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She falls.
Her feet are still standing firmly on the stone, her back is stiff and shoulders straight, fingers tight on the parchment she’s holding.
But her eyes are blind even as they stare at the message. Her sight has left her and after it followed her voice. She is blind and voiceless as sharp edges of the runes keep cutting into her flesh and bury in her heart.
The parchment, creased and thin, crumbles to the floor and she crumbles with it.
She expects an arm to appear behind her, a strong shoulder that would support her weight, - as it has always happened in the past. There was always a hand that would grab her elbow and keep her on her feet when the grief struck.
But there is nothing and there would be nothing and nothing could change it now.
After that thought her voice returns in a wail of pain and anguish that tears out of her chest and drifts down the halls and corridors and chambers. It turns heads and then makes them lower, makes them bend in sorrow, turns eyes glassy with tears as the Dwarrows of Ered Luin share the grief of their Princess.
By the time first wail disappears in the still air, it is known that there is no good news to be had that day. That the Lonely Mountain once again demanded a price too high from the Line of Durin and that, foolhardy and unstoppable, Durin’s children have paid it in full.
*
She thinks of the Mountain often.
She doesn’t call it ‘home’ in her mind, she cannot. It’s cruel and unforgiving, and it took all she’s had in this world. Her father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, both of her brothers and her beloved boys. Lonely Mountain has left her with nothing, but unending grief and pain bigger than one heart can contain.
Her advisors cautiously mention the throne, the line of rulers. Dain’s seneschals arrive to Ered Luin to help them organise the move - another migration, another harsh walk across the land, - but in truth they gauge her. Dis has no doubt that these are the ambitious ones her cousin can’t stand - that’s why he’s sent them halfway across Arda and she doesn’t fault him. Dain is an honest Dwarrow, straightforward and genuine. He’s had a lifetime of experience as a king and can delegate with the best of them.
These Dwarves are skilled though, she has to give them that, they’re not useless in the slightest and it’s just a shame that great organisation skills rarely come in pair with great personality. Dis has no patience for their ventures, for plays and veiled questions, so she tells it to the Lords of Iron Hills outright one day.
She will not press for the throne. Even though it could be hers - for ironically, in this moment in time, she has the undisputed political advantage over every Dwarf noble house on Arda: she is of the Durin’s blood. The last of her line, the last member of the great family of Thror, revered by her people and respected by all. Just by the grace of her brother’s success she is now considered worthy of every honour that was beyond her reach for the last eighty years. Even though she’s left the line of succession to wed her beloved, the people of Erebor would stand behind her and bend easily under her rule the moment she’s decided that she wants it.
But no, there is no desire in her to wrestle the throne away from her cousin, no desire for another conflict. Dain has a son (she could not yet call her nephew by the name), a strong, stubborn son full of promise that will carry on his legacy one day. What does she have?
Nothing.
She will lead her people home - finish the task her father has started and brother carried on. Give them home, give them peace.
For Dis there is precious little of either left to find in Erebor.
*
Gimli is a surprise.
He is a bright star in the sea of darkness she had not expected to see in her life. He comes to her, young and shy, but oh so eloquent, with his shirt bursting at the seams and his braids askew. With his fiery beard and fiery spirit that warms her - and it’s just then that she realises how cold she’s been. How her skin turned to stone and her bones became brittle like ice.
Dis is shocked with how easy it comes to her to speak to someone so young. Her world brightens for a few short hours when he’s there.
Gimris is such a spirited lass, she reminds Dis how she herself used to be when she was young, before calamity after calamity tore her family apart. She sees the love between Gloin’s children and it reminds her of her own… not of Thorin, no, he is still too painful to think about. But she’s had another brother, once: a stubborn and clever lad, with tongue laid out with silver. Frerin, who was barely strong enough to lift her up, but still tried to give her piggyback rides along the corridors of Erebor. Frerin, who always had a song ready to be sung and answers to every question neatly lined up in his mind, waiting to be spoken.
It makes her heart lighter to remember his smiling face and eyes full of mischief. When her memory of young Thorin will be always overshadowed by his resigned grief and seriousness of the king in exile, at least she can always remember Frerin young and happy. And that reminds her that she was like that too, once.
Mizim becomes irreplaceable when the preparations start for good. Like her husband, she is an enterprising dwarrowdam with a good head on her shoulders. Good, because there are days when the grief rises and Dis can’t seem to get out of her bed. Days when she closes the doors and windows, and stays in her rooms refusing food and visitors.
She suspects that it’s the same malady that her father fell into after Azanulbizar, but she doesn’t speak of her suspicions and doesn’t look to the healers. She cannot, because she is the last one of her line and she has to be strong now, stronger than ever, to lead her people across Misty Mountains and keep them safe. It never lasts more than a day, three at most, anyway.
Mizim doesn’t ask questions, on these days. She is not lady in waiting, for Dis has none of these, but she is a famous dam and a relation by marriage to the Princess, and so people hear her words. Gloin’s wife organises and segregates, and plans with the seneschals from Iron Hills, years of being a trader’s wife coming into fruition as her knowledge and contacts ease the way.
Dis is grateful for every bit of help. Lately she has problems with finding good words to keep the conversations civil and Councils smooth. She has a Durin temper, always had, but now more than ever it comes forward uninvited and spills out of her lips in words that are unwise and hurtful. Apologising slowly becomes a second nature, even if the dwarrows around her harbour some stupid illusion that they ought to forgive her every misstep, since she is a mother in mourning.
She is still their Princess, though, and she knows down to her very bones that being a mother and a sister will have to wait its turn.
With every day she understands Thorin more, - a thing she thought impossible before. Now she knows where his silent days came from, his dark looks over smiling lips, these evenings when he could silently sit in the corner of a room and watch her sons asleep in their cribs. She had tried to share his burdens as best as she could, back then, but it’s just now that she understands that sitting in on Councils was the least he needed from her.
So she allows Gloin’s children to visit, she welcomes Mizim in her rooms like a sister, and lets them speak to her. Listens to their voices and watches their young, unburdened faces, and thinks that she can do it. She can go through another day, two days, a fortnight.
She can walk this harsh road to the place that took her everything.
*
The first time Dis sees Gimli in one of Thorin’s old shirts, she almost breaks down in tears.
It’s the blue one, with the stitches on the collar that she had worked on night after night for a month before presenting it to her brother with the news of her second pregnancy. It was a hard time for them, for their people, winters were harsh and Ered Luin was a poor shelter with its walls crumbling and mines nearly spent. She has waited an additional month over what was traditional to tell Vili, and one more still before telling Thorin; to be absolutely sure that her second child has more than a chance.
She had dyed the shirt darkest blue she could find to conceal the poor quality of the fabric and made sure that every stitch was even. She could not give her brother anything that would signal wealth and prestige, but she could make sure that it would show craft of the highest order to any Dwarf who bothered to look at it.
She could swear that she saw tears in Thorin’s eyes when he appraised the stitchwork. And then again, when he pulled her to him (but gently, gently, given her state) and congratulated on the second blessing Mahal decided to bestow upon her and Vili. He was always so stoic when it came to anything that wasn’t her children, but this one time he was looking at a simple piece of linen cloth as if it was purest mythril.
And now that same shirt strains to hold a growing lad decent and covered (Thorin was thin when she’s made it, with the food being too scarce to feed everyone evenly) and it breaks her heart to see it finally worn properly, not hanging off of another gangly figure or bunching over the belt.
She swallows her tears and calls the boy over, to straighten his collar. She shows him where she’s had added some extra fabric under the seams, always hoping that Thorin would gain back his lost weight, and how Gimris can re-stitch it for him to make the sleeves wider and underarms less chafing.
Seeing the shirt used after more than half of an age is strange; and it is still an excellent garment, far from being worn out. It could do with another round with the dye, but the stitchwork is stunning and it is nice to remember that she could create things like that, once.
Though, she always thought (hoped) that it would be Kili she would see wearing it.
*
The Hobbit breaks her heart anew.
The raw possibility he represents is enough to make his very existence tragic to Dis.
A possibility that her brother might have not been born to be alone, that Thorin might have had a chance at his own happiness…
It does not bear thinking about, so she says her farewells to the little creature and wishes deep in her heart that she would never see him again. Too many memories, too much pain.
Too many dwarrows that saw her losing miserably at conkers for her pride to ever recover.
*
In Erebor she is welcomed like a queen.
Dain himself comes to greet her and helps her off the cart she was riding on. The old scoundrel looks exactly as she remembered him, sans maybe a few more wrinkles and a few more pounds. The crown on his head startles her a bit (her memories are cloudy so far in the past, but she remembers a towering dwarrow with a deep voice who would let her climb on his lap during Council meetings and give her his crown to play with), but she is old and knows how to cover her feelings with false cheer.
Indeed, she can’t greet her supposed home with anything else than resignation and dull sort of pain. Dain seems to understand her in that regard, so he strives to make her busy until she finds her equilibrium again. The King’s wife has little interest in politics and people of Ered Luin feel like strangers in their own home. There’s a rift between them and the Ironhillers who came with Dain, and for a while there’re almost two kingdoms under the Mountain that need to be managed separately.
Dis takes it on herself, once again, to lead her people. It’s less complicated now that they don’t have to be afraid of hunger and cold, but still no easier when tempers fly and Dwarven stubbornness comes into play. Luckily, she is a Durin, so there’s few east of Misty Mountains that can out-stubborn and out-glower her. She has learned from the best, after all.
Familiar faces wait on her in Erebor and that lifts her spirit a bit. Balin and Dwalin are her oldest friends, but with them are the new ones, the ones that followed her brother on his last journey. The Company of Thorin Oakenshield. When they’ve left Ered Luin years ago she thought them to be nothing more than an untried motley of tinkers and miners, but now heroes stand before her and for the first time - the first time for real - she is standing opposite someone who can understand her grief in full. Grief of losing a friend, a brother, a paragon and a King.
Gimli knew her sons and brother, true, but Balin and Dwalin knew her family and they share her tears without shame.
The Company loves the Mountain, but just like her they would give it away in a blink of an eye if it brought their lost companions back.
They are all broken in some sense, Dis thinks. There are holes in their hearts, shaped like smiles and mischief, and a King that didn’t need a crown to be great.
*
She sees the Elvenking for the first time during a coronation of the new king of Esgaroth, and she wants to claw his eyes out. She wishes she could wrap his thin silver hair around her fist and pull his white teeth out one after one until he drowns in his own blood. Like her people drowned during the night raids by the Orcs, when they were trying to cross Misty Mountains, leaving their burning home behind. The way Frerin drowned on the fields of Azanulbizar. The way her sons…
In the way that might have been avoided if the wretched coward kept his word and came to their aid when Smaug attacked.
How could Thorin stand by this uncaring being in battle without striking him is beyond her.
The only consolation is that her presence seems to make him uncomfortable - as much as such an insufferable prick can be uncomfortable. She has always knew that at the right angle she is a mirror reflection of her brother and hopes now that whatever it is that the king of Mirkwood keeps in place of conscience is shrivelling in shame at her sight.
She can only hope.
*
She doesn't visit the tombs even once. Dis doesn't want that to be the last memory she has of her sons.
*
The Lady, they call her.
When she is present they call her The Princess.
The Sad Lady of Erebor she is to the more romantic types. There may be a play about her, she doesn’t know, she rarely goes to plays these days.
Heartless, she is for those who don’t favour her, for those who detest her harsh tongue and even harsher silence.
She knows about it, walls have ears in Erebor and ravens are a talkative sort, but she doesn’t care enough to make it stop.
The blank days come with frightening regularity and she can’t spare her strength to show ‘heart’ to those around her very often. Anger is draining, but easy. Warmth needs fuel and there’s little left in her to burn bright. You can’t sustain a bonfire on ashes alone.
Gimli doesn’t wear her brother’s shirts anymore, he is a son of a Lord now, and his mother can afford to force him into warm cotton and thick furs whenever mood strikes her. Gimris wears gold and jewels in her beautiful hair and in her ears, and heads turn after her whenever she goes. The lass is skilled with glass, and that for a while awakens the interest in her aunt’s heart.
She was a jeweller, wasn’t she? It was her calling, it kept her hands busy and her mind sharp. It was something she did when the world around her turned cruel and she needed a place to hide.
She hasn’t created a single thing in years and suddenly it chafes at her.
The first attempt at a brooch lands on a scrap pile even before taking its final shape.
The second one also.
Third one she melts and remakes into a beard clasp, because she is a Durin and her patience can only take so much.
A pair of heavy garnet earrings comes next and it’s almost, almost up to her old standards.
Next she makes thirty beads out of the purest gold, each no bigger than a drop of water, each adorned with the brightest shard of a sapphire. She threads them on a golden thread and… and it’s just when Dis takes a measure for a golden headband that she realises what she’s been doing.
She was making her mother’s diadem.
The thought is like an arrow striking her heart and Dis stumbles from her workbench on unsteady legs.
She barely even remembers her mother’s face, just an impression of her smile and these impossibly blue eyes that her brothers and older son inherited. She remembers cascades of golden hair braided in dozens of thin braids that fell like curtains of sunshine across mother’s cheeks and down her back, bound and yet still nearly touching the ground. Gentle hands that had shown her how to hold a harp, that braided her hair and smoothed her short whiskers with soft, affectionate touch. Nothing more. She has nothing else.
That thought puts strength in her body and pushes her forward. Dis stumbles, then stalks, then runs through Erebor like a dwarrowdam possessed. She ignores greetings and startled shouts that pass by her, she has no time for answers. Holding her skirts in clenched fists, Dis descends two steps at a time until the massive iron wrought gates stop her mad dash.
The Treasury.
Guards by the doors take in her rushed state and cold eyes, and don’t even bother with asking questions, they open the gate and let her pass through.
The Treasury is grand and impossibly big. It takes her three hours of throwing herself around before a hand lands on her shoulder, steadying her.
“There, lass,” Balin’s kind voice brings her back to present. The King’s Advisor looks at her with sorrow, though his lips smile.
“Balin!” Dis stutters. “Balin, do you know where they are? You have to know! They couldn’t have been lost! I need to find them!”
The old Dwarf sighs and chuckles under his breath. “Ah you, Durins.” He shakes his head. “Not a peep for years upon years and then it’s suddenly as if the sky will fall if you don’t get your way.”
“Balin!” She almost cries. “Tell me that the Men didn’t get them! Please, you have to…”
“They didn’t.” And now there’s another expression on that friendly face, fierce and serious. “I would lose my beard hair by hair before I parted with even a tenth of your treasure. Come with me.”
She follows him through the sprawling chambers filled with gold, up and down the stairs, through doors and arches; and Dis is astounded at how much wealth her people possess now. She’s never been down here, not really, and now it’s a bit terrifying sight, to be honest. So much gold and riches, she can imagine that losing one’s way in it is not a hard thing at all.
But before the heartache can start again Balin stops and signals her forward, through the archway leading to a smaller chamber. And he doesn’t leave.
She stays there for the rest of the day, and he doesn’t leave. He sits on a crate full of coral, old bones demanding consideration after a while, and smokes his pipe as Dis cries in the soft velvet of her mother’s dresses.
*
The diadem is finished three weeks later.
Dis is used to making fun of Thorin for his outright dismissal of decoration, but in the end she is not that much different in this regard. She likes to create beautiful forms out of wire and jewels, but engraving in gold is a bane of her existence. It’s boring and dulls her eyesight.
But it’s worth every hour and every pained squint when she finally presents the piece as finished and sees the awe on her friends’ faces. Balin’s eyes go glassy with memories and Dwalin swears outright, impressed. Mizim ohs and ahs over it and dares not to touch it.
But it’s Gloin’s daughter who outstrips all in her admiration for her aunt’s craft. With her lovely eyes wide and her sturdy hands shaking as she touches the beads, exclaiming when she looks closer and sees the miniscule etchings twisting around the sapphire shards smaller than an ant’s head.
“See lass?” Balin ‘s voice is a bit choked when he finally speaks, but there’s a smile on his face when he looks at Dis from the corner of his eye. “This is how it looks like when a Master is at work. If you could see even a piece of work of late Queen Hrera, oh! Her silverwork was unmatched in beauty and form… right until now.”
“Aye,” Dwalin agrees. “Tis a good craft, worth of a Queen.”
Dis takes the compliments gracefully, but she doesn’t smile. She is pleased, though, and they know it and leave it at that. Every once in a while she looks down, on her mother’s rings around her fingers, and the sight of them brings her a measure of comfort.
*
Dwalin marries. Huh.
With the stone-faced Orla.
Huh.
*
He calls his firstborn Thorin.
Dis socks him in the face on the first occasion she gets.
Somehow, she knows that her brother would be pleased with her if he saw.
*
Years pass and she hardly notices. Erebor grows steadily, it grows busy and strong once more. Dis tries to find heart in it. There’s so many dwarrows around her now, her friends and cousins, and their children, people awaiting her words even though they already have a King.
And it does feel better, it fills her up to a degree and on some days she can almost force her lips to bow in a smile.
She has a good friend in the silent Orla and an unexpected one in Dain’s wife, Thira, who always seemed too in love with her craft to bother herself with friendships. Slowly, even Dain is becoming closer to her; they’ve bonded over their shared misery and inability to let it break them. He is steadfast, more than anyone she knows, quick with wit, but slow to anger. He knows what to say to boil blood in others, but also how to cool it down in a matter of minutes. She is glad, so very glad, that Erebor has a King like that.
But sometimes, on some of her worst days, she wishes for someone to argue with. And not for these little spats she indulges in during Council meetings Dain drags her to. Not the ‘words’ she has with Dwalin that always end in awkward silence and even more awkward comforting of one another.
Dis wants someone to come at her with enough strength that her own emotions can hit it full force and safely slide to the ground. She needs a wall to throw against all the rage that has been slowly growing in her veins for so long, so that it boils over and leaves her lighter. She needs someone with the same temper as hers, with the same vicious tongue and cruel voice.
She needs Thorin. Needs him more than ever.
Because Thorin would provide that unmovable wall, as he did so many times in the past. He would go toe to toe with her when the boys weren’t at home, when she could let go of her steely composure, watch her brother do the same, and let the pain and anger and fear spill out of her lips in a torrent of poison and fire.
So many times they’ve almost gone for the other’s beard or braids, so many times Thorin stomped out of the house in a cloud of rage and for a night and a half she would hear only the sound of a hammer striking steel in the smithy as she tucked her sons in and simmered in her own cold bed.
But then the second day would end and Thorin would be back, silent and remorseful, and she would meekly put a plate in front of him and right his braids so they didn’t fall into the food. They would both look at the other with clear eyes and a shy smile, because their love was bigger than pain and no simple spat would ever come close to cutting into it.
They would talk then, finding solutions and planning for the future that was not less beak, but at least it wasn’t lonely...
Mahal’s beard, how she needs that now.
“I miss you,” she whispers sometimes at night, when the darkness shrouds the corridors in silence and she can move through it unhindered. Erebor is never truly dark anymore, with the lives and lights filling it to the brim, but outside, on the battlements, it’s still dark.
A part of her misses the true darkness over Ered Luin, sometimes. Here there are fires of the guardhouses by the gate and further Esgaroth shining like a fistful of jewels, and up and further still, there are stars, tiny and cold, unmoved by the misery and struggle they’re forced to watch since the existence of time itself.
But on the battlements… she is alone, and the Mountain hides her in silence and soft shadow, and Dis can almost, almost hear him.
“I miss you,” she whispers to the wind and the silence around her. “I need your shoulder to hold me up, nadad, for I am growing weaker and weaker every day.”
She looks at her hands, scarred by work and marked by age, and she clenches her fingers and looks up, towards the river, towards the place where she’s lost her everything.
“Why is it so cruel, our family’s fate?” She asks the darkness. She asks the ghosts. She asks her beloved Maker and the unfeeling Creator of this wretched world. “Why does it hurt so for us to just live… What was the crime that we’ve committed to deserve this, what cruel thing have we missed, where did our eyes closed for a moment too long…?”
The Mountain is silent, the plains are silent, the river is silent in the distance. But there’s heartbeat in her ears, a lonely sound of an empty heart that still keeps beating. Against everything, it keeps beating.
“I need you…” she whispers. “Oh, Thorin, how I need you…”
Sometimes, when the silence becomes almost deafening, her ears think that they pick up a sound - a low murmur, a breath against her ear, movement of air close to her face, another heartbeat so close, so very close…
But whenever she raises her head and wipes the tears from her eyes, there’s no one there. She is alone.
*
Years pass then. With surprise Dis realizes one day how many of them sidestepped around her so swiftly that she didn't even see them. There was so much to do after all, with not a moment to spare. She tries to keep it that way.
Dis tries to escape despair like a dwarrow running from a collapsing mineshaft. Blankness and pain rain on her like loose gravel, and yet she manages to shake it off and keeps going. She has to keep going - there is no other choice for her.
Usually she doesn’t even think about it, but Gimli’s centenary takes her by surprise.
Gimli is one hundred years old.
He’s an adult.
It’s a strange concept and she has problems with getting her head around it. That her nephew is no longer a weedy, short-tempered lad, but a stout dwarrow, blessed by her family’s height and his grandmother’s fiery hair and substantial girth. He is a handsome one, there’s no question about it, with a smile on his lips and a twinkle in his eye, completely versed in the proud Durin strut. And he is kind, too, quick with his axe and his wit alike.
It strikes her like a hammer strikes hot iron - he is a grown up.
There’s despair attached to that realisation, as there always is. Knowledge that she has never and will never see her own boys reach the same age, see them become adults. Her golden, kind Fili and her sweet Kili - neither she nor her One will ever watch them with pride as their friends and family raise cups in toast. She’s had such plans for Fili’s centenary, once, so many ideas and gifts, and… and it was taken from her, like everything else, that one joyous sight.
It may be a wistful thinking that helps her with choosing the right gift for her star. A wish of regaining at least a crumb of what was lost. If her own little boy, if her Fili won’t ever use the axes anymore, at least she can see them being used by another bright youth.
She has kept all the things her sons left behind; clothes and weapons, clasps and beads. Kili’s first clumsy attempts at an arrowhead, a hair-thin strand of silver chain Fili has bought for her with the first money he’d earned working in the forge. Shifts, tiny and threadbare, that her children slept in as infants, their few wooden toys. Everything.
But these treasured didn’t bring her joy, but another kind of pain. Maybe that’s why she’s never kept anything of Thorin’s, sans the things he gave her; why she didn't have any memento of Frerin’s. Too much pain, her heart is not big enough.
But Gimli will make good use of his gifts, that she has no doubt about, and he deserves to have them for all the joy he gave her. For his songs and his respectful affection that are enough to overbalance the blankness for a few short moments. For all the love Dis has for him.
And, once more, the thought strikes her to the quick and she has to step aside, away from the happy celebration. Worried and pitying glances follow her silent retreat, but for once she pays them no mind, fighting her body to walk.
By the time she gets to her chambers her hands are fisted in the skirts of her gown and her lips are trembling so much she has to bite on them. Her throat is swollen shut and she can’t answer any greeting thrown her way. It’s only when the doors close behind her that she lets go and takes in a shuddering gasp of air. Then another. And another.
It fills her lungs and the shaking stops, but her eyes are glassy with tears she can’t shed.
She thought herself heartless, cold and empty. Just a shell, a burned out furnace full of old ashes. She thought… that there’s no hope for her anymore and that death is the only thing she can look up to. She has thought herself unable to feel anymore.
But then, these children… this bright boy and his beautiful sister…
These children that she loves.
That she can love.
Oh sweet merciful Mahal.
She can still love.
*
She stands witness to Gimris and Bofur swearing their oaths - as does the Company, King Dain and half of the Mountain. Half of the guests is crying over their lost chances to court a stunning young dwarrowdam, half of them is laughing over the silly faces Bofur makes when he can’t contain his joy.
She stands there and feels only half empty.
*
Moria.
Of course, Moria, what else? Another dark hole to sink their hopes in, another well to be filled with blood and tears of her people, of her family… hers.
She doesn’t ask Balin to stay. He knows what his departure will do to her and if that doesn’t make him rethink and stop this madness, nothing she can say will. She doesn't even judge him, doesn’t point out all the ways in which this is a lost cause.
“You will leave me too,” she just says one evening, a week before whatever troops he’s managed to gather are ready to march out.
They are standing on the battlements, warm dusk falling on the plains like a tender touch of the sky, rosy and purple and pale blue. Balin’s eyes are full of sorrow, his creased face is kind… his voice is choked as he walks to her and speaks.
“You are not alone,” an argument that they’ve had many times before. “You have friends, Dis, and family around you. You are not alone.”
She shakes her head then, with a little bitter smile. “I am,” she says. “And I will be more and more alone as years pass.”
“Dis…”
“Time has stopped for me, Balin. It has stopped with that letter. For me it’s still winter, it still snows and that river is still covered in ice and my children’s blood.”
She cries then, with his arms around her. She cries like she hasn’t cried in years, decades, since that damned letter reached her in Ered Luin.
*
When he rides off at the head of a column, she stands on the battlements and watches. Her eyes are dry.
It may be a premonition, or just a dark kind of experience, but somewhat Dis knows that she will never see her cousin again.
*
Dain, mercifully, gives her a couple of days to grieve before pouncing like a fox pounces on a defenceless mouse.
Her protests and her threats and her fingers grasping his beard mean nothing in the end.
He makes her the First Advisor.
For days on end she hopes that Balin’s march towards Moria happens in rain and misery, and the only kind of relief is brought to her when the Lords of Iron Hills see her on the first Council, sitting in her Durin’s blues and silvers at the right side of the King. She doesn’t smile, but her eyes shine with satisfaction.
*
Orla has her second son and then the third. Gimris has her first. Soon enough there are three little terrors running all over Erebor, constantly underfoot and yet impossible to catch. Troublemakers of the sort the aged Mountain hasn’t seen in a long while.
Wee Thorin (and look at how she’s surrounded by Thorins now from all sides, her brother’s name popular enough to become common, but never for her) is, surprisingly, the most sensible of the bunch, maybe by the grace of being the oldest or maybe only because of his mother’s blood in his veins. He stands a chance of following in his parents’ footsteps as a steady and responsible leader. His brother, Balin, is a silent child, with a permanently blank expression on his face (once again, his mother’s blood coming through), but for the eyes that are intelligent and inquisitive. The lad watches everything around him in silent wonder and finds obvious pleasure in figuring out how things work. Dis sees a maker in him, a skilled creator of some sort, and has no doubt that whatever craft he’ll pick, he will be a Master.
Gimizh is a nightmare of tangled red hair and charming dimples, and innocence he can fake at a drop of a hat whenever situation calls for it. Everyone seems to compare him to Gimli, but Dis has her own opinion in this matter. In her mind’s eye another face overlays the boy’s, a shade of lucky gold brightens his fiery hair and whenever he blinks she sees a minute glow of blue in his eyes. It’s her silent burden, this, seeing shadows of the lost ones whenever she looks, she never mentions it to anyone.
But, above that, Dis sees more of Gimris in the lad than Gimli - her fiery temper and inability to sit still when there are things to do. He may become a good dwarrow, Dis knows, a lad worthy of respect just like his uncle and mother. If only he manages to survive his troublemaking years.
Dis, by the grace of being close to Gloin’s family, comes into contact with the wee ones more often than she would have liked. She can’t yet force herself to call the oldest one by his name, opting for a more ambiguous ‘dear’ instead. But since she does it with him, it would be too telling if she stopped there, so soon enough every dwarfling that stumbles in her way is a ‘dear’ or a ‘love’ or a ‘child’... and before she knows it, she is a great-aunt to almost a dozen of dwarflings - older or younger, all awed by her and always on their best behaviour.
Even Gimizh, shockingly, because the only thing the lad seems to be afraid of is his uncle’s disapproval, and for Dis it’s so reminiscent of Thorin and their grandmother it’s somewhat funny. Of course they’d all had respect for their elders: their sweet mother, kind father and their grandfather, but as long as she could remember the only Dwarf they’ve ever been afraid of was the Queen. Only Hrera could make Thorin behave with just a tip of her head or a single move of her hand. Only her sharp glance could close Frerin’s mouth when nothing else seemed to be able to.
They were all like that, always more respectful of the harsh lines on the Queen’s face when they misbehaved at the table than any other punishment their antics could bring them.
Is she that now, herself? Dis wonders. Is she now that steely-eyed grand-relative to live in fear of?
It’s amusing to a degree. She’s never imagined herself in that role - the Queen was just too unreachable, too grand, her presence always resembled marble and stones from the deepest mines. Solid and stunning and unmatched.
Is she that now, to their eyes? Her, the Heartless? What do they see on her face that makes them slow their steps and pull their hands out of her pockets? That makes even the fearless terror that is Gimizh stop talking and bow with as much respect as he knows how to express.
And, most importantly, what makes them come back to her instead of running in fear?
She has so many drawings in her waiting rooms, crude little pictures made with coloured chalk and charcoal - drawings of happy things, of stars and jewels and the heroes her line seems to be constructed of. Just a day before a little kitling of a child, daughter of the Lord she finds the least annoying of them all, brought her a picture of two dwarrows standing on top of the Raven Hill, holding hands and looking over the plain at their feet - one dark and the other bright, both smiling. It’s a good effort, the details and perspective surprising for a child so young, and Dis wastes no time in telling her so. Little lass blushes bright red over her dark whiskers and hides behind her father, shy like a field mouse.
“It’s nuthin…” she mumbles with a fist pressed to her lips. “Only… only I thinked… I had a dream… and thinked you would like it, Lady Dis…”
That’s all she hears from her before the bells chime in the distance and Lord swipes his daughter up and, with an apology and a smile, carries her away before the Council starts.
Dis takes the drawing to her rooms and tries not to look at it very often - but she never throws it away.
“I don’t know how you do it,” Orla tells her one day.
They are on the way to the training grounds where the Blacklock dwarrowdam has a slew of new recruits to train, and Dis follows her because Lord Maruzh is an old twat and unless she sees for herself that the troops need no more new swords she will not agree with him even on the colour of the sky. If Dwalin said that the swords are needed, then the swords are needed, end of discussion.
“Do what?” Dis asks, long ago used to the way her friend starts conversations with statements rather than questions.
“Make the boys behave just by being there.” It’s a long sentence for Orla and it’s not accompanied by any sort of telling expression, so it may be spoken out of jealousy, awe or even simple boredom.
Indeed, Dis remembers, there was some sort of an incident two days ago involving a shovel, a cake and a terrified lady in waiting to the Queen, that was interesting enough to echo around the Mountain. No one saw the perpetrators, but everyone knew who to blame, regardless.
“I don’t know why you ask,” she counters. “They behave in your presence as well.”
“My oldest and youngest, yes,” Orla nods, and it doesn’t escape Dis that the silent concession for her grief is once again made in the form of not calling names. “But the rest does it our of fear. They don’t fear you.”
It’s an easy admittance by the serious warrior, without a trace of regret or pride, and Dis can agree with it. Orla is an imposing dam, her seriousness makes some nervous, some fearful, alike her unwillingness to go anywhere unarmed. While Dwalin’s gruffness still invites pranks and little jokes, no one had ever dared to prank his wife. Although, given a chance, Dis suspects that her boys might have given it a try just to test the waters...
“Experience?” She muses as they pass the numerous guilds members and craftsmen on their way. Training fields are placed far into the mountain, closer to the forges, in the hope of containing the noise to one part of Erebor. It works for the most part; the only drawback is the taste of metal in the air that always reminds Dis of the days she would spend hiding behind the doors and benches, watching her brothers spar, too small still to join them, but noting the lessons in her mind with a hope that when her time comes, she will be ready. “Or maybe it’s in my blood? My grandmother was a Broadbeam, you know.”
That seems to catch the Captain’s attention, for one tattooed eyebrow raises up and a speculative look is directed her way. Dis forestalls the next question with a snort unworthy of a Princcess.
“No, I can’t make the soup.”
Orla’s interest drops like a hot coal.
Oh well, one more thing that the history books and the poems won’t mention about Dis, daughter of Fris: that she can’t cook worth a damn. Her culinary skills were never more than passable, easily on par with Thorin’s - and his cooking usually consisted of throwing some bread and meat on the edge of the fire pit in his forge, toasting them in the dust and sooth. Good thing that Dwalin visited so often, so at least her children didn’t have to live on uncooked meat and burned barley gruel.
She wonders if Dwalin still makes the hunter’s stew he used to cook for her family every winter, amongst his grumbling about useless dwarrowdams and death of starvation. He probably doesn’t, he has more duties now and there’s probably a cook in his household to take care of it while he and Orla are working, but… she hopes that he does. It was tasty, full of sausage and pickled cabbage and wild mushrooms, and her boys loved it.
When they arrive at the training field, there’s already two dozens of new recruits waiting on their Captain in a neat formation that was probably the first thing beaten into their heads at the start of the training. Orla never suffered sloppiness.
Neither did Dis, come to think of it, so they split with a little nod and the First Advisor goes to look for a Weapon Master, a list of questions pushing the fond memories out of her head for now.
*
She walks by the field later that day, satisfied with the answers she’s got, just in time to see a young weedy dwarrow sent on the ground in a cloud of dust by no other than Orla herself. The Captain’s face is inscrutable as she holds her long axe out, blade first, so her student can hook his own axe on it and allow her to pull him up. It’s a nice gesture, something that the lad acknowledges with a respectful nod. He steps back and into a fighting stance and right there Dis sees the first reason why he’s landed on his ass.
“Feet wider,” she says out loud without even thinking about it. It only strikes her as intrusion when two dozens of eyes looks at her and Orla’s sharp glare is not the worst of them. No, the worst is the main interested that outright deserts any attempt at a stance and bows to her with a strangled, “M’lady.”
With the will born out of dealing with Dain’s Council, she ignores it and carries on, but doesn’t step closer. Orla already looks irate enough to throw something at her head.
“You are tall,” she says to the boy, for he is barely anything more, even if he’s two inches taller than her. “And your reach is greater, but you pay for it with balance. Your centre is higher and you will always have to rely on your footwork more than anything else.”
These were the words she’d heard from old Fundin so many times in the past. She was tall for a dwarrowdam, Durin’s blood gave her that, taller than many dwarrows too, and it was a double edged sword for a member of her race. They were simply not made for fancy footwork that would rescue their balance when things got too hot - with their main strength resting in the shoulders and back, and the way their feet held to the ground. But some of them had to learn to do it anyway. She has learned and the lad would learn too.
“Yes, M’lady,” he stammers, nearly dropping his weapon. “Thank you for the advice, M’lady.”
She thinks briefly about finding a smile for him, but decides not to tempt fate. There’s already a gaggle of little ones getting in her way, she doesn’t need a pack of awestruck soldiers following in their steps.
Of course, as most things in her life, that decision is taken out of her hands when Orla calls after her retreating form. Well, loudly speaks, more like, but she makes sure that she’s heard anyway.
“Dwalin told me,” she says calmly, ”that you were a swordmaster back in the day.”
Dis stops.
She knows that she’s being taunted and knows that she can refuse to raise to the bait, she is old enough, wise enough. But she is also curious, because it’s not like the Blacklock to taunt someone for the sake of it. She is also a Durin, unfortunately.
“Were?” She turns around with a glare of her own.
Dwalin will get another black eye for his trouble, she swears.
The training area empties as the recruits step back, almost unconsciously making space for her, and it’s only Orla left in the circle, leaning on her strange axe, looking relaxed and calm and, most startlingly of all, smug.
Well, this seems like one bait worthy of raising for.
“Train your lads,” she says. “I will be see you here after I’m done with the Council.”
She leaves, steps hard and echoing, like the beating of her heart.
*
When she comes back in the evening, unsurprisingly, the field is still more or less full; stragglers pretend to stretch and spar, eyes and ears open in excitement for a potential duel between their Captain and the last Durin. Dis doesn’t let it get to her. Orla is almost in the exact same spot where she’s left her and Dis feels a first stirring of worry caused by the unmasked confidence on her friend’s stance. She is old, she hasn’t been sparring for sport in a few years… there may be a chance that she’s grown rusty.
But then her hand lands on the sword by her side and all doubt flees.
Orla’s dark eyes survey her gown with a gleam of vague confusion - Dis never liked wearing trousers and so she never did if she could help it. She wore gowns from the moment she could stand, never happy with anything else, so much in love with her mother’s grace and grandmother’s elegant stature that she’d never even considered following a different path. No matter how many times Fundin’s wife huffed and puffed during trainings, and how many skirts went to rags, Dis has learned to move in them as if the fabric was just an illusion.
So now she just swapped gowns to one less elegant and older, one that she didn’t mind notching here and there. Orla shrugs seeing her challenging look, and all seems well… right until her eyes land on the scabbard by Dis’ side and her black eyebrows go up a notch.
Yes, it is a piece of work.
An awkward affair of wood and boiled leather and steel and cheap gems, with cravings upon carvings and inlays inside inlays, weighting enough to serve as a worthy weapon on its own merit. And she wouldn’t have it any other way.
It’s gaudy; any decent craftsman would cry over it before they hung it on their wall like some sort of a strange fish that no one in the world has ever seen before. And it was made exactly for that reason by her golden son, her beloved boy.
Because the only thing that can be safely said about the broadsword she pulls out of it - is that it surely is broad and certainly a sword. She’s seen bricks more decorative and fallen branches more graceful than it. There are probably mud puddles with more charm to them than her weapon of choice.
But there is no sword she’s ever held that felt as right in her grip as the one her brother had made. No other weapon that sings in her hands like this one.
Eyebrows raise, whispers follow, for a sword such as this is surely not worthy of a Princess; even Orla’s eyebrows waver in slight confusion, because Blacklocks decorate everything they can; and even if their colourful patterns are a contrast to the stark Longbeard detail, there usually still is something to compare.
Dis cares little for that.
First step is hers, Orla lets her attack, serious and focused, trying to gauge her skill. Dis doesn't hold back, she is old and out of shape, so she decides that the privilege of age justifies putting a little bit more strength into a cut than is strictly necessary. Orla takes the cut on the handle of her longaxe, muscles on her arms bulging and her eyes widening a fraction in surprise, but she is a strong dam and the next cut doesn’t even faze her.
Dis has height and sheer damn strength behind her, while the Captain has a warrior’s experience and youth on her side. But then again, Orla has been fighting almost whole day while teaching her brood, and Dis sat in a plush chair, bored out of her mind. That somewhat evens the scales even further.
Blades clash loudly, sound carrying over the training field that has become quiet and still as all recruits and a few seasoned warriors stop whatever they are doing to gape unashamedly at the dueling dwarrowdams. Was it anyone else fighting, there would be shouted encouragements and laughter, and warnings, bets would be hastily made and money would change hands. But not this time.
Dis has a moment to wonder if Orla ever spars just for sport or is the silence around an answer enough.
It’s not much later that the starts feeling herself getting winded; her body is unused to moving in certain ways, but responses trained into it throughout decades don’t fail, keeping her safe and Orla wary. But the muscles in her limbs are tight and overstretched, she will feel this fight tomorrow, she knows.
Orla is a strong opponent, focused and quick on her feet, she spins her great longaxe in the air as if it weighs nothing and brings it down along carefully calculated trajectories that never leave an opening. Dis wonders who taught the Blacklock dam to fight so well; her form is too good to be self-taught, her moves too tight, there’s a rhythm to this dance and she excels at it.
But Dis has been taught by the old Fundin and Dweris, she has been taught by her father and her brother, by the life harsher than the newest generation of Erebor can even imagine. Her sword is perfectly balanced and it grips her palm like… like someone’s hand. She can almost swear that she can hear them, all her teachers, when the hum of blood raises in her ears, when the world closes around the training field, around her and her opponent. She can hear… murmurs, long forgotten words of encouragement, calm reminders to keep her feet moving and wrists flexible… she can almost hear him, her brother, the one who made her sword, pouring all of his skill into this slab of metal that has never, never, let her down yet.
The steel is true, but the flesh is old - Dis is reminded of that when Orla’s heavy swing brings both of their weapons to the ground, blades burying into the sand. It’s only then that she can feel pain shooting up her arms and back, stiffness already taking over her hips. Her breath comes in fast and hitching, exact opposite to the Blacklock dam that doesn’t even seem winded. There are a few drops of perspiration on Orla’s face whereas Dis can feel her clammy skin and sweat running down her chin.
It’s a draw, but clearly only because the Captain decided to stop it there. If they went further Dis’s arm would falter and her body would give up, and that is something that her friend wanted to save her from. Especially in front of an audience… although the audience, stunned silent as they are, probably wouldn’t hold it against her.
“It would seem that you hold a mastery not only in silverwork,” Orla says, bowing her head in respect.
Dis slides the sword into the scabbard and bows back, as tradition dictates. “I am a dam of many talents,” she quips back. But her mind is already deciding that this is not the last duel. She has let herself go in her misery, new duties have stolen too much of her time, she fell out of fighting shape and she has to find a way to go back.
Dis has a feeling that her skills may come in handy sooner than anyone would think. She hopes that this time it’s just that damn Durin pessimism.
*
“Did you see it?”
Orla looks up to her husband, hands full with her youngest son. Dwalin stands in the doorway with a smile on his face and a curiously wet glint in his one eye. Of course he has to have heard about the duel, her troops are worse at gossiping than the whole Weaver’s Guild put together.
“I did,” she says and watches as his smile widens.
“What do you think?”
What does she think?
“At first glance I’ve mistaken it for a fire poker.” Although the poker her grandmother had in her kitchen was ornate compared to the sword of the last Durin Princess.
Dwalin laughs out loud and she allows herself a small smile at his mirth. Is is a rather funny thing, all in all.
“But its a good blade,” she continues, seriously. “The edge is hard and the steel rings true.”
“Of course,” Dwalin nods, easily agreeing with her assessment. “He would make a teaspoon and you could go kill wargs with it. Made me a throwing axe once, you know, the best axe I’ve ever had, it flew through the air as if it had wings on its own… but, Mahal’s beard, it was so damned ugly I had to keep it in my shoe!”
“These Durins,” she says gently. “They seem like strange people.”
She traces his face with her gaze, the smile that suddenly turns soft and wistful, the old pain in his eye that has never lessened and probably never will.
“You don’t know the half of it,” he says, voice pained and fond at the same time.
But I may, Orla thinks quietly to herself.
She thinks of her friend, of the lonely Princess of Erebor that she’s never seen truly smiling; of the harsh dam some called Heartless that wears her mother’s rings and her brother’s coats and fights with zeal bordering on madness.
And she thinks that she may have an inkling on what sort of people were the family that her husband loved like his own.
*
She dreams, sometimes.
She dreams of walking long corridors of the Mountain, of stepping down an infinite number of steps, deeper than she’s ever been before.
She hears it, the low sound of a heartbeat and it’s not hers. It’s too slow, too steady, it’s everywhere around her and she knows what it is. With the surety of a child hearing her parent’s voice, she can recognise that sound even though she’s seen it only once, briefly, in the past.
It’s the Heart of the Mountain. The cold, steady, eternal heartbeat of their home. A compass that will always, bring them back to this cursed, beloved place where memories and nightmares reside side by side. Like ravens and thrushes, they will always come back.
She will never leave it. The Mountain took her all and she hates it with a part of her being, but another part can not help, but love her home. A Lonely Mountain, full of useless treasure and useless love, just like her. Two hearts beating as one, empty and cold, and still going.
She dreams of walking down the steps, crossing corridors and chambers as the air around her grows still and stale and the heartbeat in her ears grows louder. She knows what’s at the end of this walk, because she knows what happened with the Arkenstone after the war.
She doesn’t want to see it, nor the cold hands that hold it, she doesn’t want to see the stone all her beloved sleep under. So she wakes up, every time, before the last door can open before her.
She always wakes up.
*
War comes back to Erebor.
Of course it does. There’s still a Durin in the mountain, isn’t there?
*
Thorin Stonehelm makes her heart hurt by somehow managing to be a spitting image of his father, mother and his namesake all at once. That last part, she feels, is intentional on the lad’s part - with the greatcoats and the style he wears his braids in that is not really the high fashion amongst the youth these days, especially descendants of Iron Hills… but he still manages to carry it off gracefully and with aplomb.
It’s strange and amusing that the fashion style inspired by her brother is so elegant and robust wheres Thorin rarely put much thought into his attire - his clothes were mostly inspired by their finances and his simple braids by the lack of time to properly take care of his hair. Mahal’s beard, a few summers ago Dori has asked her if she knew that her own stark style has been notoriously copied by a lot of young middle class dams. Who would have thought that her lack of care in fashion will be taken as a bold statement of elegance found in simplicity (Dori’s words not hers)?
It’s still strange to her very time she realises that people look up to her for some reason or another. Ladies in waiting, Lords and Ladies in the Council, numerous children and the swordsmen under her tutelage (that Orla has given her begrudgingly, with a face like someone giving away their praised flock of geese)… that old coot Dain.
And when the war comes back to the Mountain even more eyes turn to her. Because she is old, because her eyes have seen war and more strife that anyone would want to see. Because she is a Durin, and although Erebor has a good King sitting on its throne, ruling it with sure hand for decades the Mountain is a Durin’s home and it’s Durin’s children that keep spilling their blood for it.
And Dis has a feeling that this time will be no different.
She is the last one, there is no one else, no more blood to paint the earth and hardly any space left for another tomb in the depths of Erebor. There’s just one stone slab waiting on a body to rest on it, one more battle her line will win.
Because they have to win, there’s no other way it can end. They will win and she will pay for it, that’s how it has always been, isn’t it?
She looks to the young Thorin Stonehelm, clad in his magnificent armour, young and serious and severe, and her heart hurts. Just a child he is, just a boy, not deserving of the cruel fate that their blood has bestowed upon them.
She looks at him and his budding love for a fiery archer, at the love he has for his old father and his people, and she knows. It will end here. It has to end here.
She will try her damndest to make sure that it all ends with her.
*
But, out of all the creatures she could stand with, why the bloody Elves?
*
She can’t see. She can barely stand.
It’s all mist and vague warmth and the stone under her feet feels soft, pleasant.
Her throat is tight and she can still feel some phantom pains in her abdomen and chest where the blades cut into her flesh. Her mind tries to marry the feeling with the knowledge of what happened later, with the barely comprehensible meeting she had with one who could only be her Maker…
She stumbles through the fog, blind and naked, on unsteady feet, mind awhirl and strangely lethargic at the same time. Dain, what happened with Dain? She saw him fall, but nothing after that... Was he still alive? She remembers seeing Dwalin somewhere to her left and Orla by his side, and a column of her best swords at her back, all the lads and lasses she taught how to stand and feint and stab… all her good children with their bloody faces and eyes hard with resolve to stand by her and their King. They didn’t give an inch, her children, they fought like heroes and she wishes that she could still be there to tell them how much… how proud she is of them. Now she regrets that her praise was always so scant.
She hopes that they’ve won.
She knows that they’ve won this time. No other option she can accept, nothing else is possible, because she’s paid and if it’s not enough… well, she is perfectly ready to turn around and walk back into the fog and pick up a bone or two with the Valar. There’s no fear in her, hasn’t been for the longest time, and as much as she loves her Maker, His maker she has no fear of.
But right now she can only shuffle forward like a newborn creature with only her ears working in the pale darkness, and still it takes her entirely too long to recognise the sound of footsteps.
But when she hears the voices accompanying them, she freezes. Her feet stick to the ground, her back stiffens and she draws her shoulders up, as if to protect herself.
“Mam?”
Her eyes are blind as they try to pierce the fog, her sight leaving her when she needs it most. Her voice followed suit and she can’t call back, can’t even whisper.
“Mam!”
It’s them, her frantic mind supplies. It’s them.
She stumbles forward, but her knees lock and she falls.
But this time there’s an arm behind her back, a strong shoulder that supports her weight. It’s hard and solid, and she has to grasp it to feel with her own fingers that not’s not an illusion.
“Easy, namadith, easy,” a low voice mutters and she gasps for air.
There’s another voice, another shoulder sliding around her, voice she knows so well, whispering tender nothings into her ear, making her heart flare up with sudden life, with the blood that has all, but left it so long ago. “Mahalwânakurdu,” it whispers. “My heart, my lark.”
Before she can answer soft hands wrap a length of fabric around her, these beloved hands that brush her hair from her face and smooth her beard with a tender caress. “There, love, no need to cry.”
“My little sparrow,” rumbles a voice like a summer storm.
She can’t draw breath.
“Ah, little sister, you look so old.”
“Shut up, Little Uncle, it’s my mother you’re talking about!”
“Lads, stop arguing and let her have some air.”
“Yes, sorry, great grandmother.”
But there’s not enough air in the world to help her now, to fill the chasm in her chest, to give her back her voice. She is overwhelmed and she can’t even see…!
“Mam? Are you… alright?”
Her golden, golden boy. Her beloved children. Her…
She opens her arms and there they are, two shapes stumbling into her embrace, gripping her sides and clinging to her and she knows this, she has missed it… for decades… for ages. And she clings back, she holds them so close that even the powerful hands of their Maker wouldn’t be able to separate them. She gasps their names and cries, and even if she had her eyesight back she wouldn’t be able to see for the tears her eyes are full of…
“Ah, namadith, you were always an ugly crier.”
“Oy, it’s my wife you’re talking about here!”
But she knows this, always knew. She makes an ugly hiccuping sound and only then her voice seems to return, after she’s made a show out of herself. And she still can’t speak, just makes another wet, completely unattractive sound bordering on hysteria, but it’s something.
She can feel the ice falling off her in thick, glistening sheets, she can feel warmth returning to her members.
And for the first time since that cursed letter reached her in Ered Luin, Dis laughs.