Work Text:
1. Fili & Kili
The rain is freezing and the trees the company is huddled beneath do little to keep them dry or warm. Kili closes his eyes and tries to ignore it all, think instead of his warm bed in the blue mountains. His mother always sang when it rained, quietly and most-likely not realizing she was doing it, an old song of Erebor that her mother has sang to her, and Kili squeezes his eyes closed, wiggles further into his cloak and the ground that is quickly becoming mud beneath him, and tries to remember the words. What he wouldn't give to be cuddled beneath his mother's arm right now, with a fresh loaf of bread and warm honey, his head tucked into her side as she laughed and stroked his hair and sang to him. Kili does not blame the hobbit now, for thinking so much of his home, when he cannot keep his mother's face from his head.
Fili beside him catches on to his brother's shuffling and half-humming and almost smiles to himself, shifting a little closer to get an arm around Kili and tug him into his ribs. He places his lips next to Kili's ear and murmurs, half-sings, his mother's tune, tangling a hand into the younger's hair and when Kili closes his eyes, he pretends he is home.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. Dori, Nori, & Ori
Ori isn't old enough to remember his mother. She had died when he was just a babe and their father not much long after, and he doesn't think he is allowed to miss someone he's never met. But one night he catches Dori and Nori talking about their mother, about her cooking and her fine beard and how none of the young lasses they've seen in their lives are as lovely as she was.
He tilts his head, where he should be sleeping, and listens to his brothers talk. They reminisce about everything that Ori has never known: her lullabies, her sewing, her kisses to their scrapes and scraps. And then Nori leans back and talks of her knitting, of how wonderful she was and how glad he is that Ori has taken after her skill, and Dori agrees with a sigh, murmurs how much their mother would have loved to know the man her youngest had grown to be.
Something must catch in Nori's throat because Ori hears to sound of their eldest reaching out to clasp his shoulder, and then Dori is telling him that she'd be proud of Nori too, for all of his illegal activities, because he kept her boys with food on the table and clothes on their backs and Nori is chuckling, a soft choked thing of thanks, and they aren't talking anymore.
Ori looks down at his woolen mits, holds them up to his face and lets the thick fabric catch the tears in his eyes. He wishes he had known his mother, more than anything in the world, but he is glad that his brothers knew her, glad that they think she would have liked him, as useless as he feels sometimes. Ori lets himself sink into sleep with his brothers and thinks he will make her proud, this mother he's never known.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
3. Oin & Gloin
Oin is mixing another of his concoctions, his ointments he likes to call them, and spreading the thick salve gently over a wound in his brother's shoulder and reprimanding him for not being more careful when it hits him.
Their mother used to be the one doing this, patching up wounds and scoffing at her reckless sons' inability to keep safe.
Oin's hands freeze over the wound and Gloin looks up at him. And of course he's always been more intuitive than a younger brother should be allowed, and the hand of his uninjured arm comes up to rest over Oin's.
It was their mother who taught Oin how to mix salves, which herbs did what and the proper way to bind a wound. Oin had later perfected her methods, going far beyond his mother's talents at healing little scrapes and burns and now he was the unofficial doctor of their little company.
Oin shakes his head, clearing out the thoughts and refocussing on wrapping the tender wound on his brother's arm, ignoring the look Gloin was still giving him. As he finished though, Oin remembered something his mother had always done that he ignored. Without pausing to think of why, he leaned over and pressed a kiss to the bandage on his brother's arm. His mother had always said that a kiss made everything better, that love was a faster healer than any salve or balm.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4. Balin & Dwalin
Dwalin realizes when their hobbit storms off, hands in the air in a motion of exasperation, that he must have said something off-colour. Balin sighs beside him and mutters that their mother's tact was obviously not something that had been passed on to him, and he turns to frown slightly at his brother.
But Balin is right and it churns up long-forgotten memories, of before the wars and the dragon. He and Balin had been something of trouble makers as children, especially once young prince Thorin was born. The three of them got into more trouble than any dwarrows in history, with the possible exception of Fili and Kili, were they given free reign of the hals of Erebor. He remembers, in particular, an incident that involved the palace cook chasing after the three young ones with a heavy spoon, a stolen pie hidden between their robes as they dodged the irate cook and, not looking where they were going, tripped, the thieved pie flying through the air and hitting a visiting dwarf lord.
It was his and Balin's mother who had smoothed things over with the distant lord, and with their own King Thror, who wanted to have the children cooked up and served for supper.
Balin had retained his mother's good sense and ability to calm any situation, always knowing the right thing to say. Dwalin, not so. He watched as Balin started off after their wayward hobbit, with a heavy sigh at his younger brother's antics and lack of tact, leaving Dwalin to smile slightly after his elder brother, and although he should be feeling sorry for upsetting the halfling, he finds himself instead chuckling at the distant memory, and looking wistfully into the wind, and remembering his mother.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5. Thorin
When Thorin first takes a seat on his throne, his hard-won throne that even his father had never had the chance to fill, he is awash with memories and emotions. Of course, he thinks of his grandfather and father and everything they fought and died for, but then his eyes reach the smaller throne at his side, and he remembers his mother, and a pang reverberates through his chest.
That was his mother's throne, and although she had died almost a decade before the invasion of Smaug, with the birth of his baby sister, Dís, it pains him to know that she will never see him reclaim the mountain, never even knew it was lost to begin with.
Thorin tries to imagine taking a wife, although he knows he should now that he is King under the Mountain, produce his own heirs instead of his sister-sons, but he cannot imagine any other woman ever sitting in his mother's throne, and vows in that moment, tracing it with his thick fingers and tears caught in his lashes, that he will never marry, will never let anyone sit where she sat so long ago.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
+1 Bifur, Bofur, & Bombur
Bombur comes home, and it is his home, in the blue mountains where his wife and children have been waiting so long for him, and is nearly knocked down by an avalanche of dwarrows tackling him to the ground. They shriek for their papa and Bombur thinks this hoard is better than all the gold Erebor can hold.
Bofur is chuckling in the doorway and the children notice him next, moving on from their father to their uncles, for Bifur is there too, standing more behind Bofur, and Bombur has a chance to hoist himself from the ground and great his wife, who scolds him for losing so much weight on their journey.
Bofur has children climbing over him and stealing his hat, trying to hide in the hood of cloak, and Bifur is not faring much better. As the taller of the dwarves, he represents a challenge to the dwarrows, a mountain they need to claim, and they are wary of his axe as they clamber over their eldest uncle, small sticky hands caught in his beard, and Bifur's eyes are brighter and more aware than the children have ever seen them.
Bombur sits with his wife and smokes his pipe, watching his elder brother and cousin with his children, watches them romp around, seeming younger now than they were when Smaug chased them from the mountain, until they fall asleep before the fire, a mass of fourteen dwarf-children, a miner and a toymaker, and Bombur smiles to himself, glad to be finally home.