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Ori pushed his hat back, feeling the sweaty strands of hair sticking to his forehead. The steep slope looked like it continued on forever in front of him.
“Alright there, Ori?”
Ori looked over his shoulder to see Fíli standing further down the hill, grinning up at him. It still took his breath away knowing that Fíli's smile was just for him alone. “Just catching my breath,” he called back. He waited as Fíli hauled himself up the metal cables that had been bolted into the granite mountainside, his thick boots sliding far less than Ori's on the loose rocks under their feet.
Ori looked past Fíli, taking in the sweep of countryside beneath them. Summer break meant Fíli got two months to travel wherever he wanted – and Fíli had come up with an audacious plan one night while they were curled up together.
Ever since Ori had knocked on the ruins of Bag End's door and Bilbo had opened up the other side, all of Arda had changed. The reemergence of hobbits in the Shire – of all of the hobbits in the Shire – had created shock waves that were still being felt. There had been whole nations that became entangled in it, since technically the Shire was its own country. Had been its own country, though with nominal allegiance to first Arnor and then later being formally given the area of Westmarch from King Elessar which had extended their borders by quite a bit. No one knew exactly where the Shire borders were anymore and it had create quite the fuss in most of the current modern governments.
Thorin and Dwalin had yet to leave the Shire. Ori wasn't sure if Thorin had even left Bag End for the first month since Bilbo's reappearance. He did know that there were talks of a formal wedding – a hobbit formal wedding – in the works, but the details had yet to reach his ears. All Ori knew was that Dori was involved, along with Balin, and that the Thain had also gotten involved somehow. Ori wished them well of it and hoped that Thorin, Dwalin, and Bilbo would be happy this time around.
It still made his head hurt, sometimes, trying to puzzle out how it all worked. As far as Ori understood it, after the battle that had claimed Thorin and Fíli and Kíli in their past lives, Bilbo had been given a...dream? Vision? Ori still wasn't sure, but by all accounts Bilbo explained that he had learned that the trinket he'd picked up under Goblin Town was actually the One Ring of Sauron and had to be destroyed. Somehow Bilbo's plans had been delayed by a good bit – he didn't say why – and by the time Bilbo set off, he was joined by his nephew and heir Frodo, along with a small party of other races, along with Glóin's son in his past life, a lad named Gimli. Ori had heard that Glóin and his wife had lost a child early on and had never tried for another, at least in this life. Ori wasn't sure how Glóin had taken the information but he hoped that Glóin and his family were well.
From what Ori had heard, mostly through Fíli's weekly phone calls with Thorin, Bilbo had gone to Mount Doom to destroy the Ring. There had been a mess of an Adventure, as Bilbo called it, getting there and back again, and other powers had become involved by the end of it. As it turned out, it seemed that Glorfindel, Ecthelion, and Erestor had gone with Bilbo to help him destroy the Ring, so the story of Glorfindel and Ecthelion marching on Mordor for Erestor hadn't been that far off. Bilbo didn't say too much about the events of the quest, just that it had been terribly dry, dusty, and the food was terrible, which sounded just like Bilbo. Ori had a suspicion that the actual tale was far grimmer than Bilbo wished to tell. And as for how the hobbits disappeared? Well...
Bilbo still wasn't explaining that part. Just that they had a purpose and a reason and that further inquiries were unwelcome. Thank you and good morning .
Ori was not about to bother Bilbo with more questions. He'd had enough problems of his own being one of the Company that had been on site when the return of the Shire had happened. Ori had been afraid that he would be disappeared into Mordor's government's halls for questioning but an eagle-eyed lawyer by the name of Bard – and no, Ori was trying very hard not to think about just who Bard could have been once – had swooped in and represented Ori to every government who had questions for him, pro bono. The rest of the Company soon fell under his protection as well, though Tauriel had some sort of connection with an elvish law firm headed by one Thranduil Greenwood. Ori was absolutely not about to poke that bear with a stick and let Tauriel handle that matter all on her own.
(Ori was also Very Firmly Ignoring who Thranduil probably once was.)
They had all escaped the questionings by the skin of their teeth. Mordor's government was supposedly furious with the lack of access to them. What remained of the dwarven nations, now housed in Ered Luin and the Glittering Caves, told Mordor to kiss off. The nominal king – a Durin XLII – had been utterly gleeful saying those exact words on live television, much to the apparent mortification of the counselors behind him. Ori didn't care if their nominal king showed his entire ass on live television, just so long as he and Fíli and their Company were not kidnapped by Mordor's government for whatever nefarious reasons they thought up.
“Ori?”
He blinked, glancing over at Fíli. “Sorry, just got caught up in the view.”
Fíli turned, the loose rocks under his boots causing a tiny landslide down the steep slope. “It's amazing,” he agreed, a flush high on his cheeks. “Still okay to continue?”
Ori met the concerned look with a firm nod. “I'm fine.”
“This is still...”
“I may have died in Khazad-dûm thousands of years ago, Fíli, but that is not here and now. I am me. Ori the bookkeeper, the ArdaTuber. Nothing more.”
“You are all that and more,” Fíli took Ori's hand and kissed it, which still made Ori blush horribly. “You know I still have nightmares. I just want to make sure you're alright.”
Ori used Fíli's hold on his hand to pull him closer and kiss him. Ori hadn't wanted to push for anything with Fíli after the chaos of Bilbo's reappearance but Ori found that Fíli was the one who did not want to let go, much to Ori's delight. They had moved in together three months after the Shire's return – much to Dori's displeasure – and Ori couldn't be happier. So when Fíli had asked, hesitant and quiet one night in bed, that if they could go searching for Khazad-dûm, if Ori would be okay with that, Ori had not hesitated in the slightest to say yes.
They had kept their plans quiet, not wanting to raise anyone's hopes. While Ori had technically taken their ancient kingdom back with Balin as their leader, the actual memories of his past life were few and far between. The clearest things he could remember was his death and where Balin's tomb had been located, although there had been a few oddities here and there that had popped up. Like his apparent ability to knit, now. He'd just taken up the needles and...started, which had been a very strange moment. Ori hadn't picked up that project in months. It made a shiver go down his spine very time he tried.
So actually finding Khazad-dûm was going to be a stretch. There were records, of course, of the former empire, but the exact locations had never been written down. It seemed that the scribes of the day had been so certain that Khazad-dûm would always stand, that people would always know where it was, that they did not bother putting down directions as how to get to the front door. They knew it existed in the Misty Mountains. They knew there was an entrance near Mirrormere...although that too had been a site hotly debated by academics and archaeologists for over a thousand years.
The actual lake had long vanished over the millennia that had passed. The Misty Mountains had been wracked by a series of violent earthquakes in the Fifth Age, changing the maps forever by erasing passes and causing new peaks to emerge. The Gap of Rohan had disappeared, along with the fabled Orthanc Tower – if it even existed in the first place – while the Isen river had been dammed by the changes and creating a vast lake east of the Misty Mountains there. A large portion of Rohan had been eaten up by the waters, which had caused a farming boom to happen in the Westfold area. The forest of Lothlórien had long vanished by the end of the Fifth Age, though some bits and carvings of the legendary mallorn trees still existed, mostly in museums.
From what Ori remembered – and what Fíli had found in his research through his university – was that they could follow the Anduin River north from The Wold and if they then found a river coming from their left, that should have been what once was called the Celebrant. The area was now called Nimreel and was a series of national parks in the country of Rhovanion. They had applied for a camping permit and gotten one of the few spots given to stay there for three weeks at the start of summer.
Ori had never thought of himself as an outdoorsy type, but Fíli absolutely was. So Ori had kept any and all complaints about the hard ground and the rather tasteless camp meals they put together each night firmly behind his teeth.
(He might have, just maybe, also found a stash of his favorite candy at the bottom of Fíli's bag, which his partner kept 'surprising' him with each night before they went to bed. Ori thought it was ridiculously adorable and refused to utter a single complaint about anything for the rest of the trip. Even when it meant hiking up an actual mountain .)
Which led them here, scrambling up the sheer side of a mountain that felt more like it was made of loose granite chips than actual rock. In the hiking book Fíli had found it named this path the Dimril Hike, though when they had looked up information on it on the internet they'd found a flame war of rather amusing size about whether or not said hike led to the actual Dimril Dale or not. Still the path seemed to be going vaguely in the direction that Ori thought was correct, so it didn't hurt to try, right?
Ori's legs and back begged to differ.
The views alone were almost worth the agony and the effort. Ori could look out over what was supposed to have been where Lothlórien had been – it was all farmland and pastures, now – and then picking out the Anduin in the distance and the dark line of trees of what remained of Mirkwood on the horizon beyond. It was breathtaking – for more than one reason – but they still had quite the climb to go.
By the time they made it to the top of the hike, complete with a sign and a weather-proof book stashed in a metal box for hikers to sign once they reached it – Ori was ready to throw in the towel and just roll his way down the slope and go to bed. It had been highly advised to not camp at the top of the hike, since there was little more than a ledge, supposedly, and the weather could turn at the drop of a hat.
The area they had climbed to was certainly narrow. It looked as though an entire part of the mountain face had fallen down at some point, causing massive boulders to block off what might have been a narrow valley leading deeper into the mountain range. Ori puffed out his cheeks as Fíli took pictures of everything – including Ori's stupid red face, which he stuck his tongue out, just to get Fíli to laugh. It seemed, though, that they had come all this way for nothing, since the area was small enough to get maybe a couple of tents laid out and that was it. The loose stone wouldn't be fun to sleep on, either. There was no vegetation, just some moss that was tucked up in places, like around the door.
Wait. What?
“That door wasn't there a minute ago,” Ori said, pointing. He saw Fíli freeze and then slowly turn, following Ori's hand. There, in the shadows, tucked back against the wall of rock, was the outline of a door. A door that looked...that looked like it was opening .
“Fíli?” Ori felt distinctly faint.
“Yeah?”
“Are you seeing that or am I hallucinating?”
“That's a door. That's an open door. An open door in the side of a mountain. In what's probably Dimril Dale.”
“Right,” Ori said, putting a hand to his chest. “Chances on us being able to leave?”
“I'd say not high.”
“What? Why? Oh ,” Ori looked behind them to see that their path down was gone. A vertical drop cut through the air, the whistle of the wind causing shudders to work down Ori's spine. “Well then.” He swallowed and felt Fíli take his hand. They both looked towards the open door. “I guess...the only way out is through?”
“Right,” Fíli said, sounding as wobbly as Ori felt. “We could...wait it out?” Except just as he said the words the sky darkened and the rumble of thunder could be heard. “Are you kidding me.”
“Fíli,” Ori whispered.
“We can't stay here,” Fíli said, even as the wind picked up. Ori could make out clouds starting to puff up around the mountains, the bite of snow in the air. “We can't go back and we can't stay out here. None of the gear we have will withstand a blizzard.”
“You think it will be that bad?”
“I think,” Fíli said, his expression grim, “that whatever is doing this wants us in that door, no matter what.”
Ori had the same suspicion. But, “Bilbo won't be here, this time,” he said. They would have no protector watching over them.
“We have each other,” Fíli's hold on his hand went tight. “We stay together and we got this. Right?”
“Right,” Ori echoed. The crack of lightning made Ori almost jump out of his skin.
“Come on,” Fíli called over the rise of the wind. Ori stumbled after them, their hands linked, closer and closer to the pitch black shadows of the door. For a moment...for a moment Ori thought he saw a figure standing there, a shadow on a black background, as if waiting for them.
And, between one flash of lightning and the next, they were through the portal and gone. A furious storm swept down the mountain, catching everyone in the park by surprise. Alerts were sent out. Forest and park rangers were brought in, looking for the people on the list of passes that had been sent out. They found all but two, who had been last seen on the trail to the Dimril Hike, where the worst of the storm had been centered.
And, on a cell phone charging in a battered camper, still parked in the Hobbiton Park parking lot, a voice mail icon appeared on Thorin's phone.