Dís, Daughter of Thrain, Son of Thror, Sister of Thorin, and Mother of Fíli and Kíli, had been travelling for a long while, and was eager to get home. A part of her still wondered if it was a good idea to travel to Erebor, where her brother and both of her sons had died mere months ago, and part of her still wondered had she any right to call the Lonely Mountain home, having been driven out as a mere child and her only memories embellished by tales from her father and brother. She had to see her sons, laid to rest, even if it killed her.

It had been Balin that had come bearing the awful news. He'd always been a close friend to them, and was, in actual fact, family, but that had done nothing to lessen the blow of losing what remained of her family. She'd just about screamed the small house she'd raised her boys in down.

The house had been part of the reason she'd decided to leave; too many memories of happier times. She only wished her brother hadn't been so preoccupied by that thrice-accursed mountain of his, or he'd have been happier too, not tainting happy memories with bitterness and sorrow for what could never be undone, and her family might still have been with her, but for that. There were mementos of them everywhere; the chart on the door where she'd kept track of the boys' height, one of Fíli's many knives sitting on the window sill, an old pair of Kíli's boots, that had fallen apart from over-use just days before they were to leave on their quest and she hadn't got round to throwing away yet. She didn't think she'd have the heart to throw away anything of theirs for a long time.

Dis brought with her many of her sons' and her brother's possessions when she left Ered Luin. She packed all sorts, from Fíli and Kílis' old clothes from childhood and their toys, to some of Thorin's tools.

After many months on the road, she finally got to Laketown, where Balin was to meet with her (he wasn't able to wait the couple of weeks it took for Dis to prepare to leave). It was a town that had always illustrated to her the foolishness of men. Why would you build your home on water? There was so much to go wrong! What was so awful about solid ground? Going by the look of the place, as well, there were some practical difficulties with living pretty much on the water; the children looked malnourished, and a lot of the houses – even some of the houses belonging to those who were clearly better off – looked as though they were rotting. They obviously couldn't grow their own food without any soil, so they relied on trade with Erebor, Dale, and the elves of Mirkwood. The rotting wood the houses were made from was inevitable, really; if you are to build wooden houses on the water without treating the wood, you cannot possibly expect them to last very long.

Balin was waiting by a barge. He gave Dís a small, sympathetic smile. Dís returned the smile, if a little half-heartedly, before beginning to heave her things into the barge.

"It's good to see you, Dís," he said, somewhat sadly. "How have yeh been?"

"You know full well how I've been," she replied icily. "Now help me with these, will you?"

Balin sighed. He could remember those far off and distant days when Dís was so happy and carefree. She seemed to be the most unlucky of Durin's line (in Balin's opinion, at least); not only had she lost her home, but she had lost her home as a child, and that was a tragedy by anyone's standards. Everyone had thought that after that, nothing more could go wrong. When the family eventually joined the settlement in Ered Luin, and Dís married Víli, and within a year they were expecting a child, they had dared to believe for the first time in years that they could be happy. But then Thror had decided to go on a fool's errand to try and reclaim Moria. Fíli had been about ten, and Dís found out not long after her husband left for battle that she was expecting a second child. Víli never got to meet Kíli. Dís lost her grandfather, her brother, and her husband that day, and she never saw her father again. She'd broken Thorin's nose when he told her, and hadn't spoken to anyone for days. Thorin had looked after his nephew for the week that his sister was locked up in her room under self-inflicted solitary confinement, and when she'd come out and seen her brother and her son playing together on the kitchen floor, she'd broken down into tears and told them about the baby. And now, she was the very last of Durin's Line; her brother and her two sons – too young to have been on the quest if you asked Balin – were gone too, leaving them alone.

"Dís," started Balin wanting to broach a difficult subject before it came up later and caused a rift, "there's something you should know?"

"What?" She was curt in her manner.

"I-it's about Kíli. There was a, er, a woman."

"And what in the world do you mean by that, Balin?"

"I'm not sure you'd have approved of her, and rumour has it she's livin' in Dale."

"Why would I not have approved of her? I would not have been so cruel as to separate my son from one that he loved."

"Well, it's just… she's not actually a dwarf?"

"A human?"

"No."

"Oh, surely not? No dwarf, never mind a dwarf of Durin's Line, would have so little self-respect as to lie with an elf!"

"She saved his life twice, Dís. All of our lives. She wasn't like most of them."

"An elf is an elf!"

"I just wanted to tell you before you heard it from someone else."

Dís's face calmed slightly. "Thank you for telling me this, Balin. It is appreciated."

They continued to move the luggage in silence, and were half-way across the lake to the mountain before they spoke again.

"She must have been something special," said Dís. "To catch Kíli's eye, I mean."

"Aye, she is," said Balin, "the only elf I've ever met with any sense of decency and honour. She tracked an orc pack past her kin's borders, against King Thranduil's orders, and that might have been to protect the entire population of Laketown and beyond, but she didn't have to stay and heal Kíli. The elf prince was with her, and all, and ordered her to leave him, but she wouldn't; not when she could help and she could see that the wound was beyond Oin's not inconsiderable skills.

"Kíli was hit in the leg with an orc's arrow as we made our way down the river, and what we didn't know at the time was that the tip was made from a morgul blade, and would poison anyone injured with it, no matter how minor the injury. Only the elves have the ability to heal such wounds properly, and even they cannot always solve the problem. She stayed, though; sent Bofur looking for kingsfoil, or athelas, as the elves know it, and cured him while Bofur, Oin, and Fíli watched, dumbstruck."

"What was her name?"

"Tauriel."

"And why does this Tauriel now live in Dale?"

"I don't know for certain that she does; it was a rumour I heard. If she does, though, I would say that she got sick and tired of the isolationism and selfishness Thranduil favours over actually helping those in need."

"Hmm. You said that she was involved with Kíli, before. How do you know?"

"We all saw them together, Dís. No one could deny the devotion there, even after so short a time."

"If she is in Dale, I should like to meet her."