Heirs of What

| Part 4 |

-The Shadows Start to Fade-

Chapter (34) 'Waiting in the Weeds'

Dis existed in a state of fluency, an unstable blend of such conflicting things that she felt at any moment she might collapse into either one and be unable to recover. Livid panic coupled with a persistent hollowness. Part of her screamed within, terrified for the life of her son, while she was altogether numb at the same time. They were incompatible notions, the consuming fear which tried to crippled her and the detachment with which she operated. Like her mind could not claim her own fears without the possibility of succumbing to them. She performed her role with poise and dignity, presiding over affairs while everyone else was gone. They had all left her. But within worry was eating away at her, making the simplest of things nearly impossible. Sometimes it occurred to Dis that she was holding her breath and she had to force her lungs to work the way they were meant to.

She wasn't sure what state was worse. To crumble into panic and be unable to do anything else at all seemed like a miserable and ineffective option. Keeping busy was a distraction and at the very least, she could do something to help Thorin by overseeing matters in his absence. She could just do something. If she surrendered to the fear reaching for her throat with every intention of choking her, she would be limp with worry and rather than aid those gone, she would become another liability. Useless. Mostly though, Dis didn't think absolute panic was a viable possibility because it felt like giving up hope, something she was entirely unwilling to do. How could one accept total hysteria without also admitting the validity of its cause?

Allowing herself to go numb and refusing to acknowledge everything she felt was tempting. It would be surprisingly easy, she knew, to let go of it all and become without feeling. To let the walls rise inside her and the calluses surrounding her heart to harden. It would be easier to just stop hurting and let the fates that delighted in torturing her win. To let them rob her of everything that was warm and bright within her. To let the passions in her heart die so they could not stir to hurt her anymore. It seemed like a sort of release beckoning her, coaxing her away from all the fear she had been forced to live through and offering her an out. A way to finally be free of worry. To just not care about any of it anymore. But with it would go her ability to love the way she should. If she would not allow herself to fear for those she loved how could she really love them?

While neither appeared a reasonable choice, to remain with both seemed unsustainable. How could she carry on fighting both together? How could she survive the pain of loving one so much that the fear of losing them made her wish she didn't love them at all?

It was miserable and exhausting. But no matter how many times Dis tried to arrange her emotions into some resemblance of order, or at least into a manageable mess, she could never succeed. Both trepidation and despondence refused to abandon her. And so, just as she always did, she kept going as she was, doing the things she didn't think she could, surviving her agony despite her belief in the impossibility of it. She just carried on.

On the morning of the third day after everyone had abandoned her to go look for her son who had evidently left without sparing a single thought for his grieved mother, Dis had never before felt so close to coming undone. The waiting was the absolute worst, making the most terrible tortures that much more painful. She could not find enough to keep her mind busy, and so she wandered, hoping to arrive at something that might easy her mind just a bit. It wasn't the old rooms, old favorites of hers that she roamed to. It wasn't the battlements or the tomb she reached. It was Fili's sleeping quarters.

Nearly a week ago everyone had at last been assigned their chambers, a task that had mostly fallen upon her shoulders with some surprising help from Bilbo. The hobbit had proved apt at organizing persons together into favorable groups for the various sections of the living quarters. Fili had been appointed rooms near hers and Thorin's among those reserved for the ruling family. Rather than taking his grandfather's, Thorin had decided to reclaim his old ones as had Dis.

Fili was given Frerin's.

Whether or not he had actually spent a night in there, she was not certain for she had not yet visited him there and could not say if the bed and things had been used.

Reaching the familiar doors between hers and her brother's, Dis drew a deep breath and entered, pausing at the entryway to take in the long lost sight.

How many times had she walked into these rooms?

How many times had she visited Frerin here?

How many happy memories were born within these walls?

More than she could count. They would never leave her, and yet in so many ways as she walked back into her brother's rooms for the first time since his death, Dis felt like all those things had perished with Frerin. She trembled a little. Everywhere she looked there existed a memory. The echoes of old laughter could fill the place. As she stepped inside grief overtook her, the sorrow for her brother more raw than it had been in decades. But now it was worse. Because living right beside it in the biggest open wound in her soul was the loss of Kili. It was ravaging and overwhelming, its depth beyond belief. And somehow, binding them both in a mess of suffering, was her fear for Fili. It was ridiculous how miserable she felt. How empty and full of hurt.

She walked through the space, fingers brushing over familiar furniture and items. The smooth wood arm of the chair she would sit in if Frerin didn't let her on his bed. The surface of the desk he used to write notes to her on when they were small. The shield that hung on the wall embellished with the royal insignia which he had not time enough to retrieve when they fled the Mountain. The bed itself looked untouched.

Her brother was everywhere and yet there were traces of Fili too, clothes and possessions she recognized from Ered Luin scattered about. Forced to long for him too and miss him and worry over him suddenly seemed so cruel that Dis almost fled the room, unwilling to face this kind of torment. But as much as she wished to escape it, she craved to be near the thought of them so she stayed, touching things and remembering them. At the foot of the bed was a large chest of rich, dark wood with golden trimming. Dis knelt before it and opened the lid to find what Frerin had left inside. She felt the air leave her lungs when she recognized the contents lying on top. They did not belong to Frerin or Fili.

It was Kili's things lying there, his clothes folded ever so neatly next to his weapons. Even while he had not yet slept in these rooms, Fili had brough Kili's possessions there to have and kept with him.

Dis's hands trembled as she reached inside and drew them out one at a time. Her fingers brushed gently over the dark blue of his tunic and the silver buttons she had refastened before he embarked on the Quest. Kili hadn't wanted one to come loose on the Journey. Dis chocked on a dry sob at the memory, its triviality laughable in the face of what had befallen him. As her composure quickly slipped, she clutched the clothes to her chest and wept, feeling his outfit in her arms again but no longer with anyone to fill it. She cried for the loss of Kili and she cried for her fear that Fili might follow. She wasn't sure how to feel all of it at once. It was crushing. Her terror that her eldest would die too was as strong as her grief for the youngest who did.

"Oh, Kili," she mumbled through her sobs, "you've driven him mad." It was certainly madness that had sent Fili into the wilderness to avenge his brother's murder. It was nothing short of insanity that could possess one to do something so foolhardy. Sorrow had a way of unraveling one's senses. Fili hadn't been able to eat or sleep. His thought's raged and his pain throbbed with every breath. He had been trapped in his mind and constantly assailed by his heart's brokenness. It had gathered and built and shaped inside him. Greif had finally pushed Fili to the edge of folly and then right on over it, compelling him to pursue a fool's errand. His longing and desperation for his brother back had made Fili crazy, because it was an insatiable wish. It returned void each thought. He was overwrought with unfulfilled wants, leaving him distraught to the point of distraction.

The knots inside of Dis's soul, the grief and the words that had remained trapping inside her broke loose, yanked free by the strength of her fear and sorrow for all the things that were lost and wasted in the world. She could no longer contain her pain and a new quenching of grief came, with tears she did not know she had any more of.

"You were so much. You have left us so empty my son," her words came in choked whispers. "You have left me empty."

That, more than anything, gutted Dis the most. It wasn't that she missed him, which she did terribly, beyond reason. It wasn't that her love for him cried out now without any place to rest and no one to return it. It wasn't even the ruined future she had hoped for that now was ugly and hateful and reminded her of everything that would never come to pass. It was the brokenness in her that she could hardly cope with. It sounded selfish, even to herself. But all the things Kili was to her, and now was not, had left her in pieces. And it hurt. She hurt, for herself. Nothing worked the way it was meant to anymore. She could not do anything without feeling the loss of him. And that was the hardest part to live with. Not an idealistic sorrow that somehow softened grief to a tragic but sentiment feeling that roiled in one's emotions. But the real thing. The day by day, moment by moment selfish hurt that made everything, every last one, painful.

Dis was ashamed of it, yet familiar enough to know she wasn't the first to fall under this kind of sorrow. This was not even the first time she had thus fallen. She remembered something like this when her husband died. The attacks of grief so overwhelming and sudden, the emotions they demanded beyond the known reserves. The self-center misery that all but consumed her. Yet this, this was more than that because this time she had nothing but the clothes of her dead child to comfort her. Last time she's still had family left to hold up her broken heart. Now she had no husband, no sons, and no brother to do anything to ease her suffering.

It was so very harsh. And something about her solitude stripped Dis of her strength and toughness. All that she was known for laid bare in that moment, exposing her to be nothing of nobility. Not a proxy or princess or future queen mother, but the naked reality of an unseemly, grief-stricken one.

"How could you do it? Why Kili, why did you have to leave me?"

Dis melted into her pain and let it consume her. She just dwelled in it for a while. Eventually she would have to get up and be her brother's proxy. She would have to fulfill her role as if she were composed, as if her entire world were not on the brink of collapse. She would have to live on through her pain. But for now, she just lived in the hurt.

OOO

When Kili opened his eyes and they were clear, somewhat focused, and not immediately clouded with pain, Fili almost sobbed with joy. It had been hours of the younger sleeping and the elder waiting. The shock of his own injury had faded, and his arm now radiated a deep throb that nearly numbed his entire limb. Fili could barely move it at all, the muscle sore and stiff. But beyond the distraction of the wound, Fili paid it no heed. Thorin, and just about everyone else, had told him to sleep but he had not listened. How could he even consider sleeping when Kili could wake any minute? Until exhaustion make sleep absolutely necessary, Fili would not entertain the thought.

Thorin had stayed with his nephews for a long time, silently per Fili's unspoken request. His heir's attention was focused on his brother and it was obvious that he did not wish to talk, rather to just stay with his brother and wait. So the Mountain King had complied but for his explanation when he rose to leave, making it known that he had to ensure a watch was set up to protect against a possible orc attack. He was not abandoning them out of boredom or a lack of devotion.

With Thorin's absence Fili's quiet support of his brother felt different, even though they had been saying nothing. It felt more intimate, like all the other times, memories, and secrets the two of them had shared. It did not feel lonely, Fili was not completely surprised to find, and entirely different than the concern in which he had lived for so many weeks. He was still worried, but no longer with the terror that he would never see Kili again. No longer with the fear that his brother would just be gone, ceasing to exist to him out of nowhere. This waiting and worry was so different than before, that for some reason it brought to mind the first night Fili had spent alone after Kili was taken.

He had sat on the shores of Lake Town wracked with guilt, panic, and dread. His body bore witness to his fear, the nausea and frayed nerves pushing him to the edge of sanity. He had stayed wake all that night, sleep not even a option in his stricken mind. Trapped by the darkness until morning arrived, he had nothing but to wait and worry. It had been the first of many miserable, horrendous nights to follow. This was the very first good one since. The contrast between then and now was remarkable, for even if Fili still dwelled in fear, it was entirely different. Now he could hold Kili's hand and see him and know that he was alright. Just being with his brother, even if Kili was not beyond danger yet, gave Fili such peace that he could hardly sit still with it. It was so much he could barely contain it all.

The moment Kili woke was met with an eager though gentle greeting, the one Fili had wished to share so terribly for weeks. It was delivered with damp eyes.

"Welcome back, Kili."

Kili's eyes rolled to the side so he could fully see his brother and the slightest broken, crooked, stiff smile crept across his face. Just a ghost of the flashing grins he was known for. It was, beyond any doubt, the loveliest sight Fili had ever seen.

The younger dwarf swallowed with effort then spoke, "Why do you look like that?"

Fili laughed, his first true one in he wasn't sure how long. "Like what?"

"Like death." It occurred to Fili then, that he probably did look a mess. He was still covered in dirt and blood, his own and Kili's, his hair had not been touched in days despite his sleeping on the ground, and he had been exhausted for near a month now. Last time he had seen his reflection, he had been gaunt and with purple busied looking skin under his eyes. Despite the truth of Kili's statement, it was the dichotomy that struck Fili so suddenly. He looked like death because he had been all but dead. Now, that could not be further from the truth. He was revived, drawn to full life again by Kili's own life. Just as entirely as Kili's believed death had wrecked Fili, his recovery saved him.

But how could he explain that to his brother? How did he tell Kili that his absence had done the very things he had most feared. That at his death, Fili had collapsed. He had been lost to his grief, fractured beyond mend, and incapable of carrying on with any degree of purpose. How could Fili tell his little brother that his death had ruined him and in essence, he had completely failed beyond that point. Perhaps someday he would tell him. But for now, he could not burden Kili with that kind of heartbreak. Fili was also ashamed of his weakness. Not his devastation at the loss of Kili, for that was a natural rendering of their bond, but at his lack of ability to cope with it. Kili, Fili had always been certain, would have handled the death of his sibling with far more strength. Perhaps not poise or grace, for the younger prince had never been known for those things. But with more durability. Fili did not, in that happy moment, wish to hurt and disappoint Kili so greatly.

He smiled gently. "Do you think rescuing you was easy? Did you not see brother, how outnumbered we were?"

"I did. And all the worse for it I think," Kili said with the subtlest of nods at Fili's wounded shoulder.

"Ah, yes." Fili placed a ginger hand over his bandage. "I think I'll live."

"You better," Kili whispered as he closed his eyes in weariness.

"That's it brother, just rest."

One more question fought to the front of Kili's mind and rolled to the tip of his tongue, needing to be known. "Did everyone survive? No one was lost rescuing me, were they?" Though they were closed, Fili could see tears at the very corners of his brother's eyes, his uncertainty and all his pain leaking from him. He was so miserable at the thought alone, and his emotions so exhausted, that he could not stay composed even as darkness closed in again.

"No Kili," Fili soothed as he placed a hand on the younger's chest and felt him drifting back to sleep. "No one was lost."

OOO

It was Bilbo who first came and told Thorin that Kili had woke. By the time he reached his nephews, however, his youngest one had already slipped back to sleep, and the other, at last appeased by his sibling's apparent recovery, had also succumbed to his exhaustion. They laid next to each other, almost touching, contorted in ways to favor their injuries, and yet so peacefully that Thorin could not be disappointed at arriving too late to talk to Kili. There would be time enough later for that.

"I would venture to say they are content," Bilbo comfortably surmised as he stood near Thorin and watched on as the young dwarves slept into the night.

"I dare say they are," Thorin smiled softly. "I never thought to see such a sight again. What a wonder, the way this has worked out."

"Perhaps it is not so random after all. Maybe the fates have favored you at last."

"It would in many ways appear overdue, yet I cannot complain for this. Our fortune is indeed great. Far greater than I deserve." Bilbo watched as Thorin began to slip once more into his familiar habit of self-incrimination. While it didn't seem to be a comfort, it was something the dwarf king turned to when pressured, overcome by the burden of his decisions. Like a natural means of coping with all he felt. Bilbo had learned during his months with Thorin that it was best to stem such thoughts before they gained any traction.

"We are all underserving of many things. Good and bad. It is best, I think, to take the good with gratitude and not peer at it too closely. You'll drive yourself mad trying to work out reason when often there is none."

"True, master Baggins, but we cannot always apply such luxury to whatever part we play in the bad. For fear of repetition, we much do our best to see our mistakes for what they are. And then do what we can to make amends."

"Is that why you are so impatient to speak to him? To make amends?"

Thorin signed, a slow, deep thing that's sound, more than the act itself, spoke for his remorse. "I have wished for nothing else since the moment he was taken. I wronged him, and not just on the shores of Lake Town. In many ways. He deserves my apology. Why should I delay it?"

Bilbo considered this for a few moments before he answered. Guilt was interesting, he had found, because at times the desire to relieve it only cause its need the more. Some folks were so quick to alleviate their burden of guilt, that they forgot the hurt itself which they had in the beginning inflicted. They worked so promptly to offer amends in an effort to heal themselves and rectify the relationship, that they ended up repeating the original offense in suffering the other with their own affliction. Guilted into forgiveness, the slighted party could maintain the appearance of reconciliation, but their hurt would never really be healed. The result was altogether less than desired, and Bilbo cared too much for his friends not to voice his concerns.

"Are you so eager to apologize for his sake, or your own?"

"What do you mean?"

"If you go and make amends now, who will feel better for it? You for relieving your guilt, or him who is not yet well enough to receive anything but care?"

Thorin pondered the question with surprise, the notion not one he had even thought to consider. "Are you saying I should not talk to him, tell him I'm sorry? I fear if I delay he will think I care not for the hurt I caused."

"No, you should speak to him, put him at ease. Just don't unburden yourself at his expense. He can know you are sorry without having to receive all of your regret while he is still so vulnerable. Perhaps the depths of your apology can come when he is stronger and you more composed."

"You think I should wait, save it for a later time?"

"Yes. It should come. It needs to come. But not yet."

Thorin could see the wisdom of Bilbo's words even as they unsettled him. He had not thought humbling himself with an apology could be a selfish act, and yet he saw now that it could. If the intention was not entirely for Kili's sake, it was not selfless. The thought of this unexposed remorse sitting with him yet longer troubled him too, but if his nephew had to live with the consequences of Thorin's actions, than the Mountain Kings could live with the guilt they caused a bit longer. If anyone should suffer for them, it should be him alone.

Thorin sighed. "Why, master Baggins, do you always see reason where I have missed it?"

"Perhaps because I am too nosy. I look for it in other's business."

"I am fortunate I supposed, or rather Kili is, that you do. He should rest easy knowing you speak for him"

"Let us hope he just rests," Bilbo smiled.

Thorin nodded and turned his gaze back to his nephews. They had not stirred, which was a good sign that theirs was a deep sleep. He was torn in that moment between wanting to work, maybe too feverishly, at repairing all the damage he had done. He wanted to fix the brokenness he had caused. And he wished to relieve the fears he had allowed to consume his family. And yet, there was a part of him that desired just to remain exactly as they were, where Fili and Kili were safe and at peace and together. Where he could stay close and watch over them, so that nothing could ever trouble them again.

OOO

Leidan came to find Dis in a rush the following morning, slightly winded as he called out to her. His voice was not uncomposed, but it did possess the rawness of youth. He was just between her sons in age, making him too young for the Quest by all accounts. Kili had only been permitted because Fili had insisted, a demand he now certainly remembered with guilt. Really, if the truth would have been voiced at the time, both Fili and Kili were too young. Too new. They had no business going with Thorin but for their obvious obligation as his heirs to support the endeavor. They would not hear of staying behind though, just as Leidan had begged to go both to his parents and Dwalin who had recruited for the Quest. As a youth with no title to promote his place among them, his pleads were not heeded.

He proved useful though on the second journey to the Mountain. He was bright and sharp, eager and helpful. He did not complain and accepted every assignment from Dhiran who led the group in an unofficial capacity. Dis, by right, was the voice of authority but she gladly conceded leadership to the experience and skill of her friend. Leidan seemed to take personal responsibility for Dis's comfort and safety. He waited on her as much as she would allow him, and looked after her in every way he could. Duty bound to the royal personage he traveled with, Leidan was never far from her side.

Dis had appreciated the effort more than the actual aid he offered. She was not one to be served and preferred doing most things herself. But the thought, the motive of the lad's actions were enduring and she was honored by his devotion. More than anything, it was his company she enjoyed. He was full of energy and excitement, both of which she fed on as much as her mood would allow. He was a very welcomed presence in their camp at nights with his well told jokes and anecdotes. He had a way of calming her nerves and restoring her composure when her worry for Kili would grow unmanageable. Mostly, he reminded Dis of her sons and made her longing for them just a bit more bearable.

The two of them, Dis and Leidan, had come to be close friends and she was grateful to have him by her side during their travel as well as his presence now in Erebor after everyone else had left her. His loyalty to her was not missed and would not be forgotten.

"Lady Dis," he greeted with a deep breath for air, "I bring word from the gates. There is one here to see Thorin with a company of six. He was told the king is not here, so he has asked to speak to whomever rules in his absence."

The princess of Erebor ascended from her seat where she had been writing a letter to their folks who remained in Ered Luin, Leidan's parents among them. It was something that should have been done some time ago, but a task that had slipped her mind, its importance lost between everything else that needed her attention. She was informing them of her safe arrival, the full tale of the Company's success in reclaiming the Mountain from Smaug, and her promise to write again soon when it was decided safe for those who wished it to join them.

She said nothing about Kili. She considered it because maybe they deserved to know. Perhaps they should be told the blood price that was paid for their home. And maybe Kili deserved to be recognized for what he had given by those who had known and loved him best. But it was a far too painful thing to do and when she at first tried to form the sentences in her mind, she could not force them into place. They were just wrong.

She had nearly finished recounting all that she was willing to when the interruption came. So surprised was she that Dis could not even imagine who it might be.

"Does this visitor have a name?"

"He did not give me it. He said only that he was kin and you would wish to see him."

Kin? There were few who could rightly claim that relation, since the reality was most of her kin had been slaughtered. But there were many who might allege the connection if they thought it could win them favor or an audience with the king.

"Then I will see him."

When Dis approached the front gates some minutes later, she saw a small group of dwarves behind one she did not recognize, evidently the leader. His hair and beard were a fierce red and he looked to be some ten years Fili's senior. He straightened when he saw her and then dipped at the waste in a formal greeting.

"Lady Dis," he said is a clear, calm voice, "allow me to introduce myself. I am Thorin III Stonehelm, son of Dain Ironfoot of the Iron Hills."

So kin after all. Dis had never met her cousin's son, but now she could see the resemblance rather plainly. His coloring was that of his father's and he possessed Dain's eyes. She had known her cousin named the lad after her brother and the ancestorial first Thorin, but the younger Thorin had never met his namesake either.

"Welcome to Erebor," Dis said. "Our doors are always open to family, as is our house to yours. My brother is absent from the throne at this time so it is only I to receive you. Are you and your family well Thorin?" she asked, stumbling over the familiar name as it was assigned to an unfamiliar face. The young Thorin smiled.

"Please call me Dri, for Drioi" he said. "Everyone does." It was a Khuzdul word, Dis knew, but it took her just a moment to remember its meaning.

"Third."

"Yes," he nodded. "Third of my name. Someone must have once used it to clarify of whom they spoke and it stuck." He smiled again. "I've become rather fond of it."

It struck Dis then, out of nowhere, that if Fili was dead too, if her brother had not saved him, then Dri was also third in line to Erebor's throne behind Thorin and Dain. Is was a sickening thought which Dis hated herself for allowing into her mind at all. But it was right there. And her resolve was not what it usually was.

She tried to forget the thought by remembering what she could of the Iron Hills from which Dri had come. There was little she knew beyond that it was settling in a mountain range rich in the iron from which came its name and that the folks there were of the Longbeards. They were Durin's folk and had fought alongside Thror against Azog at Moria. It was after that loss that Dain took his people back East and retreated from war as Thorin lead Erebor's refugees towards Ered Luin. Dain was one of the lords who swore allegiance to the holder of the Arkenstone. He had also been, Dis remember of her older cousin, a trusted friend to her father.

"Well then Dri," Dis addressed him, "what has brought you this day to our doors?"

"I have come ahead to tell you of my father's arrival. Dain is coming with his army."

Thank you as always for reading! I very much hope you enjoyed. Next chapter we will get to see the reunion between Dis and Kili. I'm personally excited. Enjoy your holiday weekend and have a blessed day :)