A/N: This idea popped into my head and WOULD NOT GO AWAY. So here we are. What can I say? Fili deserves some romance. (As does Thorin-maybe I'll get to that later). Anyway, I tried to use a light touch here. If there is a whiff of Mary Sue, strike me down!
Malva is a Hobbit name. I wanted a legitimate name, but Dis is the only named female dwarf. So I decided to branch out. There is an explanation of sorts within the story.
It's rated T for...nothing much, really. There's a couple kisses. It doesn't go further than that.
Disclaimer: Anything recognizable does not belong to me. My OC does, however, and I'm quite fond of her.
i.
Their paths cross first in the marketplace, where she hawks her father's wares in exchange for bread and meat. His hands rest on his belt, embossed with the emblems of the line of Durin.
There are royal braids in his hair.
Malva turns her face away.
ii.
Her name is a Westron one. The gray-bearded dwarrow-dams whisper that it is a name akin to those of the half-folk, the hobbits, who live in the Shire on the other side of the ridge.
Curious, they say. Unnatural. And they point out that her beard is finer, her stature shorter—
She does not ask her father about it. There are no pictures of her mother in their home. Perhaps she does not need to know.
It is her name. Hers. She does not care where it comes from.
iii.
She is at her loom when the sound comes from the street. Shouts, thuds, crashes.
Malva gathers her skirts and dashes to the door. There has not been a fight for a dozen years. Can it be raiders—wild-men from the south, or worse?
But it is instead a tumble of dwarves, fists flying. Malva watches, knuckles pressed to her lips, but she only draws in a sharp breath when she sees a flash of golden hair.
There is a roar from the nearby forge, and Master Dwalin, the smith, stalks into the fray with a half-made sword in his great hands, cursing roundly in the most colorful Khuzdul.
The dwarves scatter, all but one. She sees golden hair in tattered braids, the bright crimson of blood on a proud face.
They quarrel in Westron and Khuzdul. She hears the words brother, they hurt my brother, and to her surprise Dwalin's hand comes to rest almost kindly on the young prince's shoulder.
Malva thinks of him often after that.
iv.
She sees him again with his brother, who is still weedy and awkward, but with a bright smile that begins to charm even the grimmest passersby.
Nephews of the king, of Thorin, she hears murmured, and she sighs, turning a pot over in her hands.
He is a prince, though unthroned, and she is a tinker's daughter.
It is a fool's hope.
v.
She does not expect to see him in her father's shop.
He enters with a swagger in his step, but his manners are all politeness. His mother needs a new pan, he explains, eyes very serious indeed beneath his quirked brows.
Surely, Malva ventures, the Lady Dis has only the best already?
"Had," says Fili, because she knows that is his name. "My brother and I—"
Malva smiles, finds him a pot, takes the coins he offers. His fingers brush hers for the barest of moments.
He glances towards the high window as he goes. The sunlight is warm on his bright hair.
vi.
"I've heard of you!" Kili says, with that smile—the same smile—lighting up his face. He is as charming as he ever was, if not more so, and Malva has heard the few other dwarfmaids in the village lay out his charms in no uncertain words. Gone are the days of street-brawls and bullies.
She curtseys, because he is still a prince, even if his hair hangs unbraided and his bootlaces are tangled.
"I am the tinker's daughter," she says, and Kili is nodding.
"Malva." Brows up, eyes sparkling. It reminds her of Fili. "So my brother said."
She sets her teeth against her lip. "Your brother said?"
vii.
"You spoke of me to your brother?"
He draws at his pipe, tips his head back. She has cornered him by his own garden wall, but he does not seem to mind. "I speak to my brother of many things. And it was he who ruined the pan."
"He knew my name."
Fili chuckles, teeth white against his short beard. "Aye. I suppose he would."
She knots her hands in the heavy wool of her coat and wonders if she is being foolish. She has seen Thorin Oakenshield, their king without a mountain, and even crownless, she bowed her head in respect as he passed. The Lady Dis is not one to be trifled with, either. How came she, Malva the tinker's daughter, by this boldness?
"Forgive me," she says softly. "I should go."
His fingers are strong, yet light upon her arm. "No. Please don't."
ix.
Fili kisses like he fights—fierce and hard and steady. Malva laces her fingers through his hair and knows that this cannot last.
"What of my family? What of your lineage?" she asks, but he only leans in again, smiling against her lips.
"What of them?" he asks. "What of anything?"
It is not like him, she knows.
This cannot last.
x.
It is after midnight, and she wraps her shawl more closely around her shoulders. "Fili, what has happened?"
His breath fogs the air, a faint imitation of the smoke rings he loves. "We are leaving," he says, and his voice is hoarse.
"Why?"
He lifts his eyes up, as though to find the sun, but even the moon is hidden tonight. "It is for Thorin," he answers, and that is all he will say.
"Surely—does not your mother have need of you?" she asks, weakly, but in her mind she is screaming, What of them? What of anything?
(What of us?)
He smiles at her, cards his fingers gently through her hair. "It is my duty," he says quietly. "My mother understands. I must follow my uncle. And—" His smile grows fonder, but its warmth is not for her. "I belong with my brother."
There were moments when she thought that he was hers. But he has never wholly been—he is son, nephew, prince, and brother first—and though her throat is tight with tears she knows that it is good. This is who he is.
She holds out her arms, and he lifts her off her feet. His forehead rests on her shoulder for a moment, and he rasps out a breath. "I shall miss you," he murmurs.
And she him. But they can tell no one. She is still a tinker's daughter, and he is always a prince.
(Kili knows. But then, Kili knows everything.)
"Farewell," she says, and she would say she loved him but that feels too final, too much like a goodbye.
xi.
They do not hear word of the battle, but they are dwarves, a people of earth and stone, and they feel it in their hearts.
Yet Malva does not know, does not believe, until a shadow falls over the doorway of her father's shop and it is the Lady Dis standing before her.
Malva rests her hands behind her, clutching the edge of the broad table-slab. When she speaks, her voice is strangely calm. "How did you know to come here?" she asks, and she will weep, later, she will weep, but for now she must be strong.
Dis's face is set like a carving of ivory, but her eyes betray her. "I was his mother," she says, and it is a proud voice, but a voice that has wept long. "I knew his heart."
Malva walks, one foot after the other, the length of the shop. She does not bow before her queen, because neither of them wish to remember old traditions. Not now.
She takes Dis's hands in hers. "You are his mother," she says. "You will always be his mother."
And he will always be a prince, and she, a tinker's daughter.
It was a fool's hope, and she knew that, knew that it could not last.
But she loved him—loves him—and she wishes she had known to say goodbye.