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Mother was not speaking to Thorin.
Fili could see his younger brother prickling in their uncle’s defense, his usual chatter clipped short whenever their mother was in the room. To both guardian’s chagrin, Thorin had become the recipient of all the chatter Kili usually saved for their mother and it was all Fili could do to keep either guardian from flying at him in a fit of irritation
Kili stewed on it, clueless as to why his efforts went unappreciated by their elder family members. Their mother’s silence was particularly offensive and by the end of a week, Fili swore he would stuff his ears full of lard the next time Kili began to harp on it.
He did not have the chance to, as he was lying curled on his side the next time Kili started. They had often lain together in the hours after the candle between their beds had been blown out. In the dark, they had whispered things they had never dared tell another soul. For years it seemed that they could say anything at all without fear of being hushed.
Fili wanted to hush him then.
“I don’t understand, Fee. Erebor is our home. It is our right! You’d think she does not want to see it reclaimed.”
Fili could hear their uncle’s words on Kili’s lips and in the darkness between them, frowned. It never ceased to be strange, hearing Kili call Erebor his home when neither of them had ever gone further East than the river Lhûn. Erebor might as well be the Halls of Mahal, as unobtainable as it was, and from the reverence in their elder’s voices, one might very well think its halls as sacred.
And yet, though he had heard a thousand times if he had heard once their uncle’s loving descriptions of carven halls and plunging mines and a great cavern lined with the faces of their forefathers, filled with the light of a hundred golden torches yet all outshone by the King’s Jewel, mounted high in the throne of his father’s father – yet for all that! Fili could hardly imagine such a place, let alone what it was like to feel as though he belonged there.
He knew the light that shone in Kili’s eyes when he whispered of Erebor, his passionate words a glimmer in their otherwise pitch-dark quarters. Fili remembered how that same light once filled his own chest at the thought of their lost home – reclaimed, restored – and knew suddenly, violently, how the desire had been sown into his heart and mind.
His mother spoke rarely of Erebor. She had been young when it fell, but not so young that she had not also lost her home that day. Dís was a proud dwarrowdam and if she had forgotten the firedrake sitting astride her kingdom then she had forgotten the faces of her own sons, but she spoke only ever of this day and the day that would follow and did not dwell on the past.
It had taken Fili a long time to see the frown at the corners of his mother’s mouth on nights when their uncle set aside his pipe. It had taken nearly until he was full grown for him to see the crease between her brows when Thorin set aside his harp. He had not seen her pursed lips on nights when Thorin, settled in his place beside their hearth, began to speak of Erebor and could not understand her trepidation watching her children listen in such rapture.
It was not until he had seen all this that Fili realized with a jolt that this Erebor, the Erebor their uncle crooned over and pined for, no longer existed. Half a world and a whole lifetime away, the city was collapsed beneath a dragon’s claws. Its chambers were burnt and cracked and crumbled beyond hope of recognition. Its treasure’s were melted by dragon’s fire, it’s people turned to ash, it’s sacred halls desecrated with a century of the dragon’s filth.
There was no place in this world like their uncle described and for the first time in his life Fili was not sure there ever would be again.
Now when their uncle settled himself beside their hearth in the evenings, Fili watched as though through his mother’s eyes. He saw the ember in his uncle’s words, glowing with such singular focus and devotion it might almost be madness, and watched the heat of it spread and catch on the kindling of Kili’s imagination. He watch the sparks flare up in his brother’s face and watched how easy it was for their uncle to set alight his longing for a home they had never known.
He had not truly expected their uncle to begin gathering Durin’s folk to him.
Erebor had slipped so far from Fili’s reality that for a moment when their uncle announced to him that he would leave in less than a year to reclaim the mountain, Fili thought perhaps it was a figure of speech.
He had said nothing while Kili whooped and pounded his fists against the table and demanded to know who else would join them and when they should depart and what he should bring and which route they might take until Fili had grabbed him by the braids and dragged him back down into his chair.
It was not that he did not lunge at the idea, yet it was not for Erebor that Fili’s heart rose in his throat that day.
When Fili was all of twenty years old, still fighting to grow his wispy beard into something more substantial, Thorin had taken him by the shoulders and looked him dead in the eye. His uncle so rarely met anyone’s gaze, seeming always to stare off beyond them, searching, that Fili had straightened involuntarily, squaring his shoulders under the weight of all his uncle’s attention.
He had not known, still could not say entirely for certain, what it meant for Thorin to say slowly that he had searched and listened and found no trace of his One and would father no children of his own. Yet, even then as now, Fili had felt the weight settle on his squared shoulders when Thorin had named him heir to the throne of Durin.
Thorin was not an overly affectionate uncle. From what their mother said, he had hardly known what to do with infants and treated toddling dwarflings like little more than pets. Their uncle was not the sort to spoil a dwarfling with sweets and unexpected birthday gift, yet Fili could not remember a time when their uncle had not taken up residence by their hearth in the evenings, especially after their father had passed.
He had been the very first not to shoo Fili away from the blacksmith’s bellow and to explain in his low voice like stones tumbling over each other that this was their greatest gift from Mahal. What other race could pull from the earth her greatest treasures, raw, and make of them such beauty? Wounded though his pride was to fall from Prince to smith, Thorin had impressed upon him how even this work was sacred in its way as like Mahal shaped them from the forge they now shaped all manner of wrought metal.
Even then he spoke of Erebor, of the piles of gleaming gold and silver and how this was their birthright. This was what their creator had given them to go forth in this world with and to deny them of it was to deny them their greatest and most hallowed gift.
Still it was not for the gold in Erebor that Fili felt his heart racing.
A week after their uncle’s announcement, their mother had found Kili’s pack. Fili had watched his brother fill it the very night of Thorin’s announcement, chest full of both annoyance at his younger brother’s giddiness and affection for it in the same beat. Kili had been packed and ready to leave at a moment’s notice since that day and Fili had gone as far as to spar with him and gauged his marksmanship as Kili practiced ever harder in preparation.
Thorin had happened upon such a sparring match on his return one evening, though neither brother noticed as they grappled with each other in the growing dusk. Kili had grown taller, much to Fili’s dismay, and had managed to grab Fili from behind. He had one thin arm wrapped tight around Fili’s shoulders while he squirmed. Fili could hear his laughter in his ears thinking he’d finally managed the upper hand with his elder brother only to yelp as Fili wrenched himself forward into a roll, flipping Kili flat onto the ground over his back. Before Kili could roll to his feet, Fili had dropped, his knees on Kili’s shoulders, pining him flat. Quick as a flash, he’d pulled one of his tiny knives from his sleeves to hold playfully to his brother’s throat.
“You’re dead.”
“Wha- no fair! I already searched you!”
“Better search harder next time, naddith,”
“But it’s not playing fair!” Kili was whining now, as he always did when he lost and Fili was tucking his knife back into the hidden sheath in his sleeve.
“You played fair and you’re dead.” Fili did not hear his brother’s response for he looked up now and spotted their uncle watching on. For a moment, his heart sunk, thinking to find a reprimand for their foolishness or worse. Yet Thorin gave him the faintest of nods and Fili could not quite stop the grin from breaking across his face, his uncle’s approval spreading through him like too much ale on a mid-winter’s festival.
The moment was forgotten when Kili growled and rolled out from under him and they began wrestling anew.
A shout from indoors broke them apart, both brothers scrambling to their feet at the sound of their mother’s voice. By the time they wedged themselves through the front door, Thorin’s harsh bark was plainly audible. In their anger, the guttural sounds of their native tongue flowed more freely and the two shouted Khuzdul across the small kitchen space.
Dís had tied her dark hair away from her face, her sleeves rolled up to the elbow, dust and dirt staining her hands and forearms. She was nearly quivering with rage, her face the color of wine spilled over a white tablecloth. In one fist she shook Kili’s pack in Thorin’s face. Her back to them, she did not see her children at first.
“-them too and you would take them from me as you take everything!”
“How can you be so small-minded?” And Thorin’s tone was harsher than they had ever heard with his younger sister. “How can you think only of yourself when the fate of our people could be at hand?”
“It is not I who think only of myself,” Dís spat, their uncle’s true name beside it. Thorin looked as though she had struck him. They had only heard the name a handful of times and Kili gasped to hear it hurled like a stone with such revulsion.
Dís whirled on them and now her lashing tongue was upon her son’s, reviling Kili for even thinking of going on such a venture and reprimanding Fili for encouraging him when he ought to know better as the oldest and honestly if nothing else this sneaking and giddiness should be proof that they were too young for such a quest.
Shame rose unbidden in Fili’s cheeks. He thought himself long past childhood but his mother had never lost the ability to render him a dwarfling again with just a few words. Not so with Kili, for though tears welled unshed in his brother’s eyes he railed against his mother’s commands as hard as she forbade him from even thinking on the quest. Detached, Fili could not help but think that mother and son were much alike in their rage.
The matter was not settled that night nor any night soon after. In the end Kili dragged Fili back to their shared room and wept for shame at raising his voice at their mother and for the discord suddenly under their roof and refused to leave the room even for supper.
That night Fili wished he could not hear his family continuing their interrupted argument. He wished he could not hear his uncle still mourning a tragedy that took place over a century ago, mourning a home and a family and a population of people whose names he had never even known. He wished he could not hear his uncle’s wounded pride prowling beneath the sadness, the fearsome creature that would have the gold beneath the mountain for their people and a throne to return to, to pass on to Fili, to give him something besides the gravel of Ered Luin to inherit. Fili was so shocked to hear his own name he could hardly breathe.
He wished most that he could not hear when his mother wept. He wished he could not hear her cry that the dragon took her home too, but that it was Thorin that lead her family to battle and death and that it was Thorin that lead her husband, her One, to his doom and that she would have him take Deathless to her throat before he took her only brother and sons to the same fate.
In the end, neither relenting, Dís refused to speak to Thorin. For the first time since she was a newlywed still basking in the home her One had carved for her, Dís barred her door to her last remaining brother. In turn, Kili barely spoke to their mother and their home was filled with an unnatural silence to rival the funeral rites after their father’s death.
Fili did not practice with his brother anymore. Kili was too distracted to be a good sparring partner and Fili did not have the heart to watch his mother’s face harden, knowing exactly what they practiced for.
He found her not a month before they left, sitting at the table with a steaming mug cupped in her hands, staring at the stone surface as though she might bore holes in its surface with the power of her gaze.
He settled gingerly across from her, keeping his feet off the table and all legs of the chair on the ground for once.
“Amad,”
She heaved a sigh, not quite looking at him as she straightened, “I know what you would ask of me, id-mesemê, but I cannot. I cannot give you my permission or my blessing on such a venture.”
Fili watched her swallow, heard her unspoken words ‘to your death’ hanging in the air between them and reached slowly for her hand across the table. He did not tell her of how the quest would be for all their kin. He did not tell her that they were dwarves full grown and she could not forbid them to leave.
“It is our uncle’s will,” he said it very slowly, very carefully. “It is his will and he is my king.”
Her hand felt suddenly very small cupped in his and Fili marveled at it. How could this be the same hand that once engulfed his, guiding him from his first shaky toddling steps to threading beads onto his first braids? Dís went still across the table from him.
“What dwarf would I be to deny my king, amad?” He was still speaking gently, very quietly lest anyone overhear or interrupt. “What prince would I be to hide in the West while our people go homeless and hungry?”
And, shaky now, not willing to fully admit that he had even contemplated the idea, “How could I one day call myself king if I shy away now?”
When Fili raised his eyes to look upon his mother, she was deathly silent. Tears ran over her cheeks, soaking into her beard but when she lifted her head to meet his gaze he caught for the first time, not his mother, but the princess that his mother once was. In her familiar face he could see the pride in equal measure with duty and loyalty and felt the weight between them settle, as it had long ago settled on him.
They said nothing of the conversation to Kili or to Thorin, but the chaos of preparation soon overshadowed any quiet understanding between mother and first-born. It was only after their cousin arrived and Thorin and Balin were set in deep hushed conversation that Fili dared beginning to pack.
Kili could scarcely contain his excitement as their home began to fill, not just with their extended relations from the Farin branch of the family, but with volunteers as well.
“We number near ten now!” The youngest of their houseguests had cloistered themselves in Fili and Kili’s room, much to Fili’s chagrin. He could not shake the feeling that it made them seem too young, still giggling and keeping secrets from their elders like they were mere dwarflings again.
“Eleven!” Their young cousin Gimli had cried, slapping his arms to demonstrate the muscle he hoped was bulging there. Fili merely nodded, not having the heart to point out that of the ten, seven were kin and the other three were peasant miners from Ered Luin. It was hardly the army Thorin seemed set on. Still, more came as the days passed, enough to feel as though they really were feeding and housing a small army of their own.
In the chaos of planning and entertaining, Dís broke her silence with her brother. She had little choice in the hubbub and Fili was briefly glad that the clamor would also spare his mother her pride. Who could think to be shocked to hear her speak to Thorin when everyone had to shout to be heard in the crowd?
Once, during supper, Fili had counted them all and felt suddenly claustrophobic at the realization of just how many crowded into his dining room: their immediate family of himself, Kili, their mother, and Thorin, and then their extended cousins, Balin, (Dwalin unable to attend though his axe had been sworn to Thorin long ago), Oín, and Gloín, and of course Gloín’s wife and son, as well as the six dwarves from Ered Luin. Luckily only one of these was married, but he had enough children that they sat almost thirty at the table. And then there was the unlucky business of a Man inviting himself in, so tall that Fili almost wanted to count him twice.
It was not until the lot of them began trickling out again that Fili learned the ‘Man’ was in fact a Wizard. Fili did not have to puzzle over the Wizard for long as the gray-bearded fellow left almost as soon as he had arrived. The women and their children followed close behind. Gimli too was shuttled back home, much to his chagrin. Their short cousin was still shouting that they were loosing a mighty warrior in forcing him home when he disappeared down the road with his mother.
Soon even Thorin donned his cloak and hefted his pack, determined to secure aid from their kin unable to attend them in Ered Luin.
“Do not dawdle here,” Thorin warned them, “We shall not wait for you if you are late.”
“We won’t be,” Kili was quick to assure him, grinning. He clasped Thorin by the arm, knocking their heads together in farewell.
“We will meet again soon,” Fili said, schooling his face into something he hoped appropriately somber as he repeated the farewell with their uncle. Thorin grunted, finally turning to his sister.
Dís stood with her arms folded, watching the scene play out with a scowl. Thorin stiffened, holding out a hand mechanically. Dís stared at the hand for a long moment as though she could not fathom what the leather-gloved appendage was.
“lulkh,” she finally sighed, stepping past the hand to wrap her arms around Thorin, knocking their heads together before burying her face in his shoulder. Tentatively, Thorin let his arms encircle her, expression unreadable over her shoulder. From a safe distance, Fili could see her lips moving as she whispered something. Thorin’s face went wide-eyed, caught between shock and amusement as he pulled away suddenly and nodded.
Their mother huffed, hands on her hips, and rejoined her sons to watch Thorin mount his pony and disappear down the road to the valley and the river lands beyond.
The day of their departure dawned pale and cool, as it had the day before and would the day after. The sun cresting over the peaks of the mountain draped long blue shadows over the hillside, truly owning up to their namesake. Kili was not smiling this morning when he hefted his pack, somber for once though the glint in his eye betrayed his lingering excitement.
Though they used Thorin’s warning to explain their early departure, Fili knew they were fleeing their mother as much as they were racing towards their uncle. Used to the clamor of a whole company and their kin, or at the very least the quiet chatter of their own little family, supper had been oppressively silent. Fili knew that their mother was trying desperately for their sake, afraid to drive her children from her in their last hours together, but her false front had kept her from saying more than a handful of words lest she give in to her despair in front of them.
They stood the three of them by the door, swallowing their tongues and not quite looking at each other.
It must be a family trait, Fili had thought, to be so terrible at good byes.
Dís reached up to straighten Kili’s cloak around his neck, frowning at it like had only just knocked her favorite serving bowl from its shelf. Her hand lingered on Kili’s shoulder, the corners of her mouth twitching for words that she dared not give voice to.
Kili whined some complaint that Fili could not catch but he heard their mother’s watery chuckle and watched as Kili suddenly swept her up in his arms, hugging her so fiercely her toes almost left the ground. For a moment Fili could do little more then stare before they were suddenly upon him in a tangle of limbs and dark hair and hard skulls cracking against each other. Fili could hear their breathing, though for the life of him he could not tell where one of them breathed out and the other breathed in and for a bizarre second it felt as though all three breathed with the same chest.
Finally Dís shook them off, reaching her hands deep into the pockets of her skirts. Her fists came out clenched around something and her face was one of embarrassment barely hidden beneath an ill temper.
Fili opened his hand and she dropped the dark stone into it. It hit his palm solidly and his fingers curled around it without thinking. Slowly, he lifted it, squinting at the cirth carved deep into the stone.
“It’s a bit superstitious isn’t it?” He heard Kili murmur and shot a glare over his shoulder only to find his mother fixing her youngest with an identical glare of disapproval as if to say, “humor me.”
Kili ducked his chin down, ears pink as he moved to embrace his mother once more.
It was a long time, with many rounds of hugs and enough knocked heads that Fili was beginning to think his forehead would bruise, before he and his brother swung up onto their saddled ponies. Kili waved and waved over his shoulder as they cantered down the road, long after Fili was sure they could no longer see their door, let alone their mother, but it was a longer time still until Fili stopped turning the stone over in his pocket.
Innik dê.
Innik dê.
Innik dê.