forgottenbrother | (no subject)

[Frerin has been dead for 142 years when Thorin finally comes to join him. It's strange to think, really, how it's been this long since he came to dwell in the Halls of their Ancestors, crafted by Mahal himself for his children.

Frerin has watched his brother for all this time, pained by the stoic, stone-hearted dwarf Thorin becomes. When the dragon-sickness takes him, Frerin sees it. And when Thorin falls at the Battle of the Five Armies, Frerin weeps bitterly, weeps for his brother and for his sister-sons, for all the ruined innocence, for how close Thorin was to achieving his goal before the sickness took him.

Frerin is one of the last to greet Thorin when he arrives. He needs time to compose himself. Thorin's actions have troubled Frerin greatly and watching the battle reminded him too much of how he too was felled on a battlefield, choking on his own blood, screaming for his mother...

His eyes are red, his face blotchy from crying when he finally comes to say hello to his brother. He's lucky, he supposes, that Thorin will be mostly blind for the next few days. That way he can't see how his little brother has wept for him.

He waits until Thorin asks about him before he finally steps forward.]

Hello, nadad.

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[One hundred and forty two years... that's right, it had been that long. That long since he and Dis had left behind their kin in the piles of dead on the dales of Khazad-dum. Since Thorin had become King in Exile by being the only heir of Durin to live through that horrible battle.

Frerin had been forty eight. Thorin... fifty three.

One hundred forty two years... nearly three quarters of Thorin's life was spent without his brother, and yet... Frerin had never been forgotten. Not even a little. He was an aching wound in Thorin's heart every time he saw Fili and Kili drinking and singing, every time any of the kin in his Company sat shoulder to shoulder in quiet comfort.

Thorin's not quite sure what he expected from the afterlife. What he thought would be different and what he felt prepared for in those moments caught between life and death, clinging to what might have been and sinking into the bitter realization that it would never be- but for some reason being face to face with family both long and recently lost hadn't occurred to him. Not completely. Not as firmly as it was now. With his fingers gripping at his father's robes with a desperate strength, his knuckles white with strain and his limbs trembling just slightly, barely enough to be noticed.

He's blind, unable to see the faces to which these familiar and heart wrenching voices go to. Unable to see his mother as she threads fingers through his hair, his father where he clasps a hand to his shoulder, nor his grandfather with his reassuring voice. He's told it will pass as he gets used to this place, that his eyes will adjust, but for the time being it's simply adding to the confusion, the disorientation-

-the vulnerability he feels while recovering from his darkest moments.

But despite all that, despite how his mind is whirling and his thoughts racing, there is one thought that's rushing to the surface. One thought that has his fingers tugging at his father's sleeve, has him tossing his head to free his mother's hands from the strands, getting the attention of those around him as he casts useless (damned useless) eyes towards the voices he hears. All familiar, all waiting. All he had expected, save one.]

Frerin. [His voice is still rough, gruff and slightly wavering, as he hasn't managed to pull himself fully together yet.] Where is Fre- where's my brother?

[There, from the side, comes a voice he hasn't heard in one hundred and forty two years. And Thorin's grip loosens in their father's robes, his face turning slightly towards where his brother's voice had come from, expression flickering between bewilderment, frustration, pain, and relief. The emotions raw as Frerin would have ever seen them.

But beyond that, there's hesitation. Thorin has become so used to being reached out to, to being the rock and the caretaker of both his remaining kin and their entire people that... well. He finds he doesn't really know how to go about reaching for his baby brother.

So in the end the hand that might have been making an attempt to reach out to Frerin in this frustrating darkness twitches and falls to his lap, his head tilting forward and eyes shutting as his hair falls and frames his face, gives him the slightest shield in which to compose himself for a moment. For him to let out a long breath and take an equally lengthy one in.]

You're here. [All this time, all these years. Thorin knows he's changed, knows that even in death and in these halls Frerin must have as well. And the gift Mahal gave them all, the gift to see the events of the living world...] You came. [It's an amazing thing to think his brother must have seen or heard of all of Thorin's ill-fated quest, and still came to meet him.]

[Oh, Thorin. Frerin's heart aches in his chest to see his elder brother and he can't stop himself from surging forward, wanting to soothe away the hurts he sees so plainly on Thorin's face.

In all the time he's been here, he's never been able to stop from reaching for Thorin, and now he can finally touch him. Despite everything that Thorin's done, all the hurts he's dealt and all the mistakes he's made, Frerin loves him just as fiercely as he ever has.

A choked sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob bursts from him and he nearly falls into his brother's arms, clinging to him just as hard as Thorin had been clinging to their father. He laughs so he doesn't cry anymore, plants a kiss on his brother's cheek and burrows into him, feeling the warmth that comes from the love of a sibling. He's been deprived of it for a hundred and forty three years now, and oh how he's missed it.]

Of course I came, stonebrain. As if I'd let everyone else hog my brother!