For once, Dwalin woke several hours after sunrise. A sleepless night had finally given way to fitful dozing, and he hadn't really nodded off until after the moon went down.

Sometime in the wee hours of the night, he'd realized with a wry smile that the heat wouldn't be so Mahal-cursed oppressive if he took his shirt off. He wanted to kick himself for taking so long to think of it, but a century and a half of habit was hard to break.

It was the height of luxury, lying back and enjoying the slow currents of stifling air over his bare chest. No linen and steel binder holding him captive, not even a shirt to save his modesty. He almost hadn't wanted to sleep, he enjoyed it so much.

He awoke to a knock on his door, and he forced himself to get up and answer it. This was another novelty: he could answer the door without a shirt, without worrying that his entire life would fall apart. He wondered if he would ever take this freedom for granted. That would be pure decadence.

Bofur looked just as tired as Dwalin felt, his eyes looking a bit bruised. Other than fatigue, though, there was no sign in Bofur's face of the conversation Dwalin had overheard last night.

"Did I wake you?" Bofur asked with some surprise. "I thought I'd see if you'd like to come to the baths this morning – they'll be mobbed in the evening and everyone and his brother will want to meet us."

"Aye, I'd rather not meet every dwarf in Ered Luin all at once," Dwalin agreed.

The baths were virtually empty at midmorning. Built into the mountain, they were one of the few underground structures in Ered Luin, which had started as a town of Men. After the first fall of Khadzad-dûm, the dwarven diaspora had spread their race across the face of Middle Earth, but seldom did they settle above ground. Ered Luin though, with its complicated history and political structure, had never had the leadership that could plan and build an excavated city underground.

It was nice to be under the earth again, comforting. Dwalin let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding, and sank back into the warm water. Bofur chatted with several dwarves who evidently had no idea who they were – which was also nice.

"Where are the women's baths?" he asked when the other dwarves had departed and they were left in relative solitude. He had vague memories of the women's baths in Erebor when he was a child. When they returned, he would finally get to see the men's baths.

"Down in the town. They aren't nearly so nice, from what Merced told me."

"Your sister-in-law?" Dwalin asked. Bofur nodded. Dwalin hestitated over his next question, but Bofur looked relaxed enough. "Do you have any other kin here?"

"Other than my uncle? No. We're all that's left of clan Broadbeam, the four of us. I'm surprised that the Council let him keep his place as clan head after we departed."

Dwalin chewed his lip. "He… does not seem to like you."

"No," Bofur agreed. His body was still relaxed, but he avoided Dwalin's eyes. "We've not got on for years."

"Kin or no, he should not offer you such insult as he did last night," Dwalin growled.

To his surprise, Bofur smiled at this. "He's an old man, alone and half-mad with grief. Bifur recovered from the Orc who put that axe in his head, but his father never did."

"That's nothing to do with you," Dwalin growled.

"I know," Bofur said. "But kin is… complicated."

Dwalin thought of Lady Dis, tied to him by blood and history. Complicated, indeed.

"And Havlin?" he asked as casually as he could. "You've never spoken of friends left behind."

He felt as much as saw Bofur's hesitation, and saw the moment Bofur decided to take the plunge. "Havlin was my lover. We ended things shortly before I – before the quest."

Dwalin had prepared himself for a lie, and wasn't quite sure what to do with the truth. There was something tight in his chest, akin to fury but with shame in it, too. Jealousy. So that was what it felt like, he thought. He'd always wondered.

He wanted to ask why they'd ended it, what Havlin had done, but he wasn't sure if he had the right.

Bofur shifted uncomfortably under his scrutiny, and Dwalin made himself look away. "I'm to see Lady Dis this afternoon," he said.

Bofur nodded, looking troubled. "Dwalin, why does she blame you for their deaths?"

"I promised I'd look after them," Dwalin said, "And here I am alive when all her kin is dead."

"How could you be expected to save all of them?" Bofur asked gently.

"I think she'd be more understanding if I'd fallen with them."

Bofur began to respond, but appeared to decide it was better not to. They left the baths and made their way back to their inn.

"Several dwarves asked in the pub last night about Erebor. When we'll be leaving, things like that," Bofur said. "I've no idea how large a party we'll have, but if it's more than a handful we can't live by hunting alone. We'll need a caravan for supplies."

Dwalin grimaced. A caravan would be a target. "No doubt people will need weeks to make arrangements, sell their homes," he agreed. "We'll need a plan."

Over the midday meal, they sketched out a rough plan. Bofur argued for leaving in a month; Dwalin said it had better be six weeks; reluctantly they agreed that two months was a more realistic target when asking people to pack up their entire lives and set out across a continent.

The big unknown was how many dwarves would leave with them. It could be twenty or two hundred or two thousand. Dwalin sincerely hoped it wouldn't be more than a few hundred; the last time thousands of dwarves had crossed Middle Earth looking for a home had been a complete fiasco.

"We can ask the innkeeper to keep a list of those who want to come and how many in each family," Bofur told him. "The Council won't like it, but they'll give us use of the Council Hall for meetings if we need it."

"Why won't they like it?"

"They stand to lose a lot of miners, and with them a lot of profits," Bofur said. "We'll be very unpopular with the locals by the time we leave." He looked rather pleased at the prospect.

Dwalin let them enjoy a companionable silence, not wanting to give up any moments of ease with Bofur. In the end, though, he sighed and began to collect their notes. "I must call on Lady Dis," he said heavily.

Bofur took the notes from him, and looked him in the eye with a slight frown. "Dwalin, their deaths were not your fault. No matter what she says, you must believe that."

Dwalin shook his head. "You believe that, Bofur. But I know that I broke an oath, and now she has lost everything."

Dwalin was greeted with all the honor due to both kin and to a victorious hero. Dis was scrupulous about the proprieties; Thorin had said once that the farther they were from Erebor and their proper station in life, the more important ceremony and custom became. Dwalin had little patience for such things, but he'd learned in Erebor that tradition was the backbone on which a king could build power. Dain owed as much to his stuffy insistence on formality as he did to Balin's machinations on his behalf.

It was a special kind of torture, to be welcomed so formally in a house he had once counted as a sort of home base. Dis blandly asked after Balin and Erebor as she served tea, and Dwalin was dreadfully aware that there was no kin for him to ask about in return.

Finally, the pleasantries done, Dis looked him in the eye and commanded him to tell her about her sons.

Since the royal mail would be departing the next day for the Lonely Mountain, Bofur penned a short letter to Bombur and Bifur. He mentioned seeing his uncle and debated asking frankly if the old man had been provided for. He decided against it; Bifur would take the question amiss if he'd already sent money, and anyway it was unlikely a reply would arrive within the two months they'd be here. Bofur would need to ask around – discreetly, of course – and see whether his uncle was still living in that miserable little hovel.

Guilt descended, because the three of them had left without a thought to Balur's welfare. His uncle was banned from the mines that had been his livelihood; drunkenness in the mines might be overlooked, but not when it led to deadly accidents. Bofur had been so relieved when Bombur set up his household with Merced and invited his brother to live with them. After Merced died, things got bad enough that Bifur slept at their house most nights. There had been talk in the town of removing Balur from the Council, even – but no one was quite willing to face an enraged Bifur on the subject.

Surely his cousin would have made arrangements for his father? If not before the quest, at least afterwards. It was difficult to send gold long distances, but not impossible…

Dwalin was unsurprised that the official tale of the quest and the Battle of the Five Armies was not enough for Dis. She made him start again from the very beginning, hounding him for details, drinking in each word of her sons with a hunger that seemed almost feral. Dwalin talked until his voice was hoarse, and at the end of two hours hadn't even gotten them to Rivendell. It was surprising how many pranks and jokes he could recall; the young princes had kept the party merry.

As the evening shadows lengthened and Dwalin described the fight in the trolls, Dis became restless and distant. The questions ceased. Dwalin hesitated, not sure what she wanted of him now.

Bofur had hoped for a quiet drink at the corner pub, and already he could tell that that was too much to ask.

He'd chosen this pub because it wasn't one of the miners' pubs, and the grub was reputed to be not half-bad. Nobody else in Ered Luin had approached Bombur's talent with a skillet and carving knife, but there were decent eating establishments here. Bofur had just never had the funds to patronize them.

It still felt odd, pushing coins across the table to the proprietor and not having to worry about an empty purse. He almost ordered the cheaper fowl before realizing he could indulge in some good mutton.

It was almost indecently delicious. Simple, uncomplicated pleasures like good food, good music, and good company: these were the things that Bofur loved in life. He savored the meat, exiling all worries about Havlin, about Dwalin, to the back of his mind.

Bofur was not inclined to pay attention to the dwarves who interrupted his enjoyment to seek his counsel.

He recognized them, of course; he recognized all the miners. He could probably dig up their names if he concentrated hard enough, and the details that mattered: how many children, which mines they'd worked and when, specialties, injuries...

The short one had been blessed – or cursed – with five little ones, and she'd had to take time off from the mines for each one. She'd brought her babes to work when they were still nursing, in a carrier fashioned for the purpose, and Bofur had negotiated hauling duty for her rather than let her expose the dwarflings to falling rock in the mineshafts. Ainu, that was her name.

And Roru, her cousin, always hotheaded. Always the first to throw a stone in a riot. Bofur had been as fond of him as he'd been exasperated by his antics. He'd had to make sure to sit on the lad when negotiations with the Council were nearing a close...

"What can I do for you youngsters?" he said, sighing.

Roru looked at him almost hungrily, and Bofur felt a surge of guilt for the mutton. He pushed the plate over to the man before realizing that the hunger was of a more metaphysical type. But Roru didn't look a gift meal in the mouth, and shoveled the food down his throat without a second glance. Since his mouth was full, it was left to Ainu to say, "There's a meeting, tonight. Will you come?"

Bofur winced. "I've no place at your meetings now, lass," he said as gently as he could manage. "I'm no longer one of you."

Roru's face crumpled. "But you're still a miner!" he cried. "And they'll listen to you, now!"

That was a low blow. The Council had listened to him. ...Sometimes. When they had to.

"Aye, for the month or two I'm here," he acknowledged, his heart heavy. "And then what?"

They stared at him, at a loss for an answer.

Dis stood by the window, her face turned away from him. "Tell me now of Erebor," she commanded.

Dwalin was at a loss. "What shall I tell, Lady?" he asked. "You know of the magnificence of the stonework caverns, of the depth and greatness of the mines. All is being restored to its former glory."

Dis shook her head impatiently. "No. Tell me of Dain, of his advisors. Tell me of the Court, of who comes and goes."

Dwalin frowned. Dis did not seem the type to be interested in Court gossip. Slowly, he began to talk of the King and the dwarves who surrounded him.

"You will send a letter with the royal mail tomorrow, will you not?" Dis asked abruptly when he ran out of words. "I would have you include my greetings to Dain and to Balin. Also to Nori."

"Nori?" Dwalin repeated.

"He is Dain's spymaster, is he not?" she asked coolly.

Dwalin was taken aback. He knew Nori had taken up some of his old tricks again, but he'd never thought it was on Dain's behalf. "He is the head of internal security," he said, and the answer sounded naive in his own ears. "He works with the guards to protect the King."

"Balin would never let a talent like that be wasted just on protecting Dain," Dis said dismissively. Dwalin wondered if he should feel insulted by this; his own talent was being used exclusively for the King's safety. He was intrigued, though; perhaps Dis was right about Nori. His network of informers was already impressive, and Dwalin had often wondered if there were more who didn't appear on the official books.

Part of Dwalin was a simple warrior who enjoyed working things out on the battlefield. That part of him disliked the idea of spies; it felt like cheating, somehow. But he had been Balin's brother for too long not to appreciate the usefulness of such agents. Information on the enemy –

He stopped. What enemies did Erebor have? Just who was Nori spying on? And was it for Dain – or for himself?

Dis was watching his face. "You're too clever by half to be relegated just to guard duty," she said.

Dwalin tensed. "I take the duty to the King very seriously."

Her lip twisted. "Your duty to King Dain, perhaps," she sneered.

He breathed through the red haze, trying to calm himself. The implication that he could care more for Dain than he had for Thorin – that he had failed Thorin –

He swallowed. He had failed Thorin, in the end.

Perhaps Dis knew her victory, for she said, "We will speak again tomorrow."

He nodded, bowed, and left the last scion of Durin alone with her grief.