A/N: I apologize for not updating yesterday. Life decided to screw with me. I hope you enjoy tonight's chapter though. I wanted to play with something I experimented briefly with earlier in the story. We'll see how it plays out.

Date: TA 2941

Thorin: 195 years old

Lina: 192 years old

One moment there was light, the next, darkness. Sometimes there were flashes of colors or images. None of them made sense. There was pain. She felt it lancing through her. Yet the pain was not hers. She felt it, but did not truly experience it. It was like knowing some part of one's body should hurt and feeling it ache as one thought about it, but the hurt would stop once the attention was taken from it. Instinctively, she attempted to soothe the pain in the dream.

It felt like her mind had been seized in a trap. She nearly wrenched her mind free, but thought better of it. Whatever had a grip on her mind was not trying to hurt her. The sensation, she thought, must be akin to that of a drowning man clinging to a floating object, desperate to keep from going under. In this case, she was the lifesaving floating object.

As long as her consciousness rested quietly, the other presence was quiet. Whenever she tried to pull back, a sense of desperation and a sudden jolt of fear flooded her mind. She decided the grip on her mind had to belong to someone else. For the life of her, she could not figure out who it would be. She wasn't even sure where she was or what was happening to her.

Panic began to rise within her as she thought. She could remember nothing. She existed. Surely that much was true if she was able to think. Yet she didn't know anything. Who was she? Where was she? Faces moved through her mind, but she couldn't name any of them. Had her face been among those moving through her consciousness? She didn't know. This not knowing frightened her. One of the faces evoked a sense of deep longing within her, but she could not understand why. She was aware of only one thing about herself: she was female. The face evoking such emotion was most certainly male. His eyes were a blue and his nose sharp. Grey streaks ran through a dark mane of hair. Whoever he was, he was quite handsome. She imagined he was someone important to her, but there was no recollection beyond the longing she felt.

Concentrating, she attempted to figure out where she was at the very least. Vague flashes of flames and wings came to her. There the images ended. Frustrated, she extended her thoughts toward the other presence. Perhaps they had memories, or at least sight, she could draw from. Her thoughts melded with those of the other presence. There was no exchange of coherent thoughts, just images and flashes of color. The flames at least seemed consistent with what was in the other's mind. Of the wings there was no sign. There was a foul-looking creature that ran on all fours. A vague understanding of what it was entered her thoughts: warg. Wargs fit perfectly with her flames and wings, forming a small scene. The wings carried the wargs over flames and dropped them into darkness. It seemed like a plausible memory.

The Other disagreed. There were no wings in the Other's memories. There was another type of creature in the Other's mind: an orc. Calling the creature an orc made sense to her for some reason. Some of them rode the wargs. The Other had a sudden flash of memory. A pale orc sat astride a white warg. There was anger at the orc. She felt the anger rising from the Other, her own anger rising up to join. For some inexplicable reason, she was as angry with the orc as the Other was.

Why was she angry? What had the orc done? She thought hard, focusing on the creature. It was fighting someone. She watched as the orc's warg leapt from a low ridge at a short, armed being. Then the memory of the earlier pain came to her as she saw the warg's jaws close around the being. For the first time, she saw the being's face. It matched the face which had drawn such longing from her. The connection brought with it a terrible pain deep within her, a sorrow at the male's pain. As the male's face appeared in her mind, the Other reacted. Through a series of images and feelings, the Other communicated that he was the male she'd reacted so strongly to.

So the Other, he, now had a face. But what did she look like? If he could recognize himself, would she be able to recognize herself? If she could, then her face had obviously not been one of those she saw earlier. To communicate her identity confusion, she showed him the image of his face beside a blank face, mentally nudging his face away and drawing the blank face near. Apparently he understood, for he offered a new face, one that had not been in the previous set. She felt a flash of recognition at the scars and long blonde hair. She knew that was her face. The blank face was replaced by her face.

A sense of relief filled her now that she at least knew what she looked like. It was one step closer to learning who she was. A wave of affection washed over her, projected by him. Accepting such a gesture felt so natural. Returning it felt right.

She felt the pain spike distantly. His consciousness seemed to jerk at the sudden spike. Whatever the pain was, it was happening to him. Extending her consciousness, she tried to shield him from the pain. The attempt seemed to work as the pain faded.

She sent the memory of him being bitten by the warg. Was that what had caused the pain? He sent back an affirmative after a moment's consideration. The memory seemed right to him. The memory moved backwards in her mind. He was going backwards to an earlier event. There was a tree hanging over a cliff. He was holding the hand of a female, her. She was dangling from the tree. Her lips moved and a sound came forth.

Frustration took her as she tried in vain to understand what she had said. The words made no sense. Obviously the words meant nothing to him, or he had not heard them. They were stuck.

Once, she and he were living beings. They had obviously shared a special bond, one that still existed even when they appeared to have no physical form. However, they couldn't be totally separated from their bodies, could they? The pain had to be coming from somewhere, somewhere physical. What had happened to them?

When no answer presented itself, she allowed herself to relax in the warmth of his mind's touch. For a moment, she could almost remember lying beside him, her small body tucked against his. Then, as quickly as the memory had appeared, it vanished. She was left feeling contented and safe. He seemed to feel the same as he tangled his consciousness further with hers.

A sound, the same sound she had uttered in the memory, penetrated the darkness and the tightly melded minds. Both of them started, their conscious minds separating slightly. He was being pulled from her. She was ready to fight for him, but he seemed certain whatever was pulling him away was good. He tugged her after him, keeping his mind's touch light and loving upon her. Hesitantly, she followed.

The farther she followed him, the more light penetrated the darkness. Suddenly his consciousness was gone. She nearly retreated back into the darkness, then, steeling herself, she decided to follow him into the light.

At first the light was blinding, and then it faded to a tolerable level. Faces swam into view. Words began to make sense.

"Aunt Lina!" Hands were lifting her up. Her name was Lina. A huge weight seemed to have lifted from her. She knew who she was now, and she had a body still. Memories came flooding back: following the trail to the elves, the flight from goblin town, the warg attack. Thorin.

"Thorin!" He'd been trapped in that darkness without a name or body too.

"He's here, Lina," Gandalf answered, a satisfied smile upon his lips. Sure enough, Thorin appeared behind the wizard. Dried blood caked the fur of his coat, but he did not move as if the wounds pained him any longer. He extended one hand to his wife, a small smile of relief playing with his lips. Thorin pulled Lina to her feet.

Then, looking about, he asked, "The hobbit?"

"Bilbo's here." Gandalf gestured over the heads of the dwarves. The group parted to reveal the hobbit standing awkwardly at the back.

"I said you would be a burden, a hindrance," Thorin said, "And I have never been so wrong."

Lina smiled with pride as her husband embraced Bilbo. The hobbit had risked everything to save Thorin when no one else could. To see Thorin forgetting his pride for a moment was a beautiful thing.

The hobbit looked over Thorin's shoulder at Lina, then back to Thorin. A question hung in his eyes.

"I know what happened to Thorin," he told Gandalf. "But why did Lina end up in the shadows with him?"

Lina and Thorin looked to the wizard for an explanation as much as the others did.

"That, my dear Mr. Baggins, is quite a long explanation, one we do not have time for at the moment. It shall be told in good time. However, we have a long way to go and a very short time to get there," he announced. With that, Gandalf led the confused dwarves down from the massive peak they'd been on.

Thorin caught Lina's hand and pressed it to his lips. His eyes met hers and a soft smile lit his whole face. Lina's chest swelled with emotion at the love in his gaze. There are no words to sufficiently describe what passed between the two in that moment, and no words passed between them. All that happened between them was a long look and an even longer kiss.