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TA 2768
Dís is eight years old when she notices it – the strange, blobby mark on the inside of her arm, just below her right elbow. It looks a little like a bruise at first, just a shadowy discoloration on her skin. But it does not hurt, nor does it fade. In time, she notices that her brother Frerin has a similar mark, though his is on the back of his lower leg. Thorin, their eldest brother, has one on the inside of his left wrist. They are all different – hers is the lightest, while Thorin’s is the darkest and seems sharper, clearer – but they all feel the same, somehow. They feel significant...important.
Being bright, and curious, and yes, just a little spoiled (as most dwarrowlasses are), Dís finally decides to ask.
Frerin does not know. Or, at least, he claims not to know. In fact, her copper-haired brother stares at the mark on his leg as though he has never seen it before. And maybe he hasn’t – at seventeen, Frerin is headstrong and impulsive, and not the most observant of the royal children.
Thorin is twenty-two, with a glint of mischief in his sapphire eyes as he studies Dís's mark and nods solemnly.
“It is dirt, namadith.”
Dís glowers at him, even as she instinctively scrubs at it.
“It is not! It doesn’t come off, Thor, even when I wash!”
Thorin gives her a sympathetic look and shakes his head.
“Because you are such a trouble-maker, Dís. You know how Amad warns you and Frer that if you can’t stay tidy, you will turn into dirty little goblins? It looks like you have started changing.”
“Amad fusses at you, too,” the lass argues weakly, rubbing a little harder at the mark. She doesn’t believe Thorin, not really. But she is only eight, with a vivid imagination, and when the elder prince gives her a sorrowful shake of his head, she panics.
Twenty minutes later, Princess Ara finds Dís sprawled on her own bed, wailing into her pillow loud enough to be heard in the corridor of the royal quarters. Gathering her youngest in her arms, the princess settles into a chair next to the fireplace. Dís is trying to talk through her sobs, but the only thing that comes through clearly is “don’ wanna be a goblin!”
Smothering a smile, Ara cuddles her close, smoothing the dark braids as tears soak into her shoulder. As the tears slowly give way to hiccups and sniffles, she pulls back slightly, lifting Dís's face with a gentle finger under her chin.
“Now then, bunnanûnê, what is this about a goblin?”
“Thorin said I’m turning into a dirt goblin.”
“Did he, now? Your brother says a lot of things, little one – many of them teasing or foolish. Why would you believe him on this?”
Dís sticks her arm out, pulling up her sleeve to reveal the mark, lower lip trembling as she stares up at her mother.
“Thorin said it’s dirt, Ama, but it won’t come off, no matter how I scrub! He said it means I’m gonna turn into a dirt goblin. I don’t wanna be a dirt goblin!”
Her mother makes a soft noise, one that sounds a little like the way Adad laughs when he doesn’t want her to hear (usually at one of the children’s pranks), and Dís studies her suspiciously.
“Ama?”
“I am going to have a talk with your brother,” Ara mutters quietly, before meeting the little princess’s distraught gaze. “But first, mim-mushzith, you are not turning into a dirt goblin.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am absolutely certain. Here, let me show you something.”
Settling the dwarrowlass into the side of the chair, Ara gathers the heavy weight of her golden hair and pulls it to the side, revealing a mark on her neck, just behind and beneath her ear. It is darker even than Thorin’s, solid and clearly defined against the pale skin. There are two clear shapes, intertwined, but Dís does not recognize them from her lessons. Touching a finger tentatively to the mark, she studies it as her mother smiles at her.
“But what is it, Ama?”
“It is my soul-mark, little one. In your lessons, you have learned that the dwarves were crafted by Mahal, Vala of crafting and skill?”
Dís nods, turning her gaze to her own mark as her mother’s thick braids fall back into place.
“Mahal made the Seven Fathers an’ their wives, and they founded the Seven Families,” she recites quietly. “An’ we are Longbeards, sons and daughters of Durin, who was the eldest of the seven.”
“That’s right.” A gentle hand smooths her hair and Dís glances up to find her mother smiling at her fondly. “Although, Durin did not wake beside his wife as the others did. Durin the Deathless chose his bride from the descendants of his brother Brokkr, founder of the Broadbeams.”
“But why, Ama? Why didn’t Mahal make a wife for Durin?”
“He did, bantith, eventually. He crafted Alfný of Brokkr’s line to be Durin’s One, his soulmate. He just wanted Durin to spend time wandering Arda before he found her, learning about this lovely world that Mahal crafted with Sulladad and the other Valar. And do you know how he helped Durin find Alfný?”
Dís shakes her head, entranced by her mother’s story, and giggles when Ara taps her nose and smiles brightly at her.
“Durin the Deathless had a mark much like yours, my lass, and when he met Alfný in Belegost, he discovered that she had one, too. It was the same shape, and it was located in the same place, and as they got to know each other and fell in love, their soul-marks became a symbol of the two of them, runes intertwined until they became one. Just as my mark, and your father’s, became the symbol that represents the two of us.”
Dís frowns thoughtfully, thinking of the mark she saw on her mother’s neck.
“They didn’t look like the Cirth letters that Ehō has been teaching me,” she murmurs, puzzled.
“Because they are not our letters, not really. They do not match the letters of the Angerthas, not even those of Moria of old. Scholars believe they are perhaps closer to the language of the Valar themselves – Mahal’s personal language, rather than the one that he crafted for us.”
“Does every dwarf have a mark?”
Ara sighs sadly, pulling Dís into her shoulder.
“No, lass, they don’t. More lasses than lads have them, since there are so few of us. And the direct descendants of the Seven Fathers tend to have them more often. My brothers don’t have marks, though your uncle Galar is happily wed to his Hlíf.”
“But Thorin an’ Frerin an’ I do.”
“Yes, you do. Which means that somewhere, whether here in Erebor, or in the Iron Hills, or perhaps in one of the scattered settlements, a soulmate waits for each of you.”
Dís feels slightly awed at the thought. She is not yet interested in lads, or love beyond that of her family, but still she feels a deep wonder at the idea that Mahal himself has crafted someone who will bring her the same kind of joy that her father and mother share. She frowns suddenly.
“But what if my soulmate dies, Ama? Like Grandmother Var? Was she Granda Thrór's One?”
Her mother’s face darkens.
“Yes, love. And when she died, Thrór's mark faded to a pale silvery-gray. Your soul-mark never goes away, it just changes.”
~ X ~
TA 2770
Dís is ten years old when her safe little world vanishes in fire and ash.
Smaug descends on Erebor, devastating the population and scattering the survivors. Frerin drags her from the mountain as the cacophonous sound of the warning bells echoes down the stone hallways. Huddled with her family on the shore of the Long Lake, her eyes lock on Thorin’s wrist as he reaches for Frerin.
“Thorin...your soul-mark….”
He glances at her, eyes dull with exhaustion, then looks down at his arm and his face goes pale and still.
Barely visible under the edge of his sleeve, blurred with dirt, his soul-mark has gone a ghostly gray. Frerin grabs his brother’s hand, yanking the sleeve back and scrubbing at the dirt with his own as if to change what they can clearly see. Thorin’s gaze fixes on something over Dís's shoulder, then their father is there, wrapping his eldest son in a fierce embrace. Frerin retreats slightly and Dís leans into his side, shivering until he slides an arm around her and pulls her close. She glances up at him.
“Frer, where’s Ama? Have you seen her since we left the mountain?”
Frerin shakes his head, eyes dark with grief as he watches Thráin comfort their brother.
“She’s gone, Dís. Adad’s mark has gone silver, too. Amad’s gone.”
The Sack of Erebor resonates through dwarf settlements from the Iron Hills to the ruins of Nogrod as hundreds of young dwarves watch their soul-marks fade to the color of death. Princess Ara and Thorin’s unknown soulmate are among the first of the lost, but the deaths continue for days. Fire-lung claims some that escaped the mountain, and those that did not...they do not all die immediately.
~ X ~
TA 2799
Dís is thirty-nine when she watches her brothers march off to war.
The War of the Dwarves and Orcs has already last six long, brutal years, with an additional three years spent gathering the armies of the Seven Families. Dís was only thirty when her grandfather, Thrór Uzbad, was abducted and butchered by Azog, the orc-chieftain that has claimed Khazâd-dûm. The war of vengeance has now lasted nearly a quarter of her short life. Today she stands among the other noncombatants and watches her father lead the army toward Azanulbizar, the Dimrill Dale that lies before the eastern gates of Khazâd-dûm, Thorin at his right hand and Frerin at his left. They are so young, her brothers, and they look almost small among the grizzled veterans – they have reached their full height, though not yet their majority. Thorin is fifty-three, Frerin only forty-eight, and she is terrified that she will never see them, or her father, again.
Una of the Iron Hills stands at her side, pressed against her shoulder as the lasses cling to one another. Una’s soul-mark is on the back of her right lower leg and she has become very close to Frerin over the past two years. She is also one of Dís's dearest friends and they cry themselves to sleep that night in the same tiny tent. The next morning, they straighten their backs and tidy their braids, seeking out Lady Srôfa, wife of the healer Gróin, to run errands and help with chores. It will take the army five days to reach the eastern gates, and at least as long to return once the battle is over, but there is much to do in the meantime.
Busy hands oft help ease anxious hearts.
The army returns three weeks later, but the smoke from the pyres has been visible since the end of the second. Una’s soul-mark has been gray for even longer.
Dís does not go out to meet the army. Una has not spoken since the morning she woke to confirmation of Frerin’s death, and Dís rarely leaves her friend’s side. She does not even look up when the flap of her tent is thrown open, not noticing Thorin’s arrival until her eldest (only) brother engulfs her in a desperate embrace.
He still reeks of smoke and blood, and tears track silent trails down his ash-smeared face. Shadowed sapphire eyes meet her own and the anguish she sees there breaks the wall she has built in her own heart.
“He died in the first charge, namadith, he and Fundin. I could not get to him. I’m sorry...Mahal, I’m so sorry.”
He reaches out, pulling Una into the shelter of his and Dís's arms. The younger lass does not resist, but she does not really react either and fresh grief fills his eyes as he looks at her impassive face.
“Adad?”
Dís hears herself ask the question, but does not remember if she intended to do so. Thorin nods.
“Adad is well.”
He glances at Una once more before he continues.
“Náin of the Iron Hills is dead. He challenged Azog before the gates, but the orc slew him. Dáin avenged him.”
Dís startles, staring up at him.
“Dáin? Wasn’t he supposed to stay behind? He’s only thirty-two!”
“Aye, he hid himself among his father’s retinue, apparently. He’s badly wounded, but he killed the orc. He’ll likely lose his leg.”
“But his father is avenged, and our grandfather, and our brother,” she murmurs, finally letting the tears fall.
“Perhaps.”
Thorin does not sound convinced, and a part of Dís agrees. Azog is dead, but the Frerin-shaped hole in their lives is not healed. A single glance at Una’s lost face makes it clear that it never will be.
“Where is he?”
The question is faint, the voice rough from disuse, and Dís turns to her friend.
“Frerin? Where is he? His body?”
Thorin sighs, tightening his grip on them as he tries to explain.
“There were so many dead...we did not have time to return them all to stone, but we could not leave their bodies to be defiled, either.” He pauses, taking a deep breath. “We burned them. We left the orcs to rot, but we sought out every fallen dwarf and built great pyres to burn them.”
Una wails softly, but Dís catches her shoulders, forcing the other lass to meet her eyes.
“Mahal will welcome him home regardless, Una. The stone is where he should be allowed to rest, but better fire than left to the mercies of the orcs and the wilderness.”
After a long moment, Una nods weakly and Thorin releases her so Dís can guide her friend to a seat. Glancing at him, the princess waves him off gently.
“Go, nadad. Clean up. Check on Fundin’s wife, Tíla, and her lads. I’ll take care of Una.”
Thorin nods and slips quietly from the tent, leaving the lasses to their grief.
~ X ~
TA 2846
Dís is eighty-six when she meets Torvi, son of Khervi, a journeyman silversmith from a small settlement in the Blue Mountains. He stumbles into her life with a smile and a laugh, a clumsy ray of golden sunshine with a soul-mark that matches her own. She is ninety when they marry and the joy of the day is enough to temporarily bury the ache in her heart. Her father is gone, vanished on a doomed attempt to reclaim Erebor ten years past, leaving Thorin to lead their people in the Blue Mountains. The years, and the burden, have taken their toll on her beloved brother, but even he smiles at her wedding. He has welcomed Torvi into their family with open arms, rejoicing in the healing that the fair-haired dwarf brings to Dís's soul.
She is ninety-nine when they welcome a new member to the line of Durin – a sunny lad with his mother’s blue eyes. Five years later, another son follows, dark as his mother. They name them Fíli and Kíli, and they inspire hope all of Durin’s folk. Two new heirs, unusually close in age for dwarf children, are seen as blessings from Mahal and Thorin’s Halls ring with renewed vigor. Dís's heart fills with love for her husband and sons, and she finally allows herself to look forward to the uncertain future.
~ X ~
TA 2879
Dís is one hundred and nineteen on the day that Torvi leaves with the trade caravan, heading east to carry the goods of Ered Luin to the Shire and the kingdoms of men. She smiles and kisses him good-bye, standing with her arms around their sons as twenty-year-old Fíli and fifteen-year-old Kíli wave enthusiastically until the caravan is out of sight. Torvi goes with the caravans every other year, trading off with Thorin as the representative of the royal family. It is a long journey, but he always returns with gifts and tales that make the lads determined to join him as soon as he will allow.
Two weeks before the caravan is due to return, a hand on her shoulder yanks Dís from a nightmare she never really remembers. Fíli's anxious blue eyes are locked on her face, shaking her shoulder as his brother tumbles through the door to her bedroom behind him
“You were screaming, Ama.”
“What’s happened, Fí?”
Dís stares at them blankly for a long moment before she realizes that her right arm is tingling, just below the elbow. She glances down, barely noticing as Fíli's gaze follows her own. The rushing in her ears almost drowns out his voice as he barks an order at Kíli and climbs onto the bed next to her, wrapping his arms around her as she begins to shake.
“Kí, run for Thorin!”
“Fí, what-”
“Now, Kíli! Fetch Thorin, quickly!”
The front door slams a moment later, but Dís does not hear it. The voices, Fíli's, and later Thorin’s, are faint, distant rumbles. For nearly an hour, nothing reaches her, nothing exists.
Nothing except her soul-mark, gone a silvery gray.
~ X ~
TA 2941
Dís is one hundred and eighty-one when her brother raises his Company to try and reclaim Erebor from the dragon. On a cool morning in early April, she stands in a small clearing just outside of Ered Luin to see her lads off on their quest. She hangs back at first, giving them time with their lasses. Ista, a dark-haired dwarrowmaid of eighty, blushes prettily at something Fíli murmurs to her as he buries his face in her hair. Nearby, Kíli's auburn-haired Ragna throws her head back to laugh at one of the younger prince’s jokes.
Dís smiles, watching them. They have been her comfort, her lads, in the years since she lost Torvi. Fíli, responsible and thoughtful, seems more like his father every day, while Kíli reminds her more of Frerin, reckless and impulsive. They both idolize Thorin, and she is fairly certain that her brother only waited so long to make the attempt on Erebor because he wanted both of them at his side. They are his heirs, after all – the youngest sons of the direct line of Durin the Deathless – and should they succeed, Fíli will rule Erebor one day.
All too soon, they stand before her, her young lion and her fierce raven, anxious eyes begging for her blessing and approval. Swallowing her worries, she gives them her surest smile and pulls them in close so all three of their foreheads touch.
“Innikh dî, dashshatê,” she murmurs quietly, breathing in the scents of tobacco and leather than cling to them like a cloak, their hair soft beneath her hands. “Return to me, my sons. Keep yourselves and your uncle safe. Promise me.”
“We will, Amad.”
Fíli, earnest and sincere. Then Kíli, teasing and eager.
“Start packing, so you can join us in Erebor in the spring.”
Six months later, as November settles over the Blue Mountains, Dís answers a soft knock at her door. When she opens it, Ista and Ragna brush by her without a word. Startled, she closes the door again and follows the dwarrowmaids. As they turn to face her, she catches sight of their tear-streaked faces and a bolt of terror goes through her.
“No...please, no. Not my lads.”
Ista is the first to move, pulling at the neck of her dress to reveal the soul-mark on her left shoulder. Ragna hikes her skirt up to her shin to show the one near her ankle. Both are silver-pale and faded, and the roaring in Dís's ears is back as her legs give out beneath her. Within moments, both lasses are huddled with her on the floor. Fla, Glóin's wife, finds the three of them half an hour later, weeping silently together in the entryway.
~ X ~
TA 2951
Dís is one hundred and ninety-one when she returns to Erebor, last surviving member of her bloodline. Dáin is King Under the Mountain now, and he greets her like a long-lost sister when she arrives at the head of the last official caravan from Ered Luin. He does not comment on the fact that she has waited so long to come – with her brother and sons dead, she had no reason to hurry her departure, and their people still needed leadership during the years of preparation.
Dáin escorts her to the crypts himself, opening the door to the royal mausoleum and stepping back to allow her to enter.
“I will wait for you out here, iraknana’,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to her white-streaked braids. “I am here if you need me, whether to rage or weep.” He pauses, though she does not look at him. Her shadowed sapphire eyes are already on the candle-lit chamber beyond. After a moment, he sighs and continues softly.
“He was himself at the end, your brother. And your lads...they fought like fiends to defend him, shield and sword. Loyal to the end.”
She nods minutely, her eyes still distant.
“Loyalty, honor, and a willing heart. Thorin taught them well.”
There is something in her voice, a hollowness, that seems to steal the heart of many that hear her speak. Dáin, however, nods and squeezes her shoulder before stepping back.
“Aye, he did. And he never meant to take them from you, lass. You know that as well as I.”
She hesitates, then finally meets his eyes.
“I do. But it does not change the fact that he left, and they followed, and now the last of my family is lost to me.”
She enters the mausoleum without waiting for a reply, closing the door quietly behind her.
The chamber is huge, with alcoves running the length of both sides. The first alcove, to her right just inside the door, belongs to Thráin I, the king that led them out of Khazâd-dûm and founded the kingdom of Erebor. His wife, Sóma, lies beside him, their images carved by skillful hands. Thráin's son, Thorin I, led their people to the Gray Mountains, where they remained for almost four centuries. As a result, the next alcove holds a single sarcophagus – Queen Var, Dís's grandmother – and a carved memorial to her grandfather Thrór. Only his head is entombed in the west, as his body was never recovered from the orc-haunted depths of the Misty Mountains.
The third alcove holds only statues – Thráin, who vanished without a trace, and Ara. The princess’s body was certainly among those entombed during the rebuilding of Erebor, but many bodies were unidentifiable after one hundred and seventy years.
The next alcove holds Thorin’s sarcophagus, and the carving is so detailed that she catches her breath. She stands silently at the foot of the stone coffin, resting her fingers on the chilly marble for a moment before she begins to trace the carved inscription.
Thorin, son of Thráin
King Under the Mountain
Amnâs, akrâg, ra kurdu guruth
Sighing, she moves on.
Frerin’s alcove is next, and she blinks away tears when she sees that Dáin has included a statue for Una. The young prince’s broken-hearted soulmate had followed him to the Halls of Waiting during the Fell Winter a century later, having never truly recovered from the loss of her One. The next alcove is, or will be, hers, and she stumbles when she realizes that a statue of Torvi already waits beside the empty space that will hold her sarcophagus. She pauses to gaze into the face that she has missed for so long, kissing her fingertips and pressing them to the stone lips before she moves on.
The wall between the next two alcoves has been removed, turning them into a single area large enough for four memorials. Fíli and Kíli are side by side in the middle, inseparable even in death, and it is this kindness from Dáin that finally steals her strength.
She sags to her knees between them, a hand resting on the stone encasing each of her sons, and she sobs as though her heart will break. This is the first time she has allowed herself to weep since the day Ista and Ragna came to her door, choosing to bury her anguish beneath strength for the bereft lasses and duty to her people. Now, though, she is alone. There is no one to see her, no one to judge. Only the dead. And so she finally, finally, gives way to mourning.
For her mother, lost to the dragon, and her father, whose fate only Gandalf was finally able to discover. For her grandfather, butchered by orcs. For Frerin and Una, sundered by war. For Ista and Ragna, widowed before they were wed.
For Torvi, her husband of less than thirty years.
For Fíli and Kíli, her beloved sons, taken before they truly had a chance to live.
And for herself, for Dís. Once a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother. Now, she is none of those things. She is merely the last survivor of a shattered family.
Alone.