.

Thanks again to Kaotic312 for the idea of the dwarrow males being 'stone', as well as the invention of the 'wake up elixir' - from her amazing story called "Stolen Heir"

.

My response to GUEST reviewers (who I can not answer back in person) can be found at the end of this chapter.

Thank you to all those who are following my story. I appreciate each and every one of you!

I will be posting the first few chapters quickly just to get past the 'meet and greet' parts and into the main section of the story.

.

.

Chapter 2

~X~

Nori prided himself on his stealth, his ease at going unseen, but mostly his ability to know the secrets being kept from his king. In the years since taking the mountain, the onetime thief had stayed on, serving Thorin as head of internal affairs. It was nothing more than a polite title for chief spy, but Nori had worked hard setting up a network of trusted agents who would report back to him on any rumblings or sinister plots forming against the royal family. And while most of his time had been spent dealing with petty thefts in the mines or those who wished to make off with stolen treasure, Nori still felt his services were vital to his king. And today, he knew he had been right.

Racing through the corridors he burst into Thorin's council chambers, his keen eyes searching out the monarch he had long called his friend. Yet the only ones present were Balin, Gloin and Oin, apparently all waiting to speak with the king as well.

"Where is Thorin?" Nori asked, gasping for air.

"He was called to the throne room to speak with Lord Colm and his daughter," Balin replied, standing up from his seat at the sight of the anxious thief. Nori was known for his calm and steady ways, and if he was this upset…things were not well.

Balin's words did little to lessen Nori's distress, in fact it seemed to upset him even more, causing a string of foul words in Khuzdul to tumble from his lips.

"Then we need to hurry or it will be too late!" he growled, signaling the three dwarrow to follow him out the door.

"What is going on?" Oin asked, not having heard much of what Nori said, but understanding enough to realize it was serious and willing to follow.

"What is this all about?" Gloin barked, hurrying along as well.

"Fili is in danger!" Noir called over his shoulder, as he took them down hallways and corridors that led to the royal chambers. "I caught wind of a plot to discredit the lad, one that could possibly displace him from the throne if word ever got out. We have to intervene before it can be made public!"

"We need to tell Thorin," Balin insisted, not sure if they could contain this alone.

"He is apparently being informed of it as we speak," Nori told him, none too happily. "And by the very ones who instigated the plot. We must make haste if we are to intervene and salvage Fili's reputation."

As they neared their destination the four dwarrow slowed to a stealthy walk, checking around each corner before proceeding. Once at Fili's quarters they slipped inside and followed Nori directly to the bedchambers, trusting that their resident spy knew what he was doing.

Yet the sight before them stopped all in their tracks.

For there, in the large bed before them, was not only Prince Fili, asleep and lying face down amid a jumble of covers, but a young dwarrowdam as well. Both were unclothed, though modestly covered by the blankets, and to the gaping eyes of the four dwarrow, they appeared to have fallen asleep after an evening of carnal activities.

"Oh, Mahal," Balin whispered, mortified by what he saw before him.

"This is the plot you overheard?" Gloin gasped, looking up at Nori for confirmation.

"Yes, and we have precious little time to fix it too," Nori assured them. "If I know Lord Colm, he is at this very moment weaving a false tale of Fili's sexual exploits and misuse of his daughter's maid, accusing the crown prince of crimes that would have him deposed."

"And for good reason too, it would appear!" Gloin insisted, making a disgusted gesture towards the bed before him.

"This was staged!" Nori hissed, not appreciating his friend's jump to conclusions. "The lad has obviously been drugged and placed in the bed to make it look as if he has defiled the maid. This is all a scheme, nothing more, and shame on you for having so little faith in your own cousin!"

"Nori is right," Balin huffed, stalking over towards the bed. "And even if it were true, the lad deserves to have his side heard before we so quickly condemn him. Something I am sure Lord Colm would not offer if he were to find them like this. Now come help me!"

Oin was the first to rush forward, noting that even though they had not been quiet in their discussion, neither occupant of the bed seemed to have stirred from their slumber. He first shook Fili, attempting to rouse him, with little success. A quick check of his pulse confirmed that he was still alive, yet obviously drugged. When Nori tried to wake the girl, he found her in a similar state, alive but unresponsive.

"We need to get them both to the healing rooms so I can assess their condition," Oin grumbled, not at all liking the looks of things.

"You grab the lass, Nori, while Gloin and I will take Fili," Balin suggested, the two reaching down to take hold of the comatose prince.

Nori carefully wrapped the sleeping maid in the bedsheet, doing his best to keep her modesty concealed. As he looked down at her, he felt the stirrings of pity for the young thing. How did you get messed up in all this, lass? Poor little mite, she did not deserve to be embroiled in all this, he thought to himself. Nori had just hefted her in his arms when they all heard it…a loud pounding on the door outside.

"Caragu!" Balin spat out, dropping Fili's arm. The young dwarrow prince was beginning to stir, the sounds and commotion around him slowly bringing him out of his stupor.

"What are we going to do now?" Gloin asked, spinning around in circles as if looking for a place to hide.

"This way!" Balin urged, heading over to the far wall, gesturing with his head for the others to follow. Running his hand along a carving on the way, he felt for a small pressure point…there! With a slight click the wall opened, revealing a hidden tunnel that lead into darkness. "Quickly, now, all of you!"

"What is this?" Gloin asked, peering inside as Balin shoved it farther open.

"A secret escape tunnel, there is one in each of the royal chambers. Something known to only a few within the mountain," Balin whispered, stepping inside and urging the other to do so as well.

"What about Fili?" Oin asked, gesturing back to the somewhat groggy looking prince, still lying face down among the covers.

"It's his room and his bed, no one will find fault with him for being there…as long as he is alone," Nori insisted. "It is this lass, and ourselves, that will bring shame and suspicion upon the royal family should we be discovered. Now, get moving before they come in!"

As the four dwarrows heard the outside door opening, they knew his words to be true. So, shutting the secret entrance behind them and effectively sealing it from sight, they followed Balin as he shuffled his way down the pitch black corridor.

.

.

Inside Fili's chambers, Thorin threw open the bedroom door, praying to Mahal that he would not find what Lord Colm had claimed he would. When he saw Fili…alone in his bed, he gave a heavy sigh of relief. He had been enraged at the accusations made by the dwarf lord, emphatically denying that any of it could ever be true. And yet, the claims had been made in a public forum, insuring that Thorin would have to investigate and take action. He knew his nephews, both of them, and no one could ever convince him that either would take advantage of a maiden in word or deed. And it all boiled down to that fact that to act in such a manner would require them to first find their one…the maid who could awaken their bodies from stone. And as far as he knew, neither Fili nor Kili had stumbled across such a lass…none so far having turned their heads. Yet Thorin was no fool, and he realized that such things could be circumvented by means of sinister methods, and all one had to do was to plant a seed of doubt in the minds of his subjects in order to ruin Fili's reputation forever.

"See! What did I tell you?" shouted Lord Colm as he pushed his way past Thorin and into Fili's private chambers. Yet when he too saw the lone prince, seeming to be just awakening from slumber, he skidded to a halt, appearing startled and confused.

"The only thing I see is my nephew…asleep in his own bed. Alone!" Thorin growled, turning his rage filled eyes at the dwarrow attempting to cast suspicion on his family. "Has this all been some kind of feeble joke? For if it is, you will find I am far from amused!"

"No! She has to be here!" Bina screeched, having entered the room directly behind her father, and was now racing around, searching everywhere. "My maid is missing and the last person to see her said that they witnessed her being led into these very chambers…by him!" The enraged dwarrowdam pointed her slender finger directly at Fili, who was just now struggling to sit up.

"Fili," Thorin growled, capturing his disoriented nephew's attention. "Did you bring anyone into your room with you last night?"

"What?" he mumbled, doing his best to focus on the sea of faces surrounding his bed. "What…what is going on?"

"I can vouch for him, Uncle," Kili said, speaking up as he came through the door to stand beside Thorin. "I was with my brother all evening and when we parted, he entered his chambers alone. I will swear on Durin's ax that it is so."

"You can't believe him!" Bina hissed, narrowing her eyes at the younger prince. "He will say anything to protect his brother! He would even lie to his king to save him."

"Enough!" Thorin roared. "Out! All of you, get out!" He then turned to Kili, halting his exit. "Stay with your brother, see that he gets dressed and joins us in the living quarters." Once he received a nod of compliance, the enraged king stormed out of the room, leveling an angry glare on the now fearful father and daughter. "Now that you have seen with your own eyes that Prince Fili has not absconded with your handmaiden, do you wish to rescind your brazen accusations…or shall I level charges against you for slander?"

"It is not slander if it is a fact!" Lord Colm firmly maintained, his long grey beard swaying as he raged on. "A fact that someone is obviously covering up to protect that scoundrel you call a prince!"

"Keep talking about my kin like that and soon you will not have a tongue in which to speak with!" Thorin threatened, causing the elderly dwarf to retreat in fear.

"Then how do you explain my missing maid?" Bina demanded, apparently missing the deadly intent in Thorin's eyes.

"How in Mahal's name would I know?" Thorin bellowed, throwing up his hands in frustration. "Perhaps she got lost, or rose early and left before you woke?" he offered, tossing out suggestions. "Or more likely, she finally became wise to what imbeciles she worked for and ran away, seeking a better situation."

"I know that is what I would have done, were I the lass," Dwalin mumbled off to the side, yet loud enough for all to hear. His words earned him a scalding glare from Bina, but no one else dared contradict him.

"Well, I still maintain that Prince Fili has shamed her and you are somehow covering it up," Lord Colm insisted.

"And I say that you concocted this whole plot to discredit my nephew!" Thorin retaliated. "Possibly sending the poor girl away so that you can claim foul play. Don't think for a moment that I do not know that Fili has rejected your daughter and this is your feeble attempt at retribution."

"Lies! Y-y-you have no proof of that!" the now flustered dwarrow cried.

"I have just as much proof of my accusation as you do of yours," Thorin wisely pointed out. "Now…do you wish to take this before a court of judgment, or shall I simply expel you from Erebor while you can still leave of your own accord?"

It was easy to see that neither one wished to file formal charges, especially when there was no evidence to support their claims. If the young maid could be located, and her statement taken, things might be different, yet without her, they had nothing substantial to go on. Thorin had no doubts at all that they had orchestrated this little plot to discredit Fili, and the sooner he got the devious pair out of Erebor the happier he would be.

"Dwalin, I think these two have overstayed their welcome," Thorin informed his captain of the guards. "Please have them escorted outside the gates immediately! Them, and all in their company." The burly dwarf signaled for several of his trusted guards to enter, effectively surrounding the pair as the king eyed them both with a threatening glare. "And should either of you ever darken our halls again, I will take it as a declaration of war, and deal with you accordingly. Is this clear?"

There was some sputtering and indignation on their part, but Dwalin ignored it all and gestured for his guards to escort them out of the room - soon to be out of the mountain entirely. As they were being shoved through the door, Thorin was surprised to see Balin and Nori entering, both eyeing the departing Lord Colm and Bina with looks of disgust. The dwarf king could tell at a glance that his two companions had news, and not the kind he would find pleasant. So once the door was closed, leaving the four of them alone, he pounced.

"What do you know of all this?" he questioned. "I was all but ambushed by that foolhardy excuse for a dwarf and his wretched daughter, claiming that Fili had lured an innocent maid to his chambers for unscrupulous means! As if any such nonsense could be true when the lad has yet to even awaken!"

"Well…some of what was said holds a grain of truth," Balin regrettably revealed.

"NO!" Fili stated, having stepped out of his room just in time to hear the charges that were being leveled against him. "I would never! How could I? I deny all such claims and dare anyone to say differently!"

"And I was with Fili when he retired to his room for the night…alone!" Kili vouched.

"I do not deny your assertions, lads, and as far as you both know, you speak the truth," Balin told them, trying to calm them down. "Yet I fear that there has been some conspiracy, and you are being used as a pawn in a much larger game."

"Tell us what you know," Thorin demanded, his jaw now so tight that you could hear his teeth grinding. It was Nori who stepped forward to answer.

"Early this morning I was alerted to the plot devised by Lord Colm and Lady Bina to disgrace Fili, yet barely in time," the brown haired dwarf began, nervously playing with the braid that extended from his right eyebrow to his intricately coifed hair. "I immediately went to notify you of the situation, but found Balin, Gloin and Oin in your council chambers instead. Realizing that time was of the essence, we made our way here as quickly as possible, hoping it had all been a mistake. Unfortunately, my informant had been correct, and we found Fili and an unknown handmaiden in his bedchambers, both drugged…and disrobed."

"WHAT?" Fili yelled, swaying a bit as he struggled to remain standing, unsure if it was a result of the drugs or the news he had just been handed. Kili was instantly at his side, offering a steady hand to his distraught brother.

"There was no one in the bed with Fili when we arrived!" Dwalin insisted, his dark eyes set in a look of anger. "I even watched that chit, Bina, search the room herself. If a maiden was hiding anywhere within, she would have discovered her."

"We were able to get the lass out just in time, by using the secret passageway," Balin continued. "The poor dam is now with Oin in the healing rooms, still unconscious."

"I will have Colm and his wretched daughter flogged for this!" Thorin roared, storming towards the door, murder in his eyes.

"I'll happily do the honors myself!" Dwalin agreed, only a step behind his king.

"No!" Balin cried, stepping in the path of the enraged king and his brother. "It would be best to just let them go."

"What? And allow them to get away with such crimes?" The king under the mountain was aghast as such a suggestion.

"We do not know what the lass might claim transpired when she at last awakens," Nori spoke up, also placing himself in front of the exit. "While my instincts say otherwise, there is always a chance that she is in on the conspiracy, and it would then come down to their words against ours. For even if we can convince others that Fili's body is still stone, being caught with a lass in his room, unchaperoned, can lead to many wild and damaging tales. And it will matter not that we know the lad is being set up, for once that seed of doubt is sewn among the masses…no amount of truth will ever completely root it out. "

"Thus, we should let Colm and his daughter depart," Balin insisted. "Leave them in the dark as to what became of the lass and do our best to contain the matter. Deal with it internally, and not involve anyone that does not need to know. Perhaps we can reason with this maiden, keep this all under wraps. If we are lucky, she was just as much a victim as Fili, and she will be only too happy to either testify against Bina and her father…or forget it all happened and move on with her life."

Thorin could see the wisdom in all this, but it still boiled his blood to think of allowing two such devious dwarves to go free when all he wanted to do was see them rot in the dungeons of Erebor. Yet, looking over at Fili, and seeing the mortification reflecting in his eyes, Thorin knew he had to think of his nephew and the maiden first…setting his own need for vengeance aside.

"Can you recall any time last night when you might have been slipped something? In your food, or your drink?" Thorin asked Fili, yet looked to Kili for answers as well.

"No, never!" the younger brother swore. "We both ate from the same platters at mealtime and drank from the same keg."

"Wait. I…I recall a bottle of wine," Fili answered slowly, his eyes looking around the room as if trying to remember a hazy dream. When his gaze came to rest on a silver tray, holding two glasses his expression changed. "Yes…there was a bottle of wine waiting for me when I returned from dinner. I thought it had come from Bofur, for he had gifted me with one like it before. I took a drink…maybe two…and then I do not recall much else."

Nori walked over to the tray and picked up the glasses, eyeing them both. "There is nothing left in either of them, nothing we might have tested to prove he was drugged," he stated.

"I did not use a glass," Fili confessed. "I drank directly from the bottle."

"Which has only too conveniently disappeared," Balin grumbled.

"Which tells me that some mangy bastard placed it here, and then tossed you and the lass in bed, coverin' their tracks right good," Dwalin spat out followed by a few choice words in Khuzdul.

"That means the only hope we have for gaining any concrete evidence lies with the young miss in Oin's care," Balin finished, ignoring his brother's foul mouth.

"Then I think this discussion would be best continued in the healing halls," Thorin announced, very much wishing to speak with the lass in question.

.

.

It did not take long before they were all gathered in the outer chambers of Oin's infirmary, waiting none too patiently with Gloin for his brother to emerge with news. Fili's mind was growing less and less foggy, and he was struggling to recall anything he could from the previous night. It was not every day he was informed that he had been found with an unknown dwarrowdam in his bed, and Fili was having an extremely difficult time wrapping his head around such news. It was quite obvious that he had been drugged…but for what purpose? He only hoped this maiden could shed some light on the matter, once she awakened.

When the door to the healing chamber opened, all eyes tuned to Oin, who entered with a grim look upon his face.

"How is she?" Fili asked, rising to his feet in obvious concern. "Will…will she be all right?"

"Whatever she was given has yet to wear off and she is still asleep," he informed them somberly. "Yet I suspect that she will do so very soon and suffer no lasting effects from it. However, that is not what concerns me."

"Then what does?" Thorin demanded, not appreciating how everyone seemed to be doling out answers in such a wearisome fashion.

"I have thoroughly examined the lass, and it would appear…" the elderly dwarf muttered, not daring to raise his head or make eye contact with the blond prince. "…it would appear that the two of you did not simply slumber in the same bed last night."

"What…what are you saying?" Fili could feel the blood drain from his face as he feared Oin's next words.

"The poor lass is no longer…" the elderly dwarf muttered, unable to finish his sentence. He then cleared his throat and squared his shoulders, taking on a solemn air. "It is my professional opinion that she has been compromised…very recently."

Fili's legs would no longer support him and he collapsed onto the bench where he had just been sitting, a look of pure terror written across his face.

"Oh, Mahal…what have I done?" he sobbed, burying his face in his hands.

Well, pumpkin...it looks like something, or someone, made you 'wake up'.

And before you ask, no, Sier was not 'compromised' by someone other than Fili.

Remember - the whole reason for this story is so that we can find out how Fili is at being a father. And since there can't be a mix up at the 'sperm bank' in Middle Earth, it was the only way I could figure to make it happen. This way, neither one is to blame, although we all know that Fili WILL feel responsible, that is just the kind of dwarf he is.

I hope no one is offended by this - that was not my intention when writing this - and I will not be going into detail. Just remember, this is fiction, and I only write smut light with happy endings!

Please leave a kind review...thanks.

Guest Reviews:

Aranel Mereneth: I am glad to BE back! There will indeed be a lot of Durin fluff in this story. And I did not want to spend a lot of time on a courtship and stuff either, that is why I did it this way. So we can get to the fluff even faster! Oh, a little girl for Fili would be lovely, no promises, but I will see what I can do.