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The King's Best Friend

It may not be easy to be the King's sister, or one of his nephews, or – even worse – one of the counsellors. Thorin is known for his bad temper throughout Middle Earth and no matter how fierce the dwarves of Durin's kin may be, a raging King under the Mountain is just beyond scary. Whenever Thorin is in a foul mood everyone is trying their best to stay out of his way. At all costs. Which usually makes everything only worse, since nephews not answering his questions and sisters ignoring him and advisors not turning up at all are not exactly calming the angry dwarf.

Before the dragon had attacked Erebor Thorin had not been king. Already back then had he been known as testy, but he had not had to deal with the rather annoying and frustrating matters that ruling a kingdom brings upon its monarch and he had never had much reason to rampage. During the time of his exile there had been no time and place for throwing tantrums, so then nobody had known either. But after many years of waiting and dreaming they had finally marched to reclaim their mountain and Thorin had ascended his throne, completely underestimating how much of a bother those huge, impressive halls would be.

Do not get me wrong, he is a good king, even a great one. But that does not protect his subjects from his wraths, the number of which being inversely proportional to the amount of sleep he gets. Which is usually not much. Well, not that most of the ordinary dwarves Erebor ever see him lose his control. He takes very good care of that - which basicall means that those close to him have to deal with his bad moods and most of them tend to run whenever that angry vein at Thorin's neck starts to swell yet again.

Even Balin, who has known the King for all his life, usually makes himself scarce when Thorin makes any signs of yelling (or rather roaring and ranting and occasionally throwing furniture against the walls). And if he does not dare to stay, how could anyone ask that from the other counsellors?

However, there is one dwarf who never runs. There is one dwarf who does not leave his king's side no matter how foul Thorin's mood is. There is one dwarf who dares to stay and draw the King's angry attention. There is one dwarf who knows exactly what to say in each and every situation and who has the highly valued ability to calm Thorin down.
Dwalin has seen too many cruel things in his life to let a little (or rather huge) wrath upset him, and – moreover – he has seen most of those things together with Thorin. Nothing but death could separate those two (and even the Grim Reaper himself would have a hard time, considering both warriors' fierceness and their unbroken will to fight). They are more than brothers in arms – they are brothers in everything but blood (and even the blood flowing through their veins is related, if not as closely as Fili and Kili's). They are best friends, and as well as threatening one of them also means threatening the other (usually a very bad idea, no matter who is the one insulted) angering one means angering the other. Which makes all of Dwalin's abilities to calm Thorin down futile.

While there are (very) few cases when the King's wraths are not really anybody's fault the reason for yet another tantrum thrown in the throne room mostly is a dwarf from Erebor or an elf or some other dwarf or an elf or a stupid man or and elf or a meddling wizard or, only very rarely, an elf. And while Dwalin would be able to soothe Thorin's nerves he usually takes delight in riling him up even more.

And even if it may be Fili who is sitting on Thorin's right side, his mother besides him, and Kili on his left, next to Balin, no distance across the huge table would be long enough to hide an amused sparkling of dark eyes in otherwise serious faces.
And maybe the occasional prank making the lives of the two princes harder may have been pulled by the King and his best and most loyal friend. Unbelievable as it sounds, nobody manages to look more innocently than the fierce dwarf who has lived through more hardship than peace. Which is probably the reason why nobody ever really understands (or why all those who have an idea about what has happened refuse to believe it) why Thranduil always ends up being on the receiving end of some kind of mischief whenever he visits. Because although Fili and Kili may be skilled pranksters, they do not have the expertise to overcome the elven King's senses. However, an aging king and his elderly warrior friend do.

And while Dwalin might 'only' be the head of Erebor's guards and troops, not something as fancy as his brother, who can call himself chief advisor of the royal council nowadays, he does not care.
Because, what do all those titles matter? In the ends they are nothing more or less than Thorin and Dwalin. Best friends beyond all boundaries.