Morwinyon stood with Kili near the entrance to Rivendell proper, feeling more like a child about to be chastised for wrongdoing than she had with Elrond.

"He will not be too angry with you, will he?" she asked.

Kili made a face.

"He will be pleased that you are alive," she said firmly, clasping her hands together in front of her.

Kili made another face, but before she could reassure either of them further Gloin's party stepped into the courtyard, geared and ready to depart. Morwinyon and Kili had left it until the last possible moment, to Elrohir's clear amusement.

Gloin's face registered no recognition, which was when Morwinyon realized that Kili had edged behind her.

"Did Elrond need something else?" Gloin demanded, crossing his arms. "I've already given him my son for this fool errand."

Morwinyon filed that away for later and said, "I bring you glad tidings, Gloin, son of Groin."

He squinted up at her, and his gaze lit on her widow's braid and Fili's clasp. "Tidings," he said slowly, raising his eyes to her face.

"The tidings are me," Morwinyon admitted, and stepped aside. "But also I bring you Kili, son of Dis, who I did not allow to perish on the mountain."

Gloin stared past her for a long moment, and burst into laughter.

"The two of you," he managed later, after they had been settled back into a guesthouse and he had laughed long and loud, wiping tears that Morwinyon suspected were not entirely mirthful from his eyes. "Just standing there, looking like you expected to be sent to pump a bellows or sort ore!"

"I would be useless at both tasks," Morwinyon said slowly, watching him, but that just sent him into further gales of laughter. She looked to Kili, who looked more resigned than anything. She remembered Gloin as a grumpy stoic, though not so much as his brother Oin.

"You are not angry?" she asked slowly.

"Spitting mad," Gloin said, still chuckling, and she and Kili exchanged a look. "I will be when I've stopped being pleased, anyway. Dis is going to jump out from behind a curtain, isn't she?"

"Dis stayed with the children," Morwinyon replied without thinking, and Gloin, much as Elrond had, sat down.

Going over their doings was easier the second time, though Gloin muttered more over the twins' lack of appropriate birthing gifts than Elrond had.

"And now we come here, because Alia asked," Morwinyon concluded. Kili had let her do most of the talking. He had watched Gloin as if expecting something not entirely pleasant, though Morwinyon could not understand why.

"We owe the Dunedain a debt, then," Gloin said. "For sheltering our prince's heirs. It's good that we sent Gimli with the son of Arathorn, I suppose."

"Aragorn, son of Arathorn, does not lead the Dunedain," Morwinyon told him very precisely. "Not yet, anyway."

"And Dain rules Erebor," Kili said. "We know it."

Morwinyon blinked. Kili was responding to something she had not known needed responding to: what had Dain to do with anything?

"Your brother's heirs live," Gloin said. "They are the rightful heirs of Erebor, for their father was King Under the Mountain, and his uncle was, and his father-"

"I know my bloodline, Gloin," Kili snapped.

"My children do not wish to rule that they have told me," Morwinyon said.

"And?" Gloin asked. "I swore to Thorin Oakenshield and his heirs, Princess, and I swore to your husband after."

"And now you are sworn to Dain," Kili pointed out. "It isn't anything you need to worry about."

"Isn't it?"

Kili leaned forward, hands gripping the too-large arms of the elven-designed and elven-crafted chair. "That mountain will kill us all," he said, meeting Gloin's eyes. "All of Thror's line that sought to keep it died. I will not put my niece and nephew on a throne that spells their doom."

"You lived," Gloin pointed out.

Kili shook his head and sat back. "Let Dain have the joys of Erebor."

Gloin sighed. "The children are what, sixty? That is full majority, Kili. You cannot speak for them."

"If you declare for them they will not come," Morwinyon said, reaching out a hand to lay it on Kili's shoulder. "Not if Kili advises otherwise."

"And what of Dis, who stayed with them?" Gloin asked, and his mouth twisted into a sad smile when Kili frowned. "You know your mother, Kili. Will she advise otherwise, if her line can once more hold the lands of her forebears?"

"You do not know their names," Morwinyon said. She did not care for the idea that her children might be threatened, however well-meaning the threat might be. "You can do nothing without their names."

Gloin looked at her. "I know why you fled Mirkwood," he told her, settling back into his own chair. Kili jerked as if stung, and glared. "Would you have liked all of your options laid before you then? Or did you prefer your father giving you so few?"

The air left her lungs as if Gloin had punched her. It certainly felt like it.

"That's not fair," Kili said.

"Isn't it?" Gloin asked. "I let my son go into danger a week ago, because it was needed and because he chose to do so. What of your children, Princess? Will you keep them hidden with the Dunedain because you fear for them?"

Kili nearly threw himself from his chair when he stalked out. Morwinyon watched him go, and Gloin watched her.

"I do not know their true names," Morwinyon told him in Khuzdul. "I gave Dis their naming there, for I still did not know Khuzdul then, and Kili gave them their essë - their father-names."

The elvish word sounded strange, mixed in with the Khuzdul.

Gloin raised an eyebrow.

"He named them Tauriel and Angion," she said, without bothering to translate. "I named them Amdirel and Faelon. They will know you come with my knowledge if you call them so."

She stood to go, but at the door she said, "If they do not wish to go, Dis will not let you take them."

"You have more faith in Dis' maternal instincts than I do, Princess," Gloin replied. "You forget, I know her well."

Morwinyon laughed with much less mirth than he had earlier. "I know her better," she told him, and left.

"My mother would have shoved Fili out the door with both hands if necessary," Kili said when she joined him on the bank of the river.

"People grow," Morwinyon said, sitting beside him. The water ran swiftly here - no ford for dark riders. "Anyway, I would have done much to be shoved out the door with both hands."

Kili snorted. "She wasn't like that with me. She always kept me close - I want to think she's more like she was with me, with Tari and Nion."

"She wanted you close because you were the one she could keep, I think," Morwinyon said. "Still she let you go, when you wanted."

"She let me go to claim the mountain," he corrected her. "I'm not sure it's the same."

Morwinyon considered, drawing her knee up underneath her chin. She did not think her father would have let her go, even to claim her mother's jewels. She did not know which made a parent better - letting someone go in order to claim something you wanted desperately, or keeping someone even when there was something you desperately wanted that they might claim.

What kind of parent did that make her, giving Gloin tacit permission to drag her children into danger for something she did not even desperately want?

She did not know. She might never know. She supposed you could only try your best.

"Maybe we should go ask our questions about Aragorn," she said.

Kili snorted, but he got up and waited for her to do the same so they could walk back to the Halls of Elrond.