JMJ

ORI'S PAPERS

The day had come. Everything was in order. Supplies, food for the journey, maps, ponies, and plenty of picks, axes and weapons.

Looking out over the balcony for the last time Balin faced out to the West, the direction of the Misty Mountains and the Mines of Moria. The cool breeze enticed him with a beckoning hand. The clouds pulling back to a reveal a clear sky seemed as good an omen as one could ask for.

Today was going to be a great day.

Balin recalled for a moment Thorin Oakenshield, and a smile formed on his face.

Would he have given his blessing on this expedition anymore than Dain had? In truth it was difficult to tell. It would not have been his heart and soul in the same way Erebor had been even if it was the birthplace of the great clan of Durin himself. It belonged to them even more than Erebor as far as Balin felt concerned, their Khazad-dûm. Certainly Thorin would have agreed.

With a solemn nod of his head in respectful remembrance of the dead he gave a resolute turn off the balcony. Balin headed back inside to make his way to the grand doors of Erebor where the rest of his company waited for him as well as a few well-wishers eager to see the Dwarf expansion and the grim foreboders wishing to see their relatives and friends for what they thought may be the last time. These latter followed the word of Dain, for Dain believed the mission doomed to failure.

Balin knew otherwise.

He held it not against anyone for doubting the mission to recolonize the ancient mines. Balin was not without decency, and in fact he held a certain amount of empathy, which could be said to be a tad uncommon for the usual Dwarf, especially in the minds of stereotype makers. With respect for his fellows he treated none with disdain for not coming, though Dain's constant raking on him did test this geniality of Balin's, and his brother Dwalin's dour silence proved worse to contend with. For his cousin Gloin, Balin denied the eagerness of the quite young Gimli who had also requested to come. He might have denied Gloin's son even if Gloin himself had decided to come, for the lad was still more child than anything. As it was had Gimli been older, he would not have admitted him into the company for Gloin's sake, for Gloin, though he did not outright disbelieve that Balin would be successful, felt uneasy about the whole business. It would not have been well to allow a child of his to come if only for friendship and family's sake.

Gimli's eagerness had touched him nonetheless. The boy was very fond of him and held a respect for Balin that struck that cord of empathy and heart as much as his own son had he had one. He could only promise the lad that he and his father would be the first invited once Khazad-dûm had been returned to glory, and that Balin himself would show him the start of the reopened mines and glories of mithril.

The corridors were still mostly dark for dawn had not quite arisen, though most the mountain was already awake because of the start of the expedition. Dain may still have surprised him, regardless for it seemed that he had been waiting for Balin to leave the balcony like a statue hidden on the other side of the archway inside in order that he could catch the head of the mission to Khazad-dûmone last time before he left.

"Balin."

Balin stopped and looked. His surprise soon gave way to a smile, and though he gave a bow of his head, there was a touch of cockiness in that smile, for he knew precisely what Dain wanted with him.

"It is a little late, I'm afraid," Balin said with a candid shrug upon lifting his head. "It can't be stopped now. Minds have been made up long ago, and you know full well that they won't be changed at the point of our embarking. We're all as good as gone."

"Aye, exactly my point," grumbled Dain, and he stepped with a severe authority.

"Although you would have that to mean as good as dead, I suppose," said Balin still not in the least perturbed.

"Listen to me," said Dain. "That place is cursed. You won't reclaim it as you and the rest of Thorin's company reclaimed Erebor."

"We've been over this many times before," Balin reminded him with all due respect.

"Believe me," said Dain who seemed not to have heard, save that his voice which always held a gruff edge, sounded all the coarser now with his frustration at what he felt idiocy for someone who should know better. "If you go to Moria you will never return. Your name will be sung only in lamentation and ballads of ill omen and will be remembered as a bane, a name cursed. An evil lurks there, a black death, whatever you wish to call it!"

"Pfft, fireside tales," said Balin lightly, banishing the heavy mood created by Dain with a careless wave of his hand. "I will send word back as the new lord of Khazad-dûm once we have all back in our possession," Balin assured Dain with a last bow of his head. "Farewell." And patting his shoulder, he left with a spring in his step notwithstanding his age and a carelessness, Dain thought, as a child's.

"You'll regret this, Balin son of Fundin," Dain called after him. "You'll bring them all to doom!"

No wink of an eyelid did Balin give, and he certainly did not look back nor change the pace in his step. He made for the stairs just as before and left Dain to fume in his pessimistic thoughts.

Nothing would stand in Balin's way. Such was the determination of every Dwarf once his mind has been made up, and Balin would be no exception to this rule.

"Today," Balin told himself just before he reached the throng at the doorstep of Erebor, "is going to be a great day."

ONE

Enveloping the wood a grey fog held all in ominous silence and clouded all to match the uncertainty which stabbed my mind just then. I stopped as if struck under a sudden spell or snapped out of one with the clap of hands. The road, which just moments before I had not given too much thought of other than taking it now did not look so welcoming.

Packed, ready, back straight, hood aligned for good view while still providing shelter against the northern chill left over from winter, I had started off in rather straight forward spirits, straighter forward than I had possessed for some time. Yet a fear now took hold of me.

I had thought from time to time of heading toward the Shire to see Bilbo. I wanted a friendly visit. I had thought up a lie about just passing through to the Blue Mountains after a rough time to the north, and that I had decided to check up on my old companion from that Quest for Erebor. I had never shown much interest before in visiting the Hobbit, not that Bilbo would know much about that other than by the fact that I never came, but then again only Balin had. And that was just it, wasn't it? Balin had been the friend of Bilbo's; he had always been fond of the Hobbit. Could I simply just sit down to a hearty and merry lunch with Bilbo while all the time in the back of my mind I knew full well what had befallen Balin? I had helped to bury him.

I had assisted in marking his tomb before what was left of us were lost in our own tomb still alive, though just barely as we waited for the end. I could feel the quaking in my hand as I wrote down those final words just as I felt the pounding, pounding, pounding in my ears, in my chest, in my head like the counting down of heart beats—

I couldn't. I knew I couldn't.

I squeezed my eyes shut in a failed attempt to stop my mind from venturing too far back to that misery or too far forward to what I would face if I went to Bilbo's house. I opened my eyes again a mere second afterward and promptly turned around right back for the gate much to the confusion of the gatekeeper of Bree.

"Did you forget something, Mr. Dwarf?" he asked in a way meant to hide his suspicion or maybe his amusement.

I did not answer with a word but looked at him, and I cannot say the sort of look I gave him. His eyes widened and he shrugged, turning his head away as though I had threatened to clobber him if he spoke any more about it.

I was rarely bothered in Bree. No one would bother about anyone in Bree if one kept to himself and did not act suspicious, though that one incident had been a tad odd. I was a shadow, a memory. To the Men that lived there I was nothing at all and to the Dwarves who may or may not have lingered there from time to time, sometimes for quite some time, I should say, I was a stranger; though I made certain to make myself thus. I had no desire to speak with my race. I had no desire to have to speak of what had happened to anyone.

Often had I looked over the gates of Bree, sometimes to the West but more often to the East. It hurt more to look forward than to look back, for often I thought of moving on. I don't know what I sought in that direction if ever I did anything at all. Sometimes, as I said, I thought of going into the Shire to see Bilbo, but I think I just wanted to escape. To go beyond, to that land of my childhood memories caused a rage to even consider such reminiscing as a means of escape. There would be nothing for me there. In the end I would always turn East. I sat with a pipe and watched the sky, glared out over the rocks and hills and thought what lay beyond them.

I did not have to be alone. I could have gone home to Erebor. I still had relations, Dori and Nori. My mother was alive and well; I had no doubt about that, but I could not bring myself to go back however often I looked. Facing them would have been far harder than facing our X-burglar especially as the months rolled into years. "Why didn't you come back right away?" they would demand. I could picture Dori especially disapproving. He had been disapproving about the whole situation last I saw him, but it was not even that which bothered me the most and hindered my going back. They were my family. In the end they would be happy that I was not dead

And that was it.

I think that in some ways I blamed myself for living. How could I have survived the madness that lay within the bowels of that cursed place? And how could I go to Erebor to announce the terrible news? That only I survived out of the entire colony that so proudly set out to reclaim Khazad-dûm as resolutely as we had Erebor.

I could often recall the warnings of Dain, now King under the Mountain.

"If every Dwarf in the West were to charge upon the cursed remains of that settlement, we would not get it back unless something were to change in this world, which I can't see in the least how it could anytime soon," Dain growled. "And how often I have to say it makes me almost wish good riddance to anyone who dares!"

Balin only smiled quite patient but not in the least bit moved as he replied with far more finesse than the larger, gruffer, stronger Dain, "The world in of itself may not have changed. May it remain as it always has, sun, moon, stars, sea, and land as far it desires," he cleared his throat and then went on, "but I know our sources must not lie when they say that Khazad-dûm is near abandoned. The world may not have changed, but it does often shift in favor over time. You and I have both been around long enough to know that. How can we give up this chance to fortify what is rightfully ours before something else fills in again as I know in this world it shall?"

"Fortify it," grumbled Dain. "Fortify it." He muttered this once or twice more before he said, "You're a fool, Balin, and so is everyone else thick enough to go with you!"

"And yet so did you think about the dragon and our Quest for Erebor."

That had not been said with quite the same courteousness as had the previous speech, and Dain was not at all pleased to hear it.

The rest of us held our breaths and waited with all eyes wide upon Dain.

"Who slayed the dragon?" demanded Dain after a simmering pause.

"Not you," remarked Balin.

"As far as I'm aware, not you either," Dain said crossing his arms over his broad chest. "In fact, not any of your company, unless you count your little Fourteenth's help in the matter before Bard did away with that terrible beast."

"In other words," said Balin lightly, "you're discrediting the merit of your own kind, is that what I'm to understand?"

Oh, he could be cheeky when he wanted to be. Few others would have dared to speak to the King under the Mountain like that. With that remark, that certainly quelled any doubts the rest of us might have had in Balin's grand scheme and agreeing with Dain's precautions instead. After all that was quite a dangerous phrase put forth. If we had little merit in the events of old Smaug's death to whom did it belong? Hobbits? Men? Birds? At least we all had the satisfaction to know that Elves had been completely out of the matter until after the slaying of the dragon, and in fact had only been a hindrance beforehand capturing us like common criminal as they had, misunderstandings or no. We all knew who the cowards really were, didn't we? But still! Our doubts may have been quelled but our pride swelled to its limit!

Dain had nothing further to say. He knew he had been cornered and any other angle he may take would end in a further checkmate for Balin only. He turned away in a huff.

"That wasn't exactly necessary," murmured Oin to Balin under his beard; though he had been affected just as much as the rest of us.

He winced a tad and adjusted his horn, but no one gave him answer.

We watched as Dain disappeared, slamming a door behind him. He took no further steps to dissuade us anymore afterward. He spoke not a word to any one of us that I know of save for a single word of parting when we left, and it had not been in the brightest spirits.

"He is cautious," said Balin to Dain's credit, for in the end Balin did respect Dain well enough.

This was the night before we left on our journey, and Balin would not abide anyone chiding Dain behind his back as Frar and Floi in our company had been close to doing just before he interrupted.

"It does him well as leader and no other alive now could lead us better at this time. May he rule long and well! But there comes a time when caution must be thrown aside for the better of us all."

The rest of us agreed.

"The time has come upon us," said Oin.

"Time to set out and take it all back," said the others, "Think of our pride and our dignity."

"Think of mithril!" this was Floi.

"Not all that glitters is gold; mithril does as well and then some," said Nali.

We all had a kick out of that one.

"Durin's Folk'll never lose it again!" Our fervor grew all the more intense. "Never!" "We'll get it back, no question!"

"Just like we did Erebor!" I shouted, trying to block out my annoyance of Dori's last attempt to baby me into submission and to force me to remain with him and the others who remained on Dain's side. Even Nori had been on his side. I would not be babied, not anymore than I had been way back on my first adventure. I proved myself then and I was no more than a lad then. I would prove myself again. My very core of being was bent upon it, and I felt the gloriousness of pride and honor burst out of me then. "We'll show them all what Dwarves are made of!" Which meant, of course, at least half-wise, just what I was made of.

And I felt quite pleased with myself at the far louder roar of agreement than with Nali's agreeable remark. At the clanking of hefty mugs foaming at the brim we drank to our future success …