Fíli wakes to the all too familiar sound of Thor pounding on his bedroom door. He groans, his head fuzzy with lack of sleep and begins to roll over in a useless attempt to get just a few more minutes before he gets up to face his uncle's brutal training in the courtyard. The warm body to the other side of him in the narrow bed brings him up short. For a dreadful, heart breaking moment he thinks that Kíli is there, that his much missed younger brother survived the Fell Winter after all and is in the bed they have shared nearly all of their lives. Then he meets Ori's wide hazel eyes and he remembers that Kíli is long gone and Fíli has a quest to join.

They dress themselves quickly, though they had slept in most of what they would be wearing to depart in any case, and stumble in an exhausted haze down the stairs. Fíli's fingers feel thick and clumsy as he belts the harness for his swords over his new coat, his vambraces holding the sleeves tight against his arms and his throwing axes an unfamiliar weight at his ankles. He is well practised and well versed in all of his weapons, but the strangeness of wearing them all when he might normally only carry one of them is disorientating. He feels like a dwarfling playing dress-up, a child pretending he is Durin VI off to face the Balrog, or even playing a warrior among his friends off to face an army of orcs during the last great alliance.

He yawns and rubs at his eyes, blearily stumbling through the kitchen towards the coffee pot.

"Ah, the curse of the young," Nori chuckles, eyes bright and hair perfect. He looks as though he has had a full night of sleep from dusk to dawn and Fíli feels awkward and clumsy in the face of it. Ori must feel worse, being more prone to staying awake late into the night and rising half way through the morning. Nori looks him over with an assessing gaze and Fíli shuffles under it uncomfortably. "You any good with those blades?" The auburn-haired dwarf challenges.

"He's good enough," Thor says from behind him and Fíli jumps. "We do need to work on his awareness of his surroundings, however. The wizard?"

"Making himself useful," Nori replies, moving so that Fíli can get to the coffee pot, though he is dismayed to see that breakfast will be little more than bread and jam. "He's gone with Dwalin to fetch and load the ponies."

"Unusually helpful of him," Thor observes but makes no further comment and it is not long until Dwalin stamps through the door. As always, the old warrior is heavily armed, and his expression is unreadable.

"Gates are open and the wizard is eager to be off," he says.

He doesn't need to say anything else and Thor nods, marching past with his sword at his hip and his great fur trimmed coat billowing behind him. His hair is loose for the most part, with extra braids that Fíli has never seen him wear woven near the front. His tunic is of a rich blue and it makes him look almost regal, Fíli thinks, his blue eyes gleaming in the light of early morning as he glances back at his following nephew and the smithy that they will be leaving behind.

"Will we ever come back?" Fíli asks softly.

"No, lad," he replies, resting a hand on Fíli's shoulder and squeezing gently. "This has been a good home to us, but by the time this is done we will be too changed to continue as blacksmiths in Bree." Then he smiles down at him and it is a gentle, fond smile that makes Fíli's worried heart ease a little. "The coat looks well on you, Fíli, I am glad to see it finally put to use. May it serve you well." Then Thor is gone and already in his saddle before Fíli's wits have caught up to him enough for him to follow suit.

Fíli learnt to ride when he was young, but it has been many years since he sat on a pony and it takes longer than he would like to remember how to hold the reins and settle himself in place. His pony, for the most part, seems fairly placid and content enough to follow the others and his gear, he's pleased to note, has already been fastened to the saddle behind him. He can see Dwalin and Balin leading the two ponies that are laden down with tents, food, and cooking supplies which makes him wonder how much the others brought with them and how much his uncle had organised the day before.

Their departure is, for the most part, ignored. There are no crowds of cheering people lining the streets to wish them luck, no horns or flutes playing bright tunes. Not even brilliant sunshine that falls upon them like a blessing from Mahal Himself upon their endeavour. Nothing at all to mark the fact that Fíli's life has just been uprooted and altered entirely. The morning is unremarkable, mist hangs heavily over the hills and fields outside the town, the sky is overcast above them and even the birds are still aside from the odd whistle. The ponies' hooves thump rhythmically on the dirt road, still damp from the rain the day before, stirring up the thick scent of fresh dirt. In short, it is nothing like Fíli thought the beginning of an adventure or daring quest would be and he finds it incredibly disappointing, even though he is well aware that Thor and Gandalf, at least, feel the need for there to be some secrecy about the whole thing. He simply wishes that the uprooting of his life could be marked by more than just a blanket of mist and the smell of mud and crushed grass.

Their pace is slow, not what Fíli would call leisurely but too slow to match the urgency which the meeting the night before implied was essential to this journey. He cannot understand it when all the stores have the hero cantering upon his horse day and night so that he can achieve his goal. He asks Thor about it when they pause for something to eat and to relieve themselves. The look his uncle gives him is flatly unforgiving, as though he cannot believe that Fíli would ask something so very foolish, but a moment later it smooths in understanding.

"Our destination is a long way off," he says, "almost four weeks travel at the very least. That is a long journey, for dwarf, Man or pony, and if we push them too hard now, they will have nothing left for when we have found the trail and need to hurry to catch our quarry."

"But what if he gets where he's going before we find the trail?" Fíli asks.

"That is a chasm we will bridge if we need to cross it," Thor smiles. "Come, we will not catch our thief by sitting here talking."

By mid afternoon the side of the road is beginning to be lined with trees, open land and hedged in fields giving way to thick woods that seem almost faded in the overcast light. For almost an hour they ride through an area that is covered in a carpet of bluebells. The scent of them is thick enough in Fíli's nose to make him sneeze repeatedly and this draws amused smirks from Nori, who rides ahead with greater ease and grace atop his pony than Fíli believes any dwarf has a right to, especially as he shifts uncomfortably in the unfamiliar saddle. The vague ache after a morning spent riding has turned into the kind of angry burn in his legs and backside that makes him fidget frequently and that just seems to make it worse.

"You'll harden up, lads," Dwalin tells them later as Fíli and Ori nearly waddle their way to the fire. The old warrior looks at the stew he has placed there to cook and slaps his husband's hands away when Nori reaches for the spoon. "Don't go sitting yet, get walking and find some more firewood," he instructs. "You'll be more knotted up than badly stored wire in the morning else. Get your grubby paws away , thief," he adds, rapping Nori's knuckles with the spoon this time. The sharp eyed dwarf licks a smear of gravy from his fingers with a grin.

"Needs seasoning," he says.

"You don't get to have anything to do with the cooking," Dwalin growls. "Last time I let you cook I couldn't get out of bed for a week."

Fíli and Ori depart to the sound of the couple bickering good naturedly. Ori groans as they walk, and Fíli understands the sentiment. He feels eight decades older, exhausted after a night of little sleep and a day of unfamiliar activity. Working the forge would have been less tiring, he thinks, though the work is hot and exhausting in its own right. Fíli's muscles are built for the rise and fall of the hammer, the twist of pliers and clamps and the whirling dance of the swordsman. They are not built for this, the constant shifting roll of his hips and thighs with the gait of his pony and the press of keeping his seat when they take a moment to go faster than a trot.

The young dwarrow collect firewood in silence, poking into the hollows in trees to find broken branches that are drier after the previous day's rain. Fíli pauses after a while to tie his hair back, irritated with the way it falls into his eyes every time he bends to grab a stick or log and more accustomed to having it tied back due to long days in the forge with his uncle. Every now and then Ori will look towards the road, his face pinched and eyes distant. Fíli doesn't need to ask what is bothering his friend, Dori will have been aware that Ori had left Bree by mid-morning at the latest (he's more at ease about Ori's days than Thor is Fíli's). Dori will be furious, of course, but none can say whether he will try to follow or not. Fíli knows that he didn't when Nori left, although Nori was scarcely more than sixty, Ori had been in his twenties and their mother long dead. Dori no longer has anyone to keep him at home and that makes the older dwarf an unknown element.

It doesn't take them long to gather their bundles of wood, though it is almost fully dark all the same by the time they are done. With the approach of night has come the chill air of late spring and it will be some time until the dark times carry the lingering warmth of summer. Thor nods approvingly at them when they return past him, a bowl of stew in his hand and icy eyes turned upon the road nearby. Balin and Gandalf are deep in quiet conversation and Nori and Dwalin sit next to one another, eating in comfortable silence that neither breaks aside from a grunt towards the stew pot and empty bowls as the youngest members of their party approach.

Fíli collapses into his bedroll as soon as he is finished eating and falls asleep instantly. He wakes to the sound of petrified screams.