Fíli has never met Dáin, who is apparently a distant cousin of his mother's, but he dislikes the dwarf as soon as he does. Dáin is brash and loud, though his tone gentles when he sees Bilba. Once he and his troops are inside the mountain, however, his attitude changes from brash and geniel, to calculating and sharp. This is a dwarf that it will not pay to get on the wrong side of, perhaps even more so than Thorin because Dáin is Lord of the Iron Hills and that carries rather more weight than being simply the Shield of Durin.
"You know who took it, then?" Dáin demands as soon as he is in the room that the small company has been using as a base inside Erebor. The others have gone elsewhere for a time, Bilba has taken Kíli somewhere quiet and out of the way nearby with Dwalin and Adra keeping silent watch over them.
"We know," Thorin replies, his eyes darting to Fíli who lingers unobtrusively in the corner.
"And?" The Lord of the Iron Hills prompts. "Have you dealt with the bastard?" Fíli winces but does not miss the way that Thorin's cheek twitches.
"The White Wizard eluded us, but the Stonefoots who took the Jewel met with the dragon's gratitude," Thorin dodges the question of how the thief managed to get their hands on the Arkenstone in the first place.
"So he's free to try it again?" Dáin demands.
"No," Thorin says simply, drawing himself up and taking on the regal expression that Fíli has only ever seen him use in Thranduil's presence, "steps have been taken to ensure it will not, and once the stone is back in Khazad-dûm it will cease to be of concern."
"Is that so?" Dáin asks. "I had heard you were-"
"Fíli!" Thorin barks. "Go and join Adra and Dwalin in guarding the hobbit girl, I do not wish there to be any-" he gives the other dwarf a brittle smile, "misunderstandings between our Iron Hill cousins and the lass. She has experienced enough during her journey here."
"Yes, Thorin," Fíli agrees quickly. He has no desire to upset his uncle, who already looks like he is about ready to hit someone, and some instinct tells him that Thorin has no desire to publicise their relationship to Dáin. Not that Fíli blames him, something about the Lord of the Iron Hills makes him uneasy.
He slips out quickly, and as he is leaving Bofur appears with a pair of boots in hand.
"For Kíli," he says simply as Fíli takes them.
The rest of the company that Fíli departed Rivendell with have taken Kíli's appearance in stride, especially Bofur and Bifur who seemed relieved to discover Fíli's younger and formerly lost brother was the one to take the Arkenstone. Fíli does not understand it, and when he asks everyone falls silent and refuses to answer. Which is something he is growing tired of, truth be told, the fact that every time he has a question nine times out of ten the rest will refuse to answer or smile mysteriously.
Bilba is unsympathetic, she receives much the same reaction a lot of the time and spares him little more than a brittle grin or amused smirk depending on her mood, which has grown bleaker as it becomes more obvious that they need to return the Arkenstone to Khazad-dûm as soon as possible, which will mean leaving Erebor before the worst of winter has cleared. The road was miserable a month ago. It will be worse now, and worse still by the time Dáin is settled enough for them to leave.
"What will you do when we reach Moria?" Kíli asks Bilba as Fíli slips into the room.
"Well, I have the ceremony to complete," Bilba admits, "and then after Durin's heir fails to appear I suppose I'll return to the Shire."
"You seem very certain he will not come," Kíli says. He is leaning against the hobbit, their voices almost too quiet to be heard and it's an intimate little scene that makes Fíli's blood boil to see. He isn't even all that sure which part he dislikes more, seeing his brother so close and open with Bilba when Kíli still recoils from him a lot of the time, or seeing Bilba so gentle and affectionate with Kíli when Fíli has had to work so hard to gain her good opinion.
"I hope he won't," Bilba corrects.
"Would it be so bad if he did?" His brother mutters. "I'm sure you would be happy together."
"I hardly know what my heart feels right now," the hobbit says as she catches sight of him. "I'm confused enough without evening considering that there might be a fated husband there for me."
"But what is there in the Shire?" Kíli demands before Fíli can.
"Peace, my home, my family," Bilba says gently. "You would be welcome, you know, if you wanted somewhere to stay for a while." She smiles at Fíli. "And you, if you aren't sure where else to go once this is over."
"I don't think our uncle would leave us with nowhere to go," Fíli replies, but he smiles at her to soften his rejection of her offer. He has seen the world now, he does not think he could go back to Bree, or spend time in the sleepy Shire now that he knows what it is like to travel.
"No," Bilba agrees, "I don't imagine he would. Still, I have to go back, regardless of what I want, my parents' home and my inheritance are all there. It would be good if you both came to visit at least."
"You sound like you don't think there will be anything in Moria waiting for you," Kíli says, sounding surprised.
"The line of Durin is dead, Kíli," Bilba sighs. "There has never been anyone waiting there and I doubt very much there ever will be."
The younger dwarf stares at her, his expression almost incredulous, then he turns his eyes upon Fíli. The blond knows that he must look equally as baffled as Bilba, everyone knows that the line of Durin is gone but for the younger line and he wonders what lies the White Wizard has fed his younger brother. It had to have been some lie, for Kíli to believe it so completely that he was able to steal something that no dwarf alive is able to touch.
Bilba pulls Fíli down to sit next to her and he smiles as she pulls him tight against her exposed side, hiding her between two warm bodies. She really does not like the cold, he knows, and he wonders how much her need to be near him is out of friendship and how much is just a selfish desire to be warm. He wonders if it is the same with Kíli and he hates that he is considering such a thing. Bilba is a good person, if prone to the odd fit of selfishness, he cannot believe that she would use either of them that way. Whether that is wishful thinking or not he does not know, but the way that she moves her head away from Kíli and pulls him closer makes him consider her offer of a home in the Shire, at least a little bit.
Fíli knows hobbits, he knows that they are not the most open of people and that they can be even more insular than even his own. Those who live in Bree are a rarity, an oddity among hobbits, and those who live in the Shire look down upon them in much the same way that those dwarves who mostly live under the mountains have been known to look down upon those who live under sky.
"What happens next?" Bilba asks. "We can't just stay hidden away in here."
"I don't know," Fíli admits, "but I don't want Dáin anywhere near Kíli either." His brother shudders.
"I doubt there is any dwarf kingdom I will ever be safe in once everyone knows what I have done," Kíli says softly, "and I hardly blame them. I knew it was forbidden, I should have died rather than break under the wizard's will."
"I would die before I let anyone hurt you again," Fíli snarls, "I have lost you once, I won't do so again. If it means never living among our own people again so be it, if it means living in the Shire with Bilba we at least have the offer already." He smiles at her, willing her to understand that he is relieved to have the offer and not that she is a last resort. From the way that she gives him a bright one back he knows that she does.
"You'll both always be welcome," she promises and Kíli curls closer to her.
His brother has seemed better since the rest of Fíli's companions arrived. Perhaps it is the way they seem to have simply accepted him without question, or even the fact that they do not pry into why Kíli looks the way that he does. If anything they have reacted to the news that Kíli is Fíli's younger brother with something like relief, even though it means that they treat Fíli differently now than they used to. He can hardly understand why, but nor does he really question it. As long as Kíli continues to recover from the terrible things that the wizard put him through, things that his brother will now share late at night when Bilba is asleep and cannot hear them. The conversations are barely above a whisper and Kíli often hesitates, but the more his brother says the more Fíli wonders if he could have lasted even half as long under the same conditions.
"You're thinking too hard," Bilba grumbles next to him.
"Am I not allowed to worry?" He asks her.
He is worried, he worries about his brother, he worries about her ability to cope with the long journey ahead of them. They cannot go back through Mirkwood, no matter what assurances Thranduil might make about ensuring they are met by a full elf patrol Fíli knows that Thorin will not risk any of them on that path again. He will not risk the treaty with the Shire by allowing Bilba to be hurt or killed. He will not risk Fíli or Kíli's lives, especially having only just gotten Kíli back, and he certainly will not risk the Jewel of Durin being lost in that cursed forest or taken from them by Thranduil. Fíli has not forgotten the fact that the elf king wants the stone. For the most part Fíli does not actually care about the stone. True his entire life changed when it was taken, and only time will tell if this change is for the better. About the only good thing he can really think of that has come from this is getting Kíli back. He would include Bilba in it, but he is not entirely sure where the two of them stand with one another and while he wants to believe that she is meant to be his, he cannot be confident in that belief. There is still the ceremony she dreads to get out of the way first after all.
"Be worried more quietly," the hobbit instructs as she yawns. "I am going to get some extra sleep while I can. It is a long journey from here to Moria."
Fíli knows it is, he has looked at the maps. The long journey to Erebor has made him better at judging the distances between places on paper, although he knows that the scale is often imperfect. He has also overheard enough conversations between Thorin, Nori and Dwalin to know that the journey around Mirkwood will add weeks to the trip. The forest drifts to the east the further south they go, and to get around it they will need to then come back upon themselves, and past the woods of Lorien, in order to reach the main gates of Khazad-dûm. It is not quite as far as Bilba would have travelled had she gone straight to the ancient kingdom rather than attempting to avoid it all, but it is not far off either. In all likelihood, they will reach Moria in time for his birthday.
It only takes a few days of having the Iron Hills dwarves in the mountain for Thorin to decide that it is gone time for them to gather their supplies and make for Khazad-dûm. They are too interested in the hidden members of the small party who took back the mountain and there are a few who refuse to believe the argument that the ones kept out of sight are guards for Bilba, who is also hidden away.
Over the course of the week, more and more dwarves from the Iron Hills begin to arrive. Before Erebor fell, the settlement in the Iron Hills was relatively small. There is everything that the dwarrow there need to create good dwarf steel, but not very much else. Very little gold, few gems, some silver, copper and tin, but otherwise nothing. After Erebor fell those who did not wish to join the march to reclaim Khazad-dûm from the hands of the orcs had travelled east and made their home in the red hills which give the area its name, and as far as Fíli knows it is a good life. Not easy, and certainly there are those there with crafts which force them to leave and make their fortune in other settlements, but it is a better life than many who have lived among Men are accustomed to seeing. Still, every dwarf craves riches to one degree or another. Fíli has only ever wished for enough to live a comfortable life with any future wife and child. Now he has already begun to include Kíli in that list because he knows as well as anyone that there is little in the way of a livelihood in music no matter how gifted the musician is in his craft. With everything that has happened to his brother, Fíli finds it hard to believe that Kíli will ever marry and he has no idea what will happen to Thorin after the Arkenstone is returned to its place above Durin's throne. His uncle surely cannot continue to live the same anonymous life he has been after all of this.
Honestly, going to the Shire with Bilba is beginning to look increasingly appealing. At least there no one will know Kíli or what he was forced to do. At least there they will be left in peace and maybe, just maybe, he and Bilba can take some time to see if whatever they have been avoiding between them will go somewhere once the ceremony before Durin's throne has been completed. As she has so often insisted, no one will be waiting there for her.
Nosey Iron Hills dwarves are not the only concern, of course, Dáin has been especially vocal about the fact that Thorin will not tell him exactly how the Arkenstone was stolen. Fíli understands why, he gets the impression that the Lord of the Iron Hills is the sort to strike first and ask pertinent questions later. It is not until Thorin says that the one who took Durin's Jewel was little more than a child, and a tortured one at that, that Dáin backs away from his insistence that Kíli's head be removed. It is more than a little frustrating that only the fact that Kíli is still technically a child is the only thing that stays Dáin's hand. Fíli would kill Mahal Himself to protect Kíli at this point, and Bilba seems to be heading the same way since she seems to overhear more of their conversations about Kíli's time of imprisonment than Fíli thinks his brother realises, so it comes as a relief when Thorin marches into the chambers they all share one morning and tells their little Company to get packed.
Fíli is not surprised when Bilba objects due to how cold it has grown outside, and it is getting colder still, but he is surprised when Thorin simply arches his eyebrow at her and tells her that she is welcome to curl up with Fíli and Kíli if she wants. Adra objects, as is her right as chaperone, but Thorin simply shrugs and makes it her problem to keep the hobbit warm instead. It is no real surprise that Thorin is willing to let all manner of things slip in order to get Kíli and the Jewel of Durin out of the mountain. Fíli is no less eager to get his brother away from other dwarrow who have no idea what he has been through and the objections made by Bilba and Adra do not last long either.
They are provided with all the supplies they will need, as well as extra thick bedrolls, tents and cooking gear, although none of it comes cheaply and Fíli is surprised at the nonchalant way Thorin pays for it all when he has haggled as harshly as any other dwarf throughout the rest of their journey. It only adds to the impression that he is in a hurry to get out of the mountain. The eagerness of the others, some of whom have families to get back to, is tempered only by the cold.
After a week, Fíli is already beginning to regret his own desire to get out of the mountain. As necessary as it was becoming to remove Kíli from that place, it had at least been warm and dry. The road is neither, although Thorin has gold enough for them to spend several days at a time in any village they pass. It adds to the length of the journey, but neither he nor Gandalf wishes to risk any of them becoming unwell, especially Bilba, and so they spend several days in places where they might otherwise have simply stopped a little earlier one day and lingered for the night. This side of Mirkwood is not as sparsely populated as the other side, there are farms and villages along the road, although not as frequently as Fíli might like when he wakes chilled to the bone in a tent which has been buried by winter snow one too many times.
Even without the frequent stops the journey to Khazad-dûm would take months, and winter through early spring just makes it take longer still. The roads are hard, buried under snow and icy enough to make even their sure footed ponies slip and skitter alarmingly on occasion. More than once they pile four or five to a tent, squashed together to share heat. While Fíli would have welcomed the excuse to hold Bilba so close while they were in Erebor and things between them seemed to be going somewhere, obligation to go to Khazad-dûm or not, on the road it seems too much like tempting fate for them to grow closer only for it to be snatched away from them again.
Kíli, oddly, watches them dance around one another with growing frustration, refusing to hear their reasoning and insisting that they are being ridiculous. Fíli would agree with his brother, if not for the way that Thorin seems to watch the interactions between him and Bilba. He would say that Thorin is waiting for something, but for the fact that each time one pulls away from the other an amused smile will cross his uncle's face before he turns to talk to Gandalf in a low voice.
Winter marches on to spring, although there is a point where it feels the cold will never end and even the hardy dwarves are struggling to feel warm. This brings its own problems for the melting snow leaves many roads difficult or impossible to pass and they end up taking shelter wherever they can while they wait for roads to dry out and rain to end. Spring, no matter how wet, is at least warmer and it is a mud coated, wet Company that arrives at the massive gates of Khazad-dûm on the edge of the valley of Azanulbizar where the last great battle to reclaim this ancient home was held.
A.N: Well, this is officially the first new chapter after all the rewrites, in the end it turned out to be a bridging and time-skip chapter, otherwise there's no way I would have been able to move on from Erebor. Still a bit of story to go yet though...
