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Chapter Text

 

TA 2892.

 

“Must they come here?” Kíli asked, fidgeting upon the kitchen stool. At his back, Dís was busy weaving his unruly raven hair into more respectable braids. Though his ama’s leathery hands were gentle, he could not stop tears prickling at his eyes when she unwittingly tugged too hard.

“Dáin is your cousin, and so is welcome here,” Dís reminded. “Now, let’s not hear that tone out of you when his family arrives.”

She had not answered his question. Kíli squirmed protest.

Dáin Ironfoot’s kin resided in the ancient settlements among the Iron Hills; Fíli had shown him on a map, and it was far away to the east, beyond the wall of Misty Mountains. He had asked his brother if that was where they used to live, too, before the dragon, but Fíli had scoffed at him. That was Erebor, stupid, and didn’t he ever think before he opened his mouth? As if dwarves would still be living there with a great stinking dragon slumbering in their Hills.

Fíli was right, of course. Fíli had never seen Erebor, either, but he was thirty-three and knew about a great many things. Kíli supposed Fíli knew why Dáin had come all the way to the Blue Mountains, too.

Dís sighed. “In any case, he and his kin will be here shortly, and they will stay until your rada has settled his words with them. I know it will be hard on you, Kíli, but please – do try to keep a good tongue in your head.”

Kíli did not answer, for presently her absent hands caught a snarl buried beneath his mane and his eyes watered. “Ouch!”

“Didn’t I tell you to brush your hair, Kíli?” Dís clucked her tongue and reached for her comb, neatly tucked in her beard for safekeeping, to untangle the knot that had ensnared her fingers.

“I did so,” the dwarfling protested.

Yet, he would admit, it had been a very hasty undertaking: he and Fíli had been racing to be the first out of the house to meet Master Dwalin on the practice field. Master Dwalin did not even have any hair (atop his head, at least), so Kíli could not see why it mattered if they wore proper braids or not. But Dís had caught them pulling on their boots in the hall and told them there was to be no training on Durin’s Day, and they had to neaten themselves up for their visitors.

Thus, ten minutes later, Kíli found himself hunched on the wooden stool, fighting a losing battle against the stinging in his eyes.

“Stop – stop it, that hurts!”

“Sorry, mizimuh.” Dís’s voice was warm with affection and just the slightest hint of amusement. “Perhaps if you held still now, it wouldn’t hurt as much.”

“He’s just being a baby, that’s all,” said Fíli helpfully.

Kíli scrunched his nose and stuck out his tongue at his brother. Fíli, of course, was already finished. Two neat golden braids framed his face and he sat across the table, his feet propped up on a second stool, idly gnawing on an apple. There was a glint of mischief in his blue eyes as he watched Kíli undergo what he could only term Unfair Torture.

“Fíli, put your feet down. There, now,” said Dís, giving the first finished braid a flick. As she moved to his opposite side, Kíli shook his head; the silver bead bounced against his cheek.

“Must I wear the braids?”

Dís only chuckled as he crossed his arms and huffed. “You’re a prince of Durin’s folk, so yes, you must.”

“Amn’t.” Kíli sulked. “Fíli’s a prince. I’m Kíli. Just Kíli.”

“Fíli is your rada’s heir. You’re the heir after Fíli. So you’re still a prince, I’m afraid.” Dís concluded her explanation with a light poke upon his nose. It tickled, and Kíli’s scowl crumpled.

“I don’t want to be a prince.”

“Sorry, mizimuh.” Dís tucked her comb back into her beard and took up his hair in both hands, dividing it into three strands. She wound them together as gently as possible, yet Kíli still fought a grimace.

“You know, your rada wears rayad’s braids, and I swear I never hear him complain.”

“He does?” Kíli asked curiously.

Dís smiled absently. “Sure, he does. And Fíli, too.”

Kíli looked across the table at his brother, round-eyed. When Fíli had turned twenty-five and Dís first taught him to braid, Kíli had noticed that his were the same as Uncle Thórin’s (though, of course, Fíli’s handiwork was scruffier, and ever so slightly lopsided).

Kíli knew that dwarvish braids spoke an intricate language of their own: their location, thickness, and even the colours of added threads and trinkets spun tales about their wearers. Dís wore a long rope that tucked from behind one ear to the other and symbolized her marriage. Kíli had seen dwarrowdams in the village wearing the colours of their husbands’ houses, but his ama’s dark hair bore no ornamentation but the silver clasps of Durin’s line. He had never asked about that: Dís always looked sad and turned away when he asked about adad, and Kíli had always supposed it was because she had nothing of his left.

He had never asked about Fíli’s braids, either, but that was different. Kíli had made the mistake of calling his brother’s careful braids lopsided, and after Dís had left the room a red-faced Fíli had tackled him to the ground. It had been one of their nastier fights, filled with hair-pulling and bruises that smarted the next day. Fíli had apologized afterwards: Kíli might not know when to hold his tongue, but Fíli was the crown prince, and he was supposed to be able to stay his hand. After that, in Kíli’s mind, the braids did not exist, rayad’s braids – prince’s braids – or not.

“Why?” Kíli asked presently. “Rada’s King, isn’t he? Shouldn’t he wear king’s braids?”

Dís did not answer. Her hands had stilled in his hair and Kíli twisted around to look at her, accidentally yanking his hair enough to make his eyes water anew.

“Sorry, my love.” Dís resurfaced from her thoughts and rearranged the portion he had dislodged. “Yes . . . your rada is the rightful King under the Mountain, but he is not a king here.”

Kíli blinked, bemused. A king was a king, no matter where he was, wasn’t he? He pressed, “But he’s still the king, isn’t he? Master Dwalin calls him King –”

“Aye, he’s the king,” Fíli chipped in, fishing for another apple from the bowl on the table. “But he ain’t got a kingdom now.”

“Doesn’t have a kingdom,” Dís corrected him.

“Doesn’t have a kingdom,” Fíli parroted, busily shining the apple on his sleeve. “Rada’s King, but in exile. We all are.”

Kíli reflected in silence. Uncle Thórin was a king by birthright – he was melhekh undu abad, King under the Mountain – and yet he did not lead a kingdom, nor wear a crown.

That made him a lot like a prince, Kíli supposed.

“So . . .” his brow pinched in thought, “So if Rada doesn’t wear proper king’s braids . . .”

Dís had the foresight to know where his thoughts were headed. Chuckling, she kissed the top of his head. “As soon as Dáin is gone,” she promised, “you can go back to being Kíli-just-Kíli, my little wildling. Until then, at least pretend you’re as civilized as your brother.”

With that, she gave his finished braid a little swat, and Kíli was free. He hopped from the stool and ran to Fíli’s side, the silver beads slapping against his cheeks. He stuck his hand in the near-empty fruit bowl and grabbed an apple before his older brother could eat them all.

“Pig,” he said, wrinkling his nose.

“Whelp,” answered Fíli, sticking out his tongue.

 

---

 

 

There was to be no training for either of them that day. Dís had them wash their faces and hands and dress in their clothes reserved for Special Occasions. Kíli tugged on a midnight blue tunic, trimmed with gold thread in the interlocking designs of Durin’s house. Fíli’s was identical, but a little broader in the shoulders to fit his growing stature. The silk fabrics had been a present on their respective naming-days from Dori, who was a weaver in Overhill.

Kíli plopped down to pull on his boots. The braids swung into his face with the motion: the cold beads hurt his cheeks just a little. Boots donned, he reached up and fiddled with them, unclasping and clasping the silver beads until Fíli crouched in front of him. Gently, he tugged Kíli’s hair out of his hands.

“Ama worked hard on those.”

Ruefully, Kíli saw his fidgeting with the clips had made the ends all tufted and straggly. His hands fell back in his lap.

“How can you wear them all the time?”

“Because I’m the prince, I guess,” shrugged Fíli. He gave Kíli’s hair another light tug, as if his braids were the reins of a pony, and then let him go. When he rose and held out his hand, Kíli took it. His brother hefted him to his feet.

“Princes ought t’do whatever they want,” Kíli decided.

At that, a grin broke across Fíli’s face. “Oh, agreed. But Rada’s still King, so we’d better do whatever he says first. C’mon, Kee: if we run to the lookout-hills, we might get to see them first.”

 

---

 

 

Dís said there was to be No Running.

In the end, the brothers were hardly the first ones down to the lookout-hills. Most of Kaminhund – the above-ground dwarvish settlement that the Rangers and traders called Overhill – were already there. Blacksmiths came up from their forges, arms and faces stained with soot. There were wood-carvers, farmers, squinty-eyed miners, and one or two dwarrowdams restrained curious children. It was a motley crowd of Longbeards and Broadbeams that had gathered, some out of curiosity and others out of custom, to greet the dwarves of the Iron Hills.

At the crown of the rightmost hill, Uncle Thórin waited stiffly alongside his council. Kíli knew most of the older dwarves by name, but today none of them smiled in recognition. At Thórin’s right hand Dwalin stood with his burly arms folded across his chest. To his left, Dís laid a hand on her brother’s arm, her gaze distant. She looked very queenly in her pale blue gown, silver beads in her beard and her dark hair wound into three plaits that joined into one at the base of her neck. Later, Fíli would inform him, that was rayadinh’s braid – the princess’s braid. At her throat was a pendant of glittering mithril, the last to be smuggled from Erebor.

Thórin stood tall and regal between his retainers and his sister. The King under the Mountain wore no crown. Instead, he was robed in his best fur, the black sable one, and his hands were heavy with gold rings. His expression remained an unsmiling mask of stone when his sister-sons approached. King, not Rada, Kíli thought, and he instinctively slipped into Fíli’s shadow, grabbing his hand.

Dís had the boys scuttle into place between Masters Balin and Lofarr. At once Fíli straightened, puffing his chest, trying his best to look the part of a regal prince. Sunlight caught in his hair, turning it to gold. In his shadow, Kíli did not feel much like a prince at all. The tufted ends of his rayad’s braids dangled in his face, and he could not understand why none of the others was smiling. It wasn’t as if all their amas had forced braids into their hair.

A horn called beyond the hills; Kíli drew a breath and felt Fíli’s hand squeeze his, sharply.

All at once, Kíli felt braver.

He stood up on his toes and puffed his chest and smiled as Dáin Ironfoot’s party approached. And soon he was not the only one. The exile had not been so long that the Longbeards did not still have kin among the Iron Hills; and as the dwarves grew near enough to recognize each other they cried out in incredulous reunion.

Dáin Ironfoot had brought with him a company of twenty warriors. For every dwarf among them, there seemed to be two ponies: one to carry him, and another with bulging bags of supplies strapped to its saddle. The warriors wore glinting mail, swords and axes belted at their sides. Their beards were long and braided, beads and odd bits of metal dazzling in the sunlight. Kíli had never seen such a regal procession.

Dáin himself rode at the head of the party, escorted by two dwarrows in bronze mail. The warriors were fascinating, but Kíli could not look at them for very long. Dáin had recognized Thórin and was dismounting.

"Thórin Oakenshield! How long has it been?"

"Since Azanulbizar, cousin," said Thórin, stepping forward.

"Aye, Azanulbizar." Dáin's eyes crinkled. "Your beard has grown longer, but I would say your severe face has not changed."

Thórin lifted an eyebrow. "And I would say you have not changed either, Dáin."

At that, the Lord of the Iron Hills threw back his head and laughed; he had a warrior's booming laugh. Thórin only smiled thinly. In three long strides Dáin reached him, clasped his upper arms, and embraced his kin, a lord to a king.

After that, it was all good manners and propriety, and Kíli let the words wash over his head as he examined their cousin. Dáin Ironfoot was sharp-faced and dark-haired, like Thórin, but he had yet to bear Rada's streaks of silver. Dáin's beard was not quite as long, either, and divided into two heavy braids. He, Kíli noted, did not have to wear rayad's braids. He was dressed in scarlet velvet, gold chains at his throat, and a red axe with a heavy head hung at his side. Kíli found his eyes drawn to the axe most of all; it was taller than he was.

When Thórin at last stepped back, Kíli knew the proper greetings had been exchanged. Rada now looked back at them. Fíli tugged at his hand; Kíli stumbled forward in his shadow.

“My sister, Dís; and my sister-sons, Fíli and Kíli.”

Family introductions would follow the formal greetings. Fíli bowed, and Kíli followed clumsily. When he raised his head, the beads smacked his cheeks and he tried to look as if it didn’t hurt. They stood before the eyes of entire company and their restlessly pawing ponies; Kíli tried to look as solemn as Fíli, as if he wasn’t afraid, as if his heart wasn’t fluttering to escape his ribs.

Respectfully, Dáin kissed Dís’s hand and extended a nod to Fíli.

“A blond prince of Durin?” he mused, looking at the eldest prince.

“His father was a Firebeard,” Thórin said.

"Ah," said Dáin. Then the stern face behind the beard crinkled. "But by the swords on your back you take after your mother's line, do you not?"

Fíli bowed again, his ears slightly pink.

It was only the second time Kíli had heard their father mentioned. He had never seen him, never known his name. But now was not the time to wonder about his father, for Dáin had stepped in front of him, looking him head to foot.

Kíli clutched to Fíli’s steady hand. He jerked up his chin and held the Lord of the Iron Hills’s stare, fighting not to tremble. He stood there with his messy braids and his boots scuffed with dirt from running down the hills, waiting for Dáin to say something, to call him a wildling like Dís did.

But when Dáin spoke, it was not to him.

He turned away, calling his own family forward. “My wife, Éira, daughter of Álfr,” he said. “And my eldest son, Thórin.”

Kíli’s eyes went to his youngest cousin. Dáin’s son was two years younger than him; he remembered because he had the same name as his rada. This Thórin was still beardless, a coppery braid descending from his right temple. He had a dwarfling’s rounded face, but a proud jut to his chin and high cheekbones; someday, maybe, he would grow into them. He wore black velvet, a gold buckle on his belt, and a red weasel fur draped across his shoulders. He looked very proper and princely. When Thórin saw the scruffy raven-haired dwarfling looking, his upper lip curled a little, and so Kíli looked away again.

Rada completed the ritual greetings and, as dwarf custom expected, extended Dáin Ironfoot’s welcome to their peace-halls for however long he desired to stay.

 

---

 

 

There was a great feast that night in honour of Durin’s Day, the changing of the year, and Dáin’s arrival.

The Longbeards’ great mead hall was called Zahargund in their language, and the Underhall in more common tongues. That evening, the long fires of the Underhall blazed brightly; laughter and merry songs ran the length of the table. Some of the younger dwarves had been recruited to help the cooks, and they scurried about, refilling cups, bringing fresh serving-platters, and cleaning the worst of the spills.

Thórin sat at the head of the long table with the Lord of the Iron Hills and his family at his right hand. Dís sat to his left, and then Dwalin, and then Fíli and Kíli, with Balin on the youngest prince's opposite side. It was a position of honour, Kíli knew, and he tried his best to behave, but it was hard.

It wasn't due to a lack of food. That feast alone would have fed all of Overhill for a week. There were more courses than he could bother to count, and golden ale flowed constantly by his place. Kíli had to wonder, if he was the king and all, why Thórin didn't simply decide they could eat like this all of the time. If he was ever King, Kíli decided, that would be the first thing he'd do.

The pages always brought their steaming dishes to Thórin and Dáin first, so the princes had their choice of cuts from the stuffed pig and roast duck. Then came mountains of mashed potatoes on golden platters, sliced wheels of salted cheeses, green pea stew and oat porridge, and so many other things Kíli didn't have names for. He wanted to try some of everything, including the ale. For a long while Kíli occupied himself piling and re-piling his plate, and Fíli had to keep kicking him under the table.

"Chew with your mouth closed, stupid," he hissed.

Kíli shut his mouth obediently and swallowed, but when Fíli turned away he put his head up against his shoulder and playfully growled like a wild wolf.

"Shove off."

This was why it was hard. Sitting up at the king's left hand meant they had to be quiet and listen to Adult Conversations. Thórin and Dáin ruminated about gold and mining and the great eastern road; Lady Éira queried Dís about what life was like above ground. Fíli absorbed it all in solemn silence, prodding at his food. It was all very boring to Kíli, and by the second course he was already fidgeting.

Fíli was being princely enough for both of them, Kíli thought. Enviously, he wished Thórin had let him sit down the table with the warriors, who were having a grand time roaring over bawdy tales, swapping old war stories, and drinking the kitchens out of ale. Even Balin, seated to Kíli's left, was dabbing at his eyes, pleasantly pink-faced.

Kíli looked across the table at cousin Thórin, who looked almost equally bored, a pouty sort of curl to his lips. He wasn't a prince, either. Kíli opened his mouth to ask him about more interesting things ("things Kíli found interesting" including ponies, swordfights, climbing trees, and plotting new tattoos for Master Dwalin's head), but Fíli aimed another warning kick beneath the table.

Thus Kíli sat glumly through the soup and then the arrival of the dried whitefish. The lutefisk smelled weird when the pages carried out the trays, and Kíli was all too glad to let it pass over him to the warriors. But Fíli scraped some off the platter onto his plate.

"Don't be rude," he whispered. "You've got to take some of everything."

Kíli said nothing. He wrinkled his nose and glared down at the gelatinous fish.

This was the worst part of sitting at the king's table, he brooded. Tonight Fíli had become Prince Fíli and wouldn't talk to him except to tell him he was doing something wrong. Kíli stabbed at the fish. It slid off his fork again, and he commenced picking it apart, bit by bit.

At the head of the table, Dáin turned his attention to Fíli to ask how his training was going. Fíli answered respectfully, straightening in his seat and giving full credits to Masters Dwalin and Balin where it was due, and he mercifully stopped hounding after Kíli and his fish.

"– remarkable that you've raised them so well. I can't imagine what I would do with my two, without the protection of stone over their heads –"

Kíli mimed Lady Éira's fluttery words. Raised them so well, he mouthed, stabbing the fish and ripping it in two. No stone to protect them. Stupid stinky fish.

"It's the swords for you, eh, lad? Ever tried your hand at an axe?"

"– but surely there are wolves in the woods, and other terrible things," Lady Éira shuddered. "You must be very brave to have lived out here this long!"

Kíli could no longer tell what had been on his plate. The lutefisk had been mashed to little grey-and-white bits that had a disconcerting resemblance to brains. Kíli stabbed at it again, ruthlessly, and some of the bits toppled over the edge of his plate.

"Kíli!" said Dís, aghast. "What on earth are you doing?"

Guiltily, Kíli looked up. Suddenly, they were all looking at him. His ama's expression was horrified, but Thórin merely looked resigned. Kíli's nose scrunched and he looked back down at his plate.

"I hate fish."

Dís sighed deeply, but Thórin raised his arm and one the pages took away the plate of mangled fish. Fish-bits still hung on his fork. Kíli clutched it, his mortified stare now focused on the empty space on the table in front of him.

He had done badly, he knew, and it would reflect on Rada and Dís. Fíli was giving him his I-told-you-so look, and cousin Thórin was smirking.

From then on, Kíli determined, glowering at the crusty fish-bits on the tabletop, cousin Thórin would be Thorny. His haughty smirk prickled into his skin like a thorn, and his cousin didn't even look like Rada, anyway. It was stupid to name dwarves after other dwarves, Kíli decided. All it did was make everyone confused.

Kíli brooded for the rest of the meal. They had an apple pie among the many desserts, which was Kíli's favourite, but Thórin sent it down Dáin's side of the table, so he was stuck with the custard pudding instead.

Kíli poked at it with his spoon until it wobbled and glared at Thorny, who had the apple pie. He wasn't particularly hungry for dessert, but the fact of the matter was all. In fact, he was thirsty more than anything.

Kíli looked around. For once, the pages were nowhere to be seen with their sloshing jugs of ale.

To his left, though, Master Balin had a full cup, pink-faced and merry as he swapped stories with some of the Iron Hill warriors, who seemed to be his companions-at-arms from long ago. It would be easy to swap cups while no one was looking. Kíli's hands were small and quick, and Balin was very drunk.

But he had a feeling that would make Dís and Thórin really angry, so he sat tight through the last course, his hands clutched in his lap, until Dáin rose from the table and Thórin followed, and they could all finally leave.

In the end, Kíli thought, it had been something of a waste of an evening.

 

---

 

 

Dís exploded as soon as they returned home. She let the glass beads out of her hair and it spilled in wild, black tangles down her back as she paced before the hearth.

"Never, in all my life -!"

Kíli flinched and looked at his feet, but his mother's ire was not directed toward his atrocious table manners. Dís turned to her brother when he entered the room.

"Thórin, did you hear that woman? Oh, I must be so brave to raise my sons without a stone roof over their heads! As if they'll turn into wildlings as soon as I turn my back!"

Kíli's eyes went as wide as saucers. He had never heard Dís so angry, not after all the times he had snuck out into the woods or skipped lessons to go tree-climbing or painted Master Dwalin's head green. Maybe it was just the ale making his head fuzzy, but he started to waver on his feet.

Thórin said nothing at once as he sank heavily into an armchair by the fire. Flickering light danced across the shadows below his eyes. It occurred to Kíli that he had never seen Rada look so tired, either. He had fetched a pint of ale from the kitchen and cradled the cup against his temple.

"Dís," Thórin said quietly. “The boys.”

Dís turned and saw them listening in the doorway. A heavy sigh left her shoulders slumped. "It's late," she reminded, approaching and laying her hands on Kíli's shoulders. "You'd best be off to bed, both of you."

The protest came automatically. "But –"

"No buts." Dís kissed them both on the cheek and sent them off. Kíli wavered for a moment longer, mouth opening and closing like a fish’s, but Fíli seized his hand and dragged him toward the stairs.

When they were up in their room, the rumbling of voices resumed through the floorboards. Fíli pushed Kíli down on the edge of the bed and hopped up behind him, reaching for the braids in his younger brother's hair. The silver beads clicked loose in his hands.

They'll turn into wildlings as soon as I turn my back. Dís's voice rang in his head and through the fuzziness, Kíli's belly clenched with something like worry.

"Ama calls me a wildling, sometimes," he admitted.

Fíli snorted. "'Cause you're a stubborn brat. She doesn't mean you are one."

"Why does the queen think we are, then?"

"She's not a queen. Dáin's not a king, so she's not a queen." Fíli accidentally tugged too hard as he pulled the strands apart, and Kíli fought a wince. "She thinks we're not proper dwarves 'cause we don't have a mountain."

"We do so have a mountain." Kíli wrinkled his nose and grabbed his second braid, untying it by himself. His fingers moved quickly and nimbly through his hair, and he didn't care if it pulled. "Ered Luin is our mountain. She must be stupid."

"You're stupid, stupid. She means living under a mountain. Like Erebor, before the dragon. With mines and gold and crowns, and things."

"So what, maybe we don't want to live under a mountain."

"Then we're wildings," said Fíli, full of the eldest’s sensibility.

"Then we're all wildlings," pointed out Kíli. "Thórin and Master Balin and Master Dwalin, and all."

Lady Éira's words had made Dís angry, and though he didn't quite understand why, he was vehement, too. The drink burned like fire in his belly as he hopped up from the edge of the bed and faced his brother, hands planted on his sides.

"Can them dwarves beneath the mountain climb trees?"

Fíli thought on it and shook his head.

Kíli pressed, "Can they find n'pick the best apples, or race ponies, or build snow forts?"

Fíli caught on. "They prolly don't even know how to swim.”

" – or move like ghosts in the forest!"

"I bet they don’t have names for the stars."

At that, Fíli and Kíli grinned unabashedly at one another. They knew Lady Éira was wrong. In the minds of the young dwarflings, there was nothing better than being born in exile.

Chapter Text

When Kíli opened his eyes, it was still dark in their room.

Despite that, an excited fluttering in his chest forestalled the thought of sleep. He threw off their pelt covers, slipped his feet to the cold floor, and rose on tiptoe over the creaking boards as he went searching for his clothes. When he tugged a bundled tunic off the floor, his practice sword fell out with a clatter.

“Oops,” Kíli whispered.

Either Fíli was sleeping very deeply, or he was already awake, because the sound did not rouse him. Nevertheless, Kíli hastened to change, belting his tunic, sticking his practice sword through the belt-loop, combing his hair back in a messy ponytail.

He ran down to the kitchen and saw a flicker of blond as Fíli turned his head, following his motion across the kitchen. Dís clucked reprovingly, her hands in the thick of his hair.

“Hold still, Fíli. Where are you off to, little one?”

“Training,” said Kíli, digging an apple out of the bowl. “But Fíli won’t be coming ‘cause of business.”

He said it as sanctimoniously as Uncle Thórin, taking a big juicy bite of the apple. Out of Dís’s sight, Fíli scowled at him.

But it was true. Whenever Rada hosted council meetings or important visits to the Underhall, he took Fíli along with him. The eldest brother stood ramrod-straight at his side, never speaking, never smiling, as Thórin carried out the duties of an exiled king. Someday, Kíli supposed, Fíli would have to know how to do those things. And sometimes, at the dinner table afterward, there would be questions for the heir. Thórin’s tests were not like Master Balin’s, who smiled gently and patiently corrected their Khuzdul. Those times, Kíli would eat in timid silence, watching Prince Fíli try his best to impress Rada. But unlike Master Balin, Thórin never smiled, not even when Fíli said everything right.

Today, Kíli supposed, Thórin and Fíli would be busy hosting Dáin in the Underhall all day. His brother’s hair would have to be very, very nice for the occasion. Kíli grinned at the thought and scurried toward the door.

Dís laid aside her comb. “Now wait just a minute.”

“Why?” said Kíli.

The look on his ama’s face told him. The prince’s braids.

Kíli sat on the stool with a huff. He swung his legs idly as he watched, but Dís had only just started in on Fíli. His brother’s hair was always a mess in the morning, too, with last night’s braids having dissolved into a mane of frizzles that, in addition to the yellow scruff on his chin, made Fíli look awfully like a dishevelled lion cub. Kíli made faces at him and then just fidgeted, and then finally he couldn’t wait any longer.

He screwed up his face in concentration as he put his sticky fingers through his hair, mimicking his ama’s work as quickly as he could get away with. The braids were short and sloppy, but they were finished within five minutes.

“Done!” he shouted, leaping off the stool and running off with his sword.

“Now wait just a –” Dís’s voice faded after him as the front door slammed.

Then Kíli was out, he was free, and his breath misted in the early autumn air as he raced down the road. There was no one to come panting after him, but he ran anyway, the wooden practice sword slapping against his leg, the tufty braids swatting at his cheeks. They did not bother him as much today. Practice couldn’t be cancelled twice in two days, and besides – Kíli grinned – he wasn’t Prince Fíli, he didn’t have to spend all day stiff and unsmiling around his cousins.

The first shops were just opening in Overhill as Kíli passed through the dwarvish village. Bofur with his usual funny hat was lifting the window shutters to his toy shop.

“Whoa, there, Kíli,” he grinned as the raven-haired dwarfling darted underfoot.

“Good morning, goodbye, sorry!” Kíli had no time to stop and chat; he waved over his shoulder as he scurried off. Bofur’s laugh carried after him until he turned around the next block.

Beyond Overhill, the sleepy thatched homes fell away to fenced pastures and fields of long grass; and beyond that still, on the edge of the woods, lay the dwarflings’ training grounds.

Kíli’s outstretched hands smacked against the old fence. “I win!” he shouted to the still morning air. Then, half-laughing, half-gasping, he leaned his temple against the wood, fighting to regain his breath. His heartbeat hammered wildly in his ears.

Usually, he raced Fíli here, and he would catch his breath and be perched, grinning, on the fence by the time his brother arrived. It wasn’t that Fíli wasn’t fast. No one could catch Kíli.

After a few minutes, his steadying breath steaming in the early air, Kíli clambered over the fence. He looked around the court of hard-packed earth. Dawn light was only just lifting over the trees; he was incredibly early, and it would be some time before even Master Dwalin showed up.

Kíli flopped onto the ground and rolled over on his belly. The air was still and clear, but a touch of cold seeped through the front of his tunic. Soon winter would be upon the woods. When the first snows fell, he and Fíli would lash together snowshoes with rawhide lacings, and go tracking rabbits with Rada in the mountains. Back in Overhill, the forge-fires would be burning brighter, and Dís would spend the second week of the new year baking an excess of meat-pies to fill the cold stores. And maybe, if there was enough dough left over, she would make an apple pie just for the four of them. Kíli smiled indulgently, closing his eyes.

The grasses rustled. Kíli lifted his head, half-believing it was Fíli who had escaped his prince’s training and come after him. But the new arrival was too short and too red-haired, dragging an overlarge short sword behind him.

Kíli’s face fell a little. Gimli, son of Glóin, was in his first year of training. He and Fíli had long tired of their game of seeing who could push the thirteen-year-old over first. Yet, until Master Dwalin showed up, it looked as if he would have to make do.

With a sigh Kíli dragged himself off the ground.

Gimli was even more of a pushover than usual this morning, as he seemed unable to think of anything but the company’s arrival yesterday. “Didja see it?” he asked as he scrambled up from the dirt, snatching for his wooden sword after Kíli had knocked it from his hands. “Barazanthual! The axe that slew over a hundred Orcs!”

“Did it really?” asked Kíli, vaguely remembering a heavy-headed red axe in Dáin’s belt.

Gimli’s eyes glowed. “It did so! At the Battle of Anaz– Azanulbizar! You remember the stories, don’t you?”

Master Balin often tried to get Kíli to remember their stories. He had volumes full of the Longbeards’ history and legends – thick, musty tomes of ancient Khuzdul that made Kíli sneeze and his head spin. In places, the ink was so faded he struggled to read it at all; even where it was still legible, Kíli could never remember which Durin was which, nor quite stop himself from utterly mangling forgotten dates.

“Of course I remember,” Kíli supplied vaguely. Restlessly he shifted, moving several paces back to give Gimli a running chance, and braced his feet in a basic guard position. Kíli lifted his sword. “Ready?”

“What are you doing?”

The voice came from beyond the fence. Kíli looked up – shaking his braids impatiently out of his face – and saw a figure leaning against the old posts, watching them. The onlooker was not a full-grown dwarf. Without his fancy furs, cousin Thórin was closer to Fíli’s size – short-statured, but built more heavily in the shoulders. One hand hooked around the hilt of a sword at his side.

There was a curl to Thorny’s lips that Kíli immediately didn’t like.

“Training,” Kíli answered shortly. Across from him, Gimli’s blade had drooped to his side as he gawked at the heir to the Iron Hills. Thorny wasn’t that impressive, Kíli thought. He didn’t even have a beard. Restlessly Kíli flipped his wooden sword in his hand and Thorny’s eyes roved toward it.

“Aren’t you a bit old to play at fighting?”

Kíli bristled. “It’s not playing. I’m twenty-eight, and better than you, prolly, so shut up!”

Thorny leaned forward against the fence. “My masters let me handle steel when I was twenty.”

“Master Dwalin says –” Gimli piped up, about to remind them all of the veteran warrior’s lecture on how untrained, overeager dwarflings only wound up getting hurt with real weaponry.

Neither of the boys listened.

Kíli’s ears went red and he clenched both hands on the hilt of his sword. “Stuff your masters. I don’t need steel to beat you.”

Thorny smirked, toying with the hilt at his side. “You’ve never even held a real sword, have you?”

“I have so!” Kíli shot back.

It had been one of Fíli’s swords.

On occasion Fíli trained with the dwarflings, when Rada wasn’t calling him away, but mostly he took private instruction from Master Dwalin. Uncle Thórin had given him his first pair of swords when he was twenty-five. Later, when he mastered the forge, he would be expected to fashion his own. For now, though, it was enough for Thórin to say that his heir was a prodigy, born to wield a sword in either hand.

Yet, when they sparred in secret outside of lessons, away from Master Dwalin’s sharp eyes, Fíli let his younger brother borrow one. When the eldest restricted himself to a single blade, Kíli almost stood a chance against him.

Almost.

Kíli shifted forward into an offensive stance, shoulders hunched, sword raised. “Come on, then!” he challenged. “If you’re so good, let’s see it!”

“Master Dwalin says –” Gimli said anxiously.

“Shut up about Master Dwalin!”

Duels – serious, no-holds-barred duels – were prohibited when the warmaster was not supervising them. Even Fíli would get in trouble if Dwalin learned about their sword-swapping and their escapades. But in that moment, Kíli didn’t care. His heartbeat quickened, thundering in his ears, and he glared out at Thorny from beneath his fringe.

“It’d be no fun beating someone who can’t fight back.” Thorny sniffed and gave him a last once-over glance. When he turned away, he did not quite manage to hide his smirk. “Now, I’m going to see about getting my sword sharpened – if you’ll excuse me.”

With that, the copper-haired dwarfling swaggered off.

Kíli’s vision went red. His hands shook and clenched tighter on the grip of his sword. “Liar! Liar, get back here! You were lying ‘bout your stupid masters!”

But Thorny was gone.

Kíli flung his practice sword across the ground in sheer frustration. Gimli shot him a wide-eyed, worried look. He ignored the younger dwarfling; Kíli swung about suddenly and paced across the field. With his back to his sparring partner he pulled in several long, shuddering breaths, fighting to stop his hands from trembling.

A prince should hold his tongue and stay his hand. He should.

But Thorny was no prince and, worst of all, his barbs found their mark.

Kíli was the oldest of Dwalin’s protégés on the wooden swords by at least three years. He was not quite the biggest, nor the strongest, of the dwarflings. Ama had assured him that her brother Frérin had been scrawny and gangling as a dwarfling, too; he would grow into a dwarf’s solid stature by the time he was forty, she promised.

But in the end, Kíli knew biggest or strongest did not matter: he was the best. He was always the last one standing in their skirmishes, and he was quick and light on his feet, compensating for his lack of muscle. He deserved to have his own sword by now. It wasn’t fair that Fíli had graduated to his twin swords when he was twenty-five; and even though he was nearing thirty, Uncle Thórin had never said a word about letting Kíli have one.

Kíli scuffed at the wet dirt with his heel and simmered. By now, the morning mists had lifted; the sun climbed above the trees. It was dawning on him that Master Dwalin would not be coming today. He had to be preoccupied in meetings with Rada and Fíli. The loss of another day’s training made him bitter, but so too Kíli couldn’t deny a dark sort of satisfaction. Thorny was Dáin’s first heir, but he didn’t have the privilege of attending the meeting.

(Kíli ignored the fact that he had never been invited to Rada’s meetings, either. But he was Kíli-just-Kíli; it was not something expected of him, nor that troubled him at the moment.)

It’s no fun beating someone who can’t fight back.

Kíli’s fists clenched at his sides. Liar, liar, liar, he raged against the smirk in his mind.

He could too fight back. He knew how dwarvish blood feuds worked. Master Balin had explained them once in his lessons (and, swordfights being interesting, Kíli had been paying particular attention that day). Thorny had slighted him, and thus had slighted his family’s name. It was his right to contest him, in public, and if Thorny refused to pay amends, the decision would fall to swords and axes.

Now he only needed a sword.

Kíli’s heart thundered against his ribs. He thought of Fíli and knew his brother would lend him a blade if he asked . . . well, maybe he would. Even Prince Fíli couldn’t deny the customs of their people, Kíli rationalized. Yet, he was sure to be stern about it, and say presumptuous things like princes ought to keep their heads.

Worse, Kíli remembered, Fíli would be in the peace-halls with Rada and Master Dwalin and the rest. Even if he managed to catch his brother alone, Master Dwalin would see him handling Fíli’s sword and guess about the secret duels, and Fíli would get in trouble. No, asking Fíli was no good.

But if Uncle Thórin was at the Underhall . . . his forge would be empty.

The thought hit him and Kíli’s heart flipped in his chest. The possibility was more terrifying than facing down Thorny with all of Overhill looking on, but Kíli could not let himself think twice on it. He needed a sword.

And so, without quite acknowledging that he was moving, his feet carried him across the training field.

“Where are you going?”

Kíli had forgotten Gimli. The young dwarfling scrambled after him, his wooden sword still in his hand.

“Rada’s forge,” he said flatly.

Gimli’s eyes went wide. “You’re not – not really gonna do it. Are you?”

Kíli turned on his heel. Gimli stopped before he bumped into him. He was a head shorter than Kíli, clumsier and not nearly as quick. And yet, a half-year of Master Dwalin’s regime had already sturdied his stance and broadened the dwarfling’s shoulders beneath his practice tunic. Someday, when he was strong enough, and stopped dropping his sword, he would be a fierce opponent.

Kíli was not afraid of him now, though.

“Do what?” he asked coolly.

Gimli didn’t want to say it. He shuffled his feet and offered the words in a bare whisper. “Steal a sword.”

“And if I am?” Kíli challenged. “Would you tell Rada?”

Gimli hesitated, and Kíli read the debate in his wide eyes. Telling Thórin Oakenshield would, of course, be the proper thing to do. Kíli was planning to break dozens of rules, and besides, he could get badly hurt. Master Dwalin was always telling them sharp blades and heavy axes would be as dangerous to them as their enemies until they learned to treat them proper. But as worried as he was, he did not want Kíli to be punished because he told.

“You’ll get hurt,” he said instead, hoping to sway the stubborn prince.

“Hurt him, more like,” Kíli muttered. “Now come on and stand watch, if you’ve got the guts for it.”

 

-

 

In the end, it was not particularly hard to procure a sword from Thórin’s forge. Rada was meeting with Dáin down in Zahargund, the great mead-hall dug out of the flank of the mountain. It was the most dwarvish place in Overhill: the Underhall had been built by their chisels and hands in the days of Kíli’s grandfather, before he had gone missing. In any case, Kíli was confident Rada would be away all day.

Leaving Gimli hovering nervously outside, Kíli jiggled the lock and crept into the forge. A blast of warn air hit him, smelling of ash and leather and sawdust. Kíli ignored the glowing eyes of embers in the hearth; he pulled his collar over his nose to stop himself from coughing and tiptoed toward the racks.

Rada was always working at a half-dozen weapons needing repair or on order. Most of his commissions came from the neighbouring villages of Men, who offered him foodstuffs and livestock in return for his smithing. Thórin did not work full-time like the smiths of Overhill, who honed their craft over long years of experience. Yet, his was the work of a king; he had learned his secrets from Thráin, who had learned from Thrór, who had drawn up his gold and iron from the heart of Erebor.

Now Thórin was teaching their art to Fíli, and sometimes he came up for the night with black soot staining his hands and the tip of his nose. Fíli was good at the forge, like he was good at everything else. But when only Kíli was there to hear, he confessed he did not like it very much: when the forge burned hot, he felt trapped within its walls; its low ceiling bore down on him, and sometimes ash clogged so thickly in his throat he couldn’t breathe properly for hours afterwards.

Kíli did not like the forge much, either, and he hastened to look over Thórin’s weapon racks.

Several of his current orders were heavy axes. There was a broadsword that was longer than Kíli was, and his arms nearly wrenched from their sockets when he tried to lift it. Kíli forced it aside, panting. His throat felt thick, and he coughed.

Then he saw it.

“It” was a thin steel blade, half buried beneath the broadsword. He slid it loose from its tasselled sheath and caught his breath while he admired it. At once, he saw it was not of dwarvish make: it was far too thin, too disconcertingly light. Yet, when he touched his thumb to its edge he drew blood. Kíli leaped into a few lunges, comparing the quivering steel to his sturdy little wooden sword.

This would do.

When he stepped outside, Gimli looked nervously at the sheath tied to his side.

“I’ll tell,” he burst out. Kíli knew at once that Gimli had spent the entire time he had been inside the smithy building up the courage to say it.

“I will,” Gimli pressed, noting the hard look on his face. “I – I swear –”

Kíli sucked idly at his bloodied thumb. “Fine, go and tell. Then Rada’ll know you didn’t stop me.”

Gimli bit his lip and straightened his shoulders. “I’ll tell Fíli.”

Kíli accidentally bit his thumb.

“You wouldn’t,” he accused, but the widening of his eyes betrayed him.

Uncle Thórin’s punishments did not scare him anymore. Kíli had been in and out of every imaginable kind of trouble by now, so Thórin only shook his head, offered a few stern (soon-to-be-forgotten) words in the presence of other dwarves, and sent him off for the usual. “The usual” alternated between mucking out the stables, cleaning the forge, and emptying the rodent traps in the fields, all of which were very boring but familiar tasks. Thórin would be mad about the missing sword, but Kíli wouldn’t mind enduring all three punishments if it meant besting Thorny.

But Fíli was different. His brother had been Prince Fíli lately, and Kíli doubted that Prince Fíli would support his venture. Princes ought to do what they want, Fíli would agree; but Prince Fíli would tell him Princes do what they’re told, which really meant Princes do nothing fun at all. And Dáin’s family were their guests, and they were supposed to be respectful and nice to his folk and certainly not start fights with his son.

“I will,” said Gimli bravely.

Kíli studied the young dwarfling, wondering if he was bluffing, wondering if he could risk it. He could run faster than anybody. He could leave Gimli standing in the dust and maybe find Thorny and maybe give him what was coming before he was found out, but maybe he wouldn’t find him at all.

Kíli’s hand fell on the hilt at his side. The strange sword’s sheath was heavier than his practice one, but only just, and he curled his fist around the leather-wrapped hilt. It seemed stupid to turn back after he had come this far. He wouldn’t think twice on it.

Kíli squared his shoulders.

“Let’s go, Gimli.”

“Where?” The dwarfling eyed him nervously.

Kíli rolled his eyes. “The Underhall. Or weren’t you gonna tell Fíli I stole Rada’s sword?”

 

Chapter Text

 

“It is a fool’s errand, cousin, and it will not be done.”

Dáin’s low rumble echoed the length of the Underhall. Footsteps bounced off stone as he moved, ringing up the walls toward the cavernous ceiling.

Thórin watched his cousin’s agitated pacing without comment. Last night’s feasting was a distant memory: the long table had been cleared, the hearths burned low, the lavish gold dishes and pitchers of ale been replaced by ancient maps. The largest of them lay at his fingertips, its edges curled and browning. It was a map of the great dwarvish city, Dwarrowdelf, from the days of their forefathers: the ink had been transcribed by their hands, and rewritten from memory where it had faded.

“Is it so foolish?” Thórin asked softly. “Those are the mines of our forefathers. Thieves and Orcs delve in them now. We have paid in the blood of our kin for that mithril.”

“– and awakened something far beyond our power for our troubles,” interjected Dáin. He stopped in his tracks, gesturing agitatedly at air. “Durin’s Bane, Thórin! It killed the last of his name – may his soul rest in Mahal’s halls. No dwarf – nay, not even the greatest army could stand against it. I was at the gates of Khazad-dûm, Thórin; I felt the foul beast stir in its slumber.”

Thórin said nothing.

Dáin turned away and resumed pacing. Seated at the long table, the dwarf warriors shifted in silence. Dáin had brought six to his council; Thórin supplemented six more, loyal dwarves who had followed his grandfather into the long exile. Balin and Dwalin were foremost among their numbers. The brothers had accompanied him out of Erebor, sworn life and limb to their king, and listened in solemn stillness now. A small figure perched on the bench between them.

Amongst the battle-hardened warriors, Fíli was bright-haired, a bare scruff of a beard on his chin. He sat as stiffly and as severely as any of them, though. The boy was only thirty-three, but the people already knew him as their prince. As Thórin looked on Fíli, blue eyes filled with barely contained worry looked back. Dís’s eyes.

Thórin straightened and looked at Dáin. “You felt it, you say.”

“A presence more powerful than all of us,” Dáin snapped, his back to him. “And you remember, Thórin, we had slain the Orc hoard that very day. It looked through us, Thórin: in that instant I felt myself scoured by fire. Your father would hear nothing of it, either, and look where it got him. You must accept what has been lost.”

Thórin Oakenshield rose. “No,” he said, his voice rumbling to the corners of Underhall and echoing back. All the warriors stilled. “That is the one thing I may never do, Dáin.”

Dáin surveyed him expressionlessly. “Then you are a fool.”

Dwalin rose to his feet. “You stand in the peace-halls of your king,” he growled. “You will not insult his name!”

“Sit down, Dwalin,” Thórin said quietly.

Glowering, his arms crossed over his chest, the warrior sat back down. At his side, Fíli’s fists had curled in his lap, but he did not speak.

“Perhaps Khazad-dm is closed to us at this time,” Thórin said when ringing silence had filled the Underhall. “There is . . . something else. Perhaps you will still think me a fool; very well. I will take on my quest alone. Or perhaps the Iron Hills will join us as brethren in glory.”

“What is it you speak of?” Dáin asked coldly.

Thórin breathed deeply.

“Erebor.”

For a moment, there was breathless silence in the Underhall. The shadows took his declaration and carried it away to the rafters.

Then a yell tore through the mead hall. It was a dwarfling’s high voice. At once Thórin whipped around, his hand on the handle of his axe. Fíli sat up straight, his eyes wide, the word on his lips, though the sound was lost in the confused clamour of warriors rising, grasping for arms.

Kíli.

“What in Durin’s name –” began Dáin, but in three long strides Thórin had shouldered past him. As he moved for the doors he was aware of Dwalin falling in to flank his right side, and a smaller shape scurried in his shadow. He thrust open the doors and his eyebrows lifted at the scene unfolding in the corridor outside.

Fíli was right at his elbow, and Thórin heard him groan through his teeth: “Kíli . . . !”

It was Kíli, and Dáin’s copper-haired son, the one named after him. Thórin registered as much before the dwarflings ran at each other again. Steel clashed and rebounded. Kíli couldn’t quite hold his ground and stumbled, his blade sliding downward, and the other dwarfling pressed in. His sword nipped overtop Kíli’s and drew a bright red line across his cheek.

There was no cry from Kíli. Quick as a whip he brought his blade back up, slashing out at the still-outstretched arm that had wounded him. His cousin’s sleeve tore and he yelped.

“KÍLI!” Thórin roared.

Kíli dropped his sword. He whirled around to see the king and his council crowded in the doorway, and his eyes went wide. He had been caught red-handed.

In an instant, Dwalin had shouldered between them, grasping each boy by the back of his tunic. “Drop it, lad,” he growled, and Dáin’s son let his sword fall. He was whimpering, and now weaponless, clutching at his bleeding arm. Kíli said nothing; his jaw clenched, his chin jutted in a familiar display of disobedience.

It did not escape Thórin’s notice that the sword at his feet belonged to a Ranger who had visited him two days ago. He grimaced; the blade had been safe in his forge that morning.

Dáin had pressed his way through the crowd. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded upon seeing the scratched-up dwarflings, and he turned toward Thórin as if he expected an explanation from his host.

Thórin closed his eyes with a heavy sigh, summoning his wits. By Mahal, he had never been very comfortable when it came to the matters of children, and Kíli in particular always had to be difficult.

“Kíli?” he asked wanly.

“He attacked me!” Dáin’s son leaped in, clutching his torn sleeve. Kíli had slashed the length of his forearm – the cut was not deep, but it welled brightly with blood.

“It was a duel,” Kíli countered, shooting him a morose glare. “I claimed the right to a duel, good and proper.”

“Did not, he charged in like a wildling and attacked me! He – he stole a sword!”

Thórin nearly winced. He had seen as much, but he had been hoping to confront Kíli about that alone.

“Liar!” Kíli couldn’t keep silent anymore. He struggled under Dwalin’s hand. “I said the words, You have wronged the name of Durin and all –”

“You don’t know what the words even mean!”

“All right,” Thórin growled over their bickering. “Both of you, be quiet. I don’t know who is to blame here, and frankly, I don’t care. By the laws of our forefathers, blood is never to be shed in the peace-halls. You both know this. Go on, now, get out of here.”

The boys had fallen sullenly silent, looking at their feet. Dáin’s son whimpered faintly, his sleeve dripping blood on the floor. Thórin motioned for Balin: someone would need to make sure Kíli went home and stayed there until he had a chance to talk some sense into him.

But Dáin looked sideways at him. “Blood has been shed in the peace-halls, Thórin. Don’t you think punishment is in order?”

The question prickled the back of his neck. Weasel words. Dáin would respect the truce of the Underhall, would honour Thórin’s authority within his domain, but when he stepped forward and laid his hands on his son’s shoulders, his intent was clear. Thórin would have no power over the other boy.

Thórin closed his eyes, a familiar pulse throbbing in his temples. What to do now? If he blamed Dáin’s son, he would lose any chance at earning support from the Iron Hills for Erebor. And yet, Kíli was looking at him sullenly from beneath his scruffy fringe, his braids half-loose, his chin jutted. Kíli was many things, a troublemaker for one, a free spirit, more stubborn than his mother and his uncle combined, but he was not a liar. Thórin did not have the heart to call him one.

Mahal, help me.

“This is the feuding of dwarflings, Dáin,” Thórin said at last, his voice heavy. Let this be the end of it. “Stinging wounds and shame should be enough punishment for today.”

“As you will it, cousin.” Dáin turned away and called one of his retainers to escort his son to the healers. The boy tottered off, miserably clutching his arm.

With a sigh, Thórin turned his attention to his sister-son. Kíli lifted his chin. Blood streaked his left cheek, but he did not make a sound. His face was as hard as stone. It was not the time nor the place for such feelings, but Thórin felt a prickling of pride. An heir of Durin did not cry.

“Fíli,” he decided. “Take your brother home.”

“Yes, Rada.”

Fíli wore a mask of careful indifference as he stepped out of Thórin’s shadow and took Kíli by the arm. Kíli did not move when he tugged; he jerked his head up, glaring over Fíli’s shoulder at Thórin. He read the accusation in Kíli's dark eyes: he had not defended his sister-son. He had known the truth, and he had not spoken it. Fíli whispered something to him and Kíli looked away, at last allowing Fíli to lead him from the hall.

When the doors closed behind them, Thórin pressed his fingers to his temples with a sigh. One of these days, he thought ruefully, that boy would be the end of him.

 

-

 

Fíli held Kíli’s hand all the way home.

It wasn’t because he was feeling nice. Fíli was Prince Fíli today, and Prince Fíli was upset. His fingers squeezed tightly against his palm, preventing Kíli from running off. Not that he would try to. His brother's strides were long and stiff, and Kíli necessarily stumbled after him.

Yet, it wasn’t until they were back in the kitchen, and Kíli sat on the stool where Dís braided their hair, that Fíli spoke.

“Why d’you always have to go and cause trouble?”

“I wasn’t on purpose.” Kíli felt the need to defend himself. He touched his cheek and winced. He had been trying not to poke at it, but the cut stung an awful lot, and his fingers came away sticky. “He insulted our training an’ Master Dwalin, so the duel was my right.”

Fíli grabbed his hand, stopping him from prodding at the cut. “Sit still,” he said crossly, going to the wash-basin. Kíli sat still, his hands in his lap, looking at the not-dwarvish sword lying on the kitchen table. Sunlight cascaded through the kitchen window and glinted against the stained blade. Half of him wanted to grab it, to put it back in the sheath at his side, to hide the evidence. He didn’t move, though.

Fíli sat down on the edge of the table with a pitcher and a cloth. His brow pinched as he dabbed at the wound with the dampened cloth. Kíli flinched.

“Ouch!”

“Sit still, I said.”

Kíli obeyed. He tried his hardest not to wince, though tears prickled at his eyes as the stinging worsened. Instead, he told Fíli everything: the story spilled out of him in a jumbled rush, how Thorny had mocked him, how his cousin had run away from his challenge, how he had plotted to steal the sword and duel him properly.

“You shouldn’t have been fighting in the Underhall,” Fíli said at last, shaking his head. He was still half-Prince Fíli, scolding him. “You shouldn’t have been fighting at all. That’s my job. You haven’t got real swords.”

The door slammed in the hall.

Kíli jolted up, wide-eyed. Dís was home. He shot a terrified look at his brother, but Fíli only shook his head, taking the pink-tinged cloth to the wash-basin. Kíli perched alone, his raw cheek throbbing, when Dís rounded the doorway to the kitchen. She was still hot-faced from the forge, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, soot dusting her hands and apron.

“What’s this I hear about you duelling?” she growled. When Dís raised herself up, bristling, she was as large and as gruff as a mother bear. Kíli felt very small, hunched on the stool.

“It was Thorny. Cousin Thorny –” he specified, “– he said things an’ I said that meant a duel an’ he said I couldn’t fight, but I can –”

The words spilled out in more of a confused heap than he had given Fíli. Tears prickled at his eyes as he tried to explain, but Dís overrode him. “I know that, little one. Dwalin told me all you’ve been up to.”

She took his head in gentle leathery hands, tilting his face to the light. The red line on his cheek earned a tsk, and Dís retrieved a jar of salve from the cupboard. When she uncapped it, Kíli wrinkled his nose: it smelled worse than fish, but he forced himself to sit still as she rubbed it into his skin.

“Did you do him worse?” she growled.

“Huh?”

“Did you leave him worse off, your cousin?”

“Uh – uh, yeah.” Kíli almost grinned to remember how he had caught Thorny off-guard, how he had cried when he hit his arm. But the grin soon vanished: he wasn’t supposed to be fighting. Dís was certainly going to reprimand him.

She clasped his shoulders. “Then you’ll be just fine. Next time, you bring two swords, you hear? Send that good-for-nothing whelp running with his tail between his legs.”

Kíli’s eyes went wide in disbelief. Fíli was certainly shocked. “Ama!” he exclaimed, his princely facade slipping for an instant.

Dís’s jaw tightened. “You’re both old enough to know the truth of it. When Erebor fell, your great-grandfather, Thrór, led our people into a long exile. But Dáin’s grandfather and his kind left for the ancient settlements in the Iron Hills. They abandoned their king to the wilderness and declared their own lord. His folk are all of the same kind. I have told your uncle as much, but he still believes they can help him.”

Neither of the boys had ever heard Dís in such a bitter rage. Fíli stared, wide-eyed, but Kíli started to rock giddily on his perch.

“You’re not – you’re not mad at me?” he asked, hardly daring to believe it.

“No, my love. I’m proud of you for defending the name of Durin.” She brushed back his dishevelled hair and kissed his brow. “Now, it might not have been the best way to go about it, but we’ll leave that to your uncle.”

 

-

 

Thórin did not return from the Underhall until after supper was finished and the dishes all put away. Kíli, who had staked out the window, saw his shadow coming up the walk and apprehension clenched in his belly. Dís had let him go, but Thórin, he knew, would be angry. Fighting wasn’t allowed in the peace-halls, and by doing so he had shamed his rada in front of his council and guests.

He went and retrieved the non-dwarvish sword and its sheath. Dís had him clean the blade until it shone again. He half wanted to fasten it to his belt again – if nothing else, it made him feel braver to carry a real sword – but he had a feeling Thórin wouldn’t like that so he carried it in his hands.

When he reached the hall, Thórin was taking off his boots. “That’s right,” he noted quietly. “I need to have a word with you, don’t I?”

Kíli nodded to the floor.

“By the hearth, then.”

Kíli went ahead and waited for him. Thórin sank into his armchair by the fire with a sigh, clasping his hands in front of his chin. Kíli, meanwhile, had started to fidget now that the matter was at hand. His fingers found the tassels on the sheath and he wound them around his fingertips.

Thórin sighed again before he began, pausing often so that Kíli absorbed every heavy word. “Dáin has . . . dealt what he feels to be an appropriate punishment for your cousin. He expects me to do the same for you.”

A longer pause followed, but Kíli said nothing. He understood he had to be punished. This wasn’t like the times he had done silly things – snuck into the woods or doodled on Master Dwalin’s head while he was sleeping. He had broken dwarvish custom by feuding in the peace-halls, and Rada wore his Most Serious Face.

“So, Kíli. What do you recommend I do?”

Kíli looked down at the twisted tassels and furrowed his brow. “Make me clean the forge for a week. And the stables.” Since he had been very bad, it seemed he should be doubly punished.

Thórin nodded. “That seems acceptable. You will do those things, Kíli, without complaint to me or your mother or anyone else. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Rada.”

Thórin held out his hands. Kíli gulped and handed over the sword, remembering to do it properly, laying the sheath flat across Thórin’s palms. Without something to hold on to, he locked his hands together behind his back.

Thórin drew the blade and examined it for a long moment. Kíli wondered what he was looking for – he had cleaned it until he could see his reflection – and in sudden terror he wondered if he had missed a scratch, a mar Thórin would have him fix. He didn’t know how to work a forge.

Thórin sheathed the blade with a sigh and laid it aside. “Lastly, Kíli, I must ask you to stop sparring with the dwarflings.”

Uncle’s unexpected final punishment fell upon him like a blow. Kíli opened and closed his mouth several times before he mustered a jumbled protest. “But – my lessons – Master Dwalin –”

“Dwalin has been informed, and agrees with my judgement.”

Kíli shut his mouth. The look on Thórin’s face was hard as stone and very serious. He curled his fists and looked down at the floor.

“Can I go now?”

“Yes. That is all.”

With his head still lowered, Kíli ran out of the living room, and he did not see the heavy-hearted look Thórin sent after him.

 

-

 

Losing his training lessons was the worst punishment Kíli could have imagined. He did not speak all evening, which he spent hunched with his knees to his chest at the base of his and Fíli’s bed.

At first, he had thought, Thórin had never said he couldn’t go training on his own, but some hours before bed Rada had stepped around the doorway of their room and waited in silence, his hands held out, for Kíli to retrieve his wooden practice sword and hand it over, too.

He was certain Fíli wouldn’t let him train with him, either, because when he came up for bed he was eerily silent. When all the lamps were out he lay on his back, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling. Kíli watched him, curled into a tight ball on his side of the bed.

“Do you hate me now?”

Fíli stirred out of his silence, rolling over to face him. “Never. Why’d you even think that?”

Kíli hugged his knees. “You’re ignoring me. That means you’re mad.”

“I’m not ignoring you.” Fíli turned his head and let out a hot-breathed sigh. “I’m worried, that’s all.”

That was not the response Kíli expected.

“Why?”

“Because. Because half the time you never even care that you’re in trouble. And you never realize the rest of us have to worry.”

Worried, because Kíli was in trouble? That was a strange notion. Kíli had always thought the reason Fíli went quiet and sullen when he misbehaved was because it reflected badly on him, the crown prince. He mulled over the possibility.

Was it because Dís was worried that she didn’t punish him? Was Rada worried, so he wouldn’t let him train anymore, so that Kíli didn’t hurt himself?

Kíli suddenly reached over and tugged on Fíli’s braid. “I’m sorry, Fee,” he said earnestly. “I try not to. Make you worry, I mean. But half the time it’s trouble that finds me.”

Fíli let out a half-snort and reached across, grabbing Kíli’s hair. But he had taken out his tufty braids earlier, so his hand only slid through the raven locks.

“You promise? You try?”

“Promise.”

Fíli nodded at that, and the Prince part of him was satisfied. His next words came out in a Kíli-like rush.

“Next time – next time our cousin says something, you find me first, all right? I’m the one who’s s’posed to protect you.”

Kíli almost wanted to say he didn’t need protecting. He was good with a sword and he had nearly beat Thorny, after all. But . . . it wasn’t Prince Fíli who begged him to tell.

He settled for shuffling closer to Fíli’s side, unaware that the movement tugged a little harder at his brother’s scalp.

“All right. Promise. But, Fee, remember . . . Ama said to bring both swords.”

Fíli grinned.

“That, I can promise.”

 

 

Chapter Text

“Ouch!”

“Sorry.” Fíli scrunched his nose and loosened his grip on his brother’s hair.

They were working on their own braids this morning, unsupervised by Dís. Fíli wasn’t very good at it. He kept losing the threads and having to start over, but he tried valiantly, and so Kíli also tried to ignore the persistent tugging at his scalp.

“Hold this.”

Kíli held the braid while Fíli attached a silver bead to the end. It was one of his, since Kíli, who never braided his hair, had no need of them, and probably would lose them anyway.

“There,” Fíli said, drawing back and grinning at his handiwork.

Kíli tugged absent-mindedly at his new braids. “My turn.”

They switched places. Fíli sat on the edge of the bed and Kíli crawled behind him. His tongue poked between his teeth as he concentrated on his work. Kíli was good at braiding, or at least when it came to Fíli’s hair. He had watched Dís do it often enough, and his fingers were small and quick, so they didn’t tangle as often as Fíli’s.

Fíli never said “ouch!” when Kíli braided his hair.

He was finished in a few short minutes, and only had to start over once when he uncovered a snarl tucked beneath the layers of Fíli’s mane.

“Done!”

They looked each other over, agreed they looked very princely, and headed downstairs to surprise Dís with their work. But it was Thórin, not Dís, who was sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of hot tea. He did not seem to notice their braids.

“There you are, Fíli,” he said instead. “I was just about to call for you.”

“I’m ready to go,” Fíli said, straightening. In an instant, he was back to being solemn Prince Fíli.

Then he’d race to the training grounds alone again . . . Kíli thought, but then he remembered that Rada had taken away his sword, and his face fell.

Thórin cleared his throat. “Kíli, Nori has agreed to watch you today. I believe he has a sister close to your age –”

“I know who Ori is,” Kíli interrupted, his face crumpling.

Rada was wrong. Ori was twenty-three, which wasn’t close to his age at all. More importantly, Ori was a girl. Kíli bit his cheek, and petulance crept into his tone. “Do I have to?”

“Dís is quite busy with her forge, and I will be in the Underhall until dusk. So, yes, you must.”

No swords, no practice, and now he was being sent off to play with a girl like he was still a child. Kíli crossed his arms and sulked.

Fíli looked from his brother to Thórin. “He could come with me. I’d keep an eye on him.”

“I think not. Kíli is still under punishment for his stunt yesterday.”

Kíli wanted to object that sitting through stuffy meetings, even with Fíli at his side, sounded like enough punishment to him, but he thought better of it.

When Thórin rose and went to get his coat, Fíli approached his brother and clasped his hand. “They won’t be here much longer,” he promised. “It’ll all go back to normal soon.”

But he still wouldn’t get his lessons back, Kíli thought. He smiled for Fíli, though, letting his brother think the words had reassured him. And when Thórin called for them – they would be stopping by Dori the Weaver’s house on the way to the Underhall – Kíli followed without complaint.

 

-

 

“So what do you want to do, Kíli?” asked Ori.

“Dunno.” Kíli had discovered a small tear in his sleeve. Determinedly he focused on it, saving himself from looking at Ori.

They were sitting in the upper rooms of Dori’s family’s house. The lower floor of the building was devoted to their shop and workspace for sewing. Kíli and Ori, meanwhile, were in a small sitting room crowded with chairs. Broad windows overlooked the sunlit street below, filling the room with cheery light. There was no room for running around.

Dori was out buying fabrics in the neighbouring village. His younger brother Nori was supervising them instead. Or rather, he was sitting in the kitchen with a cup of cocoa, one ear out for the sound of them breaking anything.

Kíli kind of liked Nori, though. He had strange hair that jutted in lumps from his head, and Kíli could stare at it in fascination for quite a while and forget he was being punished. Ori had confided in him that Nori was being punished, too. Men had caught him stealing potatoes in their marketplace, and so Thórin told him he wasn’t to leave the house. That was why Dori had gone to the next village alone.

But after an hour, even Nori’s hair couldn’t hold his interest. Kíli wished Fíli were there.

“So what do you want to do?” he asked Ori instead.

Ori went pink. “Oh, erm, I don’t know.”

They resumed their mutual silence. Kíli poked at his sleeve. Ori folded and re-folded her hands in her lap.

“You shouldn’t do that.”

Kíli ignored her. The hole in his sleeve grew larger. He could stick two fingers through it now.

Ori sighed. “I can fix that. If you want.”

Kíli withdrew his fingers. “Fine.”

Slipping off her chair, Ori pulled a little sewing kit from the pocket of her frock and examined his sleeve. She compared her spools to the thread poking from his sleeve, but none was quite the right shade of blue.

“Nori!” she shouted. “I need blue thread!”

For a scrawny little dwarfling, she could certainly yell. A few moments later Nori wandered out of the kitchen, scrubbing the inside of his ear with a finger.

“You called?”

Ori showed him the frayed thread, and after some persuading her older brother headed down to the shop to look for the right colour. In the meantime, Kíli went back to being bored, idly kicking his feet in the air.

“Do you like drawing?” asked Ori.

Kíli shrugged.

“If you want, maybe we can do that next.”

“All right.”

Ori disappeared and shortly returned clutching a book of thick parchment and a handful of charcoals. She laid it out on the rug and looked for an empty page for them to use. Though Ori, pink-faced, flipped as quickly as possible through the pages of charcoal sketches, Kíli glimpsed doodles of lumpy hair.

“H-here,” said Ori at last, handing him a bit of charcoal.

Kíli sighed, realizing he wasn’t going to be able to spend all day staring off into space. He took the stub, slid off his chair, and claimed a corner of the page. He flopped onto his belly as he started to doodle aimlessly.

“What’s that?” Ori asked.

“Dragon.”

“Do you know what a dragon looks like?” Ori had heard some stories about dragons, but she didn’t like to think about them very much. She didn’t like things that could snap up a dwarfling in a single bite.

“M-hmm.”

Ori looked around for a bit while he was doodling; then she got up, repositioned a vase of wilting flowers on the windowsill so that she could see it better, and laid on the floor again. She peeked at Kíli’s drawing.

“Dragons have four legs,” she said.

“This one has two.”

“Then it’s not a dragon, is it?”

“Have you ever seen a dragon? Do you know it’s got four legs for sure?” Kíli refuted.

Ori went quiet. She had never seen a dragon, either, so she couldn’t claim for certain how many legs they had. “In Dori’s stories, they have four legs.”

“Fíli says they have two.”

Ori wasn’t sure Fíli knew what dragons looked like any better than Kíli, but he said it so confidently that she couldn’t argue. She pressed her lips together, frowning down at the page. Her flowers weren’t turning out quite right. For one thing, there was a dragon trying to eat them.

She sat up and looked across the room. It occurred to her that it had gotten very quiet.

“Nori’s been gone a long time,” she mumbled, mostly to herself. “Kíli, I’m going downstairs for a minute.”

“I’m coming.”

Kíli dropped the charcoal and hopped up, and both dwarflings went to the door. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Ori tried calling for her brother, but the shop lay still around them.

Kíli wandered up and down the aisles of bundled fabrics. “Maybe he’s hiding.”

“He wouldn’t be hiding.” But Ori bit her lip.

They tried calling some more, and scouted out the shop, even checking in the work room, but there was nothing but a half-finished dress in there. When they returned to the main shop, Ori was close to tears.

“He left. He wasn’t s’posed to leave, Th-Thórin said he’d be in even more trouble if he left. And he was s’posed to stay and watch us.”

“It’ll be okay,” Kíli told her. “Uncle’s always punishing me, too. He might make Nori clean the stables and the forge with me. It’s kinda dirty, but it’s not so bad.”

Ori rubbed at her eyes. “But you’ve never done anything bad,” she pressed. “N-Nori’s always stealing things. And Dori always worries. One of these days – one of these days, he says, he won’t be so lucky Thórin steps in for him and does the punishing. And the Men will put him in jail or – or cut off his hand.”

Again with the worrying, Kíli thought. Did Fíli and Dís worry about him like Dori and Ori worried about Nori? As Ori scrubbed at her reddened cheeks, he made up his mind. He reached out and seized her hand. “C’mon.”

“Where’re we going?” Ori asked in a small voice as he dragged her, determinedly, toward the door.

“Exploring.” Kíli huffed his hair out of his eyes and lowered his head mulishly. “I decided, just now, that’s what I wanna do.”

 

-

 

The clashing of steel rang across the field outside the Underhall. Now Dwalin and Fíli withdrew, circling warily. The weapons-master swung two heavy war axes; the dwarfling, his twin swords. Their skirmishes were brief and fierce. They tested one another, waiting, each searching for the first opening in the other’s guard.

Across the field, Thórin and Dáin looked on. They had few of their council’s company today. Balin sat on the bench next to Thórin, studying the fight with a thoughtful furrow to his brows. None of Dáin’s retainers had been very interested in overseeing the prince’s training.

Notions of ambitious quests and glory had chilled between the two lords. Now their talks turned to questions of the mundane: with whom to trade and where to trace their supply routes; how many tonnes of ore could be collected before winter, and how many forges could be kept burning; and, this morning, how far a boy prince had progressed in his training.

Dáin Ironfoot had become very interested in the gold-haired heir of Durin. Thórin was lucky to have such an able successor, he said. It was a pity his father had been a Firebeard, or else he would have carried Durin’s look, too.

Thórin agreed with him, up to a certain point.

Fíli had always met his expectations. The dwarfling had an excellent memory for his lessons; he rattled off their history and customs, and Khuzdul flowed easily enough off his tongue. He was well-learned and studious, noble and earnest, but silent and respectful when need be. Thórin had never had to work too hard with him. In essence, Fíli was very much like a miniature adult dwarf, and so Thórin treated him as such.

As for his combat training – Thórin listened to the ringing of steel across the field, heard Fíli shout as he narrowly missed scoring a hit – it was clear to see the boy was of Durin’s lineage. Fíli had the fight in his blood: he moved with a certain grace that couldn’t be taught; he seemed to know where a blow would land before the axe fell. A sword was equal to him in left or right hand; he preferred both.

That little detail of his technique had been Dwalin’s suggestion. The old warrior was one of the few capable of wielding dual weapons with deadly precision, and Thórin had been more than pleased when Dwalin, having noticed Fíli’s aptitude, suggested the boy take on his personal instruction.

Yes, Thórin was very proud of Fíli. Now, if only Kíli would follow in his brother’s footsteps sometime . . .

Dáin’s voice drew him out of his current musings.

“The atmosphere between us has been cold of late, Thórin. I am no fool: I know the Mountain calls to you. Though I may disagree with you, I hold only the deepest respect for you, my King. I hope that . . . this situation . . . does not sour the relations of kin, nor spread to our heirs. Know this: Fíli has a home in the Iron Hills, should you ever wish he learn the ways of our fathers.”

Thórin did not answer Dáin’s speech at once. His gaze rested heavily on the combatants on the field. Sunlight flared across steel swords as Fíli countered a blow and whirled away. He caught a flash of a red face, braids flying behind.

The offer did not come lightly. Later, there would be conditions: a price of gold and honour to be paid. Once more, he would have to exhort his people for labour and resources, things they grumbled over giving to the dwarves who had become like strangers, beyond the distant mountains. And yet, until he beheld his rightful crown in Erebor, a life in the mountain depths was more than he could offer his heir. History books and half-remembered tales could only ever teach so much.

There were things Fíli would never learn in Ered Luin. Whispers of a life long lost, but not forgotten, beneath the Lonely Mountain. The song of a thousand hammers beating against the heart of rock. The way to coax a forge-fire to the perfect temperature when it was fuelled by the mountain's heart. How to carve stone, and how to lead a fierce people who had been chipped from rock, tempered in fire, and weathered by the earth.

These things, Dis's children of summer would never learn.

Such regrets seized his heart late at night, when the cold winds turned westward and groaned through the walls, carrying whispers from the Misty Mountains.

“Someday, I hope to make true on your offer.” Thórin would not play with words of kindness or of generosity. Neither he nor Dáin were such dwarves. Nevertheless, he knew to pay the politeness of custom. “And Thórin will be offered the same hospitality in my house.”

“So long as he is not dragged into any more duels.”

Thórin did not know if Dáin was being humorous or not. A moment later, the Lord of the Iron Hills lifted his head, peering across the field. Fíli and Dwalin locked blades, struggling against one another.

“And where is your other sister-son, Thórin? The wild dark one?”

A strange pressure closed in Thórin’s chest. Dáin had put him at odds with Kíli yesterday. He had made him choose sides, and the King had chosen wrongly. He could not decipher Dáin’s intent now.

“He is under punishment,” he said coolly. “He will not be out to train.”

Dáin glanced sideways at him. “Thórin told me the boy does not have his own sword. Is that wise?”

“Kíli is not ready.”

“Oh, certainly, that. But he should be made ready, and soon.” The look in Dáin’s eyes was sharp. He was all but giving an order to his king, cold and logical. “After all, Thórin, he is second-born. It is his duty to protect the heir, is it not?”

Thórin said nothing.

Yesterday, Dís had told him, Kíli had complained about the prince’s braids again. I’m not a prince, he insisted. And it was true, Thórin did not expect much in the way of princely behaviour from him. It had been a constant struggle with Kíli. He would not sit still, his mind wandered during Balin’s instructions, he only ever mumbled halting syllables of Khuzdul. It was clear Kíli would always be in Fíli’s shadow, and that was where the boy wanted to be, so Thórin let the matter lie.

What had Dís said Kíli called it? Thórin closed his eyes. He saw his sister shaking her head in the looking-glass while she brushed out his silver-streaked hair after a long day in the Underhall. Kíli, just Kíli, she had mimicked. No prince so-and-so. No nonsense.

Just Kíli.

“Kíli,” he said at last, his voice heavy on the words, “is not ready.”

“The boy is nearly thirty, Thórin. When do you plan to tell him?”

Never, thought Thórin at once.

Kíli should never be burdened as Frérin had been. As had been all of the second-borns who had lived in the shadows of their elder, somehow more perfect brothers. The second-born’s existence was governed by duty and, more often than not, the blade. How many of them had Mahal slated to die before their time, on a battlefield far from home? How many of those too perfect brothers had held them in their arms as they bled, and wept?

It was not a fate he would place upon Kíli, Mahal give him the chance.

Thórin opened his eyes and saw golden hair race, fending Dwalin blow for blow. Dáin might have approved if Fíli, not Kíli, had inherited the dark hair and strong jaw of the line of Durin. But while Fíli had his father’s look, Thórin knew, Kíli had his wild spirit. Thórin had done Avnor so many wrongs; he hoped to preserve this one last thing for him.

For him, and for Frérin.

“In due time, Dáin,” he said instead, his voice heavy and withdrawn. “We speak of princes who do not yet wear crowns.”

 

-

 

“Are you sure it’s okay if we’re here?” asked Ori in a hushed voice.

“’Course it is! Now c’mon,” Kíli said. He clambered over the fence first, dropping to a neat crouch on the hard-packed earth. Ori followed more cautiously, careful not to snag her dress in the old crags in the wood.

“You shouldn’t be here, though,” piped up a voice. It was Gimli. He occupied the training grounds all by himself this morning and had come over to the fence when he heard their voices.

Kíli crossed his arms. “Why not?”

“Because. ‘Cause you’re in trouble.”

“I am in trouble,” argued Kíli, pointing to Ori. “See? She’s gotta supervise me an’ everything. And besides, Rada only said I couldn’t practice. No one said I couldn’t be here.”

Gimli couldn’t find a fault in that rationale. Nevertheless, his brow pinched suspiciously and he clutched his wooden sword as if Kíli might get thoughts about stealing it.

“And anyway,” Kíli said importantly, “we didn’t come here, we’re going exploring.”

“In the woods?”

Kíli nodded.

“You shouldn’t,” said Gimli at once, his tone anxious. “Adad says there’s – there’s things in there.”

“Like what?”

“Like – like wolves,” said Gimli, brow shining. “And poison ivy, and sink holes, and bad Men. Wildlings.”

“You know what I say is in the woods?” interrupted Kíli.

“What?”

“A dragon!” He seized Ori’s hand, who had started to look more and more frightened as Gimli rattled off the terrors in the woods. “An’ me and Ori are gonna find it and see how many legs it’s got. Right, Ori?”

“R-right,” she squeaked, hoping against hope that they wouldn’t see any wildlings, never mind dragons. She was already regretting letting Kíli drag her out the front door.

“So, you see, we’re going into the woods,” said Kíli matter-of-factly. “You can come or not, it doesn’t matter. But if you’re too scared, I’ll tell evr’one a girl was braver than you.”

With that proclamation, Kíli set off across the training ground and plunged into the wilds beyond. Trees stretched out to pull them into their shadowy embrace. Ori stumbled after him, her frock catching in brambles and tangles of thin branches.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” she gulped again.

“Uh-huh. And we’ve got the brave Master Gimli to protect us!” He lifted his voice for the dwarfling, puffing after them, to hear. Gimli made some sort of indistinct sound.

Kíli grinned and tugged Ori forward.

Of course, he had been wandering these woods since he had learned how to walk, and he knew there was nothing more threatening than a rabbit lying in wait this close to the village. It was true the dwarves told stories of the woods, or of hearing howling in the night, but that was in dark places, deep within hidden, twisted groves, and not even Fíli had ventured that far into the forest.

After fifteen minutes or so of wandering, they came across a bubbling stream that belonged to the river Lune. Beyond the river was where all the real exploring got done. But in early summer the brook was swollen and high, and Ori worried Dori would be mad if she got all wet, so Kíli had to carry her across on his back. He deposited her on the far bank and came back for Gimli, but he was determined to be braver than a girl and splashed across on his own.

When they clambered up the bank and Kíli rolled his wet breeches up to his knees, he noticed Ori staring very hard at the ground.

“What’s it?”

She pointed. “Dragon tracks, maybe?”

Kíli followed her gaze. A scattering of little clawed paw prints ran up the bank. Raccoon, he thought at once, but he crouched and studied them, nodding very seriously. “Dragon tracks, definitely. And this one’s got four legs.”

Ori and Gimli both paled at the suggestion, but Ori seemed a little proud of her discovery, too, and when they set off after the winding trail through the undergrowth, she quickly rejoined his side.

For a while, Kíli was content to lead them on after the mysterious dragon. He didn’t even really mind that he was stuck with the younger dwarflings. He was in the forest, he was free, and he didn’t have to sit still through stuffy meetings like Prince Fíli. It was a bright, clear day, excellent for tracking. The trio made enough noise puffing and scuffling through the bushes that he was certain they’d never catch their quarry, but Gimli and Ori were so awed when he found their meandering trail every time it vanished, he didn’t even mind that.

When the tracks disappeared again near the base of an old flaking oak Kíli had long ago named the Lookout-Tree, he held up his hand. The dwarflings fell silent except for the rasp of their anxious breathing. When he looked back, they had both matched Kíli’s solemn expression.

“Do you hear that?” he whispered.

They listened. Gimli screwed up his face and tilted his head. Ori shook her head first.

“What did you hear?” On some unconscious agreement, they were all whispering.

“I don’t know. Wait here, all right?”

Kíli waited for their earnest nods before he turned and waded off through the bushes.

He let himself go on for a dozen paces or so, until the rustling bushes covered his tracks. Then he bit back a grin, cupped his hands to his mouth, and let out the most terrible, ferocious roar he could muster.

Fifteen seconds later Gimli and Ori looked on, wide-eyed, as Kíli crashed through the bushes toward them. “Run!” he shouted, waving his arms, “It’s a dragon!”

At once, Gimli and Ori let out identical shrieks and ran.

Kíli ran after them for a while, reigning in his strides so the young dwarflings got ahead; and then he started roaring again, and then finally he couldn’t help himself and burst out laughing.

He staggered up against a tree, clutching his belly. That had been too easy. There would be some interesting stories told in Overhill tonight, he thought, swiping his damp hair off his brow.

He had just decided he should probably make sure they made it back to the village safely, and pushed off from the trunk, when the bushes rustled. Instinctively he groped for a sword that wasn’t there, but there was no need. The figure stumbling out of the bushes with leaves in her hair was Ori.

“How’d you get back here so fast?”

“I ran.” Ori looked a little scared by her own nerve. She least of all had expected to find herself running toward, and not away from, a dragon. “Did you – did you find it?”

“No. I think it went after Gimli.”

“I think it had two legs.” Ori’s face was dead serious. She knew.

Kíli grinned unabashedly. “Well, Gimli’s tough and chewy, so we’ll be safe for a while. C’mon. I wanna show you something.”

Ori hesitated. But Kíli was determined about his sudden new idea, and he held out his hand. Timidly, Ori took it, and they set off beneath the trees. Kíli turned south from the Lookout-Tree and silently counted his paces. Before he had reached twenty-five, he noticed a change in the woods. Here the trees were old and leaning, their bark thick and gnarled. Shadows fell over them. He pressed onward through the murky woods, and eventually the bushes parted, leaving them with a view down into the vale.

Kíli crouched down on the edge of the slope and Ori joined him. Her eyes had gone as wide as saucers, and a small sound escaped her. “Wow.”

Below, in the valley, a ruinous city sprawled at their fingertips. Old stone glowed almost white in the midday sunlight. Here and there he could see the yawning mouths of caves, entrances into secret underground places.

Last summer, he and Fíli had stumbled across the ruins and explored them thoroughly, though they’d been careful to leave the caves. There were clouds of bats in those, and even Fíli wasn’t eager to get lost in the belly of the earth. Above ground, most of the old city was rubble, lost to the ages; but some small corners, including part of a mead hall, were still standing. Fíli had looked at some of the weathered chiselling on the pillars and reckoned the place was Belegost, the lost dwarvish settlement from the first age. Kíli liked to call it Oldtown.

“Bet you’ve never seen anything like this,” said Kíli. “Wanna explore?”

Ori said nothing. Kíli glanced sideways at her, wondering impatiently if she would echo Gimli’s tiresome mantra of You Shouldn’t Be Here. But Ori’s eyes had gone wide, her face pale.

Too late, Kíli saw the shadowy shape of a Man standing behind her.

Before he could so much as open his mouth, the cold point of a dagger pressed to the small of his back. Steel bit through the cloth of his tunic.

“Now, then,” rasped a voice in his ear, hot and rancid with drink. “Be a good lad an’ don’ make a sound, or it’s the girlie that gets it.”

 

Chapter Text

In all his twenty-eight years, Kíli had never been quite so afraid.

The strange Men blindfolded him and Ori and hauled them to their feet, giving them a shove to the back to get them moving. Kíli tried so hard to keep track of where his feet were headed; but every time his steps paused, as he hesitated over his mental map of the woods, a cold knife nipped against his back. Each time he felt the steel press warningly against his spine, his thoughts scattered wildly.

Some of them carried home, to Thórin and Fíli in the Underhall. It was impossible not to think that none of this would have happened if Uncle hadn’t taken away his sword.

Kíli fell, twice, along the way. When he landed the second time, his hands splayed out in front of him, a jagged rock pricked beneath his left palm. The Man yanked him up again by the back of his tunic. Kíli wavered when his feet touched the ground again; his fists clenched, and he felt warm blood welling against his skin.

Ori whimpered up ahead, not faring much better.

It was some time before the Men let them stop. By then Kíli had noticed a shift in the sound of their footsteps: a hollow echo trailed them, and it hit him suddenly. They were in one of the caves below Oldtown. His heart leaped and jammed in his throat.

“Well? Settle them in.”

The same raspy voice he had heard in the forest lifted hairs on the back of his neck. Kíli froze and hands seized his shoulders, flinging him to the ground with all the grace of a sack of grain. The air left his lungs with a gasp; he rolled over, reeling to a sitting position, hands finding cold stone beneath him.

Someone wrenched the cloth off his face. For an instant, Kíli was disoriented by the flare of light. He stretched his eyes wide and glimpsed a cavernous ceiling hoisted aloft by long pillars, firelight chasing shadows into their far reaches. Then he saw Ori on the ground, scratched and crying but otherwise unhurt, and lunged toward her.

“Ori -!”

Burly arms grasped him from behind and dragged him back. But Kíli, seized with a sudden fit of adrenaline, kicked and fought and bit. As his teeth sank into his captor’s wrist he heard a furious snarl of Westron curses, and a fist found the thick of his hair. The Man yanked, hard, and Kíli let out a cry as sparks burst in front of his eyes.

When his vision was straight again, his hands were twisted behind his back. The wild Men had forced him to his knees and were tying him to a pillar. He started to struggle anew, but in response the ropes wrenched tight around his wrists. Tears pricked against his eyes as the bandits finished and moved away.

He heard a faint sound behind him. The pillar was wider than he was, and he couldn’t quite turn his head far enough to see her, but he knew Ori was tethered similarly behind him.

He could not fight very hard to get to her. As soon as the dwarflings had been bound to the pillar, Raspy Voice stepped forward. All of the wildlings looked very big and menacing, their shadows towering and flickering along the cave walls, but as he advanced into the light Raspy Voice seemed to shrink. He was only made to look big by the animal pelts draped around his body; in reality he hunched slightly, and every breath rattled in his chest. His belt was adorned with many glinting daggers. He squinted down at Kíli and gestured one of the other bandits forward with a torch.

Firelight fell across his face. Kíli shut his eyes, then pried them open again, and his stomach flip-flopped. In the light, Raspy Voice’s face shone eerily: half his face was taut and skeletal, seared bright red and scarred.

“And whose whelp are you, little one?” said the burned man softly.

Kíli did not answer. The bandits did not know they were dwarves, he thought, because bandits wouldn’t dare anger Thórin Oakenshield, King under the Mountain.

“Cat got your tongue?” Burnface let out a tsk. “Don’t you worry, we’ll know soon enough. Who searched them?”

“I did,” said a pock-faced Man whom Kíli had seen looming in the shadows behind Ori before they’d been caught. “No weapons. Off all alone, wif no way to protect ‘emselves.”

He sneered, and Kíli’s belly clenched. A sword, anything for a sword; but Rada had taken his away, and Kíli didn’t think he was strong enough to take on all of them. How many were there? He counted six Men in the firelight, but the shadows were alive and rustling.

“It’s not weapons that interest me, Padric.” Burnface crouched in front of Kíli and he swallowed back the rising sickness in his throat. His face was so much worse up close. The red skin clung off his bones, twisting his lips in a hard half-sneer, and hard pus congealed around his eye.

“Cry,” said the bandit. “Go on. We’ll think no worse of you. I see the fear in your eyes.”

“I’m not scared of you,” Kíli countered. But it was a lie. His heart fought to escape his ribcage and tears still prickled at the corners of his eyes.

Burnface chortled. He looked him up and down, studying the frayed sleeves of Kíli’s blue tunic, the etched designs on his belt. He reached for his shoulder – Kíli flinched – and his fingers found a silver chain half-hidden beneath the neck of his tunic. Burnface gave it a tug, and the necklace came free. His unscarred eyebrow lifted.

“Now this is interesting.”

Kíli said nothing, but his heart was knocking faster than ever against his ribs. The amulet dangling between Burnface’s fingers had been a gift from Rada when he had been too young to remember it. A shard of mithril no larger than a teardrop hung off the chain, its hundred facets shining in the weak firelight. Once, Thórin had said, the mines in Erebor had flowed with it, like they did in Khazad-dm, but it had all dried up long before the dragon came.

“I’ll ask one last time,” said Burnface softly, staring at the mithril. The mineral sent a silver light skittering across his ugly, hungry face. “Whose whelp are you?”

Kíli shook. “I – I don’t –”

Burnface’s patience slipped. “Your father’s name, boy.”

“I – I don’t know!”

There was a shift of movement in the shadows. Swords scraped, figures jolted forward, but Burnface did not move. He lifted a hand and his men stilled. The skin around his good eye crinkled.

“Have some pity for the poor bastard, will you? He don’t even know his father’s name.”

Kíli shuddered. He wanted to shut his eyes to the terrible mocking face, but he couldn’t. He had a feeling if he did, he would start to cry, and then he wouldn’t be able to stop again.

Burnface leaned in. “Now, then, boy, whose pretty necklace did you steal?”

“I didn’t!”

“Where’d you get it, then?” The wildling shook the mithril in front of his face.

Kíli couldn’t stand the questioning anymore. He twisted his head away and shut his eyes tight. Red firelight burned behind his lids, and he imagined the skull-face still staring at him hungrily.

“It was a gift from Uncle, I didn’t steal it, and he’ll punish you when he finds out!”

“And who is your uncle, that I should fear him?” asked Burnface.

“He’s King under the Mountain!”

Kíli said it as fiercely as he could as he sat quaking against the pillar. That would set them right, he thought, his heart thundering in the sudden stillness. They would see their mistake. Thórin would be very angry, and the skeleton-faced bandit might even lose his hands. Stealing dwarflings was a lot worse than stealing potatoes.

“How very interesting,” rasped Burnface. His hands moved around Kíli’s neck, unclasping the mithril amulet, and a moment later it slid into his pocket. He rose and looked around the cavern.

“Padric, Dobbs – get your horses and send word to the nearest villages. Find this one who calls himself King under the Mountain. Seems we’ve got the honour of hosting a royal guest.”

For a moment, Kíli dared hope. Thórin would find out, Thórin would have the bandits set them free. But then Burnface looked down at him, a small, nasty smile curling half his lips.

“Now let’s see how much your uncle will pay for his little bastard back.”

Pay?

Kíli was at once confused and terrified. Wild emotions flashed on his face before he could hide them, and Burnface, noticing, smirked.

The Longbeards of Overhill didn’t have very much gold. Kíli had always known that. They didn’t have any more mithril, either. Dís had a pendant bigger than his, but it was special, a gift from her grandfather, and she wouldn’t ever give it away.

What if Thórin couldn’t pay what the bandits asked? Would he give up and leave Kíli there, forever? The thought filled him with cold. He had, after all, been very bad lately. He had mashed his fish at dinner and attacked Thorny and run off into the forest when he was supposed to be at Dori’s house. What if Thórin thought he was too much trouble?

What if he never saw Rada, or Dís, or Fíli again?

The possibility was too terrifying. Kíli shut his eyes to Burnface’s skeletal smirk, and in the lonely darkness deep within Oldtown, the first tears fell.

 

-

 

The door slammed. Dáin Ironfoot strode into the King’s office, his bear-pelt cloak rippling after him. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “My council and I waited hours in the Underhall, without so much as a messenger –”

Dwalin rose from his post by the door and laid a hand on his axe, growling. “Shall I remove him?”

Dáin spluttered as the burly warrior stepped toward him. “Now, really, Thórin, is this any way to treat your cousin?”

Thórin closed his eyes. A fire crackled in the hearth behind his desk. He sat facing it, slouched low in his high-backed armchair, but the warmth did not reach the shadowed crags of his face.

“Dwalin. Let him go.”

There was the sound of an axe being unwillingly shoved back into a belt.

Weariness weathered any pretence of politeness from Thórin’s voice. “Dáin, three dwarflings are missing, my sister-son among them. I will leave the council in the Underhall all night, if that is how long it takes to find them.”

Dáin did not respond immediately. When he did, he drew himself up and spoke stiffly. “We could have been informed.”

“You could have opened your ears.”

Wood popped and hissed. Thórin knew he was treading a very fine path between disrespect and treachery, but he did not care. He rose, turned to face his audience, and pressed his hands against the edge of his desk. “If that is all, cousin, leave me be. There is work to be done.”

“Yes. That will be all.” Dáin matched his cold tone, a guarded look in his eyes. He turned stiffly and made to leave the office, but he had to step aside as Bofur came through the doorway. The toymaker removed his hat and nodded as he passed.

“Your lordship. Thórin, we’ve found Gimli, son of Glóin. Bombur’s gone ahead to find the lad’s parents. There you are, now, lad, don’t be shy.”

He smiled downward at the red-haired dwarfling who timidly ventured out of his shadow. At a nod from Bofur, Gimli crept forward and stood on tiptoe to see over Thórin’s desk. His hair was wild and tangled; dirt spattered his tunic, and he sported a long scratch across his left cheek.

“Well?” Bofur said kindly. “What did you have to tell him?”

Gimli nodded and drew a gulping breath. “I was trainin’ when I saw Kíli an’ Ori, they said they were goin’ in the woods lookin’ for a dragon. They weren’t s’posed to do that, an’ I told them so, but they wouldn’t listen so I followed and then – and then, we got split up.”

Gimli’s face went pink, sheepishly.

Thórin closed his eyes. A dragon, was it? He would be having a word with Kíli when they found him. “When did you separate?”

“I don’t know, it was still early.” Gimli wound his fists in the hem of his tunic. “M-maybe close to noon.”

“Do you have any idea where either of the others went?”

The dwarfling shook his head. “I looked, and I looked, and I even waited by the tree but they didn’t come back.”

“Gimli showed us to the tree,” Bofur said. “He thinks they separated near there. Balin sent scouts around the area. We’re still waiting to hear from them.”

Thórin nodded. With a heavy sigh, he looked back down at the dwarfling. Gimli was plainly terrified, waiting for the king's judgement. Thórin remembered his manners. “Thank you, Gimli, son of Glóin. Bofur –”

Bofur smiled, laying a hand on Gimli’s shoulder. “I’ll see to it the lad gets home,” he promised.

He escorted the boy from the office. In their absence, Thórin let out another long sigh and moved back toward his chair. Then he changed his mind and walked to the window. Dusk was falling beyond the mountains; a curtain of mist drew above Ered Luin. Two dwarflings were out in the woods, lost in the lengthening shadows. His chest tightened.

“Dwalin,” he said over his shoulder to his silent guard. “Send word to Dís – she’ll want to know we have a lead –”

“That won’t be necessary,” said a voice at the door.

Thórin turned. Dís leaned around the door frame, her arms crossed. A white fur cloak was slipping off her shoulders. She had let out her braids, as she usually did first thing after returning from her forge. With her dark hair spilling in loose waves around her pale face, she looked strikingly like the young, terrified princess who had fled from Erebor.

“Bofur –” he began.

“I know. I saw him and Gimli in the Hall.”

Thórin went to his younger sister and clasped her cold hands. “We are still looking for them. Gimli has given us some idea of where they might have gone. You don’t have to stay here, sister; we will send word at once, when we hear something. Someone should be at home in case Kíli returns on his own. Fíli will be worrying –”

“Thórin,” Dís overrode him. She was pale, but her expression was unchanged; it occurred to Thórin that there would never be tears on that face, no matter how worried she might be. It was the stone face of the line of Durin, one he knew well.

“Fíli is not at home.”

It was a long moment before the weight of her words sank in. Thórin’s hands slipped from hers, and he took a step back. His own mask wavered, if only for an instant.

“Both of them . . . are missing?”

“He’s gone after his brother,” predicted Dís. “And I would have done the same, if he hadn’t gone first. Did you expect him to wait helpless at home for news?”

“I expected he would listen to me,” said Thórin coldly. The mask was back in place. He looked around the room and seized his sable cloak off his chair; he swung it onto his shoulders. “Dwalin, come with me. Fíli must have gone by the training grounds.”

He hesitated, however, when he turned to his sister. “Dís,” he said more quietly, reaching for her hands again. She flinched at his touch. There would be nothing foretold in her blank face; instead he looked to her eyes. There he read anger, frustration, and more worry than any dwarf should hope to weather alone. Each, he thought heavily, was well justified.

“Do not tell me to stand aside and wait this time,” she whispered.

“You must.” He squeezed her hands. “There must be a Durin in the Underhall, should Balin and the others send word. I promise I will find both of them and bring them home.”

Dís looked away. “Mahal make it so.”

Thórin let go of her hands and stepped around her, allowing her the space to fight the tears that would not fall. Dwalin followed; he laid a gentle, heavy hand on Dís’s shoulder and said something as he passed.

Thórin did not linger to hear. He pushed open the door to the Underhall and breathed deeply in the cold cavern’s air.

Mahal, give me the strength to make it so.

 

-

 

Night was falling deep like a blanket when they crossed through the training grounds into the woods. Dwalin had stopped to light a torch and carried it at the king’s shoulder. Thórin’s eyes remained on the fleeing darkness ahead, squinting as if he could see the silhouette of a dwarfling coming back to them.

But the edge of the woods lay silent, and there was no answer when he called.

“Fíli! Kíli!”

Thórin closed his eyes, his voice ringing back at him through the trees. Not for the first time that evening, he began a fervent prayer to Mahal; but this, like the others, remained unfinished. Dwalin pressed onward into the darkness, his torch held aloft, and Thórin opened his eyes and followed.

The shadows were alive. Yet, when the firelight reached toward them, it only revealed the hunched shapes of gnarled stumps, crooked faces leering out of old logs. Branches and dead leaves crackled beneath their feet.

Were there wolves in these woods? Thórin found himself wondering, and prayed the tramping of the search parties would keep them at bay from two untrained dwarflings.

Mahal, have we not lost enough already?

He saw Dís standing in his office, fighting to be resolute, when they both vividly remembered the night nearly fifty years ago that their father had gone missing. By morning, the story had unravelled: a small party smuggled out in the darkness, a mad king’s desperation to retake Erebor. Only, his party would never reach the Lonely Mountain.

Thórin clenched his jaw. He should not have left Dís waiting alone, he knew. She had endured too much waiting already. And yet a part of him had wanted to shield his younger sister, in case they found . . .

The glint of gold caught Dwalin’s firelight, and all such dread-filled thoughts vanished from his mind.

“Fíli!”

The dwarfling jumped. He was halfway across a churning stream, headed deeper into the trees. A sword was clutched in his left hand; at the shout he reached unconsciously behind his back for the other.

Thórin redoubled his strides, the torchlight flickering erratically in his wake, and broke through the bushes. Fíli’s expression flashed with recognition, and he eased his hand off his sword.

He is safe. Thank Mahal, one is still safe.

Then the cold-stone mask returned. “Fíli! You should be at home. This is no place for a dwarfling at night. It’s bad enough your brother is already lost.”

Fíli took his reprimand without complaint. He redirected his stare toward his half-soaked boots, his sword drooping in his left hand.

When at last he spoke, Thórin nearly missed his quiet plea. “My brother is lost, Rada. I know the places he would go in the woods. I showed him most of them. So, please.”

Fíli never spoke back to him. Thus Thórin was startled to see a very familiar jut to Fíli’s chin, a muscle twitching in the hard line of his jaw. It was Kíli’s favourite look. In that moment, Fíli had never looked so much like an heir of Durin: as Thórin was increasingly aware, they were all too stubborn for their own good.

“Fine,” he said. A familiar pulse drummed at his temples, and he did not have the strength to waste on an argument. “But you must remain at my side at all times.”

Then Fíli’s defiant look slipped. Wide blue eyes looked up at him with disbelief and too much gratitude. “Th-thank you, Rada. I will. I swear.”

Thórin said nothing. He moved ahead, crossing the stream in five long strides. Fíli and Dwalin came after. True to his word, the boy stuck close in his shadow, his sword readied in his hand.

“Lights up ahead,” Dwalin noted in a low voice. “That’ll be Balin.”

And indeed lanterns could be seen burning between the trees. The search continued. At his back, Thórin heard a sharp breath from Fíli, but the boy said nothing. Thórin strode forward until he could perceive individual silhouettes spread out through the trees. Dwarves scanned the area in groups of two or three, and now and then he heard an echo of voices: “Kíli? Ori?”

At the centre of the investigation, Balin and Dori met them. They were standing below an ancient oak. Presently Balin mopped at his brow, his face gleaming in the firelight.

“Nay, no sign yet,” he sighed in response to Thórin’s questioning look. “Perhaps they’re having better luck on the other side of the woods.”

Thórin said nothing. Darkness was falling thickly now, enshrouding the dwarves’ wanly flickering lanterns. Soon, the logical part of him warned, they would have to call off their search. It would be more than foolish to send scouts tottering around in the pitch night. Yet, they were too few to have scoured the entire mountainside by then.

He grit his teeth. “Balin, a light.”

But before the lantern reached his hands, there was a noise in the bushes. Branches crackled, footsteps tromped: something large was approaching. In an instant Dwalin shouldered in front of Fíli, his blazing torch raised. Thórin rested a hand on his axe.

The bushes parted and a face appeared, and then another. Dwalin’s light fell across a party of dwarves, and for a moment neither side spoke as they examined one another incredulously.

“Dáin,” said Thórin quietly, his hand having not left his axe. “What is the meaning of this?”

Dáin moved to the head of his company. A lantern swung in his hand; in the other, his red war-axe Barazanthual. “Your sister-son is missing, Thórin,” he said. “I have come to answer the duty of kinship.”

There were conditions, Thórin thought at once. But as he looked at his cousin, he could not name them. A strange feeling stirred in his chest. “Dáin . . .”

Dáin did not wait on a halting speech of thanks. He was not such a dwarf. He lifted his lantern and squinted across the trees at their bobbing collection of lights.

“Where have you yet to search, cousin?”

 

-

 

“Kíli,” Ori whispered from the shadows. “I wanna go home.”

Kíli said nothing. He was tired, and sore, and his legs were growing stone-cold from kneeling for so long against the pillar. Rope itched at his wrists when he tried to get more comfortable. He didn’t know how long they had been sitting there, forgotten. Some time ago the remaining bandits had put a dead raccoon over their fire; the smell made Kíli’s belly growl.

“Kíli?”

“What?” he snapped.

Ori went quiet. She had been quiet, mostly, in the long hours of darkness. They had both cried after the riders left to bring Thórin the ransom, and Ori had begged and pleaded to go home until one of the Men came over and kicked Kíli to shut them both up.

His ribs still ached. Most of all, though, he didn’t want to whimper like he had the first time they had hit him, with their cruel laughter ringing in his ears. He wished she would shut up.

“Kíli, are – are there any sharp rocks over there?”

That was not what he had expected to hear.

Obediently, Kíli squinted at the floor. Flickering light ebbed and seeped near his toes from the distant campfire. It caught the face of a stone a little smaller than his fist, narrowed at one end like an arrowhead.

“Yeah, I see one,” he whispered back.

“Can you cut yourself loose, too?”

Kíli’s eyes went suddenly wide. He twisted sideways, wrenching his hands taut against the rope, but he couldn’t quite see her around the curve of the pillar. “Ori, did you -?”

“I wanna go home, Kíli,” she said over him.

Kíli shut up. Ori’s voice was quavering. She was not brave, but she had come up with a plan for escape, and he had very nearly given it away. He turned back around, breathing in quickened shudders, and heard a bark of laughter from around the campfire. Shadows moved, but they paid no mind to the pitiful dwarflings tied to the pillar.

He looked at the arrowhead-rock.

“I think I can reach it.” He spoke from the corner of his mouth. “They’ll see me, though.” He was tied facing the campfire, and it was to him the Men sneered now and then.

“Then I’ll give you mine,” Ori whispered.

A moment later, a rock bumped up against his right foot. Slowly, carefully, Kíli hooked his toes around it, dragging it behind his back. His tongue stuck between his teeth as he struggled to reach it with his hand. He stretched, warring against his bindings; rope bit against his tender wrists.

And then, suddenly, his groping fingers closed around the stone.

Kíli let out a breath. He clutched to the sharp rock so tightly it stung his palm, but he didn’t care. He shifted, blindly readjusting the edge toward the rope on his wrists.

He had moved just in time. A shadow detached from the campsite and moved toward him. It was Burnface. A knife glinted in one hand. Ori drew a sharp breath behind him and Kíli gripped the rock in terror, wondering if he had seen, wondering if he would punish them.

“Open,” said Burnface.

Kíli stared blankly.

Burnface dangled his opposite hand in front of him, and Kíli saw he held a piece of meat. Food. Kíli didn’t question the offering. He opened his mouth, and Burnface crammed the meat between his jaws.

He had given him a chunk of the raccoon’s hide. It was badly charred, leathery and thick on his tongue, and tears pricked at his eyes. He had to chew it. He had to chew it, or he would choke.

Burnface watched Kíli struggle over the chunk of meat. He idly wiped his knife clean, slid it back into his belt, and crouched in front of him.

“So. Your uncle’s a king. You’re a nameless father’s bastard. How’s that work, little one? Did he knock up a princess?”

He wasn’t a bastard, Kíli wanted to argue, but he couldn’t talk with the charred meat jammed in his mouth, so he only chewed faster. Red juice and saliva dripped down his chin and into his tunic.

“Hm,” said Burnface. “And you still haven’t introduced me to your little friend, either.”

Ori. Kíli’s heart seized.

Burnface rose, and in that instant Kíli started to choke. He gagged, spat out the raccoon, and nearly pitched forward. Open-mouthed, chest shuddering, he gasped. Burnface seized the thick of his hair and held him upright.

“Whoa, now, don’t kill yourself.”

The tears were not fake. But Kíli lifted his chin and set his jaw. “My ama – ama is a princess,” he said, heaving with each word.

“Oh, is she now?” said Burnface, and through his clouded eyes Kíli thought he looked amused, and just a little interested. What mattered was, for the moment, he had forgotten about Ori hiding behind the pillar.

“And I don’t suppose you know her name?”

“Yeah, I know it.” Kíli answered stubbornly, challenging Burnface to continue his questions. Behind his back, he clutched to Ori’s rock with shaking hands, clumsily pressing it up against his rope bindings.

But Burnface would never ask him about his mother. His head lifted at a sound from afar, and he turned toward the sentry on the edge of their camp.

“The boys back?”

The sentry did not answer. Before Burnface finished his query, he toppled over in silence. Kíli did not see what had killed him.

In a heartbeat, Burnface was on his feet, swearing furiously. He seized two knives from his belt and made for the camp in long strides, barking orders to the fleeing shadows. He did not make it very far. As Kíli looked on, a tall Man materialized out of the darkness and put his sword deep in his chest.

Burnface slid to the ground, twitching and moaning. Life seeped out across cold stone. The stranger left his sword and charged back toward the fire.

Shadows raced and screamed along the walls. The raid had taken the bandits by surprise. Kíli did not know if it was friend or foe who struck down their captors; for a long moment he only stared as Burnface gurgled and died on the ground in front of him. Only when something bit into his wrist, drawing blood, did he realize Ori was choking sobs at his side.

His hands were free.

“Run,” he said, gripping Ori’s hands. “You’ve got to get Uncle Thórin.”

“But –” she began, wide-eyed.

“Run like there’s a dragon behind you. I’ll be right behind. Promise!”

Ori gulped and nodded. He let her go and watched until she had scurried into the anonymity of the shadows. Then he tore his eyes away, grit his teeth, and approached Burnface’s body.

Dark blood blossomed across his chest. Kíli tried very hard not to look at the sword buried between his ribs, or the frozen contortion of his terrible face. He crouched, feeling blindly for the pocket where the bandit had hidden his mithril.

A clatter of stones up ahead made Kíli tense like a wild-eyed deer. He saw the shadow approaching and, without a weapon, dove for the shelter of the pillar. He fell on hands and knees and bit his lip to stop a cry: his unhealed palm throbbed.

It was a bandit who neared Burnface. He did not see Kíli: he was looking over his shoulder, toward the ensuing skirmish. Then, hissing, he bent and delved toward a hidden pocket. Kíli saw the glint of a silver chain transferred into his hands, and his fists curled. Half of him wanted to leap up, screaming that’s mine; the other half of him knew that was very, very stupid.

In the time it took him to contemplate the terrifying possibility, the bandit ran for the shadows and vanished. Kíli waited for a heartbeat and then ventured out of hiding. His mithril was gone. He had to catch up to Ori, he knew, but he didn’t plan on doing it unarmed.

He was pretty sure Thórin wouldn’t mind if he borrowed a sword now.

Kíli held his breath. He stood over Burnface, his hands wrapped around the hilt of the sword in his chest. He gathered his nerve and pulled.

The sword was jammed tight between Burnface’s ribs. That was why its wielder had left it behind. And yet when Kíli yanked and tugged, a new wave of blood surged out of the wound. Sickness closed in his throat. He stumbled, hit his knees, and threw up the last of the charred raccoon.

It was no use. He wasn’t strong enough to take the sword. Kíli swiped at his jaw with his sleeve, snatched two relatively clean knives off Burnface’s belt as recompense, and headed off in the direction he thought the entrance was.

This course, unfortunately, brought him right past the bandits’ campsite. He slowed to a creeping pace, clutching his new weaponry, but the fire had been kicked to ash. Embers glared when he turned his head. Shadows lay across the hollow between the rocks that the bandits had claimed as their camp. Kíli trod across one prone shape, and it seemed to be only an empty pelt bedroll, but he didn’t linger long enough to be sure.

Kíli breathed again when he was on the other side of the camp, stealing toward the slope in the floor that led up into shadow. The sentry’s body lay across his path. There was an arrow’s shaft buried in his throat. Kíli was about to leave him – he had his knives – but it occurred to him that maybe this Man had a sword, so he tiptoed back to the body and peered down at it.

The space where a sword-sheath would have been at his side was empty. He should have left him.

But as Kíli turned away, disappointed, a shape leaning up against the rocks drew his attention.

It was a bow’s long arc.

It was a Man’s weapon. Kíli had seen bows before: they were carried by the Elves who dwelt in Ered Luin’s secret vales, and sometimes he saw them carried by the Rangers who came to Overhill for dwarvish smithing. He had even held one once, after asking a kindly old Ranger. The Ranger had shown him how to aim, how to pull the bowstring back, but Kíli had been very small then, and the bow heavy. Thórin had been mad afterwards, though Kíli couldn’t remember why.

He looked from the man with the arrow in his throat to the bow. He needed a weapon. The dead man didn’t.

A sword would have been better, but Kíli could hear scuffling and crying behind him. There was no time to keep looking. He fumbled the quiver over his shoulder, seized the bow in one hand, and ran.

The tunnel carried him upward into darkness. His footsteps echoed too loudly off the walls; his heart hammered fit to burst. He clutched the bow under his arm, a knife in his hand, utterly terrified that he might run into a raider or a lost bandit around the next sweeping corner, or the next –

But then a cool breeze tickled his face, and Kíli’s heart leaped.

He stepped out of the cave and stood looking down at Oldtown, bathed in starlight. It was very late, and Thórin would be furious, but he was free, Rada wouldn’t have to pay for him anymore.

Kíli’s wobbling legs suddenly gave out. He sank to the ground with the bow across his lap, shaking with silent, hysterical laughter.

 

Chapter Text

When Kíli woke up, his mouth was terribly dry.

He sat up and blinked in confusion for a long while. He was not in his and Fíli’s bed, and his brother was not strewn out snoring next to him. He was not even at home. A grassy indent in an overgrown hollow had become his new bed. When he looked up, the trees were bright green with sunlight. He rubbed at his eyes and squinted.

Yesterday’s events came flowing back when he stretched and began to take note of his sores. His wrists were raw and red; a cut had sealed across his left palm. Perhaps worst of all, though, was the state of his belly. He was starving. Yesterday’s breakfast seemed ages ago; and thinking of half-chewed meat on the floor left a sick, ashy taste in his mouth.

He was still so thirsty.

Kíli clambered up out of the hollow and looked around. It concerned him, distantly, that he didn’t remember this part of the woods. He was farther out than ever he and Fíli had explored before. But Kíli bit back that apprehension for now. He couldn’t have gone that far from Oldtown, stumbling through the dark last night. He knew the river Lune ran close by on its western flank, and he hadn’t seen the river yet. If he headed back in that direction, he’d find the Lune and trace it back to the familiar woods by the training grounds.

So, Kíli thought, he wasn’t all that lost, really. He just had to find the river.

The conclusion pleased him, considering he was thinking on an empty stomach. Kíli went back down into the hollow and collected Burnface’s knives from inside a log. He tucked them in his belt like the bandit had done and shouldered his new quiver. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with the bow: it was too big to tote around under his arm. Rangers carried them on their backs, so he tried tucking it beneath the quiver’s strap and held onto it for a while as he walked, just to be sure it didn’t slip.

Now, padding barefoot through the woods, Kíli cocked his head and listened sharply. He could hear nothing but the forest rustling around him, and wherever the raiders had gone after last night, they were not here. Still, it seemed prudent to keep a knife near at hand.

Kíli had just decided on the most likely direction of the river when he heard the bushes stir. He whirled about and glimpsed a flicker of rabbit fur.

The bow was in his hands in an instant. Kíli fumbled for an arrow, but his fingers missed, and the alarmed rabbit was already bolting away. When its tufted tail vanished between the leaves he let out a breath, shouldered the bow, and walked on.

Get something to drink first, he thought. Find the river. Nevertheless, Kíli licked his cracked lips and wondered what cooked rabbit would taste like. He had eaten it in stews and pies before, but never roasted on its own over a fire. Surely it had to taste better than raccoon. Kíli was confident, at least, that he wouldn’t burn it.

It was not long after he started dreaming of a nice leg of rabbit that he heard a telltale bubbling. For a moment, he thought he was imagining that, too; but then the sound of rushing water grew louder, and Kíli grinned. Without a thought for what else might now be waking in the woods, he raced ahead, crashing through the bushes. The bow slipped on his sweaty back and he grabbed at it as he skidded down the slope toward the river.

Here, the Lune was wide and frothed white over the rocks. It filled his ears with ringing as Kíli pushed his way through the reeds toward it, tasting spray on his face. He was sure he had never seen anything so beautiful. In an instant he had splashed knee-deep, his scratched and battered feet settling into pebble-littered sand as he bent, cupped his hands, and drank greedily.

He drank enough to give himself a bellyache later, chills shivering down his back as the cold water seeped through his insides. Kíli didn’t care. The taste of ash dislodged from his throat and Kíli splashed water over his face as if it had the power to bring him back to life.

It worked. Kíli blinked, wide-eyed and wakeful, his senses rushing back in full force. The cut on his palm stung. Hunger gnawed at his belly. He had to find food, somehow.

Kíli shook his head, scattering his wet hair, and a braid slapped against his cheek. Instinctively, he grabbed at it. There was only one silver bead left in his hair – the left side of his head had dissolved to tangles. But the braid Fíli had made still clung near his right cheek, and as he clutched to it a lump grew in his throat.

Fíli. He had to find Fíli, he had to get home. Fíli and Dís and even Rada would be worried about him.

Kíli re-clipped the silver bead to ensure it wouldn’t come loose and headed back up the slope.

Now that he had the river to orient himself, he was confident about returning home. Kíli turned upstream, north toward the mountains rising on the horizon, and headed off through the bushes. As he went he thought to keep one ear out for bandits, but he saw nothing of them, and after a while his hand eased off his knife.

The sun had climbed considerably in the sky by the time he came across the bilberries. The bushes were plump with little blue berries, and Kíli groaned aloud in his relief. Bilberries were safe to eat: he and Fíli made snacks of them in the woods, and sometimes if they collected enough Dís made sweet pies out of the excess. Kíli sat on the ground next to the bushes and ate berries until his belly ached again, and then he stuffed his pockets with more.

Lying in the grass afterwards, absent-mindedly plying his bowstring, he saw his second rabbit. This time, he didn’t have to reach for the bow.

He held his breath, his eyes on the animal in the bushes as his hand inched toward his quiver. The feathers of a shaft tickled his fingertips and he pulled it loose, clumsily nocking an arrow where he lay on the ground. He knew to line up his eye with a little notch in the wood; he squinted, his left eye nearly shut, as he pulled the heavy string back.

The arrow flashed into the leaves above the rabbit’s head. It sat up, ears pricked, and leaped away before he could try again.

Kíli studied the bushes where it had disappeared and lifted two fingers, measuring the gap. Missed by a foot.

After that, he learned very quickly not to miss.

Kíli wandered on through the woods, always keeping the Lune close on his left. He carried the bow in his hands, and now and again he practiced shooting at a knot in a tree. It was easy to imagine the gnarled knots were eyes of silent forest-watchers. He was getting pretty good at it, but he didn’t have as many arrows as it had seemed at first, and more often than not the heads broke when he pulled them out of trees. When he was down to only six, he chose to hold on to them instead.

As the morning crept on, in place of his game, Kíli hummed one of Rada’s songs to himself. It was about faraway mountains and great quests, and seemed appropriate for his adventure.

Thórin would be mad when he got home, Kíli thought. Mostly out of worry, but also because he’d been bad and run away when he was supposed to stay at Dori’s house. He’d be punished worse this time; maybe he’d even have to clean the traps in the fields again. But surely Ori had gotten home by now and at least explained some things, so maybe Rada would understand about the bandits and the payment.

Kíli hopped across a log that blocked his path. For a moment, he balanced atop it with his arms thrown out to either side, and the braid swatted him in the face again. His thoughts went to Fíli. Was Fíli worried right now? He probably was. Kíli had broken his promise and gotten in trouble again, but privately he had to argue the deal with the bandits hadn’t been his fault. In fact, he thought he had handled his escape quite well, and decided it would be a grand story to tell Fíli.

After his brother got over the worrying, of course.

When he thought it was lunchtime Kíli stopped and ate more of the bilberries. They had gotten somewhat squished in his pockets. He didn’t mind. He would be home soon, and Dís would scold him (surely she was worried, too), but she would also see to it that his clothes got cleaned. And that he got a bath.

Kíli screwed up his face at the thought.

He gathered his supplies, tucked the bow behind his back, and set off again. All in all, it wasn’t such a bad adventure. He felt safer with his knives and the bow, and Overhill was just around the corner. He smiled to himself and broke into the next verse about the mountains cold and the forgotten gold.

And little did Kíli know he had spent the entire morning travelling south, his merry footsteps leading him ever farther away from Overhill and home.

 

-

 

The sun was well risen in the sky by the time the last of the search parties stumbled back to Overhill.

Dís took one look at him when he entered the Underhall, and Thórin knew she had received no news from the others. He blinked blearily around his office as Balin, Dwalin, Dori, and Fíli filed in behind him. The boy had fallen behind on the way home, his tired footsteps dragging, but Thórin did not reprimand him.

The fire in the hearth had burned itself out overnight. Nori was slumped in the king’s high-backed armchair, sunk low and miserable with his head on his chest. Thórin had no doubt Dís had had words with him for leaving the dwarflings unattended. Dori went to his brother’s side and their quiet murmurings filled the deadened silence.

Thórin sighed deeply. A part of him yearned to go to his family in the same way; to take comfort in those few he had left, to hold them and never let go. But Dís would take no comfort from him now. She stood with the white fur wrapped around her shoulders, pale-faced and tight-lipped, wearing a mask of stone. Instead, Thórin let his hand fall on Fíli’s shoulder.

“Fíli. Do you want to go home?”

Fíli blinked up at him as if he didn’t understand the words of his question. The look tore at his heart. But even if Fíli had perhaps taken the night the hardest of any of them, even if no one would have blamed him for closing himself in his room and never coming out, Fíli only shrugged slightly. Thórin’s hand slid off his shoulder.

He should have phrased it as an order.

Instead, Thórin cleared his throat and called for a dwarf to bring them tea and brandy.

Five minutes later, the motley party sat around the head of the table in the Underhall. The clattering of tankards dispelled the terrible silence, but the way the baleful sound echoed back at them in the cavernous hall was nearly worse. The cooks had thought of breakfast, too, but no one touched the plate of warm biscuits.

There were too many dwarves about, Thórin found himself thinking. It should have been just him and Dís, as they had been after the battle that had claimed their grandfather and brother; as they had been, looking on at a mad King, an exiled people, and the seemingly impossible journey ahead of them. As they had been after Thráin disappeared and the full weight of leadership settled on his shoulders. As they had been when Avnor – or what was left of him – was recovered from the wargs.

But Kíli wasn’t dead, Thórin had to remind himself. And it was not just the two of them now; there was Fíli, and there was Kíli, out there somewhere, lost but alive. What had he told himself the day his first heir was born? The line of Durin is still strong. He and Dís were not the last, not any more.

But Dori and Nori had lost their younger sibling, too; and neither could Thórin turn away Balin and Dwalin, because he had a feeling he would be needing his oldest friends before long. So the King of the Longbeards sighed, feeling much older, and wondered how he would keep them all together this time.

He had closed his eyes in silent oath to Mahal when he heard the footsteps’ thunder outside the door. Dáin’s messenger appeared, gasping for breath.

“They’ve found one -! A – a dwarfling –”

The table rose. Thórin was the first to recover his voice. “Who?”

“The lass.”

Before he could stop himself, Nori let out a sound that was half a yelp, half a laugh; Dori sank back down on the bench, looking stunned in his relief. Thórin would hide his own dismay in light of the brothers’ relief, but from the corner of his eye he saw Fíli’s shoulders slump in defeat.

And where is the other dwarfling? he silently questioned the messenger, who was leaning up against the door to regain his breath. Where is my sister-son, Dáin?

“Where is Ori?” Dori asked aloud. “Is she all right?” He had recovered his senses, but still gripped to the bench to steady himself. Nori, meanwhile, had his hands over his face, fighting to disguise how deeply he had worried.

“In the woods. Rest assured, she is safe. Lord Dáin . . . asked the party to wait there. He said . . . he said it’s something you ought to see.” The messenger’s last words were addressed to Thórin, and a premonition of cold closed in his chest.

Nevertheless, he nodded, his face a resigned mask of stone. “Lead us to them.”

 

-

 

Ponies were saddled and brought before them, so the journey through the woods lasted only short minutes. Thórin rode ahead with the messenger, Dori and Nori close on his tail. When the trees opened up, Thórin reined his pony to a halt, his eyebrows lifting.

They were on the edge of a camp – or the remnants of one, at least. A fire pit had been at the centre of the clearing, but the embers were scattered beyond the broken circle of stones. Bedrolls lay ripped open; possessions and weapons scattered. Thórin counted the bodies of seven Men – rogues or bandits by the look of their ragged furs – lying with bright red wounds marring their still-warm corpses.

The other ponies caught up, and Dori let out a groan at the gruesome sight. Dwalin reached for an axe. Too late, Thórin remembered Fíli: he sat next to Dwalin, his fists white over his pony’s reins, very still and very pale as he looked over the battlefield.

This will not be the last you see of death, Thórin thought, his heart twinging. Yet, there would be time to go to his sister-son, to address matters he had hoped the boy was still too young to understand. Thórin saw Dáin walking among the wreckage with two of his guard and slid from the back of his pony.

Dori and Nori were faster, though.

“Ori!” Nori gave a cry, and though he would later deny it, he was the first to leap off his pony and run to his sister. Ori had been trailing after Dáin, a borrowed cloak wrapped around her shoulders. She forgot it when she rushed to Nori, and he seized her in a tight hug, laughing madly with relief. Dori followed in a dozen long strides and pulled them both into his embrace.

Thórin looked past the siblings’ joyous reunion. “What is the meaning of this, Dáin?” he asked very quietly. It did not escape his notice that the blows on the bodies were made by dwarvish swords and axes.

“They were bandits,” said Dáin.

“Had they captured the girl?”

“No; she was found hidden a ways away, in a hollow stump, after the fighting. They would have found her, had we not intervened.”

Thórin closed his eyes.

“You are not pleased, cousin?”

“Did it not occur to you to leave them alive for questioning?” Thórin’s voice was edged with cold, and he barely restrained his fury. “That they might have seen my sister-son?”

“That did occur to me, Thórin,” admitted Dáin with equal cold, “but it was made impossible by their anxiousness to ambush us.”

Thórin said nothing. Any attempt of his to speak would lead to yelling, he knew, so he turned away instead. He should have been grateful for Dáin’s unasked assistance. And yet, his head was throbbing, it had been over twenty-four hours since he had thought of anything but his missing sister-son, and there had still been no sign of Kíli.

“We did question the girl,” Dáin said to his back. “Apparently, the two were seized by bandits in the ruins of Belegost yesterday. She had not seen your sister-son since they escaped last night.”

They had escaped. That was good news. And yet, Thórin could not help but think of other bandit camps like this, other Men hunting for a foolish little dwarfling who had left home without even a sword.

“Why would they have split up?” he demanded of Dáin.

“That, you would have to ask the girl.”

Thórin looked across the bandit camp. Ori was being ensconced by her brothers again, but by the way she was laughing, tears in her eyes, she didn’t seem to mind. Why had she left Kíli behind? Or had Kíli – for some stupid reason – left her? As Thórin wondered, thoughtlessly taking a step toward the trio, his eyes caught a movement across the camp.

It was Fíli. He had left his pony behind, and apparently had recovered from his shock of the sight, because he was now picking his way through the rubble, poking at things with his sword. Thórin looked for Dwalin to take the boy aside – this wasn’t a place for him, not something for his eyes to see – but at that moment, from the corner of his eye, he saw Fíli crouch.

He had found something among the blood-streaked grass by the fire pit.

Dáin said something behind him, but Thórin was no longer listening. He strode over to his sister-son and found him kneeling, a silver chain in his hands. Fíli scrubbed the pendant dutifully on his sleeve to get the blood off; when the fabric fell away from the mineral, white sunlight flared in Thórin’s eyes.

Mithril, by Mahal, he’d recognize that anywhere.

Thórin squeezed Fíli’s shoulder and the dwarfling jumped. He had not noticed his uncle’s approach.

“I . . .” Fíli tried, almost defensively needing to explain himself, but words failed him. “. . . Kíli,” he finished helplessly.

“I know,” said Thórin quietly.

Then he turned and became King of the Longbeards again. “Balin, send word to the nearest towns there’s a reward for anyone who finds Kíli. Dori, Nori, you are dismissed; see your sister home. Dwalin, take Fíli home as well.”

Beneath his hand, Fíli opened his mouth and closed it again.

Dwalin came over and waited until Fíli had found his feet. The dwarfling looked up at Thórin, his eyes half tortured, half betrayed. It was the same sort of look Kíli had given him, long ago.

I have failed them both, Thórin thought.

“This is not punishment,” he said quietly, for only his sister-son to hear. “You have done well today. Now take your rest. I will bring Kíli home.”

If it is the last thing I do, Thórin thought, but his heart was heavy. The pendant clutched in Fíli’s numb hands was not a blessing. It did not tell him with any certainty that Kíli was still alive. Perhaps he had escaped last night, and the bandits caught him again. Kíli knew the importance of that mithril amulet. He would not have left it behind unless he had no other choice.

Or if he . . . he had not left it behind.

It was better if Fíli was not there when they found him, in any case.

He watched Dwalin escort Fíli back to the ponies, a hand on the dwarfling’s shoulder. Thórin’s eyes were still on the two when the grass crackled behind him.

“Thórin?” prodded Dáin. “Your orders?”

He pulled his gaze away from the golden-haired dwarfling. “Have a dozen of your best dwarves spread out from this area and continue the search; the rest, you can send home to regroup.”

“It will be done.” Dáin signalled to one of his guard. The dwarf abandoned his post at the edge of camp, striding toward them.

“And have them on the lookout for more bandits. If at all possible, take prisoners.”

“As you will it.”

Thórin turned away, leaving Dáin to communicate the orders to his chieftain. Balin had already departed to bring word to the villages of Men. Dori was helping Ori up onto a pony; she perched in front of Nori, clutching to the saddle horn, her small feet not quite reaching the stirrups.

Thus, he was on his own to search the camp for further clues. Thórin’s boots scuffled over the rocks of the scattered fire pit, near where Fíli had found the mithril pendant. He paused, and unconsciously his eyes travelled skyward.

The noon sun blazed at its apex in the sky. It had been over twenty-four hours since he had left Kíli on Dori’s doorstep, the dark-haired prince brooding over being treated like a child.

Mahal, Thórin prayed for the umpteenth time that day, let us not be too late.

 

Chapter Text

Kíli sat down on the moss-eaten log with a little huff, tugging at the quiver-strap digging into his shoulder.

He didn’t understand why he hadn’t found the Lookout-Tree yet, or the edge of the woods outside Overhill. He had been walking for almost an entire day. It certainly hadn’t taken this long when he was wandering with Gimli and Ori, looking for a dragon.

Now his bare feet were swollen and blistered; sweat had his hair sticking to the back of his neck; and the stupid strap chafed the side of his neck with every step. He clung to the Lune’s edge, so he was never thirsty anymore, but his belly was craven. There was nothing but sticky bilberry juice left in his pockets.

Kíli thought, enviously, of home. At this time Uncle Thórin and Fíli would be returning from the Underhall; and Dís, who would have been home from her forge for a few hours now, would be putting the finishing touches on a thick rabbit stew or a steaming meat pie as they walked in the door. Perhaps, if he was lucky, there would even be an apple pie for dessert.

He had to get up, he had to keep walking, because surely the old oak lookout was just around the bend. And then he would see the flickering lamps of Overhill and smell the cook fires, and Dís couldn’t be so angry at him that she didn’t let him eat first.

Yet, as the shadows lengthened around him, Kíli began to doubt for the first time. It shouldn’t be taking this long.

For the first time, he wondered if he really was headed in the right direction. The possibility filled his veins with icy fear.

What if he was lost?

What if this river wasn’t the Lune?

No. Kíli shook his head furiously of the thought. The dishevelled braid smacked against his cheek and he grabbed it, clutching to the single silver bead that connected him to his brother and home.

He had been gone for over a day now. Fíli had to be worried sick.

Kíli hopped up from the mossy log and set off anew, his pace determined. The Lookout-Tree was just around the corner. He wasn’t lost. He would go just up ahead and find it, and if he didn’t . . . if he didn’t, he would come back, and try the other direction in the morning.

But the old oak wasn’t around the next clearing, or the next after that. Kíli kept making promises to himself: thirty more paces and then stop. But then his belly growled, or an owl hooted above, and he lost track and had to start all over again because surely it was just . . . thirty more paces . . . away . . .

Kíli counted, and then re-counted, and had gotten to the point where he was just about to topple over where he stood when he saw the light.

Kíli blinked, certain he was imagining things, and then stretched his eyes wide. The firelight stayed where it was. A merry flare glowed between the trees, and for a long time Kíli only stared at it in bewilderment.

Someone else was there in the woods. He was not alone.

Unconsciously, his feet started to shuffle forward. The breeze turned toward him and he caught the aroma of a vegetable pottage. Kíli closed his eyes and inhaled, nearly moaning with anticipation. Food. It was real food.

It was not until he had ventured close to the camp that Kíli remembered the bandits. His breath seized in his chest. At once he dropped to a crouch, rustling the leaves as he found a position to peer out. To his luck, the shadows lay deep now, and darkness concealed his presence. Kíli held his breath to make up for his scuffling and squinted, but he could only see one silhouette crouched over the cook fire.

The figure was much too tall to be a dwarf, though.

Was he a bandit?

Kíli did not know. He weighed his chances: he had the bow, and the shadows meant he hadn’t been seen yet. And the smell of the pottage was making his mouth water.

He rustled out of the bushes, the bow in his hands, and the Man looked up from the fire.

“’Ello, lad,” he said without so much as lifting an eyebrow. Absently, he tapped a stirring-spoon against the edge of his pot.

He had been seen. Or heard, more likely. Kíli froze, the bow clutched limply in front of him. Half of him, irrationally, yearned to run, but that was stupid when he’d come this far already.

The Man eyed his weapon. “That your father’s bow?”

Kíli’s throat was dry. He swallowed and found his voice. “Mine. I . . . I’m hungry.”

Can I have some? was left unsaid.

“What’s a lad like you doin’ out alone in the wilderness? Your father know you’re here?”

“I don’t have a father,” said Kíli.

“My apologies.” The Man shifted, lowered his spoon, and squinted at him. “C’mere into the light, let’s get a look at you.”

Kíli lowered the bow and crept forward. As he neared, he saw, the Man was no bandit. He was a Ranger. His bow and quiver lay against the log next to him. He was dressed in a Ranger’s dusky cloak, the hood thrown back. He had a young man’s face, but it was sharpened and weathered by wind. His curly hair was dirty-blond, and it reminded Kíli of Fíli.

The Ranger’s eyes crinkled when he smiled. “How long’ve you been lost, lad?”

“I’m not lost,” Kíli objected at once.

The Ranger chuckled. “Have it your way, then. Me, I’ve been lost since the day I was born.”

Kíli stared at him blankly.

“I never had a father, either. Ma died when I was small. Well, that was it for me: I left for the wilds and never looked back.”

“Never?”

The Ranger smiled sadly. “Well, suppose I do miss it now and again. But, you get used to hearin’ nothin’ but yourself thinkin’ after a while.”

Kíli’s thoughts travelled back to Overhill, and Dís’s house. He had never meant to leave, not really, and thinking on it made him miss home more than ever. His fingers fiddled with the bead in his hair.

“Sit down, lad, and I’ll get you some food. Hey, now, I can’t keep calling you lad – you’ve got a name, haven’t you?”

“Kíli.”

“Well met, Kíli,” the Ranger said, inclining his head. “Name’s Fraser. Rare you meet a friendly face ‘round these parts, so I’ll say, very well met.”

Fraser the Ranger went for his bag to search for an extra bowl. Kíli sat down across from his fire, propping his bow against his leg. For the first time in long hours, he started to feel as if everything would turn out all right. At last, he had food steaming in front of him, and he might not even be lost. Rangers often stopped by Overhill for the dwarves’ master smithing, and sometimes they brought things to trade, pelts and fresh-caught meat. With any luck, Fraser knew the way home, or at the very least could point him in the right direction.

Then Kíli saw the sword.

Fraser’s cloak had fallen away from the sheath at his side, and Kíli stared, his breath seized cold in his chest. He recognized that sword. He remembered the golden tassels that he had twisted around his fingers while Thórin was reprimanding him.

He stared numbly at the Ranger’s back as Fraser rummaged, muttering to himself, and in sudden fear Kíli wondered if he knew. Had Thórin told him his sword had been stolen? Had he found a mark, a streak of blood Kíli’s diligent hands had missed, and suspected?

Ori had told him Men cut off the hands of thieves.

Kíli was not a Westron name. He could not pass himself off as a Man-child. The dwarfling suddenly, vehemently wished he hadn’t said anything. Kíli sat twining his hands in his lap, fidgeting in terror.

Fraser had said nothing yet. He had nothing to be afraid of.

But then the firewood next to him snapped, loud enough to make Kíli jump. It hissed, crackled, and a haze of flames reflected against silvered steel. Suddenly, blood flared behind his lids.

Burnface convulsed on the ground, a sword rammed through his ribs. Shadows screamed. The faceless Men had bound his hands, they were going to cut them off, but when Kíli begged and cried they only laughed.

“Found it,” said Fraser triumphantly, sitting up with two bowls in hand, but Kíli was already on his feet. Without a sound he grabbed his bow and ran like the hunted deer.

“Oi! Lad – Kíli –” Fraser called, but Kíli ducked his head, plunged past the veil of dark trees, and the shadows swallowed the Ranger’s voice.

 

-

 

Some time later, Kíli collapsed in a dug-out hollow between the roots. He was shaking from head to foot. He felt dizzy and ill, and crawling to his knees he threw up in the grass. Long after he had emptied his stomach, his body shuddered in dry heaves.

Afterwards, clutching his empty belly, terribly thirsty again, he crawled into the hollow. If he curled his knees to his chest, it assuaged the hunger pains somewhat.

Fraser wasn’t there in Oldtown, he told himself when his head had cleared. None of it was his fault. But now Kíli knew what Men – what wildlings – were capable of, and he was terrified. They had killed Burnface and ripped at each other and stolen a bit of mithril no larger than a sliver. Men weren’t to be trusted.

But dwarves had killed for mithril, too, Kíli remembered. And so had other things – dark things – Orcs and Goblins and shadows. He couldn’t trust any of them.

Kíli reached for the braid in his hair and tugged at it, like Fíli did sometimes. He couldn’t trust anybody, but he was pretty sure he could trust Fíli.

Only, Fíli wasn’t here.

Only, if Fíli was in the woods, he would know to stay in one place until it was light enough to see, and not get hopelessly lost.

Kíli bit his lip, hard. Princes of Durin’s folk didn’t cry. But he was lost, he was hungry and battered and tired, and he missed his brother more than anything. His fist curled around the braid, cold silver resting between his fingers.

Fíli wouldn’t cry.

And so, stubbornly, Kíli didn’t cry, either.

Yet it would be a long time before sleep claimed him in the hollow between the roots, carrying him off to a restless dream filled with fire and darkness.

 

-

 

Fíli woke up with his fists tangled in his brother’s pillow.

He blinked slowly and shut his eyes again with a groan. Kíli had been there in his dream, he was sure of it. Now, in the lightness seeping through the curtains, the memory was fading from him. Still, he remembered seeing Kíli’s pale face.

And the fire. The fire chasing him.

It had not been a good dream.

Fíli threw off the covers and rolled to a sitting position. His feet hit the cold floorboards and he squinted, scrubbing at his eyes. It was too light to be morning; he had slept late, a fact petulantly disputed by the steady ache in his legs and a reawakened throbbing in his temples. He kept one hand over his face, shielding himself from the light.

If he screwed up his eyes and thought, he vaguely remembered trooping through the forest yesterday, or maybe the night before that, and Dís giving him milk-tea that had made his head murky and heavy.

Fíli sat staring blankly at the wall for a moment longer before, suddenly, he stirred. He rose – winced as he wobbled on legs that seemed to have forgotten how to stand straight – and kicked his way into his boots.

When he ventured out into the hall, a rumbling voice reached him from the kitchen below. A male voice, surely Thórin. Fíli’s memory stirred. A flash of a white mineral, a solemn face. I will bring Kíli home, Thórin had promised in the woods. Fíli’s heart flipped in his chest.

Without a second thought he took the stairs two at a time, nearly tripped himself once over his flopping boots, and finally careened around the doorway to the kitchen.

“Rada –”

Fíli stopped in his tracks.

Thórin was not home.

It was Master Dwalin sitting in his chair at the table. Two places were set for lunch, and he and Dís had been speaking in low voices; they stopped when Fíli appeared in the doorway, staring blankly at them.

Kíli was not home, either.

“Thórin has not returned from the woods,” said Dís. She came over and pulled him into a hug. Her arms trembled against his back. “How are you feeling, Fíli? Are you hungry?”

He did not answer. Thórin had lied. He had promised to bring Kíli back. That was the only reason Fíli had let Thórin send him home, because he had been naive enough to believe him. Fíli forced several deep breaths into his lungs, trying to calm the sudden surge of incomprehensible emotions beating around his skull. At once he wanted to scream, to rage at Rada, to curl in the corner of his room and cry.

But he would do none of those things. He was an heir of Durin, and an heir of Durin knew perfect self-control.

When Dís let him go, he knew what he must do. Without a word, without a look at his amad or Master Dwalin, he turned for the door.

He made it halfway down the hall before Dís realized what he was doing. “Fíli, where are you going? Thórin will send word –”

“I’m going to the Underhall. To wait for him.” Fíli did not try to lie to her. Dís was worried. He saw it in her eyes when he turned back and looked up at her.

He would not run off again. He would not disappear into the woods. Fíli tried to promise these things with his eyes, already reaching for his fur cloak by the door.

“Fíli,” Dís whispered. “Your hair.”

Consciously Fíli reached up and touched his braids. They were half undone by now: he had slept on them, and tossed and turned with the fire-dream, and so his hair was matted and frizzled worse than ever. He looked more like a wildling than a prince.

But for once, Fíli didn’t care.

Kíli’s hands had made these braids, and he wouldn’t, couldn’t bring himself to take them down.

He let his hand fall. “I’m not your prince today, ama,” he whispered.

Then he turned and walked out the door.

The quiet village passed him by in a haze. Shop doors were open to the air; dwarves were heading about their business or chopping wood for their forges or smoking on their front porches. Gazes turned, pipes were lowered as the wild-eyed prince trooped past. By now, everyone knew what had happened, knew why Thórin and half the village’s dwarves were in the woods. Yet, mercifully, no one confronted him.

At last, silence greeted him in the Underhall.

The heavy oak doors closed behind him with a bang loud enough to make him jump. Fíli peered across the hall, but not even the cavern air had stirred. It was dark. The fires were burning low, sending odd shadows skittering across the high-backed throne at the end of the long table.

Fíli turned back, leaning his weight against the door with his temple pressed to the musky wood. He was alone now. Tremors ran the length of his body, threatening to take his feet out from under him, but he still would not cry.

There were dwarves about in the Underhall. Cooks and cleaners and pages – he couldn't see them, but he knew. There were always dwarves watching. And an heir of Durin didn’t cry.

But Kíli was an heir of Durin, too, and in his dream he had been crying, and there had been no one there to help him. Kíli was out in the woods somewhere, on his own, and probably hurt.

Fíli’s fists curled against the door. Kíli didn’t know how to handle himself on his own. He was only twenty-eight, barely a stripling. He didn’t know what was safe to eat and what wasn’t, he didn’t know about the dangerous places deep in the woods, and Thórin had taken away his sword, so he had left utterly unarmed.

And Kíli had left his mithril pendant behind, but Fíli didn’t want to think on what that meant.

Fíli’s fist closed around the cold silver chain through his shirt. It was too dark in the Underhall. Too quiet. The deep silence shrouded him, settled over his eyes, fooled him into misjudging the distance to the looming ceiling, to the walls. The cavernous space was too small. Dead air closed over his mouth and nose like a gag, stifling him.

On impulse Fíli flung open the doors again and stood squinting in the sunlight.

This time, he registered, he was not alone. There was a single dwarf in the field below the Underhall’s great oak doors, where not too long ago he and Master Dwalin had sparred for the Lord of the Iron Hills. But today, the copper-haired dwarfling was there alone.

Thórin III carried his sword in his left hand, awkwardly manoeuvring through a few basic drills. Fíli watched him. His cousin was not left-handed. His right arm hung at his side, forearm swathed in bandages. He waged against air, flailing his useless arm just a little too much for him to believe it was hurting him that badly.

Kíli had named their cousin the other day. Kíli named everything: it was his own childish way of categorizing, of making sense of the world around him. What was it? Fíli scrunched his brow, calling back the long-ago conversation as Kíli hunched on the kitchen stool with a bright red gash in his cheek.

Cousin Thórin noticed him staring. “Hey! Fíli!”

Fíli blinked. The other dwarfling had stopped swatting at air and now rested, leaning against his sword, peering up at him on the steps.

“I thought you were lost in the woods, too.”

“I was helping them look for my brother,” said Fíli.

“What’re you doing here, then?”

Fíli said nothing. He clenched his jaw and concentrated on his feet moving down the steps, and Thórin did not see the sudden burning look in his eyes.

“You know,” said Thórin, “Father said you’re pretty good with a sword or two. I wouldn’t have minded seeing if he was right, but with my arm the way it is . . .”

With his back to him, Fíli stopped in his tracks.

“You want to fight me?”

His voice was neutral. An acceptable question, that was all, but his hands had started to shake. Why was that? He curled them into fists at his sides. It occurred to him, very distantly, that he had walked out the door without either of his swords.

“Wanted,” said Thórin ruefully. “The Healers said I can’t use my sword arm for another week.”

And then, suddenly, Kíli’s voice broke through his mind.

Thorny.

Remember, Fee, Ama said bring both swords.

Fíli did not have a sword. But in that moment, he did not need one.

He did not know what Thórin thought when he abruptly turned on his heel, hunched his shoulders, and came barrelling at him with a roar like a mountain-lion. All he knew was the flash of his cousin’s widening eyes before he brought him crashing to the ground and his coiled fist connected with his jaw.

The sword clattered from Thorny’s hand. Fíli landed on his knees above his cousin’s chest and swung at him, again and again, until Thorny was yelping and his knuckles were stinging.

And then Thorny recovered his senses. He was younger than Fíli, but just bigger enough that he could push him off, and they fell in a tangle, grappling and screaming and cursing. Thorny seized Fíli by his unkempt braids and pulled. Fíli slammed his fist into his nose. Thorny hit the ground, gasping, not nearly as fierce with blood streaked across his proud face.

There was no one around to see the dwarflings scuffle. If there had, they would have been pulled apart at once and shouted at; and what followed would be shame for breaking the oaths of host-and-guest in the shadow of the peace-halls. But Fíli didn’t care. There was no one watching. Just for today, he was not a prince, and Thorny was not his equal.

Today, he was only Kíli’s brother.

“You – you stay away from him, you hear?” Fíli shouted when they were both only panting and smarting. He had pinned Thorny beneath his knees once more, and his cousin did not look half as brave now. He was sniffling, bright red trails of blood tracking from his broken nose.

Fíli’s eyes were stinging from having his hair pulled. He swiped his fist over them and glowered downward. “Swear it. You won’t go near him, you won’t speak to him, or else I’ll – I’ll destroy you, got it?”

Thorny whimpered.

Fíli hit him again until he swore, please I promise now let me go. Thorny had dissolved into pathetic, shuddering sniffles. Fíli looked at him dully for a moment and then, quite suddenly, the fire drained out of him.

Shakily he regained his feet, and without a word to the dwarfling crying on the ground he drifted back to the Underhall.

 

-

 

Later, Fíli felt sorry for his outburst.

He sat alone in Mahal’s temple, his bruised knuckles clutched in his lap. In here, the fires were always burning, always keeping the chapel as hot as a forge. The incense-laden air made his head feel heavy and his thoughts sluggish. Fíli’s ire cooled as his racing heartbeat slowed anew, and sweat broke out on his brow as he started to reflect on his wild actions.

Rada and Dáin were still out in the woods, but cousin Thórin would be tattling to Lady Éira, and all too soon they’d know what he’d done. Kíli had shed blood in the peace-halls, but at least he had followed the old customs and called for a duel-by-right.

Fíli had done no such thing when he pummelled his cousin out of sheer frustration.

It wasn’t that he felt bad about what he had done, even if Fíli knew he should have. The stubborn part of him that sounded like Kíli knew Thórin had deserved every blow, and he would never be able to say I’m sorry and mean it.

But now that the wild adrenaline of the fight had left him, he felt deeply ashamed. He had dishonoured his uncle by his un-princely demeanour, and Fíli feared he might have done a little more than put a toe out of line. For a people forged of stone, dwarves were hot-headed as a rule, and blood-feuds had started over lesser transgressions. Fíli could see the heavy look in Thórin’s eyes when he heard – the worried look he had worn much too often of late – and felt sorrier than ever. Thórin had enough to worry about with Kíli.

Fíli’s job was to be good, so that no one ever had to worry about him. But, somehow, the world had turned upside down. Princes had turned to wildlings. Kíli was missing. And Fíli was misbehaving in his place.

He clenched his fists in his lap. His knuckles throbbed, but he ignored them. He had a feeling Dís wouldn’t kiss his forehead and patch him up like she had done for Kíli. Fíli was supposed to know better. Fíli was older. Fíli was supposed to be perfect.

But if he was perfect, Fíli thought, he would have been able to keep Kíli in line better. He would have been able to stop him from running away. And even if that didn’t work, he still could’ve found him again.

Fíli clutched at the mithril through his shirt, his bruised knuckles stinging.

Heirs of Durin did not cry.

But he was not a prince today, not when no one was watching; and Fíli-just-Fíli was really just Fíli Alone, so he shuddered and clutched Kíli’s amulet and let the tears fall in the silence of Mahal’s domain.

 

 

 

Chapter Text

 

When Kíli woke up, he was thirsty and hungry.

The ravens had woken him. The black birds settled in the willow over his head, chittering to one another as they hopped from branch to branch. Kíli grimaced at them as he sat up.

He left his hollow beneath the roots, gingerly picking his way down to the river to drink. He was headed back up the river today, he thought as he splashed cold water on his cheeks. An old cut twinged, and his feet throbbed at the thought of so much more walking, but he steeled his thoughts.

It was the only option, he reminded himself. Even if it meant risking running into more bandits. He had to find his way back to Oldtown and the Lookout-Tree. He was sure upriver was the way home.

Thus resolved, Kíli retrieved his bow, his quiver, his knives, and set off.

Mid-morning, he stumbled across a thicket of red berries along the riverbank. They weren’t bilberries, but they were swollen and somewhat tart, and he filled his pockets with them. After a few minutes of eating, Kíli’s belly was tight and sick, so he moved on.

About half an hour later, he threw up red-speckled sick in the bushes. Soon the rest of the uneaten berries found their way onto the ground, too. Kíli clambered to his feet, swiped at his streaming nose, and kept going.

And then he just couldn’t anymore.

Kíli fell flat in the grass and rolled onto his belly. For long minutes he only lay there, eyes closed, sunlight dappling his skin. The sun was high; the breeze was warm and gentle.

It was an excellent day for exploring, but Kíli couldn’t bear to move. The heat stuck his tunic to his back. His belly was in knots. He was hungry and aching and his hand still hurt where he’d cut it on the rocks the other day, and he was still so hungry.

Longingly he called back the smell of vegetable pottage boiling over a fire. He wished he had stayed with Fraser the Ranger in his camp. He wished he hadn’t ever scampered off into the forest with his head full of dragons. He wished he hadn’t left home at all.

The tears came on suddenly.

Kíli quivered, curled tight on his side, his arms around his belly. He wanted to go home so badly. He didn’t even care if Thórin punished him until he grew old and white. He just wanted to see Rada and Ama and Fíli again.

Dwarvish princes weren’t supposed to cry. But Kíli wasn’t a prince. He was lost, he was alone, and everyone only ever called him a wildling anyway.

It was several minutes before Kíli’s eyes dried. He scrubbed at his cheeks and sniffed. The tears hadn’t helped. Now his throat hurt. But dwelling on how much everything hurt and ached would only make him cry again, so he held his breath, hefting himself off the grass.

Kíli told himself it was a hundred more paces to Oldtown.

Soon a hundred became two hundred, then three. Kíli’s feet dragged onward, and to make the time pass he sang Rada’s song, the one about the mountains cold. But the questing-song quavered in the still air, more sad and lonely than brave, and so Kíli tapered off.

A few hours after the sun had reached its peak, Kíli had to stop again. He removed the bow and quiver and laid them out at his side as he curled in the grass. He clutched his knees against his chest. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. Real food, not berries, not charred meat that came back up again. He was hungry, and so very tired.

Kíli’s heavy lids drooped. He would just close his eyes for a minute, he promised himself. A nap, and then he’d be strong enough to keep going.

The grasses stirred.

Once, the movement would have made him tense, but he was too tired now. Slowly, with more effort than necessary, he opened his eyes and saw the rabbit.

Rabbit.

Numbly, with fingers that seemed too stiff, too thick, he grasped for the bow. An arrow. Where were his arrows? He found the quiver by his head and slid one feathered shaft loose.

The simple motions took over. Fit the arrow to the notch. Steady the bow. Close one eye. Pull the string back.

This time, without even lifting his head from the grass, Kíli did not miss.

 

-

 

Cooked rabbit wasn’t so bad after all, Kíli concluded.

He had sharpened a long stick until he could skewer his catch through; then he had built a little fire surrounded by stones and sat watching his dinner roast. Fatty grease dripped and hissed into the fire. The smell of it was almost too much. Kíli was greedy, and he wanted to take it off the fire too soon, but he forced himself to wait. His belly was growling something fierce by the time it finally seemed to be done.

And when at last he sank his teeth into a meaty piece of leg, the taste wasn’t so bad at all. The meat was a little chewy (he had overdone it some, in the end), but he couldn’t complain. Dís would have hated his manners. He ate with sticky hands, dripping red saliva all down the front of his tunic and his sleeves, but he couldn’t help it. He was so very hungry.

Later, Kíli threw up most of his ravenous meal. After two days of wandering, his weakened stomach couldn’t handle so much meat. But he didn’t mind. He made an effort to clean himself up and came back to the fire. Using one of Burnface’s knives, he sliced a modest bit off the front leg and nibbled on it, and that took the taste away.

When the fire burned out, Kíli lay in the grass sucking on his greasy fingers and looked at the cloudless sky. Thoughtlessly, he lifted his hand and measured the distance of the sun from its apex. Mid-afternoon. If he kept walking, he could maybe make it back to the caves of Oldtown before dusk. If he was lucky, it would still be light enough to see the right direction back to the Lookout-Tree.

It was hard to get up, to keep his feet moving. Yet, when Kíli uncovered his bow and his five remaining arrows, he swelled a little with pride. He decided he would tell Thórin about the rabbit. After all the worrying and punishing was done, of course. He would have quite a few stories to tell Rada and Ama and Fíli.

The aspiring thought was enough to get him up and moving again, and Kíli started to sing – a nonsensical little ditty of his own invention – as he wandered on into the wilds.

 

-

 

Sometimes, Thórin wondered if he had done his sister-sons wrong.

He sat brooding into the fire as shadows stretched across the ruins of Belegost. Now and again he caught a murmur of voices; dwarves moved among the rubble, conferring with one another, searching out more evidence of the struggle they had first deemed took place in one of the caves.

It was true that he had never had too much time to waste on the boys. As a dwarfling himself, he had rarely seen Thráin outside of councils and dinners, but for the precious time he had brought Thórin into his forge alone. He was now King under the Mountain: he could not be expected to attend to the triflings of dwarflings on top of everything else.

And yet, after he had seen Dori and Nori racing to embrace Ori, after he had watched tears form in the forge-hardened smith’s eyes when Glóin saw his son was safe, Thórin had to wonder if, above ground, things should not be different.

Fíli and Kíli had grown up without a father. Their uncle was the closest they had to one, and from an early age they had to learn that the uncle they knew at home was also King under the Mountain to the outside world.

If they had still lived in Erebor, it would have been different. Dwarflings had still been few and far between then, but at least they would have grown up as they should have, in the shadow of their mountain. Then there had been nurse-maids to watch the dwarflings while their mothers and fathers delved in the mines or worked the forges; then they would have gone home to the love of mother, father, uncles, grandparents; then they would have slept without worry with stone over their heads.

Had Fíli and Kíli been born in Erebor, he would have carried them on his shoulders and shown them the statues of their forefathers in the Hall of Kings and told them the legends of Durin’s folk while a dwarfling’s fingers tangled in his braids, as Thráin had done for him and Frérin long ago. They would have lived in the immortal presence of the old heroes instead of hearing about them from Balin’s history books. Kíli had never forgiven him for the lessons, and though Fíli was always diligently attentive, Thórin had to wonder if they didn’t bore him sometimes, too.

But even if Fíli was as restless as Kíli – even if he, too, yearned to climb trees and play all those strange games the raven-haired boy had invented – he would never say anything. He would not complain, because that was how Thórin had raised him. Durin’s name, the boy was barely past thirty, and yet he was as solemn as if he was sixty, as if he had been so weathered to the world that not even the sight of death could break him. Somehow, Thórin knew, this was his doing. Where was the golden-haired child who had sat on his lap and laughed at his uncle’s stories? Gone. He was a sombre prince now.

And that was not to think of Kíli: and thinking of his second sister-son nearly shattered his heart. Where he had pushed Fíli to the point of breaking, he had not pushed Kíli enough. He had let the boy slack off in his lessons and wander into trouble everywhere he went. And why? Because he already had Fíli to be the righteous prince, and it was clear Kíli would never be the same? Or was it more selfish than that – had he wanted Kíli to stay that way, to remind him, just a little, of the way Frérin had been?

Now he had failed them both. Kíli was gone. The parting words he had left Fíli echoed, mockingly, in his head. I will bring Kíli home if it is the last thing I do. Was it too much to ask for forgiveness from a boy who had grown up too fast, too soon?

Thórin closed his eyes.

Mahal, what more could I have done?

“You have been very quiet, cousin.”

Thórin opened his eyes and lifted his head from his folded hands. “What is there to be said?”

Dáin sat down on the log across from him with a sigh. He propped his war-axe next to him and tossed another stick onto the fire.

“They’ve found bits of rope in the cave. Bindings. The dwarflings were held captive there.”

“Ori said as much.”

Dáin surveyed him for a long, thoughtful moment. “A dwarfling looks much like a Man-child.”

Thórin said nothing. The thought had occurred to him, as well, and Kíli, scrawny, beardless, who looked so much less like a dwarf than the rest, was all that more mistakeable for a small Man.

He just hoped he was small enough not to be taken for a bandit.

“Thórin, we’ve found another camp.”

Thórin blinked out of his contemplation. Balin stood over the fire now, the light flickering across his shining brow. He waited respectfully for the king to gather his thoughts and acknowledge him. Thórin vaguely remembered sending off a scouting party into the woods. “Another one? Where?”

“Up on the ridge. Bifur saw their fires.”

Thórin had long known rogue bands of Men had taken shelter along the flanks of Ered Luin. Sometimes the nearest village mayors sent raids into the woods after their crops and animals went missing, but neither side had bothered Overhill, so Thórin had left the matters of Men alone. Now his brow pinched and his hand fell on the axe at his side.

“Dáin, gather your men. Balin, lead us to them.”

Balin nodded without question; he already saw their recourse in Thórin’s hardening gaze.

 

-

 

The ambush was swift and silent.

The Men had barely the chance to cry out before the dwarves of Overhill and the Iron Hills came charging out of the bushes. Axes swung, steel flashed. In the dying sunlight the dwarvish warriors cleared the camp, and in the aftermath Thórin found himself panting. Dáin was at his back, wordlessly cleaning the edge of his axe as two of his warriors went chasing down after a desperate escapee.

Balin and Bifur had seized the leader. The Man knelt on the ground, shaking beneath his bloodstained pelts. Bifur held a blade to his throat, but it was not particularly necessary. The sight of the wild-eyed, silent warrior with an axe-head buried in his skull was enough to dispel any thought of escape.

“You there,” Thórin growled, stumping toward the trio. The bandit’s head jerked up. He had not come through the skirmish unscathed: the blood matting his pelts came from his left arm, which hung at a crooked angle. “We’re looking for a dwarfling. Small, dark-haired, beardless. He would look very much like a child to you.”

“I never touched no dwarflings, sir,” said the wildling.

Thórin growled suddenly. He stepped forward and seized the Man by the front of his furs, feeling him flinch against him. “If we find any of you hurt the boy, by Mahal, you’ll suffer a worse fate than your men.”

The bandit struggled weakly against him, scrabbling against Thórin’s clutches with his uninjured hand. “Now listen, sir,” he pleaded, “my folk ain’t never looked twice at children. Bad business in that. I swear it, please –”

“What were you doing in the wilds then?” Dáin interceded. Thórin had not noticed his cousin’s appearance at his shoulder, but now he stood with a frown, his hand resting on Barazanthual.

The bandit’s eyes rolled toward him. “The furs,” he almost groaned the admittance, “Down in the villages they pay up for ‘em. No one misses a few beavers and wolves. Please, sir, I never stole from your folk and I never hurt no children, I ain’t done you no wrong –”

Thórin drew himself up, his voice like a thunderclap. “You have tainted my mountain with your filth. That has done me wrong.”

“The mountains don’t belong to no Man,” the bandit protested.

“And I am no Man.” Thórin let the bandit fall in disgust. He landed on his wounded arm with a cry and did not immediately get up again. “Ered Luin was claimed long ago by Thráin, son of Thrór, in the name of Durin’s folk. I am Thórin, son of Thráin, King under the Mountain. Remove this filth from my sight!”

Bifur grasped the wildling by the shoulders, hauling him back to his feet. A whimper escaped the Man as his feet nearly gave out from under him again, but there was no kindness in Bifur’s wild eyes.

“Hold? Or punish?”

The bandit moaned as if Bifur had asked if he could clobber his head with an axe, too.

“See that he is detained in the Underhall,” Thórin answered in Khúzdul. “I will question him further later. Answer any protest as you see fit.”

Bifur nodded and gave the bandit a glower as he dragged him away. Thórin was still gazing after the two of them when Dáin shouted a warning.

“Thórin –!”

Thórin turned.

He had not seen the shadow detach from the treeline. All he saw was the long arc of a readied bow, an arrow cocked at the fearsome figure who had just flung aside the bandit leader like a sack of potatoes. At Dáin’s shout dwarves were already rushing toward the intruder, and Balin took a step in front of his king.

It hit him very suddenly that the figure crouched behind the bow was too small to be a bandit.

“STAND DOWN!” Thórin roared, shouldering his way around Balin. His old friend gasped as Thórin placed himself back in the arrow’s path. Thórin cared nothing for him. His eyes were fixated on the small dark-haired figure standing, unwavering, on the edge of the clearing.

That was no Man.

“KÍLI!”

The lithe figure faltered. Shadows that had seemed so menacing transformed into familiar faces, foremost among them his uncle, now striding forward to meet him. The bow slipped from his hands; Kíli’s knees crumpled.

Thórin caught his sister-son as he fell. His heart seemed to have jammed into his throat. He sank to his knees in the grass and held the dwarfling against him. “Kíli,” he repeated, combing the tangles of dark hair in his hands. In response he felt the boy’s fists close in the front of his furs. “Kíli.”

For a long while, that was all he knew how to say.

The rest of the company were gathering around them. There were words he would have to give them, Thórin thought distantly, but he could not think what they were at the moment.

Balin’s hand fell on his shoulder. “You all right, lad?” he asked kindly, smiling down at Kíli.

At that, Thórin thought to look at him, too. The dwarfling looked so much smaller than he remembered. With his royal tunic tattered, his long hair in snarls, a loaded quiver on his back, Kíli looked more like a wildling than a dwarf prince; but it did not miss Thórin’s notice that a single silver bead still hung defiantly in his hair.

Dís would have a field day with him for certain, but that was for later.

“Rada,” said Kíli, his hands clutching tighter at his furs. “I caught a rabbit, Rada.”

Kíli.

“I caught a rabbit,” he repeated louder, as if he was afraid Thórin hadn’t heard him the first time. “I caught a rabbit. I – in the woods.”

Thórin looked into Kíli’s too-bright eyes. Was that fever in his grin? He would send for Óin as soon as they got the boy home.

“Balin,” he spoke over the boy’s head, “fetch the ponies.”

“At once.”

“I did,” Kíli protested against him. “I did, I swear. See?” He felt for his bow, but it was missing. He scrambled for where it lay in the grass, tearing himself out of Thórin’s embrace.

“Kíli,” he said softly.

The dwarfling paused. He stood with the too-large bow propped under his arm, his face shining, bemused by his uncle’s lack of response to his accomplishment.

In that moment, Thórin realized it was not fever in Kíli’s eyes.

It had been a long time since Thórin had been so vividly reminded of Avnor.

“Kíli,” he repeated, and in a single motion rose and caught the dwarfling in another hug. Kíli clung to him one-handed, the bow digging awkwardly under Thórin’s arm.

Balin was returning with the ponies in tow, but before he withdrew, Thórin had words just for Kíli to hear.

“A rabbit, was it? Never have I been so proud of you.”

Princes of Durin weren’t supposed to cry, but just this once Thórin said nothing when Kíli buried his face in the front of his furs and quaked with tears of joy.

 

 

Chapter Text

For the first time in a long time, Kíli woke up in his own bed at home.

For the first time in a long time, he was not hungry or thirsty and the ground was not cold and hard beneath his head. Kíli rolled over and stretched widely, his arms flopping across the still-warm covers, and grinned in languid contentment.

"Look who's finally awake."

Kíli's eyes snapped open.

It had been a long time since he'd heard that voice, too.

He sat up and stared, wide-eyed, at Fíli, who had his hands planted on his sides and the Prince's Look firmly in place. "About time. I thought I'd have to wake you myself."

Kíli blinked. Distantly, he remembered Uncle Thórin helping him up onto the front of his pony, but he could not remember coming out of the woods. Rada's furs had been warm and very soft. Kíli's face reddened: he must have fallen asleep.

"I didn't sleep that long," he objected, though he wasn't quite sure how long that long was.

But Fíli only grinned, and just as suddenly all pretences between them vanished. He crossed the two steps to the bed and seized Kíli in a hug so forceful it sent them both crashing down. Kíli landed on his back with a mouthful of golden hair, and without knowing why, tears welled in his eyes.

"I – I missed you, Fee. In the woods."

"Shush, heirs of Durin don't cry."

"But you're heavy," Kíli sniffled.

Fíli ceded. Delicately he clambered off him and sat on the edge of the bed as he waited for Kíli to scrub at his eyes. The younger brother discovered a fresh bandage on his cheek where Thorny had cut him a few days ago, and he absently picked at it.

"Your hair's a mess," noted Fíli.

"I still got a braid, though." Kíli grabbed at it proudly. The silver bead that had somehow survived his adventure clung defiantly to the end of his tufted hair. Now he unclasped it and on a whim held it out in his fist. "Here."

"What's that?"

"Your hair-bead. You told me not to lose 'em."

Fíli scoffed. "What'm I supposed to do with one bead?" But he still took it from Kíli's hand. After a moment's thought, he untied the end of his left braid and clipped the silver bead on instead. Kíli wrinkled his nose: his head was lopsided now, since the other bead he wore was blue.

"You can have this one." Fíli curled Kíli's fist around the blue bead. "Consider it a trade. You like blue better than me anyway."

Kíli looked down at their clasped hands. "Fee, what happened to your hands?"

There were neat bandages wrapped around Fíli's knuckles. Too quickly, he withdrew his hands again.

"Nothing."

Kíli opened his mouth, but Fíli hopped up from the bed then and decided Kíli must be hungry, they should head down to the kitchen.

They trooped out into the hall and down the stairs. Kíli slipped into Fíli's shadow and clasped his hand. His brother shot him a sharp look, but when Kíli said nothing more about the bandages chafing against his fingers, he did not let go.

Dís was in the kitchen, preparing lunch.

"Ama, Fíli said my hair's a mess," Kíli objected.

"Well, we'll have to do something about that, won't we?" Dís smiled. Already Kíli had climbed onto a stool, and Fíli leaned up against the table next to him, his arms crossed.

"Fíli, did you let your brother sleep at all?" (Dís noticed Kíli was scrubbing at his eyes again in the bright kitchen.)

"He slept all morning," Fíli complained. "And he was snoring."

Kíli protested. "Was not, you were snoring."

"Then how come I heard it?"

"'Cause it was so loud it was in your dreams, pig."

"That doesn't even make sense." Fíli shook his head. "Whelp."

Kíli stuck out his tongue. Fíli was too princely for that: he scrunched his nose at Kíli. At that moment Dís reappeared with a comb, forestalling any further argument.

"Ouch!"

Dís eased the ugly tangle out of the comb. "I'm afraid this is going to hurt, however I do it."

Kíli clutched the edge of the stool beneath him and stared determinedly at Fíli and his lopsided braids.

"Do I hafta wear the braids, too?"

Dís chuckled. "No, Kíli. Dáin and his company left early this morning. You don't have to wear the prince's braids unless you want to."

"Then I don't wanna wear them."

"As you wish." Dís drew the comb all the way through to the ends of his hair and laid the finished strands over his shoulder. "You know, Dáin left you well-wishes and his apologies that he could not say them when you were awake. They could not afford to wait; they had a very long journey ahead of them."

Kíli had an idea of the formal sorts of well-wishes and goodbyes that would have been exchanged while he was sleeping. He scrunched his nose. It was a good thing he had slept through it.

"And Thorny's gone?"

Dís tackled the next snarl in his hair. "Your cousin left his well-wishes, too."

"And I wish all his hair falls out 'n his beard never grows."

Fíli coughed, not quite covering his smirk behind his fist. "Well, it's a start," Dís said.

But Thorny was gone, so it didn't quite matter anymore. Kíli went quiet on the stool. Dís's comb yanked at his hair, and tears stung his eyes. Yet, Fíli was watching, and he had said heirs of Durin didn't cry, so Kíli didn't cry. He bit his lip and focused his gaze on the silver bead in Fíli's hair.

"Ama?"

"Yes, Kíli?"

"Am I a bastard?"

Dís accidentally pulled too hard as she worked her comb loose. Kíli bit his cheek but didn't cry out. "Mahal's name, of course not. Whatever gave you that idea?"

"I don't got an adad." Kíli paused. "And Fíli don't, either."

"That's not true. You both had a father." Dís's voice had gone quiet. She let out a breath and went back to his hair. "Now where did this come from?"

But Kíli was still thinking of Burnface, who had sneered and called him a bastard; and Fraser, who never had a father either.

"Where'd he go then?"

"He's dead, Kíli."

"How?"

Dís chose her words carefully, picking apart his hair. "It was . . . a warg raid on the village. Fíli, you were very small at the time. Kíli wasn't born yet. That winter had been too harsh. The wargs came down from the mountains to feed on our herds. But the herds were too thin; they couldn't resist the thought of dwarf-blood. Your father went with Thórin to lead the defence. They saved our village in the end, but his wounds . . . it was too late."

In front of him, Fíli had said nothing, but his eyes had gone wide and Kíli knew he had never heard this story, either.

"Why'd we never hear 'bout him?" asked Kíli. "We hear 'bout grandfather and great-grandfather all the time."

Fíli answered that. "It's because he was a Firebeard, wasn't it?"

"No, my love, Avnor wasn't a Firebeard. Thórin said that to Dáin, I know." Dís sighed and laid another neatly straightened section over Kíli's shoulder. "Avnor was a Man."

For a moment, Kíli did not know what to think. Fíli straightened against the edge of the table and his hands slipped. "So we are bastards, then," he concluded. His voice was careful and princely, but his eyes had narrowed with something like hurt.

"You are princes of Durin's folk," said Dís, firmly. "Now do you understand why I've never told you? There were . . . some dwarves, some more outspoken than others, who disapproved. My stubborn brother was one of them, and he married us.

"But those dwarves forgot who Avnor was," Dís said quietly, her fingers busy with the comb in Kíli's hair. "They forgot our first winter in Ered Luin; they forgot we nearly starved in the cold before he brought us aid. We had been deserted by kin, by neighbours, and yet it was a poor Ranger who saved us. Avnor gave until it broke him, and we had nothing to give in return."

Kíli absorbed this in silence, watching Fíli's face for how a prince should react. But Fíli did not seem to know how a prince should react, either: he bit his lip, fixating the ground, his bandaged fists tight on the edge of the table.

"Your father might not have been a king or a hero of legends, but he was a great man. Do not let them tell you otherwise."

Kíli thought of Lady Éira's long-ago words, the ones that had made Dís so angry. Turn into wildlings. "Is it 'cause of the wildlings?"

"Is what because of the wildlings, my love?"

"That you can't tell anyone. That they'll think we're wildlings."

"Well, I suppose that is one way to think of it." Dís sighed. "Sometimes, I think, you boys are lucky to have been born above-ground. You see the world differently than us. The old ways are hard to ignore, especially for your rada. But what took so long for us to accept comes naturally to you."

"Why?"

Dís smiled. "You boys don't know the hearts of dwarves. Made of stone, they say. Under the mountains, the old ways are paramount. Dwarves live the same way there as their forefathers, generation after generation, all the way back to Durin himself."

"And the braids too?"

"Yes, Kíli, the braids too. So, for some . . . to see dwarves living in the sunlight . . . to see them fraternizing with Men and living in peace with Elves . . . it is unnatural, more than anything."

Kíli quieted. So that was why, he thought. He and Fíli weren't like the mountain-dwarves. They were wildlings who wandered in the woods and climbed trees and caught rabbits. They were half-dwarves.

Dís squeezed his shoulders.

"But not to me," she whispered in his ear. "And I don't believe your uncle would disagree. The world has changed outside our mountains since Durin's days. And the world will have changed further before our time is through. If we contented ourselves living in the past, we'd have died long ago, your great-grandfather and all of us, in the Lone Lands."

"We'd have found something," Fíli objected.

"And we did." Dís smiled. "If there's one thing to be said of Durin's folk, it's that we're as stubborn as the Deathless, every last one."

By the time Dís had nearly won out against Kíli's tangles, a solemn quiet had filled the kitchen. Both Fíli and Kíli were thinking. Kíli didn't know what was running through his brother's mind. Fíli had started to poke absent-mindedly at his bandages, even if he would have reprimanded Kíli for doing the same.

Kíli shifted on the stool. "Ama?"

"Yes, Kíli?"

"Do you miss him, sometimes?"

"Oh, I miss him every day." Dís kissed the top of his head. "But then I look at both of you and realize I am not alone." She took a step back. Kíli's hair was mostly straight again, two long sections draped over either shoulder.

"Now, Kíli, I'd almost say you look like a dwarf again." Dís studied him with a smile, tapping the comb against her chin. "Shall I braid your hair now?"

Immediately Kíli scrunched his face. "No!"

Dís laughed. Kíli was still making faces when she pulled the long sections back from his eyes and clipped them behind his head. Kíli, bemused, turned his head and prodded at the alien clasp. "What'd you put -?"

"This is one of my old hair-clips. My ama gave it to me, when I was close to your age. Is it good enough for a prince?"

Kíli couldn't see the clip. He turned his head inquiringly so that Fíli could see.

His brother nodded his approval. "Kíli's always losing things, though. I gave him beads and he lost them."

"Well, I'll just have to trust you'll take special care of this one." Dís let his hair down again and put the silver clasp in Kíli's hands so he could look at it.

Kíli turned it over. "If I wear this, I don't hafta wear the braids anymore . . .?"

"No, Kíli, you don't have to wear the braids. But if you wear this for me, you're still going to be a prince."

Kíli considered. The clasp was simple but pretty, and it wouldn't get in his face like the braids. He nodded. "Put it back."

Dís obeyed and clipped his hair back. As soon as her hands were finished, Kíli hopped off the stool and ran to the looking-glass in the hall to see what Prince Kíli looked like.

He heard Dís's laugh echoing after him. Kíli stood on tiptoe and looked intently at his reflection. Prince Kíli wasn't all that different from Kíli-just-Kíli: there was still a white bandage on his cheek, his hair was still wild and long, but it was less in his eyes now. Maybe that was the difference.

Kíli was still tugging cautiously at his hair when the door opened and Thórin entered. He raised an eyebrow at the sight, but Kíli only grinned. Rada's arms were speckled up to the elbows with soot, and he carried a bundle of fur under one arm.

"Ama said I don't hafta wear the braids anymore," he told Thórin proudly. "I've got the prince's clip, see?"

"I see that," said Thórin. "Kíli, I would like a word with you as well. In the kitchen, perhaps."

Kíli nodded. Quick as a flash, while Rada was taking off his boots and cloak, he ran back to the kitchen (pausing just long enough to check his hair one last time in the glass as he passed). Inside, Fíli was helping Dís set the table for lunch, but he stopped when Kíli nearly collided with his side.

"Did Rada punish me yet?" he whispered to Fíli.

"'Course not, stupid, you were sleeping."

Kíli was about to explain that Rada could have already decided on his punishment while he was sleeping, but at that moment Thórin entered the kitchen and he fell silent. Kíli started to reach for Fíli's hand and then changed his mind. He had escaped bandits and survived like a wildling in the woods. He was not afraid.

Yet, Kíli knew he was in for it. He had beaten Thorny and run off into the woods with Ori and Gimli, and he had been captured by bandits and lost for too many days. He had worried them too much. He lifted his chin and clutched his hands into fists, ready for judgement.

Thórin cleared his throat. He wore his Most Serious Face today as he shifted his grip on the fur-wrapped bundle. Kíli's eyes flickered to it in confusion. Did that have something to do with his punishment?

"First, I must apologize. I have not been forthright with you, Kíli. But I have thought long on it, and I have realized that it is far past time I gave you this."

Kíli opened his mouth and closed it again blankly. What about punishment? What about running away? But when Thórin stepped forward and laid the cloth bundle across his hands, Kíli suddenly knew what it was.

"But I'm not allowed," he said automatically, his voice hushed.

Thórin looked almost amused. "Would you look at it first?"

Kíli obeyed. He lifted the cloth with shaking hands and beheld the sheath of his sword. It was a short blade, dwarvish make, shaped to a dwarfling's height. He did not know what to think. He looked very quickly to Fíli and his brother mouthed, Go on.

Kíli bit his lip and drew the sword. Steel quivered in the air. It was sturdier than the Ranger's sword, but lighter than Fíli's, and for a moment gripping the leather-wrapped hilt Kíli thought, with this, he almost stood a chance against his brother.

"Is it really mine?"

"It is yours, until you learn to forge your own," Thórin concurred. "What say you? Will king's steel suit your needs?"

Kíli said nothing. He couldn't say anything: his throat had gone tight and princes of Durin didn't cry.

"Don't let this go to your head." Thórin's hand fell, affectionately, atop his neatened hair. "I have given you this now because it is long overdue, and that is an oversight on my part. You will still follow through with your current punishment. For your adventure in the woods, I think, you will spend an additional month cleaning the forge and the stables."

When Kíli said nothing, Thórin went on, "Is that understood?"

He ducked his head. "Y-yes, Rada."

"Fíli, you'll see to it that he does?"

"Yes, Rada," said Fíli.

Kíli glanced over at his brother in confusion. "Why're you coming?"

Fíli became suddenly interested in his boots. Thórin cleared his throat, easing his hand from Kíli's hair. "Fíli very nearly started a blood-feud while you were gone. He should consider himself lucky Dáin sympathized with a brother's pain, or it would have been much harder to get his company – and his son – to leave."

Kíli looked around at Fíli, his eyes now very wide. "You fought Thorny?"

Fíli was still staring determinedly at the ground, but his ears went a little pink at his younger brother's awe.

"Now, then, let's have no more talk of feuding," said Dís. "You won't win many wars on an empty stomach, now will you?"

Kíli was hungry. He carefully sheathed his new sword as Fíli jolted back into motion, grabbing a forgotten stack of plates.

"Kíli," said Thórin quietly. Kíli looked up. "I will retract the last part of your punishment. You may return to the training grounds, though I would prefer you attended your lessons with Master Dwalin and did not bother the dwarflings."

The weight of it all sank in suddenly: the real sword in his hands, the fact that Master Dwalin would be teaching him, just like Fíli. His eyes grew overbright and he lunged suddenly at his uncle, burying his face in his sable furs so he didn't see.

"Uncle, you're the very best! I promise I'll never run away again, I swear it, I won't!"

At first, Thórin seemed too startled to react. Then the King under the Mountain knelt and returned the raven-haired dwarfling's gesture.

"Now that," he said quietly, "is very high praise."

The End.