The door to Bag End is round and low, and I have to duck as I step through it, shoulders brushing wood smoothed by generations of smaller folk. Warmth spills out to meet me—firelight, bread, pipe-weed, the hum of voices already well settled into one another. It is crowded. Loud. Alive.

The Company is gathered around the table, tankards in hand, conversation layered and overlapping. Bofur is mid-story, arms wide, Bombur laughing beside him. Dwalin stands near the hearth, solid as ever, eyes cutting briefly to me before returning to the room.

I take two steps inside—and stop.

She is seated at the far end of the table, turned slightly sideways to listen to someone speaking at her shoulder. Copper-dark hair is braided thick down her back, bound neat and strong. She is shorter than the men around her, but there is nothing small about her presence. She occupies her space with quiet certainty, spine straight, hands scarred and steady where they rest against the wood.

I do not know her.

And yet my attention fixes on her as if drawn by a force I did not anticipate.

My breath catches, unbidden.

There is strength there. Not loud, not boastful—earned. I recognize it instantly, the way one recognizes good steel by the sound it makes when struck. She turns her head as someone laughs, profile sharp, eyes bright with a focus that misses nothing.

Who is this dwarrowdam?

I am still standing just inside the doorway when Dwalin’s voice carries across the room, steady and unmistakably amused.

“You might shut the door, Thorin,” he says. “You’re lettin’ the Shire in.”

A ripple of laughter follows, and the spell breaks just enough for me to move again. I step farther into the room, eyes lifting briefly from her only to find Dwalin watching me with something like knowing already forming at the corners of his mouth.

As if on purpose, he turns and gestures with his tankard.

“And that one there?” he says, nodding toward her. “One of the only dwarrowdams I know who’s ever knocked me flat on my back.”

That draws my attention back to her immediately.

She lifts a brow, unimpressed, a faint smile tugging at her mouth as the Company reacts with interest. My chest tightens—not with threat, but with something far more dangerous.

Respect.

Bofur grins wide and claps his hands together. “About time you noticed her,” he says cheerfully. “Thorin Oakenshield—this is my older sister, Ríkdâsha.”

She rises.

Not hurried. Not shy.

She comes to her feet with the easy balance of a warrior, meeting my gaze directly. There is no awe there. No expectation. Only curiosity, sharp and honest.

Something settles in me at once.

This is a woman I would keep warm.

The thought comes fully formed, unashamed. I imagine the weight of my cloak at her shoulders, the way it would rest there as a promise rather than a claim. I imagine smooth stone pressed into her palm, worked and polished by my own hands. I imagine braid at her temple I would weave myself and vow... a future shaped with intention.

The Mountain rises in my mind—not as ruin, but as something reclaimed.

And she is there beside me.

I incline my head to her, careful, formal. “Thorin Oakenshield” I say simply.

She inclines hers in return.

In that small exchange, something begins that I already know will not be brief.

Stone recognizes Stone.

And I am lost to it.

Because as she stands there—steady, unbowed, entirely herself—the truth settles with the weight of carved stone.

This is a woman I would want beside me.

Not behind. Not protected into silence. Beside.

The thought is not reckless. It is not sudden. It is simply… right. As if something long unspoken in the bones of the world has finally found its shape. A Mountain is strong alone, but it endures only when it is held in balance.

A Mountain King has always needed his Queen.

I look at Ríkdâsha, at the way she meets the room without yielding to it, and I know—without fear, without doubt—that if Erebor is to be reclaimed, it would be meant to rise with her standing at my side.