Tucked away on a bench in a dark corner, Gimli drummed his fingertips against the sticky table and glowered out over the pipesmoke-wreathed, merry crowd. How long could it take for two dwarves to fetch three tankards of ale? Useless. They were both useless. He should have gone himself, or gone home, instead of waiting here to die slowly of thirst or old age.
He craned his neck to look toward the far side of the tavern. Beyond the table where the musicians were playing, and through the gaps in the press of drinking and dancing dwarves, he could see his father standing by the wide-open doors. There would be no slipping out unchallenged. Not by his father — from the pink in Gloin's cheeks he wouldn't notice even if Gimli streaked past him with no clothes on — but Gloin was swaying drunkenly next to Dwalin. And Dwalin missed nothing.
Gimli huffed out a breath. It didn't matter anyway. As much as he'd had enough and wanted to go home, he couldn't leave. Not when there was one more chance to put things right.
"Did you drink my ale?" Fili kicked Gimli's boot. "I could have sworn I had half a tankard here when I left. Go on, shift over."
Before he had a chance to move, the shove sent Gimli sliding along the bench to bump shoulders with a coaldust-covered greybeard. Gimli muttered an apology. Not that it mattered, for the dwarf simply smiled and raised his tankard in Fili's direction, ignoring Gimli completely. Gimli rolled his eyes. This was all ridiculous. Fili could've dragged the greybeard off the bench, stomped on his beard and stolen his pipe, and likely gotten no more than a 'Good luck, lad' in return.
It wasn't fair. He lifted the fresh tankard that Fili had plonked in front of him. Ale slopped over the brim when Fili clinked their tankards together, and Gimli wiped his wet fingers on his tunic. "What took you so long?"
"Did you drink Kili's too?" Setting his tankard down, Fili tipped the others, raising an eyebrow before pushing them to the far side of the table."I should have known better and taken my ale with me. And it's busy, Gimli, in case you hadn't noticed. Really busy."
Liar. There was no possibility that Fili was having to wait in line at the bar to be served tonight, or any night. Not now. He probably hadn't even had to hand over a single coin for the ales either. "Where's your brother?"
"He was right behind—" Fili grinned, nodding out toward the bar. "No. There he is."
They watched as Kili, clutching an overflowing tankard, was lifted up onto a table with the musicians. Laughing, he attempted to climb back down but the dwarves on the table held onto him. Even over the cheering, Gimli was sure he heard his cousin's half-hearted protests as the drink was pulled from Kili's hands and a fiddle pressed into them instead.
"Fee!" Kili's voice carried across the tavern. He waved. "Fili!"
Gimli scowled as other dwarves took up the call and Fili stood, saluting the crowd before draining his tankard to loud cheers and stamping of feet.
"No." When Fili stepped forward Gimli grabbed his wrist. "No, you don't. You're staying right here. I need to talk to you."
"Drink up and come with me." Fili smiled down at him. "This is supposed to be a party, and you've been glaring and grumbling into your ale all night. Come and play a song, they've got drums, you can manage one of those. It's not as if anyone's going to be foolish enough to trust you with their fiddle."
Gimli met his eyes and refused to rise to the bait. There was nothing wrong with his fiddle-playing, as Fili well knew.
"Or dance?" Fili added. "Maybe you could even try to smile?"
He'd nothing to smile about and Fili knew that too. Gimli tightened his grip. "No."
The bench creaked under Fili's weight as he sat back down. Up on the table, Kili frowned, before turning away to speak to the musicians. Whatever he said to them, a lively tune struck up a moment later, and, after a final few good-natured jeers aimed at Fili, the crowd switched their attention back to the party. Letting out a wild cheer, they began to clap and sing along, forgetting all about Gimli and Fili.
"I'll fetch myself another," said Fili, tapping his fingers on the table in time with the tune as he watched his brother play. He glanced at Gimli. "Do you need one?"
If Fili left again he wouldn't come back. Someone would get a hold of him and then he'd be up on the table beside Kili with a fiddle in his hands, and there'd be no getting either of them down before daybreak. Gimli sloshed half his ale into his cousin's tankard. Raising his voice to be heard over the tuneless singing of the greybeard beside him, he said, "I need you to talk to Thorin again."
"Gimli, it's late and—"
"If you speak to Thorin now, then he's time to decide, and he can tell my father. Your uncle will still be awake, you know he will, and if you leave it until the morning he'll be too busy to listen properly and then he'll leave and—"
"Finish your ale." Fili stood and sighed heavily. "Come on."
With his heart hammering in his ears, Gimli swallowed the last few mouthfuls, and then, since Fili was already lifting swords and cloak and obviously intended to waste his drink, he emptied Fili's tankard too. For courage. Grabbing his axe and cloak, he nodded to Fili. "Let's go."
With everyone wanting to stop Fili, slap him on the back, and say a word or ten, it took what felt like hours to shoulder their way across the tacky floor of the tavern. Long enough that Gloin had wandered off by the time they finally reached the doors, although Dwalin was still hanging about. Expecting to be stopped again, Gimli was surprised when Dwalin eyed them, nodded, and said nothing.
They stepped out into the quiet of the rain-misted, cool night air, Gimli breathing deep and only then noticing that Fili was walking away from the mountain and not towards it. "Where do you think you're going?" he called.
Fili didn't respond. Resisting the temptation to grab his cousin by the shoulder and shake him, Gimli fell into step beside him instead. He could be patient. The noise from the tavern faded behind them until the only sound in the deserted streets was the echo of their boots against the cobblestones. As the tall gates of the settlement came into view looming over the last houses, Gimli's patience ran out. "Will your uncle not be in his chambers?"
More silence. The guards at the gate snapped to attention as Fili strode out between the last houses and into the glow of the braziers. Gimli hid a smile, watching one of them surreptitiously knock a pipe against the settlement wall.
Scuffing a heel on the flagstones by the gatehouse, he glanced back toward the dark shape of the mountain as Fili spoke with the guards. Already, the sky behind was starting to lighten. Whatever his cousin was up to would need to be quick so they could get back and speak with Thorin. Maybe Fili just needed to decide on his words. Fili always spent far too long thinking about such things.
Watching his cousin laugh at something one of the guards said, Gimli tapped a fingernail against his teeth. Maybe he should have asked Kili to do it this time, but then Kili never spent long thinking about anything. And he'd all the attention span of a squirrel, even before a skinful of ale.
Mahal's beard, but he was going to miss the fool.
No. This had to work. Kili would likely only manage to get them both confined to the settlement, and then neither of them would get any proper adventures. Fili was the better choice. If Thorin would listen to anyone it'd be him, and if Fili needed some time to think over exactly what he was going to say then maybe that was better.
In the stories, it was always in the last and darkest hour, when the heroes thought all hope was lost, that everything came right. So, if they wandered about for a while, then it would definitely be the last hour. It would be perfect.
Gimli's heart lifted. Fili was likely thinking along the same lines. He shouldn't doubt his cousin. Balin always said that if either Kili or Gimli ever paid half as much attention to their studies as Fili did, then he wouldn't have had nearly as many white hairs. It was possible the old dwarf had something of a point.
"Gimli!" Fili called. "Come on."
The gates swung open and Fili waved him forward. Dutifully, Gimli trailed behind his cousin past the smiling guards and down the valley road. Beyond the first curve, with the mountain winds howling in their ears, they turned off and, guided by faint starlight, made their way through long grasses wet with rain, then over slippery moss-covered rock until they came to the ridge that overlooked the soft, rolling lowlands far below. Or that would have overlooked the lowlands, if it were daylight. Fili sat, swinging his legs out over the edge, and Gimli stood and waited patiently.
"Sit, Gimli. Stop looming over me and sighing."
He hadn't sighed once. Dropping his axe to the rock, Gimli tucked his cloak underneath him and sat.
"I'm not going to speak to Thorin." Fili held up a hand as Gimli opened his mouth. "There's nothing more that needs to be said. The decision has been made."
"But it's been weeks since you last spoke to Thorin about it and—"
"And nothing's changed."
"Yes, it has. Everything's changed. I've been training." He'd calluses on his calluses to prove it. Resting his hands on his knees, Gimli pressed his aching fingertips together. All he'd been doing every day from sunup to well after sundown was train. The before-dawn starts were driving Kili mad. "I'm a better fighter than Ori. He doesn't know one end of an axe from another. He won't even fight me anymore. And I know I could beat either of his brothers in a straight match, likely even both of them together. As for Balin, he's—"
"You couldn't beat Balin." Frowning, Fili muttered, "I can't win against Balin."
"Fine, maybe not Balin, but I win against Kili well over half the time we spar. I've been keeping score. And I put you on your back last week, don't you remember?"
"Once." Fili smiled faintly. "That was once, and only because Kili hit me on the ear with an apple."
"And if you get distracted by someone throwing an apple then—"
"I know you've been working hard, and that's good because we need fighters here. But you're not coming to Erebor." Fili shot him a glance. "Thorin agrees with me."
"But if you talk to him and tell him that—" Gimli blinked as his mind caught up. "What did you just say?"
Taking a deep breath, Fili shifted about on the rock. "I said, Thorin agrees with me."
Gimli opened his mouth but no sound came out. He tried again, his mind all at once both whirling and completely blank, not caring if he looked like one of those bug-eyed fish from the lowlands that the merchants ferried up, but…nothing.
"I spoke to Thorin and we discussed it," said Fili, seemingly busy with meticulously picking the flat rock by his side clean from moss, and ignoring Gimli's speech troubles entirely. Once he'd finished and flicked the pile of detritus over the ridge, Fili continued, "You're staying here. You're too young and—"
"No. No," Gimli found his voice at last. "That's not a real reason. I'm not a little dwarfling sat on your knee listening to stories anymore. Thorin was years younger than me when—"
"I know all that, and it's neither here nor there. I don't want you going, and you're not going, and that's final."
"You don't…but…" Gimli shook his head to clear it. "Why?"
Lifting a loose stone, Fili tossed it from hand to hand and didn't answer.
He was going to push his cousin off the ridge. He was going to do it, and then Dis would kill him, and he wasn't sure he cared. Gimli sat on his hands until the urge passed and yet still Fili didn't speak. "Fili. Why don't you want me to go?"
They watched the stone arc away until it was swallowed up by the darkness below. Pulling his legs back from the ridge, Fili turned to sit cross-legged so they were face to face. "Thorin is going north to meet with the—"
"I know all that," snapped Gimli. They sat in silence, staring at each other, until he gestured for Fili to carry on.
"Then we will meet them, and I will be expected to lead one of Thorin's armies." Fili scrubbed his hands through his hair. If he heard Gimli trying and failing to hide a gasp of surprise, he didn't show it. "He wants me on Erebor's western flank, and to join with Dain. Dain Ironfoot, Gimli. He's twice my age. He's a…and I'm only…I'm…" Faltering to a stop, Fili frowned into the distance, tugging hard enough on a braid that he was going to pull it right out of his head if he wasn't careful.
Gimli scowled, pretending he couldn't see the shadows under his cousin's worried eyes, dark smudges that spoke of sleepless nights and that he hadn't noticed until now. What did Fili want? Comforting words? Did he need his already too-great ego stroked? Well, he wasn't going to get it. Not this time. Not from him. Gimli tilted his chin. He would've given his right arm, both arms, to lead an army into battle. His one chance for glory and honour, to be a name in the great stories, and it was being stolen from him, by the one person he'd never in a thousand years have expected to do it. If anyone deserved to look upset, it was him. He folded his arms. If Fili was hoping for a hug, he could look for it elsewhere.
"Leading an army…against a dragon." Fili's gaze drifted away further westwards. "I can't do that, and protect you and Kili as well."
"No one's ever asked you to. If I need protecting, which I won't, then my father will be there, and my uncle. I don't need you to do it." The silence stretched until Gimli could take it no more. He reached out and slapped Fili's hand. "Stop that. You'll end up as bald as Dwalin."
Dropping the braid, Fili flushed, his lips quirking into a smile, and so did Gimli's. Briefly. Annoyed at himself for forgetting for a single moment how angry he was, Gimli continued quickly, "I can't believe that you would tell Thorin not to let me go. You talked him into letting Kili come with you."
Somewhere, down in the darkness below the ridge, an animal screamed. Its cry carried on the wind that tugged at their braids. Fili met his eyes and Gimli stared back, open-mouthed, the pieces falling into place. "No."
"I always knew I would have to go. There was never a choice for me, but Kili should stay here with our mother. In case…" Fili shook his head. "But it doesn't matter now."
"Kili said you made Thorin change his mind." His cousin had been as devastated as Gimli when Thorin announced the dwarves who would be joining him on the quest for Erebor. They'd waited, packed shoulder to shoulder in the vast hall under the mountain with their kin, as name after name was called, certain that theirs would be next. Even after Thorin had moved on to his grand speech, Gimli waited and hoped, not realising until after Thorin dismissed them that Kili had slipped away through the crowd without saying a word. It took hours to track down his cousin. Fili had helped. When they'd found Kili at last, Fili had looked into the red-rimmed eyes of the little brother who worshipped him, and whispered words of comfort. He'd pretended to care.
Gimli frowned, his fists clenching. The strange look Fili had given them when his name was called first and he'd left to join Thorin on the dais now made sense. "Kili's always trusted you, and you lied to him."
"I told him I had nothing to do with Thorin changing his mind. I have never lied to him."
"You betrayed him."
They were close enough that Gimli could see the muscle twitch in Fili's jaw before his cousin spoke in a low, dangerous voice, "I would never betray my brother."
"And yet you did," Gimli spat, ignoring the warning. Despite the bitter wind that was worming its way through the warm layers of his cloak, he no longer felt the cold. His blood was boiling in his veins. He wanted Fili to hit him. Needed it. If they fought here they'd roll off the ridge, and break every bone in their bodies on the way down, but Gimli didn't care. He'd welcome it. Nothing could hurt more than he was hurting right now.
"We were supposed to be more than cousins," he said, hating the crack in his voice and the water gathering in his eyes. They'd promised, ever since Gimli had been big enough to toddle after them, that it would always be the three of them. Always. They'd sworn it to each other. "We were supposed to be friends."
"We are." Fili's eyes softened. Reaching out, he placed a hand on Gimli's forearm. "There'll be other adventures. I promise you that—"
"I know what your promises are worth." Shaking Fili's hand from his arm, Gimli rolled to his feet and snatched up his axe. He shook it at his cousin. "I'm telling Kili. I'm going to tell him what you did."
"If that's your decision, I won't stop you."
"And you—" Gimli's whole body was shaking. He couldn't think of a strong enough curse in either language. "I hope the dragon eats you."
"I didn't tell Kili," Gimli admitted. Avoiding Dis's eyes, he burrowed the heels of his boots further into the damp, blackened sand. "I couldn't. And I didn't mean it. I was just angry and—"
"You're not the only one who had cross words." Dis laughed bitterly. "I fought with Thorin from the very moment I found out what he had planned, until the moment he rode out through the gates. If I'd been within arm's reach of him when his message arrived to say he was going on and not returning…" Her eyes flashed and Gimli was certain he heard the sound of grinding teeth before she continued, "I might have strangled him."
Tiny waves lapped at their boots as they stared out across the moonlight-dappled lake. Before darkness fell, they'd seen from afar the charred timbers of what the older guards had said was once a sprawling town built on stilts over the water. Nothing remained of it now but a broken tower leaning drunkenly and a few tumble-down houses, their silhouettes darker shadows against the night sky. A ruin beyond repair.
"I should have made amends," Gimli whispered.
Thorin had left a full two weeks before Fili and Kili packed up and followed their uncle. It had been the longest time in Gimli's life that he had gone without speaking a single word to his eldest cousin, although Fili had been busy and fairly easy to avoid, and Kili easy to lie to every time he gently questioned what was wrong. If Kili had pushed, perhaps he might have told him, Gimli wasn't sure, but now that he thought about it maybe Kili had suspected and simply didn't want to know.
Every single day of the year that had passed since had dragged on for a lifetime.
"I should have come down and seen them off that last morning," he continued, his cheeks heating at the memory of Gloin hammering on his door before daybreak, yelling that Gimli would regret it if he didn't shift himself and come to say farewell to his cousins. He'd pulled the covers up over his head and turned his face to the wall. But his father had been right, annoyingly. Gimli had regretted it within the hour, rushing half-dressed and with hair and beard unbraided all the way across the settlement to the western gate. Only to find Fili and Kili long gone, and the crowd that had gathered to wave them off already dispersed. "I should have said that I was sorry and that I forgave him."
"And were you?" Taking his hand, Dis squeezed Gimli's fingers. "An apology is worthless if you don't mean it, and what's done is done and cannot be changed."
That wasn't comforting. Not with the spectre of Erebor at their backs. Gimli knew that if he turned away from the lake he would see the mountain's jagged peak blocking out the stars.
Dis squeezed his fingers again. "Don't think for one moment that my boy would ever stop loving you. No matter what has been said or done, and no matter what distance there may ever be between you both, nothing could harden his heart toward you." She smiled, her eyes faraway as she added, "I know that heart as well as I know my own."
His nose prickled and Gimli rubbed at it, searching for something else to talk about before he embarrassed himself, or Dis. He was supposed to be one of her guards, not a bawling little dwarfling in need of soft words and a cuddle. He cleared his throat. "What happened here?"
The body of the elf they'd discovered on the banks of the lake had been buried, Dis speaking over the cairn in Khuzdul since none of them were familiar with elvish ways for such things. But the bloated carcasses of orcs and wargs they'd found bobbing in the mouth of the river were fished out, piled up, and burnt. There were no prayers said for them. The acrid smoke from the pyre further up the beach stung Gimli's eyes as the wind shifted.
"Thorin won, and, against all hope, Erebor is ours," said Dis. "Beyond that, for good or ill, we'll find out on the morrow."
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak, as Dis released his fingers. Her hand drifted, Gimli wasn't sure she was even aware she was doing it, to touch her pocket where the scant note from Balin rested. No names on it, no details, no reassurances, only a request to come as quickly, but carefully, as she could.
This time, Gimli's name had been called first for the adventure, but there was neither joy nor pride when he'd walked through the silent crowd to join Dis on the dais. Thirteen dwarves for the vanguard, to match the thirteen dwarves of Thorin's Company. Dis's decision, and no one dared question her reasoning for it, or suggest a more auspicious number.
The sour, fluttering feeling in Gimli's stomach hadn't lifted for a moment since. Not while they quickly selected the fastest ponies and the lightest gear, nor as they left the lumbering wagons of their kin far behind. They'd raced through the lowlands. Past the lush green fields and unfortified burrows of the halflings — from where Thorin had sent his last message telling Dis that there were no armies, but that he had a better plan — and on towards the distant snow-capped mountains to the east.
No songs, no words or jokes, were exchanged as they rode. The only sound was their laboured breathing and the pounding of ponies' hooves on turf or stone, echoing the drumbeat of names running through Gimli's head. Gloin, Oin, Fili, Kili, Thorin, Dwalin, Ori…
Each night, when they'd reined in the lathered ponies, because the risk of a broken leg in the dark had grown too great, he'd watch Dis pull out Balin's message and run her fingers over it. Perhaps hoping, like him, that it had magically changed. And each morning, when he'd woken with a start from tangled, exhausted dreams, wondering for a heartbeat where he was before memory rushed back, the princess would still be hunched by the remains of the fire, glaring into the dying embers as if willing them to tell her something.
She'd asked at every inn, and stopped every merchant, but each time returned to them with no news, her face growing grimmer and paler, the bruise-like shadows under her eyes deepening, as the leagues fell away.
And now they were here, almost within touching distance of the mountain. As Gimli watched the gentle, wind-blown ripples travel across the lake, and pulled his travel-stained cloak tighter about himself, he wished he were back home. Lying awake in bed in the early morning light, listening to the rumble of his father's snores through the wall of his chamber, as he waited for the urgent rap of knuckles against his window. Waiting for the sound of familiar laughter outside, his cousins hushing each other and whisper-shouting for Gimli to hurry up and join them in whatever mischief they'd planned for the day.
He wished for days with no more cares than scraped knees, and torn clothes. And for long winter nights in front of a crackling fire. With Dis in her usual chair by the hearth, and the three of them, freshly-bathed, full-bellied, and content after a busy day's adventuring, squeezed into another. He wished he was listening, tucked up under Fili's arm and with Kili on the other side, their bare feet touching and eyes closing, as Fili read aloud from whatever book he'd borrowed from Balin that day.
He jolted, his heart clenching painfully, at a light touch on his shoulder.
Drawing him to her, Dis pressed their foreheads together. As he closed his eyes, she said, "Get some rest, Gimli. Hope has taken us this far. It will have to take us a little further. Then you can say your apologies." She released him with a pat to the cheek before turning her gaze toward the mountain. "And I may say mine."