The climb up to the landing she spotted is almost enough to make Billana wish that she had kept her falcon form and waited for the rest of the Company at the top. The steps are steep and even though they were designed and built with dwarves in mind even her companions struggle with them a little. All, that is, except Nori who scrambles up them with ease, trailing a rope behind her and muttering curses about her heavy dwarf boots not having the same purchase as her usual ones. The thief ties the rope off against a boulder at the top of the stairs and Billana isn't the only one to use it to help her. Nori is barely winded when they all join her, scowling as she digs under her nails with one of her knives.

"Any sign?" Thorin demands of her and she glares at him.

"My Sight doesn't work like that," she replies. "Find yourself an elf if you want someone who can see spells."

Billana expects Thorin to snap back, but he just shakes his head and orders them to start searching while they still have the light. If it is truly a concealed door that can only be revealed by a certain light Billana thinks it is completely useless to start searching now. She shivers with the cold, although the landing is sheltered from the biting wind, and settles herself against the cliff face with her arms wrapped around her legs. The sun is setting, casting the ledge into shadows that won't help the others to search and Billana feels the pit in her stomach widen.

She doesn't think that she can do this. As soon as the final light reveals the door she will be expected to go inside and search out a shining stone in a potential sea of shining stones and precious metals. She has become so swept up in her romance with Fili and Kili, in becoming Balin's daughter rather than a lost little nobody, that she had let herself forget that she had been brought to face this great beast. Balin eases next to her, following her gaze to where Fili is arguing which his uncle quietly.

"Is it wrong that I hope they don't find the keyhole?" She whispers. Balin pats her hand.

"It will be well, nathith," he tells her gently. "I know the prospect of going in is daunting, but you will not fail us. Gandalf chose you for a reason beyond the need to get you out of the Shire."

"I'm expendable," she mutters. "When he chose me no one wanted me and I so it wouldn't have mattered if I died or not."

"No," Balin snaps. "You are no such thing and you never have been. You do Gandalf a disservice by thinking that he could ever think that of anyone." She bows her head. "You are unique, Billana, a marvel and a treasure in your own right. That you have remained so kind, loving and generous with all the hardship that you have experienced and all the lies I am sure your people spouted is a miracle on its own and I will not hear of you doubting your own worth, to us or anyone else." She leans against him and he wraps an arm around her. "You have me, you have the love of those young whelps and that shows remarkably good taste on their part. You aren't expendable, but you are the only one who can do this. I just wish there was more we could do to protect you." He sighs. "Dragons are powerful mages in their own right," he adds after a moment, "there aren't many spells that our gifted mages can use which might affect them and not many strong enough to use them at that."

"But Kili-" Billana begins and Balin nods.

"Aye, had he the practice he might be able to perform such a spell, but after his fathers were killed Thorin put a lot of effort into keeping those lads as safe as he could. In Kili's case that meant hiding the true strength of his gift," he bows his head.

"There should be another option!" She hears Fili shout. "What would we have done if we had got half way here and lost her? What would our options have been then?"

"It matters not," Thorin snaps in reply. "We are here, it is almost time and there is no cause to risk the plan. You know this, Fili. You know the other dwarf kingdoms will not follow us without the Arkenstone, not again. If we wish to get Erebor back we need it and the only way to get it is to go in there. Billana is our best hope."

"Have you thought about what it will do to us should Smaug catch her?" Kili demands. "You have seen our mother, even thirty years after our fathers were taken from her she isn't the same."

"I am aware," Thorin replies. "And I have thought of little else. But there is little more that I can do and it is not the time for this discussion. Unless she refuses, Billana Took goes into the mountain."

Unless she refuses, she thinks. It is a tempting thing, to refuse to do what she has been brought here to do, to refuse to possibly walk into the jaws of a dragon, but then she looks at the others she has travelled with and remembers the three left in Dale to wait for their return. They deserve this home that they have travelled across the world to reclaim, they deserve this impossible dream that only thirteen dwarves and an unwanted hobbit tween would dare to attempt. She will go in, though she knows that it will upset Fili and Kili, probably Balin and Nori as well, she will try to find this stone that the other dwarves think is so very important.

Of course, this decision means absolutely nothing at all if they don't find the keyhole and the sun is setting fast.

"Could it be the wrong ledge?" Nori asks as the last rays of sunlight fade and there is no sign of the keyhole.

"This is the only one either of us spotted," Kili shrugs, "and it would have to be exposed enough for the last rays of sun to reach. This is the only place it could be."

"Is that what the map said?" Billana asks her father. "That it would be the last of the sun's light on Durin's Day?"

"No," Balin replies, though the others are now arguing amongst themselves. "It said something about a thrush knocking in the last light of Durin's Day."

"Well, there haven't been any thrushes," Billana points out, "and the sun isn't the only thing that shines with light," she adds.

The rest of the remaining Company have already begun to withdraw, however, making their way back to the too steep stone stairs. After months of trials and desperate hope they have run out of anything else to give. Billana cannot find it in herself to blame them. Her hopes are only for a home, she doesn't care if it is in this mountain, the Blue Mountains or in the middle of the plains of Rhovanion, so long as she has somewhere that she can belong and be accepted. This place holds more meaning for her friends, even as Kili and Fili argue that they cannot just give up. Her princes, she knows, have not suffered the same hardships that their elders have, they have not been beaten down time and again. Billana understands the attitude of the older dwarves all too well. The moon rises and she feels the passing flash of a small bird as she gets to her feet to follow the rest down.

"The keyhole!" She hears Kili shout over the tap tap of a bird with a snail. "Thorin, it's the keyhole!"

As one they turn to find the moonlight shining on the rock face as it crumbles away, revealing exactly that which they have been looking for all evening. Thorin beams at his nephew, his eyes glittering with emotion as he inserts the key and turns it. There is a click, too loud in the reverent silence though in reality it is far quieter than she would have expected it to be. It takes three of the dwarves to prize the heavy door open and it is Thorin and Balin who go inside first as Fili and Kili come to her side.

"You don't have to do this," Fili tells her. "We'll think of something else."

"Yes," she replies firmly, "I do. It's the reason I found you, I can't walk away from it now." She takes a deep breath, kissing them both for longer than she really should and flushing when they come apart to see their friends watching with amused grins. "Tell me exactly what I'm looking for," she says.

What she is looking for, Balin tells her, is a white jewel about the size of his fist that swirls with colour much in the same way that an opal seems to when the light catches it just right. This gem, however, creates its own glow and will be easily recognisable. Balin tells her not to take anything else, not too dig too deeply in her search, he would rather she come out empty handed than that she wake the dragon and not come out at all. Thorin looks like he disagrees with the sentiment, but a glare from Dwalin silences him even as the large guard mutters to Nori that she will not be going in. That is something that Billana can agree with, Gandalf chose her because she wouldn't carry the same scent as that of a dwarf, she must go.

"We'll take her," Fili says before Balin can lead her into the mountain.

"We will all go," Thorin replies.

That statement baffles Billana but they all proceed down the dark corridor. The air inside the mountain is chill, but as they go deeper it begins to warm and the air starts to dry out. Eventually, Balin calls for them all to halt, it is time for Billana to continue on her own, and she understands why Thorin decided all of them should come with her when the two princes hiss that they can go a little bit closer. Their uncle and Dwalin immediately put a stop to it, but she can tell that if she had been alone she would have been hard pressed to get them to leave her side. She stoops to remove her leather boots, she will not be able to move quietly if she has them on, even now she stumbles over her own feet because she isn't accustomed to wearing them. She pauses long enough to whisper a promise to come back to Fili and Kili and then she follows the passage in silence, able to hear only her own breathing.

Eventually, she emerges in what must have once been the treasury of Erebor and she cannot stifle her gasp. Either Balin and Thorin have forgotten just how much gold Thror amassed over the years, or Smaug has gathered more in the decades that he has been in control of the mountain. She could search for years and never uncover the Arkenstone, gold stretches as far as the eye can see, light reflecting off it from some unknown source and lighting the room up with a sickly golden glow. She moves carefully but even her silent feet cannot prevent the odd shift of a coin and the rasp of others as they fall with it. She searches for what feels like hours, desperately hoping to catch a glimpse of the glowing stone that she needs to find, until the delicate shift of displaced coins changes and becomes louder, heavier. Billana ducks behind a nearby pillar and notes two things.

The first is the glow of the Arkenstone only metres away from her.

The second is the dragon looming out of the gold.


A.N: Now we're getting to the next chunk that I've really been looking forward to writing. Trickster's Sight (AO3 only due to rating) should have another chapter in a day or so as well. My brain is swimming with the scenes that I need to write for both stories in this universe and I love it.