Chapter Thirty-One: Fili
T.A 2892 Ered Luin
"Again!" Frerin barks, twin blades flashing in the sunlight as Fili and Kili both dart in on the attack.
They're gifted at the art of battle, Fili more than Kili and both more so than any other battle-ready dwarf their age. This is because Thorin, Frerin and Dwalin all still remember the utter horror of Azanulbizar, they remember the day that Smaug came and how woefully under prepared they were. While none of the older members of their family would ever wish to see either of the young princes in such a position (and Fili knows that unless they decide to lose their minds entirely and retake Erebor there are no dragons in their future) they all know that the future can't be predicted. Much as their mother objects and worries she doesn't stop Thorin, Frerin and Dwalin from pushing them to be the best with not only their chosen weapons, but with anything thing they might pick up.
Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the parties involved might assume that it's Thorin or Dwalin who push the boys hardest. Dwalin's craft is his dedication to his weapons, his skills as a warrior are legendary and watching him fight is like watching a living work of art. Thorin, king by birth, warrior by nature and blacksmith by craft is known to be exacting and demanding. He would never expect more of his sister's sons than he does of himself, but his expectations of himself are almost impossibly high. It's entirely reasonable to assume that a warrior by craft and a demanding king would expect perfection from the young heirs. It would surprise everyone, then, to find that the one who works them the hardest of all is Frerin. Frerin who has always demanded that Thorin ease up on the boys when he pushes them too hard. Frerin who sneaks them away on hunting trips. Frerin who scowls at anyone and everyone who comments on Kili's height and skill with the bow. Frerin who laughs and encourages their mischief. Frerin who seems so carefree and light hearted, but who also disappears for six weeks every summer to places unknown to visit someone he refuses to speak of.
Frerin still wakes with battle dreams, Fili knows, and Frerin came closest to death and carries an impossible scar of a wound he should never have survived. Frerin who was barely old enough to join the march (even though he was considered battle ready) and whose training had suffered from a life on the road and an early push into a craft.
Swords clash, Fili yelps as Frerin manages to knock one of his blades from his hand due to his inattention and Kili snarls as he leaps into the gap left by that loss.
Frerin trains them to work together and apart, with their left hands and their right (easier for Fili who finds duel wielding as easy as breathing) and ranged as well as near (easier for Kili who has their father's sharp eyes and precise aim). Their abilities complement each other, they would even if Frerin had never had any input at all. All dwarves start training with a sword or an axe at age ten, all dwarves are taken to find their chosen weapon a year later and there is nothing that their family can say which would influence that choice. Fili's choice of duel swords had exceeded expectations, Kili's choice of the bow had defied them (and Kili's ability to defy expectations has always been a source of envy for Fili, who must always exceed but never defy).
"Again!" When the two boys have overpowered Frerin.
"Again!" When he has Kili at the mercy of his sword.
"Again!" When both are disarmed.
This far from the halls of the mountains it's almost inevitable that they would come across orcs and often they do. Their mother is always furious when they return home after such an encounter, but every time it only reinforces what Frerin always tells them:
"You could be the best, you could kill a hundred or five hundred or a thousand orcs, but it only takes one. One lucky thrust or one well aimed arrow or one moment of distraction and all the training and all the natural ability won't save you. It will buy you time. It will give you a chance, far more of one than you would get with no training at all. More of a chance than I had at Azanulbizar after years on the road trying to survive.
"If I can help it," he will add, "neither of you will ever see that kind of horror."
It's a promise Fili suspects his uncle won't be able to keep. They have a good life, but not an easy one (it will never be that, the old mines are unsafe in too many places) and everyone works hard, including the royal family, to make sure that they have what they need. Thorin wants more for their people and Fili fears, as he thinks Frerin may, that more will one day take them back to Erebor and that is why his uncle pushes them so hard.
T.A. 2941 The Long Lake
Fili doesn't like the elf. He wants to, they owe Legolas a great deal for getting them out of the cells and going against his own father. He doesn't think that, in Legolas' place, he could take the same action against Thorin. Which is why he can't bring himself to trust Legolas, even while he listens to Ori badger the elf with question after question about the region (something Fili put him up to in the first place). To the elf's credit, he seems to take it all in his stride, bearing up well under the suspicious glares of the Company and apparently able to turn a blind eye to the way Nori, especially, toys with his knives and watches with dangerous eyes.
They should reach Lake Town by the middle of the next day. They had always planned to stop there for supplies so it may well end up being the only part of their journey that has gone according to plan. They would have pushed on and pushed harder if not for Belladonna and Bluebell. They aren't as sick as they were in Mirkwood but whatever it is that has diseased the land is still affecting them. Even Fili is starting to feel it the further north they go. A sense of decay and disease that comes from the same direction as the mountain and snakes through the bedrock in black tendrils deep below them. Bofur hasn't noticed it yet, but by the time they reach Erebor Fili fears that they will both be as badly affected as the hobbits. He has a terrible suspicion about the cause of it all too, and much as he prays he is wrong he can think of little else. He truly fears that the blackness originates in the mountain, even though there is the orc stronghold of Gundabad further north still (and if it comes from there Fili and Bluebell won't be able to stay in Erebor), but something called Smaug to his ancestral home and Fili doesn't think it was just the gold.
Not that he knows what, if anything, can be done about it.
Legolas seems to know, or at least suspect, something. It's one of the reasons Fili quietly set Ori on him. His own patience for histories and information is enough for his own, necessary, education. Ori devours information, however, seems to crave it like the rest of them need food. He has a way of finding the important details in it all and even though he can be guilty of giving too many himself he's learning to catch himself. Balin has already confirmed Fili and Bluebell's suspicions that Ori is being groomed as his replacement and he finds he's relieved by it. The quest is bringing Ori into himself. Four months ago, Fili would have thought Balin mad, Ori was too dominated by Dori and too naïve to fully understand the real implications behind Nori's lifestyle. The quest has opened Ori's eyes to a lot of things and Fili is glad of it. He and Ori were never friends before this, and it would have made working together in the future difficult.
"You mean there were hobbits at the foot of Erebor?" Ori exclaims and all eyes turn to the elf and the scribe.
"Periannath we called them," he replies, squirming in discomfort for the first time with all eyes turned on him. "I don't know the specifics of the treaty between them and the mountain, only that the dwarves protected them. They passed through the Greenwood several decades after the mountain was abandoned."
"You're certain they were hobbits?" Bluebell demands, all traces of exhaustion gone as she leans towards the elf.
Her distrust is clear, but so is her curiosity. Much of her people's history was lost as they wandered in search of a home. Just the possibility that they might find something else, something more, is naturally going to draw her attention.
"I remember when they passed through, though it must be nearly fourteen centuries past, those few I encountered appeared much like you. Their eyes glowed in the darkness as yours do, their feet were bare but for the curls upon them and their manner quite unlike the dwarves I had encountered. I remember thinking them unremarkable, diffident and timid. Even though we knew they were passing through our land, however, there were times when they seemed to vanish entirely."
With all that Fili knows of hobbits he wouldn't be surprised if they actually had. Kili snorts something to the same effect, which gains him a kick from Bluebell and a curious glance from Legolas.
"There is nothing of this in either of your histories?" The elf asks.
"Not ours," Bluebell shakes her head. "Except in the caution we feel towards the larger races and the tale we tell our faunts that it was the children of the deathless who drove us to wander. We would be more likely to assume it the work of elves than dwarves."
"Much of the library of Erebor from before Thorin I's time is lost," Balin says. "What few texts remained by the time I began my studies were handled only by the oldest of the librarians and rarely examined even then due to their fragility. The truth of the matter, and whether such a treaty ever existed, is likely long lost."
It's an interesting development in the history of both of their people and were they already in Erebor Fili suspects that Bluebell, Balin and Ori would probably already be on their way to the library to attempt to find these old texts. Even Kili looks intrigued enough to have joined them. Only Thorin seems uncomfortable, his eyes darting between Frerin and Belladonna as though something long puzzled over and forgotten has suddenly begun to make sense. He doesn't say anything, only sighs and tips back his head. No one comments when he gets to his feet and strides away, had they been at home his mother would have followed to find out what was going on. Dis handles her brother masterfully, no surprise given she has near to two centuries of practice, and the times that Thorin has sunk into one of his moods Fili has missed her skill.
In weeks past they would leave him to it, Thorin never goes far from camp and Fili doesn't have his mother's ability to draw Thorin out. Frerin falls into arguments and harsh words as often as he drives the blackness away. Now, a day beyond the border of Mirkwood they can ill afford for Thorin to fall into one of his tempers. There is still the chance of pursuit, although the elf has assured them that his people will more likely remain within their borders, and they can't go off alone.
"I'll go," Frerin rises easily, wrapping his cloak around his tiny wife and letting his dark eyes linger on his daughter.
Fili nods, as relieved by his uncle's presence now as he had once been so resentful of his abandonment. Kili frowns and gets to his feet to follow and Fili snags his tunic to stop him. Of all of them Kili has been the least exposed to Thorin's dark sorrow and bitter anger. Kili has long been Thorin's joy, the expectations of the younger are far fewer and with Kili Thorin doesn't have to give the example of a good and just king, he can simply be. It's mutual. Kili idolises Thorin where Fili has learnt (painfully) that idols can only disappoint. He adores Thorin, of course, long the only father figure that Fili has had, and he wants to make his uncle proud, but he loves Kili far more and will spare his brother as much of his uncle's darkness and angry tongue as he can.
The hobbits are beginning to fade again, in the quiet moments after Frerin follows his brother, and Balin and Dwalin exchange a glance that speaks volumes. It's possible that they have some suspicions of their own but it's not something Fili can confront them about as Bluebell's head is on his shoulder again and she's shivering slightly in the chill autumn air. It will be some time, yet, until the cold will affect the dwarves, they are more hardy than the delicate hobbits who travel with them and it lends an element of questionability to Legolas' claim that hobbits once lived here. The north is cold, inhospitable. Men live here, however, and it's Fili's opinion that the hobbits are hardier. They would have to be in order to have survived moving their entire race.
"You should rest," he says softly, though the sun has barely set and the days are growing shorter with the approach of winter.
She hums noncommittally, her indigo eyes flickering over to the elf who is watching them with interest. Fili has noticed those oddly ancient eyes on them frequently since their escape. At first, he had believed it harsh judgement upon two beings of different races finding love in one another, now he thinks it's just curiosity. It isn't unheard of, dwarves and Men have intermarried on occasion, and Fili knows the same is true of elves and Men. Should hobbits have truly resided at the foot of the Lonely Mountain once it stands to reason that they would have intermarried once as well. He contains the thought that lingering hobbit blood might explain Kili's difficulties with his beard (not that this is a bad thing for an archer). He'll allow his brother to reach that conclusion on his own.
By the time raised voices from the direction Thorin disappeared in alerts the Company to the disagreement between the brothers Bluebell has fallen into a deep sleep against him. Frerin storms back into camp a few minutes later, his expression so thunderous that for a moment Fili can imagine Thorin in his place. Whatever his uncles have discussed has not ended well and curious as he is, Fili has no desire to get involved in that argument. For now, he rouses Bluebell enough to lead her to her bedroll, sandwiched between his and Kili's as it has been since they came out of the Misty Mountains. He puts the problem of his uncles to the back of his mind and drifts to sleep next to Bluebell to the sound of Ori and Legolas talking.