Trial of Leadership (6/11)

The long nights and days of waiting finally came to an end for Kíli. On a night when the prison warden imbibed too much wine, Bilbo, their vigilant friend, stole the keys right from his pocket. Kíli would not soon forget the scrap of those keys in the lock, nor the sight of his uncle. Kíli stood on shaky legs and took in the tangled hair, the lined face, and bit his lip. He had feared... Well, he had feared much, and though Thorin was only one of the two he most wished to see, that firm, familiar hand pressing his shoulder lifted a great burden from his heart.

One gruff question was all they had time for: "Are you well?" Bilbo fidgeted in the background, shifting from bare foot to bare foot and gazing with trepidation toward the sounds of the revelry taking place above them. Faint laughter reached down, music, clinking glasses. Thorin's eyes never left his face until Kíli nodded, his throat too tight for words.

One by one, they freed the others. Bewildered Bombur, belt cinched tight around his diminished belly. Balin, with a thousand new wrinkles around his eyes. Fuming Óin and Glóin, cross as hornets after their long confinement. And last, Dori. He staggered out as soon as the door was open, his mouth already shaped around a cry that echoed down the corridor, high and shrill: "Ori!"

Thorin seize him by the throat. "We are in an enemy stronghold. You will be quiet. Do you understand me?"

Eyelids that were swollen from much grief gave passage to two fate tears. Dori choked, "Thorin, I have to find them."

Everyone wilted, for they had all heard that their comrades were missing. "Dori, I've been searching for ages. I swear to you, they aren't here," Bilbo said earnestly.

Dori's pitch heightened. "They may be in places that you haven't been. There are more of us, we could spread out –"

Kíli read the strain in his uncle's expression and knew that Thorin wanted nothing more than to agree to a search, but he would not indulge a vain hope. "No one is going to separate from the others. We have a very small opportunity for escape, and we are taking it."

He thrust the grieving dwarf toward his nephew, and Kíli reluctantly took the Dori by the arm. They made their way down to the lowest part of the stronghold, where the Forest River could be heard whispering beneath a trap door. Creeping past the sleeping elves, they hunched behind a cache of barrels, neatly corralled and ready for departure. There, Bilbo told them what he intended. It was mad, and Kíli feared a mutiny when the hobbit explained his scheme in whispered tones. But this diminished group of dwarves had no fight left in them; they merely stared with grave faces. Thorin dipped his chin.

Packed into the confines of a barrel lined with straw, Kíli breathed shallowly as the dark lid eclipsed even candlelight. There was a period of miserable waiting, and then they were serenaded by the songs of the elves as they flung the barrels onto their sides and rolled them to the hatch. Then there was a weightless plunge, his soundless scream, and the nightmare journey began. Soon Kíli was aware of only three things: the oppressive confines of his vehicle, the leaking of water, and the odor of damp straw.

Eventually he subdued into a kind of stupor. His mind wandered then, back upon paths which he and Fíli had shared: the cottage of their earliest life at the edge of the wilds; the warm glow of the forge and the sharp, hot noises heard and felt with the mussed senses of a very young child. Their mother's overwrought voice, often harsh in those times and demanding; much sadness, no little fear, often deprivation, but always Fíli. Fíli to tuck the blanket around them on the pallet they shared, Fíli's shoulders, strong enough to carry him in a sling.

After Thorin came and took them to Ered Luin, the memories grew brighter. Green, shadow-dappled woods, cool and filled to the brim with things to know and see and taste. Other dwarves to guide and nurture, so that the burden of survival was not so great. Fíli remained solitary and self-contained, his essential character already set, but Kíli seized his new freedoms and grew as boisterous as any young dwarf.

'More impetuous than is good for him.' He could hear the words of his mother as she sat mending a tear in his shirt. She spread it out, frowning. 'Would that he is not impaled before he is grown.'

Fíli had looked at Kíli and wondered, 'Grown?' A tussle followed, one of the many times they wrestled, testing strength against strength with playful good will.

But the sweet memory led into another, when he was very young. He was suckling on his forefinger, which was oozing blood at the nail bed, and asking in a voice filled with trepidation, "Fíli, what way?" He looked around the unfamiliar terrain. It was twilight, and the branches were becoming black and threatening.

His brother stretched his arm around Kíli's shoulders. "Don't worry. We may need to climb a tree and wait for morning, but then I'm sure we can find our way back."

"But we fell so faaar," Kíli protested. Another thought occurred, and he shuddered. "Uncle said we're not to go so far."

"We were wrong," Fíli agreed, "and we'll have to take our licks for it, but that drop was an accident." He paused, brow tense and wrinkled. "Are you afraid?"

Kíli felt his lip trembling. Around him, owls were already calling in their eerie voices. Every fern seemed to move, suggesting the presence of an unseen creature. Kíli quailed, but then he looked at Fíli's calm face. Fíli wouldn't let anything happen to them. Fíli would keep them safe. He gripped his older brother's hand. "No, I'm not afraid."

Inside the barrel, Kíli opened his eyes. He could hear water moving around him, but forward momentum had stopped. He didn't know how much longer he hunched inside the barrel, only it seemed an eternity before the lid finally scrapped and Bilbo's face peeked inside. The hobbit gave a gusty sigh of relief. "Kíli! I was so worried. Come on, now, lean to the side!"

With help, Kíli crawled out of the barrel, though every joint protested. He panted, savoring the fresh air which was so incredibly cool on his swollen face. On the bank, he collapsed for what seemed a long time, but that infernal Bilbo was soon shaking his clothes. "Come on, Kíli. We don't have long before dawn, and I need you."

Somehow between the two of them they found the others. Kíli's strength soon returned, which was more than could be said about the others. Bombur lay spread-eagled, Glóin curled up beside him. Though coherent, Balin had taken a worrying knock to the head. "I'm alright, I'm alright," he muttered. Óin was attempting an examination even though his ears were so clogged with water that he was more deaf than usual.

Kíli sought Thorin, and saw the dark figure walking downriver. As he followed, he passed Dori, whose eyes were fixed on the middle distance. Bilbo was crouched beside him. "Dori, please don't worry. I'm sure we'll find everyone. Won't you say something?"

There was no response.

Thorin had stopped at the edge of the river delta, and when Kíli came to his side, he saw a mirror of stars glinting off a vast, dark immensity of water. Far off in the distance, he could just make out pinpricks of orange light, too stationary to be a reflection. His fingers ran slowly through his hair, and he said, "Lake-town."

"The beginning of the end," intoned Thorin in a voice too solemn for what should have been cause for celebration. He nodded toward a towering pitch-black shadow on the horizon. "And there is the Mountain."

Kíli thought that when they reached this point his spirit would soar like the ravens of Erebor, straight to the Mountain he knew only in his heart. He had thought his whole being would flame as a forge's fire did, that his doubts would melt away, and that he would feel the utter surety that Thorin seemed to possess when he spoke the name of their lost home. Instead, he found his gaze drawn back towards their ill companions, toward Dori's blank stare.

Bilbo padded up on silent feet. "Thorin? I didn't get a chance to tell you before, but I found something other than keys tonight." He reached into his once-fine jacket and withdrew an object which was as familiar to Kíli as his own bow.

"Fíli's knife!" Kíli exclaimed, eagerly grasping it.

"Before they turned to their wine, I heard the warden say a hunting party came upon it, stuck in the carcass of a spider on the eastern edge of Mirkwood."

"So it is possible that they escaped."

Hope, that traitorous emotion, spread like spark falling on a bed of pine needles. Kíli turned over the blade, one his brother had crafted and carried all the way form the Blue Mountains. 'Why so many?' he had once asked, and his brother winked. 'One can never be too armed, little brother.' For a single moment, Kíli clenched his hand around the pommel before tucking it carefully into his belt.

Bilbo spread his hands. "Even if Fíli found his way out of the forest, do we dare believe that they're all together? Perhaps they were separated."

"No, they're together," said Kíli, as certain as if he could stretch himself across the leagues that separated him from his brother. Fíli would not have gone on alone.

Thorin stared at the city on the water. To any other, he would seem a figure made of stone, untouched and unfeeling, but Kíli had known him in moments like these. Moments when the part of him that answered to 'uncle' warred with the part that was 'Thorin, son of Thráin, son of Thrór'. Kíli wasn't certain which portion won when finally he fixed them both under a stern eye. "Get everyone ready to leave. We go on to Lake-town."

Far from the forest, on the banks of another river, a different group of dwarves made camp. The fire was probably a bad idea, yet autumn had come: spirals of fall color pervaded overhead, and the unyielding earth no longer retained the mellow warmth of day. Even stripped of their wet clothing and huddled close to the flames, they still shivered. Bofur let loose an enormous sneeze. He was wearing a borrowed tunic and Bifur's boots, but that didn't stop him from complaining, "I feel like a rag hung out to dry."

Bifur responded by digging an elbow into his cousin's ribs. He'd been acting this way since the first relief had worn off. Not even jokes or pleading had sweetened his mood, though Bofur had already tried at least a dozen times.

He made another attempt at reconciliation: "Really, Bifur; you're acting as cross as an old bear. It's not as though I fell on purpose. I nearly died. Couldn't you be a little more forgiving?"

"By my mind, he has a right to be upset," Dwalin commented. "You would have died if you hadn't been dragged out of that river. Myself, I don't know if I would have gone to the trouble."

Bofur snorted. "I see how it is. Just let old Bofur sail away, no need to lift a finger. Dearly beloved, we gather in memory of a departed soul (who, for want of better friends, died before his time) – Ow!" Another jab from his cousin cut Bofur off, and the scene devolved into bickering.

Fíli watched, too tired to contribute. He held his arm very close to his body, for the pain was worsening. Perspiration stood out on his forehead from the effort of stoically ignoring it and the headache that was splitting his forehead in two. He put his weary head down and listened to Nori and Ori arguing on the other side of camp.

"First you nearly drown in a bog, then a river. I can see now why Dori barely let you out the door. What were you thinking, climbing up onto that tree while Bofur was still crossing it?" Nori's hands were fluttering in sharp, nervous movements. "Suppose you hadn't grabbed onto the bank? Suppose I hadn't been able to climb down and pull you out before you were swept away?"

"I'm alright, Nori," Ori insisted. He was sitting stiffly with his knees drawn up, his brother's coat draped over his freckly shoulders. The crease between his eyebrows was growing increasingly knotted.

"Alright, he says – you could have been killed!" Nori's agitation was at a fever pitch. "Suppose I'd had to go back to Dori without you. Can you imagine what he would say? He would break down, he would murder me in cold blood, he would –"

Ori's teeth were gritted. "I know, and I'm sorry, but it was an accid –"

"I wish we had never allowed you on this quest!" Nori blurted, "Better you had stayed home with your knitting and ink bottles."

It was too much. His face aflame with anger and humiliation, Ori came to his feet. Heedless of the overlarge coat that only emphasized his unimpressive stature, heedless of his ludicrously frazzled hair, heedless of his bare, blue toes, Ori shouted, "That's not fair! I've just as much right to be here as anyone, and I'm tired of hearing you and Dori prattling on like I need you to tie my bootlaces."

Nori's face purpled. "You were lucky to have someone to tie your bootlaces. I've mended your splintered fingers and injured feelings since you were still eating pap. You could have just as easily been left alone, to make your own way in this world."

"Like you did?" Ori rapped out, sharp and sudden as the strike of a snake.

The implication drained the color from Nori's face, and he said solemnly, "A library suits you better than a battlefield, and by Durin's beard I wish that I had left you there."

The words were a bitter poison to take, and it seemed that Ori couldn't stomach it, for the fire reflected off of eyes that shone like glass. Hoarsely, he whispered, "You're wrong. I fought the trolls as well as any of you. And those awful goblins, and the orcs, and the spiders. I can take care of myself."

"Ha!" Nori blurted.

It was a stroke too far. Ori's was apoplectic, his ears and neck so scarlet that he looked as if he might burst. With a jerky movement, he stalked off into the woods in a racket of crunching leaves. Nori looked like he might follow, but Fíli rose before he could. "Nori," he said. "If you don't mind, I think a little cooling off might be better." He saw Nori's hangdog expression, tinged with all the fear he'd felt that day, and knew his mind. He was Ori's older brother. It could be a terrible weight at times, but Fíli also knew that an anxious scolding would mend nothing. He paused at Nori's slumped shoulder. "It's alright. I'll find him."

A weary nod was his answer, and Fíli disappeared into the shadows between the trees.

He found Ori much as he had in Mirkwood: crouched, with his arms around his stomach. Concerned that he might be feeling sick (Fíli himself had coughed up pints of foul tasting river water), he knelt and lay his hand on the hunched back. "Ori?"

A sharp, congested inhale revealed more than any words. Lifting his head, the younger dwarf dashed his forearm across his eyes and asked defiantly, "Did Nori send you after me?"

Fíli had spent hours immersed in the study of battle strategy, and he was an able diplomat by nature and training, but even more valuable to him now was his years of experience as Kíli's confidant. Since childhood's hour, he had often listened to the painful tirades of his little brother, who like many passionate people had a tendency to be moody and sensitive. Fíli had heard the secret fears, the worries, the confessions, and though them all he had learned more than Balin could ever teach him about tact. Now he chose his approach carefully, sitting back as though he intended to stay awhile. He longed for his pipe, since filling and lighting it would buy more time for the tense figure beside him to calm, but in the end it wasn't needed. Ori had no talent for ire, and when he did not immediately face rebuke or inquisition, his shoulders relaxed.

Folding his legs beneath him, Ori said, "You probably think it's pathetic to run off like that and prove Nori right."

The petulant tone was new to Fíli, who had rarely heard gentle Ori speak in such a way. Thankful for the dark blue patches of sky, Fíli looked up between the trees and scratched his chin. "It's not wrong to walk away from a quarrel," he said. "Though I'd rather nobody stay on their own. We don't know this place."

The strange landscape waxed around them, and Ori drew his tunic closer. "I wasn't thinking of that. I was so angry at Nori –" He trailed off, his head hanging.

"Your brother was badly frightened today," Fíli observed, "and fear can make one say rash things if they have the temper for it."

Ori had the grace to blush. "Do you think I was wrong, saying what I did?"

Fíli shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. Kíli and I have said worse to one another during an argument."

"Have you?" The timidity of the inquiry caused Fíli to raise an eyebrow, and Ori stammered, "Argue, I mean. You and Kíli seem so close."

A bark of laughter burst out of Fíli. He wished it hadn't, for he was so sore, but he couldn't help it. "Argue? Well, not as often as we once did. But we are brothers."

For a while the two meditated. Eventually, though, Ori snapped a twig in half and admitted, "I know I'm not a warrior. I don't have any training, and the most I knew about battle came out of books. Usually I'm a fast learner, and I was so eager to see Erebor for myself. I though that would be enough, but –"

"There's more to being a warrior than swinging an axe," Fíli commented thoughtfully. "I think you do well enough with your catapult, Ori, and it suits you better. Besides, every journey needs a chronicler, don't you think?"

Ori was too cast down to be comforted. All his anger had died away, and now his chin sunk low, along with his spirits. "No. What it needs are more fighters who won't trip and fall into rivers. Maybe Nori is right." He looked at his hands, which were calloused in quite a different way than Fíli's. He narrowed his eyes at the ink stains and little wrinkles. "Maybe I should have stayed home. All I'm good at are scribbles and stitches. It's not very like a dwarf."

Not very like a dwarf. The words struck a chord in Fíli. How often had he taken those very same words out and examined them in the privacy of his own bed, or brooded when disappointment or failure laid him low. Everywhere he went, he was watched for signs that he exemplified his blood line, and he often felt the heat of judgment on his back. Tonight that heat created a spark, and Fíli was suddenly angry. 'What do they know?' he thought, and before he could think better of it, he leaned over and blurted into Ori's ear: "Thorin could get lost in a bucket. We tie a bell on his saddle horn when he goes out to ride alone."

Ori stared, unsure what to do with the revelation that the famed Thorin Oakenshield was sometimes fitted out like a wandering cow. After a moment, though, understanding dawned. "Dori can't abide ale. Once, he drank some at a tavern and threw up all over a pretty dwarf lass, and she wouldn't speak to him again."

"My brother can put an arrow through a squirrel's eye, but for years he could barely read a word of Khuzdul. He refused to sit down to a lesson unless soundly spanked, and often fell asleep on top of his books."

"Nori wails like a lass when he has his hair braided. He accuses us of trying to pull it out by the root, but he can't bare having it undone." Ori grinned feraly. "Goodness knows how he keeps it up when he's off on his own."

"Kíli broke a toe when he tried wielding a war hammer."

"Nori is afraid to go down in a mine."

"Balin sleeps with his cat."

"Dori does tatting."

Forced to reach down deep, Fíli pitched his voice low and imparted, "My mother is a better blacksmith than Mister Dwalin."

Ori's mouth fell open. "No!"

"It's true. He's a master at arms, easily the best weapon's master I've ever had, but he can barely put a head on a nail or a tine on a fork. I've seen him try. Mother taught me everything I know about the forge."

Sitting back on his hands, Ori shook his head in wonder. "I never would have believed it. He's s-so –"

Fíli seized the opportunity. "No one is a sage at everything, Ori," he said, "and that doesn't make them less. So let's have no more of this melancholy brooding over what skills we may lack. There's more than one way to be a dwarf."

The suspicious sheen was back in Ori's eyes, which reflected the starlight too well. In a low voice he asked, "Do you truly think so, Fíli?"

Fíli cleared his throat. Did he dare to believe that he, Fíli son of Dís, had nothing to prove? "I'm not everything I hope to be," he decided. "But I wouldn't trade myself for another. I'll have to be content."

"Sometimes I'm afraid I can't," Ori admitted. "Sometimes I wish I were as strong as Mister Dwalin, or I was good with a sword like, um, – " he trailed off, coughing, before picking back up his thread, "Then no one would doubt me."

How easily Fíli could understand that wish. Maybe then he wouldn't have to endure being called a puppy, or shrink under Dwalin's doubtful eyes. Maybe he would not be rebuked so often by his uncle, who was disappointed when Fíli let himself be overwhelmed by his younger brother's will time and time again. He often pulled Fíli aside to remind him that he was eldest, that his responsibilities were greater, that he should command. But that was not what Ori needed to hear.

"You've had some missteps," Fíli said. "But I don't believe any member of this company is here by coincidence. More and more I come to feel as though we're in the midst of some great undertaking with an importance we don't yet understand." Fíli spoke distractedly, his inner eye on a secret feeling that had been building in his heart since the night Thorin had declared his intentions.

'My brother, the prophet,' spoke Kíli within his mind, and Fíli closed his eyes on the teasing voice. He could hear the jolly laughter, admonishing him for his preoccupation with vague omens and dreams. 'If you're not careful, you'll end up like Bofur, always professing a new disaster.'

Ori was still uncertain. "B-but what if I – what if –"

Fíli looked into his young friend's creased face, so earnest, so fearful of failure, and remembered the bold stand he'd taken on that night in Bilbo's dining room, when he'd declared, 'I'm not afraid. I'll give the dragon a taste of dwarvish iron, right up his jacksie!' The passionate declaration, spoke with perhaps more folly than sense, sent a surge of affection to Fíli's heart. "You don't need to prove yourself to me, Ori," he said.

For a long time, Ori didn't speak. When he did, he grasped his hands together and whispered, "I won't let you down, Fíli. I swear it. By Durin's beard –" And here he choked, for he didn't often swear. "I'll play my part to make the quest succeed."

Clapping the younger dwarf on the shoulder, Fíli said, "That's the sprit. But one step at a time, eh?"

"I hope the first steps take us back to Dori," Ori sorrowed. "I really don't like us being apart. He frets, you know?"

Fíli knew. He was fretting some himself. 'Don't find yourself in too much trouble, little brother,' he thought. "Perhaps you should first make amends with the brother who is still with you," he suggested.

This brought on a sour expression. Fíli could see that Ori truly wanted things mended, but what he and his brother had in common – their pride – was holding him back. He muttered, "Nori doesn't respect me."

"I don't think it's respect for you he lacks. You've had some close calls, and he's angry with himself for not protecting you. You are, after all, his baby brother."

"Baby," Ori muttered under his breath.

Fíli ruffled his hair, just to watch him bristle. "Alas, it's true, and there's nothing to be done about that."

Ori glared at him. "You're just saying that because you're oldest."

"You are correct," Fíli said, but he sobered almost immediately. "Come on, Ori. This journey is full of dangers. Who knows when the last chance for an apology may come?"

The younger dwarf gazed into Fíli's face for a long moment before, finally, he broke down and spoke. "You're right," he admitted, scrubbing his messy ginger hair and sighing. "We're brothers, and I don't want unkind words to be the last thing we say to one another."

Next Chapter Summary: That fire really wasn't a good idea.