A/N: Hello everyone! Sorry for the slight delay, but I got writer's block for a second in this final chapter, until I finally could put the final flourish on this marvelous story. I took an immense pleasure in writing this for the past two years, improving as a writer as I got along, improving as a Tolkien fan at the same time. Baraz was a character both exhiliratingly easy and excruciatingly difficult to write. But her journey is at an end now, and I will let you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: Any recognizable piece of dialogue or character is the property of J.R.R. Tolkien and his heirs and/or of Sir Peter Jackson. I only own my two main OCs Baraz and Filí, son of Kilí, and some secundary characters.

Playlist for this chapter: Pride of the Dwarves from the Battle for Middle-Earth II OST; City of Esgaroth from The Desolation of Smaug's OST; and Into the West from the Return of the King OST.

37. The parting of ways

2 F.A.

8th January

When Baraz came to, she realised several things at once. First: she had a massive headache where she had been struck by the axe. Second: there was quite a number of people around her, as the buzzing noise of conversation revealed. Third: it smelled like death.

"She's awake!" whispered a voice nearby - so near, in fact, that it was clear its owner was kneeling next to her.

Baraz' brain seemed to recognize the voice, for she groaned and opened a heavy eyelid then the other, revealing a dimly lit room and mostly, the face of her father.

"Da!" she exclaimed in a hoarse voice. She tried to sit up but her skull felt like it was going to split open. So she lay back down, and let Bofur carefully envelop her in his arms.

His hat was missing, and his hair was entirely silver by then, the plaits falling in disarray onto his shoulders. But the life in his grey eyes was still there, and it put a small smile on her face that soon turned sour.

"Da...I'm so sorry... I didn't mean to-" she did not really know what she didn't mean to do, for she had little thought about her father's well-being during those past two years, but he surely knew and shook his head.

"What's done is done, lass. Now, yer 'ere, and yer not wanted." There was a chuckle next to them, and Baraz saw her uncle Bombur, sitting on the floor, strangely still fat enough to feed an entire army. He pointed to his brother then him then the rest of the room, and Bofur chuckled too. "As are we, brot'er, yer right."

For the first time, Baraz looked around, and gasped.

Smaug had done his deed well, there was no denying it. Once upon a time, this room must have been a weaponry of some sort, for there still was the marks of pegs in the walls and remnants of steel that had since then withered into rust.

But more impressive than the room itself, was the number of people gathered in it. There was a good hundred of Dwarves, male, female, children. She dimly recognized some of them, crafstmen or maidens all more or less close to the Mountain and its King.

In one far corner, had been piled the skeletons of the Dwarves who had died during the Dragon days. All rotting flesh had since long disappeared, but the bone were still there, taunting, terrible sights. Like a warning that they'd end up like this too.

Baraz turned to her father once she could sit properly, the throbbing in her head dmimming a bit. "What happened here?"

"It's been like this fer a few mont's now," he said, sighing. "People started disappearin', families, children, and when we started askin' too many questions, they put us 'ere too. Even poor Gimli couldn' convince his father. Idiots, the lo' of 'em!"

Baraz then started frantically to look for her former companion, looking for the mess of his red hair or for a plait in which shone three golden hair belonging to an Elven Lady. She found none. "Where is he?" A lump had formed in her throat, an uneasy one.

"'e's tendin' to Nori and the rest of the sick. Come, I'll take you to 'em."

It was incredible that some children had been brought to such a prison at such a young age that they still fed on their mother's breast. Baraz felt sick to her stomach just thinking about how many must have died in the previous weeks.

Bofur quietly told her that food came every few days, and that they never had any means to know if it was day or night. The bodies of those who succumbed were brought outside, given a desecrated tomb as per the Counsel's order.

Nori was lying on a mattress made of old clothes, his face pale, his breathing uneven. He suffered from severe dehydration, she quickly realised. A figure she immediately recognized was sitting next to him, staring at his chest that was slowly rising and falling.

"Gimli..." she whispered while her father helped her down next to her somehow cousin - although what Glóin had done to his son had forever broken the sense of kinship she had had for him all her life.

The Dwarf raised his head, dark eyes sad in a way they had never been during the Quest. Even when they lost Boromir, even when they lost Merry and Pippin. Even when they lost Gandalf.

He didn't say a word, but nodded gravely before going back to his silen vigil. Baraz reached for his arm and kept on holding it, staring at her uncle's form as well.

Time passed, she did not know how long, and its monotony was only broken by Nori's brief moments of clarity during which Baraz and Gimli gave him some water to sip on.

When the supplies started to get dangerously low, there was an echoing clamour in the room, of chains being rattled, and the great wooden doors were cracked open, letting a dozen guards enter, half of which moved further in to check on the prisoner's health and to distribute food.

One got close enough for Baraz to reach him as he examined the still form of a child - who thankfully was merely asleep, bless him.

"Excuse me, but has the Royal Wedding already taken place?" It was the only thing she dared ask, and the only thing that could tell her exactly what day they were.

The Dwarf looked at her with disdain and answered. "It is tomorrow morning. Not that you are invited, half-breed..."

Baraz closed her eyes on the insult, and reached for her necklace. There still sat her mother's ring, which was matted enough to not be recognized for what it was: an Elven ring. "May I ask that you bring this to Azbad Ceassa? As a gift from my clan."

It was touch and go. In Dwarven traditions, each clan had to offer a gift to their King or Queen during a Royal Wedding. This was no exception, even if Ceassa was marrying Bard, a human. But nothing told her the guard would agree to the old tradition.

He glared at the ring for a few moments, but then he snatched it from her hand and stared at her. "Do you have any message for our Lady?"

Baraz could have sighed in relief. She smiled and said, "Tell her that I wish that this ring pleases her and her husband-to-be, and that it would honour me that she wore it for the ceremony."

The guard nodded, then growled and moved back to the entrance. Baraz sighed and sat back down.

From then on started the wait. Minutes, hours, days, weeks? Baraz could not tell how long had passed since the guard had left with her gift and her message.

What she prayed for was that Ceassa showed the ring to Bard, and that he, knowing what it was, would then understand she had come back. But that, too, was touch and go. Bard might not want to see her again, might not stop a whole celebration for the sake of just freeing her.

"Yer cannot wait like this forever, Baraz." She had been sitting facing the door for what seemed like a whole lifetime when her father came to stand by her.

What was more surprising was that her uncle Bombur, Gimli, and a couple of other males she did not know, where there too, dark circles under their eyes that were filled with resolve.

"What would you have me do?" she asked in a whisper.

"Fight!" Gimli said, throwing a fist in the air, "as we did in Moria, as we did in Parth Galen, as we did before Fangorn!" Baraz stood, and he stared at her hard. "You are Azbad Gazardu! You saved Dale and Erebor from Sauron's armies! You are a war hero, not a damsel in distress!"

There was no need for an answer. Baraz nodded once, tears prickling her eyes at the trust her friend was placing in her, but refusing to shed them for she needed strength now, not weakness.

"Let's try and find weapons then."

Of course, Frír and his minions had removed every proper weapon that had once been present in their jail, but Baraz and her companions were craftmen, and could make anything look dangerous.

Gimli managed to salvage a plaque of old armour from the pile of bodies, and started grinding it slowly into the shape of an axe-head. Bombur was breaking wood into spears that one of the youngest males - one named Astár - tried to make as pointy as a real one. Bofur and the second male - Drór - were piling rocks and making slingshots.

Baraz stood watch. She would have given a lot to have her trusted bow at her side, and felt naked without it as she surveyed the five guards at the door.

Time stood still while they worked, until some time before dawn, although they would not have known, one guard shouted at the others. All five, safe for one, hurried down the corridor, and soon, the unmistakeable sound of steel against steel was heard.

Bofur came with a slingshot, Bombur with a spear, and Gimli with his home-made axe. All three protected Baraz as best they could, until the fifth guard launched himself into the fight. His wounded body flew back into view before a bloody Fíli appeared, followed by an equally bloody Sigrid. Both looked ready to kill. And they both had.

"Fíl? Sigrid?" Baraz could not believe her eyes. It was certain to her that her best friend would have been imprisoned in a similar fashion as herself, and yet here he stood, opening locks and gates to free his kin.

Sigrid launched herself into Baraz' arms. At almost eighteen, she had grown in height and also in beauty. And, it seemed, also in swordsmanship. "We received your message," she said in a trembling voice, "we thought they had killed you without a trial."

"No, they did keep me alive, for whatever reason," she answered with a small smile as she eyed Fíli. "Two against a whole army?"

He smiled and hugged her as tight as he had ever done before. "Two are stealthier than a hundred. Come now, we have to stop the ceremony."

"But..." Baraz stopped their advance in the corridor, "Sigrid...you should be there!"

The princess scowled. "I have not taken part in my brother's life since the announce. His and King Thorin's counsellors forbade that I see him until after the marriage. I was estranged by my own brother..." She sighed. "My mother is also prisoner into the palace. I shall go to her next."

Baraz' eyes widened. What had this world turned into that their own people had become their worst enemy?!

Fíli finally pushed something familiar into her hands, and she smiled when she realised it was her beloved bow. "Come, Azbad Baraz. Your people await."

She looked back, and Gimli had already retrieved an axe from the guards. Bofur and Bombur remained back. "We'll look after the ot'ers." Her father smiled proudly, and she followed her companions.

Sigrid had become almost as battle-hardened as if she had fought in the Battle of Dale two years prior. Althought she had been present, Baraz would have thought that she had been preserved by its bloodthirst. It seemed that the princess had become a warrior soon after, though.

She was wearing a leather corset reminiscent of Tauriel's over her beige dress, and had two daggers haltered at her left hip. Her curved sword shone in her left and good hand, and her long hair had been laced back.

Baraz stared at her as they climbed into the levels, and she realised how much Sigrid resembled her now...and it made her some kind of sad.

Erebor was dark as Baraz was led into the upper level and to freedom. Fíli revealed that he and Sigrid had used the Back Door to enter, the door that had been used by his father and Baraz' parents during their Quest. It had been breached open a few months earlier by a small earthquake, and none had noticed.

They met little people on their way up and out. Some guards, some residents, but not enough to say that the whole Mountain was buzzing with life. It looked like an empty shell.

When they squeezed through the small passage and into the rising sun, Baraz' eyes burnt. She had to get accustomed to sunlight again, but also to the sight she was given. From there, she could see the whole Desolation, and New Dale's closest walls. It was as magnificent as it was frightening.

That feeling she had felt two years prior was back.

That feeling of being under siege.

"Sigrid will take you to her hideaway. You can refresh and eat there. Gimli and I will quickly go to free the others, some people who'll be assets if we want to overthrow the Council. We'll be quick." Fíli nodded at Gimli and both went back inside, while the two women remained out.

"Come, Baraz. It'll soon be over." Sigrid smiled sadly and jumped forward the go down the steep slope. Baraz followed, a lump forming in her throat.

Sigrid had left her old officine after all, preferring to lodge in an abandoned warehouse close to where the Battle had taken place. It was in a still relatively empty neighbourhood, and it was easy to pass unnoticed to the few guards patrolling there.

Sigrid had made her hide-away a lovely nest, with one corner made for her healing supplies, another for sleeping, and another for eating. She directly grabbed an apple for herself and threw one at Baraz. Who stared at the fruit before slowly eating it. It was delicious.

"Sit. I'll bring fresh water from the well," the princess said, and she grabbed a pail with which she disappeared outside.

A question was nagging Baraz' mind, and she waited until her benefactor was back to ask it while she was removing her soiled clothes to refresh herself a bit.

"Sigrid, if I may ask... You said you received my message but...it was intended to your brother."

"Ceassa reached us when she received it. I'm not sure Bard knows you're here." Sigrid said sadly, before handing her a fresh shirt. "He'll be surprised."

"How...how is he?" Baraz dared ask. Her heart was doing funny things in her chest and she wasn't sure at all she was ready for the answer.

Sigrid smiled sadly again. "He understood your choice. But kept on hoping. His betrothal took something away though. I could not recognze him in the end. He had lost the will to fight. A king...how fitting," she added with a growl.

Baraz dressed into fresh clothes, and let Sigrid brush her hair, wondering what she'd say if she ever was brought in front of the man she had tried and failed to forget. Did she still love him like she thought she had so long ago? Did he? Would he still want to marry her?

The most important was to stop the wedding and stop all those who had taken reign over the Mountain. To make Erebor prosper again, and to make Fíli happy. The rest could wait and was not important.

Fíli and Gimli arrived an hour later, as the two women were eating and sipping on warm tea. Fíli was very satisfied with himself, having freed most of Thorin's partisans, and having made 'permanently unavailable' some of Frír's followers.

Both refreshed themselves too, and Gimli and Baraz talked about those times in the Golden Wood, and of the Lady of Light, and of...Legolas.

"D'yer reckon he remembers me?" the Dwarf asked once the Greenwood prince was brought up.

Baraz smiled. "I bet all of my small fortune that there is no forgetting one's best friend, and you two were surely made for each other!" she laughed. "I saw him on my way here. He misses you and wished to visit later in the year, knowing you would not go to his father's halls."

Gimli's nose turned up in disgust, but he nodded. "I could bear the wood, but not the Tree-Hugger." Fíli chuckled at the bile in his voice, and soon, Baraz too was laughing.

It was so foreign it felt weird to laugh again.

"It's time." Sigrid had been standing by the door for hours, and as the sun reached eleven in the morning, she moved back inside, signifying that the wedding ceremony would soon begin.

Fíli nodded. "There'll be a lot of guards from both cities around the palace. We'll need to either be quick enough for Bard to see you, Baraz; or willing to kill more than needed.

Baraz frowned. "I don't want anyone to die. There has been too many deaths already."

All three others seemed surprised at her words, but nodded nonetheless. Sigrid then sighed. "I can show you a way into the palace. But we may meet some resistance." She paused. "There's an underground way to the kitchens."

Fíli's brow furrowed as if he was in deep thought. "We need to draw them out."

Baraz was about to suggest being used as bait, but Gimli beat her to it. "The Prince and I can stand guard with Thorin's loyal followers outside, raise a bit of a riot. You ladies can sneak in and stop this whole stupid thing!"

Fíli agreed with a stern nod, and Sigrid did the same before sheathing her long sword back at her right hip. "Baraz, you'll need weapons," she said before turning to a corner of her hideaway. "We could not retrieve your quiver, as it was surely destroyed, but I brought you one of ours."

Baraz silently thanked the princess for her gift, for Dale's arrows were as deadly as any Elf's. Sigrid nodded back then her face took a more sour look.

"Let's go. I long to see the look on that Rock-Shagger's face when we stop his rise to power!" Baraz had half a mind to scowl at the insult, but when she remembered Frír treason, she could only grunt in approval.

A quick hug from both Fíli and Gimli was all she received before both were out the door, and Sigrid soon followed, slithering between buildings as if she was made of shadows rather than flesh.

Baraz followed the Princess through alleyways and streets she did not remember ever visiting, despite her long years, and after less than ten minutes, she was presented with what looked like the entrance to a sewer.

Sigrid pointed at the grate. "This is our way in. It was used to sneak supplies out of the palace if we were under siege." She pushed the rusted grate aside, and let Baraz slide in before she closed it behind them both.

The tunnel was very small in height, but wide enough for entire wagons to be herded through. They made their way bent at the waist and into the darkness, Sigrid leading the way in the dark as if she had used this secret entrance countless times before. Baraz realised she probably had when she was a child.

After a good couple of turns and a long walk, Sigrid stopped, a hand raised as she assessed the noises around. Baraz could hear the faint buzzing of life nearby, and noticed a smell sweeter than the stale air of the tunnel. Sigrid lowered her hand, and they advanced a couple of feet more, before the Princess stopped right under a hidden latch.

She looked at Baraz. "Some of the servants would have remained loyal to my family. Let me speak, and pretend to be of no importance. I doubt they'd remember you." Baraz nodded, and Sigrid stood straighter to push the latch open.

They erupted right in the royal kitchens, a huge hall filled with ovens, fires and tables filled with food. All work had stopped when the latch to their hidden place had opened, and soon, the face of a cook appeared above them. It was a women of a certain age, whose face lit up upon seeing Sigrid. "It's our Princess!" she exclaimed, and most of the kitchen then erupted in cheers.

Both Sigrid and Baraz were soon helped up into the room, and the Princess was indeed swallowed by a crowd of loyal servants who did not silence their anger towards the Dwarves and their Counsel and their decisions. She herself passed beautifully unnoticed.

"We need to stop our King's wedding," Sigrid finally said above the clamours. "Do you know where the ceremony is hosted?"

"They took 'im to the King's office," one lad said with a growl, "no one's invited."

Sigrid nodded with a fire in her eyes Baraz had never seen before. "I promise you, when our King Bard gets married, all of Dale will be present." She then gestured Baraz to follow and they exited the kitchen.

"We have to get upstairs," the young woman said with gritted teeth once they were in the corridor. "Using the servant's stairs would be too risky."

Baraz placed a hand on her arm. "The boys would have done their job by now. The entrance hall should not be guarded."

Sigrid nodded in agreement, and lead her up the corridor, taking two turns before she slowed down and unsheathed her sword. Baraz took it as her cue to notch an arrow.

The hall was not empty as they had hoped, but most of the commotion was happening in front of the doors anyway, and they could pass unnoticed by most from where they stood towards the tall stairs.

All was well until they reached the top of said stairs. A good six Dwarves stood there, axes and spears held high, guarding the door behind which was Bard. Sigrid growled, the sound akin to an angered wolf, and launched herself at the closest guard who, upon seeing her, raised the alarm.

"We're under attack!" he yelled before a slash of a curved blade ended his life.

Baraz was feeling sick to her stomach as she fired her own arrows to stop the guards from striking her young friend. She did not kill, merely wounded, disgusted at the thought of ending the life of one of her own kin. Sigrid did not have her scrupules, slashing through them with a ferocity that Baraz hoped never to see again in the young one, until one particular blade stopped at her throat and stopped her advance.

"Princess Sigrid...how quaint," he drawled, and Baraz recognized Grár, son of Frír. "This is, I'm afraid, the last mistake you make."

Baraz notched an arrow and called his name, distracting the Dwarf long enough for Sigrid to shake free of his deadly grasp. His black eyes lit with fury and bloodthirst, and he raised his axe.

He fell dead a second later, an arrow embedded deep in his own throat. Baraz approached the choking figure, and spat on it. "My cousin is thrice the man you've ever been."

Sigrid nodded her thanks, and then both turned to the door. They could hear a commotion right behind it, but was it the wedding and an argumen taking place or rather a royal guard taking their stand, they did not know.

"For Dale," Sigrid whispered, and she kicked the door open.

Baraz emptied her quiver in the first few seconds. It had quickly appeared that Frír's personal guard-dogs and some of the Counsellors had taken up arms, and were trying to stop the two swordswomen who were attacking them.

She realised she had not brought a sword when one was gently pushed in her hand, and she looked to the side, where she found Fíli, Gimli, and a group of bloodied soldiers. All chanted "For Erebor!" before they joined the fight.

Baraz followed, slashing a way across as best she could, until Gimli's hand found her arm. "Lassie, you must go! Now! We've got this!"

She nodded, and hurried towards the wall of the crowded room, trying to find Sigrid in this crazy mess. She found the tall Daughter of Men at the opposite side of her, in a doorway, two guards altering her roughly. In front of her, Baraz could make the brown hair of someone she suddenly was very afraid to see again.

"Baraz!" Sigrid yelled then, before being roughly handled and pulled inside. It made her realise that her fears were the least of her worries, and she pushed forward until she reached the same door, now closed.

It was easy to open it, for someone helped from the other side. It was also very easy to get lost in the deep blue of the Man now facing her.

"Bard..." she whispered, tears springing to her eyes as she was finally breaking down. Her sword fell to the ground, clanking loudly, and still he stared at her, seemingly unable to believe she was really there.

"This is an outrage!" came a raging call from within, and Bard was shoved aside by a fuming Frír, who slapped her across the face. "You are a spawn of Sauron!" he spat in her face.

Baraz looked at her feet for a second before all the anger and loathing she felt for this person rose in her blood and she looked up at him, towering over him with a grace she had not shown in months. "And you, Frír, are not better than Orc's dung!" She pushed him backwards until he stumbled into the room and she followed, now facing the almost entire Erebor Council, her King, and Dale's generals as well. "You, Frír, have turned your own people against their King in an attempt to usurp the throne. You, Frír, have tortured and murdered women and children. You, Frír," she added in an almost whisper, "have lost this battle."

Behind her, she could feel her cousins standing proud, weapons aloft.

The rebellion had been tamed.

Frír's face started getting redder and redder by the second, until he turned to Thorin behind them. "Your Majesty, surely you do not believe this whore to be-"

"This...whore, as you say, dear general, has once again saved Erebor from a fate worse than death. One I was not able to stop." Thorin advanced in the room until he faced Baraz. "I am sorry, Azbadu men."

She shook her head. "Don't be, Thanu men. All men can be betrayed by their closest friends when their hearts are in somber places." She smiled sadly, then turned to Frír again. "This...shambles...will not take place. You will relieve Lady Ceassa from this betrothal that was forced upon her, and you will agree to her marriage to Fíli, son of Kíli. Now."

There was a concert of whispers around the room, even from those loyal to the Mountain's monarch, and then, Frír smirked. "And what about your own wish, Lady Baraz? For surely this little speech of yours is missing an important part!"

He did not voice it aloud, but Baraz could guess, and her eyes turned to where Bard stood, still entranced by her appearance. She stared deep in his blue eyes, and swallowed audibly. "I cannot force Bard, King of Dale, to marry me, and I will not dishonour him in repeating the mistake I made by leaving his side in times of need. What I did today was not for my sake, but for my dearest friend's, his beloved's, and my two people's."

"Aye aye!" Dwalin said from wherever he was, and then, Fíli pushed past her, hurrying to Ceassa's side where he took her in his arms tenderly. Both were weeping.

Baraz smiled at the sight. When Frír was removed from her side, the smile faded. She bowed the head in respect towards her King, and turned to leave.

"Azbadu men!" came the call before she could reach the door. She turned to see Ceassa approach her. She was indeed a lovely dwarrowdam with barely a hint of a beard. She looked both fragile and strong, and Baraz knew Fíli had chosen very well. "Will you do us the honour to marry us?" she asked in a small voice, and Fíli smiled widely from across the room.

Baraz smiled back, avoiding the eyes of the Man who had come to stand to her right. "I will. With pleasure."