A/N: KIDHUZURÂL- "Golden One"

On the rocky skirts of the mountains they had passed quietly and with utter care in every movement. There were no campfires into the wee hours, no songs or boisterous gatherings there whether it was day or dark. Thorin remembered with a grudging wariness what Elrond had advised; never one to trust an elf, he still knew what had been wrought in these mountains. For a moment, he thought he could smell the faint odor of smoke on the air, with that unholy tinge of the dead who had been burned that night on great pyres so many years ago. How the fires had went on and on and burned red behind them as blood as they staggered out of Dimrill Dale, never to return to that bloody valley. He had never wanted to return to the Misty Mountains for any abundance of time. Elrond needed not tell him there ought be no delving in these parts. They were many leagues north of that cursed ground, but he could still feel it in his bones, his throat raw from screaming, body ravished by violence, nose filled with the scent blood and fire, orc filth and charred dwarf, as if it were yesterday.

They had scaled the first of the higher mountains there beyond the foothills and Western Skirts with some level of ease. There was still a road there, and the mountain was calm. Meisar climbed until she reached the plateau on its peak, seeking the quickest pathway down.

Un-rattled by tenderly surprised still she was, to feel Thorin's arms snake around her from behind, his breath on the back of her ear, his lips on her temple when he drew her head back and pressed it to him, her forehead tilted all the way back to nuzzle upward at his chin. The coarseness of his beard there made her hum sweetly to herself in the back of her throat, a heat swelling deep inside her for the touch of him, the strength of his arms around her and the simultaneous silken touch of his hair and rasp of beard upon her naked face.

"It is beautiful, isn't it, my king, âzyungâl?" She settled back into him and grasped the forearms that were clasped about her just below her bosom, staring up over the mountains.

"Azyungâl, it is." He liked the way word felt on his tongue.

A great swath of broadleaf forest that lay behind them in the valley where the foothills had come to a brief pause before the eastern faces of the Misty Mountains, their flanks bearing steeply up toward the High Pass. She stared out over the mountains with a peaceful awe.

"I love these mountains," she countered. "They feel like… home."

He nudged her around to face him, his hands on her shoulders drawing her close once again. The lines about his eyes deepened, endearingly so, when he smiled. For a dwarf nearly two centuries of age, his handsomeness was unyielding. His blue eyes were suddenly full of light.

"We will be able to see all the way to Lonely Mountain from over the top of that one, if the day is clear."

He smiled serenely. "You grow more beautiful to me each day." He ran his thumb over the peaks of her cheekbones, their ruddiness abated just a bit. "You're soft," he stroked her cheek lightly with a rough fingertip. "Your skin I mean."

"Emli," she smiled back. "Making a lady of me I suppose. As if I were some princess to be coddled."

"I have no need of princesses, my darling. A trembling little lamb who knows nothing of the world?"

"You underestimate princesses then, my king. Of all people, you should know what princesses can endure."

He swallowed harshly. "I apologize. I shouldn't have."

He dipped his head, forgivingly. "There is nothing to be sorry for. There is more courage and strength in her than ever I would possess." His eyes were sad again with alarming suddenness.

"Thorin… look at me."

He did, and studied the changes in her however slight. The sleeves of her old calico tunic had been refashioned, puffed and ruched just about the elbows. Embroidery, in a deep, rich but otherwise tempered shade of crimson, had been added to the cuffs and all about the high, slightly fussy collar, even to the hem which came down an unwieldy part of her calf. Even though the heavy, cumbersome leather over-vest remained, her hair was still pocked by little crooked dents in her two long braids, there was an elegance, a softness to her that seemed so long unrealized, a long-buried bloom reaching up toward the sun.

"Thorin, we will be together through all of this. She loves you still as your sister-sons look upon you now, with love alone, from the halls of their fathers."

His forefinger ran across the thick seam of her bottom lip, his eyes somewhere else. When they returned again to her, they were tender but reddening about the corners. He blinked back what might have been tears and kissed her, his mouth tasting of salt and smoke. "You are the most beautiful creature in all the world. You will give Emli my thanks, surely."

Meisar gave him a soft comforting smile. "She and Gloin will be a force to be reckoned with under the mountain. And Gimli will be of age soon to serve at court. I suppose it's good to know you won't be alone to run things."

"I will never be alone."

She drew close and urged his arms around her, her head to his chest, her palm flat against his own then fingers intertwining. Her hand felt so small in his. "How very fortunate we are to have found each other, Thorin."

"And to stay by each other?"

"Of course."

"You mean that?" He brushed his lips over her temple where it met her hairline, enjoying the quaver of her skin when his lips and beard met it ever so lightly.

"I have made a promise," she smiled slightly up at him. The way she held his face so lovingly, but firmly then, he knew the purity of that intent. He kissed her over and over on her cheeks and then her lips. A contentedness, a deeper absence of all grief or sorrow he had known for many moons, washed over him like a spring of warm water. His nose touching hers and her quavering on the tips of her toes to hold herself there, she took in the sudden heat of the breath he exhaled through that proud, elegant nose. Grasping for him, she caught his upper lip and felt the bristles of his beard brush and tingle against the inside of her own, a taste of smoke on that beard, a heat on his lips that was all want and warmth. A sudden cramp in her foot sent her hastily back down onto the balls of her feet.

"I have loved so many in my time, and they have been stolen from me. I will never let them take you from me."

"Take me? Who? Nonsense. My heels are dug in well, my darling."

"Not orcs or men, or elves, or even our own." She smiled with a bit of bemusement at what he could have been thinking, cryptic it seemed, but uttered with a quiet, fervid passion nonetheless.

"I can feet your heart," she breathed. She took in his scent, fur that had been soggy and dried, again and again, a distinct scent, and leather and pipe smoke, and beneath it a hint of the earthy, musky scent of his body. She pressed her head close to him and ached never to let go. His heart made another thump, louder than the last.

"It yet beats, my lady. Perhaps now for a purpose that could ease all sorrow and grief."

She smiled sadly into his furs and leathers. "Nothing will ever mend all sorrows and grief."

"No," he sighed in return. "But I may find this renewal of life worth the breath I draw. My remaining days may yet be bearable."

"Azyungâl, my king..."

"Meisar," he breathed high again. He held her back with a firm grip on the sides of her jaw, tender but commanding. His eyes were clouded over. "Look at me, my blessing. I want you to look in my eyes now."

"I see you…" She clasped her hand over his, still anchored to her cheek.

"Meisar…" his thumb stroked nervously over her face. "Meisar, I l-"

"Majesty! Shepherdess!" The shock of a female voice in panic came rolling in. Virta came trotting up out of breath, which she caught dramatically, bent at the waist, hands on her knees.

"Virta, what is it now?"

"It's Freyda, dunininh, laid right out cold." Virta crossed her arms and looked up over her nose at Thorin smartly. "By Mister Dwalin."

They hurried back to the halted caravan, a gaggle of dwarrowdams crowding and hovering over someone on the ground, all squawking.

They parted for Meisar and Thorin. Freyda rolled over on the ground, clinking in her chainmail hauberk. "Men!" huffed Lulia, making sure Dwalin could hear. He stood outside the circle with his head hung low. "That's what you get for trying anything with 'em. A sore head!" added Virta smartly, cradling Freyda's while Eda applied a cool compress and Oin checked her ears for rupture.

Dwalin leaned in slowly. "Freyda?"

"Out! Out, you thick-skulled dwarf!" Eda barked, waving her arms at Dwalin like an angry bird of prey. "Done enough damage for the day you have!"

He backed off from the squall of dwarrowdams grumbling. Freyda was coming around, groaning lightly. "Where is Dwalin?"

"Dwalin?" snorted Urdlaug. "Got no need for that one, seeing what he's gone and done now."

Freyda winced and scowled up at Urdlaug and Eda, elbowing them out of the way as she sat up and rubbed her head.

"Mister Dwalin should be back around soon," Eda finally relented. She looked around for Dwalin but he had gone from sight, to where was anyone's guess. To lick his wounds or smack that bald head in penance, she imagined, a smile out of the side of her face ever wizened. "Well?" repeated Freyda, irksome.

"He's gone off somewhere. Shall I bring him a message if I see him?"

"Tell him… he won," grinned Freyda, rosewater painted lips as merry as ever.

.

II

"Will he court me proper now, do you think?" Freyda inquired with a subdued eagerness. It was early and she was already awake, stirring and bright about the breakfast fire. The bruise in the very center of her forehead had faded from black to a dusky purple about to go sickly-green. It had swelled about the temples as well but she was mirthful.

"No telling, love. He's slow on the uptick, if you know what I mean. Perhaps not for the worse. These things take time, after all," counseled Eda, a bit dismissively.

"He's a bit rough in his ways," Gyda hastened to observe.

When she had finished braiding Gyda's hair for the day, Freyda scooted away from her and toward Balin, chewing on a wild strawberry shriveled as the season petered out, but still juicy inside; it ran down his white beard in tiny streams. "You're his brother. Tell me something I could use," pleaded Freyda, helping Dwalin wipe the sticky red liquid from his beard.

"Patience, my dear. He's never had a lass before, and pulling him from Thorin's side for the sake of one, well... there's no telling with that. Patience, foremost. And perhaps a helmet."

.

Meisar returned with an impatient gusto to the caravan. "Up all of you. On your ponies, to your reins."

"What's the rush?" asked Dori, yawning.

"The ascent will be a tiresome one. If we go steadily, we can clear through within a day and a half. We ride until dark."

They all readied to ride on and Eda made a small nest of pillows in the back of her wagon and cloistered Freyda there with a cold compress to her head. She wouldn't let her mount her pony again in spite of her protests. One dizzy sway to the side and down a cliff she'd be easily.

As she climbed in beside her and put Siv to the reins, Eda felt a sharp metal-decked hand rest on her shoulder.

"Eda… please. May I? I want to see the lass. Talk... ye know." Eda crunched her brows together warily toward Dwalin, his head gesturing vaguely toward the wagon. He looked like a child forced to apologize for mischief, she thought, amused to herself. This dwarf of all dwarves with that hung-dog look. She stared at Dwalin for a long moment. "For what it's worth," she relented finally. "You won." Eda went and nudged Siv aside at the reins, leaving the back door of the wagon open.

.

Thorin craned his head around on Minty's mount and searched for Dwalin. Nowhere in the long line of dwarves and their wagons that travelled single file and cautiously rambling along did he see him. Balin, riding behind him, simply shrugged.

.

"Will ye help me with this cursed thing? Feel like I'm laying on a bed o' nails." Dwalin helped Freyda roll over and unfasten her mail at the sides. She shimmied out of it irritably, then smiled when she had thrown it aside. It landed beside her with a heavy jangle. "Ah, much better." Dwalin looked down on her in her plain blue tunic that was laced tightly up the front with cords of brown leather. Beneath it she seemed to have another layer, smallclothes of roughspun or something of the like. She stretched her legs in their brown faded leather breeches, kicked her boots off.

"I like ye better in armor. Pretty dress ain't no use with a goblin spear in yer ribs. I'd like not to see that." He didn't look at her when he talked but his voice was uncannily gentle.

"Thank ye kindly for that. Not liking the idea of you being skewered for beasties' supper neither."

Dwalin shifted an inch or two closer to her in the crowded wagon. Up close he could see her more clearly, studied her out of the corner of one eye. Her ears were pierced twice with thick rings of silver the lobes, the tip of her nose broad but the bridge narrower, long eyelashes and golden brows that framed stormy eyes of the brightest blue-green he had ever beheld. "Well… can't say ye weren't… pretty all gussied up."

"Pretty?" She cocked her head up at him and grinned.

"Well… ye know." Dwalin cleared his throat awkwardly, rubbed his bald, inked cranium with one hand. "Anyway… I'm certainly sorry for hurting yer head."

"Apology accepted."

He grinned sheepishly on one side of his mouth and fingers flexing, withdrawing once and then twice over, swiftly reached out and patted her hand. Her fingers sprung and grasped his hand in hers, intertwining their fingers, holding fast. Her undecorated, slightly callused hand in his larger, steel and ink covered one, grasped a little harder. Dwalin reached over and quickly peeled the knuckle duster off.

.

III

On the mountainside, Meisar was shaken roughly about her shoulders. They were in a high upland vale nestled between two mountains so high their peaks were capped in clouds and snow. She didn't like the looks of them, not their scarred sides or the ominous feeling that crept into the back of her mind, and the hairs on her neck, when she was there, alone. She was half-relieved to have seen of all people, Hegi. "Goblins," Hegi said gravely above her. "Maybe orcs."

Meisar sighed, on the edge of annoyance but lesser than she was used to when crept upon like this by any besides Thorin. "In the old tunnels," Hegi said.

"Dwarven tunnels? But I thought..."

"Too big to be old dwarven tunnels or goblins' work. Maybe cave trolls chained like beasts clear old tunnel, make room."

"And orcs?"

Hegi garbled something low and foreboding again in Khuzdul, barely understandable even to the fluent.

"You were a miner once in these very mountains, weren't you?"

Hegi nodded, grinning darkly. "In Ered Luin coal and copper. Here, Mithril and coal. Silly dwarves. Don't they know it all burns?"

"Mithril? We are far from Moria, Hegi."

"Far, but never far enough."

"What do you mean?"

"The bowels of the earth are aflame. And all these mountains their cesspits. Soon, all tunnels carry it north and south and east and west until it bursts. No good."

"Hegi…"

"A vein of mithril here and there. A vein of old dwarf tunnel now orc dungeon. What is a vein? A vein is an artery. What happens when an artery cut? It bleeds out and all is dead."

"I beg you, speak plainly of this."

"You. You listen. Love king. He love you. You need. He need. We all need. Under mountain nothing else certain."

"Hegi?"

"Ou-huh?"

"A miner of mithril even a simple wall-walker is a handsome living. You could have been a rich woman. Why did you leave?"

"Feel the Earth shake far down below in my bones. It speak to me. They call me a madwoman, other dwarves." Her eyes were suddenly sad. Then she shrugged, smiled. "I go to Ered Luin where beasties under the earth no more speak to me."

"You are not mad, Hegi."

"I know," Hegi sniffed.

Meisar put her hand on her shoulder and exhaled thoughtfully. "Let us get out of these mountains, sooner rather than later."

Hegi smiled more broadly, her laugh deepening. "Orc pack no match for Hegi. I take out pack of 50 with one device. Horde of 100, blow their den, kill all in old mines back then. Never bothered us again down in Misty Mountain way. Make best fire-bombs of any dwarf. Still they call me mad. Perhaps they all dead now."

"Listen not to what anyone says. Only what you see, Hegi."

She cackled, familiarly. "I see you. I say you lead on, make king happy at night, give Oakenshield good thought, keep head out of royal arse. You take Oakenshield. I take orcs. You in my territory now."

.

Cautiously enough, she let Hegi scale the walls, check the cliff-sides for goblin doors and orc traps. When she found any, she packed their chinks with gunpowder and her own mixture, so that they would burst into great heaves of fire if opened, incinerating all that lay behind.

It was dangerous work and Meisar herself was unfamiliar and unskilled to it, avoiding the mountains in her wilderness days. Bifur had pleaded with her not to go, even blocking her path with his spear drawn. Hegi had knocked the boar spear from his grip with her bare hands and only then did Bifur relent. Up the mountain face Hegi went trawling like a spider, again and again, while the dwarves below waited with bated breath.

Hegi unhooked herself from the crudely fashioned kemmentar and harness and jumped the last several feet to the ground. She landed solidly on her feet with a thud. "Now we good."

Deep in the night a great rattle came through the camp, the sight of fire on the mountain spooking every dwarf fully to wakefulness. "Orc gate!" blared Hegi. The dwarves hurried to hitch the animals, mount the ponies. Lanterns in the dark were all they had along the mountain path. Panic rose but they kept their voices to shrill sighs of fear. They could hear the shrieks of orcs far behind in their demises, their tunnels filling with fire. Several escaped and pursued them down the dark mountainside shrieking and jabbering through the dark in their bastard tongue. Dwalin insisted on bringing up the rear against the fearful shouts of the dwarves. He handled the survivors with an angry heave-ho over the side of the cliff for the first few, Grasper and Keeper taking care of the rest, handily ripping brain stems, splitting skulls.

At dawn, he sat by the next body of water they encountered when the pack animals could go on without rest no longer. It was a thin, meager stream and there he sat nonetheless washing the blood from his fur mantle, with Siv's elven soap and a pair of hands that would be lavender scented for days to come. Perhaps not for the worse, he reasoned silently, his lips tightening petulantly. Even Freyda couldn't possibly prefer orc filth over that of the high elves.

By the time the sun set on the following evening they had traveled many leagues, following that particular stream along the rough path that had once been a well-traveled road. Not in these times, it seemed. Still high above the valleys to the east, they could see the fires from isolated villages of wood-dwelling men far below, smoke from little cottages in dells deep down in the woods, woods that were thickening as they headed further downward. Nonetheless, they were leaving the High Pass and the Misty Mountains ever further behind. The Vales of Anduin far below in the autumn were richly hued come dawn, a golden light turning fiery on all the trees.

"We shall reach the forest of Mirkwood soon and pass through," Meisar announced to Thorin sometime later that day, sounding more nonchalant than anxious for that particular leg of the journey. He winced at the thought of what had transpired there not so long ago.

"How come you by the Elvenking's permission, to pass through his lands?" Thorin asked.

"I didn't."