Thorin had a great sense of responsibility imposed on him from a young age. After all, he was the son of Thrain, grandson of Thror, the oldest in the next generation of the greatest members for parliament Erebor had ever had. The Durins had been part of Erebor's political representatives for as long as anyone could remember, often getting seats in the senate despite the mining town's relatively small population.
That Thorin would continue in the family business was never a question. At a young age he'd shown intelligence, diplomacy skills, and courage - all admirable qualities within a new leader. Thrain's confidence in his son's abilities had been reaffirmed Thorin's younger sister, Dis, had been born, and the five year old Thorin took it upon himself to be her guardian and protector. Two years later, when his brother was born, his seven year old self swore the same.
Unfortunately, the universe seemed to have other ideas.
It happened after the Durin family lost their seat in the House of Representatives for the first time in living memory. People had been worried that Thror was resting on his laurels, growing to smug and self absorbed for his own good. When Smaug showed up, filled with charm and brave new ideas, he had won Erebor's seat by a landslide majority.
In an attempt to patch up their family's sorely damaged reputation, Thorin, Frerin, Thror and Thrain had decided to attend the local community meeting. They were just around the corner from the town hall when the car's front tyre had blown, sending the car spinning out of control and wrapping around the nearest tree.
Frerin and Thror had died in ways that would Thorin would see every time he closed his eyes for years after the impact. A branch from the tree had come through the windscreen and pierced his grandfather's windpipe, leaving the few moments of ringing silence after the crash accented by the gurgling of blood as the older man breathed his last, pained breaths.
Frerin, stuck in the seat behind Thror, had been killed by the impact, his body taking the force of their car's collision. When they'd pulled him out of the wreak, the whole left side of his body had been marred, his head nearly pulverised by the impact.
Thrain had been driving at the time, and the guilt never left him. While he recovered in body, his mind held scars deeper than any physical injury could hope to reach. A deep depression drew him in, drowning him in a nightmare where life and death trod a callously balanced tightrope. So it was that Thorin ended up as head of the Durin household at just nineteen years old.
While their family had some money to their name, Thorin knew it would not last. Politics on their level, while paying the bills, did not make them overly rich. So, two years into his Arts Law degree Thorin changed to part time study, signing up for work in Erebor's mines.
It wasn't long before Thorin learnt that the mines were a dangerous place if you didn't have your wits about you. Within his first week he had encountered his first cave in. He would have been buried himself if one of the younger minors, Bofur, hadn't yanked him back by the scruff of his collar.
Three other young men had not been so lucky, crushed to death beneath the fallen stones that would've been Thorin's tomb if Bofur had not saved him. Hit once again by the grimness that seemed to be the best life had to offer, Thorin volunteered to be the one to tell their families.
Thorin had been working the mines for two months when Thrain killed himself. Dis had been the one to find him, coming home after school to find the house eerily quiet. It had been a horrendous sight - in a fit of insanity, it appeared, Thrain had stuck knives through his own eyes. Whether death had been the intended outcome, or he had just wanted to stop the images of Thror and Frerin laying mangled in the car, Thorin never quite figured out. He could understand both reasonings.
Thror's death had complicated matters for Dis and Thorin. Thorin's capabilities as the sole guardian of his fourteen year old sister was called into question, as was his mental stability. If it weren't for Fundin, an old family friend and father of Balin and Dwalin, two of Thorin's closest friends, Thorin doubted he would have kept custody of Dis. For a year, he worked the mines diligently, carefully monitoring where every cent went so they would not be cast into any type of debt. Knowing he was being meticulously observed, Thorin made sure that not a single detail missed his attention. He tended to the food and the clothes and the bills and his sister. Welfare payments were on the table, but Thorin always turned them away - he had already taken out a HECs loan for his degree.
Surviving became easier for them as time went on. The siblings settled into habits instilled in them from their lack of funds, and soon coping became their lifestyle.
That was, until Dis became pregnant at seventeen years of age. Her boyfriend was from her school, and was an idiot in Thorin's eyes. Fortunately, he was a loyal idiot, and instead of running the second he found that Dis was pregnant, he vowed to support her and their child as well as he physically could.
Dis dropped out of school, a move that would have caused Thrain and Thror to hang their heads in shame, and took up working at the restaurant owned by Bombur, Bofur's baby brother. Every time Thorin saw his fellow miner, he was reminded that he owed him twice over. Whenever he brought it up, Bofur just laughed him off.
"When you're a big, powerful pollie you can make it up to me."
The sweet miner's comment had once more shaken Thorin's life. For three years, he'd put aside his family's intended career to focus on mining and raising Dis. While he still worked towards his degree, he no longer belonged to any political party, and hadn't engaged in much political debate since the night of the fateful car crash. There just hadn't been the time. And Thorin doubted it would suddenly present itself when Dis had her child.
Still, he made an effort. For the nine months his sister was pregnant, Thorin slowly re immersed himself in the world of politics, looking into what he had missed in his years of mining. By the time Dis's child was born, Thorin was again familiar with their parliament's inner workings.
His sister's child was a beautiful thing. Strong and healthy, she had her mother's shining blue eyes and her father's golden tufts of hair. Fili, she called the little girl. Brave young Fili. And despite the amount of bother her conception had caused, Thorin found himself falling in love with the little girl from the first time he held her.
Fault couldn't even be found with her father, who split his time between finishing school, working to support Dis and spending time with his girlfriend and daughter. While they still weren't on the best of terms, Thorin knew that most other boys his age would have run scared in the opposite direction if it was their girlfriend who had gotten pregnant.
It didn't keep him from wanting to throttle both him and Dis when two years later she found herself expecting another child.
While Fili's birth had happened when Dis was too young and money was tight, Thorin would give their newfound economic stability for the event's surrounding Kili's birth never to have happened.
Dis had gone into an early labour one night while her boyfriend worked a graveyard shift. Thorin had called him as they'd rushed to the hospital, telling him to come to Erebor's hospital as soon as physically possible. The stupid kid had always followed orders to the letter, and had jumped on his pushbike to ride there as fast as possible, forgoing his helmet in his haste. He'd sped through the intersection, the oncoming car not noticing him until it was too late.
One life had come into the world while another left it.
In the two years that followed, Dis grew closer to both her brother and Dwalin, Fundin's daughter and Balin's younger sister. Thorin finished his degree as Dis climbed the ranks at Bombur's kitchen until she was finally promoted to assistant manager, proving she was as hard working and capable as any Durin to pass before her. Fili and Kili both grew into close friends and right terrors, causing chaos wherever they went. Dis and Thorin both rolled their eyes when other adults simply laughed, knowing that if the children were any less cute they would be the most despised things in town.
With Fili about to enter school and their family settled and happy for the longest time since Thror and Frerin's death, Thorin decided it was time to do what he'd been brought up to do. When the next election came up, Thorin Durin put himself up for the role of Erebor's member for parliament as an independent. Between shifts at the mines and taking care of Fili and Kili, Thorin went around to people's houses, reintroducing himself to many friends who knew from before the accident and letting himself be known around town.
It was to Thorin's extreme surprise that, at twenty five years old, he was voted in as the youngest representative Erebor had ever had.
Smaug was not happy. After nearly seven years in power, he had been usurped by a mere boy who didn't even belong to a political party. But there was nothing he could, as Thorin had won the election fairly.
Politics, as it turned out, was something Thorin was skilled at. Despite his friction with the right winged government, commonly referred to as 'The Elves', he was a hard negotiator and he got things done. A name was quickly made for him as the hero of workers. His own blue collard past and association with people like Bofur, Bombur and his sister spurred him to take a stand when bills to raise the lower class's taxes or to cut workplace health and safety restrictions were put into play.
Midway through Thorin's first year as Erebor's MP, Dis had told Thorin that she was seeing someone. Not just someone, a woman. Dwalin.
The news had taken a while to sink in. Thorin could hardly believe it - his sister, a Durin, with another girl. When he saw them together, though, with Dwalin helping out with Fili and Kili, or with the pair of them snuggled on the couch, Thorin knew he would never stop them in any way. After all, his sister deserved all the happiness she could get. And if Dwalin gave her it, well, Thorin wasn't going to complain.
Dwalin, Thorin quickly learnt, was in interesting character. She was tough as old boots and interested in martial arts. Men and women alike often challenged her, and men and women alike always lost. Intelligent as she was strong, Dwalin also had a hidden soppy streak a mile long. The woman cried in disney films, laughed with her girlfriend's children, and wasn't afraid to embarrass herself for the little terrors. She was also, Thorin one day discovered, born a male. If Thorin had learnt that a few months previously, he was sure he would have reacted in horror, disgust and confusion. But since his sister had started dating another woman, Thorin had learnt to take things into his stride. Dwalin was a woman, and it wasn't for Thorin to deny.
With his sister's relationship always playing in the forefront of his mind, Thorin's policies focused not just on the rights of blue collar workers, but those of the LGBT+ community. His famed stubbornness got him far, and he became known as the underdog's representatives. His actions caused Erebor's slightly more conservative voters turned to Smaug for an alternative, but Thorin's popularity held within the wider community.
At the age of twenty six, after seven years of turbulent hardship, Thorin's life gained stability. But, while the weight of the world was no longer on his shoulders, Thorin refused to let himself forget what it felt like.
He refused to let himself fall into complacency like his father and grandfather before him. He refused to put himself first, knowing that he was nothing. He was a servant to the people, the way it was meant to be. The way Thorin was determined to make it stay.
Okay, so this probably isn't the story update any of the people following me wanted. For that I have to apologise - various things happened in real life that kept me from updating, and now I've lost the flow of the story. However, when Sherlock series 3/Doctor Who 50th anniversary/I finish year 12, I'm most certainly planning on attempting to finish that series. But for now, I figured I'd post this. It's cross posted on my AO3 under the same name (username SherlockHolmes), and I hope you all enjoy it, because I'm having fun writing it
And yes, I do genderbend characters.