Many years ago, in the 2772nd year of the Third Age of Middle-Earth, deep in the heart of the Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor

This is how the story begins…not with a whimper but a scream, this is the sound that Dwalin is born to. His mother, though her name remains lost to us now, was surely the one who was screaming. I say this for it is remarked upon that while the mother bellowed throughout the night, her own son did not.

In fact, such was his silence that the healers at his birth were almost afraid that he had been born dead, but no, he wriggled and thrashed in their hands when he was taken out of sight of his screaming mother for them to check.

So this is how the story of Dwalin, Last Dwarf of the Company begins.

I could tell you of his childhood, of his love for his brother and his parents, of his deep brother-like bond with the young prince that would one day grow up to be Thorin Oakenshield, but I shall not. Not for cruelty, or for lack of interesting topics in that part of his life, but for the plain simple reason that none of them matter to this story.

So instead, we shall skip ahead, past the day his father presented him with his first axe, past the day his brother taught him and Thorin how to read; and long past the day the Dragon came to Erebor's gates. No, let us jump further than that, to the day that Dwalin Last of the Company stepped foot in the rolling hills of the Shire, in search of a burglar.

The Shire, Hobbiton: T.A. 2941

It had been two hours since he'd first passed the boundary of this strange land, and Dwalin had to finally admit it: he was lost. It seemed that all the twists and turns of his path led to the same thing – just more hills. Hills upon hills, each with a little door, and a slightly unfriendly…creature standing peering through their gate. Hobbits the Wizard's message had called them, but Dwalin had never seen their like before. Strange round creatures, with square heads and beardless chins, smaller than a dwarf and meeker too. They would only glare at him as he passed, they shied and flinched beneath their hedgerows if he turned to actually address them.

Which was a bit of a problem. Fine, he was not welcome here, Dwalin could handle that – he'd been unwelcome in many places across the breath of the northern lands of Middle-Earth. But he was very, very lost, and if the locals were too afraid of him to even spit in his face, then he was going to remain lost for quite some time.

'Oy!'

Came a loud, childish voice from up above him. Dwalin pulled his pony to a stop and looked around, desperate to find the owner of the voice that seemed to have actually addressed him.

'Oy, Sir? Mister Dwarf, sir? Look up here why don't you, I'm not a ghost floating on the air.'

The owner of the voice was a tiny child, hardly taller than a gnome statue – grinning down at him with the crooked teeth, and dirty mud-stained face common among the unwashed masses. A group, Dwalin often counted himself among, on most days.

'Good day to ye,' said the Dwarf lord. 'I trust you are not caught in the branches of that tree you sit in?'

'No sir,' said the cheeky little…hobbit. 'I'm not the one whose caught, that's you, Mister Dwarf, sir.'

'Oh Aye, caught, am I? And what precisely am I caught in boy? A spider's web, a game of riddles?'

'A lane, sir. You're caught in the lanes of Hobbiton, as surely as a needle falls in a haystack.'

'Needles don't fall in haystacks.'

'Aye they do,' said the boy dropping from his branch with a resounding thud. 'They do if you drop them into it.'

'Well, I am not a needle.' Said Dwalin, his patience with this strange back and forth finally ebbing. No doubt the others had already found the Burglar's…hole in the ground, and he would be the last to arrive as usual. Thorin would be furious, and there was no reasoning with the fury of a king, even one without a crown.

With such withering thoughts in his head he began to move past the boy.

'No, but you are lost,' yelled the boy at the dwarf's retreating back.

'Oh, and I suppose you can help with that, then?' The dwarf bellowed over his shoulder.

'I would if I knew what Smial you were aiming for, sir.'

Dwalin stopped at that, and turned to stare down at that round, rather grubby face, and he relented. Glancing down at the directional note the wizard had provided, he answered with a strained sigh.

'A Mister Boggins of Bag End.'

'Well sir, don't know no Boggins…but Mister Baggins lives up on yonder hill there, under a roof named Bag End. I should know, my cousin's his gardener.'

'That hill yonder? Ah I see it now, thank ye young Master…?'

'Gamgee, sir, Hamfast Gamgee.'

And then with a wave of thanks to the boy, Dwalin was off up the hill, up and onwards to the house of Master Bilbo Baggins where despite the Wizard's claims, he was in fact not expected at all.

A small exchange indeed, something that would hardly be worth noting in most history books. There was nothing profound said, no great conclusions brought from it and in fact if it had never happened at all, Dwalin would still have made it to Mister Bilbo Baggins front door that night. All that would have changed was that he would not have arrived there first.

In fact, it was hardly memorable even to the two participants. Dwalin was grateful for the child's direction, but once the quest had started there were other things to focus on than one child with eyes the same shade as their Burglar. And the boy had chores to complete, had only been out in Hobbiton that day because he had been sent by his mother to deliver invitations to his sister's birthday party. He'd stayed out too late at that, and had to run to catch the cart that would take him back to Tightfield.

Both parties would forget it entirely… until one day when one of them was rather violently reminded by an ex-Burglar, that had taken up his long twilight years in Rivendell.

Rivendell; T.A. 3020

Dwalin felt old, though not quite half so old as the Burglar before him looked. Bilbo Baggins was old, frail and shrivelled into his fine clothes as he no longer had enough strength to stand up in them. He slouched in his fine elven chair and stared off past Dwalin, as if the dwarf was not even there.

By Durin's beard, what had those leaf-eaters done to the poor fellow? Clearly it must have been their doing for the Burglar had been fine when Dwalin had left him here, barely even nineteen years past. He'd been fine then, hardly ageing a day…he certainly hadn't been this…this blank shell that sat before him now.

The shell smiled at Dwalin, only not really because his eyes never once focused on the dwarf in question. He was smiling at something else, someone else, and he'd been doing so every time that Dwalin had managed to pluck up enough courage to go and speak with him. No, maybe speak was the wrong word…after all could you really call it speaking when all you did was sit in utter silence sipping, the disgusting brew the elves somehow had convinced themselves was tea. Bilbo laughed at that, or rather he laughed at something, since Dwalin very much doubted the hobbit had learned how to read minds in the years since they'd seen each other last.

'Oh my,' said the old shell. 'Oh dear, that does sound like something truly terrible. But I have faith in you my boy, if anyone can do it, you can.'

The hobbit must be delusional, maybe even dreaming that his foster-son Frodo was here, in the room with the two of them, the poor old fool.

'This is Dwalin, you remember him don't you, my boy. He was one of the Dwarves on my holiday.'

Holiday? Well, Dwalin suppose that was one name for the quest…it wasn't one he would have ever chosen, but then it took all sorts didn't it.

'He's come to visit this old hobbit, even though he's long past his prime and has started talking to the air. Yes, yes, I know you're there but no one else can see you my sweet lad, keep up. Oh…oh I see, okay, okay I'll tell him, I'll tell him just you stop your fussing now.'

Bilbo's eyes focused for the first time in two hours of sitting here listing to him talk to…well talk to the air around them. 'Dwalin,' said the old hobbit, now frighteningly lucid. 'I'm glad you came, I really am, and…and I apologise for ignoring you all this time. It was good of you to come and visit this old crusty hobbit…wait what?' The old hobbit cocked his withered head to the side as if he were actually listening to someone else, someone who was also in the room with them, someone who Dwalin could not see. 'Yes, yes, alright calm down I'm getting there. Dwalin.' This last part Bilbo had turned his pale eyes back to the dwarf and smiled at him, sadly. 'I'm so sorry.'

What on Durin's beard did Bilbo Baggins have to be sorry about…and then Dwalin's world went black.

The world was nothing but black, and grey and smudged slivers of white. Dwalin was still in the same room he'd been sitting in for the last two hours, but Bilbo Baggins no longer sat there before him. Instead, next to the old hobbit's chair stood another of Bilbo's kind, younger, shorter, with the round stern face of someone who does not have a lot of time for silly questions like "what am I doing here?" or "why have you kidnapped me?". So Dwalin asked none of them.

In his right hand the hobbit held a stick, made of black wood, and as Dwalin sat there the hobbit raised the staff and tapped him in the middle of his chest, and this is what he saw:

Legions, legions of the dead rising up from their graves. The ground split with the strength of all these dead coming through the earth's shell. Their hands wrenched it apart and like a swarm the dead did litter the earth. They looked like people if one were not wise enough to see behind their half-rotted masks…they wore the garb of Dunlander tribes and like fools the Rohan believed that was all they were. They tried to fight them as they would men, but it was too late for that…for these men were already passed and the spirits inside them now did not fear the blade in a mortal's hands. Dunland was gone, empty and no one had even noticed – Rohan would follow, and Gondor not far behind that if what he saw was left to come to pass. Perhaps this had already happened, and no one had paid it much mind because the people that died did not matter. They weren't Rohan or Gondor, and they certainly were not the elves, in the end all these people could do to aid in the fight against Sauron was die before they could be recruited. It was a brutal statement, and one many would never let themselves believe they thought, but Dwalin was not everybody. This was a war, and sometimes, sometimes there had to be sacrifices; sometimes small people needed to be left behind, so that you could focus on the bigger picture.

He didn't have the strength in him to lie to himself, not about that at least. But sitting here, as these terrible images passed through his mind, he couldn't help but consider that they'd all been ironically short sighted. Yes, perhaps coming to the aid of the Dunlanders would have wasted too much resources on a people that had quite frankly shown nothing but seething resentment for the free peoples of Middle-Earth. But the problem of the Dead was not just Dunland's, and yet that had been forgotten just as quickly once the dark lord was destroyed.

How many years had they wasted feeling safe and settling petty disputes?

This is what Dwalin saw.

The Dead will rise, or have risen and are just being ignored, and the living…well the living will fall if they do not stand together. Someone would have to knock their heads together, to make the free holding lords and kings of Middle Earth see that danger. And it seemed Dwalin was the only one to do it.

Seventeen Years Later

It takes years, years of cajoling, months of trekking to the most uncomfortable places in Middle-Earth but finally it was done. Well sort of, they did not have an army, that will come later when the world finally realises that Dwalin son of Fundin was not just mad. That he had been right, that the Dunlanders, poor wretches that they are…were, had been right. The leaders of Mirkwood and Rivendell, of Erebor and Dale, and even the braver souls from Bree and the Shire sat around the elegantly round table of the Lord of Rivendell in an oppressive silence.

Why they were here…pulled away from their, quite frankly, dull jobs of lordship, or kingship, sat now at the head of their circle. The Lord of Rivendell looked far too pale for an elf, and thin – though elves were always pale and thin but never in the sickly fashion this one boasted. It was a strange elf indeed that held the Lordship of Rivendell now, in fact if one had not known beforehand you wouldn't have suspected he was an elf at all. He had a long nose, crooked and bent in a hawk like manner – a strangeness indeed since all elves seemed have had the same stupid tiny nose plonked on their face by their maker. His eyes were black, and around them the tell-tale human feature of crows-feet had begun to form. Couple that with the deep groves around his mouth, marking him as someone who had spent far too many years scowling– gave the impression, of an elf that was only partly of the first born. Still, Dwalin supposed that made sense, after all Lord Elrond had had the same exact grooves around his mouth.

To tell the truth Dwalin hadn't even known that Lord Elrond had had other children. He'd only been aware of the Lady Arwen because of her marriage to the King of Gondor –it was difficult to ignore Gondor, especially now. Of course, Lord Erestor was not Lord Elrond's son – officially anyway, but there was undeniably a resemblance. He was not the one that had been meant to be sitting in the lord's chair. But all the legitimate children who could inherit, were either dead, mortal, or much, much worse.

It was the worse ones that they gathered here now to speak of.

'So, they attempted to fool you into letting them in the gates.'

Came the slow, skulking voice of the king of Mirkwood, as the current head of Rivendell squirmed in his seat.

'Yes, they arrived at our gate not two weeks past claiming to be lost. Our…my guards didn't recognise them at first, otherwise they would never have gotten past the first gate.'

It was a rather pitiful excuse, so pitiful that Dwalin wondered why Erestor even bothered saying it. He looked at the elf lord, still uncomfortable in his lordly robes of office…how old was the elf? It was nearly impossible for a mortal like him to guess, they all looked so young yet felt so old. Was he younger than the lord of Rivendell's legitimate children? Conceived maybe when the Lady of Rivendell sailed for the west? No, he'd heard a tale or two from irked grandfathers, and great grandfather's who'd had the misfortune at having to stop at Rivendell . The name Erestor had come up once or twice as one of Elrond's councillors. Though he was never the main villain of his grandfather's tales. No, that honour lay with the elf tied up at the council's feet. Or rather who the elf had been.

One of the twin sons of Elrond – Dwalin could never be certain which one, even in this state they were impossible to tell from one another – was a wretched thing indeed. Something perhaps worthy of pity, with how little of its long hair now remained on its head, how ragged its once fine cloths had become and how gaunt it did look. But Dwalin was not so fool as that, this creature had taken this body against its inhabitants will, and strode to break the barriers between life and death. Whatever torment had been placed upon it in retribution, the thing had well earned them.

And yet…as the thing writhed and growled against the rag that had been shoved in its mouth, Dwalin did feel pity. Aye yes, but not for the creature on the floor, no he felt pity for the Elves around him. Elves who before this plight, this rise of the dead – of their dead – had never truly had to face the thought of demise. True, elves had died in war before, everyone did where war came knocking, but they did not grow old, they did not age as mortals did. This knowledge of their own fate after they died, it was a terrible thing, especially for those who did not need to think of it in times of peace. He felt pity for the men, and the hobbits of Bree and the Shire, and Eohrl, who flinched from the creature's smell, and rotted face. Never before had they seen the like. Dwalin himself did not flinch, for he had seen far worse. He had seen what would become of them all if they did not stop this nonsense now.

The creature laughed, and the crackle of it sucked the very voices from the lords present, or so it seemed to Dwalin. No one moved as the creature, the beast, the fiend sat in the middle of this circle, where once the great fellowship of the ring had been formed, and laughed at them.

'My how days have changed, sweet Erestor. How well you look with our father's crown perched upon your head. Tell me, are you ever the lord he was? Do you dispel your justice with the same fervour, my how mighty you are grown? But let's be honest big brother, you were never meant to wear the lordly crown…you're a bastard of war, you were made to carry a sword at your master's back.' The air reeked where the creature spat upon the ground, and the men covered their noses in disgust – which only made the creature laugh more.

'Elrond might have pitied you, but he never forgot what you were. You are the lesser son of a greater house. They broke us, that's what they do…they feared us, so they sent us away, made us leave because they feared…they feared what Fëanor would do to them. And now it will happen again, they fear us…fear what we will become, and they will come…they will come, and they will destroy this land just to keep it from us. But never fear sweet brother of mine, never fear for we shall prevail and when both the world of the living and the world of the dead finally bow before us again… how well you will look in my bed.'

And if that wasn't a creepy enough statement coming from the possessed dead body of your much younger half sibling, than the creature chose that moment to turn its half rotten eyes to the rest of the council. And that was the moment where things really went downhill.

Glorfindel had fought many monsters over his two lifetimes…and his servitude of the lord of Rivendell had certainly been an education in the audacity of the younger generations. But never had he felt so insulted as he did now. Never had he been so close to snapping and striking out with his sword, hearing those disgusting lies fall forth from the fiend's mouth.

Even before his rise to the Lordship of the Homely house, Glorfindel had always had a fond spot for Erestor, sour though he was. Yet it seemed he was the only one, for there were many cruel words spat behind the councillor's back. Some were obvious – even to Glorfindel's kind heart – ugly, bitter, sharp. All these things true. Erestor was not a beauty – not at least as how Elven culture would have defined it; he was much too hawk like for that. Traditional Elven ideals favoured smooth lines, small noses, and an ethereal face that seemed stuck half way out of adolescence in any other race. Erestor was none of these things, but Glorfindel found as he listened to the barely restrained notes of rage in the younger elf's voice when he found some poor fool tittering at his too long nose, or his too black eyes, or the other marks of his mixed heritage, that he did not mind that. It was an enjoyable respite from the sea of dull-eyed beauty all around him. When everyone around you is beautiful it is the ugly elf, that is exquisite.

Of course, he would never have shared these thoughts with Erestor himself. The look of bewilderment alone would have been enough to strike the once mighty warrior down surer than even a Balrog. Exquisite was not a word the young fool had been trained to accept about himself. It was made even harder when those that should have respected the poor councillor for his position, if nothing else, spat the word ugly and foul as if they were arrows in their too empty quiver at the elf's back. Still, at least those arrows were partly true, it was the lies that really rankled Glorfindel.

Lies like the filth coming out of the corpse's mouth right now. It would almost be insulting enough to burn Glorfindel's finely pointed ears off, if he hadn't heard worse from the boy when he had been alive. The twins were never pleasant children, despite what the rest of the household seemed to believe. How could they be, they were never punished for anything they did…they were their mother's precious boys, and their father's priceless heirs. They could literally skin the hide from the kitchen cook and get away as free as birds. Not that they ever went that far…or rather not that Glorfindel had ever caught them going that far. Truthfully, Glorfindel didn't fear physical harm on any of the house's staff by the twins' hand – it was their tongue that were the true daggers they carried.

'Bastard.'

He'd heard that curse many a time before when they were addressing the councillor of their Father. Never in front of their father of course, even they were not so fool hardy as that. But oh, how they hated Erestor, and Glorfindel could never quite understand why. It wasn't as if they'd had much to do with him as they grew – he was Lord Elrond's councillor, but not tutor to his sons or his daughter when she came along. He was simply a servant in the house of his lord, and while Glorfindel knew that some elves still held the belief of the right of the great over the small, even that kind of despicable thinking should not have warranted this kind of…jealousy in those boys.

What right did those pampered brats have to be jealous over Erestor? True he was a servant that probably held their father's ear even over their inane whining, but nothing more. That was when the rumours began…he'd always suspected they'd started them, but he'd never had any proof and he could never understand why.

'Bastard,' said the rumour mill of the servants of the last Homely House. 'War Bastard,' the twins would whisper to each other when even Glorfindel's back was turned to them. 'It was during his fostering,' those nasty young voices whispered.

'Maglor let him and uncle do anything, and one of them landed a babe on a serving wench. A lass of man I hear.' Said one vile twin.

'No, no,' his brother would say. 'I hear she was an elf maid. A mistress of one of the sons of Fëanor himself.'

'So,' said his brother irate even at such a young age to ugliness in his eyes. 'Who's the father then?'

'Well come off it…isn't it simple? Why else would father hold him so far above us, first-borns always get all the love…even if they're Bastards.'

Those words stay with him now, as he looks down at the corpse of Elladan Peredhel.

'My…my how the stars do shine on you all. So many here tonight to welcome me back into my father's home.'

'Your father never ruled here, welp.' Said the King of Mirkwood. 'You are nothing more than a shadow, inflicted upon the world by those too foolish to strangle you in your cot. So, it was in life, so shall it be in Death.'

The creature laughed at that, deep and joyful – it sounded like Elrond when he'd had a tad too much dwarven wine.

'It speaks. Tell me king of the Mirk, how is that son of yours? Still fucking Dwarves?' Thranduil made a jerking motion as if he intended to launch himself at the beast, but Dwalin caught his wrist in time from where he sat beside the great Elven Fool. Squeezing it just enough in his heavy grip, to make the idiot see sense.

'Well… never mind, look who I'm talking to. He's a little older than I thought you'd go for, honestly Thranduil you couldn't have got one just a little fresher?'

Thranduil snatched his hand away from Dwalin, acting rather like he had been burned instead of saved. No wait there was something else…what was the Thranduil fool doing…No! But it was too late, the sword was already pulled free from its scabbard before any of the rest of them could so much as blink.

The head of the creature that had once been the son of Elrond, rolled to the floor and hit the current lord of Rivendell on the shoe. Yet the strangest thing about this wasn't that Thranduil had lost his temper and killed the prisoner being interrogated before they could get so much as a half-truth out of him – indeed it was something he was well known for – it was the fact that having his head thoroughly removed from his shoulders, did in fact not kill the son of Elrond. No, he continued to roar with laughter, even as his bloody stump of a neck left a trail of blood as it rolled towards Lord Erestor.

'Oooh, he does have a swing to him.'

And in the end only the sound of the creature's cackling, kept the horror filled silence from strangling them all.

'So, they cannot be killed with a sword.'

Erestor closed his eyes against the onslaught of terror that now berated his senses. It was an odd thing indeed to see all these grand lords and Kings of Middle-Earth, be reduced to petrified children. He could not bear to see it, that is a truth – although not one he would ever admit to willingly – but it was simply easier to adjourn the meeting to try and dispose of the body. He had wanted to retreat to Elrond's…his office and think of what this…this new discovery might say about the strength of their resistance. What hope did flesh, and blood creatures have against an enemy that could not be struck down by steel or blade? Yet, Glorfindel had never been one to let Erestor stew in…in anything really, even his own thoughts. It had been a blessing really over the years, Erestor's time as a councillor for…for Lord Elrond would have been far more lonesome an affair. However right now he wished to be left to his own thoughts and fear; but Glorfindel would not be denied tonight, for it seemed he had brought back up.

'Yes,' said the blazing servant of Rivendell. 'Then we must find some other way to destroy them, lord dwarf. Yet I cannot see away yet, for we no longer possess the power of the ring that Elrond did bear to sweep them away under the ruckus waves of our river.'

'Hmm,' growled the dwarf that followed him in here. 'Well perhaps we should just bury them all again.'

'Do not mock me dwarf, I have not the patience for it tonight.'

'Then do not say things that can be so easily mocked, Elf.'

'I thought this council was to bring us altogether, to fight the enemy that plagues this land?'

'Well aye…what other reason could there be for it boy?

'I do not know, but considering the way you goad that poor fool.'

'Thranduil is most capable of goading himself you over polished doll you.'

'Please my lords, if a fight you must have than have it away from my office.'

This at least seemed to silence the bickering pair, but it had the unwanted affect of drawing their eyes back to Erestor's face. And Glorfindel at least, was far too much of a mother hen to resist commenting.

'You mustn't listen my Lord. The creature is a foul lying thing, it seeks to tear us asunder and make us doubt ourselves. Terrible evil lies tumbled out of that decrepit mouth today, but that's all they were…lies, nothing more and don't you think on them for a second, sir. Not for a second. None of us did.'

For less than a moment both the Dwarf and Erestor were of one mind, for they both looked now at that great, shining lord of Elves and thought him entirely mad.

'What are you talking about?'

'The lies Erestor…about your parentage.'

Erestor now openly looked upon the madness before him and tried, despite the circumstances, desperately not to laugh. Surely…surely Glorfindel could not be so fooled, so enamoured with the romance of the title that he wouldn't know the truth, wouldn't let himself even consider it as a possibility. It was madness, nothing short of it. True it wasn't as if Lord Elrond had stood up and proudly announced that Erestor was his, bastard offspring of a brief war time fling that he was. But come on…it was an open secret at best, everyone knew in Rivendell and given some of the knowing glances he'd received from more than one wizard over the centuries, Erestor had served in the house of his father, he was guessing that the truth had not stopped at the border of the homely house either. He shared a brief glance with the dwarf, the member of Thorin Oakenshield's former company that had contacted him first.

The look that passed between them was one of such shared irritation, that it would make even the most hated answer of their enemy not to laugh at the situation. Finally, it was Erestor that could no longer take this farce anymore.

'Glorfindel, I am Lord Elrond's bastard.'

'Don't be ridiculous…'

'My mother was a…was a servant in Gil-galad's employ while his lordship, while my father trained under him. I was conceived in those days.'

'No…no…that's just a filthy rumour. One we should have…'

'No, Glorfindel, it's the truth. And not one that's ever disturbed me, the twins may have resented me in life, but I do not believe it was because of my bastard lienages, much as it was my dislike of their brand of humour.'

'But…but Elves can't have b…b…bastards. It's physically impossible.'

'Ack, who gives a damn about a lord's lineage when he's nay doing his job right. Bastards happen all the time – Lords, Kings, Burglars – there was nary a dame in Erebor who could turn Thorin's father away when he had the mind to stray from his Princess.'

'Really?' Said Erestor, jumping on the chance to look at anything but the distraught face of Lord Glorfindel.

'Oh aye,' said the Dwarf Lord. 'Even my own father had to fend off his advances when the prince was too into his cups to keep himself together.'

'You never hear that in the official texts of that time.' Erestor couldn't help but snigger slightly.

'No, and why would you? Whose business is it of a few more dwarfs held the Durin nose than was strictly seemly. Why…there was this one time when the Prince and his Princess got into such a terrible row, not too long after Thorin was born that she up sticks and left Erebor and her husband for an entire year. There were a lot a babes born then, far more than there had been in centuries.'

Dwalin couldn't stop the laughter from bubbling out between his half-clenched teeth.

'People…people…started calling it the year of…oh Mahal…the year of the blessed loin.'

Now both he and Erestor were laughing so loud, they seemed to have entirely forgotten that Glorfindel was still standing there at all.

'Did…did the year of the blessed loins produce many of great birth? Many heroes, many wise dwarfs of notable repute…or did they all succumb to the bastard's curse?'

'The bastard's curse you daft elf, what by Durin's beard is that?'

'My Lord Dwalin, have you not heard the old proverb that those born out of wedlock, born in fact merely from the lust of another's flesh rather than the good and purely love that our maker has degreed onto us, are fated to be cruel. Fated to be ugly, and miserly, be the wicked and meanest of all his creatures. And even those who marry and produce legitimate sons, cannot help but to pass this curse down to their own prodigy.'

'What elvish rubbish. More than a few good dwarves were born and bred in that year: fine lords and ladies all of them, crafter men, tinkers, tailers, candlestick makers. The dearth of the prince's prodigy is far too wide to ever stick one label –good or evil – upon them. Why even some of Thorin's company were conceived in that most…most…stupidities of years. Gloin, and Bofor too I believe. Both of them good dwarves, with fine and noble souls.'

'Yes, both fine dwarves indeed to my memory. Why it even seems to have been a blessing upon Erebor this influx of such noble souls.'

'Yes…yes…so many…why, though it's hardly related, even I was conceived…'

And then the Dwarf Lord's smile fell drastically, his face greyed and seemed to age fifty years before the Elf's lords' eyes.

'Funny, I had not thought of that before.'

'No!' Glorfindel's closed fist slammed onto the desk between the two bastards. 'No! This is not how it goes; Elves don't have bastards…particularly not Lord Elrond. Elves can only lay with the one they love, and they love but once in their lifetime.'

Erestor smirked, though not unkindly at his long-time friend.

'Well, one of those things is certainly a fiction.'

Dwalin clutched his head in agony and growled. 'I'm going to lay down, get some sleep, while there's still time to do so.'

Dwalin did not in fact go to bed when he left the two elves to their bickering. Yet from then till the day he took his last breath, he'll wish nothing more than to have done just that, to have turned around and stumbled his way back to the guest chambers.

But this he did not do, no instead what Dwalin did…his heart hammering against his ribcage all the while…was to turn back down towards where the chambers of the Council Room still stood ajar. They'd all been much too…disturbed to seal the bloody things shut. Dwalin slipped silently into the now quiet chamber. The whole room was engulfed in an oppressive silence, and the chairs that had once been arranged so carefully were now flung aside in a careless, haphazard manner. Their previous occupants having been much too afraid to care where they fell. And the reason for this terror, sat now as still as the chairs around it, but that wouldn't keep for long. Indeed, as Dwalin approached the vile thing, the blank eyes of the severed head snapped open.

It didn't really look at him, it couldn't turn itself to do so, but the high screech like sound that emitted from those rotten lips was clearly meant for the Dwarf's ears, and his ears alone.

'So, the Mud-grubber has come again.'

Mud-Grubber was hardly the most insulting thing he'd ever been called…especially by an elf, even a dead one, so Dwalin did not bother to respond to it. Something that clearly irked the head more than a little.

'So, it does not speak, or perhaps its filthy master hasn't taught it to. Fine, if speech is what it wants than speech is what it gets.'

And with that the head opened its mouth, the shattered jaw making the gesture very nearly obscene and it screamed. It screamed such a scream that made Dwalin's knees tremble, and his hands fly to his ears in agony.

'Ha! Ha, ha, Yes'

Crowed the head, after about a minute, once it had ceased its terrible screaming.

'Yes, now it sees me for what I am.'

'Oh aye,' said the still half deaf Dwalin. 'And what precisely are you?'

'I am the future, Dwarf. But you already know that'

'Aye,' said Dwalin coming to crouch down in front of the head. 'That I do.'

'Then what have you to ask me? You already know everything?'

'Do I? Well, that's a pity…you see the only reason we haven't let the flames have you already is because we thought ye might have something useful to offer us. If I know everything already, then there's really no need in keeping you around, now is there?'

The head laughed at that, a mad cackle sure to send shivers up the spine of even the bravest of Dwarves…and Dwalin was not so fool as to call himself that.

'If you intend to kill me Lord Dwalin, please go right ahead. Ha! I have no power to stop you, and no will to summon it even if I did.'

'Strange, I would have thought that you would be rather eager to stay within the land of the living…after all you've done.' Said Dwalin.

'Ha! Fool! Thug! Bastard!' Dwalin winced at that last one. 'You think that any weapon that can kill a mortal would even dent me? Ha! Fool!'

Dwalin's eyebrow raised in a sardonic manner.

'You're looking fairly dented to me now.'

'This is nothing, Dwarf Bastard. This body…is…is nothing to me…when it is gone, and you have burned it away I will simply rise and take another. Anyone's really, elf, man, Weasel, or maybe I'll lower myself and take yours.'

Dwalin sat back on his haunches and stared at the head as it continued to cackle. And so, it was so…even if they burned it to a crisp, the body was not the enemy, merely the vessel for it. Fire…that force of nature that could consume forests, homes and armies alike would be useless in the war to come. But what weapon could they use then? What weapon could harm that which had already been buried long ago.

The Dwarf shivered, though not from fear. The room was cold, much more than it had been just moments ago. He hushed a laugh, and watched as his breath – steam-like against the freezing air– twisted up and vanished into nothing. He looked up then, over the head, and towards the doorway. Perhaps another person would have said that there was no one there, no one there at all…but Dwalin could see him. See his outline at least, leaning against the doorway, a long stick made of black-wood in his hand.

The head still laughed on oblivious, it couldn't sense him – not as Dwalin could. The shadow…the outline jerked its head to the side as if indicating something…something that Dwalin could not see. The Dwarf stood then, and kicking the head in front of him aside as if he were no more of significance than a flower pot, he followed him.

It was to the guest rooms that the shade led him – a rather dilapidated part of the once grand house of Rivendell, since no one really came here anymore. Seriously not even Dwalin's newly forged council of war would have come if Erestor hadn't made such a fuss about capturing two of the enemy's soldiers. Moss and leaves hung from the wall, as if the forest had already begun the extensive job of taking back the house.

The shade of the hobbit sat where the moss, ivy and other assorted foliage that should not have been there thinned. Almost as if someone had actually taken the time to clear it. It nodded it's head in the direction of the door, seemed to smile almost encouragingly at Dwalin and then it vanished. The air was warm again, and from behind the door Dwalin could now hear the murmurs of voices and the door swung open. Two hobbits sat there, bickering over a traveling trunk.

'I'm telling you I packed it,' said the first hobbit – a sallow-skinned youth with a hooked nose and black, beady eyes.

'Well, then why isn't it here, Severus?' Snapped the second, an older, rounded matronly figure of a hobbit. She had deep brown eyes, wild curly grey hair, and the dark complexion of the people of the south. She was glaring at her young companion with a heated, barely contained fury.

'I don't know, because I certainly didn't lose it,' the young fool sniped back.

Dwalin coughed politely and both hobbit's heads snapped up; their glares now redirected towards the dwarf.

'Yes?' Said the Matron hobbit, her grey brows crinkling in a mixture of confusion and polite irritation. Dwalin's heart rammed against his chest and he found it hard to breathe right then…he had been led here for a reason, he just didn't know it yet.

'What have you lost?'

The matron huffed and stood up, her knees creaking as she did so and her face contorting in a brief flash of pain.

'I don't particularly see how it's any of your business Master Dwarf, what we've lost. It is our right to keep it from you and though I do not believe you mean harm by asking – a hobbit's secrets are his and her's own. And anyway, there must be some other reason you're here, I doubt you were wandering past the guest quarters by happenstance.'

'Aye no Matron…' and then Dwalin paused, not entirely sure if he should tell the truth or not. On the one hand there was no way to tell it without making himself sound completely and utterly mad; on the other hand, they lived in a world where the dead could rise from their graves and swarm the living – what did madness really mean anymore?

'I was led here by a shade, a ghost of a hobbit with a long black stick in his hand.'

She stood up at that, her hitched traveling skirt falling to her ankles and gave a little nod.

'Tell us why you are here, and help we may provide.'

And so Dwalin told them.

The Matron hobbit laughed, and her sour faced apprentice hid a sneer at Dwalin behind his hand.

'Oh, Mother Magda,' she crows. 'That is a good one I have to say, fire killing the dead. Severus did you ever hear such lunacy?'

The young hobbit shook his head in mock sorrow, his sallow skin tinging green at the corners of his face – as if the mage made him physically sick.

'Tis foolishness of the highest sort, Mistress Mime.'

'Where on Middle-Earth did you get such a foolish idea to begin with, my good dwarf?'

'The Dunlanders burned their dead if memory served, and they would know best out of all of us.'

'Maybe, maybe,' said the elderly hobbit though a smile still danced upon her lips. 'But that was to prevent the spirits from taking over the dead, or at least to make the body unappealing for them to inhabit. Fire is mortal, it cannot touch their spirits – only a weapon made from the dead's land can do that.'

'And you would know of such a weapon?'

She smiles at him, her dark eyes crinkling at the corner.

'I just might,' she turned then to her young compatriot. 'Severus, go get my staff.'

The sour faced young hobbit bowed his head and then vanished completely.

'I'm sorry, he's young – just mastered that last week, you can understand.'

Dwalin who was still staring at the empty spot where the young greasy hobbit should have been, said nothing to that. The boy…the boy had disappeared into thin air…what…what kind of magic was this? And then suddenly the boy was back, a smirk on his narrow face and with a long staff of black wood held out before him.

'Wasn't hard to find, you'd hidden it under the cloaks in the humans' closet. I hope I didn't ruin the fun, if you thought that was actually difficult.'

'Do shut up Severus,' said Mistress Mime snatching the staff from the youth's hand. 'I asked you to get it for me to show him it, not to mock you. And you really shouldn't be disappearing like that in front of other races anyway.'

Severus' sneer dropped, the lines of his thin mouth dropping into a look of embarrassment. Having successfully cowed the sneering youth, Mistress Mime patted him on the arm and turned back to Dwalin. Smiling at him she reached up and snapped open the top of her staff, revealing a long jagged looking blade at its centre.

'I believe this could certainly be of use to you.'