Okay, so probably not a two-shot. Somehow this chapter turned out quite different that expected. I hope you like it.
The last journey of the rune stone
They start early in the morning. It is still dark outside as Dís mounts her pony, Thistle, and follows the small group towards the long lost home that has risen again and devoured everything Dís had in the process. She is silent as they ride, while on the inside she is screaming for it is not a home she is going to. It's the place that stands for everything she's lost.
Balin is leading the group, and behind him there are Glóin and Lea riding side by side, with Gimli following them, his eyes never quite leaving his father. A couple of other dwarves are part of the group as well, dwarves whom Dís has known all her life and who've offered their condolences and told her how sorry they are and that they'd be there should she need something. But the only thing she needs they cannot give, and thus Dís rides in silence and tries to shut out their whispering voices.
They've left Ered Luin before dawn, and as they ride through the forest the sun slowly makes its way above the horizon, the rays of light finding their paths through the trees and leaves, bathing the woods in a golden, mysterious light. It's autumn, with winter waiting just around the corner, and yet it is unusually warm. On a normal day Dís would have enjoyed the ride and gazed in wonder at the millions of colours around her, would have breathed in the fresh forest air and gotten lost in the beauty of nature. But today she sees no colours but grey, and every breath hurts.
All the time she feels the small stone heavily in her pocket, it feels cold and hot at the same time despite the layers of cloth between its surface and her skin. Sometimes she feels for it, and it makes her wonder if Kíli ever even thought about it until the battle, and then she bites her lip and forbids herself to think further. But every once in a while her thoughts turn back to the stone and to the day she put it into her youngest son's hand, and all she can think is that Fíli must still have his. She ought to ask Balin, but somehow she knows that the dwarves would have found it when taking off his armour to replace it with clean and festive clothes according to dwarvish customs, and if they'd found it Balin would have told her, and then she thinks of her eldest lying dead in the mud of the battle field and she feels sick.
Eventually they stop at an inn for the night, and when she lies in bed and stares into the dark she hopes that no one will notice her crying. Sometime in the early hours of the morning she drifts into a restless sleep, with pictures of tiny dwarflings with unrecognisable faces, hideous creatures on gigantic wolves, a town built on water and a huge dragon smiling at her dissolving into a blur of grey in her dream.
She knows that Balin can see through her facade when she tells him she's slept alright, but her friend doesn't comment on how her tired and blood-shot eyes betray her words. They ride on, for hours or days Dís doesn't know, and the sound of hooves has an almost calming effect on her, making her wish she could travel on like this forever. She could just pretend she's on her way to the Iron Hills, visiting relatives like she used to do when she was younger. She used to love those long rides, Lîam at her side, the sturdy pony carrying her across open fields and dark forests, the winds of freedom blowing into her face during a fast gallop which would leave her breathless at the end of the road.
But now it feels nothing like this.
One morning Lea slows her pony until she's next to Dís.
"I don't think I've ever been on such a long ride before," she says, if to herself or to Dís the dwarf woman doesn't know. It's probably just Lea's way to start a conversation when actually she doesn't know what to say at all. Glóin's wife chats away, and Dís suddenly appreciates it. She listens and nods and even answers from time to time, not noticing how time passes until Balin stops the company. Dís looks up as her pony halts, and all of a sudden she can't breathe.
She knows this silhouette. She knows these lands, she's seen them in her dreams, the whole scenery is so familiar that it makes her choke.
The Lonely Mountain. The Kingdom of the Dwarves. Erebor.
She hears Lea gasp beside her, and she sees her turn towards Gimli, smiling at her son.
"Welcome home, my dear."
But Dís also sees what lies between them and the mountain. The wide plain field in front of her stands like an ocean before the harbour, and all her senses tell her not to cross it. It's vast and black, smelling of burnt flesh and rotting bodies, a few crows circle above piles of unrecognisable forms, and through it all the silence is unbearable. The remains of a battle field, the reminder of her return.
One of the other dwarves is the first to urge his pony go on, and Thistle follows her companions. Dís focuses on the pony's ears, if only she can shut out her surroundings she will be fine. Thistle's ears are slightly curved, and the top is black fading into grey to match the rest of the pony's fur. The ears move with the same rhythm as Thistle's hooves.
"Dís?"
She flinches at the voice. She hasn't noticed Balin riding at her side, and she doesn't look at him. Just concentrate on the ears. Don't let your gaze go astray.
"Don't say, 'Welcome home'," she whispers, surprised by the bitterness in her own voice. "Don't –"
"I was about to ask how you're holding up," Balin replies softly.
"I don't know," she replies. An honest answer, when it would have been so easy to lie and say that she's alright. But this is Balin beside her, her friend. She cannot lie to him. And in that moment she makes the mistake to look at him, and her gaze falls upon her surroundings.
She gasps when she realises that she's in the middle of the battle field, reality strikes so hard that it takes her breath away.
"This is where they died," she speaks tonelessly. "Balin, this is where my sons died."
She can feel a tear trickle down her cheek, and she knows that more will follow, but for once she doesn't care. She stares at the muddy plains laid out before her, she can smell the odour of death in the air, and she is grateful for Thistle's good nature because she can barely hold on to the reins, let alone steer her loyal pony.
"Balin! Brother!" A cry disrupts the silence, and Thistle perches her ears as Dís and Balin turn their heads simultaneously. The ghost of a smile becomes visible on the white-bearded dwarf's face as the figure of a rather tall dwarf approaches from the distance.
"Dwalin," he mumbles, dismounts his pony and steps forward to pull his brother into a tight embrace.
"You've been gone too long, brother."
Dís watches the brothers as they exchange a few words. She gets a glimpse of a white bandage underneath the bald warrior's tunic, and another one covering half of his tattooed head. In that moment he notices her and his expression changes from relief to compassion. Without thinking she gets off her pony as well. Dwalin lets go of Balin and slowly walks towards her, stopping closely before her but seems to freeze where he stands. Dís wonders if she should hug him, but somehow Dwalin has never been the one for publicly showing emotions and she doesn't know whether or not he expects her to do any of that sort.
Dwalin's gaze lingers on her for what seems like minutes, but his eyes never meet hers. She takes in his appearance, the faint scar at the side of his head, the way his right hand is shivering ever so slightly only a hair's breadth away from his small dagger tucked into his belt, and the grief reflected from his eyes. And all of a sudden she understands. This is Dwalin, Thorin's best friend, his brother in arms. The one who was always at his side in every battle; the one who first volunteered to join him on his quest for Erebor; the one who spent hours with Fíli and Kíli to show them the arts of fighting and who once, after one mug of ale too many, swore by his beard to protect the heirs of Durin until Death come take him.
And now he is standing in front of her, and he is scared.
Without thinking Dís steps forward and puts her hands onto his strong forearms.
"Dwalin. My dear, dear friend," she mutters, and it is only then that he looks her in the eye.
"I am so sorry, Dís," he whispers in a cracked voice that is so unlike his usual grumpy tone that she can't help but pull him close. "I am so, so sorry, love," he repeats, "I should have –"
"Don't," she interrupts him quietly. She knows what he wants to say, but she doesn't want to hear it. She fears that she might actually agree with what he says although she doesn't mean it. It's just that she needs to blame someone and wouldn't it be simply convenient to blame someone who blames himself anyway?
"If there's anything I can do, Dís, I'll do it."
"Show me where it happened."
She doesn't know where this wish suddenly comes from, but even with Dwalin holding her tight she can feel the weight of the small stone in her pocket. It has a kind of energy of its own, and she feels like she's stopped here, at this part of the battle field, for a reason.
"Dís, are you sure?" Balin asks somewhere behind her back, worry evident in his kind voice.
"Yes, I am. It's not far from here, is it?"
She's glad that neither Balin nor Dwalin ask how she knows this. Instead Balin only nods, and Dwalin takes her by the hand and looks at his brother.
"I'll take her there."
"Don't you think I should –"
"No. Go and lead the others, and rest, brother. Please."
The seasoned warrior offers one of his rare smiles, and Balin acknowledges it by putting a hand onto his shoulder.
"Don't stay too long."
With that he mounts his pony again and rides towards the mountain, the rest of the dwarves following him, and Dwalin squeezes Dís' hand courtly.
"You can still change your mind, you know that."
"I won't. Dwalin, please, I need to see where... please."
She doesn't know what to say, she doesn't understand herself, but Dwalin doesn't seem to mind. He leads her onto the field, and soon her boots become black with mud and she forbids herself to wonder whether it is only mud and nothing else. She takes strangled breaths as she looks around. It's not only the stench that lingers above the field. It's the sheer size of the open plain that takes her breath away. It's vast and empty and quiet, and yet she can see before her inner eye thousands of warriors, swords and axes and arrows taking lives by the hundreds, she can hear the noises of battle, the screams and cries, the begging for mercy and death, and somewhere in the midst of it all are the three dwarves who mean the world to her and who have left her in a world so cold and empty that she feels like she might as well have joined them.
"Here it is."
Dwalin's voice pulls her out of her daytime nightmare and catapults her back into reality. He doesn't say anything else, but has his gaze fixed on the ground. Slowly Dís kneels down and touches the ground with her fingertips. It doesn't look any different from the rest of the battle ground, and it confuses her. Shouldn't it look different, shouldn't it stand out from the rest of the field? It's only one spot in the midst of a wide, ordinary field, but somehow Dís knows that Dwalin has led her to the right place.
It was me who found them.
Balin's words echo in her ears, though only know she understands that the dwarf wasn't alone that day. It's an almost comforting thought.
They had each other. They weren't alone.
The earth is cold and wet under her fingers. Gently she lays the small, black stone into the hole and stares at it for a while. The runes stand out clearer than before, as if they could feel the presence of the second stone nearby. It may be ridiculous, but Dwalin doesn't comment on her doing, and she doesn't care anyway. She covers the stone and presses her hands against the ground.
"Sleep, my boys," she whispers, her voice inaudible as she presses her forehead onto the earth. "Men lananubukhs mênu."
And she wishes desperately for an answer, to just hear their voices once again, but she hears nothing but silence as her tears drop and mingle with the earthy ground beneath her hands.
She got down on hands and knees, one ear against the ground
Holding her breath to hear something
Anything at all
(Rise Against, "The dirt whispered")
A/N 1: Lines in italic are from the story "When all these nightmares become real".
A/N 2: The part about how everything is suddenly grey was inspired by the wonderful, heart-breaking song "If I die young": Life ain't always what you think it ought to be, no, ain't even grey but she buries her baby... (There's a Kíli and Fíli video on YT with this song, and also a beautiful multifandom vid which I watch approximately once a week ;))
A/N 3: Men lananubukhs mênu. = I love you. *sobs*
What do you think? Too cheesy? Too sad? Not sad enough? Reviews make my day!