Idunn took breakfast in Astrid's sitting room where they enjoyed a sumptuous meal of scones with cream and jam, porridge laced with sticky brown sugar, toast generously buttered, and strong tea. They would grow round and fat in no time on such decadent fare. Of course, they ate it all.

"What do you think of him?" Astrid asked as she put a dollop of cream on a scone. "Honestly."

"Honestly?" Idunn repeated. "I think King Thorin is unpleasant and I hope we do not often have to meet with him."

"I didn't mean him, and you know it." There was the tiniest pause as Astrid considered. "Fíli said they always have supper together as a family."

There went Idunn's hope for peaceful evenings. It might have been a pleasant family dinner if not for the king. "Then I will have to grow calloused to glares and extended silences."

"But Fíli," Astrid said, already impatient with Idunn's teasing, "what do you think of him?"

"He seems genial enough. He is somewhat quiet, as though he thinks a great deal more than he says. He could hardly take his eyes off you, though that's no surprise. Nice table manners."

"I don't think Lady Dís or King Thorin like me."

"They've only just met you," Idunn said but Astrid was undeterred.

"You know the look Mother gets when she's dissatisfied with you for some reason, only you're not sure what you've done wrong? That's the way they looked at me all last night."

Idunn couldn't argue the point. The king and his sister might have shown more warmth towards Astrid considering her presence was at their request, but at the same time, they weren't unkind to her in any obvious way. Certainly Lady Dís was more welcoming than King Thorin, but Idunn had already concluded he simply couldn't bother himself with niceties.

"Probably it is just their royal manners, and nothing at all against you," Idunn said.

"Lord Dáin does not behave so."

"I'm not sure I'd use Dáin as a standard for anyone's manners," Idunn said with a laugh. "At any rate, Crown Prince Fíli doesn't seem to share his mother and uncle's lack of interest in you. That should be some comfort, I'm sure."

A sweet smile lit up Astrid's face. She was already smitten with him, that much was plain. "I hardly know how to talk to him, Idunn. I want to ask him everything and wind up asking nothing."

"Put aside everything. Try to have a pleasant conversation with him and learn one thing about him."

"You make it sound easy."

"It isn't difficult. Last night I learned that Prince Kíli's favorite dessert is pie made from wild brambleberries that grow only in the Blue Mountains." He had described it so well Idunn wished for a slice, herself.

"Kíli's different."

"Maybe so, but I also learned that King Thorin dislikes tomatoes."

Astrid fumbled her jam spoon until it clinked onto her plate. The stoneware and cutlery were so fine, they made a musical little sound when they met. "When did you speak with King Thorin?" she asked.

"Not once, but I noticed his plate had no tomatoes, and everyone else's did." Idunn had almost remarked on the difference but remembered herself at the last moment. She hardly needed to give King Thorin a reason for the glares he had bestowed upon her, though it might have helped her rest easier knowing their cause. She supposed as king, he needed no cause for his unpleasantness.

"Does your knowledge of others extend beyond their food preferences at all?" Astrid asked.

"I'm trying to help you. Don't be pert, or I'll resort to giving you exclusively bad advice, and at great length."

Astrid hesitated a moment, and her mouth twisted into a slight frown. "Have you ever had a suitor, Idunn?" She kept her voice low, well aware of the baldness of the question.

"None that I liked to encourage." Those days were long before Idunn had gone to live with Astrid's family, back when her father's swords were the most sought-after in the Iron Hills. Sorrow for all she'd lost nipped at her heart, but she pushed those regrets away out of habit.

"I'm afraid I cannot give you advice on love," she said, "but I will gladly tell you what to do on all other matters. As all we older relations must do." She said the last in her deepest voice, with much scowling for effect.

Astrid laughed at Idunn's impression. "That was very wrong of him, even if he is the king."

"I'm sure he's not even sensible of giving insult." It had stung when King Thorin had likened Idunn to her Aunt, but she had brushed it off tolerably well. Rumors had reached the Hills of King Thorin's brusque manners and rough ways, and she knew it wouldn't do to take them personally. At the very least, she was determined not to let the king know if he ever got under her skin. She had been in Erebor only one night and already this seemed like a daunting goal.

Fíli covered all the usual highlights one gave on a tour of Erebor: The Great Chamber of Thrór, the Main Hall, the Gallery of Kings. He pointed out artwork, sculptures, friezes, and tapestries that lined the walls. Astrid listened to his explanations and made appreciative comments when appropriate, but they had spoken of little else. Kíli and Idunn trailed somewhere behind, the echoes of their conversation that drifted through the hallway a stark contrast to the general silence between himself and Astrid.

He was already failing in his duties to get to know his betrothed and it was only her second day in the Mountain. It wasn't that he could think of nothing to say to her - he had never had trouble talking to pretty girls, and Astrid was pretty. The problem was, he had never been under such pressure when speaking to one before. Every word they spoke was weighted down by others' expectations. Every idle conversation seemed absurd in light of their very serious situation. Every curious question was one more reminder that they knew nothing of each other, that their betrothal was not of their choosing.

He glanced sideways at Astrid, who looked about with open wonder. If she weren't truly awestruck by Erebor then she was more talented at deception than even he could imagine. She gazed at one of the tapestries as though she could drink it in, seemingly unaware he was watching her. He turned to the image, too, trying to see what it was she saw in it. It depicted the Dimrill Stair, a series of waterfalls leading to the dale outside Moria, all silver and green. Fíli had seen this tapestry a hundred times over and never once looked at it the way she did now.

She turned and caught him watching her. Her mouth curved into a slight, tentative smile. He hesitated, and in that moment she turned away again. Another time and he might have given her a devilish grin or thought of something charming to say about beauty studying beauty. Now he just watched her, his caution choking out even the simplest conversation.

Kíli and Idunn caught up to join Astrid in her examination of the tapestry, both of them still grinning from some private joke.

"And here we see beauty studying beauty," Kíli said with a flourish of his hand at Astrid.

Ah, yes. Fíli thought that terrible line had sounded familiar.

"I can't decide which is more lovely. Fíli?"

"The one doing the studying, of course," he said. A twist of Astrid's mouth made him think his response must have sounded a little too forced.

Kíli quirked his eyebrows as though Fíli had fumbled the telling of a joke. "Speaking of waterfalls," he said with a careless gesture at the tapestry, "Idunn and I were just discussing the River Running. Astrid, would you like to see the falls, since your guides yesterday were in too much of a rush to show it to you? I dare say you'll find them more beautiful than these old tapestries." Here he gave Fíli a dark look, as though he had done something shameful. Fíli might as well have brought Mother along.

Astrid agreed to the waterfall scheme and walked alongside Kíli through the corridors, seeming happy to listen to his prattle. She smiled and even laughed, something Fíli hadn't yet gotten her to do. He truly had sunk to a new low if he must envy his brother's way with dwarf-maids. Mahal forbid Kíli tell her about the flour girl.

Not long after they passed the guards on duty at the front gate, Kíli left the main road in favor of the path that led down behind a copse of trees to a grassy area that overlooked the upper falls. The path wasn't steep, but Kíli took Astrid's hand as a completely unnecessary precaution until they reached the riverside. Astrid and Idunn gazed down across the valley floor, their eyes following the course of the silver river as it crashed below, wound down and around the city of Dale, and ran on southwards to the Long Lake.

Life had returned to the valley which had for so long been burnt to the ground by the dragon. Only a few years had transformed the once blackened wasteland. A meadow of green shoots had taken hold, scrub bushes sat low to the ground, and new saplings had begun their climb to the blue sky.

"It's so beautiful," Astrid said. "I would come here every day."

Kíli glanced over at Fíli. The girls knew nothing of the dwarves, men, and elves who had died in that vale. They had never endured the reek of seemingly endless orc bodies burned in filthy pyres whose stench hung in heavy clouds of smoke long after the fires had died out. They had no idea that for months Fíli could hardly stand to come out here, the memories of that bloody day were so clear in his mind. Even now his shoulder ached and he could almost feel the orc blade in his flesh again, hear it scrape across his bones.

If you were innocent of all that, then yes, the valley was scenic.

Astrid and Idunn sat down on their skirts in the grass as the spray from the waterfall cast rainbows in the air. Fíli and Kíli stood back a pace and watched them take in the views.

"You might try to smile," Kíli said in a low whisper.

Fíli bristled at the unwelcome advice from his little brother. He didn't need lessons in how to woo Astrid, and if he did he would never in a thousand lifetimes admit it. "I smile."

"You're almost as bad as Thorin."

"I have smiled several times this morning."

"Oh, several times? My mistake."

"What do you want me to do, start work on producing an heir right here?" Fíli hissed.

"Now that would liven the afternoon." Kíli smirked at Fíli over his shoulder before sitting down next to Idunn. He found too much amusement at Fíli's expense these days, but it was easy to laugh at a situation that wasn't your own. Fíli had laughed, too, the first time the idea of an arranged marriage had been presented to him. The concept had lost its humor all too quickly.

Feeling too much like a pouting child standing off on his own, Fíli sat down a little apart from Astrid. When she turned to him, the sunlight shot through her hair until it glowed like threads of gold, and he noticed that her eyes were more vibrant than they had looked in the candlelight the night before. Her blue eyes held a measure of unease, a tentative sort of worry as she looked back at him. He didn't often admit his brother was right, and likely wouldn't do so out loud, but there was no sense blaming Astrid for their predicament. She was just as caught as he was.

He smiled, warm and generous, and she relaxed into a smile in turn.

"Do you often come out here?" she asked.

"Only if we have business in Dale."

"You don't enjoy being outdoors?"

She had either not heard of the Company's long journey to Erebor, or else she completely misunderstood it. In any case, this was hardly the time to tell her of it. "I don't mind the outdoors." A field of death, now that was something different. "Do you enjoy being outdoors?"

She nodded her head, making a pale strand of curls fall across her temple, and she brushed it back behind her ear. "There's a meadow just beyond the gates of the Iron Hills filled with wildflowers of every color." For a moment she looked wistful and he was reminded of what she had given up to come here. "Father didn't often let me wander outside, though. If you didn't stray far from the gates it was safe enough, but...well, sometimes..."

Astrid didn't need to explain. Orcs, even scattered and defeated ones, were unpredictable. Fíli had had no idea just how safe they had been in the Blue Mountains until their Company came East. Despite the victory over them four years ago, orcs were an ongoing concern, however sporadically they might turn up.

"Father only let us go out if we were fully armed," she said.

"I'm glad you trust Kíli and I enough to join us even though you are unarmed," he said. Astrid ducked her head and darted her eyes away from him in a subtle contradiction of his assumption. "Wait - what do you have?"

She shrugged her shoulders but flashed a smile. "Just a dagger or two."

He leaned a little closer to her. "Or two?"

"Better to be safe than not."

He grinned back at her, pleased and surprised at this turn of events. Daggers, no less.

"And you, Idunn," Kíli said. "Have you a sword hidden somewhere in your skirts?"

"It's in my trunk in my room," she said without a trace of sarcasm. "I wasn't sure the king would appreciate me walking around the royal halls with a sword at my side."

"We do it all the time."

"It does feel odd, though," she said, "being outside with no weapon on. Back in the Hills I would take my sword on even the shortest of walks."

"You are safe here," Kíli said. "You're with us." He grinned at the dwarf-maids and Fíli had to roll his eyes. Yes, he and his brother were armed - as was Astrid, it seemed - but they were no longer in sight of the gates or the battalion that guarded it, and daylight was little protection against desperate orcs. Worse, Fíli's sword arm was not what it once had been should trouble arise, and he had not tested it in battle since his recovery. There was no reason for them not to be outside, but safe was a relative term.

"How did you come to choose daggers?" Fíli asked.

Idunn snorted, and Astrid's mouth curved into a wry grin. There was some story here, and he suddenly needed to know it.

"My sister, Heidrun, chose daggers first," Astrid said. "She was terrible with them, flailing all around and never properly defending herself. One day she got tired of me laughing at her and said if I thought it was so easy, I should try it myself. So I did."

"And you were good?"

She scrunched her nose as though good weren't quite the right word. "Better than she was, and that was enough for me."

"I'm sure your sister was overjoyed." He could just imagine being outstripped by Kíli in training. It wouldn't have gone over well.

"You should see the sour look on Heidrun's face whenever anyone mentions Astrid's skills with daggers," Idunn said. "She still takes it as a personal offense."

"So you are good, then," Fíli said to Astrid.

She smiled modestly but then her face fell as though reminded of something unpleasant. "I've never truly been tested," she said.

Ah. So he was the something unpleasant. He and his injury. "May you never be."

"What's that?" Idunn asked as she pointed off in the distance. A line of carts and people moved slowly from the forests in the west towards the city of Dale. Bitterness sank into Fíli's stomach.

"That is trouble," he said. Astrid turned to him again, a question in her wide eyes.

"It appears to be a caravan from the Woodland Realm," Kíli said, not bothering to conceal a look of distaste. "It's nothing, but perhaps we should head back inside all the same."

"Are they friendly?" Astrid asked.

"That depends on who you ask."

"We're not on the best terms with the elves of the Woodland Realm," Fíli said.

"Or any elves anywhere," Kíli said.

Fíli helped Astrid to her feet, holding her hands lightly in his for a moment before releasing them again. They followed the path back up towards the gate, but he glanced over his shoulder again at the caravan in the distance.

"Forgive me," Idunn said, "but are the elves not some of your nearest allies?"

Kíli laughed. "You would think so. But our two kings have long unfinished business with each other. I expect the only way to secure an alliance between them would be if one of them died, and maybe not even then."

"You consider the elves enemies?" Astrid asked.

"No," Fíli said, "we're just on very unfriendly terms."

"A caravan?" Thorin had been in his council chambers with Balin when his nephews arrived with news of the visitors to Dale. "How many?"

"Some dozens," Fíli said.

"Send envoys to keep watch. I want to see Bard as soon as the elves leave." The man had not yet shown signs of being willing to listen to Thorin in this matter, but anything was possible. "I would know more of this alliance they are forging."

He did not necessarily fear that men and elves would unite against the Mountain again, but friendships among them were yet new - or in the case of dwarves and elves, nonexistent - and men were easily persuaded. Erebor could not afford to leave their own alliance with Dale in jeopardy should Thranduil work on Bard's ear.

"You think it is about more than just trade?" Balin asked.

"I would be content if it were just about trade."

"Content?" Balin laughed. "Not a month ago you threatened to have Bard's head for daring to trade with the Woodland Realm."

"Trade would be the lesser evil, then." Thorin shifted in his chair. "It is not just goods that the elves and men may exchange, but information. If there is a threat on our borders, we must not be left in the dark."

"What do the scouts report?" Fíli asked Balin.

"No change." Balin laced his fingers on the top of the great table in the council room. "Orcs may occasionally be seen here and there amid the trees or near the watchtowers, usually at dusk, and never close enough to bother pursuing."

For nearly two years after the Great Battle there had been no sign of orcs near Erebor or Dale, and Thorin had thought their numbers so diminished as to eliminate all threat. Now they appeared again, rarely engaging in outright attacks, but seemingly unafraid of being seen. Orcs that hid their movements were bad enough, but an orc in the open meant trouble.

"Perhaps it is time we consider pursuit," Thorin said. "Wipe them out one by one if need be."

"I could lead a party," Fíli began, but Thorin cut him off.

"No," he said, "I'll not have you roaming the mountainside seeking out orcs."

"I did it enough in the Blues," Fíli said.

"We are no longer in the Blues," Thorin said coolly.

Balin looked between the two as though taking stock of the situation. "I'll set Dwalin's soldiers to it, then. He'll be glad to stretch his legs again."

The boys glanced at each other. Balin started at his own choice of words and looked as though he would apologize, but Thorin waved him off.

"What were you doing at the river that you happened to see the caravan of elves?" he asked Fíli and Kíli.

"We were showing Astrid and Idunn the views," Kíli said.

"And a battlefield is their idea of sight-seeing, is it?"

"It no longer looks like a battlefield, Uncle. Grass and trees are growing again, even Ravenhill has a dusting of wildflowers."

Of course it would have changed since the last time he had seen it. Much had changed since then. Beneath the council table, Thorin moved his leg to try to ease the ache that continually pulsed through his shredded muscles, but relief was short-lived.

"How do you get on with the girl?" he asked Fíli.

Fíli set his jaw. He either didn't like the girl or he didn't like the question. Neither was encouraging. "Fine."

"Good," Thorin said in a low rumble that let Fíli know he wouldn't settle for anything less. Too much was on the line for either party to back out now. Betrothals weren't traditionally considered permanently binding, but he had never heard of one being broken and he certainly wasn't going to set that precedent with his nephew.

Fíli stared at Thorin as though he had much to say but knew better than to open his mouth. After a moment he turned and left the room. Kíli followed after, muttering something about business he had to see to. When the boys were gone, Balin gave Thorin a pointed look.

"What?" Thorin said.

"A lad can only take so much prodding, that's all I'm saying." Balin gathered up his papers from the table and backed out of the room with an innocent wave of his hands, absolving himself from further discussion.

Thorin sighed and sagged in his chair. He was prodding, but he had been backed into a corner. Fíli didn't understand, not really, but what could he say? That with a lamed King who could not even march into battle let alone lead one, the dwarves of the Mountain grew restless? That whispers swirled that perhaps Dáin should be King Under the Mountain, and not this wreck of a dwarf? Thorin had taken the Mountain back to much acclaim, but it had come at too great a cost. He had dishonored himself under the Gold Sickness, and thrown it off only to be mangled on the battlefield. No, the dwarves of Erebor wanted more from their King. They deserved more.

The only hope for the Line of Durin was to ensure it would endure long past Thorin Oakenshield. If that meant Fíli must learn to accept a wife not of his choosing, so be it.

Thank you to everyone reading along!