/THE HEART OF EREBOR\

ACT III

-The Willing Hearts-

Chapter 25

Temptation

Nobody moved.

Under any other circumstances, it would have been reason for great amusement, the way they all simultaneously froze in place. But there were too many memories tied to the priceless relic sitting in his mother's hands for Fíli to find the slightest hint of humour in the situation. Shock held him as immobile as the rest of his family for several long minutes and, when he at last started back to himself, it was to see both his brother and uncle looking exceedingly pale, whilst his mother's expression was one of complete and utter confusion. Still no one moved, and he was on the brink of speaking, of breaking the spell, when Thorin took three slow, unsteady strides across the room to stand beside his sister and flipped the cloth surrounding the heirloom back into place. The light that had so entranced them all vanished in an instant, plunging the room back into the comparatively dull hues of natural morning light. Thorin stood a beat longer, his hands wrapped around Dís' own as the pair stared at one another in silent conversation, then the dwarf lord turned, voicing a single, gentle word.

"Kíli."

Fíli's eyes swung back to his brother, and his heart twisted at the sight of the archer desperately trying to press himself into – or through – his seat. Kíli's face was white, his gaze unfocused, and Fíli suddenly found himself wondering if the younger prince's reaction had more to do with the last time the Arkenstone had been revealed in Thorin's presence than what was actually happening now.

"Kíli," their uncle spoke again, not shifting an inch, his voice still low and quiet. He looked shaken himself, if a little less absolutely terror stricken, and far more concerned over his nephew's welfare than his own. Kíli's wide eyed stare drifted up to meet Thorin's at the second sounding of his name, but the clouded panic in his gaze had not abated, and, though his lips parted as if to speak, no words were forthcoming.

Dís frowned and gathered herself, but Thorin stilled her before she could take a single step, carefully lifting the wrapped jewel from her hands and crossing the space between himself and his youngest nephew. Kíli actually flinched away from him, breath hitching in his throat, eyes still too wild for his gaze to be wholly in the present, but Thorin simply dropped into a crouch before him, placing the bound Arkenstone in the grasp of Kíli's immobilized limb and lifting his nephew's other hand to cover it.

"I made a promise," he said softly, when Kíli's eyes finally snapped to his own with something like recognition. "A promise I intend to keep." Then, with the air of one repeating words that had already been spoken, he raised a hand to cradle the back of his nephew's head, his voice firm yet kind. "It is not worth losing you."

Kíli stilled, his eyes darting back and forth as he searched his uncle's face for any sign of untruth. He did not find it, and with a broken sound hurled himself forward into Thorin's embrace, neither paying heed to the stone that fell to the floor with a soft 'thud'. Fíli let out the breath he had not realized he was holding, then rolled his eyes when the first words to pass his brother's lips were an apology.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, and Thorin laughed softly, returning Kíli's hold with equal fervency

"As am I," he said, then pushed Kíli to arm's length so his nephew could see the smile on his face. "But do not tell your mother, or she will have us both flogged."

"You are both fools," Dís retorted, too much of a quaver in her voice for the words to carry the sting they were meant to. "Honestly, I have no idea what I am going to do with either of you."

"Do with whom?" Bilbo inquired as he walked into the room, eyes darting between Dís, Fíli, and then to Thorin and Kíli. Pausing, he frowned. "Am I interrupting something?"

"You are," Thorin answered honestly, giving Kíli's shoulder a final squeeze as he rose. "But it does not necessarily follow that the interruption was unwelcome."

"Oh, well, good." Bilbo did not look entirely convinced, but whatever reservations he might have had about joining them vanished when he took a step forward and then stopped dead in his tracks. Blinking sharply, he turned to Thorin with what was apparently nothing more than polite curiosity. "What is the Arkenstone doing on the floor?"

"We're all wondering the same thing," Fíli offered cheerfully, aware of the sheer ridiculousness of the entire situation, but too giddy to care.

"I'm sure you are," Bilbo answered with a nod. "Except that wasn't what I meant, because the last time I saw that stone it was being handed to Dain so he could bury it with Thorin."

It was only natural that all eyes then turned to Kíli for an answer, who at least managed not to shrink from the attention this time, even if he did not look wholly comfortable with it.

"I... I didn't steal it," he said, sounding more defensive than Fíli was sure he meant to.

"Nobody is accusing you of stealing it," he assured his sibling at once, the 'this time' an unspoken thought shoved swiftly to the back if his mind. Thorin offered a nod of agreement to back his words, and, encouraged by the lack of panic in Kíli's features, Fíli continued, "We're simply wondering how it got from there to here."

Kíli shifted slightly in his chair, picking at a loose thread on the hem of his tunic as he murmured his response, "Dain gave it to me."

Thorin actually started, surprised enough to show it. "What?"

"It was after the funeral," Kíli explained, a little more confident now that his words had not incited an unfavourable reaction. "Before the Council. I went to see the tombs to... Dain found me there." His lips twisted into a wry smile, his next words infused with self-mockery. "Of course, by then I had already wasted several days acting like a child and doing absolutely nothing but cause trouble for everyone else."

"Who told you that?" Thorin was frowning, and Fíli echoed the question silently, for there was no way those sentiments had been forged solely in his brother's mind. Someone else had planted the idea in the fertile soils of Kíli's uncertainty, and Fíli would have more than a few sharp words to share with some when the time came.

"Everyone." Kíli shrugged slightly, the gesture not quite achieving the indifference it was meant to. "Lord Dain told me I was failing my people." He paused, twisting the fingers of his hands together, a sign that some feeling, at least, had begun to return to his crippled limb. After a moment's silence he raised his head, meeting Thorin's waiting gaze with a tentative look of his own. "He wasn't entirely wrong."

"Nor was he entirely right," Thorin answered. "You weren't raised to rule, Kíli, not as Fíli was. No one could have expected you to shoulder that burden without flinching."

"I think I could have done better," Kíli's response was quiet, but sincere.

Thorin shook his head in disagreement as Dís and Fíli exchanged a glance, neither of them at all surprised by the fact Kíli was once again setting impossible standards for himself, nor in any doubt as to from whom that habit had been learnt. "I think what you managed to achieve was a miracle."

"I'm hallucinating," Fíli declared immediately, before his brother could die from honest-to-goodness shock. His declaration earned him an amused look from his uncle and a putout one from his brother as he added, "You didn't actually just say that, did you? Or did Kíli turn into something other than a complete lurdan whilst I wasn't looking?"

"You need to look more often," Thorin replied in good humour. "Your brother has been building the foundations of a kingdom as you idle away the days."

"What?"

Fíli blinked in confusion at the same time as Kíli protested.

"I have not!"

"You have," Thorin corrected him calmly. "Putting the Council in their place even as you surrendered the throne, forging alliances with elves, dwarves, men, and any others you could persuade to join you. On what else do you think a strong kingdom is built?"

Kíli simply stared at Thorin, spluttering slightly as he tried to find words. Dís, taking pity on her youngest, interceded.

"I still don't understand why Dain gave you the stone," she said. "Especially if he believed you were unfit for the throne."

"He never said I was unfit," Kíli corrected her. "Just that I was behaving like I was. He was actually one of very few who wasn't wholly against me searching for Fíli and Thorin."

"So he encouraged you," Dís said tautly, obviously torn between the realization of what could have happened had Kíli not been 'encouraged' and her anger at the thought of anyone endorsing such a hare-brained scheme. Instinctively, Fíli reached across to seize his mother's hand, a physical reminder that they were all here, no matter how unlikely a chance that possibility might have once seemed.

"He didn't discourage me," Kíli admitted. "He even suggested it might be possible to take the throne and still conduct a search, but of course it would have been too late by then."

"And all this happened before the Council?" Bilbo frowned. "You never said anything."

"What was I going to say?" Kíli asked, moving his free hand in a helpless gesture. "That maybe one dwarf who I barely knew was willing to believe I was not completely out of my mind? It's not like it would have changed anything. Everybody else still thought I was mad, even as they tried to shove a crown upon my head."

There was a certain hint of bitterness to those words that Fíli did not like, though he could not say the feeling was unjustified. Not if all Bilbo had related was true.

"But the Arkenstone?" Thorin shook his head. "The King's Jewel? The Seven Armies swore oaths on that stone, and Dain simply gave it to you? Why?"

"He said it belonged to Thror's house, and that he was only returning what was ours." Kíli shrugged, offering the only explanation he had. "He was never going to keep it anyway. It was meant to be sealed in your tomb. I think... I think he was trying to give me a way around whatever decision the Council made. Or maybe he thought I'd actually be able to find you, and that you would need it to reclaim Erebor."

Thorin shook his head again, slowly, looking bewildered, and it was Dís who offered clarity amongst the confusion.

"Frerin," she spoke suddenly, earning herself a searing glance from Thorin. "Oh, don't look at me like that, brother. You may say what you like about our cousin, but he and Frerin were close before the end. He did not refuse your request lightly, and, if he is anything like the rest of this family, I am certain he has been carrying some form of guilt upon his shoulders since. This is recompense." Her gaze drifted to the unshielded heirloom still lying upon the floor, her voice adopting a pensive note. "Durin's Folk do not leave their debts unsettled."

"Northri!" Kíli shot bolt upright in his chair, white as chalk for the second time, a horrified expression on his face. "I completely forgot. How could I forget?" Self-remonstration turned swiftly to urgent inquiry as Kíli swung about to face their halfling companion. "Bilbo, did Gandalf...?"

"Beorn and Northri both made it out," the hobbit answered subduedly. "But not all of his men were so fortunate. There were casualties, Kíli, I'm sorry."

Fíli watched his brother actually diminish beneath the weight of that news, unsurprising as it was, given all he had heard of their escape. He felt bad enough himself, having made it to safety at the expense of others' lives, but he had not been the one to beg aid of Northri, dragging him into a war he had removed himself from years before.

"Kíli." Thorin claimed his nephew's attention with that simple utterance, holding the archer's dark gaze as he spoke, "The choice was theirs. Do not cheapen their sacrifice by assuming blame for the decisions they made."

"They only made that decision because I asked them to," Kíli answered fretfully, visibly upset. "They risked the dangers of Gundabad for me, and I forgot I had even left them there!"

"There was nothing more you could have done."

"That's not an excuse! They saved us all, and I didn't even..."

"Northri?" Dís interrupted blankly, and Fíli was suddenly reminded that, between relating what had happened when they arrived in Erebor and the elated reunions of the day before, there had been no time to tell his mother the full tale of Kíli's exploits. Thorin cast his sister a fleeting glance, but kept his focus on his youngest nephew.

"There was nothing you could have done," he reiterated firmly, in what was nothing less than the voice of experience. "Those who followed you followed you willingly, knowing the danger into which they walked. Knowing they lost their lives doing so, serving a cause you led them to, is a burden borne by any leader, and not one you can escape."

"But I did not want that," Kíli protested, sounding as young and lost as Fíli felt in that moment. It was one thing to be raised knowing the burden you were to shoulder, but to actually be faced with the reality of what leading meant was something else entirely. "I gave up the crown. It wasn't supposed to be like that."

"A crown does not make you a king," Dís interjected gently. "Nor does a stone. They are only symbols, worn fraudulently more often than not, that cannot lend to one the qualities required to rule. The exiles of Erebor did not follow Thorin because he was Thror's grandson. By the time Moria had come and passed they would have as soon as turned on a king as followed him had they seen in him anything less than a lord who was as loyal to them as they were asked to be to him. People will follow what they believe in, and it is no fault or flaw of yours if what they choose to believe in is you."

"It is if you get them killed," Kíli retorted stubbornly.

"Would you have blamed me?" Thorin asked suddenly, earning a questioning glance from the archer, and a sharp look from Dís, who knew as well as Fíli did that Thorin hardly needed blame from any other quarter when he was quite efficiently fulfilling the role of persecutor himself. "Had the dragon ended us all in one fell swoop, would it not have been my fault, having brought you all there in the first place?"

It was a trap made of words, they could all see it, and the expression on Kíli's face clearly betrayed the fact he knew there was no escaping it.

"No," he conceded at last. "We all knew there was a possibility the dragon was still there, and that was if we even made it to the mountain at all."

"The contract was certainly clear enough on the dangers involved," Bilbo muttered, and Fíli caught himself smiling despite the seriousness of the situation.

"And one would not be wrong, I think," Thorin continued. "In assuming that Northri's warriors were perfectly aware of what storming Gundabad meant for each and every one of them. They chose to follow you, Kíli, and if inspiring loyalty in others is a crime then we are all here guilty of the same. That is not to say we need ignore their sacrifice. When you and your brother are recovered and capable of travel again we will be able to pay our respects to those who gave their lives in the endeavour to free us, in fact it is only right we should do so, but it is not a duty you can perform now."

There was a moment of hesitance before Kíli nodded, a sure sign his younger brother was not wholly convinced, nor entirely at peace with what had occurred, but it was progress of a kind, and better than nothing in Fíli's mind. Thorin accepted the gesture for what it was, moving to retrieve the Arkenstone from where it lay on the floor, wrapping it a second time and passing it with just a little too much haste to the younger prince.

"I think it is best if you keep this for now," he said simply. "We will decide what is to be done with it later."

Obediently, Kíli drew it into his lap. With the matter of the stone dealt with for the moment, Fíli turned his attention to more important matters.

"Breakfast has gone cold," he stated ruefully, staring at the congealing mass that was all that was left of their once appetizing meal.

"I'm sure there is some leftover," Bilbo told him. "I could go ask, if you like."

"I will go," Thorin said, before Fíli could gratefully accept the hobbit's offer. "I understand that my sister has not yet heard the full tale of Kíli Kinsaver." Kíli started, turning to cast a dark glare his brother's way, but Fíli simply offered him an innocent grin in response. Thorin himself was smiling, despite not having turned away from Bilbo to see his nephews' reactions. "If you would not mind a third telling?"

"Oh, of course not," Bilbo conceded cheerfully. "It is a quite a story, after all."

"I imagine it is," Dís replied knowingly. "One does not march half way across Middle Earth and brave the dark deeps without returning with a story to tell. I wish to hear the tale of this impossible rescue. How two thought lost were freed from the enemy's own stronghold."

"But that's not even the good part," Bilbo told her, taking a seat cross-legged on the floor in deference to the lack of chairs.

"Oh, really?" Dís turned to him with a glint in her eye even as Kíli groaned and covered his face with his hand. "Do tell, Master Baggins."

"Well…" Bilbo paused, considering. "I suppose it all really started when Kíli took the whole dwarvish council to task over their argument about the throne."

"I didn't take anybody to task," Kíli protested, lowering his hand just enough to scowl at the hobbit.

"You practically told them they were acting like a bunch of uncivilized ruffians," Bilbo retorted. "If that is not taking them to task then I do not know what is."

"I wish I had been there," Fíli added wistfully, having already heard this particular story, if not in the exact same words. "I would have liked to see their faces."

"They looked like a hobbit dinner party might if you were to tell them they weren't actually getting any dinner," Bilbo supplied helpfully. "I'm fairly certain Gandalf was silently laughing through the whole affair."

"I don't see why," Kíli grumbled. "It wasn't at all funny."

Whatever response Bilbo made was lost to Fíli, whose attention was caught by the sight of Thorin slipping quietly from the room. His gaze darted briefly between his three remaining companions, then he reached for his crutches, receiving the slightest nod of approval from his mother before he shamelessly disobeyed Nárran's edict and followed in his uncle's wake.

~The Heart of Erebor~

Thorin's hands were shaking.

It was an outwards reflection of his inner state of mind, his unsettled thoughts enough to have caused the trembling of limbs, and he did not hesitate to turn aside from his appointed task, retreating instead into the solitude of one of the unoccupied rooms in the fort, desperately trying to string together the frayed strands of his composure. It had not been the Arkenstone itself that caused such a reaction, but rather the memories that darted to the forefront of his mind the moment the gemstone's multi-hued glow had struck his eyes. He could still feel the phantom weight of his sword in his hand, the trickling remnants of the absolute fury that had gripped him in that moment, and the sight of Kíli throwing his arms up in a desperate attempt to ward off the blow that could have so easily ended his life. Dís could claim that his actions had not been his own as many times as she wanted, but that did not change the fact that he remembered them as clearly as any memory not stained by the gold sickness.

"Uncle?" He whirled, taken wholly by surprise, to find Fíli standing in the doorway, using the frame to prop himself upright as much as the crutches he was not supposed to be using without aid. "Are you alright?"

"Fíli…" He was at a loss for words, and fell back on what was familiar. "You should not be…"

"I can manage." Fíli waved off his concern, shifting his weight back onto the supports that had been so carefully adjusted to his height, manoeuvring his way across the room until he was able to utilize the windowsill as an impromptu seat. It took him a moment to get his breath back, even a little exertion still enough to tire him, but he picked up the threads of a conversation they had never truly started as soon as he was able. "I was angry as well, you know. When Bilbo said he'd taken the Arkenstone. I wouldn't have stopped you from hurting him, because I thought he deserved to be punished. He wasn't… He wasn't even Bilbo anymore. He was just a threat to the gold. A faceless, nameless traitor who needed to be taken care of. I could say I wouldn't have gone that far. That I would have come back to my senses before anything happened. But I don't think that would be true. I believe that, if Kíli hadn't stopped you, no one would have."

He should have had an answer for that. Some form of reassurance to offer his heir, but the truth was that, on this matter, he had nothing to give. Fíli did not wait for him to find a suitable response, instead using the silence to gather his thoughts, and proceeding again before the quiet had stretched for too long.

"I was angry at Kíli, too, at first, for defending Bilbo. For helping him when he had betrayed us. But then I was just scared, because for Kíli to have done such a thing… For my own brother to have given the Arkenstone away… For me not to have even noticed him planning to do it… I should have known, I should have, but I was so wrapped up in the treasures of Erebor that I didn't even care that my little brother was scared and alone and desperate. Worse still, I didn't even know. We've known each other all our lives and I didn't know."

"Fíli…"

"I don't think I understood, before," his nephew continued as though he had not made a sound. "What people meant when they said the sickness changed Thror. I didn't realize what that meant until it changed me. Until I looked back on my own thoughts and actions and didn't recognize them as mine, except that they were. They were mine. I did and said and thought those things, but I can't justify them because I know they weren't right. I know that I would never have wanted harm to come to Bilbo, and yet I did then, and it made perfect sense to me then. Is that…" Fíli hesitated, his gaze tentative when it met Thorin's own. "Is that what it's like for you?"

"Yes." He had not truly thought of Fíli's side in all this, so wrapped up in his own guilt and regret that he had not paused to consider how his eldest nephew was coping beyond his physical ailments. He had known Kíli was struggling, it was impossible not to know, but Fíli was the steady one, the brother who could be relied upon to keep his head – and his calm, a rare trait indeed in the Line of Durin – no matter what happened. Thorin had not asked himself whether or not Fíli was managing all that had happened because he had simply assumed he was, an oversight he could no longer afford to make. "At the time I thought I was perfectly justified in…"

He could not say it. Could not put into words what he had nearly done and would forever have regretted if he had ever managed to find his way back to himself, but Fíli did not need to be told.

"The Arkenstone didn't change anything, though," the prince said aloud. "Seeing it, here and now, didn't make me think what I'd done was right."

"Give it time." Temptation was rarely instant in conjuring a result, after all. It had taken time for Erebor's hoard to work its insidious magic. Time for him to lose his mind to greed.

"Uncle, you left it lying on the floor," Fíli pointed out practically, and not without a hint of exasperation. "You're fine, it's fine, and mother's here to knock sense into both of us the moment we show any sign of not being fine. You need to stop worrying."

There was a moment's potent silence as Thorin simply stared at his nephew and the slow-dawning realization of what he had actually said to whom sunk into the eldest prince's mind. He did not back down, though, adamantly standing his ground, and Thorin could not stop a fond smile from spreading across his lips.

"Breakfast?" he offered lightly, and Fíli grinned.

"Definitely."