The Hobbit (c) JRR Tolkien
Dís leaned over the hearth, absently singing as she stirred supper for later that evening. In front of the fireplace behind her, Fíli sat in the great chair his father once occupied, his stocking-clad feet swinging in time with her song. Kíli fiddled with wooden figures on the woven rug, still sulking about the small painted toy he'd broken earlier. Despite numerous reminders, her younger son didn't seem to be able to play gently with the carved figures.
"Mother, why doesn't Uncle Thorin have a big beard like everyone else?"
Dís froze, Fíli's question stealing the breath from her voice and the thoughts from her mind.
Fíli continued, oblivious to his mother's prone form. "Mr. Balin has a great big beard, and Mr. Gloin, and a lot of people have lots of braids and beads. Why doesn't Uncle grow his out, too?"
From the floor, her younger perked up at his favorite word. "Why?"
Dís slowly covered the pot and turned to her sons while Fíli spoke again.
"I bet it would look really nice if he did. Or maybe –"
The golden-haired boy stopped kicking his feet and looked at his mother with horror dawning on his features.
"Maybe he can't grow a beard. Is that is, Mother, can Uncle Thorin not grow a beard?"
Kíli caught onto his brother's stricken tone and turned to Dís with wide eyes. "No beard?"
At the tender ages of eight and three, Fíli and Kíli were their mother's crown jewels. If not for the painful subject, she would have laughed at her rambunctious boys' serious expressions; they cast too many shadows on their bright faces.
While she lived, she would allow no harm to come to them. She held Thorin to the same unyielding vows. There was no talk of bloody battles and monstrous foes, no walks with Uncle Thorin outside of the city, and certainly no unattended weapons for curious young dwarves to find.
"That is a question for your uncle to answer." Not for her. Nor was it an answer she was ready for her sons to hear.
"But Mother, it might be days before we see him again!" Fíli all but whined.
"Days!" Kíli copied.
Dís smiled at her sons' dramatics.
"Would you truly like to know?"
Fíli nodded eagerly and Kíli followed suit.
"Your uncle's beard… was eaten!"
The brothers gasped.
"By a great fat worm! Because he didn't wash his hands before supper! Or go to bed on time! Or listen to his mother!"
She roared and lunged at the boys, who shrieked and tried to scramble away from her. She caught Fíli in one arm and blew raspberries in his ear before sweeping up a giggling Kíli to kiss the wispy hair on the side of his face. The boys' question was quickly forgotten in their quest to defend themselves from their mother's tickling fingers.
Sometime after noon, as Dís tucked the tired boys under soft furs for a nap, Fíli drowsily grasped one of the dark braids framing her face.
"I don't believe you, Maa, that a big worm ate Uncle's beard."
Dís smiled briefly as she smoothed her son's gold locks. "No? Well you'll just have to ask him yourself."
"I will…" he whispered before drifting into the heavy sleep of children.
She gently untangled his small fingers from her hair and drew the blankets up to his shoulders. Kíli, who had fallen asleep the moment he closed his eyes, shifted closer to his brother. Dís stood and studied the two small huddled forms before noiselessly slipping from the darkened room.
Thorin arrived while the boys napped, his footsteps quiet as he could make them. He silently passed the boys' room, and entered the common area where Dís sat by the only light in the house.
She sat mending a pair of Kíli's torn pants, a chore her handmaid would have done if they still dwelled in Erebor. His sister had picked up many things over the years, though they could not replace the things she had lost.
Thorin sighed and dropped in the chair opposite her, the same Fíli sat in hours ago.
"You're early," she said without moving her eyes from her task, "we did not expect you for three more days." She paused, allowing him time to explain. When he remained silent, she asked "How was the meeting?"
He dodged her question with one of his own.
"How are the boys?"
Dís allowed the subject change, the question a fallback for Thorin when an errand had gone sour. She would pull the details from him later. "Kíli climbed to the top of my dresser last week and couldn't figure out how to get down. When I tried to help him, he wailed about doing it himself. So I stood nearby while Fíli shouted encouragement. He was halfway down before he lost his grip and I had to catch him. He snagged a hinge on the way down." She gestured to the pants in her lap. "Fíli lectured him about the dangers of adventuring alone. The next day, I found both of them up there, Fíli demonstrating to Kíli how to safely descend."
Dís adjusted her grip on the torn clothing and continued.
"We will have to make a trip to the toymakers' this week. A bit of rough play snapped the blacksmith's limbs off. I tell you this because although I told Kíli I would not buy him another, you have no qualms about it."
Thorin smiled briefly. His nephews were the bright spot of his dim existence. He saw the future in their shining (though often-dirty) faces. After their father was killed, Thorin gladly took it upon himself to help his sister raise the boys. That often meant spoiling them while she was not looking. He was distracted by the thought of purchasing more figures (maybe he could sneak in something a little ferocious this time, Bifur made some creatures the boys always looked at longingly) that he almost missed Dís's next tale.
"And this morning, Fíli asked why your beard was so short."
Thorin stilled, much the same way his sister had hours ago, and turned a wary gaze toward her. "And what did you tell him?"
She did not look up as she responded, "That a great worm ate your beard because you did not listen to your mother."
He frowned. "That is not amusing, Dís."
"They are my sons; I will tell them what I wish."
"They are my heirs, and they should know their history."
"Then you would rather I told them the truth?" Dís said, her dark eyes finally meeting his, her words piercing as the needle in her hand. "That their grandfather and great-grandfather almost burned to death by dragon-fire, and escaped with their lives intact but their beards scorched? That you, as displaced King Under the Mountain, have sworn never to let yours grow until the Great Worm is dead and you sit once again in the stone halls of Erebor? They are children, Thorin, what do they understand of honor and loyalty to people they have never met and a kingdom they have never seen?"
"They understand the value of kin, and they will learn the meaning of heritage," he spoke the words of their age-old argument, "I began training as soon as I could lift a hammer. Fíli should have started long ago, Mahal only knows how much time we've wasted. And Kíli I believe will do wonders with any weapon he picks up. We have had this conversation before."
"And my answer remains the same!"
"They are Durin's blood, you do them a disservice." Thorin managed to say before Dís's words struck with the force of a battleax:
"They are my blood and they are all I have left. I swear on Thror's ashes that I will be damned if I give them to you before I am ready."
A charred log in the fire hissed and broke in half, sending sparks into the air.
"You are their mother, sister. I meant no disrespect." Thorin said quietly after a moment of tense silence.
Dís sighed, the weight of her experiences reminiscent in her voice. "Nor I, brother." She set her mending in the basket by her feet and stood in front of Thorin. She took a travel-stained hand in both of hers and pressed it firmly to her heart. Another long moment passed before she spoke of the aching in her soul.
"I know what their fate is, Thorin. I know where their destiny lies. Every day Fíli acts more like you and Kíli looks more like our father. It was plain to me the moment you held them that you will see them to their great potential. But, please, let me have them for a little longer."
Thorin's eyes fell to the floor, to the wooden toys he bought for his nephews. The broken figurine of the blacksmith lay in pieces where Kíli had abandoned it, the painted features betraying no feelings of its dismemberment.
"Perhaps I will simply tell them," Thorin said quietly, squeezing his sister's hands, "their uncle keeps his beard short for the same reason their mother does not wear golden jewelry."
Dís snorted but gently squeezed back. "If you think that will stop the questions, you do not know your nephews."
"No," Thorin mused, "but then they will pester you instead of me."
He tried not to wince when her hand darted to tug roughly on a braid and she retorted, "The King Under the Mountain would do well not to anger the mother of his heirs."
"Uncle Thorin!"
Thorin looked up from his late lunch in time to feel two small bodies barrel into him.
"Hello Fíli, hello Kíli." He smiled down at their adoring faces, bright with energy after their rest.
"Uncle, Uncle, we have something to ask you!" Fíli said solemnly.
"Go ahead," Thorin said, glancing at Dís. His sister stood with her back to her family, cutting bread for the boys' supper. He noted the tense line of her shoulders and the heavy thud of the knife. She had forged that knife herself, under his watchful eye on a day the exile did not burn so severely.
As he knew from experience, her knives cut just as readily as her words.
"Uncle, why don't you have a big beard?"
Since Dís told him of his nephews' inquisition, the King Under the Mountain thought how to answer this simple question. How hard could it be to answer a child?
In his experience? Harder than mithril.
"Mother said a worm ate it because you didn't listen to your mother." Fíli prodded, "is that true?"
When addressing a simple, honest question, it is best to use a simple, honest answer.
"It wasn't a worm," Thorin said slowly, "it was a dragon."
The brothers gasped. "A dragon?!"
"Yes, a dragon," Thorin continued, "A big, nasty dragon. He took my beard over a hundred years ago and will not give it back."
"That's mean!" Fíli yelled.
"Mean!" Kíli screamed.
"Aye, well, dragons are not known for being nice," Thorin said.
Fili's face scrunched for a moment before he loudly declared,
"If Uncle Thorin doesn't have a big beard, then I won't either!"
"I either!" Kíli shouted.
Thorin didn't dare look at his sister.
"Are you going to fight the dragon, Uncle?" Fíli whispered, his small hands clutching the fabric on Thorin's knee, "Are you doing to get your beard back?" Kíli mimicked his brother's movement on the other leg,
"Yes –" Thorin began to say.
"We will come with you!" Fíli said, grabbing Kíli's hand, "we can help you get your beard back!"
Kíli nodded enthusiastically. "We come too!"
Thorin heard the knife clatter.
Hand-in-hand, the boys ran to Dís.
"Mother! We want to go with Uncle Thorin!"
"Absolutely not."
Kíli tugged at his mother's apron. "Wanna help Uncle Thorin!"
"No."
"But the dragon has his beard! We have to fight it!" Fíli insisted.
"I said no!"
The room was silent. It was obvious to Thorin that he underestimated his sister-sons.
Thorin saw Kíli's features twist in preparation for one of his legendary tantrums and hastily cleared his throat.
"I am not going anywhere right now," he told the boys, "it will still be many years before we are ready to fight a dragon."
"Ok," Fíli sighed. His brother's face wilted. He perked up after a moment.
"Kíli! Let's go practice fighting dragons!" The boys raced out of the kitchen to their room.
Despite the fire crackling merrily, Thorin felt a chill.
"Dís, I –"
"Save your words," came the swift reply, "It was my own error to not see how numbered their days with me were."
"I will not take them from you without your will."
"You already have."
That night, Dís tucked her exhausted dragon-slaying boys into bed. If they noticed her words were softer and her hands lingered on their brows longer, they said nothing. But once again, Fíli's hand tugged on this mother's braid.
"I told you Maa, it wasn't a worm," he said.
"Yes, little cub, you are too smart for me. Too smart for your old mother." She gave one of his sun-bright plaits a pull.
"Maa, can you sing tonight? You forgot last night. I like your singing."
"Sing, Maa…" Kíli murmured.
"Do you know any songs about dragons?" Fíli said as he fought a yawn.
Dís was glad for the darkness in the room. She was a daughter of kings, a child of Durin's Blood, a proud Dwarf woman. She had survived the death of her grandfather, her parents, her brother, and her husband. She watched her homeland fall and her people rise from the ashes to forge a new life for themselves.
She would not let her sons see her cry.
"I do, Fíli, a very old song."
"Far over the misty mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek our pale enchanted gold…"
He held the pieces of Kíli's broken dwarf, noting that the magnificent beard Bofur had given the tiny figure had snapped off with the limbs. Only a small bit of snowy white carved hair remained on his chin.
Thorin heard the purpose-driven footfalls of his sister, and steadied himself for her ire.
She stood in front of him, much the same as she did hours ago. Thorin reminded himself he had faced Death before and met her eyes resolutely.
Dark and unfathomable as a moonless midnight, she stared him down a moment before speaking in a low voice.
"You will take them. You will train them; you will make them the finest warriors of their time. Teach them everything you know. Teach them to hunt. Teach them to defend. Teach them to survive.
"If they fall under your care, the wrath of a dragon will not be the foremost of your troubles."
Without waiting for a reply, she turned and disappeared down the dark hall. Thorin felt a weight lift from his soul even as another twice as heavy settled in his heart. He glanced at the toy in his hands and wondered idly what the wooden dwarf would be willing to do in order to be whole again.
My fandoms are all over the place. I sorta apologize for anyone expecting another LoZ fic.
Ever start writing and something grabs your plot and runs away with it? This was supposed to be a simple drabble about Thorin's short beard. *side-eyes Kíli's toy*
There was an interview with Richard Armitage, who plays Thorin where he discusses his beard. He and the design Team decided to keep his beard short because although Thorin is described in the book as having a beard long enough to tuck into his belt, they went with a short beard (not only to make it easier to see Rich's face) because he imagined Thorin remembering his father and grandfather escaping from Erebor (through the hidden door) with short singed beards, and in memorium, keeps his short too.
Then of course, I've seen questions floating around the internet asking why Fíli and Kíli have short beards, they're young, but not that young, movie!Ori is younger and has a better beard, blah blah. WELL, if Thorin has a short beard, you can damn well be sure his star-struck nephews are going to copy him.
We know exactly three things for certain about Dís: 1. She was Thráin's third child and only daughter; 2. She was born in TA 2760; and 3. She is Fíli and Kíli's mother. So I had a blank slate to work with. You're free to disagree over my portrayal of her.
Of course Dís loves Thorin. He may be King, but she is his sister and she will speak her mind to him, especially concerning her boys. She is a protective mother. Her husband is dead and her sons are all that are left of him. Being very young when Smaug attacked, she only has hazy memories of Erebor. Still, she has heard of little else her entire life. But she has already lost her grandfather, her parents, her brother Frerin, and her husband in the quest for a home. She knows eventually Fíli will be King after Thorin, and so there is little chance of either boy leading peaceful "normal" lives. But she will be damned if they are taken from her before she deems necessary.