"We can't stay here, lad."
Thorin could hear the numbness in Balin's voice without even looking at him. He doubted he would meet his eyes for some time. Balin would look upon him in sympathy, heartbreak; and trust.
It was that last one he wasn't prepared for.
The battle may have been won, but Moria was not. Their number was crushed, and morale desiccated. It didn't matter to him that he had mortally wounded the infamous Defiler, not when Azog had taken so much from him in one battle.
Four dwarves of the Durin dynasty had drawn swords that day, and four had charged to battle. Yet only one remained. Only he remained. Azog had sworn to wipe out their bloodline, and he almost had.
When he had seen the pale orc strike the King's head from his shoulders; when he had watched his grandfather's crown be flung across the battlefield like a trophy, Thorin had accepted the likelihood of his death. He had accepted that this battle could never have been won. Because of this acceptance, there had been a brief reprieve in his mind amidst the rage of steel and blood around him. A moment where his mind cast back to his sister. If all of Durin's sons were killed here on this day, at least two would remain. In the sanctuary of the Blue Mountains, he hoped his sister would raise them to be the Princes they were. That their people would have a chance at survival, a chance to be led by a King who was not as blind to enemy strength as his grandfather.
In years to come, Balin would say that Thorin changing his mind from this wish that day set the future of Erebor into place. If he died here, if Azog lived, he would strive to fulfil his oath. The Blue Mountains would burn, and his sister would be slain. His nephews...
When acceptance broiled into anger inside Thorin's heart at that thought, his body found the power to charge at the pale orc. He cast his legacy on that fated day. An enemy was slain with an oaken shield and pure fire from his wounded heart.
The valleys had been quiet for almost an hour now. Their enemy had fled, and they had not the number or the heart to give chase. As Thorin sat on that boulder and looked out at the bleak midday sun, he was aware that Balin and Dwalin were searching amongst the fallen. Hoping in vain that they would find survivors.
His grandfather was dead. His father missing. A few moments ago, Thorin had found his little brother impaled on an orcish javelin. Frerin, who had been so adamant on their journey to Moria that he was ready to fight, was pierced by the javelin at such an angle that his corpse still stood. When Thorin had cradled his head in his hands, the fact he was standing had made it seem as if he had merely fallen asleep on night watch again. Thorin had agreed with his little brother on the journey to battle, clapped him on the back and told him all would be well so long as he listened to their father.
His brother hadn't even grown a full beard yet. He never would now.
He should be weeping, should he not? He felt such pain, such debilitating, raw pain that he knew he should be crying out. But nothing came.
"Thorin," Balin spoke again, his voice hoarse from his shattered soul. The hand on his shoulder was light, and brief, as if he knew he did not want to be touched. He lifted his eyes to his former mentor slowly. They ached, everything did.
Balin, with blood on his white beard and an emptiness in his eyes, nodded towards the forest they had emerged from mere hours ago. "I've...I've sent for them to fetch carts, lad. For your grandfather and your brother...." He trailed off, and Thorin knew that he had finally spotted the motionless figure propped against the boulder Thorin was sitting on. If Balin reacted, Thorin didn't see it on his face. The dwarf lying at his side was just another in their tallies of loss.
"Thorin..."
"I'll carry my brother." Those were the first words Thorin had spoken in some time. He nodded over to where Frerin lay a short distance away after Thorin had pulled the javelin from his chest. "Others..others may need to help me with the King. And..." His words escaped him again as he turned to look at the body at his side. At the blond hair matted with blood and dirt. With a tight jaw, Thorin shifted his hand in Vili's cold grip. Balin swallowed painfully and sniffed once nodding.
"Vili too." He may have continued speaking after that, Thorin did not know, for when he next turned his head towards where the older dwarf had stood he was no longer there.
It had been Vili who took up arms when Thorin had charged at the pale Orc. Vili, with the same strength behind each slash of his blades that had caught Thorin's eye in the mines all those years ago. When Azog had knocked him off a short drop and his sword arm burned from a bruising impact on his shoulder, Vili had been the one to swing at the pale Orc without hesitation. His blow may have been blocked but it was a good enough distraction, for as Azog turned to swing at his new attacker, Thorin had grasped his weapon again and tried to heave himself to his feet.
That had been where it went wrong. They were but dwarves, after all. And a Gundabad orc towered far above them. Just how his brother-in-law was disarmed, Thorin did not see. But he saw how he was lifted by the hair, how a dagger pulled from his boot in desperation was flung at the orc's left eye, scarring it forever.
Run, Vili had shouted to him, but Thorin didn't move. He did not know if he could. When the orcish blade was driven through his friend's torso, and he was discarded like rotten meat, Thorin heard a sound leave his own throat that he did not recognize.
Later, when his blade had found its brutal mark, and Azog was pulled back within the mines by his armies, Thorin dropped to his knees at his friends' side to see he was still clinging to life. Vili's chest was heaving frantically, and he clutched onto Thorin's arms with an an intensity he was all too familiar with. The love of his little sister's life was dying. Drowning in his blood as it filled his lungs. So Thorin held him and whispered prayers in Khuzdul for what felt like hours when Vili had mere minutes left on this earth.
"Dis." He grits out. Thorin felt his jaw clench when he saw how red his teeth were now. He nodded, not needing him to finish.
"She knows." He mumbled, still keeping a tight grip on him to steady the fallen warrior. "She knows, Vee."
It was then that Thorin noticed the fact Vili's beads were missing. Intricate decorative pieces of silver he wore in his braided mustache, a gift from Thorin's father on their wedding day. Somewhere in his heart, he knew where they were. Vili had known as well as he had that this was futile. But Thorin had been too stubborn to admit it.
Vili shakily reached an arm towards the back of his head, his fingers brushing against the silver clasp that was keeping a few locks of his hair pinned off his face. Thorin's heart still thundered in his chest as he nodded quickly. If the beads were for his eldest, this dying wish made sense.
"For Kili?" He spoke for him and Vili nodded in relief, coughing again. His hands, calloused and bloody, gripped at Thorin's when he touched his forehead against his.
"I'll see it done. I will."
"My boys..." Vili's chest heaved again and his face scrunched up in pain as he struggled for breath. "Thorin, m-my boys—"
"Your boys will want for nothing, Vili." Thorin had whispered to him, not moving his forehead. "I won't let a single thing hurt them. Not a single thing. I swear in Durin's name, brother."
"...They're good boys, really. Good boys."
"Vili."
His brother-in-law, his friend, took another breath to speak again, but no voice was ever put to it. It was a breath that was never exhaled.
"Vili?"
It had snowed again.
That morning Fili had awoken to the sound of a few dwarves muttering to one another in exertion as they shoveled the snow aside to allow for carts and carriages to trundle past. They were older members of their settlement with white beards and crooked postures which likely added to their displeasure at the day's work. All the younger dwarf men had been sent off nearly three weeks prior, and Ered Luin was beginning to notice the absence.
Amad had been stressed since Adad had left. At first, Fili had assumed she simply missed him as much as he did until Gimli had pointed out to him that she was the only grown member of the royal line left behind. His great-grandfather Thror, his grandfather and both of his Uncles had followed their duties, leaving all the sums, all the preparations for winter and all the harvest takings to Dis.
Fili didn't pretend to understand just what that entailed. He had assumed from the stories Adad told him and Kili at night that Princesses were always fair and beautiful, and that the right knightly warrior would sweep them off their feet to find their happily ever after together. However, what Fili did not notice was how fondly his mother had rolled her eyes at the almost deliberate turns of phrase her husband used in such tales.
Adad's description of a princess was not what Fili had witnessed from Amad in recent days. More often than not she would have the sleeves of her worn dresses rolled up; her hairy forearms slick with mud and dirt from whatever group of farmers she had decided to aid that day. She didn't smile much, if at all, and she occasionally had that stiff clench to her lower jaw that made her look so much like Uncle Thorin.
Dinners were quiet now. Devoid of the usual deconstruction of Adad's day at the smithy or his recurring request that his sons each tell him three things they had learnt that day in their tutelage. Amad would stare down at her food, and absently push it from side to side in her bowl without really eating anything. Fili doubted his brother had noticed the change in their mother, for every time Kili asked her one of his outlandish questions she would respond with the same affectionate tone and slight curve of a smile.
But Fili knew she was hurting. This was why after dinner one night, he waited until his brother had collapsed on his front before the fire to line up his wooden soldiers again and he hugged her. Tightly around the leg with his face pressed against her skirts. Amad had stilled instantly, and when he felt her hand in his golden hair part of him knew she was thinking of Adad once more. So many people did when they saw him.
"My sweet boy." She had said, her voice wavered for a moment. Only a moment. And then she pressed a kiss to the crown of his head and gently pushed him towards the hearth with a mumbled 'play with your brother'.
"When Adad gets home," Kili said out of nowhere, pulling Fili from his quiet reflection as he ate his breakfast. "Do you think he'll take us out into the woods again? So we can hunt?"
"You weren't very good at it, Kee." Fili mumbled, chasing a stray button mushroom around with his fork. Kili bristled in his seat, a little scowl forming on his young face.
"I am good!"
"You scared the rabbits away because you tripped up."
His brother didn't answer him, he simply glowered down at his porridge with his chin propped up on his hand. Fili paused and then lowered his fork again to look his brother in the eye with a sigh.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. Adad will take us anywhere we want when he's home. He promised." When his brother perked up a little, Fili pressed on and swung his legs happily off the chair he was sitting in. "He said he'd take me the smithy with him too. I'm going to learn how to make swords like Adad does. And when you're bigger you can come too, Kee. We can make the best weapons in the Blue Mountains–"
He had heard the horn of Ered Luin only a handful of times in his short life. Uncle Frerin had once explained that it was a horn made from the other ram as the horn of Erebor–which lay in wait on the other side of the world. A booming, commanding sound that vibrated in his very ribs and set goosebumps up and down his arms. The watchmen on the gates had spotted their banners on the horizon and had sounded the alert. That horn meant returning soldiers. That horn, at least in Fili's world, meant that his Adad would be in his chair by the fire again where he belonged.
He grinned at Kili, dropping down from his chair at the same time his brother did so they could dash the front door. A second horn sounded, and nearly made his neck tingle as he watched Kili jump up and down near their coats.
"Adad is home! And Amul Adad! And Uncle—, come on Fee!"
"I'm coming! Kili, get your cloak, it's cold–"
His mother dropped the wooden cup she had been holding when the horn sounded a third and final time, and it clattered on the floor with such a crash that it startled him. She covered her mouth with her hand and suddenly leaned against the breakfast table for support
"Amad?" Fili slowly finished draping Kili's cloak around his small shoulders but he didn't tear his eyes away from her. What did three horns mean? With an inward curse, he tried to rack his brains, to remember whatever Balin had been teaching all the young dwarves in the summer when Fili had wanted nothing more than to be outside.
What did three blasts mean? One was for returning soldiers–that had been the one he focused on. Two was a call for healers was it not? And three was...
When the first sob left Amad's clenched teeth, Fili's brain seemed to start working again. Three horns was the loss of Durin life. A member of the royal line would not be walking themselves through the gates of Ered Luin.
"Fee! I want to see the soldiers!" Kili insisted, pulling on his brother's hand with all his strength, leaning his weight back on his heels. But Fili didn't look at his brother, he couldn't. He just watched as his mother had difficulty remembering how to breathe.
"Both of you go to your room." She whispered, barely moving her palm from her face. Fili's brow furrowed.
"But Amad–"
She lifted her eyes to him once, only once. And despite the tears that pooled in her eyelids, Fili knew that she wouldn't ask him a second time.
He knew there'd be trouble if she saw him lingering at the top of the stairs when a knock sounded on their front door. He knew that if Amad turned even slightly in passing he'd have a sore ear and an empty belly tonight for misbehaving, but as soon as he caught a glimpse of Uncle Thorin walking down the snowy street from their bedroom window he had rushed to watch. Fili was still leaning out of the bedroom door with Kili peering out behind his leg when their mother wrenched the door open.
Uncle Thorin looked different. Smaller? But how could that be possible? His Uncle was one of the largest most formidable dwarves he knew, seconded only perhaps to Mr Dwalin. At his side, he felt Kili stiffen when the door opened, expecting the usual shout of 'Amralime' and Amad's laugh as she was hoisted into Adad's arms. Fili shook his head at him and pressed his finger to his lips.
Neither Amad nor Uncle Thorin had breathed a word. It was as if she was trying to gauge everything she needed to know from his exhausted expression alone, the slump in his shoulders, the way his icy eyes were as hollow as hers. Fili almost missed her words when she did speak, but he was straining every nerve in his body to hear.
"Who?" Amad whispered, her hand tightening on the cold handle of the door. Uncle Thorin opened his mouth, took a breath but did not speak. Amad's voice was firmer now, easier to hear, yet still it trembled.
"Thorin, who?"
"Dis I..." His Uncle trailed off and silently held his palm out. From his vantage point on the narrow stairs, Fili could see over his mother's shoulder, just about making out what was in his Uncle's hand.
Two signet rings. Durin signet rings. He had been told enough times that when he was of age he would receive his own. Slowly, Fili felt his expression fall as he worked it out in his mind. Amad wobbled in the doorway suddenly, as if an unfelt wind knocked into her.
"Even...Even Frerin?"
No.
At the mention of Uncle Frerin, Thorin's jaw clenched and he again took another breath to speak but Amad never gave him the chance. Her hand suddenly fisted in the heavy chainmail he wore as she wrenched him closer.
"Where's my husband, Thorin? Where is he?" Her voice was high, desperate. Fili didn't like how it made him feel.
Fili watched his Uncle exhale shakily and close his eyes and felt a chill start to crawl up his back slowly. Ever so slowly. Until Amad dropped to her knees with a furl of skirts and let out a sound he had never heard before. A frightening, raw sound that made Kili tense next to him. Fili would never forget it as long as he lived.
He didn't know when he had plunged his hand into the shallow pocket of his tunic, but for the past five seconds, he had been clutching his father's beads in his hand as he stared, completely frozen, at his mother. Another scream from Amad led to his brother pressing his hands over his ears, his frightened eyes scrunched closed. In doing so, Kili released the grip he had had on Fili's cloak–and that was all he needed.
His boots thundered on the stairs as he fled down them; around his weeping mother towards the door. His blood was pounding in his ears, so impossibly loud and overwhelming.. He heard Kili stagger on the stairs just before he pushed past Thorin in the doorway, and though he didn't look back he could hear the fear in Kili's voice as he shouted after him from the house. He didn't understand. Why would he?
"Fee?!"
Thorin may have made a grab for him, Fili didn't know. Mr Dwalin had praised him enough times on his speed in training for him to trust in his physical skill on a normal day. But this was not a normal day. Today it felt as if all the wargs in the world were on his trail as he sprinted down the snowy street. His chest heaved, his legs pumped again and again and still, he didn't release his grip on the beads his father had left him that morning months ago.
The atmosphere in the settlement was heavy. With each house he passed he could hear the cries of women like Amad, the begging, the pleading for a truth that was just not possible. He skidded through the empty marketplace where he often caused mischief with his brother and Gimli and down the stone steps that lead towards the main road. The road that led to the mountain By the time he had passed the bakery Mr Bombur owned his lungs were practically burning in his chest, his hips aching from force.
The banners on the mountain were black. He remembered that lesson from Balin well enough. The King was dead.
"Even Frerin?" He could hear his mother whisper and with gritted teeth, he forced himself to run faster, even if he did skid on the ice. All of them? He thought of his great grandfather who sneaked him extra dessert when his mother wasn't. Of his grandfather Thrain who had given him his first sword. And Uncle Frerin who had taught him how to hit a pot with it.
There were carts on the bridge, flocks of riding rams being herded back to their stables still clad in their war armour. Fili weaved, ducked and elbowed his way through until he finally crossed onto the thoroughfare. One of the guards, Khod, who usually let him and his brother annoy him for a short while on the battlements, reached for him.
"Fili, come here! Don't go in the–" But Fili twisted from his grip with a dexterity he had never known himself to possess.
It was not guards that stopped Fili Durin when he clattered into the kingshall, but stone pyres. A few dwarow dams, dressed in the fine blue of the house of Durin, were trying to clean the blood from his Uncle Frerin's motionless face. Wide blue eyes drifted from one pyre to the next. Where was Grandfather Thrain? His eyes fell on the grandest of the pyres, the one bathed in gold already.
Before his little mind could truly process the fact the King's head was missing, he had seen the pyre that was furthest away. He had seen the blonde hair he shared–the first Durin to do so according to his mother. Adad was still, clutching his sword to his chest in a way that just didn't seem comfortable. Why did he look so pale?
He was panting still, his chest nearly hyperventilating as his body decided whether it wanted to be exerted from his run or succumb to tears. He supposed it was these strangled noises that caught Mr Dwalin's attention, as the tattooed dwarf turned to him with a broken expression.
"Oh laddie,no–"
"Adad!" Fili started forward again, only there was no breaking free from a grip as strong as Dwalin's. That didn't stop him from trying, even as his vision blurred.
"Adad! Papa!" Fili felt his throat throbbing as he pushed against Dwalin with all his might. "Adad wake up! Wake up!"
As soon as strong arms lifted him from the Fili began to struggle, blind with heartbreak and grief he was too young to fully understand. He hit, he kicked, and he screamed for his Adad. It was only when he was turned in someone's arms that he saw the expressionless face of Thorin. With a strangled sob, he tried to push away, but his Uncle caught his arm and pulled him closer, holding him to his chest with his hand pressed to the back of his head.
"Shh," Thorin's voice rumbled deep in his chest, and despite how he tried to escape his grip he couldn't. So Fili just cried instead and clutched the last gift his father ever gave him all the tighter.
Had he ever held his nephew outside of newborn infancy? Thorin doubted it for some reason. He may not have had a choice when Dis had first given birth because Vili had been so overjoyed that he was practically passing Fili to anyone who was within arms reach. When his best friend had placed his new nephew unceremoniously in his arms Thorin had been so frightened to drop him that he had not moved a single muscle and had stared down at the infant as if he was going to try and attack him–which both his younger siblings found highly amusing. But Fili had grown, and Thorin had left all the rough housing and make-believe to his little brother because Frerin was just so much better at that. Frerin wasn't the heir apparent. Frerin could do as he pleased.
He saw his nephews every Durins day and occasionally in the kingshall when his father summoned him midway through one of his sister's visits.
He was just a familiar stranger, especially to little Kili.
Yet here was a little prince in his arms. Screamed raw and shaking, just as he had been when sickness took his own mother all those years ago.
"Shh, lad." Thorin hushed again, slowly pressing his cheek into the dwarfling's hair. "I have you." His own resolve's timing was impeccable it seemed, as Thorin felt his own eyes finally prickling as he shifted his nephew in his arms. "
"I have you."
He only looked up once. Just once. To see if Dwalin and Balin were there to take the boy back to his mother. Instead, Thorin saw the grim faces of an entire King's court, who had gathered to pay their respects to their fallen King and Prince. His grandfather and brother were dead. His Father was missing, captured or worse. Who else was there for them to look to? The crying child in his arms?
"The King is dead." Balin with a voice so tired, was staring straight at the golden pyre. And at once, a chorus of voices arose in the kingshall.
"Long live the King!"
Their eyes were on him, they would be for the rest of his life now.
"Long live the King!"
Thorin took a breath and pressed his face back into his nephew's hair.