Mafabbarûn
Summary: (One-shot) For the record, Dáin had never set out to be king.
Author's Notes: This was meant to be a drabble brain wtf?
Pairings: Dáin/Frerin (one-sided), Dáin/Canonical Wife, Dís/Canonical Husband.
Disclaimer: I do not own any familiar characters/settings/plot featured in this story. They all belong to (most likely rolling in his grave) J.R.R. Tolkien.
Mafabbarûn
"Whoever loves much, performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well." – Vincent Van Gogh
Dáin is the Outside Name his father gives him. It means wright and is given to him in hopes he will be one who works hard in everything he does. Hard work is a noble virtue to posses, after all, and his father gives it to him in hopes of making him into a Dwarrow of virtue.
But Dáin is not his True Name.
No, Dáin is only the name he wears on the outside. The one he shares with the rest of the world. His True Name is given to him by Grandfather, who chooses Mafabbarûn: he who continues to move forward. When Dáin asks Grandfather why he was given this name, he is told that it came to the old lord in a dream.
Dáin decides that he likes his Outside Name more than his True Name. When he asks his father if he can change them around, Father laughs and tells him that's not how names work. That his True Name is his soul and his Outside Name the body. You cannot switch them around so easily.
Dáin wonders why, if that is true, his soul is supposed to move forward. What could possibly ever hold a soul back?
He is the third son of the second son of the Lord of the Iron Hills. He is one of Durin's Sons and can trace his lineage back to the beginning. Dáin knows all of this before he ever learns to walk. When he does finally walk, he is given a sword and learns how to disable a foe with the hilt. He is given a hammer and shown how to strike it upon an anvil. All of this he learns before he can read.
"This is our craft. This is what we live for," Mother explains to him as he holds an uncut sapphire in his hand. "We make beauty out of the ugly. We make something worthless into useful. We are the only ones who can speak to the stone and hear her whisper back. This is our legacy."
He is Dáin son of Náin son of Grór. He is of Durin's Folk and his are the people with fire in their blood.
His grandfather rules their mountain with the iron will they are known for, and that is all Dáin knows for most of the beginning: structure, control, symmetry, and order. He grows up thinking that this is how the world must be and never questions it until he reaches his seventh year. That is when he first sees Erebor.
Erebor is beautiful and bright and chaotic and everything the Iron Hills is not. Dáin doesn't know where to look because there is so much going on at once. There is no order or structure, and it makes him dizzy trying to keep up with it all. When he meets the royal family—his kin—he gives them no real attention because his focus is still on the thriving kingdom around him. Even the King of Erebor, for all his polished gold and glimmering jewels, seems pale and weak against the brightness of Erebor.
Then, at the corner of his eye, a flash of gold so bright that he flinches.
He turns to look along with his brothers and everyone else in hearing as a young Dwarrow races by in a cart being pushed by two guards. His hair is loose and billows behind him like a gold banner as he throws his head back and laughs without any control or restraint. The guards are laughing too, and they go by with a brief bow to the royalty above them. The Dwarrow in the cart waves and Dáin catches sight of blue eyes that mirror his own before the stranger disappears to the next level.
"My youngest grandson," the King of Erebor explains with a laugh as they all turn to him for an answer. "He's a little spitfire I'm afraid. My Golden Frerin."
Frerin. Dáin thinks of the loose and easy way the Dwarrow had laughed and how his hair seemed brighter than any gold he had seen. Frerin.
He meets Prince Frerin later that day along with his siblings Prince Thorin and Princess Dís. The two new siblings have hair as black as night but share the same blue eyes as Frerin. At dinner, Dáin watches the three of them laugh and whisper from where he sits farther down the table, and feels something sour and hard settle in his throat.
Later, after dinner is over, Dáin is sent with his brothers to interact with the princes and princess. But Dáin is not sure how to act around these strangers that glitter in a city brighter than the sun, so he shies away from them. But that's fine because no one gives him much attention anyway until—
"Hullo," greets Frerin, stooping down to crouch next to him. "Do you want to play with me?"
Dáin blinks a few times and struggles to make himself speak. "Y-Yes...?"
"Good." Frerin smiles and it is just as bright as the first time he had seen it. "Let's go. I got some new cards I wanna try."
Frerin grabs his wrist and proceeds to drag him off without another word. Dáin follows without protest; still staring at the swirling locks of blond that twinkle in the candlelight.
Dáin remembers his childhood in colors. Gray and brown color the mundane days while bright colors like blue and green paint his more vivid memories. Red taints the memories of his two brother's deaths—one in an ambush by Orcs and another in an accident in the mines—and the red bleeds into their eyes and his mother's tears and his father's howls of rage and grief. Blue marks the first time he forges his first dagger—thin and misshapen and dull at the tip—and runs through the metal like glints of light. Green colors his first hunt and the first time on a pony with his father; galloping through the fields around their mountain in grass slivered in green and brown.
Yellow, unsurprisingly, are all his memories of Frerin. They bleed over into most of his memories until he can't tell which color started and where it ended.
Frerin is Dáin's hero.
It is not strange. In Erebor, everyone loves Frerin. He is easy to love, so easy to adore and follow because he will ask for nothing from you, but give you everything in him. He is unrestrained passion and tumbling blond curls and thundering laughter and everything Dáin would—could—never hope to be. He is simply so good and he never understands how Frerin can't seem to recognize it in himself.
"One day I will carve out a name for myself outside of the Durin legacy," Frerin whispers to him as they hide out on a staircase above a great feast. The marble is cold against his skin but the honey wine they swiped warms him up from the inside.
"People will remember me for more than just a son of Durin," the blond vows with a grin and blue eyes that stand out from the darkness like stars in the night sky. "They will remember me for being Frerin."
Dáin simply stares at him and wonders how much longer until Frerin realizes he was always more than just another legacy to Erebor. That he was always more than just another Dwarrow to Dáin.
Erebor falls to Smaug the next summer.
The Iron Hills hears the news too late and can only offer aid to the fleeing survivors. They come in the hundreds; burned and broken with tears and tattered clothes. Each face is an artwork of horror and anguish that makes Dáin stare because he has never seen such a level of total and utter grief before. It makes something in his whimper and cry because these Dwarrows are like him and yet not and he does not know why it hurts so to look at them.
The royal family eventually appears too; as broken and burned as their people. The Crown Princess is dead, the King has lost his senses, and the Crown Prince is barely holding it together. It is Prince Thorin who is doing most of the work of organizing his people, seeing to the wounded, to the dead, to the missing, to the matters of food and water. Princess Dís and another cousin follow close behind; helping him in along the way. Frerin, of course, is with them too; seeing to the matters of food and shelter and looking serious and wrong with ash in his hair and burns on his knuckles. Dáin watches them until he is sure Frerin is no longer needed before he approaches his cousin for the first time.
"Dáin," the blond says in greeting, giving him a small half-smile that lacks the usual energy. "I was wondering where you were."
"I was waiting until you were no longer busy," he explains with a shrug. "You... Are you... well?"
"Oh yeah, of course I am." The older Dwarrow runs a hand through his dirty hair and gives a grin that looks like a twisted imitation of his real one. "I just watched a dragon eat my mother and burn most of my people alive before stealing my homeland. I'm just swell."
Dáin frowns and crosses his arms in front of his chest; feeling uncertain and a bit hurt by the sharp and sarcastic words. But before he can think on it, Frerin's face crumbles, and he reaches out and pulls the shorter Dwarrow into a hug. Dáin stiffens before relaxing and wrapping his arms around the blond's waist as Frerin hides his face in Dáin's messy red hair.
"Sorry," the prince apologizes, his voice rough and breaking. "I didn't mean to snap at you like that. It's just... I've had so many people keep asking me that. I'm so sick of it because of course I'm not okay! I just lost everything I loved and... and..."
Frerin breaks off into a sob that he quickly muffles with one hand. In response, Dáin tightens his grip around the other Dwarrow as Frerin breaks down in his arms. He holds him close and, not for the first time in his life, wishes he was stronger. Strong enough to help the survivors of Erebor. Strong enough to march on Erebor and take it back from the snake that had slithered in. And strong enough to protect Frerin from everything horrible in the world.
But Dáin is not strong and so he can only hold Frerin as he weeps for all that he has lost.
Frerin and his siblings stay in the Iron Hills for a short time before setting off to search for more survivors from Erebor. Dáin watches them leave and tries not to resent the innocent survivors for taking Frerin away from him. They have lost enough already; they should not have to endure his petty hatred too.
When Dáin is thirty-two, he goes to Azanulbizar and learns firsthand what it means to lose someone you love.
Father dies first. Right before his very eyes, Dáin watches his father get cut down like nothing. Like he had not been a person who had laughed and loved and taught Dáin how to hold a sword or kissed his wife on the cheek in farewell. Dáin watches him fall and feels something in him fall too. He doesn't think as he grips his sword and charges the monster that has just stolen his father from him. He doesn't stop to think about anything until the bodies have all fallen and there is nothing left to kill. It is only then that he stops and takes notice of his shattered army, the retreating Orcs, and his father's cooling corpse.
That's when his brain kicks in and he realizes that they are leaderless and vulnerable in the middle of a battle field. He begins to order retrievals and retreats and ambushes; making the healthy help the injured back to camp while sending out squads to secure the area. He makes note of the pockets of Orcs still about and the Dwarrows still missing and begins to plan. He forces himself not to stutter or shake or throw up or break down into tears. With his father dead, Dáin is now in charge of the army and these Dwarrows are looking to him to survive.
Retreat, his commonsense shriek at him, and he agrees and begins to prepare. It is not until night has fallen that he even hears the whispers around the camp. "Died with a smile on his face and a horde of dead Orcs around him," the soldiers say in hushed voices. "The Golden Prince, the Greatest Treasure of Erebor. Poor Prince Frerin."
He doesn't believe it at first. Frerin, dead? Impossible. Simply impossible. But the longer the thought stays in his head, the longer the uncertainly eats away at him until he finally gives up and goes to search for Frerin himself. He looks and looks and looks until finally he spots Prince Thorin and with him he finds—
Dáin slows and comes to a complete stop. No.
Prince Thorin is a bloody mess but the wet streaks still gleam on his cheeks as he stares down at the figure on the mat at his feet. Dáin follows his gaze and finds Frerin; still and pale and faintly smiling in a way that he has not done so since Erebor fell. He stares at the unnaturally still chest and refuses to blink even when his eyes begin to water. When he realizes it won't move, he marches over without looking away until he is standing over Frerin. Without a care, he drops to his knees and reaches down to shake the Dwarrow awake.
"Wake up," he orders the prince, and begins shaking him harder when he gets no response. "Frerin this isn't funny. Get up."
He feels a hand on his shoulder. "Dáin."
He ignores it and reaches out his second hand to shake Frerin even harder. "I'm serious. Get up now or I'm dumping out all of your spirits."
The hand on his shoulder tightens. "Dáin."
He shrugs it off. "Get up, Frerin, hurry up—"
"Dáin!" The unknown hand returns and yanks him up and away from Frerin and spins him around to face the enraged face of Prince Thorin. "Enough! He's gone!"
"SHUT UP!" he roars back, pushing the taller and denser Dwarrow away. "HE'S NOT DEAD, HE'S CAN'T BE!"
"HE'S DEAD!" Prince Thorin roars back, his blue eyes—Frerin—sparking like lightening. "HE'S DEAD AND I KNOW BECAUSE HE DIED IN MY ARMS! MY BROTHER IS DEAD!"
Dáin feels something in his chest chip and fracture and finally shatter as the truth of the words dawn on him. Frerin is dead. Frerin is dead. Frerin—gold and warm and booming laughter and everything good in the world—is dead. Dead like Dáin's father and brothers and the people of Erebor and the soldiers of Azanulbizar. Dead and still and cold and never ever coming back.
Dáin doesn't know whether to scream or cry.
Prince Thorin watches him and whatever he sees in Dáin's face makes his own collapse into a wreckage of anguish. He doesn't fight the older Dwarrow when Prince Thorin pulls him into an embrace just like the one Frerin had given him all those years ago. Instead, he leans against his older cousin and listens to him quietly cry for his dead baby brother.
Frerin is dead and Dáin thinks maybe a part of him is too.
When Dáin returns to the Iron Hills, he brings with him half the army they had left with, the corpse of his father and Frerin, and a legend that will make him cringe for years to come.
Grandfather and Mother are there to greet him and soothe him and listen as he tells them of his father's death, of the failing battle, of their eventual retreat. He explains Prince Thorin's request to hold Frerin's body until Erebor is reclaimed, and how he couldn't refuse the prince when he too had lost just as much—and perhaps even more—than Dáin. They listen to it all and at the end cry as he could not on that bloody field.
After they are done, they lay Father and Frerin in the family tomb, and Grandfather names Dáin his heir. He accepts it and wonders why it feels like the heaviest weight in the world has settled on him.
He dreams of Azanulbizar nearly every night for the next year. He watches his father and best friend die every night and then wakes up and tries to remember how to be happy. It's a lot harder than he remembers.
"He was your One," Mother tells him one day after a particularly bad night. She rubs his back with calloused hands just like she did when he was a babe. "He was your One and that is why it hurts so much. Oh, my poor child. I'm sorry."
Dáin doesn't deny it. Though he had never put a name to it, he always knew that his feelings for Frerin were more than hero worship. He just never thought that Frerin would be his One; the one person in the world that he would choose over himself, over his clan, over his Creator. Because Dwarrows are not made for love and are selfish creatures that exist only to create something beautiful out of something hideous. To find someone to turn your eyes away from your craft, your Creator, your purpose in life, should be impossible and yet it. Still. Happens.
A One was a gift; the most precious of gifts because it made a Dwarrow grow, made him take notice of someone other than himself, to try even more in everything they did. A One was not absolute bliss or completing of two halves. A One was not a jewel to boast about or hoard away. A One was simply one that you loved more than yourself.
Frerin was his One. Frerin had grabbed his attention from the first laugh and held it until the end. In the brightest kingdom in the world, he had outshone all of its glory simply by being himself. He had forced Dáin to see him, to acknowledge something outside of his own world, and to see that just because something was different didn't make it weak. Frerin was his greatest inspiration, the reason he pushes himself to do better at being a Dwarrow of virtue.
Frerin was his One and he was laying in a marble tomb a hundred feet below Dáin's bed, rotting away with the worms and bugs. Frerin was his One and he was dead and Dáin now had to live with eyes no longer focused on his craft and Creator because they had been stuck on a single person that was no longer there.
Times goes by. His grandfather finally passes on in his sleep; a peaceful ending to a peaceful life. Dáin takes up the mantle as Lord of the Iron Hills and begins to work on making his home the strongest nation in the whole fucking world. Like hell he is going to lose it like Erebor.
His mother begins to look for a wife for him. Dáin indulges her but makes no commitment. His nightmares grow fewer and fewer until finally stopping completely. In their place though he begins to dream of Frerin as he was before Erebor fell: wild and willful and full of life. In response, he takes up drinking and finds he has a talent for drinking Elves under the table.
Time goes by and Dáin wonders where he's going with it.
When Prince Thorin finally makes a visit to the Iron Hills again, he brings with him a pregnant and glowering Princess Dís. He learns that Princess Dís's husband is away for work and the princess is due any day now and needs a safe place to give birth. Dáin accepts them easily and they take up residence in the palace with him and his mother and cousins.
Being around them gives him his first real chance to get to know Prince Thorin and Princess Dís as people. He finds that, while gruff and grumpy, the prince is kind and thoughtful and much more observant than people realize. The princess is as cold as he had expected but he finds beneath the ice a surprisingly hilarious sense of humor and a fierce familial loyalty. Eventually, Prince Thorin becomes just Thorin and Princess Dís just Dís, and somehow Dáin finds he does not feel quite as alone anymore.
In the winter, baby Fíli joins them, and Dáin discovers, to his horror, that he likes children. He tries to hide it from his mother but the Iron Lady knows everything and begins to up her search for his future wife.
Not too long after, Dís's husband, Vílin, joins them in the Iron Hills. He is another lively blond but his hair is fairer and he is calmer and more composed than Frerin had ever been. Dáin wonders if Frerin would have been the same if given the chance to grow up. A few years later, Kíli enters the world, and Dáin takes one look at his gummy smile and finally throws in the towel.
His mother doesn't even bother hiding her smug smirk.
Dáin does not love his bride when he marries her. This is fine because Elsba does not love him either. Their marriage is an arranged one that is performed out of duty and tradition. The most they feel for one another is respect and admiration.
Elsba is from one of the oldest families in the kingdom and the only child of the great General Ári. Her line is known to produce strong Dwarrows and her political position is nothing to sneer about. But when Dáin meets her for the first time, he is vastly disappointed. His bride is docile and submissive and only speaks when spoken to. The entire time they are together she keeps her head slightly bowed and her eyes glued somewhere on the ground. She is like a delicate butterfly and he is honestly afraid that he may break her.
Their wedding night turns out to be just as he expects: Elsba—nervous and stiff—and he—careful and holding back—try to join only to find it too awkward and tense to even reach the halfway mark. After they lay next to each other and Dáin listens uncomfortably as his new bride cries.
"I am so sorry, my lord. I have ruined our first coupling as husband and wife," Elsba whimpers, hiding her face in her hands.
Dáin awkwardly rubs her naked back. He never dealt well with tears and a Dwarrowdam's tears are even worse. "There, there. It's fine. I was actually expecting it to be a failure."
This turns out to be the wrong thing to say as Elsba erupts into more hysterical sobs. At this point, he is honestly considering just pulling his pants back on and getting the hell out of here because they didn't teach him how to deal with this kind of shit in the army. But Dáin considers himself one who faces his problems head on instead of running away. So, bracing himself, he tries his hand at the art of comforting another living being.
"Elsba, that came out wrong," he says, petting her long black hair. "What I meant is that I was expecting this to be a failure because we don't know each other yet to feel comfortable enough to engage in such… intimate affairs. I think we just need more time to… get used to each other."
Elsba sniffs and peaks out from behind her hands to look at him. Dáin only now notices that her eyes are a lovely pearl gray color.
"That… That sounds logical. We… We did just meet only twice before today," Elsba says, wiping her eyes.
Dáin feels relief course through him. Crisis diverted and the tears stopped, thank Mahâl.
"Exactly. So tonight we should just… sleep. And tomorrow we can spend the day getting to know each other," he says, pulling the blanket up over his bride and tucking her in.
Elsba lays back down without complaint and gives him a small and warm smile. "I would like that."
Dáin smiles back even as he mentally rearranges his schedule for tomorrow. His mother and the council were not going to be happy, but making sure his marriage works feels like it should be given more priority at the moment. And to his surprise, Dáin finds himself enjoying the day he spends with just Elsba.
They spend the whole day talking about their lives. She tells him of her love for poetry and haikus because there are so many hidden meanings in them. He shares his fascination for history and myths because you can never tell what is true and what is not. She recounts the first time she went hunting with her father and the first time she helped her mother sew a robe together. He tells her about the times he sat in the garden sipping tea with his mother and the training sessions he underwent with his father. She tells him that her name means 'iron butterfly' and he tells her it suits her.
Elsba even speaks of her grief at losing her older sister to war and her fear that her younger brother will go the same way. Dáin thinks of Frerin and his father and brothers and finds he understands.
They don't try to join that night but Elsba does lay her head on his shoulder and gives him a sweet smile before going to sleep. Dáin watches her and thinks that maybe, just maybe, he can learn to love her. Perhaps not with the same intensity that he loves Frerin with—sixty-three years dead now and it still hurts—but still just as honestly.
He owes Elsba (and himself) that much.
They are married for five years before Elsba asks him of Frerin.
"He was my One," he tells her honestly because she is his wife and deserves as such from him. "I did not realize it until after he died."
Elsba nods without any surprise but something like understanding and slight sadness. "I see. I'm sorry for your loss. I cannot imagine what it would be like to find your One only after losing them."
"I have learned to live with it," he says simply as he studies her carefully. "Did I hurt you with this? This truth that I love another more than you?"
Elsba looks taken back for a moment before her face softens. "No. How could it when he is dead and cannot feel your love as I do now? I'm just sad you faced such a loss and that he died so young."
Dáin feels himself soften and swell with affection. Without thought, he pulls his wife to him and simply hugs her for a long time. Elsba hugs him back silently and he feels his heart finally relax as he allows himself to love his wife without the memories of another to taint it.
At a hundred and fifty-three years of life, Dáin finally becomes a father.
His son is born at noon and greets the world with a shriek that echoes through the palace. He laughs when he hears it, and thinks back to his own father and how he must have felt the same as Dáin did at that moment. He thinks of his mother—ten years dead now—and vows to her to keep him as safe as she did with Dáin.
Elsba sits glowing in bed with a bundle of fur in her arms when he is finally allowed to see her. He smiles and kisses her forehead and then looks upon the wrinkled and red face of his child for the first time.
"Perfect," he says in truth, marveling over the little body that he and Elsba had created together. "He is perfect."
Elsba leans against him and sighs with complete contentment. "Yes, he is."
He chooses the name Thorin as his son's Outside Name because it is good and proud name and the Thorin he knows is a good and admirable Dwarrow. He hopes, as his own father once did, that his son will inherit these same traits as he grows older. He leaves Thorin's True Name to Elsba, who chooses Mabarrajûn: he who continues to astound.
It turns out to be fitting.
The years seem to go by too quickly and Thorin grows far too fast for his taste. Dáin watches him with fascination as a tiny blob of hair and skin becomes a person. He watches him learn to talk and walk and run and sing and dance and laugh. Thorin shows himself to be a quick learner and picks up new things with remarkable ease and keeps at it until he has mastered it. He laughs easily and always seems to have a question or a thought about the unknown world around him.
Dáin adores him. Loves him with all his spirit and power and thanks Mahâl daily for blessing him with such a gift. Vows to somehow destroy everything evil in the world just so Thorin can never stop looking at the world with such innocent wonder. He swears that his son will want for nothing, and will never go a day without knowing that he is loved so very much.
Dáin loves his son so fiercely and deeply that he thinks it could even outshine the love he holds for Frerin.
At a hundred and seventy-four years, Thorin reclaims Erebor from Smaug and calls for aid from Dáin.
His people split over the issue and his council argues over the benefits and losses with associating with Erebor. Dáin leaves them to their squabbles and writes his reply and sends it to Thorin with his fastest raven. Elsba watches him but does not speak until after the raven is gone.
"You are going." It is not a question because they both knew his answer the moment he realized who it was from. "I do not approve. It is a foolish risk to take. You cannot hope to hold out against such numbers."
"I know. But I must go. I owe it to him," he replies.
Elsba shakes her head and simply purses her lips. "For who? Thorin? Or Frerin?"
Dáin doesn't answer and leaves. He doesn't know himself.
Dáin goes to Thorin's aid and fights and kills Orcs alongside Men and Elves and Dwarrow. At the end of it all, he discovers he has lost half his army, part of his left foot, and Thorin.
The loss is not unexpected but still hurts all the same. The pain only digs in deeper when he learns that Fíli and Kíli—the babes he had seen be born and held and sung to sleep—have also been killed. He stands over their bodies for a long time and allows himself to memorize their young faces. He finds more traces of Frerin than he cares for but does not dwell on it. Instead, he mourns silently over the loss of such young ones who will never get the chance to grow old.
Thorin is harder to gaze upon because Thorin he has known longer than anyone else alive save Dís. His cousin looks old and worn but oddly enough at peace. Like he had accepted his death in the end and came to terms with his life. Dáin hopes that is true because Thorin deserved, if not a happy end, then at least a peaceful one.
"I'm sorry," he tells the silent king. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you better. I'm sorry I could not save your sister's sons. I..." He trails off and wonders what more he could say now. Thorin is dead and gone now just like everyone else. What was the use in spilling his guts out to a corpse?
"I will make her great again," he says instead, clenching his hands into tight fists. "I can do that much for you. I won't let your dream die. Erebor will be rebuilt. She will rise again and all will know her glory and strength. I promise you, Thorin. Your people will have a home again."
This is no answer or sign that Thorin has heard his vow but Dáin leaves feeling like he has.
The next day, Balin crowns him King Under the Mountain within the shadows of the broken kingdom and seventeen feet away from the bodies of its former king and his heirs.
Dáin names himself king and it feels like the greatest lie he has ever told.
Erebor is a mess of wreckage and ruins and corpses and fucking dragon shit and about ten million other unpleasant things. But Dáin doesn't let it bring him down because he remembers Erebor in her highest glory and knows that he can bring it back. He can bring back that light and make it shine again, make it live again. All he needs is time and patience and Dáin has always been lucky to have both.
He starts by focusing on the least damaged sections on the outer side of kingdom and works from there to the inside. He orders for help from the Iron Hills and leaves Elsba in charge as his regent while he attends to Erebor. He negotiates treaties with the Elves of Mirkwood and the Men of Dale for supplies and support and peace and they come to a truce. He sends out word to any soul—Dwarrow or Elf or Man—looking for coin to come to Erebor to work for him. He promises free citizenship to any Dwarrow who aids in the reconstruction, and compensation to any former resident or descendent of Erebor.
Throughout this all, he receives word that Dís refuses to return to Erebor. He accepts her choice and sends back her brother and sons' Durin beads and a promise of help should she ever need it.
He turns to Thorin's former companions—the ones that survived and stayed, at least—and offers them all titles and places on his new council for Erebor. He doesn't know all of them but he trusts Thorin's judgment in character. Some accept while others refuse but still remain to help. Dáin uses them all and together they slowly begin to rebuild Erebor.
It takes Dáin twenty years and three days before Erebor looks something like a kingdom again.
It takes him fifty-six to make it into the most powerful of the Dwarrow Kingdoms.
It takes him seventy-four years to make it into one of strongest kingdoms in all the lands.
Dáin thinks it will never quite match the Erebor in his memories, but finds the present isn't so bad either.
His people sing his glory and praise as a Dwarrow of virtue. They write poems of his character and songs of his glories and stories of his life. The other races acknowledge his strength and give him their respect and alliance. The Elves do not glower, the Men bow, and no Orc or Goblin dares to set foot on his lands. Dáin II Ironfoot is a king who will go down in legend as one of the best Dwarrows since Durin himself to ever walk the earth.
Dáin listens to it all and then laughs himself sick. He has a feeling his brothers and father would have done the same.
One day a messenger from Mordor appears at the gates of the Lonely Mountain. He brings with him a request for aid in a hunt, a promise of power, and a warning of dire consequences if refused. Dáin goes to the gates himself to answer the stranger and gives him to the count of ten to disappear before he released his archers on the bastard.
The stranger turns and leaves without another word.
Perhaps another Dwarrow would be tempted by a Ring of Power or the glory of Moria. Perhaps another Dwarrow would have stopped and listened to the silky promises of immortality and gold and other pretty things. But Dáin has lost the only thing he ever really wanted before he ever knew how to want and so brushes off the seductive whispers, and goes to write a letter to an Elven Lord.
One day, as he heads to have lunch with Elsba and Thorin, Dáin thinks of Frerin, and finds no pain in his heart. Only a warm tingle as he recalls golden warmth and unrestrained laughter and a vow to be remembered. He smiles and then continues on his way.
End