Chapter 12: The Last Cruel Winter
A/N: So, um. I'm just gonna leave this here.
Fíli scrambled up the last few feet to the top of the scaffolding, breathless and triumphant. "Didn't your mothers ever teach you to keep both feet on solid ground?" he asked the dwarves working on the uppermost platform. "You look like a flock of nesting birds."
"Oh, don't go reminding me," Bofur said, leaning down to offer Fíli a hand. "The last time I climbed this high, we had wargs nipping at our heels. And the trees were on fire. And I fell off a cliff."
"There you go. It could always be worse," said Fíli. He glanced over the edge of the scaffolding, peering down to the entrance hall far below. The whole towering corridor hummed with steady, noisy, well-organized work: dwarves hauling away broken stone, shoring up walls and strengthening battered columns, filling the long jagged cracks where the dragon's claws had ripped through tile and stone. Meanwhile, high above the clamor and commotion, Bofur and the rest of his work party had spent the day setting new crystals in the great lamps that had once lit the hall. The crystals themselves were stored by the thousands in the mountains, secure in storerooms that Smaug had never seen or tampered with, and any stonemaster worth his wages could set them glowing, provided he had the right tools and compounds. But putting them in place—well, that was a bit trickier.
"Not a job for volunteers, is it?" Bofur had said when the foreman announced the day's work parties.
"No," said the foreman with a toothy grin. "Which is why Lord Balin gave me leave to draw lots from all qualified laborers not otherwise occupied. Guess whose name came up?"
Bofur thoughtfully informed the foreman, who was in fact his second cousin once removed, that he was full of shit. "Besides, my name's not even on that roster. I'm a council member, aren't I?"
"Oh, so now you're too good for ordinary work," said the foreman, tutting in a way that Bofur had always found extremely irritating. "And you go about insulting family, to boot. What would your dear old ma say?"
"Well, if you need another pair of hands, you could just ask," Bofur said, relenting with reasonably good grace. "It might be nice to do some honest work for a change."
Now, well into the day, Bofur and his fellows were still toiling away in their maze of scaffolding and ropes. Hauling the enormous crystals into place demanded a good deal of shouting, sweat, and badly-strained nerves, but Fíli threw himself into the task at hand without any fuss or chatter.
It was only after the foreman called an end of the morning's work that he and Bofur could have a proper conversation. "God job we had you around," Bofur said as they made their way carefully down the scaffolding. "That last bit might've turned nasty, otherwise."
One of their load-bearing ropes, stuck in a block and under heavy strain, had threatened to snap over open air; Fíli, closest to the trouble, had scrambled up and cleared the jam in time for them to haul the load safely back down to solid ground. At the very least, he'd spared them an enormous amount of frustration; in all likelihood he had saved the heads of some of the workers down below. "It's a fine feeling, to be useful again," he said, as they made it to the ground at last. He jumped the last few feet, landing easily on the stone floor. "I can't even tell you how fine. And won't it be a sight for the long patrol, to come back and see the hall lit up like a midsummer day!"
Bofur grinned. Even after a hard, slogging day of work, Fíli's enthusiasm was contagious. It was good to see the lad with some color in his cheeks. "You look better. Less, you know." He gestured vaguely.
"Less like a walking corpse? Glad to hear it. Bilbo said the same. More politely, though." Fíli shrugged. "Hobbits."
"Hobbits," Bofur agreed. It was a common refrain these days.
They fell in with the stream of dwarves heading to the messes, all of them dirty, tired, and hungry. The midday meal was unappetizing at best: preserved fish, old bread, and a cold gelatinous soup that (as was frequently remarked) did not ease hunger pangs so much as kill them stone dead. But food was food, and folk in the mountain had grown so used to scant rations that it never occurred to them to complain in anything but an offhanded, desultory way.
"Ah, and here's another feast from the kitchens," Bofur said, ripping apart a piece of bread and dunking the pieces in his soup. "The lords sit down to dine. Should I eat the suckling pig first, or the veal, do you reckon?"
"I prefer seared trout, myself," said Fíli, straight-faced. "I suppose Bombur's saving that for the second course." He stretched his legs out underneath the rough wooden table and set upon his food with determination if not delight. "You remember what he kept saying during the siege, whenever Glóin complained?"
"Aye," Bofur said between bites, and then they chorused, imitating Bombur's best lecturing voice: "Eat your weevils; they're good for you."
How long had it been since Fíli laughed like that? Since Laketown? No, even longer ago than that. Sometime before the Misty Mountains, Bofur thought, and took advantage of Fíli's distraction to get a proper look at the lad.
Still too skinny, but he could hardly be blamed for that, not when all the dwarves under the mountain were tightening their belts. His hair was neatly braided, and he looked cheerful enough, despite any number of long nights spent fretting over his wayward younger brother. Whatever sickness had troubled him since the battle, it had, by all appearances, vanished.
And good riddance, Bofur thought, as they scraped their bowls clean and trudged back to the entrance hall. It was looking to be a long, cruel winter, but Fíli had a knack for making even the bleakest days tolerable.
The foreman bawled orders; the afternoon's work began, and Bofur sent his workers back up the scaffolding one at a time. "Now, what's this?" he said, catching one of the younger lasses by the shoulder. "Forgetting something, are you?"
"I won't fall," she protested, but Bofur only scowled and sent her off to fetch a harness.
"If it's good enough for every dwarven miner as ever chipped stone," he said, "it's good enough for you."
"And for me, I suppose," Fíli said, making a face and following suit. "This is my least favorite part of mining," he told the girl, in a confidential sort of way, as they both fastened buckles and adjusted straps. "But it's better than taking a step too far with nothing to catch you. No, pull those tighter. There, that's right."
She nodded, staring up at him with wide eyes. Soon they were back at the top of the long, narrow platform, and Fíli showed her how to tie a knot that wouldn't slip loose if she fell. Meanwhile, the foreman's assistant had secured the largest of the crystals, meant to hang in the very center of the hall, and waved up to Bofur to signal the all clear. "Haul away," Bofur called back. "Handsomely, now. Good. Now, let's see if we can—"
A flurry of curses broke out behind him. The load jerked to a halt, swinging precariously back and forth. Folk on the ground below scattered. "What's amiss?" he demanded.
"Jammed again," came the strained reply. "Just like before."
Bofur dragged a hand through his beard. The rope was from Laketown—old, damp from poor storage, scarcely usable—and the blocks were, if possible, even shoddier. "Damn. Can you lot dig in and hold while we sort this out?" A few grunts in the affirmative. "Right. That's all right. Fíli?"
Fíli nodded, considered for a moment, and then hauled himself up into the welter of wood and ropes. He couldn't quite reach the block. The wood creaked. He scrambled up another foot, balanced precariously. A little farther, farther—
"There. Got it." With one hand, he awkwardly set about clearing the jam, using the other to keep his balance. "Try it now."
"Haul away," Bofur ordered. There was a general sigh of relief when the rope pulled through, but he ordered them to hold again while Fíli climbed back down. "You all right?" he said, puzzled, when Fíli didn't move. He was clinging to the ropes, silent, suddenly pale.
"Yes." But he sounded oddly distant.
"Fíli?" Bofur prompted, after a long, worrying pause. "D'you need—"
"I just realized," he said. Still unmoving, his breathing strained. "I figured it out. I can—" he faltered, "—I can see it, almost. Goblins are attacking the supply caravan, up near Ered Mithrin."
Blank silence, and then a murmur of shock spread among those close enough to heard the soft words.
"And he was stealing my strength," Fíli said, matter-of-factly.
Then his hands unclenched, as if life had suddenly left his body, and he pitched down into the open air below.
"They do it on purpose," Thorin said, words muffled, his head buried in his hands. "They must. There is no other reasonable explanation."
Bilbo, beside him, reached up and patted him on the shoulder. "And you were a cheerful, easygoing child, I suppose, who never got himself into trouble or worried his parents or set his baby sister's beard on fire."
Thorin looked up, eyes narrowed with suspicion. "And who told you that story, Mr. Baggins?"
"Balin," Bilbo said, delighted by the confirmation. "Oh, come, it's not as bad all that. A bruised rib, some nasty scrapes. The lad's had far worse."
Bilbo and Glóin had been with Varin in the council chambers, trying with growing frustration to find an elusive error in their account reckonings, when a messenger burst in, saying that Prince Fíli had fallen from a terrible height, and had been carried from the hall almost certainly dead. Bilbo rushed to the healer's wing, sick with dread and worry, only to hear Fíli arguing with poor beleaguered Oín, insisting that he was fine, that he was perfectly well, and that he needed to speak with Thorin straight away, Mahal curse it.
Working while attached to a sturdy scaffold didn't guarantee safety, but at least Fíli had only tumbled a few feet before he jerked to stop, unconscious but alive. "And that," a badly shaken Bofur said, after they recovered Fíli, "is why you always wear a harness, lass."
Thorin, meanwhile, was leaning heavily against the wall outside, only half-dressed; he'd been training down in the practice courts when news of the accident reached him. When Bilbo had touched his arm and asked if everything was all right, Thorin looked down at him, eyes a little wild, and said, "I am going to kill that boy." Now they were sitting side-by-side just outside the carven archway of the infirmary hall, leaving Fíli to endure the healers' censure on his own. Oín had tolerated Thorin's presence for a few minutes, but as soon as Fíli spoke his piece and Thorin started started asking questions, Oín banished him from the room.
"You're brooding," Bilbo said. "You're not truly angry with him, are you?"
"I do not brood," Thorin said, and had the audacity to glower when Bilbo snorted. "No. I was thinking of the first time I sent him into the mines. Dwalin gave him a fearsome lecture; every young dwarf hears it at least once. Your life is in your hands, he said. Any mine is a dangerous place, and the day you feel perfectly safe is the day you make the mistake that gets you killed."
"Well, Fíli listened," Bilbo said, "and he's not too badly hurt. But I will be, if you crush my fingers," he added, wincing a little.
Thorin looked down, as if he were surprised to see their hands folded together. He loosened his grip, but didn't let go. "Is that better?" he said, not quite meeting Bilbo's eyes.
"Perfect," said Bilbo. Indeed he felt rather inappropriately cheerful, given the circumstances. "Do you think he's right? About Kíli and the supply caravan?'
"Fíli is honest; I've no reason to doubt him," Thorin said. "But I've never heard the like."
It would explain any number of small mysteries, if Kíli had somehow, without a hint of forethought or malice, been drawing on Fíli's strength whenever his own was insufficient to the task at hand. Kíli's recovery after the battle had been unsettlingly quick, while Fíli was a shadow of his bright, eager self. Kíli, restless and angry, rattled through the mountain while Fíli woke and slept in a fog of bone-deep exhaustion. And if Kíli had spent the last few days in Ered Mithrin with nothing to do but keep watch and complain about the cold, then Fíli's sudden, extraordinary return to himself made perfectly good sense.
At least Fíli was confident that Kíli was alive, and in reasonably good spirits. If nothing else, that was reason to hope that the supply caravan hadn't been taken or destroyed, though Thorin had nevertheless sent scouts out to search for any sign of either the caravan or the patrol.
"If only Gandalf were here, I daresay he could make sense of it," Bilbo said. The wizard had left before the first of the winter storms, offering no explanation for his sudden departure but promising that he would be back in early spring at the latest. According to Legolas, he had gone far south, to a place called Nan Curunír, to speak with the head of the White Council.
"If Gandalf were here," Thorin said, darkly, "he might soon have good reason to be somewhere else. If he worked this sorcery, and saw fit to keep it a secret, I will cut off his beard myself."
"It was a little strange," Bilbo admitted, thinking back to the eerie moment when Gandalf had awakened Kíli after the battle. "Gandalf standing over him, and chanting, and not answering when I spoke. But he would never hurt any of us on purpose, I'm certain. Perhaps it was a mistake."
Thorin shook his head. "Wizards don't make mistakes. They plot and scheme and keep secrets."
Bilbo thought that Thorin was rather overstating things, but there was no point in telling him so. At least they knew what was happening to Fíli, even if they didn't understand why. Surely that was better than sitting around waiting for something terrible to happen. Surely that was better than wondering why one of their princes was dying, day by day, for no good reason.
We'll manage, Bilbo told himself. One way or another.
Thorin's hand was large, calloused, and reassuringly warm. When Bilbo interlaced their fingers, thinking less about what he was doing than about how nice it felt, Thorin stilled, then looked at him with a strange expression.
Bilbo, suddenly self-conscious, was on the verge of apologizing when Thorin lifted Bilbo's hand, brought it close, and pressed his chapped lips to the skin just below his knuckles.
"Oh," Bilbo said, and then: "Oh."
It wasn't as if he hadn't noticed how Thorin looked at him; it wasn't as if he hadn't thought, once or twice or a hundred times, about what it would be like to grab Thorin's shoulders and pull himself up just far enough to give him a proper kiss. But Thorin was—well. Thorin wasn't the most demonstrative of dwarves, was he? And he was a king, besides, with duties and obligations and no time for dalliances with wayward hobbits.
By the time Bilbo recovered from the shock, Thorin's eyebrows were furrowed and his mouth turned down in a small, tight frown.
"I, er," Bilbo said, scrambling to sort out his thoughts. He hated to be the reason that Thorin Oakenshield looked unhappy.
"Do you mind?" Thorin asked, very low.
Bilbo shook his head. "No," he said, as firmly as he could. "No. I don't. Only, you know, I was afraid of being a bother, and you have your duties, and I thought—well. I tried not to think of it, really."
"Perhaps we could think of it," Thorin suggested. He sounded uncertain, ill-at-ease. "Not right now, but later, when things have settled down. If you're agreeable."
Bilbo's throat was very dry. He felt his heartbeat in every inch of his body, from his chest to his throat to the hand where Thorin's lips had pressed so gently. His mind circled the notion, distracted, unable to settle. Thorin had kissed him. Thorin had kissed him.
He had to swallow twice before he could get the words out. "I'd like that," he said. And the look on Thorin's face was like sunlight, gloriously bright, unfurling over the mountain on a clear day.
Then Fíli appeared in the archway in front of them, either escaped or set loose from the healers at last.
"I knew it, uncle," he said triumphantly, too caught up in his own revelations to realize what he'd just interrupted. "Everyone whispering, saying that I was weak and sick, but I wasn't, I wasn't, and when I get my hands on Kíli I'm going to make him pay for every single morning I dragged myself out of bed, and every day I could scarcely lift a sword—"
Thorin and Bilbo exchanged long-suffering glances.
"—an unholy month, while he goes around throwing himself at walls and sparring at all hours of the night—"
"If you do your brother an injury," said Thorin, cutting Fíli off, "you will most certainly be the one writing the letter explaining matters to your mother."
Fíli subsided, but only for a moment.
"But I wasn't weak, uncle," he said, looking more like himself than he had since they'd first come to the mountain. "I wasn't."
Thorin's voice was gruff and unmistakably fond when he said: "I never thought you were."
No one else in the mountain knew exactly what happened that day. Fíli's accident kept the gossips busy, and speculation ranged from a wasting sickness ("he hasn't been right for weeks, I tell you") to a sudden premonition of his brother's death ("the caravan lost, and no food for us, or for Dale neither") to a simple snapped rope ("what d'you expect, buying supplies off the Lakemen? Shoddy workmanship, that's men all over"). But there was no disguising the buoyant mood that radiated outward from the king and his closest companions, and the speculation soon took a more hopeful tone: something good must be coming, folk said, if King Thorin could be heard whistling in the halls. Spirits rose still further when Thorin's scouts returned with word that the caravan was only three days away from Erebor.
The return of the long patrol took on a strange, heightened significance. The habitable parts of the mountain began to feel like a house waiting, with baited breath, for long-expected company to call. Work in the entrance hall reached a feverish pitch. "Wait 'til they see," Bofur said gleefully, after the last of the lights went up in the entrance hall. On cloudless days, sunshine filtered through high, narrow windows cut deep into the rock, pooling on battered stone like water. At night the crystals shone pure and clear, and shadows of the columns draped the walls and floor, a maze of light and dark.
Better and better. Old tapestries, safe for centuries in dark cool rooms that Smaug had never found or desecrated, were rediscovered and hung in pride of place on the walls. Nori found a particularly handsome set of dinnerware while snooping in one of the smaller treasury rooms, and distributed them around the commons by way of a joke. When Glóin complained, he grinned outrageously and said, "But now we can eat our gruel and stale bread on proper silver, see?"
When the patrol came to the gates at last, the supply caravan in tow, it seemed as if every dwarf in the mountain had assembled to greet them, and the noise was stupendous. Bilbo immediately sought out the caravan's leader, a captain in Dain's guard, to see about getting some food down to Dale—no doubt the city sentries had seen the caravan enter the mountain, and if they delayed too long there would certainly be riots—while Dwalin gave Thorin his report and Fíli accosted his brother with a mixture of delight and indignation.
"We need to have a talk, you enormous lunk," Fíli said, catching Kíli in a tight embrace and kissing him on the forehead.
"Watch it," Kíli said, breathlessly. The general, undisguised delight at the patrol's return had done a great deal to bolster Kíli's mood, and he tolerated his brother's greeting, which at least had the virtue of long familiarity, with reasonably good grace. "You'll crush him."
"What?" Fíli pulled back, baffled, but then he caught sight on the small furry bundle tucked under Kíli's arm. "Oh, don't tell me."
"A goblin had him," Kíli said defensively. "Probably going to eat him, but I couldn't just leave him to die, could I?"
"You couldn't. You never can," said Fíli, and held out a hand. "Can I?"
With slight reluctance, Kíli gave him the wolf pup. "He's quiet, and he never bites. Or at least he never bites me; he almost took a chunk out of Dwalin's arm a few days ago. I guess he likes you, too."
"Seems so." Fíli gave the small creature a finger to sniff, and then offered it a scratch under the chin. "I don't suppose you have a plan for dealing with uncle?"
Kíli shrugged. "We'll keep him in our quarters. I'll hunt to feed him."
Fíli considered telling his brother that keeping a wolf was almost certainly a very different proposition than keeping dogs, that neither of them had the first idea how to manage it, and that there was no point in getting attached if the creature turned vicious and had to be killed. But Kíli had an all-too-familiar spark in his eyes, and Fíli knew that nothing he said would do any good. In the end, all he offered was an offhanded comment about how strange it was for a goblin to keep a live animal. "It's not as if they have pets, is it? Wargs, maybe, but not wolves."
"I didn't take the time to ask," Kíli said, and then of course conversation turned to the skirmish. He was in such a good mood that Fíli was loath to start their fighting again. There would be a feast that night, with meat and cheese and ale, and spirits running high enough for song. It had been so long since they had any reason for cheer.
Other matters could wait for the morning, Fíli decided. For now he had his brother, and folk had decent food to eat. The cooking fires were already roaring in the kitchens. What more could anyone want?
