Pippin stopped singing when he noticed Gandalf staring at he and Merry. The wizard looked like he had seen a ghost.
"Come on, Pip!" Merry's annoyed whisper brought Pippin back to the present. He picked up where he had left off in the song, making a mental note to ask Gandalf about the incident later.
Gandalf sighed wearily. Whenever he looked at the two rambunctious hobbits, all he could see was two young dwarves he had once known. Fili and Kili, the last of Durin's line. It had been many years since they had fallen in the Battle of Five Armies, but Gandalf had never forgiven himself. He had led those two innocent brothers on the Quest that had claimed their lives.
"What's wrong, Gandalf? Earlier you looked like you'd seen something strange, and now you're being very quiet." Gandalf harrumphed. Peregrin Took may have been a fool, but he was also unusually insightful when it came to human nature.
"You and Merry just reminded me of someone I knew once. But you don't want to hear an old wizard's stories, surely."
Merry wandered over at that point, lured by the promise of another of Gandalf's tales. "We most certainly do want to hear it, don't we, Pip?" Pippin nodded vigorously in agreement. Gandalf sighed again.
"Very well, but I warn you, it is not a happy tale. You see, this is not the first Quest I have led. Oh there have been many, but one I remember very clearly. You may have heard tales of Erebor, and of the adventure Bilbo Baggins undertook to help Thorin Oakenshield reclaim it. Well on that Quest there were two young dwarves, very much like you two. Fili and Kili were their names. They were Thorin's nephews, and Fili, the eldest, was his heir. Now I'm certain you've heard stories of the battle that raged after the fearsome dragon Smaug was defeated. The Battle of Five Armies, they call it now. In that battle, Thorin Oakenshield was wounded by his oldest enemy, Azog the Defiler. An Orc. Fili and Kili rushed to their uncle's defense, and protected him until Beorn came to carry him away. However, all the orcs wanted to kill Thorin, so Fili and Kili were vastly outnumbered. I was too late. I couldn't save them. By the time Balin found them after the battle was over, they were both gone. I've told their story many times, but not in recent years. You two are so much like them. What if I fail you like I failed them?" Gandalf fell silent, resting his head in his hands to hide his tears.
The two young hobbits wrapped their arms around Gandalf, tears filling their eyes as well. "We'll be all right, Gandalf. We promise."
Gandalf sat up and composed himself. "You hobbits never cease to amaze me. I shall see that no harm comes to you. Not this time. I've lost enough friends." Gandalf smiled sadly at Merry and Pippin, who smiled brightly back. Gandalf could still see Fili's rare but bright smiles and Kili's reckless grin inside his head. "At least they were together," he mused aloud. "They wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Those two were so close, so connected, that if one had lived he couldn't possibly have gone on without the other."
"What were they like, Gandalf?" Merry was curious to hear more about the dwarves that were so like he and Pippin, though he hoped they wouldn't meet the same tragic end.
"Fili was like a lion - fierce and majestic and golden. He loved his brother more than anyone else in the world. He would have died to protect Kili. I suppose he did, in the end. Kili was always more reckless - that dwarf had no fear. He was as good with a bow as most elves, and he followed his brother in everything. They were inseparable."
"I think we would have been friends," Pippin mused.
"Yes Pippin, I expect you would have been. I expect so. Anyway, it's late now, and we shouldn't dwell too long on the past. After all, you two are part of a different Quest. Off to bed now, both of you. We have a long way to travel tomorrow."
That night, Pippin dreamed of a golden dwarf who fought like a lion to protect his brave, if unconventional, brother.
