A/N: This is just a sad story at the beginning of more sadness for the entire Durin line.

For Dwarven ages the formula I go by is divide by 3 so 30 Dwarf years=10 human years, this means that Dáin is just over 10, Dwalin is around 8/9 and Thorin is about 16.

"You will be Lord of the Iron Hills." The words had been ringing in Dáin's ears for the better part of an hour yet he had still not moved from the cold rock at the edge of the battlefield that he had collapsed onto when they told him.

"What should we do?" How was he to know? A Dwarfling of 32, now a veteran of Azanulbizar, one of the few survivors, and he did not have it worse. His cousin, his strong cousin, had lost more than him, his father, his grandfather, his brother and yet Dáin could see him, through the sting of the tears racing unchecked down his cheeks, working tirelessly across the battlefield.

"You should move Zabad," and yet, he couldn't, could not force himself to rise on crude crutches and his one leg left and help. Could not consider moving from the spot where his life had fallen apart, his heart had broken and the remains of his once noble and whole family had been decimated upon the battlefield.

Every Dwarf who approached the new Lord of the Iron Hills was turned away with nary a word from the young, once energetic and unstoppable Dwarrow. The noisy chatterbox of the Line of Durin, him and Frerin, the rays of sunshine in an otherwise dark family, and both were gone. One to where none could follow and the other a shell of the Dwarf he had been. The laughter already dried up and any smiles a fleeting memory, the young Dwarf, too young, always too young, was a shade of before, as closed off as the new melhekhith.

Everyone had turned to watch as one of the youngest Dwarves on the battlefield, one of the ones who should not have been there had it not been for the King's orders, newly an amputee and veteran of one of the largest battles in decades, collapsed in the new King's, his elder cousin's, arms, his eyes wide and his already heavy breaths from his grievous injury turning panicked and reedy.

"Your father is gone." The words had been echoing around his head for the last hour, empty of everything else, the pain surged in waves over his body, ebbing and flowing like the tide, leaving his extremities numb and his heart throbbing with each beat.

Why was he alive? Why did he deserve to live when his father, the dependable Náin III, son of Grór, Lord of the Iron Hills, was no more? When he would never feel the warm throb of love at his father resting their foreheads together. When his father, the same father who gave him advice for his takeover in decades with a smile in his voice and a smirk twitching at the corners of his mouth, would never again see his home. The strong dependable Iron Hills, the second stronghold of the Durin line, the red earth and ringing halls, the Dwarves that Náin had known from nadan. All had come to fight for their King and their Lord, and most would never leave the accursed plains.

There were too many dead and it had been agreed, whilst Dáin stared into space and tried to ignore the ever-renewing throbs of pain from both his missing right foot and the knowledge that his father, half of his family, was dead, that they could not waste the effort and Dwarf-power it would take to transport the dead back to their halls, so they could not even honour their dead with the correct rites.

He had lost his father in the chaos of the battle, had gotten separated, and then Dáin had lost his foot and been rushed off the battlefield with his guard and Bálli, his closest friend, by his side as he left the turmoil of the battle. Now all Dáin could feel, besides the never-ending agony racing through his veins, was self-loathing, he knew it was illogical but he couldn't help the thoughts swirling through his mind revolving around the possibility that maybe, if he had been there, he wouldn't have lost his father to the slathering orcs that had had double the number the Dwarves had. Maybe if he had been beside his father's side he wouldn't now have the responsibility of being Lord of the Iron Hills, maybe he wouldn't be sitting here by himself with the ache of losing his father shooting like arrows through his veins.

He still hadn't seen his 'amad, but knowing Daeris Greyswords she was most likely still on the battlefield helping clear up, assisting the Dwarves who were well enough to clear everything away.

Dáin clenched his hands into fists in his lap and bowed his head over his clasped hands, tears running in thick streams over his handsome Durin nose and soaking into the fluff of his growing beard as he tried to control the heaving sobs threatening to explode out of him. He had to be strong now, had to follow his older cousin's example and hide his feelings behind a mask. Any vulnerability that he showed would be prayed on immediately by opportunistic Dwarves who would want to take the Iron Hills from the line of Durin.

He sensed the person approaching him before they even said anything but he didn't look up from his foot; he had managed to stem the steady flow of tears down his face but he knew that there were still tear stains making tracks in the grime and blood that covered his face. He raised his head slowly from his contemplation of the space left where his right foot had once been and locked eyes with Thorin, their new King, now called Oakenshield – thanks to his great deeds after his grandfather's death.

Dáin flinched back from his cousin; he had been expecting to see his mother standing in front of him, a stern look on her face, but compassion shining in her eyes like pale blue crystals, the stark difference between Daeris Greyswords and Thorin Oakenshield was even more evident when he got one when he was expecting the other.

His blinked his reddened eyes at his cousin, trying to deny the thoughts swirling through his head. His mother was ALIVE dammit! He shook his head in denial at Thorin when he opened his mouth to speak, his eyes wide and his already heavy breathing becoming shallow and panicked. He couldn't believe it, his 'amad, one of the best sword masters in decades, she couldn't be gone, Dáin couldn't be left alone to deal with his slowly deteriorating grandfather and the Iron Hills to rule.

Both Grór and Náin had thought they had years to teach Dáin the art of ruling but it was all gone with the swing of an orc's sword and the debilitating last ten years of a Dwarf's life. Grór was not long for this world, and then Dáin would be alone, no one to help him or guide him – he had begged his father to let him come along; Dwalin, his younger cousin by three years was fighting so why couldn't Dáin, he had to prove himself fit to fight alongside his people and his cousins, Thorin, Frerin, Balin and Dwalin.

Dáin had never thought he would regret fighting with his people, would never have thought that he would wish for the noble deaths of the Dwarves who had given their lives for their King to be taken back. It was a great honour to die in battle, but Dáin wished that it had not been necessary. He found himself hating the need to be able to fight, hating the propensity of Dwarves to dedicate their lives to protecting others; why was one person more important than another? What made his life more important than that of his father's? Why did Náin have to sacrifice himself so that Dáin could live?

Thorin approached his younger cousin cautiously, his eyes sad and resigned and suddenly Dáin remembered that out of everyone here Thorin would understand the best; Thráin, Thrór and Frerin had all been lost in the futile battle and Dáin's eyes filled with tears again, so many of their family had given everything of themselves for a pointless battle and now he and Thorin, both decades from their majority, at 32 and 53 respectively, were expected to clean up the mess made by a King gone mad from gold and incapacitating dragon sickness. A madness that was ingrained in the Durin line like a never-ending seam of stubborn iron, Thorin I and Náin II, Thrór's great-grandfather and grandfather respectively, had both lost themselves to the obsession with gold too.

Dáin pulled himself to his lone foot with his make-shift crutches as Thorin drew closer and he saw his older cousin flinch slightly at the reminder that not every Dwarf that had lived had made it out of the gruesome battle unscathed. Dáin wavered slightly with the unsteady crutches and lack of a right foot before steadying himself, refusing the hand that Thorin offered him, and staring balefully up at Thorin; he didn't want to show any weakness to any Dwarf that may be watching the two new, incredibly young, leaders of the Dwarves.

Thorin clasped a hand on Dáin's left shoulder and Dáin could feel the slight trembling running through his cousin body and see the naked fear and pain hidden behind a weak mask of stoicness.

He then moved behind Dáin to the rock he had just risen from and settled onto it with a barely audible shivering sigh that tugged at Dáin's heart. Thorin had lost more than Dáin and yet he seemed to everyone but his closest family left as though he was strong and ready to take over as King. Dáin turned slowly on his left foot and limped incredibly clumsily back to the rock and heaved himself down next to Thorin.

The two sat there in silence for a few minutes, but Dáin was young and he couldn't control his agitated fidgeting as Thorin said nothing beside him, the terrified thoughts swirling around in Dáin's head grew and grew to something tangible until he couldn't breathe through the horror.

"Thorin…" his name was choked through Dáin's numbing lips and Thorin spun to stare in terror at his tiny veteran of a cousin, Dáin's small fists were clenched around his father's broken axe in his lap and tears were brimming in his petrified eyes, "Thorin, please, she…"

Thorin's throat closed around a dismayed moan, his eyes widening and his nostrils flaring as he tried to stifle the sobs wanting to explode from his chest, so much of their family gone, and he had yet to inform Dáin of Daerís' passing trying to defend Thrór from the very Orc that Dáin had slain in front of the gates just before he had lost his right foot to the unnameable horror behind the doors.

Dáin's eyes were large in his face and his lower lip trembled as he tried to hold back the anguish at Thorin's lack of response, "Cousin! My 'Amad? She, she is…" Dáin sucked in a sharp, trembling breath, "she's coming right? She's… it's not just me?"

Thorin closed his eyes with a resigned sigh, finally looked Dáin straight in the eyes and swallowed down the reassurances that wanted to bubble from his lips.

"She… Dáin, she…"

"Thorin, no!" Dáin struggled to his foot, clumsily fumbling the crutches until he was balanced enough to not fall over, and stared down at Thorin his face the picture of pain, "Thorin… she can't be! I… I can't. Not my 'amad as well, I can't lose her too Thorin!"

Thorin surged to his feet, his hands grasping his cousin's tiny ones in his own and bringing him closer carefully until their foreheads rested together, "Dáin, I'm so sorry. They found her earlier, she…" Thorin choked back the thick tears coating his throat and forced himself to carry on, for his broken cousin's sake, "She fell defending Thrór…"

Thorin watched in dismay as any trace of hope left in Dáin's face crumpled away and left only agony painted in the new scars on his face. The scream of anguish that left Dáin echoed over the suddenly silent battlefield as Dáin lost control of his left foot and the crude crutches and collapsed into a heap on the ground, Thorin's arms wrapped securely around him whilst broken, heavy sobs pulled themselves from the deepest pits of Dáin's despair.

The young Dwarf still hadn't rested since the end of the battle; the healers had put a crude bandage over the gruesome wound and stemmed the flow of blood straight after the battle but he had escaped them earlier, needing to get away from the questions and demands he had half-limped on his uneven crutches out of the healing tents and to the edge of a battlefield empty of everything but dead and dying Dwarves.

The cold reality of his parent's death rushed over him and his hands clenched in tighter fists around Thorin's steadying arms, his burning eyes were squeezed shut and hot tears rushed down over his cheeks soaking into his wisps of bright red beard, inherited from his mother, and drenching his under-tunic. The regret rushing through his veins was numbing and he tried to control the fine tremors running over his body. The horrified whimpers bursting out of him were getting harder and harder to control and Dáin just wanted to stand up and scream his pain to Mahal, scream for his lashshar to come back, scream that it is not fair that they have been taken from him! Why him?! Why his parents?!

Thorin's arms tightened around his smaller cousin and his own tears stung his eyes as he tried to rationalise forcing Dáin up and off the battlefield to himself. He placed his hands on either side of his cousin's little face and tilted it up to his until their sweat and grime covered foreheads were pressed together. Dáin drew in a shuddering breath, trying to stem the hysterical sobs building again in the back of his throat and Thorin pushed his forehead harder against Dáin's and tilted his head slightly so that their eyes locked in the short distance between them, Dáin's eyes were still swimming with tears and his nose and face were red and blotchy, any trace of the smile he constantly wore before the battle was absent from the hard line of his mouth.

Dáin opened his mouth a few times, but no sound came out and his eyes were wild and scared as he stared at Thorin, he didn't know what to do and the terror that came with that was plain to see in his eyes.

Thorin rose to his feet slowly, holding his injured cousin's hands and pulling him up with him. Dáin offered a token protest to his iraknadad before following him in reluctant quiet to the healer's tents. Deep aching misery was still painted in the new lines of Dáin's face and Thorin finds watching him limping slowly alongside him, his hands still trembling with distress, very painful.

They make it back to the healer's tents slowly, having to endure well-meaning commiserations from nosy Dwarves wishing to see their new King and new Lord on the way. Thorin can feel the tremors continuing to run over Dáin's body, the pain from his injury is starting to overrun everything and Dáin has started to mumble under his breath, misery still tainting his voice.

Thorin could feel the nekhush rolling off Dáin in waves as he lay the now delirious Dwarf down on a pallet in the tent he had abandoned earlier to limp to the edge of the battlefield. Groin, the father of Óin and Glóin and one of Thorin and Dáin's cousins, was bustling around the tent herbs in one hand to knock Dáin out and cloth in the other.

He suddenly recalled, like a lightning bolt of horror racing through him, that Fundin, Groin's beloved elder brother and father of Balin and Dwalin, had fallen outside the gates alongside Dáin's father Náin, trying vainly to fight back the advancing orcs and giving his life for the King that had led them for nigh on 200 years. Once he'd noticed he couldn't un-see the red-circles around Groin's eyes or the un-notice the resigned way in which he did everything. Fundin and Groin had been as close as brothers could get and watching Dáin's torment at his parent's loss and Groin's little-lost boy look at the knowledge that his elder brother is gone just reminds Thorin of his own losses and he wants to shout them to the sky and demand Mahal give them back!

Why do the Durin's deserve to have so much loss, over and over, why! When they have tried their best to keep a scattered and failing people together and stop each other from falling apart with the losses of Hrera and Frís. How is Thorin meant to go on now?! With his grandfather and his father gone?! And his baby brother, bright shining Frerin, and Thorin is meant to rule the broken Dwarves that have been left?

He knows he will; knows he must because there is no one else, he is the one who must be there to pick up the broken pieces of his remaining family and glue them all back together despite the huge cracks that will be forever running through the remains of a ruined house. One that has been broken for over 200 years, ever since the cold-drake that attacked the Grey Mountains and decimated their family the first time. The horrifyingly sad irony was not lost on Thorin as he watched Groin tend to his tiny, injured cousin.

When Dáin is all patched up and tossing and turning in a feverish sleep, when Groin has announced, holding the shivering shape of his eldest son to his side, that Dáin will be fine with rest, Thorin leaves the tent in search of Balin and Dwalin, who he knows will have just found out about the loss of Fundin and Dweris at the gates.

He finds them standing together heads bowed, thick forearms clasped and foreheads pressed tight against one another. Dwalin is heaving sobs into his older brother's arms who himself has copious, blinding tears rolling down his cheeks and into the wisps of his growing beard. A handsome beard Fundin had described it as, already thicker than Thorin was or Frerin's had been, and salty tears gather in Thorin's eyes at the thought. He stares across the decimated battlefield blinking the heavy tears from his eyes and thinking about the marâd.

A/N: For now this is complete but I do have ideas for carrying on into the Azanulbizar aftermath - and how Dain copes with being just 32 and having to run the Iron Hills.

the OC characters are taken from Sansukh by Determamfidd - because let's be real that fic is practically canon for me!

Khuzdul (courtesy of the Dwarrow Scholar and Dets):
Zabad – Lord
'Amad – mother
'Adad – father
Lashshar – parents
Iraknadad – cousin
Nekhush - sorrow
Marâd – dead (more than one person)