It's funny how easily you can fall into a routine. Even funnier when said routine involves returning to the very mountain responsible for so much past pain. But time moves on and hearts are mended in the process and Ellie focused not on how there would always be a host of Durin's missing from the dining table in Thorin's Erid Luin suites, and instead on how the two boys she had wholeheartedly devoted her life thus far too, make their Uncle proud as they learn the craft of Kings in the mountains of their people.

And so they spent the summers in the cool caverns of Erid Luin and the harsh Middle Earth winters in their cosy home with Thorin working at his blazing forge.

Granted though, moving the four of them up and down a mountain range as the seasons changed was perhaps not the simplest way of doing things but none of them wanted it to be their permanent home. While Fili had very few memories of the place, his brother had none, and both were more at ease to call the four walls of their cottage their true home. Not that Thorin ever let them forget that it was in fact a mountain far to the East that was their truest of homes.

But they were comfortable here and Fili and Kili couldn't deny that being heir apparent to Thorin had its perks; neither had been without adoring glances since they first set foot into the heart of the mountains.

Ellie rolled her eyes as she watched them both flirt shamelessly at the gathering they'd been forced to attend for the Summer Solstice. Both of her boys were decked in Durin blue, much like their Uncle, and were very much enjoying the attention the regal colour brought.

"I don't know where they get it from." She felt a smile bloom on her lips as a gravelly voice appeared at her shoulder and a hand rested on her waist.

"It's the Durin charm." She told Thorin, her eyes still on the pair with their easy smiles and full laughs. "No one can withstand it."

"You did." He reminded her as she turned to face him. "For a great many years."

"I repressed its effects." She told him, brushing away a speck of non-existent dirt on his tunic. The deep grin he offered to her told her he saw through her poorly concealed effort to simply be closer to him. "But trust me when I say I did not withstand it."

"Is that so?"

"Indeed, my King."

He rolled his eyes at the title and she let her hand drop from his chest. "Let me kiss you." He said, his eyes boring into her own. "In front of everyone and let us put an end to this charade."

"Thorin…"

His hand tightened on her waist as her eyes flickered to the packed room to ensure no one was watching them. "I care little for decorum, Ellie. And I am past sneaking around."

"We aren't sneaking around." She told him. "Sneaking implies we're doing something wrong." She felt her cheeks heat at the implication.

"Then let us tell them." He nodded to Fili and Kili. "Let us tell them and then every realm that will listen."

She sighed and pried his hand from her waist. "Thorin…I can't ask you to do that."

"Ellie…"

"I am not your betrothed Thorin and if you kissed me right here right now, people would think I was some…" She glanced around and let her voice drop, well aware of the company that surrounded them despite the apparent privacy of the alcove they were in. "…whore."

And that's when she knew she'd said the wrong thing; his eyes blazed at the word and she knew he would defend her reputation to the hilt (they had after all, done nothing more than kiss as yet – even though the kisses seemed to be lasting longer and leaving her heart pounding faster with the canopies of his bed almost always in her eyeline), but she had worked too hard to get these Dwarves on her side and she'd be back to square one if they thought she were spreading her legs for her King.

"Then I'll wed you tomorrow and we-"

"Now you're just being ridiculous." She told him, her voice sharp as she failed to understand why he couldn't do this; why he couldn't break all protocol just to kiss her in public.

"Ridiculous." He echoed her, and she heaved a sigh as he took a step back, out of the alcove.

"Thorin you know I didn't mean-"

"I understand perfectly well what you mean." He tilted his head to her. "My Lady." And promptly turned and stalked off, the crowd swallowing him whole as she was left lingering in the shadows.

Breakfast was a strained affair. The rectangular table at which they met every morning was deathly silent as each of its four occupants refused to make eye contact with each other. Fili and Kili spent their time alternating between picking at their food and trying to repress low moans of pain as the sheer amount of ale they consumed the night before continued to pillage their systems.

Ellie would feel sorry for them if it weren't for the spark of rage begging to burst into an explosion that was sitting within her chest. He hadn't so much as glanced at her since their conversation last night and had so far spent the entirety of the meal reading papers that she knew for a fact could wait until they parted ways for the day. Thorin was being stubborn, and she didn't know why she was surprised; he was a Durin after all.

And so, instead of the usual chatter that filled the room at this time of day, her ears were instead ringing with the sounds of cutlery scraping across china on either side and the incessant ruffling of papers from opposite her.

She set her own knife and fork down gently and let her palms rest together at the edge of the table as she made to break the silence. "I-"

"Good Morning!" The words died on her lips as the main doors to the suite opened and Balin strode merrily in with his team of Erebor Ambassadors at his back. "I trust we all have sore heads today?"

"You're in a good mood." Thorin noted, setting his papers to the side for the first time in the last hour. Ellie withheld a huff as his eyes totally bypassed her to instead watch the man approaching them from the sitting area behind her.

"Of course I am." Balin grinned as he came to a stop at their table and gestured for the Ambassadors to begin setting up the days work in the sitting area. "I slept well, had a hearty breakfast and get to spend the day watching the young princes inspect the forges."

"Oh Mahal no." Kili groaned, lifting his chin from the heel of his wrist to meet Balin's gleeful smile with bloodshot eyes. "Not this morning."

"We only got in a handful of hours ago." Fili added, his complexion sour and hair significantly more matted than usual.

"And yet it has been on the calendar for a month." Thorin reminded them, his own grin making them groan further.

"Uncle…please?" Kili tried. "We'll be more of a hinderance than-"

"No."

"Aunt Ellie." She let her eyebrow raise as both princes turned to her instead. "We'll be a disgrace; a total let down of our family name if we-"

"I said no." Thorin cut across them as she opened her mouth to reply. "And that is final." All traces of teasing were gone from his voice as he stared them down.

She placed her cup back into its saucer as gently as possible as their complaints turned to mumbles and Balin shifted awkwardly at their side. "Your uncle is correct; shirking your duty is not an option." They mumbled their apologies before returning their focus to their untouched plates. "A message that could have been conveyed without shouting." She murmured to herself as she too lifted her cutlery.

"I beg your pardon?"

Her hands stilled, and she lifted her eyes to meet a pair of thunderous blue not unlike her own. She let her eyes dart around as the silence that had once again fallen reached her and cleared her throat as she replaced her cutlery. "I said; a message that could have been conveyed without shouting." She met his gaze.

"My apologies, my Lady, for disciplining my nephews."

She let her palms cross again as she straitened her spine and met his gaze with her own ferocious one. "Disciplining them unnecessarily, you mean?"

"I-"

"Go back to your papers Thorin; you much more pleasant when you were ignoring us."

Another deathly silence fell as they continued to simply glare at each other; the spark of rage growing slowly until he opened his mouth again, this time to speak to his most trusted Advisor.

"Cancel the meeting this afternoon." He said simply, his eyes burning as she began to object. "Lady Eleonóra clearly does not have the right temperament to play nice today."

"How dare yo-" She cut herself off immediately and squared her shoulders. "Give us the room."

The four-word order might as well have been a call to arms as the two seats either side of her pushed back instantly and the room around them emptied with the soft click of the door signalling that they were alone and effectively sealed off the dining room from the rest of the Erebor delegation.

"What in Mahal's name is wrong with you?" She asked.

"I am sorry to have displeased you, my Lady." He said, his voice taking on the baritone that always signalled his mind was not going to be changed easily. "Often I find my ridiculousness hard to quell."

"If you're being an ass because of last night then you are ridiculous!"

He brought his fist down hard on the table surface as she spoke. "I will not have you speak to me in that way at my own table!"

"I will speak to you as I wish at our table!" She countered, well aware that their voices were rising and the thickness of the dining room door would soon not be enough to award them privacy from the lingering dwarves on the other side. "You will not embarrass me in front of the entire delegation because you misunderstood me!"

"I will do as I wish in front of my delegation, in my suite to my subordinate."

"Your subordinate." She echoed, her voice dropping to a whisper before increasing to a higher, sharper tone. "Your subordinate?" She took a breath, pushed her chair back and stood. "I will not have this conversation with you now; you're clearly not going to listen to me and-"

"Is my ridiculousness becoming too much again?"

"Will you stop fixating on that word?!" She cried, her nails boring into the back of her chair. "You are not ridiculous Thorin but your proposition was." She sighed and released the chair. "We cannot-"

"We can."

"Thorin you're not-"

"We can."

She gritted her teeth at his stubbornness and met his eyes, the fight beginning to leave her. "Reschedule the meeting." She sighed, moving to the door. "Reschedule it and we will discuss this at another time."

"I will do no such thing." Her hand came to a stop on the doorknob at his words and the unchanged rage behind them. "I meant what I said; you are not fit to discuss the future of my people today."

"Reschedule the meeting, Thorin." She said, turning her head to him.

"No."

"Thorin-"

"No."

She tore her hand from the knob and whirled to face him the spark she had thought extinguished now blazing. "Reschedule the meeting!"

"Do not shout at me; I am your King!" He cried, his chair flying back as he rose, and they faced each other across the table; chests heaving as his words and their meaning hung around them.

"No Thorin; you are my friend!" She told him. "You have always been my friend; when you were a prince, when we had nothing and now when you have almost everything you could want; you are still my friend." She took a breath, her voice losing its power with every second until she was barely speaking, her eyes on the table and not him. "But maybe I've been wrong to see you as that before anything; I thought you were my friend and I thought you were the man I love." She met his gaze. "I now see how wrong I was; my liege."

Their moods didn't change for the rest of the Summer. Or at least hers didn't, she had given up trying to decipher what was going on behind the piercing blue of Thorin Oakenshield's gaze. She was furious with him; furious that he had so easily dismissed her and her role here, furious that she had let him dismiss her and furious that despite it all, he was the first thing on her mind when she woke and last when she closed her eyes at night.

And yet she was still to utter a friendly word to him and firmly maintained the fact that she was not to blame for the abyss forming between them. She knew that Fili and Kili found it hardest; their lives had been filled with her and Thorin laughing and teasing each other and raising them side-by-side and now, now they were only in the same room when it was explicitly needed and only joined for meals for the sake of the confused princes.

Summer was drawing to a close now and she was looking forward to turning her back on the icy blue walls of Erid Luin's council chambers and return to the small, cosy cottage that held her heart when the blankets on her stately bed did little to warm the chill of hewn crystal walls.

It was almost time for them to pack up and return home for Durin's Day and Ellie was doing all she could to not ram what little belongings she brought to and from the mountains into her pack and saddle the horses herself. Of course, returning to their cottage would bring problems of its own; there would be significantly less space in which she could avoid Thorin and without the delegation at his back every hour of the day, her incessant curtseying wouldn't have the same riling effect on the irate King.

She fought the urge to blow out a deep breath and instead focused on the plate of food in front of her and the fact that she realistically only had to sit here for another ten minutes before she could escape to her own room and not want to simultaneously thump and kiss the man opposite her.

"I for one am glad we're going home soon." She glanced up as Fili broke the silence. "I don't think my body could handle another celebration and the Durin's Day one here is supposed to be legendary."

"I've seen better." Her eyes snapped from Fili to Thorin as the words left her mouth almost simultaneously with him. Their eyes met, and she let her lips quirk slightly at the eyebrow raised at her.

"Better?" Kili asked, his own eyes flitting between his guardians. "Where?"

Ellie felt her smile drop at the question and the dropping of Thorin's eyes to his plate signalled that the answer was hers this time. "Erebor." She told the boy. "Everything you've heard about that goes on here, originated in Erebor. And we did it better."

"Anyway…" Fili returned to his original topic. "…like I said; I look forward to the simplicity of home after this Summer."

"Perhaps we can make it truly simple; a night under the stars on our way back?"

Ellie smiled at the not-so-subtle request from Kili and wondered how long they'd been planning on asking for it. They had both lived for the nights when she and Thorin would pack a bag and abandon the stone walls of their cottage for a night in the fields not far from home, where the stars were not distorted by the lights of the houses that surrounded them. Campfires and lullabies had soothed them until their eyelids had flickered closed under the inky sky. Life had always been simpler when it was just the four of them.

"You can do as you wish; I won't be joining you."

Thorin's words snapped her from her memories and all promises of ignoring him unless she could somehow irritate him, were forgotten. "What do you mean you won't be joining us?"

"I have business in Rohan."

"Rohan?" She all but sneered at the name. "What in the name of Mahal do you have to do in Rohan?"

"Not that it is any of your business…" He met her stare. "…but I have received reports of sightings…sightings of my father in Dunland."

"Not that it is any of my business?" Disbelief seeped into her every word. "How could you say that?"

"He is my father and therefore not your concern."

"He is your father, but he is also the man who took me in when I lost mine." She reminded him. "You should not have kept this from me; he is my family too."

Thorin said nothing, just held her stare before placing his cutlery down and linking his fingers under his chin. "Fili, Kili…" He said, never looking away from her. "…Please give us the room."

And just like the last time those words were uttered, the princes vacated without a question, sealing them into the dining room.

"He is my family too." She repeated.

"Dis was your family, Frerin was your family, my father is your family and my nephews are your family." He let out a humourless laugh and relaxed back in his chair. "It would seem that everyone I am related to is your family and I am the only Durin who you deem unworthy of the same honour."

"I don't-"

"I am the ridiculous Durin."

She groaned and let herself slump in her chair, mirroring his position as a fresh wave of tiredness washed over her. "Are you still holding onto that? Really?" He didn't answer.

"I-"

"No." She cut him off as she forced herself back into the straight-backed position she had been trained to sit in since she was a child. "No. You don't get to do that."

"Do what?"

"What you always do when people say something that hurts you, but you won't allow them to see it: you inhale my words, jumble them all up inside you and then breath out an argument."

"I have no idea what you speak of."

She took a breath. "I'm sorry that my carelessness with my words hurt you Thorin, but a spur of the moment proposal in the shadowed alcove of a ballroom is a ridiculous thing! How can you not see that?"

"We are done here, Lady Eleonóra." His dismissal stung as though he'd slapped her and his casualness as he picked up his knife and fork and resumed his meal made her want to strangle him.

"So we're supposed to go home and leave you to wander around Isenguard looking for a man who probably was never even there?" He ignored her. "Thrain isn't in Dunland, Thorin. He never has been, and he never will be." She watched the muscle in his jaw tick. "Even if he survived Moria he would have died long ago wandering the wilds of Enedwaith, so why are you doing th-"

"BECAUSE HE IS MY FATHER!"

The ferocity of his shout stilled her and the burning eyes now fixated on her for the first real time in weeks made her stomach flip. She may have taken this too far.

"Thorin I-"

"He is my father and I will spend my life looking for him if I so please!" He told her, volume significantly lower but the rage still there. "Because as I have mentioned to you before; I am the King and I will do as I please."

She had nothing left to say after that. Nothing that could possibly turn this conversation around, so she chose to escape and simply rose from her seat and turned to leave. With the door half open and one hand against the wood though, she turned her head back to him.

"I hope you find him Thorin. I hope you find everything you want in Dunland. But when you return empty handed, I hope you don't regret pushing me away; pushing away the last member of your family who remembers Thrain."

He said nothing, and she was empty now. So she let her hand slide from the door and stepped through it; leaving Thorin alone at the head of his empty table.