Dwalin’s Kids. Every spring Thorin goes up to the pastures to inspect the new kids born to the goat herds. It’s not necessary, really, but when he does his royal inspection he always makes sure his captain of the guard accompanies him. 

Dwalin grumbles about how it takes so long to get up to the pastures then he grumbles about how long Thorin always takes and must they look in every pen? And talk to every goatherd? Who cares how much the goats ate over the winter?

He generally makes a pest of himself until Thorin dismisses him for the remainder of his inspection which is when, Dwalin the big mean captain of the guard, makes a beeline for the nursery where he’ll spend hours feeding the new kids and laughing at their antics.

Thorin says nothing of their little ritual or about how happy and relaxed Dwalin is for days afterwards.

He does, however, draw the line at Dwalin keeping goats in his chambers. Which hasn’t come up… yet.. but Thorin has prepared arguments just in case.

I have such a soft spot for big gruff dwarves who have tender moments with animals! Especially baby animals! My headcanon Thorin is 10-ply soft towards his favourite ravens and when he gets kittens? Oh forget about it. He’s putty in their paws. I don’t know if it’s obvious but the kid on the left is trying to launch itself off of Dwalin’s back and there is another kid in his arms being bottle-fed. Pentel 0.3mm mechanical pencil on Paris Bleedproof paper. If i were to try to take this picture further, I’d finish it off with a regular HB pencil before scanning it.