Kíli looks around him in wonder at the great library. Erebor's library is massive, with shelves of stone and wood that stretch up high and deep into the mountain, but even that place pales in comparison to this. Shimrîn-kabil is not a place that was abandoned suddenly, so the shelves do not groan under the weight of thousands of scrolls and books as those in Erebor do. In fact, they are mostly empty aside from the odd scroll or book which looks the worse for wear after centuries left to the dust and damp of an unheated mountain cavern. Nori and Dwalin have already begun to move forward, only pausing to give any books and scrolls they come across a cursory glance before moving on. The library had already been marked off as searched by more than one previous party, but Nori had insisted on searching there anyway. For someone who has always struck Kíli as so practical, Nori holds a great deal of belief in those same stories that Kíli does.
In some ways, she has always encouraged him in much the same way that she has encouraged Ori, and he knew her as Ori's sister long before Thorin introduced her as his Spymaster. Her father, Kíli knows, was Spymaster before her, but of hers, Ori's and Dori's mother little is known. To his knowledge, she passed not long after Ori was born. For the first time, he sees the strangeness in knowing so little about a person who was the spouse of someone so close to the throne, but it makes him wonder if Nori and Ori gained their love of the fantastical stories of the ancient past from their mother. Certainly everything he has ever heard of her father made him sound as deeply practical as Dwalin.
"You pair going to stand wool-gathering all day?" Nori shouts and Kíli blinks, turning to see Blackberry flushing as she tucks her pen and notebook into one of the pockets in her skirts.
"We're coming," Kíli tells her, watching Nori shake her head before going back to her work.
He exchanges a look with Blackberry, who pulls a face at him before hurrying off in the same direction that Fíli had taken. She does that, Kíli has noticed. The others seem to think that he has been lost in his grief and the enormity of his uncle's expectations, but that doesn't mean that he has been entirely blind to the actions of the people around them. He suspects that kind of inability to see the subtle actions of others around them may have contributed to Balin betraying them with such ease. Kíli has known Blackberry in passing for longer, but she gravitates towards Fíli and some small part of Kíli is glad for it. Fíli, not being the heir, is often overlooked by others around them, but to Kíli's mind he is the smarter, more deserving of being the heir than he is. Many times Kíli has wished he could pass it on, wished that he could hand Fíli the Arkenstone and use it to prove that his brother is as worthy of the crown even if there is not a drop of Durin blood in him, something Kíli refuses to believe from his hazy memories of Frerin and his similarity to Fíli.
There is a connection of blood between them somewhere, no matter how vociferously others have denied that, and Kíli is determined that once they have Erebor back he will find a way to prove it. For Fíli's sake rather than his own. Kíli doesn't care one way or the other. Fíli is his brother, has always been and will always be, but even if Fíli refuses to admit that he is curious about the identities of his birth parents, Kíli will admit it five times over. Perhaps because his lineage is so clear and so much is made of it all the time. It seems strange not to know. Besides, thinking about finding the people who brought Fíli into the world, dwarves who might still be alive, is better than thinking about the fact that Kíli has no one left except his brother. One of them should have more than just their sibling.
He doesn't follow them, Blackberry has chosen to follow Fíli and Kíli would be lying if he tried to imply that he hadn't seen his brother's momentary jealousy the day before. He has no idea what his brother's interest in the hobbit is, and he has no wish to know. His and Fíli's interests have been the same often enough for both of them to have learnt to allow things to to take whatever path the object of that interest would prefer. Besides, Fíli will be feeling Balin's betrayal deeply even if he refuses to admit it. Balin had been their teacher, but closer to Fíli than Kíli since Fíli had been the more studious of them, the one more able to understand and put use to Balin's lessons. Kíli knows all too well that all of his best speeches and half of Thorin's have been written by Fíli over the last decade. It's yet another reminder that Fíli would be the stronger heir if blood could be taken out of the equation.
He takes a deep, shuddering breath, placing his hand on the strap of the pack he carries that has the circlet which holds the Arkenstone carefully placed inside it. He still believes that the only way they are going to find this book, a book that they have no real idea how to use or what it looks like, is to use the Stone of Omens. He swings the pack off his back, looking around to see where the others are. He is alone, or as alone as he can be, the rest of them having gone down different rows. He reaches into the bag, removing the circlet and looking down at the swirling glow of the Arkenstone. It is still, the colours swirling lazily and with none of the urgency that he has been taught to look for when there is something that the Stone needs them to know.
Perhaps the others are right. Perhaps the Stone isn't the key to finding the book. Or perhaps Óin was right and Kíli is not the one to tame the stone in this generation. It has never happened before, but just because the Arkenstone has never rejected one of the Line of Durin before doesn't mean it will never happen…
He huffs and shoves the circlet roughly back into the pack, slipping it over one shoulder as he clambers up the ladders hanging from the shelves. These ones are mostly bare, there is the odd scroll but these are too decayed to possibly be what they are searching for. Something so essential to their future could not possibly have been left to rot away in an abandoned library. He continues for what feels like hours, occasionally hearing the voices of the others as they discuss their findings or find a ladder which has decayed enough that a rung will collapse out from under heavy boots. It is dull and dirty work, and it rapidly becomes clear that there is no possible way the book is hidden here. The deeper they get the more unfinished the library is, there is even signs of water damage near the back where an underground stream has worked through stone thinned by the digging of dwarves.
Kíli sighs when he sees the trickle of water, the mould and damp that grows on the shelves beneath it telling their own tale of damage and loss. The book will not be here. He sighs, setting the pack on the nearest undamaged shelf once more, taking the circlet out again and turning his gaze onto the stone. It still swirls faintly, but there still isn't any urgency to it. For a moment he considers shoving it away, putting it out of mind and looking for another solution. Then the stone pulses, a flicker of light that would be hardly noticeable in somewhere well lit. The library is lit only by the torches that the five of them carry, and those are down to the last flickers before they will need replacing. But in that dimness, he sees the light increase for only a moment and without thinking he takes the circlet and places it upon his head.
For the first time since he started trying to use the Arkenstone, he feels a warmth infuse him. It is strange, almost like being wrapped in furs after a cold day of hunting in the snow outside Erebor with biting winds nipping at his face and hands. He feels more welcomed than he ever has and with it comes a momentary pang of resentment. If the Arkenstone could only have accepted him like this before now. If it could only have given him a clear and easily understood vision as it did Thorin perhaps they would not be in this mess.
He does not consider for a moment that his own resistance to the process in Erebor might have played some small part in the Stone's rejection. Nor does he think about the fact that Thorin might simply have been better at interpreting the messages that were given to him due to decades of practice. Either way, the circlet is still heavy against his brow, but now that the warmth of the Arkenstone's magic fills him, Kíli is eager to see what it has to tell him.
"Show me," he commands, not the ritual words but those have never worked for him anyway.
There is a moment where he thinks the Arkenstone will refuse to respond to him, then a faint image enters his mind; a great statue of a smith, one like all of those found in every temple in Erebor. It is vague, distant, but as soon as he accepts that image more follow. There is no order to them, nothing that would tell him exactly what to do to achieve his goal. There is a book, bound in faded red leather held closed by golden clasps. An elf, tall and stately with dark hair and a knowing expression. The pinprick gleam of dwarven eyes in the darkness. The light of a moon on blank pages that shimmer with runes upon a podium of crystal. A creature of flame, shadow, and fear. Stones that glow with starlight, a ring of plain gold that shines in the tendrils of blackness which dance around it. A sword which lacks the stone which once decorated its pommel. A second elf with hair of gold who holds a bottle out to him. The statue of the Smith, surrounded by dwarves carved of stone of differing hues and type, one of which is half crumbled at the Smith's feet as he works on a seventh. A face with blond hair and blue eyes, but not Fíli's face, and a silver acorn wreathed in flames. The bars of a cell deep under a mountain and the whisper of words that he cannot understand.
"Kíli!"
His brother's voice is distant and for a moment he can't tell if it is from the vision or reality, but then there is a hand on his shoulder and Kíli feels himself pulled from the repeating images of the Arkenstone to look up at his brother's concerned face.
"What were you thinking?" Fíli demands as he kneels in front of him.
"I need something to write with," Kíli gasps, already beginning to feel the images slip away from him. The visions never stay clearly, he was warned of that. It's one of the reasons that they were always recorded. "Before they fade, I need something to write with."
"Here," Blackberry presses Thorin's journal and the pen he had given her into his hand.
He starts to write, relieved when only moments after starting she places a small dish filled with freshly mixed ink onto the shelf beside him. The words are scribbled almost frantically and he finally begins to understand why Thorin has sketched some parts of his visions. It is easier to draw the sword than to describe it, simpler to draw the book. It is similar to the one that Thorin drew in his message to Kíli, but clearer still and he knows that this is the book they are searching for. He knows that it will not be found in this library. Still he writes, still he draws, the world around him seeming to fall away as he does so.
"Leave him be, lad," he vaguely hears Dwalin say. "This is how your uncle was when he was given a true vision. Let him get it down."
And still, Kíli writes.
A.N: Well this one is just flowing now! I got this chapter written the morning after I posted the last one, and most of the next one done within a few hours of that. My poor battered brain is recovering, although it's slow going and not helped by the increase in shoulder pain that comes from painting the bathroom and seeing a chiropractor for said shoulder. Apparently the noises my shoulder and neck made when he was yanking me around were good noises. Not sure what that says about the general state of my body and the way that I do things, but it didn't feel like a good thing just then. Also, my posture is rubbish and I spend too much time reading and looking at screens. Tell me something I didn't know!