Fili looked up at his uncle with big curious eyes; the 10 year old held his sleeping baby brother in his ap. The small blonde dwarrow was almost lost in the cushions, his brothers head on his lap snoring away. They had been outside since dawn hunting lizards and birds sometimes even catching them. Thorin kept a close eye on the little troublemakers while his sister was at the market buying food for dinner. "Uncle?" Fili asked quietly, his attention now on cleaning a dirt smudge of his brothers' perpetually dirty face. "Why don't me and Kili have a adad like the others?"
The air caught in Thorins throat and he gagged. He looked down to his nephew sadly. "It is not my place to tell you-"
"I have asked amad, but she will not tell me…" Fili brushed his fat little figure over his brothers' mouth whipping away a stream of drool. "She tells me she I am not old enough to understand…" Fili didn't like being lied to, and he didn't like being treated like a child, not in this way. He understood things.
"If that is what your mother has-"
"I know he's dead." Fili snapped at his uncle, though he immediately regretted taking the tone he did. His uncle was kind and doted on them both but would not tolerate disrespect. Fili flinched inwardly as he waited for Thorin to tell him to bite his tongue before he cut it out, not that he actually thought he really would.
However instead of a reprimand he received a pitiful stare. Fili looked up at his uncle waiting. "Your father is dead. If you know what than why are you asking?"
"Why did he die? No one will tell me…." Fili played with his brothers' hair, untangling the greasy black strands and tying them into neat braids.
They are going to need a bath soon, Thorin thought. "Your father died trying to give you a better home." He watched the young prince for a reaction.
"Why couldn't he have been happy here, then it could be me, Kili, amad, him, and you and we could all have been happy." He muttered angrily, much too angrily for a dwarrow his age. Thorin wanted to cry and hold his heir tight to his chest and tell him stories of his father and how he loved him, but he did not know any. Thorin had been absent for much of Dis' married life, as was normal, it would have been rude and strange and insulting to the husband if a brother remained close to his sister once she was under another males watch. Thorin had only known Dagur for a very short time, most of his courtship to his sister had been a secret. When they had marched on Khazad-dûm Dagur had been at his side though, proud and brave. He had refused to fall until an orc had severed his head almost clean off his body, arrows and spears protruded from his back and legs, and a great axe stuck in his shoulder.
"Your father was a brave Dwarf Fili. He wanted to protect you and give you the best chance he could." Thorin swallowed the lump in his throat. "He is in the halls of our fathers now, watching over us. He would want you to be strong, would he not? I do not think he would like you to dwell on his passing. He needs you to look after Kili and help him grow strong."
"Yes Uncle."