Archive of Our Own

August, 2942

Erebor had not been how he remembered it.

He had of course known that it wouldn’t be; abandoned for centuries with just a dragon to wreck the once beautiful halls would, of course, have changed it. He had known that it wouldn’t be bright and beautiful, that it would be a shell of what it had once been.

Thorin had known this, but he didn’t really think he had ever quite understood it.

He hadn’t been ready for the darkness, for the cold; the forges that had once heated the Lonely Mountain from roots to peak had been dead for many a long year. He hadn’t been prepared for the skeletal bodies, for the stench of death, for the shine of all that gold.

A part of him, he thought, had been waiting for his grandmother to glide in her stately robes from her rooms, her arms open and her skin smelling of smelting, ready to embrace him. He had been waiting for the ghosts of all the people he had lost to return to him; his father’s laughter and his brother’s grin, his old scripture tutor’s booming voice and his craft-master’s deep scowl, the clash of steel from the other young dwarves he had sparred with, the songs from taverns he and Dwalin had snuck out to in disguise, convinced that no one would recognise them.

He had been waiting for the flash of the lavish, bejewelled beads his mother wore in her beard as she turned in the lamplight, waiting for the sight of Balin, his hair still that bright yellow-gold it had been before it turned white, trailing after Fundin, with his axes almost as tall as he was strapped across his broad back. He’d been anticipating the Lady Orla, a young Nori in her arms to storm through the halls, searching for Dori, who had no doubt snuck out to follow one of his friends down to the lower quarters (Thorin always found it slightly amusing that Nori had no idea that his older brother had been as badly behaved as he was in his younger years).

He had been expecting Erebor as it was; the courts of glittering Lords and Ladies, the music echoing from taverns along the hallways, the sound of laughter in the air and the ringing boom from the mines, the flare of candlelight and the golden gleam of the forges, the smell of metal in the air and the taste of roasting meat in the dining halls. He had been expecting his home, not a mountain that had been left empty for centuries but for bodies and a slumbering dragon.

And those first months had been a grim reminder that reclaiming a lost Kingdom did not mean bringing back the dead, did not mean that all that festering pain would just heal.

Not right away, at any rate.

But now the Kingdom was warm again, the dragon stench dispelled by incense burning thick in the perpetual shade of the tunnels, glowing with that flicker of candle and firelight, dancing across the walls through the phosphorescence of crystals angled to refract the light. The shade of what had once been lingered still, in those empty houses (for though there had been an outpouring of dwarves returning to Erebor, the years had not been kind and their numbers were much fewer than they had been even a century before, so that there were still large sections of the Kingdom that remained unpopulated). But those that had survived had come to Erebor with a renewed purpose, a desire to craft as strong as it had been the day that Mahal had cast it into their bones, and the great parapets and looming columns quickly shored up and rebuilt even as the mines were opened again, even as the great granite floors were polished back into a high shine.

But the present dwarves of Erebor were a different breed to the ones that Thorin had known before the dragon, different to the ones he remembered lining his Grandfather’s halls. They were harder, and hardier too, and less prone to debate. These were dwarves that acted first and considered their actions later, and on more than one occasion in the earlier months Dwalin and his growing group of guards were forced to separate bloody street fights (that Nori only occasionally started).

Most of the members of his Grandfather’s council were dead; those that were left had been the ones who had lost the most, and many of them were bitter at that, demanding and over-confident. More than once, Thorin himself had to quash them with a particularly hard word or action, something in which he had taken no pleasure but was forced to accept the necessity of, even if it bothered him when he was in his quarters late at night.

He had thought that defeating the dragon would be the hardest part. It turned out that had been nothing compared to actually resettling Erebor.

But dwarves were cut from stone and cast in bronze- they were more iron than bone, more mithril than flesh; and with enough hard work and dedication, the re-founding of the greatest dwarven Kingdom was, if not finished, then at least along the way.

And they had had their fair share of trouble: Lords from the Iron Hills who had come with intentions of settling themselves in a higher position than Thorin was willing to give them, dwarves who came expecting the Mountain they had heard in stories, not ruins and the stench of dragon, mutters about the new open trade with men and elves in Dale and the Greenwood. But Thorin’s Company had stepped up to the mark, Nori keeping his ears open, Dwalin flexing his knuckles, Dori and Balin having quiet words with the new trade guilds and old Lords both, Fili and Kili winning over naysayers with their easy smiles and young, bright demeanours.

And even if there were still frowns and the odd murmur on days like this, when Bard stood in front of the throne to say his farewells and thanks after a brief visit from Dale, diplomatically invited to celebrate a particular Dwarven holiday, no one dared step forward and oppose his presence.

Bard nodded at Thorin, his face drawn into that perpetual grim expression that always put him slightly on edge. It was impossible to tell if it masked anything, or if it was just the way the new Lord of Dale always looked. He remembered Girion well, remembered him having a similar expression, though he was prone to booming laughter after imbibing a few ales around the dinner table.

Bard he had never heard laugh, had very rarely even see him smile.

“It’s been a pleasure having you here,” came Fili’s voice from Thorin’s side, and he nodded in agreement, realising that he had missed whatever it was Bard had said, too focused on his own thoughts. Bard inclined his head in return.

“And being here,” he answered, though his voice did not sound particularly overjoyed. “It is always interesting to see how the Kingdoms are growing.”

Fili’s hair was golden in the bronze glow from the great copper lanterns hanging from the arching roof above them.  His profile, when Thorin turned to look at him, was as strong as any of the great Kings of old carved into the face of the mountain.

“As it is for us, to see Dale prosper once more. It’ll be good to see it again, in a few months.”

That would be the next official time that they would go to Dale, though Thorin knew that Fili would no doubt end up down there before then, either dragged away by Kili for an afternoon off or sent by Balin to deliver some missive or sign some document, no doubt more to give the Crown Prince a chance for some fresh air than out of any necessity. Or else he might slip down to see Bard himself, or his family, for Fili had a noticeable affection for them (particularly the oldest daughter, though Thorin was trying very hard not to think about the implications of that).

In just a few months it would be the first anniversary of the great battle that had been fought around the base of the Mountain, a day that Thorin still felt uncomfortable remembering. So much of it had been a blur, right up until the point he had seen a sword through Kili’s thigh, a spear through Fili’s shoulder, the pair of them falling to the ground before him as he lay, blood obscuring vision that was still clearer than it had been for days since he had first stepped foot into the Mountain, since-

“We will look forward to welcoming both you and the elves from the Greenwood,” Bard replied, with a short bow. “I’m glad we could finally agree on a design for the memorial.”

“It has been passed on to our craft guilds already,” Fili answered. “No doubt it will be very impressive when it is done.”

The corner of Thorin’s mouth twitched upwards at his nephew’s smooth tongue, so much better suited for diplomacy than Thorin had ever been. He was half tempted to send Fili to Greenwood next month rather than going himself, if Thranduil wouldn’t have taken offence.

Although, how much did that really concern him?

Bard nodded his farewells, and, as he left, a few members of his diminished court stood to leave as well, no doubt off to nurse their hangovers from the feast the night before. It had been a good evening, full of song and ale and high spirits, and sat up at the high table with the Lord of Dale, he had had a strange moment with Bard when the man was deep into his cups and appearing more and more melancholy with each passing tankard.

“How do you do it?” Bard had asked, as Thorin had sat down from singing a long, slow song in celebration, having been prompted by a number of his Companions.

Thorin had turned his head to one side, a little confused but not entirely willing to admit it.

There had been a momentary flicker of emotion across that stern face, and then Bard had looked away and said no more. 

Perhaps he should have pushed it to the back of his mind, but he was unable to. There had been some queer concern in those grim, grey eyes for a moment, some deep uncertainty and self-doubt, and Thorin had not known how best to address it, though he knew the feeling well; on more than one occasion, he had found himself unable to believe that he was the right Dwarf to lead his people, that he would succeed in all that he set out to do.

“You know,” he said, a little while later, taking a sip from his tankard. “They’re singing about you right now.”

Bard glanced at him, frowning; the current song was rousing and bold, but in their own tongue, nothing more than guttural, rhythmic sounds to him.

“They’re singing of the death of Smaug, and the reclaiming of Erebor, the brave dwarves returning from exile, a lone man standing in the flames of his town, and drawing his bow.”

“Do they sing of you?” Bard asked, and Thorin nodded.

“I don’t like it when they do, though,” he admitted, not looking at Bard but across his people, across so many wide smiles and bright eyes, across fine silver and plates piled high with food traded from Dale. “They don’t talk of the madness, or the fact that I nearly led us all to our deaths.”

He hadn’t been a hero, he hadn’t been the King that he should have been. He’d let the cold grip of madness lead him, had let a longing for gold and revenge blur his clarity.

He’d nearly died.

He’d nearly killed them all.

And Bard must have read some part of this in his expression, because he had frowned again, and stared out too, perhaps understanding this inherent belief they shared that they were not quite good enough.

“My Grandfather told me once, though,” Thorin had said, his voice low and quiet, so just Bard could hear – and perhaps Fili too, who sat on the other side of Bard, and was watching them both out of the corner of his eye. “Before the madness took him, too, that a good King rules with the knowledge that he is not infallible, with the understanding that he needs others, to support and advise and to keep him on the right path. If a King believes that he is inherently better than all his peers, then he never questions his decisions, and that is when he starts to make bad ones.”

They had been interrupted, then, by the call for another song, and they did not return to it, but as they exchanged farewells with Bard, he held the man’s hand a little tighter than he might have done otherwise, and tried to convey come sense of what he was feeling as he said goodbye, watching with some strange concern as Bard left the Hall and he returned to his throne.

“Uncle?”

It was enough to make Thorin pay attention, forgetting the night before; in everywhere but their private quarters and family moments, Fili had taken to calling him ‘My King’, as protocol demanded. It had sat a little uncomfortably with both of them at first, but after the long year it was finally beginning to feel, if not natural, then at least not quite so strange anymore. One glance at the frown furrowing Fili’s brow made it clear the reason for the unintentional slip. Normally his face was more closed off than his brother’s or his mother’s expressions, but right now it was unguarded, conflicted and unsure.

Seeing that he had gained Thorin’s attention, Fili glanced quickly to the floor from where he was sat. Thorin almost regretted the decision to have a second throne added to the room for his Crown Prince and heir; had he stood by the side of Thorin’s own, as Thorin had done for his Grandfather, he might have been able to reach up, and bump the underside of Fili’s chin with his knuckles as he had when the lad was a boy and afraid of getting into trouble. As it was, he could only offer the slight quirk of a smile and as gentle an expression as he could manage as he waited for Fili to continue.

“Am I… I-”

He rubbed a thumb over the ring he wore on his hand, the ring of the Crown Prince, once sold to make ends meet in exile, but now remade.

Fili glanced at the door, behind which no doubt a long line of dwarves waiting for their King’s attention stood, and he seemed to lose a little confidence in what he was going to say, sitting a little straighter instead, eyes fixed on the distance.

“If I were to ever do anything that displeased you, My King, or else did not meet your expectations, I would hope that you would tell me?”

Thorin’s shoulders slumped a little.

“Fili-” he began, but the size of the hall made his voice echo a little harsher than it was intended, made him sound firm and strong as befitting a restored King, but not an Uncle. Fili started a little in his throne, confirmation enough to Thorin that he had not sounded as he had intended.

It was strange, really; he had spent so many years in exile schooling the tone of his voice to recall these halls, the way they projected and tempered a voice into something unyielding, something that was to be obeyed at all costs. He had spent so long making himself into something that inspired obedience and loyalty, and now that he was back here, all he found himself wanting to do was gentle himself once more.

“Fili,” he started again, and if his voice was a little softer now, a little warmer, then certainly none of the guards at the door nor the scribes to the side of the room would comment on it if they could overhear. “Fili, you have never failed to meet my expectations, in any way, simply by being you, and you shall continue to do so by doing nothing else.”

It wasn’t quite what he had intended to say, and it certainly might not have been as comforting as words that Dis or Bilbo could have come up with, but now Fili was nodding and looking at him with visible relief in his eyes, and Thorin thought that despite himself, it might just have done the trick.

He nodded to Balin, sat inconspicuously to the side as the court Speaker.

“A brief break, I think, Lord Balin?”

Balin might have smiled in approval, behind his beard, but he quickly covered it with a more neutral expression.

“Of course, my King. As long as you wish.”

Thorin stood and, as he drew level with Fili’s chair, his hand moved to the back of his nephew’s neck, thumb ghosting across the soft skin behind his ear in a gesture straight from the boy’s childhood. It was odd, really, that he had reflected so long on his own insecurities, yet had always assumed that Fili had settled into his new role without any such doubts.

“Come, Fili,” he said, drawing his nephew to his feet, his hand lingering there for a moment. “Bilbo said he would bake this morning, and if we’re quick, we might beat your brother to the scones.”

Fili’s laugh was sudden and bright; the scribes around the room looked up in surprise as it echoed out around them, glancing at their Crown Prince with some measure of fondness. Thorin felt something swell in his chest, some pride and love that he could not have vocalised but felt no less because of it, at the sound.

It was odd, really. He’d spent so long remembering his Grandfather’s voice, loud and deep and proclaiming orders immediately obeyed in this room, and now that he was back, all he wanted was to fill it with laughter.

May, 2942

Nine figures sat uncomfortably around a table, staring awkwardly at each other.

Three elves sat along one side, keeping their quiet and graceful silence, keeping their eyes firmly fixed on the wall of the tent behind them and their faces quite still. They had come from the Greenwood to the fields around Dale, on fair horses in gleaming armour, even though the battle that had shaken all three Kingdoms was long over, even though months had passed since then.

Three men sat along another side, glancing cautiously between the two other occupied sides, their faces lined and grim from a lifetime of need. Their arms were strong though, and their hollow cheeks fuller after a better year, despite the destruction of their home. They had come from Dale, less ruins now and closer to what you might call a city, and had put up the tent for the group to discuss within.

The final side was occupied by three dwarves, frowning behind their beards and helmets. They had arrived in the newly reclaimed Kingdom of Erebor over the last few months, in a part of many caravans that had flooded into the city since the Company of Thorin Oakenshield had taken it back. Their axes and swords were close, but their hands were not hovering over the hilts, perhaps a little less cautious around the other occupants of the tents than they might have been even a month before.

The table they were sat around was covered in a large piece of parchment, depicting the final draft of the first monument to ever be jointly dedicated by dwarf, elf and man; after long weeks of debate and revision, they had finally reached a design that, it seemed, everyone was finally happy with.

“Our Lord Thranduil has told us to convey that we might progress with the design as it is,” said one elf, his white-blonde hair half-obscuring a scar that ran from his cheek to below his ear on his right side, a remnant of the battle. His face showed no sign of age, but there was a sense of fatigue about him anyway, something about his skin that seemed to glow less than his companions, some sense of death that lingered still.

The battle had left scars and aching wounds in all three Kingdoms, and though they were beginning to heal, some had been hurt worse than others.

The great stone block of the monument stood taller itself than any man or elf, sketched out on the paper, intricately carved with the great wings of an eagle, the broad body of a bear, the tall figure of bearded man with a staff, a crouching figure with a small sword, more of a letter opener than anything else.

“Bard said he’s happy with it, as well,” said a man, his walking stick propped up by his side. The battle had been the first he had ever seen, but he had known loss many times before; he had buried lovers and children and even grandchildren, taken by hunger and illness and the wet chill of the Lake. It was etched in the winkles around his mouth, the tired look in his gaze, the sadness that lingered in his green-grey eyes.

The men of Laketown had been more refugees than warriors, looking for food, not war. Most of them had been untrained, too old, too hungry.

On top of the monument would stand three figures, swords drawn and raised, blades meeting in some victorious salute to their allied forces: a dwarf, a man, an elf, in armour with noble, strong expressions, blank and above the emotions of reality. No such meeting had actually ever taken place, as far as the Kings or the designers were aware. No one had reported any moment where a member of each force had stood together in this way, but it had been the first time their three Kingdoms had allied together since the days of Thror; it marked the beginning of something new and better than that allegiance had ever been, stronger for its mutual loss.

“The King Under the Mountain has agreed that we can proceed, too,” said one of the dwarves, as she ran a hand through her auburn beard. She had been born in the Iron Hills to refugees of Smaug, but Erebor had called in her bones, and she had opted to stay once the battle was over. Her brother had been lost to a warg bite on the field, the last of the family that she had left, but she had thrown herself into the rebuilding of Erebor.

And now she would lead the carving of this monument, and in every sculpted expression, in every line and curve, she would carve the grief she could see etched into all their bones, would carve the loss and longing and fear.

But she would also carve the laughter in the eyes of the children that ran through Dale, the joy in the songs that rang through the elven wood, the sense of home and belonging in the echoing footfalls in the halls of Erebor, now bright again.

The marble would stand with grief and sadness, but it would also shine with hope. Of that, she was certain.

Early September, 2942

Dale was once a beautiful city, and Bard knows that.

He knows that once its towers stood tall, white stone against the grey mountain, its flags flying high in the sweet, northern air; he knows that its streets were flagged with marble and alive with the bubbling chatter of a prosperous people, of happy people; he knows that it was once the centre of trade for miles around, that its ambassadors were once sent to Rohan and Gondor and those other, far off places that he’s only ever heard of, that they once rubbed shoulders with the greatest Kingdoms of men.

He knows this.

He can also see that it is slowly returning to that glory. It seems like each passing month changes the skyline from his bedroom window, new buildings appearing with far more speed than he could ever have imagined with the help of Dwarven stonemasons and gold. Already now, nearly all of the families have moved into actual houses from the temporary barracks they had moved to once the battle was done and the ashes of Laketown were abandoned to the water and the strange silver glimmer of the dragon bones resting in the murk below.

The city grows, and traders from the Iron Hills and the Grey Mountains and even from the strange settlements around the Sea of Rhûn come to them now, bringing finer things that he could never have imagined seeing, let alone actually being able to buy.

They have enough food, finally. His children – and all the children in Dale, he makes sure of that – go to bed with full bellies, warm in furs and blankets made of wool thick enough to actually keep the chill out.

He can see the city that Dale is going to become. There had been lean months, months when he wasn’t sure that they were actually going to make it – particularly last winter, when they were living off the ransomed gold from Erebor, when he had been afraid of what would happen when it ran out. But then spring had come, fields had been turned, and underneath the grey ash of the desolation had been soil, good soil. And damn it if they hadn’t know what to do with it, but Thranduil’s elves had come to teach them how to till the earth and sow their crops, and the harvest had been celebrated with more than enough to last them through to next winter.

They were going to make it.

With the help of the Greenwood and Erebor, he was sure of it.

His mind always slips to the memorial when it wanders in this way, of the drafts that had finally been approved by all three of them, of the great stone monument that would stand outside the gates of Dale, facing where the greatest part of the battle had taken place, where swooping eagles and screaming orcs and a grey wizard had called their battle cries to the sky, where three Kings had found themselves looking across the field at each other and had realised what they had done.

Where Thorin and his nephews had almost died, had finally had the gold-curse knocked from their bones by cold steel; where Thranduil had fallen to his knees in the churned up mud to cradle the head of a fallen guard who had served him for centuries beyond measure, tears silently streaking the blood and dirt smeared across his face; where Bard had turned to the men of a ruined town, had taken up a borrowed sword and urged them forward, only to have them listen.

He didn’t need a statue to remember the battle. None of them did. It was as firmly etched into his mind as the first cries of his children, the colour of his wife’s eyes, the feeling of a rudder in his hands. 

But they did need a memorial, something made by all three of them, if just to remember what they had fought for, what they were here for. This peace, these Kingdoms, were hard won, and these allegiances had fallen apart once before because they had forgotten the value of them. They had looked at their mithril gates and golden woods and white towers and had convinced themselves that they did not need to work for them anymore.

Sigrid’s face had lost the hollowness of hunger. Tilda smiled brighter than she ever had. Bain no longer had to hold back a hiss of pain as he held blue-white fingers over the smoky, low fire at the end of the day.

Children laughed in the streets.

Women sang as they hung out their laundry.

The men came home from long days tired, but smiling.

Bard was not going to let them forget.

Dale was beautiful. Dale was greater than it had ever been. Dale was home.

But what Bard still couldn’t quite see was what he was doing there.

Because Bard was a bargeman, a father, a troublemaker.

Bard wasn’t a Lord, let alone a King.

And yet for some reason, now he had a crown (a thin circlet, hidden in a cupboard) and a big house, and people had actually started bowing to him in the street.

That just wasn’t him.

He could only assume that it was easier for the King Under the Mountain and Thranduil, in his Greenwood; they were born to be Kings, they had spent their lives leading people and armies. They knew what it meant to inspire their people, they understood the sacrifices that must be taken in order to be a good King.

Bard knows nothing of this; he has spent his life in Laketown, trying to look after his children and making sure that his neighbours didn’t starve. He knows how to gut a fish and to unblock the privy, how to steer his barge through the fog and how best to wrap himself in thin blankets to keep the wet chill of the Lake out of his bones. Bard is well aware that Thorin knows long winters and hard living, that the King knows the sting of starvation and the ache of a long day’s work. He’s heard the stories from the dwarves that come flooding through their unfinished city, has listened to the lives they have lead in their exile, and feels a little ashamed at the assumption he has always made based on the old stereotypes, the tales muttered about the greed of dwarves, because he’s learning now that those tightly clenched fists have come from never having quite enough, that their cold and callous demeanour has come at the price of many long, cruel years when their allies disappeared.

But Thorin can also rally his troops; he’s watched Thorin inspire a crowd of strangers with nothing but the tone of his voice and the vague ghost of a crown that he hadn’t reclaimed. Thorin is a King, Bard is not.

And he and Thranduil have both learnt that sometimes the things that matter the most to you have to be put to one side in order to do what has to be done. Bard still wants to abandon his work whenever Tilda sprains her wrist, or Sigrid catches a chill – he wants to throw aside this regalia of Lordship and go climbing over the rubble with his children, wants to curl up with them in front of a fire burning bright with trade treaties he doesn’t feel qualified to sign, with missives he doesn’t understand how to answer.

It breaks his heart to get up and leave them on those days.

He wonders if it still hurts Thranduil and Thorin, too, or if they’ve learnt to ignore that pain.

He thinks these things now as Thranduil sits across from him, poured into one of Bard’s simple, wooden chairs and still making it look like it is a throne, high and far above Bard on some ivory dais. He looks every inch a King even in his simple  grey-silver travelling robes, even wearing the understated coronet that he comes to Dale in (though Bard has noticed that it is a much more elaborate crown that graces that high, unwrinkled brow whenever he sees the Elf-King in the glowing halls of Erebor).

In comparison, Bard feels ridiculous in his brown-and-gold finery, like a child dressing up in his father’s clothes.

But he sits there anyway, despite the urge he has to fling himself out the room and across the re-growing fields back to where Laketown had once been, to bury himself in the ashes and pretend that none of this is happening. He sits there and he nods when Thranduil talks and then talks himself, and who knew that so much of this damn ruling business involved talking?

So they finally agree on how much wheat they’ll trade for the Greenwood’s saplings, how many barrels of fish (at least some things never change) will be exchanged for wine, and he thinks he does a good enough job. Thranduil doesn’t look ecstatic, but neither does he look unhappy, and he’s starting to learn that that is about the right balance in this situation.

Because they need each other, these three Kingdoms, and perhaps it took him too long to realise that, but as much as no man is an island, neither is a Kingdom that hopes to last. They need allies that trust each other. He needs Erebor’s steel and craft, and he needs the Greenwood’s timber and plant-craft. He needs to trade their food supplies for Thorin’s gold so he can pay Thranduil for the barrels he still sends down the river, and Thranduil too needs that gold to trade back to the mountain for forged steel and the stone to rebuild their crumbling roads.

They’re not friends, the three of them. He has a high regard for both Thranduil and Thorin, almost despite himself, and can see that the two of them share a grudging, unspoken respect too; he likes to think that they both think that he is at least doing the best he can, even if they don’t hold him in any particular esteem, as well. But they aren’t friends. They talk politely, but stand as firm as if their bones were made of iron. He sees that cool smile of Thranduil’s all too often, and knows that it means he is displeased. Thorin too is easy to read, as he never tries to hide that deep frown.

Bard is learning that kingdoms are not built on diamonds or gold, nor are they built on swords. They are built on promises, on cold, unyielding stone, and enough grain to last the winter.

He’s not sure what expression he makes whenever he has to step forward and promote Dale’s interests, when he has to make sure that it isn’t pushed to the background. He suspects that his face remains blank, and grim, as it always does.

He just hopes that they can’t see how damn afraid he is, all the time.

“And you?” Thranduil asked, as he rose to leave, back to his own Kingdom following the final afternoon of his visit. He’d been politely asking after Dale, on the progression of its building works, in that tempered voice that gave nothing away.

“Me?”

Thranduil just nodded, a small and controlled movement, his face barely moving from its stern, collected expression, and Bard was thrown. This was the first time either of the other Kings had asked him this, and he was suddenly cold with fear.

“I’m fine,” he said quickly, wondering if elves really could read minds, as some of the dwarves muttered to each other.

The corners of Thranduil’s mouth turned up, just slightly, 

“A throne weighs heavily on the mind, I have found.”

Bard just stared at him, his mouth falling open slightly, and it took him a few moments to find his tongue again.

“I don’t have a throne,” he answered eventually, before gritting his teeth.

Thranduil’s mouth twitched again.

“Indeed,” he replied, and then he left, his cloak trailing behind him, somehow still spotless; and then was gone, leaving Bard feel even more at a loss than he had been before.

He sat in the room for quite some time, staring out of the window, until a quiet knock alerted him to another person needing his attention. He called for them to enter, but to his surprise it was his son who poked his head around the door. Bain came in slowly, shuffling his feet a little, his gait heavy and his eyes on the stone flags.

“What happened?”

Bain just shrugged, and with a long sigh Bard pulled himself from the table, still littered with parchment and the agreement he and Thranduil had finally reached, and took hold of his son’s shoulder, towing him over to the low bench by the fire, ignoring the rather stately chair on the other side of the room that sat behind the sizeable desk that he still wasn’t entirely sure what to do with.

They sat in silence for a while as Bard slowly fed logs into the fire, making it burn bright and fine, as Bain picked at his fingernails and kicked his feet against the floor.

“Da, I don’t want to be a Lord,” he said, eventually, and Bard just had to laugh.

He cut himself short as he saw the stricken look on his son’s face, as he realised what a discomforting sound it had been, hollow and a little strained. But he supposed his hand must have been as solid and callused as it had ever been as he wrapped an arm around his lad’s shoulders, pulling him against his side.

He was too old now to cuddle closer, as Tilda might have done, but he did not pull away, and Bard himself held him tighter as he felt the tension ease out of Bain’s shoulders at the familiar touch.

Bard closed his eyes, and for a moment he felt as if they were back in their old house, a little draughty and a little smoky from the damp wood in the fire, but home.

“I’ll let you in on a secret lad,” Bard said, after a little while. There was a looking glass above the mirror and he caught sight of their faces as he opened his eyes again; his son’s was healthier, happier, but his own was just more lined, more tired. “Neither do I.”

And then his son smiled, and it didn’t matter anymore that he had to wear these strange, heavy clothes, or that their new house was stone and the ceilings too tall to be really comfortable, that he no longer heard the gentle lap of water soothing him to sleep at night.

“But we are now, and we have to do the best that we can. And I’m sorry that you have to, as well, but sometimes we have to do things that we don’t like. If I could have my way, a lot of things would be different.”

Bain blinked up at him, impossibly young and so full of hope, and Bard felt something tight expand in his chest, some unbearable love so strong that he didn’t understand how his own, frail body could control it.

“Really, Da?”

Bard’s hands found the small locket he wore around his neck, beaten and battered; he could have afforded something better now to hold the lock of his wife’s hair, but that locket had been hers.

“Really,” Bard replied, and he could almost see the tightness about Bain begin to unwind.

“But you are one, just as I am, whether we want it or not. You think Prince Kili wants to be a Prince, either?”

Bain’s nose wrinkled.

“Sig says Prince Kili sneaks out of the Mountain to go hunting in the Greenwood whenever he can,” he told his father, and Bard couldn’t stop himself from grinning in return.

“Aye, that he does, and we don’t mention it when he happen to see him down here in the market place in old clothes so he thinks no one knows it’s him, and we especially don’t say anything when the Crown Prince is with him.”

Bain laughed, a sudden and bright noise in the dying afternoon light. Bard squeezed his shoulder again.

“I’ll promise you one thing, though. In this house you’re still my son, and Tilda will still pull your hair and Sig will swat you round the back of your head when you cheek her, and we have to hold on to those things, alright? It doesn’t really matter where we are or what we have to do, family doesn’t change, and next time you feel this way, you come and find us, alright?”

Bain looked at the ground in embarrassment again, and Bard found a weight he hadn’t really realised he had been carrying slip from his shoulders as his son glanced quickly back up at him. 

“I’m not unhappy Da, I’m really not.”

His voice was reassuring, or as best a boy’s can be.  It was painfully honest, though, and Bard couldn’t resist pressing a quick, whiskery kiss to the crown of his son’s head, the scruff of his beard scratching through his hair.

 “I know, lad. And I’m proud of you, for that.”

Bain bit his lower lip, and nodded, before surging up and kissing his father’s cheek, quickly and with a faint flush of lingering embarrassment before he pulled away from Bard’s arm, standing perhaps a little taller than he had before.

“I’m proud of you, too, Da. We all are.”

And then he was gone from the room, half-running with the awkward gait of someone who has not quite grown into their body yet, entirely missing the smile that crept across his father’s face, lined and tired but somehow a little lighter than it had been before.

Late November, 2942

The sun was setting low over the sky as Gandalf took a long pull from his pipe: it was a new purchase, found at a small stall set up by traders from the north down in Dale, made from some dark, red-brown wood petrified years ago. He could feel the age in it as the cupped the bowl to light it, the same way he could feel the years in the stone he leant against, in the earth beneath his feet as he walked across the lands of Middle Earth.

“Tell me about this memorial,” he said, smoke pluming from his mouth as he took in the sight from the terrace he was sat on that looked over the city of Dale below. Men were erecting the memorial, great pulleys and levers lifting it from the reinforced cart it had been transported in, men and dwarves alike standing around.

“It was agreed on by the three kingdoms,” replied his companion, a little fussy fellow a long way from home. “And a product of the three, as well. Stone from Dale’s quarries, design by elven artists, crafted by the greatest of the Dwarven stonemasons.”

Gandalf nodded as he took another pull of smoke.

“An excellent combination,” he replied, shooting a fond smile at the small hobbit sat across from him, his furry feet crossed at the ankle as he puffed on his own pipe. “No doubt executed without any problems whatsoever.”

Bilbo Baggins, formerly of the Shire, huffed a short laugh as he too watched the work below.

“The elves were taller than the men originally, Bard didn’t like that at all,” he confided in the old wizard. “The dwarf was holding a sword, and Thorin wanted it to look more like Orcrist, which he’d only just got back from Thranduil, who was a little annoyed by that. Then Bard didn’t want the man looking too much like him, but Thranduil and Thorin insisted that he had to have a bow anyway, and then the elves got irritated and said that the dwarf shouldn’t be in the middle, but someone has to be in the middle and it is at least symmetrical that way.”

He exhaled, and Gandalf laughed.

“Then the dwarves decided that the elf should be made of a different kind of marble to them, but then Bard said that that would look ridiculous, then they all insisted on putting a Hobbit in there, which is ridiculous because there was only one Hobbit at the battle, and I was barely involved anyway. At least I managed to convince them to put eagles on the base though, it makes a lot more sense to have them on there than me, but they wouldn’t be swayed at all. Honestly Gandalf, bother and confusticate the lot of them, they are an absolute pain.”

“Very good,” Gandalf replied, and Bilbo winced a little self-consciously.

“Of course, they’ve all been very well behaved for the most part, given that the three of them have had to work together.”

Gandalf just smiled, closing his eyes against the sunset.

A swift, still here though it was late in the year, tilted its head at them from where it was sat on the edge of the terrace, before flying away.

“This is good pipe-weed,” Bilbo said, a little idly.

Gandalf nodded his agreement.

“I brought an extra barrel for you, old friend, since you seem to have decided to remain in the east for the foreseeable future.”

Bilbo was a little glad that Gandalf’s eyes were closed, so the old wizard couldn’t see the flush that he was certain had sprung up around the base of his throat.

“Yes, well,” he replied, still feeling a little flustered, despite the fact that it had been nearly a year since Thorin had taken Bilbo’s hand in his and asked him to remain with them in Erebor.

“And how is our mutual friend doing on his throne?” Gandalf asked, a smile pulling knowingly at the corner of his mouth, the red-gold light playing across the silver of his hair, setting him alight in colour for a moment. The clouds on the horizon were a burnished bronze, and Bilbo couldn’t help but think of the pink-oranges of sunsets far away at home, how different they were from these, and how he barely missed them now.

“And which mutual friend is that?” he asked in turn, for there were several of them now.

Gandalf smiled properly at that.

“Indeed.”

They sat in silence for a little while as the sun began to lower and the winter wind began to take on that certain chill of dusk; their pipes burnt low in their bowls, embers glowing as the light began to fade.

“And what do you think of all this?” Gandalf asked, eventually, eyes still closed, gesturing down the mountainside with his pipe.

“The memorial?”

Gandalf nodded, and Bilbo sighed.

“I think it is a good thing,” Bilbo continued, his voice a little quieter than before. “We need something to remember it by, even if the elves think rarely of death and the dwarves have seen many wars, even if the men of Laketown are well used to loss. But we also need something to commemorate the three Kingdoms coming together.”

Gandalf didn’t reply, and after a moment Bilbo continued.

“There is nothing quite like a friendship based on mutual respect and gain for cementing an agreement.”

His voice was a little wry, and very different to that of the Hobbit that Gandalf had come across a couple of years before, sat outside his Hobbit hole, a creature innocent in the ways of death and war, a Hobbit who knew nothing of loss and dragonfire.

But he didn’t sound sad, not at all, and when he continued where was amusement in his voice, a lightness and a happiness that had been missing there before, sitting alone in a house made for a family, waiting for his life to begin.

“And the last time they met, Thorin and Thranduil didn’t even end up resorting to threats and imprisonment.”

“Progress indeed,” Gandalf replied, laughter in his tone.

But Bilbo continued as if he hadn’t heard the old wizard, lost in his thoughts.

“And they all need each other, I think,” he said, tucking his knees up to his chest as he tapped the spent bowl of his pipe against the stone. “Not just in terms of resources and trade.”

Gandalf opened his eyes, finally, just as the moon made its pale face known in the sky, just as the sun finally touched the horizon and continued its steady descent beyond.

“That is a very Hobbit-ish way of looking at things, my friend.”

Bilbo huffed, and swung his legs down, hiding the slight flush that lingered still on his cheeks by brushing down his neat trousers, still cut in the Hobbit-fashion even if he did live, now, further from the Shire than any Hobbit had ever gone before.

“Yes, well, there is nothing quite like a Hobbit for making sensible plans, you know.”

Gandalf stood, too, and reached to place a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“And I am glad you have been here, my dear boy. So very, very glad, indeed.”

The two went inside then, as the sky began to grey and the first stars began to shine through the clear, winter night, into the warmth of a re-founded Kingdom.

October, 2942

“The forest is much less repulsive than it was the last time I was forced to keep company in your Halls,” Thorin told him, and though his voice was stiff and his expression unfriendly and cautious, there was a glimmer of humour about his eyes, as if he were entertained by the fact that Thranduil now had to welcome him here with open arms. Perhaps it should have annoyed Thranduil more than it did.  Instead, it was oddly amusing.

“And I noticed last I visited the Lonely Mountain that the stench of dragon has finally dissipated.”

They stared at each other from across the table, their advisors standing in line against the wall looking suddenly worried, and then Thorin was shaking his head, his hand running through his beard, longer than it had been before, causing the gentle click of finely wrought beads

“I was told not to agitate you,” Thorin told him, one eyebrow raising slightly.

Thranduil’s jaw tightened as he suppressed something that could have turned into a smile.

“By your Consort, no doubt.”

“Aye,” Thorin answered. “Though his idea of diplomacy is to ply everyone with pipe-weed until they agree to anything he wants, so I doubt he can really comment.”

“Remind me not to enter into trade negotiations without an escort,” Thranduil replied, and was that perhaps a softening around Thorin’s mouth, something that could almost have been a smile?

He inclined his head at the other King.

“But still,” he answered, and though his voice was no warmer than usual he suspected there was something melancholy about it, some longing in his tone that got through, because Thorin frowned a little at him in surprise. “The Greenwood has changed, since you travelled through it,” he continued.

Thorin didn’t say anything, but there was an unexpected empathy in his eyes, something that came through their usual stern grey-blue, and Thranduil was suddenly forced to remember that Thorin too had seen his Kingdom crumble around him, had watched his people grow lesser than they had been before.

“As has Erebor,” he continued, “And Dale.”

Thorin was still watching him with that strange mixture of empathy and caution, as if Thranduil were some odd creature that he wanted to pet, but was too concerned about its claws.

That was a slightly strange feeling, to be watched like that by the King Under the Mountain.

They ended the meeting soon after, Thorin sliding to the floor with a grace that Thranduil was not sure he would have been able to achieve had the furniture been that much larger than he was, and when they parted ways, Thorin nodded his head at him with a strange sort of understanding in his eye, something closer to solidarity than they had ever shared before. Thranduil knew full well that they would never be friends - there was too much left unspoken between them, too much anger and regret that neither of them would be able to leave behind again - but perhaps if they tried hard enough, they might remain on good enough terms.

“The signed reports have been placed on your desk, my King,” one advisor told him as he watched the dwarves leave. “Or else there are several who wish to speak to you whenever you have the time.”

Thranduil thought for a moment about the draft that always managed to chill the back of his neck whenever he sat at his desk, he thought about how uncomfortable his throne really was.

“I am going for a walk,” he replied. “And I suspect that I might be gone a while.”

The King Under the Mountain was right; his forest had been changing.

He left the looming branches of his halls quickly, suddenly desperate to see the forest once more, to see the gold of sunlight pouring through the changing leaves, to feel the earth beneath his feet and taste the foetid, earthy smell of the autumn forest as he breathed in the clean, cool air.

He paused by the gates for a moment, the guards on either side staring resolutely forward.

Slowly, carefully, he removed his shoes. They were fine, well-crafted leather, soft and supple, but the grass was gentle against his feet, and he could feel the oncoming winter in the ground sink into his skin.

Thranduil had seen many shadows in his life. He’d seen darkness in places that mortal men could not fathom, but he had barely noticed them creep into his Kingdom until they had been too deep for him to do anything about.

 And now they were receding, and nothing could quite compare to that feeling.

“Do you need us to accompany you?” one of the guards asked, and Thranduil shook his head.

Once, he had almost come to fear his forest.

But now he felt younger than he had in years, alive again after so many long, immortal days, and there was nothing that scared him anymore. The shadows in the roots of the great, old trees were just shadows now, nothing more.

He caught glimmers of the sky through the trees, the foliage overhead no longer as enclosing as it had once been.

He walked until he came upon the noise of stonemasons, the slow rumble of voices, and he continued on, reaching one of the many paths that were now being laid, veering off from the Great Road, opening the Kingdom up once more to travellers. He remembered, a long time ago, when traders and journeymen stopped by his father’s halls as they still did in Elrond’s lands, exchanging stories and songs, when his home had been more than closed doors and iron bars, more than lights that disappeared when the lost and starving came to beg for scraps.

His son was overseeing the stonemasons at their work; the guards still kept a sentry over the workers despite the fact that no one had seen any of the great spiders in a month, or an orc inside their territory in even longer.  Soon enough he might be able to step down another guard rotation, give them more time out in these healthier woods to roam between the trees and feel the sun against their skin, the way they were supposed to.

“The masons say they will be finished by tomorrow,” Legolas told him stiffly, a note of dictation in his voice, as if he had carefully thought his words through before saying them.

It had been a long time since Legolas had spoken with him as a son might with a father, spoken without concern at the repercussions.

“The Greenwood is bright once more,” Thranduil replied in a low and stately voice.

He watched a smile curl at Legolas’ mouth for a moment, before it swiftly disappeared.

“How did you keep faith, Father?” he asked, and Thranduil started a little at the question, so breathy and half-whispered, as if it had not meant to slip from Legolas’ mouth at all. He glanced at his son, who had already squared his shoulders in embarrassment, had already started to turn away, awkward around his father – and when had that started to happen, when had he stopped noticing how his own child acted around him?

He knew how he should answer; that a King never gives up hope, that a ruler must always believe that there is a purpose in what they are doing. That a King is resolute, that a King knows, if not all, then enough.

“I didn’t,” he replied, his voice quieter and perhaps a little lighter than usual, and Legolas glanced at him in surprise. “I… there were many days when I did not believe. And perhaps I let that change me a little.”

I’m sorry for that, remained unspoken between them, but there was a certain softness in the way that Legolas was watching that had not been there for- for how long? Thranduil was no longer sure. For some time, anyway.

His son watched another stone being laid to the earth, his feet shuffling uncomfortably in a way that he had not done since he was a boy and had to sit through long meetings when he would rather be outside playing. And Thranduil knew that that had been centuries ago, he knew that it must have been a gradual thing, his son growing up, but it seemed so sudden to him in that moment.

Legolas was an entirely different person now, and he had missed it.

“Has the King Under the Mountain left?” came the next question, clearly trying to change the subject, to avoid this new and uncomfortable ground between the pair of them. Thranduil nodded in response.

“And it went well?”

“Better than I expected,” Thranduil replied, his eyes following the darting form of a swift, winging its way between the low branches, trilling a sharp, high call as it landed for a moment, before setting off again. “For a meeting with a dwarf, at any rate.”

The swift landed again, just in front of them.  Its black-bright eyes regarded them for a moment, its head cocked to one side.

“They are different, you know,” Legolas replied, slowly. “Different to the dwarves that you once knew. Did you ever see King Thorin and his brother chasing after each other when they left the Mountain, as the young Princes do now? Did Thror ever interrupt meetings for a tea break?”

“I’m not entirely sure that the sudden need for tea within Erebor has anything to do with King Thorin, you know,” replied Thranduil, a touch of humour in his voice now, finding himself relaxing into the unfamiliar territory of conversation with his son that wasn’t about tactics or spiders or orcs. “But rather the influence of a certain Hobbit.”

Legolas laughed, beginning to relax, and Thranduil found the corners of his mouth turning up.

“And I remember when King Thorin only reached my knee, and had a perpetually running nose. I also seem to remember a particular incident when he and his brother managed to sneak out of the Mountain when we were there on a diplomatic visit, causing utter uproar. Thror was convinced that we had kidnapped them.”

Legolas leaned forward a little, and Thranduil moved half a step backwards, so they were closer to standing side-by-side.

“And where were they?”

His fingertips ghosted the line of his mouth as he felt the flutter of an unfamiliar smile pull once more at it.

“They were in Dale, fast asleep under a cart from the East selling sweets.”

The noise Legolas let out was closer to a snort than anything else, his own hand pressing at his mouth.

“Ada, I’ll never be able to look at King Thorin the same way again.”

It had been a very long time since Legolas had called him that, and some cool part of himself seemed to warm at the sound.

“I think the current Princes are noticeably better behaved than Prince Frerin once was.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Legolas replied, and Thranduil raised his eyebrows a little.

“Do you not remember? It was not so long ago, after all.”

Legolas shifted slightly beside him, and just the slight noise was uncomfortable.

“I did not often leave the Greenwood back then,” he said, with a slight tension to the feigned calm of his tone that gave him away. You did not allow it went unsaid between them, as so much seemed to these days.

He- he had stopped many of his elves from leaving the Greenwood, hadn’t he? He had feared that the shadows that he had finally noticed might spread quicker if even a few ventured beyond their woodland borders. The last time he had spoken to Lord Elrond, he had called them insular, and that might have been a kind way to put it, though Thranduil had not been able to see that, had only heard the insult in what had been closer to a warning.

“I have finished my rounds for the afternoon,” Legolas said, when it became clear that his father was lost in his thoughts, startling him away from his consideration of the past. “What would you have me do next?”

There was much to be done; there was always much to be done, these days, and normally Thranduil would have thought little of sending his son on one of any number of tasks.  There were always patrols leaving to hunt to make sure those dark places, fluttering with dead cobwebs, were remaining empty, to patrol their borders for any orcs or goblins that might try their luck now that winter was approaching again. But…

“Nothing,” Thranduil replied to his son, reaching briefly for Legolas’ wrist; he could feel the steady thrum of his son’s pulse underneath his thumb, and he let it linger for a moment longer, the beat soothing a part of him that felt as ruffled as the feathers on the swift, still watching them with a bright, interested gaze.

Legolas was frowning at him, but he did not pull his hand away.

“Tauriel has the day off today,” Thranduil said, after a moment, and Legolas nodded. “Where is she?”

Legolas’ head tilted to one side, bewildered.

“She’s meeting the Princes, I think, in Dale.”

Thranduil pressed the line of his nose to the curve of Legolas’ forehead, closing his eyes for just a moment before stepping away again, looking along the path in front of them.

“Join her, if you wish,” he said, quietly. “It has been long since you took some time from your duties, and you have not left the Greenwood in a year.”

Not since the Battle, now that he thought about it. Not since he had taken his men and returned to the wood, his troops less than they had been when they had left, his son with a bandage around his head from a blow he had taken to the back of the head. And he still remembered the feeling of horror in his heart when he had seen him in the healing tents, blood matted in that silver-gold hair; he’d arrived just at the moment that the healer had cut a large handful from the underneath so he could stitch the wound, and he’d been almost frozen watching the strands of his son’s hair fall to the floor around them, orange-gold from the blood, like the leaves in the autumn, catching the light like dying embers.

He’d not said anything to his son then, but the fear had lingered, creeping cold fingers around his heart, and Thranduil had taken to sending   his son on tasks that ensured that he would return to the throne room often, that would keep him close, and keep him safe.

But he couldn’t keep on doing that, could he?

The world was a large and beautiful place, and the Greenwood was bright again, and opening up to it.

One day Legolas might sit on that throne himself, and what kind of King would he be if Thranduil kept him close, isolated and alone?

Well, he’d probably end up making the same mistakes that his father did.

Legolas looked at him a little oddly, but finally nodded.

“I would… like that, if you are sure?”

Thranduil nodded, and Legolas gave him one last, uncertain smile, before leaving.

Perhaps he would not grow to be different, Thranduil thought idly as he watched the sunbeams play across the dust being thrown up by the stonemasons. And perhaps he would start to send him on other tasks in the futures, on journeys that would let him explore the world, on envoys that would let the world back into the Greenwood.

Perhaps one day they might regain their footing in this strange, wild world, and stop hiding behind the slender aspen trees.

The swift seemed to smile at him, for just a moment, before it cocked its head, and flew away.

November 23^rd, 2941

The air stank of blood and death, the mud was thick around the ground even here in the medical tents, perhaps especially here, as the medics darted frantically from one bed to the next, as dwarves and men and elves all rushed back and forth with basins of clean water, with bandages, with thread and finely tempered blades and panicked, pained expressions.

Half of them were injured themselves, their armour dented and their faces splattered in dirt and blood, some of it their own, some of it belonging to others, half washed away by the dreary rain that plastered their hair back to their skulls, that left them blinking and cold. Even the elves, normally so refined, so far above the ken of mortal men, were mired and exhausted looking, pale against the grey of the sky and dark shadows of the evening.

In one tent lay Thorin, King Under the Mountain, a thin stream of blood pouring from his mouth, his eyes blinking up at the fabric of the tent above him.

He wasn’t sure if he was dying or not, but he had the feeling that he was close.

It was strange, really. It didn’t even hurt all that much.

They’d told him that Kili was safe, that they’d bandaged him up and that he hadn’t lost too much blood.  Apparently he couldn’t walk yet, but he was conscious, lying on his cot next to Fili, who still hadn’t woken up – though the medics were positive that he would pull through. At least he knew that if he did die, Dis wouldn’t be chasing him to next life to drag him back, only to kill him again.

No one had seen Bilbo yet, but Balin still hadn’t managed to find Gandalf in the melee either, so it was more than likely he’d just tucked himself away, out of sight, by the nearest fire.

He remembered the flicker of a sword that might have been Sting above his fallen body, right before he lost consciousness, but he couldn’t be sure.

Was it getting darker outside, or was that just him?

The wind blowing in through the tent entrance was chill against his cheek, but he couldn’t really feel all that much below the furs that covered his bandages.

He might have drifted in and out of sleep for a little while, because the next thing he really remembered was opening his eyes to see Thranduil leaning over him, his face drawn into a frown. The furs were pulled down to Thorin’s waist, and the Elf-King’s hands were hovering over his bandages, a strange and unearthly glow about him that made Thorin shift uncomfortably at the sight. It must have pulled at something, because there was a sharp pain, and Thranduil muttered something, leaning even closer.

Thorn glanced down to see blood blossoming across his bandages, and when he looked back up the strange veil of glamour across Thranduil’s face had slipped, leaving the ruin of his cheek and eye visible.

“Does it hurt still?” Thorin found himself asking, not entirely sure what he was saying.

Thranduil did not look at him, just continued moving his hands above Thorin’s chest.

“Sometimes,” he answered, and his voice was hoarser than it was normally; it had lost that elegant smoothness to some ragged, pained edge, and Thorin couldn’t help but wonder what sight the King had seen that had shaken him so, what moment had ruined his composure after so many long years on this earth.

“It hurts more when it is cold,” the King continued, and his face pulled into a deeper frown. “Stop moving.”

Thorin tried, but there was a strange ache about his ribs, and the light from Thranduil’s skin was growing brighter.

“Mine do that too,” he told the elf. “In the winter. I have this scar on my leg, hurts like a bitch whenever the frost comes.”

Thranduil just nodded, and Thorin lay back against the pillows propping up his head.

The breeze blew suddenly stronger as the entrance opened, and Thorin blinked to see Bard pushing through. His leather jerkin had been abandoned, the grey-white of bandages visible through a rent in his shirt, a new cut across his cheek. He looked tired, and far older than Thorin remembered.

“You look like shit,” Bard told him bluntly, and then Thorin was laughing, half out of his mind with regret and pain and loss, the madness gone and leaving behind only an aching sense of all that he had done wrong, and now Thranduil was scowling at Bard and muttering something that sounded remarkably like an obscenity under his breath, and that made it even funnier; Bard was staring at him like he was insane as he threw himself down into the chair beside Thorin’s cot, which perhaps was understandable given the circumstances, but that just made him laugh even harder, and then he realised that there were tears running down his face, and not tears of laughter.

He raised his hand to his mouth, biting down on the soft skin between his thumb and wrist to stop himself from choking out a pained, bitter sob, and Thranduil cursed properly this time.

“Stop moving!”

He forced himself back under control as whatever arcane magic Thranduil was using cleared the fog of pain a little more and turned to look at Bard. There were deep shadows beneath his eyes and the ghost of a burning town in the distant way he stared at the tent wall opposite.

“How are your children?” he asked, and Bard stared at him in shock, not answering for a long moment as if checking that this wasn’t some kind of trick.

“They are well,” he answered, eventually. “Sigrid burnt her arm and Bain inhaled too much smoke, but they all got out in time.”

“I’m glad,” Thorin replied, and then a strange breathlessness took his chest as Thranduil began to chant some low, melodic words under his breath.

“They keep asking me what is going to happen next,” Bard said, to the both of them. “And I don’t know why the hell they’re asking me but Dain won’t speak to anyone until he’s spoken to Thorin, and no one knows what we’re supposed to be doing.”

Thranduil’s voice was hoarse, as if coming with some great effort.

“Tell them to survive,” he answered, “Tell them to rest.”

Bard shifted uncomfortably.

“The men don’t even know where they are sleeping tonight. Half of the tents have been given over to the injured.”

“Erebor has many rooms,” Thorin said, through gritted teeth. “Many empty halls. They stink of dragon, but we’ll get them warm again soon enough.”

He opened his eyes – when had he closed them again? – to see both the other men looking at him oddly, before they glanced across at each other and shared a nod.

“Call for Balin,” he continued, his chest restricting. “I’ll tell him to pass that on to Dain.”

Bard nodded, a little uncomfortably, and Thranduil leant a little further back from Thorin’s body, his hands falling to his side and the strange glow about his skin beginning to fade.

“I have done all I can,” he said, and all of a sudden Thorin realised just how much the pain had reduced, just how much clearer his mind was feeling. There was still pain around his ribs, some difficulty breathing, but he felt now as if he might actually live.

“And they are asking you,” Thranduil told Bard, rubbing his thumbs over the pads of his fingers as if to dispel some strange sensation, “Because you are in charge of them.  You are their leader now, whether you like it or not.”

Bard sat back, his face blank and grim with surprise.

“I never asked for that,” he managed to choke out, and Thorin let out a hoarse rasp of a laugh.

“No one ever does, lad,” he told the man, and was that a ghost of a smile on Thranduil’s expression?

Sleep took him not long after, but as he drifted off he remembered the sight of Bard’s blank gaze, Thranduil’s tired eyes, the strange sensation of not being alone, even though he was lying in a tent full of strangers that he had not had particularly high opinions of. They might never be his friends, they would never be his kin, but in that moment there had been an undeniable solidarity there, some sense of balance and equality.

Three leaders of their races, covered in blood and dirt, tired and standing alone, pain in their eyes and a firmness to their jaw.

The battle was over.

It was time to rebuild.

23^rd November, 2942

The day of the anniversary dawned cold and clear, the frost spread out across the stone platform on which the monument stood in delicate patterns, dancing over one lone, stray leaf and freezing it to the stone. Winters here were always cold, with heavy drifts of snow and bitter winds, but the worst of the weather had held off this year; though the distant boughs of the Greenwood were pale and bare, though the purple bruises of the mountain heather had died back to dull brown, the grey-green grasses around their feet still waved in the breeze, unburdened by snowfall or ice, just the patterns of hoarfrost that melted away by midday, only to reappear each night.

The sky was a pale, distant blue, a little hazy with the threat of later cloud; it was a very different day to the one just a year before.

The three Kings stood before a great stone monument in silence. Everyone else had filed away by now, leaving just them and their thoughts. The marble was pale still, and Thorin couldn’t help but wonder at the way it seemed to stretch into the hazy sky, as if it were going to carry on indefinitely until it touched that sky itself, tall and proud.

“You know, this is the first time in a year that the three of us have all been together at once,” Bard said quietly, eyes on the bird that sat contentedly on the shoulder of the man on the statue. 

Thranduil’s head inclined, just a little, in agreement.

They were done for the day now. The unveiling ceremony had gone off without any problem, the sheets falling back to the sound of rousing cheers from men, elves and dwarf alike;  they had arrived in their three groups, standing around the monument in their separate sections  as each King gave first one speech, then another.  Those with the fairest voices sang songs to the fallen, and they had held a moment of silence for all of those who had been lost in the field.

They may have arrived and stood apart, but when the ceremony closed and they all began to depart for the nearby halls of Dale, which had been opened up to the visitors from Erebor and the Greenwood, and the great feast laid out within, the three races walked together.

Thorin watched one man, one of Bard’s councilmen, slow his stride to walk beside Balin, his hand indicating the sky as they exchanged pleasantries; an elf-guard scooped up a small human child who had been tugging at his sleeve and sat her on his shoulders, where she grinned down at her peers. And there, even now, he could see Bilbo ushering Ori and a host of the other young scribes towards a rather nervous and slender (even by tree-shagger’s standards) elf with ink stains on his fingers.  As if sensing Thorin’s gaze, Bilbo turned and shot him a wink, before continuing to introduce elf and dwarf.

His nephews and sister lingered behind a while, to see if Thorin needed any more from him, but when he shook his head and offered them the smallest twitch of a smile they too left; Kili bounded to the side of that red-haired elf captain, Fili offered Bard’s oldest daughter an arm (and Thorin was a little gratified to note the tightening of Bard’s jaw as she accepted).

Dis offered a small smile to the elf-prince, who looked positively terrified at the prospect of walking with her, but to Thorin’s slight disappointment he didn’t run in horror.

And as their people filed away, the three Kings turned slowly to look back at the great statue, Dale to their backs, Erebor to the east and the Greenwood to the west.  Suspended between their three cities, there was a strange air of calm between the three of them, as if some string of tension had eased, as if for a moment they had forgotten who they were and what crowns lay heavy across their brows.  They might have just been three passing strangers.

Thorin felt suddenly too formal in his heavy white furs and dark blue fabrics, in the great, angular crown he wore across his intricately braided hair. He had finally been able to stop cutting back his beard, and the pale light caught the fine silver wire twisted around it, and occasionally he still found his fingers finding them, pulling them as he thought.

He was doing it now, he realised, as he stared up at the great spreading wings of the eagle above him on the base. They had sent out word to the great eagles, but none of them had really expected them to appear; memorials and carved stone were far below their ken, far beneath the empty sky and the barren mountaintops of their concern. Likewise, he had not expected Beorn to arrive, and he had not been disappointed.

But he was glad that they had done this, none the less, glad that they had taken the time to commemorate this. He doubted that he himself would ever forget the pain of near-death, the agony of clarity after the fog of the gold-sickness, and he doubted too that any of the other soldiers who had fought in the fields around them would not be able to entirely forget what had happened, but what would happen when earth and stone claimed their lives again?

Would their children remember? Would their children?

The Battle of Five Armies, Bard had called it in his speech. But it so easily could have gone another way, with dwarf fighting man and elf, with even more senseless and pointless loss. Their allegiance had been as fragile as the hoarfrost melting around his boots back then, and perhaps it wasn’t that much stronger now, perhaps it was only in his mind that it had become stronger, had set down roots and grown. 

“We never stood like that,” Thorin commented idly as he looked up at the three central figures; man, dwarf and elf with swords meeting in a salute in the air. “I almost wish that we had.”

“This is how they will remember it,” Thranduil replied, his voice quiet, his breath barely clouding the air in front of him despite the chill, as if he were barely breathing. “And that is what is important.”

Thranduil too was wrapped in furs, a long cloak that fell to his feet in an elegant drape of some tawny fur, pale and speckled with white and grey; it looked almost like the bark of silver birches in the winter, some strange palette of colours. His crown was tall, arching boughs of some bone-white wood standing sharp and curving like great antlers, petrified by lightning from a storm beyond the memories of mortal men, and yet from it still grew just a few springs of a fine, dark green ivy, glossy in the pale winter sunlight.

His hand was pale as he reached to touch the marble of the base, his fingers ghosting over the fur of the great bear, over its bared, snarling teeth; Thranduil’s skin was almost blue, but he seemed to feel no particular pain from it.

Thranduil had seen the lives of so many mortals rise and fall; he had watched the dwarves come to Erebor, when Thror had been young, had seen them come again before that. He had been there when the river ran into no lake, before just one fallen tree had dammed it enough to break the banks, when just one strong wind storm had been enough to create the first pool that would become the Long Lake. He had watched from the woodland borders when the first men had come to these lands, when the brown and populous lands had begun to flourish with plants brought from the south, when the purple heather had first begun to bloom on the mountainside. 

He had seen life end and he had seen it start, and he understood better than most that what remained afterwards was not necessarily the truth. Time would not remember a gold-sick King, nor the grasping hands of his own longing,  they would not remember the desperation of starving men, nor the fear in the eyes of one small Hobbit, reflected brighter in the glow from a stone that had long been returned to the depths of the Mountain.

No, what it would remember would be the story: three Kings together on a battlefield, leading their men to victory, the cries of ‘the eagles, the eagles are coming!’, the heirs of the King Under the Mountain standing over their Uncle’s body, the Prince of the Greenwood stitching up wounded dwarves and men, a bargeman standing tall.

It would remember the beauty, and the bravery, and would forget the fear and the pain and the filth.

But perhaps that was alright, really.

Perhaps that was better.

Let them believe in heroes. Let them believe in victory. And put a monument up to remind them that these things don’t come without loss; sing songs to the glorious dead so that they may never be forgotten, make elf and man and dwarf raise a toast together so that they must remember that allegiances only survive when they stand as equals.

When they stand as friends.

“After all,” he continued, “We stand here now, do we not?”

The corners of Bard’s eyes creased for a moment, and Thranduil wasn’t entirely sure if he was smiling or frowning.

“Aye,” Bard said, his voice hoarse in the cold. “Aye, we do.”

Thorin’s eyes were on the small crouching figure of a Hobbit at the centre of the base, and there was a warmth about his smile that almost made Bard want to roll his eyes, though he resisted well enough in the end.

“My people want to know if they can leave poppies on the memorial,” he said, quietly. “The small red ones, that grow wild in our graveyard.”

Most of the dead had gone in the mass graves, them having neither the time nor the resources to dig individuals. Their eyes were all drawn to the gentle slopes of a rolling hill behind the memorial, covered over with grass again now; underneath lay the bones of men and dwarf and elf together, resting in each other’s company in death with a peace that they had not managed to achieve in life until now.

There were no individual graves for mourners to rest a while at, no place for them to leave mementoes or to talk to.

Thorin nodded.

“Of course.”

Thranduil inclined his head in agreement.

Bard was still the most simply dressed of the three of them, in tanned leathers and thick wools in the dark browns and greys that he was used to wearing, though even he had made some concessions to the event. He didn’t wear the thick chain and pendant of Girion around his neck, for he wore another locket far more precious to him there instead, but he did wear the belt of beaten silver disks, and the thin coronet, a narrow and slender thing also cast of silver, which had been a gift to Girion’s grandfather many years before. It came down in a narrow point over his brow, and though he was still uncomfortable wearing it, the shine of the metal seemed to distract from the heavy lines etched into his expression, from the grief that he still wore like a cloak about his shoulders.

In his crown he looked like the leader that he was still certain he wasn’t.  He had barely recognised the man in the looking glass that morning, as Sigrid had smoothed down wayward strands of his hair and stroked the first few streaks of silver that had appeared in the last year with a gentle touch of her brush.

Thorin had silver in his hair too, of course, yet the King Under the Mountain also remembered when it was Girion of Dale, not Bard, who had lead these men; Thranduil’s hair shone like wrought metal even in weak winter light, but it was difficult to forget that he would see the both of their lives to their end, and would continue on for centuries after.

No, before either Thorin returned to stone or Thranduil left these lands it would be he who would be replaced at these events with his son, and he felt the sting of his mortality particularly today, as he stared up at the stone in front of him, stone that he would never see weathered by the passing centuries, stone that would outlast him as surely as the Mountain would outlast them all. But today, he could not find it in himself to resent the years that he had been given, as short as they might be compared to the Kings stood next to him.

He would live to see Dale rebuilt, he would live to see the hollows beneath his men’s eyes disappear entirely, would live to see peace and prosperity restored to his corner of the earth, and at that thought he felt a great wave of gratitude wash over him, a contentment that he had never quite known before, a joy that had no foundation but for the knowledge that he was alive.

“Dale might be finally complete by the next anniversary,” he said, quietly, the corner of his mouth twitching again.

“Kingdoms are never complete,” Thorin said from his left, and there was a quiet sort of contentment to his voice too. “They continue to grow when times are good.”

“And to recede when times are less so,” Thranduil added, an odd introspection to his tone.

“Aye,” Bard conceded. “I suppose in that way they are alive, just as we are.”

He thought he caught the other two smile, out of the corner of his eye, but he wasn’t entirely sure.

And wasn’t that in itself worth celebrating?

They stood a while longer in silence, these three, and again, for a moment, they might have just been any three passing travellers, who happened to come across each other as they paused for a rest between three great Kingdoms. But for the crowns on their head and the certain way they stood, they could have been no more than traders or tinkers or journeymen, nothing putting them apart from their kin and kind than a grave sort of understanding about their features, a wisdom and a grace that would never be reflected in any looking glass, but was there for anyone to see.

Around them the grass of a battlefield, growing thick and strong from the blood and the mire, sparkled with the last, lingering touches of hoarfrost left over from the cold night, glinting in even this frail sunlight at the end of the year.

The earth smelt of damp and cold and winter weather.  The mountain loomed tall to one side, the woods a haze of potential, just waiting for the spring.  Behind them, the flags of a new city waved in the breeze, catching the notes of spices and sweetness from the great feast which their men would have already begun to partake of.

They walked to join their kin in silence, side by side, just a man and an elf and a dwarf, but for their crowns and the respect that onlookers watched them with.

They would never be friends, not in the truest sense; a shared past sat too heavy between them to ever let them be quite that close. Dwarves would continue to mistrust outsiders, elves would continue to hold themselves apart from the span of mortal lives, men would continue to live their lives apart from the other races, content to go about their days with only their own concerns.

But in that moment, the sky a blue-grey haze above them, the battlefield behind them, the sight of three Kingdoms spread to south and east and west before them as they made their slow, stately way to the feasting halls, they were so much more alike than they would perhaps acknowledge. There was some shared sense of responsibility in the set of their shoulders, the same regret in the line of their jaws, a familiar hope in their gazes, some common way in how they strode through the grass that would make any who saw them see that they shared something beyond just proximity and trade agreement.

Not friends, but allies, certainly, and an understanding.

A swift cocked its head on a distant branch, new shoots pushing through burnt wood, new growth coming from the desolation. It seemed to nod at the sun for a moment, before taking flight, and winging its way south, to warmer weather and the promise of longer days.

To days without hunger, and grief, and loss.

There were many more to come.