Nori feels more herself the following morning, although her side still pulls and stings. The healing elves let her out of bed with only minimal arguing, something that most dwarf healers would not bother with. Dwarf healers know that it is better to let their patients see the consequences of their own actions, which the patient will have been warned about, than argue with the natural stone-headedness of their people. It only takes ripping their stitches once, or collapsing as a broken leg gives out, for most dwarves to do as they are told. A minor miracle as far as many are concerned. Nori knows her limits, this is not the first time that she has been injured in such a way and the scar that will form as this current wound heals will cut through the scar she had been left with after Ordan had legged it from the job which had made her promise never to work with him again. She knows how far she can push herself and for how long, which is long enough for her to find some fresh air and get a quick wash. The elves had cleaned her up as much as possible, but it is always nice to be clean and her people are particular about their hygiene when given the option.

Kíli is waiting for her when she limps back into her room, her hand pressed to her side where the pain of moving around for a little longer than she should have is tearing through her. She still manages to smile at him, however, as she carefully climbs up into the bed using a handy stepping stool which the elves seem to have left there to make it easier for her. She uses getting herself settled as an excuse to look the lad over. He has not been sleeping, that much is clear from the dark smudges under his eyes, and he is avoiding her gaze in the way that he tends to when he suspects he is in trouble.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" She asks, not willing to tell him that she is a little disappointed that Dwalin is not the first one she has seen this morning. The previous day feels almost like a dream.

"I'm sorry," Kíli blurts.

"For what?" Nori frowns. "This wasn't your fault, lad," she adds as she gestures to the bulky dressing under the too long elf shirt she has been given to wear.

"For not leaving with Fíli and Hela like you ordered," the lad replies.

Nori takes a breath, mostly to stop herself from laughing but there is a small part of her that wants to start shouting as well.

"I assume you had your reasons?" She asks. "Reasons that had nothing to do with me and Dwalin."

"We only had two ponies, the third went down," Kíli explains, "I didn't think that the three of us could escape on two and I know that Fíli is more important than I am…"

"You are not less important than your brother," Nori interrupts with a hiss. "And I never want to hear you utter such orc shit again."

"He's the heir," Kíli points out, "and I think Ma always intended that I become his shield like Dwalin is Thorin's."

"Dwalin is Thorin's shield by choice," the thief shakes her head. "Not by some quirk of birth. You are no less important to me than your brother. If anything you mean more to me than he does, much as I like the lad, because I trained you and that creates a bond like no other in thieves. You are not worth less than your brother simply because you are younger, my boy. And truth be told I'm glad you were the one who stayed. If not for your arrow I would have been dead the moment that second orc showed up. I owe you my life for that."

"You don't owe me anything," Kíli insists. "I couldn't let him kill you, Aunt. You're the only one apart from Fíli and Briar who had ever seen me. The real me. You were the only one willing to fight with my mother so that I could be trained. You made me better." He looks down. "I thought you'd died… I thought…"

He looks utterly defeated at the thought and apparently this is the time for such anguished confessions in her direction.

"Come here, lad," she says, holding out the arm on her good side in invitation.

Kíli climbs onto the bed, burrowing into her side slightly as she wraps her arm about his shoulders.

"I'm fine, I'll be fine," she assures him in a voice far more gentle than usual. "You've taken to this all so well that sometimes I forget how young you still are."

"It's not that," Kíli mumbles. "I've lost friends before."

And he has, friends and guards both were killed during the hunting trip he had been on that had been attacked a couple of decades ago. Kíli will have seen them cut down in front of him or succumb to their injuries over the course of the couple of days that it took them to get back. Dwalin had been with them then as well, she recalls. This seems to be different for him, and she does not quite understand how.

"You're the best thing that happened to me," he whispers.

"I think you'll find that's supposed to be Briar," she jokes lightly.

"Wouldn't have met Briar without you," he disagrees. "You were the one who made Ma see that I was meant to be this. You stood up to her for me, you stood up to Thorin for me, you made them see that this wasn't a bad thing. You've been better to me than my own mother and I didn't want to lose you."

"Your ma…" Nori sighs, squeezing his shoulder a little. "Your ma works with what she knows. Maybe if Frerin had survived Azanulbizar it would have been different for you, she would have understood it all better, I don't know. I try not to judge her too hard because my own ma felt the same way about it all. Kind of wonder what she would think now if she could see me; I'm Durin's Wolf, going to marry Dwalin soon as we have the coin together though we haven't spoken about it yet. Can't get much better than that, really. Won't even have to give up my craft like lots of other thieves do when they marry."

"She wanted me to give it all up and accept that I didn't have a craft," he grouses. "She wanted me to just be Fíli's guard and be happy with it."

"It would have ended badly," Nori tells him. "You take a dwarf's craft away and they're never really the same. They might be good at something, but they never really excel at it. I know you well enough to know that you would have protected him to your last breath if it came to it, but you wouldn't have been happy and you would have done enough stupid shit to make Fíli watch over you as much as you watch over him. One, or both, of you would have ended up dead because she denied you your craft. Would be the same result if you really were craftless."

He hums noncommittally.

"There's something else eating at you," she comments after they have sat silently a little longer.

"I'm not ready to take over," he tells her. "If you'd died I wouldn't be able to take your place as Wolf. I'd mess it all up."

"Believe it or not," Nori chuckles, though the movement annoys her already throbbing side, "I had already thought of that. There's a letter in my safe that tells your uncle I want Trygve to run things behind the scenes for two decades after I die so that you can learn the ropes without being given enough to hang yourself."

"Ma would like that," Kíli snorts. "Would give her a reason to stuff me back into the role she made for me like a good little prince."

"I thought she was better now?" Nori asks, cursing herself for allowing Dwalin to become such a big distraction, not that she can really regret it either.

"She is," she feels the young dwarf shrug, "but she still thinks it. She still wants me to fit into her perfect idea of the world."

"Like I said,'' Nori tells him, as he yawns, "most parents struggle with what we are. It isn't unique to your Ma, there are plenty who struggle with the idea that Mahal would make thieves the same as He would make smiths and all the rest. You slept much the last few days?" She feels him shake his head. "Close your eyes, then, I'm going to have a nap anyway and I'd appreciate the company."

"Wish you'd been my mother," Kíli mumbles sleepily once they are both settled.

Nori feels her heart break a little bit at the words. She knows she would have been a terrible parent, she still might well be a terrible parent, although Dwalin will probably help to mitigate any damage she might do in the future. Not yet, though, not for a long while. She does not respond to Kíli's comment, keeping her breathing even enough to mimic sleep and the pair of them doze off together for a short time.

Nori is woken a couple of hours later by the sound of the door to this chamber opening. She sleeps lightly as a rule, most thieves do even if Kíli has not quite gotten into the habit of being constantly on the alert, so even the gentle movement of the door disturbs her. She opens her eyes, arm still lightly around Kíli's shoulders and he is curled up against her like a babe as he sleeps peacefully for the first time in days if his expression when he had entered the room was anything to go by.

"Thank, Mahal," Dwalin breathes when he sees the pair of them. "How long has he been with you?"

"Couple of hours," Nori shrugs. "He's exhausted, shaken more than he wants to admit and his mother," she snarls the word, "has done a right number on his head over the years."

"I thought it would be something like that," Dwalin sighs, moving to sit on the end of the bed so that he can watch Kíli with gentle eyes. "She didn't have much of a childhood on the road, think she's forgotten that people are supposed to have them."

Nori has seen a lot of expressions on Dwalins face over the years that she has known him, over both lives, but there is something about the way that he looks at Fíli and Kíli, when he either believes he is unobserved or is with people he is entirely comfortable with, that makes warmth flood through her. His face is entirely gentle, almost tender even though it is a tenderness that differs from the way he will look at her.

"It's no excuse for telling him he'd be better off without a craft," Nori hisses in a whisper.

"It's not," Dwalin agrees, "but she grew up on the road believing that our people only turned to stealing to survive as refugees. That's as much Thorin's fault as it is her father's and grandfather's. They sheltered her too much, or as much as they could, and by the time it was obviously an issue we could never convince her otherwise. She got a full measure of the Durin stubbornness but never learnt to temper it in the way that Thorin did before Erebor fell."

"Thorin's stubbornness isn't all that tempered," Nori snorts.

"Well, Mahal isn't known for working miracles on living folks," Dwalin shrugs it off. "You want me to move him?" He asks as Kíli borrows a little more into Nori's side.

"Nah, leave him be," she shakes her head. "Lad obviously needed it."

"You're good with him," Dwalin observes. "He's grown a lot since you took him on. Sometimes thought he would never settle and take anything seriously."

"That was my job as his sponsor," Nori flushes.

"You went far beyond a sponsor to that boy," Dwalin tells her. "He needed a steadying hand and you provided it. You've given him safety too. Can't think of any mentor or sponsor who has ever gone so far in my experience."

"He's a good lad," the thief smiles, "he deserved the best training I could give him, and he needed more guidance than a lad from the lower town would. It was inevitable we get close, and I don't regret it, not with the way things stand."

It is, of course, the absolute truth. She does not mention Kíli's sleepy declaration, suspecting that Dwalin will feel it far more keenly for Dís' sake than she does. Dwalin knows the princess better, understands the way that her mind works a little better, and she knows that he would struggle to understand just how broken Kíli's relationship with his mother is.

She sort of wishes that it was not something that she had experienced either.

A.N: Because there also needed to be Kili shaped fall out. And because apparently the 'Dis is a rubbish mother' part of this isn't done yet. Also, crochet Dwalin has been completed and can be found on my deviantart (Artemis-Desari), just in case any of you were following the so, oh so, slow progress of my crochet Company.