Middle-earth, and all who dwell within it, belongs to Tolkien. I am grateful to him for growing this beautiful garden in which our imaginations can play. Please review!

Betta returned to her room at the inn. Not for the first time, she wondered why she hadn't camped in the woods outside the town. The answer was obvious – because there was more danger alone in the woods close to a mining town than there was within the town itself. But that didn't stop her from missing the quiet company of the birds and trees. Dwarves were alright for company, but she wished herself back in that strange little land she'd discovered, The Shire.

The Hobbits were a people of legend in Gondor, and Betta had been delighted to discover them living creatures. They were quiet and simple, like the birds and trees, and she would gladly have settled in one of their small hill-houses but for the box. The Hobbits wouldn't take her in willingly, but she was not much taller than a dwarf, and dwarves were grudgingly allowed into The Shire for business and trade. Maybe she couldn't live within their little land, but she could find a place near to it in the wild northern hills where no man dwelt.

She washed her hands and face in a bowl of icy water then climbed into bed still dressed and with her weapons close at hand. She has seen the wars of the south, and knew what dangers could come upon the unwary.

.

That night, Fili did not sleep well. Across from him, in the room they shared, Kili slept like a log. A log that snored. When Fili closed his eyes, the mountain of Erebor rose before him. He could not stop thinking on the words he had shared with Balin three days before. Thorin would not take his nephews with him; he did not think they were tough enough for such an adventure. Balin had been sympathetic, but Fili could tell that he agreed.

When sleep finally came to him in the dark hours of the night, he dreamed of mountains and dragons and the wars of men in the south. In his dream, he saw great armies marching forth to war and forest set aflame with the dragon fire, consuming all that was in its path. His uncle was there with an army of dwarves, but they were all consumed in fire.

Fili woke with a gasp. Kili was already up and dressed, sitting on the edge of his cot as he pulled on his boots.

"Bad dreams, brother?" he asked.

Fili shook his head. "I don't recall," he lied. He reminded himself that he did not believe in dream omens. "You're up early."

Kili shrugged. "You told the woman we'd meet her at sunrise. I thought one of us ought to actually show up."

"What time is it?"

"We've about an hour yet."

With a groan, Fili sat up. "You should ready the forge," he said. "The fires will need time to heat. I'll meet the woman. "

Kili looked at him in surprise. "Are you sure?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

His brother shrugged. "You did not seem to like her much yesterday. And she has already pulled a knife on you once." Kili grinned. It wasn't often that someone got the drop on his brother; that it had been a human woman made the moment priceless. "I wish that Thorin could have seen it."

Fili cringed. "I am glad that he didn't." He sighed and began to dress. "Ready the forge. I'll go down to the Gates. With luck, Thorin will not hear about this until we've found whether that box is empty or full."

"With more luck, he won't hear about it until we tell him," Kili said. He looked closely at his brother. "Are you sure that you are alright?"

Fili put on a smile. "Good as new." He kept up the smile until his brother was out of the room, and then let it fall. Let Kili keep his mind quiet; Fili's head was full of worry and confusion. He was not as confident as he had made himself sound. Both brothers had their doubts about the woman and her quest, and Thorin was as likely to deny them this adventure as he was the quest for Erebor. When it came time to tell their uncle, it would have to be handled diplomatically.

.

Betta woke early that morning. She put on her coat, cloak and hood, and her knife as well. She looked longingly at her bow and quiver, but it would be unusual to wear it around town and an insult to wear it into the dwarves' mountain when the brothers were already making an exception to their law for her.

The streets were quiet as she made the long, steep trek up to the Gates. A thin, morning mist lay in patches where the ground was low and damp. Soon, the autumn rains would give way to winter snow and the ground would freeze solid. Today, it was soft and muddy and sank under her boots with a wet, sucking sound.

The sun had not yet colored the sky when she reached the Gates. Betta found a corner where the ground was mostly dry and crouched down to wait. She took out some bread and cheese for her breakfast and ate slowly, enjoying the quiet.

.

Fili was late to the Gates. He did not care if the woman had been kept waiting, but he didn't know how long they would have the forge to themselves. He had chosen the south-facing forge because it was most often empty, only heated when the other, better equipped rooms were all in use.

The dwarves' home in Ered Luin was in a tall, wide mountain near to the northernmost tribute of the river Lhun. A great wall ran between two great spurs of the mountain facing east, and the Gates that were the only entrance had been built across the main road that led up from the mining town. The road ran on eventually coming to an end before the front door of the mountain. The Gates were tall and wrought of steel and sliver, pretty in their own way, but mere echoes of the grand entrances to the dwarves' ancient homes of Moria and Erebor.

By the time Fili arrived, the sun was above the horizon, but there was no sign of the woman. He cursed under his breath. If she had run off, then they had done all this work for nothing.

"I thought you had changed your mind."

He spun around. The woman stood a few steps from him; she had stopped just beyond the reach of a sword. He would have laughed that she thought he would pull his weapon here, before the doors of his own mountain, but perhaps she had only left a polite distance between them and it was his own dreams of battle that made him think of sword lengths and weapons.

"We've a forge ready," he said. "This way. Keep your head down and try to look…" He looked her over. She was short enough to be a dwarf, a tall dwarf. She was not pretty by the measures of Men, and the bulky coat she wore might fool those who knew no better, but no dwarf would be fooled. "Come this way."

They passed the Gates and started up the road. Halfway to the front door, they turned off the road and followed a path that curved south and west around a tall boulder; they were out of sight of the Gates and the road. Once he was sure they wouldn't be seen from above or below, Fili stopped and turned to her.

"Your name," he said.

"What?"

She stood eye to eye with him. If he hadn't been standing above her on the hill, she might have had an inch up on him. He was more used to being looked down on by Men.

"What is your name?" he repeated.

"My brothers called me Betta, when they were alive," she said. She was used to being looked down upon, too.

"When you lived in Gondor," Fili said.

"Yes."

"Before you crossed the wide lands. Alone."

"Yes."

"Hm." Fili frowned and shook his head. He started walking again before he realized that she wasn't following. He looked back. "What now?"

"Is it a Dwarf custom that introductions fall only one way?" she asked.

"You came to us. You know my name already," he said.

"I may have spent recent years in the wild lands, but I was not raised there," she said. "You have demanded my name, and now I ask for yours in return. That is the way of polite introduction, but perhaps it is not Dwarf custom."

Fili crossed his arms, but her long, proud speech reminded him of his uncle when Thorin would stand forth as leader of the Dwarves of Ered Luin to negotiate with the Men of the town. "It is not our custom to follow the customs of others," he told her.

Betta had no right to demand his name, and all that she could say was, "As you wish it." and wait for him to walk on.

But Fili knew that if he and his brother were going to travel in the wild with this woman, they needed to be on friendly terms. Reluctantly, he said, "I am Fili, at your service." The words came so naturally out of habit that he said them without thinking and only caught himself halfway into a bow. "My brother is called Kili. Are you satisfied?"

She nodded, and they walked on. Betta had seen plenty of mountains on her long journey, and many of them larger than the Dwarves' home in Ered Luin, but still the great heights and steep cliffs were impressive. The ground was littered with boulders cast down from above, and the path wound between them. The forge was half a mile from the Gates, out of sight of just about everything. She could smell the sea from this high hill, and it reminded her of family's home in fair Lebennin when she was young.

Kili had done his job. The chimneys were smoking and the heat of the furnace could be felt as they climbed the rough-hewn steps to the door. They entered and passed down a wide stair into a large room. It was cut at odd angles to funnel heat from the furnace away from the wider spaces and up through shafts in the ceiling. Other vents had been cut with skill to let in fresh air and to release the smoke from the fire. Betta marveled at the red hot stone, the deep basins of coal and wood, and the arms of the bellows that were as long and as thick as her arms.

Kili was there before them, his heavy coat thrown over a post near the door. He was shoveling coal into the furnace with his sleeves rolled up to the elbow. His arms were strong and thick, straining at the heavy work. His face dripped with sweat as he stood grinning at his brother.

"There you are!" he called. "I thought you had forgotten about me."

"The woman was late," Fili said.

Betta did not argue. She was staring into the white heat of the open furnace. This was not the forge of a blacksmith. For the first time, she actually believed that these dwarves would be able to do what so many before them had not.

"We should get to work," Fili said.

Betta remembered that the box was still in her pocket. "Of course," she said, handing it to him with reluctance. The steel was strong, but it would not last five seconds in the middle of that blazing fire. She regretted breaking the thing to find out what was inside, but there was no other way.

Fili took the box and pointed her toward a corner far from the furnace. "Sit there, and don't go wandering," he told her as he threw his coat next to his brother's.

"And watch your fingers, lass," Kili added, still grinning. "Those pipes are hot!"

Row upon row of pipes ran across the ceiling and up and down the walls of the room. Some were thick as tree trunks and some as thin as a piece of twine; all of them passed back and forth like the roots of the very mountain. The corner where Fili had sent her was a deep step separating the main forge from an dark and unused alcove. Several of the smaller pipes ran down the walls on either side.

Betta took off her coat and cloak and folded them beside her. The heat of the forge was oppressive, and the thick air made her drowsy. She looked across the smoky, wavering air to watch the dwarves at work.

It was an impressive sight, and more than a little intimidating to see how strong they were. She had met dwarves upon dwarves on her search and had thought them a tough and sturdy people, but nothing more than that. Watching the brothers move swiftly from the bellows to the grate, from the table to the shelves, she marveled at their gracefulness. They worked together, each never getting in the other's way. Her box was small and dull against the gleam of fire that flashed on metal tools and polished, stone walls.

Both dwarves were sweating as they worked, their hair plastered to their forehead and their shirts stuck to their backs. Once the fires were ready, Kili brought a bundle of thin leather to the table and rolled it out. He unfolded and unfolded, and unfolded again, each time revealing finer and finer tools. Fili took the box and examined it. He tested the different tools against it while Kili kept the fires going, heating and bringing to him anything that he called for.

Fili used all his knowledge to break the metal and magic of the box. He knew that there were dwarves in the mountain with greater skill and subtlety than he had, but he was determined to solve the puzzle himself. The box was old, but it was also Man-made and not as difficult as the ancient works of Elves or Dwarves.

As Betta watched, she thought that she heard Fili murmuring under his breath words that she did not understand. She knew the dwarf tongue was secret and that they did not speak it openly to other races. She willed her ears to close and not to hear it. The heat and the pounding of the metal, the murmur of Fili's strange language and the sound of Kili pumping the bellows blended together into one long, low music and, with the dancing smoke and fire, she dozed and fell into a shallow sleep. The chanting of Dwarves echoed in her dreams as voices out of the deep places of the world.

Kili's triumphant cry woke her suddenly, and she leapt to her feet, knife in hand. He stood at the table beside his brother who held the box in both hands. The fires were cooling, forgotten on the forge. Betta put her knife away and hurried forward. The rivets of the box had been cut and the steel bands were pulled back, opening up like a strange flower with a square center. The lid was closed, but there was a line where the old steel had been cut nearly through, and it needed only a little force to break the final beads that held it.

Something sounded in her mind, like a voice or a song that resonated deeper than the deep voice of the mountain. It came from the box, and it sang in her blood. Betta forgot the forge and the dwarves; she forgot everything except the box and stretched out her hand toward it.

Kili caught her wrist. "Careful, it's hot," he said.

Betta said nothing; her eyes were on the box.

"Let her go."

Kili looked at his brother curiously, but he did as Fili asked.

Betta touched the box, tentatively at first, for she feared the heat, too, but there was no reason. The metal was hot, but not too hot to touch. The box seemed to grow large in her hand and the letters carved on the lid glowed with the light of fire. She took hold of the lid. The last beads of metal gave way and she lifted it.

There was no scent of air, no flash of light. Almost the moment the lid was off, Betta woke from her trance and it was only an ordinary box of metal in her hand. Whatever magic had been in it had gone out of it and was gone. She felt disappointed, but the box was not empty.

She turned it over and dropped the contents into her hand. Wrapped in squares of folded paper was a round, dark stone. It was large, but rested lightly on her palm. The size of a small duck egg, it was perfectly smooth and painted with translucent swirls as if it were made of glass. Fili took it, and he and his brother examined it. Betta turned her attention to the pages.

They were tattered at the edges, and worn in places where the stone had rubbed against them, but there were markings on them. She smoothed the papers and laid them out on the table. The writing was old, older than anything she had seen, but the letters were elf-letters and her father had taught her the language that was written in them. The four squares of paper had marks on the corners of each to show how they would lay, North, South, East and West. It was a map.

The dwarves had been right all along; there really was a treasure.

I hope that wasn't too long for you ;-). Please let me know what you think.

-Paint