Fíli has always known that he wasn't Dís and Vali's natural born son. That, of course, does not mean that they love him any less, in fact they dote on him far more than they do Kíli sometimes, but he has never been under any illusions about his place in the succession to the throne of Erebor. Fíli is the adopted son, Kíli is the son that the couple had longed for but given up hope of ever having until four years after Fíli had come into their lives. Fíli doesn't remember those early days. He knows that he had a mother and that he never knew his father. He knows that his mother's name was Telli, he spent time with her on the rare days that she was in the mountain, and that she was some distant relation of Vali's. He knows that Telli never revealed the name of the dwarf who sired him, although speculation has always been rife due to his resemblance to the long lost Prince Frerin, the brother of Dís and Thorin. He also knows that his birth-mother left Erebor with a caravan to earn some coin and never returned, by which point Dís and Vali were so fond of him, they had resolved to keep him rather than allow him to be taken to one of the orphanages.
So Fíli has grown up with all the privileges of wealth and rank that might belong to a prince of Erebor, without any of the future crushing responsibilities that lies on Kíli's shoulders. Not that this has stopped him from taking the lessons to heart when Thorin takes both of them to teach them statecraft, or when Dwalin shows him the techniques best suited to help him fight off enemies of the dwarves in general or just of the crown. He and Kíli are closer than any natural born brothers could possibly have been and he had sworn as a child that he would help his little brother carry the load which came with wearing the crown.
"Aren't you ever curious?" Kíli asks him one afternoon. "About who your real parents are."
"Dís and Vali are the only parents I've ever known," Fíli shrugs. "I'm curious about the other ones, of course I am, but my birth mother is dead and no one knows who sired me anyway. I'd like to know, but what difference would it make at the end of the day? No one has ever asked about Telli, and you know that Ma and Pa had people on the lookout for it for years. Whoever he was, he was probably some random trader who passed through, had a drunken tumble one night and left with no reason to ever think I existed. Or the same thing happened to him as happened to my birth-mother. It isn't unusual for families in the part of the mountain that Pa comes from."
"I'd still want to know all I could," Kíli grumbles.
"That's because you're more curious that I am," Fíli tells his brother, "and you always have your head in the clouds from all those stories Tharkûn likes to tell whenever he comes this way."
"He has one of the rings, you know," Kíli whispers, "I've seen it."
"Those are children's tales," he laughs. "Sauron and his rings of power are no more real than there are live dragons or fire demons in the depths of Khazad-dûm."
"You've no imagination!" His brother argues.
"You have enough for both of us, little brother," Fíli shakes his head. "One of us has to keep his head under stone."
"And one of us needs to dream," Kíli retorts a little petulantly.
"I know," Fíli assures him, his expression softening, "and if it's either of us, it should be you who dreams of different and better things. One day you'll be the one with the power to manage them after all."
Kíli grins at him, all traces of discontent vanishing from his face and Fíli smiles before taking a long drink of his ale. The long drink hides his grimace at once again repeating the long established lie that he has no desire to know more about his birth-family. He has memories, vague ones, of his birth-mother who did not vanish from his life entirely until he was nearly ten but who never breathed a word about his father or spent more than a few moments in with Dís and Vali updating them on her whereabouts and hearing about his time with them. The few hours he spent with her that he remembers will always be precious to him, he wears a chain about his neck given to him by her before she disappeared. He wants to know more about her, he wants to know the dwarf who sired him, but he cannot help but feel such a desire is ungrateful to the couple who took him in, loved him and raised him as their own even when they could not be certain that they could keep him. They have given him so much, a golden life, love, fortune and a future that he would never have dreamed of achieving had he grown up in the Ereborian slums, it seems wrong to want to know where he really comes from.
So he lies, and he has done it so much that sometimes even he believes it. He can fool Kíli, although his little brother knows him better than anyone and pushes back on the matter frequently, and he knows that he has fooled Dís and Vali. Sometimes, though, he suspects that Thorin sees through the lies. Thorin sees a surprising amount for one who always seems to be bogged down in the minutia of ruling. In fact, Fíli is certain that Thorin sees a number of things that he has desperately kept pushed as far down as possible, because they are feelings that he knows he should not have. Not with everything that the line of Durin has done for him, but he cannot help it either.
Sometimes he just wants to know the truth of who he is and there are times, rare times, when he resents Kíli for having that. There are times when he resents his brother for a lot of things. The times where he is overlooked by visiting dignitaries as little more than a servant or guard because he is not the chosen heir. Or the times when Kíli gets all the praise for a speech Fíli wrote because he was the only one who paid attention in the dull lessons on etiquette and speech making that Balin used to give before he and Frerin vanished on some quest or another for Thorin. Those times when Fíli is compared to a dwarf he never knew, that Dís and Vali were careful to keep him away from as much as possible, where he hears all about how Frerin would do this or that thing, hears Kíli remembering how Frerin was the one who taught him to use a bow while Fíli was learning to duel wield from an almost indifferent weapons master. The times where he is reminded that, for all Dís and Vali and Thorin's loving care in raising him, he was unwanted and taken in out of pity and desperation. One thing that Fíli does not, and cannot, resent is Kíli's position as heir. For all that the amount of attention he pays to their shared lessons would give others the idea that the reverse is true, Fíli does it to help his little brother. Kíli struggles with those lessons where Fíli seems to find that they come to him entirely naturally.
Balin used to lament that Kíli was the heir rather than Fíli, though never in Thorin's hearing, and while Fíli understands the sentiment a little better now, it had simply inspired him to help Kíli as much as possible so that no one else would have reason to express such a thought. Kíli does not deserve it. He cannot help the circumstances of their birth and Fíli wouldn't welcome the additional responsibilities anyway.
"Come on," he tells his brother, getting to his feet. "Thorin was expecting us an hour ago and you can't put the trial off forever."
"I wish it was you doing it," Kíli mutters. "You're better at this stuff than I am."
"Being better at it doesn't mean I'd be a better king," Fíli shakes his head. "And Thorin isn't exactly going to keel over anytime soon. But, the sooner it's done, the sooner you pass, and the sooner you pass the more time we'll have to come out and celebrate!"
He flings his arm about Kíli's shoulders, eyes moving over the crowd in the tavern taking in the gathered people there. The room is full of dwarves, for the most part, but there is the odd hobbit and Man among them. The Men are not unusual, Dale is no more than a day's ride away and a frequent and highly valued trading partner. The hobbits are more of a surprise, but only in that every fifty years or so they send some of their lore masters to consult the dwarven scholars as they search through Erebor's extensive libraries for any clues and hints about where their people might have been settled before their great wandering time. The troop this time had been somewhat younger than the last lot, and most of them are in the tavern arguing softly under the noise of the room's boisterous dwarven occupants. One, however, is watching them, her honey curls barely coiled away from her face and held in place with what once might have been a pen. They are not so far away that he cannot see the grey of her eyes, although they have that slight glaze to them which marks a lack of real attention to the matter at hand. Fíli is accustomed to seeing it on Kíli's face all too often anyway. He grins in her direction and winks, gratified to see her blink and blush before he turns his attention back to his brother. Perhaps the hobbit lass will be there later, he has quite enjoyed his discussions with other members of their delegation over the weeks and he wonders what insights she has.
Behind them, nearly unnoticed, an auburn haired dwarf pulls a deep purple hood up over his hair, amethyst eyes tracking every movement that the two young dwarves are making.
A.N: This is mostly a feelers out chapter. I know where this story is going and how I'm going to get there (vaguely, you know how the characters like to take control and bugger off on their own thing if you've read Thief's Quest or Wild Magic: A Hobbit's Journey), but for the minute I'm just popping this up because it's eating at my brain far more than the second part of Jewel of Durin is. There is going to be so much world building here, and much ignoring of canon. It's a mash-up with Thundercats 2011, but there will be no need to know anything about Thundercats (any versions) because I'll be taking the bones of the story and building on it. Much as I always do. The only reason I've taken TC2011 is because that's the one that SM loves the most (she's watched all three versions) and I have to say that I prefer that take on the idea to the one that I grew up with (sacrilege, I know). Let me know if there's anything you'd like to see! The world is my oyster in this one (and I have a pairing in mind, but I'm not completely settled on which one of three options I'm taking, well all know that Fili and Kili rarely do as they're told).