So Comes Snow After Fire

15.ii

"That Jari truly had the brass to suggest that the dragon was our family's fault?" Dís set down the empty serving dish she had been clearing away and rounded on her brother. The private family dinner in her rooms was over now, and her sons had already departed, Kíli to Ravenhill and Fíli to mind some business of his own.

The color had risen to Dis's cheeks, and she went on, her voice mounting. "He thinks Mahal meant to grind us out? Are you sure he's not the one whose wits we should be looking for? That idle-brained, bald-faced—" She caught herself, clearly on the brink of some obscenity.

Thorin said nothing, half startled by her vehemence—he had not seen her this angry since he had first seriously proposed the Quest nearly five years ago—and half gratified to hear her make the complaints he could not voice before the council, at least not in such frank terms.

"He doesn't know what we suffered," Dís said, her tone softer, yet no less intense. "A lesser house would have crumbled and broken. I should think we've proven that Durin's blood runs true. We survived. We won back what is ours." She crashed a ladle against a silver tureen. "And spilled plenty of our own blood to do so!"

Out of old habit, Thorin stood and began helping her clear the table. She had servants now for such tasks, but she had dismissed them tonight, in no mood to afford an audience to this family crisis.

"I made much the same case to the council today," he told her. He might not have been brandishing dinnerware at his listeners, but he had presented his point no less fiercely.

Dís shook her head, tossing dark braids. "For generations upon generations, being of Durin's descent alone has been enough right for a king!" she scoffed. "If I'd been born a man, they would not dare question this now, never mind what they might say about our family."

Thorin smiled slightly, despite the strained subject. "You would have been the most fearsome of Thráin's sons," he observed.

"I've half a mind to stand before the council and prove to the seven kingdoms just how fearsome his daughter can be."

She was silent as she carefully and deliberately stacked the delicate porcelain dishes and placed them on the trolly at the sideboard. Thorin followed them with the empty goblets, and then the task was done.

Dís stared at him thoughtfully as she wiped her hands on a serving towel. "Why don't you take a bride now, sire your own heir," she said, and to Thorin's surprise, she seemed to mean this suggestion in all seriousness. "Let them try to argue against the legitimacy of our family's claim then."

Thorin sighed, both touched and impressed by her disregard of what such a choice would mean to her own little family. "Dís, you know I've long since decided that your sons are the only heirs I ask for. I won't replace them now, and I won't see Fíli lose his right."

"Won't you?" Her voice had lost all its belligerence and become very tired and vulnerable. "Thorin, I don't care if my sons are kings. I just can't bear to see them scorned as the worthless, witless remnants of a ruined house, to be purged from Durin's line like so much dross from gold." She held her chin high, never breaking her eyes from his, even as tears fell down her cheeks. Thorin placed his hands at her shoulders, feeling uncomfortably helpless to protect his sister from this new distress.

"My dearest," he began, but did not know what to say from there.

"I would rather not have been a daughter of kings. The kingship has destroyed us all, grandfather, and Adad, and— And Frerin—" Her voice broke then, and she paused, fighting to catch her breath before she could go on. "What if I'd lost you and my boys, when you regained this place? What would have been left me then? And I nearly did lose you, you to the gold and Kíli to a poisoned arrow." She put a hand over Thorin's arm and held him, hard. "And even now, this controversy! I can see what it's going to cost my sons in happiness. You're not a mother, so you can't understand. But I'd give both my arms not to see my children's hearts broken. The happiest I've ever been was as a common man's bride, with half the world lying between me and any crown or kingdom. Would that I were there still. Oh, my dear Víli..." She collapsed against Thorin's shoulder and began to sob.

He closed his arms around her, remembering another night, nearly seventy years gone, when she had clung to him and called her husband's name. Then, Thorin had been truly incapable of saving her from a harm already past repair; he could not give life back to the young dwarf who lay, cold and still, on the makeshift bier in their entrance hall. But he had sworn, then, that he would ensure she and her two infant sons would never be without a protector. She might be a widow, and they fatherless, but he would fill as much of that loss as he could.

"Dís, be still," Thorin said softly. "Nothing is lost yet." But he knew he could not promise her everything she asked. He could not both preserve Fíli's crown and defend Kíli's bride.

After a short while, Dís quieted and raised her head from his shoulder.

"I know you have always done your utmost for us," she assured him. "Perhaps we only want too much."

Thorin nodded, unable to answer her directly. "I've a meeting to attend," he said. "I'm sorry."

She nodded. "Go on," she told him, meaning she would be all right without him.

Thorin clasped her once more about the shoulders, and then left for his own private council rooms.