Thorin sat, slumped, against the wooden door. He had to find something to do before he really did do some damage, he thought as he picked up the apple that had sat upon the oaken table before he'd flung it in his fit.

But not right now.

Right now, he was content with listening to the scorns and mutters of displeasure of the Dwarves wandering Moria, heading to their dwellings for the night. Mostly pertaining to his poor leadership, of course.

Thorin sighed, dropping the apple and watching it roll away from him until it hit the foot of the bed his sister-sons lay upon with a quiet thud.

It had not been so long ago that Erebor was taken by the fire-drake from the North, and then Azanulbizar, the death of his grandfather and his Frerin, then Thrain's disappearance, and now word had got out of a creature in the deep; a demon lurking in the shadows. It seemed like a never-ending string of bad luck.

And it was Thorin who bore the brunt of it. His people were expecting him to sort it out, to bring them a new life of peace and prosperity and security. But how?

At first, Thorin had set his eyes upon Ered Luin, but the mountains were too expansive and hostile, and only some of the dwarves of Erebor would make their home there. Even so, Thorin managed to persuade Dís to settle in Ered Luin – she was heavily pregnant at the time, and the two ended up at loggerheads after Thorin had, in Dis' opinion, expressed his concerns one too many times.

And so Thorin continued to search.

The Iron Hills were too far to the East, too close to Smaug and the fear that drove them away in the first place, and Dain wasn't the most hospitable dwarf. Thorin had had enough trouble with Dain being, quite frankly, a glorified bastard of a cousin, and he certainly didn't need to be scrutinised and scorned by Dain's clan either – Thorin's own dignity could ill-afford it, not to mention the rest of the Dwarves of Erebor.

The Grey Mountains were occupied by the Khiduz. Thorin had dealt enough with them to last him a lifetime. He would rather suffer through all the ages of this world with his people than turn to them.

In the end, the Dwarves of Erebor travelled from village to village through the Bree-land and the South Downs, with some working the forges and toy-makers flitting from market to market to keep them all going, and they'd grown tired of it. A once prosperous race being forced to work like dogs for Men? Many would rather have fallen to Smaug, and they made no secret of their distaste for this new life.

In an attempt to restore some sense of dignity to pitiful lives, Thorin had sought to return to Moria in his father's stead. At the very least, they could stay a while to mine the valuable veins of mithril and build up their weakened forces again.

But Thorin knew the dangers of Moria. He knew what lurked in the shadows, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

Desperation would force his hand, whichever path he took.

He'd taken as many precautions as he could. No living soul was to venture past the Chamber of Mazarbul, and that was as far as he'd scouted before turning back, not wanting to disturb the demon in the deep. The tunnels and cave-corridors were shut at nightfall, and nobody was allowed to wander. There were constant patrols on the West Gate and through Durin's Way as well as sentries posted in practically every doorway; every entrance and exit, every possible way a Dwarf might be able to find him or herself outside the relative safety of the long-halls and forges.

He told himself he was doing the right thing, of course. Thorin hated restricting his people so much, but he could not – would not - take that risk.

He knew a rabble of piteous guards was not going to hold against the beast. Mahal, nothing would. So all Thorin could do was hope that they could take what they needed and be gone.

The Bridge had been left to crumble, undisturbed ever since the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm had awoken Durin's Bane so long ago. To make the same mistake again would undoubtedly be fatal.

ooOOOoo

After a little while, Thorin pulled himself up and began to clear up the upshot of his rage earlier. There wasn't much he could fix – the door would just have to remain dented and scuffed and the table, broken – so he simply began to pile everything he'd upturned into one corner of the room, mumbling to himself that he'd sort it out tomorrow.

It was then that he noticed the eerie silence.

There was no raspy breathing, no stuttering gasps that he'd come to expect. Nothing save for his own breaths, and then the sudden clatter of the cutlery and shards of the broken plates he had in his hands as he dropped them, fear clenching an icy hand around his already-cold heart.

"Fíli? Kíli?" His words came out as little more than a helpless whisper, disappearing under his heavy footsteps that were deafening in the silence of the bleak room.

Everything that happened then seemed to be little more than a blur when Thorin recalled it. Fíli's eyes shot open, brilliant steel against pale grey skin, and his chest convulsed with the effort of taking in as much air as he could in those few seconds, and then he was looking up at Thorin, blinking and wide-eyed.

Thorin let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

To say he was relieved would have been a terrible understatement.

The hand around his heart crumbled, and he sucked in a ragged breath, slumping forward, hands flat on the mattress, thanking Mahal profusely in mumbles of Khuzdul and Westron, the words melding into one another. The steel blue of Fíli's gaze went right through him, and Thorin struggled to string together coherent sounds as he blinked rapidly, eyes flickering across his young nephew's face as though he couldn't quite work out what just happened. In all honesty, he didn't have a bloody clue.

Thorin did, however, realise that Fíli was alive and kicking. Literally.

Thorin just managed to catch the boy's legs when they tangled themselves in the furs as Fíli tried to scramble away.

"Fíli?" Thorin searched out Fíli's gaze, not surprised to see that Fíli looked a little more than confused, but Thorin would explain everything later. Right now, he just wanted to know that Fíli was okay. Or at least, a little better than he looked – he still had a sickly, grey hue to his taut skin and his altogether too-scrawny limbs flailed uselessly in his attempts at freedom.

But Fíli kicked and scrambed and pulled and punched, wanting to get away from this strange place and the strange voices and the strange smells. He couldn't remember the Dwarf in front of him who was trying to hold him still, couldn't remember the gravelly voice that belonged to him. His sight began to blur at the edges the more he moved, and then he felt the weight of the older Dwarf's arms disappear suddenly. Then he heard a sound like thunder ripping through the room and deep into his chest, and Fíli stopped.

Fíli saw the Dwarf was looming over the bed, face cast in shadow as the flames flickered violently in their sconces, like a gust had swept through the room suddenly. He was breathing heavily too, as though he'd just been raging.

Fíli felt himself cower back into the bed, suddenly fearing this strange Dwarf. There was something about him that triggered some distant memory in the back of Fíli's mind, but he couldn't quite bring it to light. The Dwarf slumped his shoulders and relaxed his stance then, making himself look smaller and letting the light fall over his face again. He breathed out slowly, as if he was frustrated and trying to regain some semblance of control.

He'd seen Da do that a lot, especially when Kíli was having a bad day where he simply would not stop nagging and-

Da.

Da was gone.

He'd felt sad before, when Kíli had accidentally broken his favourite wooden sword, or when Ma' was shouting at him for being bad, or when he'd seen Uncle Thorin sitting by the hearth alone, looking miserable as though no joy could pierce his heart.

But this was a different kind of sad. It hurt! It weighed him down and settled in the pit of his belly and made his chest ache and he couldn't breathe and speed of his thoughts was only matched by the rapid beating of his heart that felt like it was going to hammer its way out of his ribcage and then he heard his Da speaking and-

-Moria. Find your Uncle.

This was Thorin, of course it was. How could he forget Thorin, of all people?

They were here, they were safe. He didn't need to get up and find food or water, or pick up his brother with aching arms, or run around on a bad foot, or anything. The sudden reprieve was overwhelming, and Fíli let out a strangled sob, crashing back onto the soft mattress as he felt his chest heaving and tears spilling.

And then Thorin was suddenly at his side again, concerned eyes boring into his own as he sobbed relentlessly, unable to stop. Hiccoughing and choking, Fíli desperately tried to tell him everything, feeling all his mental barriers dissolve under his Uncle's gaze, but words failed him completely.

Suddenly, he was being held by familiar arms and Fíli was glad of the shoulder he could bury his face into, the musty smell of mountains filling his nostrils and grounding him. His world seemed to stop spinning, and he concentrated on his breathing, in and out, over and over, until hysterical sobs were reduced to sniffles.

Fíli refused to move, even when his cries subsided. The mountain smell and the rumble of Thorin's chest as he spoke, the strong embrace - they were all comforts that Fíli found himself craving ever since he left Ered Luin, and he was loathe to let them go so quickly.

Thorin let it be, shifting himself onto the bed instead of awkwardly trying to balance Fíli and keep himself upright whilst half-kneeling on the floor. It was widely known that Dwarves didn't possess excellent balancing skills in the least, and Thorin wasn't going to test that. He stretched his legs out on the mattress, arms folding around Fíli in familiar, practised motions as he settled for holding Fíli until he calmed down. It wasn't like there was much Thorin could do otherwise, seeing as Fíli had simply attached himself to his side after his recent outburst, and Thorin drifted off in thought instead to while away the time.

There was something deeply unsettling about Fíli's reaction, and Thorin was hard pressed to work out why. Why had they come?

"Fíli?" Thorin asked after a long while, half-convinced that the boy had fallen asleep. He was a little relieved when Fíli turned his head to look up at him, albeit with frightened eyes.

"What happened?" There was little point in making small talk, when there were more pressing matters to sort out, Thorin thought.

No reply.

"Fíli, I have to know." Thorin pressed, his patience already running thin.

Fíli stirred, and met Thorin's gaze again. Still upset and frightened, but there was anger in those young eyes too. He looked bitter; he looked hostile again, like when Thorin had first seen him outside the gates.

"There was a fire." Fíli said after a moment, "Roaring red, e'rywhere."

"Was it a raid? Orcs?"

"Orcs. I think…" Fíli's voice trailed off weakly, as though he felt like he should say no more, but with an encouraging nod from Thorin, Fíli found himself spilling more words than he could keep track of. He was soon flowing into sentences that formed vivid descriptions for Thorin, and that, in turn, began to lay the foundations of a story that Thorin could follow.

"Da' told us to go, " Fíli's voice, already hoarse from his cries, dropped to little more than a whisper, "And Ma'… she never said goodbye an'.. an' then they took Da' too and then we ran an'-"

"What?" Thorin almost dropped Fíli, sure that he'd heard the boy wrong.

Dís couldn't be- not his Dís.

"They couldn' do anything!" Fíli scrambled out of Thorin's grip to face him, his little hands fisted tight in Thorin's tunic as though pleading him to believe the words that tumbled from his lips. Lips that began to quiver again when Thorin looked at his nephew with such a furious glare, that Fíli was sure he'd be stone cold dead if looks could kill.

A.N: No Khuzdul in this chapter as far as I know! I hope you enjoy, and now I'm gonna watch Eurovision christ I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS