A Promise

Chapter One: A Stressful Evening

"You've disappeared into your head again."

Dis, daughter of Thrain, Princess Under the Mountain, had held her tongue for as long as she could. She picked up a poker from the side of the hearth and adjusted the burning logs as she waited for her husband to respond. When no answer came she paused, lifting her head to him slowly.
"Vili."
Still, his eyes were trained on the fire, staring at the flames without quite seeing anything. Her eyes narrowed a little.
" Vili ."

His inhale was quick, and he lifted his chin from his hand with one of his usual smiles. The kind that made the skin crinkle in the corner of his eyes. He adjusted himself on the wooden chair he had been sitting in and focused on her.
"Apologies, dearest one, were you saying something?"
Dis continued to study him for a long moment and then stood, making her way across the small corner of the Blue Mountains they called their own.
"You had that look in your eye again. I know that look. My father has it regularly these days and I'm almost convinced my brother was born with that expression," Though her husband chuckled at her words, she continued on. "You're thinking about that business with the orcs aren't you?"
"Your grandfather seems rather keen to have it dealt with. Moria should be held by the dwarves, my love. Not the orcs."
"Nothing good ever comes from fighting with orcs." Dis folded her arms tightly across her chest as she peered out of the window, keeping her eyes trained on the stone path that cut through the caverns of the mountains

As soon as she saw Dwalin, she thought, she would have to restrain herself from speaking her mind. He was too close to her brother for her liking sometimes.

"My grandfather has not been himself, not for a long time and you know it. I don't know why Father is encouraging him, there are too few of us. And so many orcs. So many, Vili."
"I know." She heard him sigh again, and she knew without looking that he'd returned his attention to the fire again.

"I suppose as soon as my brother walks through this door and tells you that there's a battle to be fought you'll be on your merry way." As clipped as her words were, she could feel a lump rising in her throat, something she would be having her own battle with for the rest of this conversation.
"Dis," He began, standing finally, but she didn't turn. Her hand lifted to her face and she anxiously toyed with the thick hair that sprouted from her sideburns.

"Well. You're telling Fili. I'm taking no part in it. You've only just come back from the last one–" When his arms circled around her from behind and he held her there, the sentence died in her throat. She swallowed painfully and quietly lent her head back against him.
"I came back," Vili said, his chin coming to rest atop her head as he held her. "I always come back, lass. Thorin and I, we know what we're doing,"
"Nothing in my brother's conduct gives me the impression he knows what he's doing. He's a being of rash decisions and anger when he wants to be. He knows it too. He's always been at the mercy of his emotions."
A pause from behind her, and she felt her husband tilt his head a little, one braided lock of golden hair swung to the side at the movement.
"...Family trait, then." He mumbled finally, pressing his lips to the top of her head.
"That's a warning, Vili." Dis replied, trying to remain expressionless as her husband smiled into her hair and held her a little tighter. "A warning."

How she wished that moment could be infinite. That she could remain in that space, looking out at the candlelit caverns of the Blue Mountains with his arms around her. Feel his heartbeat, the heave of his chest as he breathed. Safe, warm, and waiting for their sons to come home.

Oh, how alone she would be one day. But for now, there was peace. At this moment, there was sanctuary.

"Balin said they're doing better in their lessons." Her husband said, and she felt his voice rumble through his chest as he kept her in his arms.
"Fili is." Dis corrected him. "Since you told him he couldn't be a warrior without knowledge of the realms he's been hanging on every word Balin says. Kili," She paused to laugh gently, leaning her head back against his shoulder once more. "Kili, I am told, sits with his forehead on the desk. He doesn't even sleep. He just sits there in turmoil."
She saw Vili pull a regretful expression in the reflection of the window.
"He's...he's a fair bit younger, my love. He cannot read yet."
"He's a little terror is what he is. By the gods, I wish you had not bought him that wooden bow and arrow."
"The lad asked for it!" Vili reminded her, his voice nothing but teasing. "He spoke in khuzdul too, in the market. Trying to sweeten the deal for a present. I couldn't say no, dearest, think what that would have done to him."
"You ought to think about my bloody ornaments–oh." As much as it pained her to break the comfort of their embrace, at the first sign of Dwalin on the mountain path, Dis stepped from her husband's arms and made her way to the heavy wooden door.