Author's Note: I'm just trying out something here and having a go at more "classic" fanfic, so please bear with me :) This is just practice, so I don't know how long this fiction will last and how it will end. As for my other hobbit-y fanfic, well, that's on its way. I'm just trying to figure out how not to be tedious with regards to cookery descriptions... lol! Again, I'm not quite happy with how the narrative is turning, I feel my most acceptable piece of fanfiction is still the Gimli one-shot ("The Pigeon Came").

Chapter 1: A New Beginning

Malin cursed in Khuzdul under her breath. The wind howled incessantly and the rain had been pouring for several days, ever since they had left the Iron Hills, in fact. The road ahead (both figuratively and literally) looked uninviting. At this particular point in Malin's life, the world was cold and uninviting.

The road to Erebor from the Iron Hills was undoubtedly long and hard. That the spring rains were falling made it far worse, as the roads were muddy. Malin hated wearing stiff male breeches and riding a fidgety pony for hours on end. It was wet and cold, and she hated the bitter cold. She shivered and growled, but her traveling companions were dwarves from the Iron Hills whom she did not know well, who were moving to the Lonely Mountain, and they did not know her, notice her, or bother about her much.

Malin was in a foul mood.

"Lonely it is called and lonely it shall be," she muttered, "My brothers just had to send for me, before it is even habitable."

She didn't think often of her two brothers. Other than some rare gift, missive or piece of news from visitors, she had not heard from them or seen them since the Battle of Azanulbizar. Often, she quite forget the fact that she had two brothers; she mostly thought of herself as alone in the world except for Lord Dain, his family, and her close friends in the Iron Hills. Malin assumed for many years that her brothers had long abandoned her and forgotten of her. She was twenty years younger than Dwalin, thirty-one years younger than Balin, far too young to be of any consequence to them.

It was so terribly unexpected that after so many years, her brothers Balin and Dwalin should summon her to Erebor through a message from Dain as he triumphantly returned from the Battle of the Five Armies to resume his duties as Lord of the Iron Hills. Malin remembered well the mass excitement when Lord Dain and his company rode into the city's entrance, and then the moment that he ran down to embrace his family triumphantly. Malin had stood by, smiling at the good news of the army's safe return. Then Lord Dain had turned to her and said,

"Malin, your brothers summon you to move to Erebor with the company that shall go from here in a month."

Her countenance grew dark, but she said nothing, merely nodding and bowing. It was unusual for dwarrowdams to travel and be uprooted, so she realized immediately that she would, in all likelihood, never see the Iron Hills again.

Dain's wife, Dlysi, Malin's close companion, nearly went into mourning at the new. Dlisyi and Malin clung miserably to each other until the last moments when she had to break away and leave, trying not to think about what she was leaving behind less she break down completely. Dain's sister had done the same, as did all her dear bosom friends in the Iron Hills. They as a group were inconsolable at the parting, and very hurt as well, for bonds of friendship between dwarves, especially female dwarves who are overwhelmingly outnumbered, are deeply treasured.

Malin had promised to write to them of Erebor. She honestly had no idea what to think of it (having been born in exile) except that, in her opinion, the quest to reclaim the "derelict, dragon-polluted" mountain had been hopeless and foolish, and had succeeded only by sheer luck and the help of Dain.

When Fundin, father of Malin and her brothers, died at Azanulbizar, she was only seven years old. Her mother had died when she was born from an infection contracted during childhood, as was because because they, like the other Erebor exiles, lived in poor conditions as they wandered over the plains of Arda.

Balin and Dwalin, having returned fresh from the ferocious battle, were left with the care of a tiny wee dwarrowdam to whom they had to break the news that Father was dead.

Malin had long tried to block out the memories of those dark days, but she could never forget screaming and clinging to Balin in agony, shock and protest for days, until Balin and Dwalin made up their minds. Upon the offer of Dain and his mother, she was sent with the troops returning to Iron Hills to be raised there. Balin was convinced he had made the right decision not to make her suffer the deprivations of exile - she would grow up without want. Besides, he and Dwalin knew nothing of raising a dwarrowdam, let alone protecting one.

Malin only remembered Dwalin dragging her away as she screamed and cried and clung to Balin. Dain's crippled uncle who now rode a pony took her into his arms and comforted her with exciting tales of the Iron Hills.