Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first time Fíli heard the word, it was whispered. There were no other dwarves in the mountain village where they lived, but whenever one passed through, he felt their eyes as he clung to his mother's skirt. At the time, he hadn't known what the word meant, and the only way it touched him was the way his mother’s hand curled in his hair until he made a sound of protest and she stopped pulling.

His father he barely knew until he was older. Víli arrived in the middle of the night. He looked broken in half as he leaned into Dís, who gently stoked his thick beard. Fíli had watched from a corner, wondering who this stranger was.

Eventually, the dwarf revived enough to eat, and it was as he swallowed the stew Dís put in front of him that candlelight revealed Fíli. It was the first time their eyes met, and the older dwarf appeared bewildered. Gazing intently, he looked at Fíli’s wheat-colored hair, and his bushy brows shoved into a furrow.

"Dís?"

Dís looked up from the bread she was sawing and laid down the knife. "You've been gone a long time. He's already a child now. Come here, Fíli, and meet your father."

Curious but wary, Fíli obeyed his mother's command. She didn't like asking him to do things more than once, and he could see that she was especially serious now. He went to the side of the table and stood under the twin shadows of his parents. Though his heart was pounding, he didn't hold out his arms to be comforted. Even then, he knew better.

Father’s voice was hoarse. "He looks small."

"Times have been hard, Víli."

Fíli flinched when a large hand reached for him. He regretted it immediately in the face of his father’s disproving frown. Fingers scraped through Fíli’s hair, which tangled as the coarse nails pulled, but Fíli endured the pawing until his father withdrew. Then Víli’s lip twisted. He turned to Mother with a fierce look.

It was later, when they were alone, that Víli said the word, the one he’d sometimes heard before. Fíli didn't need to wonder what it meant after that. His father told him.

Father hadn't stayed for very long, but when he left this time it was for a lead mine and not for a battlefield. Some time afterward, Fíli noticed that his mother began to swell and grow. It perplexed him, but he liked it when she sat before the hearth and stoked her belly. Then her face, which he had always known to be lined with care, became tranquil. She even smiled sometimes. Fíli watched her hand as it made its gentle motions. He thought he remembered her touching him like that, though the memory was already faint.

Once, when his mother was far advanced in her pregnancy, she called him close and put one finger under his chin, commanding his attention. "Soon, you're going to be a brother," she said. "This is what you can do for me. You can be khurm to him, my Kíli."

Kíli sounded like his name, like Fíli. Very carefully, he touched his mother's distended abdomen. When his hand wasn't smacked away, he let it move in a little circle. Aloud, he wondered, "Kíli?"

She nodded, head falling back. "Yes, I'm sure. A strong boy. Not very long now."

Fíli felt the warmth under his fingers, and the inkling that there was a person inside dawned for the first time. He'd seen babies. There was an old barn cat that scratched him because he’d gotten too close to her litter, and there were chickens in the village, and other animals. Also big, chubby infants carried by the wives of Men. Fíli’s lips molded into a knot of pleasure without him thinking of it.

His let his hand go around and round until his mother pushed him away.

He remembered the screaming, the night Kíli was born. There was a midwife in the village, but his mother was too proud to ask for help from those who were not her own kind. Fíli didn't know it, but if Dís had still been at Erebor when her time came, she would have been attended in a comfortable chamber with steaming hot water, clean linens, and the most attentive and knowledgeable healers. Instead she gave birth squatting on the shabby floor of their cottage, grunting and screaming with only Fíli there, and he was terrified because he didn't know what to do.

Finally, the baby came. His mother's deft hands worked on its nose and mouth, then bound and cut something with a knife. Mother was panting, but she still had voice enough to command Fíli to come closer and take the naked, howling baby. There was lukewarm water, and she snapped at him to wash the sticky blood away. Afterwards, Fíli crouched on the floor with the red faced infant squished under his chin, his arms barely long enough to stretch around the wadded blankets. He looked at his new brother. The baby scrunched his nose, making weak, shivery noises. There was dark hair pasted down over his forehead, which was wrinkled as an old man's. Fíli looked on with wonder and some horror.

"Kíli," he said out loud, just to try it, and the baby wriggled. A tiny fist opened and closed where it peeked out of the blanket. For some reason, it made Fíli’s heart swell.

Suddenly, his brother was taken from him. His mother had cleaned up the mess perfunctorily, and now she claimed her newborn and shuffled wearily over to the bed. She stretched out on it, drawing Kíli close to her breast, and sighed with satisfaction. Her finger petted the dark hair, smoothing it until it dried and stuck up from his tiny head. She let him suckle, her lips turned up with fierce satisfaction. "My son."

Dís's other son trembled where she'd left him on the floor. His arms felt empty now without the blanket. His hands were sticky and in need of washing, but he wrapped them around himself instead. "Mama," he tried, wishing she would let him crawl up beside her, but she ignored him, even when he called her again. "Mama!"

Finally, he crawled onto the rug before the hearth and watched his family across the room. There, he held onto the memory of his new brother until sleep finally took him.

Later in life, Fíli would be sure that people were born knowing how to love, because no one had to teach him to love Kíli. The tiny newborn had quickly become a loud, demanding infant with huge brown eyes and a head full of hair. He had strong, grasping hands and could hold his head up almost right away, and he screamed with his powerful lungs day and night for months.

Mother was very cross during this time. She couldn't work much because Kíli was always hungry. Fíli was hungry, too. His belly ached, and sometimes the smells in the market made his knees weak. Once, a woman saw his hollow look and offered him a pastry. Overwhelmed, Fíli grasped the treat between his fingers and tried not to loose the prickles in his eyes. The woman petted his hair.

Then Dís tore the pastry from his hand and threw it into the street. Jerking Fíli away, barely holding on to a fussing Kíli in her other arm, she dug in her fingers and barked, "A dwarf needs no charity!"

Later, Dís tanned Fíli so hard he'd whimpered all night and couldn't sit down. After that, he learned to avoid looking at anything but his feet when they passed through the market.

One day, Dís shook Fíli awake early in the morning and wrapped a shawl around him to make a sling. She put Kíli into it, snug against his chest, then snapped up his hand and dragged them both to the forge. After that, unless the baby was being fed, Kíli was his responsibility. He sat outside of the ring of heat while his mother worked, moving things in front of his brother for him to grasp or singing fragments of songs he made up. At night, while mother rested, he learned to give Kíli a bath and make sure his linens were clean. It was hard, but Fíli didn’t mind how red and cracked his fingers got or how achy his back was from carrying around a baby who was almost as heavy as he was.

He didn't mind, because when Kíli smiled for the first time, it was for Fíli. He flailed his arms when Fíli came near, and he made contented sounds when Fíli held him. As long as they were pressed alongside one another, he stopped howling during the night, and his first laugh was at the tickle of his brother’s hair brushing against his nose. Fíli didn't mind because the first time Kíli spoke, his arms were clasped around his brother's waist and in his high, baby voice, he said, "Fee."

Father came home again on a night when the smoke from the village chimneys was so thick you couldn't see the stars. He arrived on a path from the north, but although he was as bent as before, his eyes seemed less like a broken thicket, and his hand was firm around the pack cast over a knotty shoulder.

Fíli and Kíli were outside when he reached the cottage. Fíli was bringing an axe down to make fuel while Kíli squatted nearby in the dirt, harassing a beetle with his finger. Both lifted their chins at the sound of the stranger's approach, and Kíli got up and waddled to the safety of his brother's side. Their father stopped when he saw the two of them, standing so close that they cast one shadow on the ground. His eyes bore into Kíli. Then he turned and went inside.

Kíli tugged on Fíli’s tunic. "Who that?"

Fíli didn't answer at first because he was remembering, and it made his stomach hurt. "That's Da," he said, trying to sound calm. "He's come home."

"Scary," Kíli commented, and his lip stuck out stubbornly as it did whenever he encountered something he didn't like.

There were plenty of things Kíli didn’t like. Fíli had never known anyone so willful as his brother, who was full of insistent half-words even though he could barely talk, who battled over everything and threw tantrums when he didn't get his way. For the most part, Fíli cherished his brother's spirit, but tonight it made him uneasy. Untwisting the hand around his shirt, he took hold and said firmly, "Be good."

He led them to the door and peeked inside. His mother was embracing Víli as father rocked slowly back and forth, and when they finally pulled apart, Fíli saw her wipe her eyes. Yet she was smiling, a wider smile than Fíli had seen since the nights when she’d been waiting for Kíli. She toward the door and saw her children there.

Turning Father's shoulders so that he was facing the boys, she said, "This is Kíli, your son."

Kíli fidgeted as the huge dwarf gazed without speaking. He tried to sink into the space under his brother's arm, but Fíli knew their mother intended for him to be seen, and he didn't want to make her angry. Instead, he shifted Kíli in front of him and held onto his shoulders.

"Kíli," the older dwarf said, stepping closer. He reached out his hand.

Kíli didn't flinch as Fíli once had. Instead, he stuck out his chin, and a belligerent look crossed his face. He batted away his father's hand and cried, "No!"

Fíli’s muscles tensed, but Dís just chuckled. She came beside her husband. "Kíli doesn't like anyone to play with his hair," she explained. "It’s always hopelessly tangled."

"Bad faeries," Kíli agreed, relaxing. Looking up, not at their father but at Fíli, he asked, "Da?"

Until then, all eyes had been on Kíli, but now attention shifted. Fíli witnessed the moment his father’s expression hardened, and the word burned behind his eyes without it having to be said. It made Fíli’s throat tighten, but he swallowed with effort. To his brother, he confirmed, "He's your da, Kíli."

What Kíli knew about fathers was questionable. In all his rudimentary memories, there had never been one. The things a father might have done had been done by another, from binding his boots to soothing his tears. Still, Fíli could tell he was curious. He reached out to grasp the thick, coarse beard. "Big," he commented.

Then Víli did something that Fíli had never heard. He laughed. It came from deep down in his belly, and a light burned suddenly in the dark eyes that rounded the edges of his cheekbones. He turned to Dís with an expression of wild delight and gathered Kíli into his arms.

Dís kissed both their cheeks, one on each side, her eyes watering again. Even Kíli, startled by the sudden proximity, was so caught up in the warm reaction of his mother and this new thing – this father – that he didn't resist. Their three dark heads ducked close together as Dís leaned in, pressing her forehead to her husband’s.

Fíli leaned against the threshold of the door. He watched and stayed silent, not daring to speak. Just as he had when he was a much smaller child, he knew better than to hold out his arms.

Chapter Text

Right away, Víli established himself in their household. His hand trailed over the furniture, which was in obvious disrepair. He eyed the damp rafters, which leaked in bad weather. His expression grew dark as he surveyed the sparse cupboards and looked at the two thin children with their narrow cheeks and deep eyes. Then he turned to their mother.

“No more, Dís.”

On the floor with his brother between his knees, Fíli watched his mother’s expression tighten. He didn’t know the shame she felt remembering the way she’d once lived, or how their cottage degraded her. He’d never known another life.

It was decided that Dís would work from home unless she had a special commission, while Fíli would assist his father at the forge. Kíli threw a fit the moment he realized he wasn’t going. He slapped his mother’s hands when she tried to restrain him and wet his face with tears. Fíli watched, aching. The two of them had never been apart.

The scene put Víli in bad temper. “You’ve spoilt that boy,” he snarled as he stomped toward the village. “Bleating after you like a calf! There’ll be no more of that.”

Fíli ducked his head, but he knew better than to defy his father’s decision.

Of course, Víli barely knew his sons, and he’d underestimated Kíli. It was hardly midday before the toddler came striding into the heat of the forge, trailing sticks and grass and wearing a look of triumph. Fíli barely had time to set down the hammer before Kíli slammed into his chest.

At the furnace, the rhythmic pounding stopped. Víli stepped out from behind it, leather apron hanging from his waist. His eyes were like a shaft of metal left in the fire. You could feel their heat. Yet even under that blistering look, Kíli didn’t quail. If anything, he made his fists tighter so that Fíli felt the bite of nails even though his shirt.

“Stay with Fee,” Kíli made his predictable demand, one that had rarely been denied until now.

Even with so few words at his disposal, there was no mistaking Kíli’s intent. His strong will provoked a begrudging pride – Fíli saw it pass over their father’s face – yet it in no way diminished the danger. Seeing this, Fíli tried to intercede. “Let me take him home. He’ll stay if I take him.”

“Of course he’ll stay,” said their father, and with a strength that could not be denied, he pulled them apart. Kíli protested, but the bruising grip on his arm had his attention. “He’ll do as he’s told.”

Though panic made his heart beat so frantically he felt lightheaded, Fíli pleaded, “He doesn’t understand.”

“He’s not a baby,” Víli said, “and if what he needs is a lesson, then that’s what he’ll get. He may have done what he wanted when you two were alone with your mother, but I won’t have my son defy me.”

“Please,” Fíli begged once more.

Víli leveled a finger at his chest. “Don’t interfere.”

At this point, Kíli was no longer so sure of himself. Their mother was stern, but she indulged his strong temper and left most of his tantrums to Fíli. He didn’t know what to make of this father who didn’t yield. “Fee?”

“No,” Víli said. “There will be no more of that. You were told to stay at the cottage, and you disobeyed. Now you’ll take your punishment.”

It was four firm swats, with his bare hand. It was a hand that was terribly big and hard, and Kíli choked on a sob from the very first, but when he was let loose he did not cry. Instead, he stood with his hands on his backside, looking miserable. And not a little angry.

Víli was unimpressed. “No lip. Now home with you.”

Víli escorted him, and when they were out of sight, Fíli sunk into a crouch. Without thinking, his hand went to his wrist, the one that still ached sometimes when it rained outside. But he had overreacted. Kíli was fine. A drubbing, a stern talking to. Nothing more. On shaky legs, he straightened and took back up the hammer.

The sun had dropped nearly a handspan by the time Víli returned. When he passed over the door, blocking the light and casting a shadow, Fíli looked up. What he saw turned his blood to ice. All the potential for violence was still there, but now it was directed at him.

He swallowed, a knot in his throat. “D-da –”

The word was cut short as Víli stepped forward. “All the way home, every word I heard was about you. ‘When can I see Fee? Won’t Fee come back, too?’ On and on. Did you teach him to mewl after you like that?”

“We’ve always been together. He doesn’t know any better.”

“My son doesn’t need a whinging whelp holding his hand.” He was now standing by Fíli’s workstation. The bucket at the base of the anvil was filled with nails. He picked one up and examined it. It was one of the very first tasks an apprentice learned, and even as young as he was, Fíli had some of the dwarves’ craft in him because every one was straight and true. “You’ve learned the way of it, I see.”

Fíli fought not to stammer. “Yes.”

Víli seized Fíli’s hand and gazed at the calluses. “Not as soft as one might think,” he commented. “But even a mule can be put to work once it’s broken.”

Fíli couldn’t stop himself from trying to pull away, but Víli was a grown dwarf with a grip hardened by hammer and pickaxe, by steel and stone. As deliberately as one might crank a vice, he anchored Fíli’s wrist to the anvil. The nail he placed into Fíli’s own fingers, molding them until they held it upright, the point against his palm.

Víli picked up the hammer. “A scar is a good teacher. That’s why you brand a thief. But you’re just a boy, so this will only be for you. To help you remember that a hand is not for coddling or stroking. It’s for working, to earn your keep and the security of four walls. Do you understand?”

“Da, please –” Fíli’s voice shuddered with desperation. His fingers were stark white and cold, the blood cut off by the grip he could not escape. In comparison, the nail was almost warm.

Víli readied the hammer. “You will not call me that.”

The hammer came down.

By the time they reached home, Fíli’s hand was heavy and swollen, and he couldn’t close his fingers. His mother examined it, holding his wrist under a candle. Eventually, she sighed. “Get my sewing kit.”

He’d born the stitches without complaint, but afterward he crawled into the loft and cradled his hand to his chest. Kíli stirred. “Fee, you have a bad dream?”

Rubbing his cheek against his shoulder, Fíli took a shuddering breath. “No dreams.”

The straw creaked as Kíli moved closer, pressing his face against his brother. “My bottom hurts.”

Having witnessed the punishment, Fíli didn’t doubt that was true, but he also knew the soreness would soon fade. It was mostly his pride that was bruised. “You have to obey Da.”

It shouldn’t have been possible to hear someone pout, but Kíli had a very loud lip. “Why?”

Versions of that question had echoed in Fíli’s ears ever since his brother had learned to speak. Why must they break up the tinder before games could be played? Why must he eat the black bits in his porridge? Why was Mama always so cross? Why couldn’t he climb atop the shed, or sit on the butcher’s pack mule, or take a sip of proffered ale from the laughing men, or have an apple from the market stall? On and on without end. Kíli questioned everything.

In light of their new circumstances, it did not bode well.

Fíli opened his mouth. “Kíli –”

Before he could find the right words, Víli appeared through the opening in the loft. When he saw the two nestled together, his finger crooked. “Come.”

It would have been an overstatement to call the building behind their cottage a barn. It was a shed, with gaps between the slats and a strong smell of pine resin and moldering hay. It was enough to shelter their few chickens, but in the night, it seemed vacant and comfortless. Víli stopped just inside.

“This is where you’ll sleep from now on.”

Fever was making his head fuzzy. He would never have asked otherwise. “Why?”

Víli boxed him so hard he was on the ground before he understood what happened. His pulse hammered in his ear. Worse, he’d fallen on his hand, and the spikes of pain made it feel as though the nail was going through again and again and again.

“There will be no more of your bad influence,” Víli told him. “You behave as you should, and if you have any sense, you’ll be grateful that even watered blood means a great deal to a dwarf.”

After, when the shed was empty except for the crickets tentatively taking up their song, Fili crawled to the corner where there was a gray blanket they used for drying grass. He felt old as he wrapped himself into its folds. Face buried in the coarse material, he allowed himself to voice the whimper he’d been holding back all day, and not even the heat radiating from his hand could keep him warm.

That summer, Fíli learned the new order of things. He grew used to tireless hours at the forge and the heaviness of a blow. His words had always been few, checked by a natural reserve, but now he hoarded them, locking them in his throat unless he was alone with Kíli. He kept his eyes averted. He obeyed.

Kíli, on the other hand, was in full revolt. He resented the changes this father wrought, raged over the withdrawal of his brother. But it was the restriction that tied him to the cottage that pushed him past reconciliation, and Fíli soon grew sore as a result of Víli’s growing frustration.

“Kíli,” he rasped when they were alone in the shed. “Can you not do as he tells you?”

Kíli touched Fíli’s back, which had taken a strapping. His crime had been not keeping a close enough eye on his brother, who’d wandered off again. “Why?”

Fíli wondered what he was asking. If the question was why he couldn’t play in the forest, that was an ongoing battle of wills. Víli had ordered that Kíli stay in sight of home, and no matter how many times Fíli tried to explain that Kíli was born to the woods with its little niches and hollows, Víli would not yield. On that front, Kíli was even less reasonable. Nothing – not swats or confinement, not even his brother’s pleas – could convince him to obey.

And as for the second possible question, Fíli didn’t want to answer. He didn’t want Kíli to know the reason for their mother’s brittle sadness or for Víli’s unpredictable temper. He couldn’t bear losing the esteem of the one person who’d always loved him.

He sniffed, unwilling to lie but, for now, unwilling to speak. “Please do as he asks, Kíli.”

Kíli picked pieces of flax out of his brother’s hair. “Does it hurt?” he asked, mimicking the soft voice Fíli used when presented with a splinter or scrapped knee. “You should take a nap.”

Fíli sunk down, listening to his brother mumble a lullaby. If only sleep would help.

Chapter Text

It was a cold night. Fall was creeping closer, and Fíli was hauling an armload of sticks for the kindling box when the front door swung open without warning. Víli emerged, face a black cloud. Fíli froze, but the older dwarf didn’t even look in his direction. Instead, he stalked into the woods and disappeared under the branches. An owl hooted as his boots crunched on fallen leaves, and then there was nothing.

Fíli edged toward the cottage and stepped inside. The common room was empty. Kíli was asleep at this hour, and the only movement was the banked fire crackling in the hearth. Fíli put away the kindling but couldn’t bring himself to leave. A screen separated his parent’s bed from the rest of the room. With hesitant steps, Fíli peeked around the corner. He saw his mother, whose loose hair hung around her neck like a black curtain. Fíli recognized the comb she was using. Its surface was inlaid with intricate designs, and without being told, he knew it was something she’d brought from her ancient home, from Erebor. The comb meant this moment was private, but when Fíli saw her hand tremble, he moved without thought.

“Mama,” he murmured, touching her arm. “Are you okay?”

She lashed out so quickly he didn’t have time to move, and the comb’s edge raked his jaw. He fell back, but the worst pain didn’t come from the comb. No, that came from her face, which was twisted with some complicated emotion.

“You’re the cause of this,” she snarled. “If not for you, it would have passed into shadow, a figment only. You’re the reason I cannot forget.”

Backing away, Fíli saw the glassiness of her eyes, the anguish. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry will not heal this,” Dís said bleakly. She looked down at the comb, now lying in her lap, and clenched her hand around the tines. “I was a princess of Durin.”

Having no answer for her pain, Fíli pressed his hand to his lip and put himself out of sight to spare her grief.

Fíli was sharpening a hoe when the miner came into their blacksmith shop. He was wearing boots that were black with water damage. His skin looked blackened, too, and he carried a pickaxe. “Give it to the boy,” Víli said, barely pausing mid-swing.

Fíli found it hard not to shrink under the miner’s scrutiny. Men were so tall. Even the shadow they cast seemed to cover the whole floor, and Fíli didn’t like being near their big hands. Still, he knew better than to cower. “A bit young for this kind of work,” the man commented.

Víli huffed, a sound that might have been a laugh had there been less contempt in it.

Knowing better than to involve himself in byplay between the two adults, Fíli directed his attention to the tool he was handed. It was of typical make, with a spike and a chiseled counter weight. The wooden handle was in good repair, but the head had taken damage. Fíli smoothed it with his thumb, letting the metal speak to him. His movements were sure as he secured the pickaxe and carefully removed the nicks with a file. One in particular was awkwardly placed, but Fíli’s deft strokes soon removed it. Finally, he sharpened the edge with a whetstone.

He handed the tool back to its owner, who checked it before offering a begrudging nod. “You do fine work.” A coin was laid down, and the man hefted his now-repaired pickaxe onto his shoulder. Instead of leaving, though, he turned to Víli. “He your boy?”

Fíli felt the hairs on his arms rising, but the older dwarf only grunted. “What business is it of yours?”

“He’s small but strong. We’re always looking for extra drammers down at the mine.”

The suggestion sent fear through Fíli. The mines outside the village were unlike the great tunnels of his mother’s tales. Their wet, black bowels were filled with foul and noxious odors. They caved in and flooded regularly. Of course, as blacksmiths, much of their earnings came from the mine: shoes for mules, nails for shaft frames, repairs for tools. But to be swallowed up by the earth, to drag carts through the dark with a chain around his belly…

Víli might as well have been chiseled from stone. “I wouldn’t condemn a dog to one of those pits. Now get out.”

When the miner was gone, Fíli steadied himself against the anvil, shamed that he had believed, even for a moment, that Víli would condemn him to such a fate. Grateful, he looked toward the forge. The hammer paused, its staccato sounds hushed for a single moment.

“You’re still a dwarf,” Víli spoke, and then the pumping bellows covered any other chance for talking.

As the fall passed into the first crisp notions of winter, there was less to do at the forge. Farmers brought in their late harvest, travelers grew rare, and the village settled in for the long, cold months. Without steady work, less and less found its way to their table, and tempers shortened.

“It’s not even midday,” Dís accused when they trudged into the clearing.

“There aren’t any commissions left to fill,” Víli snarled, drawing up a log and searching for his pipe. “Everything’s done.”

“We’re down to the last of the barley.”

“Impossible.”

“I just put it in the soup, Víli.”

The older dwarf made an exaggerated sound of frustration. “We need what coin we have left for fuel. Otherwise it won’t matter what repairs they bring me.”

Kíli chose that moment to come barreling around the corner with two handfuls of wild onions. He stopped short when he saw his father, then edged toward Dís to offered up his bounty. She took them with a sigh and went inside. Afterwards, Kíli ran to his brother. “Want to go?”

Cutting his eyes to Víli’s averted back, Fíli nodded.

These stolen moments were Fíli’s happiest times. Without judgmental eyes upon them, they were able to be themselves. Kíli scaled trees in his bare feet and pelted his brother with acorns. Fíli was more cunning, hiding until his brother ventured down with a puzzled, “Fee?” before dragging him out of the branches and tickling him into submission. Afterward, they rested under the canopy. Kíli had some bug or rock or bit of leaf to entertain himself, while Fíli laid back and closed his eyes.

Eventually Dís announced supper. Reluctantly, they looked at one another, but both knew better than to make her call again. Back at the cottage, Fíli was barred from the door. “Take this to the miller,” Víli commanded.

The miller pressed his lips together when he read the message. “You know what this says?”

Fíli made a guess. “Asking for more grain?”

“Barley and lentils,” the man agreed. “Well, you tell your papa that he’s down to the last of his credit. I can’t fill this until we’ve settled.”

In his mind’s eye, Fíli could see the strained faces at home. He gestured toward a broom. “If I sweep out the shop, could you give us enough for tonight?”

The miller wasn’t a hard man. He had several children of his own. “My boy Bren has gotten too big to get down into the pit wheel. You squeeze down there and clean out the debris, and I’ll give you a few handfuls to tide you over.”

It was the best deal he was going to get. By the time he returned home, suppertime was long past. As Fíli got closer to the cottage, he heard his parents speaking. Mother’s voice was low and insistent. “There has to be another choice. I can’t do this alone, Víli.”

“We’ll do as we must.”

Fíli knew he shouldn’t eavesdrop. Nevertheless, he was compelled by the urgency in their voices. Peeking above the casement, he saw Víli sitting at the table with his fists in his lap. Dís was standing opposite him.

“You don’t know what it’s like, being here all alone. Please, we can last a few months until the work comes back.”

“And how do you suggest we feed ourselves until then? Even if I stoop to going door to door as a tinker, it will never be enough.”

Dís hesitated as though she knew her words would be unwelcome. “As I understand it,” she said, “there was another offer placed on the table.”

Víli’s eyes flashed, sulfuric. “I already told that damn miner no.”

Mother’s lips thinned. “It could mean a winter without famine.”

Víli brought his hand against the table with such force that a piece of crockery fell to the floor and shattered. “Hells, Dís, the boy is your son!”

Dís swung around, face hot with emotion. Soon the only sounds were the scrap of her spoon against the pot and the sound of Víli gathering the broken dish. Throat tight around a painful knot, Fíli went to the door and lingered, uncertain whether to enter. However, when Víli saw him, he moved his chin. “Come in.”

Fíli offered the mostly empty sack. “The credit is gone.”

Víli pressed his fingers into his temples and closed his eyes. “I’ll go speak to him.”

Fíli was hungry. He hadn’t eaten today; however, when he looked at the partially cleared table, there was nothing left out for him. His mother stood at the stove, moving the dishes around in an aggressive way like she was trying to keep her feelings inside. She pointedly did not look in his direction. Víli glanced up from kneading his forehead.

“Feed the boy,” he barked.

Dís’s head jerked up, defiance written in the tense muscles of her face, but in the end she relented. Scrapping the very last of the soup from the bottom of the pot, she ladled it into a bowl and set it on the table with such force that some of it soughed over the sides. Fíli’s outstretched hand flinched. Víli didn’t look up, yet his voice wasn’t harsh. “Take that outside,” he said, and Fíli was quick to obey. As he stepped out the door, he looked back and saw Víli approach his wife’s averted back. He laid his hand gently against it. Dís shuddered.

Feeling like an intruder, Fíli closed the door.

Chapter Text

Finally, there came a day when they couldn’t even fire the forge. That same night, shouting woke Fíli from an uneasy slumber. He stepped outside the shed and listened to his mother’s voice, muffled through cottage walls. Then there was a crash, and a moment later the door opened.

Víli emerged, but instead of threading angry steps through the trees, he turned toward town. He left the sound of weeping in his wake, but Fíli knew better than to go to his mother. Instead, he followed Víli to the forge. A fire had been lit, filling the space with soft light. Víli sat with his feet propped up, smoking a pipe. It was the quietest Fíli had ever seen him, and he hesitated to break the spell.

Víli made the decision for him. “Come here, boy.” Fíli obeyed, padding over the flagstones until he reached the hearth. Víli was staring into the flames with tired eyes. “Tomorrow morning, I’m leaving. The work’s dried up, and there’s a mine a few days from here with a dwarf foreman.”

It was a good opportunity. Mining was backbreaking labor, but at least with a fellow dwarf in charge the pay would be fair. However, this meant the inevitable had come: Víli was leaving.

“Your mother cannot think of my leaving as less than a betrayal,” Víli said. “She’s lost too much.”

Fíli lowered his head. He knew, but what could be done?

The older dwarf set his feet on the floor and laid down his pipe. He grasped Fíli’s face, but for once the roughness of his thumb and forefinger didn’t hurt. Instead, it seemed almost tender. “Should I not return, you must take care of them.”

Heaviness settled on Fíli’s shoulders. He felt a strange urge to cry. Though their history was complicated, he didn’t want Víli to leave. “Yes, sir.”

Víli leaned back. He gave Fíli a cuff to his ear, but a gentle one. “Good.”

The fire flickered low, and Fíli watched the blue smoke from Víli’s pipe curl until it reached the ceiling. Then it dissipated as though it had never been.

A fortnight passed without word from Víli. Then a month. Two months. Dís took commissions whenever she could, but it was now midwinter, and work that did not exist could not be done. In those days, Fíli learned a new definition of hunger.

Kíli became a consummate forager, disappearing for hours and returning with his pockets stuffed with acorns dug out of squirrel stores, pine nuts, and even bark. It was edible, if not palatable. Fíli began begging for odd jobs and turned down nothing. His mother wouldn’t look at him when he returned, but she took his offerings – a penny here, a copper there – and for a night they had bread.

But there came a time when were no jobs. When Kíli couldn’t find even a worm beneath an overturned stone, and Dís was so lightheaded she could barely rise from her stool. By then, the ground outside was frozen and dead. Inside, the family huddled by the fire. Kíli laid with his head in his mother’s lap. Sometimes he lifted his fingers to his mouth, which he’d gotten into the habit of chewing, but Dís tucked them away. “Sleep, beloved,” she soothed. “Sleep.”

Fíli pulled up his knees, listening to the house creak around him. What would they do if no word came, he wondered, but there was no answer. Just the sound of his mother’s voice cracking as she hummed a soft, sad lullaby to her hungry son.

Word finally came in the form of a man riding a donkey. A horn sounded, drawing everyone to the square. They waited for the stranger to take a fortifying swig of ale. When he raised his eyes, they brimmed with bleak tidings. “There were an accident at the Bedlam mine,” he reported. “Twenty-five dead. I got the names.”

The news was met with tightly-pressed lips. Fear for the loss of father, son, brother spread through the crowd. At its fringe, Dís gripped her skirt until her knuckles lost all color. Fíli saw her pallor and prayed to the Maker that they would hear no names they knew.

“Finn Appledore. Aspen Combe. Anír son of Onar. Finn McCaw.” The man took a shaky breath. “And Víli son of Jaldi. That last one I know’s from here.”

A needle could be heard dropping in that moment. Eyes turned toward the only dwarrowdam in the village, the blacksmith’s wife. A few would have offered condolences, but they knew better than to try. Though she lived among them, the daughter of Thráin held herself apart.

After he finished speaking, the messenger removed his cap and ran his fingers through his hair. “If yer a widow, I got a few coins for yeh.”

Feeling numb, Fíli looked to his mother, but she turned without a word and strode away. Kíli called after her, “Mama?”

They needed to follow, but Fíli had a duty to perform first. Pushing to the front of the crowd, he introduced himself, hoping that the dwarvish naming conventions were well enough known that explanations wouldn’t be necessary. “My name is Fíli.”

“And Kíli,” Kíli pipped up. “Víli is my Da.”

Fíli struggled for the right words, loath to reveal weakness even in so dire a circumstance. “Our mother had to go home.”

The messenger’s expression was knowing. “That’s fine, lad. As a son, yeh have as much a right as anyone.”

He didn’t mean the words unkindly. How could he have? Yet it compounded Fíli’s grief tenfold. He drew back his hand. “Take the coin, Kíli.”

Kíli swung the tiny sack from his fist on the way back home. “This comes from Da?”

Fíli swallowed. His thoughts were so scattered, it was hard to meet his brother’s searching eyes. Even so, he drew Kíli in front of him. “You heard them say there was an accident.”

“Yeah, so they can’t work there no more. Da will come home.”

“The accident didn’t shut down the mine. But falling rocks, or maybe lack of air before they dug out the debris –” Fíli had to take a moment. By the time he could speak again, Kíli had caught on to what was happening.

He sniffed, rubbing his wrist across his nose. “Da died?”

Fíli embraced him, allowing his brother to squeeze with sharp nails while he processed the news. Of his own reaction, Fíli was less sure. There was a flinty piece inside him that felt no sadness. But he was young, and bitterness wasn’t an emotion he held onto easily. The few warm moments rose to the surface, and Fíli felt tears spill over.

Kíli drew back. “Are you sad?”

“Yes.”

“He hit you a lot.”

That was true, and there were some things he would not soon forget. The shiver that went through him every time he saw a leather strap. The repulsion he felt for nails. The cold looks on nights when his mother cried. But there were more immediate concerns than those small burdens. “Mother needs us. We must help her.”

“But how?” Kíli asked plaintively. “I can’t find no more acorns.”

A dreadful possibility was growing in Fíli’s mind. It had crept in the moment that pittance of a compensation was put into his brother’s hand. But first, he needed to speak to Dís.

They had just reached a bend where a tributary of the River Lhûn flowed past when a flock of water fowl took off with an alarmed cry, blotting out the sky with their dark wings. Startled, Fíli followed their flight to the bank. His heart stopped. “Mother,” he whispered. He could just see her through the trees. The current had caught the hem of her skirt, gathering it around her ankles. Swaying, she took a step deeper into the water.

Fíli bolted down the incline. He tore through clinging bramble, emerging onto the narrow strip of sand. By the time he hit the water, his mother was submerged to her waist. She didn’t so much as turn her head. As though in a trance, she stared into the middle distance, detached in heart and mind.

With a final lurch, Fíli reached her. He threw his arms around her waist and dug his heels into the mud. “Please stop,” he begged.

At first, she didn’t respond. Only when she could no longer move forward did the mist began to clear. She looked down, bewildered.

“Mama,” he tried, raw with emotion.

That was when rage surged up past the confusion. Her fingers tangled in his hair. It hurt, but she remained unmoved by his pain. If anything, her grip tightened. “My Víli is dead,” she murmured. “I lost him the first time at a place like this, and here you are again to remind me. Well, no more.”

She thrust his face beneath the surface, forcing his head down so that he couldn’t take a breath. He thrashed, desperate to free himself, but in her grief Dís possessed a crazed strength. Fíli gagged, inhaling water. It was cold, so cold. Though he fought for footing, he was weakening. Eyes half-open, he stared at the blurry lines made by the water. Was this how he was going to die, drowned by his own mother? Did she truly hate him so much as that?

Perhaps they would have found out, but even as his mind began to drift, something slammed into them both. Mother’s hand came loose, and Fíli found himself back in the world of air and light. On hands and knees, he found the beach. Someone was screaming at him, plucking at his drenched shirt. Slowly, the sound trickled back in. “Fee! Fee!”

Fíli reached out, held onto his hysterical brother. “I’m okay,” he rasped. “I’m okay.”

Kíli thrust his wet, heaving body into his brother’s arms and cried. Out in the water, Dís was also crying. Shuddering, deep sobs came up from deep in her body. She sat in the shallow water, face in her hands, and wept.

With tremendous effort, Fíli peeled his brother away and sat him in the sand. The water was just as icy as before, but this time when he put his arm under his mother, she did not resist. Bent over and hobbling, she followed him to the shore and sat down. She reached for Kíli. Overwhelmed, he rested his forehead on her shoulder. They clung.

Fíli stood beside his broken family, beyond the reach of their arms as always. Water dripped from his hair, which moisture had turned umber. He clasped his fingers, closed his trembling lips. There was no more need to talk to his mother. He’d already made his decision.

He was what he was. That, he could not change. But he could keep his oath.

Chapter Text

Fíli left the next morning, and though he’d never been there, it wasn’t hard to find the coal mine. The rutted road was well traveled. Nonetheless, his nerves were raw by the time he reached the colliery. The site itself was overwhelming. It was noisy and crowded. Still, he found the foreman, a man with a scar on his jaw and flinty eyes, who asked, “What do you want?”

“One of the miners said you needed drammers.”

The foreman surveyed him from the braids at his temples to the soles of his boots. “Dwarves don’t usually stoop to coal. You a bastard?”

Fíli withered. That word shouldn’t have hurt so much, not after all this time. “My mother and brother live nearby. Winter isn’t a good time for smithing or tinkering.”

“Do you know what you have to do?”

Fíli had a vague idea. He knew the shafts nearest the coalface were sunk below the reach of the mules and their wagons. The coal from those places had to be brought closer to the surface in a dram which was dragged or pushed up a narrow tunnel.

“Drammers bring up a hundredweight at a time, sometimes more,” said the foreman.

Fíli understood his skepticism. Even disregarding the obvious signs of being underfed, he was small. “I’m strong for my size,” he promised.

“Perhaps so,” the foreman agreed. There was the thinnest vein of underlying emotion, but it disappeared as he waved his hand in the direction of a shed not far from where they stood. “Go put your name on the ledger. Thorne will put you to work.”

And that was that. It was done.

A man called Thorne was the supervisor of every underaged laborer at the mine: the mule drivers, the breaker boys who sorted coal, the ventilation and door keepers crouching in blind tunnels, and, of course, the drammers. It took a special kind of apathy not to be moved by the smashed hand, bloody scalp, or hopeless wheezing of a child, but Thorne didn’t think of his charges as children. He barely saw them as people. “Yer an asset of the mine, just like a cart or mule, only we’d have a harder time replacing the mule. Yeh do you as your told. Yeh stay down there the whole shift. Break the rules and I’ll welt yeh, just like I’d do those stupid asses. That clear?”

It was emphatically clear, though Fíli swiftly learned following the rules was hardly enough to keep him from the sting of Thorne’s cane.

But beatings he had known before. What he wasn’t prepared for was the reality of the mine. Cut into the side of the hills, it extended horizontally before splintering into shafts, most so deep they could only be reached by climbing. It was perpetually wet, with a frigid slurry of mud and water dripping down and pooling as deep as his ankles. He was shivering even before he reached the rungs of a ladder. Down and down until the walls closed in and the air had no movement. Fíli’s breathing became shallow.

Hands seized him when he reached the bottom, and he panicked. “Quit squirming and pull yourself together,” a gruff voice commanded. When Fíli was calmer, a nearly indistinguishable face peered at him. “Who’re you?”

“Drammer,” Fíli muttered, barely audible.

The miner grunted. “Well, I hope there’s some substance to you. We don’t have time to coddle anybody down here.” He took a bruising grip on Fíli’s arm, dragging him into an even darker passage. The noise grew worse. Pounding and scrapping. There was a rattle as a harness was thrust in his direction. With unsteady hands, Fíli made it fast around his waist. The miner gave it a tug. “That should do it. You climb this shaft.” He put Fíli’s hand on the opening, which was almost too narrow for the loaded cart beside it. “You can push or pull, but if you’re behind and slip, it’s liable to crush you. There are no turns. Just straight up until you reach the main passage, and then down again to reload.”

Fíli nodded, though it was almost too dark to see. “Okay.”

The man gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Try not to scream if you fall. Nobody wants a cave in.” With those final words, Fíli was left alone, chained to a coal cart.

His hands were shaking, but he told himself they underground had been home to dwarves for thousands of years. There was no reason to fear it. Yet in the same breath, a calamitous bang echoed off every surface, and the wooden framing over Fíli’s head squealed. He closed his eyes, focused on the layers of darkness behind his lids, and searched for courage. He found it in one word, which he said aloud: “Kíli.”

Thus decided, he squeezed inside the shaft on his hands and knees and shuffled forward until the chain went tight. And then he pulled.

Fíli didn’t have words to explain what it was like, working in the mines. There was the bone-chilling temperature that sliced through the rags he wrapped around his hands. There was the constant moisture saturating his clothes. His knuckles and palms were swollen with a thousand cuts. His knees were bruised to the bone. But the worst was the harness, which pressed into his body with all the weight of the loaded cart.

That first trip up the shaft, he’d been certain he couldn’t do it. The chain pulled tight, dragging him back whenever his feet lost their grip. On his belly, with his fingers digging into the muddy slope, he actually cried. But in slow, uncertain starts and halts, he made it to the main tunnel. And as the days passed, he learned there was much he could endure which once had seemed unbearable. Choking dust. Bad air. Men with their grasping hands and ribald taunting. Unjust beatings. And worse of all, returning home. These days, the cottage was a closed door. Dís’s had only unseeing eyes. And at night, despair crept in.

Yet every day Fíli returned. Why? Because at the end of that first shift, after he had crawled out into the air and revived enough to stand, Thorne put five pennies in his hand. Fíli stared at them, so numb that he was almost past caring. But something remained. A reminder and a promise. He closed his hand over the pennies, a tear cutting a track through the grime, and repeated, “Kíli.”

Chapter Text

Circumstances shifted with the arrival of a bearded dwarf. If he’d just been a traveler passing through, he might not have attracted much notice. However, this dwarf was hardly regular. His cloak, while travel stained, was navy blue threaded with silver. His beard was braided with copper clasps. Even his mount, with its bright, intelligent eyes, gave him a sense of presence and purpose.

He stopped in the square. “I’m looking for Dís, daughter of Thráin, and I was told she dwelt here. Where can I find her?”

“The dwarrowdam lives outside the village, near the forest,” someone told him. He spurred his pony, but even after he departed, speculative murmurs followed.

Fíli was home, sick with a hacking cough and fever. Kíli was sitting with him, but when the pony appeared on the path, he ran out to get a closer look. The dwarf halted at the sight of him. “Are you a son of Dís?”

Kíli wiped his nose. “Yeah. Who’re you?”

“A messenger from Ered Luin. From the Blue Mountains,” the dwarf clarified when his naming was met with a blank look. Stiffly, Fíli sat up. He’d heard of those mountains. The stranger reached into his satchel, pulling out a roll of parchment. “This is for your mother, but I must place it in her hands. Can you tell her I’m here?”

Kíli bolted toward the cottage, bellowing at the top of his voice. “Mama!”

Dís came outside. “Kíli, I’ve told you a thousand times not to shout.”

Before he could answer, the messenger dismounted. Dís saw him and swayed. “Fræg?”

The dwarf bowed low. “At your service, my lady.”

Dís smoothed her tatty apron as though reminded her of their surroundings. “What are you doing here?”

“Thorin sent me.”

Inside the shed, Fíli felt the name cut through him. It had weight and substance, power laid down by his mother’s stories. Thorin was her brother, heir to the throne of Erebor. Had he really sent this dwarf from the far-off place where he dwelt?

Fræg presented the parchment. “This came directly from him. For a time, we didn’t know where you settled, but word of a recent mining accident allowed us to track your whereabouts.” His face fell. “I offer my deepest sympathies.”

Dís nodded stiffly, already undoing the parchment. She held it as though it were made of gold, eyes devouring the words. When she was done, she drew it to her chest. “Will you wait for me to write a reply?”

“Of course, Lady Dís.”

“Kíli, get our guest some water. I’ll be back in a moment.”

She disappeared into the house, and before Fræg had even reached the bottom of his cup, she returned with a scrap of folded paper. She pressed it into his hand.

“Accept my apologies for not inviting you to stay and take a meal, but if you can bear the journey, I am – I need Thorin to receive this as soon as possible.”

Fræg’s eyes were clear with understanding. “I will carry it to him with all speed. You have my word.”

Dís clasped her hands in front of her, standing tall. “Thank you.”

She was still standing there when the pony disappeared up the path, carrying the message Dís had written. Holding onto the side of the shed, Fili stepped out into the sunlight just as Kíli asked, “Mama, what did that letter say?”

To the surprise of both boys, Dís, who had been so distant lately, pressed her hands to her face and gave an incredulous laugh. Her eyes were bright and glassy, but she seemed – for the first time since news had come of Víli’s death – like a person who had hope. “Your uncle is coming.”

Kíli squealed. “Uncle?”

Fíli sat down in the dirt, overcome by the news. “Uncle Thorin is coming,” he murmured to himself. But what did that even mean?

In the short term, Thorin’s imminent arrival meant that everything had to be cleaned. The loft was emptied and swept. The floors were scrubbed and sanded. Fíli spent his days at the mine, but when he was home there was always something to do. His mother was almost frenzied, but Fíli was glad to see her vigor return. It reminded him of the old days, before Kíli was born. There was the same spirit of expectation.

“Fee, my head hurts,” Kíli complained, holding fistfuls of his hair, which was even more knotted than usual. “Mama keeps putting braids in.”

Fíli petted the tangled locks from his somewhat hunched position. His back was hurting, and he tried not to move too much. “She wants you to look nice when Thorin gets here. Dwarves wear braids.”

Kíli touched Fíli’s straggly examples, the ones he put in to keep his hair out of his eyes. “I like yours better.”

“Will you let me put some in if I promise they’ll look exactly the same?”

Kíli agreed with his usual stubborn-headed flair. The braids went in, but afterward he refused to take them out, even when he was bullied into a bath. Dís let him have his way, but all else went forward as planned. Special spices bought from the market. Clothes, painstakingly mended. Kíli, repeatedly scolded about what he should do and say. Often, Mother held his face between her hands. “You are blood of my bones, an heir of Durin. I want you to show your uncle how true that is.”

The only preparations that Dís did not make had to do with her other son. Fíli watched her, hoping for a sign about how he should act. Soon, though, her persistent refusal to give one offered its own instruction. It seemed she was loath to acknowledge his existence at all.

In his life, Thorin had covered miles beyond counting, yet the road held no delight for him. His heart was in the roots of the mountains; it did not wander. Yet this journey, long postponed but now realized, was one he took up with eagerness. He buckled the final pack to his pony.

“You bring that lass back,” Balin told him, clasping Thorin’s arm. “And the little one. It’s long past due.”

This reunion was overdue. Thorin looked at the walls of Ered Luin, the new city of his lost people. It had taken so long to come to this point, where the sons of Erebor could once again feel secure. Now, finally, he was ready to share it with Dís.

He could still remember when word of Víli’s passing reached them. Thorin had sorrowed for the loss of his kinsman but was delighted to find his sister so near at hand. “Say the word, and an entire battalion will be at her door in an instant,” Balin told him, but Thorin had not been willing to put such an important task in any hands but his own. He sent a messenger and began making preparations, and when Dís’s note had returned with news of a son, all of Ered Luin had rejoiced.

“This is a great day,” Thorin had breathed. He leaned over the mantle, feeling every one of his one hundred and twenty-six years. He’d known for a long time that he would sire no children, and as age crept in, he’d begun to fear that the line of Durin might end with him.

Not so, now.

Balin reclined in a plush chair and exhaled. His beard was fully white these days. Thorin knew that he, more than any other, understood his feelings and his fears. “It seems that fate has left a crack for us to squeeze through after all. I’m glad of it.”

“I wonder what he’s like,” Thorin muttered.

“Oh, I imagine he’s a roly-poly lad filled with wickedness and laughter,” Balin suggested, then cut his eyes to the smoldering dwarf by the fire. “Or perhaps moody silences. With such a lineage, who can say?”

Thorin smirked. “You mock me, but I cannot be cross today.”

“I’m going to write my brother a letter,” Balin said. “I don’t know which will surprise him more, this news of Dís’s progeny or your mood. I haven’t seen you so pleased in an age.”

“It’s been an age since there was something like this to be pleased about.”

“Well, before long they’ll be some young blood around here to lighten your spirits. When are you going?”

“Soon,” Thorin promised, and his conviction resonated in his own heart.

Now the mile markers passed with unusual swiftness. Thorin’s mind was cast far, down the road to the village where his sister lived. In only a few short days, he would see her again. And the boy, his sister-son. There was much that Thorin desired with a deep and passionate longing, but for now all that mattered was bringing them home.

After weeks of buildup, Fíli somehow expected the arrival of Thorin be accompanied by trumpets, but in reality, it took them unawares. Kíli was outside, sulking because of the recent mandate that he wear boots all the time. Nearby, Dís was etching dwarvish sigils into buttons. Fíli was inside sweeping the floor, and that was when they heard the sound of hoofbeats.

Fíli noticed him first. The tallest dwarf he’d ever seen, sitting on a chestnut pony. He had hair like a raven’s wing – just like Mother – and his shoulders were rimmed with fur. He stopped when he came within sight of the cottage and let the reigns drop. In one step, he dismounted, a hand on the animal’s neck.

“Dís?”

The rumbling voice carried easily, and Mother’s head jerked up. The whittling knife fell, and she stood with the balance of a new foal, reaching out a shaking hand. He went to her, and they fell into one another, embracing. When they pulled apart, Dís still seemed unsteady. Yet joy was beginning to take over, especially when Thorin noticed the wide-eyed child perched on a nearby stump. “Is this him?”

Proudly, Dís nodded. “My son, Kíli.”

“Kíli,” Thorin said solemnly, as though his nephew were being presented before a throne rather than a shabby cottage with missing stones in the chimney. Slowly, his lips stretched around his dark facial hair. “Will you come and greet me?”

Kíli wasn’t a timid child, but in this one case he showed hesitation. Perhaps it was awe. After all, he’d heard the stories. Thorin was a figure of legend, as real – or unreal – as any of the tales about elves or goblins. Uncertain, he asked, “Uncle?”

That provoked a true smile. Thorin went down on one knee. “That’s so. I’m your uncle, Thorin.”

This was invitation enough for Kíli. Restraint fell away, and he barreled into Thorin’s chest, already yanking the material and poking the shining buckles. He grasped the older dwarf’s braids, examining them critically. “These are pretty good.”

“If you’d just let me plait them, then yours would look as nice,” Dís said, exasperated.

Kíli grasped his two matted tails and glared at her. “I like mine.”

Thorin chuckled. “Leave him, Dís. A warrior should know how to care for himself, after all.”

Inside the house, Fíli jerked. He was certain Kíli would immediately open his mouth and explain that his braids had been done by his brother, but Dís didn’t give him the chance. “You must be tired from your journey. Come inside. I’ll make you something.”

“That would be welcome,” Thorin said. “We have much to talk about.”

“We do. But for now, play with my son. Sit by the fire. Eat.”

Thorin touched Kíli’s chin, drawing his eyes. “Yes. Let’s do that.”

As they moved toward the cottage, Fíli felt a spark of panic. Their home was simple. It had only one door, and if he darted out now, he would be seen. Casting around, he spotted a half-open cupboard. He set aside the broom and squeezed into it, pulling the door shut. Then he curled into a ball and tried not to so much as breathe.

Thorin settled at the table while his mother set out cheese and eggs. After taking care of the pony, Kíli had gotten his only real toy and trotted it around the floor, making whinnying noises. A merry conversation began, interspersed with jokes and stories. Often, Dís laughed as though she couldn’t believe it was happening. Inside the cabinet, Fíli pressed his face into his arms. He knew he would have to meet Thorin eventually, but if he came out now, it would spoil things for Mother. He couldn’t do that.

He might well have stayed there until everyone went to sleep, except for the fact that Thorin didn’t know where they kept their dishes. When the bread was warmed, he said, “Let me get something for that,” and before anyone could tell him different, he pulled the door to the cupboard open.

Fíli heard the sharp intake of breath. “Dís,” said Thorin, his deep voice resonating in all the corners, even the one in which Fíli crouched. “Your letter only mentioned one.”

Fíli was trembling all over. He wasn’t ready for this. He didn’t think he could bear to look into the eyes of his heroic uncle and see a mirror of Víli’s hatred or his mother’s fragile contempt. His eyes filled with shameful needle points. With great hesitation, he dared to glance at Dís. Mother did not want him in the warm room with Thorin and Kíli and the exotic, spicy bread she’d baked so painstakingly. If it hadn’t been clear before, Fíli could see it now in the lines of her face. Nonetheless she tipped her chin, murmuring, “Come on out,” and he knew that neither of them had any choice.

Before he could gather the nerve to obey, the door was opened wider, and for the first time Fíli looked full in the face of Thorin son of Thráin. His nose was long and crooked, his cheekbones high. His forehead and jaw drew lines that looked regal even to Fíli, who had no experience with such things. But the feature that gave him pause was Thorin’s eyes, which gazed intently from under thick brows. They were steel blue. Like Fíli’s.

Out of nowhere, Thorin smiled. It was like Mother’s, complex and layered, but it was still there. He grasped Fíli beneath his arms. When he was lifted out, Fíli expected to be set down immediately, perhaps even flung toward the door, but instead Thorin carried him. When he sat down at the table, he placed Fíli on his knee.

Fíli was vibrating. He had never been held. He didn’t know what to make of it, and he was scared.

“Hello, there,” Thorin said to him. His voice was different than the men at the mine. It didn’t grate, strike, or stoke. Instead, it seemed to sit on his shoulders, like the hand his uncle placed with care, as though he knew how sore Fíli was. “And what were you doing in the cupboard instead of out here with us?”

“He likes to play games,” Dís said. Her hands were clasped together. “I can never find him when I need him.”

That made Fíli shrink. He didn’t hide, he just knew he wasn’t supposed to –

Kíli came around the table and leaned against Thorin. “This is Fee.”

“Fíli,” Fíli heard himself say, though he could barely understand the word, it was so garbled.

Thorin stroked his hair, and Fíli flinched. Immediately he wanted to cry, because why did it always have to start like this? But Thorin didn’t yank or twist. Rather, he tugged very gently at one of the curls by Fíli’s ear. “Like ripe wheat,” he commented. “Or gold.”

It was a close thing whether it was Fíli or Dís who first choked on a sob, or who hid it better. Kíli frowned. “Fee,” he said sadly.

Thorin looked between them. He had no context for the tension in the room. Instead, he ventured, “Well, Fíli, it is my pleasure to meet you. Did you know, your mother and I often played hiding games when we were children in the mountain?”

“Really?” Kíli took up the thread, and from there a story began about a time when three dark-haired children took turns crouching behind pillars of carved stone as tall as the sky and chased each other through rooms filled with gold. Throughout it, Thorin kept his hand on Fíli’s back while his sister watched with trepidation in her eyes.

Chapter Text

At first, his two nephews were so much alike in voice and appearance that Thorin could barely tell them apart. Soon though, he could see the roundness that still clung to Kíli, while his brother – though much the same size – had the leaner build and more sophisticated movements of an older child. Which made Fíli the elder, a point of crucial importance.

They were unalike in more than just age and coloring, however. Kíli, Thorin soon learned, was wild at heart. His hair was home to a bevy of twigs and leaf-litter, and his brown eyes sparked with heat and light. He was reckless, even a bit rude, and his manners were appalling, but such things could be taught. In the meantime, Thorin took great pleasure in watching the boy devour his mutton with alarming vigor.

"Good," the boy mumbled through a mouthful, grinning at Thorin with his teeth full of lamb.

"Kíli," Fíli said, and the little boy sighed, swallowed, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he went back to eating with somewhat more decorum.

As they ate, Thorin took the time to measure his other, unexpected nephew. Fíli was a puzzle. At first, Thorin had thought him timid, perhaps even simpleminded. His reaction to their first meeting had been troubling. Yet, since then, Thorin had learned that Fíli was neither shy nor slow. There was a natural reserve, of which Thorin approved. In that, Fíli reminded Thorin of himself at that age. More admirable still was the way he looked after Kíli, who minded his older brother better than his mother, or so it seemed.

Nonetheless, Thorin couldn’t shake the feeling that something was out of place. It was clear they’d often been hungry and in need, but even that sobering fact didn’t satisfy him. There was something more, as yet undiscovered, and he wanted the opportunity to learn it – to know both his nephews.

A suggestion came to him. "Dís, I’d like to spend time with the lads today, let them show me around."

Dis looked uncertain. It was yet another thing Thorin didn’t understand. The Dís he knew had been decisive, never slow to speak. Yet since he arrived they’d barely spoken, and she seemed uncomfortable with him handling the boys. She'd gone white as goat’s milk the first time he put Fíli on his knee, and the lad had been almost as pale.

‘I know that he’s the eldest, and you've counted on him a great deal,’ Thorin wanted to say, ‘but he's still a child.’

A very young child, despite his demeanor. Thorin sensed he’d already missed much of Fíli’s formative years, and he was eager not to miss anything more. "What say you, boys? Are you willing to show your uncle all your secret places?"

Kíli’s reaction was predictable. "I'll take you to the woods!" he said with enthusiasm. "You can see my rock and meet Vahla."

"Vahla is a starling," Fíli murmured.

Thorin felt his mouth twitch. "I'd love to see your rock. What about you, Fíli?"

Fíli pressed his lips together, considering. "The forge."

A fitting choice for a young dwarf. "Can you craft anything?"

"Nails," Fíli answered. "Shoes for horses and mules."

It was the typical kind of thing for such a village. Thorin himself had certainly done much of that kind of work, but it still depressed him that was all Fíli knew of the forge.

"I can make a ring," Kíli pipped up. "Mama taught me."

He showed his hand, which had a thin, somewhat uneven band of copper around it. It was simple, but Thorin could still see evidence of his sister’s tutelage. "Dís made beautiful jewelry once," he told them. "With gems that twinkled like the night sky."

"Now I make marriage bands out of trash metals and trinkets for barmaids," Dís hissed, and though her bitterness was a poison Thorin knew from his own heart, he was still troubled to hear it so close to the surface.

He elected to turn toward Fíli, leaning closer so he could speak in a confiding tone. "Perhaps," he offered, "I can show you how to forge something more satisfying than a hoe or horseshoe."

"Like what?" Kíli asked. He already sounded jealous.

But it would be important, Thorin knew, to share certain things with each of them. He kept his eyes on Fíli. "A sword," he decided. It was fitting, a princely weapon. He would teach Fíli more than just how to craft one.

"I want a knife," Kíli said, climbing Thorin until the older dwarf swung him around onto his lap.

"Never fear, little one," he said. "There will be time enough for all kinds of lessons, in their time."

Kíli huffed, but seemed to know that pushing would not help. Besides, they already had an adventure planned. "Let's go see my rock!”

Kíli had not been kidding about the rock. The cottage abutted the edge of a wood, and it was under these rafters that Thorin was led. In the dappled sunlight, it seemed airy and open, but Thorin had lost his way in woods even less dense then these, and he felt a pang of concern as the world melted into an unbroken circle of trees.

"Don't worry, Uncle Thorin,” Kíli reassured him. “We won't get lost."

"Oh, really?" Thorin directed the question at Fíli, who walked at his other side.

"Kíli never loses his way in here."

Thorin gave a little inward shake of his head that his nephews were more accustomed to field and dell than cavern and stone. Had they even been underground, really underground? If they were, would they be lost as easily as he was under the trees? Thorin grunted. Impossible. They were dwarves.

After a long march, they reached a clearing, and in its center was a large stone. It jutted up from the ground, smooth and dark with age. Kíli ran to it, climbed up, and sprawled out. "Come on, Uncle Thorin. It’s warm."

Thorin laid his hand on the outcrop, which was indeed warm from the sun. Before he hefted himself up, however, he reached down and swung Fíli onto the ledge. It was easy to do, he weighed so little, and Thorin caught himself frowning. A dwarf lad ought to have a little more heft to him.

"Whoa, Uncle Thorin," Kíli barked with delight. "Can you swing me, too?"

"Another time," Thorin answered. He settled between the two of them, and sighed to feel such firm contact with his element. "It's limestone," he told them. "A good conductor. Friendly and reliable."

"Really?" Kíli wondered. He pressed his cheek to it. "Hello?"

"Stone doesn't speak with words," Thorin told him. "A dwarf knows the sound in his heart. It's made of the same material, after all."

Kíli pulled open his tunic, pressing fingers to skin. "My heart is made of stone?"

"Yours is made of mud and sticks," Fíli teased, and it was possible to hear a calm, content note in his voice. It was like mellow gold, that note. Thorin wanted to hear it much more often.

"Mahal made dwarves from earth, stone-hard and stubborn. It’s what makes us different from all other free peoples. Only we were made from the stuff of the ground."

"Fíli, too?"

"Of course," Thorin said.

Kíli looked over his uncle. "Hear that, Fee? You’re made of stone."

Thorin turned to see what effect this proclamation might have, but Fíli wasn’t looking at either of them. Moreover, his hands, which were folded over his stomach, had knotted. Thorin wasn't sure where the sudden change in mood came from; surely he was too old to believe in so literal a translation. Thorin laid his hand over the twisted fingers, just to be sure. "Fret not. Your heart is flesh, not true stone."

Whatever Fíli found in his words, it was not solace. His face crumpled.

Dismayed, Thorin came up on one elbow, already damning himself for the blunder. Clearly, he had no talent for children. However, before he could ask what was wrong, his peripheral vision was filled with black wings. "Vahla!" Kíli shrieked. The bird alighted on a nearby branch, a beady eye fixed on them as it bobbed up and down.

"Well," Thorin said. “It seems you do have a little friend.”

"I raised him out of his nest," Kíli said proudly. "They fall sometimes."

This one certainly seemed to know its young master. However, when it took flight, it wasn't toward Kíli that it veered. Fíli yelped, but the thief was already away, a bunch of blond stands tangled in its beak.

Fíli rubbed his scalp while Thorin barked with surprised laughter. Kíli glared at the bird. "Naughty Vahla. He likes Fíli’s hair."

"No wonder," Thorin said, running his fingers through the messy waves. There was a rumor that golden-haired children were blessed by the Maker. A tale, and likely no more, yet it was pleasant to think it might be true. "Not a Durin before you wore such a color."

He'd meant it as a compliment, but Fíli went rigid. ‘What is it, dear one?' Thorin wanted to ask. 'What makes your smiles so few, and brings on such sadness so suddenly?'

Perhaps he grieved for his father. Thorin could not forget these lads had only recently suffered a wrenching loss. Easily, he could recall his own pain over his father’s indeterminate fate. Kíli was very young, but Fíli could perhaps feel the whole spectrum of emotion that came from losing a parent. The two of them should speak about it soon.

"I think it’s time we head back,” he decided, and when Kíli groaned, he added, "You, Kíli, shall have the privilege of carrying this copper to the market for some cheese, and Fíli will show me the forge before meeting you and your mother for supper."

Kíli, who had clasped his hands around the copper, was already so consumed with his task that he barely registered the implied separation. "Widow Molly has the best cheese. She feeds her goats ground up millet worms."

A singularly unappetizing description, but Thorin didn’t argue. "Lead on, then. I certainly hope you know the way, because I do not."

Kíli sniggered. "Uncle Thorin, the sun is right there."

Thorin put his fists on his waist and squinted at the proffered guide. He tried to divine its mysteries the way he might a draft moving the flame of a torch, but it remained sullenly fixed. He scratched his nose. "I’m afraid the Lady does not like me, Kíli. She never tells me anything."

Kíli rolled his eyes. "Uncle, the sun doesn't speak with words."

He took Thorin by the hand. Thorin only thought to look back once they were already moving, just in time to catch sight of Fíli. His hand was still on the stone, but his eyes were lifted toward the sun, which tangled in his hair.

"Fíli," Thorin called, struck with a strong desire not to leave the boy behind.

Fíli turned, his face a barely discernable oval, but Thorin still felt a shiver work through him. Something was wrong. All that comforted him was the fact that, in just a short time, they would be able to speak of it.

Chapter Text

Thorin stepped inside, his hand on the threshold, and paused to inhale the familiar smell of hot metal and ash. Though a poor substitute for the grand workshops of Erebor, he couldn’t help but feel that a sliver of home was present in even the most humble blacksmith shop.

Fíli followed him inside. "Mother works here." And indeed Thorin could see her collection of hand tools and the flecks of discarded metal pounded into the uneven grain of the workbench. Fíli pointed. "There’s the bellows and forge. We haven't had enough work to fire it."

Thorin touched the hearth. The cold seeped into his fingers. It always felt wrong, seeing an unfired forge. "And you, Fíli? Where do you work?"

Fíli led him to a spot near the fire. An anvil was there, and a bucket. "Here."

Thorin could see the work that had been put into this station. The neat arrangement of the file and tongs, the careful way the bucket had been placed with its handle folded over. "Is there anything here you crafted?"

The walls were most bare, but Fíli went to a box and lifted the lid. What came out was a thin object with a smooth edge. He brought it to Thorin. "It was meant for the carpenter, but his mule threw him. His widow didn't want it."

It was a carving tool, a gouge. Its edge was honed fine, and despite the poor quality of the material, it had a burnished glow that spoke of many hours expended to bring out the very best from the metal. It confirmed what Thorin had expected. Fíli was a gifted and conscientious worker.

"It’s well done. Do you enjoy smithing?"

The lad’s eyes trailed the anvil’s edge where the punching hole was located, and he massaged one hand in the other as though it pained him. "Making things is good. I like it when the metal sings."

How apt a description, and very like a dwarf. It was good to see evidence that his line, though stretched by tragedy, remained unbroken. "And what of other things? Have you learned anything of fighting?" Víli had been a cunning warrior, deft with pole-axe and glaive, while Dís had been both terrifying and beautiful with a flail.

Fíli’s brows pressed together. “Kíli and I quarrel sometimes. He bites."

Thorin coughed to repress his laughter. "That's not what I meant."

Reaching into his boot, he drew out a knife. It was one he had made himself, with strong, straight lines crafted from dwarvish iron. He turned it around and offered it to Fíli. The boy stilled at the sight of the weapon, but when Thorin placed it in his hands, his fingers went easily around the hilt. Overlarge, but workable. Thorin adjusted his fingers.

"This way. You feel the heft of it? It's too much for your wrist right now, so use your arm." They traced patterns in the air, a slow dance with Thorin leading. "It depends on the weapon used by your opponent, of course, but in defense of yourself, this is the best way."

He let go, and Fíli drew the weapon close. It wasn't hard to see how he coveted it. Thorin felt a surge of tenderness.

"Keep it," he said. "A son of Durin should have a blade, and that one will serve you well until I teach you to make your own."

Fíli’s voice was so quiet Thorin had to strain to hear it. "Will you teach me?"

"Yes, of course," Thorin said. He looked at the cold hearth with disappointment. "Though perhaps not now."

There would be time, he told himself. Plenty of time. For now they needed to talk of other things. A heaviness settled on him. Though Víli had died because of a mining accident and not on the battlefield, Thorin could not help but feel responsible for his fate. Did Dís also feel that way? Was that why she had been so distant?

Thorin seated himself on a bench. "Fíli, there are things we should discuss.”

The boy’s cheeks paled.

Thorin said, "Your father and I were close. He was a comrade in arms and a friend, kin in name if not in blood. A noble dwarf. I’m sure his loss has been hard on you and your mother."

Fíli breathed but did not speak.

"I remember losing my grandfather. He died before my eyes, and I grieve for him every day. When it becomes too much, I speak with my advisor, a trusted friend. I want you to know that you can speak to me.”

Fíli chewed on his knuckle as though deep in thought. “What do you want me to say?”

“Whatever you’d like,” Thorin told him. “I’m starting to understand how difficult things have been, that you’ve had to work hard to help your mother and Kíli.”

This, Fíli was quick to answer. “I have,” he insisted. An old look crept into his eyes. He almost seemed bent under it, this burden he carried.

Inwardly, Thorin cursed the pride that had made him postpone coming. ‘Thorin, you fool. Before you went off to settle the blood feuds of your people, your should have looked first to your family. Now the damage is done, and even if Fíli never wants for bread again, all his life you’ll see the mark these years have left on him.’ Was there anything that could make up for that neglect?

Well, to start he could make sure the boy knew his efforts had not been for nothing. “I’m certain you’ve done all you could,” Thorin affirmed and saw Fíli relax. “But you aren’t alone anymore.”

That sharpened the strong little face, whose brows drew together in a tangled line. "Mother says you’re a king.”

"In a way." Thorin put aside his complicated feelings on the matter. "My grandfather, Thrór, was king under the mountain. If we still lived in Erebor, I would be king, but things are not so simple now."

"Mother told us stories, about the dragon. She said a hot wind came, and fire spread over trees like torches. It drove everyone from the mountain. She said she could smell flesh burning while she ran."

It was a gruesome detail to share with a child, but Thorin reminded himself he had forfeit his right to introduce this part of their heritage to his nephews. He had not been here to do the telling. "I’m afraid it’s true. We fought, but we were unprepared, and the wrath of the dragon was too great."

"So you've been fighting since then."

Thorin shifted, beginning to understand the heart of this inquiry. "I wish I could tell you that’s why I didn’t come sooner, but it’s not true. We did fight for a time, hoping to reclaim something of our kingdom, but we didn’t succeed. One day, I will take back the mountain. But until that day comes, we have Ered Luin. That’s where I've been, building a new home in the Blue Mountains."

Fíli considered this. "A new home?"

"Yes, a home for my people so that dwarves no longer must scrape and beg to survive."

"Is it only dwarves?"

Fire came into Thorin. He had worked long and hard to make sure that none of his own would ever have to bend their neck for any Man of the West again unless he so chose. "Yes," he said firmly. “None of theirs will ever cross its threshold. They can keep to their shabby villages and do business with us if they please, but Ered Luin is for the sons of Mahal alone.”

Twisting the hem of his shirt, Fíli asked. "Will you...when will you go back there?"

"Soon, very soon," Thorin promised, feeling more eager than ever to get his nephews safely to the mountain. He wanted to feed them heartily. He wanted to walk with them through the deep caverns. He wanted to take his sister, who had subsisted so long and lost so much, home – or as close to home as he could bring her at the current time.

He looked for Fíli’s reaction, expecting curiosity, perhaps even excitement. Instead the boy was shaking. "What’s wrong, Fíli?"

Only after a long moment did he work out a single word. "Nothing.”

Clearly there was something, but perhaps it wasn’t fair to expect Fíli to speak to him openly when they had only just met. It would take time for Thorin to win his trust. In the meantime, Thorin wanted to make things easier if he could. “Shall I make you a promise?”

The boy met his eyes.

“When you’re ready to speak, I will listen. But until then, to remind you that you’re not alone, you shall have one more present.” Reaching to his finger, Thorin withdrew one of the rings there, the smallest one. He slid it onto Fíli’s thumb, an iron circle cut with his own mark. “There now.”

A more demonstrative lad would have laughed or embraced him, but Fíli was not that way. Instead, he put one hand inside of the other, cradling the cold metal, and looked at Thorin with hopeful regard. “Can I call you ‘uncle’?”

Thorin was surprised that he felt he had to ask. “I would be disappointed if you did not.”

Fíli looked down at his finger. Then he offered a reward in the form of that mellow gold note. “Thank you, Uncle Thorin.”

‘My boy, you are going to be the death of me,’ Thorin realized, gazing into Fíli’s eyes and feeling something inside him weaken. ‘I would give you much, much more than a knife and a ring to keep that look on your face always.’

Time, he promised himself. Trust and love would make their own passage, just like water seeping through stone. But until then… He drew Fíli near, into the shadow of his arm. “Let me tell you about Erebor,” he said, preparing to make up for all the stories he had not yet told.

Fíli sat at the table and watched Kíli and Thorin. They were stretched out before the hearth, playing with Kíli’s carved horse. His uncle’s unconvincing neighing had Kíli in stitches. It wasn't often that Fíli got to see his brother so happy, and it was a welcome distraction from his own, more confused feelings.

He wasn’t alone in this struggle. Turning back around, he watched his mother knead dough. Her brow was folded into what seemed like a thousand wrinkles, and when Kíli’s laugh or Thorin’s rumble rose in volume, she grimaced. After today, Fíli understood why. It was because Thorin didn’t know the secret. At first, Fíli thought his uncle must; after all, others who passed through seemed to guess just by looking at him. But Thorin didn’t, and his mother was at war with herself about whether or not to tell him.

Fíli tried not to worry about what she might decide. Part of him dreaded the thought of Thorin taking back his acceptance with forceful, angry motions. Another part felt like a liar for soaking up his uncle’s warm regard. Which was worse?

"You didn't go to work,” Mother accused, interrupting his thoughts.

Fíli’s heart sank. Now that Thorin was here, he'd hoped that…but it didn’t matter what he’d hoped.

"What did you and Thorin talk about?"

Fíli looked at her. It was rare for his mother to speak to him so much. Her loudest communication was usually a closed door or a set chin that warned him not to approach. There must be something she wanted to know. "Limestone and Mahal. Finding your way by the sun. I showed him the gouge I made." There he paused, his heart fluttering. He felt the hilt of the knife pressing into the small of his back, the cold iron around his finger. He wondered if he should tell her about that, but he felt sure she wouldn't like it. Instead, he said, "Erebor."

The word made Dís’s face twist. "That place is gone."

"Thorin says he’ll take it back one day."

"Haven't enough good dwarves laid down their lives for that cause? My father and grandfather, my younger brother. All dead because of a vain hope."

Her tone warned against any reply, but an image of Thorin’s intent gaze as he spoke of their homeland rose in Fíli’s mind. He’d never seen such surety, and it kindled a response in his own heart. He whispered, "Thorin swore."

The smack came so quick and sudden it loosened a tooth. Fíli wasn't prepared, and it rocked his head back.

"Dís."

The word came from Thorin, who Fíli had all but forgotten was in the room. It made heat rush to his face, and he was ashamed. He should never have spoken back to his mother. He'd known that rule since the moment he could talk. Mother was upset, too. Her flare of temper had already died away. "Thorin,” she began, but whatever she intended to say, she changed her mind. "Fíli, go up to the loft."

Fíli’s head jerked up, certain he'd heard wrong, but a sharp glance removed any doubt. He was quick to obey, his hand already on the ladder when he heard Thorin say, "You struck him."

"On his face this time," Kíli agreed, and Fíli knew by the following silence that those words had only made things worse.

"You should go up to bed yourself, Kíli.”

"With Fee?" Kíli’s voice grew high with excitement. He was on his feet in an instant, hands clasped around his toy. "Okay, Mama!"

Soon they were bedded down in the familiar soft hay. Kíli practically threw himself onto Fíli with a contented sigh. But though his breathing evened out almost immediately, Fíli remained awake. If he strained, he could just hear his mother and uncle talking.

"What was that about, Dís?"

"The boy disrespected me."

"And that merited being backhanded? I heard the sound of it. That was no minding slap."

"You act as though you were never disciplined. Or have you forgotten, preferring to keep only gilded memories?"

"I've forgotten nothing, but we’re speaking of different things. Father was stern, and grandfather sterner, but they did not fly out in anger."

"What right have you to rebuke me about how I handle my children? You don't even know them."

"I know Fíli’s a good boy. He hasn't spoken one word out of turn the entire time I've been here."

Dís actually laughed, though it was mirthless. "One day, and you know all you need to know? You haven't changed at all, Thorin. You always think you know best, no matter what anyone else has to say about it."

There must have been something to her accusation, something that went beyond what just happened, because Thorin didn't respond right away. When he did, he sounded tired. "Is that why you're angry with me? I would give you a thousand apologies if it would make any difference.”

"You left me.” Mother’s voice was so raw. “You left and took my husband."

"That’s not fair, Dís. We were fighting for our people."

"There are no more of our people. The line of Durin is gone."

"Don't," Thorin said. "You, of all people, cannot speak like this.”

“Don’t you dare tell me how I should speak or how I should feel. You can’t possibly imagine what things were like while you were off on your noble errands! I won’t defend myself. Not to you.”

“Dís –”

But she had no doubt retreated behind the screen. Fíli imagined Thorin staring after her, his head bowed. The future, which just hours ago had seemed full of possibility, was murky once more. Would Thorin leave? Would he still take Dís and Kíli now that they had quarreled? Fíli buried his nose in his brother’s dark hair.

That night, after the cottage had quieted, Thorin remained outside under star and cloud. Something he could not name, that he hardly knew, lurked in the shadows of his mind. He could still hear Dís’s words, sharp as shards working beneath the skin. But while her accusations had been hard to bear, they were not what kept him awake that night.

When Dís struck her oldest son with such violence, Thorin’s whole body had revolted against it. He’d sat up from his place by the hearth, staring. At Dís, so angry. At his nephew, whose face was turned away. Worse of all had been Fíli’s silence. Children cried when they were disciplined. Fíli had barely flinched. It had ominous implications. Had violence crept into his sister’s house?

'It cannot be,' he told himself. ‘You’re measuring what happened out of context.'

Yet the feeling that something sour had seeped into this simple cottage, just as the sickness of his grandfather had seeped into the mountain, would not leave him. Nor did it leave him, even after his pipe ran dry and he returned to the cottage with slow, uncertain steps.

Chapter Text

When Thorin woke the next morning, both Dís and Fíli were gone. He searched the yard, the shed, even the forest. Nothing. When he returned to the cottage, Kíli was waiting on the stoop. It was the first time Thorin had seen him still. Going to the boy, Thorin lifted him onto the casement so the two of them could see eye to eye.

“Kíli, do you know where I can find your mother?” He received a sullen headshake as his answer. “How about your brother?”

“Y-yes.”

Anxiety pricked Thorin’s heart, and the restless dread that had been building since his conversation with Dís surged. “Where is he, then?”

“He’s working.”

That made no sense. Only yesterday, Fíli told him they didn’t fire the forge anymore. Yet something in Kíli’s voice made it impossible to doubt him, and Thorin’s fears from last night suddenly seemed much more concrete, so terribly plausible. “Kíli,” he said. “There are some questions I need to ask you, and they are very serious.”

The riotous child from the forest clearing had gone. Instead, Kíli wore an expression more like his brother’s, too old for his years. He set his hands on Thorin’s forearms. “Okay.”

The weight of them lent Thorin the strength to go on. “Where does Fíli work?”

“Coal mine,” Kíli said without hesitation.

At first Thorin wanted to disbelieve him. “Fíli is very young,” he rasped. Much too young to be in any mine, let alone those squalid pits men called collieries.

Kíli misunderstood and nodded in agreement. “He can fit in tight spaces.”

Thorin’s mouth was so dry, it was a struggle to speak. “When – when did he start working there?”

“After Da went away and didn’t come back,” Kíli said. His nose scrunched with disdain. “I didn’t like Da.”

Thorin knew the piercing sensation of a knife wound; he had felt it many times, and yet it had never been so painful as this. Víli had been his friend. He’d held up a toast for him on his sister’s wedding day. “Oh?”

He didn’t know, couldn’t know, but Kíli had been walking a long road to this confession. The infant dimness of his mind was being put away, and though the trappings of maturity were new, he was beginning to understand the meaning of the whispers, the bruises, the secrets. It made him able to say, with perfect certainly, “He was bad to Fíli.” There was clearly no worse condemnation he knew, and his small fists bunched.

“Why?” It was the cry of Thorin’s whole heart.

Kíli thought about this before he answered, but in the end all he could do was shake his head. “I don’t know.”

Low hanging branches stung Thorin’s face and arms, but those little pains were nothing compared to the ache in his heart. A black box had been opened, one storing memories of how his grandfather changed in the years before the dragon. If what he’d been told about Dís was true, this would not be the first time he discovered a capacity for depravity in his line. And though he wanted to believe that Kíli’s words had been an exaggeration, he dared not hesitate to act. So he covered the miles as quickly as he could.

Pushing through the last trees, the carpet of pine needles gave way to an open space of rutted paths. Amidst the pungent odor of raw earth, there were outbuildings, stacks of coal, and loaded wagons ready for hauling. Somewhere unseen, he heard the braying of mules.

The miners who saw him emerge from the forest stopped what they were doing. He was out of place, and they couldn’t help but notice. One approached. "Looking for work?"

Thorin masked his emotion. Since he’d been driven from Erebor, no job had been too low. He’d slaved over forge and fulcrum, serving those far beneath him in ability and worthiness. Yet this place sickened him. With his naked eye he saw evidence of suffering. People with missing hands or feet. Dead-eyed children masked with filth. Men whose backs were already bent, though they weren’t old. And despite his desire to find his nephew, he prayed, ‘Let me not find him here.’

"I didn’t come for work. I'm looking for a boy.”

The man scratched his chin. "This ain't that kind of place. I mean, you might talk to one of the bosses, but –"

Thorin felt gorge rise in his throat. "He is my nephew."

The miner looked thoughtful. "Dwarf children. Hardly see any of those these days. I thought they was kept holed up in their mountains."

He wasn’t wrong. Dwarrow children were rare and precious. Thorin ached that his nephews had been neither treasured nor protected. 'You should have been raised in a nursery with toys crafted from silver. You should have learned diplomacy on my knee and heard stories of our ancestors while tucked into beds of soft down. You should have heard endearments in Khuzdul, not curses in this hissing Westron tongue.’

"He would be small, smaller than others of his age,” Thorin went on. “His hair is fair, and he might have had a ring on his finger."

The man answered. "I know him. Drammer, and a damned good one. Has some kind of sense about when the tunnels ain’t stable. He'll be worth his weight in gold if he don’t get killed before he can pay off.”

Thorin couldn't swallow, his throat was so dry. "Where can I find him?"

A shrug in the general direction of the farthest outbuildings. "Supposed to go down at daybreak, but I guess he didn’t come in yesterday. Thought Thorne was going to throw him down a shaft. He settled on something less permanent, though."

Thorin turned on his heel. It took him a long time, longer than he liked. Finally, though, Thorin reached an exposed stretch of earth near the center of the mineworks. A hitching post stood erect on a lonely piece of ground, and there, arm extended over his head, was Fíli. A cord bound his wrist. It forced him upright, leaving his back and neck exposed. If Thorin had any question about what he was witnessing, it became crystal clear when the jackal of a man standing nearby raised a long, thin cane.

Later, Thorin wouldn’t be able to recall what happened in detail. All he knew was that one moment he was striding forward, and the next the man called Thorne was squealing in the dirt like the swine he was. When he coughed, blood dribbled from his mouth and nose, and he gaped in bewilderment like a dumb animal.

A man with an air of authority shoved through the crowd that was gathering as men came running from all parts of the camp. “What the hell is going on?”

Thorin picked up the cane and broke it over his knee. Then he turned livid eyes on the new arrival. “Will you defend this pig, who brutalizes children?”

A murmur went through the onlookers. Their eyes, when they passed over Thorne, held no approval. The foreman read the charged atmosphere and took in Thorin’s demeanor, ripe for violence. “Why are you here?”

“I came for what’s mine.”

The foreman wasn’t a fool. He was an experienced miner and had worked with dwarves. He knew better than to stand between them and their treasure. “Take him then, if that’s what you want. We’ll have no trouble here.”

“What you want and what you deserve are two different things,” Thorin spat, but this filth and his kind was no longer Thorin’s concern. Turning his back on the crowd, he went to the little bundle huddled against the post. The cord parted under his knife, and Fíli sank to his knees. His eyes were wet, and he kept them turned away.

“Fíli,” Thorin coaxed him gently. “Please, look at me.” Timorously, fearfully, the connection was made, but Fíli couldn’t maintain it. His shoulders hunched, and his head went down. What he’d tried to keep secret was known, and he was ashamed. “Oh, my nephew,” Thorin said. He reached down and carefully lifted the lad into his arms. “I am so, so sorry.”

He carried Fíli, not to the hostile cottage, but to the local tavern. The keeper gave him a disapproving look when he requested a bath. "It's barely midmorning."

Thorin didn’t care about the time of day; he only knew he wanted to wash away the filth that mine had left. He felt the child shaking, still glued to his neck, and slammed a coin – a true gold coin – down on the counter. "A room, a tub, and a fire in the hearth. Rags and bandages as well."

The tavernkeeper’s eyes rounded at the sight of the money, which he picked up gingerly as though it might disappear without careful handling. "As you wish, Master Dwarf."

In short order the steaming water stood ready, and Thorin set Fíli gently on his feet. He felt the boy’s reluctance to withdraw from the close embrace and smoothed back Fíli’s hair from his forehead. "It’s alright,” Thorin promised. “I will not leave you.”

Thorin helped him undress with care. The soiled shirt lifted from his back, first from one shoulder and then the other. It must have hurt, and yet Fíli gave no sign except to shudder when the fabric first peeled away from his skin. The welts were an ugly sight, raised and hot to the touch, but worse were the silver lines beneath them. Everything in Thorin revolted at the story they told, this evidence of his worst fears.

“Not all of these are from a cane,” he said aloud.

Fíli answered as though he’d asked a question. “Víli used a belt.”

Thorin’s eyes closed. “Let me help you into the tub.”

The water darkened quickly. Thorin used a rag, removing layer after layer. Beneath the grime, he found more than skin. Knees and shins, scraped raw. Nails cracked, sometimes to the beds. Scars, many of them. Worst of all was his stomach. When Thorin pressed against it, Fíli hissed.

“Does it hurt?”

His face pinched, Fíli took a few panting breaths. “Yes.”

Thorin knew the weight of a loaded dram. He tried to imagine Fíli hauling it, but couldn’t. “Let me see your wrist. Can you move your fingers?”

Fíli flexed with an effort, which is when Thorin noticed Fíli’s palm. There was an ugly, pursed scar. He felt a fresh flush of anger. “Is that pig responsible for this as well?”

The fingers twitched, a hesitation. “It was a nail, from the forge.”

White hot rage, so intense that for a moment Thorin wasn’t able to see. He remembered Kíli’s words, “He was bad to Fíli,” and struggled with his emotion until he was able to speak in a more normal voice. He needed to hear this from Fíli’s own mouth. “Did Víli hurt you?”

Suds had made a film over the warm water. Fíli squeezed his eyes shut. “Sometimes.”

In that moment, Thorin’s last hopes that this had been a misunderstanding dissolved. The evidence was tracked before him, as clear as tool marks in the earth. The admission, which had come directly from Fíli’s mouth, was irrefutable. Still, he struggled. With every ounce of his flesh and bones, he did not want it to be true.

His hand found its way to his forehead. “How could it come to this?”

Fíli misunderstood him. And no wonder, they had been talking at cross purposes for so long. Grieved, he admitted, “I should have gone to the mine before he left. Then maybe he wouldn’t have died.”

Thorin’s head snapped up, a growl rasping in his throat. “You had no fault in his death. It was an accident. Explain to me how you could have any part in it.” And when even then Fíli did not speak, he exploded, “Fíli, you are a child. It was your father’s duty to provide for you.”

The water shivered. Fíli’s voice had grown as thin as a soap bubble. “Víli wasn’t my Da.”

After so many shocks, it seemed impossible that there could be more. Though his lips had gone numb, Thorin managed to say, “What do you mean?”

But Fíli had been pressed beyond endurance. Whatever thin façade had held him together up until this point, it failed him now. Crumpling, he curled over in the bath. With a cracking voice, he pleaded with Thorin. “I don’t want to say that word.”

“What word?” And all of a sudden, Thorin knew. The pieces clicked together, and he could see them, not as separate parts, but as one whole. Fíli was crying in earnest now. His tears shuddered down his cheeks and dropped into the bath water. "Oh, my lad.” Thorin stood and took up a blanket. He lifted Fíli from the water and wrapped him warmly. He laid his cheek on Fíli’s hair. “Little one, you have done nothing wrong.”

Fíli held on tight. “Mama. It’s my fault.”

“If she has blamed you for anything, then she was wrong.” This was all he knew for certain. So many questions swarmed, questions for which he would have to find answers as soon as possible. What passed beyond even a shadow of doubt was that Fíli was innocent, though it seemed he had been convicted and sentenced all the same. For a long time, an embrace was all that either of them had strength for. Eventually, though, Fíli quieted. Thorin asked, “Does your mother beat you?”

Fíli pressed his forehead to Thorin’s neck. “Only with her hand.”

Thorin’s mind revolted. This was his sister, who as a child possessed eyes that sparked, just like Kíli. Who played games with twinkling gems pinched from under the noses of palace jewelers. Who pressed her cold feet into his back after a nightmare. He searched for something, anything that might mitigate this travesty. “Did she try to stop Víli?”

Fíli asked, “Why?”

Thorin could take no more. He drew a deep breath and pulled back. He wanted to look at Fíli face-to-face. “I swear that I will never lie to you. Do you believe me?” Fíli had no reason to. It was clear that he had known nothing but faithless adults who offered no security and still less tenderness. Yet despite everything, Fíli looked him in the eye, and – though his chin trembled – he nodded. Thorin put every scrap of conviction into his voice, determined that what he said would be beyond doubt. “What Víli and your mother did was wrong,” he said. “Even if you did many bad things, it would still have been wrong. But you weren’t bad, Fíli.”

When Fíli blinked, the his eyes brimmed with self-doubt. “How do you know?”

“Because,” Thorin answered, “you’ve loved your brother and taken care of him. You made sure he didn’t go hungry, and despite how much others have wronged you, you’re still kind. True and noble, like a seam of gold running through the mountain. I’m proud of you.”

So many tears had already fallen, so many were still to come. Fíli made an attempt to contain them – Thorin could tell – but he didn’t seem able. They wavered in his voice when he asked, “What will happen now?”

“I don’t know,” Thorin said honestly. Very gently, he touched their foreheads together. “But, no matter what happens, I stand by my first promise. You will not be alone.”

Fíli inhaled on a long, ragged breath. He looked down at his hand, which still bore the ring Thorin had given him. Though he looked so frail, so shattered, it seemed to give him strength.

“Okay.”

Chapter Text

As water collected in a bucket, so did Thorin come to understand the magnitude of what had happened. Each cut he bound, each sore he soothed, formed a drip. He was overwhelmed by the time it was done, but he kept his composure for Fíli’s sake. Only when the last bandage was tied off and his nephew was asleep – only then did Thorin put his head in his hands and allow himself to come apart.

His thoughts turned to memories of Dís on the day of her engagement. She’d been radiant as she burst into his room, filled with the joy of her news. He’d listened to her recounting with a bittersweet smile, already grieving to lose some part of her. Then Dís had pressed her hands over her stomach, saying, "And babies, Thorin. There will be babies, and I will be a mother."

"You sound almost more excited about that than your groom.”

She smirked. "Well, it isn’t he who will call me ‘amad’."

"If he does, I don't want to hear of it," Thorin agreed with a shake of his head and was rewarded by a thump on the shoulder.

“Scoundrel,” Dís scolded him, but her face softened. “I know you think of it sometimes. But you should know, Thorin, my children will be your children.”

His answer had been to take her hand in his own and press it tenderly with his thumb. Now Thorin sat beside the bed wondering what had happened to that version of his sister. How could she have changed so much that she would stand aside as her child was maimed with a nail or sent to work in a coal mine? Thorin pressed his hand to Fíli’s head, his eyes closed with sorrow. ‘I will take you to a place of safety,’ he pledged. ‘I cannot banish all your sorrow, but I will get to the bottom of this, and I will never again allow you to be harmed by those who should protect you.’

At the moment, it was the only thing of which he was certain. But, no. There was one other. He had to go back to the cottage and find Dís. Fíli’s confession haunted him: “Víli wasn’t my da.” Yet how could that be? Thorin could see Víli when he looked at the boy. It was in the lines of his face, the brushstroke of his eyebrows. It was in his demeanor, which was so like stoic Víli, the dwarf who was guarded with his words and yet faithful to a fault.

Outside the window, the sun was beginning to fall. What Thorin truly wanted was to let Fíli sleep, but he could not leave Kíli at the cottage, whether alone or with his mother. Nor was he willing to let Fíli out of his sight. And so, with a sigh, he called, “Fíli?”

Fíli came awake. He blinked, slowly at first and then more rapidly, but when his eyes settled on Thorin’s face, his muscles relaxed. “Uncle.”

“We have to go back to the cottage now,” Thorin said. “Your brother will be waiting.”

Fíli sat up stiffly. “It’s far. I might go slow.”

“I’ll carry you,” Thorin said, then paused. “That is, if you’ll allow me.”

So young and so old. It mixed together in equal parts as Fíli considered. Finally, he held out his arms, and Thorin didn’t hesitate to take him up, close to his heart. Only when they reached the homestead did he set Fíli on his own feet. Yet he could not just leave him, swaying and alone, without a final word. Kneeling, Thorin said, “Fíli, nothing you mother tells me will change what I’ve said.”

There was a featureless quality to Fíli’s face. He held his hands close to his body. “You don’t know.”

“It won’t matter,” Thorin insisted. “I gave you my promise.”

“What if you change your mind?”

Thorin touched his chin. “Do you doubt my word as a dwarf?”

He hoped Fíli might answer with that golden note of calm and confidence, but here the waters were too deep. Instead, Fíli touched the ring to his lips, which trembled. “Okay,” he said, but his answer lacked conviction. Thorin’s jaw set. He would have to let his actions speak for him.

He found Kíli on the stoop just as he had that morning. The boy was staring into the forest, but when he saw his uncle, he leapt to his feet. “Uncle Thorin, did you –”

The older dwarf stayed him with a hand. “Your brother is here, Kíli. I want you to wait with him while I talk to your mother.”

Kíli’s cast a dark look back at the door. “She’s there.”

Thorin nodded. At least that would make this easier, even if nothing else would. The boy tore off around the corner, and Thorin was left alone on the stoop of the cottage. It was growing detestable to him, this place. Every board, every crumbling brick and bit of plaster. He despised even the dust on the threshold that he did not want to cross.

Inside it was dark. The fire had been allowed to die, and the embers only glowed when a draft passed over them. Thorin went to a lamp and raised the wick until the smoky glass was filled with enough light to see a figure sitting in a chair before the hearth. It rocked, barely moving, and did not respond to his presence.

He stepped nearer. “Dís.”

Finally she looked up, and he saw how her face had transformed. It was as though the weight of the decades reached her all at once. He could see nothing but age and trauma in the deep circles under her eyes, in the lines leading away from her deep frown. With sardonic eyes, she measured him. “Is it finally time?”

Thorin said, “I think so.”

She leaned back until the chair creaked. “How will we start, then?”

“How about an explanation for the state of your son.”

“Kíli is well,” she said, her fingers tracing the arm of her chair. “He’s outside.”

A flare of anger surged up, easily overriding the vow Thorin had made to keep his temper. Her refusal to even acknowledge Fíli infuriated him. ‘And it’s not the first time. I credited it to an error made in haste, but that wasn’t true. The message she sent was deliberate. Would she have left him behind if he had managed to stay hidden?’

“I never knew you could be cruel,” he accused her.

Dís got up, holding the back of the chair. Her unwillingness to speak was written in every line of her body, yet there could be no more shrouds drawn over these things. “You don’t know what it was like,” she said in a voice that trembled. “You weren’t there.”

“There?”

“That wretched caravan,” Dís hissed.

She spoke of the time after Erebor was lost. In those days, Thorin had found that his people were welcome nowhere. Even those who pitied them did not dare harbor an entire people of hungry, homeless workers. As a result, they’d lived an almost nomadic life. Tents and bitter weather. Never the same place twice, always alert for some new misfortune. It was there Thorin had left Dis, a proud but tired woman leading a group of dwarves through the Hills of Evendim.

At the time, he’d thought he was right to go. Now he doubted. And yet, he still did not understand. “What has this to do with Fíli?”

Dís’s face twisted as though she fought some inner battle, and Thorin feared she might yet resist. However, as he watched, something indefinable yielded. Like a wall finally losing its integrity, all rigidity left her body. Her eyes closed like dark parentheses. Then they opened, and through the shadows Thorin could see that the time had come for him to hear the truth.

When she spoke, he could barely hear her, her voice was so weak with remember pain. “We were traveling through the lowlands. Most of the warriors had gone, including Víli. Those of us who remained lived that wandering life, always above ground, always moving. I was so tired of the constant press of other bodies and voices and demands. I wanted some privacy, so I took a basket of laundry and went off by myself to wash them.”

A scene was forming in Thorin’s mind, and he recoiled from it. “No.”

“The wisteria was blooming,” Dís’s voice was far away, abstracted, as though she were dwelling in the moment and not here in this cottage with its dirt floor and its pittance of living. “And it was cool under the shade of the trees. I had washed everything and laid them out on the rocks to dry when I heard someone coming.” She shook her head, speaking through her teeth. “I should have run, but I still had so much pride. A dwarf woman does not fear anyone. I didn’t even have the wit to be afraid.”

“Dís,” Thorin spoke.

She faced him, locked him with steely eyes. “He raped me, Thorin. Under those trees, by that stream. One of those stinking men of the West. Every time I see them with their tawny hair, I remember.”

Full realization was upon Thorin now, rising up from this sordid tale, one so unimaginable his mind struggled to accept it. Such a thing could not have happened. Not to his sister. Not to a princess of Durin. He chose instead to seize her implication, the one about tawny hair. “You think that Fíli came from that filth?”

“Can you imagine how long I’ve wanted a definite answer to that question? Víli had only just left, and you know that the wives of Men don’t carry their babies so long as we do.” She clutched her middle. “The timing is hard.”

“So you cannot say.” Thorin wracked his mind, which wrestled with his heart. “But Fíli shows no sign. He’s more than fourteen. That would be well into adolescence if he were –”

“I could barely feed him,” Dís went on, her voice straining with the effort of this retelling. “He was such a weak newborn. Didn’t take to the breast, didn’t cry. And meanwhile the others looked at me like I had betrayed my husband.”

Thorin tried to imagine the depths of her anguish, her isolation even among her own kind. It amazed him that word of this had not reached him, yet perhaps it was respect for the dead that stayed the rumors. After all, she had disappeared. “Is that why you left?”

“I couldn’t bear the lie,” she told him. “So I went my own way. Eventually we settled, and I tried to forget. I’d almost convinced myself it was possible. Then Víli found us.” Dís pressed her hand over her mouth. “Even after he knew, he didn’t doubt me. I don’t know how I could have doubted him.”

The tenderness of that remembered moment didn’t fail to move Thorin. Knowing how she’d suffered, he wanted nothing more than to do as Víli had and wrap his sister in the warmth of his regard. Yet even his love for her could not make him forget Fíli’s back.

Thorin forced himself to voice his accusation. “But he didn’t accept Fíli.”

Dís’s eyes flashed open. Their jagged edges glanced around his face. “He wanted to know the truth of his parentage.”

A chip of ice dropped down into the pit of Thorin’s stomach. Cold radiated out from it as an abiding dread spread throughout his body. “Dís, what did you do?”

She knit her fingers together, eyes flinching away. “Men are frail. They put on bruises as though they were clothing. But have you ever known a dwarf to break a bone?”

A groan from down deep filled his throat. “No.”

“It was quick, Thorin. Just a sharp twist, and his wrist snapped as easily as two twigs bound together.”

“You broke his wrist. To see if –” Thorin could not even say the words. Dís had, she had deliberately… Thorin bent in half, sick to the soul.

Dís took a step in his direction. “I know it sounds unkind, but you must understand. I set it carefully after, made sure it healed straight. It was worth it to be sure.”

“Dís,” Thorin begged her to see reason. “For this to have happened before Kíli was born, Fíli couldn’t have been more than a toddler. Víli was a grown dwarf. Do you really think that proves anything?”

Rage flared in Dís’s eyes. “Thorin, look at him.”

Something stilled in Thorin, and the queasy confusion left him. In its place was a different emotion, one that matched his sister for heat and intensity. “I have looked, Dís, and I see a child who has suffered. Under your care, at your behest, or at least your tacit permission. His back and arms, silver with scars. Joints stiff, flesh stretched over bone. His hand.” She flinched, and he pressed her there, where at last some remorse showed. “Your son, Dís, and my nephew, has been raised to think he perpetrates a crime by living. Your son, Dís.”

She shook her head in denial. “No. I won’t have him.”

“He is your son, and he did not deserve this. No more than you did.”

“You cannot speak like this. Just because, suddenly, you are here does not make up for years of absence.”

“Maybe. But that, too, is going to change.”

For a moment, she didn’t understand. Then, all in a rush, it came, and fear flew into her face. “Thorin!” she cried. “You cannot take Kíli from me.”

“Kíli knows that a grave wrong has been done, and in his strength of feeling he is very much a Durin. He won’t forgive this, not for a long time.”

“I did the best I could.”

Thorin genuinely regretted he had taken so long to come here, to take up the care of his sister and her sons. Perhaps if he had thought less of the past and had more courage in facing their present reality, he might have spared those he loved much pain. With an effort, he shouldered this new burden, adding it to the other griefs that were always upon his back.

“Perhaps, but the time for you to be alone is over. The settlement in the Blue Mountains is flourishing. We’ve been sending word all over the West, calling those of Erebor who remain to make a new home there. I came for you and yours. That hasn’t changed.” He stood, feeling old. Because some things had changed in the course of this trip. Including how he saw his sister. “You will no longer have any charge over Fíli,” he decided.

Dís sensed the direction of his mind. It claimed her whole attention, and she tried to intervene. “Thorin, don’t.”

He did not listen. “And from here onward, I claim him as my own.”

Dís’s eyes were full of bitter tears. “You risk claiming a mongrel as an heir of Durin.”

How it grieved his heart, to hear Dís speak with such a scathing tone about the boy who had stood, so full of fear and longing, asking if he could call Thorin ‘uncle’. A lad who’s character was already set, even if Thorin put a crown on his head. Yet despite everything, Thorin had seen the core of Fíli, and it was strong and bright as mithril. That, to him, was a more marked sign of his heritage than any raiment or ring of gold. More even than the gold of his hair.

“You’ve taken your pain and created greater pain,” he charged her. “Were he truly the product of the one who hurt you, you would be no less guilty.”

“He is,” she hissed. “He must be.”

It was what she had believed for so long, a shield to protect her from her inability to accept Fíli, who she saw as the physical manifestation of what she had suffered. Thorin saw it now, as clearly as though it had always been before him. He pitied her, even as he ached for her. Though he found her negligence criminal, she had been terribly alone. And as for what she had ignored… She loved Víli abidingly.

It was still no excuse.

“We leave as soon as we can make ready,” he said.

Then he left her at the kitchen table, holding her head in her hands.

That night, Thorin stayed out in the barn, reclining in the hay. The doors were open, and he could see the stars. They gleamed like diamonds in candlelight, winking and diming as they were turned. Kíli snuggled closer, digging his chin into Thorin’s breast. “So we’re not coming back?”

“No.” Thorin had explained the best he could, though he knew much must remain unsaid, at least for now. “We’ll travel to Ered Luin, and there will be no need to return to this place.”

He didn’t tell them how much he longed to leave. He thought he might burn the cottage and this accursed shed with its stains and memories, leaving nothing but ash. Perhaps it would make it easier.

Kíli squirmed. “We’ll live there forever?”

Thorin thought of Erebor with its halls of stone, hewed directly from the mountain. Its pillars and parapets, its shafts that went down to the heart of Middle-earth. His longing for it was dimmer at the moment, with the twin weights pressed on either side of him, yet something in him could not let his dream of returning go. Not completely.

“Perhaps,” he said. “At least, for a very long time.”

Fíli had not said anything while Thorin gave them the news of their departure, nor did he speak now. He simply rested his head on his uncle’s shoulder and breathed.

It was clear Fíli was interested in the pony. He brushed his fingers against her mane, shifting forward to look into her liquid eye. The pony had been bred for Thorin in the Iron Hills, a noble animal from his noble cousins – strong, intelligent, and faithful. She gently lipped Fíli’s questing hand, winning a look of timid pleasure. It did Thorin good to see Fíli curious about something like a normal child.

Thorin laid a hand on her coat. “Do you like her?”

He was growing used to the way his nephew reacted to questions, how his eyes at first darted, as though he were seeking a trap. Yet soon he steadied, his shoulders straightening. He looked at Thorin. “Yes.”

“She’s a bit big for you to ride alone, but that will soon change. I’ll teach you when you’re ready.”

“Will you teach me, too?” The high, hopeful tone belonged to Kíli, who had evidently been eavesdropping on their exchange from his perch on the loaded cart.

Sensing Fíli tense, Thorin was reminded that favors in this family had always been one-sided, and he grew determined that from now on it would never be so. Thus he made his oath, “Be assured, Kíli, you will both be taught a great deal. How to ride, how to fight. And to read, both words on a page and the boundaries of the earth.”

Kíli stuck out his tongue. “Words?”

“Mother tried to teach him,” Fíli said quietly at Thorin’s side. “He doesn’t like to sit still.”

Thorin smiled. That fit his younger nephew. A bundle of energy and talk, willful and even a bit wild. With so strong a temperament, he would need as much guidance as his brother, though Thorin suspected it would be of a different kind. ‘How grateful I am to have the chance,’ he thought to himself. Aloud, he said, “It’s time to go.”

“Kíli,” Dís said. She had been standing in front of the cottage’s closed door, but now she climbed onto the cart with stiff and labored movements. “You sit with me up front.”

Thorin said nothing while the two got settled, Kíli complaining as he was pulled unwillingly into her arms. He couldn’t help but notice how tightly she grasped him. It stirred the anger which he had so deliberately banked, yet with an effort, Thorin turned from the cart and lifted Fíli into the pony’s saddle. Climbing up behind, he asked, “Are you ready?”

And so the long journey began, away from the past with its mixed cup of sadness and heartache. Hopefully to a future that had less pain and more joy in it. It was Thorin’s hope as he faced the west. At some point, he said, “Fíli.”

“Yes, Uncle?”

“Where we’re going, things will not be as before.” He reached out and laid his hand, with the reigns, over Fíli’s. “I’ve taken custodianship of both you and your brother. I claim you as my heirs, and when we reach the Blue Mountains, this will be announced to everyone.”

Fíli looked at Thorin, brimming with uncertainty. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

“No one tells a prince what he should do,” Thorin said, though with a surge of melancholy he remembered that mantel was his no longer. But it was not to be absented, which bolstered his spirit. He looked down at Fíli, who had survived all manner of cruelty and yet protected his brother and provided for his family. Who had not crumbled but flexed like the finest sword, laid down with layer upon layer. “Perhaps you should remember that.”

Fíli’s eyes widened. “But I’m not –”

“You are my sister-son, flesh of my bone,” Thorin said. “Nothing else matters.”

Many times, in the days that followed, Fíli found reason to doubt. He didn’t want to, but from childhood’s hour he had learned not to stretch out his arms, and it was not something easily unlearned. And yet when his feeble hopes faltered, Thorin was there. A steady hand on his shoulder. A whispered word. A song, hummed in an octave so low Fíli felt it in his bones.

Kíli was also adapting. Though he still went haring off and threw acorns from tree tops, Fíli was aware his little brother had grown. There was a fleck of sorrow where before he had remained untouched, and though he still held his brother’s hand, Fíli couldn’t help but notice Kíli no longer called him “Fee”.

Mother did not hit him.

So many changes, and sometimes it frightened Fíli. He wondered how long it could last. But most of the time the doubt was eclipsed. He was young, and like a new plant, he couldn’t help but stretch for the sun. There were things that lingered, traces that could not be erased. But as the first etching of the Blue Mountains came into view, Fíli looked up and up at the peaks of them and set his chin.

Things began anew.