Prince's Shadow

Skyborn Huntress

A/N: Ori is twenty-three (nine in human years). We'll go with movie!canon, where Ori's the youngest in the Company. And, uh, Ori is a girl, just because.

. . . Hey, now, no one ever said Bilbo knew how to recognize a female dwarf. :P


Chapter 4

"Ouch!"

"Sorry." Fíli scrunched his nose and loosened his grip on his brother's hair.

They were working on their own braids this morning, unsupervised by Dís. Fíli wasn't very good at it. He kept losing the threads and having to start over, but he tried valiantly, and so Kíli also tried to ignore the persistent tugging at his scalp.

"Hold this."

Kíli held the braid while Fíli attached a silver bead to the end. It was one of his, since Kíli, who never braided his hair, had no need of them, and probably would lose them anyway.

"There," Fíli said, drawing back and grinning at his handiwork.

Kíli tugged absent-mindedly at his new braids. "My turn."

They switched places. Fíli sat on the edge of the bed and Kíli crawled behind him. His tongue poked between his teeth as he concentrated on his work. Kíli was good at braiding, or at least when it came to Fíli's hair. He had watched Dís do it often enough, and his fingers were small and quick, so they didn't tangle as often as Fíli's.

Fíli never said "ouch!" when Kíli braided his hair.

He was finished in a few short minutes, and only had to start over once when he uncovered a snarl tucked beneath the layers of Fíli's mane.

"Done!"

They looked each other over, agreed they looked very princely, and headed downstairs to surprise Dís with their work. But it was Thórin, not Dís, who was sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of hot tea. He did not seem to notice their braids.

"There you are, Fíli," he said instead. "I was just about to call for you."

"I'm ready to go," Fíli said, straightening. In an instant, he was back to being solemn Prince Fíli.

Then he'd race to the training grounds alone again . . . Kíli thought, but then he remembered that Rada had taken away his sword, and his face fell.

Thórin cleared his throat. "Kíli, Nori has agreed to watch you today. I believe he has a sister close to your age –"

"I know who Ori is," Kíli interrupted, his face crumpling.

Rada was wrong. Ori was twenty-three, which wasn't close to his age at all. More importantly, Ori was a girl. Kíli bit his cheek, and petulance crept into his tone. "Do I have to?"

"Dís is quite busy with her forge, and I will be in the Underhall until dusk. So, yes, you must."

No swords, no practice, and now he was being sent off to play with a girl like he was still a child. Kíli crossed his arms and sulked.

Fíli looked from his brother to Thórin. "He could come with me. I'd keep an eye on him."

"I think not. Kíli is still under punishment for his stunt yesterday."

Kíli wanted to object that sitting through stuffy meetings, even with Fíli at his side, sounded like enough punishment to him, but he thought better of it.

When Thórin rose and went to get his coat, Fíli approached his brother and clasped his hand. "They won't be here much longer," he promised. "It'll all go back to normal soon."

But he still wouldn't get his lessons back, Kíli thought. He smiled for Fíli, though, letting his brother think the words had reassured him. And when Thórin called for them – they would be stopping by Dori the Weaver's house on the way to the Underhall – Kíli followed without complaint.


"So what do you want to do, Kíli?" asked Ori.

"Dunno." Kíli had discovered a small tear in his sleeve. Determinedly he focused on it, saving himself from looking at Ori.

They were sitting in the upper rooms of Dori's family's house. The lower floor of the building was devoted to their shop and workspace for sewing. Kíli and Ori, meanwhile, were in a small sitting room crowded with chairs. Broad windows overlooked the sunlit street below, filling the room with cheery light. There was no room for running around.

Dori was out buying fabrics in the neighbouring village. His younger brother Nori was supervising them instead. Or rather, he was sitting in the kitchen with a cup of cocoa, one ear out for the sound of them breaking anything.

Kíli kind of liked Nori, though. He had strange hair that jutted in lumps from his head, and Kíli could stare at it in fascination for quite a while and forget he was being punished. Ori had confided in him that Nori was being punished, too. Men had caught him stealing potatoes in their marketplace, and so Thórin told him he wasn't to leave the house. That was why Dori had gone to the next village alone.

But after an hour, even Nori's hair couldn't hold his interest. Kíli wished Fíli were there.

"So what do you want to do?" he asked Ori instead.

Ori went pink. "Oh, erm, I don't know."

They resumed their mutual silence. Kíli poked at his sleeve. Ori folded and re-folded her hands in her lap.

"You shouldn't do that."

Kíli ignored her. The hole in his sleeve grew larger. He could stick two fingers through it now.

Ori sighed. "I can fix that. If you want."

Kíli withdrew his fingers. "Fine."

Slipping off her chair, Ori pulled a little sewing kit from the pocket of her frock and examined his sleeve. She compared her spools to the thread poking from his sleeve, but none was quite the right shade of blue.

"Nori!" she shouted. "I need blue thread!"

For a scrawny little dwarfling, she could certainly yell. A few moments later Nori wandered out of the kitchen, scrubbing the inside of his ear with a finger.

"You called?"

Ori showed him the frayed thread, and after some persuading her older brother headed down to the shop to look for the right colour. In the meantime, Kíli went back to being bored, idly kicking his feet in the air.

"Do you like drawing?" asked Ori.

Kíli shrugged.

"If you want, maybe we can do that next."

"All right."

Ori disappeared and shortly returned clutching a book of thick parchment and a handful of charcoals. She laid it out on the rug and looked for an empty page for them to use. Though Ori, pink-faced, flipped as quickly as possible through the pages of charcoal sketches, Kíli glimpsed doodles of lumpy hair.

"H-here," said Ori at last, handing him a bit of charcoal.

Kíli sighed, realizing he wasn't going to be able to spend all day staring off into space. He took the stub, slid off his chair, and claimed a corner of the page. He flopped onto his belly as he started to doodle aimlessly.

"What's that?" Ori asked.

"Dragon."

"Do you know what a dragon looks like?" Ori had heard some stories about dragons, but she didn't like to think about them very much. She didn't like things that could snap up a dwarfling in a single bite.

"M-hmm."

Ori looked around for a bit while he was doodling; then she got up, repositioned a vase of wilting flowers on the windowsill so that she could see it better, and laid on the floor again. She peeked at Kíli's drawing.

"Dragons have four legs," she said.

"This one has two."

"Then it's not a dragon, is it?"

"Have you ever seen a dragon? Do you know it's got four legs for sure?" Kíli refuted.

Ori went quiet. She had never seen a dragon, either, so she couldn't claim for certain how many legs they had. "In Dori's stories, they have four legs."

"Fíli says they have two."

Ori wasn't sure Fíli knew what dragons looked like any better than Kíli, but he said it so confidently that she couldn't argue. She pressed her lips together, frowning down at the page. Her flowers weren't turning out quite right. For one thing, there was a dragon trying to eat them.

She sat up and looked across the room. It occurred to her that it had gotten very quiet.

"Nori's been gone a long time," she mumbled, mostly to herself. "Kíli, I'm going downstairs for a minute."

"I'm coming."

Kíli dropped the charcoal and hopped up, and both dwarflings went to the door. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Ori tried calling for her brother, but the shop lay still around them.

Kíli wandered up and down the aisles of bundled fabrics. "Maybe he's hiding."

"He wouldn't be hiding." But Ori bit her lip.

They tried calling some more, and scouted out the shop, even checking in the work room, but there was nothing but a half-finished dress in there. When they returned to the main shop, Ori was close to tears.

"He left. He wasn't s'posed to leave, Th-Thórin said he'd be in even more trouble if he left. And he was s'posed to stay and watch us."

"It'll be okay," Kíli told her. "Uncle's always punishing me, too. He might make Nori clean the stables and the forge with me. It's kinda dirty, but it's not so bad."

Ori rubbed at her eyes. "But you've never done anything bad," she pressed. "N-Nori's always stealing things. And Dori always worries. One of these days – one of these days, he says, he won't be so lucky Thórin steps in for him and does the punishing. And the Men will put him in jail or – or cut off his hand."

Again with the worrying, Kíli thought. Did Fíli and Dís worry about him like Dori and Ori worried about Nori? As Ori scrubbed at her reddened cheeks, he made up his mind. He reached out and seized her hand. "C'mon."

"Where're we going?" Ori asked in a small voice as he dragged her, determinedly, toward the door.

"Exploring." Kíli huffed his hair out of his eyes and lowered his head mulishly. "I decided, just now, that's what I wanna do."


The clashing of steel rang across the field outside the Underhall. Now Dwalin and Fíli withdrew, circling warily. The weapons-master swung two heavy war axes; the dwarfling, his twin swords. Their skirmishes were brief and fierce. They tested one another, waiting, each searching for the first opening in the other's guard.

Across the field, Thórin and Dáin looked on. They had few of their council's company today. Balin sat on the bench next to Thórin, studying the fight with a thoughtful furrow to his brows. None of Dáin's retainers had been very interested in overseeing the prince's training.

Notions of ambitious quests and glory had chilled between the two lords. Now their talks turned to questions of the mundane: with whom to trade and where to trace their supply routes; how many tonnes of ore could be collected before winter, and how many forges could be kept burning; and, this morning, how far a boy prince had progressed in his training.

Dáin Ironfoot had become very interested in the gold-haired heir of Durin. Thórin was lucky to have such an able successor, he said. It was a pity his father had been a Firebeard, or else he would have carried Durin's look, too.

Thórin agreed with him, up to a certain point.

Fíli had always met his expectations. The dwarfling had an excellent memory for his lessons; he rattled off their history and customs, and Khuzdul flowed easily enough off his tongue. He was well-learned and studious, noble and earnest, but silent and respectful when need be. Thórin had never had to work too hard with him. In essence, Fíli was very much like a miniature adult dwarf, and so Thórin treated him as such.

As for his combat training – Thórin listened to the ringing of steel across the field, heard Fíli shout as he narrowly missed scoring a hit – it was clear to see the boy was of Durin's lineage. Fíli had the fight in his blood: he moved with a certain grace that couldn't be taught; he seemed to know where a blow would land before the axe fell. A sword was equal to him in left or right hand; he preferred both.

That little detail of his technique had been Dwalin's suggestion. The old warrior was one of the few capable of wielding dual weapons with deadly precision, and Thórin had been more than pleased when Dwalin, having noticed Fíli's aptitude, suggested the boy take on his personal instruction.

Yes, Thórin was very proud of Fíli. Now, if only Kíli would follow in his brother's footsteps sometime . . .

Dáin's voice drew him out of his current musings.

"The atmosphere between us has been cold of late, Thórin. I am no fool: I know the Mountain calls to you. Though I may disagree with you, I hold only the deepest respect for you, my King. I hope that . . . this situation . . . does not sour the relations of kin, nor spread to our heirs. Know this: Fíli has a home in the Iron Hills, should you ever wish he learn the ways of our fathers."

Thórin did not answer Dáin's speech at once. His gaze rested heavily on the combatants on the field. Sunlight flared across steel swords as Fíli countered a blow and whirled away. He caught a flash of a red face, braids flying behind.

The offer did not come lightly. Later, there would be conditions: a price of gold and honour to be paid. Once more, he would have to exhort his people for labour and resources, things they grumbled over giving to the dwarves who had become like strangers, beyond the distant mountains. And yet, until he beheld his rightful crown in Erebor, a life in the mountain depths was more than he could offer his heir. History books and half-remembered tales could only ever teach so much.

There were things Fíli would never learn in Ered Luin. Whispers of a life long lost, but not forgotten, beneath the Lonely Mountain. The song of a thousand hammers beating against the heart of rock. The way to coax a forge-fire to the perfect temperature when it was fuelled by the mountain's heart. How to carve stone, and how to lead a fierce people who had been chipped from rock, tempered in fire, and weathered by the earth.

These things, Dis's children of summer would never learn.

Such regrets seized his heart late at night, when the cold winds turned westward and groaned through the walls, carrying whispers from the Misty Mountains.

"Someday, I hope to make true on your offer." Thórin would not play with words of kindness or of generosity. Neither he nor Dáin were such dwarves. Nevertheless, he knew to pay the politeness of custom. "And Thórin will be offered the same hospitality in my house."

"So long as he is not dragged into any more duels."

Thórin did not know if Dáin was being humorous or not. A moment later, the Lord of the Iron Hills lifted his head, peering across the field. Fíli and Dwalin locked blades, struggling against one another.

"And where is your other sister-son, Thórin? The wild dark one?"

A strange pressure closed in Thórin's chest. Dáin had put him at odds with Kíli yesterday. He had made him choose sides, and the King had chosen wrongly. He could not decipher Dáin's intent now.

"He is under punishment," he said coolly. "He will not be out to train."

Dáin glanced sideways at him. "Thórin told me the boy does not have his own sword. Is that wise?"

"Kíli is not ready."

"Oh, certainly, that. But he should be made ready, and soon." The look in Dáin's eyes was sharp. He was all but giving an order to his king, cold and logical. "After all, Thórin, he is second-born. It is his duty to protect the heir, is it not?"

Thórin said nothing.

Yesterday, Dís had told him, Kíli had complained about the prince's braids again. I'm not a prince, he insisted. And it was true, Thórin did not expect much in the way of princely behaviour from him. It had been a constant struggle with Kíli. He would not sit still, his mind wandered during Balin's instructions, he only ever mumbled halting syllables of Khuzdul. It was clear Kíli would always be in Fíli's shadow, and that was where the boy wanted to be, so Thórin let the matter lie.

What had Dís said Kíli called it? Thórin closed his eyes. He saw his sister shaking her head in the looking-glass while she brushed out his silver-streaked hair after a long day in the Underhall. Kíli, just Kíli, she had mimicked. No prince so-and-so. No nonsense.

Just Kíli.

"Kíli," he said at last, his voice heavy on the words, "is not ready."

"The boy is nearly thirty, Thórin. When do you plan to tell him?"

Never, thought Thórin at once.

Kíli should never be burdened as Frérin had been. As had been all of the second-borns who had lived in the shadows of their elder, somehow more perfect brothers. The second-born's existence was governed by duty and, more often than not, the blade. How many of them had Mahal slated to die before their time, on a battlefield far from home? How many of those too perfect brothers had held them in their arms as they bled, and wept?

It was not a fate he would place upon Kíli, Mahal give him the chance.

Thórin opened his eyes and saw golden hair race, fending Dwalin blow for blow. Dáin might have approved if Fíli, not Kíli, had inherited the dark hair and strong jaw of the line of Durin. But while Fíli had his father's look, Thórin knew, Kíli had his wild spirit. Thórin had done Avnor so many wrongs; he hoped to preserve this one last thing for him.

For him, and for Frérin.

"In due time, Dáin," he said instead, his voice heavy and withdrawn. "We speak of princes who do not yet wear crowns."


"Are you sure it's okay if we're here?" asked Ori in a hushed voice.

"'Course it is! Now c'mon," Kíli said. He clambered over the fence first, dropping to a neat crouch on the hard-packed earth. Ori followed more cautiously, careful not to snag her dress in the old crags in the wood.

"You shouldn't be here, though," piped up a voice. It was Gimli. He occupied the training grounds all by himself this morning and had come over to the fence when he heard their voices.

Kíli crossed his arms. "Why not?"

"Because. 'Cause you're in trouble."

"I am in trouble," argued Kíli, pointing to Ori. "See? She's gotta supervise me an' everything. And besides, Rada only said I couldn't practice. No one said I couldn't be here."

Gimli couldn't find a fault in that rationale. Nevertheless, his brow pinched suspiciously and he clutched his wooden sword as if Kíli might get thoughts about stealing it.

"And anyway," Kíli said importantly, "we didn't come here, we're going exploring."

"In the woods?"

Kíli nodded.

"You shouldn't," said Gimli at once, his tone anxious. "Adad says there's – there's things in there."

"Like what?"

"Like – like wolves," said Gimli, brow shining. "And poison ivy, and sink holes, and bad Men. Wildlings."

"You know what I say is in the woods?" interrupted Kíli.

"What?"

"A dragon!" He seized Ori's hand, who had started to look more and more frightened as Gimli rattled off the terrors in the woods. "An' me and Ori are gonna find it and see how many legs it's got. Right, Ori?"

"R-right," she squeaked, hoping against hope that they wouldn't see any wildlings, never mind dragons. She was already regretting letting Kíli drag her out the front door.

"So, you see, we're going into the woods," said Kíli matter-of-factly. "You can come or not, it doesn't matter. But if you're too scared, I'll tell evr'one a girl was braver than you."

With that proclamation, Kíli set off across the training ground and plunged into the wilds beyond. Trees stretched out to pull them into their shadowy embrace. Ori stumbled after him, her frock catching in brambles and tangles of thin branches.

"Are you sure it's okay?" she gulped again.

"Uh-huh. And we've got the brave Master Gimli to protect us!" He lifted his voice for the dwarfling, puffing after them, to hear. Gimli made some sort of indistinct sound.

Kíli grinned and tugged Ori forward.

Of course, he had been wandering these woods since he had learned how to walk, and he knew there was nothing more threatening than a rabbit lying in wait this close to the village. It was true the dwarves told stories of the woods, or of hearing howling in the night, but that was in dark places, deep within hidden, twisted groves, and not even Fíli had ventured that far into the forest.

After fifteen minutes or so of wandering, they came across a bubbling stream that belonged to the river Lune. Beyond the river was where all the real exploring got done. But in early summer the brook was swollen and high, and Ori worried Dori would be mad if she got all wet, so Kíli had to carry her across on his back. He deposited her on the far bank and came back for Gimli, but he was determined to be braver than a girl and splashed across on his own.

When they clambered up the bank and Kíli rolled his wet breeches up to his knees, he noticed Ori staring very hard at the ground.

"What's it?"

She pointed. "Dragon tracks, maybe?"

Kíli followed her gaze. A scattering of little clawed paw prints ran up the bank. Raccoon, he thought at once, but he crouched and studied them, nodding very seriously. "Dragon tracks, definitely. And this one's got four legs."

Ori and Gimli both paled at the suggestion, but Ori seemed a little proud of her discovery, too, and when they set off after the winding trail through the undergrowth, she quickly rejoined his side.

For a while, Kíli was content to lead them on after the mysterious dragon. He didn't even really mind that he was stuck with the younger dwarflings. He was in the forest, he was free, and he didn't have to sit still through stuffy meetings like Prince Fíli. It was a bright, clear day, excellent for tracking. The trio made enough noise puffing and scuffling through the bushes that he was certain they'd never catch their quarry, but Gimli and Ori were so awed when he found their meandering trail every time it vanished, he didn't even mind that.

When the tracks disappeared again near the base of an old flaking oak Kíli had long ago named the Lookout-Tree, he held up his hand. The dwarflings fell silent except for the rasp of their anxious breathing. When he looked back, they had both matched Kíli's solemn expression.

"Do you hear that?" he whispered.

They listened. Gimli screwed up his face and tilted his head. Ori shook her head first.

"What did you hear?" On some unconscious agreement, they were all whispering.

"I don't know. Wait here, all right?"

Kíli waited for their earnest nods before he turned and waded off through the bushes.

He let himself go on for a dozen paces or so, until the rustling bushes covered his tracks. Then he bit back a grin, cupped his hands to his mouth, and let out the most terrible, ferocious roar he could muster.

Fifteen seconds later Gimli and Ori looked on, wide-eyed, as Kíli crashed through the bushes toward them. "Run!" he shouted, waving his arms, "It's a dragon!"

At once, Gimli and Ori let out identical shrieks and ran.

Kíli ran after them for a while, reigning in his strides so the young dwarflings got ahead; and then he started roaring again, and then finally he couldn't help himself and burst out laughing.

He staggered up against a tree, clutching his belly. That had been too easy. There would be some interesting stories told in Overhill tonight, he thought, swiping his damp hair off his brow.

He had just decided he should probably make sure they made it back to the village safely, and pushed off from the trunk, when the bushes rustled. Instinctively he groped for a sword that wasn't there, but there was no need. The figure stumbling out of the bushes with leaves in her hair was Ori.

"How'd you get back here so fast?"

"I ran." Ori looked a little scared by her own nerve. She least of all had expected to find herself running toward, and not away from, a dragon. "Did you – did you find it?"

"No. I think it went after Gimli."

"I think it had two legs." Ori's face was dead serious. She knew.

Kíli grinned unabashedly. "Well, Gimli's tough and chewy, so we'll be safe for a while. C'mon. I wanna show you something."

Ori hesitated. But Kíli was determined about his sudden new idea, and he held out his hand. Timidly, Ori took it, and they set off beneath the trees. Kíli turned south from the Lookout-Tree and silently counted his paces. Before he had reached twenty-five, he noticed a change in the woods. Here the trees were old and leaning, their bark thick and gnarled. Shadows fell over them. He pressed onward through the murky woods, and eventually the bushes parted, leaving them with a view down into the vale.

Kíli crouched down on the edge of the slope and Ori joined him. Her eyes had gone as wide as saucers, and a small sound escaped her. "Wow."

Below, in the valley, a ruinous city sprawled at their fingertips. Old stone glowed almost white in the midday sunlight. Here and there he could see the yawning mouths of caves, entrances into secret underground places.

Last summer, he and Fíli had stumbled across the ruins and explored them thoroughly, though they'd been careful to leave the caves. There were clouds of bats in those, and even Fíli wasn't eager to get lost in the belly of the earth. Above ground, most of the old city was rubble, lost to the ages; but some small corners, including part of a mead hall, were still standing. Fíli had looked at some of the weathered chiselling on the pillars and reckoned the place was Belegost, the lost dwarvish settlement from the first age. Kíli liked to call it Oldtown.

"Bet you've never seen anything like this," said Kíli. "Wanna explore?"

Ori said nothing. Kíli glanced sideways at her, wondering impatiently if she would echo Gimli's tiresome mantra of You Shouldn't Be Here. But Ori's eyes had gone wide, her face pale.

Too late, Kíli saw the shadowy shape of a Man standing behind her.

Before he could so much as open his mouth, the cold point of a dagger pressed to the small of his back. Steel bit through the cloth of his tunic.

"Now, then," rasped a voice in his ear, hot and rancid with drink. "Be a good lad an' don' make a sound, or it's the girlie that gets it."

To be continued.