Chapter Text
The stairs to the lower levels were neither dusty nor cold; they were kept in good condition, for they were used daily. Of that, Dis was particularly strict. She did not want a single day to pass without fresh flowers being delivered and new torches being lit. Dain Ironfoot was glad to give her her wish. He was glad to give her anything she wanted, really, and although it had been a year already, not a day passed by without him telling her how sorry he was. She appreciated it, although she didn’t know if all the sympathies of the world could ever bring a smile upon her lips again.
Dis arrived in the large room, beautifully decorated and lit with torches. She walked to the largest tombstone, the one in the middle, and knelt in front of it. She didn’t look at the inscription on it, she knew it by heart, her brother’s name and title written in Khuzdul sometimes haunting her dreams. She bowed her head and rested it against the cold stone. “Were you happy, Thorin?” she asked quietly. It was one of the questions she had asked most frequently. “You had your mountain and your gold, but were you happy? Would you have ever been happy? I can’t remember if I ever saw you happy.”
Dis ran her fingers through her hair. A little over a year ago it had still been mostly deep black – now it was pure silver. “They were plenty happy, though. My boys. Always so happy together. I always feared for them. Feared that their love would be revealed. Feared that the world would tear them apart. Feared that they would anger you so much that you finally disowned them. It seems I was fearing all the wrong things.”
She stood up. She ran her hand gently across Thorin’s tombstone. Then she walked out of the room and started the long climb up the stairs. Dis never kneeled in front of the other two tombstones on either side of Thorin’s. Never even touched her sons’ tombstones. That was because she was the only person in Erebor, outside of the tomb-builder, who knew the Secret. Fili and Kili weren’t buried under their tombstones on Thorin’s either side. Instead, several feet under Thorin’s tomb, there was another one, large enough for two Dwarves. That was where the brothers lied in their eternal sleep, hands linked together by Dis. They had always been together in life. She would not have them be apart in death either.