Chapter Text
Durin’s Day fell on a Thursday this year, which meant an extra-long weekend in Erebor and precisely nothing in Dale. Outside the mountain, the chill crisp of late summer on the lake gave the day its first bite of the season. In the city of Dale, mothers wrestled children into sweaters and coaxed to life the great fires that they’d spend the rest of autumn and winter chasing those sweater-clad children away from. Out on the water, fishers shivered despite their exertion and dreamed of pints by the fire. It was not cold yet, not as the land would be in no time at all when the autumn began in earnest. But for the first time this year since the land ceased to be cold, the land had ceased to be hot. The people of Dale, formerly of Lake-town, were well accustomed to the cold weather, but not-hot weather was trickier to handle. Harder to dress for, for one. And for another, blimey, they’d just gotten used to sweltering, hadn’t they?
“I tell you, sirs, summer’s shorter each year,” Sigurd said as he steered his barge back from the woodland kingdom. He’d not talked much this trip, an unusual occurrence for Sigurd whom it was said of in Dale got the job of bargeman because on still nights, he could produce enough hot air to fill any sails. Today, however, the barge was more overweight than usual, and getting it to go in the right direction had taken some fine tuning. The barrels of wine he picked up were this day disconcertingly full: donations of the elf king to the happy couple for the wedding.
“More like so Thranduil can make sure there’s something at the bar he’ll want to drink,” one of Sigurd’s passengers had muttered when Sigurd told him this, and the other passenger had elbowed his fellow in the ribs and said, “You hush, dear, you said you’d be nice.” This was how Sigurd figured out they were married.
Sigurd had picked up the passengers from the elf king too. He took it they were for the wedding as well.
“I suppose we are,” the shorter of the two passengers had replied, the funny looking hairless dwarf who didn’t believe in footwear. “We weren’t going to come down this way until next year, but Kili and Tauriel’s invitation finally found us while we were down in Dimrill Dale, and we knew we had to be here.”
“Is that right?” Sigurd had said, having absolutely no idea what Dimrill Dale was.
Now they were all headed together up the Forest River towards the Long Lake and Dale beyond. The passengers chatted amongst themselves of their plans. They seemed to be under the impression that they were going to be meeting with King Bard, like the king of Dale would meet with whatever random dwarf strolled his way. Sigurd shook his head. Tourists.
“I wonder if Tilda is taller than me yet,” the shorter one said.
“She’s always been taller than you,” the taller one replied. “She was born taller than you.”
“Are you insulting me or the ridiculous heights of Men?”
“I can do both.”
The two laughed. They’d introduced themselves when they’d boarded, flanked by several unusually inebriated elven guards who it appeared had started celebrating for the wedding early, but Sigurd knew the names he’d given them were fake. One said his name was the same as that mad king that’d buggered off three years ago. The other said his name was Bingo or something. Obviously neither were real, but their gold was, and never let it be said that Sigurd discriminated against good money.
Around the end of the Forest River, the pair fell quiet, thankfully. Sigurd needed all the attention he could keep, what with the mist rolling in from the lake. You could hardly see ten feet in front of you, and Sigurd had a feeling that the wine he was freighting cost more than he’d ever see in his life. He pushed forward along the hushed waters.
Leaning at the front of the boat, the shorter one said, soft as the mist, “Don’t be nervous.”
Sigurd almost replied that he’d be as nervous as he liked, thank you, unless the little hairless dwarf had enough gold to cover an accident as well as their passage when the taller one replied, “I’m not nervous.”
“Thorin, of course you’re nervous.”
There was nothing said back to that. As the barge slid silently through the silver curtain, the two passengers stood pressed together, waiting. Their hands rested on the railing. They peered into the shroud. Sigurd knew their type. He’d seen them dozens of times before, working with the dwarf merchants pouring in from the west and south. Every dwarf looked the same as they waited to see the mountain. Every dwarf waited the same as they looked towards their old home.
“Now did you flee in the hubbub,” Sigurd asked, curious despite himself, “or is this your first time?”
The taller dwarf didn’t turn around as he asked, “The hubbub?”
“With the dragon,” Sigurd offered helpfully. “The first hubbub with the dragon, I mean, when it came to stay. You’ve got the looker of returners. We’ve plenty of those coming through—not as much as we had in those first years when everyone under five feet was rushing here, but still a fair stream. Dwarves coming home, and all that.” Sigurd paused for a moment to steer them around a rock he’d just remembered was there and would kill them all. “So is old Sigurd right? You fellows coming home? Just visiting?”
They didn’t answer him. Sigurd wouldn’t have expected it. For as he’d finished asking, the wind had blown and the sun had shone and the curtain had parted and there she was. The Lonely Mountain jutted up on the horizon like a beacon. He supposed she must look something like a lighthouse to dwarves trying to find their way to the rocky shore.
The shorter one reached over and held his fellow’s hand. The taller one brought his hand to his mouth. Then they embraced, so tight you couldn’t tell which one of them was doing the shaking and which was doing the comforting.
Sigurd nodded to himself. He was always right.
“Are you ready?” the shorter one asked, as the boat came within sight of the shore. With the fog, that was a scant hundred meters.
“No,” said the other quietly. “Yes. I don’t know. Maybe we should have headed on to Rohan like we planned. I don’t even know how the damn raven managed to find us. I was very much looking forward to Rohan, especially after our time in Dunland. Has Erebor always loomed like that?”
The shorter one rested his head on the taller one’s shoulder. “You will be fine.”
“You cannot know that.”
“I assure you, Thorin,” his husband said as the boat bumped against the dock. “I do.”
Sigurd lost track of the two fellows shortly after that, what with the fuss of the market and docking and getting a baker’s dozen kegs of wine up to the mountain before the reception tomorrow. He went home that evening and kissed his own husband, told him how he’d ferried the weirdest looking dwarf today, and was reminded of the existence of hobbits.
“Come now, Siggy,” Delling said, exasperated. “We had one who used to visit Dale all the time. He was married to the mad king, remember?”
“Huh,” Sigurd said. “Right. Forgot about that little guy. Whatever happened to him? He died, right?”
Delling shrugged. “Not what the mountain says. They claim the mad king rushed off with his love in the night to save him from a curse or something. Mind you, I remember hearing about how the king dangled that same hobbit off a parapet just for crossing him. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’d finally offed him and then ran off to avoid being caught.”
Sigurd scratched his chin. A memory replayed. The passengers undocking. The taller one wavering. The shorter one taking his hand. They took hands a lot in the short time they’d been on his boat. They’d laughed together a lot too, that way people laugh when they’ve spent nothing but time together, and you start hearing your joy coming out of their mouth.
Sigurd remembered too the shouting that started the second they stepped foot onto the docks. He’d heard that sound dozens of times too. It wasn’t just the dwarves coming home prone to get weepy-eyed. The dwarves greeting them bawled just the same. Sometimes they’d get so jumbled up, whooping and cheering and crying and hugging on the docks that you couldn’t tell who was arriving and who was recieving. Everyone looked like they were coming home. On the docks this afternoon, a fierce looking dwarf, bald and with a hell of a beard to make up for it, came sprinting up when Sigurd docked. His armor clanked at a frequency armor didn’t normally clank at except when a battle was going very, very wrong, that was how fast that dwarf was running towards them. And the taller of Sigurd’s passengers froze just in time to get tackled.
Rooky mistake, freezing up like that. You gotta stay limber when you get hit.
The new dwarf nearly knocked the other one clean into the water before the hobbit grabbed the new dwarf’s clock and held. “Dwalin!” he’d chided. “Don’t kill Thorin yet, you just got him back.”
“I ain’t killing anyone,” the dwarf called Dwalin said back, with a grin like a bear. The dwarves pulled themselves up without letting each other go. Then, and without even a moment’s pause, they smashed their foreheads into each other.
Sigurd had shared a look with the hobbit that he could now identify as, Dwarves. Honestly.
Then the two dwarves were embracing so tight you couldn’t have gotten a finger between them, taking turns picking the other up and spinning them around, laughing, roaring, crying in that way where they’d both probably deny it later. Dwalin broke away for a moment long enough to make a grab at the hobbit, who jumped back and said, “I’ll wait till you two are done, thank you. My skull is far, far softer.”
Sigurd remember the hobbit standing on the docks, crossing his arms and smiling. It was a quieter joy than the one that the dwarves were bellowing at each other. It looked like it burned just as hot. “I told you,” was the last thing that Sigurd heard the hobbit say to his fellow as they headed into town.
“I know,” said the dwarf who leaned down and kissed his husband. “I know.”
“Welcome home, you vagabonds!” Dwalin cried and scooped them both up in his arms.
And then there was the wine to be unpacked. Sigurd had easily turned away from the scene. After all, he’d seen dozens like them.
“Nah,” he told his husband as they sat together by the hearth, putting up what fight they could against the first chill of autumn. “I bet the mad king and his burglar are living happily ever after.”
“Yeah?” Delling asked, getting up to set the table.
“Sure, as much as anyone does,” said Sigurd, who was leaning forward to check what was on the boil for dinner. “Yeah, why not? All things considered, I reckon they’re doing just fine.”