The sun continued to rise and set as it was directed, and time sped on in waves and stills, just as it always had. The water supply grew slim once again, but the dwarves carried on, never wasteful of those precious resources they possessed. Dis' pregnancy was an easy one, much to the relief of Thorin and Fildur, who watched over her every step, searching for ways to better care for her or make her life easier, and worrying for her every sigh or pricked finger. Evie envied her husband-sister, but tried her best to secret that ugly, torrid piece of herself as deeply as she could within her blistered heart. It was unfair to Dis, to Fildur, even to Thorin… And, most of all, to this new child who would soon be admitted to their family. The queen did her best to act like one, and to prepare for the little dwarf with excitement rather than envy, that dark harbinger of evil things.
The easiest way to forget her own self-pity, she found, was to occupy herself with the troubles of her people. She surveyed the different residences of the mountain range, speaking with each family individually and settling petty grievances and large claims alike. She gave the king's sympathy to those who needed it, and the king's justice to those who demanded it. The queen kept herself busy with the lives of Durin's Folk, doing her best to be good to her people. It was not always easy, but when she returned to the main fortress of the sprawling range and rested her head on her soft pillow in the evening, she felt her title. Robes and riches did not make a ruler, but rather caring and thoughtfulness, bravery and intellect. She would not dare to say she possessed all those things, but she strived to display them, and that seemed to be enough. It allowed her to rest soundly; at least, knowing that despite her own shortcomings, she was doing all she could for a people who deserved far more than she could ever give.
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Evie woke suddenly, as if someone had roused her. The room was empty, however, and all seemed to be in order. She sat up, rubbing her eyes and listening more closely – there was something there, some sound… It was a low pattering noise, like pebbles crumbling down the mountainside. Then there was shouting, muffled by the walls of her chamber but unmistakable… Something was awry.
Fearfully, the hobbit tumbled out of bed and changed into the first dress she found when she opened her closet. Her fingers slipped on the ties in her haste, but after a few agonizing minutes she had the garment on and was tugging a robe over her shoulders as she raced out into the hallway. Everyone seemed to be going down to the lower levels, but rather than follow them, Evie thought to go out on the balcony to try to get a look at the side of the mountain. The ominous sound she had heard before continued on, and she wished to know what it was before she plunged herself into the sea of people collecting downstairs.
Evie shuddered as her hand found the door handle to the balcony, the very same on which she and Thorin had avowed their true feelings for one another that perfect evening so long ago. Now she was frightened of what might be waiting on the other side. Were they under attack? There was no possible way, here, on the edges of Eriador – what greeted her as she swung the heavy door open and stepped outside was far beyond anything her sleep drunk mind could have imagined.
The hobbit let out an unstifled cry of relief and joy as she stumbled forward, her hands instinctively rising up at her sides to catch the heavy raindrops as they raced down into her palms from the grey, cloudy sky. Evie closed her eyes, feeling the rain on her face for the first time in so many long, trying months. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the fresh, clean air that accompanies the start of rain. She felt new again, free – as if her many troubles and the burdens of her people had fallen away and all that remained was the rain, the perfect, blameless, blessed rain as it streamed down onto their barren lands and gave them life again.
She went to the edge of the balcony, leaning forward on the railing to look out at Ered Luin as a raven might, surveying the land and thanking Durin and Mahal and all those they might look to for this great gift, which seemed to extend as far as they eye could see. It was raining fiercely, a torrent which had been bottled up in the clouds for far too long. It fell in great, gorgeous sheets all across the land, bouncing off rocks and flowing into the natural valleys of the territory. But more beautiful, perhaps, than the rainfall was the response of the dwarves.
The sight before her took the queen's breath away. Dwarves were pouring out of the front gate of Ered Luin like their own force of nature, removing themselves from the dry rock and extending their own arms into the sky as they collected raindrops on their fingers. They cascaded down the steps of the settlement, rushing into the plains which extended before their fortress and collecting together there in the mud which had only an hour before been dirt cracked and dry beyond any hope of renewal.
The dwarves danced together, they grabbed one another and shouted or pulled their fellows into tearful embraces. Their cries of happiness carried up to her from below as more and more joined them until the assembly appeared as one immense, living ocean of deep blues and greens and maroons. Evie heard laughter, a sound which had almost become foreign to her ears, and lively song, always a comfort to listen to. Dwarves were singing and dancing and holding one another as the rain fell down, steady and true, just as they had been in the face of such hardship. Some held up cups to collect the falling current, taking great sips of their new prize as if it were the waters of the fountain of youth which tumbled out of the sky. Evie's hair was soaked and she trembled under her robe, yet she could not remember the last time she had been so happy.
The queen nearly jumped when she felt a hand on her back, but when she turned and saw it was Thorin she felt hot tears springing to her eyes, mingling with the rain which slipped down her cheeks in muddled streams of gratitude. Thorin let out a breath, the air before him clouding from the chill of the storm. His hands went immediately to Evie's cheeks, feeling the rain and the tears alike and cherishing them for the precious gifts they were. The dwarf kissed her, kissed the raindrops off her lips and savored the softness of her mouth as he held her close. Rain clung to her eyelashes, but she blinked it away as she looked up into Thorin's sapphire eyes, feeling weak under their tender examination. She took in a shaky, difficult breath, just one heartbeat away from a sob, and closed her eyes as the king pulled her into his arms, his fingers stroking her wet, matted hair as her face pressed into the warm plain of his neck.
"It's raining…"
She whispered, and Thorin smiled. He kissed the crown of his wife's golden head, his long nose depositing even more water there, which trickled down the side of her face, making her shiver.
"It's finally raining."
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Dis and Fildur soon joined them on the balcony, once Thorin had sent for them. Dis had been sleeping in quite late the last week or so, and Fildur often stayed with her to tend to her needs. He helped her through the door now, escorting his wife to the edge of the balcony where Thorin and Evie were still wrapped up in each other's arms.
"Oh!"
Dis cried out, and the hobbit turned to greet her but the words got trapped in her throat when she saw her husband-sister's expression. Dis' pretty brow was knotted together, one arm tight around her swollen belly and the other gripping Fildur's shoulder in a way which indicated that he was the only reason she was still standing.
"Ev-ie!" She called to her friend, though the name was punctuated by a broken gasp. The queen was immediately at her side, helping Fildur hold her up and pressing a gentle hand to the princess' stomach.
"Is it…?"
She asked quietly, and Dis nodded, raindrops sliding down her flushed cheeks and dripping from her dark, braided hair.
"We have to get her inside, to the closest bed…"
The healer announced, making the mistake of glancing back at Thorin before guiding Dis toward the hallway. The panicked look in his blue eyes nearly crippled her, although it also made her feel very strong. Her dwarf lord might be frightened, despite all his power and willfulness, but she could not be. She had a duty to perform, and if all went well Dis would be holding a child in her arms by the end of the day.
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A few minutes later Dis was lying on Thorin and Evie's bed, her dark hair glistening as it soaked the pillows and her hands trembling as she clutched her enormous belly. Evie smoothed the dwarf's hair from her face, her other hand enclosed within Dis' as the princess seized her fingers with the next rolling wave of pain. Fildur and Thorin were out in the hallway; it was not customary for male dwarves to be present at a birth, and so Evie was left alone with Dis in her great moment. She had bid the others to call for Rîni, who had been midwife to many a frightened mother in her time and had been seeing after Dis throughout her pregnancy. The blonde gave the future mother a drought for the pain, but otherwise waited for Rîni to come and do her work. The raven haired midwife arrived promptly, although soaking wet like the rest of them. A smile hid at the corner of her lips as she entered, carrying a satchel of her equipment and setting it down on a small table in the corner of the room. She was a rather plump dwarf, with a bushier beard than most, yet if anything her homeliness made her even more appealing as a midwife, for she seemed kindly and unthreatening to new mothers in their greatest moments of weakness and discomfort.
"This is a very good sign, my ladies." Rîni announced, waddling over to the bed. "To have the child come today, the very morning of the rain…"
The healer nodded, her eyes set as she calmly regarded her friend, who was trying her best to look strong even while her pretty blue eyes glazed over in pain. Evie squeezed her hand, the other gesturing to the window carved into the stone wall at their side.
"Look, Dis… Look at the rain. It's falling for you. For you and your new little one. He or she will be here soon, and there will be celebrations like we have not seen in a long time…"
The dwarf moaned in response, nodding her head to show she had heard.
"Just try to relax and look at the rain…"
Dis took a deep breath, lying back on the bed and preparing for what was to come. It was rare that female dwarves went into battle, proper, although many knew how to wield a blade just as surely as any male. This was the war they waged, fighting for life against death itself as they struggled to keep breathing and overcome the intense pain they were forced to endure. There were no weapons in this conflict, only inner strength and physical fortitude. It was easy to die in childbirth – only one small thing needed to go wrong for a female's body to betray her, casting her into a darkness she may never rise from. And, worse, perhaps condemning her newborn as well. Sometimes children were never born at all, but were lost before they could take their first breath. Life was full of complications and fearsome contests, but no single conflict put more at risk than a mother giving birth to her child.
There were not many female dwarves, and of those there were, not all were married or ready to give birth. Dwarven children were rare, therefore, and it was always a great moment for the entire people when a new baby was born. Today, not only would a new child be brought into the world, but quite possibly the dwarves of Ered Luin would welcome Durin's heir, the next in line to the throne of Ered Luin, and of Erebor, after Thorin. Evie hoped they would, she truly did, for it would ensure that Thorin would have an heir and free the hobbit from any guilt over being unable to produce such a leader herself. Shameful jealousy notwithstanding, Evie wanted nothing but the best for her husband-sister and her friend, and she could only hope that there would be even more to be thankful for this evening than the rain.
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Rîni passed them by and slipped into the room with only a nod toward two waiting dwarves to acknowledge their presence. She knew her duty, and would perform it without any fuss over titles or courtesies. Thorin respected her for that, although he wouldn't have minded a word of encouragement from the portly midwife. For Fildur, of course, rather than himself. The tailor had watched her go by with eyes bigger than the king had ever seen them. The blonde dwarf tried to peek in after the disappearing form of the dark haired female but could only glimpse a sliver of the room before the door was shut.
The soon to be father took a gulp of air as if he had been punched in the face and was trying to recover, and though Thorin wanted to comfort his sister-husband there was little he could do to ease the other dwarf's suffering. It was Dis who had to experience the true pain of giving birth, and yet her husband and her brother had to suffer another form no less excruciating to the mind – they had to wait, separated from their beloved Dis, and hope against everything that she would deliver a healthy child and survive the experience. Fildur placed a hand against the closed door, his eyes shut. His adam's apple quivered as he swallowed, and his next breath came out ragged. They could hear the rain pounding on the side of the mountain, furiously pelting the hard stone as though it wanted to be admitted. Occasionally snatches of laughter would carry up the stairs to where the two dwarves waited, setting them ill at ease despite the mirth of the rest of the mountain. The dwarves of Ered Luin had already begun celebrating the falling rain, having previously set up the infrastructure to collect as much as possible and store it for drinking so that they would never experience another drought such as this again.
Amid the constant battering of the rain outside and the intermittent shouts of merriment echoing up from below in the main hallways, the two dwarves could sometimes catch the muffled noise of Dis crying out, though it sounded as if they had quieted her with a cloth. No doubt the pregnant dwarf did not want them to think her weak, or to have others know of her struggle. Fildur whimpered when he heard a particularly agonizing scream from within, slipping down the door a few inches as his knees threatened to give way beneath him. Thorin went to his sister-husband's side, offering his arm and pulling the other dwarf away from the door. It would be better the less they knew – that was why it was traditional the male would wait outside while his wife gave birth. She had to fight her own battle, and should something happen it was better he should not be there to see it. It was an old custom, and Thorin did not agree with it, yet it was how things were done. To separate husband and wife at such a great moment seemed cruel to them both, but perhaps it was indeed easier for a female to have only a midwife and perhaps a friend by her side during the trial.
Thorin placed a hand on Fildur's shoulder, his face bent near the other dwarf's in a moment of intimate understanding. They had never been close; Thorin respected the love Dis and Fildur shared and could rarely deny his sister anything, much less her choice of a husband, but they did not often hold conversation outside the shallow talk of the dinner table or the easy friendship made over mead and meat. Their only connection until now had been Dis, and through Thorin had a mild fondness for the tailor who took such good care of his sister and never failed at making her smile, he was not included in many of the affairs of Ered Luin nor did he participate in Thorin's councils. Fildur had accepted his place in their society, at Dis' side but not as a ruler. While the king appreciated this, he also wondered at the other dwarf's humility, his lack of ambition… It was now, as his petrified brown eyes met Thorin's, that Oakenshield realized why Fildur had never wanted power or position, wealth or renown… All he wanted was Dis. Dis, who was currently going through the greatest test of her life on the other side of a few harsh inches of wood and stone.
"She… She will make it through. You know how strong she is."
Thorin offered, even though his voice wavered as he said the words. It was unusual to hear his deep, gruff tone laced with such fear and uncertainty. It was unlike him. But just as surely as Dis was Fildur's beloved wife, she was also Thorin's little sister. She had survived the fall of Erebor and the desolation of the dragon Smaug. She had wandered with him for years, her chin held high as she followed Thorin through territories unfamiliar to them both. When he was almost reduced to begging in order to ensure their supper, she never judged him nor did she stop trying to find other ways for them to stave off their poverty. She had been by his side longer than anyone else, save Dwalin and Balin, his two oldest friends, and he would never forget the noble way she had borne all their hardship. Dis had never lost her kindness nor her spirit, through it all, and if he lost her now…
Thorin had only been outside a birthing chamber once before. He had been fourteen years of age, still a very young child in the eyes of the dwarves, and his brother Frerin only nine. They had collected beneath the fur lined robe of their father Thrain in a drawing room just beyond their parents' bedroom. A fire had been lit inside to keep Daia warm as she brought her third child into the world, yet where the others waited the hearth was barren and full of ash. Thorin remembered holding Frerin's hand as they waited, underfoot of their father who paced back and forth, his giant boots scuffing along the polished green stone. He had been through this twice already, and felt safe knowing Daia would deliver him another healthy baby, perhaps even a third son. And yet Thrain had never been one to wait; like his father he was impatient and found it trying to be kept in an antechamber away from the action while his wife toiled in the next room.
For Thorin the memory was hazy, it was so long ago. Over a hundred years had passed since that day, and yet there were small snatches of the experience which would never leave him. He recalled the quiet – the stirring, frightening silence. He had found his mother's screams to be agonizing, before, and he remembered Frerin crying from the sound of Daia's voice in so much pain. But Thorin was the eldest, he had to be strong, and Thrain had little sympathy for his startled sons as he was so wrapped up in his own preoccupations with the coming of his new child. It was when the screaming had stopped, when all was quiet and yet the door remained shut to them, that true fear took hold of the young dwarves. Thorin could not erase the memory of Frerin's wide, watery brown eyes as he looked to his brother for an explanation, though Thorin could not possibly know what had happened any more than their father could. Then there was another sound – the wailing of a newborn. Thrain had sighed, and once he seemed to relax, his heirs could as well. All would be fine, it seemed. Soon they would be let in, and they could meet their new sibling and hug their mother and everything could go back to the way it was before, but with a new addition to their ever growing family.
And yet that was not what had happened. At fourteen, Thorin received his first instruction in life as a commodity – sometimes one life had to be exchanged for another. For one to live, another had to die. Sacrifice had been embedded in his soul from the moment he had followed his father into the birthing chamber. Thrain had instantly grabbed Frerin and held him close, turning his face away from the bed and the gory scene set out before them, but he was not quick enough to catch Thorin. The young dwarf tripped forward to the side of the bed, sneaking past the midwife. He had never seen so much blood before, it was everywhere… His mother was covered in it from the waist down, and her eyes were shut. At the time it was as if everything happened in slow motion, although in memory it unfolded so very quickly. Thorin had grabbed onto his mother's hand, trying to rouse her, but had been pulled away almost instantly and brought back to the other room, away from the roaring fire and the blood and the screaming baby and back to the cool, dark antechamber beyond. Frerin had been pushed through behind him, while their father remained in the other room. They were suddenly alone, in that shadowed, empty room, and it was then that the dwarf prince realized, his heart stone in his chest, that his mother was dead.
Dis had come into the world at the great cost of their mother, and Thorin could only beg Mahal, the Maker who had abandoned them to Middle Earth so long ago, that she would survive this peril and Thorin would not be subject to a retelling of that dark night a century ago, but with Fildur by his side instead of Frerin. And so, as heartbreaking as it was to listen to his sister in pain, he took comfort in the sounds of her struggle, knowing that each cry meant she was still alive.
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Sweat beaded on Dis' forehead and slipped down her pink cheeks where rain had been hours before. She gasped for each breath, trying to stifle her moans as she bit down, hard, on the small, smooth stick Rîni had given her. Evie mopped her brow, her left hand still at the mercy of Dis' iron grip. It was almost over, this was surely the final challenge – just as the healer had the thought, Rîni called out to her, ushering her over. The hobbit leaned down and placed a tender kiss on Dis' slick forehead, removing her hand from her friend's and shaking the tension from it as she circled over to where the midwife was pulling a small, messy bundle from the edge of the bed. The baby cried out with strong, robust little lungs, and tears spilled down Dis' cheeks as her body relaxed. Her great trial had ended.
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Fildur and Thorin nearly knocked Rîni over as they came into the room, racing to Dis' side. The dwarf was holding a small, wailing baby in her arms, her face flushed, her hair sticking to her forehead and her eyes full of happy, exhausted tears. She proudly announced that the child was male, and Evie's throat tightened as she watched Thorin's reaction, the way his breath caught and his eyes filled with an immediate, unconditional adoration.
Fildur knelt beside the bed, too overcome to stand. He leaned forward to kiss his wife, and Evie felt she should turn away for how passionate a kiss it was. It didn't seem right to bear witness to such an intimate moment between husband and wife, and yet she could not take her eyes off the couple. Fildur took the baby into his arms, placing his lips to the child's soft, pink forehead and grinning as he looked down at his son for the first time. Thorin stood beside his sister-husband, and Evie had never seen his expression fold into the meek, astounded stare he wore now. He turned to Fildur, who let him place a tender hand upon the child's head.
"Durin's heir."
He whispered, looking back at Dis. She smiled as their eyes met, and a silent understanding passed between them, a love which extended all the way back to that momentous day a hundred years before when she had taken her first breaths and their mother had taken her last. Dis was one of the greatest gems of Erebor, and the dwarves were no strangers to making terrible sacrifices to protect what was most important to them. Yet today, they had been spared in more ways than one. Thorin sighed, nodding affectionately to his sister.
"And his name?"
He asked, softly. Dis smiled, taking the baby back from her husband and looking down at her newborn son.
"Fili, son of Fildur."
The new mother told them as Fili's tiny hand wrapped around one of her fingers.
"The Rainbringer."
Rîni added the appellation, and as the rain continued to fall outside, dotting the window with white gems of water, the new title was incontestable.
The baby fell asleep quietly in his mother's arms, not knowing the responsibility he would learn to bear as Fili the Rainbringer, son of Fildur, heir to the line of Durin, inheriting the right to reclaim the title King Under the Mountain for himself and his people and securing the future of the settlements of Ered Luin. He turned his face into his mother's warm embrace, unburdened by titles or responsibilities for at least a little while longer.
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Author's Note: Thank you once again for reading – I hope you enjoyed this chapter! It is one of my favorites, I think, and quite momentous as it brings Fili into the world and marks the 50th chapter of this story! Thank you for continuing this journey with me!
