Notes:

In the description of making the Dwarves, there are only "Seven fathers". The starting point of the continuation of this series is the premise that Aule, after the Seven, created many more dwarves (of both sexes) and laid them to sleep in different caves in the Misty mountains, as well as in other places in Middle-earth. We have, after all, the whole people, divided into seven clans (each of the Seven fathers became the leader of his clan). The whole people couldn't arise from seven males; and even if in the beginning we had seven pairs, the whole clans couldn't arise from one single pair.

Thanks to curiouswombat for beta-reading.

-x-x-x-

The world was... vast. While travelling, Durin thought that was the best word to describe it. Yes, father told them about huge spaces on the surface of the world – about big plains, long rivers, giant forests, high mountains – but it was one thing to just listen about them, and quite another to see them with his own eyes. The mountain range he travelled along and the river he saw in the distance seemed to have no end, and the plains east of the mountains spread as far as he could see.

And it was beautiful. The stars shone and lit his way. The slopes were covered in thick forests, and their tops covered in snow reflected starlight and glistened in the night. Stars twinkled on the surface of the rivers too, dancing on their waves. Wherever he looked, marvellous shapes lit by silvery light filled his view. He kept going forward feeling – knowing – that he'd find more splendours, and he knew that the most beautiful things he'd find under the surface, which was the ultimate goal of his journey. Because he was made for living in the underworld, and he'd always feel best there.

He didn't hurry – he observed, soaked, learned, memorized.

Occasionally, he stopped and laid his hand on the ground. And when he closed his eyes and ignored all other senses – murmurs of wind, scent of grass – and focused his whole being on the rock beneath his hand, he could feel father's spirit in it. In those moments images of creating the world would form in his head: his father standing in all his magnificence, and his tremendous power being channelled. And he saw rocks formed from it, and more rocks, and more, until the whole Arda was formed... until this little rock in his hand was formed too.

He was far from father now, and he knew he'd never see him again; the new life in the new world awaited him. But the possibility to feel him this way, to get just a little closer to him, gave him a big joy and comfort.

A touch of stone under his hand provided another kind of joy too. His father created the dwarves unbreakably bound to the fabric of Arda. To be in touch with rocks, to be under ground, would always fulfil their spirit more than anything else. He couldn't wait to find himself in the deep caves their father created for his children.

For a long time, he journeyed alone; and then he met the others. He was happy to find company and to be among them. He told them his story, and listened to theirs. They too slept for a long, very long time, as he found out, and now they awoke. But one thing was different, he discovered. They fell asleep immediately after creation; they hadn't spent a single moment awake. They didn't meet father – they only saw him in their dreams. Only the Seven – he and his brothers – had the privilege to spend some time with father and learn directly from him.

He felt sorrow for the others; he thought they had been denied a wonderful experience. As they sat all together after hours and hours of travelling before going to sleep, while stars shone above them, he told them about father. About his virtues, his love for creating, his wish to pass his knowledge. About his strength, skills, power. About how he loved all his children.

And every single time before lying to sleep, he put his palm on the rocks beside him.