A.N: This is the second chapter today due to both length and story flow. It doesn't follow quite the same pattern as the rest of the fic, trying to get it to do that didn't work. This part was Necessary, however, and so it had to be put in. Go back and read Belladonna's chapter if you haven't already.
T.A.2941 Rivendell
In a study high within the soaring halls of Imladris the elf lord takes a sharp breath and turns to his companion. For only a moment the familiar, lilting songs of earth and stone had merged from two separate, yet complimentary, tunes into one glorious harmony.
"Mithrandir, what have you done?" He demands.
"I was right, then," the wizard sighs. There is no joy in it, however, no pleasure in having been proved correct. There is just sorrow.
"You intend to go through with it?" He asks. "You will take them to the mountain? They are children!"
"The sickness in that mountain spreads," Gandalf sighs. "Thror was a child when the Arkenstone, the heart, was rediscovered. It called the dragon, I am sure of it. It will take both stone and earth to repair the damage that has been done, and to keep it safe. Just as it always has. It must be done, before the sickness spreads too much further."
"There is time yet."
"If circumstances were otherwise, I would agree," the wizard looks down at his interlocked fingers. "my instincts tell me that it must be now. Thorin and his heirs are being hunted, Radagast brings news of dark things gathering to the east of the Woodland Realm. Thranduil draws ever further within his boarders and the dragon slumbers under the mountain. We must deal with this now, kill him before he wakes or is convinced to do the dark work of others. If that stone leaves the mountain, or Valar forbid, is damaged by Smaug this will all have been for naught." He puts his head in his hands. "And I cannot tell them any of this. If I were to prepare them the choice would never be accepted."
They lapse into regretful silence until Gandalf rises to seek his bed. Elrond does the same, although his night is restless for the first time in decades and filled with visions of a future that he cannot prevent.