A.N: I actually found Balin's head very difficult to get into. Also, my house just sold so in the next 4 to 6 weeks I'm moving. Hopefully it won't impact on my posting schedule but here's a heads up all the same.

Chapter Six: Balin

T.A.2920 Ered Luin

Balin sighs and takes a sip from his teacup rather than answer Thorin's question straight away. Erebor is a constant in Thorin's thoughts, it has been since it was lost, and it comes as no surprise that the longer the dragon goes without being seen the more he presses for them to try and retake the mountain.

"We're doing well enough, Thorin," he says in lieu of a more pointed answer. What he wants to do is tell Thorin not to be a fool, but his job involves being a little bit more diplomatic than that.

"Well enough isn't what our people deserve," Thorin argues.

"Such an undertaking would be expensive, not to mention dangerous."

"So, you've become a frightened old man?" Thorin questions. "I would never have thought that of you, Balin." He reminds himself that Thorin has a habit of lashing out when he senses things aren't likely to go his way.

"No," he replies, as calmly as he can, "but is Fili ready to rule in your place if you don't come back? Or would you take him with you and risk the entire line of succession?"

"If it were just Fili it wouldn't be the entire line," Thorin grumbles.

"Where Fili goes Kili does, you know it and I know it," he points out. "Part of that is your fault."

"We found Fili in one of the deeper shafts last week," Thorin leans back in his chair and sighs, the fight seeming to drain out of him as they discuss his heir. "He's started getting the megrims, the same as Dis does. He said being in the deep stone helps but we both know what he really needs."

"There are no catacombs here, Thorin, they were destroyed centuries ago. If you would only consider-"

"I won't send him to Dain," Thorin cuts him off before he can finish the sentence. It's an old argument that always ends the same way. Were it anyone else, even Kili, Balin thinks Thorin would consider it. Fili is the heir, however, and Thorin would keep him close. "We need to retake Erebor. Fili deserves the throne he's being trained for. He deserves more than being sent into over worked mines to try and find a lucrative seam or test to see if a tunnel is safe enough to work. He deserves to be creating halls and statues out of the finest materials, not scrabbling through shale for tin."

Balin picks up the sheets of parchment his king places before him. He highly doubts that Fili knows that Thorin has taken them, although he can see the talent in the work. Fili could be working on some truly impressive feats of architecture were he not restricted by lack of resources and work.

"We can't just put vital funds into trying to retake Erebor, risk facing a dragon, because you think Fili should be able to do what he wants rather than what is necessary," Balin replies. He feels terrible for saying it, but Thorin has to think of this as a king and not as an uncle.

"I'm aware," Thorin nods, "but he isn't the only one who deserves better. All of our young do. Our children should be safe from orc raids, they should walk under the stone, not over it, our people should have lives of ease and plenty. Not struggle year on year to make ends meet. Every year I wait to hear that the mines have finally run dry, every year our people go among the Men to find work and every year it grows more scarce. We need to make this attempt now, while we still have the mines and the work, not when we're finally desperate."

There isn't much that Balin can say in disagreement with that.

T.A. 2741 Hobbiton, The Shire

Balin's first thought when they collect the ponies is that they don't have enough of the beasts for their number. Sixteen ponies had been purchased, fourteen to carry the company and two to carry provisions not personal in nature. They cannot redistribute the supplies more than they already have, they have the absolute minimum number of ponies that they could get away with buying and the two pack ponies are already close to being over loaded.

Frerin, Belladonna and Bluebell seem to have realised the problem as well. The two hobbits are already insisting that they will be fine on foot and Frerin is smiling at them indulgently but making no move to correct them or offer a solution to the problem. If the long absent prince hadn't volunteered to join them Balin would assume that he was deliberately trying to make things more difficult just to get back at them. It wouldn't be the first time. Besides, they have an accomplished thief among them anyway. Nori was reluctant to join them but given the alternative Balin can hardly blame him. No matter what Gandalf might say Balin isn't convinced the hobbits are really necessary.

"You may as well get a start on it now," Frerin says eventually to the hobbits. "You know it's only going to be harder on you if you start riding in Bree instead of here."

Fili and Kili are hovering nearby, checking their ponies over in an attempt to cover for their eavesdropping. They're doing a better job of it than usual, but that's more likely because they have something legitimate to be doing rather than any increase in skill on their part. The addition of their lost uncle is going to be hard on them both. While they have always been fond of Thorin (Kili certainly holds his dark-haired uncle in exceedingly high regard), their bond with Frerin had been closer and easier. Even bordering on hero worship as far as Fili was concerned.

"The hobbits will have to double up with someone until we get to Bree," Thorin declares, his tone saying just how unhappy he is with something that will inevitably cause a delay. Riding it should take about two days for them to get to the Mannish settlement from Hobbiton (and the sheer size of the Shire had been a surprise) but with the additional stops they will have to make to rest the ponies carrying the extra weight it will likely take two and a half. They don't have a deadline as such, but it would be nice to make it to Erebor before winter arrives.

"I'll take Bella," Frerin says, not that anyone is surprised. "Fili, Kili, would you mind letting Bluebell ride with the two of you?" He asks his young sister-sons.

Balin has half a mind to object. While Frerin and Belladonna are clearly lovers and have been for some time, Bluebell is a young maid and the princes can be overwhelming in large doses. Kili, however, is already smiling that bright and cheeky grin that gets him so much attention and causes so much trouble back in Ered Luin and Fili has gone to Bluebell's side to offer his assistance. She's hesitant, which speaks a great deal in her favour as far as Balin is concerned, but with an encouraging smile from her mother and a whisper of something she sets her shoulders and accepts.

Clearly there is a great deal going on here that Balin isn't in a position to understand. He dislikes it immensely. Balin can usually puzzle most things out and what he doesn't know he can research. Everything he knows about hobbits comes from one very slim book, a few trade meetings in Bree and at home, and Frerin's stories (which had always been a little bit too outlandish given what he knew of hobbits at the time). In fact, given Frerin's stories, Balin has realised that he should have come to the Shire to look for his friend decades ago. He, like so many others, had made the mistake of assuming that Frerin's long time travelling companion all those years ago was a dwarf. He had called her Bel, or Bella, when speaking of her for the most part and only rarely referred to her as Belladonna. She had travelled too much and been too long lived to be an average hobbit and the form of address in the note that Frerin had left behind had been Khuzdul rather than common. It had all, whether intentionally or not, caused rather a large amount of misdirection which has enabled him to spend the last decades unnoticed in the Shire.

There are questions that need answering, of course, questions that Thorin must know have to be asked. The King-In-Exile seems happy to let them slide at the moment, too happy to have found his lost brother again and obviously reluctant to damage the peace between them. Balin can't say he blames Thorin for that. Losing Frerin to the unknown much in the same way Thrain was has been hard on him and he must be feeling the good fortune of finding his brother again. Finding Frerin before the quest has begun is a fantastically good omen but the internal pessimist makes Balin wonder when this is all going to come around and cause trouble for them. It has to. The questions can't go unanswered for too long and in his experience the line of Durin rarely has this kind of luck since the fall of Erebor.

"We'll need at least three more ponies," Balin says to Thorin as they ride. His king nods in acknowledgement and he hears Gloin grumble just behind them. The Company's banker begrudges the spending of every coin, even the necessary ones, and this will be a strain on their limited funds as it is.

"Don't you like riding?" He hears Kili ask.

"I'm sure it's perfectly lovely if you're so inclined towards it," Bluebell replies in a sick tone. Balin glances back to see that she's pale and her brilliant eyes are unfocused. "Hobbits prefer to keep their feet on the ground though."

"None of you ride at all?" Fili asks and she mutters something that Balin doesn't catch. "What about in carts?"

"Some do, the wood doesn't interfere the way a living thing does," she replies.

"So, it's a hobbit-y thing," Kili concludes. "You need to be touching the earth?"

"Something like that," she lets out a series of sneezes. "But we weren't supposed to be discussing it."

When they stop for lunch later no one misses just how pleased the hobbits are to be back on the ground or how reluctant they are to mount once more. Dwalin and Thorin grumble about soft little creatures which draws a glare from Frerin and makes Balin wonder if he is going to need to mediate a dispute only half a day into their quest. Much as Thorin and his brother adored one another they were also capable of some of the most spectacular rows. He can only hope that the years apart will have lessened that. Thorin seems to have become that much more bitter in the last four decades, not that anyone can blame him, where Frerin seems to have relaxed and rediscovered the more jovial part of himself that had vanished when he had stopped travelling with Belladonna.

Fortunately, the grumbling falls silent again as soon as they are on their way and Frerin doesn't seem inclined to comment on it. Hopefully the hobbits will adapt before it causes a problem because if they can't adapt there will be no point in buying the extra ponies or leaving Bree with them. By the end of the day, although still struggling, the hobbits are a little more settled and they join the Company around the fire, their eyes glowing with indigo light, huddled against Frerin and wrapped in blankets against the chill spring air. Seeing the closeness, the ease of family between them even if Balin can't see anything official about it, he can understand why Frerin has stayed away all this time. Balin might have, too, if his One had survived Azanulbizar.