A/N: This is for mille libri, who is a wonderful and kind reviewer of my fics, and a beautiful writer herself. Her story "Starlight" inspired this, by making mention of the possibility of Fili also having a runestone. I hope you enjoy it! =)

Sometimes, he wondered if the runestone meant anything to Kili.

Of course, the promise did—Kili was flighty and naïve and hotheaded, but if anyone's word held staying power, it was Mother's.

Even more than Thorin's, and wasn't that befitting of a second son.

Kili was always flipping the talisman between nimble, restless fingers, always dropping it and catching it and coming dangerously close to losing it.

"Don't you dare," Fili told him grimly one day, when the stone had nearly met its fate in the depths of a swirling river.

Kili elbowed him. "Have you so little faith in me, brother?"

Faith. And perhaps that was what should be carved on Fili's stone, the one that he kept in the inside pocket of his tunic, warm against his heart. Fili didn't need to be told to make promises.

He was a promise. A promise to home and mother and father's memory, to brother and country and people and king.

But he had a stone too, because Dis was just in her gifts, and because—because—

Gamil, said the runes on the stone. His father's name. Not the true, secret dwarvish name—that was never written—but the name Mother used to say, amid her laughter. A name that meant warmth and safety, the simple comforts of home—a name that was buried in bitter earth on a cold spring day.

"Don't leave him behind," Mother had said, so low that Uncle Thorin could not hear, and Fili had smiled more with lips than eyes, to tell her that he understood.

It had hurt. It always hurt, when he must remember—must know—that there were secrets among them, that there was a part of home and family that Uncle Thorin was not fighting for.

Kili's runestone was a reminder. Fili's was a prayer—that he could be all to all, that he could lead and love, reclaim and remember.

"Someday," his mother had said, while he pretended not to see the tears in her eyes, "Someday you will be king, and you will understand."

The stone lay heavy on his heart, but he would not lose it for the world.