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It all started after Víli died. They had mourned and grieved, but Dís and Thorin believed that, though the scars of his passing would never fully heal, they had all healed as much as they could hope for, after all, they hadn't seen any major lingering ill-effects. They figured out how wrong they had been decades later.
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
They didn't know what exactly triggered it, maybe it was just the timing. The memorial of Víli’s death had been a few months ago and now it was Fíli’s seventieth nameday, the day he became an adult. Fíli should have been happy, ecstatic, but when Dís went to check on him, she found him with a solemn face. He was looking at himself in the polished metal mirror, all dressed up as a proper prince, but he looked so depressed, so lonely. Dís was not unfamiliar with her eldest son’s bouts of depression. They had all been changed by Víli’s death.
“Fíli, Inûdoy, what’s troubling you now?” She stood in the doorway, understanding that Fíli would ask for contact when he wanted it. “You should be happy. I know your father is meant to present you with your family beads, but Thorin agreed to do so.” Fíli hung his head and a small, broken sound fell from his lips. With that, Dís walked over to her son and put one hand on his head and the other on his arm. “We all miss Víli. He ought to be here on this day, that I know, but you must still go through the ceremony.”
Fíli broke out of his mother’s hold, but refused to look at her. It took a moment before he said anything.
“It's… it's not that. Not entirely.” Fíli wrapped his arms around himself and continued, “Would he have wanted to be here, though?”
“Fíli…” Dís was now highly concerned as to what her son had going through his head. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean,” Fíli’s head shot up and he stared Dís in the eyes for long enough to ask “what if I was why he left? I remember he kept going away more and more and I was getting older and what if he didn't like me? And and he wanted to get away from the chaos? What if I made him mad and he decided to leave and that's why he died?” Fíli hung his head low as he finished the question with a sob. Dís quickly, but cautiously approached and embraced him.
“No, no, darling,” She said in a soothing voice, “it was absolutely not your fault. Neither you, or Kíli, had anything to do with that horrible event. Trade had been picking up that season and he needed to make more and more journeys. He hated leaving you as much as you hated him leaving. You and your brother could do no wrong in his eyes.”
Fíli shut his eyes tight and buried his face into Dís’ shoulder. He was breathing unevenly, but no tears fell from his eyes.
“I know. I know it hurts. But he would have been so proud of you. He would be telling the whole colony about how his golden son was now a Dwarrow. You have to do this, Inûdoy, if not for yourself, then for him and his memory.” Fíli lifted his head and nodded. “Good. Let's get you straightened up.”
The next hour, Dís helped Fíli put on the final details and ornamentations. When the ceremony did start, Dís put the maturity braids in his hair and Thorin placed the beads at the end, one for the line of Durin and one for his father’s line. Fíli gently held Víli’s bead in his fingers before he took the final oath and was named an adult. Cheers erupted in the crowd. Kíli immediately jumped his brother and made fun of him for getting misty eyed. Dís watched as her son's teased each other, laughing and smiling, but she still wished her beloved could have been there to see this moment.
Little did she know, but Víli had been there, watching. His ghost had stood beside Fíli the whole time, so proud and happy. At the end, he walked over to Dís and said to her, “You raised them so well, Ghivashel. I am so sorry for causing you such grief, but I am so proud of your strength.” Víli's words fell on deaf ears, but his presence was felt by Dís who felt a little bit happier.
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
Dís thought the ordeal was over, she was wrong.
Erebor had been successfully reclaimed, Smaug was dead, and the company was alive, though many were injured. She walked into the rooms where Fíli and Kíli were healing. Fíli was asleep, as he often was these days, and Kíli was looking down at his hands, a rare frown on his face.
“Amad?”
“Yes, Kíli?”
“I'm sorry.” Kíli looked at her, but he had a hard time finding her face with the bandages still on his eye. Dís hated to see her son like that. Kíli was meant to be smiling with a spark in his eyes, but here he was, frowning and a gloomy look in his eye.
“I gave it away… The runestone you gave me. I just… I thought I was in love and I was stupid and I gave it away. I'm so sorry, Amad.”
“Oh, Kíli.” Dís sat down on the bed beside her youngest son and rubbed his shoulder. “We all do foolish things sometimes.”
“But, but, you said it was Adad’s.” Kíli only managed to whisper the sentence, but it rang loudly in Dís’ ears.
“It was. He took it with him on almost every trip, except,” She couldn't bring herself to add for the last one, but Kíli knew anyway. “I didn't know you cared so much about things like that.”
“I don't. Not usually, but,” Kíli looked down at his hands again, “I don't remember Adad much, I only remember bits and pieces and a scent and feeling of comfort. I care about what he left because that's all I really know of him.” He hit the mattress he was sitting on as he became angrier with himself. “And I gave it away! At least in Ered Luin there was a grave. He's not even here and I threw away the only part of him I had!” Kíli was crying now. “I'm so sorry, Amad.”
“Oh Kíli, sweet Kíli. You're so young. You didn't know better.” Dís wrapped him in her arms as best she could. “You didn't lose him by losing that stone. You are so much like your father in spirit and you need only look at Fíli to see his face. Yes, that stone was important, but you and your brother are so much more important than it. It was a stone, you are his son. He loved you more than he loved the earth. I know he would have destroyed a thousand runestones if it meant you would be safe.”
Kíli sniffed. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
Again, Víli’s ghost was there. He embraced his son and reached for his wife’s hand. “Kíli, I know you don't remember me, but I have watched you grow. I have loved you for your whole life, little ingot, I am happier that you lived than I would be if only that stone survived. To me, now, it is only a broken promise. You are a light of hope. I'm sorry I made you miss growing up with a father, but I was always there, even if you never noticed.”
Víli soon began to fade back into the afterlife, but his last sight before he left was his wife holding their baby as Fíli slept nearby, and he was so proud of his little family.