"D'you think Bofur's in love with mama?" Kili wondered as they made their way down the frozen path.

"Why?" asked Fili. "Because of the music box?"

Kili nodded. They'd given Bofur's gift to their mother two nights ago, after they'd finished dinner and Thorin was just about falling asleep at the table. Her face had softened as soon as the music started playing, and she'd stared down at it for a long while before saying anything, humming quietly under her breath. Then she'd shaken herself and smiled sadly, and Thorin had looked at her gravely, with something like regret in his eyes.

"Nah," Fili said after a moment's thought. "Got something to do with royalty, and the days before Smaug kicked everybody out of Erebor; I've heard her hum that tune before. I reckon it's just an early birthday present."

"But it's another two weeks before her birthday!"

"Bofur and them are going back to the Iron Hills soon, remember? And they probably won't get to see mama again, what with them being busy packing up the shop and trying to sell the last of their wares. Mama would know what they meant by it."

Kili mulled that over. "Okay."

The path wound steadily downwards, snaking around clumps of gnarled ash trees that had lost almost all their leaves. It had snowed profusely in the two days since they'd visited Bifur, Bofur and Bombur, and had gotten immensely colder. The temperature plummeted so far, in fact, that the lake on the edge of town had frozen completely over. Upon hearing of this news from one of their neighbours, Fili and Kili had been practically bouncing around the house, begging Dís to let them go skating. She'd given in (after being treated to the combined persuasive power of Kili's huge, dark, beseeching eyes, and Fili's bright earnest ones) on the condition that Thorin accompany them.

Needless to say, Thorin agreed. 'Combined persuasive power' aside, he still looked forward to any opportunity to get out of the house.

But Uncle Thorin had taken ages to get ready that morning (the cold made him sleepy), and the boys managed to convince their mother to let them go ahead of him. "He'll only be a few minutes behind us," Fili had explained reasonably. "We can look after ourselves for that long!"

They reached the end of the path, and Kili clung to his brother's hand in excited nervousness. The lake lay before them under the perfect blue sky, all frozen glass glinting in the pale morning sun, quite empty except for one or two sparrows that were investigating the ice with their beaks.

"We've got the whole lake to ourselves!" Fili cried, grinning at his little brother. Kili grinned back, and they raced to the bench that lay near the water's edge, tugging off their boots and grabbing their skates from their satchels and pulling them on over their thick winter socks. Then they hobbled down the sloped bank to the frozen water.

Fili's ice-legs came back almost instantly. He was old enough now for skating to have become like a little used muscle; rusty, but easily improved after a few moments of practice. Kili, however, had only ever been skating once or twice, and he took tentative steps after his older brother, arms spread wide for balance.

"Fee," he wavered. "Help?"

Fili looked over his shoulder and saw Kili staring at him with wide uncertain eyes.

"Here, Kili," he smiled, taking his little brother by the hands and gently leading him further out onto the lake. "Don't try and walk on the ice, it's not like land," he cautioned. "You gotta glide."

Kili nodded seriously and gave it his best shot. He didn't get very far before his legs flew out from under him, and would have fallen flat on his face if Fili hadn't caught him, stifling his laughter so as not to hurt his brother's feelings. "That was good, Kee," Fili said encouragingly. "Come on, give it another go."

Slowly, with Fili's constant reassurance, Kili grew more confident on the ice. Soon his movements were less disjointed (if still cautious). The two brothers skated around the perimeter of the lake, chattering gleefully about their plans for the snow season, calling out points of interest to each other and laughing good-naturedly when either of them tripped.

Then something hit Fili below his right eye, and he gave a cry of shock and pain, and the brothers both whirled to face the bank.

A small group of human children stood snickering at the top of the slope. A few of them brandished sticks, but most of them were stooping to pick up pebbles from the path, handing out the best ones amongst themselves. One of the children, a nasty looking boy with an impressive gap between his two front teeth, stepped forward and flung another rock at the brothers.

Fili scrambled backwards, pushing Kili behind him. The pebble connected painfully with his shin, and despite the angry scowl that he was giving the gang of children he could not prevent a small shout from escaping his lips.

"Get off our lake, dwarf-scum!" the gap-toothed boy shouted. His friends hollered their support. "Go back to your cave!"

Fili's gaze darkened. He'd heard those kinds of slurs before, from some of the human kids in town, but rarely carrying any real weight and never when Kili was around. He did his best to shelter his little brother from the crueller side of their world, just as Thorin did for him when he was very small.

He wished Thorin was here now.

But Thorin was probably still trying to drag himself out of bed, and who knew how long he might be? Kili's grip on his sleeve was tight. The dwarfling may not have understood what was going on, but he could feel the hostility radiating off his big brother, and the wicked grins of the human children were scaring him. No, Fili thought, eyes blazing angrily at the sight of cheerful, irrepressible Kili afraid. No. Thorin was not here, but Fili was, and he'd faced down tougher bullies than the gap-toothed boy and his gang.

(Albeit with friends at his back. He pushed that thought to the side.)

The children were still screeching abuse across the ice, and throwing pebbles that elicited muffled yelps whenever they found their mark. Fili's anger bubbled to the surface. He crouched down beside Kili, wincing as a stone glanced off his shoulder. His brother's eyes were wide and frightened.

"Stay right here, Kee," Fili said softly. "I'll go sort this out."

Kili nodded, but his shoulders were hunched and his posture defensive, and it took a great effort to let go of his big brother's sleeve.

The knowledge that Kili was relying on him made Fili more reckless than he might have been on his own. He skated straight towards the bullies, chin raised defiantly against their jeers. He knew somewhere in the back of his mind that he would not beat them, but dwarven children were notoriously vicious in a fight; perhaps if he gave enough of them black eyes and bloodied noses they would run away and leave Kili alone.

A few of them did look worried as he approached, dropping their pebbles and backing away slightly from the terrible anger in Fili's eyes. But the gap-toothed boy laughed and tapped his nearest friend.

"Teach him a lesson, would you Evan?"

Evan, a huge hulking lad whose hands could've fit easily around Fili's neck, stepped forward with a menacing smile.

"No, not like that," the gap-toothed boy said, smirking. He nodded down at the ground, at something that Fili could not see above the rise in the bank. "Give that a go."

Crowing at the ingenuity of his chief, Evan stooped out of Fili's line of sight. When he reappeared his face was red and his arms were straining to lift an enormous rock over his head.

Fili breathed a curse word that Dís would've killed him for.

He dove to the side as Evan hurled the stone. It slammed into the ice where he'd been standing not a second before, and the crowd of children gave a little gasp. It seemed some of them weren't comfortable with the lengths their leader was going to, to get the dwarves off the lake. But the ice did not crack, and Fili let himself relax for the slightest moment. The sound of splintering startled him out of his inertia.

He scrambled to his feet, ungainly in his skates, and looked around for the source of the noise. He went rigid as soon as he found it; wide, angular cracks were racing each other across the ice, rupturing the surface of the lake like lightning, all branching out from the massive stone that Evan had thrown.

And ending directly under the little dwarf standing frozen in the centre of the lake.

There was a moment of absolute silence, and Kili stared at his brother with eyes as wide as saucers. The ice shifted under him. Fili gave a horrified cry.

The ice split.

o-o-o

The sky was clear, and the air beautifully fresh, but Thorin found himself thinking wistfully of his comfortable, warm bed back at Dís' house.

"You're going soft, Oakenshield," he told himself wryly.

He took his time on the path to the lake; he worried sometimes that the boys felt stifled by his protectiveness. They would be fine on their own for a few more minutes, he reassured himself. Fili was a responsible lad, he'd look after his–

A piercing scream shattered the stillness of the frozen park, and Thorin's blood ran cold. Oh, no.

He ran.