Sansûkh (Bagginshield & Gigolas)

Chapter Two

He was wrapped in a soft shapeless robe and led to a smaller room. He could tell it was smaller from the sweet, tinkling echoes. It smelled like good deep rock. There was a bed.

He slept like the dead.

When he woke, his mother was there. He could barely make out her face through blurred vision, but her smile shone through his blindness and was just as glorious as it had ever been. Her soft wheat-gold hair still curled around her face, and her eyes were still exactly the same shape and color as his own. He was glad -- he had wondered if old, long-nursed grief had warped his memories. Frís helped him dress and took his hand, before leading him out into a great buttressed Hall and a dizzying array of Dwarves and heat and noise and laughter.

It took some getting used to.

Dwarrows centuries-dead greeted him, and as his sight returned, he occasionally found himself brought up short by a familiar face or a vague family resemblance. Surely that was a Durin nose -- surely those were the family ears! He walked around in a haze of recognition and bewilderment.

Thorin's grandmother, Queen Hrera, fussed and tutted over him more than she ever had as a young dwarfling. It took all his patience to refrain from reminding her that he was in fact older than her now and had whiter in his hair and beard than she had ever managed. Not that she would have listened, anyhow. The women of his family had always been even more mulish than the men. Fíli and Kíli smirked a lot whenever she managed to corral him and tweak his cheek.

He had his revenge when Hrera descended on them in turn and promptly began to plait Kíli's hair.

A Dwarf with a multitude of honey-colored braids and a puckish, mischievous face came near, and Thorin's mouth opened on a soft intake of breath. Then he grabbed the Dwarf's shoulders and drew him into a rough embrace. "Víli."

His brother-in-law silently pressed their foreheads together. "Thank you for raising them," said Víli son of Vár. "Thank you for being there when I could not."

Thorin fumbled for Víli's hand and grasped it tightly. "They are the best of my life," he said, and Víli's eyebrows rose and the ghost of the impish grin that had captured Dís' heart passed over his lips.

"Then maybe we should go and rescue them from Hrera."

Thorin looked back at the grouching Fíli and the moaning Kíli. "No. It's good for them."

Víli chuckled and folded his arms, watching his sons complain and grouse. His eyes were fond, and his smile grew until it was the spitting image of the grin that Kíli had inherited. "So it is."

His grandfather's dear friend, the stoic and dependable Nár (who had braved Moria for love of Thrór), clasped Thorin's wrists and told him that he was a Dwarf amongst Dwarves, a hero of their people. His old Great-Uncle Grór, first Lord of the Iron Hills, slapped at his back and told him "well done!" His Great-grandfather Dáin the first, slain by a cold-drake before Thorin's birth, grinned at him from ear to ear and pumped his hand until his fingers went numb.

His cousins Náin and Fundin, both Burned Dwarves of Azanulbizar, instantly crowded him with enthusiastic pleas for news of their sons. Though Mahal had mentioned that any Dwarf in the Halls could watch over their kin at any time, it appeared that the immediacy of his tales was greatly appreciated and sought after. Though it tore at his heart, Thorin told them all that he could remember. His old cousin Farin, father of Fundin and Gróin, was quiet and calm, a smile tugging at his lips as he listened to the stories of his four heroic grandsons of the Company -- Balin, Dwalin, Óin, and Glóin.

Gróin was the worst of the lot, however. He was so proud of his grandson he was likely to explode, and asked Fíli and Kíli for any tales of their young playfellow at any and every opportunity. At these times, Thorin would take the opportunity to slip away and explore.