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NOTE: The wonderful and amazing Yueri-chan has made fanart for this fic (OMG ANOTHER MASSIVE THANK YOU IT IS SOOO AWESOME!) that you should definitely check out – it's perfect and adorable and I never thought anyone would do a fanart of my fics :P

Links: (deviantart) art/Shy-Kili-431186315
(Tumblr) post/75313764535/fanart-from-strangers-like-me-a-wonderful-fanfic

Anyway, sorry for the slight wait, I hope this chapter was worth it. Apologies as ever for any mistakes :P

Read. Enjoy. Review.

Chapter Thirty One # Exploration and Discovery #

For the first time in what felt like an age, Fíli was not woken by a barked order from a watching member of the company. Instead he woke to the feeling of the warm sun on his face and the comforting buzz of a quiet, happy conversation that sounded as though it was taking place on the other side of the hall. It reminded him of home in the Blue Mountains, and much like home in the Blue Mountain there was something missing.

Without opening his eyes, Fíli frowned and reached out with his right hand, frowning further when his fingers did not reach his little brother. It was uncomfortable not having Kíli curled up against his chest or leaning on his leg after sleeping so close to him on the road for so long. Stretching out slowly, Fíli eased his eyes open in his own sweet time, slowly sitting up and scanning his surroundings curiously, noting the majority of the company at the other end of the hall eating breakfast.

It took him less than half a minute to locate his brother – who was still fast asleep - tucked up in the corner and he smiled. Kíli had always liked sleeping in small spaces.

Fíli slowly got to his feet and stretched, before running over and jumping on Kíli in the same way he would when they were little – on the rare occasions when Kíli slept in longer than his brother.

With a startled cry, Kíli woke instantly, his arms flailing about and smacking Fíli in the face. The older brother just laughed, wrestling Kíli rowdily while singing out to him.

"Good morning, my dear brother!"

"Ow, Fee!" Kíli complained, struggling beneath the elder's weight. "Get off, what are you doing?"

Fíli laughed but obeyed, rolling off and ruffling Kíli's hair. "Waking you up, little brother, and getting revenge for all those times you jumped on me up as a child!"

Kíli groaned and shoved his boisterous brother, but a smile crossed his face when he finished yawning. "Good morning to you too, then."

"I just woke up to find that they're making breakfast without us over there. I couldn't let my baby brother starve." Fíli grinned.

Kíli's smile shone through his confusion. "You're in a very good mood this morning."

"I suppose I am." Fíli offered Kíli a hand to help him up. "We have a good reason to be."

"That's true." Kíli beamed, and Fíli slung his arm around him.

"So, what's for breakfast?" Fíli put a hand on Thorin's shoulder as they approached the eating company.

"Well we cooked and ate the last of the sausages," Bofur admitted. "But you know what they say; the early bird catches the worm."

Before the two brothers could even respond, Bilbo rolled his eyes. "Ignore him, boys…"

Fíli grinned as the hobbit picked up two plates of warm breakfast and passed them to the youngest members of the company.

"Thank you, Bilbo." The two brothers said in coincidental unison and the halfling rolled his eyes.

"Thorin," Fíli cleared his throat, trying to look as mature as he could. "I was thinking that it may be beneficial for some of us to scout the immediate are for damage or danger, perhaps Kíli and I could-"

"Yes, you may both go exploring." Thorin smiled wryly and Fíli blushed as the company laughed at him. "But be aware – the dragon will have caused some damage and I do not relish the idea of retrieving your body from a fifty foot drop."

Bilbo looked visibly disturbed by that but Kíli and Fíli simply nodded. Fíli in particular was well used to Thorin's unconventional cautions and endearments.

"I've been thinking," Bofur ventured curiously. "How're we going to get the dragon out of the mountain?"

The company paused.

"Ah…"

"We will seek Gandalf's advice when he arrives; he should be here any day now." Thorin decided, and Fíli silently agreed that they would be a little stuck if the wizard did not arrive. "Fíli, Kíli, be back before nightfall if you have a means of judging the time."

"Don't worry, Thorin." Kíli gave their uncle his cheekiest grin. "We'll be back when we get hungry."

Dwalin snorted. "You won't get far in five minutes, lad."

Bilbo tossed a couple of apples at each of the boys, grinning at the pair and nodding as they gave him their thanks. Fíli marvelled at the hobbit's casual attitude and made a note to ask Kíli about it later as they made their way over to their bedrolls and packs to gather the supplies they may need for a day of exploration.

Within minutes they were off, and within moments of leaving they were lost.

"Where should we go?" Kíli wondered aloud, and Fíli shrugged.

"I have no idea. Let's go this way." He started off down a nearby corridor and Kíli followed him loyally.

"This place is amazing…" Kíli murmured, gazing up in wonder at the walls around them. "Is the Blue Mountains anything like this?"

"No, not really…" Fíli replied softly. "Our halls lie within the mountain but they are nowhere near as grand or beautiful… By Durin, this is incredible."

Kíli simply hummed and followed Fíli wordlessly, leaving the elder brother to navigate their way through the mountain. Using the light still filtering in from skylights and mirrors, Fíli led his brother through elevated paths, marvelling and the wonders he saw as he passed. Something drew him deeper into the mountain and Kíli did not complain when they passed by the mines with only glimpses, instead heading deeper and deeper into the mountain.

"Where are we going?" Kíli asked curiously.

"I have no idea, brother." Fíli smiled a quiet, teasing smile. "I've never been here before."

"Are we going to be able to find our way back?" There was no accusation in Kíli's tone, only pure curiosity.

Fíli shrugged. "Probably…"

"That's reassuring." Kíli snorted, before pausing both his words and his actions. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. "Fíli, what's that?"

Fíli turned and wondered how on earth he had missed the white marble staircase leading up into a beautiful silver door encased in a solid pearly wall of rock rich with carvings. "I…I don't know… Whatever it is, it's beautiful…"

"Let's investigate…" Kíli whispered, stepping closer without overtaking Fíli.

The older brother nodded shortly, walking slowly towards the stairs. Slowly, oh so slowly, Fíli began to climb the pure white staircase, feeling Kíli behind him as they ascended together. He turned and glanced at Kíli running his hand along the golden railing, a strange look of awe and silence gracing his little brother's face.

They reached the door which, to Fíli's surprise, was ajar. He gazed over the smooth silver, his eyes passing over the intricate runes and carvings without really reading them.

Then Fíli put a hand on the handle and paused, savouring the cool touch of the perfectly smooth metal beneath his hand before gently pushing the door. It swung open easily, revealing a dark corridor stretching further into the rock.

"What is it? Fee?" Kíli whispered, and Fíli stepped forward into the blackness. There was no musty smell with the lingering odour of a dragon in this part of the mountain, and the darkness seemed warm, not dangerous. Behind him, Fíli heard Kíli fumble with a tinderbox for a moment, lighting a torch he had had the foresight to bring. "Here…"

"Oh, thank you…" Fíli murmured, taking the torch from his brother and watching the warm light lap up the walls.

"What's this?" Kíli wondered aloud, his fingers running over a familiar structure that looked a little like a stone gutter running just above their heads.

Fíli dipped his fingers into the gutter curiously, drawing them to his nose to smell the sticky liquid. "Oil…"

"Oil?" Kíli sounded stupefied. "Why on earth would anyone put oil in a gutter? And why is there a gutter inside, for that matter?"

"It's not a gutter, nadadith." Fíli smiled, ruffling Kíli's hair fondly with a single hand before touching the torch to the drain. "It's a chandelier."

"Uh, how is that a chandel-" Kíli's frown fell away to a look of amazement as the oil in the chandelier began to burn, lighting the whole corridor with a warm orange glow . "Oh, wow!"

Fíli put a hand on Kíli's shoulder, placing his torch in a nearby bracket on the wall. "That, my dear brother, is a chandelier."

"It's amazing…" Kíli murmured, a small smile gracing his cheeks.

Fíli turned away from his brother to look down the hall, and with a little start of shock he realised where they were. "Kíli…"

"Yes?" Kíli frowned when his brother did not respond, confused by the look of bittersweet reverence on Fíli's face. "What's wrong?"

"Kíli…" Fíli breathed. "We're in the Royal Wing."

"Oh…" Kíli's eyes widened, and for a moment both brothers stared at their surroundings in silence.

Fíli gazed up at the rich carvings in the walls, marvelling at the way that the regal decoration managed to retain a homely feel for the comfort of the royals who once resided within the elegant area of the mountain.

There appeared to be around twenty doors set spaciously down the hall, no doubt corresponding to around twenty sets of personal chambers and each door was lined with a silver or gold that added to the overall grace of the corridor. Engravings of dwarves and animals and flowers adorned the beams arching above each door and above their heads, and the ceiling was embedded with glittering diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires of an unimaginable array of colours. Had the gems been placed in the wall purposefully, they would have been far too much for Fíli's humbler tastes, but the beauty had been formed in the rock wall itself and the young dwarf knew that his kin would have only tended and not harvested the veins of pure beauty in the rock.

It was the most beautiful home Fíli had ever seen in his life.

"Fíli?" Kíli murmured, taking a step to catch up with his brother. "Are we allowed to be here?"

Fíli swallowed the lump in his throat before replying. "Of course we are. Thorin said we could go where we pleased, and besides, we're royals, Kíli… We're princes…"

"That's just odd." Kíli said decidedly, though his teasing voice held far more humility than usual.

Fíli just laughed, walking down the corridor slowly. He paused before a door with a silver handle and made to open it, only to be interrupted by Kíli.

"Wait!"

Fíli turned to his brother with a light frown. "What's wrong?"

"Is it right to look in those rooms?" Kíli hesitated, his hand on Fíli's arm. "I mean…the people that used to live here…"

Fíli smiled. "They would forgive us our curiosity, Kíli."

As Kíli hesitated, his brother pushed the door a little and it swung open easily to a sight that took Fíli's breath away.

Daylight poured into the room from a mirror obviously connected to a skylight somewhere, the dust thrown up from the brothers' entry dancing in the beams of white light. There were a couple of fainting couches in the centre of the room that opened before them, and Fíli could see what appeared to be a bedroom off to the right.

The undeniable beauty and splendour of the room had little effect on Fíli in comparison to the personal touches abandoned in the ghost of a home.

Slightly lopsided and childish pictures were scattered atop the various pieces of furniture like dead leaves in autumn, and there was a whole array of toys on the sofa that had been abandoned when the dragon came.

Fíli swallowed. "She always said the dragon interrupted her midgame… I always thought she was exaggerating…"

Kíli gasped softly. "This was…?"

Fíli nodded. "Amad's room."

"Oh…" Kíli whispered, swallowing hard.

The two brothers did not linger in their mother's room for long. Fíli decided he would leave it until she returned to the mountain - it was too unnerving to stand in so personal a room that had gone untouched by time.

Kíli made no protest when Fíli signalled that they should leave, and they walked silently back into the hall.

"Maybe we should leave," Kíli mumbled half-heartedly, the curiosity burning in his eyes restrained by his hobbit manners. "Explore somewhere less…personal?"

Fíli hummed quietly without agreeing and tried the next door. This one was locked, but unlike the previous blank wood it also had a name carved into the wood.

"This was Thorin's room." Kíli stated with mild shock in his voice.

"It was." Fíli agreed, walking all the way down to the next door, another blank one. This time the door swung open again, and Kíli led the way into the room.

A soft gasp escaped Kíli's lips and Fíli's own gasp echoed it quickly.

The chambers were a homely mess, with clothes strewn across the floor and chairs and all sorts of odds and ends out of their proper places. Children's toys and other knick-knacks covered every floor and surface. It looked more like Kíli's bedroom than the chambers of a royal.

What had caught the brothers' attention, though, was the beautiful, lifelike painting hanging above the fireplace.

In the centre of the portrait was a dwarfling who looked very familiar, with his toddling sister under his left arm and his beaming brother leaning on him on the right.

"Is that...Thorin?" Kíli whispered, and Fíli nodded.

"And Amad, and... that must be Frerin..."

"So do you think this was Frerin's room?"

"Aye, probably..." Fíli murmured, his throat catching.

He had not stopped crying.

His burning throat was raw and his sobs had long since lost their sound but he continued to shake and tears continued to dribble miserably down his face.

Glóin wondered aloud how a boy so small could have so many tears, but Fíli knew that there were plenty more from the sea of sorrow in his young heart. They had dragged him back to Glóin's home where it all began; they had said that it was hopeless and that Fíli was too sick to carry on looking for his dead brother.

Fíli did not care if he was ill or not. It had been four weeks and three days since Kíli had been lost and Fíli still stared at a hazy world through the mist of tears for most of each day.

The door opened and Fíli sniffed, looking up as Thorin walked across the room towards him.

"Hello, Fíli." His uncle's voice was low and quiet and comforting, but it was also firm and it demanded an answer, so he swallowed.

"Hello, Uncle Thorin..." The older dwarf put his hand on his nephew's forehead, sitting down next to the bed and Fíli looked at his uncle with dead hope. "Have you found anything?"

Pain flashed across Thorin's face and Fíli regretted asking, but he had to ask, it was Kíli, and Kíli could not be-

"Fíli, we're not going to find anything now, no matter hard we try or how desperately we pray. You're going to have to learn how to live without Kíli, and for that I am so, so sorry." Thorin's eyes held unshed tears and an intense sorrow that Fíli did not entirely understand, and the dwarfling clambered out of the bed to fall into Thorin's arms with a forlorn wail.

"I don't want to!"

"I know, oh believe me, I know..." Thorin whispered into his ear, rocking him backwards and forwards.

"How?" Fíli sobbed painfully. "How? Can you possibly know?"

"Because my baby brother is dead, too."

Fíli looked up, shocked. "You have a brother?"

"I did." Thorin admitted painfully. "His name was Frerin, and he was five years younger than me. He was everything to me that Kíli was to you, and when your Amad was born we were inseparable, all three of us. It was Frerin who looked after us all when we wandered the wilderness. It was Frerin who I depended on for everything, and he in turn depended on me. We were a team, Fíli, a wonderful team, and we believed that nothing could ever separate us."

Fíli sniffed looked up at his Uncle's heartbroken face. "What happened?"

Thorin sighed heavily. "There's a reason why I don't like you recreating the battle of Azanulbizar, Fíli. I tried to keep track of Frerin but the battle was too fierce. He was driven to the Mirrormere by Moria with a group of others and slaughtered besides Balin and Dwalin's father, Fundin."

Fíli's voice stuck in his throat and he clutched at Thorin's sleeve. The little boy did not want to believe that his beloved uncle had gone through the agony he was feeling himself, and he knew from his own painful experience that nothing he could say would make it better.

"I'm s-s-sorry, Thorin!"

"Me too," Thorin murmured, planting a kiss on Kíli's forehead. "The pain never goes away, Fíli, but it gets easier to bear. You will smile again, someday. You will laugh again and it will be easier. You will never be the same but you will live, Fíli. You will survive and you will keep your brother alive in your memory."

Fíli moaned softly but melted into his uncle's embrace. Many silent tears fell that night in memory of lost brothers, and for Fíli it was always remembered as the night when his heart began to beat again, slowly and sluggishly pushing him to survival.

"We should leave. Now." Fíli said quietly, taking a hold of Kíli's hand more tightly than usual and walking quickly to the door. The ghosts in that room were for Thorin alone.

"We should come back to this hall later, with Thorin." Kíli suggested. "But I think that's quite enough ghost rooms for now."

"I quite agree brother." Fíli teased softly, and they left the beautiful corridor behind them.

"How do we put the chandelier out?" Kíli added as an afterthought.

"No idea..." Fíli admitted.

"Seems like a waste of oil." Kíli mused, hopping onto the banister and sliding down like a dwarfling, before all but skipping down the corridor. "I say we're going this way now."

"Why?"

"Because I've followed you and now you're going to follow me." Kíli stated, breaking into a run. "Come on!"

Jogging behind him, Fíli laughed through his confused frown. "Why are we running?"

"Why not?" Kíli laughed, running backwards to face Fíli for a moment before turning around and accelerating further.

"Dragon damage?" Fíli called back, speeding up himself.

"Boring!"

"Kíli!"

"Sorry, Fee!" Kíli's chuckled apology held no remorse at all and Fíli shook his head with a grin, running down the hall after his brother.

"Slow down, you fool!" he laughed as Kíli rounded the next corner, though he could not deny the pure joy and exhilaration that came with running because you could, because it was fun…

Kíli definitely knew how to make life exciting.

"Can't catch-ah!" Kíli's taunt mutated into a yell of horror as a load cracking sound accompanied the rumbling of the floor, and Fíli turned around the corner just in time to see Kíli's hands disappearing into the floor.

"Kíli!" he roared, his legs pounding against the stone twice as quickly, before he skidded to a halt just before the hole that had swallowed his brother.

Kíli was sprawled around ten feet below him, wheezing on a pile of gold and Fíli called down desperately. "Kíli!"

The brunette looked up, laughing breathlessly. "Sorry, Fíli!"

"Oh, you idiot…" Fíli closed his eyes and sighed in relief when it was apparent that Kíli was unharmed. "I did tell you…"

"I know, I know…" Kíli puffed, catching his breath. "I think Smaug must have hit the walkway with his tail or something. Still, this isn't a bad place to be. Fancy joining me?"

"Do you want me to jump down after you?" Fíli raised his eyebrows.

"Unless you want me to fly back up to you, it seems like the easiest option." Kíli replied easily.

"Urgh… You are a fool, Kíli." Fíli grumbled, judging the height. It would not be too bad a fall if he judged it correctly.

"So I've been told."

Rolling his eyes, Fíli let himself fall through the air, landing undoubtedly more gracefully than Kíli had. "If we miss dinner because you didn't listen to me…"

"Bilbo won't let us starve." Kíli scoffed. "He'd sneak me something – he always does."

"If you wrap yourself around his fingers any tighter, they'll all fall off." Fíli warned playfully, and Kíli shot him a soft smile.

"I think the situation is mutual, nadad."

Fíli smiled back. "I think so too."

Kíli's brown eyes focussed on something behind Fíli's head and he gasped. "No…"

"What?" Fíli turned with a frown, seeing no threat amongst the endless pile of gold they were sitting on.

Wordlessly, Kíli stood up and stumbled past his brother, grabbing one of the huge golden trays that were sticking out from the pile with a look of excitement in his eye. "Excellent!"

Fíli started as Kíli thrust the tray at his chest. "What are you doing? Do I look like a serving wench?"

"Esme would have your head for using that word." Kíli reprimanded mildly. "It's discriminatory and suggestive."

Fíli rolled his eyes, still confused as Kíli grabbed his own tray, sizing it up with a firm nod.

"Fíli, put the tray down and kneel just behind it."

"What?" Fíli was utterly baffled.

"Humour me?" Kíli shot his brother his patented puppy dog eyes and Fíli sighed, doing as he was told.

The next thing Fíli knew, Kíli had shoved his back so he was lying on the tray on his stomach and then he was flying.

A loud crash drew his head to the right as he clutched the front of the tray for dear life, and he saw Kíli with his arms and legs raised into the air, sliding down on his own tray with practised skill and a thrilled smile. Gold coins and trinkets sprayed up either side of them as they flew down the mountain of gold, and Fíli braced himself to crash into the floor.

Instead the tray simply skidded onto the floor with an unpleasant screeching sound, spinning a few times before coming to a stop. Fíli pushed himself to his feet and shook his head at Kíli, wordless.

"What?" Kíli grinned tauntingly as he jumped to his feet. "Have you never gone sledging before, brother?"

"Sledging?" Fíli's eyes bulged out of his head. "That was not sledging!"

"No, it wasn't." Kíli admitted. "Bilbo never wanted a sledge – it doesn't snow every year in the Shire and we always just used trays, they make far better sledges. I thought it would be just as fun to try it on an enormous pile of gold and I was right."

Fíli shook his head slowly. He had known that growing up around hobbits would have changed his brother's perspective of the world, but this… "We're standing in the marvelled pile of gold belonging to the great King Thror, our great-grandfather, and you wanted to slide down it on a tray?"

"Fee?" A sheepish smile grew on Kíli's face, his wide eyes coming back to guilt trip his brother.

"What?" Fíli asked suspiciously.

"Do you want to do it again?"

"By Durin, yes!"

And that was how Fíli, son of Dís, heir to the Throne of Durin, found himself sliding down the vast, legendary wealth of his people like a baby hobbit in the snow.

He knew that Thorin would be less than impressed, but what his uncle knew would not hurt him and besides, they could surely do no less damage than Smaug.

The fifth time they went down, Fíli suggested doing it backwards which only resulted in the trays spinning even more on the way down. That time, Kíli's feet dug into the gold at the bottom of the pile, sending treasure flying into the air around them.

Breathless, the two brothers paused in their fun to grin at each other. There was no need for words.

They were playing childish games, and they could play childish games.

They were young, they were happy, they were innocent.

"Oh…Fíli…" Kíli gasped suddenly, and Fíli looked at his brother, whose eyes were fixed on the treasure between them. Fíli looked down and his breath stuck in his throat.

Lying between the two brothers was a single gem a little larger than Fíli's fist – a gem that screamed mystery and magic. Cut by dwarven hands of old, the facts reflected the light that fell upon it and beamed out the light that shone inside it, sending rainbow colours flying out around it like a mirror. It was far more beautiful than anything that Fíli had ever seen, and his stomach swooped as he realised what it was.

They had found the Arkenstone.

Du du duhhhh! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, leave a review if you fancy – I love hearing from you.