A/N: Expect lots of Hobbit fics from me. I'm writing to make myself feel better, basically.
It is baking day.
Dis's hands are white with flour, and there are three long loaves already in the oven. Once, that might have been enough, but these days one or the other of her sons will finish the whole batch before the other has taken off his boots.
They are growing so fast, and Dis heaves a sigh. She knows it is worse for mothers of men, for their lifespans are but half a dwarf's—less than half for such a family line as the Durins. Forty years have gone since Kili was born, but he is still little more than a lad.
She is fortunate, and she knows this, but Dis has seen Erebor fall, and she has followed her people over cold, hard lands for years passed in darkness. She waited for her father and grandfather and both of her brothers when they battled at Azanulbizar, and she waits still to see all but Thorin again.
The golden years of her sons' lives, therefore, seem short.
How proud their father would be, Dis thinks, as her hands press the pliable dough. Gamil was no prince—he was a miner, with laughing brown eyes and few braids in his blonde beard. But he was brave, and kind, and Thorin had respected him. Even liked him, Dis thinks, though when her husband fell Thorin grieved more for her and for his nephews.
It is her brother's way.
Dis sighs again and turns her thoughts towards her housework. There is much, still, to be done. The lads are often training and although she has threatened and coaxed and scolded, their arrows always find a way to her crockery. There are scars, too, of Fili's knives on the oaken table, and she has half a mind to take them from him, but he always pleads with her so persuasively—convincing her, somehow, that is neither his fault nor Kili's—and she always gives in.
Fili is the diplomat of the family.
Dis finishes her kneading and replaces one pan in the stone oven with another. Perhaps she will have time to start on the stew—
But there is a sudden pounding at the door, and she starts, hands fisted in her skirts, fearing that something has happened—Dwalin promised to look after them—
She throws open the door and a cry not of worry but of joy leaps from her throat. "Thorin!"
He is before her, all shoulders and beard and piercing blue eyes as usual, looking just as grim and proud as he likes to be, but with a smile he cannot quite keep hidden. "Sister."
Dis wraps her arms around him—or as much of him as she can—and cares naught for the cloud of flour that rises about them.
"Dis," her brother says, rather sternly (but she can see him still smiling under his beard), "This is the only cloak I own. They wish a warrior at this council, not a baker."
Dis narrows her eyes at him. "If you don't like the baker, you can't have the baking."
Her brother's aristocratic nose twitches. The smell of golden-crusted bread has not escaped him. "Very well," he says gruffly, brushing the powder off his collar, "I will forgive you."
Her eyes stay on him long enough to make him look away, scuffing his feet. Thorin Oakenshield, the great warrior. It reminds her of Kili. "Where are the lads?" he asks as he enters, to escape her glare.
"With Dwalin," she says. "Training."
He nods, satisfied. "I know that you do not approve, Dis, but—"
"Thorin," she says levelly, not to anger him by flat-out contradiction, but to put an end to a conversation she does not wish to have again, "My sons will do well with the skills he teaches them. They can hunt, and trap, and spar with each other. I approve of that."
She will not speak of the Mountain, of their homeland. She will not speak of dragonfire and ruin, because she has turned her back on that, even if Thorin has not.
He stares at her for a long moment, eyebrows together, feet apart. "I have not done enough for them, Dis. They are my blood. They—"
"They have your love, and mine," she interrupts, voice soft. "And their father's, from the Halls of Mandos." She presses the emblem hanging from her neck to her lips for a brief moment, and Thorin inclines his head respectfully.
They do not speak for a moment as he sits and she brings him a loaf of fresh bread, with a knife that he disregards. When his nephews are not about to be impressionable, Thorin's manners are less than exacting.
Dis sits across from him, resting her arms on the table. There is much she wishes to ask Thorin—where he has been, in his long months of self-imposed exile; whether he has found work, whether he has news, and other, more frivolous inquiries. She longs to tease him as a sister should, find out if he has worked up enough courage to even speak with some comely dwarf-woman (for despite all his bluster and majesty, her brother has never been able to flirt). But this is Thorin, and he is her king as well as her kin. There are burdens on his shoulder of which she cannot make sport.
He eats and she watches, trying her best to spell out the lines and scars that have marked his face since last they met. After some time she realizes that he is watching her as well.
"You look tired," he says, voice quiet with concern but deep—always, so deep. It reminds her of their grandfather.
"I have two sons," she reminds him, with a small smile. "They break my dishes and ravage my larder and I love them to death."
"Not to death, I hope," Thorin murmurs, steel-blue eyes suddenly haunted, and Dis feels her fingers curling and clenching.
"Of course not," she says quickly, and surely, the shadow that has fallen over them is but a cloud passing over the sun. "They are safe here."
"Yes," Thorin says, and rising, he turns his face towards the windows of her house. Dis wonders if he ever lets himself forget. "Here," he continues, almost to himself, "Here, they are safe."