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 crouched beside the cold, stone wall and stuck his fists under his arms. The ponies were huffing and stomping their hooves, making such a racket that he could not think. He had been in a sour mood ever since Fili had gone out into the storm, and that was almost an hour ago. He still had not built a fire.

"Hardier on a hunt," he muttered. "More stubborn, you mean. And better at leaving me behind when there's fun to be had."

Fili's pony shouldered against the other, and the other shouldered against Kili, knocking him sideways into the snow. He cursed and stood up, slapping his hands against his thighs to warm both.

"And you're no help, either," he told the ponies. "I might have gone with him if you weren't so stubborn."

The ponies paid him no attention. They continued to crunch on dry branches and dead grass that grew in the shelter of the hut. The wind outside made the stones creak and groan. The ground was hard under his feet and the ponies were poor company.

Kili frowned at them and began pulling branches and twigs from the stunted trees. When Fili returned, he would want a fire. And if he brought Betta with him, she would need one. Kili looked out at the swirling snow. The sky was nearly dark, and he was not as optimistic as Fili thought him. He wished that both his brother and Betta were with him and out of the cold. They might make a cheerful feast as they had last night before the orcs attacked and spoiled the mood.

"No orcs this time," he said. As much as he enjoyed cutting orc throats, he knew better than to wish for it. His fingers were cold and he'd rather have a warm meal and to bed.

The wind blew, the stones groaned, and Kili broke sticks over his knee, trying to forget his worry. Then he stopped and stood still, listening. Under the noise of the wind, he thought he heard a call. Or… not a call, but a cry. Thinking that it was his brother, he dropped his sticks and climbed out of the shelter. He stood near the broken wall and looked out, but the bitter wind and snow struck him hard in the face. Fili's words were still in his ears, that they must not all three of them be lost in the storm, and so Kili resisted the urge to run out to his brother. He stood, listening hard.

When the cry came again, cutting through the air like a knife, Kili was glad that he had waited. It was not his brother's voice; no living mouth could make such a sound grief and anger. It struck a chord of fear deep within him that he hadn't known was there. The ponies whinnied and huddled together. Kili's own breath caught in his throat. He stared into the blowing wind and saw shadows, black and torn, hurrying north across the plain.

Kili drew his sword, but he hesitated. What danger was there in shadows? And Fili would kill him if he left the ponies.

The scream came again, carried back to him on the wind, for it had fled with the shadows into the dark lands of the north, and he was glad. The storm was over. The clouds parted and the moon shone white and full as it rose above the eastern horizon. Kili found that he could breathe freely again. The ponies shook their manes; they still shivered but were calmer now that the cries had ceased.

Looking out again, Kili saw that the night was quiet and the snow fell slowly in large flakes. The wind was still cold, but it was no longer bitter. He could make out Fili's tracks, and there might be a chance that Kili could lead the ponies out after him.

"I do not fear the ghosts of Men," he told himself, as he readied the ponies. They were reluctant to go out, but he refused to leave them behind while he went in search of his brother. And he refused to wait another moment in safety while his brother was out there alone.

Kili remembered Thorin's words, that the ghostly wights of Men were of no concern to a Dwarf, but he carried his sword in his hand as he walked out onto the open plain. He would say nothing of what he had seen to Fili. His brother did not believe in ghosts, omens or anything of the kind. Kili had not believed before, but now, he was not so certain.

.

Where Fili and Betta sat, the night was silent around them and the soft sounds of Betta's pony could be heard through the thin wall of the shelter. It was some time before Fili noticed that she had not touched the meal he had prepared for her. He had already finished his and was using a stone to sharpen her knife which he had blunted while cutting the frame for their hut.

"You should eat," he said.

She shook her head. "I cannot. I do not feel well."

"You do not feel well because you have not eaten," he told her. "You swallowed too much cold air and if you wait any longer, your food will be as cold as snow and will do you no good. Eat."

She frowned at him, but did not remind him that the food was already as cold as it would get so long as it sat in the warmth of their shelter. She did as she was told and had to admit that, after the first bite, her stomach settled and she felt less weak, though just as cold.

"Do you always give orders?" she asked him. "It is a wonder your brother puts up with you."

"It is more a wonder that he has put up with you who are not his kin," Fili said. "But if you had grown up with such a headstrong Dwarf for a brother, then you too would learn to order rather than ask. He was even worse as a lad, if you can believe it."

"I think that I can," she said, remembering her own brothers and their mischief as young boys. They had been the torment of her father and had given her mother a number of early grey hairs.

"Almost from the day he was born," Fili went on, "he gave our parents no end of trouble. He would run wild over the hills of Dunland, heedless of the danger. Once he was nearly maimed by a dog that had been abandoned by one of the Hillmen. It had grown wild and taken to stealing sheep and fowl from their farms. It would attack any children of Men who wandered alone and Men had hunted it to no avail.

"Kili only escaped its sharp teeth by climbing into a tree. It was hours before our father found him, of course, and killed the animal. My brother came down cold and hungry and badly bitten, but he also came down laughing and said that the dog was no wolf and it would not have had the stomach for Dwarf."

Fili laughed and shook his head. "He was given a sound beating to teach him not to wander, but our parents knew that he would not learn the lesson. As soon as his bruises healed, our father gave him his first bow and a dozen blunt arrows to use for practice. I told him he'd only put out his eye, but he was really quite good for being so young."

"Kili did not tell me that your father taught him to shoot," she said.

"He need not tell you everything," Fili told her. He ran his thumb along the edge of her knife.

Betta frowned into the fire, and he frowned at her, thoughtfully. He shrugged. "Perhaps he does not remember," he said. "He was very young, only twelve years… perhaps younger." He smiled and shook her own knife at her. "See how much of our meeting you still remember sixty years from now."

"I think that I will remember the first time that I was foolish enough to pull a knife on a Dwarf," she said. She looked at the knife and smiled; but then her face grew grave and she looked at him uncertainly. "May I ask a question?"

He raised an eyebrow. Never before had she spoken with anything near to respect to him, but she did now. He wondered if he shouldn't have done as Kili said and called this truce long ago. "You may ask," he said, "but I may choose not to answer."

He meant it in jest, but she nodded. "Perhaps that is answer enough," she said. "I only wonder at you and your brother. I have dealt with Dwarves in many places, and they have all been sly and secretive. It cost many words and coins to pry even a yes or no from their lips, but you and especially Kili have spoken openly to me… or, more openly than they. Is it a trait only of Durin's Folk?"

Fili frowned at her words. He and his brother had spoken very openly on this journey and, should he hear of it, Thorin would not be pleased. Many of their tales and the songs they had sung were not generally shared with Men or Elves or any other folk of Middle-earth. And only moments ago, Fili himself had told her a very personal tale of his family. In his eagerness to keep secret the name of Erebor, he had let slip many other names that might have gone unspoken.

Betta watched his face closely and with apprehension. She had not brought it up before for fear of cooling what was already a strained relationship. She did not fear that Kili would turn suddenly cold with her, but a word from his brother might silence him, and they would have a dreary distance to ride after that.

"I should not have mentioned it," she said and put down her bowl.

Fili picked it up and put it back in her hands. He gave her a stern look, and she took a mouthful of bread to satisfy him.

"You have been clever," he said. He returned to sharpening her knife, determined to put as fine an edge on it as his skill allowed. "Had I thought of it before tonight, our ride would have been very different. You are right that my brother and I have said much that should not have been overheard by anyone outside of our own people. I cannot even say that you have listened to what you should not, for my brother and I have taken no care to hide our words. Perhaps Kili has been right all along."

"In what way?"

"He says that I have trusted you from the start, and I argued against it saying that I did not. Even now, I would say that I do not, but…" and at that, he gave her a strange look that she could not interpret. Indeed, Fili himself did not know what he would add and he fell silent in thought, his eyes on the work in his hands.

"It is the journey," he said finally. "We have only ever travelled with Dwarves before, and I have always spoken freely with my brother. You are so quiet, always riding behind us until we forget you follow…"

"I am no sneak thief," she said, "not of things nor of words. But if you say that your words should have been secrets, then I swear I will keep them for you. I would offer to forget them, but I do not think that I could. I have enjoyed your stories too much."

He shook his head. "No, do not forget them. Those tales are the pride of Durin's Folk, and your kind live only a short span of years. I will trust to your word that you will not spread our secrets, and more than that, I will not seek to guard my tongue after tonight. We have shed blood together, you and I, even if you were in the trees and I at the camp; they were of the same band of orcs."

Betta's face darkened, and she touched her arm. "I did not kill the orc," she admitted, saying the words aloud for the first time. "I barely managed to flail with my knife, as you so generously have called it. Once the beast was off my back, only then did I shoot an arrow blindly in the dark and it fell down the slope. I think that only the fall and no stroke of mine killed the thing that would have killed me."

Fili watched her intently. He had half suspected as much, that a mere stroke of luck and not the strength of her arm had saved her. "If not for you, one orc more would be stalking Middle-earth, fouling clean lands and putting into danger all the free peoples. If it was luck, then it was good luck, indeed, and you should carry the scar of your first battle with pride."

She looked at him in surprise and with gratitude. "But do not tell Kili," she asked.

"Why not?"

"He thinks that I killed it, and I would not want to disappoint him," she said.

Fili laughed, and then he nodded. "I will aid you in this little lie," he agreed, "but I do not think that my brother would say any differently than I have." He sat forward and stirred up the embers of their fire with a long branch.

"You should tell your brother what else you told me," Betta said.

"What else was that?"

"About your father teaching him to shoot," she said. "If he has forgotten it, then I think that he will be glad to be reminded."

Fili looked up at her in surprised. She could not have seen more than three decades of life in this Middle-earth, but that life had indeed aged her. She saw more clearly than many Dwarves he had met who had lived longer. "I will remind him," he promised.

Thanks for reading. You guys are awesome!

- Paint