Last of the Line of Durin

Chapter 1 – Vigil for the Dwarf King

Disclaimer: This story will be uploaded in probably about fifteen chapters, hopefully all before the new movie comes out! I own none of the characters except for Eliriel, but please give her a chance. She's a crossover from another story, but here she's younger. If you like her, I might write a prequel to this story featuring her and Thorin. Let me know what you think. This takes place directly after the Battle of the Five Armies. Thorin, Kili, Tauriel and Fili are all dead.

The main characters of this story will be Legolas, Dis, Aragorn and Eliriel.

After the Battle was over, and the Elves had wept and the Dwarves had sung their lamentations, the armies of Thranduil and Dain Ironfoot placed the bodies of Thorin Oakenshield and his nephews, Fili and Kili, in a small antechamber off of the Hall of Kings in the mountain of Erebor, while they awaited burial tomorrow morning.

The Dwarven princes had died defending their mother's brother, and much was the lamentation at the loss of not only their king, but of his heirs as well.

King Thranduil, solemn and remote and stern, had given permission for the body of Tauriel, the Captain of his Guard, to rest next to that of Kili's, for the elf had died fighting beside the dwarf prince, and she had loved the young warrior of another race as deeply as he had loved her. King Tranduil had known it – the rest of the Guard had known it – and no matter what any of them thought, they understood and respected the king's choice to leave their Captain under the stone, surrounded by dwarves.

Legolas had not left the side of his departed friend since he had watched her fall on the Battlefield. He had been too far away, helpless to get to her as Azog and Bolg and their elite guard surrounded Thorin Oakenshield and isolated him from the rest of the dwarves. Fili and Kili had fought through to their Uncle's side, and Tauriel had gone with them.

She had been a glorious sight to behold that day, red hair gleaming in the weak sunshine, a fierce light in her eyes, and the blood of her enemies staining her armor. Legolas had fought beside her for most of the Battle, their movements synchronized through years of long practice and similar styles of fighting. But when she had moved away from him in order to fight next to the dwarf Legolas had been shocked and even jealous to notice that she fought as though she was dancing with the short, ugly figure.

Legolas hadn't made it in time, and he kept reliving her falling, the light in her eyes fading, over and over again.

It was dark in this small antechamber, save for a patch of starlight and moonlight which came down from the night sky through an open vent in the side of the mountain. Tauriel would have loved the starlight.

Legolas sat with his back to Tauriel's hastily constructed stone tomb, out of sight of the rest of the chamber. The dwarves were hard at work crafting permanent sarcophagus for their king and his nephews, but Thranduil and the new dwarf-king, Dain, were still arguing over where Tauriel was to be buried.

Legolas wanted her to be buried back in the Woodland Realm, but he suspected she would have wanted someplace high on a hill, under the open sky and beneath the stars. This way she would be able to watch the rising sun and the blood red moon, and she could heard the whispers coming to her on the wind from every corner of Middle Earth. She had always wanted to be a part of the world, not merely watching from a guarded fortress.

But wherever she was buried, he knew that she would have wanted, most of all, to be next to Kili.

It was dark and very late. The dwarves had long since settled in to their rest, and the Elves and Men had long ago retired to their tents that had been erected before the doors of Erebor. The moon was full and bright as it beamed down into the antechamber where the king and his nephews lay in eternal slumber. Sitting on the floor, close together and close to the tombs of their departed friends, were the remnants of the Company of Thorin Oakenshield, including Gandalf the Grey and the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins.

And Legolas, prince of Elves, sat in the dark, around the corner, so that he could be near Tauriel, but away from the dwarves – who had not the slightest suspicion of his presence.

He could smell tobacoo smoke from the Wizard, but for the longest time no one spoke.

At last the hobbit – Bilbo – asked a question. He had obviously been looking at his dead friend.

"Why does Thorin wear a small, gold necklace around his throat?" His voice was bemused. "It doesn't look like it belongs to him."

The gruff, bald one with all the tattoos – Dwalin, Legolas thought – snorted. "It's not his."

The old one, with the long, white beard continued. "Now, you know that's not really true, brother. She would have wanted him to have it."

"Who would have wanted him?" Bilbo asked. From his voice, Legolas could tell that the hobbit had moved away from Thorin and was going closer towards Balin and Dwalin.

Another voice picked up the story. Legolas could not tell the identity from voice alone, so he inched slowly across the floor until he was on the opposite side of the corridor and could look down the hall for an excellent view of the antechamber. It looked like the dwarf with the funny hat – Bofur? – who was talking now.

"Haven't you wondered why Thorin hasn't said…." He cleared his throat. "Didn't say anything at all about Kili's love for the elf."

"Tauriel," said Balin, forcefully. His gaze was stern. "Show some respect. The woman is dead, and died fighting besides our prince."

Oin and Fili were nodding their agreement.

"Tauriel," Bofur said. "Everyone noticed. We all knew what was going on. But Thorin didn't even say a word."

"And he really didn't like Elves," Bilbo agreed, glancing around towards Gandalf the Grey, who was steadily puffing on his pipe and paying the rest of the Company no mind.

"Bunch of prissy jerks," Dwalin snarled, and Balin started laughing. Sadly.

"That's exactly what you said about her, in the beginning." And Legolas was surprised to notice that Dwalin actually looked chastised.

"Who?" Bilbo asked again, looking around and noticing, like Legolas did, that the rest of the Company – except maybe Gandalf, because who could really tell with Wizards – seemed to know exactly what Balin and Dwalin were talking about.

Dwalin cleared his throat. "Thorin….loved someone once. Only once," he insisted as though this was somehow a flaw in his departed friend and Dwalin was preparing to defend him from accusations regardless. Bilbo just watched him steadily. "He knew what Kili was going through because…..the person he loved wasn't acceptable either."

Bilbo looked back and forth between Dwalin and Bain, then turned to look at Bofur. "Who was it?"

"You have to understand, Bilbo," Balin took over, gently. "That because there are so few dwarf women, marriage has always been very…..strictly regulated among us. Especially for the Line of Durin. They must marry. There must be heirs. And they must marry dwarven women of good family. Gloin's wife is a famous beauty. Thrain's wife was the last offshoot of yet another of the Line of Durin."

"But Thorin never married. That's why, Fili was his heir."

"Yes," Balin agreed, "his sister's son. Fili would have had to marry a dwarf woman. Several candidates had already been put forward. But Kili had always resisted it; and he was so young anyway. Everyone thought there would be time. But the dwarves would not have accepted him marrying Tauriel. And he knew it."

Legolas wanted to speak up and tell them all that the Elves would never have accepted Tauriel marrying Kili either, but he figured it was a moot point. And he kind of figured that Tauriel would have done it anyway.

"So…" Bilbo said, after a moment. "Who did Thorin love, that was so unacceptable the dwarves would not allow him to marry?"

"He loved a human," Dwalin said, brusquely. "A tiny little slip of a human girl."

"A woman," Balin corrected again. "She was no girl."

"Looked like one," Gloin said. "Shorter than Thorin. Slender. Fragile enough that you would think a strong puff of wind would blow her over."

"Always sick with some kind of illness," Oin put in. "Always coughing or pale with pain."

"But with wisdom and stubbornness," Balin said.

"And a warrior's heart," Bofur put in.

Dwalin growled. "Not just a warrior's heart, a warrior's skills. She loved sparing with Thorin, and in unarmed combat…..she would have beaten any elf. Even Kili's Tauriel. I guarantee it."

"A maid as fair as the moon and as glorious as the sun," Balin agreed.

There was a pause after this statement as all of the dwarves, Legolas and Bilbo tried to work out what this actually meant. At last Gandalf cleared his throat. "As I remember it, she was a short girl, with pointy features and eyes and hair the color of mud."

"Well, I wouldn't call it mud…..exactly," Balin averred.

"She had Kili's coloring," Dwalin said.

"No she didn't," Gloin disagreed. "Her hair had red in it, like mine."

"And gold, like Fili," Bofur put in.

Bilbo interrupted the rising argument before any more time could be spent on something that was, in Legolas' opinion at least, highly irrelevant. Men all looked the same to him, plain and ungainly, although they weren't as bad as dwarves. He still had no idea what Tuariel had seen in the departed Kili, although he was willing to concede that they had very similar personalities and world outlooks. Still, there had to have been some type of attraction, although for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what.

"Alright, alright, who actually cares what her exact hair color was," Bilbo said, waving his arms around and standing up. The argument between the dwarves died out, although not without some grumbling. "So Thorin was in love with a human. And that's why he didn't say anything about Tauriel and Kili. Everything's explained now, thank you." He sat back down again. After a moment he asked, "What was her name?"

There was a pause that Legolas thought sounded faintly embarrassed. "Eliriel," Dwalin said, after a long moment.

Legolas' eyes widened. But that was an –

"Elf's name!" Bilbo said.

Gandalf started chuckling a bit around his pipe, which led to a coughing fit. Legolas watched as Bombour – the fat, red-haired one – pounded the Wizard on the back. It took a minute for Gandalf to catch his breath again. "Oh the irony," he muttered.

Balin shot him a disapproving glance. "You see, laddie, Eliriel wasn't her real name. I don't think any of us knew her real name except Thorin. We don't even know where she came from, because it didn't seem like her people were any of the know settlements of men. But she loved the Elves and so she took a name from their tongue. We always just called her Ellie."

There was a sadness upon the old dwarf's face, a sudden settling of years that brought back home for Legolas that Tauriel was dead, and it must have done the same for the dwarves, because Bilbo looked around at their downcast faces. "What happened to her?" His tone said that he already half-suspected, but the words that came out of Balin's mouth took him, Legolas and Gandalf completely by surprise.

"She fell in battle, many years ago now, defending Thorin, Dis, Fili and Kili from a kin of Durin's Bane."

Gandalf once again chocked on his pipe. "A balrog?!" He coughed a bit. "You're joking me. There is no way that Thorin would have survived if he had gone up against a balrog!"

Legolas found himself inching towards the group as the Wizard spoke. He didn't believe a word of this either.

Balin sighed and exchanged a look with his brother. Dwalin picked up the thread. "It was not as large as Durin's Bane, but was obviously the same sort of creature. We have stories and pictures. We know what they look like. The….balrog made its home in the north. Above the Misty Mountains. It also had many orcs and goblins and even several trolls under its thrall. They captured Dis and her two sons when she was travelling to visit Dain in the Grey Mountains. It was obvious that they were being used as bait for Thorin."

Gandalf shoved his pipe aside and leant closer to Dwalin. "When was this!"

"Right after Thror and Frerin fell before Kazad-Dum, and Thrain was lost to us. About three years after in fact."

"What happened?" Bilbo asked, glancing at Gandalf as the Wizard appeared to be deep in thought, counting or calculating in his mind.

"Thorin went after them. And Ellie went after him." Dwalin shook his head ruefully. "How she caught up to him I have no idea. We set off not even six hours after Thorin with over a hundred battle-ready dwarves, but we arrived when the battle was almost finished. Ellie was…..frail, would probably be the best term to describe her. And human. There should have been no way that she caught up to Thorin, let alone had enough strength for a battle with a…..balrog. But Dis told us afterwards that Thorin and Ellie fought together against the balrog."

"How?" Gandalf demanded, his eyes glancing towards the still figure of the dwarf-king. "And how did I not know of this?"

"We don't know how," Balin admitted. "Dis, Fili and Kili all refused to talk about it, and when we arrived Thorin was already on the ground, unconscious and with many burns and broken bones. Ellie was half-charred. It was…truly hideous to look at. But her neckace…..the one that Thorin wears now…..it was glowing and when it hit the balrog it screamed. And she was shouting words at it that appeared to cause it pain as well. They killed each other, Ellie and the balrog." There was silence for several moments while the dwarves fidgeted and Gandalf and Legolas pondered.

Bilbo, who had read about balrogs but had no true idea of their power and ability to inspire terror, asked, "Why is that so unusual?"

It was Gandalf who answered. "Because no human or dwarf has ever killed a balrog, and the only Elf who managed it died and was granted great gifts by the Valar. It should not have been possible."

And Balin laughed sadly, while Dwalin almost smiled. "That was Ellie in a nutshell. She was as rude and surly and proud as Thorin, and as frail as an old woman, but she was utterly unstoppable when she put her mind to something. She could do things that seemed impossible."

"But she died."

"And left Thorin alone," Balin agreed.

"He never got over it," Bofur put in.

"It's why we don't talk about her, even now. Even amongst ourselves," Oin said. "Although now that Thorin is dead…" he trailed off.

"You all knew her?" Bilbo asked.

"Ori never met her," Oin said, "and she was closest to Thorin, Fili and Kili."

"And Dis," Dwalin said. Ominously, apparently, for the other dwarves lowered their eyes. "She is now the last of the line."

"Poor girl," Balin said.

"Dis is Thorin's sister?" The intricacies of the Dwarven Royal Family were obviously about as clear to Bilbo as they were to Legolas. Which was not at all. He had only rarely seen Dwarven women, and never actually talked to one. They had always just looked like mildly-less hairy dwarf men wearing dresses. But, he supposed, he should be a bit more respectful even in his own thoughts, because Tauriel would not approve. She had loved that hairy prince – why, Legolas could not entirely fathom – but she had obviously seen something great in him. Tauriel had been extraordinary, and Legolas knew that she would have only fallen for someone who was at least a bit extraordinary himself. "She's the queen, now," Bilbo continued. "Isn't she?"

Dwalin grunted, but Balin smiled apologetically. Legolas noticed that there was an unspoken agreement among the dwarves that Balin always explained things. He was the most patient, and certainly the wisest among them, but Legolas thought it had more to do with the fact that dwarves were secretive about their own affairs, and that they had decided that Balin – although fairly talkative and definitely quite accepting for a dwarf – was the best person to explain things without giving too much away.

"Dwarves are very patricarcal," Gandalf said, and Balin nodded in agreement.

"Our lines of descent are always from the father," the elderly dwarf continued. "This is most likely due to the fact that we have so few women, but it is also due to the fact that our earliest ancestors – the very first dwarfs who arose from the stone at the dawn of time – were men. Our forefathers."

There was a diplomatic silence at this point, until at last Bilbo broached the subject. "Then how did they have any children?" He cleared his throat nervously.

They mated with the stone, Legolas thought, a bit uncharitably he realized, but couldn't stop the snarky comment. Or with their gold.

"We had sex with rocks," Dwalin said, his face immobile.

Bilbo paused, obviously contemplating whether or not he should take the warlike dwarf seriously, and then Bofur started laughing. Soon all the other dwarves joined in as well until even Gandalf was chuckling. And if some of those laughs turned into a few tears, well none of the others were going to mention it. It would be their little secret.

Legolas looked up at the quiet tombs that loomed above the dwarves' heads. Moonlight glinted off silver stone slabs. Tomorrow there would be a grand funeral procession and the bodies of their royal family would be interned into ornate marble tombs to await the time when the world would be made anew and they would once again awake in the Halls of their Ancestors.

Legolas looked down at the sword in his hands; Orcrist. He had taken it from Thorin Oakenshield, and then returned it to the Dwarf King for his last fight before the Mountain. Now it was in his possession once more, but it no longer felt right. This blade had slain the mightiest of Orc Captains, perhaps a few dragons, and even a Balrog during the First Age of the world. He did not feel worthy to bear it into battle, but he did not want to give it to another either. His father…..well Legolas would leave that thought alone for the moment. He might have given it to Tauriel; if anyone was worthy of it, it was her. But she lay in the tomb besides her prince. She would awake in the Blessed Realm, but Legolas thought it would not suit her, for she would never see Kili again, for he had gone the way of Men and Hobbits, out of the Circles of the World.

"I may take the name of my father," Bilbo was saying now, "but I am equally, if not more so, my mother's son. Hobbit's know this. I am the Old Took's grandson, I am Belladonna Took's child. Their blood flows in my veins. I don't mean to brag, but it's where I got my adventurousness from."

"You are indeed Belladonna Took's son, Bilbo Baggins," Gandalf said, knocking the pipeweed out of his pipe and putting the piece away in his sack. "And she would be very proud of you. You had done honor to the Tooks."

Bilbo smiled sadly. "But not to the Baggins', I'm afraid."

"A bunch of duffers," Gandalf intoned, and Bilbo's sadness went away to be replaced by genuine amusement.

"Sometimes Gandalf, I think you're right."

"I usually am."

Bilbo started to pace, back and forth before the tombs. The other dwarfs, not eating or drinking or even smoking, watched him absently from their silent vigil around their king. "So, Thorin's sister will not be queen, because she is his sister. But you said that dwarves always take their descent from the father. So how then was Fili, Thorin's heir. Because Fili was Thorin's sister's son."

"Ah, now you've hit the nail upon the head," Balin agreed. "It caused quite a few arguments when Thorin announced that, and might even have led to open warfare had Thorin and Ellie not done what they did to prevent it. By dwarven law the rightful heir should have been Dain Ironfoot."

"The dwarf who will be crowned in two months? Thorin's cousin?"

"Yes. A very distant cousin. Descendant of the Line of Durin by a younger son, but always from the father."

"Dis should be queen," Dwalin growled. "I'll have no dwarf from the Iron Hills king over me. Especially one who did not aid Thorin upon this foolhardy quest, and came only at the last minute for his share of the treasure." There was a low muttering of agreement from the other dwarves. Bilbo looked surprised and Gandalf looked mildly apprehensive.

"Now see here…" the Wizard began, but was interrupted by the other dwarves.

"When is the Lady Dis arriving?" Bofur asked.

"Will she be receiving the king's rooms?" Oin demanded.

"She better be," Dwalin growled, "Or Dain will be receiving words from me. Words in the form of Elf-biter and Orc-Cleaver." He held up his heavy axe and then his long knife. Legolas snorted quietly. That gruff dwarf seemed exactly the type to name his weapons. Especially something as rude as "Elf-biter."

Bilbo wrinkled his nose at the weapons. "She stayed behind during the quest."

"Yes," Balin said. "Thorin placed her in charge of their people while he was away."

"Is she a good ruler?"

Balin smiled fondly. "The best. She is wise and noble, and as commanding as Thorin was. Her sons got their fierceness from her, because their father was the most polite and rational of dwarves."

It was at this point that Legolas slipped away. He would return to Tauriel's tomb later. For now he had to polish Orcrist, because tomorrow Legolas, prince of Elves, would be burying the Elvish blade with its rightful owner, the King of all Dwarves.

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