"I refuse to believe that they survived this long to die in a tunnel collapse," Tauriel said, fists clenched at her sides as she stared at the jumbled pile of rock and masonry that spilled into the water.

A single pebble tumbled down the slope and hit the water. There was no splash. There were no ripples. The Mirrormere's silvery flat surface remained both silvery and flat. The sound seemed more muffled than it should have been, even.

I'm not going to look, Fili thought, and directed his attention to Moria's collapsed entrance and Tauriel's canvassing of it. He should help, but that would mean moving closer. He wasn't sure if it was his fear of the lake or fear of finding something else that kept him from it, but both had twined together. It wasn't fair, that Kili and Morwinyon had survived the mountain and who knew what else, and now he had to worry about them dying here.

When had life been fair, though?

"Nothing," Tauriel said in disgust. She dropped to sit, jaw set. More pebbles fell. More nothing happened when they hit the water.

Not that Fili was looking.

"There is too much rock and too little - why do you stare?"

"I'm not," said Fili.

Tauriel frowned at him and stood, leaning over to peer into the water.

"Do you see anything?" he asked.

"No," she said slowly, drawing out the word. "I do not even see myself. It could be some trick of angle or light-"

"Maybe," Fili said too quickly.

Tauriel shot him a look but began to climb back down. Fili turned away, back towards the pass.

"Wait," Tauriel said.

Fili closed his eyes.

"What is it I should see?"

"It isn't should," Fili protested, and sighed. "Durin saw a crown of stars. Seven of them."

"I see no crown."

"Good."

"I see a star," she said. "Just the one. Fili, look."

He turned to follow her pointing finger and saw only a shining, mirrored surface.

"Fili," she said when he didn't come closer.

It's only water, he reminded himself, forcing his feet to move. What can water do? Whatever you see, Tauriel won't make you tell her, and even if she did - well, what will she do, make you be king again? And who would rule after you, if your children have been raised as Dunedain anyway, and who would rule beside you if Kili and Morwinyon are dead again, and -

It wasn't fair, he thought again, but even if it wasn't, he would be king again if it meant Morwinyon and Kili still lived.

He stepped to the edge, the toes of his boots barely touching the water. A reflection grew from there, still and perfect. He looked older, he realized. When was the last time he had looked in a mirror? Years, probably. He looked like Thorin, he realized, if he ignored the hair.

His necklace had worked its way free of the neck of his shirt to lay gleaming on his chest, a string of gems upon a silver thread, and as if to match seven stars shone on his brow.

Had Thorin seen them? he wondered. Had Thorin looked?

"Fili," Tauriel snapped, grabbing his chin and directing his stare elsewhere.

At the end of Durin's Crown, as if the constellation pointed to it, an eighth star glinted orange and bright.

"Morwinyon," Tauriel said gleefully, signing the star's name in front of his face as if unsure he would understand.

Fili sat by the Mirrormere and laughed until tears ran down his face.

The laughter did not last long into the trek through the Redhorn pass, especially not when confronted with a hard-packed snowdrift as tall as he was. Fili glared at the drift and then up at Tauriel, who crouched atop it.

"Someone has come through recently," she said. "There are some places where a fresh snowfall has covered frozen-over tracks. They were made by someone warm."

"No one could be warm in this," Fili grumbled as he took the hand Tauriel held down to him and let her haul him up and over.

"Someone warmer than me," Tauriel amended. "And there is a hollow a little farther on that could have been a shelter. I thought dwarves were used to mountains."

"We are used to friendly mountains," Fili retorted. He was already sinking into the snow. Tauriel's lips compressed - she was trying to hide a smile, he knew she was trying to hide a smile - and slipped past him and ahead again.

"We can stay there tonight," she called back. Fili waded after her.

Even Tauriel was disheveled by the time they reached the end of the snow. Fili probably looked feral, which was a fine state in which to chase down his wife and brother, let alone wrest kingship from his cousin.

How much of a fight would Dain put up? He had a son, Fili knew, and the son was Fili's age. Did the son have heirs? If Dain had had a daughter Fili might have been able to offer leaving her as the preeminent lady of Erebor - Morwinyon would hopefully have understood, she hadn't seemed thrilled by the prospect sixty years ago - but what could he offer a son, even if Dain cooperated? Fili wouldn't promise to let Dain's son rule after him, not when Angion and Tauriel existed, not if one of his children might want to rule. He supposed Tauriel or Angion might take a liking to someone from Dain's family, but that was a small chance.

Was it really? He didn't know his children. Maybe they would like Dain's descendants.

It was a depressing to remember how little he knew about them. He had tried over the journey to picture them, and then not to picture them so he wouldn't have expectations for them to live up to, and then to picture them again: Morwinyon's hair, maybe, and probably taller than he was. Definitely taller than he was. Would either of them have Kili's quick grin, or were they somber from a lifetime in Dis' company, and who knew what the Dunedain had encouraged? Morwinyon wouldn't have let anyone run roughshod over them or what they wanted, he was sure, but Dis had had the raising of them often, from what Elrond had conveyed, and -

Fili realized that he didn't actually know how his mother parented, not firsthand, not really. Thorin had been the one to make most parenting decisions for Fili. Maybe Fili's children would be more like Kili after all.

Tauriel stopped and Fili reached automatically for his sword, but no threat immediately presented itself.

"Problem?" he asked.

Tauriel shook her head and squinted, shading her eyes. Fili didn't bother to look: if Tauriel couldn't see whatever it was clearly, he didn't have a hope. Instead he waited, keeping an eye on their nearer surroundings.

"Dwarves," she said finally. "A group. Do you want to avoid them?"

Yes.

"No," he said. "I might as well start somewhere. I don't suppose you can tell from here which clan they're from."

"I could not tell if I were standing before them," Tauriel said more dryly than he thought necessary. "Could you tell Sindar from Silvan?"

"Oh sure," Fili replied. "It's just a matter of how far down their noses they look at me."

Tauriel snorted, and they set off.

The party of dwarves dipped in and out of sight as Fili and Tauriel made their way down from the rocky foothills - or so Fili assumed. He couldn't see them for some time, but Tauriel kept them on course until first he could make out moving shapes and then until he was reasonably certain they were dwarves, at which point Tauriel gasped, "Kili?"

They both broke into a run, shouting, but Tauriel outpaced Fili easily. She stopped and looked back once.

"For heaven's sake," Fili snapped, so she turned and ran again.

The back of Fili's mind noted distantly that it was easier this way: there was no way to know who Kili would have embraced first, if there was no way Fili could have gotten to him first, and less far to the back of his mind Fili was grateful to know he wouldn't have to know yet if he harbored some part of Thorin's jealousy. That would come later with the mountain, he was sure.

But now there was a dark-haired dwarf looking up and then beginning to run towards Tauriel, and now Kili and Tauriel collided in a laughing, crying pile, and now Fili threw himself in with abandon. Now, he had his brother back.