Khalyn, daughter of Khali, did not know why she kept coming to these things. Her time could be much better spent in the forges, or the practice ring testing those dwarves arrogant enough to believe they could best her with the axes she made and perfected herself.

Tradition was the only reason that even remotely came to mind.

Dis was brewing the coffee hot and black, as always. Hwyne was chatting amiably about anything but the fact that her husband and brother-in-law were currently pursuing "merchant connections" with the company that had left with Thorin Oakenshield.

"Merchant connections." Really. Khalyn didn't believe that for a moment. 

She scowled darkly. If Khalyn had been a closer friend to Dis, that proud dwarfess may have told her where the company was going as she had obviously done for her closer-than-sister friend Duris. Duris, who had been conspiciously absent from Ered Luin ever since the day Fili and Kili had left for... merchant connections.

Hwylla, Gloin and Hwyne's youngest dwarfling and only daughter, was mooning over the mug in her hands that had been fashioned by Kili. The lass's infatuation with Dis's youngest son was painfully obvious to all except Kili. Khalyn wondered how long Hwylla would be able to last before she picked up her endless questioning about when Kili was expected to return. Khalyn could not remember ever being so foolish... even when she had been a young lass in her forties.

"And how are the forges, Khalyn?"

Caught off guard by the question, Khalyn blinked as she faced the fifth member of the party. Yitta's lined face acknowledged that the old dwarfess knew that Khalyn had not been attending the conversation, but did not condemn her for it.

"The Men grow impatient, but they know I will not produce an inferior blade. If they want something fast without a care for quality, I recommend other smiths they may patronize."

Hwyne shook her head. "You are too exacting, Khalyn. I am sure that what you consider a shoddy effort is still very well made."

"I won't have less than my best circulating with my name," she retorted, irritated that her reputation for being persnickety - not for being a fine, proud craftsman - was growing much faster than any dwarf man's. 

Yitta patted her hand, lending support that Hwyne had denied. "Your axes are by far the best made in Ered Luin. And beyond, if I'm not mistaken."

Khalyn smiled tightly, accepting the old dear's attempted soothing despite the tension that lingered. 

There were not many dwarf women currently living in Ered Luin, surely no more than a scant dozen. Of them, only these few - Dis, Hwyne, Yitta - had also once called Erebor home.

Khalyn had been only fifty-three when Smaug the Terrible came. Old enough to have apprenticed under a master smith, but young enough that actually working in the massive forges under the mountain had still been denied her until she grew more skilled. Her apprenticeship had then become a roughshod job, picked up in bits and pieces in the many years of wandering, an exercise in pushing down the longing for a proper forge and making do with could be cobbled together from brief amounts of times at odd hours when a smith among Men would allow homeless Dwarves into his forge.

But perhaps that was why she came. Yitta was old enough to be her mother; Dis and Hwyne older sisters rather than friends; Hwylla nearly young enough to be a daughter. But these dwarfesses... they held similar experiences in their memories. 

No, it was unlikely that Khalyn would ever be a closer-than-sister friend with any of them. Still... there was a kinship. A kinship that, despite any dissimilarity of manner, bound them together. Though she would rather craft axes in her forge, such a kinship should not be neglected. Without it, she would drift far more bereft than she would like to admit.

So Khalyn came and drank coffee.