Chapter 25

A Life That's Good

Enjoying himself was not something that came easy to him – he'd had too little cause for it before Smaug had been defeated – and it was harder to learn than he'd thought. But these past few years had done him good. It was hard to not learn a little when there was so much to be grateful for. And even though many people would disagree with him – not in the last place his own people – Thorin counted his wife as one of the chief blessings Mahal had bestowed upon him.

Duly Noted, Chapter 21: As You Like It

Thorin

Erebor, the anniversary of Smaug's death, 2961 TA

'Are you ready to leave?'

Kate smoothed the ruffles out of her skirt and nodded. 'As ready as I will be,' she replied.

Thorin for one was fairly sure that she had nothing to worry about on the account of her appearance. Dori had fussed about her wardrobe until he deemed it adequately stocked. She owned the finest gowns, even though she complained of the long skirts and unpractical cut of many of them. She looked like a true queen ought to look. And Thorin himself had done her hair. She looked well.

He took her hand in his. 'Shall we?' he asked.

Kate nodded. 'We shall.'

One could feel the Mountain's general excitement the moment they stepped foot out of the door. The streets were brightly lit, garlands graced the walls and there was something in the air that Thorin found hard to pinpoint, but that was there all the same. The mood was catching. If not for their destination, Thorin might have found it hard to resist. Later he would give in to it, let the cheer and happiness sweep him along as they celebrated. But that would be later.

Next to him Kate was quiet and subdued as well. The day of Smaug's death was, as always, a day of mixed feelings for not only them but their company as a whole. True, it was a day of great victory, the day they won back all that had been lost to them for so many years. It was also a day to honour those who had assisted them in bringing this victory about. Kíli had slain the dragon. To celebrate without remembering him would be a grave mistake. And then there was Bifur, whom they had lost in Mirkwood, who never once laid eyes on Erebor, but who had died on the quest of reaching it regardless. To celebrate this day without also paying respect to him would be wrong.

And so a tradition had formed. Every year without fail they would make the trek to Kíli's tomb and Bifur's memorial and pay their respects before joining the celebrating throng in the Great Hall.

Fíli joined them when they were only a few streets away. 'The crowds seem rowdy this year.' It was the kind of casual, neutral remark that could be expected. There was no cheer, not quite yet. They all walked under a dark cloud until their obligations had been fulfilled.

No, obligation was not quite the right word, for that indicated a reluctance to go that Thorin did not feel. He wanted to go. Without what Kíli and Bifur had done, days like these would not have been possible. They owed them everything.

'They are rowdy every year,' Kate said.

'Aye, but if even Óin can be heard to complain, you know it's worse than years gone by,' Fíli countered.

If this had been later in the evening, they would have pursued this point until it evolved quite naturally into bantering. But they would not cross that line quite yet. In moments like these he missed their fallen friends most. He could never stop feeling as though they should still be with them. They more than any others in this world deserved to be alive to celebrate this night. Of course, all of Durin's Folk feasted and danced, but they were plucking the fruit of another's labour, labour they themselves had shirked out of fear. In his darkest hours Thorin begrudged them the right to be so merry purely for this reason.

Kate must have seen the frown in his forehead, for she gently squeezed his hand. No words were needed. They would have added nothing. Just to have her support was sufficient.

Some of the others joined them on their way, but most of their group awaited them near the entrance. It was a long walk for almost all of them and they were deep inside the Mountain.

'Are we all here?' Balin asked.

Dwalin, one of the taller ones in their group, carried out a quick headcount. 'We're all here.'

There was no admittance for those who had not been part of their company, as it should be. Kate had made a strong case to include Dís in their number and Thorin had been inclined to agree. But Dís herself had refused the offer when it was made to her. 'I was not part of your company, Thorin,' she'd said. 'And I do not need to be there to remember him. Nor is the door closed on me on any other day that I would spend time mourning my son.'

He had been unwilling to leave it like that, but his sister had a will easily as strong as his own and in the end she had won the argument by simply not showing up. Short of dragging her by her hair there was nothing Thorin had been able to do about it and he had ended up accepting her wishes.

The mood was solemn and there was an almost unnatural silence when they entered. Dwarves were not usually given to silence. Thorin was well aware that he was the exception to the rule. Dwarves in general were noisy. None of them were here.

Kíli's tomb and the memorial for Bifur were side by side. Candles had been lit before they entered. Since none but the company entered on this night, one of them came a little ahead of the others as a rule and made sure everything was in readiness. It had been Bombur's turn this year.

There was no set rule for these gatherings. Elves and men were fond of their ceremonies with speeches filled with flowery, but meaningless words. Dwarves never had any use for such things. They did what worked, what felt right and natural. And none of it was ever thought strange, or was laughed or scoffed at. That was not how that worked.

This year Kate was surprisingly the first one to speak. She walked towards Bifur's stone and laid down a dried flower.

'We couldn't communicate, Bifur and I,' she said. 'Not very well at least. But he was never anything but kind to me. When I wasn't feeling… When I was feeling downcast some days, he'd take care of a chore I didn't like or he'd place a little curiosity near my head in the morning before I woke. Since there were so many flowers by the road, it was usually a flower. Seems right I return the favour.'

She stepped back, but Bofur put a hand on her shoulder and smiled a little.

It was a thoughtful gesture, one she must have planned since there weren't many flowers to be found in this time of year. Folk who met Kate usually reached the conclusion that she, very much like her husband they would remark, had very little patience for other people's sensibilities. Thorin however knew that this was true only to a certain extent. They both made the effort for those they cared about. There were not very many people allowed into that circle, but that did not mean it did not exist.

Some others spoke, but Thorin never did. He hadn't in all these years. Speaking his love for his sister-son would not restore him to life. Speaking of his admiration for Bifur would not make death unhand him. They were gone, perhaps watching them if the Maker allowed it, but out of reach all the same. And he had no use for talking to the dead; they could not answer him. And the words he would speak to them could never fully express what he felt. There was a point where emotion went beyond words and every word spoken would only seem to diminish it.

You are missed, sister-son. The words however were in his mind. You were the brightest light in our years of exile, full of promise and hope. You were loved. You are loved still. We owe you everything we have. You will not be forgotten.

The gathering concluded some time later. They filed out and left the dead behind. As they walked through the door Thorin could feel the cloud of sorrow and remembrance slowly lift until it vanished completely when the door was shut. They had done this, not as an unpleasantness before more agreeable activities, but as a thing that needed to be done before any of them felt free to fully enjoy the night.

And they should enjoy it. They, more than anybody else who currently dwelled under the Mountain, had earned the right. Others had run for the safety of their mother's skirts when the word dragon had been mentioned, and some of them trained warriors with battle experience too. Some of those had come with Dáin to fight for Erebor when it had come under siege after Smaug's demise. But although those enemies had been numerous, none of them had breathed fire. And no dwarf worth his beard shied away from battle. They had done no more than their duty – and Thorin thought they had done a good deal less than their duty, all things told – so he could not commend them for it.

But these dwarves had come when called, some of them young, some of them all but untrained, but all of them willing to heed his call and undertake the most dangerous of quests with him. He could not ever not be grateful to them, even if he did have trouble expressing it. Despite the danger, despite all the odds being stacked against them, they had come and they had fought. They had earned every good thing ten times over.

'The crowds are rowdier than last year,' Óin grumbled when they came near the Great Hall.

'I wouldn't know about that,' Fíli said good-naturedly. 'Because last year I could barely hear you complain of their noisiness, whereas I'm hearing you loud and clear this one.'

The company laughed loudly, while Óin only scowled in Fíli's direction. 'Speak up, lad. I can't hear you over all that ruckus.'

This of course only caused them to laugh louder. Thorin found himself joining in, in spite of his own reservations. It always seemed to take him longer than the others to shake the sorrow from his shoulders. Enjoyment did not come easy to him, though it had gotten easier with the years.

'Speaking of loud, how is your boy doing?' Kate asked Fíli when the laughter died down. 'I've been meaning to ask, but I got a little side-tracked.'

'He's a marvel and a joy,' was the immediate response. 'Síf and I would both appreciate it if he would sleep through the night, but he's a marvel all the same.'

'He gets that from his father,' Dwalin nodded. 'You could've kept the entire Ered Luin awake with the way you wailed.'

Fíli attempted to look somewhat indignant. 'Mr Dwalin, I have no idea what you are talking about.'

Kate patted him on the shoulder. 'Fíli, my friend, allow me to let you in on a little secret. You see, it's not your fault, really. You couldn't help it. Your whole family's afflicted, I'm afraid. At least, that's what I suspect, because my boys never really liked sleeping at night either. Though, come to think of it, I never had that issue with either of my girls.' She grinned at him. 'So, you should probably hope for a girl next time!'

Thorin for one had been thrilled when Fíli's son had been born. Unsurprisingly he had named the lad Kíli, after the brother he'd lost. Thorin had considered giving the name to one of his boys, but only very briefly. It wasn't his right to use it when he had been the one to lead him to his death. Kate did not agree with his judgement of himself, but Thorin knew her to be wrong. He had known what awaited them. And he had taken that risk for himself without a second thought. But he should not have gambled with their lives. They were not his to risk. And so the name now wasn't his to use.

In the general mood, his own musings went all but unnoticed.

'You all right?' Kate asked softly, falling into step with him.

'Yes.' It was the truth. These thought would always make an appearance from time to time, but he was master over them, not the other way around. And if ever he was in danger of losing control, Kate would be there to lead him back out. He had trusted her to do so for twenty years now and she had yet to fail him.

'Good,' she said. 'Blimey, twenty years to the day that the monster breathed his last. There are days when it feels like it was only yesterday.' She took his hand as they walked on. 'And then there are days when it feels like a lifetime ago.'

For Thorin it was one of the latter's. It was hard to picture Erebor empty and deserted, in ruins even. Twenty years had brought about much change. True, the full restoration of this kingdom would not be completed in his lifetime, he was sure. Smaug had done much damage. But this area was brought back to its former glory and there was music and light and the sound of hundreds of voices all speaking and laughing at the same time. They chased the shadows away and kept the memories of bad times at bay.

'Oh, it feels more like yesterday to me,' Bofur chimed in, unaware that he was barging in on a private conversation. 'Hauling a dragon corpse around the corridors is not a thing one forgets in a hurry.'

'Hear, hear,' Kate said, but she was laughing.

For all that they were always complaining about what a thankless task it had been, most of them looked back on it with fondness. It was something they had achieved together and even though the work had been hard, they had shared experiences and laughs that Thorin, due to his injury, had not been a part of. He did not resent them for this. Rather he regretted that he had not been well enough to partake.

'I say we ought to invite our burglar for the celebration next year,' Glóin said. 'It isn't right he's never been. He was there, after all.'

'I have invited him for five years in a row now,' Kate informed him. This was news to Thorin. He knew she exchanged letters with their hobbit somewhat regularly, but he didn't know a thing about an invitation. 'He always thanks me kindly for the honour, but he has a life in the Shire. And he reminded me that the last time he ventured beyond the Misty Mountains, he came back to find his things auctioned off because he was presumed dead. And his relatives pilfered the silverware, which he's never recovered. I don't think he's that keen on a repeat performance.'

'Can't say I blame him,' Dori said.

'Bloody disgrace,' Dwalin agreed. 'Relatives treating him like that. We ought to have provided him with an escort. That would have sorted his problems easy enough.'

'And would send all his neighbours running for the hills without a second thought. I wouldn't think any of them have ever even seen a sword.' Kate's reply was quick enough, but Thorin could tell that from one moment to the next, her mind was no longer on the conversation.

He could hazard a relatively educated guess as to the reason. Because Bilbo's nearest and dearest had thought him dead after his lengthy and unexplained absence. Kate's own kith and kin would have had little reason to believe otherwise. True, she had sent her letters to explain, but she had confided in him that she had little hope that their contents would be believed, even by those closest to her. She had explained that what had happened to her was too far removed from what was believed to be possible by her people.

'Why did you send the letters then?' he had asked, not unkindly.

She'd looked him right in the eyes. 'Because it helps me sleep at night. It's a fool's hope, but better than nothing at all.' He'd held her for a long time that night and could only hope she found some peace at last.

'We should keep trying,' Balin said. 'He should witness it at least once.'

'Give us the opportunity to thank him properly, too,' Ori agreed. 'We'd all be charcoal if not for his quick thinking.'

'Well, maybe if we all write to him and ask him to come, that might make a difference,' Bofur said. 'That way he'll know we all want him to come.'

'I can't see how that would make any difference,' Dwalin replied. 'With half of you your handwriting's so bad I can never decide if you've attempted to communicate or if you just scribbled nonsense down.'

'Nah, that's just because your sight's going,' Glóin said. 'My scrips is perfectly legible.'

'Didn't say it was your script I couldn't decipher, did I?'

They had reached the Great Hall and group conversation instantly became all but impossible. Óin had a point when he said that the crowds were noisy; they were. But the people inside were happy and laughing and dancing. The mood was catching. And so Thorin was resolved to leave any and all dark thoughts outside the door. They would still be there when he left.

'There you go, amad, drink?' Thoren had pushed a glass into Kate's hand before she could respond. His two eldest sons had appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

'Thank you, I think?' she said, but she was smiling. 'I'll know if I should thank you when I've drunk it and liked it.'

'Maybe you'll be so drunk you won't remember what's in it and thank us anyway,' Thráin grinned mischievously.

Kate laughed. 'It'll take a lot more than your combined brains to get me drunk, lads.'

Thoren shrugged nonchalantly. 'Well, it was worth a try, wasn't it, Thráin?'

'Of course,' his brother nodded. 'But, you know, since we can't get the pleasure of seeing you drunk, think you could trouble yourself for a dance?'

'What makes you think I would release your mother?' Thorin asked, joining in the teasing.

'My, I am in high demand tonight,' Kate remarked.

'Adad, there are enough dances to go around,' Thoren told his father in a tone of voice he must have learned from his Uncle Dori. 'You can have amad for the vast majority of them, if you like. Now, don't be greedy.'

'Yes, adad, were you never taught to share?' Thráin chimed in. They were growing up, these sons of his, but they were careless and so innocent still. And Thorin would never begrudge them that.

Next to him Kate was chuckling her amusement. 'Very well, I see how it is. If you don't think you're too old to dance with your mother…'

'We'll never be too old for that,' Thoren interjected.

'… Then I will gladly dance with you,' Kate finished as though she hadn't heard him, but Thorin could tell she was touched. She discreetly left the glass on an obliging table nearby.

Thoren had already grabbed her hand. 'I'm the oldest, I get to go first,' he informed his brother. They had disappeared before Thráin had thought up a suitable reply.

'Guess I could always ask Nes for a dance first,' Thráin shrugged, not in the least put out that he was not the first. 'Hey, Nes, wait up!' He was off before Thorin could do anything about it.

Nes was one of Bombur's daughters. Bombur and his wife Dara had so many children that Thorin had quite honestly lost count at some point, but his sons were thick as thieves with them. Dara had been one of their preferred childminders – still was, now that the twins were still young enough to need one – when the boys and Duria had been little.

His companions had all wandered away to get themselves a drink or a dance or some other company. He was confident he'd cross paths with them again before the night was out, but there was no rule that said they ought to spend all time together as a group.

He noticed Duria a little distance away, standing all alone, and made his way over to her. 'Where are your friends?' he asked gently. His girl certainly did not lack friends. She did not have a great many, but there were three or four others of about her age she spent a great deal of time with, all of them just as scholarly inclined as she was.

'Haven't arrived yet,' she replied. 'I am waiting for them.' She gave him a scrutinising look and asked: 'Where's amad?'

Thorin smiled. 'Your brothers have abducted her,' he confided. 'Perhaps I ought to send out the Guard to find her.'

'That'd be a sight. Are you going to have them arrested?' Duria was trying and failing to hide her amusement.

'Haven't decided yet,' Thorin said lightly. 'They may still unhand her of their own free will.' He looked at the dancefloor and thought he could just make out two familiar redheads before they disappeared in the crowd of dancers again. 'How about you and I go and have a dance while we wait?' he suggested. 'I've been told it's a celebration tonight, after all.'

His daughter's delighted smile was all the answer he needed.

Kate

There were days when Kate Andrews could almost forget she ever had known the word regret at all. This was not one of those days, but it always came close. Not that she would have it any other way, because the remembrance part of the night was necessary. She had never gone there with reluctance. She knew herself well enough to know that she would never be able to really enjoy the celebrations without paying her respect first.

But she had left her cares behind at the door and she fully intended to enjoy herself tonight. Her sons were certainly assisting her in that endeavour.

'Could it have fitted in this hall, the dragon?' Thoren asked when he twirled her around. Both he and Thráin had been fascinated with the story since they were old enough to be told stories at bedtime. And even though he was taller than she was – he'd grown much in the past few years – this had apparently not changed.

'Easily,' she replied indulgently.

'I wish I could have seen him,' Thoren said wistfully. It was a good thing he didn't do that where his father could hear; Thorin was still uneasy with the subject. He was only glad his sons had never needed to see a dragon up close. While Kate shared this opinion, she didn't see the harm in questions. By all accounts it was a good story, the sort of tale that might end up being in a book of adventures. Now, there's irony for you.

'You'd be disappointed,' she told him. 'He was ugly both inside and out. And then we're not even talking about the smell of him.' She grinned at him. 'Or indeed the weight of him.'

Thoren called her bullshit on that. 'You are always talking and laughing about that, amad. And so is everybody else. It can't have been as bad as all that.'

'Not all bad,' she conceded. There had been days when they were dragging that she was sure one of her limbs was going to come off, but there had been camaraderie as well, more even than on the road. 'But bad enough.' She still had some vivid memories of that bloody staircase after all.

The dance ended and then Thráin was there. 'My turn,' he announced, playfully pushing his brother away.

'Manners,' Kate reminded them.

'He hasn't any,' Thoren said. 'If he wasn't my brother and you didn't insist you raised him yourself, I'd be convinced he had grown up in a warg's den.'

'Alas, I should have left you more to the tender cares of your Uncle Dori when you were tiny little lads,' Kate sighed in mock-exasperation.

'You wouldn't have,' Thráin said confidently.

'You love us far too much,' Thoren finished.

Oh, you have the measure of me.

It was true. She loved her boys and, after a fashion, she had come to love her life. In spite of all her fears, things had sorted themselves out. True, they sometimes needed a little bit of a firm hand in sorting themselves out. But give dwarves long enough to get used to something new, and they would eventually get used to it or simply forget that it was ever not the way it was today. Kate didn't particularly care which it was.

What's more, she was content, happy where she was, even feeling a sense of belonging nowadays, when she thought that would be forever unobtainable for her when she first made the choice to stay. But here she was, twenty years on, and she was thriving. Loving husband, five children to her name, Queen under the bloody Mountain… If someone had told her that this would be her life before she had come here, she would have sent them straight on to a mental asylum.

'I should applaud you,' she told Thráin. 'All my toes are still present and accounted for.'

'That's more than can be said for Auntie Dís's,' he grinned mischievously. 'She made me practise.' He spoke the word as if it was a contagious disease.

'Looks like her hard work paid off,' Kate remarked. Thráin was quick enough on his feet on the training grounds, but dancing confounded him. He would have been good at it if he could swing swords or axes around at the same time, but they would prefer to end the night without bloodshed.

'What of my hard work?' he grumbled good-naturedly. And he must have been pretty eager to show it off, given that he had ambushed her the moment she stepped through the door. He could pretend to not like this pastime all he liked, but she rather thought he had picked up a liking for it he didn't quite want to become common knowledge yet.

If that was the case, she would oblige him. 'As I said, I should applaud you. It's just a little hard to do when we're in the middle of a dancefloor. Am I off the hook?'

'Just this once.' It was slightly scary how well he could imitate her. 'Anyway, I'm never going to be as good as you at this anyway.' He looked a little annoyed. 'You make it look like it is the easiest thing in the world.'

'I could say the same about you and swordplay,' Kate pointed out. And maybe she could make it look effortlessly now, but it had taken a bit of practice. 'But you and I both know you've had to work at it.'

He considered that. 'That's true.'

'There you are then.'

Thráin's dancing skills had indeed improved a lot since he's been doing it the last time, where she could see it anyway, but he had not improved so much that he could avoid bumping into other people entirely.

'Steady there!' was the only warning she got before Thráin spun her into another couple. Fortunately there was a pair of arms to catch her before she fell and when she was helped up again, it was to the pleasant discovery that said arms belonged to her husband.

'Dancing going well?' he asked. It seemed he had left the melancholy behind, because his eyes were twinkling with badly concealed amusement.

'What can I say?' she shrugged. 'You never fail to sweep me off my feet.'

Behind her Thráin made a disgusted noise. 'Are you really going to do that here? We're in the middle of a dancefloor!'

'Be glad we're not like Ori and Thora,' Kate said, who thought they were actually being really mild. For one, they were never much for flirting in public and this was as far as it ever went. And really, her brother and sister-in-law were far, far worse. Ori would never start it, but he certainly didn't mind it if his wife kissed him in a room full of people and Thora had always been one to take the initiative.

'And I am not waiting around for that to happen,' Thráin announced. He turned to Duria, who had been dancing with her father until the little mishap. 'Sister, would you allow me to finish this dance with you?'

Duria agreed and took his hand.

'Just wait until we've left and then you two can turn as many stomachs as you like,' Thráin instructed.

'Turning your stomach, are we?' Thorin asked. Tonight he seemed more amused than annoyed.

'No, making a strategic retreat before that happens!' Cheeky little so-and-so.

She'd allow it for tonight. If she was being honest, she was far too happy to even consider being vexed by anything. She'd get annoyed enough with people in her day-to-day life, but this was a festive day, a day intended to be merry and joyful, for laughing and loving and staying up too late.

'It seems my partner has abandoned me,' Kate concluded. 'It's a dreadful business.'

'Rude was more the word I had in mind,' her husband said. 'And it seems I suffered the same fate.'

'Maybe Thoren was on to something,' she said. 'He's convinced Thráin was raised in a warg's den.'

'Must have been.' Thorin nodded sagely. 'Odd. You'd think we'd have noticed it.'

Kate had an answer to that. 'He's a changeling child,' she replied promptly. 'Has to be.'

It was testimony to just how much explaining she had done over the past two decades that she didn't have to explain this one. Ori, bless him, had written down every strange and outlandish thing she had ever said, with translation into more comprehensible terms included. And Kate knew herself well enough to know that she had not made his job much easier by using as little of these strange words and sentences as she could. She did take care, but every now and then things would just slip out and she'd never give it a second thought until she caught sight of a room filled with confused faces.

'It's a shameful state of affairs,' Thorin said. 'Would you finish this dance with me then, since we have both been forsaken?'

'It would be my pleasure,' Kate said, putting her hand in his. 'Rumour has it that not many have danced with the King under the Mountain.' Thorin never really liked dancing, though he claimed he liked dancing with her. And he made exceptions for Dís and Duria as well. In time, when Cathy had grown a bit, he would allow her to persuade him too.

'There aren't many worth dancing with,' he pointed out.

Kate was honoured to know herself among their number.

It was a good day, she reflected, almost as if there was some special magic in the air that chased the clouds in their minds away and made them able to laugh as nothing had ever gone wrong in the world at all.

'We have a good life,' she said. A little ways away she saw Thráin and Duria dance and not get into an argument for once. Thoren had dragged one of Duria's friends, a girl called Thulfa, onto the floor.

Thorin nodded. 'We have been blessed,' he agreed.

It was exactly like that.

This was meant to go up on Sunday, but I've got a pretty busy few days ahead, which includes getting the keys for my flat tomorrow, so you're getting this a little early.

Also, if you've missed it, I'm updating The Book again. It's far more complicated than The Journal ever was, so I may not manage it every Sunday, but hopefully I can substitute it with a Duly Noted chapter whenever that's the case.

Thank you for reading. Reviews would be very much appreciated.

And last but not least: merry Christmas everybody!