Fili wasn't sure about Dori. He was weird and had the funniest beard and hair. He was fussy and something that Thorin called a "mother hen". But when Dori came over while Thorin left he always brought someone that Fili liked.

He liked Ori.

Ori had frizzy hair and it was strange to the touch like fur and straw mixed together. It was really red too. He had never seen red hair before. He was distinctly smaller than Fili as well. Fili really liked picking up Ori and carrying him around the house despite how much Ori complained. Eventually Ori gave up entirely and allowed Fili to carry him from spot to spot between the lessons that Dori gave all three of the little ones.

While Kili couldn't sit still, Ori always was still unless he was writing in a large book as big as his lap, and Fili... Fili was trying to understand everything. He got lessons on gods, of dwarven history, reading and writing, math, rhetoric, and even some days he was given a knife and a piece of wood to work with. When that first happened he had no idea what to do with the knife and sat for a very long time looking at it and the piece of wood in his other hand. It wasn't until Kili and Ori showed him what he was supposed to do, while Dori fixed them a lunch, that he was slowly starting to understand.

It was well into the winter when Dori decided that it was best to give the children their first lesson on how to handle markets. They each had an assignment of what to get and a little bit of money.

"Now what are you to get?" Dori tightened the cloak around Kili's neck, smoothing out the material so it kept him nice and warm.

"A... a... um..." he huffed a breath out. Really he wanted to get sweets but Dori promised cake if he did this right and he hadn't had cake since Durin's Day. "A pound of... beef?"

Dori smiled. "Exactly. For what price?"

"Two bits, but four if they will not go down."

Dori grinned. "Good lad. Now, Fili, what are you to get?"

The blond tilted his head in thought. He barely understood money but that was the point of this lesson so he was careful in paying attention. "A pot of ink."

"For how much?"

"Three bits."

"Or?"

"They will take the three bits or I will not purchase."

Dori laughed. "Good on you lad. Good on you. Now, Ori, no quills this time. What are you to get?"

Ori frowned. He wanted his quills. "Loaf of bread."

"For how much?"

"One bit or two."

Dori hugged his little brother who groaned. He got up onto his feet from where he was kneeling and opened up the door. "Remember to stay with each other. If you have any trouble you come to me. I won't be far."

All three coursed their agreement and hurried down the small hill with Dori following.

Their little boots slopped in the mud and snow. When Ori nearly fell in a large puddle Fili had grabbed him and carried him until many of the waggon ruts in the small road were filled in with dirt and not freezing water. He didn't see how Kili frowned, or his hands tightening in fists inside his cloak.

Fili's nose twitched a little. The market smelled different from when he was first there when Thorin first became his papa. It smelled dirtier. He sneezed a few times but the smell would not get out of his nose. He wiped his nose with his sleeve and that helped a little. The people that walked around smelled of either heavy soaps or were very dirty and it made him blanch. Some would laugh and just talk, others frowned heavily while making purchases, a few he saw were pressing their faces together.

"What are they doing?" Fili asked.

"Kissing." Ori said while he buried his cold nose into his scarf. At Fili's confused expression Ori pointed to a sweet looking couple that had just shared their public kiss. "Dori says that if you kiss like that you have to get married to that person because you love them more than anything."

"Mmmmarried?" Fili rolled the word over his tongue. It was weird to say.

"Yes, so they can become mommies and daddies."

Fili didn't understand anything about that but he did understand what Ori had said earlier. "What other kinds of kisses are there?"

"Dori kisses my cheek to say he loves me as his brother. Nori kisses my head to say it. I have seen some adults kiss because they are 'just friends'." Ori scratched around the wool scarf that was starting to chaif. "I think there are other kinds but I don't know them."

"Friends kiss?"

"I think so. Like this." Ori pushed his scarf down and pressed his lips against Fili's very quickly.

There were a few people that made a cooing sound that pulled the two children's attention from their conversation. Fili grabbed Ori's hand and pulled him deeper into the market. Adults were weird.

It wasn't until they were done that they had noticed that Kili was not with them. Fili started to panic. He called out Kili's name a few times only to get no reply. He remembered what Dori said, if there was trouble to go to him. Quickly he hurried around trying to find one dwarf in a sea of others. In the end it was Ori who found Dori who had a very upset Kili holding onto his leg.

"There you two are. An how did you fair?" Dori asked trying to resist removing Kili's death grip on his leg.

"We got everything you said, but the baker wouldn't take less than two bits for the loaf. And Fili got the pot of ink for three bits like you said to." Ori said as he took Dori's hand, the loaf of bread held to his chest.

"Good, now lets go back and have some lunch and cake. You all did very well."

Kili did not eat his cake. He did not touch his lunch. He only slumped in his chair with his arms folded over his chest with a fierce scowl. He ignored everyone around him until finally he had enough and stomped into the bedroom and slammed the door.

He didn't like winter. He didn't like Dori's lessons. He didn't like Ori. He didn't like Fili. Especially when Fili and Ori run around together. Fili was his friend, not Ori's!

He continued to fume alone until Thorin came home with Vili. When Vili came into the room he hugged his father tight and cried, "I want to go home!"

Vili shared a confused look with Thorin as the brunette finally broke down and cried. Fili tried to reach up for Kili but Kili only screamed a "No!" and buried his face into his father's beard. This in turn caused Fili to start crying.

Thorin took Fili's hand, pulling him away and closed the door.

"No! Kili!" Fili shouted.

"Shh, shh," Thorin stroked Fili's hair. "Fili, tell me what happened today. Do you know what might have upset Kili?"

"No." He wiped at his nose with his sleeve once more. "We had lessons on how to buy from the market today. Me and Ori had fun... but Kili stayed with Dori."

"Ah." Thorin smiled softly. It didn't take much to figure out that Kili was jealous. He had been slowly getting increasingly jealous over Fili's attention being directed to someone else. "Do not worry, urazad. He is worried that you have replaced him with Ori."

Fili's eyes became huge. "No, no!"

"I know, I know." Thorin soothed. "But Kili must realize this on his own. You must remember though, when you have more than one friend you must give them equal attention or the other will become jealous."

Fili huffed and grabbed onto his father. Things were easier to understand in the wild.

Vili tried to calm his crying boy.

"Gimlel, what's wrong?" He tried to ask between gasps and chokes of the youth.

"I wanna see mama."

"Mama's not well yet."

"I don't care! I wanna see mama!" Kili screamed so loud it caused Vili to wince.

"You can't."

Kili's only reply was an ear piercing screech that Vili was positive would make it hard for him to hear for the next couple of years.

"Fine!" He managed to yell over his son.

When the scream stopped his shook his head at the disorientation that such a tiny thing could cause. He had a whole new respect for single parents as he could pass his child off to his brother-in-law or to his wife. But he was pretty certain most children were not the living terror that was Kili.

Vili put Kili down, "Get your boots."

He followed his son out of the room. He sighed when Fili tried to approach Kili but the boy only pulled away with a deep frown.

"Even childhood is complicated," Vili sighed.

"So it would seem. Fili's been becoming friends with Ori."

"Jealousy of the Durins is a hard thing to take." Vili chuckled remembering when Dis first planted her fist into his gut because she thought that he was even tempted to see another woman. "Listen, Thorin... You know that I appreciate all you are doing for Kili and Dis."

"You're taking him to see her?" Thorin's shoulders squared off. He knew his brother-in-law long enough to know when he was skirting around a subject. "Is she well enough?"

"She... is getting better."

"Then he stays here."

"Thorin, I think it would do them both good." Vili reasoned. "I will personally watch over them, Balin will be there too."

Thorin swallowed around the hard lump in his throat. He didn't like it. Something itched at him from under his skin. He shook his head. "No."

"They both need this. It has been months, they are both still child and mother. Perhaps it is the medicine Dis needs."

There was a long silence only filled with the sounds of Kili trying to avoid Fili. "He does not stay the night."

Vili smiled. "Thank you."

When Vili took Kili back home he found his wife in the kitchen. Balin peeled a potato with a knife not far away.

"Darling?"

"Hm?" She didn't turn around from the pot she stirred.

"We have a guest tonight."

"We do? Well I wish you would have said so... sooner..." Dis had turned around, her eyes falling onto the form of her son.

Her knees hit hard on the floor, her arms outstretched as her little boy ran up. She clutched him tight crushing him against her breasts.

"Oh my baby, my gimlel." She pulled back enough to look at his little hands and his lovely little face. She showered him with kisses and hugs, not once willing to let him go fully. She shook with relief. "I missed you so much."

"I missed you too, mama." Kili buried his face into her shoulder, their same colored hair blending together making it so one could not tell where one began and where one ended.

That evening Vili took over cooking with Balin helping while Dis sat at the table with her son on her lap. She combed his hair for well over a half hour. She kissed his chubby cheeks and whispered how much she loved him. But while she whispered words of love she slipped poison into his ear.

"I love you so much. Only mama could ever love you this much." She cooed low enough for her husband and Balin to not hear.

"But papa loves me too, and so does uncle Thorin."

"Well yes, but they don't understand what true love is. True love is to keep the one and only dwarf that matters to you out of harms way at all costs."

"But I'm not going to be hurt." Kili was getting confused. Mama never lied to him, but he knew that papa and Thorin loved him. "Uncle Thorin takes good care of me and Fili protects me. But he's being stupid and likes Ori more than me."

"That's because he's a wicked thing." Dis said softly.

That didn't sound right. "No, he's not."

"Yes he is." She kissed his temple as she saw her opening. She had to keep her boy safe as much as she could even if it meant sowing seeds of deceit. "He likes Ori more than you and he'll never love you as much as mama. You have heard him lie haven't you?"

"He doesn't lie."

"But he calls Thorin his udâd when Thorin is not."

That... that was true. Maybe...

"He thinks you are not as important as Ori when you are even more so."

He looked up at his mother's face.

"Mama would never lie to you." The poisoned words fell from her lips and into her innocent child.