Thorin and the Thunderstorm

by summerlinde

While visiting his sister's town in the Blue Mountains, Thorin finds himself in a room full of children afraid of thunder, with a storm pounding outside. He makes up a story to make them feel better. MOVIEVERSE: I haven't read the book for a few years, so this probably fits with the movie better than it does with the novel. One-shot. Correction: LONG one-shot.

Thorin Oakenshield was always moving. Once, his grandfather had been King Under the Mountain, but Thorin was, at best, King over the mountains, and not just one. Once, his people had been all together, their deep tunnels and caverns making a great, unified city. Now they were scattered, living in shallow caves and man-like huts in little villages, spread apart from each other. And he had to be there for them, to rule them, to hear and to fix their grievances, to help and to guide them, all the way down the Blue Mountains in all their little hidden places, and he could not miss even one because he was their king. And so, he moved. He traveled from one end of the mountain range to the other and back, taking odd jobs for the Men to scrape up the money to keep moving and spending it back out for nights in inns or to help struggling dwarves.

It was a relief to return to his sister's village every time he passed its way. No bowing and scraping by an innkeeper who couldn't see how much he'd failed them or how much more their lives should be. No fighting amongst the people, as in the smallest villages, over who was to put him up in their own home. No accusations, by those who had adjusted poorly to their new surroundings, that he ought to be doing more, as though he wasn't already stretching himself thin, moving every moment to look after his people. There was adoration here, but love also. There were accusing looks here, but never accusations spoken - her neighbors loved his sister too much to speak against him.

The children were different here, too, because his sister-sons lived here. They were not afraid of him and they did not maintain a respectful distance, and that made all the difference. Dwarflings in the other villages hid behind their mothers' skirts, if their mothers had the courage to leave their homes to meet him, peeking cautiously out. They held tight to their fathers' legs or their adolescent siblings' hands and they did not leave the comfort of their families. Dwarflings here came running, because Fili and Kili inevitably launched themselves at him the moment he arrived in town and because the others, their friends and neighbors, stayed back a few feet but did not fear a king with both arms full of nephew.

Here, he told stories about his travels well into the night, interesting happenings, problems fixed or still lingering in the other villages, and, as the children drew closer and closer into a tight circle on the floor around his chair, about his adventures, new and old, all the way back into stories the grown-ups remembered themselves or had heard a thousand times before. In his sister's village he was a storyteller, and the children adored him. He wasn't sure he wanted to admit how much he liked the way it felt.

At the end of the evening, little heads would droop and nod and fall asleep, and their parents would scoop them up and take them home. He would clasp hands with the adults and promise to talk about their problems tomorrow, and his sister's cramped living room would empty out until it became less cramped and then, with only his family remaining, actually spacious, the biggest single room in the entire small village. In front of his chair, beside the fire, there was always a third dwarfling, drooling on the floor alongside Fili and Kili. Her name was Signi and his sister Dis informed him that the village was raising her all together, because her parents were dead and her uncle was a drunk, too busy drowning himself in ale to look after her properly. Sometimes, there was a fourth dwarf child, his nephews' closest friend Floi, whose parents occasionally agreed to let him stay, too.

The night of the thunderstorm, all four children had fallen asleep on the floor in front of the fire place, as usual, and the three adults had carried them into the boys' small room and tucked them into Fili's bed, leaving Kili's bed for Thorin. His sister and her husband always offered him their own room, with its privacy and its double bed, but he always refused it, because his feet stuck off the end of Fili and Kili's beds and the rest of him took up nearly all of their space and he knew both sister and brother-in-law would never fit. It was enough to stay in their home and be family. It was more than enough. It was the place he was most comfortable.

Outside on the ground, Thorin slept like a soldier, always aware, always ready to wake and leap into action. Inside, on a bed, he slept like a log, dead to the world. When the thunder began, he did not even so much as roll over. The thunder rolled and boomed and pounded and the roof kept him dry and he slept on. Until another sound joined the thunder. A whimper, soft, and a small terrified squeak, and gradually Thorin came back to consciousness. Another clap of thunder and another whimper and his oldest nephew whispering "Hey, it's gonna be alright," and Thorin was wide awake.

He sat up slowly, looking over at the other bed. The four children were huddled tightly together, eyes wide and scared. He thought they might be trembling. Strange. Thunder was different in the deep caverns underground where he had grown up, muffled by the distance, faint if you could hear it at all. But these children had grown up on top of the mountains, not under them. They should be used to the thunder. They should not fear it.

Another clap of thunder pounded overhead, shaking the walls of the house with its intensity, and Kili squeaked, leapt out of his brother's grip, and raced across the room toward Thorin, so quickly that the king had hardly enough time to register the fact that his nephew was leaping into his arms before he was catching the boy. Kili was the youngest of the lot and apparently not ashamed to be scared. Signi and Floi hid under the blankets, Signi turning out to be the source of the whimper, and Fili sat up straighter, took a very deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and did not cower or whimper or do anything else that would make him look scared. Fili was the oldest of the four friends. He had started school this year. He was not going to let anyone else know he was afraid. Thorin almost laughed, but at the same time, he was proud. Fili was trying to be a leader. He could see it in the boy's face as he held himself forcibly together and then patted Signi on the back. "There's nothing to be scared of, right Uncle Thorin?" he asked.

Thorin didn't know much about comforting children. He didn't know much about thunder. He did know that Kili seemed to shake less the longer he held the boy. "Of course not! It's just a little noise, thunder. It can't hurt you." He started to rearrange himself so that Kili could sit more comfortably on his lap, but another clap of thunder sounded and Kili, with his arms around Thorin's neck as they rearranged themselves, tensed up enough to almost choke him.

A small voice - Signi's - almost got lost in the roll of the thunder, but Thorin had sharp ears and he caught it. "It sounds like a rock slide."

Of course. How could he have forgotten? The village had almost been hit with a rock slide a few months ago, and a few of the dwarves working up on the mountain itself had been injured. Had the children been afraid like this for every storm since then? But it had been months! Surely they would have gotten over their fear by now! But apparently they hadn't, because Kili seconded the sentiment, muttering "I don't like rock slides" into Thorin's neck, where he was still holding tightly.

Thorin wasn't sure what to say to that. He wasn't sure what to say to any of this. If only he knew a story about thunder to prove it wasn't scary! But he had never heard one. He had heard stories about the moaning sound of the wind across the cavern doors at Erebor. He had heard stories of the gurgling sounds of water moving at the bottom of deep new tunnels. He had heard terrifying stories about rock slides and huge underground rivers that drowned you and monsters who lived deep at the very hearts of the mountains. But he had never heard a story about thunder, and he had never heard a story that would help the children now. Maybe he would just have to make one up. Maybe he'd heard enough other stories to tell one of his own. There was another clap of thunder, Kili tensed again, Floi squeaked his time, and Thorin's mind was made up. "Let me tell you a story," he said, "about the thunder."

His mind scrambled to find pieces that would go together, and after a moment, things clicked into place. He wasn't sure how the story should end, but he knew how it should begin. And so, he began to speak. "Once upon a time, there was a young dwarf named Tundor. He had three older brothers, Bundor, Lundor, and Rundor, and he was very proud of them because they were very smart and very strong and they made beautiful things.

Bundor was the eldest, and when he was old enough to mine for himself, he found a vein of gold. He mined the gold and he melted the gold and he shaped the gold and he made very beautiful things. Before long, every dwarf in the city wanted Bundor to make him something. He made beautiful golden bowls and beautiful golden cups and beautiful golden pitchers, and when the king came to him, he made him the most beautiful golden crown that any dwarf had ever seen."

The children were enraptured, now, but they weren't completely distracted from the thunder. When it sounded again, they looked nervously at the ceiling, but they did not hide and they did not squeak and they did not stop listening. Thorin took it as a sign that his story was working, at least a little.

He continued, "When it was Lundor's turn to go out into the caverns of the mountain and mine for himself, the dwarves were very excited to see what he would do. Surely with his brother's success, Lundor must be a good miner, too. And they were right. Lundor was a good miner. Before long, he had found a vein of diamonds, beautiful and sparkling. He mined the diamonds and he broke the diamonds and he shaped the diamonds and he made very beautiful things. Before long, every dwarf in the city wanted Lundor to make him something, too. He made beautiful diamond broaches and beautiful diamond bracelets and beautiful diamond rings, and when the queen came to him, he made her the most beautiful diamond necklace any dwarf had ever seen."

There was another clap of thunder and Signi and Floi looked once at each other, once at Thorin, back at each other, and then scurried, together, over to Thorin's bed, where they climbed up beside him and Kili, coming closer like they did when he told stories near the fireplace. Thorin rearranged himself again to let them snuggle against his sides, with Kili still safely on his lap. Fili stayed put on the other side of the room. Thorin knew the boy didn't want to seem afraid. He continued with his story.

"When it was Rundor's turn to go out and mine for himself, the dwarves whispered that surely, he could not rise to greater heights than his brothers. They were soon proven wrong, for Rundor found a vein of the most beautiful, rare, and wonderful of metals, mithril. He mined the mithril and he worked the mithril and he shaped the mithril and he made very beautiful things. Before long, every dwarf in the city wanted Rundor to make him something, but only the richest of dwarves could afford his work. He made beautiful mithril swords, light and strong and shining, and beautiful mithril axe heads that could cleave the strongest of diamonds and beautiful mithril helmets that could protect their wearers' heads from any weapon, and when the king came to him, he made him the most beautiful mithril armor any dwarf had ever seen, light and strong and shining and equal in its value to all the gold of the mountain piled up together."

The thunder was still rolling overhead and Fili, alone now, was beginning to look more frightened, hugging his legs tightly to his chest with his knees tucked under his chin. Thorin wondered if he should speed up the story, but he wasn't sure how it was going to end, yet, so he was in no hurry to get there. He had lots of ideas of how to make it longer in the middle here. He had no idea how to get from what he knew was going to happen to something else that would be a good ending and keep the kids from being afraid. He continued where he was.

"Finally, it was Tundor's turn to go out and mine for himself, and no one knew what to expect. Surely, nothing could be greater than Rundor's mithril work. But then, that was what they had thought when Rundor was starting out, so perhaps something could! First, Tundor found a vein of silver. He mined the silver and he melted the silver and he shaped the silver and he made very beautiful things. He made beautiful silver bowls and beautiful silver cups and beautiful silver pitchers, well-crafted and elegantly shaped, but when he put them on the shelves beside Bundor's golden things, no one looked at them, because they were not made of gold. The king did not come to visit him, as he had visited Bundor.

'I shall have to try again,' he thought to himself, so he went back out into the mountain and he began to mine again, and this time, he found many colorful, sparkling gems. He mined the gems and he broke the gems and he shaped the gems and he made very beautiful things. He made beautiful emerald broaches and beautiful sapphire bracelets and beautiful ruby rings, well-crafted and elegantly designed, but when he put them on the shelves beside Lundor's diamond jewelry, no one looked at them, because they were not made of diamonds. The queen did not come to visit him, as she had visited Lundor. He began to feel very discouraged.

'Very well,' he said to himself, 'I shall try again.' He mined and mined, but he could not find any mithril, nor could he find anything very much like it. Even so, he found a deep vein of iron, and it was very strong and solid, and he thought to himself, 'Perhaps I can make something of this yet.' He made very strong swords, elegant and well-balanced, and axe heads that could cleave through any rock but diamond, and helmets that could protect their wearers from any weapon except his brother's mithril swords. But when he put them on the shelves beside Rundor's shining weapons, no one looked at them, for they were very heavy and they did not shine as the mithril did, and the king still did not visit him."

Fili interrupted from his corner, sounding irate. "Why not?" he demanded, "You would go visit him, Uncle Thorin, wouldn't you? You go visit everybody!"

Thorin laughed. He hadn't thought about that. When he visited all the villages, he visited all the people, too, much more than his grandfather ever had when they all lived under the Lonely Mountain. "Yes, Fili, I would. But this was a very long time ago, when the dwarves lived under the mountain and being the king was different."

Fili frowned stubbornly. "Well, I like the way you're the king. You're good at it. I want to be king like you someday, not like some silly old king who ignored people."

Thorin had no idea what to say to that. He'd never thought of himself as a great king. A great king did not allow his people to live in squalor when they had once lived in glory. A great king did not allow his people to be scattered when they had once been together. But. . . perhaps a great king did visit everyone, whether they lived on the mountains or under them, together or far apart. He wasn't sure he wanted to think about that right now. "Why don't you come over here and listen to the rest of the story, Fili. I haven't gotten to the end yet." His nephew made a face like he might not be finished explaining why the king in the story was silly, but the other children glared at him, Kili most dramatically, and Fili sighed and moved over to sit on the bed with the rest of them.

"So what happened when the king still didn't come, like some kind of lazy good-for-nothing?" Thorin ruffled Fili's hair and his nephew squawked loudly. Apparently, he thought he was too old for hair ruffling. Thorin would try to remember that.

"Well," he answered, "He did what he'd done before. He tried again." Fili seemed to accept that, and the story kept rolling along. "This time, Tundor was certain that there was nothing under the mountain to match his brothers' work, and so he did something very brave indeed. He put his tools in a bag and he put his bag on his back and he left the city, climbing up and up and up in the highest tunnels until he reached the outside of the mountain. He had never been outside before, because only a very few dwarves, the ones in charge of getting wood for the great forges of the city, ever went outside, and it was very strange to him. He looked at the sky and the sun and the trees and the grass and they were all new and strange and beautiful. First, he tried to make something from the grass. He pounded it, and it bent where he hit it but then bent back. He held it close to the fire and it did not melt, it burned. He could not figure out how to make anything out of it."

Signi giggled beside him. "Why didn't he just weave it together and make a basket?"

It seemed that questions were fair game, now, because Fili had asked one. Thorin would just have to roll with that. "Well," he explained, "Tundor had never seen grass before. If you only knew what to do with stone or metal, would you think to weave a basket?"

The little girl wrinkled her nose up as she thought. "I guess not."

Thorin waited for a moment in case any more questions were coming and then continued the story. "Next, he tried to make something out of one of the trees. He cut it down and when he pounded it, it did not bend but dented instead, and he did not try to melt it, because he already knew that wood did not melt. The tree was not any better than the grass! But then Tundor had an idea. He could cut the wood of the tree, so maybe he could make something of it that way.

He worked and worked and worked, and he figured out how to carve the wood so that it came out smooth, but still strong. He made a bowl and a cup and a pitcher and a tiny carved pendant to make into a necklace, and he thought they were beautiful. He liked the way the wood's colors swirled together and the way it felt warm in his hands when he touched it for long enough. 'Tomorrow,' he thought to himself, 'I will take these with me and I will go back home and I will show them to my brothers and put them in our shop and then surely the king will visit me.'

But that night, he dreamed of the treasures under the mountain, of Bundor's gold and Lundor's diamonds and Rundor's shining mithril, and when he woke up, he looked at his wooden treasures and he thought to himself, 'This is like the silver and the gems and the iron. These wooden things are beautiful in the sunlight, but when they sit beside my brothers' work, they will not shine in the candlelight and no one will want to look at them.' He felt more discouraged than he had ever felt before, and he began to think that maybe he should just go home and help his brothers and give up on his dream of being visited by the king for himself."

It was Kili who interrupted this time, his little face scrunched up stubbornly. "No. He should not give up. You should never give up and you should always keep trying, that's what Father says."

Thorin pulled his nephew into a tighter hug for a moment. "Don't worry, Kili. That's what Tundor's father said too, and he remembered it just a moment later."

Kili seemed appeased, face opening out into a huge smile. "Good. I don't like it when people give up and stories have sad endings."

Thorin continued his story. "Just as Tundor was beginning to think he should give up, everything around him grew suddenly dim. Surprised, he looked up at the sky to see a big, dark, grey cloud over the sun. It looked dark and solid and grey, like stone, but it also looked soft, like cloth, and light, like mithril. 'That's it!' Tundor said to himself, 'That's what I shall learn to make things from! Maybe it will be strong and light like mithril or maybe it will be soft but tough like something totally new!' He looked at the cloud and he saw how big it was and then he saw how the mountain rose up, up, up until it touched the cloud and pushed through it, and he knew that the top of the mountain was over the cloud.

Tundor picked himself up off the ground and he grabbed his wooden bowl and his wooden cup and his wooden pitcher and his wooden pendant, and he put them in his bag with his tools and he began to climb. He climbed up and up and up, and he thought he would never reach the cloud, but he did not give up. He kept going all day long and then, just as the sun was going down, he reached the bottom of the cloud. It was cold and wet and dark and Tundor was frightened, but he said to himself, 'I will have to see what this is like from the top. Maybe it is different when you get away from the edge of it.'

He kept going. The cloud was like fog where it rested against the mountain, and it was very hard to see where he was going when the moonlight was hidden on the other side of the cloud, but Tundor was used to being in dark places, like being in the caverns when the candles blew out, and he did not stop. After what felt like forever in the cold darkness, he finally reached the top of the cloud and poked his head out into the bright moonlight. He could see the stars, even more of them than he had seen the night before, lighting up the top of the cloud and he thought to himself 'Surely, this place is more beautiful than anything my brothers have made.' He tried to catch the starlight, but it ran through his fingers until it fell onto the cloud beneath him."

Thorin had run out of story. He'd known he wanted to tell a story about a dwarf in the clouds making the noise of thunder, because it would make the children feel better, but he still didn't know what Tundor was doing up there or why he was so loud. Unless it was something to do with rocks? He kept going, hoping he could stay far enough ahead of himself to finish the story without the kids realizing he was making it up as he went along.

"On the bottom of the cloud, it was wet and fluffy and he could not grab ahold of it, but up here on top, there was an entire world of cloud, with gleaming ice mountains coming out of it, and deep pools of swirling grey water. Very carefully, he stepped off of the mountain and onto the top of the cloud. He was afraid that he would fall through if it was not as solid as it looked, but instead it held his weight. The cloud was springy beneath him, but it felt solid enough, and after only a few minutes, he got used to walking on the bouncy surface. 'This is wonderful,' he thought, 'I am sure there is something here that will help me match what my brothers have made. I will start to work on it first thing in the morning, as soon as the sun has come up for me to work by.'"

Thorin had another idea. He wasn't sure where it was going yet, but it seemed to have potential. "When Tundor woke up in the morning, he stood up and stretched his arms and legs and looked around him, and that was when he discovered something very surprising. In the night, the cloud had moved! The cloud was moving now! He could see his mountain but he could not reach it and every moment, it grew farther and farther away."

Floi interrupted this time, but Thorin was actually grateful for the chance to pause and think for a moment. "Oh no! What if he never sees his brothers again! How will he get back?"

Thorin realized suddenly that Floi had older brothers of his own, much older, and that perhaps he understood the story better, even, than Thorin did. Thorin was the eldest, after all, and while he remembered his brother Frerin trying to match him and while he could watch Kili trying desperately to keep up with Fili every time he came to visit, it was perhaps not the same as actually being the youngest.

He squeezed the boy's shoulder. "It's alright, Floi. It's not sunny forever when the clouds leave, is it? They always come back, and Tundor always comes back to see his brothers, too."

The boy nodded. "Oh. Well, that's alright then. Sorry."

Thorin had his bearings now, because that was it. The clouds went away when it rained. The thunder happened when it rained. He knew where he was going now! He pressed onward. "Tundor had never seen the world outside of the mountain before, and as he realized he was drifting away from his home, he decided to look down and see what new place was beneath him now. He saw forests and rivers and lakes and great open plains, and he was fascinated by them. Sometimes he worked and sometimes he watched what was beneath him, and he learned many things.

He learned that there were all kinds of different animals, big and small, that he had never seen before in his home under the mountain. He learned that there were things that grew on his cloud that were good to eat. He learned that lakes in the flat places down below were different from lakes on his mountain, bigger and deeper and wider. He learned that when he broke up the rocks on the cloud, they turned first into little balls of ice, and then into little floaty flakes, and then into drops of water, which he could collect in his wooden bowl and his wooden cup and his wooden pitcher and drink. He learned that the world below him was wet where there were rivers and lakes and dry where there were not.

And then one day he learned of men. He had never seen men before, and at first he thought they were strange, beardless dwarves, until he realized that they were taller and not so wide and that they must be something else instead. They lived near a wide, deep river, and they had big, flat, smooth fields that they filled with grains. He watched them as they carried water from the river to the fields in huge buckets, back and forth and back and forth. They used horses to haul larger tubs of water that they could sprinkle over their fields.

Tundor thought to himself that it was a pity he couldn't share the water he had up here with them, because they seemed to be working terribly hard to get the water, and he had more than he needed. He looked around him, and he thought about his tools. Perhaps he could share his water with them. Perhaps if he poked a hole in the bottom of the cloud with his axe, he could let the water from one of his lakes drain out into the fields below. He could still break up the cloud rocks to get his own water, and then they could have water for their crops.

Tundor grabbed his axe and he waded into his lake, and then he poked little tiny holes all over the bottom of the lake, being careful not to make them too big because he did not want to fall off of the cloud and down to the earth. The water began to drip from the cloud, slowly at first and then faster, and the men below looked up and shouted in celebration. Tundor was glad to see them so happy - they looked just as excited as the dwarves were when they came to see the work of his brothers. Perhaps this could be what Tundor made! Perhaps he could make water for the people below. It would not last, as gold or diamonds or mithril did, but perhaps it could still be beautiful. Perhaps it could still make them happy.

As Tundor floated over the world of men, he learned to make many new things. He learned to make rain that fell over the crops and made them grow, and to stop it so that his cloud didn't leak rain all the time. He learned to make snow that fell and stayed, and gave the ground water even when he had moved on. He learned to weave together the thinnest bands of cloud to make rainbows and to arch them down to the ground so that the people looking up had something beautiful to go with the rain.

One day, Tundor was floating over a set of fields again, when he realized that the lake on his cloud was empty. He was going to have to break up the rocks, now, to make the rain. But the people below him needed rain, and they needed it now! He didn't have time to fill the lake again, so he would just have to send the water down as he broke the clouds apart. Tundor set to work immediately, pushing the rocks down from the highest ice peaks so that they smashed into hail and he could break and grind and pound them into rain.

The men came running at the sound of the noise, and he could see that they were afraid. Hoping to make them feel better, he shouted down 'Do not be afraid! It is only me, Tundor!' The men could hardly hear him, because the rocks were still falling behind him, falling and crashing and rolling. 'What did that cloud say?' one of the men asked another. His friend answered, 'I think it said it was called 'Thh-thhh-thhh-thhh-under.' That must be the name of the thing that makes it rain!'"

The children giggled around him as he imitated thunder to say Tundor's name wrong. Now they didn't seem frightened at all, and he had to fight back a grin to avoid giving up the game. "That's what thunder is, isn't it?" they asked excitedly, "It's Tundor pushing his cloud-rocks around to make rain!"

Thorin nodded. "Of course." They talked on top of one another, all claiming that they were going to make rain one day, too. But then Floi seemed to remember the beginning of the story, and he tugged suddenly at Thorin's sleeve.

"But what about the other dwarves? If they lived under the mountain, they didn't get to see his rain or his snow or his rainbows! The king never asked about him!"

Thorin winked. "That's because I haven't finished the story." He hadn't thought about much beyond getting the kids to stop fearing thunder, but he realized, now, that he couldn't leave the story here. Kili was right. Stories with sad endings were no fun, at least not as bedtime stories for dwarflings. Luckily, he had some idea of how to end the story. He started telling the story again, and the children stopped talking, hanging on his every word.

"By the time Tundor's cloud returned to his mountain home, his brothers and his friends all missed him terribly. They sent search parties out to the outside of the mountain every day to look for him, and when his cloud came back to the mountain, he saw them right away. 'Hello!' he called to them, 'Hello, down there!' The dwarves were beside themselves. They didn't know where to look! Tundor poked his head over the edge of the cloud and he shouted down to them, 'Bring my brothers up here, Bundor and Lundor and Rundor! I want to show them what I have learned to make!'

The dwarves went immediately to get Tundor's brothers. Bundor put down the golden cup he was working on, and Lundor put down the diamond broach he was working on, and Rundor put down the mithril pendant he was working on, and they all raced away from their forges and away from their shop and up to the highest tunnels, and out onto the side of the mountain.

Smiling, Tundor called to them, 'Look what I can do, brothers!' Then he began to push the rocks and to smash them and to grind them into snow and he pushed the snow over the edge of the cloud so that it fell and fell and fell and the other dwarves looked up in wonder.

'What is this?' they asked. 'It is soft, like cloth, and cold, like metal, and it is a beautiful white color, even more beautiful than the clearness of diamonds!'

Tundor laughed. 'It is snow! And when it melts, it is good for the land and it makes things grow.'

Then he made them some rain, and they threw their heads back and drank it, laughing. 'What is this sky water?' they asked him.

'It is rain!' he told them, 'I let it fall from the sky and it makes the earth smell fresh and clean, and it makes the plants grow.'

The dwarves on the ground agreed that such things were indeed a wonder, and Tundor laughed again. 'You have not seen my rainbow!' he told them. 'Let me go and get it - it is more beautiful than any gem beneath the earth, because it has not one color, but all of them!' He went back onto his cloud and he let his rainbow come arching out from the bottom, toward the mountains, and the dwarves stood there in awe.

'You must bring this to the king!' one of them said, 'The king and the queen must see this!'

Tundor was afraid that the king would not want to see his rainbow. It was not like the other treasures of the dwarves. 'I do not know. I do not think they would wish to see this. It is only made of cloud, and it does not shine in the darkness, as gold does, and it does not glitter, as diamonds do, and it is not strong, as mithril is. It is not very useful.'

His brothers shook their heads. 'No, Tundor, but it is beautiful. The king must see it. May we have a piece to take to him?' Tundor was not sure if he should give them a piece or not, but after a moment, he decided to trust his brothers. He had always trusted them before, and he knew now that they loved him enough to abandon their forges and their grand work to come see him. He cut loose a piece of his rainbow and he threw it down to them.

Bundor caught the piece of the rainbow, but as he went into the mouth of the caverns, its colors faded and it grew grey and cold and fell apart in his hands. Tundor's brothers looked sadly at each other. 'We cannot bring this to the king,' they said, 'He cannot give it to the king and queen, as we gave the king his crown and his armor and the queen her necklace. We must get the king to see it a different way.'

Tundor felt discouraged, but he did not want his brothers to see, so he forced himself to smile and he shouted down to them, 'That is all right! When men hear me coming, they celebrate my rain! When men see my rainbow, they smile. Perhaps it is enough to be loved by the kings of men.'

His brothers shook their heads. 'No. This is a thing the king must see. We will find a way to convince him. We will bring him here.'

Tundor watched his brothers disappear back into the mountain, and he was sure he would never see them again. He was sure the king would never come. 'At least my brothers are proud,' he said to himself, 'and at least I can do some good in the world now that I know how to make rain and snow. They are certainly as useful as armor is, and if my brothers say my rainbow is beautiful, then it must be so, for my brothers certainly know what it is to make something beautiful.'

Tundor watched the side of the mountain, waiting for his brothers to come back and hoping that the king and queen would come with them. He waited and waited and waited, but they did not come. The cloud began to drift again and Tundor was afraid that he would be gone when they came back. He tried to slow the cloud's movement, but he could not control where it went or when. Racing back to the edge of the cloud, he watched the entrance to the city, and he watched and he watched, and just as he thought it was too late, out came his brothers, Bundor and Lundor and Rundor, and behind them were the dwarves of the king's court, and behind them- Tundor could not believe his eyes as the king and queen stepped out of the hole in the mountain and looked up toward him.

For a moment, he was so surprised that he didn't know what to do, and he bowed awkwardly toward the king and the queen. 'The rainbow!' his brothers shouted, 'Hurry, you must show them the rainbow!' Tundor scrambled to grab his rainbow and to push it out over the open sky so that all could see it. Below him, the king and queen gasped in astonishment and pointed up at his rainbow, and Tundor felt happy and proud, knowing that finally he had been visited by the king and the queen and that finally, he had made something they could admire and that finally, he had made something to be proud of."

That seemed a bit like the end, but not quite. Thorin kept going. "Tundor still lives on his cloud, making the rain, for when you eat the food of the clouds, you will never die. He still pushes his rainbow out when he passes over the Lonely Mountain of Erebor, though he knows it has been many years since a dwarf king came out to the side of the mountain to see it. He lets us see his rainbow, too, here in the Blue Mountains, because he knows we are dwarves like him, and because he knows we dwarves love to look at beautiful things." That felt like a better ending, but the children were still staring at him as though they expected more, so he announced, "The End."

Fili hugged him, snuggling into his chest. "That was a good story, Uncle Thorin." Then he yawned so widely that Thorin thought his little face might break clear in half.

"You're welcome," he said to the boy. "But I think that's enough of that. It's time to go back to sleep." He expected the children to move. They didn't. They just rearranged themselves so that he could lie down, and then squashed themselves back up against his sides once he had, and he wasn't sure what to do about it.

They were calm, now, and he hoped the story would be enough to keep them from fearing the storm, but the thunder was not gone yet, and he was certain he couldn't sleep if they went back to cowering and whimpering on the other side of the room. Perhaps he could wait for them to nod off and then extricate himself from the pile and move over to Fili's bed. Yes, that was probably best. No need to scare the kids again now that he'd gotten them calm, and then he could have some space of his own. He settled in to wait them out, but he found that his eyes were drooping. He had traveled far to get here, and storytelling could be a surprisingly tiring endeavor when it was done right. He yawned himself, deeply, and Kili giggled in his half-sleep.

Thorin was determined to stay awake, right up until the moment when he failed. His brother-in-law found him in the morning, deeply asleep with Kili sprawled on top of him across his chest and the other three children snuggled up against his sides, Signi gripping his arm like a teddy bear and Fili flinging one arm over his uncle's chest and his brother's back and Floi half wound around Fili with his back shoved up against Thorin's side. He almost laughed, but then he decided that it wouldn't do to laugh at a king, and so instead, he woke the entire heap of sleepers up for breakfast.

As he woke up and realized where he was, Thorin glared at his brother-in-law as if to say "Don't you dare tell anyone this happened." His brother-in-law nodded. He never told anyone. He also never forgot the image of a king sleeping under a pile of peasant children, and his own son drooling on the shoulder of royalty. The story Thorin had told passed quietly into legend, because the children assumed it was real and the adults assumed they had forgotten it, living as they had under the mountain for so many years, away from the thunder and the rain. Thorin kept its true nature a secret, as he and his brother-in-law kept secret his own nature, the part of him that was not proud or regal or fighting to be the king he thought he was expected to be, the part that told stories and comforted children, the part that he was too stubborn to let other people see.

Fili and Kili followed him, years in the future, out into the world, because Erebor was his rainbow, the thing he could be proud of, and because Thorin was a man who deserved something to be proud of, and because they believed him to be a better king than the one in the story, even after all these years, even after they had grown up, even after they had seen the world and all the wondrous things in it. Sometimes a rainbow was the most precious thing of all, even when it couldn't be held or carried or taken into the house. Sometimes a good king was worth more than gold, and a good story was more comfort than a thousand candles. Sometimes you followed people because you believed in them and you wanted to see them reach their dreams. Sometimes you followed them because they had been there for you, once. Sometimes you followed them because you loved them. And sometimes it was all three.

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So, that kind of turned into the longest one-shot I've ever written. Whoops. I hope you enjoyed it!