The Stone King

by Linelen (Linelenagain)

Summary:

Kíli is King Under the Mountain. It is not a position he has ever aspired to fill.

A fan-drabble based on Gingerkitty's King Kili sketch.

Notes:

• For gingerkitty.

Just a quick fan-drabble for Gingerkitty, based on a chat we were having on Tumblr.

He braids his hair every morning now. Intricate, many-stranded plaits, bedecked with jewels and shining metals. His brother would find it funny, he thinks, to see him so adorned and well turned-out, when just a few short months ago Fíli had to wrestle him still long enough to force a comb through his tangles, or run a cloth over his dirty face.

“No one would think you a prince, Kíli,” he would complain, and Kíli would laugh.

“You are the prince, brother,” he would always say. “And that is how I like it.”

* * *

The dwarves from Ered Luin arrive slowly, and too soon. He expects them to take one glance at his beardless face, so like a child’s, and then look past him, to his cousin Dáin, perhaps, or Balin. He does not possess the gravitas of his uncle, who could win the hearts of his men with a few low words, or send his enemies quaking with only a look.

They don’t, though. Whatever they see in his eyes, they do not look away. He settles their disputes soberly, without temper or passion, because he feels none, and soon enough they look at him with a wary kind of respect. It does not please him. Nothing does.

* * *

He earns a new title among his people: the Stone King, who does not smile. He regrets it, in a distant sort of way. They deserve a king who laughs, who can take pleasure in the ringing forges and the thriving markets of Erebor restored, and he cannot give them that. He can give them his life and his labor, but never his laughter, and certainly not his heart. He lost that with everything else, and the mountain he rules is full of ghosts.

* * *

The worst part of kingship is the endless task of paperwork. He whiled away many long days in his youth at the base of his uncle’s desk, while Thorin kept up with his correspondence, or Fíli studied their laws and histories. Occasionally one or the other would try to coax him into a chair beside them, to study some text or another, but he would always escape, running wild at the outskirts of the mines and coming home hours later, filthy and grinning.

He can do nothing but sigh now, as Balin places another ream before him for his perusal and signature. It is an obligation he cannot shirk; there is no uncle here, no brother to laugh and do it for him.

“Thank you, Balin,” he says, reaching for his pen. “I’ll be down shortly.”

Balin hesitates at the door. “You’ve done well, lad, ruled us well. You’ve made a fine king.”

Kíli does not look up. “My uncle was a fine king, as my brother would have been. I am a poor substitute for what we’ve lost.”

Balin leaves without another word, and Kíli rises to follow, gathering his papers.

He stops before the door to check his braids. They’re perfect.