Some of you might want to know what Brann will learn from the elves, but I will keep that a secret until the moment we all dread ...don´t worry, I have a plan, I just have to work on it for a while...;) until then enjoy some more father/daughter moments, as well as the normal family life^^

Thorin cursed and grumbled as he made his way out of the mountain to visit the market. How he was supposed to find a new stuffed animal for Belladonna was beyond him. He should take Kilis suggestion and let him sew a new one. He only doubted that he would even be able to tell what animal Kili would sew.

Fili and Kili accompanied him and on the rim of the market they found a stand which gave out toys in exchange for some arrow shooting. Thorin knew these stands. You could shoot as well as you liked, you would never get to chose from the various toys on the stand. And there was a toy which looked like a black dog and it was huge. It would be perfect for his little daughter.

'Welcome, my lord!' the merchant eyed Thorin with interest. Thorin was not wearing his crown or his kingly gear, but he was clad in rich clothing. 'Interested in a little shooting experience? The bow is of high quality and I am sure that a strong and talented warrior dwarf like you will hit the appointed target!'

Thorin was thinking about it for a second, but Fili and Kili were already storming towards the stand.

'This is the perfect stuffed animal for Belladonna!' Kili exclaimed and eyed the huge black dog. The merchant saw his chance with the young dwarf and grinned.

'Well, young lad, its only one cooper coin for five shots!' the merchant pulled Kili closer. 'The target is over there. Only two paces and two dwarves can shoot at once.'

The target was a small tin can and it was standing on a small shelf. As Kili grabbed the bow the target started to move. The shelf was moved through a hydraulic mechanism and jerked into each possible direction every few blinks of an eye. Kili paled as he saw the shelf move, but he was also determined to shoot down the target. Fili squeezed his shoulder and took a second bow.

'Together, brother.' Fili smiled.

Thorin paid the merchant and watched his nephews going into position. Fili was no good archer, but Kili aimed as if he had been doing this all his life. Each were given five arrows and then the target started moving. In the first round none of the two dwarves hit anything and Thorin gave in as he saw Kilis pleading look and paid for another round. In the second round, Kili hit the target, but it did not fall down the shelf. Thorin saw that it was actually glued to it and that it would never fall down even if they would hit it various times.

'I hit it! I bloody hit it!' Kili exclaimed and frowned. He was still young and was anout to think that he had not hit it hard enough, but Fili pointed at the merchant, who was grinning.

'My brother hit the target, we all saw it!' Fili nearly shouted. The look on the merchants face angered him deeply. His brother was a great archer and he would not let him be fooled by this greedy merchant.

'It did not fall down, so it was not hit.' the merchant shrugged his shoulders and looked at Thorin. 'Another round?'

'Of course.' Thorin gave him another coin and reached out for the bow in Kilis hand. 'But this time I will shoot myself.'

The merchant practically rubbed his hands and did not see the dark look in Thorins eyes. Fili and Kili saw it and stepped back. Thorin aimed at the toy with the first three arrows, but he did not hit anything. Kili looked at his uncle with big eyes, for he had never seen Thorin touch anything elf related. And Thorin was also good at archery. With a deep sigh, Thorin took the last two arrows and aimed anew. This time he aimed at the hydraulic mechanism and losened two arrows at it. The whole shelf collapsed and the target fell to the floor.

'Now,...' Thorin frowned at the merchant who looked at him with his mouth open. 'Do we get the animal?'

'The target is still on the shelf!' the merchant dared to say, but Thorins frown made him step back. He took the big stuffed animal from the shelf and handed it to Thorin.

Thorin smiled grimly and nodded at his nephews. 'You did well.' he praised them. 'But remember that your opponents will not always be as honorable and honest as you are.'

'You broke his stand!' Kili looked at his uncle with wide eyes.

'The merchant should be thankful that uncle did not break anything else...' Fili muttered and earned a slap to the back of his head.

'Lets return home.' Thorin smirked. 'Donna is waiting for her toy. One more sleepless night and I would have given her to Kili as punishment.'

'A dwarfling is no punishment!' Kili exclaimed. 'And Belladonna is soooooo cute!'

Both Fili and Thorin looked at Kili in surprise.

'Well, I guess its settled then.' Fili remarked dryly. 'The Durin line will be continued with Kilis dwarflings. The only way you could get out of this now is mate with an elf.'

The Durins shook their heads at the thought of a dwarf elven couple. But Kili put on a dreamy face.

'So my dwarfling will sit on the throne one day?' Kili mused. 'My wife will be gorgeous. Red hair, white skin, few hair...and I hope that she won´t be that small. But it would be awful if she had more facial hair than I have!'

Fili and Thorin exchanged an amused look. Kili still had no facial hair, but he took it with much humor. Fili had already grown a nice and thick mustache and had started to braid it.

Suddenly some dwarves and merchants around them panicked. They started to run around and cry out. Thorin grabbed his nephews and held them tight.

'There!' Kili pointed towards the edge of the market. Two riderless wargs had crashed into some stands and growled at the merchants.

'Stay here!' Thorin ordered his nephews and dashed towards the wild beasts. He drew his sword and blinded the first warg. Some guards had rushed by and killed it, while Thorin moved on to the next. The black warg tried to snap at him, but Thorin jumped back and the beast only managed to close its teeth around the stuffed animals ear.

'Oh no, you won´t!' Thorin growled back and hurled his sword at it. His sword hit the warg on the nose and it let go of the stuffed toy. Nevertheless, one ear was already missing. Thorin held on to the toy as he started to swing at the warg, driving it back to the forest. But before it could flee, the dwarven guards had surrounded it and killed it.

'An orc patrol, your majesty.' one of the guards reported to Thorin. He eyed the stuffed toy under Thorins arm, but he managed to keep a straight face. 'We killed the orc filth, but the wargs escaped. That will not happen again, your majesty.'

'See to it that it won´t.' Thorin nodded and walked back to his nephews, sheeting his sword.

'Oh no! Blacky lost one ear!' Kili exclaimed.

'I am fine, thank you.' Thorin remarked dryly, but could not hold back a smirk at Kilis pout.

As they reached the mountain, they ran into Dwana, who had walked to the gates of the mountain with Dis and Thorins daughters to see if everything was alright. Fili and Kili tried to hide the stuffed animal behind their backs, but it was too big. Belladonna saw it and started to wiggle out of Dwanas arms.

'Watch it, little one!' Dwana exclaimed, but managed to put her down safely.

More stumbling than walking, Belladonna moved towards her father and her cousins. 'Blacky! You heal! And growed!'

Thorin smiled as Belladonnas little arms closed around the stuffed animals neck. The animal was bigger than the princess, but she loved it. She saw the missing ear, but Thorin already had a story ready.

'Blacky protected your adad from the wargs, little jewel.' Thorin kneeled down at his daughters side with an assuring smile. 'He lost an ear, but he fought bravely.'

Belladonna looked at him with big eyes and then looked down at her Blacky. 'Blacky hero - like adad!' she exclaimed and hugged the stuffed toy even harder. Thorin was sure that if Blacky was a living being, he would have suffocated by now.

'So Fluffy!' Belladonna yelled and practically ran back to Dwana and Dis. She fell a few times on her way back, but the toy softened her fall, since she always landed on top of it.

'Blacky play with Spot!' Belladonna exclaimed and pointed to Dwanas arms. Dwana was holding a kitten in her arms, a red one with stripes.

'A kitty!' Fili and Kili jumped with joy. 'Where did you get if from?'

'One of the merchants was selling them. Spot was the last one left and he wanted to drown him.' Dwana shook her head. 'Can you believe this? Well, I told him that either he gives me the kitten for free or I would drown him. And here he is.'

'Its so precious! Can we have one, too?' all five dwarflings looked at Dis and Thorin and Dwana looked at them with an apologising expression.

'You can play with Spot everytime you like!' she offered the royal princes and princesses and scratched the little kitten behind the ear.

'Yay!' four voices yelled, for Belladonna was still cuddling with her Blacky.

The next morning, Thorin Stonehelm appeared in council with scratches all over his face.

'Did my daughter scratch you?' Dwalin asked him in astonishment and tried not to imagine any occasion which might involve any scratching in Dwanas and Thorins life.

'No, does Dwana seem like a scratching dwarf to you?' Thorin Stonehelm asked dryly. 'That little monster did.'

Dwalin looked at him questioningly, but Thorin Oakenshield grinned widely. 'So, you met Spot?'

'Spot?' Dwalin asked and growled in frustration. 'Would somebody tell me whats going on?'

'Dwana brought home a cat form the market.' Thorin Stonehelm told his father in law. 'A red beast with stripes and claws as long as a warg.'

Dwalin looked at Thorin Oakenshield, who only held out two fingers to show him that Spots claws were not that long. The king stayed serious, but his eyes gleamed in amusement.

'As I went to bed, that bloody thing attacked me! In my own bloody, freaking bed!' Thorin Stonehelm grumbled and hit the table with the palm of his hand, making the councilmembers jump.

Dwalin grinned from one ear to the other. 'I already like him.'

'Well, I hope you do!' Thorin Stonehelm exclaimed. 'You will take that thing while your daughter carries our dwarfling!'

'No way in Mordor I will take the...WHAT?!' Dwalin roared as he realised what Thorin had said.

Thorin Oakenshield, who was sitting between the two dwarves nearly went deaf at his friends cry and covered his ears. The council members also went silent, although many of them were watching the scene in amusement.

'Did you just tell me that my little daughter is pregnant?' Dwalin stood up and towered Thorin Stonehelm, who sunk back in his chair.

'Goodbye, it was nice meeting you.' Thorin Oakenshield muttered and tried to get out of Dwalins firing line.

Dwalin looked at his son in law for a while and it seemed that the vein on his skull would pop any moment, but then his expression changed. 'My little daughter will have a dwarfling! I will be a grandfather!' Then he fainted.

'I cannot believe you told him!' Dwana paced up and down in their room as Thorin brought her unconscious father and laid him down in one of the armchairs. He had thought about putting him onto the bed, but at the thought of his father in law laying on the same spot where his grandchild had been concieved, Thorin decided differently.

'I did not want to tell him, it was an accident!' Thorin defended himself.

'I wanted to tell queen Brann, first!' Dwana grumbled.

'I know, my love.' Thorin assured her. 'And I am sorry.'

'You can show me how sorry you are.' Dwana told her husband. 'Until Brann comes back, you will sleep in the armchair with Spot.'

'In the armchair? With that monster? Why?' Thorin looked at her with wide eyes.

'Because he makes me sneeze...' Dwana grumbled and walked away from her husband, closing the bedroom door behind her.

Thorin Stonehelm looked down at the caterwauling Spot to his feet and sighed. He sat down opposite to his father in law and sighed. He hoped that Brann would come back quickly.

As Dwalin woke up, he had no idea where he was. He sat up in the armchair and stretched his aching back with a yawn. He froze as he looked at the airmchair opposite to him. Thorin Stonehelm was sleeping in it, in a position that would make him extremly grumpy of pain in the next morning. On his lap was Spot, cuddled up into a furball. It seemed as if they were brothers in pregnancy, not in arms.

'You are pregnant, why did you not tell anybody?' Dis asked Dwana the next morning. The royal family was gathered around the breakfast table in the royal chambers and the adults looked at Dwana accusingly. 'What if something would have happened? And we would not have known how to help you?'

'I wanted to tell Brann, first.' Dwana answered and Thorin took her hand. 'She is the closest person I have to a mother.'

Thorin Oakenshield, Dwalin and Dis looked at the courtlady in surprise, for they knew how Brann and Dwana had started. Now, almost fifteen years later, their relationship was as close as a mother´s to a daughter´s.

'When will she be back?' Dwana asked the king, but Thorin Oakenshield only sighed.

'I got a letter from her two days ago. But she did not say when she would return.' the kings gaze moved to his daughters. Now, the brat was pregnant. He smiled as he remembered Branns pregnancies. During her first pregnancy, she had gotten nervous everytime when the twins moved. Thorin had always put his hands over her belly and the twins had stopped kicking each other, but had gently stretched their little feet against Branns belly and against Thorins hands. Thorin remembered spending long moments in their favorite armchair, with Brann on his lap. His legs had gotten numb after a while, but he had not cared. Cuddled against each other, they had caressed their dwarflings inside of Branns belly and had enjoyed the calm and peace of their rooms. And now, their twins had grown to little beautiful princesses. Little Belladonna had barely moved inside of her mother, but moved even more now that she could walk. Sometimes Thorin thought about getting a leash for his youngest daughter. She had become so quick and so quiet that it mostly needed the alert eyes of Dis, Dwana and himself to watch her.

Come back to me, to us...Thorin called out for his wife in his mind. He felt as if she could hear him, through all the distance that held them apart. It was like when she was ill and fought the decease while pregnant with the twins. Thorin had sat at her bed every night and had talked to her.

'Will you take Spot, adad?' Dwanas pleading voice jerked Thorin out of his thoughts. Dwana was looking at Dwalin and held up the cat. 'For some reason he makes me sneeze and master Oin said that this could be due to the pregnancy. I will take him back when my dwarfling is born.'

'In ten months.' Dis smirked and cocked an eyebrow at Dwalin. 'Remember, who has the cat has the royal princes and princesses on their back every moment of every day during their free time.'

Dwalin rolled his eyes and looked at the cat in Dwanas hands. With a sigh he grabbed Spot under his arms and held him up to look at him. The cat meowed and tried to hang in the hands of the captain of the guards with catlike grace.

'You have to feed him and give him water. He loves fish and liver. The water must be fresh at all times. And talk to him, tell him that he is a good cat, a beautiful cat...' Dwana stopped as she noticed her father´s glare. 'Alright, feeding him will be enough.'

Dwalin grumbled as he walked out of the royal chambers with the cat still held at arms length. Before the door closed behind him, the rest of the party could hear a loud sneeze and a loud meow.