This is a rewrite of a story I started in the autumn of last year. Pairings and characters will be added as I go along, but expect to see almost all of your canon favourites as well as a few new additions.

As before, I couldn't have done this without the wonderful KivrinEngle - who I'm proud to call my friend as well as my beta and to whom this work is dedicated - or the equally lovely Madame Faust (over on AO3), whose works have been a never-ending source of delight and inspiration.

Thanks for reading!


It was said, in the way such things often are, that the Blue Mountains still echoed with songs of the past. Though the Men living in their foothills were eager to dismiss these rumours as little more than dwarvish superstition, they were equally quick to close their businesses and bring home their children when the sea fog rolled in from the west. Wights, they'd whisper, shooting suspicious looks at the mountains beyond and nodding sagely at their families while they boarded the windows against the wailing of the wind. Wraiths and dwarrow-ghosts! You'd best stay inside, dearies, least the gnomes snatch you up and drag you to their caverns.

It was a ridiculous notion, of course, as all old wives tales inevitably must be. In all the years she had spent amongst the ranges and rocks, Aesa Adíslasdaughter had never seen a ghost or anything remotely resembling one-not in the way the Men described them, at least. The mountains might be alive, aye, alive and more ancient than most Men could understand, but they housed no specters or spirits. They certainly weren't the scene of kidnappings or theft or whatever it was the old woman by the riverbed was saying these days.

Scorched and craggy as the peaks were, their only offense - if it could be called as such - was to appear somewhat ominous to foreign eyes. Their ridges were blackened with the scars of old dragon fire, a constant reminder of the evil that yet roamed the world and the bloodshed that had come before it; really it was little wonder the Men feared the mountains. Their claims were absurd, perhaps, but they were far from unfounded.

Yet if Aesa were to speak of the things that haunted her home, she wouldn't point up at the summits themselves; she would much sooner mention the manner in which their inhabitants averted their eyes and whispered a prayer whenever they passed the worst of the singeing. Instead of spinning tales of what might lurk in the shadows, she'd recite one of the many songs she'd been taught as a child - filled with sorrow and longing for a faraway place - or note the shortness of her king's beard and the lack of fine jewels on his kinsfolk. There mightn't be wights in Thorin's Halls, but that hardly meant they weren't haunted.

Theirs were ghosts of a different kind: the ones found in poems and prayers, in the empty spaces during Durin's Day and the burden of knowing one looked like this-or-that uncle or resembled so-and-so's sister. The memories of the lost walked amongst them as surely as he living did. She'd been raised with them, readied for what lay ahead by their example, and now - it seemed - she would be wed alongside their very images.

For all that she was a Durin, she'd never expected to find herself in such a position.

Little fish swam down her spine and made her shiver. The solemn figures of the burned dwarves of Azanulbizar gazed down at her from the walls of the sanctum, their faces severe and unsmiling. Thror; Fundin; Frerin. She repeated their names like a mantra and could near swear she heard them whisper back to her. Seven stars and seven heirs and one lost realm, they seemed to say, whither go now Durin's folk, of shining axe and sturdy helm?

The words were as familiar to her as they were to any Longbeard. She might not have known her Cousin Eílif, who had died long before she'd ever been born, but the old queen's prophecy was the first verse her family learned and the last many remembered once dotage had muddled their memory. As the story went, Thráin's embittered wife had smiled as she'd said the words and passed into a swoon not long after; it had been a matter of days before they'd been taken as a portent and they'd spread rapidly ever since. The bells shall ring in gladness at the Mountain King's return, but all shall fail in sadness and the lake shall shine-

Aesa inhaled sharply, forcing herself to focus on the steady drone of the juzrâl's blessing and instinctively reaching for the prayer beads in the folds of her sleeve. Her fingers slid past the edge of lace that had been sewn into the lining - too little of it to have trimmed her wrist, but enough to serve its purpose - before finding the smooth edge of one of the pearls. Something old, something new. The body beside her own shifted at her unrest. There was a familiar warmth in the gesture, an unspoken sense of concern that made her smile to notice it. She wasn't the least bit surprised to find her husband looking back at her when she glimpsed out from behind the embroidered edge of her veil.

Fíli, her heart sang as she took in the familiar features, Fíli, my own beloved, my darling prince. He did look every inch the royal heir now, dressed to the nines in the colours of their house and that of his father. Truthfully, it was a little unsettling to see him like this. She'd known him for as long as she could remember and had loved him for almost as long, but he'd only ever been Fíli to her-just as she'd only ever been Aesa, daughter of a Firebeard smith and his playmate since birth. They'd always known they were of Durin's line, too - how could they not, when Thorin and the others had emphasised it at every turn - though their birthright had seemed a rather distant thing until then, the stuff of history books and the overwhelming sadness in their elders's eyes. It had never felt real before.

But today-today it did. She'd expected to marry as the other youngsters of their colony would, in her best gown with only the nearest of her kin for witnesses some deserving but minor noble for her groom. The actual occasion couldn't be further from what she'd imagined and, while sublimely overwhelming, she couldn't believe their luck in having Thorin agree to the match. He was hard-pressed to deny his nephews anything - Kíli especially, being the spitting image of his late uncle - but Fíli was his successor, the heir on whom everyone's hopes were firmly pinned. Surely there had to be better options available to them; wealthy dwarrowdams from the Iron Hills, buxom beauties from the Blue Mountains, Maker, even a political alliance with the Orocarni might have been preferable to her limited skills and lesser treasure. She couldn't quite understand why she'd been chosen, nor likely ever would, yet here she was-surrounded by wedding guests she barely knew and her cheeks aglow with the pleasure of taking Fíli's hand in front of them.

For once, she didn't care what others might think.

Not that she wasn't keenly aware of the sheer amount of dwarves gathered in the holy room. The dead weren't the only ones watching her; it felt as though every cousin and kinsman - royal or otherwise - had turned out to see her married and crammed themselves into the alcove that formed the inner sanctum. She wondered, somewhat idly, whether this was to be their life now-if their every action would be watched and choice of words picked apart. She'd never envied Thorin his position, limited though his powers were out here in the west, and the prospect of finding herself in a similar position daunted her more than she'd like to admit.

Her fingers tightened around Fíli's. No turning back now; the final prayers were already being said, the crowd murmuring along dutifully even as the juzrâl raised the couple to their feet and turned them toward their witnesses. Aesa was unable to see much further than the second row of dwarves but she could make out Bofur towards the back, hat in hands and grinning broadly. The rest of their Broadbeam kin could only be close. Thorin was standing with his sister, both of them beaming (beaming! who'd have thought) in approval, while Balin and Dwalin took their places beside them. Their smiles were a welcome sight next to the marked indifference of some of the Iron Hills party.

The front row, meanwhile, was almost entirely taken by the younger generation. She studied their faces fondly. Kíli - darling Kíli, who'd been a sibling to her long before she married his brother - and Thorin Stonehelm, her now-uncle's namesake from the east; Gimli, the fierce little cousin who could match any dwarf twice his age; Dagmaer, Dáin's young daughter who had inherited all of her mother's Longbeard looks but none of her dour temperament; and finally Gyda, Aesa's own sister who'd been away for so long she felt she barely knew her. For a long moment she couldn't bring herself to look away from the elaborate red hair, the sly green eyes, the barest quirk of the lips. This wasn't the girl she remembered, though Gyda had been enough trouble even as a child, and Aesa wasn't sure what to make of the woman who stood in her place. Why hadn't she come home until now? Why couldn't she have written more, or made some effort to be grateful to the people who had raised them?

She didn't know-but then, she supposed, she didn't yet recognise the raven-haired princess who stood in her own place either, the girl who wore a gown shot through with silver and more jewels than she'd ever thought to own. In a strange way it felt like they were dressing up, pretending to be someone else like they'd used to when they were but wee bairns. She might know a bit more about the world now, but she still couldn't tell what the future would hold-none of them could. Seven stairs and seven heirs and one lost realm, she mused, dragging her eyes back along the line of her family. Mahal help us, we aren't ready.

A cheer went up from the gathered crowd and snapped her back to the present. Fíli's grasp was tender as he pulled her towards him and kissed her, smiling with such devotion she felt her chest might burst at the sight of it. Someone - Bofur, most likely - whistled from across the room and half the crowd howling with laughter. Aesa chuckled against Fíli's mouth and wound a hand into the braids at his shoulder. Let them laugh; let them look. She might blush under their scrutiny, but she couldn't deny her own happiness.

In the split second they broke apart, Fíli rested his forehead against hers with the softest whisper of her name - her true name, the one she had given him when they had become betrothed - and she knew, in her heart, that she would stay with him until the day they died. There was a comfort in the steadiness of his love and the loyalty he'd always shown-a comfort, she suspected, she would come to rely on in the years ahead. They mightn't know what lay ahead, but prophecies be hanged and to Mordor with the burden of their heritage; they would face it together, as they were surely meant to do.

She was Aesa, daughter of Adíslas of the line of Durin and wife to Fíli, nephew and heir to Thorin Oakenshield-and for the first time in her life, she was unafraid.

And do not cut your beards, now, nor your garments rend; for when the birds of yore return to Erebor, the reign of the beast will end.


Far away to the east a monster stirred beneath a single, solitary peak. It shifted, sending gold and gems scattering as it did, the thrum of its breath trailing with whisps of smoke that drifted towards the high, vaulted ceilings of its domain. A shimmering white gem slipped from beneath a monstrous claw and for a moment the beast seemed to wake, but then the tip of its wing found the treasure, and it turned on its side and slumbered again.

But Smaug the Terrible, the Old Worm, Chiefest and Greatest Calamity of His Age, would not sleep forever-nor indeed for very long.