One
Thorin returns from a meeting in another Kingdom to be greeted by disaster.
It had been some time since Thorin Oakenshield had last set foot in the mountain halls of Ered Luin. He had been needed to attend meetings within the Blue Mountains, and the distance from the one mountain range to the other, with the expanse of the Gulf of Lhun and the need to therefore deal with the Elves of the Grey Havens may as well have been the distance from the East to Bee.
It had therefore been many months since the exiled King had walked the corridors of their temporary home, though any dwarf worth his salt was able to remember the route of stone. So even weary Thorin was able to quickly find his way through the maze of tunnels to the door that opened into the large chamber in which had been erected the majority of the homes of Erebor's lost.
Dwalin's hand lit briefly upon his shoulder, and he inclined his head towards his closest friend. He was well. He could continue on to his own home alone, his friend and guard could continue to the cabin he shared with his brother.
Thorin listened to Dwalin's departing tread for a minute, and as it faded he started again for the little cottage at the top of the slope that belong to him and his sister.
Walking around the long building that acted as the marketplace for Erebor's people, Thorin's gaze roved up towards the cottage, and his step faltered.
Whenever he left the mountain for meetings or battle, Dis would solemnly set a candle on the kitchen window, and each night the boys would fight to light it, to guide him home. She had told him of this once when he had arrived in the night to see the low glow of such, and it filled his heart on his travels as he went to sleep.
The window now was dark, the cottage as a whole was.
A hand touched his elbow, and he spun, one hand on his sword, to meet the saddened face of Balin, Dwalin half a pace back and looking the most serious Thorin had seen him since...
Since Frenin had died.
"Laddie," Balin started, but Thorin had already turned on his heel, and was dashing for the cottage.
His pounding footsteps echoed through the chamber, and in more than one home a shadows came to window or door to investigate the disturbance in the night, only to duck back away as Dwalin and Balin moved by.
There was a murmur of voices as he drew to the door, growing louder as he pressed against the wood there, and for a second he rested his palm against it, wavered there, no longer sure if he wanted to step in and learn what had happened. For surely something had.
But then he picked up within the noise the sound of a cry; young and fearful, and Thorin squared his resolve and shoved at the door.
It hit the wall with a crash and leapt back towards him, but he was already crossing the threshold and it's passage closed was halted by his form. The noises had stepped up without the barrier of the door, and he focussed solidly on the thin cry that had clearly been kept up for too long.
"Thorin," Dwalin rumbled at his back, and his grip eased slightly from the haft of his axe, and he stepped through the hall and followed the noise.
Fili was stood on the cushion of his chair before the fire, dressed in an oversized jerkin that once belonged to him but now served as sleep clothes for the younster, hands fisted at his sides and glaring at a not-quite familiar dwarf who stood just beside the mantle. The dwarf had a pack at his feet, and his arms crossed across his chest, and the angry red in his cheeks suggested his was seconds away from grabbing the dwarfling up and shaking him into submission.
"What is going on here?" Thorin's voice was barely above a whisper, but it served to make both dwarf and dwarfling turn to face him, Fili nearly toppling from the chair in his haste.
"Uncle Thorin!" he screamed, leaping the arm of the chair and stumbling the first foot across the floor before flinging himself against his Uncle, fingers scrabbling against his armour before finding purchase and the child burst into sobs.
Thorin's hand cupped the back of his neck and drew him closer still, hand finally releasing the haft of his axe and coming around to stroke through the blond's hair. His fingers quickly tangled in knots, but the continued touch served to ease the sobs to quiet weeping.
"What is going on here?" his gaze had not yet left the other dwarf, and he now recognised him to be a relative to the boys, one of their father's cousins he had perhaps met once or twice but never cared to learn the name of.
"The boys are coming with me," the cousin stated, and Thorin mentally congratulated his nerve. To stand up to him when he was angry was no easy feat he knew, "You were gone and their mother is dead, they are coming to live with me." Fili flinched deeper into his side, and Thorin rocked on his heels under the force of the words, closing his eyes briefly. Dis was dead then.
"Balin?" he said softly, and felt the elder dwarf's presence at his elbow.
"Durin's Day, laddie," came the quiet answer "There was a sickness in the mountain. No one escaped it, some... faired worse than others." Thorin nodded, opening his eyes again and soothing a finger across Fili's cheek. He was paler than he had been when he'd left, he noted now, and there was a thinness to his face that did indeed speak of recent illness as well as grief.
"They should come with me, Thorin," the cousin's voice made Thorin's head snap back up "You cannot care for two young children, let them be with one who can watch them."
"Don't Uncle Thorin!" Fili wailed at his side, releasing his armour with one hand to instead clutch desperately at his fingers, nails digging at his skin "Don't let cousin Nar take us away! We want to stay with you!"
"Fili," Nar growled, and the child swung around, clutching at Thorin's fingers still, his other hand retreated back into the fist it was when Thorin had first stepped into the room, and the glare he levelled at the elder dwarf was praciatlly Thorin.
"No!" the dwarfling screamed "Me and Kili don't want to go with you! We want to stay with Uncle!" he stared up and Thorin then, eyes pleading and brimming with tears again "Please Uncle! You looked after us after adad left! Please!"
"Hush Fili," Thorin consoled, "It will be alright, we will work this out. Where is Kili?"
He followed the line of the pointing finger and his heart lurched as he came to the realisation that the weeping he had heard when he'd first entered the house had not belonged to his eldest sister-son, and had continued throughout the prior confrontation. There was a tiny form curled in the corner the firelight did not reach, but Thorin would recognise the form of his youngest nephew anywhere.
"Kili," he whispered, and was crossing the room without realising, Fili scurrying at his side, until he was crouched before the babe.
"Kili," he whispered again, Kili's knees were drawn up in front of his face, head bowed forwards as he continued to weep, the only bit of skin Thorin could see was of Kili's hands, clamped against his ears, tiny shoulders shaking.
The exiled King surged forwards and then rose to his feet, one arm curled under Kili's bottom and legs, his other hand curled against Fili's head, he shuffled for a minute to make sure Kili was secure, and then glared across the room to Nar; the firelight just reaching him and reflecting in his eyes, making him seem even more dangerous than ever before.
"Go home, Nar," he said dangerously "The boys can stay with me."
"Thorin-"
"No, Nar," Thorin responded "The boys have lost their father and their mother, do not take their home from them as well. We will discuss this further tomorrow, for now the boys need to sleep, as do I." he levelled his gaze on the other dwarf until he nodded, and his stare followed him out of the room.
Only when he heard the cottage door click closed did he turn all his attention to the boys. Fili has relaxed against him now that the threat of being removed from his home was out of sight, his breathing slowing as he drowsed against the dwarf. Kili still had his hands against his ears, his face buried in the crook of Thorin's neck, although now Thorin could hear his words in amongst the sobs.
'"Amad, amad, amad," he coughed then, and it quickly became a gag that had Thorin flinching and murmuring gently to the boy.
Now that Kili was in his arms he noted the sickness that still clung to the child. The face pressed against his neck was clammy, the body weighted in his arm negligible compared to how it had been before Thorin had left. Where Fili was now thin, Kili was practically skeletal.
"Balin?" Thorin called out, walking across the room. He dropped into his chair as the elder dwarf came to his side, and he nodded gratefully to Dwalin as his friend added more logs to the dying fire. Kili he sat on the arm of the chair, the babe's face still against his shoulder, and when he started shifting to remove his weapons and armour Kili whimpered unhappily.
Finally shed of the heavy leather and metal, his axe resting against the side of the chair, he pulled Kili into his arms properly and gestured to Fili, who scrambled up onto his lap and buried into his free side. Balin had settled into the chair opposite his own, the own Dis usually sat in, and Thorin closed his eyes again briefly; he would grieve for his sister later.
"How?" he asked hoarsely, and the boys clung closer.
"There was a sickness," Balin started "It came in with one of the caravans, three months ago. It started innocently enough, chills and coughs, and then they started coughing up blood, sky-rocketing fevers and nightmares and then they were wasting away." Kili coughed and gagged again then, his cries dropping away to hiccough, and Dwalin returned from wherever he had gone with a glass of water, which Thorin took gratefully and helped Kili to drink as his friend leant against the mantle.
"Fili got it first," Balin continued "He is recovering well. Kili got it next and hard, we... were all worried," Thorin frowned and rubbed his hand up and down the babe's back, Kili of course would get it the worst, Dis had suffered through his birth when her husband had died, and then she had born the child early. But Kili also had a tenacious hold on life that had serviced him well from the very beginning.
Balin sighed, and leant forwards, looking grave "For a time Oin was not sure if the child would live to see Durin's Day, and then he rallied, and Dis caught it. You have to understand Thorin, she had never truly recovered from Kili's birth; and she had toiled tirelessly to keep those babes alive for two and a half months. When she caught it, it burnt her out quickly. I think she was trying to hold on until you got home so someone could care for the boys, but the sickness won, and we lost her, and Nar has been trying to get the boys to move in with him ever since."
"We don't want to go, Uncle Thorin," Fili piped in sleepily, and Thorin hushed him.
"They stay with me Balin," he said levelly, fire in his eyes telling Balin not to argue.
"Thorin-"
"I'm not taking them from the only home they've ever known," Thorin continued "The journey between here and the Blue Mountains is safe, the boys can travel it with me when I must go. I will get them tutors and teach them to fight and they will not be removed from this house."
"You won't be teaching them to fight," Dwalin rumbled, "The only reason that you can do anything is because of your teachers. I'm taking their training."
"What about the winter, Thorin?" Balin asked quietly "The boys are too young still for the wilds in the snow, and it may be a safe route when the weather's decent, but with the winters they wilds get hungry and the boys-"
"I'll find someone to care for them then or I will not leave," Thorin swore, and Balin smiled in return.
"Aye lad, you will," he agreed "I'll tutor them, and I'll keep them in the house if you have to go where they cannot." and Thorin nodded his thanks to the promise, not just for meetings but that if anything happened to him, the boys would not be uprooted.
"My thanks, friends," he whispered "I must get the boys to bed, but you are welcome to stay the night." There was a murmur of agreement, and Dwalin followed Balin into Thorin's room. Thorin grumbled a laugh, his friends knew him well enough it seemed. He smiled down at the boys, both had fallen asleep in his arms whilst he had spoken to the other dwarrow, and they barely stirred and he stood and walked to the bedroom they shared.
Thorin curled up with the boys on one bed for the remainder of the night, and when he woke the next morning it was to Kili pulling at his nose, and Fili's rambunctious cheers as Dwalin scared Nar away from the front door.