Warnings: PTSD, alcoholism, angst, major character death

He'd always liked his drink, she reflected. But then, what dwarf didn't? Most held that there was nothing better after a hard day of work than a tankard of ale. It was a part of their culture, a way to relax and bond with friends and family alike. It was social. It was acceptable. It was normal – it was even expected.

It was after their defeat before the great East Gates of Moria, at the Battle of Azanulbizar that his drinking stopped being social (she could not call it a victory when the cost had been so very high). He drank at the taverns of men, spending the paltry coin he'd slaved for over a hot forge. She knew his thoughts; some days she shared them. How they had been brought low! Scraping to make ends meet, struggling to provide for their family – what little was left of it.

The line of Durin, reduced to four; two babes, with the promise of being as fierce as any dwarrow, but many years from bringing in coin or putting food on the table. And their elders; two tired siblings, weighed down with sorrow and duty and the prejudice of men until they were shadows of their former selves.

And perhaps that was where the trouble started. They were neither of them at their best, and they did not know each other as well as they ought, as siblings should. Thorin and Dís were fond of one another, but bright, cheerful Frerin had been the centre of their world. Then Dís had met and married her beloved and Thorin and Frerin had become inseparable. They had stayed at the side of their father and grandfather, had helped their people as much as they could, young as they still were. They had doted on Fíli, and then on Kíli – and then they all went off to war, leaving Dís and her boys behind.

Dís could keep her sons safe, but her brothers, her father, her husband and her grandfather all left her behind and marched to war. She could not join them, not with a babe still at the breast and another tugging at her skirts, sucking on the end of a blonde braid and gazing about wide-eyed at the world. The battle-axes of the Lady Dís, once Princess, remained strapped to her back, not to see war. She had to wait, though she did not dare hope. She knew it would take a miracle to bring them all back to her and she did not dishonour them or herself by wishing the safe return of any individual among the group.

The truth was harder to carry than she ever expected.

Thorin returned alone.

Thorin returned broken.

In some indefinable way, he did not return at all.

It took Dís some time to notice, raising two young sons by herself, grieving for husband and brother and father and grandfather alike. Her sorrow was so huge that at first she could see nothing else. She did not blame Thorin, who had always carried the weight of Heir and now was almost crushed by the duty before him: to provide for and protect the people that were now his alone. But neither did she know how to support him. It was always Frerin, second eldest, who had learned to rule in case of Thorin's death or dismissal, and not she. She had been so young when Erebor had burned, and then on her marriage, as was traditional, she gave up her claim to her sons, so that her husband could never try to use her in a power-play for the throne.

Now, she had two fatherless sons to raise up, to teach to be strong and brave and honourable, to love and cherish family and duty alike. For one day, her bright, cheerful Fíli (he took after none so much as Frerin and some days it hurt to look at him and to smile) would ascend the throne and lead their people, for good or ill. Her cheeky but kind-hearted Kíli would surely support his elder brother even in that hardest of all ventures, as he already supported him in all things, including mischief.

(Dís determined they'd had enough ill, thank you very much, and her sons could surely only bring good into this world anyway.)

Thorin would assist in this duty, this privilege, when he could: but he had his own concerns now – their people were still in the process of settling in the Blue Mountains, and he needed to ensure trade routes and alliances and contact with other mountains and a million other things to do with leading a people, a people proud and devastated and still fighting, always stubbornly fighting on. (Of all the things to be proud of in a people, their sheer stubbornness was perhaps the most ridiculous, Dís mused, but there it was.)

Gradually brother and sister came to rely on each other, until neither could function without the other; when Thorin wearied from the diplomacy he no longer had the patience for (not that he'd ever had the temperament), Dís stepped up. When Dís couldn't cope with childish games and questions any longer and needed peace and privacy to break, she passed her sons to Thorin. And so Dís learned to rule alongside Thorin, as he learned how to be an uncle (father) to his sister-sons. And for a time, it seemed to Dís that they might prevail, the two of them: they might emerge from another tragedy stronger, better siblings and friends, proud mother and uncle and rulers, leading their people to better fortunes.

Then Dwalin dragged Thorin home at four in the morning for the third time that week, having found him unconscious in a ditch on his rounds, and Dís was forced to admit that they might have a problem.

Dís watched Thorin over the days that followed, finally permitting herself to notice what she'd been denying too long. She saw that his eyes were always blood-shot and tired, his clothes rumpled and braids unravelling. There was a tremor to his hand where before there had been none. She watched as he drank too much at every meal, listened as he lost patience too fast with a miner come to petition for something or other (today, she was not interested in the plights of her people, only in that of her brother. She could not quite bring herself to be ashamed). Dís saw how he no longer worked the great forges of the mountain; smithing had once been a great pleasure of his, turned into a necessity and a shame when they lived amongst men, and now as forgotten as the brother they never spoke of, who had always stood between them, holding them together (but now she realised he'd also been holding them apart; he'd been as a wedge and now he was gone.)

The one thing that remained unforgotten was Erebor. Thorin would drink until the ghosts faded, his sorrows became shadows and he no longer noticed himself flinching at an unexpected touch or a flash of blonde hair. (Some days he could not look at his sister-son, his heir, only retreat to his room and weep or rage). He drank until he could sleep without screaming and the only thing on his mind was revenge against the great wyrm and recovering the home mountain for Durin's people. And so his carefully cultivated sense of duty became twisted and the King was tortured by the past and his own treacherous (broken, devoted) heart.

Dís didn't understand at first. She refused to. She was jealous. She could not let go as he did for without her to pick him up, he was not there to pick her up. So instead of joining him as she secretly yearned, she badgered and pestered and hid his money and his drink, until she realised none would deny their Prince and Dwalin told her Thorin had taken loans from all their friends fool enough to permit him. She worked twice as hard at the forge, her boys no doubt off with Dwalin practising the warrior arts (they were nearly grown and when did she look away long enough for that to happen?), until she could repay them all in full.

When she went to repay Balin, Dwalin was visiting his brother. He had refused to loan Thorin, or Thorin had not asked; she knew not. But she was thankful to him for not making life harder either way. He watched her with dark eyes as she talked with Balin and handed over the coin owed, and when she moved to leave he placed a warm hand on her shoulder and began to say… something: "Lass…".

She smiled at him, but it did not reach her eyes, and stepped away. He let his hand fall and said nothing more, stepping back as well, eyes lowered, and she swept from the room cloaked in her own pride where once she would have worn jewels and fine clothes, as Balin sighed his sorrow when his brother showed it in his eyes.

Thorin was her brother. He was her responsibility, and she knew instinctively that he would let none other assist him. It remained to be seen whether or not he would allow her. But she would not give up on him (or should it be could not?) and she would not allow him to give up on himself. If reclaiming Erebor allowed her brother to reclaim his pride, then that is what she would suggest. He would of course need to give up drink before attempting any such quest, or petitioning for aid. It would be years yet before their people would be stable enough to leave; before any such endeavour could be undertaken. To a people as long lived as Durin's folk, a decade was not so long.

Perhaps the right incentive would give Thorin hope enough to fight, and she could have her brother back.

And so it was that ten years later, the Lady Dís lead the first caravans of her people from the Blue Mountains and returned to her childhood home of Erebor. It had been so long since she fled, and her so young at the time that she barely remembered it at all.

She returned to find, once again, that the truth was worse than she had dared to dread.

With her blessing, her brother had marched to war, and taken her sons with him.

This time, Thorin had not returned alone.

He had not returned at all.

Her sons, her steady and loyal Fíli, her brave and loving Kíli, both beautiful and strong – they had fallen at the feet of their uncle, the one they loved in place of the father they did not remember. She had no tears to weep, for they had died together and that was more than had been granted to her. They would be drinking and laughing in the halls of her forebears and one day, she would join her entire family there.

For Dís was alone – inevitably, at last. And she was last.

The mountain was Dain's; her respects had been paid to the tombs of her brother and her sons. Dís shrugged off the shaking hand of their old friend Dwalin as he offered comfort she did not seek (though a better or truer friend could not be wished for) and left the mountain. She sought the encampments of men in the ruins of Dale. She had no remaining duty to Durin's folk, who no longer belonged to her or Thorin but now to Dain; no family to raise and guide or pull back from the brink.

The one thing that could be guaranteed in a gathering of men, no matter how few or battle-worn, was the presence of alcohol. She no longer had to pretend strength she didn't feel; she had no one to look out for. And it was true that the line of Durin had always been prone to damaging, self-destructive obsessions. Like her brothers, Dís would ever be a descendent of Durin.

She would be close to them the only way she could be; she would forget either their deaths or their lives and be content.