A/N: Woot! Another prequel to The Thirteenth Dwarf, set after Winter. The boyz are in their teens, roughly. Not quite a standalone, but not quite a novel. We'll call it a short story. Aaaaaand ... we're off.

"The shortest distance between two points is often unbearable." — Charles Bukowski

"But a man, Thorin. Surely there is some other way."

"There is no other way, Balin, you know it as well as I, and I do not see why you are protesting it with such vigor. Who else would you suggest? Dwalin? I would not command this of him, and I do not think there is gold enough in Erebor to tempt him otherwise."

Fili stopped in his tracks just shy of the creaky floorboard that would undoubtedly give his presence away. It was not uncommon for Thorin and Balin to be holding private discussions (most often concerning Fili's progress in his studies — or lamentable lack thereof), but it was not so often that Fili managed to place himself in a suitable position to overhear. This meant he must rely on Kili for knowledge, for Kili had never outgrown his propensity for eavesdropping. Unfortunately, Kili had grown increasingly reluctant in recent months to pass on what he'd heard. Fili thought that was probably his own fault, for having too often nearly let slip to Thorin something he could only have heard from Kili, who should not have been listening in the first place.

Balin was silent for a moment. "No," he said, "I think there is not enough gold in all the mountains for that. Even after all this time, he has not overcome his discomfort."

"Well," Thorin said. "It is settled, then."

There was a long heavy sigh from Balin. "But a man, Thorin."

Thorin grunted. "Yes, a man. And why not? You will happily trade with them in the market, and take their coin as eagerly as any other's."

"It is not taking their coin that bothers me."

Thorin sounded quite exasperated. It gave Fili a start of guilty pleasure to hear that particular tone aimed at someone other than himself. "So you would leave him weaponless then? For that is the only other choice. There is no dwarf in Ered Luin well enough versed in the bow to train him, much less one who would be willing to do so, and I cannot send him away to be tutored elsewhere."

"Strictly speaking," Balin said, sounding quite hesitant, "he need not be trained in a weapon at all."

There was a very long silence. Fili fidgeted. Nothing ever good came of it when Thorin went silent in that particular way. "I respect your counsel," he said, voice very hard and flat, "but as there is no law that forbids the boy to be trained in the use of a weapon, but that he may not use a sword, I shall equip him to defend himself as well as I am able, and the bow is the best for him."

"Aye," Balin said, conceding. "There is no arguing that. Fili is Thror's grandson without a doubt; he will have a great big barrel of a chest when he is full grown, and already he wields two swords more than passably well. But Kili has his sire's build, surely. All arms and legs, it seems. Some days I wonder that he does not trip over himself everywhere he goes."

"He did for quite some time," Thorin said, chuckling. "When he was but 40, and growing so quickly I could hardly keep him in clothing of proper size. But now he is surer of foot than any of us." He sighed. "Perhaps because he dare not risk stumbling into something lest it break. But come. That is settled. For better or worse, Kili shall learn the bow, and I will hear no more complaining from you. Now tell me, what news have you from the East?"

Fili inched backwards step by careful step until he was out of the hallway and back in the parlor. Once there, he banged loudly about a bit, for no other reason than to make it clear that he was doing nothing so dishonorable as sneaking about the hallway eavesdropping. (Because he was far too well-behaved for that, surely!)

The door swung open behind him, and Kili entered from the outside, stripped to the waist and covered in mud. "What are you doing? I could hear you all the way out in the garden. I thought you must have slipped on the rug and broken a bone."

Fili made a rude gesture in Iglishmek, which was not so very satisfying because Kili had never been taught the language, and had only a vague sense of what any of the signs meant. "I'll have you know," he said archly, "I was being loud on purpose."

Kili stared at him blankly for a moment. "Why?" He stayed by the door and began carefully pulling off his muddy boots.

"When I take my boots off in the house," Fili said, eyes narrowed, "you hound me about getting mud all over the floor."

"That is because I am the one who will have to clean it," Kili said, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world. "I do not mind it half so much when it is my own mud. Why were you being loud on purpose?"

"Oh," Fili said. "So Thorin will know I am here." At Kili's blank look he added, "And then he will know I am not in the hall listening to him speak with Mr. Balin."

"Are they despairing of your maths again?" Kili asked. "Or your history?"

"They were talking about you, as it happens."

Kili went very still, one hand on his left boot, the other braced against the wall. "Why were they — what did they say?"

"I am not so sure I should tell you."

Kili did not respond to this but to frown a little and then start to work off his other boot. Fili frowned had been a time when Kili would not have failed to rise to the bait, but it grew more and more difficult to tempt him, since ... well, since Fili had been left that once as shemor, probably. Of course Kili swore he did not blame Fili for what had happened, or resent him or feel at all differently about him in any way whatsoever, but Fili no longer trusted that Kili was not simply saying exactly what is was he thought Fili most wanted to hear.

"Thorin is going to hire you a tutor to instruct you in the bow," Fili said with a sigh when Kili stayed silent.

Kili looked up sharply, startled. "He ... but there is no one who would consent to teach me a weapon."

"No dwarves," Fili agreed. "Not in Ered Luin." Of course there were many dwarves elsewhere in the Blue Hills who were not so fastidious in their adherence to the old ways, and Fili was sure one could be found who was eager enough for coin and careless enough in observance to risk taking on a khazd khuv, but Thorin would never hire such a one as that, even for Kili. And making a trip to the Iron Hills — where there were reputedly entire corps of archers, most of whom probably wouldn't care if Kili was a khazd khuv — was equally out of the Thorin spoke fondly of his cousin Dáin, he refused without explanation to entertain any suggestion of visiting the Eastern kingdom. This was an endless source of irritation Fili, who would have liked to meet his father's kin, but he had long since given up arguing it. "Thorin is going to hire a man."

Kili stared at him. "A man?"

"Aye," Fili said cheerfully. "Maybe a hunter, or a ranger! I am told some of them are quite skilled. You cannot be left defenseless, you know. I have told him this many times."

Kili had finished removing his boots and was now working on shimmying out of his filthy, mud-encrusted trousers. "I hope," Fili said, "that you are not going to leave those here. They smell of pig."

"I'm going to wash them," Kili said. "And then later I shall sew them up. The seam is starting to split."

"Oh, good," Fili said. "My green coat needs a button on while you're at it. I wonder if your tutor will come to the house! That should be quite strange, don't you think? To have a man here. Where would he sit? We shall have to buy a special chair. "

"He could sit on the couch," Kili said. He padded across the room holding his stinking trousers away from his body, which was funny because his entire upper body was covered in the same smelly mud, but Fili was considerate enough not to point that out. "Men are not so much bigger than we are. Though," and here he looked dubiously at the ceiling, "he might have to duck to avoid the rafters."

Fili followed Kili into the back room, where Kili dunked his trousers in a basin of water and began to wring them out. "What are men like?" he asked. "I have never met one, only seen them from a distance. Thorin will never let me get too close. Are they very different to dwarves?"

Kili shrugged. "I don't know very many dwarves to compare them to. They are not much like you or Thorin, at least." He wrinkled his nose at the water in the tub, which was already filthy. "They are nice enough, I suppose, though I have mostly seen them in taverns, and then they are drunk, and Thorin tells me I cannot judge them on that. They take their drink poorly, he says. Or we see them in the markets, bargaining. They seem quite cunning then. Thorin says they are ever trying to cheat him, though he knows to expect it and so he raises his prices. I have met some of their maidens. They have no beards at all."

Fili stared at him. "Lasses then, surely."

"I don't think so," Kili said, though he did not sound entirely convinced of this. "Thorin said they were full grown and I should be wary. Sometimes they will give me sweets."

"Sweets!" Fili was positively gleeful. "They seek to tempt your virtue."

Kili made a face. "I am of a size with their youths. They think I am just a child."

"You are hardly more than one," Fili said, just to tease, though Kili was in fact almost of age and already coming into the more solid musculature that would he would carry as an adult. "I'll bet they think you are cute."

Kili grunted and scowled down at the tub full of muddy water, but did not challenge Fili's assessment. "I need to change this out."

"You need," Fili said, "to put some clothing on. You cannot go to the well in just your small clothes."

Kili looked down at himself doubtfully. He was rather spectacularly coated with mud. "I will only get my other trousers filthy, and then I will have nothing to wear."

"Then bathe first."

Kili scowled. "I shall need to bathe later. "

"Yes, two baths in one day. It is a true tragedy." Kili had yet to outgrow his aversion to bathing, though it had at least lessened over time (to Fili's dismay, since it meant one less thing with which he could routinely torment Kili). "You cannot go outside like that. You are no little dwarfling anymore to prance about unclothed. What if someone were to see you? They should think Thorin is not minding you properly."

Kili twisted his mouth, then heaved a sigh in resignation. "Very well, then," he said, and tromped off gloomily to the washroom. It being the middle of the day, there was no water warming, so it promised to be a cold bath. Kili stared at the tub with antipathy before resolutely shrugging out of his small clothes and lowering himself into the tub. His body jerked as he hit the water, and he shuddered once all over before gritting his teeth and picking up the washcloth.

Fili hopped up on the counter, swinging his legs.

"Don't you have some scroll you should be studying?" Kili asked, just the slightest touch of irritation in his tone — all he would ever allow himself, but more than nothing, and immensely satisfying for that.

"No," Fili said. "We have just finished the Second Age and Balin has not brought the scrolls for the start of the Third."

Kili scrubbed at his left arm, which was all over brown. "I feel like I am made of dirt, not stone," he sighed. "What happened in the Second Age? Was that when they woke the Balrog?"

Fili thought for a moment. "I don't think so. There were some wars, of course. Oh! I think mithril was discovered in Moria."

"You think? Haven't you been studying this for weeks now?"

"I have perfected the art of sleeping with my eyes open," Fili said. "Balin does drone on so."

"I think he is a good storyteller," Kili said, sounding a little offended.

"That is only because your experience is so limited," Fili said. "Between Thorin and Balin, Balin is the clear winner, but that is not much of a contest." He swung his feet a back and forth, heels banging into the heavy wooden counter frame. "Your beard is coming in, you know. I thought it might be dirt but it is not coming off in the water."

"I know," Kili said. "Thorin told me I am to start shaving soon. He is going to make me a special blade for it so I do not cut myself."

Fili hummed a bit. His own beard was coming in too, but so lightly that it was hardly visible at all. "It seems a shame," he said. "You are the hairiest dwarfling I know. You could grow the best beard of any of us, I imagine."

Kili shrugged. He was scrubbing his other arm now and looked very strange, one arm pale and pink and the other coated dark brown. "Perhaps I shall, one day."

One day, one day ... Fili was quite tired of hearing all the things Kili would do one day. "Well, I think it's a stupid law," he stated boldly. "Who cares if you have a beard or not? Or for that matter, beads in your hair?"

"In olden days, they used to pierce the ears of any khazd khuv. Fregrid told me so once."

Fili stopped kicking. He missed Fregrid. Since she had left, the cooks had gotten worse and worse. The latest was unpleasant in manner and often burned the meat. Fili rather loathed him and suspected the feeling was entirely mutual. "You would look quite peculiar with an earring."

"And they would be branded on the wrist," Kili said. He looked at his own wrists speculatively. "I imagine it was very painful. I think having to shave is not so terrible in comparison."

"No," Fili said. "Probably not, though it does seem a lot of bother, even just to keep it short. Thorin is forever having to trim his to keep it neat enough. I think I shall just let mine grow and grow until it reaches the floor, and you shall have to braid it for me so I do not trip over it." He paused and looked at the filthy bath water. "Perhaps you should not have taken a bath after all. You will have to clean out the tub before anyone else can use it."

Kili shrugged as he stepped out of the bath and plucked a towel from the pile. "I should have had to scrub it tomorrow anyway. It is Thursday."

"Yes, but that would have been tomorrow. Now you shall have to clean the tub, refill it, refill the laundry basin and finish cleaning your trousers, and after all that you still shall have to mop the floors."

"And sew a button on your green coat," Kili said blithely. He padded damply to his bedroom. Fili waited outside, for there was hardly enough space in Kili's room for Kili, much less for anyone else. Fili thought perhaps the room had been meant as a storage closet, or a pantry — certainly no one could have intended it for a bedroom, except perhaps for a nursery, and even then it would have been snug. Still, Fili didn't think Kili minded it, for when he was in his room, no one could come in and bother him. There was not space enough for anyone else to fit.

"I do not see how you will get even half of that done before bed," Fili said, leaning against the door frame. "How much water does it take to fill the tub?"

"About 15 buckets to fill it all the way," Kili said. "It is not so bad as you would think. It takes less than half an hour if I work quickly."

"Half an hour!" Fili was astonished. "For every bath?"

"Thorin does not use a full bath," Kili said, "nor do I, usually, so it takes even less time than that."

"Well," Fili said, "it still seems to me that you shall be working for hours yet tonight."

"Undoubtedly. But there shall be no one here to distract me, so it should go quickly." Kili had pulled on his second pair of trousers and an old shirt of Fili's (which was a little too short in the waist and a little too broad in the shoulders) and headed to the back room to begin emptying out the wash basin, careful to spill no water on himself now that he was dry and clean.

"Why shall there be no one here to distract you?" Fili asked.

Kili shot him a very exasperated look. "It is Kings' Day. You cannot have forgotten."

Fili groaned. He had in fact forgotten, or more likely driven it purposefully from his mind.

"Come now," Kili said, looking unduly amused. "It is a feast day. It cannot be so terrible as all that."

"The feast part of it is tolerable," Fili admitted, slumped back against the bench that held all the sundry laundry supplies (of which there were quite a lot, though Fili had no idea what most of them were for). "But they have special ceremonial dishes that I do not especially care for, and wine that must be a thousand years old, that Óin and Glóin dole out as if it is some kind of treasure, when really it is horribly sour and makes me cough. Before the feast starts there are endless speeches, and they are the same every year, and as Thorin's heir I must sit and look terribly interested though it is so dull I think I would prefer cleaning the cesspit."

"You only say that," Kili said, "because you have never cleaned the cesspit."

The feast was every bit as bad as Fili had feared. Worse, perhaps, for now that he had detailed to Kili all the very many reasons he would be quite miserable, there was no chance that he should be anything but miserable. He could not even sit with his friends: he had to sit at the high table with Thorin and Balin and Dwalin and Óin and Glóin, all the while Albed and Bergin and Bergin's younger sister Kethi were making faces at Glóin poured him an especially big goblet of the horrible wine and he had to drink every drop, so that he felt quite sick to his stomach afterwards. The only part of the feast he truly enjoyed was the dessert (and that less so than usual, on account of the wine), and even that was not sufficient to make up for the tedious hours that preceded its arrival.

Thorin was uncharacteristically giddy on the way home which was no balm to Fili's sour mood. Quite the opposite in fact, as Thorin's glee seemed to increase in inverse proportion to Fili's discontent. "A whole goblet of that terrible wine," he chortled. "I made a wager with Dwalin that you would drink it all. He was certain you would manage to spill it accidentally, but I knew you would be stubborn enough to swallow the full cup."

"Terrible wine ... " Fili said, aghast. His stomach roiled unpleasantly. "You mean you do not like it either?"

Thorin let out a very undignified guffaw. "It is the most loathsome concoction I have ever had the misfortune to taste. Thrór's bane, we called it, when I was young."

Fili stared at him in betrayal. "But then why do you let Glóin serve it?"

"I should like to see you talk him out of it! He has been foisting that potion on us for decades, and his father before first year everyone was quite sure Gróin was trying to poison us, but no one has died of it yet, so perhaps not. Óin assures me that there are only a few dozen casks remaining, so perhaps in a decade or so we will be done." He chuckled at Fili's expression and cuffed him on the ear. "You are lucky in comparison. I have been choking it down since I was a dwarfling."

"As have I!" Fili said indignantly.

"Ah, but I am far older than you. Your mother and Uncle Frerin thought it great sport to empty their goblets into mine when Thráin wasn't looking. I suppose he must have known all along what was happening, but if I would not complain, he would not punish them."

Fili tried to imagine that, with very limited success. He had trouble imagining Thorin as a dwarfling, much less a dwarfling with bothersome younger siblings. "Were they very pesty, then?" he asked, hoping that Thorin's good mood and loosened tongue would get him an answer; generally, Thorin never spoke of his family at all, and Fili had only the vaguest conception of what his mother and uncle had been like, but that they were both of dark hair and light eyes, like Thorin himself.

"Mmmm," Thorin said. "Yes, at times, your mother in particular. She was quite spoiled, in truth; the first daughter of Thrór's line, and not afraid to use that to her every advantage. Frerin and I fared poorly in comparison."

"But," Fili asked carefully, eager to hear whatever Thorin would tell him, but not wanting to push too hard, "did you not resent her for it?"

"Resent her?" Thorin looked quite taken aback at the idea. "No, I spoiled her worse than anyone, I think. I had never expected to have a sister, and was delighted with her." He frowned then, sad for a moment, but in the next instant shook his head as if to clear away the thoughts altogether. "But let us not talk of ghosts on a feast night! I am sure Dís and Frerin are stuffing themselves sick in the Halls, none of Gróin's horrid wine in sight. What did you think of Dwalin's demonstration with the axes?"

That had been quite thrilling, as Fili had been sure at one point that Dwalin was about to lose an ear. He was happy to recount it in detail (as though Thorin had not been there watching for himself, but Thorin seemed perfectly content to listen), and it was a nice change to have Thorin's attention firmly centered on him for the rest of the walk home.

There were no lights on in any of the windows, and the house was quite dark but for the soft glow of the fire seeping out of the cracks in the door and through the parlor curtains. Kili was hunched by the fireplace, poring over something in his hands, though he put it aside quickly when they came in and hurried over to help Thorin with his coat.

"You needn't have stayed up, nidoy," Thorin said, shrugging out of the sleeves one by one.

"Oh," Kili said, as he hung the coat neatly on its hook by the door. "The house was very quiet. I did not want to go to sleep."

Thorin chuffed a soft laugh. "Well, we are home now, but I hope the house will be quiet again soon enough. I brought you back a bit of the meat pie I did not finish. You can have it with your breakfast tomorrow."

Kili nodded, surprised. "Thank you, shemor. That will be a treat."

"I hope you will enjoy it," Thorin responded. "Now to bed with both of you. The sun will rise just as early tomorrow as it ever does, no matter that we are up so late tonight."

"I will just bank the fire," Kili said. "Happy Kings' Day, shemor."

"Happy Kings' Day," Thorin said. Then he nodded to Fili, and headed down the hall to his room.

Fili waited until Thorin had gone before he knelt down to pick up the book Kili had dropped. Thorin may have thought Kili was reluctant to go to sleep in an empty house, but Fili knew better. Kili must certainly have been up to some mischief, though what kind of mischief there could have been in reading a book, he was not sure. Fili had never found any sort of mischief in any book. Then he saw what it was Kili had been reading and his jaw dropped. "This is my maths book," he said, rather incredulously. "We have been gone all evening. You must have finished your chores at least two hours ago. Have you been doing maths all that time?"

"Yes," Kili said. He did not look away from the coals, but his expression was a little guilty. "I found the book in the classroom while I was sweeping. It is very old. You have not been using it."

"I don't mind that you've taken it," Fili said. "I just am finding it difficult to imagine any possible reason you should be studying maths."

"It is interesting," Kili said. He did look at Fili then, a touch of defensiveness in the creases of his forehead. "Why shouldn't I want to learn it?"

"Well," Fili said, a bit confounded at this characterization of maths as interesting, as if there could be any possible enjoyment to be gleaned from adding and subtracting columns of numbers. It was an entirely ludicrous thought. "Because it's maths. You should consider yourself lucky to be spared it. I wish I did not have to study it."

Kili frowned a bit. "I suppose when you are king you will have people to do your sums for you, so perhaps you do not really need it."

"Nor do you," Fili said, very sensibly he thought. "What possible use could it be to you when sweeping the floors or doing the laundry?"

Kili was silent for a moment, and then another, and then yet another, for so long Fili began to fear Kili had truly been offended. This was hard to do but not impossible. "One day," Kili said — Fili grimaced — "I shall not be sweeping floors or doing laundry. I shall have to make my own way. I must at least be able to keep track of my own money, or I shall be cheated out of all of it. I have seen it happen." He poked rather viciously at the coals.

"But-" Fili began, and then stopped, flummoxed. This was something he had never really considered, that when Kili's sentence ended, he would leave the household. Of course on reflection it made perfect sense, why would he stay, when he would have spent his entire life tethered to Thorin's side? In fact, he would probably leave Ered Luin entirely, for why would he want to live among people who mistrusted and feared him? Fili did not consider himself the brightest gem in the mine, but he understood well enough that the suspicion and stigma that surrounded Kili would not magically disappear the day his sentence was complete. "Well," he said lamely, "I suppose it will not hurt you to know it." He flipped through the pages. They were filled with his own messy handwriting. "But all the answers have been written in already."

Kili shrugged. "I do not mind. I do not entirely understand all of it. I try to work the answer in my head, and then I look at yours to see if I got it right."

Fili stared at him. "You should not use my answers to check if you have done the problems correctly! If I got more than half of them right, I should be astonished."

Kili stared down at the book, forehead wrinkled. "It is better than having no answers, surely? If half of them are right?"

"No," Fili said, horrified. "I was but a young dwarfling when I did these, and I did not care if I got them right or wrong, so long as I did them quickly. I might even have done some of them wrong on purpose, if I thought I might be able to convince Balin to give up on teaching me maths altogether." He was struck with a vision, quite clear and vivid, of Kili as an adult (with a very handsome beard) trading in the market and losing all his money because he thought 74 minus 28 was 36, as Fili had written right on the very page Kili had marked. "No," he said again, and hugged the book to his chest. "You cannot learn maths from my old books!"

"There are no other books for it," Kili sighed, looking resigned. "But if you really do not want me to do it, I shall not. I suppose it does not much matter. I have very little time to study anyway, with all the outside chores to do. "

"It is not that I don't want you to do it," Fili said. "I do not care if you stay up half the night studying maths by candlelight, if that is what you want to do. But you should not do it from my old books, for all that will happen is you will learn it wrong, and that is worse than knowing no maths at all." He thought for a moment. "I shall ask Balin for new books," he said. "If he does not die from the shock of it, I am sure he will be happy to get me some. I will tell him ... I will tell him I wish to study the basics again, so that I may be better prepared for the advanced topics." He paused. "I am supposed to be studying percentages, but I do not really understand them. I think it is turning Balin's beard grey."

"His beard is already grey," Kili said. "It has been grey for as long as I have known him."

"More grey, then," Fili said. "Those coals are well covered. Place the screen back and go to bed. You missed the worst King's Day feast ever. Next year I think I shall stay home with you and we can study maths together."

"It must have been truly horrible, if schoolwork seems the better alternative," Kili said, following Fili down the hall that led to both their rooms. "If Kings' Day feasts are so unpleasant, why does the town host them every year?"

"Apparently," Fili said darkly, "it is to foist off upon us some of the worst wine to ever have been fermented. Next year I shall make sure to bring some back for you."

"If it's all the same," Kili said, "I think I should prefer the meat pie."

A/N: I must say these are much more fun to write than I imagined they would be, freed from the constraints of following a story someone else has already written. Though of course I know where I need to end up. :)

All comments and reviews are deeply appreciated, even if my reply is horribly late.

Thanks as always to SapphireMusings for the speedy and excellent beta.

P.S. As I told Sapphire, if I were any kind of artist (sadly, I am not), I would draw young Kili covered with mud, leaning against the wall, taking off his boot, while Fili sits there and doesn't lift a single finger to help. Because he totally wouldn't.