Middle-earth, and all who dwell within it, belongs to Tolkien. I am grateful to him for growing this beautiful garden in which our imaginations can play. Please review!

Kili led Betta down from the hills. She had put up quite the fuss when Fili refused to give her the pearl as well as the map, but Kili agreed with his brother: they did not know enough about her to let her carry both halves of their adventure away with her. The pearl was worth more than ten southern coins, but as Fili had said that it did not constitute a treasure, and their deal only covered a treasure or ten coins if there was no treasure, Kili did not believe that Fili would refuse to give up the pearl if Betta demanded it... but he did not know for certain. Kili was eager for an adventure, and a treasure that would make Thorin proud, but Fili was becoming nearly obsessed with the idea. He could see it in his brother's eyes, and it worried him.

Kili led the woman down the path, keeping half an eye on the hills above and below to be sure that no dwarf saw them leaving the mountain. He walked quickly and she had to hurry to keep up with him. The wind was colder than it had been that morning, or it felt colder after the heat of the forge. He saw the woman pull her cloak tighter around her shoulders.

"If you mean to travel north in winter, you'd best grow a thicker skin," he muttered.

Betta said nothing.

At the bottom of the hill, Kili led her around a flat boulder and into a narrow cut in the wall. The passage would be next to impossible to find without a guide, and it could be easily closed up in a siege, but it was also a useful exit, or entrance, if one did not wish to be seen.

The wall was deeper here, and taller, where it would be harder to defend; the stones were laid ten feet thick. In the passage the light of the overcast sky was dim and the shadows dark. Kili entered but stopped just before leaving it and turned back to the woman. Betta had been thinking hard on her own thoughts, and he stopped so suddenly that she walked into him. She looked up, startled, and her eyes were wide as she backed away. She saw that he wore his sword and several knives. Until then, she had thought him mostly a cheerful and curious dwarf, protective of his brother but no threat; in this tight passage, she was reminded that he could be dangerous, too.

Kili saw her reach her hand behind her back, and he knew that she carried her knife there. He set his hand on his sword hilt but did not draw. "Why did you come here?" he asked. His body blocked the mouth of the passage and the only escape was back inside the wall, which was no escape.

"For the reason that I told you: to find a dwarf with the skill to open a box." The box was in her pocket now although it had little purpose left but to weight papers or hold tobacco leaves. "I came to this mountain because your brother invited me. I am in this passage waiting for you to give me leave to go."

"I don't believe your tale," Kili told her. "You did not walk all the way from Anduin to the western seas alone. No woman could or would do this."

"And yet, I did."

He shook his head. "I do not think so."

"I do not care what you think of it," she said, "and I do not need you to believe me. You or your brother. Do you mean to say that you are afraid of me? You think that I need to lie because I am a strange and terrible danger that will murder you once we are alone in the wild?"

He frowned and then he burst out laughing. "You, a danger!" he laughed. "No, I am not afraid of you. But I do not trust you."

"Then tell your brother," she said. "He does not trust me either, though he would use me as a means to some secret end. Tell him that you do not trust me alone in the wild and then maybe he will abandon this notion of following me there."

"Following you?" Kili raised an eyebrow. "Then you mean to travel into Arnor, to cross the Hills of Evendim alone? And from there, to where? North to the frigid bay of ice, or into Forodwaith, past Carn Dum and the mountains of Angmar!" He shook his head. "No, you are a good liar, but a liar nonetheless. There is nothing I can say to dissuade my brother, but that is alright with me. I want an adventure, and if that means a two days' march east before you give up your foolish notion, then so be it."

"You seemed glad of the treasure hunt," she said. "Why so much caution now?"

Kili's laughter and his suspicion fell away, and he looked at her thoughtfully. He had called her a liar, but there was no lie in her eyes. "Because now we've come to the point," he said, "to stay or to go away to an uncertain end."

He stood still for a long moment, but it was not her that he saw in his mind's eye. He saw his uncle, who had told him and his brother uncounted times that they knew nothing of the world and the dangers it contained. At the time, Kili had laughed, thinking that he knew all he needed to know, but today he was learning new cares and cautions, and they had not even set out yet.

"It is something to think on," he said to himself. He shook his head and left the passage. Betta followed behind him in silence. They both had many things to think on.

.

Betta thought that he would leave her near the mountain and let her walk back to town on her own, but he did not. She thought that he would leave her at the edge of town, but he did not. He entered the town with her, walking beside her, an inch or two less in height but easily keeping up with her quick stride. They made such a strange pair that several men stopped what they were doing to look at them as they passed.

Kili did not care what looks he drew, but Betta did. The streets were bustling, and she took the first chance she could to leave the main road and follow the winding alleys to the inn. He followed her until she reached the back door and would have followed her inside to know which room was hers, but she stopped him.

"Did you have something more to say?" she asked.

"There are safer houses than this," he said, frowning at the battered boards and cracked windows of the establishment.

"The innkeeper is honest."

"Perhaps." He stared up at the inn. "How long will it take you to translate our map?"

"I do not know. A few days, at least, to translate the words. The map is very old. Many of the places marked on it will be lost or forgotten, and I do not know the lands of the north very well."

"Our people travel east and south, but we seldom go far north into the bitter winds if we can avoid it. There are orcs in the mountains of Angmar," he said, "but I will tell you what little I do know of those lands, if it will help you."

"I do not ask for help," Betta said.

"Asked for or not, you will have it, but I suggest that you hurry. If I know my brother, once he makes up his mind he will want to set out as soon as possible, the day after tomorrow or perhaps in two days."

"So soon as that? But we don't know how long will be the journey or how far the map will take us, into what lands we may wander…"

"Then it is good that we have an expert wanderer with us," Kili said. "For one who has travelled the wild lands of the south, crossed mountain and river and field, this should be nothing new to you. Add to that, two stout dwarves, and what more do we need?"

"Food and warm clothes come to mind," Betta muttered.

Kili pretended not to hear. "My brother and I will speak together tonight, and tomorrow we will send word to you of our plans. But for now, do not worry overmuch about your food and shelter. I expect that Fili has already taken thought for such things. Good day and good luck to you." He gave Betta one last, long look and shook his head, then he left.

Betta watched him go. She could only imagine what he thought of her, but she already knew that Fili considered her a necessary burden. There was no accounting for Dwarves, Betta decided. For her part, she was glad to let these dwarves worry about supplies and whatever else they would need. She didn't have the money for it.

She entered the inn, climbed the narrow stairs and returned to her rented room. There was no desk, only a stool and a cot. She sat cross-legged on the floor with the stool for a table so that the pages she laid out on it were close to her eyes and she could see the faded writing. She was hungry, but more than that, she was desperate to know what was written on the pages, the answers for which she had sought so long.

The day passed and the night came on. Betta left her work only long enough to go down for food and a candle. She sat up long into the night, struggling through the translation. The language was older than what her father had taught her, but it was also kin to some of the old dialects in Gondor. As Betta worked, much that was written there was revealed to her. And there were some things that she would rather never have learned, and more that she knew she could not reveal to the dwarves, not yet. Perhaps not ever.

When the sun rose on the next morning and peered through her window, it found Betta curled up on the floor fast asleep.

.

After leaving Betta at the inn, Kili returned to the mountain, but he did not go immediately to meet his brother. Instead, he climbed a high pass to a ledge half a mile above the hill. The Gates of the Blue Mountains were grand enough, but the Dwarves had dwelt there for only one hundred and fifty years, little more than half a lifespan in the long years of their kind. They had little time for works of beauty in their own home. Their hands were needed to scratch out a living in iron and blacksmithing, work that Fili scorned when their uncle was not there to hear him.

The halls of Ered Luin were little more than widened caves and half-built passages. Kili had practically been born in those caves and never knew the proud halls of his forefathers, although he had heard Thorin's description of Erebor, its gold and grandeur, so many times that he could see it in his waking mind. He wondered how often Thorin saw it, in waking or in dreams.

Thorin meant to retake the mountain. There was no question in Kili's mind that the mountain, the dragon and the treasure occupied nearly all of his uncle's thoughts, especially when he was laboring in the forge, making iron tools for lesser men. It was exciting to think of crossing river and mountain to Erebor, fighting goblins along the way to defeat a dragon and win fame and gold. Kili had dreamed of such adventures all his short life, but he knew that Fili was less certain. His brother would do anything for their uncle, but he was more careful and less quick to draw his weapon than Kili. It was not the gold or even the adventure that drew Fili on. It was the honor of following their uncle.

From the cliff, he could see across the hills and plain to the western edge of the land of the Halflings. He strained his eyes beyond those too green hills to the horizon. It was impossible to see the Misty Mountains from where he stood, but he could pretend that the hazy line at the edge of sight were the daunting peaks of Barazinbar, Zirakzigil, and Bundushathur. Beyond them lay Erebor; it may as well have been on the other side of the world. Only the Iron Hills lay beyond it, and if the Dwarves of Durin had gone farther east than Rhun, Kili had not heard of it.

The Dwarves had lost many homes through the long, dark years. The woman, Betta, had lost her home, so she claimed, to the evils of the eastern lands and the wild men of the south. In Gondor, there was war in plenty to drive her people west; Kili could not name their cities or the battles they had fought the way he could those of the Dwarves, but even to Eriador, stories came of strife and struggle on the southern coasts.

He had told Betta that he did not believe that she had travelled as far as she claimed, but why not? Hadn't Thorin come from Erebor, through the blood and fire of Azanulbizar, until he came finally to these mountains and sought to build a land for them by the sea? Betta had met Kili's accusations with a steady gaze. If she had told the truth, then he had done her a great wrong.

The horizon gave him no answers, and Fili would be waiting. Kili climbed down from the cliff and entered the mountain. Betta said that Fili doubted her as well. Had his brother demanded answers of her? And had he been satisfied with the ones she gave? However his brother decided, Kili would be satisfied. Fili had often been called the wiser of the two brothers, but Kili knew that he had always been the more handsome.

Coming soon... Thorin!