Hobbit 1. Chapter 1

**Mira Meliandra **was the first to request this, followed by **KelseyBI, Nicci1234, .3954, Tolkienite14, Sofasoap, Iathano, veronicamarieeckhart**, and** thesunisblind.** I was really overwhelmed by the response to this story, and pondered writing a sequel as requested, but was not given the proper idea until **Eryndil** suggested I do another journal telling Fili's point of view of this same stretch of time. So you can hold her responsible for the contents herein. Also, full credit goes to **Winters-Dawn1221** for naming the baby (whom you already know about if you've read _Lady of the Lake_, and whom you will eventually meet if you read to the end of this fic). She named the dear child before I ever had an intention of writing a sequel/counterpart, and I promised I would use the beautiful name she chose if I ever wrote another Figrid fic involving their wee one. That being said, let us begin! I am going to attempt to parallel Sigrid' journal without rehashing too many of the same events from a different POV. There will be some discrepancy in the time and events, so please do not compare these two too scientifically. Enough with me. On with Fili!

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I suppose I should begin by telling you who I am, although initially it is difficult for me to get over the strangeness of what it is I am doing. I am Fili, heir of Durin, the next in line to the Throne Beneath the Mountain. After me ought to be my child, a lad no more than a month in this world, Glorin Fidelen, but instead, the right has been returned to my brother, Kili. This is a great injustice to Glorin but is something which I have no heart to fight at this time, seeing as it would only put enmity between myself and my brother – something I am loth to do, as I now have no one else in the world whom I can claim to love, aside from my son. How my son came by his name is a curious story, and how I came to be in the circumstances in which I now find myself stranger still, and deserving of a proper record, I have finally decided. And so, I am going to begin to commit to these pages things that I think are worthy of remembrance, should the day come where I am no longer able to tell my child of his dear mother, a daughter of man, now no more by my side.

At first I could scarcely believe the words spoken to me by Oin. I thought that somehow in his deafness, he had misheard himself, and was giving me false information. My head began to buzz in the strangest way, such as I have never experienced, not even when in the throes of the cheer brought on by wine, and I was only vaguely aware of pushing and shoving my way through the assembled dwarves toward the entrance to the room from which I was excluded. Mere moments ago the news had rippled through the gathered group – that it was a boy, alive, and well, and my heart swelled within me, most undwarven tears coming to my eyes simply from the wonder of it. And then – that she was dead. Yes, Mahal, I can write it know. She is dead. I will even write her name. Sigrid, my beautiful wife, love of my entire existence, had passed beyond our aid, and into the arms of death. Words that I memorized as a child later came into my embittered mind, repeating themselves as a caustic manner of self-flagellation. I could not get it out of my head that this was my fault. She had died because of the life of our son, something that began by my doing.

Glorin – listen to me. This is not your fault. Not in the least. You did not ask for this, and neither did I. I was simply foolish enough to follow my desires and garner a brief year of happiness before sending the purest soul to her death through seeking my own happiness. Even now, if you must blame someone, blame me. I certainly do, and shall never cease to do so.

But at least now I have come to a point where I can realize what is happening here – what will happen. My son will grow up without knowing his mother, and her memory will fade into nothingness, as has the memory of my father. I hated myself so much the day that I found I could no longer picture his face clearly in my mind. I feared that somehow I was doing him a dishonor by going on living without sparing a thought for him now and then. But I was young, and no one ever spoke of him, at Thorin's behest. This shall not happen with me. She would not have wished it. And so, though I once told Sigrid that I lacked the practical means to keep a journal, I am going to go back and write of notable things, mostly pertaining to her life, so that they shall not be forgotten. My thoughts, memories, feelings too, I shall record. Because I no longer have her as my confidante, and Kili is beyond the reach of reason in love with his elf.

It has been truly kind how much the others have tried to do for me. We have had such a time endeavoring to find a nurse for Glorin. Thorin assured me that it was because no self-respecting dwarrow-maid would agree to suckle a half-breed child, but I found it to be simply because of the lack of fertility from which our race suffers. The nearest child to his age is nearly 8, and no longer nursing, but a most unexpected solution was found when Kili suggested I return with the child to Esgaroth. I told him no, at first – I could not bear to be in the position of having to face Sigrid's family now – but he told me it was a human woman or an elf, and after realizing the impossibility of the latter suggestion, sent word to the men of the lake that Fili, son of Durin, would be arriving as soon as possible, and was seeking a nursemaid for a poor disinherited child.

The journey was slow, and brought me many tears. I was walking the path that had played a great role in bringing about the death of my dearest wife, and reliving the last days we would spend together, though we did not know it at that time, a mere few months ago. I had not anticipated how much slower travel would be with the babe – a retinue of guards and servants were sent to accompany me, among them two dwarrow-women, one of them my mother, and though they had the primary care of the child, for which I am grateful, as I know next to nothing about caring for an infant, I found our travel very effectually impeded from the days in which we could roam the mountains in company, relatively unencumbered.

We reached Esgaroth at last, and though this place was never Sigrid's home, it is full of her people, and embodies all the things she loved, and so I do find it very difficult to be here. News had spread quickly of Sigrid's passing, and though I received a message from Bard in the days soon after, I could not be sure from his writing what sort of expressions crossed his face as he worded his text to me, or what sort of tears fell from his eyes as he mourned his eldest daughter, be they tears of sorrow, regret, or anger. I dreaded to see the eyes of her younger sister Tilda, so like her's, and the face of her brother Bain, who had trusted me with her well-being, something which I so notoriously abused.

We must have been sighted approaching some ways off, as there was a great sober gathering to greet us. Bard himself stood in their midst, and those accompanying me parted ways for us, Kili, and my mother by my side, to come to the front.

Bard's face was pale, hardened, and inexpressive. Kili took the child from my mother and handed him to me, giving me a push forward, and so my footsteps were the only sound in the hushed silence, closing the distance between me, and the leader of the men of the lake.

"Fili," he spoke, inclining his head. His eyes lingered on Glorin, wrapped well in a heavily embroidered blanket, cap tied snugly beneath his chin, his eyes closed in slumber. "This is the child."

"This is he," I muttered, my voice thick.

Bard watched the babe sleep for a long moment before lifting his eyes, and meeting them to mine.

"Some things cannot be altered," he said, and with that, my forgiveness was sealed. My mother hurriedly took Glorin from me, and I was clasped in an embrace by Bard, and I am ashamed to say I let fall a few of my tears into his jerkin – I could feel his own breath catch against my ear.

"I know that you loved her," he whispered. "And that's all I asked."

"Forgive me," I managed, and he pulled back, bracing his hand on my shoulders and looking me in the eye.

"There is nothing to forgive."

Kili bumped my arm, and I turned to see Tilda and Bain lingering nearby, Tilda's eyes, as I predicted, sending a stab of longing through me. I swallowed, and approached them; I nearly forgot about all the dwarves behind me who were witnesses to the scene.

"Tilda –" I began, holding out my arms, but she shook her head, and ran to my brother, throwing herself into a hug, and sobbing uncontrollably. My eyes were so full I could barely see, but Bain embraced me, muttering, "We don't blame you. Not one bit."

And I gave him a grateful look.

"Don't you want to see the baby?" Kili was asking, gently urging Tilda to relax her grip on him and abate her crying. "He's such a nice one."

"No," she wept. "No, I only want Sigrid."

And as much as it pains me to say, her words echoed my heart. It was difficult to sleep that night. I keep Glorin near to me at all times, because he was woven of a part of her, and somehow, I can't bear the idea of us being separated at all.

**To be continued...**


	2. Chapter 2

**Note:** Greetings, all! I apologize first of all for the delay in getting this up - life has been busy with work etc. and I have recently received an almost-positive diagnosis of a rare disease called Mast Cell Activation Disorder which will require large lifestyle-changes to manage. But between it all, I have been writing, and intend to begin posting the product :-) My other apology is regarding the rate at which I will likely update; I don't know that I will be able to manage a day-by-day update as I did with Sigrid, but I will try to do every other day, at least for a while. If there is a large gap, bear with me - I will be returning to it as soon as life permits. I am a little stuck on some ideas, so if any of you have any ideas at all, be sure to let me know. Especially for "deleted scenes" from Sigrid's journal that I could describe from Fili's POV, so I am not basically rehashing the same things from his perspective. Anyhow - onward, and enjoy! -** Viola**

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I never properly said – it is going to take me some time to get into the proper way of writing these things – but I came by this journal in Esgaroth. I am going to go back and write about things which deserve remembering. I know that Sigrid kept a journal which shall one day be given to Glorin, but somehow, I feel that it is not enough for him to only hear her side of the story. She would never write of her own beauty, intelligence, or bravery, and so I must, lest he be deprived of knowing what a wonderful lass his mother truly was.

We intend to stay some time here. It is so strange not knowing how long Glorin will be nursed by a woman – his mixed blood will make many things difficult to determine about him as he ages. I cannot see us staying here longer than a year, however, regardless of what happens. Nevertheless, I intend to make myself useful, love my son, and write about Sigrid. Somehow I feel these three things will do more to help me heal than to be brooding in the halls of Erebor forbidding anyone from speaking her name.

In a way, I feel that I should not want to heal, that I should not be even thinking of trying to close the wound that her death has left in me. It seems irreverent, somehow. But I will not be irrational and say that I know things must continue so. However, I can safely swear that I will never love again. I can never look upon a woman as I did Sigrid, I can never open myself to anyone as I did her, I can never admire, cherish, and adore any woman, daughter of man, dwarf, or elf, as I did Sigrid, Daughter of Bard. And in that, I find comfort. Her memory will not be dishonored.

It is strange how much in common, I am finding, that I have with Bard. One would never guess it; most people would see a work-worn son of man, a servant-leader, one who rose to carry a people onward to a new life after the destruction wrought by the dragon upon their town. They would see in me an exiled dwarven prince, one only recently exposed to the torments and troubles this life can bring, and yet, we share so much. His wife died very young, leaving him with three young children to care for, and a broken heart. He too understands the pain of wandering from place to place, of knowing that we will likely never see the restoration completed of our ancestral dwellings, that our children and our children's children alone will see the fruits of our labor. He too, has seen the difficulty of being under an authority that one cannot implicitly trust. The list could go on and on, but it would be fairly boring, and as it is, suffice it to say that we have been sitting up of nights, and simply talking together.

"Fili," he told me, taking a long draw of his pipe – a gift Sigrid once brought for him, carved after the dwarven fashion – "You know that I speak the truth."

"Aye." I nodded. "Aye, I know that you always speak the truth, Bard.

"No." He looked soberly at me. "About Sigrid."

His voice when saying her name – infinitely full of love, of tenderness, of longing...

"Aye," I managed, my throat tightening. "And for that I thank you."

"It would do no good to harbor anger, even if blame were deserved." He stared at me. "And it is not."

"I cannot help but disagree with you there," I said, heaving a sigh, and looking into the fire which was burning low. Everyone else was asleep, Tilda wrapped in Bain's arms, Kili snoring away in a corner, my mother by his side, Glorin cushioned on a soft pallet near where I would be sleeping. The other dwarves had been put up at the newly-completed inn, which they call the Fishtale.

"And why is that?" Bard leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and looked up from the floor at me I chose my words carefully.

"It is simple, really," I managed at last. "If she had not married me, she would be alive today."

Bard shook his head. "It is not like that."

"It is," I insisted. "I don't see how you cannot see it."

"Well, think of it this way. If you had not married her, she would have been unhappy. If you had not married her, you would have been unhappy. If you had not married her, Tilda would never have grown up as much as she has. If you had not married her, I would never know what it was like to see my daughter so completely in love. Kili would not have seen his elf again, I would never have visited Erebor, Glorin would not be here, the list could go on and on." He took another puff on his pipe, and concluded, "So you see, the way is not to think of what has happened that is bad because of this, but what is good."

"You have had many years to come to this conclusion," I told him in a low voice. "I have, as yet, mere months."  
"I understand that." He sat back, and heaved a sigh, his eyes expressive in the flickering firelight. "I thought my life was over when my wife left me."

"But you had bairns to care for which could keep your mind off your grief," I told him, shifting in my seat.

"As do you."  
I nodded. "Glorin is a great comfort to me."

"He is a strong child. His life will not be easy, but then, have any of our lives been easy?"

I chuckled wryly at that. "You are right there, my friend."

"Anyhow." Bard rose from his chair, and poked about in the fire, subduing the embers beneath old ash. "I am to sleep. Know that you and he are always welcome here."

"Thank you," I told him, my voice much more steady than I felt in the darkness. I made my way as carefully as I could in the shadows to where I was to sleep, feeling about until I was satisfied that Glorin was not going to be crushed, and lay down, pulling him into the crook of my arm. He is so tiny for a dwarven child, and yet strong; I thank Aule for that. Kili positively dotes upon him, and I was just hoping that Tilda could somehow be reconciled to the babe when a voice interrupted my thoughts.

At first I startled, cursing under my breath, as I could have sworn it was Sigrid's voice talking very near me. Then I heard light footsteps, and a figure knelt by my side, silhouetted against the meager light from the window, and I realized it was Tilda who had awakened.

"Ah, you, lass," I murmured, sitting up, and keeping a hand on Glorin, who yet slumbered. "You startled me for a moment."

"You thought I was Sigrid." Her voice was low, and guarded. I hesitated, then nodded.

"Aye, I did. You sound so like her."

"And I look like her too."

A assented with another nod, hoping that her eyes were adjusted enough in the darkness that she could see my reply.

"Why are you not asleep?" I enquired. "I hope your father and I did not awaken you with our talk."

She shook her head, the glints in her brown hair being caught by the moonlight. I focused my gaze upon the shadows.

"I was not asleep."

My eyes widened. "Indeed. You heard all we said?"

"But I wasn't trying to listen." She reached out a hand in the darkness toward the baby, and her hand inadvertently touched mine upon his slumbering form. She looked at me as if I would be angry.

"Would you like to hold him?" I asked. "He sleeps soundly, you would not wake him."

She hesitated, and did not say anything, but with my aid, gathered the slumbering infant into her arms. She peered at his tiny face illuminated by the moonlight, and at last said:

"I can't decide who he looks like."

I resisted the urge to smile. "You know, I have thought the same thing. I can see his mother's beauty in him, but Kili insists that he looks like me at that age. Then Thorin asks him how he would know."

Tilda snickered slightly. "He is not too heavy. I think he is the perfect weight."

"He will grow."

"But that will still be alright." There was a long pause. "Bring him back someday, when he is grown?" she said at last.

And I promised her that I would.

I think I have decided that I will back up and begin writing all that I can remember that is worth writing about. My dearest son, when you someday read this, you will understand how I will have very little to write about that is not regarding your mother, but I shall record a few other things before that, as most people would consider the years in which I journeyed with the company, and the adventures I had with my brother to be the things most worth telling about my life. I would disagree, but I must do my earlier life justice, and so will resume here tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

Well, I have been doing a deal of thinking, and have come to the conclusion that I am not a good writer, but cannot bear to give this up so soon. After all, the amount of blank pages in this book mock me when I try to write – the binding is stiff it tries to close itself, and I have realized that if I do battle with it long enough, the odds will even, and someday I will win when I can fill the last page. Thinking about it this was has filled me with the correct spirit, I imagine.

I was born at a time which was no doubt very interesting, and it is a pity that I cannot remember it, but nevertheless, nothing really of great import happened to me until I was 6 and my brother Kili came into the world. After that, my life had a purpose – to keep him alive from day to day. He has a great sense of mischief, and though I am ashamed to say how often I joined him in pranks, simply by the merit of being older I was required to be the one ensuring that we returned before nightfall, did not get caught by the authorities, and kept ourselves generally in one piece. Our clothing was a completely different matter – an incident comes to mind in which we left all of our garmentry on the banks of the river and went for a swim one warm day, only to find that some dwarrow women had destined our swimming spot to be their laundry spot and arrived with their baskets and their string, and began setting up a veritable camp around us. So there we were, bare as the day we were born, simply treading water in the middle of the stream, and hoping that they would turn their backs so that we could grab our clothing and run. At last one of them spotted us, and we were shrieked at, scolded, and nearly hauled from the water by our ears and sent scampering through the brush, our clothing flung after us.

My mother heard of it and we were given no supper that night, but Kili always kept a stock of emergency provisions beneath his bed, and so we did not go too hungry, although his collection of stale bread and nuts was not really what one would consider a delectable meal. Our emergency provision idea was effectively ended the year that Kili discovered that acorns made a good snack, and stowed a great deal of them with our collection beneath the bed, until we found that they were crawling with insects and our mother nearly had a fit. We were naughty lads, but such are most lads, it seems.

I cannot remember much about my father, except that he went away with Thorin, his wife's brother, one day in the spring, and never returned. I used to be able to picture his face – I was told that his hair and beard were light, as mine, but I cannot claim that my memory is accurate. I always imagine him to look like Thorin, only fairer. But I cannot say.

Thorin returned from battle, along with Dwalin, Balin, and many of the others, bearing scars and tales of horrendous odds – we were forbidden by my uncle to speak my father's name henceforth from that day. My mother, Dis, agreed, and as such, all has faded from my young mind. I used to hate Thorin for doing this to me, but then I simply realized that he loved my father as I love Kili, and to speak of him would be doing harm. He is the sort that will mourn forever, I feel.

Thorin trained Kili and me in the arts of war from a very young age, partially because we ought to know it, and partially because he was determined that I never forget who I was. I was someday to inherit his lost kingdom, and must be ready. I began to take life much more seriously after that, and though I still managed to find time to cut capers with Kili, I felt as if somehow I would be doing myself a disservice to hold off doing something worthwhile with my life much longer.

The opportunity for something worthwhile came in the form of Thorin putting together an assembly of his oldest and most trusted friends to undertake the quest of reclaiming his kingdom. From the moment I heard him by the fire with my mother, discussing it under their beards, I determined that I wanted to go. Initially he said that I was too young, and my mother too, discouraged it. After all, it was difficult to know what we would be getting into, but it was fairly certain that it would be no picnic to go traipsing across Middle-Earth, confronting a fire-drake, and restoring a kingdom. In truth, that is what I was counting on; danger, unknowns, and a chance to prove wrong Thorin's ever-present doubts.

The arrival of Gandalf, one of Thorin's oldest friends, changed his mind at last, and he even went so far as to allow Kili to accompany us as well – though I mainly think that was because Kili claimed he would die if he was not allowed to come. Gandalf personally sent word to the dwarves that would be journeying with us, and my brother and I journeyed on together, pursuant to Gandalf's instructions, to a place called The Shire, more specifically, Hobbiton. Beyond that, we were simply to look for Gandalf's mark. The journey took us less than a week, as Kili and I traveled fairly light, bearing as many weapons as we thought we would need. I sharpened all the blades I owned and spent my time around the campfire at night devising new and improved ways to carry them. Kili took up the bow at a very early age, partially to spite Thorin, whom he disliked greatly, as Thorin told him that dwarves cannot use bows. I admire Thorin greatly – we do not always get along, but we are blood, and I have learned all I know now from him. Kili is not of the same mind, but I cannot change that.

Anyhow, we came at last upon a queer little settlement of what I was only assuming were hobbits, the community looking like a tiny range of foothills bearing a door at the side of each. We roamed the town by night, searching for Gandalf's guiding symbol, and at last came upon it on a green door.

Thence began our adventures – meeting Bilbo, a hobbit, who was to be our burglar, and re-meeting all of Thorin's comrades who knew us when we were dwarflings. The next year and then some of our lives would be spent almost in each others' exclusive company.

I am going to pause there for now, and resume sometime tomorrow, if I have the heart. These days are not so hard to relive, but I am finding myself eagerer than I thought possible to reach the day in which we met Bard, and eventually, I met Sigrid.


	4. Chapter 4

Glorin awakened me early this morning, crying with hunger. He is a very good-natured chap, I believe, but even he must cry sometimes as he has no words as of yet, nor will he for a long while. He is beautiful, even when unhappy. He is beardless, but it does not trouble me – it will likely come in late, as did Kili's. It troubled him so much; perhaps Kili can prove to be a comfort to the little fellow, as his mixed blood leaves so much to wonderment even now.

I was telling of our journeys. By day our adventures would fill a greater book than I have here, and by night, Kili and I talked, as we have a habit of doing, discussing plans, ideas, and dreams by the cartload.

"Kili," I asked him, scooting over in my bedroll so that our heads would be close together, and we would not disturb the others' slumbers. "Kili, are you awake?"

"Aye," he grumbled a little too loudly, and I smacked a hand over his mouth.

"Shh!" I hissed. "If you wake up Thorin, you have to explain who it was that set up the tripod so poorly that it tangled and broke."

"Mahal, let me breathe," Kili managed, peeling my hand from his face. "What is it?"

"Nothing, just wanting to see if you're awake."

"Ah."

We lay there in companionable silence for a long while; writing about these things makes me miss the days in which Kili and I were all each other had. But I am recording this particular conversation because of the irony; I did not know then would be happening soon, amongst all the other mad things that had been occurring.

"Kili."

"You keep saying that."

"Well, is is the name our mother chose to call you," I whispered back.

"Alright. What is it?"

"It's..." I was aware of the hiss of my words, and tried to blunt the sound, but it was too late; I heard a hitch in the snores of Bofur, who was nearby, and Kili lifted his eyebrows as if to say, _You see? Watch your own words!_

"It's just something I've been thinking about," I resumed in a still quieter tone, once it was safe.

"Aye, I guessed as much," Kili grinned, pillowing his head on his arms and turning his face starward.

"Someday we won't be together."

Kili took in a deep breath. "Are you on about dying again?"

"Nay, nay..." I shook my head. I had an awful habit for years of taking it upon myself to warn everyone of their impending deaths, after finally coming to terms with the facts that all dwarves die sometime. I am sure Thorin had been telling me of these things, but I was a more serious dwarfling than Kili, and saw it as my individual mission to let death find no dwarf unprepared. It was a stupid phase I was in, really.

"I mean that – what if one of us were ever to marry."

Kili turned back over, and there we were, nose to nose, heads propped up by one arm, the sound of the wind in the wild the only thing heard in the night aside from our clandestine mutterings. It was a strange thing. We had teased each other about these things for years, but as of yet, had given it no real serious thought.

"When you are king, I suspect Thorin will arrange something for you," Kili mused, a tiny glint shining in his dark eyes in the dim. "When I was younger I thought we could marry each other."

"Mahal, you shame me by remembering," I grumbled, and Kili snickered.

"Aye."

"Have you no real ambitions to marry?" I put to him. "You are right, I will likely be subjected to Thorin's plans, but you? You could marry whomever you would."

"I hadn't thought on it much, at least I feel I have some time yet," Kili said, stroking a hand over his not-quite beard. "I don't feel old enough."  
"Thorin would agree there," I grinned, and Kili gave me a punch.

"You said it," I retorted, rubbing my arm.

"Aye, but it's somehow worse hearing it from your mouth," he groused. "But in honesty, no, I - somehow..." he narrowed his eyes. "Somehow I don't want to be the one to marry first. It hardly seems fair, when you're older."

"Aule, don't worry about that," I mumbled. "That's silly, and besides, I wouldn't mind. I'm not so much older."

"Still." He twitched his nose in thought. "I wouldn't want to feel that I'm the one responsible for dividing us."

_Dividing us._ At that moment, my thoughts had been spoken by his words. And then I realized that I would have to marry a very particular girl indeed to take the place of my relationship with my brother. Strange as it seems, I had not thought of that at all. That marrying would separate us, as nothing had ever separated us before. And not that anyone could ever replace Kili in my heart, but that in a marriage, one knows more about the other, trusts more intimately, loves more deeply than even I know Kili, than even I trust Kili, than even I love Kili. The thought frightened me, almost – there could not be such a person. There simply couldn't be. If that were all there was to it, I would vow never to marry, and Kili and I could continue together, undivided, until the end of our days.

Aule knew that it would take a very particular being to prise me from the throes of my loyalty to my brother. And so he sent me Sigrid, the only person in the world whom I felt I could love as completely as I had my brother, and, as stretching to the imagination as it would have seemed to me at the time, that I could love even more. I cannot count the times that Sigrid has, as Kili often did, goive voice to the words of my heart with her tongue. My only trouble that my heart has no voice now besides these pages, now that she is gone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note: Thank you to all you kind readers and reviewers! I want to especially thank WintersDawn1221, who feeds my plot bunny, sofasoap, who has been with me from the beginning, Eryndil, who tells me to when my characters are on-track, tadah2, who is the best encouragement in every way, and my lovely guest reviewer, sorrellkaren, who left me the sweetest review *heart*. Thank you, my friend! Hope you all enjoy this chapter. I cried writing it, just so you know...**

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Today, I am going to write about what I have done. Something I have recently begun to realize in keeping a journal, especially one looking into memory as this one, is that one should not lose sight of the future in recounting the past. Things are happening as I write which are worth recording.

Just today, I have given Glorin to the care of the kind woman who is acting as a nursemaid for him. Her name is Ginna, and it seems that she knew Sigrid years ago, before Laketown was destroyed, and is more than happy to care for her child. Her own son is just nearing 1 year of age, but one would scarcely know it, for he is quite mobile, and much more alert and active than any dwarven child would be at his age. Mahal, the joy at the birth of a dwarven baby would be scarcely old by the time he is 5, and not a year after the birth of this child, his mother is trying to feed him solid food! Anyhow, her milk has not yet ceased to come, and thus it was a good situation for Glorin. She complains that he has a voracious appetite, but that is not something which I can help.

Anyhow, Glorin being in good hands, I took the time to talk with Bain and Tilda. Bain and I have been working together, and Ginna has been so kind as to stay nearby with the child, in case I should wish to see him as I work, but today I told her that I had plans, and requested Bard that I be absent from the labor for the day. The city has been rising around us, and we are finishing interior work of what will be a Great Hall; he granted permission readily, and sent Bain with me. I asked the boy if he would go and find Tilda, and that I had something I wished to do with them.

Walking up the cobbled street not a few minutes later came Bain, with Tilda in tow, and – I should have guessed – Kili, as well. Not that resent that, but I can't help but feel that Tilda's confidence in him makes it more difficult for her to speak to me. In her eyes, I am the strange dwarf, brother of her friend, who took away her sister to her death. Mahal, how I wish it were not so. I have not stopped wishing it for a single day.

"Kili," I greeted, ignoring the grip Tilda retained on his hand. "What are you doing here?" He picked up the strangeness in my tone, and the request in my eyes. Aule bless him.

"Well, Tilda told me to come along, and how could I resist the request of such a lovely lady?" He gestured theatrically with the hand that held Tilda's and she permitted herself a small smile.

"I wonder if you could leave us for a time."

Tilda's eyes grew wide. "No – I just wanted him to –"  
"Tilda," Bain began, his brows drawn together. "Fili wanted to talk to us."

"Then he can talk." She tossed her head, a hint of rebellion in her gaze.

"-Without Kili," Bain finished, shooting a look at Kili to see if he would be offended. Kili pulled Tilda in front of him and looked up into her face, for she passed his height in the time between the attack on Laketown and the coming of the dragon. He said in the kindest voice imaginable:

"Tilda, I have a lot to do. You have no idea how long my brother can talk, and I don't know if I can be absent from my work to hear whatever it is he has to say."

"Nor I." She met my eyes. "I have a lot of work to do, too."

I took a deep breath, running a hand over my beard. Mahal. "I will not keep you longer than you wish – I merely wanted to spend some time with you and your brother."

Her gaze was suspicious. "Why?"

I lifted my hands. "I miss you."

Bain was watching the exchange quietly, and took Tilda's hand. "Come on, then," he said at last, and Kili bowed, excusing himself.

"You know where to find me when he's finished, Tilda," he called, striding back up the street, trying to ignore her pleading looks. "Don't let him bore you to death."

When Tilda looked back at me she held a mixture of dread and resentment in her gaze. Bain gave her hand a squeeze.

"Tilda..." he reproved quietly. Tears slowly began to fill her eyes, spilling over onto her cheeks, and her brother held her close as she began to sob quietly. We three stood in the street, the only sounds the ringing of chisels, the tread of the working men one street over, and the weeping of a young girl with her heart twain in two.

"I don't want to talk to him," she managed at last, her tears soaking the front of her brother's tunic. "I don't want to see him, I don't want to hear whatever he has to say –"

"Hush," Bain said firmly. "Hush that, he's standing right here."

"I don't care!" she burst out, lifting her streaked face. Her hair had begun to come down from the braids she wore pinned across the back of her head, and in that moment I realized as never before how much she truly did look like my Sigrid.

"I don't care!" she insisted again, her voice impassioned. "I don't care if he goes off and dies! I wish he would! I hate him!"

"Tilda!" Bain exclaimed, horrified. "Tilda, don't say such things!"  
"It's alright," I told him in an uneven voice. "Let her have her tears."

Tilda broke away from her brother and ran a short distance to a croft whose wooden shutters were opened, and she leaned her head in her arms against the wall, shielded from view from the waist up by the shutter.

Bain stood, shuffling his feet in the street, as I approached the girl, and laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Tilda," I began in as gentle a tone I could muster. She said nothing, but I could feel her stiffen under my touch. "You love Bain, don't you." She did not nod, but I knew she was listening. "He is your brother, you trust him. He protects you, he would never do anything to hurt you. He loves you. You are his sister." I swallowed, and finished, "I became your brother when I married Sigrid. Can you let me love you?"

Tilda turned ever so slowly, and regarded me with a pale, blotched face. "I don't think I can," she said, her voice rough. "I am so upset at you all the time."

"I know. Mahal, I know," I choked. "And you have every right to be. But know that I never, _never _wanted this to happen. You may not believe me, but –" My voice failed me as my vision unexplainedly blurred. "I loved Sigrid as myself, more than myself, more even, than you, perhaps."

She shook her head vehemently, her voice broken. "Not more than me."

"Come here, lass," I managed, and she allowed me to embrace her for the first time since Sigrid's death. I held her to me with all my strength, and let her cry, her tears falling in my hair, her fingers shaking as they fidgeted the rough back of my coat.

I heard Bain's footsteps as he approached and joined us, silently leaning his chin on Tilda's shoulder, and stroking her damp hair back from her brow. It was a moment that I wished would never end.

"Where is Glorin?" Tilda asked me at last, pulling out of my arms, and wiping her face. "Is he with Ginna?"

"Aye, he is. Shall we fetch him?"

She nodded. "I'd like to hold him."

"Let us go, then."

And as we walked, she grabbed my hand as she had Kili's, and I thought my heart would burst from harboring the first happiness I have experienced in a long while.

Tilda has an indefatigable spirit. We had not reached the bottom of the street before she piped up, "You said you wanted to talk to us about something."

I chuckled. "Nothing particular. I just wanted to spend some of the day with you two."

"Have we got any food?" Bain suggested. "We could go to the edge of the lake."

I nodded. "That would be grand."

"Well." Tilda withdrew her hand, and crossed her arms for a brief moment, regarding us with a conciliatory stare. "That's alright, I suppose. If Glorin can come."

"Of course he can come." I smiled. "I'll fetch him if you and Bain will gather the things we'll need."

Tilda sighed, as if trying to make me believe it was a difficult decision. "Alright."

We parted ways, and I could scarcely keep the smile from my face as I went to fetch Glorin from Ginna. I passed Bard outside the Hall, and he caught my eye; I gave him a nod, and he smiled, knowing that everything was alright. We had a splendid day, and I have laughed more than I have since Kili and I had to share a room when Sigrid's family visited Erebor. Bain did not talk as much as I would have liked, but on our way back, Tilda happily cooing over Glorin who snoozed contentedly in her arms, he did speak to me of his own accord.

"Fili."

"Aye."

He has grown as tall as his father, and I suspect looks much as Bard did at his age. His face is serious more often than not, but that is nothing of which to be surprised.

"Thank you," he said. "For being so kind to Tilda. She has been taking it rather hard, you know."

"Aye." I bobbed my head, looking up at him. "And you?"

Bain shook his head, his hair falling into his eyes. He blew it away with a quick puff, and said, "It's nothing to speak of. Not compared to what you're gone through, at least."

"Aule, lad. This is no time for such talk."

"Fine." He stuffed his thumbs through the belt he wore over his tunic, and gestured with his remaining fingers. "I miss her. More than I ever thought I would. She was the only girl – aside from Tilda – that I could ever talk to." There was a long pause. "But like I said," he resumed in a matter-of-fact way. "I don't blame you. It isn't as if it is your fault."

"Nay, but you know that it is," I murmured, and then Bain stopped at the bottom of the street, seeing Tilda let herself and the baby into the croft in the evening light.

"You really think that?" he said, and I took a deep breath, and nodded.

"Aye. Sometimes I think I will die of the guilt of it."

He furrowed his brow. "No, no. Don't. Because you see, if you had forced her to marry you and have your child, it would have been your fault. But she loved you." A light flush overcame his cheeks, and I looked away in discretion. "She was... _in love_ with you," he repeated, as if lacking sufficient terms to describe further attachment. "So she wanted this, in a way. Not knowing what was going to happen, she wanted this, and I think, since she was smart, and brave, and loved you so much, that even if she knew what would happen, she would have done it anyway."

I caught his hand and wrung it. "You are a good man, Bain, son of Bard," I told him, and he simply nodded.

"I hope so."

I must close now, for my candle has burned low, and Glorin has fallen asleep. He is snoring ever so slightly, a tiny rattling sound that I suspect he has inherited from me, and which will likely grow into the thunderous respiration that most of the dwarven slumberers boast.


	6. Chapter 6

I am really dreadful at this journal-keeping-business. Today I read back over what I have written and it is a confusing mess of things happening now, and things happening in the past. Ah, well. It has been some time since I have written. I realize that I should continue, though circumstances keep me more occupied than I have been in some while. It is night, and the candle-light flickering before me, just enough to illuminate this book, seems to fascinate Glorin, for he stares at it, wearing such a face. His eyes are round, and he watches the dancing flame almost without blinking as I write. He is a wakeful little fellow tonight.

Sometimes things seem entirely dreadful, so that nothing good could ever come of it. I am reminding myself of that in a time such as this, while I remember the seemingly terrible circumstances in which my path was brought to cross with Sigrid's.

We were journeying toward the Mountain, and found the forest of Mirkwood in our path. I was not privy to the decision that resulted in our going through it, rather than around it, but we wandered for many a trackless hour in that accursed place, losing our way, and at last being set upon by a great number of fearsome spiders. Many of my people have a way of embellishing stories in the telling, but to name their number, no one would believe me. In truth, I know not how many of them there were, only that after Bilbo disappeared into the boughs of a tree in that clever way of climbing that he has, we were set upon, nearly silently, by the beasts.

I saw one approaching Kili from behind first, and shouted his name, just as I received a stunning pain and felt the world flicker darkness around me. The next thing I knew, I could see the leaves and moss strewing the floor of the forest as I was dragged facedown by a foot I knew not where. I could feel nothing, which perhaps was good. I only wondered vaguely what had become of the others, as I could hear no cries for help, nor anything at all, when I thought on it. I felt immensely sleepy, and was about to succumb to the desire for rest, when I caught sight of Kili again, limp, and unmoving, being handled between the eight limbs of a giant arachnid as it wound it tortuous webbing about his body. Then I started to holler, and all went black until I was awakened with a jarring thud. I later realized that we had been wrapped and hung in the spiders' lair until the bravery of our burglar released us.

However, the danger was not over. Drawing my swords, which I mercifully retained, I attacked the nearest spider, and all around me were sounds of the skirmish. There were terrible shriekings, the yells of my comrades, and the particular noise of the battle; the parting of bone from flesh, the ring of steel on pincer, and the sickening sounds of our blades penetrating their tough hides.

I saw by brother knocked off his feet by a particularly vicious specimen, and dispatched my aggressor with a final thrust between the eyes, intenidng to rush to his aid, as he was screaming and thrashing about, unarmed, his bow laying knocked to the ground some feet away. I dare not fling one of my smaller knives at the spider, for fear of it hitting Kili, and just as I began to charge across the space between us, I heard a great shouting, and we were accosted by a great group of tall creatures, armed with bows, all wearing their hair long and free. Elves.

I had never seen the like before, but Thorin had described their tall pallor, their quiet deadliness, and their imperturbable elegance too many times for me to be mistaken. They stole our victory most effectively, but before we could turn on them and accost them for their impudence, we were surrounded at arrowpoint and told to drop our weapons.

I obediently dropped my swords, but did not account on being searched as closely as I was. A tall pale-haired elf seemed to be in command, and he issued orders to a second with red hair whom I realized with a bit of shock, was female. They spoke rapidly to each other in their language, and I couldn't make out a single word of it. I regret to say that I was inspected most thoroughly, and just when I thought I would be left alone, the final pair of knives I kept beneath my collar missed, the elf reached behind my head and pulled them from their concealment, giving me a malevolent look. The knives in my boots, even, were not overlooked.

Thorin caught my eye and tried to mouth something to me, but I did not make it out as we were bound, and ushered with the speed only a race twice as tall as we are can muster, to the palace of the Woodland King. It was an impressive edifice, that I will say, and I admire the elves for not losing their way in such a forest. For me, I could swear the way we took was bearing us back whence we came.

With very little ceremony, we were locked within the dungeons, while Thorin alone was given audience with the elven ruler. It was only then I realized what Thorin had been trying to tell me; the hobbit had not been seen, and had not been captured as we had. I could only hope that he could come up with some ingenius plan for our release, as the days weren't going to slow for us to reach the mountain before Durin's Day.

I was locked in a cell opposite Ori, and listened to Thorin and Balin argue when Thorin at last returned from his interview with the elven king. It seems that Thorin did not accept his bargain, and instead cursed him. While I do not blame him, I could not help but dispair since it seemed that was our only hope. I wondered where Kili was, and if was alright. I had promised our mother that I would bring him back alive.

Not to bore you, but we escaped in the maddest, most dangerous way, and I began to realize the real desperation of our circumstances when Kili was shot in the thigh by a poisoned shaft. We did not know it was poisoned at the time, but as time went on the wound began to fester and eat the life from him. It was Aule's good will that we should come across Bard shortly afterward, who smuggled us into Laketown, for a fee.


	7. Chapter 7

And now I've come to a day of great importance – the dawning of the morn upon which we entered Laketown, concealed in barrels of fish. The smell was well-nigh unbearable, and with the weight of the fish pressing around one, it is a wonder we did not all suffocate. I was able to find a knothole before my face, and by clearing away a cod or two, pressed my mouth to it and was thus able to obtain some delightfully fresh air. I only worried that my noisy breathing would be heard without the barrel.

Bard handled the craft smoothly, and I hardly noticed as we skimmed to a stop – voices were heard, but the fish muffled their words from my ears, and so I was left to the terrors of my imagination until booted treads sounded upon the boards of the barge. My barrel was roughly jolted, and I swore in my head as it was turned up on one edge, and maneuvered toward what I could only assume was the edge of the barge, tipping dangerously toward the side. I could hear Bard's voice rise above all else, but could not make out what he was saying. Above me, fish began to slide from the barrel, landing with varied splashes in the canal below, but suddenly I was righted, returning to level ground with a thud,. Momentarily, the craft was poled along again.

It seems we had nearly been caught, but Bard's cleverness, or his loyalty, none of us knew which, had saved us at the last moment. He rapped upon the wood and I winced as the sound was near my ear, but took that as the signal that all was clear. Shifting my legs beneath me, I shoved myself up out of the barrel, overflowing slipery fish onto the deck of the barge, and clambering stiffly to my feet. All around me, my companions were doing the same. I looked about for Kili, his wound still giving me worry; he could not have been doing comfortably folded up in a keg for as long as he had been.

Bard gestured to us to pass him, and we did so, hurrying along the boardwalk behind several houses hung with nets and various implements of trade. This was the first sight I truly got of laketown, as before we were rather buried by fish. Laketown was not at all a bad idea; in fact, I would have been proud to say that I had engineered such a marvel upon the water. All the houses are upon stilts, and are connected with wooden boardwalks; it would seem that the main craft is fishing and trade by barge, but I am certain there are manufacturers of textiles, and all manner of other workmanship. There are some things that I could not help but notice would be problematic, such as smithing – one spark would set the whole town alight, eating up the old wood with a ravenous appetite – or gardening, as there wasn't a way to grow a single green thing in this place.

Nevertheless, we were ushered through a back door into a small room just off the wharf where Bard docked the boat, after paying a man who was staring unabashedly at us, and giving him the boatload of fish as well for his silence. As the front of the room was entirely open to view, and there seemed to be some sort of market going on opposite, Bard gathered us close and whispered:

"This room is not mine, but belongs to anyone who wishes to dock so they can visit the market. However, on the other side of that wall is another wharf room just like this one, and opposite the canal from that is my house. You must swim beneath the pilings, and come up, not opposite, but beyond." He gestured to indicate. "I will return to my house and one of my children will aid you. Listen for a double knock, and it will guide you to the opening you must use."

I nodded in silence, but Balin put his hand on Bard's arm.

"Weapons?"

He nodded. "I will get them to you."

Satisfied, Balin turned to Dwalin, who set his jaw, and lowered himself to the edge of the water. Thorin did the same, beckoning to me.

"Only three at a time, so that we don't drown each other," he growled, plunging in. The splashing was not noticed, as it is likely a common sound in such a place, but once beneath the chill, murky water I found it nearly impossible to see, and I am a strong swimmer. I simply followed Dwalin and Thorin's lead, as they seemed to know what to do. Mahal, but it was cold.

I began wishing rather soon that I had filled my lungs with a full draught of air before diving beneath the water, as I felt my chest begin to burn, but I did not dare break the surface for fear of giving us away. Light filtered down in shafts from an opening someplace above us, and as first Dwalin, then Thorin disappeared from my vision, I let myself rise to the top, my head coming forth from the water to find a boy that could only be a son of Bard staring down at me.

"Do you want some help?" he asked, giving me his hand, and I took it, accepting the meagre amount of strength he exerted to help me clamber out of the appurtenance through which I had stuck my head. I discovered what it was when a voice exclaimed:

"Da? Why are there dwarves coming out of our toilet?"

It was, indeed, a toilet, but I had no time to be disgusted, as Bard had just saved our skins. I stood in a puddle on the floor, my hair and clothing running frigid brown-hued water, and sought the owner of the lilting voice. Then I caught sight of the face peering between the balustrades up the wooden stairs my kinsmen were ascending.

She was a young woman, difficult to tell her precise age as I am not familiar with the years of men, but beautiful. She had wide brown eyes, and a pretty, well-proportioned face. Her hair faded ever so slightly, from the dark brown against her head, to a light nearly golden color that was contrasted against the dark where I could see bit that had escaped the pins she used to secure her hair to her head. It struck me with a pang how strange it was that I was admiring a daughter of man in a time like this.

I ascended the stairs, hearing the gasping and spluttering of the dwarves following after me, and the girl and a younger one, who looked a great deal like her, seemed taken aback. As well they might – we were, after all, thirteen dwarves and a hobbit invading their small home. She quickly began to pull blankets from the bed in the corner, and retrieve them from a chest, She tugged some from their place hanging in the rafters as well, and distributed them to us. I took the proffered quilt gratefully, swathing my dripping form in it, and ushering Kili toward the fire.

"Are you alright?" I asked him in a low voice, and he nodded valiantly, though his face was a bit pale. Bard's footsteps mounting the stairs drew our attention, and we all fell quiet as he cleared his throat.

"These are our guests," he said to his children, and the boy nodded. The girls simply stood there, the elder wrapping her arms about the younger and pulling her against her skirt.

"This is Bain, Sigrid, and Tilda." He gestured to the young ones, and Balin, Nori, and Gloin murmured their assent. I gave them as kindly a nod as I could muster between my violent shivering. I did not know which of the girls was Sigrid, and which was Tilda, but the elder seemed to be the homemaker of the place, as Balin had elicited the confession from Bard that his wife was dead. We were given changes of clothes, which were ill-fitting, but warm, and the girls let themselves out onto the balcony and kept cautious backs to the window as we changed. Sodden dwarvish clothing was hung up at every turn, and as the heat from the fire warmed the place, it sent up a damp sort of haze into the air.

We were served a healthful soup, but scant of quantity for supper, and when Kili poked me and asked:

"Are you going to eat the bread?" I elbowed him back and murmured, "I'm not hungry for it."

"Well, I am," he retorted, and my foot found his and bore down on it. He winced.

"Never mind."

"Right."

I gifted my portion of bread to the boy Bain, who looked pleased, though Bard scowled at the gesture. The ale, however, was good, though I thought it strange that they only kept one keg on hand. Men must not be great drinkers.

Thorin was displeased with the weapons that Bard offered us, which was understandable, as they were not weapons at all, merely an assortment of fishing implements that could cause minor injury if used for the purpose. They debated long into the night, their voices lowering as various members of our party nodded off in odd corners, and at last resolved to settle the matter on the morrow. The fire was the only thing casting its light about the room, along with a candle left burning by the bed in the corner in which, no doubt, the children of Bard slept.

Kili was by my side, and I could hear him shifting about, sleep eluding him. It was likely from the pain of his wound, but at last I heard his voice:

"What are you doing?"

"Sleeping," I muttered, but then I heard the reply come from across the room, and realized he was not talking to me.

"Oh, I'm writing."

Kili propped himself up on his elbow, and faced the owner of the voice – it was difficult to tell in whisper, but I was guessing it to be Bard's elder daughter.

"That's nice. What do you write about?"

She seemed to not have an answer for this, as there was a long pause, before she replied, "Everything."

"Everything?" Kili chuckled. "Well, that's a tall order. Do you write about us?"

"Aye."

"Well, make sure it will stay a secret. No one can know why we're here."

"I don't even know why you're here."

I smiled at this.

"Are you writing me well?" Kili queried, sitting up. "Make me brave. And handsome."

"I... I don't know," the girl stammered, clearly at a loss for words. My brother can be such a tease.

"You had better. Here, let me see."

He started to clamber to his feet, but I clapped a hand to his knee, and he let out a hiss of pain.

"Mahal." He looked down at me. "You're still awake?"

"Leave the lass alone, won't you?" I pushed myself up from the floor, and flicked a long strand of hair out of my way. "She doesn't want to be troubled."

"She didn't say," Kili said, his eyes wide and innocent.

"Shut it," I growled.

Kili rolled his eyes. "Fine." He flopped back down, a grin twisting his mouth. I eyed the girl.

"Don't mind him. He's so full of it sometimes."

She shook her head. "It's no bother."

I felt the shoulder of the too-large tunic sliding from my shoulder and gave it a yank, trying to sound as sincere as possible and amend for Kili's misdemeanors. "We're grateful to you and your family for making us welcome here."

She smiled. It was a beautiful sight. "I trust Da knows what he's about, and I just do my best." A flush covered her face after this, but I did not know why. I imagine Bard is grateful to have such a good daughter.

"Well, we all thank you." I smiled. "Though, I'm sorry, but I do not know if you are Sigrid or Tilda."

"I'm Sigrid," she told me. I nodded, trying to hide how pleased that announcement somehow made me. Sigrid. I bit my tongue to keep myself from saying it aloud then and there, to see how it felt, how it sounded. What an oaf I am.

"I am Fili, and my brother is Kili."

Sigrid nodded, and I realized I had better stop this before I made an even bigger fool of myself.

"Goodnight, then, Sigrid." An excuse, any excuse, to say her name.

She may or may nor have replied goodnight to me; I laid back down, suddenly having no desire to sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

The next time I spoke to her the sun shone upon the lake, glinting molten bronze and rippling fire. Mahal, it was not the firestorm that would one day engulf the town upon the lake, but merely the sunset, casting its glow o'er everything as I let myself out onto the porch of Bard's house to enjoy a few quiet moments with my pipe. I swear I had no intention of catching Sigrid off her guard, but it seems that I did, for she was there before me, seated upon the top step of the wooden stair, a pan of peas or whatnot between her knees as she hurriedly shelled. She turned as my footsteps sounded, and I gave her a smile, so that she would not be startled, and simply smoked in silence for a few long moments.

Her back was to me, but I could see as plain as day the change in her stance; she sat up a little straighter, breathed a little quicker, and seemed even more intent on her peas than she had before I had made my presence known.

I do not wish to sound dishonorable. But I had been watching her work dutifully in her father's house, with such a demure spirit, but with clearly the mettle to do so much more. She struck me as just the sort of girl one could rely on, one could respect, and one could love and serve selflessly, knowing that she would do the same in return. I suddenly found myself longing for one such as that, when before I had always thought I would only need Kili. It shamed me how I was behaving. Here I was, with the Mountain in view, Aule's beard, and I could not get my thoughts in order. It seemed that suddenly the world was a vast place, and I was so inconsequential in the scheme of things. I ought to know exactly what I was about, and while I did, in word, I still felt that I was coming along on another's errand, borrowing a life when I myself did not know what I wanted most in the world to accomplish. I was to sit on a throne one day, and the thought suddenly terrified me as it never had before.

I found my mouth has a mind of it's own, and I put a question to the girl sitting nearby without giving it enough thought, I'm sure. I asked her what she wanted from the world. She did not seem to understand me, and so I clarified.

"Out of anything in the world – what do you want most to accomplish?"

She did not answer, but in a turn that surprised me as I can almost never be surprised while sparring with iron weapons, she reversed the question on me.

"What do _you _want most to accomplish?"

I took a long draw on my pipe, trying to sort my thoughts. I had put the question to her, intending to analyze her answer, for in the strangest way, one I never expect to understand, I felt in the odd position of a man asking a woman for her advice. It would sound prideful, but not so that I could blindly follow it, rather so I could consider it, when in reality I knew I was only asking because I did not know.

"I don't know," I finally admitted, hardly believing my own ears. Why in the world was I telling my heart to this lass? I scarcely knew her. But there she was, watching me with those wide brown eyes of hers, and I felt the need to hear the thoughts that went on in that head, to hear what intentions moved that pretty heart, and most of all, to simply hear her sweet young voice talking to me, only to me.

She turned on the step, the peas either finished or forgotten, I do not know, and crossed her legs beneath her skirt, resting her hands in her lap, and looking at them intently for a long moment. They were small, somewhat brown, and well-used, however the lines upon them only served to make them look... comfortable, for the lack of a better word. I swallowed, realizing I simply had to get a hold on my imagination,for I inadvertently had a vision of what it would be like to feel her hands in my hair, upon my beard...

"It seems," she began cautiously, "It seems that one such as you ought to know. What I mean is–" she shrugged easily. "If anyone knew what they were about in the world it should be one such as you."

"And why not one such as you?" I asked.

"Me?" Her face flushed lightly. "I don't have great aspirations. I want to do my best, and have the best life that I can wherever I am. But I don't think I need to leave here to do that."

Of course. She liked it here. She was a daughter of man, a lady of the lake. She belonged here, not by the side of a dwarf who did not even know what his life was about.

"You're content, then." I nodded. "It is a good quality."

"Aye." She looked at her lap again. "It is probably the only one I am proud to have."

"Oh, that's a lot of drivel, lass," I chuckled. "But I think everyone feels like that. Myself, especially." I heaved a sigh. "Right now... I know that one day I will sit upon a throne and yet I hardly know myself. My whole life – I've never examined who I am and what I am meant to do."

She was listening, her eyes fixed on me, but as soon as I stopped talking, she looked away with the shyness of a wild deer, never remaining in one spot too long.

"I try not to give it too much thought," she said at last. "Things happen in the world. Great things. If you are a part of them, then you must behave with greatness. If you are not, then it is so much the easier for you."

"You are right," I said, my admiration perhaps too unguarded in my tone. "Mahal, you are right."

Sigrid regarded me with a queer look on her face. "Who is Mahal?"

I let out a surprised laugh. "Oh, forgive me, I shouldn't speak so before you." I twisted one of the braids I wore in my mustache, and bit out, "It's swearing."

Her eyes widened. "Oh." And she looked away.

I chuckled for a moment to myself, but then sobered, remembering the bent of our conversation. "If you could have anything in the world, what would it be?" I queried, intensely curious to hear her reply. She put it to me in the simplest terms possible – that she wished only enough – and when she had finished, I could not resist saying:

"You make it sound so easy."

She sat there for a long moment, and then gathered up her skirt, getting to her feet, and taking her pan of peas in hand.

"Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't," she replied honestly, and then said, "I had best return inside. Da will be wondering what's become of me."

Ah, Sigrid. I loved you so much then, I love you so much now, and I suspect I will love you even more if we one day are permitted to meet again in crossing from the halls of our fathers.


	9. Chapter 9

I awakened the next morning after that at hearing a clattering in the kitchen. As on previous mornings, Sigrid was awake, and setting the fire. Bard was nowhere to be seen, but Bain stood nearby, watching his sister, and turned upon hearing my –admittedly, rather noisy – attempts at coaxing myself to wakefulness.

"Sorry," I whispered, upon seeing that the rest of the company and Tilda still slumbered, and Sigrid began to cross the room, carefully stepping over the inert bodies of dwarves, wiping her sooty hands on cloth.

"Did you say something?" she asked, leaning over me. I swallowed.

"Nay, I – I was just awakening," I told her. She nodded, and straightened, looking slightly shy. "I thought perhaps you needed something."

She made as if to return to her work, but I caught her hand, and clambered to my feet. Her eyes regarded me with shock, and so I quickly dropped her hand, muttering an apology.

"Forgive me." I brushed my hair behind my shoulders and regarded her in as honest a way as I could muster. "I only wanted to say that we are not royal guests." She seemed to consider this. "We are only travelers."

"I'm trying to make you welcome," she murmured, "Da tells me you do not know when your next meal will be, or where you will next camp. For all we know, the dragon could come." Her voice was low. "And none of us will ever see each other again."

"You are not to serve us too humbly," I told her. "Make us useful. Make _me_ useful."

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "Doing what? Stirring stew? Sewing clothes?" She shook her head. "Don't mind me so much."

"Aye, but I will." It slipped out before I could help it, and I hastened on, hiking my feet over the sleeping forms of Kili and Thorin, and beckoning Sigrid back into the corner which housed the kitchen. "Show me what to do."

Bain was watching us with a protective stare, and I offered him a smile as Sigrid explained in a near whisper, "He – wants to help."

"Who?" Bain furrowed his brow, looking past me, as if I could not possibly be the one.

"...He does." Sigrid gestured.

"Fili," I offered.

"Right, Fili." I may have been imagining, but it seems that she may have blushed ever so slightly in pronouncing my name. She did not give it quite the pronunciation of my people, but neither could it be classified as wrong.

She hurriedly handed me mortar and filled it with fragrant leaves – I will not even begin to try and guess what it was, but it smelled quite good – and passed the pestle into my hands.

"You can crush these for me," she said kindly, and then went back to her cooking. I set myself to pulverizing the waterless leaves with a vengeance, and a moment later Bain made a shocked sound.

"Don't grind through the stone!" he exclaimed, and at his louder voice I looked up to see my comrades were stirring in the room behind us.

"Sorry," I apologized, handing the green powder to the boy, who tapped his sister and presented it to her. She started a little, and stared at me.

"Thank you," she said, and I never did find out if it was a good thank you, or a conciliatory thank you, as there would be nothing better to say in the situation. Come to think of it, I suppose I did grind it rather much.

"And this goes in here, yes?" I leaned over the pot Sigrid was stirring, and gave her a hopeful look. I was growing hungrier by the minute.

"Oh, no," she told me. "This is for the injured one's leg."

"My brother," I nodded, after getting over the initial surprise at finding out that it was not to be consumed. "He is quiet, but I think it hurts him greatly."

"It worries me," she said, scraping the spoon on the side of the pot and laying it nearby on the stone surface. "I don't know much about wounds, but it is not healing as it should."

"One of our company is an apothecary," I offered, pointing out Oin, who was arguing heatedly with Ori about who owned the brown cloak in which they had both been inadvertently sleeping. "He has been saying the same."

Bain left us to inquire into the soon-to-be skirmish, and I met Sigrid's eyes, concern for Kili weighing on my heart.

"I feel I can trust your words. Will he live?"

Her eyes held mine for longer than they ever had up until that moment. "I cannot say," she told me at last, looking away. "But if a fever sets in then things do not look promising."

I nodded, and crossed the room, kneeling by Kili who was still rolled in his cloak, his brow furrowed in an attempt to snatch a few final moments of repose.

"Kili." I shook him. "Kili – wake up."

"And if I don't?" he mumbled.

"I'll braid your pretty hair with ribbons so uncle will ask, 'who is the lass that came on this expedition?'"

"Alright, I'm up, I'm up," he grumbled, sitting up, and taking in his breath with a sharp hiss.

"Easy," I told him. "Let me have a look."

"No." His gaze snapped to mine. "It's fine, really."

I pressed a hand to his brow, and his eyes drooped closed as he leaned into me, pain sapping his strength.

"Mahal, she was right," I murmured. "You're burning up."

"Aye, I feel like a dragon," he chuckled wryly, opening his mouth and breathing on me. I could not detect any heat in his breath, but am familiar enough with the feeling of burning from within from a bout I had with fever as a child.

"I'm telling Oin," I announced, getting to my feet. Kili feebly gripped my ankle in an attempt to prevent me, but I shook him off. While Thorin and the rest of the company argued about whether or not to break into the Master of Laketown's armory and get proper weapons, Oin and I concerned ourselves with Kili.

When Bard returned, he told Bain to help me and Oin carry Kili to the bed, which was generously forfeit by our hosts.

"Are you certain it's alright?" I asked the boy, and he nodded.

"The girls will not mind."

I could not help but feel a pang of remorse, though, at having invaded their home, their very lives, in such a way.

Kili stayed upon the bed all the day, despite the goings-ons around him, and Tilda seemed in that time to have become a friend to him. She clambered up onto the bed by his side and showed him the different shapes she could make with the string she wound between her fingers, and Kili told her of the many kinds of mischief we used to get ourselves into.

Bofur had his flute, and the girls sang while they worked, but at nights the gloom would descend again, and was is in that time that I wished more than ever that I could know the future.


	10. Chapter 10

Much more happened, of great import, but I am afraid I am going to limit my focus to Sigrid, to what seemed to matter most at the moment. The others left for the mountain, and I knew that I must stay with Kili. Oin chose to stay as well, and somehow Bofur ended up with us, though I know not how. The night after Kili was moved to the bed, I sat by him, trying to soothe him into sleep, which was a difficult task as Oin seemed intent on probing the depths of his wound every few minutes seeing if his salve was turning the blood the correct color to determine what sort of poison had been used. I don't want to sound skeptical, but I am glad I am not an apothecary. It seems to be a profession which requires a lot of guessing. Steel is simpler.

Kili cried out quietly at first, then yelled awfully, only half-aware of himself in the pain. I looked about to see if we had disturbed anyone, but Bofur snored on, and Bard seemed motionless across the room. Then I heard a quiet sound, which I first mistook for the wind in the chinks of the house, rising and falling, pausing, and then returning in a pleasing, almost soothing rhythm. It took me mere moments to recognize the sound of quiet singing.

Sigrid was in the corner, wrapped in a shawl, her back to us, Tilda pillowed against her. It seemed that she was singing to quiet the younger girl who was no doubt frightened by Kili's cries. In a strange way, the sound seemed to soothe him as well. I heard Sigrid singing with Tilda and Bofur in the day, but never her alone. It was difficult to make out the words she pronounced, but hers was a voice that could send the chill from a room no matter how hard it tried to creep inwards, and could send one off to sleep as sweetly as a babe. I felt my own eyelids drooping at the sound, when Kili's breath caught in his throat, and I very nearly backhanded Oin.

"Leave him be for once," I snapped, "He's in enough pain."

The old dwarf was so deaf he did not hear me, and for that I was grateful, for I had spoken unkindly, but still. Sigrid stopped her singing, as Tilda seemed to be asleep, and Kili too drifted off shortly after that, his brow drawn, his face paler than I have ever seen a dwarf.

I got to my feet and made my way somewhat stiffly across the floor, to spot near the fire. My laying down made enough noise so that Sigrid rolled over and regarded me with a strange expression.

Her hair was down this time, and strewn across her arm in such a way that I was overcome with the urge to brush it away from her warm skin, feeling the both together under my fingers. Her eyes were round in the light of the single flickering candle left alight by Kili's bedside, and in that moment she looked so timid it was all I could do not to gather her in my arms and promise sweet falsehoods that would set her fears at bay.

"He is dying, isn't he," she spoke at last, and something within me echoed hollow at the words.

"I do not know," I managed, shutting my eyes, and then opening them again after a long moment. "I pray not."

"You love him. As I love Tilda, or Bain."  
"Aye. I love him more than myself. He is everything to me."

Sigrid nodded. "I would do anything to keep them from harm. Sometimes I think to myself – someday... what if it is not enough."  
It is a very real fear, a fear I never knew I would have to face the day that Sigrid left me, and there wasn't a single thing I could do about it. Aule knows I would have prevented it if I could.

"I am sorry if he frightens her," I gestured to Kili, and then to the slumbering form of Tilda. "He is a bit dramatic sometimes."

"He cannot help it." Sigrid shook her head, taking in a deep breath. "I wish there were something that could be done."

"I know." Her mouth spoke my heart, and not for the first time. "I am sorry for causing you trouble by coming here. For frightening Tilda, for eating your food..." I chuckled a bit, but then sobered. "I hope that you will be safe when the dragon comes."

Too late I realized what I had said. For days now, it had been _if_ the dragon comes. I said _when._ She is no dullard, she heard what I said and recognized the thoughts parading across my face.

"You think he will come."

I took a deep breath and then nodded. The chill of the room from the winter without suddenly seemed so much more pervasive. I tried to think of something comforting to say to her, to add to my final prediction of doom, but nothing came to my mind other than outright lies. She was watching me, and so I chose to voice these thoughts.

"I wish that I could tell you everything will be alright." I shook my head. "I wish that more than anything, but it would not be true."

"I would rather you speak the truth, and have it hurt, than to lie to me so I would never know reality," she said. And that is the harsh world in which we live, put into the words of an innocent-hearted lass of Laketown.


	11. Chapter 11

Bard left the following day, and it worried Sigrid, I could plainly see. The line of her shoulders was no longer firm and strong, but nor was it drooping with fear – instead, it seemed that tension ran throughout her whole frame, as if someone was tightening a rope within her on a tight winch.

Night fell, and he still had not returned. Bofur was showing Tilda how to play his flute, and Kili was watching the happenings with listless fever-glazed eyes. Oin had been sending Sigrid on errands, and I asked to accompany her, but she replied that unless I wanted to do my best to look like Tilda, I should not be seen outside of the house.

She hardly left the window after the supper dishes were done, and when I had at last concocted a decent-enough sounding reassurance, I could not find her.

Tilda said, "She's gone out on the balcony to watch for Da."

And I nodded. That's when I heard the enormous crash, and her screams. Bain leapt to his feet from where he had been shelling walnuts, and barricaded me and Tilda in the kitchen, but I pushed out from behind him. I saw Bofur, his eyes round, go to Kili and tell him to stay put. I made a mad dash for the door as it opened, and was nearly flattened by Sigrid bursting through, and trying to pull it shut behind her. Then I saw the face of her assailant – it was ugly, and pierced in such a way as to proclaim it no creature that should belong in Middle-Earth. I do not know where orcs developed their ideas of aestheticism, but it does not seem to be in fitting with any custom I have ever encountered. One must admit (though Thorin would kill me) that there is a certain beauty, albeit impractical, to elven life, and of course I would not even begin to attempt proper description of the beauty of dwarven culture. Men, even, I had discovered, had their ideals of beauty and aesthetics, whereas before I thought that they cared not for such things, but orcs – nothing further can be said of them other than the fact that they are absolutely hideous.

Sigrid continued to scream, as his strength was greater than hers, and he won the battle for the door, heaving it from its hinges so that more of his kind could trample through. There had to have been nearly a dozen of them, screaming their foul words and brandishing their enormous weapons.

I placed my hopes in the fact that once the warriors among us – namely, myself, Oin, Bofur, and Bain – had been sighted, that they would leave the helpless alone, but there is no honor among their race. I took on the nearest one with all my strength, wishing more than ever that I had my swords, but finding that the various knives in the kitchen did nearly as well. I ended the disfigured miscreant with a few carefully-placed slices, and turned to confront the one that had Tilda cornered – she flung the crockery into his face, and he bellowed in rage.

Distracted, his eyes lit on something across the room, and I realized he had seen Kili, trying in vain to drag himself from the bed. Sigrid was between him and his object, however, and as he wheeled, I saw her tumble headlong across a bench and land beneath the table. I lowered my head and charged the orc, my impetus crashing both of us into the back of the door. I had intentions of grappling with him and perhaps flinging him down the stairs, but his stature was greater than mine and I found myself flung bodily away from him, and landed near the table. I rolled beneath and pulled Tilda with me as more orcs entered through the doorway

Bard's house was in mayhem, as I commanded the girls, "Stay out of sight!" and crawled back out into the melee. Kili was on the floor, trying to get at anything he could use for a weapon, and I shouted to him:

"Kili! Don't –" just as the orcs overturned the table which was shielding the girls. Oin was nearer to them than I, and he leapt between them and the orc, when suddenly there were more cries of pain and death than of terror and battle. An orc thudded to the ground at my feet, and I looked up to see two elves fighting valiantly on our behalf. My loyalties conflicted for a mere moment, and I pulled an elvish blade from the throat of a dead orc and began using it to my best advantage.

Kili was seized by his foot and hauled across the floor before I could reach him, and I shouted curses upon the foul creature who was eliciting the screams of pain from my brother. I could not get to him as the elves seemed to be everywhere at once, but it was fortunate, for I saw out of the tail of my eye Sigrid trying to creep from beneath the table and join in the resistance. Brave girl, but she did not know the dangers of battle, and daughters of men are not trained in the art of weaponry as are the daughters of elves. I, for one, could not fathom wantonly sending a female into danger like that. There were still living orcs covering the floor of her father's house with our blood and theirs, and I leapt for her, bearing her to the floor roughly, and none too soon.

"Get down!" I shouted to her, and her eyes met mine, wild, and reflecting my own fears. The elves shouted something to one another, and with a final blow, the orc before us was slain, and the rest fled the scene like the cowards that they were. Bain rushed to his sisters, and I simply stood where I was, regarding the bargeman's ruined house with a heart full of regret. We had brought nothing but hurt and danger on these good people.

Kili's cries brought me back to the present, and I found myself by his side, looking into his murky, pain-filled gaze. As strange as it seems, it was in that moment that I realized: I found comfort in Sigrid's wide brown eyes because they were so like my brother's. That may seem strange to one reading this, but I had looked into his kindly eyes so many years that I think it I only natural that I should feel a connection to one with a gaze so like one I love.

"Kili –" I began, my own voice loud in my ears. "Kili!"

He made not response, and I cried out for someone to help me. Bofur was at my elbow, and between us, we lifted him to the table as the elves looked on. It took me a moment to realize, but as the elf, obviously skilled in healing, took care of him, I recognized her as one of the guards that had played a part in our capture. Her name is Tauriel, and as ironic as it seems, she is the elf that my brother is now convinced he loves. I maintain is is because of this incident, but what do I know. With her strange magic she healed him, and everything was quiet. So quiet.

It took some time to clean up, and some of it never was quite the same. The holes gaped in the roof that night, and Sigrid was very quiet. How I wished there was something I could say that would help her. Bard did not return. I felt a great sense of failure and I did not know why.


	12. Chapter 12

The dragon came. I cannot even think to begin how to describe it, unless it be that we heard the great wind of his wings, or felt the fire of his breath even before he descended upon the wooden town. We were still in the house of Bard, and heard the quaking of the mountain, and it was Tilda's scream that brought us running to the window. She refused to leave her post, thinking that somehow she would be helping by alerting us to the fact that she could see the mountain. Perhaps it helped that we knew our doom was coming. Perhaps it didn't.

I was playing checkers with Kili and Bain (yes, you can play checkers with three people; I showed Bain how, which Kili seemed to find very amusing) and trying my best to seem calm. Bard had still not returned, and I felt somehow that it was my responsibility to set the tone for the household. Sigrid seemed to feel the same, and rummaged in the kitchen, tidying the remaining aftermath of the orc attack and even making so bold as to sing quietly. But she kept casting fear-filled glances up and about the house, out the holes in the roof, her gaze dragging to a stop on mine more often than naught. I don't know what was reflected there, but I can only hope it proved reassuring. I felt like a liar, and it made me sick. Destruction and desolation was coming upon these people and it was our fault. They could die – be dead – be no more. And it would be because of us.

Bofur was silently whittling by the fireplace, Oin dozing nearby, the sound of Bofur's knife and the tiny sniffs of the shavings falling to the floor the only sounds in the room aside from Sigrid's unsettled singing, when Tilda set up a screech, jarring me from my thoughts, and making me jump so that my leg jostled the board and upset the pieces. Bain leapt to his feet.

"Tilda, come away from there –" he began, taking her by her shoulders, and trying to prise her from the opening, but she pointed and the gesture magnetized him. I could see, far off, where the Mountain lifted its lofty head above the other smaller peaks, something spangled and golden like an idol rising into the sky, spiraling molten metal behind it, and filling the air with eye-catching lights like stars.

I approached the window in spite of myself, and braced an arm on the sill. "What is it..." a voice breathed. I thought it was Tilda, but caught sight of Sigrid next to me, looking out, a faint line between her brows.

Bofur hurried over and pushed for a place, when Kili yanked me by the arm and pulled me back from the others. His eyes were wide.

"Dragon," he said.

My heart faltered. I suspected as much, and my thoughts went to our companions, Thorin, Balin, Dwalin, Bilbo... they were likely dead, as I knew they would stop at nothing to prevent Smaug's escape. Tilda clung to Bain, who peeled her away from him like a leech, and attached her to Sigrid, saying:

"I'm going to find Da."

"Bain, no!" Sigrid cried. "You can't!"

"I have to find him." His face was pale. "He could be anywhere."

"He's probably safer than we are at the moment, laddie," Bofur spoke up, and I was quick to agree.

"He's right. We have to take shelter. Is there anywhere – anything in this town not built of wood?"

Sigrid swallowed. "No."

I cursed. "Nothing?"

Bain shook his head, yanking on his coat, and making for the door. "I'm leaving, I have to find him-"

"It's flying!" Tilda gasped. "Oh, Aule, it's flying toward us!" Strange how looking back I wasted a thought in that moment as to why a daughter of man was cursing by our Maker – Kili's influence, no doubt.

"Listen to me!" I lifted my voice above the rising mayhem, and six pairs of reliant eyes fixed themselves on me. "We split up. Try and stay alive, and away from any high structures. The fires will burn there first. Look out for each other, yourselves, and those that are injured. Leave the dead."

Heads were nodding, and Kili added, "We'll stay in groups. Oin, Bofur, me. We know how to stand together."

Oin raised an eyebrow. "Eh?"

Bofur linked his arm through Oin's. "There has to be some good we can do."

"Simply stay alive," I ordered. "Fighting will be futile, we have no weapons, no stronghold. Bain, find your father." He nodded. "Help him."

"Sigrid, take Tilda, and find somewhere... strong. Stone. Anything. Stay there. "

Sigrid swallowed. "What about you?"

"I'll do my best to -"

"Be careful," she finished for me, and I felt a tug at my heart. She wanted me to be safe. She was trying to look after me. The thought was warming, but I pushed it away as a palpable heat spread through the room.

"It's here," I proclaimed, and we all scattered like rats, Kili and the others pushing the girls and Bain down the stairs to the wharf room in front of us.

The sky was growing darker as the sun set, and that only increased the terror. People were running about like mad when the first gargantuan shadow swept over Laketown. Kili, Bofur, and Oin cut down a side street that was not blocked by panicked children of men, and were lost from view, while Bain leapt into a skiff and was madly poling himself down one of the canals, ignoring the cries of the original owner of the craft.

"Aule help us," I breathed, and ushered the girls through a gap of a broken market stall into a wharf room. "Is this the lowest we can get?" I demanded, trying to catch Sigrid's attention, but her back was to me as she was reassured the hysterical Tilda.

"Sigrid –" I began, reaching for her, when the great beating of wings was heard, and a blast of heat bloomed around us. The home across the canal from us burst into flames, spreading the ravenous blaze to all the dry structures around us, and we were forced from our hiding place by the smoke.

"Go, go!" I shouted, coughing, and trying in vain to see through the haze as more fire was poured from above, and more and more of Laketown burned. Sigrid ran ahead of me, half-dragging Tilda through an ash-filled alleyway, when I saw the great drake hover nearly above us, his giant feet outstretched to rake destruction through the roofs.

"Look out!" I cried, grabbing Sigrid about the waist and hurling her to the ground in the angle of a building, Tilda with her, doing my best to shield them as splinters and sparks fell around us. My head and back was peppered with falling embers. A flaming spar fell across our path, where were were only moments ago, in time to pin an unfortunate man to the charring boardwalk. He screamed in pain, and Sigrid's face was pale between streaks of soot. Tilda had her eyes squeezed tightly shut, and I hauled them to their feet, pushing us madly onward. Sigrid's gaze lingered on the dying man as we clambered over the spar, but her look changed from terror to absolute horror when the hem of her skirt caught alight. She pushed Tilda from her and jumped about, trying to beat the flames out, but they licked at her stockings and scorched the wool from her very skin before she could get the fire calmed. Tilda clung to me and we kept running.

I did not know where we were going, I did not know what to do. We were dashing about, tormented examples of mortals without hope in the face of terror, trampling each other in the mayhem. Sigrid could no longer recognize where we were, and the heat was growing unbearable, rippling the air around us and making it difficult to breathe.

"Can we get onto the water –" I began, when a storm of flames rushed across an open area toward us, and it was all I could do to push the girls behind me and into a nearby structure that was already alight. Mahal bless us, it seemed to be the remains of some sort of bakery.

"What are we doing?" Sigrid cried. "It isn't' safe here!"

"In!" I gestured, pointing to the giant brick ovens. "Be –" I was going to say something more, when the roof gave in above us, and I felt a great pain searing my face as my hair and beard caught alight. I flailed about like a madman, beating myself over the head while tangled in the crackling debris, trying in vain to put it out, and when I looked around, I could not see the girls. I prayed that they were safe, and ducked behind one of the dome-shaped ovens as another blast of fire came from the dragon's cruel mouth. When it subsided, I worked my way about to the mouth of the oven, and called within, "Sigrid?"

"I'm here!" her voice came. "It's unbearably hot, but –"

More timbers fell as the fire ate its way through the dry wood, and the main beam crashed down upon one of the ovens, crushing the masonry. Sigrid cried, "Tilda!" and tried to come forth from her hiding place, but I ordered her:

"Stay there!" and flung burning planks away from the crumbling brick. "Tilda!" I called. "Tilda?" The sound of sobs answered me, and satisfied that she was yet alive, I fled the place which was fast becoming a hellish inferno. The girls would be safe if they remained within the brick enclosures, but it was a death sentence for me to remain amongst the burning wood.

It seemed hours that I ran through the burning town, taking shelter when the storm of fire would pour down from above, helping those I could, ignoring flaming corpses and crushed bodies of men, women, and children. Even after the dragon fell, Bard's arrow piercing his armored hide, sending great walls of water sloshing up the sides of the burning town and making steam rise in fiendish fingers toward the night sky, the town continued to blaze, and all that yet survived were herded into boats, rafts, barges, and any bit of debris that would float.

I found Kili, and the others, and grasped him by the forearms, demanding, "You are unhurt?"

"Aye," he gasped. "Burns and such, but we are still alive."

"Bard?"

"He and his son are here. We are going with the others to the edge of the lake –"

"The girls," I breathed. "Wait for me." I hurried back through the city, the destruction disorienting, but reached the remains of the bakery at last. As in other parts of the town, it had burned down to the very wooden pilings, tipping the fragments of the charred floor dangerously toward the choppy water of the lake. The crumbled oven had fallen in completely, the masonry scattered about the hole in the weakened wood the only thing proclaiming that it had ever been. With a shout, I plunged forward, hearing the wood crack beneath my feet, and treading recklessly nonetheless.

"Sigrid? Tilda?" My voice was strange in my own ears. I clambered through the still flaming rubble, shouting, "Sigrid! Tilda!"

"We're here," a choked voice came after what seemed like eternity. Out of the remaining oven, nearly buried in scorched, splintered wood, a brown head appeared, and a soot-streaked face. Sigrid. My heart calmed within me to see her. Both Kili and Sigrid. I was blessed indeed. I gave her my hand, but she refused it, turning in her precarious perch on a burning spar and offering her arms to Tilda, who clambered out, mercifully alive, tear tracks marking her smeared face. I swore; seeing the two stand atop the smoldering remains I was able to see the damage wrought on Sigrid's legs. Her skirt had burned nearly up to the height of indecency, and I knew I should turn my eyes away from her exposure, but the skin all the way up to her knees was an angry red mixed with blackened ashes of the fabric of her torn skirt. Her shoes too, were blackened so that they almost fell from her feet as I reached up my arms to help them down. She sat upon the spar and allowed me to grasp her by her waist and aid her down, though my height and reach is not so great that it was much help. Tilda too, I lifted down, and she clung to Sigrid, looking about her with wide, frightened eyes. "Where is the town?" she whispered. "Where has it gone?"

"Da?" was Sigrid's only enquiry, and I nodded. "He and Bain are taking the other survivors to the edge of the lake. We cannot stay here."

She inclined her head, and we began to pick our way back toward the departing boats in silence.

I must stop writing now, but I will speak briefly of the look that she gave me while we were on a well-smoked barge that somehow escaped the conflagration was mostly in one piece. Kili sat next to me, as well as Bofur and Oin, and Sigrid turned her head as we were out on the water, looking back at the smoking remains of the town, sending gray plumes like spirits skyward in the night. Her eyes caught on my face, and lingered there, enough for me to enquire:

"What is it?"

"Your face," she murmured. "Does it hurt?"

I put a hand to the side of my face, and my fingers encountered raw, moist flesh, sticky with blood and clogged with ash. I winced, and she shook her head.

"Don't bother it, and we will wash and tend to it when we land." Her tone was not expressive; she was simply stating what she would do. But her look was full of some sort of concern, even if it was platonic, and once again it warmed my entire being to think that she cared for me. I should have realized how silly I was being – she would care for any of the burned, I simply happened to be in her line of vision. But I didn't have the heart to correct myself, and lingered in that happy thought for some time.


	13. Chapter 13

My son, one day you will understand this. You will laugh as I once did, you will make fun of it as I did often, and then one day, likely when you least expect it, it will happen to you and before you know it, you will be doing all the silly things that you thought only happened in legends long ago. I felt like such a fool then, and I feel like such a fool even now. So much was going on, and it seemed that my only thoughts were for Sigrid. It was not as if the things that were occurring were dull or of little importance; on the contrary, they were of monumental proportions, and still – my thoughts would wander, my eyes would mist, and there I was, thinking of the daughter of Bard.

We encamped on the edge of the lake there, in a patch of mud and pebbles scarcely worth walking across. Some two hundred of us were there, and that was all. It seems a great number in writing, but it is astonishing how quickly the eye can pass over two hundred souls and still be found looking for those that were now lost beneath the charred wreckage on the lake, sending up reverential wisps of smoke.

We worked quickly, reuniting families, sending crews of men back to the ruins of Laketown to salvage anything that we could, building shelters and starting fires. Kili and I worked side by side in silence to bury the body of a young one who died of his injuries mere hours after we reached the shore.

Sigrid tended to my face with gentle care, cleansing the soot and grime from the scathed flesh with material torn from her sleeves. Everyone's clothing was in scorched patches and shredded rags, and we passed about anything we could share; a jacket removed and given to cover a shivering child, an apron torn to bandage a wound, a petticoat slashed and sewn into an ill-fitting shirt. I was seated upon a large rock a little ways from the others, and Sigrid set a bowl of water warmed by the fire next to me, the tiny swishing sounds of her cloth in the water, and the louder lap of the lake on the shore at our backs the only sounds as she worked.

I felt as if I should say something, anything to ease the quiet, but could think of nothing. At last – through no inadvertence of hers, for the flesh was simply raw and tender – a hiss of pain was drawn from me, though I had not flinched so far at her ministrations. Her brows drew together.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, turning away and cleansing the cloth in the water, before leaning close again, and gently placing a hand on the front of my cheek to turn my head back toward her. My eyes met hers at the gesture, but her gaze was on my hurt, and I cursed myself for imagining something where there was nothing.

"It is no matter," I replied, my voice catching, so I cleared it, and tried again. "It will heal better this way."

"Aye," she replied, and at last held the cloth to my temple, squeezing it ever so slightly so that the now-cooled water wept down my face in tiny cooling rivulets, trickling across the burned skin with a painful sort of relief.

"That's good, lass," I mumbled, letting my eyes drift closed in spite of myself. "I don't suppose it needs bandaged after all."

"Keep it clean," she admonished. "And tell me if it troubles you."

And she gathered her things and hurried away. I may have been imagining, but it seemed to me that her face had grown pink being so close to mine, and this was the cause of her leaving so hastily. But I could not be sure. My own face was throbbing with heat which was difficult to distinguish from my burns.

That night I could not sleep. The cries of the children, the talk of the men around the fire, the unknown sounds of the forest nearby and the tide of the lake on the other side all combined in a symphony of unfamiliar noises. That in itself is not generally enough to keep me awake, for Kili could testify that I sleep like a rock, but my thoughts were running riot, a mixture of the scenes of diabolical conflagration we'd just come through, and among it all, Sigrid. Nothing particular about her, just Sigrid. I wanted to be with her, beside her. It was pathetic. Mahal, I can feel the initial pain again even now, stabbing through the new hurt of knowing that we will not be together again until I join her in the halls of her fathers. Love is like loss, loss is like love, my son. They are really the same thing at different points in time.

I got up, and my steps led me down toward the waterfront. Aule must have heard the noise made by my beating heart and become sick of the racket, and decided to give me just what I desired, for I swear, I had no intentions of trying to see her at that precise moment. My heart was in a tumult and my mind in much worse shape, and she was likely not in the mood to have to deal with the inane ramblings of a foreigner who simply happened to be in her town when it was decimated.

But there she was, sitting by the water's edge, splashing her feet in the cool froth of the surf.

"What are you doing out here?" I asked in a quiet voice, wary of startling her. She looked up. "The others have all gone to bed or stay around the fires."

A visible shudder seemed to run through her, and I realized what I'd said.

"Fires..." Her voice was light, barely reaching me on the thin scrap of nighttime wind. "No, I don't think I want to stay around the fires."

The pebbles crunched beneath my boots as I squatted, leaning my back against the log upon which Sigrid was seated. The water lapped up around her ankles, seared a dark color in the night, and I winced in sympathy.

"Has Oin had a look at that?"

She seemed to be trying to hide her feet under her ragged skirt which was now too short to do service. But she shook her head.

"You ought to show him. He could put some stuff on it so that it won't scar."

"It likely will anyway," she said quietly, and her sadness reached me there. Dear lass. I longed to enfold her in an embrace and promise her that everything will be alright now, that the worst is over. Mahal.

"Do you think that things will ever be the same again?" Her voice came to my ears as I pulled my pipe from my pocket, filled it, and lit it, inhaling a deep breath of the night air and fragrant smoke and feeling my twitching nerves relax in spite of myself.

I shook my head. "Time only will tell. The people of Laketown march on. All that is lost is wood and chaff."

A sob choked her voice. "That's not all. People I know have died. Everything that was familiar to me is gone." She sniffed, seeming ashamed of her tears.

I could bear it no longer, and set aside my pipe, turning to face her.

"You ought not to despair, lass. It is alright to show your sorrow. You have enough strength for all your family."

"I don't feel it right now," she managed.

"It doesn't matter. I know the truth, and would not turn away from you at a time like this. Tell me if there is anything I can do."

She shook her head, and I had to accept that.

"If anything comes up –"

"Thank you," she whispered, fingering her burns once again. I bent to try and have a look, but she shied away.

"Let me see."

"It's alright, really," she murmured. "It hardly hurts."  
"A valiant lie," I supplied. "Let me see."

"Don't – touch it..." she faltered.

"Nay." I grunted and knelt beside her, examining the wounds. Her skin was the lightest of browns, the color of wood that has been planed and exposed to the light of the sun for mere hours, but her ankles were wrapped in angry blisters and open burns. I shook my head, but saw she had turned her face away and didn't seem to want to pursue the topic further.

The night was growing cold, so I simply finished my pipe and removed my coat, draping it about her.

"Make sure and return soon," I told her, "or your father will worry."

And I beat my retreat into the night, resisting the very strong urge to look back one more time and see her seated there, alone.

Bard's voice called to me from the nearest fire.

"Fili? Is everything alright?"

"Aye, it is," I told him, pocketing my pipe, and rubbing my hands near the warmth. "Just talking with Sigrid, is all."

"Sigrid?" He turned, and saw her there by the lakeshore.

"I think she wanted some time alone, so I left her," I said, and Bard simply nodded, his head drooping low. His hands were heavily bandaged, as he had sustained severe burns there, and could do no work with the other men. It is quite the phenomenon that everyone else would still go to him for instruction, advice, and directions. They trust him, they want to follow him, even though he cannot do anything. I think it is because they know that he would if he could.

"Will you be staying?" Bard asked me at length. "Winter is coming. We should not keep you here."

"You need all the hands that you can for the labor," I retorted. "Camping here for the winter will be no easy task."

"You will not reach your mountain before the snows if you linger here," Bard said, his eyes steady. "We will make do. We have before."

"Not to this extent," I murmured. "I cannot speak for the others, but I – "

"Go," he told me. "Return when the weather is warm and help us build properly."

I still hesitated. "Thorin would not expect our return if he knew what had happened."

"Nonsense, that is why he will worry. We will be fine."

In the end, I was somehow persuaded, and talked to Oin, Bofur, and Kili about it the next day. And so we made our return to Erebor, and reached it just as the first snows were settling upon the mountains.


	14. Chapter 14

We traveled quickly; there was nothing particularly eventful about our journey, unless it be that I would fall asleep by the warmth of the dimming fire, and awaken to cold and stiffness in the chill of the morning frost.

When we came upon the entrance to Erebor at last, my heart beat quickly, and it was as if my legs could not carry me into the mountain quickly enough. At last, Kili and I broke away from Bofur and Oin, who were inclined to tip their heads up, murmur inarticulate things, and gaze upon the gigantic edifices that flanked the entrance, still mostly intact, and raced up the rise and along the crumbling bridge. I ought to have paid more proper attention to my surroundings, but my only thoughts were upon being within the reclaimed kingdom of my kin, and of finding my uncle.

"Thorin!" I vociferated, finding myself in a gigantic open chamber full of debris and a veritable trail of solidified gold tracked with mammoth prints of clawed feet and the dragging tips of winged talons. "Thorin!"

Footsteps echoed about us in the enormous room, and shouts were heard from deeper within the mountain. Figures hurried from the arched appurtenance to my right, and I sighted my uncle and the white beard of Balin, accompanied by Gloin. With an exclamation, Thorin rushed forward and clasped me in a fierce embrace.

"Fili," he murmured, turning and embracing my brother as well. "Kili. Never has a sight been more welcome."  
"Is everyone –"

"Everyone is alright"

"Bilbo?"

"The hobbit has gone home." His eyes met mine. "He was of great use. We fought. We fired up the furnaces, we put up as much resistance as we might, but it was not enough."

"The dragon is dead," I told him.

"Aye." He nodded slowly. "We could see all from here. You were –"

"Esgaroth is no more. The survivors are encamped on the edge of the lake, we left them there in order to reach the mountains before the snows. Bard and his family live."

Kili flickered a glance in my direction – Thorin had not asked, but I assumed he would have wanted to know. Perhaps it was just me.

Thorin grumbled something about sending a group with supplies to them when as soon as the snows thawed.

"Will they even make it through the winter?" Gloin asked.

I nodded. "They are strong people, and they have the sympathies of the elves. But they will welcome the aid come spring."

"Fili will lead the expedition," Kili piped up. "I think he was sorry to leave –"

"Hold your tongue," I snapped. "He doesn't know what he is talking about."  
Thankfully, Bofur and Oin's entrance saved me from having to explain to Thorin what on earth my brother was going on about, but I sent him a dangerous look anyhow, and he simply lifted his hands in innocence.

Oin and Gloin greeted each other with great warmth, and Bofur was open-mouthed in awe of the place. I took a proper look around, and I must say it is impossible to describe the feelings that filled me at being in a place which was so full of memory. I had never been there before in my life, nor had any of my generation, but Balin graced every stone with a look of the deepest love and respect, and I have heard enough tales to make me feel as if I had fond memories of the place myself. Strange how that is.

"It will be decades before it is restored," Thorin told me, as if sensing my thoughts. "But even now this place is beautiful to me. The echoes of my footsteps still greet the echoes of the past and those who walked here."

"Is it as you remember?" I asked him, and he hesitated, then nodded.

"It drove a blade through my soul to see the desolation wrought here, but even more to leave. Now that we are here once more, I feel that we can begin to make up for lost time. Come. I will show you the rooms we are using."

Thorin led Kili and I off, without so much as a pause to explain the outburst of feeling he harbored for this place. I understood; he seems hard and uncaring, but he has the deep-run feelings of a sunken spring, that once released are strong and torrential, if only one knows it is there lurking beneath the surface. Kili was still a little taken aback at this amount of effusive expression (for Thorin), but he followed anyhow, our packs clanking and our footsteps echoing nearly infinitely around the stone grottoes.

It is strange to mark the time in your life where something happened for the first time. The mind quickly accepts something new as granted, and it was not long before Erebor, restoring it, and living there with my brother, uncle, and the members of our company who for so long had been family to me was an accepted, canonized part of my life. And then I would have to stop and remember that a mere year before I had never set foot in this place, and could not even picture it in my head. Ah. Such is the mind.

I was happy, I was busy, there was much to do. But in spite of all, my thoughts would stray to the daughter of Bard, and I felt strangely traitorous. To this place, that my thoughts were elsewhere, and to Sigrid, that sometimes I would get so caught up in my work, and forget to spare thoughts for the little party on the edge of the lake.

Some days I would drive myself nearly distracted, not thinking about my work as I labored, though I knew that I should. And then some days I would cavort with Kili, tease Bombur, and consult by the hour with Thorin on what we should do next in this great undertaking. Then, when I was alone I would be happy thinking of her. It was a confusing time. I never thought I would be this unsettled by love.

Thinking back, I am not sure that being separated from Sigrid made things easier or harder in that time. Had I been in her company, I am sure my restraint would have worn thin. However, knowing the distance that separated us gave me many a pang in the hours waiting for sleep to come, and at last I resolved to speak to Thorin about it. The winter had been long, and spring would be near before we knew it. We had very little supplies ourselves, so I could only imagine how the inhabitants of the lake were fairing. I hoped the elves of Mirkwood had heard, for indeed, how could they not, and extended generosity to them.

I approached him with loud steps, purposefully trying to proclaim my approach, as I had been taught since an early age never to startle anyone working at the forge. Thorin heard me coming between the ringing of his hammer, and wordlessly handed me a leathern glove, which I sheathed my hand in, and took the tongs, picking up the hinge at his gesture and plunging it into the barrel of water. The steam that it sent up brought back memories of the torching of Esgaroth, and as soon as I could, I removed it from the water and placed it on the anvil once again. Thorin set aside his hammer, and confronted me.

"Something troubles you."

My eyebrows lifted in spite of myself.

"What makes you think that?" I replied cautiously, tossing aside the glove, and turning my face from the heat of the fire. My burn no longer troubled me, Oin had seen that I kept it slathered in salve day and night, and as a result, as far as I could tell, it had hardly scarred. My beard had grown back where it had been scorched from my face, and in a strange irreverent-seeming way, it was almost as if it had never happened. I went on.

"I am not distracted when I work, I do not cause discord. I am not irritable, gloomy, or pensive. Am I?"

A faint smile tugged at the corners of Thorin's mouth. "No, you are not. And yet, I can see the lines in in your face deepen when you think you are alone. You seem to be thinking carefully about something, and I was wondering when you were going to bring it to light."

"I don't know precisely how I should say this," I began, and Thorin interrupted:

"Just speak it."

I shook my head. "No, it needs to be carefully spoken." I took a deep breath. "I should like to go to the Long Lake soon."

Thorin was nodding. "Aye. I was thinking the same. They will need clothes. Food, weapons – "

"Help," I supplied. "They will be trying to build."

Thorin drew a hand over his beard. "We should all go. The restoration here can wait."

"Very good."

Is this what has been troubling you?"

I held my breath. "I – I should like to know your opinion on something."

His brow furrowed, and he gestured for us to step away from the group, as several of the others were busy plying their bellows, and though it wasn't as if they could hear us, it was a kind gesture. The cool of the stone rooms hit us the moment we stepped from the immediate heat of the forges.

"My opinions are only worth as much as you are willing to pay," Thorin said, his eyes smiling. "But go ahead."

It is a fact that Kili does not trust him enough to ask his opinion, so I think that the fact I was asking him was pleasing to him. It was the bare fact that he was in a good mood that pushed me to tell the absolute truth.

"I have been thinking of marriage. It would seem good to me to take a wife. Soon."

Thorin did not meet my eyes, but heaved a deep sigh. "Very well. But a journey to the homes of our kin is going to be difficult to accomplish during –"

"Not any wife," I hurried, feeling my mouth grow dry. "A particular person. The daughter of Bard."

I watched his face carefully, but he betrayed no signs of any aversion to this; he knows well the ways of our people, that once love has taken root in the heart, there is no turning it back, and that we will never love another. It is for this reason that issues of the heart are particularly dangerous for us.

"I scarcely noticed her, but she is but a child," he murmured at last. "Is this what your heart truly desires?"

"She is not a child. She has led her family since she was scarcely more than Tilda's age, and is wise as she is pure. She is strong and tender at the same time, she desires to please, but has a strong will..." I stopped short, feeling his eyes fixed on his face. I took a deep breath, expecting him to say something condemning my decision. But all he said was:

"Who is Tilda?"

I suppressed a smile. "Her sister. The smaller one."

He grunted in assent. "And you would have me ask this of Bard on the journey to the Long Lake, would you not?"

I hesitated. "You have been like a father to me. It would mean a great, great deal to me if you would at least speak to him on the subject. I do not have high hopes. But I – I knew that I ought to speak to you."

Thorin met my eyes. "I will give it some thought." He turned as if to go, but then his voice came to me, though he did not look back. "Your trust is a gift to me."

And thus, it was begun. We made preparations to return to Esgaroth, and Kili rambled day and and day out about I know not what. I am not ashamed to say I was not listening, and thinking only of reaching Laketown, of putting our skills to work to the aid of men, and perhaps... perhaps seeing Sigrid sometimes.


	15. Chapter 15

In the end we all decided to go. It was about that time that our kin from the Iron Hills arrived to help in the restoration work, and Thorin spent nearly all his time organizing the crews into what needed done while we would be away. The rest of winter wore away, and I spent a deal of time with Kili. It was strange that we were not seeing as much of each other as we used to, and as we packed our supplies we were able to have a conversation such as used to be our daily sustenance. I only record this because it seemed our time together as we once were was growing shorter by the day.

"So," he began, his back to me, as he unlaced a poorly-tied bundle to check what seemed to be the trouble, "You are looking forward to this, yes?"

"Aye," I replied before I even thought, and then I was left to cough and amend my quick answer as well as I might. Kili spun on his heel and regarded me with a gleam in his eye.

"Aye? He is, he says! Oh, Aule, what fun it will be to see you –"

"I meant that it will be good to help Bard and his men for a change. They helped us much, if you remember."

Kili scoffed. "Remember? I don't remember any of their help, all I can recall is you making eyes at that brown-haired lass, and philandering like a –"

"Shut up," I growled. "I mean to repay Bard."

"How? By marrying his daughter?"

I shot him a look, and he smothered his chuckles with the back of his hand. "Very well. In all seriousness, though. You like her?"

I hesitated, then nodded.

"I knew it." Kili grinned like an idiot, causing me to grumble, "If you are so wise, then why did you ask as much?"  
"Uncle will never allow it," he pointed out.

"Aye, I realize that it is unusual," I retorted. "But he's more like to allow it than to allow you to wed an elf."

"Elf? Who said I want to wed an elf?"

"You love her. You've been a fool talking about her to me day and night ever since. Which is more than I've done."

"I know," Kili sulked. "You listen to me, but hardly say a word."

"That's because some dwarves know how to keep things private."

"Not I," he proclaimed, innocent-faced as a dwarfling.

"I know," I grinned.

He waved a hand in the air. "No matter. I'll help you express your love to her –"

_"No_." I glared. "I do not desire your kind of help. Tie that up," I ordered him, pointing at the abandoned bundle.

"Aye, _Thorin_."

"And keep your mouth shut around the daughter of Bard. I don't want you disgracing yourself," I muttered. For all our shows of distaste, it was good to tease with my brother again. Mahal, teasing was practically a dialect of ours, expressing things no one would ever guess just to hear it.

We worked in silence for some time, and then Kili spoke again. It seems a good deal of our lives could be explained by that sentence.

"Have you spoken to Thorin?"

I chose not to know his meaning. "Aye, most every day. Have you?"

Kili snorted. "About the _matter at hand_."

"Seeing that the matter at hand seems to be packing, it would be foolish not to have spoken–"

I was hit over the back of the head with some blunt object and turned to see Kili scowling at me. "You idiot. You know what I mean."

"I'm afraid I don't." While Kili can lie with an innocent look on his face, I am not so talented. I was forced to turn away to hide my impending smile.

Kili pounced on me and grasped a great handful of my hair, pulling my head up and bringing his face close to mine.

"Sigrid! I'm talking about Sigrid!" he said, his breath hot on my face. "Tell me what you know!" He shook me, mocking an interrogation. "Speak, and I will permit you to live!"

"You're a lunatic," I retorted, pulling my head in his grasp and wincing at the pain. "I will not speak."

"You shall!"

"I shall not!"

"What is the secret?" Kili sighed, releasing me, and thumping me on the back. I did not miss the opportunity to smack him back, for no blow goes unanswered between us. Though I still maintain that I did not hit him harder than he could bear, we somehow ended up on the floor of the storeroom, madly beating the porridge out of each other. It was good to laugh again. I had been far too pensive.

Apparently Kili sighted Thorin before I did, for he rolled off me so quickly that the wind was knocked from him as he hit the floor, and he scrambled to his feet, hauling me up with him. Uncle's arms were crossed.

"Making progress?" he asked dryly.

"Aye. Great progress," I mumbled, hurrying back to my pack, and aiming a kick at Kili. "If only this one would leave me alone." I laced the pack with great vehemence, and as a result tangled the leathern straps, cursing under my breath as I could hear all the carefully balanced weight within list to one side. Whoever carried this pack would curse me later.

"Fili, you like to pretend to be above it all –" Kili began volubly, but stopped short, and I turned, seeing that Thorin had gone. Apparently his accusations were now unnecessary.

Kili's dauntless whisper reached my ears again. "Do you think Thorin will really speak to Bard? Do you think that he will speak to him on this trip, or that he will wait until -"

"_Mahal_, Kili," was all I replied.


	16. Chapter 16

We saw the town on the lake early on the tenth day of our journeying. Our messengers told us that they had been receiving aid from the elves all through the winter, and early spring. Rafts of strong Mirkwood timber even then were floating on the shimmering waters of the mouth of the river where it joined the lake. No elves were in sight, but they could not have been gone more than a day, two at the most. Thorin grumbled something that I could not hear, but I have no doubt it was something uncharitable in spite of it all, about the pointy-eared archers.

All through our journeying I had been readying myself for labor. That sound stupid, but what I mean is that labor is something I am skilled in, something I do all the time. It calms me, enables me to feel useful, think straight. I do not have to concentrate, and thus it seemed silly that I was reminding myself that we were going to work. My thoughts had been more and more consumed with silly fantasies of non-useful things, such as simply walking by the edge of the water and talking, or of sitting and doing some small task together, such as weaving thatch. In all likelihood, we would be across the encampment from each other and I would only see her when she and the other women brought food or some such.

My predictions of gloom turned out to be nothing but smoke. How happy I was that Aule did not have as practical a mind as I. We were greeted with great rejoicing, and directed to find Bard in the stone quarries, which were not difficult to locate. The settlement on the edge of the lake was makeshift at best, some eight or ten tents and a few mud-daubed houses constructed of rough-hewn planks and debris. There was a large cleared spot in which men and boys were working planing the felled timber into boards, as well as a crew unlashing the logs from the rafts of Mirkwood and hauling them up the slope from the water's edge. It seems our work would be welcomed indeed.

The stone quarry was to the west, and hidden from view in the ground beneath the shimmering heat; the sun was bright, beating down on us with unseasonable warmth though it was only noon. A group of children played in the surf, and I thought I sighted Tilda, but I could not be sure.

Bain, however, was unmistakeable. He stopped short upon seeing us, and then his face broke into a wide grin. "Greetings, friends!" he said, and Thorin inclined his head. His hair was littered with sawdust and he bore a drawknife – evidence of his labor in the timber yard – but he cast it to the ground and broke off running in the opposite direction, leaving us to look after him and wonder.

"Children are strange," Kili complained, but no one paid him any heed, as we descended the chalky slope down into the quarry, and were greeted by Bard.

"It is good to see you again," Bard greeted us, and he and Thorin shook hands.

"I am sorry that we could not return sooner," Thorin said in a low voice., speaking in the common tongue.

"Do not be sorry. We have made much progress, but as you can see, there is still much to be done. We have decided to rebuilt on this site."

"Permanently?"

Bard nodded, and beckoned us over to the tables which were set up, and upon which were unfurled rough plans for a city of stone. Thorin leaned over it, and seemed impressed.

The tables were too small for us all to gather round, so Kili and I were talking to each other in Khuzdul, along with Dwalin, about which crews we thought we should join for laboring when I caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye on the eastern edge of the quarry. It was Bain, his long stride carrying him over the rise, his arm pointing toward us. Then I saw her – a brown-haired figure, her skirt billowing in the breezes. I turned my head away, and Kili stabbed me in the ribs.

"Look who is coming!" he hissed.

"Would you shut your mouth?" I returned. Dwalin looked profoundly confused.

"It's Sigrid!"

"I have eyes. Let her approach in peace. Staring does no good."

Kili mumbled something under his breath l that I did not catch, and perhaps it is all the better. Thorin and Bard debated over the issue of shelter – Thorin maintained we would camp outside, and Bard insisted that we could be given homes with the various families in the encampment. It was unclear who actually won, as we ultimately did a combination of the two.

Kili leaned across me and thumped Sigrid on the arm, where she stood next to her father.

"Hello, then!" he exclaimed, giving me a look out of the tail of his eye. "Remember us?"

I wished I could sink into the earth at that moment.

"How could we forget?" Bain jumped in, and Sigrid seemed to be repressing a smile.

"We're glad you're back," she said.

Bain and Dwalin began to bicker about something, and the lad seemed to be doing his best to placate the irascible dwarf, as Sigrid turned to me. My face had only just returned to its normal hue. And I thought dwarves were incapable of blushing.

"We're most grateful," she told me quietly. "More hands are always needed, and things will now go quickly. "

I nodded. "We're glad to help."

She hesitated, the wind whipping fine strands of her hair about her face, sticking to her chapped lips. "Why did you come back?" she asked at last, regarding me with her large eyes.

I faltered, not because I did not know the reason we'd returned, but because for some strange reason, my heart was making much more of this situation than I ought.

"We... owe you, lass," I managed at last, finding solace in the toes of my boots, before looking up like a bold dwarf and staring her in the face. "It was our fault the dragon came, and it is the least we can do to help you rebuild."

"It was not your fault," she said shaking her head, and stepping slightly closer to me, as the noise of the other conversations rose and began to interrupt ours. "It is not a faulting thing."

She was so close to me that I could see the light brown freckles that peppered her nose and upper cheeks.

"Nevertheless," I said, my voice hardly more than a growl. "We feel we owe you. I am sure you need all the aid you can muster."

Something in the air changed, and Sigrid stepped back ever so slightly, lifting her voice. The conversation was not intimate, not as I had imagined. I was just being a fool.

"The elves have sent help as well, and it has been most welcome," she said, and Kili's sharp ears picked up the intonation of the name of the foreign race, and bounded into the conversation, abandoning whatever he had been saying to Dwalin and Bain, and spouted off a stream of Khuzdul, a gleam of mischief in his eyes. I sighed.

"Kili, it's rude to speak so that others cannot understand you."

Bain regarded us dubiously, as if wondering if whatever Kili had said, if it was quite appropriate to be spoken in the presence of his sister.

Dwalin snorted, and translated for the lad, "He said, 'rejoice not when an elf falls.'" My eyes were fixed on him, wondering what in Durin's name he was doing. That was only the part of what Kili had said. If this was a move toward diplomacy, then Dwalin was coming far indeed.

Kili jostled him, and he finished at last, "'But don't rush to pick him up either.'" Kili laughed uproariously at his own humor, and quite interrupted all the other conversations in the vicinity. And then Tilda was there, and Kili caught her up and swung her around and around, though she his same height. Her squeals joined in producing the general hilarity, and in that moment I realized I had never heard Sigrid laugh before. I had heard her speak, sing, cry... but never laugh. It was a wondrous sound, and it made me happy - so utterly happy, just to hear it.

As soon as Kili and Tilda had finished talking over each other, he whispered something in her ear, and Tilda's reply was unmistakeable as to what Kili had asked her.

"She came with the others who brought us timber from the forest," she replied.

I am familiar enough with my brother to know that he asked her next: if Tilda knew when she would return. I did not hear Tilda's response, but Kili's eyes were bright.

Bard called to his daughter, telling her and Bain to take us about the camp and find places where we would be most useful, and Sigrid nodded, beckoning us to follow her.

"What are you best at?" she asked me, and Kili boasted:

"I can do about anything."

"She wasn't talking to you, you oaf," I said, elbowing him. He grabbed my by the arms and we scuffled for a brief moment, only to see Sigrid regarding us with a look of horror.

"Don't look so shocked, lass," I chuckled, regaining my feet with a final shove toward Kili. "This is usual."

"Alright," she said, and her tone of voice almost made me burst out laughing again. Mahal, what an endearing thing she was. Kili hissed to me:

"Going to stay at Bard's?"

"_No_," I returned. And when the question came up of who should stay with our gracious host, I volunteered Balin and Dwalin, who took up the offer without suspecting a thing. Balin will be good to her.

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**Note: Thank you so much for you reads/reviews! That means a lot to me, especially you dear guests who keep coming back again and again to review! You are amazing. I apologize for the lateness of this chapter, and apologize in advance for the likely lateness of the next few. Rest assured, I've not abandoned this, I will be continuing as soon as I can! I have just been very busy with work and health issues, and will be for the next few weeks, but I will do my best to get chapters up as soon as I can :-) Thanks for your patience -Viola **


	17. Chapter 17

**Dearest readers, and patient followers - a thousand apologies for the unexpected hiatus! Life has been crazy, my health struggles have been unwarrantedly consuming a good deal of my time, and in all honesty, I hit a dry spell in inspiration on this. Fili is much harder to write for me than Sigrid. I made a wry prediction in my head that I would probably, in all liklihood, get back to this in all the hype surrounding the BoFA premire, and haha, lookie here! Though I haven't seen it yet (I am DYING to!) things worked out like that, funnily enough... Thank you for your amazing support, and patience, and hope you enjoy the update, short though it is. - Vi**

* * *

It has been some time. But I dream of her in the night. I have been keeping myself away from this writing, busying myself with life. I keep telling myself it's all for naught, Glorin will never read this, I am merely making myself miserable with memory... And then I could swear I feel her touch in my sleep. Her small hands upon my head, in my hair. The lightest stroke of her skin upon mine, and then I reach out to her, enfolding her in my arms, and hold her close. Her breath is music to my ears, her touch like filaments of light upon grottoes deep within the mountain, and I cannot draw her close enough to me, not even when we are joined, when we are one. Then the air grows cold about us, and I feel her slipping away, and awaken in a cold sweat. Glorin is often awake at this hour, and I draw him near me and we pass the hours in quiet, nonsensical conversations. This dear one that will never know her.

And then I realized. She did not write for the selfish pleasure of reading her own words, she wrote because she knew that some things ought to continue beyond life, and that is feeling, experience, memory itself. And so I begin writing anew.

Where was I. Ah, the rebuilding of Esgaroth, Dwalin and Balin staying with Bard while Kili and I took up our own places beneath the stars. That first night I began to regret my hasty decision to forgo staying with Bard. To be honest, it had been in an attempt to prove my brother wrong in his assumptions, but in trying to make a decent dwarf of myself, I'd only become miserable. I had been able to tolerate it better back in Erebor, so far away from her. Now it was a thorn in my side, that she was so close, and yet so far. I stared at the stars, listening to the wind in the trees and the lap of the lake, keeping Kili awake with my tossing and turning until dawn. It was not like me. It was like a battle raging inside; I should not want her so. I cannot help it. It is a shameful thing. It's a compliment of sorts, that I cannot get her off my mind. It's embarrassing. It's a beautiful feeling. It's an emptiness, a fullness, Mahal, even now I sound like a fool, and she is forever out of reach.

The moment the sun reached the sky, I rose and, my honor against my will, went to find Bard. We spoke about general things, but nothing much, and I may be imagining, but it seemed to me there was a glimmer of perception behind his gaze.

"Did you really absent yourself from your labor for a friendly visit?" Bard asked me at last, his mouth beginning to smile.

I looked at the ground for a moment, and then lifted my head, meeting his eye and inhaling deeply. "You are keen." The sun was beginning to glare down upon us, and Bard beckoned me into the shade of the nearby hut. "I have a question to ask of you. A... sort of – favor."

Bard looked sober. "Any favor you would ask I will do my best to fulfill, within reason."

"That's just it, I don't know if it... within reason." I shut my eyes for a moment. "It's Sigrid." I kept my eyes away from Bard's face, somehow fearful of what I might find there. "She – I – I think very highly of her. I care for her. I want to be allowed to love for her. I have spoken to my uncle, and he agrees it would be good for me to marry, but there is none I would wish to have by my side other than your daughter." _Your daughter_. Something of great value to a father. Anyone who has been in my circumstances can understand there is nothing quite so terrifying as approaching another man and bluntly asking to have your way with their girl-child. It seems... selfish. And yet I wanted nothing more than her, to be by her side, to hear her speak, to do everything together, to live out our very lives together. Pondering the likelihood of this not coming to pass resulted in a very present ache in my chest that had been continuing for some time, nearly unbearably, it seemed.

I met his gaze at last, and he was regarding me gravely, as no one had looked at me since the day my mother told me of my father's death, meeting my young eyes with the raw truth reflected there.

"I have been speaking with Thorin as regards the matter. I ought to be frank with you, because I do think well of you, Fili." He looked down the street for a moment, focusing his eyes on the work going on nearby before turning back to me. "It is a struggle any father has to overcome in giving up his daughter. What I know of you, I am satisfied with. It is the unknown that I still fear." His was a gaze full of hesitation, and this prompted my impassioned response.

"I will be good to her, Bard, I love her so." My voice was hoarse with fervor, and I was aware that I was pleading for an answer that I would not be receiving this day. I could not help myself.

"I know that you do," Bard responded in a low voice. "You forget that I too, love her, more even than you likely can. This selfishness alone would not prevent me from giving her to you, but you must understand I need... time. Thought."

"How much?" I managed, and he chuckled oddly.

"I do not know, but I shall not keep you waiting too long."

"I am ready to die of the expectancy," I murmured.

Bard put a hand on my shoulder. "Does she love you?" he asked.

I searched my heart for an answer, and shoved aside all longings, all fantasies, replying simply, "I do not know."

"You will make certain that she is happy? It will be a great change for her. Not only a marriage, but leaving her people..."

My eyes met his. "Aye. My life, and my honor."

Bard regarded me with something in his gaze that I could not place at first; initially I considered it to be resignation, then sorrow, but after that, it seemed to me to be the repressed sort of pride that Thorin occasionally leaks.

"If this alliance is born of feeling and love, other than political motivation, I see nothing that is not good in it."

And that, I suppose, was a great compliment.

I caught his hand and wrung it, saying something about needing to get back to work. He met my eyes. "Speak to her yourself. I will make no promise of her hand to one she does not desire to wed."

It took all the inner strength I yet possessed not to rush off and find Sigrid immediately. I forced myself to wait, but it was not unpleasant. Something was assured, her father had given me his blessing. The next days passed in a blur of happy activity, my heart in my work, smiling over my pipe during times of rest. Kili teased me incessantly. It is a mercy that the others were oblivious to my thoughts then, otherwise I would have gotten no peace. As it was, no one seemed aware of anything, save myself, my kin, and Bard. I wasn't even certain if Sigrid knew anything. Half of me hoped she knew, and half of me didn't. I resolved to speak to her at last, and the occasion came during the celebrations for laying the centre of the square. The elves came from Mirkwood, and Kili was caught up with seeing Tauriel once again. I worked with the others, drank ale such I have not in a long while, and we celebrated as I thought only dwarves could celebrate. Who knew that the sons of men could carry on so! It was a merry evening. But I did not see Sigrid until darkness had fallen, and then I sighted her talking to some of the other women near the bonfires.

I must stop for now, but will resume soon. I shall not lose my vision for this tale again.


	18. Chapter 18

I was watching her, the firelight glancing in deep shadows of burnished bronze from her hair and face, and somehow can recall being magnetized by the gestures of her hands as she spoke. It is a strange thing, but her hands wrought wonders upon my mind even before we knew each other intimately. To speak of what wonders they wrought afterwards would be nothing short of indecent, considering my intended audience.

While I was contemplating whether to go and make myself more presentable or to simply approach her and ask for a word, I saw her turn and catch sight of me, excusing herself in an astonishingly brief amount of time, and begin to make her way toward me, away from the rings of light thrown outward by the fires. I smiled at this, and she stood beside me in a few brief moments.

"Did you... wish to speak to me? I saw you looking quiet and alone out here."

"Aye," I said, bobbing my head, thanking Aule in his mercy for sending her my way so gracefully. "I actually did." I must have sounded too eager, for she looked slightly disconcerted; innocent, and young. I cleared my throat noisily. " – If it is not unwelcome to you, of course."

She shook her head, nevertheless sending a look back toward the others within the bonfires' light.

"I will not harm you, lass," I told her in a low voice, in effort to assuage her probable fears. "I merely wanted to speak with you. I enjoy speaking with you."

"And I... you." She hesitated slightly, but there is nothing in her eyes that could ever be called insincere. In the darkness they shone enormous with starlight, and regarded me with a trust that was both flattering and fearful in its magnitude. "You say things I have thought, but never would dare put into words."

I chuckled lowly. "You mean I say shocking things?"

She smiled. "No. Just... I sometimes wonder how it is that you know. That you can speak as I wish to."

"We are much alike, you and I. We are the eldest in our families, we are saddled with a great amount of duty which is fulfilled because there is no one else to do it. People often think things that aren't true."

She was regarding me with round eyes, so I continued. "I often feel like rebelling, though I cannot. The very most I've dared to do is resent... and fear." I shook my head. "I do not want a throne. But you have heard enough about that before."

Sigrid. Dearest of souls, who looked at me then with such undisguised care and said, "I'll hear about it again, if you'd like to speak of it."

"I'd like to speak of something else." I was growing bold. Foolish, perhaps, but bold. I have little patience by nature to begin with, and I felt as if all the patience allotted me for my entire life had already been expended by this point. But I always seemed to find untapped measures of restraint I never knew existed, even after our marriage, because certain things are not always permissible.

"And you will say something that I've no doubt thought on, as well." Her voice was low. "You speak with my mind, my tongue, my heart."

"I know, lass, and you speak with mine," I said in a quiet voice. "Which is why I should like to know you better."

This had a strange effect on her; she grew still, and seemed to contemplate several different responses before she finally managed, "My duty is to my father. My family."

And odd jump, which took me a moment to realize why she said it. I had unconsciously revealed too much in my tone, which shone like a beacon light far beyond my innocent words.

"I know." I chose my words carefully. "But your life will not remain unchanged forever. They will not always be your family." That sounded harsh. Perhaps I should have said, "your only family", but I will remain true to the facts.

"You are... thinking of the future?"

"Aye. Kili leaves me for an elf, and though I knew that would be hard to bear, and that Thorin will not always be my only kin, I see no reason not to look about –"

Her face only grew more shocked, and so I stopped short.

"You seek only solace now that your brother is leaving you?"

"Nay! No... Mahal, lass, I meant that I know my life still lies ahead of me." I swallowed, and released the bowstring. "With a wife."

She understood. It was both beautiful and painful. Beautiful that she must have been aware of my feelings, perhaps reciprocated them, else she would not have been able to understand so quickly. Painful because she seemed so abashed nevertheless.

Her voice caught as she tried to begin speaking, but floundered to a stop. I resisted the almost overwhelming urge to touch her in some way, to assure her that it would be alright.

"I have been talking to Thorin about you, and he and your father have been speaking of an alliance. They are both in favor of it. In fact –"

I would have gone on, but she interrupted me with a voice pitched high with nervousness, seeming to be unwilling to hear any more of what I might have to say.

"Fili – Fili..." Her voice speaking my name was a miracle I wasn't given time to bask in. "Don't – tell me these things. You ought to speak to Da, it's not my place to hear these things until he..."

Again, the urge to comfort her.

"Talk to him," she concluded, her voice small. "Talk to Da."

"I already have," I managed. "And so now I come to you."

Even in the moonlight, I could see her become slightly paler, and a long moment passed before she replied. "I shall think on it." Her voice was quiet, but firm. "I am flattered by your interest. I shall... think on it."

All the while we had been talking, we had been walking aimlessly toward her father's croft, and had come to a stop there before the door. No one was within, all the others still celebrating in the square, and I suspected Sigrid intended to bank the fire for the night and perhaps make some preparation for the morrow; nevertheless, I was not going to leave her like this. She still appeared so shaken.

"I'm sorry for shocking you," I said in as calming a voice I could muster. "You have no idea what a deal of patience it has taken me to wait this long."

Her beautiful face did not change, still shadowed with some sort of conflict. "I do not want to press you. Goodnight." I intended to speak her name here, but somehow my voice caught, and in the end all I did was take her hand, and press it very chastely to my lips before turning, and retreating into the night.


	19. Chapter 19

I have never told anyone this, (other than Kili and Thorin, who witnessed it) but that night I suffered a great nightmare. It was one of fate's ill-timed tricks that filled me with apprehension for the things I was meant to do on the morrow. Not that anything in it gave me especial forebodings about my forthcoming betrothal – in fact, it was the thoughts of Sigrid alone that calmed me in the wakeful hours following it – but it seemed especially unpleasant that it should happen just now. I suffered from nightmares as a child, in the days following the news of my father's death and the havoc surrounding it; Thorin's raging and grief, and Kili's cries of fear. It was ill-luck that they should return again this night.

In the dream, I was lying on my back beneath the stars, on the edge of the lake, much as I truly was – and this perhaps accounts for some of the terror of it. I came to with a start, seeming to see a figure coming up from the lake, drenched and muddied, rubble clinging to his clothing and hair from the sunken city, and murmuring softly to himself. As he drew nearer to me, I rose and searched my belt for weapons, but found none, and at last I could make out his words, he was speaking of the one for whom he was searching, one whose foolishness and cowardice had killed those he loved, and whose blood stank this night with the guilt that led this one to the chase, to the haunt, to the hunt... Then I realized he spoke of me, and began to run, my noisy footsteps crashing through the brush as I entered the woods, alerting my pursuer of my presence. He chased after me with nervelessly silent tread, his footfalls seeming to start and stop just where mine did, and I kept coming to a halt, and looking behind me, trying in vain to hear his footsteps, to see where he might be. But I heard nothing until I started running again, and my muddled mind could not sort out whose labored breathing filled my ears, whose erratic running thundered through the forest.

Light began to stripe the eastern sky, and I made my way toward it, facing the lake once again, and skirting the edge of the river which fed it when I felt a hand close on my ankle and I fell headlong, rolling over to see the man crouch over me over me, his eyes sunken, his hand curled like that of a charred corpse.

"Who are you?" I managed to speak, my voice not my own.

"I am the children of Laketown who burned because you could not save them. I am the one who beget you whose blood watered the ground because you let him go to war." My ears were filled with the roars of the charges against me. "I am the she-goblin who loved one you slayed beneath the ground. I am the shattered remains of the mountain giants, beautiful beings, both of them. I am the halfling who died because you could not save him –"

The lie incensed me, made me finally able to overcome the faintness from the weight of the accusations poured upon me, of those who ceased to breathe because of me.

"The halfling lives," I gasped. "He returned to his own land, I have seen it."

"How do you know?" the blackened lips sneered. "What proof can you give?"

"None." I spread my arms wide. "None except he is not here, where else would he have gone."

"Liar!" A booted foot, impaled with a shard of wooden piling ground my wrist into the ground, and I let out a cry. "See here..." And he held up the head of the halfling, tepid blood dripping upon my face.

I fought away from him, covering my face with my arms, and shouting, beating him away from me until I opened my eyes with a great gasp, and found Kili straddling me, pouring chill lakewater upon my face.

"Fili – Fili –" he pleaded. "Wake up. Shut up, you're going to rouse the whole settlement."

"Get away from me," I managed, shoving him off of me, and crawling backwards like a coward. "What – where –"

"You were asleep, and crying out, and thrashing –"

"What is going on?" I could hear Thorin's voice, though I could not see him in the darkness.

"Nothing, uncle, just –"

"Fili had a nightmare," Kili explained doggedly. "He didn't do it on purpose."

A grunt, and my heartrate gradually began to slow, as I took in great breaths, trying to clear my vision, calm my senses.

"Bilbo – he returned to the shire?" I whispered, and Thorin met my eyes, searching them, as if the answer to my sanity or lack therof would lie there, clear to his gaze.

"Aye, he did."

"But do you know for certain?"

"Gandalf himself accompanied him. Would you doubt the wizard?"

I took in a shaking breath. "No. No..."

"What did you dream?" Thorin's voice was low, insistent. "Dreams are not always nonsense, but they often are."

"Have you ever dreamt something that came true?"

Thorin hesitated, then shook his head. "I cannot say I have. But they can recreate feelings that often come true, or resurrect ghosts long buried."

I shuddered, and Thorin seemed to know. He spoke to me of Frerin long into the night, which comforted me, and Kili let me lean into him as he replaited the braids in my hair, making certain in his kind way that I would look respectable for visiting Sigrid's family at the dawn.

Thinking again on Thorin's words brings back the feelings to haunt me again. The vision was not about those who had died because of me in the past, but those who would yet die. Sigrid.

In the strange way I have, when I am frightened, or unhappy, I seem to do my best to be kinder to others, more understanding. It's as if it comforts me to feel like I am doing something good for another. It sounds good, but is purely selfish. And in that moment I longed for Sigrid more than anything, so that I could hold her close to me, comfort her from anything she feared, real or imagined. And then I realized, that in a love such as ours, there would be trust, and I could let her hold me as well, comfort me, as I had only allowed Kili to do before. I gave him a bone-crushing embrace later before going down to the lakeshore to clean up after my day's work at the kilns.

"Don't worry," he told me, brown eyes glinting. "You'll be grand."


	20. Chapter 20

Thorin and Kili accompanied me to Bard's croft, looking tidier than usual, Kili having splashed his face and hands, and Thorin wearing a clean jerkin. A joyous feeling rose in my chest – I could not claim this to be as I imagined it would be, because I have been schooled enough through seeing others' shattered dreams to know better than to have too many myself – but it was good. The two dwarves I respected most in the world by my side, looking clean and proud, coming with me to ask for the hand of one I love. Yes, Aule was more than fair to me.

Balin answered the door, and it momentarily startled me, I had expected to see Bard or Bain, or even Tilda. "Come in, lads," he greeted warmly. "Everyone is here, we've just finished supper."

It was strange, because no words were spoken to indicate this was anything other than an ordinary visit, but it was clearly more than that. And yet everyone took pains to keep up banal conversation. Tilda offered us something to drink, as Sigrid sat in embarrassed silence. I swallowed the lump in my throat and looked at my hands to see if they were shaking or not, I could hardly feel my arms. Of the group, only Bain and Dwalin seemed normal, and I was to find out that it was because Bain had been oblivious of this entire thing, and Dwalin simply didn't care.

"What brings you here?" he enquired kindly, and to his credit, genuinely. Then I realized. The lad didn't know.

Then Sigrid spoke, her voice quiet. "It's because Thorin and Da are arranging a marriage for us."

"For who?" The boy looked disbelievingly at his sister.

"For me, and the elder prince." She nodded in my direction.

The elder prince. It was as if she was too shy to speak my name in front of them. I longed to speak hers. Any excuse.

Bard cleared his throat. "Thorin, I have been told that an alliance is desired between our people."

"It is my nephew's wish, and it would seem to be a good one."

"Very well." Both men spoke with little emotion; quickly, and to the point. We were merely onlookers in this bargain. My heart began to pound.

"What are your intentions towards my daughter?" Bard asked, turning his mild gaze upon me. My voice came out much stronger than I felt – at last, at last I could simply speak my heart, in the hearing of others.

"I intend to love her as an extension of myself, nay, more than myself. I intend to cherish and protect her, to provide for her, and give her a place of honor by my side among my people. I intend to marry her, to do right by her, to love her physically in the way of a husband toward a wife, and to expect her love in return, her kind service, and her dutiful submission. I intend to protect her honor at all costs, first as your daughter, then as my wife, and and one day, as my queen." Some version of this later was revised for me to speak before our people in Erebor, at the ceremony that officially joined us.

Thorin shifted from foot to foot as I spoke, and when I had finished he regarded me with an unreadable gaze, and did the most astonishing thing. He smiled. Then he clasped hands with Bard, who nodded, and said something I do not remember, my ears were abuzz, and when Bard beckoned for Sigrid to come forward, even Dwalin stopped hacking at the piece of wood in the corner and listened.

"You have heard the alliance that has been made tonight?"

She nodded, holding her head up like the brave girl she was. "Aye," she said, and the quaver in her voice struck a pang in my heart like the wind sweeping over the strings of the elven harps Kili praises. I took her hand, small, and limp within mine, and willed any warmth, any strength I yet possessed to fill her.

"I will love you," I told her, in as fervent a tone as I dared.

And she murmured back, "And I will love you." I shall never forget the first moment she pronounced those words. Fear was there, but also sincerity. I think a happier dwarf never lived. I pressed her hand to my lips, feeling the softness of her skin, and inhaling her scent, the scent of pine and cooking ash and summer wind, and then released it, meeting, and holding her gaze. It was strangely unabashed, and she looked at me for a long moment, as Bard congratulated us. As soon as Bard embraced me, I knew that it was truly begun. We were betrothed. Thorin embraced me as well, and then Bain spoke quietly into the ear of his sister, before crossing the room and standing before me.

"Fili, a word?" he asked, and I nodded, leaving Kili and Sigrid to comfort the grieving Tilda. We stepped without the croft, and impulsively, to calm my raging nerves, I reached for my pipe.

"Do you mind?" I inquired, lifting a brow, and Bain gestured for me to go ahead, shifting from foot to foot while he seemed to ponder what to say to me. I filled my pipe hurriedly, and lit it, inhaling a deep lungful of the fragrance, and feeling relaxation spread throughout my limbs. I took another draw, and turned to Bain.

"Aye, lad?" I could see the line of tension in his shoulders. "You're worried about her, aren't you."

"Not worried, precisely. Because that would seem to be offensive. Indicating I don't trust you." He was choosing his words carefully.

"Walk?" I gestured with my head toward the path, and he shook his head. "Then take a bit. It'll soothe the nervousness." Bain hesitated, then nodded, accepting the pipe, and coughing on the puff he took. I have him a few slaps on the back, and when he turned back to me, at least his face had a bit of color in it (though I rather think it was the choking).

"Be good to her," he said at last. "I'm sure this is nothing Da hasn't said a hundred times, but just so you know –"

"Bain, I love her." I met his eyes earnestly. "I will do all I can to keep her happy."

He shook his head. "No. I mean, I think you will, but that's not what troubles me. I have not been in love, so I don't know, but everyone who has ever loved says that. That they only care about the other person, that they will do anything for them. Don't do that. Don't be like that."

I wasn't entirely certain what he meant, so in a rare moment of wisdom, I kept my mouth shut and listened.

"Love is grand. I mean, it looks grand, I know that Sigrid loves you, though she's too shy to let on much as of yet. But make certain she has something to do. Make certain she makes other friends. And let her take care of you, she's so good at things like that." His eyes were pleading with me, the eyes of a desperate brother who felt as if, in that moment, he was losing his best friend. I could see myself in that, myself, and Kili both.

"I think I see what you mean, lad," I said, a bit roughly, my voice betraying me. "She will be as much a lady of her people there as she is here."

"I want as little to change for her as possible," Bain told me, straightening. "You think she is brave, because you see how well she has done throughout everything, through the dragon's coming, through it all..."

"I do not wish to –"

"Do not think she takes to everything well. She is only human. She is one of the bravest people I know, other than Da, but she can only take so much."

I took a deep breath, and nodded. "I know. This is much I ask of her."

"And she will happily give in to it to be with you." Bain's voice was earnest. "But know that she doesn't have an untapped supply of strength. It has to be replenished. Before it has been replenished by me, and Da, and Tilda, and all those around her who love her. Now it will be just you. And you'll fail sometimes to, so just –" he sucked in a breath, "-make certain she has friends. Make certain things are not too hard."

And I offered my hand to him, my throat tight. "Thank you, Bain. For entrusting me with your sister."

Bain gripped my hand in response. "I am happy she will be with someone whom I respect."

To me, it was one of the highest compliments. It is a wonder that I slept at all that night, really, but nature has its way. We were on our way back to Erebor the following morn.


	21. Chapter 21

**This is a republish of the latest chapter; my computer crashed and through re-formatting things on my new laptop I realized I had published it with a few confusing typos - my apologies! Here is the updated version. May I just say that as much as I love Thorin, it has been fun and fascinating writing him as the near-villain of this piece... Enjoy! **

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Any work for the restoration of Erebor immediately began to play second fiddle to my preparations for Sigrid's arrival. A chamber was designated as hers, which I was to be ritually excluded from as soon as she arrived. After the ceremony, once we are officially joined, we are to occupy it together, but until then, it is her chamber, and hers alone. I wanted to make it beautiful.

Not knowing her precise tastes – and I suspect, somehow, that a girl of her kindness did not take the time to develop many – I decided to simply do my best to make it admirable after the fashion of my people. The rooms are large, and cut rough into the rock; I cleared away the cobwebs, and dirt, and rubble, and began at once to carve the walls to be smoother, the angles more clear. It will never be the square room of a house on the Lake, but at least it will not have to feel like she is slumbering near the back of a cave. Kili joined me for many hours in this, hauling away the rock and dust that we showered down from the walls, and warding away the many offers of help we received from other members of our company. I had enough time, and though I appreciated their eagerness, this was something that I wished to do with my own hands. Kili's help was an exception to that, for some reason, but he is the other half of me, and that accounts for some of the leniency.

I think it was because though Kili does his share of boasting, he knows when to lay off. The others do not, and would brag on whatever small contribution they made to the room until they are laid in their graves, something I don't foresee tolerating well. This is to be mine and Sigrid's room, and I wanted my touch all over the walls. I did not want Dori to point here and boast about the carving, or Bofur to gesture there and explain the shape of the looking glass, and take any credit for it, really. Selfish, it likely was, but so it happened, that Kili and I alone prepared the chamber for Sigrid. And I was happy with it.

One day, while laying on my back on the scaffolding and glaring at the odd shape of the ceiling above me, trying to decide to set to work filing it into something proper, or to leave it be, I had an idea. It was an odd semi-circular area above where the bed was to stand, and it was dished in ever so slightly, surrounded by a rim of small stalactites. From where I was laying, one could almost seem to see it as a deep underground basin of still water, and then and there I decided to cover the area in reflective metal, so that while lying upon our bed together, locked in each others arms, we might look up and be reminded of our oneness, of the beauty of our unity and love.

"Kili!" I vociferated, my voice echoing right back to me from the nearness of the stone above my head. "Kili!"

"Durin's beard, I'm right here!" he huffed, coming into the doorway with a jug of mead and two mugs. "I was thirsty. Brought enough to share."

"Aye, thank you." I clambered down from the scaffolding, and helped myself to a mug, downing a few gulps, and explaining hurriedly, "Can you speak to Bifur about seeing if we've any of the bronze left from forging the hinges and knockers in the great hall?"

Kili furrowed his brow. "But I thought we'd already talked about hinges and knockers."

"Aye, but I want to melt this into a great sheet, and have it joined in the crevasses of the ceiling."

Kili looked at me as if I'd lost my mind. "Why?" he managed at last. "It'll come crashing down upon you both."

"No, no it won't, see..." I mounted the scaffolding and beckoned Kili to follow me, and I showed him the natural grooves and the curve of the basin. "The shape will form such a tension as to suspend it there, and then of course I'll fasten it about the edges, right into the rock itself."

"The point being-?" Kili's eyebrows were still dancing, and I rolled my eyes.

"Beauty. Intrigue. Like a great mirror... above us."

"Ah." His eyes twinkled. "Well, then. Let's get to work."

Thorin approached me that night, his gaze shadowed in the light of the dying hearth, his steps slow and heavy. I knew what this was, it was something Kili and I had both dreaded, really, since the day when we began to ask questions and were rewarded with nothing more than "When you are wed, we'll speak further on it."

I am not foolish. I know the way of a man and woman together, and I know how children are begun. Perhaps I did well hiding my knowledge behind a young and innocent face, perhaps Thorin, as ever, perceived me as still a dwarfling with little wisdom in the ways of the world, and perhaps it was something else that I as yet did not know, but we both, Thorin and I, were dreading this. He, to speak so of such thing, and I, to feign indifference, if only to hide my eager knowledge. To share a bed with Sigrid, to have her close to me, beneath me, joined with me, would seem to be the most wondrous thing, something I yearned for with an equal measures as I yearned to simply look into her eyes, to have her by my side.

Kili gave me a pitying look, and rose, propping his carving-work in the corner, before quitting the room, saying only, "Don't disturb my bow," which I find strange. Strange that I remember it, and strange that he spoke such a queer thing; I do not care for his bow. I would not touch it unless I had to, and then I certainly should intend it no harm. It was likely just something to say, like when we were lads and our mother would come to watch us play from afar. We would strike up a calm, if nonsensical conversation to satisfy her, only to dissolve into laughter whenever she had gone, and resume whatever mad plotting and pranking we had originally schemed.

Thorin hardly looked at me, but sat down with his back to the flames, his wrists upon his knees. He regarded the floor for a long moment, as did I, and then he spoke.

"Is the work progressing?"

I did not know if he meant the restoration or preparations for the marriage, so I replied evenly, "Aye, I think so. Though there is still much to be done."

Thorin nodded his head slowly. "It is well that Kili left. I intended to speak to you in case there were any doubts as to what is expected of you on the night of your marriage." Here he met my gaze, and I did my best to look at him steadily, though we were too close to one another for the focus of my eyes to be comfortable.

"I understand," I began, and then startled as Thorin lifted his voice:

"No, you do not."

"Uncle –" I began, taking a deep breath. "I do not believe –"

"Mahal, let me finish." Thorin's face was stern. "I do not wish to repeat myself. Eru knows this is not a topic I'm comfortable discussing."

"Aye, because you've never loved," I muttered, and his gaze snapped to mine, glittering in the light of the fire.

"What?" he said in a low voice.

"I will not listen to you tell me of my responsibility to the throne, of my duty to our lineage. I wish to know her in love, not in –"

"I'm going to speak to you of love, boy," Thorin said gruffly. "And of what I have learned."

This silenced me. Thorin never speaks so, of himself, or of deep emotion of any kind.

"You yourself have never loved," I began quietly, more a challenge for him to disprove this than an actual statement of fact.

"It was not an experience that would encourage me to love again," he muttered. "But this I will tell you. The heat of our passion is most compelling. Do not let it die within you. It is both our greatest curse and our greatest gift. Show her what you know of dwarven love. And may Mahal bless you with an heir. Soon."

"Thorin –" I began., a bit breathlessly. "I wish to love her."

"Then do so."

"But I do not wish for her to bear my children if she is not willing."

Thorin looked at me as if the concept was disgusting. "She is your queen, she is willing," he said simply. "It is her duty."

"It may not be her desire."

"Then Eru help her, because you will not let her sleep a single night without making love to her first."

"Mahal!" I exclaimed, rising to my feet. "You cannot require such a thing of us!"

"Do you not lust?"

"Aye, but by Durin's beard I will not force myself up her! If she is willing, then so be it, but if not –"

"Fili, the purpose of this marriage is an alliance, hence, an heir."

"No, that is not so, the purpose of this marriage is love!"

"Don't be a fool."

"I am not. Mahal –" I put a hand to my face in utter disbelief. To be spoken to so, on a matter so personal, was beyond shocking. I had no idea what was yet in store for us in the future, but as of then, I was ready to flee the room, find my axes, and return, if only to split something apart, preferably something of Thorin's.

"I do not believe this." I shook my head at him. "You have no right to speak so."

"I have every right. You are next in Durin's line, after that, your child."

He did speak those words, Glorin. And I've held him to them every minute since, whenever the issue of the succession comes up. He will see fairness in time. Thank Eru we are such long-lived people.

"And if Sigrid has no child?" I was being bold. Of course I wanted a child with Sigrid. Perhaps many, since the race of men seemed so much more fruitful than ours.

"Then Kili."

"Precisely. The throne is sure three times over, so I do not understand why you have gotten your trousers in a twist over the issue of mine and Sigrid's love-making." The room felt hot, I am quite certain I was breathing like a bellows. Thorin stood, his eyes pale as the sky after a storm.

"I take my leave." He departed the room.

I stayed for a long while by the hearth until the fire had dwindled to nothing but glaring embers, and then I heard the footsteps of my brother enter the room. Kili thumped me on the shoulder and said, "Talk went well?"

I smiled up at him. "What do you think?"

He shrugged, and took a seat beside me. "I heard the shouting."

"He tells me to give Sigrid a child as soon as possible." I put my head in my hands and exhaled, before looking up. Kili's face was a little comical.

"And you – foresee having a problem with that?"

I cuffed him. "No, you idiot, it's just the fact that he's telling me to do it."

"Humiliating," Kili agreed, bobbing his head. "Though if you don't want to do the honors, I'd-"

"You'll be nowhere near her," I growled, and Kili lifted his hands.

"Joking, joking."

I snorted. "I'm not in the mood."

"Someone sounds like Thorin."

"Durin's beard..." I muttered.

Kili sighed sympathetically. "Way to spoil a mood."

"Aye, and there's no question on it."

We sat in silence for a long while, before Kili began, rather tentatively, "How do you think Sigrid will take this?"

I lifted my head, and heaved a sigh. "She's not to know. We are wed, we show each other our love. That is all there is to it from any point of view, as far as I'm concerned."

Thorin, as usual, had his own motives, and I was not going to permit his king-mongering to interfere with my love for the daughter of Bard. If he wished to see it as a strategic alliance, so be it. Eru, if Bard, even if Sigrid herself wished to see it that way, I should not mind so much. I only wanted to be close to her, to be allowed to cherish her, and have her be mine. One day, I thought, they'll understand. I will make them. Some days I think that is why I am writing. To prove this, yet again, now that she is gone.


	22. Chapter 22

I am interrupting my tale to record things of the present, simply because I think they ought to be recorded. It has been one year since I have come back to Esgaroth, and much has changed. The elves of Mirkwood are here as well, helping with the reconstruction. Historical things are happening. I never dreamed I'd be part of restoring the civilization of man, but now my fate is intertwined with these people, and as much as I love Erebor, I cannot think of leaving now.

Kili has come, along with Balin and Dwalin, who, strangely enough, must have found a desire to return to the city. At any rate, they are here, and have been so for the past few months. Dwalin, I know, struck up a strange sort of friendship with Bain, and Balin is a kind old soul who has cared for Kili and myself since we were dwarflings and I think was concerned for my well-being. I hope I shall set his fears at rest. Kili, no doubt, elected to join them the moment his eyes read the portion of the message I sent that read, "joining the men _and the elves_ in constructing Esgaroth from the ruins..." A handful of Mirkwood warriors traversed the river and have set up semi-permanent dwellings on the outskirts, flimsy tent-like structures formed of green branches and leaves that don't look as if they could withstand the slightest weather. However, they have not fallen yet. Legolas is here, the son of that accursed king Thranduil who imprisoned us, as well as several others whose names are as indistinguishable from one another as the pebbles on the lakeshore (and to think they say the same of us! The irony), and of course, Tauriel.

The aforementioned has taken it upon herself to look after Glorin as we work, saying that she should like nothing better, and so between the attentions of the nurse and the elf – and the love lavished upon him by Tilda in the evenings – he seems to be in good hands. Tauriel is a true heart, I think, and she and Sigrid seemed to have forged a sort of bond, and so I am happy that she can care for her child. Nothing saddened her more, she said, than to hear of Sigrid's passing. Kili, of course, is a task to simply keep to his work, as he keeps coming up with the most inventive excuses as to why he should return to the settlements; the latest one he has been trying is that he must make certain that Glorin isn't exhausting Tauriel. After a few jibes as to how weak elves must be if a single child can do them in, I have come to the conclusion that either he thinks I am a poor father indeed, or that he simply wants to see his elf. My thoughts tend toward the latter.

Something Tilda said to me just last night made me think. We were sitting in the shade of the house, resting from the day's labor, and enjoying the slight breeze that came, cooling the surface of the skin. I have reached a place where I can now see her for herself, and not merely be looking for remembrances of Sigrid in her face. At first it was a pain that I felt, then a longing, and now something that I think might be near healthy; something that one might call an appreciation. That doesn't sound quite right, but I don't think there is an apt word for it in either Khuzdul or Westron.

"You're still writing in that book, aren't you," she said, lifting her hair from the back of her neck and leaning forward to let the breeze play over her skin there.

"Aye, that I am, lass," I told her, "I've a renewed interest."

"Did you stop?" She regarded me from behind the curtain of her hair tumbled backwards and I smiled at her.

"Aye, for a time. But then I recalled why I was writing, and thought I had best continue."

"Why are you writing?" she enquired in a small voice. I think she still sometimes fears me, fears hurting me.

"Glorin," I replied simply. "That he may read of her."

Nodding, Tilda straightened, and settled her hair, frowning, and fingering through it to divide it across the crown of her head as she usually wore it. I beckoned for her to turn, and sorted the tangles into four sections, weaving them into a broad braid. She smiled, and admired the tail.

"Dwarves are quite talented," she remarked complacently, leaning back into the wall. "But not as talented as the elves."

I let the comment pass, to be honest, simply because I was too worn from the day's work to argue. Stonework is satisfying, but tiring. There is a stiffness in my shoulder that seems to have been there a month, but I know it has likely been a mere few days. It is not the first time I've missed my dear girl's small, strong hands upon me, working out the tension, and smoothing peace and relaxation into the very fibres of my being. I took a deep breath and kneaded the muscle with a firm fist, wincing as my knuckles fractured the tension and sent thrills scattering down my arm and back.

"I'm glad you're writing again," Tilda said at last. "It's the strongest things that grow brittle when frozen."

I stopped the ministrations to my shoulder and regarded her. "And what does that mean, lass?"

She shrugged. "Young trees bend in the breezes, and when winter comes, they do not break. It is the sturdy, the strong that cracks in the cold. I don't want you to become hardened. Because then you might break."

Such wisdom for her years. Perhaps she may have gone on, had not Kili come lumbering up at the moment, swinging a pickaxe with great carelessness.

"What ho, Bofur!" she called cheekily, getting to her feet and greeting him with a showy curtsey. "What have you done with Kili?"

Kili took his hair in his hands and pulled it out to the sides of his head, mimicking the cocky shape of our companion's hat, and rollicked through his Westron much more than usual. "Oh, no need to ask that, lassie, he isn't far, I can assure you."

"And why is that?"

Kili looked astonished. "Well, would you go far when your true love was here? No, indeed." He dropped his hair, and leaned on the pickaxe, tweaking the end of her braid. "Did you do this?"

She shook her head. "Fili. We were just having a rest."

"It looks fetching. That's one thing that elves still can't beat us at," Kili boasted. I got to my feet, and joined them in the sunlight.

"Speaking of elves, did you see Tauriel?"

Kili squinted. "Not in the past half-hour, no."

"In the past day?"

He nodded, eyes twinkling. "Aye. At noon."

"Mahal, do you do any work?" I muttered, giving him a jostle, and then lifting my voice. "I had best fetch Glorin, do you suppose –"

"Tell Tauriel to join us for supper tonight! Dwalin and Balin will be discussing boring things with Father and Bain, and that would make for something fun..." Tilda's eyes were hopeful.

I opened my mouth to suggest that she perhaps listen to the conversation, and join in if she were so inclined, but Kili needed no second invitation and was already halfway down the thoroughfare with Tilda by his side by the time I had the thought formed in my head.

"Fetch the child while you are there!" I called and Tilda waved her arms in what I can only suppose was an assurance that she would.

Bard and I had been discussing something serious of late, the likely need of training an army for Esgaroth, should the worse ever come again. Laketown had no defenses, and this is shaping up to be a much larger city already, more fighting men, and more innocent lives to protect. Dwalin and Bain had recently become privy to the conversation, though Balin had not been included up until this point, and for the simple reason that we were fairly certain he would oppose us. However, tonight I supposed we were going to make it a croft-wide discussion. I never will understand the hushed-up ways of men and elves; if dwarves have something to say, it is in our nature to say it, and he who disagrees, let him shout his objections and make everyone listen to him, let him draw his weapons and scuffle it out, or else sit down and drown his discomfort in ale like a decent son of Aule. It is strange to be so cautious, but I think that in spite of my natural revulsion to what I initially consider subversive, I think some skills in diplomacy may be gained from this experience, and that would perhaps make Thorin proud. I know he thinks I am wasting my years toiling in the city of men.


	23. Chapter 23

In Erebor, in the time of preparation for Sigrid's arrival, I spoke at last, and at great length to my mother. Much time had passed; my mother is a strong dwarrowdam, and someone for whom I hold great admiration. Weaknesses I would never let any dwarf know of she has seen, and how she kept Kili and myself alive to adulthood through all our mischief, I shall never know.

I hope that you shall know her, my son, but in case you do not, I should describe her here. Dis, daughter of Thrain is, above all, a credit to the beauty of her race and sex. She is shorter than I, but not much, and dark of hair like Kili. She wears it styled back from her face in a three-pointed crown similar to the tresses of Nori, but with the braid of Durin's folk draping between them, and arching around her hairline. She has always worn it like this, and I have never seen her without the braid circling her face. Her beard is lighter, and curls ever so slightly like the hair of a young babe, and she does nothing to it aside from keep it clean and well-brushed. I recall on one occasion, her joining the ends into a sort of plait that covered her chin, but this is but a vague memory. Of face, she is kind, her nose broad and well-developed, her eyes small and sparkling, her mouth curvaceous and dimpled. Kili's resemblance to her in this area is undeniable; I have more of the look of my father about me, I am told. Her hands are pale, and broad, and always warm, her bosom soft and always there to comfort me, her eyes a place I can retreat into and be myself, not the heir, not the eldest, not anything other than Fili, her son. Mahal, I love her.

Our journeyings took us far and wide, and I did not see her for quite some time before returning to Erebor to give her news of our return, and of Sigrid. She and my uncle are close, and though she does not always agree with his grim manners and his harsh ways, she has defended him against my railings time and again. Thorin had told her of Sigrid, of course, but I suspected that the truth was heavily couched in derogatory terms, or the very least, scowls and snortings, so I betook myself to the Stonehall where her chambers lie, and knocked upon her door as soon as I found an evening free.

Her voice called from within, "Enter!" and I did so, allowing my nose, as usual, to precede me through the crack of the door before swinging it open fully. It was an old habit from when I was a child, when she would say that my nose was her pride and joy in the day that it grew long enough to rival Thorin's – and his is quite an impressive feature. From then on, I would allow my nose to attract a compliment before displaying the rest of my face, and I have yet to be disappointed.

"That is Fili's beauteous nose, but where is the rest of him?" she called, and so I entered, beaming, and was clasped in her arms.

"I have missed you, Mother," I murmured against her shoulder, and she held me tighter, cheek to cheek, beard to beard, swaying ever so slightly in the soothing way that she has.

"Have you eaten?" She released me and beckoned to the private repast that adorned her table, and I nodded.

"Aye, but –"

"Oh, eat again. It will do you good." She would not let me speak further until I had in my hand a mug of ale and a plate before me, and I helped myself to a few roots of earthbread.

"How do you fare these days?" I asked her at last. "Thorin tells me that you have done as much as anyone in designing the plans for the Great Hall, tapestries especially."

She flushed in pleasure. "What can I say? When one loves to do something oughtn't they to do it?"

"Widsom flows forth, as always," I hurried, downing a gulp of ale, and rising, sitting cross-legged at her feet as I did when a dwarfling, and leaning my head into her lap. The fire beside us crackled merrily, and I drew my pipe forth from my pocket, filling it, and lighting it, inhaling happily.

"What is this lass you're to marry?" my mother asked at length, her hands playing through my hair, sorting the braids from the rest and fingering out the tangles in the remaining locks.

"She is a daughter of man, the eldest child of the leader of Esgaroth." I looked up and smiled at her. "You will like her."

"Thorin tells me she is the ordinary sort..."

A scowl crossed my face. "She is not–"

"...but I know that he has great pride on the humblest of days."

"Aye. And she is not ordinary, the blood of the line of Girion flows in her veins," I said with an effort to relax my face. "Her father is a great man, the one who loosed the arrow which slayed the dragon, no less. Even before his day of triumph, he was a leader of his people. She is the eldest in her family. We are much alike."

"And her mother?"

"Dead." My eyes met hers. "She has known the loss of a parent, as I have."

My mother's hands caressed my head, and I leaned back into her lap.

"What is this lass's name?"

"Sigrid," I told her, barely keeping the smile from my voice. "She is young, but wise for her years."

"I see. And what is her age?"

I hesitated. How was it in the years of men? "Ah, somewhere between the age of fifteen and twenty," I guessed. My mother made a shocked noise. That is but a babe, to us, one taking their first steps. I reached my eighty-third year myself the year Sigrid and I were wed, and that was even considered a bit young for marriage. I hear the span of a some men's entire life scarcely reach those years.

I chuckled to myself. "Don't be alarmed, I believe that for them that is close to my age, if not a slight bit younger. Perhaps closer to Kili's."

Mother still looked doubtful. "Is she formed?"

"Oh, aye. She is of age to bear children, but slender, and is taller than I am, built almost like an elf. She is inexperienced in the ways of the world, but wise for her years."

"So young..." Dis breathed, and I got to my knees, taking her face in my hands and kissing her upon the mouth.

"Do not worry. You will like her."

"Do you love her?"

My eyes shone. "Like my own soul. Nay, more."

"And does she love you?"

Again, the question Bard put to me, when I had been forced to answer that I did not know. I took a deep breath. "There are times when I am almost persuaded to think that she does. Times when we sit and speak, and she seems reluctant to leave. When our eyes meet, and I feel that... that..." I gestured, a loss for words. "That _tension_ in the air that means we are not simple friends. And then sometimes I fear I startle her with my forwardness, and that she retreats beyond reach..."

"Is she so timid?"

I shook my head. "Nay, it is just that our races are very different, and she knows nothing of men and their ways. I have been among my own sex for so long that I forget a maid's softness, her shyness, and sometimes," I chuckled, "I am a little appalling."

Dis smiled, giving my cheek a resounding pat. "You will do well together, then. I have prayed to Aule for a wife to settle you."

"Settle me?" I snorted. "I doubt that."

"Do not. I can see her effect on you already. There's a keenness to your speech, a light in your eyes, and a swagger in your stride. Give Erebor an heir soon."

My face must have darkened, for her eyes reflected mine like a mirror, her brows knitting. "Fili?"

"You speak like Thorin. I long to love her, but I fear she is young."

"And you are so old?"

I rolled my eyes. "I will not force myself upon her.

"My son." My mother's eyes were steady. "You are an attractive dwarf. Any female, be she dwarrow, elf, halfling, or human would be a fool not to see you as a bold choice for a husband. You can teach her."

"As if I am so wise myself..." I murmured.

"You are not lacking in knowledge, or desire," she said firmly. "It is not the ways of our race, or our kin. And though her beauty may be unusual –"

"It is such beauty, mother," I said, perhaps a little too vehemently. "_Such_ beauty, and understanding..."

Dis's mouth curved into a smile. "You will suit each other, my golden lad."

"Thank you, mother," I breathed, and we nuzzled in again, like a mother bear and her cub. She swatted my rear after a long moment.

"Off you go, then, I am sure your uncle has tasks for you."

"He has been _lecturing _me about my duties as heir," I sighed gustily. "Something new for a change, eh?"

She chuckled, a low, pleasing sound. "Go on, then. I shall see you when she arrives."

It was but a few more days. Though my time was occupied fully, they seemed the slowest days of my life.


	24. Chapter 24

At last they arrived. The lookouts on the great parapet above the entrance to the mountain called it out midday, that the party from Esgaroth had been sighted at last. I dropped my chisel – for my stone-sense has been pronounced strong enough to permit my doing the finer work around the doorways of the Hall of Kings – and hurried up there as fast as my legs would take me. Dwarves are natural sprinters, so I reached it in not much time at all. It is a wonder that the others put up with my flighty temperament at all through the day, for I would scarcely lay mallet to pommel, when I would stop, and listen, thinking that a shout had been heard, covered by the noise of our banging. And then I would shout and shush everyone in the hall until it was perfectly silent except for the thrum of the life of the mountain beneath us, a sound that every dwarf grows accustomed to living with constantly, drawing a sense of security and safety from it, and there would be no other sound, no shout, no nothing. And so everyone would grumble, and shake their fists at me, and return to their labor. I would duck my head and continue until the next moment of my startled hearing, when it would begin again. I am fairly certain the carver next to me, one Frar, a friend of Balin's, was nearly ready to smack his mallet over my thick skull, but it was he who jostled me into silence when the shout came – the real shout, the true shout.

"Party sighted! The men of Esgaroth approach!"

Sigrid and I were, by ritual, excluded from seeing each other before the actual ceremony of our marriage, and this is perhaps why I was so keen to catch a glimpse of them now. They were so far away, and painfully tiny, a small company snaking their way across the plain. It was impossible to distinguish Sigrid from this distance, but I strained my eyes until Kili came and wrestled me away, saying I should return to my work, and that the dwarrowdams would care for her.

"But Bard. At least I can see Bard," I protested as we struggled in each other's grasps. "There is no ritual that states –"

"You shall see him, but not – today –" Kili spoke between his teeth as I threw him away from me and straightened my collar.

"Fine. It wouldn't do to bend the rules and tempt fate. But I cannot return to work, my palms are sweating so I should drop the first thing I touched," I breathed, wiping my hands upon the skirt of my coat, and glaring at Kili who was snickering uncontrollably.

"What ails you, _shirumund_," I said in my best imitation of Thorin.

"I am not beardless," Kili retorted. "It is just funny to see you behaving like a love-sick idiot at last."

"At last?" I inquired.

"Aye, I've had my turn, and I intend to return to it as soon as the fuss with you is over with." He grinned, as if expecting me to greet this news with joy. I snorted, and simply asked him:

"What's that in your belt?"

"Oh, this?" He pulled out a bit of brightly-woven tapestry, beaded and beribboned, and waved it in the air. "A little gift for my best lass."

"Who answers to the name of..."

"-Tilda. It's a hat."

"Ah." I nodded. I could see it now, it is the sort of headgear that we put our very young children in. She would look well in it, though like a great lanky baby walking about on her human legs, for she is nearly the height of Kili.

The guards were making displeased faces at us for blocking their way and interrupting their work, so we returned down the stairs whence we came – the second staircase still being in crumbles – and returned to the chamber I shared with Kili, thinking of Sigrid, guessing when it was approximately that she was entering the mountain, wondering what she thought, what her face would look like, if she would mutter, in spite of herself, the curses that she had picked up from me... Kili babbled the entire time, doing his best to do his duty and keep my mind off things, but as attested to by the fact that I cannot recall a single word he said, it must not have worked.

That evening I ventured out, not able to bear the suspense any longer, and encountered Oin in the passage.

"My friend!" I greeted him and embraced him to alert him of my presence, as it is common for him not to hear what is said to him until he is made aware in some other way of the fact that someone wishes a conversation. He jammed his ear trumpet in at a more helpful angle, and his face creased into a smile.

"Laddie. She is a beauty."

"You've seen her?"

"Aye, your mother and the other dames have taken her into their care, and she is well-looked after."

"How does she fare? Did you speak to her?"

"Aye, aye..." He bobbed his head, his eyes squinted into little slits, his mouth smiling.

"What did she say?" I practically shouted, excitement, combined with my need to be heard gaining the upper hand.

"How should I know, laddie? She speaks like a little mouse..." Chuckling to himself, he moved off down the corridor, leaving my heart pounding in anticipation of what I was not to hear that night. Eru, how I wished I could simply see her, embrace her, enquire if she was alright after her journey...

The following day there was a great council called including Thorin, myself, Kili, and the other nobles. Bard was there, looking a bit tense, but otherwise well; I caught his eye, and we exchanged sober nods. Thorin called everyone to order by a great shout.

"_Vemu_!" All quieted down, and there was a scuffling as chairs were pulled in or out, scraping their wooden legs against the hard flagstones.

"We are honored to be here, and in your presence, my lords," Thorin began, his voice ringing and filling the grotto. I inhaled a deep breath, and let it out slowly, doing my best to remain calm and princely. "It is a happy occasion that brings us together in this great hall of my fathers; the joining of our peoples in a marriage that crosses the boundary of hardship, distance, and race," Here he paused, and fixed me with a steady stare, "-All in the name of love." His eyes seemed to smile almost imperceptibly, and I felt the warmth of happiness spread throughout my being.

"The fabled Bard the Bowman, slayer of the great Smaug who lit the city of Laketown like a torch, has agreed to give his eldest daughter in an unbreakable bond to my nephew and heir, Fili of the great line of Durin."

It was strangely quiet, the usual robust cheering and pounding on the table that ought to greet such an announcement oddly absent.

"Some conditions, as would be assumed in striking such a contract, are expected to be met. Balin, son of Fundin, has kindly drawn up in writing each respective document."

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair; such things had not been mentioned to me, I understood that this was to be a union primarily of love, and if there were political advantages, then so be it, but that they were not to be the main motivation.

"Uncle –" I began, but Thoin interrupted.

"Hold your peace, Fili. We've not yet finished. There will be time enough for talk later."

Bard caught my eye and held it, and instead of there being a question there, there was assurance. It was enough to convince me to subside into my seat, at the very least.

Balin proceeded to read aloud a great document, couched in many political and unintelligible terms, but I simply watched Bard's face, and finding it seemed to meet his satisfaction – and indeed, he was listening raptly to every word – decided that it ought to meet mine. I put my name to the parchment, and Bard did the same without murmur, and those in our company signed as well, as witnesses. Glorin, this very document bearing both our names is what, thanks to Balin's unshakeable loyalties and sense of honor in writing, will assure you a place on the throne of Erebor at last.

The day of the ceremony came. I had been given hardly a moment's peace from the preparations so I knew precisely what to expect. It was odd; at first I wished that I did not have to go over the procedure so much in practice, fearing that by the time the actual time arrived I would feel like I had been married several times before. But that is not the way of it, and I was overcome with a case of nerves such as would make any dwarf ashamed.

I bathed and dressed in an entirely new suit of clothes, made for the occasion, and of heavy golden weave. Standing before the glass, I thought to myself how it would be quite likely that I should end up in the possession of a dragon, were I not bearing the weapons that I was. My knees were behaving in the strangest way, it seemed the every muscle of mine had dried out like the desert, leaving me quaking and unmanned. I sent for some ale to dampen my throat and strengthen my temperament.

It was the silliest thing. Why should I be nervous, when I was making the decision I had dreamt about for so long? Why was my heart in my throat, and did my vision seem fragmented and blurred when I knew this was but the threshold of utter happiness? I rubbed my eyes as hard as I dared without pushing them back into my skull forever, and downed as much ale as was brought me. I hardly even realized it was Kili who bore the tray until I looked up to see him regarding me with his eyebrows furrowed.

"Do I look dreadful?" I croaked, eyeing him. He was dressed in a blue similar to Thorin's, in his hair fresh braids, a beautiful chain stretching across his chest woven of polished pewter and star-hued gems.

"No, you're quite a sight," Kili said, shoving me before the mirror. "You look like Azaghâl," he said, indicating the broad helm that framed my face. "Let me help you."

I silently consented to have the openwork bar-beads woven into my hair by him, and when he had finished, I turned and looked at myself again. I looked startlingly normal aside from the splendor I wore.

"It will seem strange to her..." I murmured, drawing my thumb over the polished metal. "Her people are so simple."

"Nonsense. She is being arrayed in finery as well." Kili's eyes twinkled. "I might have seen her..."

I seized him by the biceps. "Did you? Did she speak to you?"

"Aule! You'll mess up your hair," Kili scolded, extracting himself from my grasp. "I said 'might'."

I groaned, hardly able to keep the smile from my mouth. "I don't know which will kill me first, the suspense or the nerves."

"Aren't they the same thing?" Kili pointed out.

I shook my head. "Nay, very different. I cannot wait for the ceremony, to do well, to make her proud. I cannot wait for it to be over, so we can simply be together. And yet, I'm terrified I'll do something stupid..."

"Knowing you, that's highly likely," Kili agreed. "Just try to not mix up the vows, and blame any other blunders on the insanity of passion." He nodded firmly. "That's what I'd do."

"If we all did what you'd do, we'd be dead before we reached our full height..." I murmured, thrusting the cup I still clenched in my hand back at him. "Take this, or I'll drink too much before the celebrations even begin."


	25. Chapter 25

The celebrations must have gone well, as I have but a blurred memory of them. Of course, that may have been the mead, but one cannot say. Certain things I have a very keen memory of. I can recall Sigrid's great beauty as she removed her mask and let her face been seen by me, and all the dwarves assembled. We sat side by side on the dais, in strange silence, and I could hardly bear the suspense.

"Are you happy, lass?" I asked her at last, not caring if it were too forward. We were married, in Durin's name, nothing should be forbidden now, not questions, not unguarded looks, not the sensation of touch...

"Aye, I am," she told me, and I met her eyes, looking deeply into them, drowning in them. Her hair was plaited upon her head in admirable imitation of the rulers of old, but all I could think of is what she would look like with her hair down, spread over her shoulders, her face in a deep shadow of the chamber we would share.

"Let me kiss you," I murmured, my voice catching, and she flushed; of course. There were so many about, and though it seemed they were all absorbed in eating or dancing, any movement from us in our great chairs above them all would attract undivided attention. So I simply took her hand, and pressed it to my lips, feeling the soft skin and delicate bones beneath, holding it there as long as I dared. I looked up with my lips still pressed to her skin, and saw her leaning almost imperceptibly closer to me, regarding me with the becoming mixture of abashment and joy. I released her as our eyes met, and leaning in still closer, I whispered the joyous fact to her that later we should know each other more deeply than we had ever been known by anyone.

In another rare moment of wisdom I pulled out my meager remainder of restraint and stopped there. The festivities were beginning to seem endless until Kili at last came and pulled me bodily from my seat, saying, "Come, come, you're going to turn to stone if you don't get moving! Bring your lady with you, and show her how we celebrate!"

Throwing a glance over my shoulder, I caught Sigrid's wrist and pulled her from her chair to join the dance that was rapidly forming. It was a great circle dance which we call the _felek_, because legend has it that this dance was performed by our ancestors to carve out the mountains with their very feet.

Standing with Sigrid, flushed, and excited by my side, I joined our hands, and took the hand of the dwarf to my right side, and we began the energetic stride to the centre of the circle, only to turn on the eighth step and pull each other back outwards again. A laugh was startled from my bride, and I caught her eye as she managed, "I don't know what we're doing!"

"You'll learn!" I called to her, as I left her side to join hands with the dwarves in the centre and and cut capers to our new positions; then I watched as Sigrid's hands were caught by a dwarrowdame on each side, and rushed about into their steps. Sigrid twisted around, searching for me again, and I caught her by the waist as they swept by, pulling her into position by me as we joined hands and surged inwards again. She was flushed and breathless, tiny tendrils of hair beginning to escape around her face, and I regarded her with a quick smile.

"Like it?" I shouted, and she nodded as we were pulled outwards again and separated by the next steps of the dance. When it came time for us to join hands and spin us about, I said, "Four counts, alright?"

She looked confused, but allowed me to pull her round, and I clarified, "Four counts to reverse positions."

"Ah," she breathed, and I caught her eye. "Next time we'll do it faster; we'll switch twice in the time it takes everyone else to switch once."

Her eyes widened, but when we joined arms again, we spun each other around so vigorously I could have kissed her for how we'll we'd done; cheers filled the air, and Kili managed to be by my side the next time we formed a circle. "Shall we trade spots, then?" he teased, trying to take my place, but I made my steps wide so that he could not get a foot in to trade positions next to me when the parts split, and he eventually gave up and returned to Bofur (there are not enough of the dames for us all to have an actual partner, but this we are used to).

Kili danced with Tilda for the next set as Bofur joined the musicians on his flute; there was a time when I did not dance much myself, but played my fiddle along with the best of them, but those days were over, as attested to by the sweat that beaded my brow and the hand in mine.

"A drink?" I inquired, and she nodded, so we wended our way back to the dais and sat upon the edge of it, taking draughts of the sweet mead between catching our breaths.

"Do you think we ought to –" Sigrid began, her eyes fixed on something, and then I saw the great crowd of my kin surge forward and begin to usher us from the hall. Ah, so it was the time. Even drunk I had a better sense of direction than my uncle and I knew whence we were headed; our chamber. The chamber I had prepared for us, and which Sigrid had slept in alone for the past week. Never again.

Somehow the usual cajolings that I participated in bestowing in the past – at the wedding of Gloin – did not seem appropriate, and I was glad the Sigrid likely did not understand the things being shouted good-naturedly at us. When we were pressed against our door by the mob, I took her hands and she leaned down to me. "I'm going to kiss you," I said, and she nodded, so our lips met, and the crowd rocked with applause. Kili was shouting, and I kissed him for good measure, and something happened with Bain and Sigrid that I didn't understand but which the other dwarves seemed to find immensely funny, and at last I got the door open behind us, and we practically fell within, shutting it against the shouting and cheering.

We stood there, looking into each other's eyes, alone, at last. Most certainly, and quite assuredly – alone.

"What do you think of it?" I asked, more to have something to say than anything else as the revelers returned to the hall and the casks of ale. She looked about, and hugged her arms to her chest.

"I like it very much."

"Do you really?" Pleasure was in my voice.

She nodded, her fingers gripping the fabric of her sleeves.

"Are you cold?" I asked, furrowing my brow. The room was cooler compared to the heat of so many bodies in the great hall, but certainly the weight of her robes...

"No." She shivered. "Just..."

"Afraid?" I pitched my voice low. Her eyes met mine, and she parted her lips, but seemed to find no words. I stepped closer and took her hand, feeling the flinch.

"Don't fear me, lass," I murmured, my eyes pleading with her. "I only mean well for you."

"Isn't it –" she stammered, and I chuckled.

"It's alright. We're married."

"I know," she echoed in a small voice. "I can hardly believe it."

"Allow me to convince you," I whispered, and I led her over to the mirror. "Look there. What do you see?" I asked.

"I see you." Her face colored. "And you're beautiful."

"Well, I see you," I said slowly. "And you are even more so."

While I admired our reflections together, she slowly turned and laid a shaking hand upon my face. Her hand was cool, and it sent a thrill of giddy pleasure through my body, and my eyes drifted shut. I'm ashamed to say I believe I swore, because when I opened them, she was regarding me half-fearfully.

"Is it –"

"No, no..." I hastened to assure her, my voice breaking, and betraying me. "You are so beautiful." I drew her close to me, feeling her small waist give under my touch like a tender sapling, and pressed my face into her shoulder, feeling her slowly, ever so slowly, droop her face to mine, her hands finding rest somewhere upon my back. Suddenly irritated with the impediment to sensation, I started to release her to fumble with my belt when I felt her waver, and hurried to help her to a seat upon the bed.

"Are you alright?" I asked, thinking that perhaps it were not well to have urged so much of our ale upon her, she could not be used to it... I thought then of offering her my pipe, but it seemed to me that it would be all wrong, so I simply knelt by her feet and took her hands. "Are you –"

"Fine," she breathed, covering her face with her hands. "Embarrassed."

"Of what, love?" I asked her, trying to reclaim her hands so that I could see her downturned face. She looked at her lap. "I promise I will try not to hurt you..."

"I will displease you."

"You could not. It is impossible."

"But –"

"Hush now." I took her head against my chest and held her there as I used to hold Kili when he would creep up against me during the night, and she inhaled a deep breath, meeting my eye after a long moment.

"Help me get out of this dress," she said, quite firmly, and again, the thrill raced through me.

"Of course," I managed, barely suppressing a smile, and so very methodically, very chastely, we undressed each other, and began to explore the skin we laid waste to the desolations of love. It was a better journey, by far, than any of the others I have yet experienced, and full of wondrous discovery. Her kisses made me more drunk than I have ever been on mead.

Eru, I am beginning to wonder how much of this I should be writing here.


	26. Chapter 26

Winter comes swiftly in the mountains, and our love was all-consuming so that I hardly noticed the changing of the weather until there was snow upon the ground. While the air was yet warm, Bard and his family took their leave to return to Esgaroth, and Sigrid seemed to feel the loss of her family keenly. Bard met my eyes and silently passed to me his Eru-given trust: _Take care of her_. And of course, I vowed that I would, to my final breath. Kili did his best to tell her what we had told Tilda; that she was not losing a family, but gaining a new one, but it seemed to do little to console her, and she spent one night huddled in my arms in tears over simply "missing Da," as she put it. My heart ached for her as I murmured fond things in Khuzdul into her hair, and from then on and I longed to do even more to make Erebor her house, and my heart her home. However, some things simply take time.

Kili, for all his useless advice and idle chatter, seemed to cheer her up greatly, for I was often busy in the days working on the restoration, and this left her with many idle hours and few other women to pass it with. Seeing her at the end of a long days work was my life's blood. To meet her eyes, to hear her voice tell of what she had done that day, or to tell her of what I had done, to engage in conversation that was the fine weaving-work as we continued to join together our souls, was what I looked forward to the most, that which enabled me to get through each day with a smile on my face.

It was strange, but I also missed Kili himself a bit. Not that knowing Sigrid and spending all the time I could spare with her was not enough, but I bore in mind Bane's simple wisdom, the words he had spoken to me when Sigrid and I had been betrothed... _"__Everyone who has ever loved says that. That they only care about the other person, that they will do anything for them. Don't do that. Don't be like that... Make certain she makes other friends. And let her take care of you, she's so good at things like that... She is only human. She is one of the bravest people I know, other than Da, but she can only take so much... She doesn't have an untapped supply of strength. It has to be replenished._" Sigrid and I were everything to each other, but I did not want to edge my brother out of this. It is a blow to my pride, but I think he strenghthened her as much as I, in a different way. And when I would go to spar in the armory with Kili, Sigrid would accompany us, so we seemed the perfect threesome. I made so bold as to say it one day, as we wielded metal against each others' bucklers and Sigrid watched from a safe distance. Kili straightened his knees and regarded me with shock.

"How can you say such a thing?" he asked, his eyes round.

I shrugged. "Look about us. It is good."

"You did not say good, you said perfect!" he exclaimed, bringing a blow down upon me. I drew my face close to his.

"You know what Thorin used to say... don't spar with someone who has offended you, or it is more than sparring."

Kili withdrew his blade from mine and regarded Sigrid as if appealing for support. "Can you see what is wrong with this, lass?"

Sigrid smiled and raised her eyebrows. "Three is an uneven number?"

"Precisely." He gestured between us. "Someone here who has some sense."

"It's Tauriel, he thinks that four would be the perfect –"

"Aye, aye, lass, let me do my own talking!" Kili exclaimed. "As she says. Tauriel. Now, wouldn't it be grand if she were here with us?"

"I like her," Sigrid put in, and I was forced to surrender.

"Two against one is hardly fair," I complained, tossing my sword onto the rack and crossing my arms. "She is an _elf_. How can you countenance that?"

"Oh, surely you haven't inherited uncle's idiotic prejudices, have you?" Kili began, looking at me with disgust.

"Indeed not. But there is the very real problem of our race's hatred..."

"-Says the dwarf who married a human," Kili stopped, shooting a glance at Sigrid, "- no offense intended."

"Guilty as charged," Sigrid admitted, lifting her hands smilingly. Kili nodded.

"So? What do you say?"

"About what?" I took him by the ear and drug him to the tall narrow window, forcing him to look out. "You see this? Land. Miles and miles of it."

"She is not so far..." Kili murmured, and I cuffed him, more in play than anything else. "What would you have me say?" I asked. "Give you my permission to marry her or something?"

"You could..." Kili began with a glint in his eye. "I would begone this instant to Mirkwood. I have only been looking for the right moment."

"Foolishness," I murmured. Sigrid spoke up, getting to her feet from the bench where she had been seated and straightening her skirts. I can see her now, wearing the pale garment of unbleached flax, simple, and becoming to one of her stature, with tight-laced sleeves and a colorful border about the hem.

"You two are going to hurt each other one of these days," she began, and I somehow felt like her younger brother, being scolded. It was not an entirely bad thing.

"Oh, you have no idea, daughter of man," I grinned. "Have I told you about the time I pulled Kili's arm out of socket?"

She grimaced. "No."  
"And then pushed it right back in while I screamed," Kili said, his eyes wide.

"Ah! Ah!" I caught him. "You admitted that you screamed! When you told the story to Ori, you omitted that."

Kili scowled. "It isn't _that _hard to impress Ori, Fili."

"True." I released him, and went to embrace Sigrid, preparatory to descend the stairs, but she shrunk back.

"What, lass?" I asked.

"You're sweating." She wrinkled her nose. I chuckled, putting my arm about her waist, and whispering, "You didn't complain last time..."

"I hadn't just had a wash last time," she whispered back.

It seems that Sigrid's watching us in the armory had sparked something in her, a desire to learn weaponry for herself, and I nearly strangled Kili when I discovered the bruise that he had inadvertently caused to appear on her shoulder. Thorin's words still rang in my ears each night, but I did my best to drive them away with thoughts of the moment, and in the heat of passion, it very nearly always worked. But sometimes I could not help but let my disconcerted thoughts show through, and Sigrid was a perceptive one.

"What is it?" she asked me, pushing my hair back from my brow as we lay in each others' arms. "Something troubles you."

"It is nothing," I replied, idly swirling a finger over her fair skin, and knowing that such a response could only invite further inquiry. My guilty conscience somehow seemed to find the prospect inviting.

"What is it? Really?" Her eyes were large, and I could see plainly the fear that I had struck there. I pulled her close for a moment, but then met her eye.

"Thorin. He and I worked together today, before Kili and I met in the armory. He reminds me at every turn of..." I broke off, shaking my head. "Never mind, love, it's not for you to know."

"Fili." Her voice pleaded with me, such a thing I can hardly stand. "Tell me. I won't worry, I promise."

I let out a small laugh. "It's not that easy, lass." I took in a deep breath. "Thorin spoke of you. He spoke well of you. I was shocked to say the least."

"He doesn't think well of me?" Sigrid's voice was small.

"If he does think well of anyone, he rarely says so," I hastened to assure her. "I enquired into his sudden goodwill, and found, as expected, there is a certain motive."

"What motive?" Her voice was lighter than air. I kissed her deeply, and then braced myself to spit out the truth at last. "Thorin seeks to make our alliance strategic. He knows that I will outlive you and hopes that... At least if there is no heir..."

"You can marry again," she finished in a whisper. "Because you will long outlive me. Of course."

She cast her eyes down, looking at the sheets beneath us, and I caught her arm, my hand spanning it so I felt my own fingers as they tightened about it. I could feel the tears filling my eyes but willed them not to fall.

"I will not... countenance such a thing," I managed. "I will never love another as I love you. I feel somehow now that we have such little time remaining..."

"Sixty years, perhaps less," she agreed, strangely calm. As if she knew.

"I can't bear to think on it," I croaked, my voice catching. "Kiss me again, and we shall forget it."

But one can never truly forget, not even in the throes of passion.


	27. Chapter 27

I awakened to the feeling of the bed shifting, and opened one eye. It was a habit from sleeping with a younger brother whom one didn't want escaping during the night, opening one eye. Because if two eyes are opened, one quickly becomes alert and ready to face the day, but if two eyes are closed, one (or at least I) will find themselves irrevocably in the throes of deep slumber. I finally found a truce between the two by opening a single eye and adopted the habit from the day of my discovery forward.

Sigrid wore her loose, shift, and beneath it, her slender back seemed to hunch slightly; her steps wobbled as she betook herself to the bathing room. I could hear the chill scuffle of her bare feet against the dusty stone, and just when I had decided to close my eye and return to slumber, I heard a painful choke, a cough, and the unmistakable sound of someone being ill. I was instantly awake.

"Sigrid?" I called, tossing on my coat against the chill, and forgoing any thought of delicacy by entering the room. She was folded to the floor, a pale, exposed arm resting on the edge of the latrine, her cheek pillowed upon it. She was frightfully pale, and I knelt beside her.

"Are you alright? What is going on?"  
"I don't know, I feel unwell," she murmured. "It's nothing, don't trouble yourself."

"No trouble, lass," I replied in a low voice, daring to peep into the latrine, and seeing only a small amount of pallid vomit, nothing as lurid as I feared, or as we were all sometimes subjected to after one of Bombur's nights of drinking and gorging. He has a terrible way of eating and drinking entirely too much – and you must know this is a great deal, for it is completely possible for a dwarf to eat their weight in food, or drink more ale than there is blood in their body and be considered quite healthy, normal, even – and it is usually Bifur or Bofur who is called upon to deal with it in the morning. Occasionally I was made witness of the disgorgement, and it is no pretty sight. I consider myself inured to the sights and smells of the terrible things in life. Sigrid's vomit was hardly more offensive than a baby's, and that was what had me worried. Bad food was one thing, but genuine illness quite another.

"Perhaps I should send for one of the maids..." I began, but she shook her head, a light sparking in her eyes, but weakness sapping any strength it may have lent before it could travel much further.

"No, don't... I'll be fine, it will pass."

"Eru, I hope so," I murmured. "Are you in pain?"

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

"Are you certain?"

"Fili –" she began wearily. A guilty twinge tugged at my soul.

"Do you wish to be... left alone?"

She looked as if she was preparing to make a response when her body was convulsed and she retched once more, coughing a tiny bit of bile into the basin of the latrine. I was horrified when I saw the discolored puke was tinged with blood.

"Sigrid, are you bleeding?" I demanded, taking her by the shoulder, and turning her to face me.

"I just bit my tongue," she murmured, her head hanging forward nervelessly, and true to her words when I pushed her hair back from her face, a tiny stain of residual red dotted her lip. "I was trying so hard not to be sick."

"Durin's name..." I murmured, rising and crossing the room, pouring a cup of ale for her to wash away the taste of the blood. She shook her head vehemently, though.

"Water?" she asked, and her eyes were pleading.

I sent for a servant and the first dwarrowdam that appeared received a very swift demand for the coldest water to be drawn from our underground springs. She hurried off, no doubt frightened by my brusque manner, but I was in no mood to brook delays. Something was clearly wrong.

When I returned, Sigrid still knelt in the floor, and though my heart went to her, something of Kili's irrepressible bad influence came back to me, and I could not resist saying, as I sat down on the hard flagstones by her side:

"This brings back memories."

She lifted her head, and met my eye, wordlessly encouraging me on.

"It always seems to come back to this, does it not? You... me... a toilet..."

At this, Sigrid laughed quietly, and then stopped, her face pale.

"Are you –"

She shook her head violently, and gritted her teeth. "There is nothing left, but I still feel –"

"Hush, don't talk. One of the maids is bringing water."

She nodded, her eyes closing as she slumped forward again. "Here." I situated myself behind her, and slid my coat from my shoulders, pushing it beneath her. "Sit on this, and lay back." I guided her leaning backwards until she was pillowed against me. "Slightly more comfortable. And if you must be sick again, you haven't far to go."

She relaxed into me, and her voice came wearily to my ears. "I was feeling quite well last night..."

"I know, lass, I only hope you aren't too worn out."

"It was... enjoyable." A smile edged her voice. "But I don't know why now my strength is suddenly gone."

The maid bustled in with the water and looked startled when she sighted Sigrid so pale; worry was in her eyes but something else also as she handed me the water and enquired:

"Is there anything else you need, my lady?"

"No, thank you, Adla."

At this, I looked up. Adla is the wife of Gloin, mother of a young son they call Gimli; I had hardly realized it was she who answered my summons and to whom I had spoken so tersely.

"Adla –" I called her back. "Forgive my manners. I spoke harshly earlier, it was not meant to offend."

She dropped a curtsy. "You were worried, my prince. It happens to us all." Nodding, and smiling now, she went on her way.

After sitting quietly and drinking the water in slow sips, Sigrid began to regain strength. I heard her breathing even – she had been holding herself to shallow, unhealthful breaths for fear of provoking feelings of illness again – and her form change from the fearful strengthlessness to simple relaxation.

"Pity we can't stay here all day," she said at last, taking a deep breath. "It is rather comfortable."

I looked down at the top of her head. "Well, we might consider relocating to somewhere other than the floor by the latrine, if we are going to make this a prolonged –"

She twisted and smiled up at me. "You are so silly sometimes. You are like Bain."

"Am I?" Before she could answer, I made my face sober. "Are you really feeling well?"

"Much better," she admitted. "Though not quite myself yet. Hold me a bit longer, and perhaps I will soon..."

Chuckling, I wrapped my arms about my lass and her hands came to rest on my forearms, and we stayed that way for quite some time before she stirred, and murmured, "Have you an appetite?"

As if on cue, my stomach sent forth a rumble like the thunder. "If I said no, I would look a fearful liar," I said with a grin. "Have you?"

"Aye," she said, a strange look on her face. "Perhaps the illness has gone for good. I am quite hungry, now that I think of it."

We dressed and went in search of Kili and breakfast, society seeming to please Sigrid ever since her family's departure, and nothing further was said of the strange bout of illness. If Sigrid felt the nausea again she did not speak of it, but she was very quiet when we would awake and she was inclined to lie quite still and avoid conversation. It was worrying, but she said she did not wish to send for Oin, and her maids seemed to think her in perfectly fine health, and so I soon put it from my mind


	28. Chapter 28

There was a fountain the deep of the mountain, a basin of the clearest, most perfect water known to Middle-Earth. I discovered it one day when I grew restless and my feet betook me further and further into the heart of the mountain, until the sound of the falls guided me to the secret place. I told no one of it. How could I? When the thoughts that had driven me to wander restlessly were of none other than the daughter of the bowman, and what do I find but a perfect secluded place that made me yearn for her company even more? I vowed to bring her to this place, but work had been such until that point that I had not thought of it until a particular evening not long after, when we were talking quietly. The day had been long, and my feet ached from clambering up and down the scaffolding hour after hour in my iron-toed boots.

"Climbing isn't for dwarves, it's for elves," I had grumbled to Kili, in hopes that his new-found affinity for the race would cause him to offer to replace me, but alas, it did not have the desired effect, and so I kept up my clambering until my legs felt nearly ready to fall off. I did not tell Sigrid this, but I was immeasurably grateful when I came in and fell to a seat in my chair, and she came to me, kneeling, and beginning to undo the many straps that bound my boots to my feet.

"You are a creature too good for this earth," I groaned in appreciation, letting my head fall back, and shutting my eyes. "I am beginning to think that the footwear of your people, or the people of Mirkwood should be adopted if I am going to be sent up and down the scaffolds like a black squirrel."

She suppressed a smile, and I found myself focusing on her face as a tiny line appeared between her brows, her fingers plying the leathern straps and buckles, her face set in concentration.

"There is no logic to this," she murmured, giving a slightly vindictive tug at a narrower piece of lacing, and I chuckled, pulling my boot from her grasp and planting it on the stone floor, leaning forward to kiss the top of her head.

"This is just going to make you angry," I told her, raising my eyebrows, and tugging my foot free from the boot without undoing a single buckle. She made a slight noise in her throat.

"Then why do you –"

"Ornamentation. Once upon a time it may have been functional, but after so many years of living in our boots..." I wiggled my toes comfortably and shrugged, yanking off the other. "I don't properly know, really."

"It's a lot of silliness," she mumbled, blowing irritatedly at a small wave of hair that fell over her forehead.

"Are you... flirting with me, lass?" I asked, leaning forward again, and drawing a hand over my mouth. "Mahal, but I like it."

She colored, but the corners of of her mouth creased; the unmistakable beginnings of a smile. She can be read like an open book. "I could just be irritated at your ruining what was to be a kind service to you," she began.

"Aye, but you're not, are you? You could never be irritated with me. I'm too charming."

"You flatter yourself," she said, her eyes wide, standing to her feet. "And your stockings smell."

"Oho! Insults now! This is getting more fun by the minute," I crowed, getting to my feet, and pursuing her across the room. She seemed to be trying very hard to suppress laughter.

"What are you doing?" she asked, taking in an uneven breath.

"I'm going to get you back for that," I growled, squaring my shoulders and beginning a stealthy-like tread across the flagstones. Durin's beard, but we behaved like such children. It was beautiful.

She shrunk into the corner, giggling like mad as I crept closer, when suddenly she made a dash for the bed, her only way out, and began to try and hastily crawl across it, but her feet tangled in her skirt and I leapt toward her, pinning her to the blankets.

"You cannot escape,"I whispered, pressing kisses to her ear, her neck, her jawbone. She released a tiny sound.

"Fili -"

"Not a word, you are my prisoner."

"Do you always treat your prisoners this well?" she managed, her small hands finding my hair and searching unconsciously through it's tangled mess to find the braids she liked to finger.

"You are a delightful exception, _ukrâduh_," I whispered back, my hands tracing her body, feeling her skin flare with heat through her shift. I divested myself of my outer clothing and we were lost in each other for some time. Lying together, her head pillowed upon my chest, I remembered.

"Come with me," I whispered. "I have an idea."

"What do you mean?" She looked up at me, her brown eyes searching mine. "Now?"

"Yes, now." I took a deep breath and sat up, clambered to my feet and tugging her with me. "There is something I want to show you."

"Fili, we're not dressed..."

"Do you know what hour it is? Everyone is abed, I swear."

"Valar," she murmured, and I simply laughed.

"It is always funny, somehow when I make you swear."

We crept along the blue-black passageways in near silence, my hand pulling Sigrid along through the darkness, down, down, until I paused and made her guess what it was she smelled, what it was we heard.

"Water upon rocks," she breathed, and then I knew there was no fooling a child of the lake. The final bend gave us a full view of the falls, illumined only by the torches which I had taken pains to have lit earlier that evening.

"A waterfall..." she breathed. "What do you do with it?"

A burst out laughing, and said, "See why you have no need of your clothing?"

Her eyes widened slightly, and I released her hand, plunging down into the depths of the water, and then shoving myself back to the surface gasping for air.

"It is delightfully cool," I said, wiping the water from my eyes, and lifting my arms. "Are you coming in, or must I throw you?"

She grinned, and lifted the edge of her shift, tiptoeing down toward the water, and putting in a tentative toe. I grumbled in impatience.

"Can't the lady of the lake swim?"

"Aye, but my shift –"

"You are teasing me with waiting, lass!"

"You are impatient! Valar!" she burst out, flinging herself from the steps into the water. I dove out of the way and she landed with a splash, spluttering to the surface with a squeal.

"It is cold!"

"Doesn't it feel good? Come on." I waded over to her and took her in my arms, and we made our way over to the falls. "Hold your breath," I instructed, and we ducked under, the water pounding our very bones, and seeming to crush us into the very floor of the grotto. Pushing through, we caught our breath in the cavity behind the falls. Everything shimmered with the reflection of light in the pool, a combination of the orange torchlight and the pale aqua of the water shining upon the darkened rocks.

"A secret place," she whispered, clambering from my arms, and looking about us, drenched to the skin, her shift clinging to her, leaving nothing to the imagination, the soft indentation in her back where her spine lay, and when she turned, the curve of her small bosom or the shadow of her navel. I took her in my arms and pressed kisses, hot and hurried to her cold damp skin. We made love there, behind the waterfall, and there we held each other, the cold water lapping about our legs, the roar of the falls drowning out all sounds but the echo of futurity. We did not feel insignificant then, we felt as if the world consisted only of each other, and that somehow, among all the vastness about us, it was still enough.


End file.

Hobbit, Hurt-Comfort, Romance