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!

That day was longer than any other that they had spent together. Fili lay in a deep sleep all through the morning while the wind blew and the snow fell. It was not a storm yet, but Kili and Betta knew that their small tracks would not survive it. They spoke little, and Betta kept her distance, moving her seat nearly to the opposite side of the fire. It was as if the weeks of their journey had never happened and she was as closed off as she had been on that first night after they left Ered Luin.

Kili could not explain it, but he did not question her. The meat from her pack went a long way in calming his anxious thoughts; there was much more of it than he would have expected and, though in his head he wondered whether Betta had packed it herself, his heart knew that it was Fili who had overfilled their guide's bag before she set out alone. In spite of the quality of their supplies, his brother's health still troubled him. He dripped warm water onto Fili's parched lips and, after boiling a scrap of meat in the water, managed to ease a few spoonfuls of broth into his mouth, but he feared to choke him with more than that.

By mid-morning, the snow outside the cave was falling so heavily that the air was all white with it and they could no longer see the blue sky above or the sloping hills on the far side of the valley. To keep her bruised legs from stiffening, Betta had limped back and forth, gathering all the dry wood that she could carry – most of the troll's woodpile was tree-sized logs – and stacking it back in the shadows of the cavern. Kili had his axe, but he put off chopping more wood from the logs because the task would take him from his brother's side. When Betta lit a torch and went to explore the cavern behind their camp, he had ordered her not to wander out of his sight.

She had looked down at Fili first, but seeing him still sleeping, she had nodded and obeyed Kili's command without a word. She walked only a few yards into the darkness and stopped there, still within the brighter circle of light cast by the campfire. That she did not argue with him showed how great was the change in her, but her silence also made it clear that Kili was now the appointed leader of their small company, and he did not like the role. His nature was to act, not to plan, and ideally to act according to his brother's plans.

That could not be. Kili did not think that his brother had ever anticipated meeting a troll on their journey, and if Betta would not make the choice, then it was up to him to decide how they would proceed… at least, until Fili woke.

"Could you find your way back to the road?" he asked Betta, some time later, after she had returned from looking out the front door into the valley. The news was not good; the wind had picked up and the snow showed no sign of lessening. The air had grown colder as well, cold enough to set them shivering in spite of the large fire burning before them.

"I do not know," she said. "I followed a trail to get here, but that trail is long gone. Perhaps I might find my way by the stars, but they were mostly veiled. We were lucky that the clouds parted as long as they did to let the sunrise through." She was looking again at the pillar of ice in the doorway.

Kili nodded, but he was thinking of other things.

They might find the road. He was not ready to give up hope of that just yet, but first Fili must wake. Yet, if he did not, there might be strong enough shafts of iron in that pile of rusted metal and they could build a sling to carry him between them. But were they strong enough?

Kili shrugged his shoulders, testing them, and felt the lingering pain of his old bruises and the new lump from the blow that had stunned him on the hill. He looked across the fire at Betta who seemed to have given up exercising her limbs and now sat stiffly on the ground, holding her right arm close to her chest. Even when she had walked, she had favored her left leg and seemed to wince at every step. No, he could not ask; she would not be able to carry the weight of a full-grown dwarf, no matter how cleverly they built the sling. They were stuck.

Was this, then, the result of Kili's attempted leadership? He frowned at himself and was sure that Fili would have come up with a plan to save them, but Kili could think of nothing. He left his brother's side long enough to examine the troll's larder and found, much to his surprise, that most of the meat was still good. What lay on the side facing the fire pit had been frozen and thawed too many times for honest mouths to swallow, but the center and back were all frozen and his axe was strong. There would be meat enough to feed them for many months if need be, but he hoped that it would not come to that. What he could see were obviously the remains of hoofed beasts and small game, but the troll had spoken of dark-haired spear-throwers. Kili knew of the Lossoth – from Harandir's tale and from the traders to Ered Luin – and his thoughts were dark enough that he could easily imagine there being other than animal meat in that pile.

He swallowed the bile in his throat and turned his back on the pile. He began to pace as he always did when he was anxious. He had already taken up his weapons and returned them to their proper places. His brother's swords and the rest were there, waiting for Fili to put them on again. There was little that he could do but wait, and his nerves were not up to the task. The thought of living in this cave for days or weeks on end set his teeth on edge, and he walked back and forth, searching for some answer, or at least something to do. Finally he turned his eyes to the cavern.

"What is back there?" he muttered to himself, but Betta heard. She had been looking at Fili thoughtfully, but now she looked up and back into the shadows.

"Nothing that I could see," she said. "It goes far back and is all in darkness, but I heard rushing water. There might be a stream from underground."

Kili stood at the mouth of the cavern and strained his hearing. The crackling of the fire and the whistling of the wind behind him made it difficult, but he could hear the water that she said was there. It reminded him of the running rivers beneath Ered Luin from whence sprang the River Lune and its smaller tributaries. Under mountains there was always water, swift rivers and falling streams, dripping ponds and great, wide inland seas. It would be icy cold, but otherwise potable.

The thought of being under stone tempted him, but he looked at his brother and knew that he could not explore the caves just yet.

With a sigh of frustration, he sat down by the fire once more and took up one of his brother's knives, inspecting it for damage. There was none. He continued to look at it, his gaze lingering over the stamped seal that marked his brother as Thorin's heir. All the while, Betta was watching him closely, and he guessed that there was a question that she wished to ask.

"Well, what is it?" he said, eager for conversation. "You have no reason to hold your tongue with me."

She frowned and her face was troubled. "I only wonder… how much did you hear of the troll's speech to me?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I would say all of it, but I was distracted and though I heard what was said at the time, it did not all sink in. Why? What did the foul beast say?"

"Little that I care about," she said. "But he said one thing while he was discussing whether to eat me raw. He said that the cold had kept me from spoiling and that… 'It froze my old friend in the basement.'" She frowned and puzzled at the words. "What did he mean by that? What friend could a creature such as he have here?"

Kili frowned as well and looked back toward the deep, dark cavern. "And what is the basement of this place? These caves might go down into the very bowels of the earth. Does it mean that there is some other danger, perhaps another troll, hidden down in all that blackness?"

Betta shook her head. "I do not know, and I do not want to know, but if we are forced to stay here for very long, I am afraid that we shall find out."

Kili opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted by a long, low groan from the prone body between them. He rose to his knees and leaned over his brother, for a moment convinced that it was Fili's dying breath that had escaped him.

But Fili was not dying. He was waking!

Through the morning, the storm clouds outside had thickened until the troll's front porch was nearly as dark as the cavern behind it. The air was only dimly lit by the filtered light above and the red light of the fire. The latter shone over Fili's face, highlighting his furrowed brow and eyes pinched closed. He muttered, and the words he spoke were in the common tongue.

"In Durin's name, Kili, put out that damned lamp. It is too early!" he muttered.

Kili frowned and glanced at Betta, who shook her head and looked at the fire, their only lantern. It was not the madness of fever returning. Fili raised his arm to shield his closed eyes and sat up suddenly; then he groaned and sank down once more. He put down his arm and opened his eyes, blinking in confusion until he saw his brother's face. Kili's smile was so broad that it nearly split his head in two, and he laughed to see recognition filter back into Fili's eyes.

Which brother moved first, Betta could not say. One moment one was on the ground and the other kneeling over him, the next moment they sat with their arms wrapped each about the other. Fili had been pulled nearly into his brother's lap and they were pressed so close together that it was a wonder they could find room to breath.

Betta had been determined to keep her distance when Fili woke, but she was so relieved to see him awake and aware that she crept forward. Kili saw her movement over his brother's head and released his hold – though he kept one arm firmly about Fili's shoulders. He held out his other arm, inviting her to share in the embrace. Fili looked up.

For an instant, his smile was as genuine, his eyes as warm and as welcoming as his brother's. That first sight of her was as gratifying to him as the sight of Kili's face had been, but reason returned like a thunderbolt. He remembered the dark hours before dawn and the spirits that had spoken to him; his suspicions returned with the heat of the stone in his fist and the shock of betrayal. Before Betta could lift her hand or speak a word, Fili's face darkened like the storm clouds outside, and he glared at her in anger.

"What is she doing here?" he demanded.