Inspired by flourchyld-archive on tumblr; requested by one-doesnt-simply-walk-in-bagend on tumblr. All the lady dwarves but Dís are my own creation.
Hurrah - my fiftieth story!
A Matter of Hair
Kíli grew up as royalty, which meant he grew up with a certain respect from the other dwarves. It wasn't necessarily what he wanted—it made making friends harder, and talking to the older dwarves nearly impossible. But Kíli had his older brother Fíli, for a friend, and later a few others, too. While he was young, this was all he needed.
However, Kíli's royal heritage wasn't exactly remarkable. As the second son of the exiled king's younger sister, he was far from the throne in the line of succession. This made it a little easier to understand how he grew up so reckless and bold. If Fíli had done half the things Kíli got away with, their mother Dís or maybe even Uncle Thorin would have waxed poetic about his responsibilities as an heir, even as the heir of a throne thousands of leagues away in a land he had never known.
As Kíli grew older, he began to attract attention from some of Uncle Thorin's friends. He'd met them all before, of course, but they had mostly focused on Fíli at that time. Now they took interest in Dis's younger son, too.
There was Balin, who was friendly enough, but whose history lessons bored Kíli to sleep; his brother, Dwalin, who gave Kíli his first weapon, a little dagger that Dís confiscated immediately. There were their cousins, Óin, who was easy to prank but was viciously insistent Kíli and Fíli eat all their greens, and Glóin, whose young son Gimli was Kíli's first friend other than his brother.
There was Dori, the handsomest of Longbeard dwarves; there was Nori, older than them, but who was wonderful fun in Fíli and Kíli's shenanigans; and young Ori, too shy to talk to them at first, but who Kíli finally convinced to come play. They were all brothers, though their ages varied, and distant relations to Thorin.
All these were of the house of Durin and very interested in talking about their lineage and homeland. There were others, though, who were descendants of the dwarves of Moria, but not of the line of Durin: two brothers and their cousin, very good folk who had befriended Thorin in Ered Luin. There was the cousin, Bifur, who didn't talk very much; and then the brothers, Bofur, who always had a present or two up his sleeves for him, and Bombur, a jolly fat dwarf who had excellent taste in food.
They each lived fairly close by, and mostly it was them Kíli interacted with outside of his small family. His mother had friends, too—Glóin's wife, their neighbor on the left, Nigríd, who always had knitting on her; Dori's fiancee, Frega, gentle, beautiful, and a wonderful historian; their neighbors on the right, two wives called Drevis and Vorni, a couple who loved to cook and gossip respectively; and Fíli and Kíli's cousin Lóna on their father's side, who always pinched their cheeks when she dropped by to visit.
For years and years, this was how Kíli's life went. He watched as the world grew smaller around him, while the olders watched him grow taller.
Fíli soon began to grow a beard. Kíli was immensely impressed by his progress. He even began to braid a mustache. Kíli eagerly looked forward to growing his own beard. His mother was proud of her eldest son, and hoped for a good beard in Kíli, too.
Kíli was five whole years older than Fíli had been when he first had begun to grow a beard by the time some scruff appeared on the younger prince's chin. Delighted, he raced to show his brother and proudly displayed his new achievement.
"Wonderful!" Fíli exclaimed, grinning. "You'll have a huge beard like Mother in no time!"
Kíli beamed and spent the next year fretting about how slow it was growing. Gimli, their neighbor and the son of Glóin and Nigríd, already had a beard bigger than Fíli's, for all he was younger than both of them. He claimed it ran in the family, and true enough, both his parents and his uncle Óin had beards down to their waists. Gimli was not incredibly impressed with Kíli's downy scruff, but he was kind and encouraging.
"It'll grow," he said to Kíli. "Give it time, like Ma always says. Did your Da have a big beard?"
"My mother said his wasn't huge," Kíli said with a little frown. "But she says Fíli takes after him more than I do. I take after Mother."
"So you'll get one like her, then!" Gimli said, pleased by his logic.
"I hope so," Kíli replied, and it did sound nice. If Mother had a bigger beard than the father he'd never known, maybe someday his beard would be bigger than Fíli's!
Uncle Thorin had a short beard, but he did that by choice. At first, Kíli hadn't understood—wouldn't the lady dwarves prefer a longer beard? Was that why Thorin didn't have a wife?
When he asked, Uncle Thorin just laughed.
"No, I don't really want a wife," Thorin said. "If I did, I would find one. No, I cut my beard in remembrance of those we lost in the destruction of Erebor. I have told you about Erebor, have I not, young Kíli?"
"Yes, Uncle Thorin," Kíli said, groaning. He knew what was coming—the long tale of Erebor's fall, long before he had been born.
"Then you know the song of our people!" Thorin said, pulling out his harp. Even as Kíli rolled his eyes, his uncle commanded, "Come, sing it with me!"
Sighing, Kíli consented. As Thorin strummed his harp, he sang, "Far over the misty mountains cold, to dungeons deep and caverns old..."
Nearly two years later, Kíli's downy scruff had lengthened and darkened, but it had not grown more than an inch, much to his frustration. He was not growing into a handsome young dwarf. His nose was too narrow, his ears too small, his beard almost nonexistent. Fíli, Gimli, and Ori, now each with strapping beards of their own, each encouraged him not to feel bad. Dís only laughed and told him that as brave and kind as he was, any lady dwarf who loved him wouldn't mind a short beard. Perhaps she wouldn't even want a short beard.
Dís's friends, however, had another take on Kíli's scrawny scruff. One day, Kíli was running around the city, doing errands for his mother, when he ran into Frega, Drevis, and Vorni. He waved hello to them and they waved back as he counted out money to pay for the meat he was buying from the butcher.
Then Vorni said something that made him freeze in place. She must have thought he was out of earshot, or he doubted she would have said it.
"Look at the poor lad," she sighed. "What a shame—he's quite homely, for a prince!"
"If his beard would grow, mayhap he'd look handsomer," Frega agreed.
Kíli was hurt. He couldn't help it—he wilted a bit. It wasn't his fault his beard wouldn't grow! Did all the other dwarves talk like this behind his back?
"I feel bad for Dís," Drevis admitted. "I think Lóna said it best, last time we saw her—Fíli's pretty enough, for all he's blond and not dark like a proper Longbeard, but Kíli...really, why did she have to marry that Broadbeam lad?"
"Oh, I liked Víli," Frega said. "It was so tragic when he died, and Kíli not even born yet!"
"Very sad," Vorni sighed. "And even worse those two sons of hers turned out to be...less than perfect heirs for her brother. Of course, Thorin's a piece of work, too. How strange that someone as lovely as Dís came from such a family!"
"Don't be talking like that about our royalty!" Frega scolded. "For all we're in exile, do you not forget it was the line of Durin which led us safely away from Smaug's desolation?"
"And into a war with the orcs," Vorni shot back, her voice hard. "I lost my father in the Battle of Azanulbizar."
"We all lost people," Drevi said quietly. "My brother died, and so did Dís's family! Frerin, her brother, he fell then, and so did her grandfather, Old King Thrór! Frega's right, Vorni—and besides, Thorin's more sensible than Thrór or Thráin ever were."
"Dís has lost so much," Frega said, shaking her head. "Her father, her grandfather, her brother, Víli..."
"And look at what she got after that," Vorni added. "A Longbeard heir who looks like a Broadbeam and a scrawny beardless disappointment who looks more like an elf than a dwarf!"
Kíli, who still stood frozen within earshot, decided it was high time he leave. He shoved the money at the confused butcher and hurried away.
Dís wasn't home. After Kíli had put away the meat, he ran around the house looking for Fíli."
"Fíliiii!" he called out, trying to keep a sob out of his voice. "Fíliiiii!"
His brother, who had been reading a book in his room, looked up in concern as Kíli ran up to him with a look of anguish.
"Kíli, what's wrong?" he asked, alarmed.
HIs younger brother's lip trembled, and Fíli set his book down. He stood up to hug Kíli, and the young dwarf burst out in a rush,
"Fíli Fíli Fíli, am I really that ugly without a beard and what was our father like and do I really look like...like an elf?"
Fíli blinked, looking at his brother in confusion. He sat down and motioned for Kíli to sit next to him.
"Where did all this come from?" he asked in concern, placing an arm around his brother. "Of course you're not ugly—and not even a blind dwarf would mistake you for an elf!"
Kíli sniffed, wiping his eyes. "I was in the market. Some of Mother's friends saw me...I overheard their conversation. Our father was a Broadbeam?"
"Yes," Fíli confirmed. "I...don't really remember him very well. I was very young when he died. But I know he was not a Longbeard. Mother met him here, in Ered Luin."
"They said I looked like an elf," he said in a small voice. "That I was homely, and...scrawny. Because of my beard."
Fíli reached out and tugged gently on Kíli's scruff. "It'll grow," he promised. "It just takes time. And it's absolutely absurd to call you an elf. If Uncle Thorin heard talk like that, he'd cast whoever said it out of the clan! Who did say it, by the way?"
Kíli only shook his head. "Doesn't matter."
Fíli sighed. If he knew, he would have told Dís. Kíli knew that, too. He obviously didn't whoever it was in trouble with their mother.
Fíli kissed his little brother on the top of the head. "You're a better dwarf than me, Kíli," he reassured, "and that's saying something. Don't you worry. And don't get too upset over a matter of hair."
Kíli's smile was a little watery, but it was there. "Thanks, Fí," he said. "Come on—we'd best get supper ready before Mother comes home."
"Alright, Kí," Fíli said, and though they didn't talk about the incident again, neither of them forgot about it.