A/N: I have absolutely no interesting or viable excuse or reason why this last chapter has taken so long to post. I apologize. Thank you to anyone who has read any of the story and especially to those who read to the end. I love your opinions of all colors and I need them. Many thanks to Professor Tolkien for creating this world in which we can play. The road goes ever on and on.

Moonstone

Halmulev prayed Thorin wouldn't come. And she was almost sure he wouldn't. How could he? How could he possibly listen to one of them-again-and let them lead him around in the dark-again? She was bound, the ropes over her sleeves so her wrists wouldn't chafe. They had her sitting down and her feet bound after the same fashion. She couldn't help but think she really ought to be able to get out of this, but she had no idea how. This had certainly never happened in all her history.

The whole situation was terribly frustrating to her. Of course the dwellers would try this. It was all ridiculous. Their memories were so short! How many generations had passed? Halmulev had allowed herself to be won before. She had accepted the attentions of previous candidates, had opened herself up to the possibility of their permanence, and she had paid for it. A heart absorbs and reflects a full spectrum of emotive color, from dullest apathy to darkest sorrow to the most brilliant elation. Reasoning does not happen inside a heart; it has to happen elsewhere to preserve the purity of the colors' source. If shades are going to be muddied or blurred, that happens once reasoning starts. And thus, whenever Halmulev tried to reason her way out of feelings, she found herself hopelessly outmatched every time.

They couldn't know, either, the effects her imprisonment might have for them. She was not a dweller, not a tenant of the mountain, she was its heart.

She turned to the nymph standing guard beside her. "Do you what will happen if I stay here in this cavern?" The nymph did not look at her. She tried the satyr on her other side, "The tunnels and passages farthest from me will begin to close up, caverns will collapse." The faithful satyr stared straight ahead, stone-faced. Two imps, however, sitting beside her feet, turned their faces up to her.

Gladly, she continued for their benefit. "An icy cold like stone has never known will creep up these corridors and freeze all life out of the mountain. Everything will grow still and stiff. The mountain will die, and kill everything living inside it. And you . . . you don't know the way out. Those in here with me will be the last to die. This cavern will hold on the longest. But you will be trapped by collapsed corridors and freezing air outside. Many of you will likely starve to death. But eventually, with all the mountain dead around us, this cavern will finally give in and snuff us out." Halmulev thought she noticed her captors shuffle a bit. Good.

The imps were positively terrified. Her guards probably saw this as weakness and gullibility, but Halmulev knew that the imps had always been the most in tune with the mountain, the most dangerous of enemies and useful of allies. They knew in their bones she spoke truth. They could see the future she foretold and it chilled them already. One of them gathered enough courage to croak, "How long?"

How long before the symptoms started? How long before the mountain began to fail and the heart's absence became lethal? Halmulev told them the absolute truth. "That, I do not know."

The imp who had not spoken glanced up at the satyr and then its companion. Warily, it attempted to slink away, hoping to pass this information along to one of the many other imps milling about the crowded cavern. The satyr, who had given no sign of his awareness of the imp, suddenly stepped forward and yanked it back into place. "No leaving until your shift is over," he ordered.

"Shifts" in the cavern prison were a rather flexible affair anyway. Essentially, the leader of the four guards posted would at length decide that they had been there long enough and call for a replacement detail. Obviously the leader was always either nymph or satyr, no imp had a chance of rearranging the schedule. Knowing that the imps were now likely to spread the unseemly news, the satyr seemed determined to keep his guard on duty until they either passed out from standing or died of old age.

Halmulev tried a different tactic. She waited until they relaxed just a little, then filled her lungs, and announced the portents of the mountain's death at the top of her voice. It was a large gathering, but those nearer stopped and turned to face her. Once again, the nymphs and satyrs were cold, but the imps began to shiver. She barely had one dooming sentence out before the nymph guard beside her had torn off some of her own sleeve and gently filled Halmulev's mouth with the cloth. An imp was then ordered to come and sit on the heart's lap to make sure she could not successfully expel the gag. Still more afraid of the master guards than the heart, the imp offered no objection.

The yarn of light raced away from Thorin and his companions. They followed with a stamina that would have surprised them had they not been so keen on their task. Riyelle and Muggins exchanged frequent glances as they followed one step behind the dwarf. What on earth could they expect when Thorin found the gathering? If this all went awry, as everything had from the moment this dwarf entered the mountain, both for him and for the dwellers, they could not imagine what fate might await them. Had this ever been done before? Had the council ever had to deal with this kind of barbarous treachery? They would most likely be an experimental case, their only hope that the chiefs would avoid risk after the gravity of losses sustained in recent events.

Thorin was somewhat at a loss for plans of action. So far, his experience with dwellers in large numbers had been essentially keeping his head down and enduring the onslaught. But that tactic had never returned him a clear victory, which was the only acceptable outcome of this quest. Interestingly enough, killing the captors didn't even occur to him as anything other than a failing result. A lifetime of warrior instincts had apparently been rechanneled, proving the candidate particularly adaptable, the surroundings particularly influential, or his stay particularly lengthy.

Frustratingly, the only thing running through that old warlord's head was that he couldn't manage this one. I can't, he thought again and again. I can't. He might have been able to shove it aside if it hadn't been for the undeniable accuracy of the statement. The blue light shot out away from the staff and this time traveled a long way down the hall before condensing itself into a point that did not fade. Thorin's brows lowered and he turned to his posse.

"You wait here. Seeing you two, seeing that they've been betrayed by their own . . . it won't be good. For anyone," he knowingly warned.

"It's not a betrayal, really . . . " Riyelle protested.

"They won't see that. Trust me, they won't."

"But we're your only supporters . . ."

Muggins cut her off this time. "Not us he needs though. Not our support. There's no legend says the king needs supporters. We test the king is all. The mountain chooses the king and the children of the mountain, well . . . they make their choice from there."

Thorin lowered his chin. "If you believe your actions have been in loyalty to your home, if you intend to call me king should the mountain will it, obey now."

And so it was the lone dwarf whom the dwellers had taken as their enemy who stood at the entrance to their cavern. To their credit, or perhaps their shame, none of those "volunteers" slipped out back passages or quailed when they saw him. An entire generation of the mountain's inhabitants, sparing only a few to look after the young in the deepest reaches of stone, closed ranks between Thorin and the heart. A satyr stepped up and stood beside Halmulev on the raised outcropping.

"You will come no closer," the satyr declared. Thorin's eyes narrowed. "To advance through our ranks, to reach your beloved, you must cut us down. Whether the mountain expels you after one life, or a hundred, it will be a bargain to our eyes."

"You will not harm her," Thorin countered, "You will not risk expulsion yourself. Death, perhaps, but not the unknown fate of the mountain's betrayers."

"True. You see we are careful. You see she is unharmed. And yet," he grinned, "you see we have her. And you don't like it."

"You endanger your home! How can the mountain be well with it's heart held captive?" If Thorin had eyes to see, he would have noticed all the imps shivering at this statement. "She is not yours to command!"

"Is she yours, then, would-be-king? Command her to go to you, then. Or come for her yourself. Please, dare you not take one step?"

When Thorin had first arrived in lower earth, the meaning of Halmulev's name had seeped up into his blood from the stone beneath his feet. Now, by the same method, the mountain sent Thorin another message.

"Braymire!" Thorin addressed his opponent by name and waited for the surprise to fade before continuing. "If you claim to lead your fellows, end this now."

A little unnerved by Thorin's knowledge, Braymire nevertheless insisted, "You end it."

Satisfied that he had been reasonable, Thorin quit addressing the dwellers at all. He opened his mouth for a different purpose and felt the taloned thing inside him hiss that he should use his staff, point it at his object or raise it over his head. Another, wiser voice within suggested a different approach. The dwarf lowered himself to a knee and commanded, "Part the way and deliver the heart to me."

His voice was loud enough that everyone could hear. Though everyone knew to whom he must be speaking, only the imps had the good sense to seek higher ground. Unlike the last time Thorin had spoken aloud to the rock, this time the response was immediate.

The stone underfoot trembled only a moment before a ridge erupted out of the center of the floor. It sharply separated the two halves of the cavern and when it was high and steep enough that all had tumbled from its slopes, it split to open a walled pathway directly from Halmulev to Thorin. Then, Halmulev's seat began moving forward as a long arm of stone pushed it away from the wall. Dwellers of all races scrabbled at the sides of newly erected walls but could not access the path on which Halmulev travelled to Thorin.

Only the imp sitting on Halmulev's lap, holding her gagged, was carried with her to Thorin. This imp, secretly quite relieved that it appeared the mountain would not be collapsing in on itself, had the good sense to climb over Halmulev's shoulder and hide behind her. Thorin, still kneeling, removed the ties on Halmulev's feet, then her hands, and finally stood to remove the gag. She said nothing, only took her place beside him. This time he did not kneel, but spoke it the same low, commanding voice.

"Release them."

The separated ridge walls and long arm shuddered back into the cavern floor and harried scrambling melted into stillness. After a moment's hesitation the dwellers filled in the space. They seemed caught between the urge to look to Braymire for guidance and their reluctance to look away from Thorin lest he whisper a word and take the stone from under their feet. For his part, Thorin had eyes only for Halmulev, hoping she might once again step in as his guide and give him an idea where to go from here. Halmulev, however, was watching Braymire.

The many-times humiliated satyr was huffing and stamping his hooves in a frenzy. He certainly couldn't deny the evidence now. He hadn't a leg to stand on. And yet, for the sake of his willful, ignorant pride, he was drawn forward. The signs were clear on his face that he hadn't yet worked out what he would say when he stood toe to toe with the master of stone. That being the case, Halmulev was tempted to let him try and speak and see what foolishness would escape his teeth.

Instead, when Braymire had nearly reached them and everyone else in the room was dead silent watching his approach, Halmulev took one meaningful step forward.

"You dare not take one more step," she informed him with absolute finality. Thorin felt the ancient, unspeakable tenor of her authority and knew Braymire could not ignore her. She then raised her chin to address the collective audience. Had the silence been anything less than perfect, perhaps her voice would not have carried. Then again, like blood through vessels, perhaps the heart could have made her presence felt regardless. She certainly seemed strengthened by the events just witnessed and the presence of the indomitable dwarflord. "The mountain has made known its will. As is my duty and my wish, I pledge my loyalty, the eternal fealty of the mountain's heart, to Thorin, who has proven himself lord of this home."

Thorin took a step forward to stand at her side, and both looked out over the stunned crowd. In a voice so low it reverberated around the walls, Thorin said, "Accepted." At this, Thorin noticed the eyes of those closest to him drop to his feet and stare. The base of his staff was lit again with the blue-white light. This time the slivers of brightness crept up the wood and remained there, shining out as if the oak had a core of moonlight. Spidery trails shot out from under the staff as well, traveling along the floor and up the walls in all directions, creating venous patterns of light that shamed the torches in their dim yellowish impurity.

Recognition dawned in Thorin's eyes, but before he could be overcome, he choked, coughed, and returned his gaze to his opponent.

"Chief Braymire," Thorin had to call his attention away from the glowing walls and ceiling. For good measure he added, "Children of the mountain. The choice is yours. Accept me and stay in this home of marvels, or leave."

No one moved. There followed an unpleasantly long moment of many shifting eyes. Thorin and Halmulev were willing to wait for the awe to pass and reason to regain control. Two other souls, however, were not.

Riyelle came forward first: the nymph child, true to her home above all else. Muggins followed her closely: representative of the imp race, those children most in tune with the mountain itself. They knelt on either side of their lord, Riyelle with her cupped hands over her head holding a little pool of water in offering, Muggins with his forehead and his arms from claw-tip to elbow lying flat on the stone. As everyone watched, each of the two loyal creatures was suddenly encircled in the now familiar blue-white light, shooting brilliantly up in a pillar from the stone beneath them.

To Thorin's utter astonishment and Halmulev's delight, every imp in the room immediately followed suit. Living up to their warm reputation in Halmulev's eyes, they were unhesitating in their gratitude to the one who had spared the mountain a cold death. Thorin began to hear the tapping of hooves and swishing of silken dresses as tremors ran through the group. Braymire looked frantic. He was spared the attention, however, when a much older satyr came forward and stood beside him. A satyr could hardly kneel on his two goat legs, but the oldest of the chiefs put one of his hooves far forward, as if in a lunge, raised his fist to his heart, and lowered his head. He too was encircled in a blue pillar.

It was decided. Thorin's one-time enemies fell before him, each in a voluntary obeisance particular to their kind. Braymire was among the last to salute, but his head did indeed bow. The effect was blinding. The very air was too bright to tolerate. Halmulev alone was able to bear it.

"Follow Thorin to the throne room," she instructed, and took the dwarf's arm to lead him out. The brilliant circles of light faded from the floor as the crowds stood and left their places, but the spidery veins remained in the walls, floors and ceiling. The same patterns had appeared in the tunnels and caverns all throughout the mountain, and the company went along snuffing the now unnecessary torches. Scouts were sent to fetch the young ones and caretakers hidden away and bring them as well to the throne room.

With Halmulev's hand on his arm to guide him, Thorin's eyes traced the veins of light in awe, tears running lost into his beard. The heart whispered, "I had forgotten this light. I cannot be sure, but I feel it is meant to be like moonlight.

"Moonlight!" Thorin choked, surprised he hadn't noticed the resemblance before.

"Dwarves are mountain people, so of course they love the moonlight as well. It is a love that seeps into them from the stone all around. But the light began to fade when the first few dwarfish candidates failed to prove themselves worthy of being its true king. The darkness in lower earth was a symptom of disappointment in the dwarf race." She smiled at her companion. "What it must be like to see for the first time."

"I have seen this before," he corrected her. "The arkenstone."

At this revelation, Halmulev fell silent.

The throne room was more brightly lit than the halls and caverns. The veins of lighted stone were thicker and more numerous. Halmulev went straight to the throne and from its high back withdrew a newly lighted piece of stone. She showed Thorin it was a rough crown made entirely of what he would call arkenstone, provided by the mountain to its king. The pair of them stood before the dwellers pouring in from multiple passages. When the hall was entirely filled, Thorin thumped his staff once against the ground and the room was silent before the echoes had died.

He faced Halmulev and knelt before her. She raised the glowing crown high for all to see before placing it on his head. He rose to his feet and Halmulev turned to the dwellers.

"Hear now Thorin Oakenstaff, King Under the Mountain!" Instead of a trump, her pronouncement was punctuated with a blinding pulse of light from the veins of moonstone surrounding them. When the dwellers could see again, they saw Thorin sitting on his throne, and heard his low voice reverberating through the stone and into their bones.

He swore his own loyalty to the mountain's interest and pledged to give all for his home and theirs. He promised to leave the dwellers to their ways, with the exception that all chiefs' councils be held in the throne room and in his presence. He called Riyelle and Muggins forward and asked if they would be his messengers, royal couriers, and they accepted. Finally, all but his two messengers returned to their homes and villages, their ways lit now by the gently glowing moonstone.

Halmulev waited quietly to see what task Thorin had in mind for his messengers. Rather than address his two assistants directly, Thorin spoke to the mountain, keeping his eyes on the nymph and imp.

"Show them the way out, as you showed my fathers. Send them to the halls of my kin. Allow them to bring the line of Durin back to the mountain, that any who will accept me as king may learn to truly love well their ancestral home." The stone beneath their feet glowed, and Riyelle and Muggins watched expectantly for the rays that would direct their path. Nodding respectfully to their king, they trustingly followed their feet to unknown roads.

The heart and the king sat in silence for a while. Thorin wondered if he oughtn't ask for another throne but quickly realized the folly. The heart's pulse must be felt everywhere for the mountain to stay healthy. She was a wanderer, cycling continually through the passages of this great body. He was thinking of how it was he had come to understand this when he felt her kiss his cheek.

"The arkenstone," she said when he looked at her, "was discovered in your lifetime, was it not?"

"When I was very young," he confirmed.

"Hmmm…" she mused, smiling faintly. "Thror may have been more correct than he knew. Perhaps it was a sign of the right to rule." She smiled more brightly, "Just not his."

Over the next several ages of Middle Earth, the legends surrounding the Lonely Mountain changed somewhat. Never correct, of course, as is the prerogative of legend. But the echo chambers couldn't possibly work only one way. Stories from the mountain seeped slowly out and grew and flourished in their marvels and wonders. Moonstone found in rare veins became as valuable to the dwarves as stargems to the elves. Valuable intrinsically, without price and without trade. Treasures of the soul. And eventually the name "Lonely Mountain" began to sound forlorn and ill suited. Slowly, ever so slowly, the name changed. For ages to come will King's Mountain stand erect-heartsick and lonely no more.