Betta sat in silence, staring into the dying embers of the fire. Keeping her head down, she glanced at Kili. She just saw his eyes beginning to close when his head nodded down to his chest; his hood fell to cover his face and he did not raise it again. She smiled when she remembered how determined he had been to keep watch and keep awake after the strange sounds that they had heard. It was easy to guess that he had made some promise to his brother that he would guard the camp (and her). Too many long nights and laborious days had exhausted even his seemingly endless energy and talk. He was tired, and when she had seen him beginning to doze, she had ceased to answer his wandering conversation and was careful to make no sound that would disturb him.

Let him sleep; she wished that she could. Her mind was too busy with worry over the things that he had let slip that morning, the conversation which the strange sounds had interrupted.

After Kili had declared their camp safe again, he had returned to his seat and sat quietly, thoughtfully – more thoughtfully than she would have guessed he could be. His expression was troubled, but after nearly half an hour, he seemed to come back to himself, and then his words had flown fast with all the nervous energy he could muster from his tired mind. Now, he was careful to avoid any mention of his brother, and his conversation was on the future prospects of their wealth or on the weather outside or any number of other harmless topics. Betta read into his watchful eyes and quick tongue that he regretted now what he had said and considered it a mistake that might cause his brother regret as well.

He had talked and talked until he had begun to doze. With Kili quiet, finally, Betta had time to herself to think and to put together the pieces. She guessed that his younger brother had been convinced that Fili had already made his declarations of love, or at least that he had expressed some deeper liking of her than he had hitherto shown before. Kili had seen the bead in her hair and had made a natural assumption according to his own desires. He wanted his brother to be in love, therefore it must be so.

Betta smiled at his mistake and sought for the bead in her hair. She looked down at the delicately carved, golden bauble. It glittered in the dim sunlight that filtered into their hollow and looked much more finely made than she had at first thought.

Not that she thought much of it when first she saw it. It was only a bit of decoration that Fili had added absently last night, some stray bead that he had found in his pocket, or so she had then believed; clearly, there was more to the embellishment than that. Kili saw something more in it, but for now his eyes were closed and, though she was tempted to wake him and ask, she did not. He needed his sleep, and it would be unkind to wake him only to interrogate him on a subject that would cause them both embarrassment, and Fili, too. Why else would he have left her to draw her own conclusions from an overheard conversation? If he loved her, as his brother seemed to think he did, why did he not correct her and admit his feelings last night?

Obviously, because he did not feel them.

But, she reminded herself, Kili had heard those same words spoken and he did not believe his brother was indifferent. If she were honest with herself, Betta did not believe Fili either. It would be easier to accept his given word, but love was not an easy thing; she had learned that lesson from her mother.

Be reasonable, she told herself, and think.

What of the morning that they had stood together at the feet of Ered Luin and he had looked at her in that strange way after she foolishly demanded a proper introduction? What of the hurt in his eyes after he had walked miles through a blizzard to rescue her and her first words were to ask for his brother? Hadn't he been angry, and possessively so, when Harandir had offered to take her south with him? Kili said that a dwarf thought of his love as a possession to be guarded. Hadn't Fili guarded her well on this journey, and all the more so as the danger grew nearer?

Betta realized that she was smiling and laughed to think of herself fussing over love as if she were still the girl of sixteen who had blushed at a stolen kiss. That girl had been left behind at the first filthy pub she had entered in Dunland. That girl would not have had the strength to endure the curses of blacksmiths and the scowls of dwarves, the barter and trade that she had been forced to perform at every village, watching the coins pass through her fingers and getting not a loaf of bread in return. She had found her own food in the forests and fields of free lands and she had learned to bless the solitude while enduring the indignities of the dusty villages she entered.

And through it all, she had searched. Not for gold, or for love, but for home. Kili was right about that, for he saw clearer than she herself might have seen. The ache in her stomach that clenched her fists and her jaw was not anger or stubbornness only; she was homesick.

Casting her thoughts farther back, Betta remembered the many young men of Lebannin that she had known, field workers and farmers' sons; they had been as petty and crude in their ways as all young men were at that age, but at least they had been her equals in birth and property. Not that she had had any interest in marriage; her mother preferred to keep her only daughter close by and refused to sell her to the first farmhand that came along, as her father would have wished. That was lucky, Betta knew now, even if at the time she had been convinced that it was her father's strange ways that drove off better suitors. Rumors of Bereg's cowardice and violent temper were enough to deter any man of moral character.

And then her family had moved to Lossarnach, and the few ties that Betta had formed were broken. She grew older by the day. Well into her twenties, at an age when any other farm girl would have been nursing her first child, she was nursing a grief-stricken father and her mother's failing health. If she had ever stopped to consider her own future prospects, it was only to remind herself that her family's growing poverty would make her a poor match for even a farmhand.

But she did not often think on what might have been. She grew strong, roaming over the foothills of Ered Nimrais where she hunted the meat for her family's table. She grew clever, turning animal skins into silver coins. Vowing that if she could have no honorable man, then she would have no man at all, Betta forgot her childish dream of marrying for love. She had outgrown any youthful beauty she might once have had, and no serious woman of twenty-five could hope for such a thing. When her brothers returned from battle to visit her – for it was her that they visited and not their parents – she would nod and smile as they teased her with promises to bring home a handsome captain of the guard to be her husband.

Her hopes were dead ashes that could not be rekindled. What captain of Gondor would choose to dine on dry bread and sour rabbit stew with a madman and a wraith of a woman for company?

One by one, her brothers died, and then the only visitors to Bereg's farm were the messengers from Minas Tirith who brought with them scrolls of accommodation, lists of all the great honors that his sons had earned for the glory of Gondor, but that was no consolation to Bereg or to Betta. Her brothers had escaped their servitude to their father, but she could not abandon her mother.

A soft snore broke through her sad thoughts, and Betta looked up. Kili was fast asleep, his hood pulled down to his chest. He was older than she was, but his hopes were still young. He truly believed that his brother would love a faded flower of a woman without lineage or prospects.

And yet…

Betta shook her head and stood up. With silent steps, she left the hollow of the stone, leaving Kili to his dreams. She stepped out into the cold.

The air was a little warmer now; the sun was overhead and its glancing rays reflected off of the white snow, dazzling her eyes. She searched the hills and the road, but there was no sign of movement there. She looked up to the top of the ridge and, telling herself that she could keep a lookout just as well up there as down here, she began the climb.

Her tracks were still visible from that morning, and the place where she had crouched to watch Fili as he set out across the plain; she had watched him until he had vanished beyond her sight. She crouched down now and looked out, but there was no sign of movement and no sign of Fili. The distant trees were a hazy, barely glimpsed line upon the horizon, and the glare of the snow burned her eyes so that she must look away or be blinded.

Out in the open, with the wind blowing hard against her face, her thoughts were more free to wander, and she let them. She imagined Fili far away, hunting in the depths of the woods, catching so many rabbits and squirrels that he could hardly carry them all back again. There would be a feast tonight, songs to sing and tales to tell, but at the moment, in spite of her marvelous imaginings, she was glad to know that there were hours and miles between them. Her thoughts were safe from his penetrating eyes.

Did she love Fili, Kili had asked her, and now she asked herself. Did she love the frowning, sullen, stubborn dwarf that she had met not yet four weeks ago in a dirty pub a hundred leagues away? At their first meeting, he had been rude and impulsive, full of scorn for her race, and she had pulled a knife on him when he touched her.

She frowned and tried to remember: how many times had he touched her in the past three days, and she had not once felt the need to reach for her knife.

Did she love Fili? She had not on that day, or the day after, or the week after. She could not remember when it was exactly that she had begun to think of him not as one more glaring dwarf to be endured, but as a companion on her journey. He was not the same dwarf that he was then, and Fili himself had admitted the change. 'Growing up,' he had called it, and he certainly looked older. They all did. The cold air had aged them, drawn down their faces while hunger sunk their cheeks and turned them pale, but under it all was still the same fair-haired dwarf with sharp eyes and a rare but wonderful smile.

Had he ever seen the sea before, Betta wondered. Did he know that his eyes exactly matched its color on a cool summer morning when the wind was fair? She laughed at herself for thinking it. What was the sea to a dwarf who had spent his whole life underground?

And then she frowned and hung her head. Did she love him? Of course, she did. She was far too practical to hold onto a lie forever, to insist that the flutter in her stomach was from hunger only, that the red heat of her cheeks was from the fire or the chafing cold wind. Which was the more foolish, to lie about her own feelings, or to see love in the eyes of the dwarf prince who looked at her? It did not matter what Kili saw. The match was impossible.

And yet…

She scowled. Why could Fili not have confessed himself outright if he felt love growing between them? It was too cruel for him to lay the burden of loving wholly at her feet. And she had as good as admitted him last night that she would love him as a Man or as a beggar-dwarf, but he was a royal dwarf of ancient lineage. She would have better luck proposing marriage to one of the Lords of the Eldar who dwelt at Mithlond harbor.

Betta reached under her shirt and felt the leather envelop where rested the folded pages of their map. It almost hurt her hand to touch it and remember what was written there.

What did it matter if she saw love in Fili's eyes, heard it in his words and felt it in his trembling hands as they combed gently through her hair. There were words on those pages cold and cruel enough to freeze even the hot, forge-fires of a dwarf's heart. It had been days since she had pulled her knife on him, but she had one secret left that would cut like a knife when she confessed it. It was the last secret she kept, the last that held her back from admitting the first, that she loved him.

Any fragile hope that had been built by Kili's slip was shattered, and Betta knew that it was time for her to leave the dwarves and finish her journey alone. It was sooner than she had planned, but there was no other choice. She loved the brothers, one as a friend, and the other as… no matter. They were both dear to her, and she could not bear the thought of bringing either of them north, knowing what could be waiting for them. The dwarves had other quests to undertake, and long lives ahead of them; that was more important than any thanks she could offer.

Tonight, she would leave and in secret. If Fili returned with meat, all the better; she would pack her things on the pretense of preparing for tomorrow's march, but while the brothers slept in the early morning hours, she would slip away. She would take her luck and leave them to theirs; undoubtedly, they would have the better half.

Drawing her hand from the map, Betta remembered the pearl that still lay in Fili's coat pocket. There was no easy way to get it from him before she left. She could not ask for it without explaining herself, and she could not steal it for he wore his coat day and night. The pearl, too, must be left behind, but she was glad to leave it. If the pages spoke truth, then there was a mystery in that stone that she did not like, and she would rather keep it as far from the north as she could. Let it be counted as payment against the trouble that she had caused them.

And yet…

She shook her head. There was on more, 'and yet'. She stood up and the cold air hit her full in the face. It was a bed of her own making, and now she must lie in it. She had not looked for love in the north, but now that she had found it, she must leave it behind. There was no home to be built with Fili, and no happy family that they could make together. His uncle and his culture would not allow it. Kili had described Thorin Oakenshield, his pride and his honor; he would never own a nephew who married a human woman. No, Betta might allow her heart to choose her fate for her, but she could not allow it to make the choice for another. How could Betta say that she loved Fili and at the same time take him away from his family?

The last thread of hope snapped in her chest. The kindling fire died once more. Although it would hurt her to leave Fili and Kili behind, even more than it had hurt to leave her fair Lebennin, Betta knew that it must be done. It might kill her to go into Angmar alone, but she had long ago resigned herself to dying on this quest into the cold, northern hills. The brothers would find a safer road, and a warmer bed at the end of it.

This chapter was rather over-influenced by the Bronte sisters, but it was suggested to me that I've neglected Betta's POV and should indulge in a bit of exposition. She is, as an OC, a creature of my own devising and it is nice to know that some of you really like her.

I apologize for using the word 'hitherto'. It could not be avoided.

-Paint