark eyes, was trapped between the legs, his lip trembling. Dis huffed a sigh, before stepping further in. “What’s this?”
Fili whirled around at the sound of her voice, his eyes shooting absurdly wide as he dropped the stool he was shifting, before leaping in front of his brother, as if to hide him. “It’s nothing!”
“Ow!” Kili cried out. “You’re stepping on my finger!”
Fili rolled his eyes a bit and stepped to the side an inch. “Oh, stop being a baby—“
By then, Dis had pushed her older son aside and lifted the chair off of Kili, sweeping him easily up into her arms, just as he let out a terribly loud screeching sob. “Hush,” She told him, bouncing him slightly on her hip. “You’re alright now.”
Fili, meanwhile, was staring up at her, the most innocent, sheepish look he could muster pasted across his face.
Dis lifted a brow. “I’m waiting?”
The blonde quickly wilted under her gaze. “I’m so sorry, mum!”
She saw tears starting in his large, still baby blue eyes, and quickly said, “None of that, now. Your brother’s got dibs on crying to get out of it.”
As if to punctuate this point, Kili let out a pitiful, ragged cry, burying his teary, snotty face into Dis’ tunic. She tried not to wince.
Fili dropped the teary act in an instant with a slight roll of his eyes.
“None of that attitude!” Dis quickly corrected it. “I don’t have time for this. Tell me what happened so that your uncle will know what kind of punishment to give you tonight.”
Genuine fear lit up in Fili’s gaze. “Mum, no! You can’t”
“I can. And you know you’re uncle’s not afraid to give you the beating you deserve. Best start talking.”
“Fine, alright, okay! We…I’m positive uncle keeps his shield up there, aye? And some of the boys, they were making fun of him. They were saying the stories weren’t true! But I said they were, and they said to prove it, and I said that I could, and they said how, so I said I would get uncles oak shield to show them! It would only be for a minute, you see, and I would have put it right back as soon as I was done! But I—“
Dis sighed, patting Kili on the back as his breath shuddered. “It’s alright, Fili. Do you promise you won’t try that again?”
A sharp, nervous nod.
“Aye, alright. I hold you to that. You clean all of this up then.”
As she turned to leave, Kili still resting on her hip, crying a bit more quietly now, Fili said softly, “You won’t tell uncle, will you?”
Dis paused for a moment. “No. Not this time.”
Now she made her way into the kitchen, sitting herself down on the edge of the hewn table, shifting Kili to rest on her lap. His eyes were still screwed shut, his face a mess of tears and snot, cheeks red, mouth gaping slightly in miserable sobs. “What hurts, love?”
“Fee, he stacked up the chairs, when I know we’re not supposed to!” Kili choked out as Dis started cleaning his face with her handkerchief. “I told him, but he wouldn’t listen! He just told me to be quiet! And then…And then he s—stepped on my finger!” Kili held up the offended hand a bit viciously, another wave of tears slipping out of his eyes.
Dis lowered the hand to his lap, gently rubbing his tiny fingers in her palms as she jogged him slightly on her leg. “But you’re alright now, aren’t you?”
Kili looked up to her through tear-separated lashes as if for reassurance. Dis smiled, giving his face one last good wipe down. “Aye, you are, my baby dwarfling.”
With that, she slung him back onto her hip, making her way to the stove, where her pot of cranberries was quite likely already burning. “Now, how about you help mum find her favorite spoon…”
The day was drawing to a quiet close. Her sons had finally calmed down a bit for once after the earlier incident, and now Fili was at work doing the reading Balin had given him, his tiny brow scrunched in concentration, lips moving to sound out the words he pored over. Kili was away in Dis’ room, likely with wooden blocks and trinkets scattered all across the floor. At least the boy was quiet. Dis had managed to get a good bit of work done. She finished her stewed cranberries, and had carefully jarred them, and had started supper broiling away over the fire, bread sliced to be toasted right before their dinner.
She had seated herself in the hewn rocking chair next to the blazing fire, patching a torn pair of Fili’s trousers. The boy had a terrible habit of wearing all sorts of holes in the knees of any clothes he wore. Dis found herself sewing patches into his clothing at least once every fortnight.
Heavy footsteps fell into earshot, crunching against the ground, and Dis didn’t even bother to look up from her work as Thorin unlatched the door without so much as a knock, throwing it open. A gust of cold air rushed in, sending the fire shuddering, and a flustering cloud of snowflakes followed her brother in as he slammed the door closed.
Dis barely had the chance to exchange a smile with Thorin before the boys shot out of their respective hiding places, practically throwing themselves at the bundled-up dwarf. Fili immediately began tugging at Thorin’s sleeve, while Kili latched onto his arm, crawling up him. “Uncle,” Fili began, voiced laced with excitement. “Is it snowing already?”
“Aye,” Thorin said to the young dwarf, whose eyes grew even larger in excitement.
“I’m getting my coat!” Fili shouted as he tore away into the other room.
Kili, who Thorin had just properly scooped up into his arms, began squirming. “Snow! Put me down uncle!”
“Alright, alright,” Thorin grumbled, easing Kili towards the ground. “But before you go out—“He was forced to stop as Kili bolted for the door, only stopped by Thorin’s grip on the back of his tunic. “Put a coat on,” Thorin finished with a sigh.
“And some boots,” Dis added as Kili ran, giggling for the door Fili had disappeared behind.
Dis gave her brother a half smile, standing to tend to their dinner cooking on the stove as he dropped with a sigh into one of the chairs around the table. “The first snow,” Dis observed. “And it’s not even midwinter.”
Thorin let out another sigh, shaking his head as he unhooked his frost-coated cloak from around his neck. “This isn’t some flurry, either. If the winter continues like this, there could be trouble.”
“We had a good harvest,” Dis said, trying, somewhat, to comfort her brother, even though she knew it to be futile.
“We had a good harvest last year as well,” Thorin replied, tone wrought with hidden tension. “And how many died at winter’s come despite that?”
“That wasn’t because of the winter though, or because we hadn’t stored enough,” Dis argued back, raising a hand to massage her temples. Her brother had the horrible habit of making everything seem like it was his fault. “You know that there was a sickness. You can’t help that.”
“I could have kept them well fed and strong.”
“How?” Dis asked. “Make the rain fall harder? Make the soil become richer?” She shook her head against the stubbornness of the Durin family. “Thorin, there are many things you are capable of controlling, the growth patterns of our fields are not one of these things.”
“Then—“
Thorin fell silent, wiping the dark expression off of his face as the boys hurtled out of the back room, laughing. “Last one out the door’s an elf!” Fili shouted as he streaked by, coat half undone, scarf slung over one shoulder.
Kili limped after him with only one boot on, stopping a moment to shoot a “Come on, uncle!” at Thorin before he darted out the open door behind his brother.
Dis chuckled slightly, shaking her head as the mood lifted a bit. The first snow of the coming winter wasn’t all bad, she supposed.
“That’s my call then,” Thorin sighed, hauling himself to his feet, pulling his gloves back on his hands.
“Send them in if they get cold,” Dis told him. “I’ll have supper ready.”
A peal of high-pitched laughter rang I from outside and with one last nod to his sister, Thorin was out the door.
The sun was beginning to set across the opaque, white sky and the snow wasn’t letting up. There was already a solid three or four inches of it stacked up on the ground. The boys had taken full advantage of this, scraping it all together to make a sizeable snow-dwarf on the top of the bluff. It was good, seeing Thorin, Fili, and Kili all working together on this project. The last winter, Kili had been to young and small to stay out in the cold for too long. Dis had sat many nights, comforting her child, crying at having been left out of the fun his uncle and brother were having.
Now, she leaned against the bannister of their small porch, clutching a shawl Idna had knit for her last midwinter around her shoulders, watching the snow fall in heavy, thick flakes, whisked and turned by the wind. The sound of her family’s laughter and shrieks of joy rang through the air like sweet music, muffled faintly by the crystalline sort of sound of snowflakes landing atop snowflakes. While it was possible that this snow heralded a long and bleak winter to come, she couldn’t bring herself to hate it. Not when it seemed to bring her boys such joy. They deserved more joy like that.
She found herself lost in the memories of snowfalls past, and was only startled from this reverie by the surprisingly quiet presence of her eldest son, standing next to her. “Fili?” She said, a bit surprised at him having popped up like that. “What are you doing here?”
The boy shrugged.
Dis followed his gaze, to where, through the haze of snow, Thorin and Kili were still playing, Kili pelting his uncle with handfuls of fluffy snow. His aim was surprisingly accurate, even though he had to bend over in hysterical laughter every few seconds due to the sight of his uncle’s beard crusted with frost and snow. The snow dwarf on the bluff, half constructed, and a bit muddy, had long since been abandoned, and Dis wasn’t much surprised. Focus was not something her son had in abundance.
“Ma,” Fili said suddenly. “Kee knows Thorin’s not Da, right?”
“Hmm?” Dis hummed, a bit confused as she glanced down at her son. “Of course he does.”
“It’s just…” Fili began, biting his lip. “I know uncle does a lot for our family, and I know he loves us, and I know that it would be good for Kee to have someone to think of as a Da, but…Thorin’s…”
Dis crouched down beside Fili, settling her hand on his back. “He’s not your father.”
Fili nodded, his gaze still fixed on his brother and uncle. “I know that. But…does Kee?”
Dis paused, inspecting her son’s face. She could see he was confused, and maybe a bit frightened. Instead of answering his question, she said softly, “You know, you look just like your father did. Golden hair like none I’ve seen,” she explained twirling a damp lock of this hair around her finger. “Bluer eyes than the sky.”
“I think I do remember that,” Fili said, hardly louder than a whisper.
“And you’ve the heart of him too,” Dis added with a smile. “Big enough to love, and brave enough to protect. And I expect you to put that to good use, do you understand?”
“…aye,” Fili said after a moment, turning to send a smile to Dis. “I think I do.”
“Good,” Dis said, pulling him into her side and planting a kiss atop his golden head. “That’s my lionhearted boy.”
They watched Thorin and Kili for a moment like this. Thorin was chasing him across the top of the bluff, as the younger one tried to flee, tossing back handfuls of snow that were whisked away in the wind before they got anywhere near Thorin. Kili was turned to shout something over his shoulder at Thorin, while still running away, when the forgotten snow-dwarf returned to prominence, Kili slamming face-first into it.
Fili snorted a laugh, while Dis let out her own chuckles, standing up straight, and giving her older son a pat on the back. “Come on, love. They’ll be needing something warm to drink when they come back in.”
Safe to say, the snow had exhausted the boys. Even Thorin had been yawning all throughout dinner. When they finished eating, they had all migrated to the fire, the smoke of Thorin’s pipe filling the air with its sweet, familiar smell, the fire crackling low in the hearth. The storm was still blazing outside, the wind groaning softly. But inside their cottage, they were all warm and safe. Dis found herself smiling as she looked up from her sewing. All three of the boys were fast asleep. Thorin, in his chair, with his chin on his chest. Kili, curled in his lap, breaths fitful and slow, mouth half open. She’d be entirely shocked if he didn’t end up leaving a puddle of drool on his uncle’s tunic. Fili was asleep against the leg of Thorin’s chair, his small features soft with the firelight.
Dis sighed, and set her needle aside, before standing, and making her way over to her brother, footsteps silent against the floor. “Brother?”
Thorin’s breath caught, but he hardly stirred. Dis rolled her eyes. Her brother was always a heavy sleeper, especially when he was safe at home. She carefully lifted his arm from around Kili, drawing the sleeping dwarf off of his uncle’s chest. He stirred slightly, dark eyes fluttering half open, but Dis settled him onto her hip, shushing him softly. “It’s alright, baby dwarfling. Go back to sleep.”
With a grumble, Kili tucked his face into Dis’ shoulder, and was snoring again within moments. That settled, Dis nudged Thorin’s leg with her foot. “Wake up, Thorin. Unless you’d like me to carry you to bed as well.”
Thorin sighed, and finally his eyes opened sleepily. “Sister, you always have been there to wake me from a contented sleep.”
Dis rolled her eyes. “Hush with the dramatics. Now go on to sleep.”
Thorin started up from his chair, yawning. “I’ll get Fili—“
“It’s fine,” Dis assured him. “I’ve got them. Just get some rest.” A particularly harsh peal of wind rattled across the house, and Dis added, “You’ll need it.”
Thorin nodded gratefully, and pulled himself to his feet, ambling towards his small room.
Now the only one in the room properly awake, Dis moved carefully, slowly. The last thing she wanted was for her children to wake up. She climbed carefully up the ladder to the loft, trying not to jostle the dwarf on her hip. Luckily, the ceiling of their cottage was high enough that she was able to get Kili safely to his straw mattress, where she set him down gently, his tiny head rolling back onto his pillow. She had just tucked his favorite wool blanket around him when he stirred, a high-pitched yawn squeaking out of him. “Mama?” he slurred as she draped a thick elk-skin over him.
“Yes, love?”
“Is it still gonna be snowing tomorrow?”
Dis glanced to the walls, where although she couldn’t see it, the storm audibly howled on. “I think it will be.”
“Can I go out and play with uncle and Fee again?” he sighed, another yawn catching him, squinting his large, round eyes up.
“Of course,” Dis said with a smile, before leaning down to place a soft kiss on his tiny forehead. “But you have to rest now.”
With slight sound of agreement, the dwarfling curled onto his side, pulling his blankets along with him. Dis watched as his eyelids fell closed, his breath slipping out in long drags. “Goodnight, my baby dwarfling,” she murmured, smiling. Her youngest sure knew how to grab at her heartstrings, even if he could be a bit troublesome.
She had just turned to return downstairs and put Fili to bed, when she saw just the dwarf she was going to look for leaning onto the loft from the top of the ladder, watching his brother with a faint smile of his own.
“What’re you doing awake?” Dis breathed.
Fili shrugged, before crawling the whole way up into the loft. “I just woke up.”
Dis nodded, and there was silence as Fili edged across the loft, to his own straw mattress, crawling under his rumpled blankets. “Did uncle go to bed?”
“Yes,” Dis said, drawing up the boy’s sheepskin to his neck. With the way the wind was roaring, they would need all the warmth they could get. If she had to guess, Kili would end up crawling into her bed with her sometime during the night. Or perhaps, he would go instead to his brother, now that he was a bit older than the last winter. “It’s just you and I awake.”
Fili nodded, his baby blue eyes affixed to the ceiling.
Dis knew her child well enough to wait for him to speak what was on his mind. Finally he did, sending a glance to his sleeping brother. “I have to take care of him.”
“Do you?” Dis mused, sitting back to listen with a smile.
“Aye,” Fili said simply. “He hasn’t got da to look after him like I did. And uncle’s not enough. So I’ll have to look after him, right?”
Now, he looked to his mother, eyes expectant. Dis thought for a moment for the right answer, before saying, “You really are like your Da. Always looking to help.”
“I have to,” Fili said as if it was the simplest thing in the world. “If I don’t who else will?”
For a moment, Dis’ breath caught in her throat, heat prickling at the back of her eyes.
“Kilhon, it’s not your duty.”
“Dis, they need help.”
“Let them find it somewhere else then! Stay with me tonight. Stay with your sons. They need you.”
“The miners need me as well. I have to help, Dis. If I don’t, who else will?”
With those words, and a comforting glance from a pair of eyes bluer than the sky, he was out the door and into the chill night for the last time.
And now, Dis was seeing, in the eyes of her son, that same look. The look of loving determination that had lit her husband’s gaze the last time she had seen him.
“There’s my little lion heart,” she murmured, trying to keep her eyes from growing misty as she smoothed a hand over his brow, over his golden curls.
“Goodnight, mama,” Fili sighed.
“Goodnight, love,” she sighed, pressing a soft kiss against his brow, and sweeping over it one last time with her thumb, before excusing herself, the tears only growing heavier, unshed in her eyes.
When she reached the base of the ladder, she set her forehead against the rough wood, drawing in a deep breath as tears welled in her eyes, the first spilling hot down her cheek. She gripped her fingers hard into the rail. She couldn’t fall apart. Not now. It was a happy day. It was not a day to mourn a fate she couldn’t change.
“Mama?” Fili’s voice called softly, above the throbbing in her head, and the moaning of the wind outside.
“Yes?” she breathed, trying to keep her voice as normal as possible, despite the tears that now streaked down her face.
“I love you.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, and despite the pang of sadness in her heart, and the tears running hot down her face, a smile drew across her mouth.
“I love you too.”