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Chapter Text

Though his boots stood upon hardy stone, he could sense no connection to the earth; nor could he feel the icy fingers of a baleful wind that tossed his hair in his face and plucked at his clothes. The grievous wounds he'd taken did not pain him, and he knew with dispassionate surety that he was dead.

The landscape about him was indistinct save for a flicker which caught his attention, like a campfire glimpsed through a murky night. Approaching, he saw that it was indeed a fire, though kindled on bare rock with no other fuel. Its heat was the first thing that had been able to touch him since he'd... awoken, and he drew very near, greedily soaking it in.

"How like you my blaze, son of Durin?"

It was not within his present capacity to be alarmed by the sudden question, or by the tall shape he now spied on the opposite side of the fire. He thought it had not been there a moment before. Where he was a faded ghost of his former self, the figure seemed cut out of smoke and shadows, held in shape by raw will.

"It was laid in anticipation of your arrival."

Mindful of having taken the other's hospitality, he opened his mouth to reply without being certain that his voice remained to him. "It is appreciated. You have my thanks."

"A princely gift," the figure chuckled, and the fire licked toward the sound.

There was much he would ask -- his brother and uncle, the Company and armies -- but first he had to know, "Are you my Maker?"

"Does this look like the waiting halls to you?"

It did not. All was exposed to the elements, with no shelter near. He knew this, though his vision could not penetrate far beyond the ring of firelight.

The other reasoned, "If you were ready to make that journey you would not linger here."

"Do I linger?" The fire's heat delivered the answer as it seeped into him, thawing places that had been numb. Anger and resentment sparked to life, and with them shame. Laments would be sung for him, and a fine tomb carved. His mother would hear that he'd fallen honorably in battle when in truth he'd been helpless against the fatal blow, his hands empty of weapons and fear in his heart.

It should not have been his end. He'd been raised to believe himself better than that.

Grasping something from the ground, the figure dipped it into the fire. "I once served Aule and know much of your kind -- your bloodline in particular. For years I stood watch over your grandsire, and thus I have the means to make his grandson a gift."

The item held out in offering proved to be a massive goblet, solid gold and crusted with jewels, such as belonged in Erebor's treasure hall. Indeed it was so handsome that a king would think twice to put it to common use, preserving it instead for occasions of ceremony. Feeling that this was such an occasion, he accepted with due solemnity.

"Drink," urged his benefactor, "Fili, son of Dis, daughter of Thrain."

The cup held a dose of liquid fire, smoldering darkly yet giving little heat of its own. Doubt stirred in him. "What will happen?"

"That is the gamble. It is possible some stones will remain fixed in your way, impeding your goal, but you have within you the potential to alter the course of the entire mighty river. Whatever happens will be at least partly of your making."

"You speak like an elf," he decided, "or a wizard. Can you give me no plain answer?"

The figure uttered a harsh word, causing the fire to roar and spiral as a great column into the sky. Its light pierced the surrounding gloom, exposing the nearby edge of a cliff before sweeping down to crawl over the valley far below.

Never losing the cup, Fili moved to the icy precipice and took in the scene. If any living souls still toiled upon the battlefield he could not see them. Only the slain, carpeting thick the land before the mountain's gate: dwarves, men, and elves alike. Their numbers were beyond counting, and he understood that the day must end in sorrow.

No, not just sorrow. Defeat and bitterest grief, for when he looked behind him he saw the broken bodies of his brother and uncle. He cried out and meant to run to them, but he was seized by some power and held transfixed.

"Here is your answer. Your lineage is ended. Your kin and allies water the dragon's desolation with their blood. Is it plain enough for you, oh prince?" Cruel point made, the figure gentled its voice with sympathy. "Will you not take the chance I give you to set events down a different road?"

There was no outcome that could be worse than the truth he faced. Fili raised the goblet to his lips and drank.

~~~~~

It wasn't the first time Fili had come to his senses with his brother's arms clamped around him. He knew their sinewy archer's strength at once. A chokehold was the one reliable maneuver Kili could employ to win against him; and Fili had been known, in his pride and stubbornness, to black out for lack of air before yielding.

That traditionally ended the tussle or argument.

"Kee," he panted. "Enough. Need t' breathe."

Kili was trembling, as he sometimes did when furious, but his arms clung more than they squeezed. He rocked back and forth with his face mashed into Fili's shoulder, causing Fili to reflexively hold him in kind.

The sun was near its dazzling zenith, but it was water rather than the sharp light blurring Fili's vision. He blinked back tears, troubled by the tightness in his chest that gulps of fresh air did little to alleviate. If there'd been a fight, he couldn't remember it. In fact, his recent memory was blank, not telling him where they were or how they'd come to be curled together in the dirt. The last thing he could recall was-

"I lost you," Kili was mumbling. "You left me. You left me behind and I stayed. " He hauled Fili down by his braids to stare him dead in the eye. "Never again."

Fili nodded, accepting the threat and promise both. "How...?" As soon as he asked it he realized an odd hesitance to speak of the figure and the flame. Indeed, they were already fading from his mind like a dream not fully grasped upon waking, whereas the battle rushed back to him with a nightmare's tenacity.

"Does it matter?" Kili shot back, finally averting his gaze with something like guilt. If he felt he was hiding secrets then he must have met a similar encounter, and now experienced the same nearly superstitious reticence.

They might compare tales in time. For the present, Fili said, "Not really," and made a show of taking first stock of their surroundings. He paled to recognize the Ravenhill watchtower looming behind, far more foreboding than simple stone should be beneath a crystalline sky.

The phantom sensation of fire curled in his gut.

"If we are here, perhaps Thorin..."

Kili untangled himself and stood, apparently to delay answering. He strode toward the vantage overlooking the valley. It wasn't until Fili joined his side that he said, "Thorin won't follow us. He traded his life for revenge on Azog."

A willing end, in other words, without cause to tarry from a well-deserved rest. "That is just like him." Though saddened by the news, Fili was invigorated by too much strange hope to give up their uncle entirely. "So, whatever is to be done falls to us."

Kili elbowed him. "Fee, look at the-"

"Ho, you two!"

The brothers spun about together, hands flying to sword hilts. It was then Fili realized they were outfitted as they'd been for that final charge out Erebor's gate. The swords he wore were finer than the pair he'd lost to the elves, but held no comforting familiarity.

The dwarf barreling toward them either didn't notice the tension hanging in the air or cared to ignore it. Perhaps he could afford such confidence, wearing good if plain armor, the only decoration the royal insignia worked into the breastplate. "You've no business up here."

A guard. Now Fili understood his unease for the watchtower. It stood intact, mended back to its former purpose. Repairs of that scale would have taken time, and fallen behind other priorities as well. He turned back to the valley, searching out the gate, and could see no sign of the damage caused by Smaug's rampage. From a distance it seemed good as new.

The season was similar to the one they'd left, clear weather with a chill the sun could not ward off. Was it spring? How long had they been... away?

"Are ya listening?" Arms spread, the guard made as if to herd them down the hill. "I said clear off. This is no place for sightseeing."

"Sightseeing," Kili began in a tone that heralded trouble.

Fili cut in front of Kili. "We need to speak with-" Back home, in Ered Luin, guarding had been Dwalin's domain. It should be the same in Erebor, but he hadn't been figuring Thorin's death, or the possibility that Dwalin too might have joined the fallen. Durin's folk held the mountain, that was something, but caution would be prudent without knowing more. "Our apologies if we've strayed where we shouldn't. We've only just arrived to Erebor and meant no harm."

He could almost feel Kili bristling at his back.

The guard's frown softened. "Welcome to ye, then. Dunno what put it in yer mind to climb all this way after... what was the name, laddie? If I know it I'll set ya in the right direction."

Fili discarded name after name as potentially awkward.

"The commander of the guard," Kili said, stepping forward. He threw a quick, unhappy glance at Fili, almost as a warning.

"Oh? And what would you be wantin' the captain for?" The insinuation was clear: what would the captain want with a pair of outsiders? Worse, the guard was eyeing them with overdue suspicion.

"We want to join, of course!" Kili was convincingly eager as he drew himself up and squared his shoulders.

It might have been the first excuse to pop into Kili's mind, but the idea had merit. Fili added, "We didn't want to be caught out as unprepared, though. We don't even know the captain's name." He tried his best to look sheepish.

The guard tugged his beard and hooted with laughter. "Aye, that'd be embarrassing! Fundin's his name, and ya must've come far to not know it."

Fundin? Surely not...

"Eriador," Kili supplied, thankfully vague. If the name had startled him he didn't show it.

"Well, friends from Eriador, trials are every fortnight. The next is in two days; see Dofri at the gatehouse."

Fili inclined his head. "Our thanks."

"Won't you wish us luck?" Kili just had to press.

"Ha! You'll be needin' more than that. Posts are few and competition fierce... although ya look a pair I'd not want to cross in a dark alley. Maybe we'll meet again in the training yard."

"You can bet on it."

"Come on, Kee. Two days isn't much time, and we have a lot to do."

Kili followed a step before turning back. "Speaking of bets, perhaps you could settle one, master guard. My brother doesn't believe there are dragons in these parts."

"Dragons?" The guard's perplexed expression alone gave the answer. "Best pay up, and that's what ya get for listening to fireside tales. No dragon's been spotted here for an age."

"That's what I was afraid of," Kili muttered.

~~~~~

"How did you know?" Fili finally asked.

They'd picked their way down the mountain's spur in silence, first to get low enough that the wind wouldn't lift their voices back to the watchtower, and then because Kili had been absorbed in his racing thoughts. "The trees," he answered late, pulling himself back to the present. "Gate and watchtower could be rebuilt within a year-"

"And Dale?"

They were in a better position now to overlook that whole and teeming city. "Maybe. I don't know. But nothing grew in the desolation when we crossed it, and I remembered Balin describing what the slopes looked like before Smaug burned them." Kili pointed. "Those woods are older than we are for certain." Meaning they'd either gone forward a long time, or they'd gone back.

Fili made a sound that fell short of a chuckle. "Trust the hunter to observe the vegetation."

"What about you? You must have guessed."

"You know Fundin's fate as well as I."

As princes, they'd been fed on stories of the great deeds of their kin for as long as Kili could remember. (He knew from Fili that it had begun even earlier, recollections of their mam humming old ballads over her round belly.) Balin and Dwalin's father had fought in the vanguard at Azanulbizar, and perished there with countless others.

Wait.

"Fili-"

"I don't know."

Kili slowed. "Could we... save them?"

"I don't know," Fili repeated, voice going soft the way it did when busy subduing his emotions. He was more adept than Thorin had ever been at projecting calm despite inner turmoil.

It used to drive Kili insane when Fili managed, in one fell swoop, to fool their mam or uncle and make Kili's behavior look childish in comparison. The downside was that Kili knew him too well to ever be fooled, and had learned exactly where his snapping point was, and how to push him over it.

Given the nature of their situation, that point was too near for comfort.

"We don't know what the year is," Fili went on. "We don't know our purpose, or how much we can change, or if it's even possible. One mistake..."

Fili's purpose had ever been to support the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders, but to say as much would be a nudge in the wrong direction. Kili knew he'd take no comfort from being reminded of a responsibility never far from his mind. A different approach was in order. "We know that Smaug has not yet come; and more, we know the serpent's weakness. Get me a wind lance and a rack of arrows and I'll do the rest."

"You've never fired a wind lance."

"I'll learn."

Fili paused to look back at him, one eyebrow raised. "When? How?"

"I'll join the guard in Dale if I must," Kili decided. "Practice in secret while everyone sleeps. And if Smaug comes tonight I'll steal onto the walls and hone my aim while the city burns around me."

"It won't be so easy. Remember, if Bard spoke true, Smaug will have no weakness before Girion's arrow loosens his scale."

"Wind. Lance."

"I see what you're doing."

The game was already up, so Kili repeated in singsong, "Wind lance," and drew an imaginary bow to shoot into the sky.

Fili marched back up to slug him in the arm -- gently. "It won't work."

"It already has. Admit you love pointing out the flaws in my overhasty plans."

"If by 'love' you mean having done so for nearly my entire life as a matter of self-preservation-"

Kili was suddenly swallowing around a lump in his throat. Death had apparently made him maudlin where his brother was concerned; or perhaps it was the shock of having gained back what he'd thought gone forever. He dragged Fili into a hug, secretly delighted that higher ground he stood on added to his natural advantage of height. "Fee, we'll figure it out. There are no two dwarves, living or dead, who are better prepared for the task. Mam and Thorin saw to that."

Fili took his turn mashing his face into Kili's shoulder. "He might be there, you know. In the mountain."

Kili had done his best to drive that possibility from his mind.

"Half of me is afraid he won't be, and the other half fears what I might do if I see him."

"Try not to call him uncle, for start."

Fili tightened his hold briefly before extracting himself. "Admit you love having answers for everything, no matter how terrible."

Now it could be said. "I'd hardly make a good adviser to my brother the king if I didn't."

"Mahal help us all should that ever come to pass."

~~~~~

Chapter Text

Dale was a marvel. In all his travels, Kili had never been to a town so large, let alone one where men and dwarves mixed so freely. He and Fili were accustomed to fighting their way through tall crowds, to cold shoulders and snide remarks. The folk of Dale made way for them, offering greetings and polite interest. There were even dwarf women about, dressed in skirts their mam would have envied, browsing market stalls or selling their own wares.

"I could get used to this," Kili grinned, pointing out the dimpled lass whose eye had clearly been drawn to his brother.

Fili strode on. "We don't have time for flirting," he reminded, though he craned his neck for one last look before they moved out of sight.

They'd shared an apprehension to enter Erebor proper, and Fili had been the one to provide an excuse for why they shouldn't -- not dressed as they'd been. Preparing for war, the Company had helped itself to the royal armory, the princes choosing gear both rich and distinctive. Questions, even accusations of thievery would have been raised had any piece been recognized. So they'd stripped to tunics outside of town, bundling mail and weapons with the intent to trade them for coin and plainer gear.

"We spent days wading through mountains of gold and neither of us thought to put any in our pockets."

"I think one scowl from Tho- from uncle was all it took to stay even Nori's light fingers," Fili said slowly. "I meant to keep the ruby he threw me, on sentiment, but after- I couldn't."

Kili sighed. "Too bad we didn't keep our plate armor. That would have sold for a pretty price." He'd claimed it restricted his movement too much for his liking, but that had fooled no one. The King under the Mountain had counted it a gift; discarding it had been an act of defiance.

"We may not need much coin at all, depending on the day. We may not have the time to spend it. Are you watching for a notice board?"

"Yes, Fee." They needed to learn the date, and it'd be less conspicuous to read it than fumble around asking. "Set enough aside for a good bow. We go at Sm- at that monster with just our swords and he'll be using them for after-meal toothpicks."

"That's a whole other shop to visit. We should split up."

"Should we?"

"Yes." Fili said it in the tone he rarely used on Kili, the one which left no room for argument. He removed the weapons and thrust over the coats. "You take the mail. I have a better eye for blades. Don't accept less than eight crowns for mine and ten for yours -- it's flashier."

"Is that a comment on my taste?"

"A crown each for the belts. The replacements can be cheap and ugly so long as they're sturdy. Use whatever's left on your bow."

Now there was motivation to cut a good bargain. He might even be able to afford going to a proper bowyer rather than the stalls cluttered with used odds and ends. "Meet back here?"

Fili didn't look up from appraising the cabochon set in a sword pommel. "The clocktower. One hour."

~~~~~

Kili easily got thirty crowns for the lot, though replacement armor came dear, even the splinted leather he reasoned would offer the best protection against dragon's fire. He'd scouted two bowyers in the process, and returned with a modest purse to the closer shop. It had a promising smell, sawdust and pungent glues.

Reminded of Bard, he took a longbow much taller than he was off a hook. He could carry something so unwieldy since he planned to avoid traipsing through the wilds, but it was a clearly a show piece and he'd been more interested in the quality.

Intrigued to serve his first dwarf customer -- few who lived inside the mountain were archers and fewer would trust a man-made weapon -- the bowyer measured Kili all over with a length of knotted string and made him test draw weights before giving him a heavy recurve and a horse-bow to try. Both suited Kili's purpose. He might have determined the better one if he'd spent the afternoon killing straw targets in the alley behind the shop, but without the time to spare he let the price decide.

Arrows were next. He made his way to the recommended fletcher, only to pull open the door and find the small workshop crowded with a trio of customers.

Worse than that, elves.

Poised on the threshold, he was tempted to return later; but a bell on the door had announced his arrival, and the startled expressions the elves wore made him determined to stay. They hailed from Mirkwood, to judge by their garb, no surprise given the history of trade between the realms. It was evocative garb at that, the varied greens and supple leather of the forest guard, its style unchanged through the years.

There was a mire of longing and regret he'd best avoid.

"I'll be with you shortly, master dwarf," the fletcher called.

The elves resumed their business, though Kili was not forgotten, the horse-bow on his back eliciting low comments and sly glances. Well, let them snigger. He was a prince of Durin's line; and besides, there was only one of their kind whose good opinion he desired, and against all odds he'd won it.

There was little room to maneuver, so Kili put his elbows and heavy boots to good use, earning himself a spot before the buckets of shafts. The elves seemed to be haggling over points, which seemed odd until he recalled that they spurned working metal.

The bell chimed again and another body waded into the confined space. Kili was jostled into the wall as the elves rearranged themselves. He turned with his elbow and rude words ready to fly, only to find the newcomer squeezed in beside him.

"My apologies," Tauriel ventured when she caught him staring.

And staring.

And staring...

She frowned. "I did not intend to crowd you."

One of the others said to her, in the common tongue to be certain Kili would understand, "Don't mind the dwarf. They're not happy unless they're taking offense at something."

"This one is too busy gawping. He looks a bit like a carp, don't you think?"

"Is it a male?"

Tauriel's spine stiffened. "The order was to be civil to them," she reminded coolly, also in common for Kili's benefit.

"Civility is wasted on those who won't return it."

Stupefaction had saved Kili from the trouble that would have arisen if he'd blurted her name. He managed to recover his tongue, even if he was unable to tear his eyes away from her. "I accept your apology, with no offense taken, if you'll have mine." He'd never had cause before today to be so grateful for the etiquette lessons drilled into his thick head. "I did not intend to stare, and I'm sorry if I discomforted you."

The stunned silence that reigned over the shop for several heartbeats was quite gratifying. Even more so was Tauriel's very slight and rather bemused smile. "I will have it, and let us consider the matter dropped." The latter part seemed directed at her companions, and she pointedly turned away to their business.

Kili was not a great believer in coincidence. If nothing else, traveling with a wizard would have cured him of it; and Thorin's quest to retake the mountain had been rife with chance meetings and incidents which had later proved significant. His and Fili's very existence in this time was the result of strange magic, and he had to trust that their goal was attainable. So, wouldn't the tools and means they'd need be placed within their reach?

Whatever reason had brought Tauriel to Dale, she wouldn't be long from the Mirkwood. Kili couldn't let her slip away, not when he felt in his bones that she was somehow still entwined with his fate.

He swore to himself that his feelings for her had no bearing on what he was about to do.

She had her bow, of course -- plus quiver at her hip, and knives on her back peeking out from the red cascade of her hair. He could tell by her posture that she was only pretending to have dismissed him, wary or curious enough to leave some of her attention on him. Surely that boded well.

"My lady, if I could trouble you once more?"

Tauriel shifted enough raise an eyebrow at him sidelong.

"It's just that I can't pass up the chance to inspect your fletching." Kili affixed his most winsome smile. "Elven fletching, that is. Dwarves aren't much for woodcraft, so I've had to learn where I can, and, well, everyone knows your work is the finest around."

He saw at once by her indecision that he'd misstepped. The trouble seemed not to lie with Kili but with their audience. Tauriel sent a silent appeal to her fellows, the same self-conscious one he'd watched his brother give Thorin time and again in uncertain situations. If Kili had caught her alone he'd have stood a chance. Now...

The elf who'd likened Kili to a carp made a suggestion. Kili picked out naugrim, but it didn't take a knowledge of Sindarin to recognize a joke at his expense.

Not long ago, the insults would have made him hopping mad. Not long ago, he might have thrown the first punch despite the odds. It was amazing how a mortal blow from an orcish spike adjusted one's perspective.

Kili was preparing to accept his disappointment graciously when Tauriel reached without looking and drew an arrow. Spots of anger bloomed on her cheeks, while her gaze held chagrin. She laid the shaft across his palms in an oddly formal gesture; and Kili suspected she did it in part to spite her companion.

Sure enough, the unpleasant elf sucked air through his teeth. "Tauriel..."

Kili pounced. "That's your name, Tauriel?"

"You may keep it, master dwarf," she decided instead of answering. "It's not the finest work but it is my own. Unlock its secrets if you can, or put it to use and trust that it will serve you well."

Confident that no one present would recognize it, Kili clasped his fist over his heart and made her the best courtly bow he could given the limited space. "I thank you for your goodwill and generosity, Tauriel of Mirkwood." He repeated the phrase properly in Khuzdul, referring to himself by name.

Her impulsiveness spent, Tauriel once again looked lost for a response. Ignoring her fellows, she bobbed her head at Kili and quit the shop with as much haste as could still be deemed dignified.

The atmosphere distinctly cooled with her departure, thanks to three of the forest guard marking Kili's every move. He dared not follow.

~~~~~

The clocktower tolled the quarter hour. Fili stopped scanning the crowd to re-read the playbill he held, even though he'd already done so often enough to have it memorized.

The situation was not so dire as he'd feared. He and Kili were indeed in the year of Smaug's appearance, but with almost a fortnight to spare before the sack of Erebor. That knowledge set the scope of the preparations they might make and allowed time for a considered plan.

It also made him less anxious that his brother was late to the rendezvous.

Kili spotted him first, closing with a shout and a wave. "Sorry," he said, grin slipping as Fili pushed the playbill at his chest. He took it one-handed and with the other passed over the armor, tied up like a pack on a cord. "I ran into some elves at one of the shops."

"Elves?"

"They took their sweet time wrapping up their business," Kili grumbled. "I'm sure it was deliberate."

"Any you recognized?"

Kili suddenly engrossed himself in the playbill.

"Thranduil?" No, that was unlikely. "Not his pissy son..."

"Tauriel was there," Kili confessed, at the same time Fili noticed the odd arrow nestled with the rest in his new quiver.

"Kee, what have you done?"

"This is good news," Kili said of the date on the playbill.

"You can't just-"

"What if we need her for some reason?" Of course Kili would have his argument prepared. "I won her over before. That day on the lakeshore, if her prince hadn't ordered her elsewhere, she would have come with m- us. I know it."

Fili blinked. He'd suspected there'd been more to that private exchange than Kili would admit, but the ramifications were still alarming. "Oh, uncle would have loved that."

"I was prepared to face his wrath."

"Then you were a damned besotted fool," Fili snapped.

"It was before I knew what the treasure would do to him!"

The shout gained far too much attention. Wincing, Fili drew Kili away from curious eyes and down a random street. He put his irritation aside, reminding, "We need to be more careful."

Kili accepted that with a grunt.

Folk tended to get ideas when they overheard dwarves speaking of riches. "Let's get lost awhile, find lodgings once we're sure we're not followed. We can continue the... discussion behind a locked door."

~~~~~

"A silver a night?!"

"A silver apiece per night," the innkeep clarified, wiping her hands on her apron in a display of boredom.

Kili sputtered, "That's outrageous! I've traveled from Dunland to the Blue Mountains and I've never paid even half that for a room. I'd sooner sleep rough in the woods."

She settled a fist on her hip. "A silver and meals are extra."

They could afford it. Fili had done extremely well selling the weapons, having spotted the gleam in the merchant's eye when he'd recognized Erebor's royal forge mark. It would be rare for such swords to come on the market, even if they weren't sized for men. Still, Kili had a point. Everything in Dale was expensive, probably due to the mountain's overflowing wealth.

Fili jingled his purse. "Come on, brother. Plenty other inns to try." Though he'd liked the immaculate look of this one; and the smells drifting from the kitchen didn't hurt.

As hoped, the sound made the innkeep waver. "Price includes clean linens and hot water. And I'll throw in a pitcher of ale."

"Two pitchers," Kili said. "We're thirsty lads."

"Done."

It was but late afternoon -- and the trek from Ravenhill to Dale had not been strenuous -- but Fili was still glad to sit over a light meal at one of the smaller, dwarf-friendly tables. Hobbit-friendly, too. "I feel the Company burglar would approve. What would he call this?"

"Afternoon tea, I think." Kili hesitated. "It'd be nice to have him here with us -- and not just in a proper chair that'd let his feet touch the floor."

Fili caught the unspoken sentiment. He missed Bilbo's prim manner and practicality and even his occasional grousing. He missed them all sorely, and not knowing whether they'd lived or died nagged at the back of his mind.

Kili leaned across the table, dropping his voice. "Have you thought about what it means? If we slay the serpent and save the mountain, there will be no quest and no Company. Our brave Master Boggins will have no reason to venture out of his cozy hobbit-hole, and it will be as if we'd never met him."

"I've chased that thought much farther than you have." Fili glanced around, but no one was near or paying them notice. "Our folk will not wander homeless. Our grandfather will not seek to enter Khazad-dum. Half our kin will not fall there in fruitless battle."

A shadow crossed Kili's face. "We would be born and raised in Erebor, with all that entails." He drew a circle across his brow to indicate a crown. "But then, if that becomes true... how could we journey to where we are now?"

"Victory means our mother will not settle in Ered Luin. Our parents won't meet and wed." Thorin would be a true king and probably get heirs of his own.

"That's not certain. Father could come to her."

Fili clasped Kili's arm, saying mildly, "Best accept we won't come out of this with our lives. The ones we've borrowed are unnatural and no doubt limited; and either way there's no future for us. All that can matter to us is sparing our people from hardship and bloodshed."

Forget the elf, he urged, silently, in no mood to pick that particular fight.

~~~~~

Chapter Text

Clean and refreshed -- though shabby-looking in mismatched gear -- they set out early the next morning for the mountain. Fili hadn't thought to sell his beads, and they were too rich to wear, so he'd packed them away and tied off his braids with string. He missed the swinging weight, though, and promised himself a new and more modest set to mark the occasion.

They blended with the trickle of other travelers, mostly dwarves, coming and going along the well-tended road. Thorin, a king in exile, had never been so well attired as many of them. The fashions seemed strange to Fili in part because cloth so fine had been unknown in Ered Luin, let alone the dyes to achieve such deep and vibrant colors.

In comparison, he knew he and Kili looked like poor backwater kin; but he was completely unprepared to feel as such. There was no prouder blood than what ran through his veins, but the knowledge failed to give him solace with Erebor's gate drawing closer and ever more magnificent.

Kili too was subdued, despite earlier posturing, and never ranged from Fili's side. They shared a tense moment crossing through the mouth of the gate, hurrying with heads down by unspoken agreement. Fili didn't want to see the familiar stones where only the day before the Company had settled, to be both as far from Thorin's madness as possible and as near as they could to the desperate battle they'd been forbidden to join.

He shut his eyes and saw again the heartbreak on Bilbo's face when Thorin had ordered him thrown from the ramparts. He heard again Thorin's snarl and felt the harsh grip dragging him forward to the task. But worst of all had been the flash of terror in Bilbo's eyes when, just for a heartbeat, he had believed that Fili would obey.

Once inside the mountain, it was easier to put such thoughts aside and focus on Smaug's impending attack. If Fili appeared awe-struck, craning his head around, it was to take in what he could of the gate's inner defenses. His knowledge of dwarven fortifications had come most from Dwalin and Thorin; and he was reminded that those two had been half Fili's age when Erebor was lost, bursting with lessons perhaps but lacking in crucial experience to pass along.

Balin, now. Of those who'd survived that day, he was the only one Fili had ever heard criticize the defenders. What had he said? Erebor's might had made the guards over comfortable and complacent, and the alarm had not been raised as soon as it could have.

Was it so simple? He could spread rumors of dragons and put unease among the guards far easier than he could march up to his great-grandsire, the gold-mad King under the Mountain, with portents of death and ruin. He'd seen enough of Thorin in the grip of that sickness to know a direct confrontation with Thror would be folly at best.

Dofri was not present at the gatehouse, but another guard had Fili -- and Kili, who did not know yet that he might be left out -- sign a page submitting their names for the trial. (The had decided to keep their own, relying on their father's distant and obscure lineage to hold most questions at bay.) At the news of an entrance fee, Fili dug out coin but grumbled along with his brother.

They struck deeper into the city, following the guard's directions to the arena where the trial would be held. Fili wanted to be certain he could find it again when the time came, as it was far from both gate and treasure hall, on a level of the mountain the Company hadn't explored. The quarter also held barracks and armories and, arrayed on either end of the main thoroughfare, the types of establishments where hardworking soldiers liked to lighten their purses.

Practically raised in the guard hall at Ered Luin, Fili was pleased to find the Ereborean counterpart similar in feel, if not scale. He sensed the ever-vigilant portion of himself start to loosen, perhaps for the first time since Bag End all those months ago. After dealing with elves and wizards and his uncle's mania, it was refreshing to be among his own: folk whose needs were straightforward and drives easily understood. Take, for example, a dislike of bold strangers. The brothers were paid appraising looks, the kind that could turn to a brawl given the wrong words -- or the right ones.

"Don't worry, I won't," Kili promised, even as he grinned ear-to-ear at a leathery veteran who stared at him with surly interest.

Fili snorted. "Only because you don't judge it an even match."

"Not only that." Kili's tone turned unexpectedly grim. "It's just... I haven't tested my strength since Ravenhill. Have you?"

"No." Fili looked down at the hand he formed into a fist.

"But you can feel it. The fire's still there."

Yes. Smoldering deep within, maybe the only part of him that truly lived on.

"What if it does more than permit us to be here?" Kili murmured. "What if it affects us-"

"Enough. This is not the time or place."

Kili acquiesced, but it was too late. The small peace Fili had clutched at was gone.

~~~~~

They roamed much of the day with no aim but to become acquainted with Erebor at the height of its glory. Fili remained on constant alert for familiar faces, though it would have been difficult to spot any amid such throngs as they encountered.

They avoided the level containing the royal quarter and the wealthier domiciles. The mines held no interest, and the Company had made sure to show them the great forges lit by dragon's fire. The craft halls were difficult to see without business there, and the shops on that level were reserved for the most respected craftsmen, commanding the highest prices. The princes could not have afforded even the smallest trinket; and Fili took no delight in gazing upon fine pieces when he'd stood upon better in the treasure hall, digging after the Arkenstone.

More to his taste was the central market, on the same large level as the petty-craft halls where common and household goods were fashioned. The affair was raucous, with voices raised in hawking and haggling, and musicians playing for coin trying to outdo their competition.

Kili's first purchase was an enormous sweet braid to share, gooey and warm from the baker's oven. They strolled along licking crumbs from their fingers, and Fili forgot for a moment the fire and all that had happened and all that was yet to come.

He'd never before seen such a variety of good dwarven merchandise collected in one place. Everywhere he looked he saw gifts that would have been perfect for family and friends. He picked out an engraved flask for his mother, a bronze mortar and pestle for Oin, striped silk stockings for Dori, buttons of faceted jet that would have looked pretty on Bilbo's waistcoat... There was no point in purchasing what was impossible to deliver, but he could still imagine the delight such gifts would have garnered.

Try as he might, Fili couldn't find anything that would have suited his uncle, or been appreciated beyond the sentiment of the gesture. Possessions weren't personal to Thorin. They either had purpose or meaning. The former were interchangeable, and the latter he respected for what they evoked in others; but the things he valued- had valued couldn't sit on a mantle or fit in a pack. They were earned, not bought.

Gold-sickness might run in their blood, but he had to believe that Thorin would not have succumbed to the hoard alone, not without the dragon's taint upon it. The will of Thorin Oakenshield was made of tempered steel.

Fili was halted by a grip on his arm. He assumed it was Kili, until he shook out of his musing and spotted his brother several paces ahead, disappearing into a shop. Swinging around, he saw that he'd been accosted by a matron in sturdy work leathers, her salt and pepper hair in a thick braid that fell over her shoulder, with the end tucked in her belt. Glassy eyes caught his with an almost physical jolt.

There was no cause for alarm. Though her scrutiny was unsettling, she could not possibly recognize him. It was Kili who had the coloring of the royal family, if not the looks, while Fili took after their father.

"Can I he-"

"Oakenshield no more..."

Fili froze. "Excuse me?"

The matron dug her fingers in hard enough to bruise, leaning close to rasp at him, "Dimrill Dale forged he who bore that name. Beware you do not unmake him!"

"What did you say?"

She blinked and swayed back, hand flying from Fili's arm as if she'd been startled to find it there.

Now it was Fili's turn to grab at her, demanding, "How do you know his name?"

"What name?"

"The one you just spoke." He would not say it aloud. All names held a degree of power. One not yet bestowed -- tied to a fate not yet decided -- should not be uttered in these halls.

"I said naught," the matron frowned, "and I don't like yer manners, boyo. Keep them paws to yerself." She wrenched away and backed into the crowd.

Given the attention he was drawing, Fili judged it best not to press the issue. The more he thought on it, the more likely it was that his mind had played a trick, bringing his worries into the open in a vision only he could see. Had Kili experienced something similar? Why else raise the idea that the fire yet affected them in unexpected ways?

Perhaps it was time to pin his brother down someplace quiet for another talk.

Where was Kili?

He caught up several shops along the row, where Kili was lingering over a display of ribbons while the merchant wrapped something in a scrap of cloth.

"There you are."

"You're the one who tried to lose me, wandering ahead."

Kili hummed his agreement and added a green ribbon to his purchase, pretending it was an impulse rather than a fussy choice. "It's hard to shop for you with you looking over my shoulder."

"Kee, you don't need to-"

"Too late, it's done." Kili paid for and pocketed his spoils. "You're not allowed to buy anything pretty for yourself, by the way."

Fili rolled his eyes in mock resignation. "How garish will I look when you're done with me?"

"You'll look someone who isn't worried about a little lapse in decorum reflecting poorly on their entire family," Kili promised.

~~~~~

"You shouldn't have," Fili said, only half sarcastic.

Kili wouldn't call his brother vain, exactly, though he'd have a right to be. It was more that Thorin's towering and effortless presence set a difficult example for his heir to follow; and sometimes Fili tried too hard.

Or he used to. Kili was determined that they both enjoy the anonymity afforded by their strange afterlife.

The new beads were gaudy blue enamel, somehow every shade from cobalt to aquamarine to lapis except the clear blue of Fili's eyes (which happened to set them off to good effect). There were twice as many as he usually wore, and he was taking his time arranging them to his liking.

"How did you know I wanted a new set?"

"Please. You think I haven't noticed how much you like your braids swinging about when you toss that mane of yours?"

Fili's expression did not suggest denial, but rather doubt that he was so obvious as Kili claimed. "I do not toss- It's the wind, always blowing it in my eyes."

"I suppose it can get particularly windy indoors when there's a buxom lass around..." Kili said it with the straightest face he could manage, earning a kick in the shin for his trouble.

They'd taken an inn room within Erebor, retiring with their evening meal to the privacy of stone walls and a stout door. Despite the trial in the morning, it was still too early for sleep; and both of them were shying away from the discussion that was the inevitable alternative.

Kili thought of the ribbon in his pocket, coiled for safekeeping around the tin flute he'd bought when Fili wasn't looking. He would sound better on a fiddle or even a harp, but expense aside neither was portable enough for his purpose.

Fili was also keeping secrets. It was obvious in the way he fretted over the last bead, trying it in three different places before he gave up and held it out to Kili. "You do it. I can't tell what I'm doing without a mirror."

"Out with it, Fee."

Distracted, Fili didn't notice that the bead ended up exactly where he'd had it the first time. "I've been thinking..."

"Stalling..."

"Only one of us should go to the guard trial tomorrow."

No, Kili did not believe in coincidence. "Meaning, only you should go," he said carefully, lest he give away the anticipation that stirred in his chest with a fire's warmth.

"I'm the better fighter close-quarters, and arguably the better to judge Erebor's defenses," Fili reasoned, not quite looking at Kili in case his reaction to the idea was worse than expected. "We can't both be tied to a duty roster. One of us needs to be free to pursue information. Answers, if we can get them."

Free to pursue information. That could cover all manner of activities. Kili wouldn't even need to lie so much as omit certain details. "And where would you propose I hunt for these answers?" he grumbled, adopting a matching scowl.

Fili hesitated. "The archive, for a start."

"As in the royal archive." Balin's sanctuary from a gold-mad Thorin, he didn't say. "The one in the royal quarter, where they won't like just anyone wandering around. That archive."

There was worse yet to come. Fili was even more reluctant when he asked, "What do you remember? On Ravenhill, before drinking- You did drink fire, didn't you?"

Swallowing hard at the memory, Kili nodded. "From a silver cup."

Fili's brow pinched. "Mine was gold," he admitted.

"It might not mean anything."

"I am- I was uncle's heir. It meant something."

Kili couldn't disagree, and picked up the thread before Fili could lose himself critical comparison. "The... shadow offered me a boon. Said I was stuck, unwilling to accept death because I refused to-" Refused to let go the sight that had been in his eyes the moment his heart had stopped. "There were things I'd meant to do. Needed to. And I failed to do them."

"Were you stuck?" Fili asked, gaze going soft and distant though he hadn't stopped looking at Kili.

"I think I was. I must've been. Just didn't realize it until I'd warmed a bit by the fire." Then it had been rage and horror, shame for his weakness, and a stab of self-pity for never having the chance to know what he'd held and lost.

"Nothing could touch me when I was cold," Fili recalled. "And the shadow told me that it had watched our grandfather, that what it offered was possible because it knew our bloodline."

"Thrain," Kili whispered, despite the thick walls. "You think it's here, in Erebor."

"Perhaps. I'm more concerned for the meaning behind its riddles."

"If only we could consult the Company's burglar, or even a wizard. How old do you think G-" Kili was taken by a sudden coughing fit, and try as he might the name would not be forced between his teeth. He shook his head while pounding his chest with a fist.

Fili gave him a peculiar look before continuing. "If the answer's in our blood then it's in the archive or nowhere. Remember that the Deathless himself was reborn five times in our line -- is six times our ancestor. What if it can work the other way, too? What if others like us, thought lost or slain, were instead returned to the past for some purpose?"

"There will be no record if they kept their work quiet, as we try to."

"You'll have to hunt hidden and obscure references. Strangers turning up just in time to take a role in important events and vanishing soon after. Advisers whose predictions proved uncannily accurate. Folk who knew things they shouldn't, displayed foresight or made prophecies."

It would be suspect if Kili didn't complain. "Why can't I go to the guards? You're better with books than I am."

"Only because you were too good at sneaking away from your studies." Fili bared his teeth in a grin. "Besides, you're the better tracker. If there's a trail to follow, I'm confident you'll uncover it."

"I won't fall for your flattery."

"Then do it because you know I'm right."

Kili let his silence count as assent.

~~~~~

Despite the comfort of a good dwarven bed piled with pillows and furs, it was difficult to sleep that night. At first Kili thought that he just wasn't used to being so far underground. The door to their room fitted without so much as a seam when closed; and when Fili at last put down his blades and whetstone to snuff the lantern, the resulting blackness was startling and complete.

He missed the natural light of moon and stars, but that could be eased by shutting his eyes. He could not, however, shut his ears to the city's incessant rumble. Harsh sounds and vibrations carried well through stone, while the softer voices and ordinary noise of the living did not. The prevalence of the first and lack of the second together was disconcerting.

Fili put the feeling into words when he whispered, "Do you realize, we're the only two dwarves alive who have heard the mountain shiver and sigh to itself in the dead of night."

"It's not as I thought it would be," Kili agreed. The next part was a confession that felt disloyal but also necessary. "I didn't understand how uncle and grandfather could consider our folk impoverished when there was work to be found and food to be had." True, the work had been demeaning by their standards and the food often meagre, but he'd encountered plenty of folk worse off in his travels. "Even seeing the treasure hoard, I didn't quite understand."

"We weren't raised to it," Fili said simply, rearranging the blankets. He fell so quiet for a stretch that Kili wondered if he'd drifted off. Then, "For all that we grew up on tales of Erebor when it flourished, I don't recognize it now that I'm here. It was easier when it was ruined and empty, to ignore that it answered no great longing in me as it did Thorin and Dwalin and Balin."

If Kili couldn't envision himself belonging to Erebor from birth, how must it be for Fili, to imagine a life devoted to it? They were two very different kinds of ownership.

Fili didn't disguise his relief. "It no longer matters. I don't need to love the place to care for the welfare of its people. Our people."

Brother mine, trust the one who knows you best. For all your pride you'd have taken none from wearing a crown. Silent, Kili curled toward him in the dark. By that grace alone you might have escaped the curse of our family.

Fili was up the next morning at what would have been the crack of dawn, beads rattling as he dressed and strapped on his swords. Kili grumbled and burrowed into the pillows, listening for the sound of the door. He knew Fili wouldn't take breakfast, not wanting a meal to weigh him down, but would instead find someplace where he might warm up before going to the trial.

Still, Kili waited until he was certain the coast was clear before throwing on his gear and racing from the inn. A short while later he was rolling along the road to Dale, chattering at the merchant who'd agreed to trade a ride for Kili's help unloading the cart at his destination. It was a chill morning with frost on the ground; the pony's breath puffed clouds into the air. Kili had not spared the time to put up his hair, and now his fingers were stiff and uncooperative as he braided in the green ribbon. The result was not his best effort, but a far cry better than the first time he'd stood before Tauriel, adorned with dirt and leaves and cobwebs.

He was on his way to snare an elf.

The fletcher had been most forthcoming that day after the forest guard had cleared out -- and Kili had permitted him to inspect Tauriel's arrow. Kili had learned where the elves preferred to stay in Dale, and how long their business might keep them, and that the maid with the red hair was not a familiar face while the others were. It had been enough to form a plan, which admittedly relied a great deal on chance, but he was convinced that he was meant to bring Tauriel to his cause.

He bought breakfast and a pair of fingerless gloves in the market, staked out a quiet spot in a patch of early sun, and settled in to learn his new flute. It was slow going at first, but soon he was coaxing forth passable tunes. He had the advantage of a largely foreign repertoire, and folk paused on occasion to listen or even toss him pennies.

It wasn't until early afternoon that he spotted his quarry, and shifted at once from of a jaunty piece into a flowing, contemplative melody.

Soon, her boots halted just at the edge of his vision. She was alone, having wandered away from the elf she'd been trailing on the street, and Kili wondered if she'd recognized him before approaching. Either way, she remained still while he brought the melody to a close. He didn't look at her, waiting to see if she would speak and knowing he could draw her back with a word if she didn't.

"Where did you learn that song?"

"Rivendell." Now Kili looked up and pretended to notice that he had an elf for his audience. "Er, Imladris, my lady."

Tauriel's eyes lit with surprise. "You've been there?"

"Once, in my wanderings." He'd make a more impressive figure on his feet than sitting at hers, so he stood and stretched the very real kinks out of his back with a groan of pleasure.

She regarded him a long moment, expression unreadable but lacking the aloof quality that would have spelled his failure.

"You're skeptical," he guessed. "Shall I describe it for you so you know I'm not telling tales?"

"I've never been," Tauriel admitted, "so I wouldn't know if you spoke true." Her gaze moved with meaning to the quiver he'd left behind him on the flagstones. "I must wonder now about your burning curiosity to inspect elven fletching."

"Oh, well..." Caught dead to rights, he could only smile sheepishly and explain. "The leader of my company was the one who had business with Lord Elrond. The rest of us were treated decently enough but for the most part shuffled aside and left to our own devices."

She looked exactly as he remembered her from Thranduil's dungeon, curious against her better judgment. "Ah."

"How long will you be staying in Dale?"

Tauriel's brow furrowed.

Kili clung to the confidence of knowing that, no matter how badly he embarrassed himself, it couldn't be worse than inviting her to search his trousers. "I, er, wondered if you might have some time to spare from your business." He hurried on as her uncertainty grew. "It's just that I'm newly arrived to the city -- without friends unless you count my brother -- and the kindness you showed the other day meant more to me than you could have known. I took it as a sign of better days ahead."

"It was nothing," Tauriel insisted, pinking. "Since you're a stranger to Dale, you won't know of the recent strain between Erebor and the Woodland Realm. It has little enough to do with common folk like you and me, though some of my fellows like to pretend that it does."

"I'm sure some of my kin are just as bad or worse" Kili said flatly. Thorin, for one. And Thror had to be at the heart of the argument, whatever it was.

Common folk like you and me, the great-grandson of the bloody King under the Mountain.

Tauriel glanced down the street, as if just noticing that she'd been abandoned by her companion. It didn't appear to bother her; and indeed she moved a step closer to Kili. "In truth, this is the longest I've spoken to one of your kind. I would say you're unlike any dwarf I've met, but I have little experience with which to make a comparison. It's also my first trip to Dale."

Kili scratched under his chin. "I'm unlike any dwarf you'll ever meet. Gangly for one, with barely a beard to speak of. Prefers a bow over a good axe. Spent more nights under the stars than behind sturdy walls. I've seen the Last Homely House and stone-giants battling in the mountains, spoken to a skin-changer and dined in a hobbit-hole. It was an odd life I led." His voice grew thick with unexpected emotion. "A good life. I wouldn't trade it for any other."

"Was?" Her fingers twitched as if she wanted to lift her hand toward him. "You seem young..."

"We must all seem young to you. I'm considered full-grown, have been for decades, but perhaps you're right." Kili thought of Thorin's hand in his hair, bowing their foreheads together for the last time, and all at once he was telling her everything. "My uncle would call me young. Rash, too. He was a father to me for most of my life, so steadfast that I never imagined he could die. Then, he did. Me and my brother came to Erebor to... start over, I suppose you'd say." He gave a thready laugh, lest the sound escape as something worse. "So. I can't return to my old existence, but I'll always look back on it with gratitude."

"I do have time," Tauriel blurted.

"What?"

She looked away, first toward the sky as if reading the sun's progress, then to the ground. Her twitchy fingers had found a seam in her surcoat to rub. "I can spare a few hours from my duties this afternoon." Without raising her head, she flicked her eyes to his and let him read the audacity there. "How would you suggest I spend them?"

Chapter Text

Fili was not the only aspirant to arrive early with the intent to scout the competition. He was not impressed; and it was plain that his patchwork gear impressed no one. The beads were a mark against him for another reason.

No matter. He was going to enjoy reminding the lot how deceptive appearances could be.

The trial was being held to one side of a large practice hall. Lamps with ingeniously crafted lenses provided bright and even lighting, but Fili still would have preferred to fight out of doors. He disliked the look of the arena's footing. The floor had been sunk into stone and then built up again with loose sand and dirt, which would soften falls but probably need frequent watering to keep down the dust.

He finally met the guard Dofri, who checked his name against a list before sending Fili to wait on the stone benches lining one long side of the hall. Dofri was a fastidious fellow with intricately styled chestnut hair, reminding Fili too strongly of Nori and Dori and Ori for there to be no relation.

It was bound to happen sooner or later, he told himself. He'd be lucky today to only be unsettled by a guard-clerk who resembled his former companions. Fundin could turn up to preside over the trial. From every tale he'd heard, Dwalin was a chip off the old slab.

For that matter, Dwalin could make an appearance. Or, Mahal forbid it, Thorin.

Fili was so busy wondering what he would do should the worst come to pass that he nearly missed the start of the trial, and was the last aspirant into the arena. Their armor was inspected and blades confiscated while the rules of combat were announced: three points for a hit to the torso, one for limbs, no striking above the shoulders. Then they were paired off and given their preference of training weapons.

He hadn't fought with a blunted sword in years, but understood the need for safety with a few of the lads looking no more confident with naked steel in hand than Bilbo did.

Teeth bared, Fili's opponent swung his axe in a blur of showy arcs. Far from intimidating, it merely exposed the fellow's reach; and when the match began Fili didn't bother with scoring points, just laid him out flat, sword tip hovering over his throat.

Next up was a young hopeful who fought with enthusiasm rather than experience, his flailing even reminiscent of a certain hobbit. Fili dodged his charges, letting him tire himself before slapping the sword out of his hand.

The observers were starting to take note.

Next was the barrel-chested brute who'd shouldered past him earlier muttering something about a blond peacock. Fili scored two rapid hits before disarming him and landing a third on the same swing. It was over in a matter of seconds.

"You," Dofri pointed. "Come with me."

Fili collected his swords and hurried to follow Dofri out of the hall. "Do I make the cut?"

"Congratulations," Dofri sniffed, "you've embarrassed some barely-trained rabble. We could have avoided this nonsense if you'd just said you could fight."

And here I'd thought the point was to show you.

Fili was led to a smaller arena, where members of the guard practiced in twos and threes under the barking orders of Fundin himself. With a nose like a crescent axe and forearms the size of small trees, it could be no one else. He surveyed his domain like the despot Thorin had -- with some affection -- always called him.

"Stay," Dofri said, slipping to Fundin's side. Their conversation was brief and put an evil grin on the commander's face.

At least Thorin isn't here. Some of the combatants wore heavy armor and obscuring helms, but that wouldn't have stopped him from recognizing his uncle in a heartbeat.

"Have fun," Dofri called as he breezed past Fili for the door.

Fundin pulled a combatant from a match in progress. He pointed at Fili and leaned close to give instructions that had the other dwarf nodding intently. No more beginners, no practice weapons. From here on out, Fili was going to have to work for his victories.

"Oi, stranger," Fundin waved in Fili's direction. "Get yer arse in here and let's see what yer made of."

Displaying more confidence than he felt, Fili strode into the ring. His new opponent favored a sword almost as long as Orcrist, though much lighter, and wore good armor that had seen significant use. That... did not bode well. Instead of a helm he had a headpiece that would not have withstood a hard blow, but was meant to protect the eyes in particular against stray slashes.

"Rules?" Fili asked.

Fundin stepped back several paces, the signal for the bout to begin. "Try not to break any bones."

"I'll be gentle."

"I meant yer own, whelp."

Dwalin rules, in other words. The gleeful anticipation of a drubbing about to happen was apparently something else that ran in the family.

Fili's opponent raised his sword but remained on guard, waiting for Fili to strike first. He did, a test that was easily parried, and he knew he was being studied in return, everything from form to grip to footwork. They circled around each other, trading light blows by rote. It could have been chance that their styles were complementary, though Fili would sooner credit the match to Fundin's keen eye.

His opponent was young, Fili decided without needing to peer too closely beneath the faceguard. Not quite full grown. Limber and light on his feet, moving with all the hallmarks of extensive training. Fili pressed a series of overhand swings and found the predicted strain in the wrist that held him off. He was stronger, not as tired... and now the other knew it.

"Quit pussyfootin' about and get on with it!" Fundin bellowed.

Fili could hammer the lad into the ground if he had to. It would be ugly, and brutal, and decisively end the bout. Fundin might expect it, having seen enough by now to reach the same conclusion.

Fundin's shout drove the lad to attack, a rush that made Fili give ground even as it confirmed a lack of maturity. The lad's calculating edge was gone, his attention split between Fili and a desire to impress his teacher. It was a mistake Kili used to make so often that Fili reacted without thought, flicking the oncoming blade aside as he spun in to land his pommel in his opponent's gut.

Sorry lad, Dwalin rules.

"I've said it til I'm blue in the face an' I'll say it til I'm purple!" Fundin pounded his fist into his palm. "Don't mind me, mind yer bloody foe!"

That only made matters worse for the lad, as Fundin must have known it would. He swiped at Fili before he'd recovered his breath, overextending without a hope to recover in time should Fili close in again.

He didn't. Kili wasn't the only one who'd grown up since those disastrous training sessions. Fili had eventually learned that it was not just counterproductive to goad his brother into a loss of control. It also drove Kili to devise new and ever more ingenious ways to exact his revenge when the adults weren't looking.

This was supposed to be a friendly match. There was no need to earn the lad's lasting resentment when Fili could make his point another way. He'd done enough teaching himself to know how to draw out flaws, how to exploit them subtly as a corrective measure. He began to explore his opponent's defenses, never overwhelming but not lenient either. When he could he landed his hits with the flat of his sword, sure to sting like blazes without bruising. It was telling that he never saw the same mistake repeated; with time and experience the lad might exceed Fili's skill.

Fundin had grown quiet. Fili didn't dare pay him further notice, as his opponent had realized what was happening and launched an aggressive counterattack. He'd figured out how to exploit the reach provided by his longer weapon, forcing Fili to exert his full strength fending off a rain of ferocious blows. Fili harried him in turn, taking a glancing hit on the ribs for the chance to close again and sweep his feet out from under him.

Instead of falling, the lad kept just enough balance to pitch to the side and roll. He would likely come out of the tuck swinging at Fili's left flank, lacking the leverage for a thrust, but the real aim would be winning enough space to recover his feet. The maneuver would cause most opponents to sidle out of range, though it would fail against a shield -- or twin blades.

The lad hadn't gotten a good look at the scabbard across Fili's back, so it had to come as a nasty surprise when Fili drew his left sword. The underhand sweep halted vertical and close to his thigh, serving as a block. He felt more than heard the skitter of steel on steel, already pivoting around the point of contact, keeping the longer blade engaged with his left while his right arced for his opponent's unprotected neck.

If there'd been power behind it, the blow could have cleaved head from shoulders. Fili touched only, which was still enough to drain all the fight from the lad.

"I yield," he panted.

Fili tucked both blades in his belt and offered his hand to pull the other upright. "It was well fought. I may have cheated a little."

"You did no such thing," Fundin interrupted. "You taught a lesson today, an' better he learn it here than in the wilds against a foe who'll not check a fatal swing." He raised an eyebrow at the lad and jerked his head in a dismissal.

Fili felt a twinge of sympathy, having been on the receiving end of of the same look from Dwalin many times. It signaled a temporary reprieve only; the matter was sure to be thoroughly revisited at a time and place of Fundin's choosing.

Fundin ambled over, pinning Fili with a glare that was equal parts suspicion and scheming. "Don't think I don't know what you were doin'... what's yer name, stranger?"

"Fili." There was a cocky reply on the tip of his tongue. He would have given it to Dwalin in a heartbeat and considered watching him sputter well worth a retaliatory thump on the head.

Fundin would not be so gentle. Still, it would be worth the pain if it meant the chance to face off against the commander himself for a round.

"Doing? I thought I was trying out for the guard." He added, "Captain," with a grin of false innocence that would have made Kili proud.

"Oh, you are," Fundin promised, grabbing Fili around the shoulders in a way that was anything but friendly. "In fact, there's but one wee hurdle left for you to face before I make my decision." His arm materialized next to Fili's head, pointing to a guardsman leaning on a massive battlehammer.

It had to be the largest dwarf Fili had ever seen.

This was actually going to hurt.

~~~~~

"Where did you learn to fight like that?"

Fili cracked open an eye. The youngster, he should have guessed. While it wasn't exactly rude to pose a question like that without preface, it wasn't polite either; and everyone else knew well enough to leave Fili alone to nurse his bloodied nose and (presumed) wounded pride.

Short of a maiming or killing blow, the behemoth with the battlehammer had been unstoppable. Their mismatched styles had made for a poor exhibition bout, but that had been the point. A brazen outsider had to know his place if he was to be useful to the guard. Fili had held his own just long enough for the necessary lesson in humility, avoiding greater damage thanks only to his reflexes and experience against much larger foes.

When he didn't answer, a sodden cloth was dangled in his vision. He took it, sitting up to straddle the bench, and tipped his head forward experimentally. The earlier gush of blood was down to a trickle, and he mopped red from his beard. "Thank you." The braids would need to be washed and redone.

"Is it broken?"

"No, just messy."

"You're lucky," his new friend pronounced, sitting without invitation at Fili's back. The bench was short and it was a close fit, but better that than the other end where he would have needed to edge between Fili's knees. "Only it wasn't luck, was it?"

Fili hesitated a moment before shaking his head.

"There's a trick to escaping that leg hook."

The move was one of Dwalin's favorites, requiring the support of a long-handled weapon planted in the ground. Fili knew the counter as well, but if he'd used it there might have been questions about where he'd seen it, so he'd taken the fall but rolled clear of the follow-up kick to the ribs.

"I'll teach it to you if you'll let me see your swords."

The sensation of being watched warned Fili that someone was interested his response. Without searching for the source, he couldn't know if the interest was protective in nature, or envious, or relieved that the lad's attention had found a new target. It could be simple amusement for Fili's plight.

"I'll teach you anyway," the lad decided in a distinctly magnanimous fashion. "You should know it since you're sure to be accepted into the guard."

"Am I." He didn't make it a question.

"Captain Fundin puts me against some of the better candidates, says I should be exposed to different techniques. You're the first who's been good enough to school me like that."

Fili twisted around to sit the right way on the bench, reaching beneath it for his swords. He saw no harm in passing them over. "They're nothing special." The double scabbard was something he'd cobbled together, rough but functional.

The lad half drew one, running curious fingers along the edge. It bore small notches that Fili hadn't quite been able to eradicate with the whetstone. "It's seen a lot of use."

"Not by me." Fili had always prided himself on the quality and condition of his weapons. Perhaps that was why he added, "I had better. Lost them on the road."

"Is that where you learned to fight?"

"It's where I learned how not to die." Putting aside painful irony, he kept to the simple version. "Me and my brother traveled a lot, hired out sometimes as bodyguards."

"You've fought bandits?"

"Yes."

"Orcs?"

Fili suppressed a shudder, the fire within him roused at the memory. "More than I can count. And wargs, goblins, giant spiders... on one occasion we were nearly eaten by trolls."

Even as he said it he realized his mistake. Erebor was not Ered Luin. There would still be some from Thror's generation who remembered warring dragons in Ered Mithrin, but it had been nearly two centuries since Durin's folk had seen large-scale battle. Few foes were foolish enough to come against an unassailable mountain stronghold. There would be seasoned guards less experienced than the youngest members of the Company, and plenty of hotheads hungry for honor and glory -- even secondhand through a stranger's tales.

"I wish I could travel as you have."

"No you don't." He could at least try to mitigate the damage done. "It was often hard, unpleasant work for very little reward."

"Is that why you've come to Erebor? For a better life?"

"Isn't that what everyone wants?" Fili replied cautiously, realizing late that he was being led in the conversation, doubtless to some end he wouldn't like.

"Perhaps." Introspection weighed on the word, and the lad returned Fili's swords. "We'll find you replacements in the armory."

An awfully generous statement from a youngster who wasn't even part of the guard. Fili stole a glance at his armor, noticing the ill fit through the shoulders that was more pronounced at rest. He and Kili had worn castoffs all through their training, and it had never occurred to him to consider it beneath their station. Growing boys were hard to keep outfitted. Erebor was overflowing with wealth, though, and the lad had to be somebody's son to warrant Fundin's personal supervision. Perhaps wearing handed-down armor was a sentimental choice more than a practical one.

Dawning suspicion made Fili stand. Distance. He needed to halt whatever this was before it could get out of hand. "Thank you for the offer, but I-"

"Highness?"

Oh no.

The speaker was a liveried runner from court, edging near. "Apologies for the interruption. Your father wishes to remind you that the elven delegation is due to arrive-"

"You're Frerin," Fili breathed. That explained why a name had not been forthcoming... and to think he'd been so preoccupied with the possibility of meeting Thorin. "I mean, Prince Frerin. Your highness."

Frerin winced, demeanor stiffening as he said, "Please assure my father that I will be present and presentable within the hour."

"Yes, highness." The runner gave a short bow before withdrawing.

"Well," Frerin said with forced levity, before the growing silence could become awkward, "it was nice while it lasted."

"If I'd known," Fili began, only to be halted by Frerin's raised hand. It was for the best. He didn't know how to finish the thought, couldn't begin to guess what he should have done differently.

"Please don't." Rueful, Frerin removed his headpiece and shook out his matted hair -- and there was another stomach-dropping surprise.

Fili muttered, "His highness must've had his reasons."

To judge by Frerin's widened eyes, even that was a blunder.

Mahal, of course it was. Fili had been on the receiving end of the phrase often enough in his life, and had delivered it with the same accustomed sarcasm. If he'd sounded like Thorin... well. Thorin must have acquired it somewhere.

Frerin shook his head to clear away whatever he'd intended to say. Instead, he stood and began to unbuckle his bracers. "Anyway, congratulations. I see Fundin coming to deliver the news." He took that as cue to make himself scarce.

"Captain," Fili said, eyes following Frerin's retreat.

"You've an easy touch with the lad."

"He reminds me of my little brother," Fili answered honestly.

"Tell me one thing. Would you have let him win if you'd known?"

"No. I might not have put a sword to his neck, though." He understood withholding the prince's identity, but it still seemed like an unnecessary risk. "What if I'd been an assassin?"

Fundin slapped Fili on the back, hard. Acceptance was coming, but all was not forgiven yet. "You'd be a dead one, fer a start. That, and no killer worth their salt would target a half-grown boy who'll never sit th' throne."

"Fair enough."

"Plus, nobody wantin' to avoid notice would go clickin' around with all them pretty beads."

Thanks, Kee.

"Yer eye's gonna be black an' blue to match, but the nose ain't bad. Get to keep yer looks." He said it with an air of regret.

Fili sighed.

Thumbs hooked in his belt, Fundin squinted at Fili before pronouncing, "Aye, you'll do. Find Dofri and get him to put you on the roster."

~~~~~

Chapter Text

As predicted, Fili did not look pleased when Kili crept back to their room late in the day. He'd been pacing, never a good sign, and didn't bother to turn or interrupt his circuit to say, "We have a problem."

Anticipating questions, Kili had come prepared with an excuse that was cut from truth, but with more holes than one of Bilbo's doilies. The threads began to slip away from him as he shifted focus to whatever new trouble could trump his unexplained absence. "Just the one?" he said as brightly as he could, to disguise the sound of his bow and quiver being hung by the door.

Now Fili turned to slap his brother with a glare that was more grave than accusatory. "Fundin oversaw the trials."

Kili motioned to his own face. "I suppose that's why you-"

"He matched me against Frerin."

"Frerin," Kili repeated, his hand frozen in place. "Our uncle Frerin?"

"No." Fili pronounced it slowly, as if cautioning them both, "His Highness Prince Frerin, son of Prince Thrain, son of King Thror."

Dead before either brother had been born, claimed by the same battle that had taken half their kin and dropped the responsibility for marshalling the survivors on the young prince and princess. Dis and Thorin spoke rarely of their lost sibling; and with no great deeds to mark him, he'd made but a footnote to greater tragedy, one vague spectre among the many that cast a pall over their line.

"Mahal, Fee. I never thought- Were you able to speak to him? What's he like?"

FIli sat on the edge of the bed, elbows propped on his knees and fingers burrowing into his hair. "Young," he groaned.

Right. He hadn't been battle-ready when Erebor was sacked, hadn't stood among those facing Smaug -- or so Kili had always assumed. Thorin had never made it clear one way or the other, but Frerin's presence had never been included in his recollections of that day.

"There's more."

Kili joined him on the bed while waiting for Fili to continue.

"Where were you today?"

"I- Dale," Kili was startled into admitting.

"Good."

"Good?" He was almost irritated that his guilty escapade could be so easily dismissed.

"You can't wander around Erebor looking like that."

Kili glanced down at himself. He hadn't worn his armor. Tunic and trousers were passably clean, if age-worn. (The style was even current. He'd found them sealed in a trunk that hadn't been touched since the day the mountain had fallen.) "Looking like what?" The ribbon in his hair might be odd, but Tauriel's gaze had lingered on it almost as a compliment. Just touching it brought back the sound of her laughter and the uneven curl of her smile. He'd refused to take the braid out, even knowing that it would catch Fili's disapproval.

"Like Frerin's double," Fili said.

"No, I've seen the portrait in Tho- in uncle's old room."

"Painted years from now when he's filled out his frame and grown out his beard. Right now, you share the same rangy build. You have the same shape to your faces, the same chin. And you did inherit the family coloring, all but the eyes. It's eerie, Kee. Anyone who knows him will see you and wonder."

"I suppose it's a good thing I didn't try for the guard." In everything else that had happened, he'd forgotten to ask. "Did you get in?"

"Of course." Fili sat up, making an ordeal of kicking off his boots. There was more, but he was deciding whether or not to share it. "The older companies are full. Dofri -- I think he's related to Dori and Nori and Ori -- let slip that there's a new one forming, but I'm not to be put in it yet. Fundin wants me in the training hall for now."

"I think Dwalin would be insulted to hear that you need practice," Kili said, though he knew that couldn't be the case.

"I may have let myself be too good," Fili admitted.

"You've only had Th- uncle and our own captain of the guard drilling you since you could lift a toy sword."

"So have you."

Not in the same way, though. Thorin had driven Fili as tirelessly as he drove himself in all things. His handling of Kili had been uneven, lenient in one moment and severe the next. Kili had come to understand it as... not a shortcoming on his part. Not exactly. A basic difference. Fili and Thorin were closer in disposition; Thorin was better able to see himself mirrored in his heir. But if Kili resembled Frerin as strongly as Fili claimed...

"Regardless," Kili said, "you've been trained beyond the point that skill becomes instinct. That's not something you could hide from the likes of Fundin."

Fili shrugged. "It does mean I'll be able to stay at the inn a while longer. If I'm placed with a company I'll doubtless be expected to bunk with them."

"That would be inconvenient."

"If it becomes a problem I can always leave -- or get thrown out if I must."

Kili bumped Fili's shoulder. "That I would pay to see."

"What about you? Did you made progress in Dale finding our answers?" Of course Fili hadn't forgotten. He'd picked up Thorin's tactic of letting the conversation wander away before yanking it back to the point Kili least wanted to discuss. Their uncle was so good at it that Kili had been known, in his paranoia, to confess wrongdoings which otherwise might have stayed hidden. Fili was less forbidding but better at applying guilt.

The hours he'd spent with Tauriel had not been fruitless. First they'd mounted the wall, to view the city and Erebor in the distance -- but it had also allowed Kili to scout the wind lance. After, he'd suggested they roam west. He hadn't wanted to stay in Dale and chance being waylaid by other elves, although once he'd left the bustle behind and immersed himself in even those tame woods, he'd realized how much he'd missed being surrounded by living things and solitude.

Tauriel had teased him, of course, for taking a wood-elf sightseeing in her natural habitat. He'd teased her in turn by pointing out particular trees and rocks and making outrageous stories about them, threaded through with fragments of truth from his own life. Eventually he'd tripped and fallen over from laughing too hard, and they'd gone no farther, staying there just to talk. He learned the name of the elvish song along with some of the words; and eight different uses for a plant with dark, glossy leaves; and when he'd steered the conversation to the business between Thror and Thranduil, she'd proved surprisingly knowledgeable and candid about the inner workings of the Elvenking's court.

It hadn't been until their awkward, protracted parting that she remembered to compliment his playing, and he remembered to give her his name.

"I learned a good deal about the current political situation."

"What could you learn that I couldn't from the guard? Or the prince?"

"You won't hear the whole truth," Kili said. "We need both sides for that. Remember how it was with Thorin? We all made excuses for him long after we should have, first because we didn't want to believe the worst, and then because no one wished the consequences of speaking against him." If the same sickness was on the king, those close to him would be likewise constrained.

Fili indicated the ribbon. "I suppose your source has pointed ears and an abundance of red hair."

"We can trust her." Despite strained relations, Tauriel still counted the dwarves of Erebor her people's allies, that much had been clear.

"Then use her and be done with it."

"The same way you'll use Frerin?"

Fili tensed. "I intend to see as little of Frerin as possible. He's already too friendly, too familiar. I'm like a puzzle he's eager to pick apart-"

"It's not your duty to protect him."

"I know that! I'm more concerned for those who feel it is their duty. I may need to go places I shouldn't, seed rumors and stir trouble, abuse what little authority I'll have. It will be impossible if I'm badgered by the prince and watched by his minders."

"His aid, even unwitting, may be too valuable to turn away. Who would think twice to stop you from going where you shouldn't with a prince in your company? Fill his ear with whatever he wants to hear and win him to your side."

"He's not stupid."

"Just young," Kili reminded.

"You think he won't recognize an attempt to curry favor? He's a prince of Erebor, and that carries a bit more weight than a prince of the Blue Mountains."

"So it follows that he's at least as full of himself as we once were."

Fili mumbled, "Still are."

"If we two could lose our minders long enough to make mischief back home, it should be easy to do in a city this size. The harm's only for a week or two, and then none of it will matter." If that assurance sounded false to his ears, it was because he didn't want to believe it. There was a chance they might remain after their work was done, doomed to live out the remainder of their days in a past that was and wasn't their own.

Kili would seize any hope that would let him stay within reach of Tauriel.

Fili reclined back on the bed with his forearm laid gingerly across his eyes. "I'll consider it," he said at last.

Perhaps now was not the time to ask him for those arrow points.

~~~~~

The problem of Kili's appearance had been resolved in part by Fili's insistence that he still dig for answers in the royal archives. There was no helping the beard, but he could change his hair and disguise his build. He already had the fingerless gloves and the perfect model in the Company's own scribe.

Fili was actually the better of the two at mimicry, and had coached Kili that night on how to move and speak like Ori. Dressing the part was simple, a trip to the market the next morning to purchase all things loose and knitted, with an oversize scarf that could be looped high enough to conceal his chin. Determined not to cut his hair, he'd bound it all up in a knot and tied it off with the green ribbon.

The effect, he decided in front of the inn's communal mirror, was ridiculous but successful, as the point was to look nothing like himself.

It still felt wrong to walk out the door without bow or scabbard, his only weapon a small knife tucked in his belt, such as might be used to sharpen quills.

Slouch, he reminded himself as he made his way through Erebor's echoing halls. Short stride, eyes down. You're nobody. The pretense might have helped him avoid notice, as he reached the archive without once being stopped and questioned about his purpose in the royal quarter.

The archive was ordered much as it had been the few times he'd gone there hunting Balin, though well-lit and free of cloying dust and cobwebs. The scent of aged leather and parchment brought to mind the much smaller hall of records in Ered Luin, and Kili was able to relax a little with the familiarity. He was perhaps not so far out of his depth as he'd feared.

He spotted someone moving between the stacks. When his presence went unnoticed for long minutes, he sought them out, scuffing his boots to announce his coming.

"What do you want now?"

"A job, mistress."

The woman turned, a pile of scrolls in her arms. She was younger than he'd expected, handsome with hair almost as pale as some elves. It was bound in twin plaits, one of which had worked into it a long silver cylinder that served to hold a quill. Over her skirt she wore a long coat, without sleeves and covered with pockets that bulged with small books and scraps of paper and other things Kili couldn't tell.

"Well, I want books that will shelve themselves and never mildew or be eaten by moths -- and while I'm at it, a cup of spiced brandywine. Shame we can't all have what we want." Her eyes narrowed as she took in his appearance. "You're not from the seneschal's office."

Wrong, he was very much out of his depth. "No, mistress," was the only thing he could think to say.

"Piss off. I'm worked to death and you've already wasted too much of my time." She turned away, muttering something about blasted elves and bloody men of Dale.

Now that Kili could use. "My apologies. Though it occurs to me that we each have something the other wants. You're overworked and I'm seeking work."

"I don't take assistants. My budget's tighter than the seneschal's arse as it is."

"I'm quick and strong, with a memory like a bear trap," Kili tried. The first part was even true. "And I'll work for nothing to begin, as a trial."

She dumped the scrolls seemingly at random and turned back once more. "Hn. You really weren't sent by the seneschal, else you'd be red-faced and falling over yourself to defend his lordship's dignity."

"I don't even know who the seneschal is. I've only just arrived to Ere-"

"There's plenty better jobs for an overeager clodhopper. Try the seneschal's office. Tell his assistant Balin that Bir sent you." Her smile was downright vile. "No! Tell him I yelled and threw things and you ran away in fear for your life."

Balin? Seeing that kindly face was about the last thing Kili wanted to do. "I'm eager for knowledge. The seneschal doesn't have books," he said weakly. "You do."

"Of course his lordship does, all the tomes his toadies have raided from me."

"But-"

"Leave now or I really will chase you out." She took a threatening step in his direction. "Go!"

Kili did not flee, but he didn't hang around to see if Bir was as good as her word. He already had another plan forming, one that would play to his strengths -- and he had claimed to be quick, hadn't he?

It was time to emulate Ori's light-fingered brother.

Kili knew from his lessons that the kingdoms gathered once a year to renew relations and renegotiate trade agreements. He knew from Tauriel that the gathering was fast approaching, for she was in Dale to assist preparations. It was held after the late harvest, when stock could be taken of winter stores; and there could be no coincidence that it fell after the respective feast-days of the three peoples, when the mood tended to be easy and mellow.

The unpopular seneschal held domain over feasts and festivals, official ceremonies and diplomatic functions. Balin had served that purpose in Ered Luin, what little need there'd been for it. Erebor would require a small army to cosset visiting royalty while putting dwarven wealth and hospitality on display.

At least half of that army was milling in the seneschal's hall. Kili had not needed to know its location, but had followed the trail of runners and household staff, as industrious as a line of ants. No one paid him notice as he slipped inside. There were plenty like him, carrying nothing but still moving with purpose, probably searching for the right ear in which to deliver their messages.

Kili spied a likely target, marching to it and swiping it off a table. He could have chosen a book that wasn't propped open amid five others, but this one was large and weighty-looking and would make a good trophy.

"Hey! I was using that."

Book clutched in his arms, Kili strolled for the door.

"Did you hear me? I said, I need that volume. Bring it back at once." By the sound of it, the junior steward who'd been sitting at the table was scrambling out his chair to give chase. "Stop, whoever you are!"

"Bir sends her regards!" Kili whooped and bolted.

He ran all the way to the archive, needing to arrive ahead of pursuit, and proudly slid the book in front of the archivist. "Sorry, there was no time to stop for brandywine."

Bir looked up at him, scowl faltering, and stored her quill. "You didn't-"

"They'll be on alert now. I won't be retrieving more that way."

"You're a tenacious bugger, I'll give you that."

"All I ask is a chance," Kili said. He patted the tooled leather cover. As luck would have it, the volume was one of a set on courtly etiquette, modes of address in particular. It was a risk, given how distant his lessons were in his memory, but he pressed, "Give me a quarter hour and then test me on the contents. You'll see that I'm smarter than I look."

"Balin won't be happy," Bir said to her own delight and amusement.

"Please, mistress."

"But I still can't figure why you're so blamed eager to work for me. I smell a trick."

Kili was saved from answering by the entrance of the junior steward, who was trailing a familiar figure in red. It seemed that his disguise was going to be put to an earlier and more stringent test than he'd anticipated.

"There he is! That's our thief."

"Bir." Balin dropped a polite bow, using the motion to mask the stomp he gave to the junior steward's foot. Frerin would be well-known to him, yet his eyes barely marked Kili's existence, so great was his focus on his opposition.

Bir's grin was all teeth. "Balin. What brings you to my lair?"

"I've, er, come to ask for the loan of a book."

"It wouldn't happen to be this book... would it?" She walked her fingers over the gilt title.

Balin sighed. "Aye, that'd be the one."

Kili slipped behind Bir's desk, less to hide than to present a unified front -- or so he told himself. Balin had been his teacher in many things, a better and more patient one than a delinquent princeling had deserved. The sight of him, free of the intervening years and burdens that would later hang about his neck like lead, made Kili's chest tighten.

"This volume here which happens to belong to a set that is forbidden to leave my archive?"

"We both know it's forbidden by the rules you alone make, and can bend when it pleases you."

Which was never, Kili guessed.

Bir lifted her hand off the book, head turned toward the junior steward as if daring him to be foolish enough to try the same trick Kili had. She'd probably relish the excuse to break his fingers. "Yours is not the only office needing references to prepare for our guests ."

"We are the most vital," the junior steward reasoned, "so our need is greatest."

Balin made a slow blink, the one that served in place of rolling his eyes in resignation when he was doing his utmost to remain diplomatic. It was so familiar that Kili heard in his mind as clearly as if Balin had spoken: You've gone and done it now, laddie.

Bir offered almost sweetly, "Shall I tell everyone who leaves here empty handed that I was unable to assist them because the seneschal is too important to share my own books with the rest of Erebor?"

"I'd prefer that you don't."

"Then return what you've stolen."

"Borrowed."

"Your minions may come here to seek answers, same as everyone else."

"Now Bir..." Balin pleaded, looking like he might beg on his knees if he thought it would do him any good.

Oh, that's how it is.

"The lads can't waste the time running back and forth all day. There's seating arrangements to sort, a proclamation or three to draft, and inventory to take on every last blasted piece of tableware we'll need for the banquet. If any are missing, after, the king will-" Balin cleared his throat. "We can't afford a repeat of last year, when Lord Rochis was mortally offended to be invited as Girion's brother-in-law rather than by his title of Minister of Streetlamps." He mourned, "They have a minister for everything."

Bir sucked in a sharp breath. "You have the gall to complain to me about wasted time?"

Kili took pity on them both, aware that Balin couldn't pass up a sensible compromise. "Can't you copy out the parts you need?"

"It'd take too long, and longer still to verify the copy. Any errors introduced to the text could have... unfortunate consequences."

All that would be forgotten once Smaug came. "I'll do it," Kili said. "Copy and verify both. I'll finish by morning if it kills me."

Bir turned a suspicious eye on him.

Kili flipped open the book. "Here -- I'll do a few pages and you can check my work."

Balin stroked his beard, considering Kili for the first time, but the dreaded flicker of recognition never came. "I wouldn't want to take you from your other duties." He said it as a question to Bir.

"The dunderhead can do as he likes."

"How's your handwriting, laddie?"

"I believe you'll find it to your satisfaction," Kili told Balin with a secret smile.

"Well then, I suppose it won't hurt to try."

~~~~~

Chapter Text

If Fili had one martial deficiency, it was pike-work in heavy armor. As befitted Durin's heir, he was well versed in deploying infantry but had little practice himself holding position in a shield wall. The king's place was ever in the vanguard, leading by example. In that lesson there'd been no better teacher than Thorin Thrain-son, called Oakenshield for his exploits at Azanulbizar.

Beware you do not unmake him, Fili had recalled with a shiver.

Fundin had sniffed out the gap in Fili's experience and put him to drilling all morning. Fili had welcomed it, aware that he trained with the same guards who might stand shoulder to shoulder with him against Smaug's rampage. If the serpent was not stopped over Dale, it would fall to these dwarves to slay him. There was no way to tell which of them might give their lives to the task, but Fili would learn before then the names of as many as he could.

Of Thorin there was thankfully still no sign, though Dwalin came once to speak to his father. The shock of youthful hair in place of his tattoos made him more difficult to recognize than Fili would have thought. He was glad to be standing in a line with his fellows, armed and dressed alike, with nothing to mark him out for the future guard captain's notice.

The afternoon was given to the instruction of some greener guards. In that area, Fundin could find no faults in Fili despite his scrutiny. That might have dampened his mood had he not been so obviously speculating on all the ways he might use Fili's skill should the outsider prove trustworthy.

At the end of his day, Fili was given into the care of one of Fundin's sergeants, to be outfitted from the armory. They'd barely left the hall when they were waylaid by Frerin, dashing Fili's hopes that the prince had either lost interest or was kept away by his duties.

"Highness," the sergeant bowed his head.

Fili was late to do the same. "Highness." At least his manners would be excused as rustic, for no one could possibly guess the real reason he was unaccustomed to addressing royalty as a commoner should.

Frerin's smile, for Fili alone, was a touch too sincere. "How did you fare today? Was Fundin hard on you?"

Even if they hadn't been stalled in the middle of the hall, forcing others to skirt around them, the trio still would have drawn attention. "The captain is a fair taskmaster. I've no complaints." It was even true, though Fili would have lied before saying anything uncomplimentary of Fundin where he might be overheard.

"Highness," the sergeant began, "if you'll excuse us-"

Stop, right there. Not another word.

"-we were headed to the armory."

Curse him for a fool.

"Oh?" Frerin's eyes acquired a troubling glint.

The sergeant jerked his chin at Fili. "This one needs outfitting."

"I'll take him," Frerin said, an offer cloaked with the finality of an order.

Fili had to try anyway. "Please, your highness, don't trouble yourself." He gestured to Frerin's outfit. It was the deep blue Thorin favored, heavy with ornament, and overlaid by a striking fur-trimmed cape. "You're dressed for far more important business."

"Yes." Frerin looked down at himself with impatience. "I've had my fill of important business. What I want now is a distraction, and you'll serve nicely. Come." He turned with the expectation that Fili would follow.

There was nothing to be done for it -- the sergeant had already taken his dismissal and departed. Trudging after Frerin, Fili recalled the times he'd thrown his weight around in the same manner for some petty or selfish purpose. When he'd been caught, a clout to the head had made sure he'd heeded his mother's lecture on respecting the privilege of his position. Thorin's named heir you might be, she had said, but the son of a king you are not. Never forget it, for others won't.

He'd taken her words to heart, let them inform his actions and hold sway over even his smallest choices. Now it was come to naught. His whole life had been preparation for a role he would not fill, like a new-forged blade ruined on the grinding wheel before it could be tested. If for no other reason, he would resent his death for robbing him of the chance to know what kind of ruler he'd have made.

The thought gave him pause. Thorin deserved the chance to build his kingship on his own virtues rather than on slaughter and turmoil. He would acquire his resilience, his keenness other ways; instead of an oaken branch he would have Thrain's example to follow and Dis and Frerin both by his side. A Thorin who remained in Erebor would be better prepared for the crown than Fili could ever have been.

He stumbled when Frerin took his elbow and pulled him sharply around and into a- Oh, they'd reached the armory.

"We're here."

"So I see."

In the hall, Frerin had allowed Fili to trail a respectable distance behind him. Unfortunately, the otherwise deserted storeroom was littered with enough armor racks to excuse the prince's continued proximity, for he moved not a step after releasing Fili. "At least that part of you works. Your ears did not hear when I called."

What of it? Fili wanted to snap. He blanked his expression instead, mumbling, "My apologies, highness. I was distracted."

Either the delivery or the words were wrong -- or perhaps there was another reason Frerin chose not to be appeased. "I considered letting you go on, just to see how long it would take you to realize you were lost."

Fili pushed deeper into the room, refusing to look at Frerin. "Lost is straying off the path in the Mirkwood, not traversing a harmless hall in Erebor."

"There are a great many opportunities for nasty falls in Erebor," Frerin cautioned, following on his heels. "Best to stay alert to your surroundings."

If reference to an adventure in elven territory could not deflect the princeling, there was one other thing he might try. Fili dropped all pretense of formality. "How long did you lie in wait to ambush me outside the training hall?"

Frerin dismissed being caught with a chuckle. "Not long."

"And for what purpose?"

"As I said, I was bored and in need of distracting."

"No, that is the story you concocted to hide behind."

Frerin, damn him, was not put off by a stranger's bluntness. Indeed, he seemed to savor it. "I was curious to know how you fared today, and how you were recovering from your injuries." Without warning he was sneaking around Fili's side, hand already raised. "That eye-"

Fili snatched his wrist and held it fast, satisfied to watch the first glimmer of apprehension cross Frerin's eyes, which were too close and too like Thorin's. "For what purpose?" he repeated, backing his voice with iron.

"I want to train with you." Frerin shook his head, visibly revising; and Fili realized that where he'd meant to be firm, intimidating even, he'd also revealed the confidence of one used to commanding obedience. "I want you to train me."

That had the sound of truth. Fili pushed him away. "Take it up with the captain. I'm part of the guard now and subject to his orders."

"By that point, as part of the guard and an inhabitant of Erebor, are you not also subject to my orders?" Frerin said it with the same curious expression Kili wore when poking something potentially dangerous with a stick.

There was a weary -- and yes, envious -- part of Fili that did not wish to simply deny his uncle. He wanted to embarrass Frerin for asking what he asked, in the way he asked it. Penalize him somehow for trying to hand Fili the means to manipulate him, and for forcing Fili to decide on the spot whether he had the stomach to do it or no.

Stomach. His body was a borrowed thing, its viscera riddled with fire.

"Orders are just words," Fili murmured, his composure alone enough to secure Frerin's momentary silence. "They're nothing on their own. You have yet to earn my trust and respect; you can't compel me by duty or fear. That you cornered me in private tells me that what you ask is as much a risk to you as it is me."

That was not entirely true. If caught, Fili would face the greater consequences.

"I asked Fundin." Frerin's frown was no worse than thoughtful. "He isn't sure of you yet."

You are? Fili nearly returned, just to see what inadvertent revelations the answer might yield. Of course Frerin was not sure, though he'd doubtless hoped to find Fili more tractable. "And you are too impatient to wait until he is. Why is that, I wonder." He said it mildly, leaving Frerin the choice to respond or not, and it was disturbing that he couldn't tell where his... fraternal curiosity ended and ulterior motives began.

Frerin wet his lips, gaze sliding off Fili's face to concentrate on something near the vicinity of his ear. The beads perhaps? "It feels like I'm being held back in my training. I could advance more quickly, I know I could."

"I trust the captain-" Fili stressed, to remind himself, for he'd come close to saying Dwalin, "-is training you at the exact pace he thinks you need." The maturity and experience Frerin lacked could not be rushed.

"When he was my age, my brother Thorin-"

When you were my age. How many times had he heard that from Kili, with the same simmering frustration? How many times had he tried the same argument on Thorin?

"Thorin." Frerin repeated name while it still lingered in Fili's thoughts, and so it took far longer than it should have to notice that Frerin had tensed and retreated a step. He stared over Fili's shoulder to the armory door.

Fili squeezed his eyes shut, which only served to elevate the sound of approaching footsteps. He felt like a child again, playing hide and seek, holding his breath while a searcher neared. Willing them to go away, keep walking, don't stop. The times his uncle had deigned to participate, he'd been good at pretending to overlook Fili and Kili in hiding places which must have been painfully obvious.

"There you are."

Mahal, it was his voice and it wasn't. The words were right though, enough to make Fili flinch.

"I-" Frerin said.

Realizing he was about to be caught between his uncles, Fili moved aside, all but stumbling over his own feet to escape the imagined sensation of Thorin breathing down his neck.

"Mother is waiting for you in the small antechamber. She is covering for your absence, so I suggest making your way there with due haste." Thorin ignored Fili, yet his even tone made it clear he was all too aware that he and Frerin had an audience.

"But grandfather retired. I thought..."

"The king may do as he pleases. The rest of us do not have that luxury." Thorin spoke of crown affairs with measured restraint, though he would not have said anything at all had he known just much Fili was able to infer from those few words.

Frerin turned to Fili as if just remembering his presence. He spoiled it with a sour expression, unhappy that Fili had witnessed the scolding. "I'm helping provision a new member of the guard."

"Not anymore you're not." Thorin had no trouble staring down his brother, though by some small mercy he did not yet possess the bearing that could quell a room full of squabbling warriors with a glance. "I'll finish the outfitting."

"Surely you're needed as well." Frerin redoubled his smile. "Fili here will have to wait."

Fili here will do no such thing.

He had not been given leave to speak, but Frerin had come close enough to addressing him that it would be excused. "Of course, highness. I'm sorry to have diverted you from your duties." Fili didn't know what effect he aimed for, only that he enjoyed donning a graciousness that Thorin Oakenshield would have deemed impertinent coming from his heir.

Thorin the prince merely nodded, the first open acknowledgement he'd granted Fili.

"My duties will not keep me long, perhaps an hour or two," Frerin said. It was likely wishful thinking more than a realistic estimate on his part. "I'll meet you after. Where are you-"

"I've put in my appearance," Thorin interrupted, "and have a little time to spare before supper, though this was not how I'd planned to waste it. Go," he told Frerin.

Fili could only return the beseeching look Frerin gave: Please don't leave me alone with him.

"Make sure he picks new swords," Frerin said at last, gaze falling. "The ones he has are old and won't hold an edge."

"Thank you, highness," Fili muttered.

Frerin edged wide around Thorin when he departed, coming so near to Fili to do it that the tail of his cape brushed Fili's leg.

"So," Thorin began, revealing yet another small mercy. He either didn't have the time or the inclination to hold himself aloof, waiting until Fili squirmed. "You're the new recruit." That I've heard so much about, was conveyed in a single raised eyebrow.

"I believe so, your ma- highness." Fili dug his fingernails into his palms, praying his slip would go unremarked.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Yes, highness."

"And you are?"

"Fili." He tested the next part in his head to be sure it would come out right. His mother's name and line had ever taken precedence. "Son of Vili, of Ered Luin."

Thorin pointed to a spot on the floor and Fili stepped there without thinking. It gave Thorin the room to pace an appraising circle around him. "I hear you've some skill with a sword."

Would Fundin have admitted such a thing? Unlikely. Frerin, then. He would need to be humble but not suspiciously so, and stick to a story already told. "Enough to earn a living with my blades -- if you could call it that. Guarding caravans is a mean business."

"Guarding Erebor is a strict one."

"I'm well aware, highness." Fili dared to meet Thorin's gaze and hold it, unwavering. "When the need comes, I swear I will give my life to Erebor's preservation."

Thorin had the gall to look disconcerted. It was fleeting, mastered with a haste that spoke of practiced wariness. That in turn served to make him appear unbearably young, for Oakenshield the King wore distrust as a hallmark, not a mere habit. He halted in front of Fili, never losing his eyes, and said at last, "Let us hope the need does not come."

It already has, uncle. And here I am, giving my death for the same purpose.

"I should like to match against you sometime."

"As it pleases your highness," Fili said, the rote phrase a contradiction to his grimace.

Thorin's eyes narrowed. "In the meantime, avoid my brother if you know what's best for you."

"Yes, highness. I understand."

"Do you," Thorin said flatly, though he must have been satisfied, for he motioned to the room at large before moving to the nearest rack. "Pick your swords."

Fili wished for nothing more than to hurry through the task and escape, but it would be strange if he did not select the tools of his trade with the utmost care. He inspected blade after blade, dismissing some at once and resting others on his finger to find the balance point.

"Stand still." Thorin stepped close to hold something against Fili's back.

The contact made him forget the order with an audible gasp, and he spun to find a chain coat dangling from Thorin's hands. The sight swam in his eyes until he was seeing a different armory, grimy with disuse and drenched in torchlight, his uncle holding another coat over their bewildered burglar: Put this on. You're going to need it. The rest of the Company frozen in place, the better to overhear Bilbo's faint protests being swept aside.

I'm not a warrior.

It is a gift, one I must make and you must accept. The path to this moment is inexorable.

That wasn't right. Thorin hadn't- He'd said-

"This should fit you."

The vision burned away as if it had been paper held over a flame. There was Thorin, young once more, trying to press an ordinary coat into Fili's unresponsive hands.

"Take it."

Deep-rooted obedience shook Fili loose at last. He somehow managed not to drop the coat's unexpected weight.

"Here's bracers, belt, tabard." Thorin slung those over Fili's arm. "See Dofri tomorrow about matching trousers and boots. No heavy armor for recruits until Fundin's decided they're worth keeping."

Fili's attention snagged on the clasp in Thorin's beard, which was longer than he ever wore it -- well, longer than Fili could ever remember -- and braided.

"Have you settled on swords?"

No, but he'd narrowed down his options enough to pick two that were a near match. Shifting the rest of his gear to his shoulder, he pulled them from the pile. "These."

Where Frerin might have demanded a closer look, Thorin just said, "Fine. Return the rest to the racks." He waited for Fili by the door, and took the task of shutting it himself when they left.

While Fili had studied his uncle in the storeroom, in the hall it was difficult even to glance at him. Better lighting made it impossible not to notice the missing silver in his hair and the lack of years etched on his face. This Thorin was a little too confident, too secure in his status. The difference was in the rich clothes, the trappings, the subtle arrogance which which he accepted wordless salutes given by passing members of the guard.

If Fili had needed a reminder that he and Kili were fumbling alone in the dark, here was a Thorin he could not imagine turning to for help or guidance, no matter how veiled the request.

"Was there something else?"

"No, highness."

"Silver tongue fled, has it?" Thorin smirked. "Remember my warning."

He refused to answer, but none was expected after such a clear dismissal.

Chapter Text

Fili had been invited to supper by some of the younger guards in his afternoon session. He'd made no promises, intending not to go, but faced with an empty inn room and no sign of Kili, he changed his mind soon enough.

The meal was a regular event, it seemed, taking over a large table at the Tossed Pot, one of the taverns near the barracks. Fili suffered himself to be introduced to what felt like the entire establishment, stashing names and faces in his memory, his smile hanging by a thread. He did not wish to form attachments in this time -- his task would be difficult enough as it was -- and was thankful that he was wanted primarily for his novelty and his stories.

They were all the same low rank, but some of the authority Fili had held during training must have stuck. Or perhaps it was just the knowledge that he could wipe the floor with any one of his fellows. Despite a general burning curiosity, the questions he refused to answer about his past were dropped readily enough, and prying halted altogether once he made it clear it was unwelcome.

The food was not terrible, the drink plentiful, and boisterous company just what he needed to distract him from the encounter in the armory. All in all, there were worse ways to spend an evening.

Trust Kili to rope him into one of them.

Upon his return, Fili found a note pinned beneath the lamp in their room, with just the corner showing. He might have overlooked it earlier, but the scrap of paper was very good quality, sparking the momentary fear that Frerin had discovered where he was lodging, either by dragging the information out of Dofri or having Fili followed.

His relief was short-lived when he spied the familiar handwriting:

Did something not smart. Come to archive. Bring food and/or strong drink. -K

On one hand, mention of the archive meant that Kili hadn't wasted the day mooning around Dale after a certain elf. On the other, Kili had a knack for downplaying his predicaments. Not smart could cover anything up to and including setting the place ablaze.

Curiosity swiftly overcame a hesitance to become involved with anything that could jeopardize his position in the guard. Damned if Fili was bringing drink, though. Kili was lucky to be getting half a loaf of bread and a hunk of hard sausage from the inn's stores. The proprietor tied those up in a bit of cloth for Fili, convinced less by the few coins exchanged and more by Fili looking vaguely official in his new tabard.

He hadn't yet been given permission to wear it (and knew full well he shouldn't outside of guard duties), but it might let him pass unquestioned through the royal quarter. He could claim ignorance on the off chance he was caught, though the excuse would only work once and he'd prefer to hold it in reserve.

Perhaps he was being overcautious. The quarter was still abuzz despite the long hour, and the presence of one more soul hurrying about their business drew no comment.

He found the archive empty save for a despondent figure stooped over a desk. Checking once more to be certain they were truly alone, Fili crept up behind his brother and murmured, "This is a nice surprise. I expected more disaster, less... studiousness."

Kili spun around, nearly falling out of his chair, the quill in his stained hand brandished like a knife. "Fili!" he hissed.

Fili raised his hands in surrender as two things struck him at once. One, Kili was alone at night in the royal archive. And two, "Oh, you have got to let me see the full effect. Up, stand up."

Huffing, Kili did as asked, wobbling in a circle. "Laugh and I'll hit you with my remaining good hand. I think my right is cramped in a permanent claw." He shook out his wrist. "See? I'm trying to drop the quill and I can't. It's fused to me with ink and despair."

"I have something that might help." Fili handed over the food.

The quill went down easily enough now even as Kili's stomach grumbled a complaint. "You are my favorite brother," he said fervently, trailing into a moan with his first bite of sausage.

"Remember that when I do laugh, because it's paining me to hold it in." He couldn't decide if the scarf was the best part, or the hair, or the way Kili's form swam in an ocean of shaggy knit. One thing was certain: Frerin wouldn't be caught dead in the ensemble.

Kili ignored him in favor of more moaning, quieter and almost giddy. He scattered crumbs all down his costume when he tore into the bread.

"Er, should you be eating in here?"

"What the archivist doesn't know can't hurt me."

Fili looked around again, taking in the tall, crowded shelves. There was no reason they shouldn't possess the same painstaking disarray he remembered; it wasn't as if Smaug could have rummaged through the books, or would have had interest in them apart from their flammable nature. "Not that I doubted you, but how did you come to be unsupervised in the royal archive?"

"Long ftory." Kili's cheeks were stuffed full and his words garbled. "Or maybe no. There waf a guard. Difappeared an hour ago -- or two, or five." He swallowed with difficulty. "Time has lost all meaning."

The shift would have changed a couple hours ago. "The guard left their post and none came to take their place?"

Kili shrugged, picking crumbs off his chest to eat. "My behavior has been impeccable. Maybe they decided I wasn't worth the bother. Either that or they've been on the receiving end of the archivist's tongue once too often and didn't feel like doing her any favors."

Truly Erebor's guard was grown lax in their overconfidence. "I should take it up with Fundin."

"Yes, please make my job more difficult than it has to be. That would be fantastic. Nice tabard, by the way."

"I said should, not will." Fili motioned to the mess of pages scattered across the table. "This doesn't look much like hunting for answers."

"Oh, you know, I thought I'd do some copy work for Balin for nostalgia's sake."

"Ha ha."

Now Kili did hit him, a backhanded slap in the stomach. "I'm only half joking. Had to get in the archivist's good graces somehow, and the other option was strangling one of the junior stewards. Balin is assistant to the seneschal, did you know?"

"That sounds familiar."

Kili hesitated, his expression clouding. "You're better with names than I am. Can you remember him ever mentioning someone named Bir?"

He searched his memory. "No."

"That's the archivist. She's engaged in a private little war with the seneschal's office, but I think she delights in aggravating Balin in particular."

"Is that somehow important to-" Fili spread his hands to encompass Kili and the desk and archive and everything else.

Kili dropped his voice, too soft and solemn for gossiping. "I think he's quite taken by her. And I think she... didn't escape the mountain."

"Ah." He might have just forgotten hearing the name. It was possible that this Bir had survived Smaug and gone somewhere other than Ered Luin to live. Possible, but unlikely. Of all the places Balin might have gone in the reclaimed Erebor, he had made the archive his sanctuary. His memories of the place must have been enduring and fond, even if colored by loss.

"It's going to be different this time."

"Wait. You've seen Balin?"

Kili nodded once.

"And he didn't-"

"If he noticed anything he kept it to himself."

Fili swept pages back from the table edge and propped his hip there, almost sitting. "I saw Dwalin. And ran into Thorin."

Kili had been reaching for his chair, but kicked it aside to perch instead next to Fili, wedging his shoulder against him as if to shore him up. "Oh, Fee."

"I'm fine." Sure he was. He'd meant to say it's fine. Fili dragged a hand over his face, remembering his bruises too late. "It would be worse if he wasn't so... different. On first impression, I don't think I like his highness very much, and I suspect the feeling is mutual."

"It's the beads," Kili supplied hastily. "He'd call them ostentatious and do that thing with his eyebrows."

"They are ostentatious." Though far less so than Thorin's court outfit. Granted, Thorin might not have had a choice.

"They're pretty and rather becoming, if I do say so myself."

Fili reached up to roll one between his fingers. "Frerin might agree." Did agree, he was fairly certain. That could very well be the problem. "Thorin warned me to stay away from him. No, avoid him." The distinction was a slight but meaningful one, as if Thorin could not guess which of them might prove the worse influence on the other.

"Will you?"

"I do not believe that decision will be mine in the end."

"Persistent, is he?"

"You've no idea." Then again, Kili might, chasing after the elf as he did. Anything declared inadvisable was all the more attractive to him.

Kili ran his hands down his thighs. "Well, now that you're here and I'm no longer famished, you can spell me."

"That had better not mean what I think it means."

"I was afraid I would have to take the book with me to piss," he confided, "and hope the stewards didn't make a raid on the archive while I was gone. I'm to lock the door when I leave, but once I do I can't get back in. The guard watched for me earlier when I ran -- actually ran -- to leave the note."

"The war is over stolen books?" Fili's mood lightened to imagine Balin sauntering ever so casually for the door, his beard concealing a book tucked in his belt.

"It is today. No telling what sparked it or how long it's lasted. I think if they didn't have a reason to quarrel they'd invent one." Kili hopped off the desk, turning to rearrange the workspace into a semblance of order. "Please, I beg of you. Even a few pages. I swore I'd finish by morning, and I haven't spared the time to begin hunting for answers. This might be my first and last chance to do it unsupervised."

The hour was not too late, and Fili was decently rested. He could afford to lose some sleep, though it was still tempting to take the search for himself and make Kili keep writing. "My hand is neater. They'll know you had help."

"It won't matter, but write with your left if it makes you feel better. I'll tell them my right fell off and I had to switch."

Fili answered by rolling up his sleeves. He would probably end up as ink-smeared as Kili was, and either need to wear gloves on the morrow or come up with a plausible explanation -- where plausible meant able to withstand one of Frerin's interrogations. He had no illusions of peace while the matter of the... supplementary training went unresolved.

~~~~~

Kili glanced up and down the hall once more before creeping out of the archive. The door closed behind him, ponderous yet well behaved on its hinges. The faint click of the lock engaging still raised hairs on his neck.

How had Bilbo done it? Concealed the Arkenstone for so long. The pilfered book felt as if it was burning a hole in Kili's pocket, and he knew his nerves wouldn't settle until he'd put some distance between himself and the irrational fear of being caught. He drifted down the corridor, ducking around one corner and then another, finding an alcove to lean in for a moment.

It didn't matter that he was unlikely to meet Bir in the halls. Too early for her to begin work. It didn't matter that the loss of one book was unlikely to be noticed. Can always blame Balin's lot if it is. Truth be told, it wasn't the act of thievery making Kili's heart pound in his chest, but the discovery that had prompted it.

It had happened just after he'd left his completed work on Bir's desk. (She would doubtless wring pleasure from delivering it to Balin herself). He couldn't say what had drawn his attention to the book in the first place. Its small size, perhaps? The way it had seemed out of place, nestled between much grander tomes? He'd pulled it down without noticing a title -- indeed there hadn't been one on the cover, which was plain, reminding him more of a private journal than anything that belonged in the royal archive.

He should show Fili. His brother had put in several hours helping with the copywork, finally begging off in the early morning to get some sleep before he was expected back in the guard hall. Kili might catch him at the inn if he hurried. But what if Fili was just as unsettled by the verse? What if he didn't grin and tease Kili for fretting over coincidence and imagined connections? What then?

Clanking footsteps intruded on his thoughts. He squeezed deeper into the recess, wedged between a statue and the wall it had been carved from, hoping that he wouldn't be spotted. A pair of guards eventually marched through his field of vision, well armed and armored, their attention wholly given to escorting a third tall figure between them.

Maybe the hours of inhaling ink fumes and dust -- on top of a lack of sleep -- had addled his wits. Maybe he was prone to imagining things this morning, but Kili could have sworn- No, it was Tauriel. Her profile and tail of red hair together dispelled all doubts.

Of the three, she was the only one whose gaze had probed into his hiding place, just long enough to mark his presence. A presence. She'd given no sign of recognition before she'd been hustled out of sight.

Before he could stop to consider the wisdom of doing so, Kili stumbled out into the hall. "Tauriel!"

She spun in place, improbably graceful, then had to dodge the guards flanking her who were not careful about where they put scabbards and axe hafts and elbows. "Kili?" she asked, as if not trusting her eyes.

"Are you all right?" Though she was without bow and daggers, her hands weren't bound as he'd feared they might be. Indeed, the guards seemed stern rather than openly hostile, and made no move to interrupt the scene. "What are you doing here?" In the royal quarter, of all places.

There was an elf in Erebor's royal quarter. Thorin would be appalled.

"I should ask the same." Now she smiled for him, or more likely for his costume. "I barely recognize you."

"I was, ah, up early to finish some work for the archivist, and I stopped to inspect the statue." Kili glanced back into the alcove and felt a frisson run up his spine. This was not luck. "Durin the First. You can tell by the axe."

Tauriel merely cocked her head at Kili with the same unassuming interest she'd given his stories of home.

He shouldn't say more, but he was going to. There was so little he could reveal of his history. Sharing the tale of his ancestor was like a confession, a small weight off his chest, although he was the only one who would understand it as such. "It's a famous weapon. He's usually depicted carrying it. He was eldest of the seven fathers made by Aule, and I'm- that is, the dwarves of Erebor are descended from his line."

Now Tauriel shed her escort to stand by Kili's side and study the statue with him. Durin stood perhaps twice life-size with blunt, stylized features. The unknown sculptor must have chosen this particular bit of wall to take advantage of a fortunate impurity, a vein of some white mineral that surfaced in the statue's details, almost like brushstrokes.

"He's striking." Tauriel said it like a real compliment and not the word used to maintain a veneer of civility when kinder words were untrue.

Kili would not have dared what came next without the hope that he might one day tell her everything. She might believe him easier if she was accustomed to the idea. "We also call him Deathless, because he was so long-lived-" He ignored the outraged hand signs one of the guards was flashing at him. "-and because he is on occasion returned to life -- reborn into the royal line -- with his prior memories preserved."

"That's enough sightseeing. We need to get this wee lass back to the gate so she can be on her way."

The second guard, the younger of the pair, cut in. "Kili, is it? Any relation to Fili from the Blue Mountains?" A touch of genuine curiosity overshadowed the need to distract them from topics best not discussed before outsiders.

There was more potential harm in a lie than the truth should Kili contradict anything Fili had already said. "My brother."

"Who is Fili?" the first guard asked.

"Recruit, with the blue-" The younger waved his fingers at his own braids. "Came out of nowhere, bold as you please. Trounced Prince Frerin at the trials. Just dismantled His Royal Obnoxiousness. Be sad you missed it." He squinted at Kili.

Oh no, here it comes.

"You sure you're related?"

To Fili or Frerin?

"Yes," Kili said, too relieved to bristle at the possible insult. Tauriel did it for him; he sensed her tensing at his side and slipped her a cheeky grin. "Poor, unfortunate Fili favors our da, while I was lucky enough to take after our mam."

"If Fili got your da's head for fighting then yours was the short end of that bargain."

Kili was certain now that the ribbing was good-natured, though he wouldn't pass muster unless he gave back in kind. He lifted his chin, striking a pose. "You'd think so -- and don't dare repeat this lest you wound my brother's poor, tender feelings! -- but da was the lover and mam the fighter. She'd best either of you sorry sods with one arm tied behind her back."

Tauriel pulled the edge of her bottom lip between her teeth, chewing away the start of a grin as she looked at the ceiling, the floor, anywhere but at Kili in his ridiculous disguise, riling a pair of Erebor's finest.

The younger guard strode over and clapped Kili's shoulder, squeezing muscle through the layers of knit. "You know, I might believe it. Will you try for the guard?"

"Ah, no. No, two of us Blue Mountain lads in one place is one too many to handle."

"At least join us for supper. Fili knows where and when."

"I might," Kili lied.

"I'll keep you in ale if you tell a few stories. Tarnish that air of mystery he drags around."

"Right." The first guard barreled between them, hurling orders. "You." He pointed at his partner. "Enough yammering. We're on duty. You, go back to groping your statue. Lass, you're with us."

When Tauriel did not go to the guard's side, he resumed his place at hers with a huff.

"I'll finish escorting the Lady Tauriel to the gate." Kili knew just the meandering path to take, both to discover what her business was beneath the mountain and give him time to show off the city. He was anxious to know what she thought of Erebor, if she found it as alien yet intriguing as he'd found the Elvenking's halls.

The senior guard burst out laughing. "You will not! The elf is our charge. It's our heads on the line if there's trouble started on her account."

On her account. That was cleverly worded, leaving him no room to argue that Tauriel's behavior could be trusted. Her mere presence was an invitation for others to cause problems; and Kili had forgotten for a moment that he was without title and standing here. He had no authority to stop an argument apart from his fists.

"Kili," Tauriel said, her tone crisp, "I've a little time before I'm expected back in Dale. I'd like to resume discussing the business from earlier, if you wouldn't mind meeting me outside the gate to do it?"

It was very difficult not to boggle at the invitation. He didn't flatter himself thinking she'd come to Erebor looking for him, but it must mean something that she would seek out his company when the opportunity arose. Kili could think of no business, unfinished or otherwise, they might conduct. So he made one up and prayed he hadn't mistaken her intent. "Yes, of course. The book of formal titles is not permitted to leave the archive, but I've copied out some notes. I'll fetch them and meet you outside?"

Tauriel answered smoothly, "Please do. It would be appreciated." She'd settled her expression just on the polite side of bland, presenting the matter as dull enough to scare away the guards' flagrant interest.

Kili, no poor stretcher of the truth himself, was a little in awe as he watched her nod to her escort and continue down the hall.

He couldn't return to the inn now and risk being delayed by Fili, not even to hide the stolen book. Instead, Kili dashed into a public wash room and scrubbed away what he could of the last twelve hours. (Bir's ink was doubtless some high quality and incredibly expensive concoction that was meant to last for centuries without fading, on paper or skin.) His stomach was going to insist on being fed sooner rather than later, so he made a detour on his way to the gate to grab breakfast: two pies and a flask of strong hot tea.

Tauriel was lingering a ways along the road, leading a grey horse. When Kili neared he could see that she'd reacquired her daggers, and her bow and quiver were fastened to the saddle. He drew beside her wordlessly, and she accepted him there with no more than a tilt of her head, increasing the pace a little.

They broke from the other travelers and ended up following the river until they were tucked in a bend, out of sight from the road. Still not a word had been exchanged, the silence oddly companionable; and Kili let himself imagine for a moment that they were starting a journey, some adventure that would leave Erebor and Smaug and his cares behind. They could go anywhere, see any sights they wished, living off the land and guarding each other's backs.

Kili had said he wouldn't trade his life for any other. He still wouldn't, though his daydream would have made for a fine new chapter in it.

Tauriel hobbled the gelding and turned him loose with a fond slap on the haunch to graze along the bank. It seemed she had more time than she'd let on. The sun was still thin and the morning cool, and Kili wished he'd thought to bring a blanket to pad the rather chilly boulder he'd chosen for their seat. It was worn smooth with a gentle slope, and he knew Tauriel noticed that he'd taken the slightly taller side, so that their shoulders were near level when she joined him.

"Breakfast?" Kili unwrapped the pies. "Or second breakfast, if you've had one already. This one is sweet and this one savory. I didn't know which you'd prefer." The fare in Thranduil's dungeon had been coarse but more to dwarven tastes than the greenery served at Elrond's table. He didn't know what the elves of Mirkwood themselves ate, but the Company had gotten meat a few times with supper, and surely no special pains had been taken to accommodate prisoners.

"I will have to try both before I can tell you." Tauriel drew a slim knife from her sleeve and passed it to Kili. "Second breakfast, you said?"

If you think I'm giving you a weapon, dwarf-

Kili took the hilt, sparing a moment to inspect the craftsmanship before divvying up the pies. "I once spent the better part of a year in the company of a halfling. Very fond of creature comforts, he was -- frequent meals especially."

"To creature comforts, then," Tauriel said, taking her first bite and chewing thoughtfully. It must have met her approval, for she then polished off the quarter.

Right. Kili was glad he'd chosen well, though his composure could have done without the sight of her daintily sucking a dot of fruit filling off her thumb. "How did you find Erebor?" he asked, his voice creeping a step too high.

Tauriel reached for a slice of the second pie while she considered. "Imposing. Oppressive, in a way."

"Aye, I'll give it that," Kili said when she waited for his reaction.

She wasn't finished. "Secretive. The guards were very strict on the route we used between the gate and the envoy's quarters. It felt as if there was something hidden just around every corner I was not permitted to take, some scene of mundanity or sentiment or beauty that was not meant for my eyes."

Kili held very still, lest he do something rash like grip her hands in his and declare his heart on the spot.

Tauriel took his lack of response to mean something else, her mouth acquiring a humourless twist. "That is what I imagined, at least. I would almost rather not know the truth in case it's disappointing."

"Envoy?" Kili clutched at the distraction. He couldn't bear to tell her that she was closer to the truth than she had any right to be; that it wasn't just the mountain jealously guarding its warmth from outsiders. Erebor was a reflection of its people.

"Our king sent an ambassador of sorts ahead to make sure all would be prepared for his visit."

Knowing what Kili did of his great-grandfather, Thror just might find ways to make the Elvenking unwelcome without offering outright insult. It was amusing to imagine the face Thranduil would make if his opulent guest quarters had not a stick of elf-sized furniture, or a doorway not high enough for him to enter or leave without ducking his head.

"I doubt I make the best courier," Tauriel explained before Kili could ask. "I would not have been so quick to volunteer had I realized it would mean leaving my weapons in the care of strangers."

"Why did you, then? Volunteer." Kili suspected he knew the real answer and was curious to see if she'd admit it.

"The previous courier was involved in an argument, in Dale, but it led to his being barred from the mountain. There were few options to replace him on short notice, and..." The faintest blush colored the tip of her ear. "I was the only one who'd even conversed with a dwarf before."

Kili dared to grin and nudge her with his elbow. "So you were the best choice. It had nothing to do with curiosity."

"Curiosity is not an admirable trait in someone entrusted with private messages," she reminded, eyes sparkling.

Then it had factored into her decision. Kili was certain that the Tauriel he'd known before had never been to Erebor. Meeting Kili in this time had influenced her, even in some small way.

It is possible. Mahal, we're doing it, changing things.

"I wish I could show you more of the city. Though I grew up in the west, my uncle came from Erebor. I've heard stories of it all my life, and... you would not be disappointed," Kili finished in a rush. Tackling his forgotten breakfast, he was acutely aware that Tauriel studied him. He did not mind the weight of her gaze, but at present did not want to know what emotion, if any, accompanied it.

Daring as much as Kili had with his elbow, Tauriel reached for the end of his scarf. When she pulled it toward her to inspect the stitch pattern, Kili tried not to imagine that a good tug could overbalance him and land him in her lap. "Is this how you dress when you are not traveling, or does it have to do with your work for the archivist?" She had a welcome knack for shifting the conversation when she sensed they'd wandered onto precarious footing.

Kili saw the sense now in Ori's choice of wardrobe. "Oh, this is for the archives." He plucked at his front and was rudely reminded of the stolen book stashed in his breast pocket. "The archivist is... particular and wouldn't like it if I wore things that creaked or jingled every time I moved. Plus, it pays to dress warmly. Braziers and open flames don't mix well with paper and parchment." He gathered from Bir's grumbling that the archive was only heated by the great forges enough to stave off rot, as too much hot, dry air could be equally damaging.

"If you don't mind my asking-"

"You may ask me anything without fear of offense. I will either answer or explain my refusal."

"You indulge me," Tauriel murmured, perhaps not realizing that she still toyed with the tail of his scarf. "I do not know what I have done to earn it."

Only saved my life and captured my heart.

"Was that a question?"

"An observation."

"Perhaps one day I will tell you."

Tauriel asked, "Why the archive? From what I know of your life before you came to Erebor, I would think a position in the guard with your brother would suit you."

"You don't take me for a scholar?" Kili teased, trying to order his thoughts. "You'd be right, although there are things I wish to learn that will only be found in old books." He hesitated, finally drawing out the stolen one. "Will you look at something for me?"

"I'm no scholar either." She took the book all the same, leafing through pages she could not read. "What is it? I don't recognize the script."

"Nor should you. It is the language given to us by Aule. We hold it secret, only speaking it amongst ourselves."

Tauriel closed the book at once. "Kili-"

"I think it's a collection of foreign poems and songs. There are some elvish ones, though I don't know if the translation is accurate."

"You want me to verify," Tauriel guessed, her relief obvious.

Kili understood now why she'd withheld the subject of the song he'd learned in Rivendell, only telling him the name and a few lyrics. He never would have used it to snare her attention if he'd known it was the story of an elf-maid who'd loved a mortal enough to join him in an impossible quest. Worse, the quest had brought their deaths; only the pity of the Valar had restored them to life.

"Look to the back," he said, his face heating. "I want to know if you recognize the verse." It was written on the end-page in common script, added later if the shift in penmanship was any clue. He held his breath while Tauriel scanned the lines.

"I don't know it," Tauriel decided after what felt like an agony of waiting. "Is there no title?"

"None."

Engrossed, she tapped her fingers on the page as she read again. "On the surface, it seems a straightforward cautionary tale."

Kili feigned nonchalance. "And that would be?"

"Anyone with a kingdom to lose should beware the ambitions of their advisers, and pour their own wine lest they drink from a poisoned cup."

"That's all?"

Tauriel shrugged. "The symbolism is borrowed and confused. Silver and gold were the two lamps and the two trees destroyed by Morgoth -- and later the moon and sun. Poison could mean Ungoliant, who came under a shroud to devour the light and life from the trees, although that isn't quite correct. Spiders are venomous."

"Good to know." There was the chance he had been reading too much into someone's bad poetry, or a song that had become garbled across tellings and translations. Perhaps it had never made sense. Poisoning the princes would not put the wicked adviser on the throne; that wasn't how succession worked.

"I can tell you were hoping for more." Tauriel shut the book again and made to return it. "With your permission, I would ask one of my kin. His memory and knowledge of such matters are far greater than mine."

She means Thranduil's son.

"I... would not tell him where the verse is from, or upon whose behalf I ask."

"No, it's fine! That is, it's not important, really." Kili grabbed for the book. "As a fiddler I've collected hundreds of songs, and you're an elf. If we don't recognize the work between us it must be very obscure."

Tauriel gave a tug, as if refusing to release the book.

Following her startled gaze down, Kili saw that he'd trapped her hand beneath his and let go at once. "Sorry."

The book tumbled to the ground as Tauriel scrambled off the boulder and backed away. Confusion and some cold emotion like anger flickered over her face, and while she didn't reach for her daggers, the stance she took was battle-ready all the same.

Kili thought it wise to stay where he was. "What's wrong? I didn't mean to-" To offend her -- which he clearly had, somehow. Should he not have touched her? No, she hadn't minded the elbow earlier, and he could recall that she'd tried to catch his arm when he'd fallen in the woods. The Tauriel from his time had never shied from contact, not even when he'd murmured endearments and pressed his runestone into her palm.

Tauriel's expression hardened in resolve. She burst forward, pinning Kili on the rock as she tore away his scarf with one hand and gripped his exposed throat with the other.

He felt his pulse jumping beneath her bare fingers, which for the moment only applied enough pressure to hold him still for her examination. "Tauriel?"

All color drained from her face, and her voice rang hollow as she pronounced, "There is a shadow riding you, Kili son of D-" That was the last sound she made, for not even a gasp escaped her when she jerked like she'd been struck. Eyes rolling back in her head, she slumped unconscious into Kili's arms.

~~~~~

Chapter Text

Fili arrived to the guard hall to find it blessedly free of Fundin and both princes. The normal hum of activity lacked focus; the only weapons being wielded were polishing brushes and the rakes used to attend the arena floor. Dofri was the highest ranking guard present, and Fili threaded his way to where he was holding court on the grandest bench in the room.

He cleared his throat when he grew tired of waiting like a petitioner to be acknowledged. "Good morning."

"Oh, well, if our resident peacock says it is then it must be so."

Fili couldn't have swapped the beads now if he'd wanted to. It had become a matter of pride, one he was too stubborn to let go. "You're one to talk, with that confection of braids atop your head."

"I'll take that as a compliment." Dofri gingerly patted his coiffure. He was spotless as always, without a hair out of place.

"What is my task today?"

Waving an imperious hand, Dorfi said, "Pick up a brush and clean something. You're exempt from participating in the honor guard-"

"No fair!" The call came from across the room, and Fili didn't turn to find the source. "Fili should take a turn with the rest of us standing around looking pretty for our guests."

"I'm sure he'd show us all the proper way to do it!"

"Ignore them," Dofri snorted. "No one stands in the honor guard until they've learned the drills to the captain's satisfaction." He raised his voice to carry, "And speaking of the captain's satisfaction, anyone who is standing had better see to their armor. There will be inspections -- as in more than one."

The news was met with groans all around, though it could not have been unexpected.

Care of armor and facilities tended to be a communal task. Fili wasn't in the mood to be sociable, so he took advantage of Dofri's loose instructions, choosing a rake and claiming a spot in the arena. He didn't quite grasp the purpose but threw himself into his work anyway, and soon had a sizeable cloud of dust raised to thwart overtures of conversation.

He hadn't counted on a summons. One of the guards from the tavern drew near, waving his arms and coughing in a much exaggerated fashion. Fili almost didn't recognize him without his pipe, which he'd kept near to hand through supper, chewing on the stem even when it wasn't lit.

"You trying ta suffocate yerself? Use short strokes, none of this sweeping nonsense."

Fili adjusted his raking as suggested.

"Better, but keep it-."

"Maybe you'd like to demonstrate." Instead of offering the tool, he planted it in the dirt and leaned on the handle.

"Nah. Just come ta say you've a visitor, waiting outside."

Fili knew almost no one who wasn't a guard or trained with them. No visitor of his would shy from entering the hall -- unless it was Frerin, playing coy. Tempting as it was to ignore the message, Fili grumbled a thanks and thrust the rake at the lad to discourage him from following.

There was no one at the door, but Fili spotted his brother at once, doing his best to cower out of notice a short ways down the hall. True to Kili's luck, his awkwardness only served to further mark him as out of place, as did the way he startled when Fili marched over and took his arm.

"What are you doing? You can't be-" He stopped short when he took in Kili's haggard, bloodshot eyes and the grim set of his mouth.

"I know. I wouldn't have come if it wasn't important."

"You found something."

"Maybe." Kili rubbed the heel of his hand into one eye. "Yes. That's not the main problem."

Trying to think of someplace they might talk in private, Fili recalled the smaller practice arena. If no one was training today then it might be free. "This way." He lead through the now-familiar quarter and motioned for Kili to hang back as he verified that the room was indeed empty. "Clear, but there's no telling when we may be interrupted, so make it quick."

Kili waited to speak until they were tucked into the far corner, both of them standing with line of sight on the door. "Have you noticed anything strange in the last few days?"

You're joking, he almost said, but Kili's gaze bored into him without room for even bleak humor. "I've had... visions. Small things, like a vivid memory that doesn't go the way it should, or imagining someone speaking of things they couldn't have known."

Beware you do not unmake him.

"Like someone is trying to warn you."

"Or my own worries are coming out in odd ways."

Kili waved that aside with impatience. "Who was the wizard we met that night in Bag End?"

The question raised a cold sweat on the back of Fili's neck, and he found himself reluctant to answer for no rational reason. "Are you fevered or just sleep-deprived?"

"Go on, say his name."

Fili formed the sounds in his mind, clear as day: Gandalf. Yet by the worsening chill coursing through him, he knew before trying that the effort would prove futile. "Ggg...aah!"

"It's the same for any of the names I've heard him called. Writing is no good either. I've tried."

All names hold power.

The prohibition must have a cause. Could a wizard be invoked simply by saying their name? "Radagast," Fili tried, and, "Bilbo."

"He isn't even born yet, is he?"

"He's the only other member of the Company who isn't one of us. You've found no other unspeakable names?"

Kili shook his head.

It would have been difficult to consult Gandalf in the short time they had, but someone had worked to make it impossible -- if not the figure by the fire then another with both a degree of magic and knowledge of his and Kili's continued existence.

The lesson rose unbidden in his mind: In warfare, you intercept messages to track your enemies but sever lines of communication to blind them.

Thorin had accepted Gandalf's help -- by necessity he would say -- but had never made the mistake of trusting him. Fili would have debated long before approaching Gandalf as a stranger in this time, for wizards had their own agendas and kept their own council. He could have done more to oppose their goal than to aid it.

"There's more." Kili drew a slim book from his tunic and gave it to Fili. "I found it this morning as I was leaving the archive. On the last page."

Fili thumbed through the rest anyway. Poems and songs, and foreign ones at that. He would have discarded the volume at a glance, though flipping to the end he saw what had snagged Kili's attention.

Poisoned was the silver cup, he read, and poisoned was the gold. Lifeless did the princes drop unto the flagstones cold.

If warning it was, it made a poor one, too little and too late. Fili had known the cup was tainted and had drunk anyway. Far from killing him, it had returned him to a semblance of life. He would grant that the coincidence was unsettling; but what should story princes drink from if not metals to fit their station?

"I... showed it to Tauriel, to see if she recognized it."

"You what? When?"

Kili edged a step closer. "She was here. In Erebor -- in the royal quarter."

"You should not have approached her." Kili couldn't afford the attention of being seen with an elf, let alone a she-elf with flaming red hair. Tauriel was worse than conspicuous; she was memorable.

"She was flanked by guards and weaponless. I thought she was in trouble."

"What would you have done if she had been? Help her fight clear of the mountain?"

Kili kept his posture neutral, arms braced straight at his sides. "I would have found out the charges and come to you. You're the one with connections in the guard and a prince practically in your pocket."

"And you are damned lucky that Frerin -- or worse, Thorin! -- didn't stumble across whatever scene you caused. They live in the royal quarter, remember?" Never mind that any favor Frerin might do Fili would come at a steep price.

"You were right. About not involving her." If Kili's voice sounded flat and listless it was to mask what the admission cost him. "She volunteered for courier duty because of me, because I baited her curiosity. She was never meant to be in the mountain when the serpent comes, but I opened that potential fate to her."

In his place, Thorin would not have spared the truth, but Fili wondered if it ever tasted so acrimonious on his uncle's tongue. "You should have thought of that before you dragged her into our business."

Kili nodded dully. "I'm thinking of it now."

"Good. Retract whatever selfish friendship you've extended. If you care for her, do what you can to lessen the loss she'll feel when your unnatural life expires."

"It's already done," Kili mumbled, hunching his shoulders as if against a bitter wind. "Not by my choice, though I see now it's for the best. We met outside the gates, took breakfast down by the river. I made the mistake of touching her when I showed her the book, and she sensed the... wrongness in me."

Fili recalled the act of healing in Bard's house, how there'd been a component of touch there as well, and a power at work beyond that of a simple herb. Still, it had not occurred to him that Tauriel might detect the magic chaining them to this time. The fault was as much his as Kili's for overlooking the danger; and now he was doubly glad they hadn't sought out Gandalf. "Will it be a problem?" he demanded. "Will she try to speak against us?"

For once, Kili seemed to consider the question rather than rely on the trust he bore the elf. "I don't think she would, even if she- It startled her a great deal -- not enough to draw steel on me, but I think it was a near thing. She... insisted on studying me up close, as it were."

Fili held up a hand. "Unless it's important I'd rather not have the details."

Kili failed to turn scarlet, so the inspection must have been innocent enough. He did, however, dig beneath his scarf to rub at his throat. "She scared me, Fee. Her voice went strange and she said there was a shadow riding me. Exact words, and then she collapsed. I swear it was like she'd been poleaxed. She was out before she, ah, hit the ground, and she stayed out for maybe ten minutes. I was so worried that I'd damaged her somehow. Maybe I did. When she came to the last thing she could recall was reading the verse, and I was very, very careful not to touch her again."

"Thank Mahal for small favors."

"Someone or something didn't want her to finish her warning."

They could not afford to make hasty assumptions. "Or perhaps she tried to tamper with the fire and it retaliated. Maybe it was protecting itself, protecting your existence."

"Either way, I doubt she'll remember what happened. She was none too pleased to wake on the ground, and we quarreled when she realized I knew more than I would admit." Kili drew an unsteady breath. "We parted badly. I won't seek her out again."

"I'm sorry," Fili said.

It wasn't enough to lift Kili's gaze from the floor. This time, his heartache was too heavy to laugh or drink away as they'd done in the past. Kili had always thrown his heart away easily; and Fili was practiced at helping him find where it landed and pluck it back out of the dirt. Tauriel was the first who'd caught it and not let go. In another life, she might have come to appreciate the worth of what she held. She could have been the one to change everything.

Fili was glad to be rid of the distraction, the risk of jealousy clouding his judgement, but for Kili's sake he wished things had ended differently.

"It's for the best," Kili repeated, "and I'm grateful for every happy moment I stole in her company." He took back the book and tucked it away with care, as if hiding his thoughts along with it. "Will you make me some arrow points?"

"Arrow points?"

Now Kili raised his eyes, which were regaining some of their shine, brittle though it was. "Yes, like the kind you make for hunting boar, only heavier and sharper. I don't trust the ones I bought in Dale."

Heavy and sharp enough to wound a dragon, he meant. Fili nodded. "There's little enough for me to do today since I won't be standing in the honor guard. I'll try to sneak away to a forge."

"Thank you," Kili murmured, leaning close and clasping Fili's arm before Fili could move on a similar impulse.

The act of breathing the same air served as respite, clearing some space between Fili and the worst of his worries. Even the bleakest fate seemed lighter with Kili at his side.

"Do one more thing for me?"

"If you'll get some rest. You look like you've been bent over a desk all night."

Straightening, Kili squared his shoulders, though he tightened his hold on Fili's arm. "Pay closer attention to your visions, brother. You said you imagined people knowing things they could not have. Tauriel was struck down as she was speaking my full name, and I'm certain I never gave it to her."

~~~~~

If one thing could be said for Frerin, he was dependable in his scheming. Kili had not been gone twenty minutes when the princeling marched into the hall and made straight for Dofri. He ignored Fili outright, not even letting his gaze sweep over him despite that Fili was nearly in his path. That was how Fili guessed that he was the subject of the ensuing discussion.

Dofri, bless him, was far more overt, gesturing loudly at Frerin while he shot Fili an arsenal of dirty looks. Finally he signaled his defeat by putting his fists on his hips, clinging to belligerence as Frerin consoled him with a pat on the arm.

On the way out, Frerin passed even closer to Fili, making sure their eyes locked before giving a sharp nod. "Recruit, you're with me."

Fili was done resisting his fate, though not Frerin's methods. He made his uncle wait at the door while he ambled to return the rake to its place. It almost would have been worth dusting himself off too close to Frerin's finery, but he had the feeling the gesture would have provoked amusement rather than annoyance.

This time, Frerin did not let Fili trail him, slowing to match strides as they made their way through Erebor's corridors. He began without preface, "I didn't know you had a brother."

"I didn't know my family was your business," Fili returned at once. "Highness." Under better circumstances, he might have enjoyed thwarting Frerin's attempts to unbalance him. Fili disliked being underestimated as a rule, but in this case it was laughably unfair how little chance Frerin stood against an incognito and much senior crown prince.

"Is it true he's on good terms with one of the Wood Elves? That could be useful."

Fili counted it a universal truth that guards gossiped. He would have been surprised if this tidbit had not reached his ears; and it worked to his favor that it had traveled even faster than he'd anticipated. "An elf-maid, long red hair?"

"That's how she was described," Frerin said slowly, doubtless reluctant to admit he'd gotten the news second -- or third or fourth -- hand.

"Tauriel," Fili supplied. "He only met her a few days ago, in Dale." A few weeks ago, in the Mirkwood. "Don't be fooled. She may be acting as a courier, but I understand she's a skilled archer." A warrior at heart, also deadly with her blades at close range, though he didn't dare give Frerin ideas telling him that.

"Perhaps we'll meet her."

Not if Fili could help it. They were heading for the royal quarter, and he might have been wary if he hadn't known Tauriel had been there once already this morning. Besides, she would not recognize Fili, and he could always pretend not to recognize her. There must be more than one elf with long red hair prancing about.

Frerin ignored the stretch of silence that followed, still not explaining their destination or purpose. He likely wanted Fili to have to ask; and Fili was not about to give him questions for which he'd had time to prepare answers.

"What will you do if we encounter your brother?"

"Thorin?" Frerin frowned, missing the chance to echo Fili's words about family.

"Do you have another, highness?"

"Of course not-"

"Unless I mistake our route, we're headed to the royal quarter. It could prove awkward if he were to spot us together, as you've countermanded his order that I stay away from you."

Frerin's steps slowed. "I wondered if he might try something. You did right to tell me."

Fili snorted.

"Thorin is not my keeper. He can't complain about the company I choose when he has little time or interest himself for me these days." Bitterness seeped through the words; and Fili wanted to tell him that he did his brother a disservice. Thorin gave all that he could where he could. It wasn't his fault if the king's sickness had increased his duties, and it was childish to hope he might be jealous of a stranger spending time with Frerin in his absence.

Frerin would not understand. It had taken Fili years to see the grief beneath Thorin's bouts of excessive criticism. That he loved his nephews only made their closeness a more painful reminder of the bond he'd lost.

Dimrill Dale forged he who bore that name. And Thorin Oakenshield had had a hand in the shaping of Fili. Truly he could not exist as himself in a world where the dragon did not come.

The sidelong glance Frerin sent Fili was shy yet expectant. "Anyway, he won't trouble us. He's occupied elsewhere, and my duties will take us outside the mountain."

How convenient.

Fili refused to be baited, offering nothing until they reached their destination. Frerin's quarters were situated on a narrow hall on the periphery of the sprawling royal apartment. He ushered Fili inside and made a nervous show of closing the door behind them.

The suite was modest by Erebor's standards, but the wealth displayed in the gold and jewel-studded mantle alone was enough to twist Fili's stomach. It brought to mind the first glimpse he'd had of the treasure hall, a gleam in the corner of his vision that had swelled to blot out all else. He would never tell Kili, but the actual flight from the stairs down into the hall was a blank, as if he'd simply been one place and then somewhere else without taking a step. The gold had not set its claws in him as deeply as it had Thorin, but it had tried and would likely never stop trying as long as he drew breath.

Mistaking Fili's expression for something else, Frerin said, "You should see my grandfather's chambers."

I have. Or the stinking ruin that was left of them after they'd been gutted by Smaug.

"You didn't remove me from the training hall and bring me here to show me pretty ornaments," Fili said. "Say your plan now that you have the privacy to do so."

The edge of Frerin's mouth curled. "And you have the privacy to argue it?"

"I need no privacy for that, but his highness' dignity might appreciate it."

Frerin beamed. "Oh, this will be fun! You're so much more prickly than Glar would ever have the nerve to be. It doesn't help that he tends to go tongue-tied in high company."

"Who is Glar?"

"The guard who would normally accompany me outside the gate." Frerin rocked on his heels, revealing no more.

Fili gritted his teeth but asked anyway. "What happened to Glar that I am to replace him?"

"He has suddenly taken ill. Isn't that lucky?"

"Of all the irresponsible- He'd better have taken ill without any help from you!"

Frerin blinked at the idea. Had he been guilty, he probably would have leapt straight to denial. "He's not actually sick. He hates these kinds of outings, so it was easy to convince him to take a couple days of bed rest." The princeling's face went ruddy as his gaze fled from Fili. "He wouldn't shirk his duties. It's just that he's newly wed, and if I were to stay the night in Dale..."

"He would be separated from his mate." The plan was very like something he and Kili would have made when they were younger -- when it had been easier to believe that their lives were like a ledger, that a good deed could cancel out a selfish one.

"I, ah, borrowed his formal uniform." Frerin rushed to the adjoining room to fetch it, with Fili following to the doorway. "It should fit you, so you'll look the part. And your manners are quite pretty when you want them to be. I trust you won't make a mess insulting the wrong people." He stopped short with his arms full of belts and fabric when he saw that Fili had effectively blocked him in his bedchamber.

"I'm an outsider. I won't know the wrong people from the right."

"I- I'll tell you. We can invent a secret signal."

"You think this is a great, bloody adventure, don't you?"

Frerin shoved the bundle at Fili's chest. "You are accompanying me to Dale as my bodyguard. Dofri agreed to reassign you, and he's your superior, so it's official. Whatever else might... happen along the way is between us, but if you won't come to Dale with me then I'll go alone." His voice lost strength as he went on, ending on a cracked note.

"The captain would be furious," Fili reminded. "He wouldn't trust your safety to me, and he'd be right not to."

Frerin raised his chin. "If you wished me harm you would have agreed at once. Instead you lecture me again on misplaced faith. I think I'll be safer in your care than Glar's -- he's not your match with a sword."

"Very well, highness." Fili could not salute with his hands full, so he gave a curt nod. "On my honor as one of Durin's folk, I'll stand between you and whatever danger might come to you. If the opportunity can be found, I will also train you as you request -- for a price."

"Name it. But you should know it's difficult for me to spend coin without explaining the reason. The king-"

"I want time at a forge, tools and basic materials. Can you arrange it?"

Frerin tipped his head, considering. "It will be easier if I accompany you, but yes. I'd even count it a small price-"

"And I want you to ban an elf from Erebor."

"The maid with red hair," Frerin guessed, his mouth thinning to a line as all humor drained from his expression. "This isn't a light request. I would know why."

"For my brother's sake." A kernel of truth at the heart of a lie. If Kili had invited Tauriel to enter the mountain, then Fili could drive her out again, return her to where she belonged. Kili needed the relief of knowing she would be spared from the serpent's attack. It would be enough if she only went as far as Dale. After all, her level head had delivered them safe through the inferno of Lake-Town.

"What has she done? I thought your brother-"

"My brother the fool loses more of his heart to her every time they meet. It is hopeless and he will be hurt. She would never have him in the way that he wants."

"Do not presume to know the mind or heart of an elf," Frerin murmured.

"That... sounds familiar."

Frerin shrugged. "My father says it."

Thorin's version of the same sentiment was far more coarse. Intrigued by the glimpse into the family he'd never known, Fili couldn't help but ask, "And where did he get it? Your grandfather?"

Scanning the room, Frerin said carefully, "The king believes he knows all hearts and minds."

Most of them false.

Frerin shot Fili such a look of alarm that he feared he'd spoken aloud. He hadn't meant to. No, he was sure he hadn't.

"Can you have her banned?"

"I can try. Has she done anything that could be made into a charge against her? Even something small that could be twisted into an insult."

"Say she is a spy."

"She's an elf granted access to Erebor. Of course she's a spy."

"She is close and loyal to Thranduil's son Legolas." Fili realized too late that he'd addressed the Elvenking and prince with undue familiarity. Thankfully, Frerin seemed not to notice. "Is that enough?"

Frerin signed for Fili to move out of his way, returning to the front room where he drew paper from a desk. "The charge will need to be written. It can't be in my hand, and you can't put your name to it. I should be able to convince Dofri, especially if he's heard the connection to your brother. I'm afraid he doesn't like you very much."

"I suspect that if he knew me better he'd like me even less."  Fili said it in his best impression of a stoic Thorin, and sat down to write bolstered by a wondrous sound that had been freed from the archive of the past just for him: his Uncle Frerin's decidedly inelegant laughter.

~~~~~

Chapter Text

Back in the inn room, Kili laid out a fresh sheet of paper. He took up the quill that was now part of his disguise, dipped it in a little purloined bottle of ink, and wrote:

You have my attention.

Fili might call the gesture superstitious. He hadn't put much stock in the verse or Tauriel's warning or his own so-called visions (which he'd doubtless downplayed for Kili's benefit). True, a reasonable explanation might be made for any one of them removed from the rest. Combined, they pointed to an interloper, one who had through magic or other means gained access to the royal archive. A dwarven author would have written the verse in Khuzdul in keeping with the rest of the book.

Kili caught himself brushing his lips with the quill's velvety end, as he often did with the vanes of his arrows. It helped him think.

After a moment, he added: Who are you and what do you want? Then he left quill and ink by the paper as invitation and rose to prepare for a nap. There was no point returning to the archive in his current state. He was likely to overlook something important while his eyes crossed and his mind wandered.

He pulled off his scarf and was about to shuck his outer layers when he spied a glint of color on his sleeve. Moving closer to the lamp, with trembling fingers he plucked free a single red hair. Tauriel must have left it behind when she'd collapsed in his arms.

She had weighed more than he thought she would, all lean muscle on a frame that was not delicate, for all that it was built for grace. After the shock had worn off -- and there'd been no response the dozen times he'd called her name -- he'd slid from the boulder with care not to jostle her more than necessary. It hadn't seemed right to drop her on the spot, nor could he move her easily with her feet dragging, so he'd debated an instant before getting his arm behind her knees and lifting her up.

Even through his fear, he'd carved a space to marvel at the feel of her head nestled against his cheek; at the sharp green scent of her, like laying in a tall meadow on a bed of crushed and oozing grasses. Carrying her to a patch of dirt, he'd dropped to one knee to release her as gently as possible. Only after he'd tested her breathing and heartbeat -- the former shallow and the latter fluttering beneath the fine line of her jaw -- did he sit back to consider his options.

He didn't touch her again, but the harm had been done. She'd woken with a red smudge on her throat, the size and shape of three of his fingertips. Whatever the mark was, bruise or burn, she'd felt it, probing it with her own fingers as she and Kili had argued.

He prayed it would fade. Fili was right, the shadow's magic would expire soon enough, and Tauriel should not have to carry forward more of Kili than a few bittersweet memories.

The hair did not singe or burn to ash in his hand as he'd half-feared. Lacking someplace better to put it for safekeeping, he coiled it and tucked it in the stolen book, between the pages of the song he'd played for her. Then he shielded the lamp and settled in to sleep.

When he awoke an hour or two later, the paper and writing tools were untouched. He cleared them away with neither disappointment nor relief. Indeed, if he felt anything it was detachment. Resettling his disguise, he snagged an early lunch from the market and ate mechanically as he walked, his state little improved by insufficient rest.

Of course this was the time he was stopped by a guard at the entrance to the royal quarter. He mumbled some excuse about being late to meet the archivist, almost forgetting that it was true, and was allowed to pass.

The archive was empty again save for Bir, entrenched behind her desk. Her skirts today were the deep red that was not so coincidentally Balin's favorite color, though the overcoat with the pockets was unchanged. She greeted Kili without lifting her nose from a tall ledger. "You're late. I'm taking the time out of your pay."

"You don't pay me," Kili returned. Luckily it was the right thing to say, even if he failed to give it the sulky tone that would have made good sport for Bir's teasing.

"That's right -- I don't. Since I can't take something from nothing, I suppose I'll have to let you off with a warning."

"You're too kind."

"Enjoy it while you can. It won't happen again." Bir put a mark next to one of the columns, noting the figure and page number on a separate sheet. "Balin was pleased with your work." She said it as if personally disappointed in one or both of them.

"Oh?"

Now Bir closed the ledger and gave Kili her attention. Her gaze crawled over him, head to foot and back again, as if he'd risen in her estimation from fleeting annoyance to annoying curiosity. "He said your hand was surprisingly legible and offered to take you on himself in the seneschal's office."

"If you're trying to get rid of me-"

"I told him he'd have to take the matter up with you, but not to hope for much seeing as you're stubborn as sin and odder still."

Kili stopped fidgeting under her glare. "I'll take that as a compliment."

Bir smiled, actually smiled at him. "Maybe it was one. What's your name? Mind, I'm not liable to use it unless it's something terrible."

"Kili, at your service, mistress." He sketched an automatic bow.

"Hmph." Bir wrote something on a scrap of paper, then waved it at Kili until he stepped forward to accept it. "Your first task. Retrieve those titles for me."

There were six in all, Kili thought, once he'd deciphered them. Bir's penmanship was atrocious, although it must have been for his benefit. She would not hold the position of archivist if she couldn't do better when it pleased her. "I don't suppose you'd care to tell me where I should look."

"It wouldn't be a test if I did. Be glad I wrote the titles. I'll expect you to memorize the next batch."

Kili took the list and wandered into the stacks, going up and down each row in what he hoped looked like an attempt to learn the system of organization. In truth, he'd figured out the peculiarities the night before, when Fili had come to spell him. He'd already known the system; the one Balin used in Ered Luin seemed to have been derived from it. Instead, he used the time to build another list, volumes of interest to return to in the future. For his own test, he didn't bother reading titles. Chance or gut instinct or some unknown influence had chosen the book with the verse for him.

If he was right, it would happen again.

~~~~~

Frerin insisted that Fili change in his quarters. Worse, he had to be prompted to turn his back, finding Fili's modesty amusing. Fili was in fact no more reserved than Kili when it came to baring skin in decent company; but he would rather not be asked the stories behind his prominent scars, and he wasn't sure he could explain why he had a tattoo of the royal raven spreading its wings from his left collarbone to shoulder blade.

"I'm finished."

Glar's uniform did fit well enough, though the belt was too large with no way to adjust it. The weight of the ornate buckle caused it to sag in the front, which Frerin noticed during an impromptu inspection. "It does the same for Glar," he said, moving close to give it a straightening it hadn't needed. "But in his case it's his stomach pushing it down."

Fili disengaged Frerin's hands from his waist before the princeling could discover he was ticklish. "It's fine. It might slide but it won't fall off me."

"Black and silver suit you," Frerin decided. His gaze lingered in furtive snatches while he finished his own preparations.

"I'm not the one people will notice, highness. You look..."

"Overdressed. Stuffy."

"I was going to say distinguished."

Frerin turned another one of his pensive looks on Fili. "It's funny, I hardly know you and yet it sometimes feels as if you know me."

What had he said wrong this time? Distinguished? The word rang familiar, now that Fili thought about it, but it wasn't Thorin's voice he heard in his mind. Not with that touch of self-conscious humor. Dis. It was his mother's saying, and she'd likely borrowed it from someone close to her and Frerin both. Their mother the princess consort?

How could he answer that? Or was it best not to try?

"Don't flatter yourself, highness. For all that you think you invented guile, you're transparent as glass -- much like my brother. It only seems I know you because I can predict you."

"Perhaps," Frerin allowed coolly; and Fili thought he might have overstepped at last. Then, "If anyone mentions your eye-"

The bruise was healing, faded to a sickly green. "Training accident. New recruits can be so clumsy."

"Says the guard's newest recruit."

Fili shrugged.

"I do intend to stay the night in Dale," Frerin said, frowning at the empty pack he'd pulled from beneath his bed. "Is there anything we'll need that can't be bought there?"

"I should think anything could be bought in Dale -- provided we have the coin and want the attention." Fili commandeered the pack for the clothes he'd worn before changing. They would both need tough and unremarkable outfits for training. Nothing in Frerin's wardrobe would do, and it might be noticed if his practice armor disappeared from the mountain with him. "I'll see to gear before we leave."

Frerin accepted that without argument, seeming relieved if anything. "Meet me in the stable yard below the gate in an hour. I need to- I should see Dofri about your elf while the captain is still distracted."

He needed to... what? "Highness, tell me you have permission to go to Dale today. A note slipped beneath someone's door is not the same thing."

Frerin's eyebrows pinched together, almost as mobile and expressive as Kili's. "Worse than permission, I have an appearance to make. Thorin is busy with Fundin, our parents prepare Erebor for our guests, and the king is far too important to descend to Dale. That leaves me to sit through the ridiculous play the men put on every year as part of the festivities. My grandfather may even labor under the impression that I enjoy it."

"What about your sister?"

"Dis? She is a rare gift, the first princess born to Durin's line in four generations. She does not leave the mountain without one of our parents and a procession of guards."

Oh, his mother would hate being cloistered and cosseted. She took just as poorly to being left behind, first by Thorin and then Vili and last her sons. Still, Ered Luin was hers more than it had ever been Thorin's. She led the settlement under no authority but her own, and her shrewdness and fortitude were much admired.

She also bridged the growing divide between old and new, east and west. The survivors of Erebor and Azanulbizar were outnumbered more each year by the younger generation: those to whom Ered Luin was not exile but the only home they'd known. Unlike Fili and Kili, most had not been raised on a litany of past glories. They called Thorin king and named halls for him, but Dis -- who put less stock in bloodlines and impractical tradition -- had their devotion.

Fili might have made a bridge himself. There had been those who would follow his uncle's heir, and those who would follow his mother's son. Unlike Thorin though, Fili had never taken for granted that Dis would abandon all she'd built and return to a reclaimed Erebor. In a world where her sons and brother perished and another ruled in their place, she might avoid even setting foot in the mountain again.

Her life would be tedious in an Erebor that didn't fall to Smaug. At least in exile she had been in command of herself, which she would not have in Thrain's, and then Thorin's, house. She would be expected to make an advantageous match, but Fili took comfort knowing she would fight to wed for her own benefit if she could not have love. There was more than one path to escape a mountain.

"Fili," Frerin called from the door, in a tone that warned it wasn't the first time.

"Hm?"

"Your ears are failing again."

"Sorry. I was considering the future."

"Consider it on the road. We have a schedule to keep."

"Yes, highness."

Frerin poked his head outside, checking the hall both ways before exiting his quarters with a motion for Fili to follow.

Falling in several steps behind, Fili risked smirking at the back of Frerin's head: Not so confident about Thorin being occupied elsewhere, are you, little uncle? The impulse proved to be a poor one; he had to wipe his expression away fast when they rounded the first turn and found their progress halted by a grand lady with her arms full of candlesticks.

"Frerin!" she exclaimed, a little too warmly for the surprise transforming her face to be entirely real. "I thought you were headed to Dale."

Frerin positioned himself between Fili and the lady, though it wasn't clear which of them he was attempting to shield from the sight of the other. "I am. We were just on our way to the gate."

"We? Where is Glar, and who is this?"

"Glar is unwell. This is his replacement." Heaving a sigh that was at odds with his sudden formality, Frerin stepped aside. "Mother, this is Fili. Fili, I present my lady-mother Sylfa, wife of Thrain and Princess of Erebor." He rushed through the appropriate gestures with a grimace.

Fili only knew one bow to give a princess. It was thankfully reflexive, even if he did push it much lower and hold it far longer than he did when escorting his own mother to ceremonial events. "Your grace."

A hand was thrust under his nose. His grandmother's hand, long-fingered like Kili's but pale and refined. The rings she wore were downright modest, thin bands with inset gems that would not snag or catch on daily activities. They twinkled as her fingers fluttered enticingly.

Durin's beard, she expects me to kiss it.

Frerin shifted his boot until he was pressing on Fili's toes for encouragement.

What else could he do? Not daring to look up to discover how she was balancing the candlesticks, Fili cradled Sylfa's hand in his. He'd been slow enough to respond... she probably thought him dumbstruck or simple. Either would explain the way he lingered with his lips pressed to her skin, memorizing her warmth, her spicy perfume, the way she purred her approval -- all details he'd known only through Dis and Thorin's recollections.

Sylfa had been taken by illness during exile, spared from seeing her kin sundered at Azanulbizar, thank the Maker. When they'd been old enough, Thorin had taken his nephews to visit her tomb in Dunland. Before that, Fili had not known that his uncle could weep. He would have sooner believed water could be squeezed from stone.

Clearing his throat, Frerin leaned harder on Fili's toes.

"Oh my." Sylfa withdrew her hand from Fili's clasp with a show of reluctance. "Such pretty manners, and so handsome."

"Motherrrr," Frerin moaned.

Fili straightened, aware from the rush of blood in his cheeks that he had to be turning a cheerful shade of red.

"What?" Sylfa grew dimples as she beamed for her son, though her speculative gaze never left her grandson. "He reminds me of someone. It's in the eyes."

Fili emphatically did not panic, even if denial poured out of him. "The only kin I have in this world is my brother and we're as alike as sun and moon."

"Fili is new to Erebor, hailing from the Blue Mountains," Frerin nodded, realizing his mistake too late. "But we shan't keep you, mother. You're obviously busy, and I must see Dofri before-"

"Perfect." Sylfa juggled the candlesticks from the crook of her arm and made to pass them over. "You go see Dofri while I borrow Fili's assistance."

Frerin threw a glance to Fili as if expecting him to join the objection. "But-"

"Fili?"

"I'm happy to assist her highness." Fili gave his grandmother a soft, shy smile. If it had the secondary benefit of heightening Frerin's discomfort, well, Fili was not above taking pleasure in watching the princeling squirm. It was even worth accepting the candlesticks to carry, loathe as he was to touch them, for they were heavily jeweled and solid gold. That metal picked at his awareness like a persistent itch or a pebble in his boot.

"Fine." Frerin's huff conveyed the addendum, Have it your way, traitor. "Meet me in the stable yard below the gate."

"Yes, highness."

Sylfa pointedly watched her son depart, waiting until he'd disappeared from sight to turn her attention on Fili. She shed her mask with that twist of her head, in the time it took to blink. Gone were the pleasantries, the dimples, the arch tone of a public persona. "Walk with me, and listen."

Fili decided that pretty was too callow a word to describe her, while beautiful was too distant and perhaps too generous. She had Thorin's beak of a nose -- or he had hers -- and she'd given Frerin her sharp chin. If she'd passed her temperament to her daughter as Fili suspected, he would do well to heed her instructions in the literal sense. He nodded silently and fell into step at her shoulder; and even the impatient way she devoured ground with her stride was familiar, reminding Fili so strongly of Dis that a lump rose in his throat.

"I can see why my son would be drawn to you, Fili from the Blue Mountains." She said his name as if practicing on the chance she might ever need to sign it to his death warrant. "I know he's up to something. I'll not ask you to betray his trust, but I would have you remember that he is young and sheltered, for all that his confidence lets him run roughshod over the unsuspecting."

"I'll remember," Fili promised.

"You are not unsuspecting."

"No, highness."

"And you will keep him from trouble."

Fili swallowed. "I would give my sword and my life to keep your son from harm." Both of them, and her daughter as well.

Sylfa turned swiftly, stepping in front of Fili to cut him off. "Trouble and harm are not the same."

He hazarded the reminder, "Prince Frerin outranks me. It is not easy to oppose his wishes."

"I charge you with the task of keeping him in line, Fili from the Blue Mountains. Mahal knows, you may prove more successful at it than poor Glar," she muttered. "Be assured that my command takes precedence over any he might give. Frerin may complain all he likes; you need only obey me. Am I understood?"

"Yes, highness."

"Good." Sylfa patted Fili none too gently on the cheek before plucking her candlesticks from his arms. "Go on, then. I was managing these just fine on my own." With that she abandoned him in the middle of the hall.

~~~~~

Chapter Text

Kili was sleeping when Fili came by the inn room to gather the things he wanted for Dale. Fili debted waking him to relate the encounter with their grandmother, but that story would keep until he had the leisure to do it justice. Besides, he'd prefer to avoid revisiting the matter of Tauriel and questionable poetry; and Kili didn't need his rest interrupted.

His brother was sprawled across the bed, voicing the occasional grumbling snore. Had he been sleeping beneath the stars, he would have snapped awake at Fili's stealthy approach, but put Kili behind safe walls on a real mattress and it took effort to wake him. Still, Fili moved like a thief about the room, packing away the spare clothes he could find and every blade he owned, even the rough pair he'd taken to the trial.

Engrossed in his task, he began to notice a... pull at edge of his mind, vague and muffled, as if he was catching the echo of something that should alarm him. He stilled, attempting to stretch his senses into the mountain to locate the source, but the more he tried the more his focus narrowed on his own body, until it seemed he could differentiate individual hairs pricking on the back of his neck. Beads of sweat were gathering at his temples; and no wonder with his heart pumping molten fire through his veins. The subsequent flash of heat was such that he imagined his flesh charring from the inside out, and he was afraid to look down to see the evidence on his hands.

No, he could not. He remembered being held transfixed in the fog of death when he would have run to Thorin's body, and heard again the harsh word the shadow had used to command its bonfire. At once the shackle holding him broke, and he gasped like a drowning man breaching the water's surface.

He was bent at a table, the quill in his hand poised over a sheet of paper. There were words upon it he could not recall writing; but then, neither could he recall moving across the room or taking up the quill. He dropped it to fumble the lamp, releasing a sliver of light that let him read the message in his brother's familiar scrawl: Who are you and what do you want?

Whatever else I am, I am still Fili. I am still myself. He repeated it until his heart slowed and the fire in him banked once more.

Kili had not stirred. There was still time to rouse him and tell him what had transpired, but more than anything Fili wanted to be away from the inn room and the paper and the unknown words he'd been about to write. Kili would push him for an explanation he did not have, and Fili's temper at the moment would not tolerate that argument.

He fixed the lamp, retrieved Frerin's pack from the floor, and escaped.

Distance helped settle him. Fresh air and sunlight too -- though the clouds huddled over the horizon boded ill for Frerin's play. He reached the stable yard early and was content to sit apart, watching the path with half his attention while the other half went to sharpening his smallest knife until it could have shaved the whiskers off a flea.

Frerin was nearly to the yard before he noticed Fili and changed his course. Limited awareness of his surroundings was a luxury afforded by his sheltered existence; though Sylfa hadn't raised the point intending for Fili to do anything besides compensate for Frerin's lack. She would have Fili's head if she knew the plan he was forming for the princeling.

Fili stood at his uncle's approach, shouldering the pack.

"It's done," Frerin murmured without being prompted, the sour set of his mouth suggesting that he had not had an easy time convincing Dofri to ban Tauriel.

"Thank you."

"You can thank me by upholding your end of the bargain."

"Don't insult me by suggesting I won't keep my word."

"Don't mistake my intent. I don't need your thanks because I have not angered Dofri and risked punishment as a personal favor to you."

No, Frerin would not like to think that Fili could sway him so. "But it is fine to do it serving your own interests."

Frerin scowled. "What's bitten you?"

Perhaps Fili was not so recovered as he'd hoped. Perhaps he was more shaken than he'd realized to discover that his fire-riddled body was not solely his to command. His visions had not made him question that he and Kili were truly doing no one's bidding but their own -- not that they'd made any real progress toward finding a way to end Smaug. Time was slipping through their fingers, and now Fili had been made his uncle's keeper when he'd wanted neither the headache nor Sylfa's attention.

"It's nothing. Leave it."

"Doesn't sound like nothing. Did my mother-"

"Your mother would have me discourage you from exactly the kind of mischief you and I have bargained for. I risk just as much as you; she would be furious to learn that I never meant to obey her."

Frerin's expression thawed to something like satisfaction, though without the smugness that would have hardened Fili's defenses against him. "I knew there was a reason I liked you." He touched Fili's shoulder shyly, his knuckle bumping one of the blue beads. "I should have said it ere now. You have my thanks as well."

"Highness..." Fili eased out from beneath Frerin's hand. Exuberant and demonstrative the princeling might be, but they were in the open without privacy or the camaraderie of the guard hall to serve as buffer. (Had he not seen Frerin pat Dofri's arm once, he might have worried that he was singled out for his uncle's careless touches.)

"Come," Frerin said, pulling Fili by his sleeve. "I sent word ahead of our departure. The ponies will be waiting for us. I picked you a good one."

Departure.

"I hope you're a better rider than Glar is. He refuses to race me, and though he'd never complain, I know he hates letting his boots leave solid ground."

Fili had meant to leave word for Kili saying that he was to overnight in Dale. Was that what he'd been about to write on the paper? If so, why couldn't he remember consciously taking the steps to do it?

"Fili? You are distracted today. If you were Glar, I'd be tempted to lose you in a crowd and run off to make mischief on my own. I would stay at a tavern of men," Frerin decided, "drinking my fill of ale and teaching the lads bawdy songs. The lasses, too. There's worse singers than me, and I can even play a little on most instruments."

Fili planted his feet and refused to budge when Frerin tugged him. "I must go back. I forgot to tell my brother I'll be away for the night. He'll worry."

"Nonsense." Frerin smiled, glad to get a response even if it wasn't prompted by his teasing. "I don't want the delay. I'll have a message sent instead."

Sadly, Frerin was right. Fili could not afford distractions while playing bodyguard and minder both. He made a show of putting other matters aside and giving the princeling his fresh attention. "Thank you, highness."

"His name is Kili, yes? I'll have to know where he's staying."

No wonder Frerin was accommodating when it would learn him the inn where Fili stayed as well. Fili could send the message to the archives, but it might complicate Kili's task if the archivist knew his brother was tangled with the prince. It would be easy enough to change lodgings. "He's at the Haft and Shaft."

"Kili at the Haft and Shaft," Frerin repeated, and jogged ahead to speak to the stable hand.

~~~~~

Kili passed his first test for Bir, with the primary complaint that he took too long. His second "test" was to fetch lunch, and he took too long doing that as well. The afternoon was given to arranging two stacks of books as tall as he was in the order he thought they should go on the shelves. (Bir had forbidden him on pain of a lingering death to actually shelve anything, as he was certain to do it wrong, thereby creating extra work. In case he hadn't known, the purpose of an assistant was to reduce work. Also, when was he going to finish? He was taking too long.)

Throughout, Bir fired questions at him: How was the word "eminence" spelled? What was the recent elven feast day called? How long had Girion been Lord of Dale? What was the mode of address for an assistant guild master who was also a master craftsman? What river ran north from the Grey Havens? Kili was permitted to search the archive for answers, as well as reference it for his ordering task, so he pretended to need far more help than he did and spent the time reviewing some of the books that had earlier caught his attention.

As with the book of verses, he'd tried to let chance guide his choices. He reasoned that if he was not influenced by some outside force, the selection would be random. And so it seemed it was. There was a history of the first settlement of Erebor; a genealogy of the seven families stretching back to the second age; an accounting of Thror's edicts upon the second settlement of Erebor; a telling of guild grievances between the jewelers and silversmiths; details of trade with the Iron Hills. All useful stuff for managing a kingdom, but not a single mention of foresight or reincarnation or dragons.

He would ask Bir, now that she found him curious and might answer rather than throw him out on his ear.

Kili shut the latest book, returning it to its place, and wandered back to Bir's desk. "The answer is Lhun," he said, "but that river does not run up into the mountains. It flows down from them into the gulf of the same name."

Bir squinted at him a long moment before pronouncing, "Correct. Why did it take you so long to say it?"

"Well, mistress, I had to find-"

Bir grabbed the closest object and tossed it at Kili's head. It was the lid to her inkwell, thankfully unbreakable and hopefully clean enough not to leave a mark when it hit, for her aim was true even with her off hand. "Don't play the simpleton! It's disgraceful to you and insulting to me. I've watched you. You went nowhere near the collection of maps. I have but one book that would name elven feast days and you didn't touch that either. I know which answers you already had and which you needed to hunt."

Damn it.

Kili crawled after the lid to gain some time to think. Bir might possess a keen eye, coupled with a suspicious nature, but she could not be worse than his own mother. He might distract her with the truth, even if he was not completely honest. "I did know the Lhun," he admitted, standing again to return the lid to her desk. "I've even crossed it, for it lies between Erebor and my old home in the Blue Mountains. And the elven feast day was told to me by an elf I met in Dale. I made the mistake of calling the light of the stars cold and distant, and she saw fit to try and persuade me otherwise."

"She?" Bir pounced on that tidbit just as Kili had hoped she might.

"Aye, she." There was no need to feign sheepishness at the thought of Tauriel. His dismay was real and strong enough to make his face heat convincingly.

"Interesting. Did she?"

"Did she what?"

Bir twirled her quill in a complicated pattern, lightning quick so that it seemed to blur into a shape like a fan, or a spread wing. "Persuade you. I'm wondering what it takes to crack your stubbornness."

Kili shrugged helplessly. "She was fair and well-made -- for an elf."

"Hmph. If batted eyes and simpering are what sways you, then you're a bigger fool than I credited you."

"Find a comely elf who will bat their eyes at the likes of me and I'll let you know."

Looking down at herself, Bir rearranged the line of her bodice until her ample... bounty was threatening to spill forth. "Am I not fair enough to test you?"

There was no danger of Kili staring. Whatever point Bir tried to make, he still had a healthy respect for her temper. He more feared what might happen if Balin were to walk in and catch an eyeful.

Bir fluttered her lashes about as coyly as Dwalin might, though she did manage a moue that could be called sultry. "No?"

"I'm not fool enough to answer that," Kili muttered.

"I suspect you're no fool at all, but you must think I am if you hoped I wouldn't notice you hunt through my archive for something. What do you seek?"

It's now or never.

Kili steeled himself. "Peace of mind. There's been a... shadow hanging over me since I came to Erebor." Repeating Tauriel's pronouncement sent a shiver through him, for as much as it had unsettled him at the time, it hadn't felt like a condemnation until this moment.

Bir's scowl provided incentive to continue, if he'd needed any. Just as he opened his mouth, a pair from the seneschal's office burst through the door, speaking over each other about an "urgent" request for information on elven bathing habits, of all things.

The first to notice Bir's assets was the scrawny fellow with a beard so long and voluminous that it made him appear comically unbalanced. He stopped dead to gape, leaving his partner to stammer through the request again.

Pointing to Kili, Bir mustered a tone so bright and polite that it was sinister. "It just so happens that we have a resident expert on elven nonsense. I refer you to him."

"I'm not really-"

"Come now, Kili, you shouldn't downplay your abilities." Bir moved around her desk to take Kili's arm, leaning into his side in a way that might have seemed encouraging, even flirtatious, if one failed to notice that she dug her fingers in like a vise. "Modesty doesn't become you."

It was tempting to describe the bathing facilities the Company had been permitted to use in Rivendell -- the proper heated pools they'd been ushered to after they'd been caught playing in the fountain. Bir would not like to see her so-called expert exposed as a real one, though, and Kili still had need of her good will. Ignoring the bruises she might be leaving, he smiled pleasantly enough. "If this concerns the Elvenking's visit, it won't matter. I, er, have heard that he is difficult to please."

Fluffy Beard blinked, dragging his attention off Bir to laugh at Kili. "Never met a king, have you?"

"How could you tell?" Kili asked through gritted teeth.

"You haven't learned yet that it's the prerogative of royalty to be difficult to please. And this one's an elf besides."

"So you're saying you've been sent on a fool's errand."

"I'm saying-"

Bir shouldered into the center of the conversation quite literally. "It's not as if this is a new problem. Just make the same arrangements that were made last year."

Fluffy Beard's partner offered, "He complained about the arrangements last year."

"Of course he did." Bir slapped her palm to her head. "Fine. I'll pull something out of a book, you lot can pretend you tried, and nobody will be surprised when the pointy-eared prick complains again this year."

"Thank you, mistress."

"Come with me."

Kili wasn't sure if the command included him or not, but he hung back when he heard a scuff from the direction of the door. Sure enough, as soon as Bir and her entourage waded into the stacks, Balin slipped into the archive. He nodded when he noticed Kili, slowing his pace to something more dignified than a scurry.

"Is she...?" Balin murmured, as if he didn't know damned well where Bir was.

"Busy." Kili jerked his chin toward the shelves.

"Ah. I'll just..." Balin wandered into the shelves himself, not nearly so deep as Bir and the rest, and pretended to browse. He kept his back to Kili, but looked over his shoulder once with another nod, as if to assure that all was well, thank you very much, and pay no mind.

Elven bathing habits indeed. It would have been easier to ask the elven envoy, but Balin had needed Bir to consult one of the tomes she kept buried in disgrace at the back of the archive. It was a bloody diversion.

Kili dismissed Balin with a bored shrug and drifted for Bir's desk, only to double back the instant he was out of Balin's sightline. The Company burglar probably would have scoffed at his attempt to move silently, but the knit clothes and soft boots did make for a light tread. He was able to peek around the run of shelves, unnoticed, in time to see Balin reaching beneath the cover of his beard.

"Aha. So that's how-"

Balin turned to Kili once more, not exactly surprised, and definitely not embarrassed to be caught. Instead of stashing a book inside his coat, he drew one out and restored it to the shelf. His gaze never left Kili's during the exchange, issuing a steady challenge, yet Kili was certain that the book went in exactly the right spot.

"She'll want to know that's been returned," Kili said, shifting to Balin's side.

Balin kept his voice even lower than Kili had. "Aye, I expect so."

"That's part of the fun, isn't it? Waiting to see how long it will take her to notice."

"I have to take my small amusements where and when I can." Balin's eyes crinkled with mirth, the laugh lines softer than the more familiar worry creases he hadn't yet earned. "She refused to lend that book for no reason at all, save that she knew I wanted it."

Oh, Kili could think of at least one other reason. "I can keep a secret if you can."

"I don't doubt it." Grin fading, Balin turned to take in Kili's appearance, not as with renewed interest, but instead as if verifying something he'd already decided.

The attention still made Kili hunch his shoulders and bury his chin deeper in his scarf.

"What's your name? I'm sure you've heard mine by now."

"I have -- grumbled between curses, mostly."

Balin failed to chuckle as he might have done for a cheeky princeling, remaining impassive instead as he waited for his answer.

"Kili. Son of Vili."

To the rear of the archive, Balin's minions could be heard squabbling, doubtless to extend the diversion as long as possible. If they kept it up they ran the risk of Bir knocking their heads together.

Ignoring the fuss, Balin stroked his beard. "You're new to Erebor. Where are you from, exactly?"

"Eriador," was Kili's automatic response.

"That covers a lot of territory. Hardly exact."

Why did Balin want to know? Was he actually hoping to employ Kili in the seneschal's office or was it simply his inquisitive nature? Either way, Kili could see no harm in replying. "The Blue Mountains."

"Oh? I've never been. What's it like?"

Kili described the settlement in the vaguest terms, mostly to stave off a desperate homesickness. He focused instead on the terrain, so different from Erebor, and the great forest where he'd learned to trap and hunt.

Balin, being Balin, couldn't help a geography lesson. "Second only to the Mirkwood, that forest is."

"It's nothing like the Mirkwood, thank the Maker."

"Was it your father who taught you your woodcraft?"

The fire in him roused, prickling like a warning; but Balin was as mild and benign as he ever was without a broad-mace in his hand. "A little," Kili said at last. "He died when I was young. My uncle stood as father to me and my brother after that."

"You and your brother play into the enemy's hands. You must cease this madness before you bring ruin to us all."

Kili stopped breathing; he thought that his heart might have stuttered as well. "What did you say?" he whispered.

"Your uncle," Balin continued in the same even tone, as if making smalltalk out of the weather. "I asked if he taught you and your brother your letters."

"I- I must have misheard. I thought you said-"

Balin asked gently, "Said what? Are you all right, laddie?"

"Fine."

"It's just that you seem a bit pale of a sudden." Balin touched Kili's arm, the otherwise innocuous contact making the fire flare briefly once more before subsiding.

"I'm fine," Kili repeated with excessive force, only just managing not to throw off Balin's hand.

"Perhaps you should-"

Say something. Fix this, fast.

"It was our uncle taught us our letters. He died, not long ago. It's why we... why we came to Erebor. The... grief is still raw."

Balin squeezed once and slowly let his hand drop, sympathy writ in the gesture. "I'm sorry to hear it, lad. Was he from Erebor, then?"

"My uncle?" Kili couldn't contain a bubble of wholly inappropriate laughter. "He did spend some time here in his youth."

Balin hesitated. "If you're looking for old friends and kin to deliver the sad news, I might be able to assist you. Guild records, tax records, those won't be in the royal archive, but I could access them for you -- if I had a name."

Oh Mahal, Balin thought Kili had wormed his way into the archive in search of distant relations. The sheer, hysterical absurdity of the situation made him want to weep with laughter. Balin wasn't even wrong.

"His name?" Balin promoted. "I might even know it. Someone certainly taught him his letters all proper-like. You've a fine hand. Your brother, too, if he was the one helped you with the copywork. Thank you for that, by the way. It's been useful."

Kili hadn't realized that his penmanship might be so distinct. But of course it would be. Dis had laid the foundation with chalk and slate at their kitchen table, while Thorin and Balin -- educated to royal standards himself -- had both helped refine it.

Now Balin wanted a name, and Kili's mind blanked on a safe one to give him. Most of the families he'd known in Ered Luin had come from Erebor and would be too easy to trace. Trade with the Iron Hills being what it was, he couldn't risk dropping any of the names he'd heard Thorin associate with Dain. Kili was related to half the Company, except-

"His name was Bilbo. Son of... Bogin."

Fili was going to either strangle Kili or laugh himself sick when he learned that Kili had panicked and made poor Bilbo their uncle.

Balin shook his head. "Can't say it's familiar, at all. Ah, but that doesn't mean much! I'm not the best with names."

The dirty liar never forgot one.

"So have hope! I'll ask around for you, see what I can turn up."

Kili waved him off. "Please, you don't have to. I mean, I appreciate the offer, but I'd rather-"

"Hello Balin."

Balin twitched at Bir's greeting as if he'd been caught conspiring with Kili to do something outrageous, like steal half her archive. Or perhaps just abscond with her assistant.

"Fancy seeing you here."

"Afternoon, Bir," Balin returned, or tried to. It came out as a breathy, strangled little sound, and he twisted around to put his back against the shelves, hiding the newly-returned book from her sight. He was a consummate diplomat; how was he looking so guilty when he'd barely done anything wrong?

"Last I checked, elven bathing habits fell a bit outside your sphere of influence."

"Well, yes. And no. About that. Boundaries can be hazy where the comfort of our guests is concerned." Balin sketched the excuse with his hands as much as his voice. "There's really a surprising amount of overlap."

"Is that so."

Risking a glance, Kili determined that Bir had not, in fact, bothered to fix her bodice. Nor would she be in any hurry to, not when she had a certain assistant to the seneschal cornered and squirming.

Abandoning Balin to his fate, Kili hoped that he just might squirm hard enough to forget he'd ever heard Bilbo's name.

~~~~~