Chapter Text
My sweet sons,
It seems only yesterday I was arguing with you about your Uncle’s quest.
The halls beneath Ered Luin felt so quiet after you left yet they are as full of life as they ever were, perhaps more. Even though a mere handful volunteered for that ridiculous adventure, everyone was abuzz. There was, and still is, a static energy in the air; some thought you brave, some thought you foolish. I always stayed on the fence, you cannot have one without some of the other.
Watching you leave our home was difficult, but you both looked so happy, following in the footsteps of your Uncle as you always did. You were so eager to please, desperate to make me proud. To make your Uncle proud. Your Father…
I was always proud of you both, even if I rarely said it. You grew into strong, confident Dwarves, capable of anything and everything you put yours minds to. You wanted the stars and the sky and the whole of the earth and, by Mahal, I truly believed you could have had them. You should have had everything.
That is what you were are to me. Everything. You are my everything. I was strong for you, I had to be. Now I find myself listless.
We leave for the East soon, now that Erebor has been returned to us at such a high cost it seems only right it is restored as soon as possible. I wish you could have seen it as it should have been, though my memories are old and faded, and I relied on the stories as much as you did, they were of warmth and love. Now all it will hold for me is death and emptiness.
There is a peculiar longing in my heart that now urges me to return to the mountain, but perhaps it is a longing to say a real goodbye to the two most precious people in my life. Only now does it occur to me that I have never been to any funeral of my closest kin. I have never had a chance to say that final farewell. I never will. Let this be it, then.
If I had known our parting words on the shores of Little Lune were to be our last, if I had known that a year later I would travelling to that accursed mountain to bid you farewell yet again...
I should never have let you go.
I love you.
Your Mother