#aithynne

"What was it like, reclaiming Erebor?"

"Is this the best you can do, nadad?" Dis for Thorin <3 -✧- @aithynne

A bead of sweat ran down Thorin's temple as he faced his younger sister in a spar, his double-handed axe against her large hammer. He took a single step toward Dis, thrusting his arms out to push the handle of his weapon against hers. This succeeded only for a moment in giving him respite as they broke apart briefly, and he grit his teeth at her teasing.

Despite some frustration that it was much harder to battle with her now that she was grown and as fierce as any of the other Dwarrow warriors, he was overwhelmingly proud of her. Much that she had learned was from himself and Frerin. Much Dís had taught to the boys of her family also.

Lamplight caught in the facets of Ered Luin’s heart-rock, clothing the walls in the burnished glow of treasure half-dreamed. Here, the great clamour of dwarven life was softened, muffled, as though even the mountain knew to lower its voice.

Fíli, however, needed reminding.

His mother raised one finger – a calloused and clever thing that spoke of exile, of iron tools, of unyielding patience.

The child swallowed his excitement, his breath a tremulous, moth-winged thing. Upon a bed of furs as pale as frost lay the newness of life itself. Mere days old, Kíli was wrapped in swaddling cloth, his dark downy hair haloed in the lamplight, his tiny fists curled as though keeping some secret from the world entire. He made the smallest sound. Not quite a cry, but the shadow of one.

Slowly, Fíli settled beside his mother. She smelled milk-sweet and blood-sour, of white-fingered moss, and of something primal he could not name. Her arm came around him – firm as the mountain’s root, yet gentle in its weight – drawing him nearer to the newborn’s side. In her silence there was a music older than any cavern-song. A wordless assurance of love, of lineage, of bonds that would endure both exile and eternity.

Fíli’s wide blue eyes drank in the sight of his brother – so impossibly small, so delicate – that the whole of him seemed a thing that might vanish into the quarry’s cracks if not fiercely guarded.

Far off and faint, somewhere in the belly of the mountain, forge hammers struck in rhythm.

The dwarfling leaned closer.

“Hello, Kíli.” The whispered syllables fell into the cradle. He turned his gaze upward to the mother he now shared with another, and smiled – wide and milk-toothed. “‘Amad, he is so little… like a pebble!”

At first Elrond had been startled, when all of a sudden the visitors jumped up from their seats with a loud cry and then ran, as if chased by a pack of wolves that nipped at their heels. Then he saw the large figure in the sky, and how the guests had bolted in the opposite direction of the arriving Draco.

Elrond had gotten so used to Draco's presence, both the impressively large physical one and the comforting mental one, that it was easy to forget not everyone was accustomed of having a dragon nearby. It was little wonder that they had deemed him an approaching danger.

featuring: frodo baggins and kili

Answered

Draco: Can I bother you for a second?

"I saw it in your eyes." (Kili n thorin) -✧- @aithynne

Thorin stared off into the distance, away from his youngest nephew. He continued to stand in silence for a moment before his shoulders shifted, as though he were dropping the weight off from them. "I cannot hide anything from you, can I?" he asked gruffly, turning slowly toward Kíli.

It had been traces of fear and doubt which clouded his deep blue eyes; the watchful young Dwarf had seen it on display. The more he considered the prospect of leaving Ered Luin and taking up the quest to reclaim Erebor, the more determined and yet also worried he became. It had already taken much preparation, and would require more. They did not know when they would depart.

"In my defense, the moon was full and I was left unsupervised."