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!

When the night was half over, Fili roused himself from his thoughts and looked around the cavern. He knew that it was the end of his watch in the same way that he knew which way was north in the pitch black of a cave underground; a Dwarf needed neither moon nor sun. The light that filtered through their screen lit a dim circle a few yards around him, but beyond that, not even the keen eyes of a Dwarf could pierce with any certainty. Yet, their nights had been uneventful since the death of the troll – at least, there had been no sign of any enemy that might attack – and he had grown lazy in his watching.

That must change, Fili rebuked himself. If they were to once more journey outside the caves and venture into the haunted hills, then he must learn to keep his eyes open and his mind alert if he was to be trusted with the watch. He would do well to remind Kili who he knew was more or less indifferent to the need to guard their camp. Betta would insist on taking her turn again, Fili thought with a sigh; he was not eager for that argument, Even if he allowed her a watch, his mind would not rest easy and he would end up lying awake through her watch in as well as his own.

With quiet steps, Fili ducked past the screen and made his way back into the cave. The woodfire had burned low, but he could see a curving shadow on the back wall that outlined Betta's sleeping form. Kili lay along the right-hand side but he sat up as his brother entered. He stretched and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, blinking blearily around the smoke-filled cave.

"Should not have thrown that last log on…" he muttered, still half asleep. "… knew the wood was too wet…"

"Hush," Fili whispered. At the sound of Kili's voice, Betta had stirred in her sleep and turned over. Both brothers waited quietly until she lay still again, then Fili stepped in and sat down on his side of the cave.

Kili grinned at his brother, stood up and stumbled toward the screen. Fili balled up their blanket and threw it at his brother's back, but Kili turned in time to catch it. He bowed low to his brother and then, still grinning, slipped past the screen and sat down to take his turn at watch. Fili sat up a little longer, stirring the fire with one of the iron rods and picking out a dry log to burn.

Betta lay now with her back to the wall, but her hood was pulled up over her head and the shadows shielded her face from his view. She did not toss or turn in her sleep as he would have expected if her dreams were troubled, but he saw the tension in her limbs and guessed that her sleep, if not troubled, was certainly not peaceful either.

Looking out at the dim shape of his brother's hunched shoulders, Fili quietly eased himself farther back into the cave and closer to their guide. He tried to recall one of the old lullabies that his mother had used to sing to them when they were dwarflings, but the only songs he could remember were of mothers and sons, of happy families still together, and he did not think that even in her sleep that Betta would find them comforting.

After struggling for several minutes, Fili gave up. He could find no suitable song in his memory and instead contented himself with an original verse. He was glad that she was asleep; it was original and therefore not very good.

Over the walls of midnight stone
A thousand silver lanterns shone
And broke upon the colored glass
The window pane where stood the last
The first who ever held my heart
Who holds it still now we must part
No other do I have to give
Forever am I forced to live
Alone and carve upon cold stone
The face I cannot call my own

He sighed and wished that he had chosen a ready-made song instead. His own was really quite bad, and even the melody itself – which was commonly used – could not save it. He only hoped that his brother had not heard, or had not been able to make out the words, but it was a slender hope.

Betta's leg was stretched out near to him, and as he looked down, regretting his attempted song, Fili noticed for the first time that her boots were not the same as the ones that she had worn in the inn beneath Ered Luin. He remembered teasing her then, not very kindly, that her boots would not last the journey. These, then, were part of the supplies that had cost her the last few coins in her purse.

He shook his head at her. They had said that they would provide her with anything that she needed, but of course, she would rather make herself a pauper than take charity from strange dwarves. He regretted growing angry with her when she brought up the treasure. Clearly, she did have some interest in the economic profits of this journey.

With a small smile, Fili reached out his hand to touch the sole of her boot. He told himself that it was only to gauge the quality of the leather, but before his fingers could brush the nearest buckle, he saw a gleam from under the hood of her cloak and pulled back his hand.

Betta reached up and pushed back her hood, not all the way, but enough to see him better in the firelight. For a moment, his cheeks flushed red with embarrassment and he was afraid that she would be angry with him. He felt sure that she must bear him a grudge for his harsh words the evening before, but then she smiled and when she spoke her words were gentle and heavy with sleep.

"What song was that?" she asked him. "It did not sound very Dwarvish to me."

"It is not," Fili said. His fear was gone, but he felt more ashamed than ever. "It is not. My brother may insist that I have a fine singing voice, but even he would not claim that I have any skill in composing a song. I am sorry you were forced to hear it."

"That was your own work, then?" she asked. "It was good enough. I wonder what will be the second verse…" She pillowed her head on her arm and waited, clearly expecting him to provide one.

Fili hesitated and glanced out toward his brother. To his surprise, he was more worried that Kili would hear than that Betta would laugh. He had no doubt that she would laugh, but he knew that she would not tease him for composing a bad verse, and so he stumbled over a few more lines.

Her hair is carved of Ebony
Her diamond eyes shine like the sea
Her lips of rubies red will gleam
I'll set her by the sapphire stream
Like silver bells, the water's laugh
Comes ringing down the flagstone path…

His voice faltered and he shook his finger at her. "If you are determined to laugh, then I will sing no more," he said. Even in the uncertain light of the fire, he could see her eyes sparkling and her smile had widened to an almost unmanageable grin.

"Who is laughing?" she said. "I am listening with all solemnity." But the amusement in her voice betrayed her and at his comically indignant expression, she did laugh.

"Well," she said, when her mirth had subsided, "there are few Men who could compose a song on the spot in that way and still expect it to be good. The song, I liked, in any case; and if I laugh, it is only because you look so anxious and serious while you were composing. Try as you might, you will never convince me to do such a thing. My songs are never good the first time around and seldom worth remembering even after that." She sat up and leaned back against the wall.

"I would like to hear one of your songs," he said.

"Try as you might, I will not," she repeated, shaking her head.

"Well, you'll not get another song from me until you do," Fili said, turning back to the fire and pretending to be grim.

"That is a cruel promise," she said, but the laughter had left her voice and she sighed. "Who is she, then?" she asked.

"Who?"

"The woman in your song," Betta said. "Where is this place that she lives full of silver lanterns and colored glass? I have never heard of a place underground that boasts of a sapphire stream."

"Even underground there are blue rivers," Fili assured her, "but it is best not to drink or swim in them. The same minerals that make them so beautiful to look at also make them deadly."

He shook his head. "But if you must know, I was thinking of my uncle as I composed the song. He has often described the halls of Erebor, and much of the stonework there was black and polished as smooth as glass. He was too young to have fallen in love before the mountain was invaded, but he spent his life leading his people and had no time to fall in love after. He has no children of his own; he calls my brother and I his sons."

"Perhaps in your song, the woman is the mountain," she said. "It seems that your uncle loved that place most of all."

Fili frowned and his heart was troubled by her words. "Perhaps," he said, "but the second verse was for you."

"No, indeed!" she said, laughing. "My eyes are not diamonds, and my lips are not red. I seldom laugh like a river."

"Perhaps not," he said, smiling, "but you are laughing now, and I might confide that your eyes do shine when you speak of the sea." He looked into her eyes. They were not shining now, but glowing in the reflected light of the fire. The gleam of madness was not there tonight, but remembering it, he looked quickly away.

"Well," he said, "you have laughed at my song and refused to compose one of your own. Will you answer another question of mine? I have often wondered what is the meaning of the song you sing, the one about the eagles? I have heard it more than once on this journey."

She lowered her eyes and her face was sad. "I do not know what it means," she said. "I suppose it is a song of the West, where they say the spirits of Men go when they die. My mother used to sing it when I was very young, but as I grew older, she sang very little and never the old songs of Gondor. I am a terrible daughter to have forgotten so much about her who I loved and yet remember so much that my father taught me."

"You have lived a long life in only a few short years. I think that she will forgive you."

"I wonder…"

But she did not say what it was that she wondered, and Fili had no guess that he was willing to risk saying aloud. He set another long on the fire. It burned bright and warm and the heat would last through the night until morning. Much of the smoke from Kili's damp log had drifted up and out of the cave through the gaps around the screen, and they might sleep in comfort now, but Fili knew that he must ask one more question tonight. He knew that Betta would not bring it up herself.

"When I said that I would marry you…" he began, and saw her shoulders tense though her expression was calm as she looked at him. "It was not said in the heat of the moment. I spoke the truth and will stand by my word."

"I do not doubt it," she said.

He stared hard into her eyes, but her expression did not change and he could read nothing in it. "Is that all that you will say? You will not give me an answer?"

"I have already given you my answer."

He frowned at her in confusion, and then he sighed and stabbed the iron rod into the fire. "Only if my uncle agrees," he said, and she nodded. He scowled. "You know that he will not. You are a determined woman when you have your sights on something, and I cannot believe that you would let my uncle stand in your way."

"Of all people, a Dwarf must understand," she said. "I will demand what is rightly mine. I am free, but you belong to your uncle until you or he says otherwise. If there is any way that I might convince him, I will attempt it, but he is not here now and tonight that is the only answer that I can give you."

She looked down at her hands and refused to say anything more. They sat in silence for some time. Fili was not happy, but he knew that she had answered him in the only way that she could. It was not her place to confront his uncle; if Thorin stood in anyone's way, it was Fili's, and he had been wrong to insist that she make that choice for him.

After several minutes of sour thought, he saw Betta look up and was surprised to see her smiling again. "It is late and we should sleep," she said. "This wall is cold behind my back, but I am sure that it would not trouble a hearty dwarf…"

Fili looked at the wall and then down at the fire. He reached for another log. "I suppose that I might get a little more heat out of these coals," he said, and was surprised to hear her laugh.

"A thick-headed dwarf, indeed…" she said, shaking her head at him.

.

In the dark hour of the morning before the sun rose, Kili yawned and turned to crawl back into the cave. There were yet a few small licks of flame dancing over the burnt remains of wood in the fire pit, and by their light he saw Betta's small shape at the back of the cave. He frowned, and it took him a moment longer to find the shape of his brother behind her. It was Fili's arm that gave him away, as it lay wrapped around Betta's waist, and her hand was on his wrist with her fingers folded into the fur-lined cuff of his coat sleeve.

Kili smiled and shook his head. He made a hasty torch and lit it with the last flame of their fire, and then he slipped quietly away and left them to their sleep. He had not been able to help listening to their whispers last night, nor could he miss the peaceful smile on his brother's sleeping face this morning. Not since they were children and their mother had cared for them had he seen his brother so content, and it almost hurt him to think how soon they would be back at Ered Luin where the two of them must part.

Kili carried the torch into the ice cave and lit the old campfire that was still laid there. Even outside the cavern, it was warm – not as warm as in the cave with their fire, perhaps, but the day was fixing to be quite comfortable. If the weather held, their journey south might not be as difficult as he had imagined. Kili hefted his axe. The work would help to loosen his muscles tight from sitting so long on a hard, stone floor, but he also hoped by his extra labor to earn a chance to explore down the tunnel with Betta. Fili had said that she would explore while they prepared for the journey, but Kili did not like to miss an adventure, and he certainly did not like to let their injured guide go down the tunnel alone and unprotected.

As the light of coming dawn crept slowly into the cave, he began first to chop meat from the frozen side of the troll's larder. He took care to take only what he recognized and knew to be relatively fresh, but he soon found that quite a bit of this pile seemed to be from the same sort of animal as the leg that Fili had brought them a few days earlier. The only sign of two legged bones were a few fistfuls of feathers too flat to recognize. There would be more than enough meat to keep them full as far south as they cared to go. The only difficulty was in carrying it and keeping it safe from scavengers. In a hungry land, the scent of food carried far.

Their supplies mostly gone, Kili had nothing in which to wrap the meat. He might have stacked it in the ice cave, but after seeing the filth that lay beside the stream in the cavern, and recognizing the less foul but still repulsive yellow stains on the white snow floor in the ice cave, he was not willing to trust any place where the troll might have stood. He carried the meat into the cavern and found a clean corner with little sand and no sign that the troll had made use of it.

For nearly an hour, Kili walked back and forth, first gathering food and then, when he grew tired of chopping frozen meat, he cut wood to stack upon their pile. They had cut many large logs that were good for long burning, but to travel, they would need smaller bundles of sticks that they might carry and turn into cook fires.

As he worked, the sky brightened and Kili continued to chop wood long after they had enough. He enjoyed the exercise and warm air and smiled as he thought of all the ways he might tease his brother for once again shirking his share of the work.

.

Back in the cave, Betta woke first and Fili woke when he felt her stir. He was reluctant to take his arm from around her, but she sat up and he let her go. He knew that today was the day that he would force her to abandon her quest and give up all that she had struggled for years to achieve. In his heart, he truly believed that the only thing they would find down that tunnel was more indecipherable carvings and a dead end. To search it was a waste of time.

It would not be a happy journey travelling south with a disheartened guide, and Fili knew that the only chance he would have to sleep again so close to her would be if they were forced to huddle all three of them together under their only blanket and hide from the cold.

There was not much meat left in the shelter, only the last of what was in Betta's pack. Fili prepared it and left it for her to make a frugal breakfast saying that he would go out and find his brother. They would choose from the less savory fare of the troll's larder. Before he left the cave, however, Betta caught hold of his sleeve and he looked down at her with a smile.

"The pearl," she said.

His smile disappeared and he flinched at the word. "What of it?" he asked.

But Betta was not put off by his sharp words. "I think that it has caused far too much trouble between us," she said. "It is my burden to bear, and you should not be forced to carry it any longer. Will you give it back to me?"

Fili frowned and searched her face. He could not say what it was about her words that caused him to doubt, but he told himself that after the night that they had spent together, she would not be so cruel as to deceive him again.

"I do not have it with me," he said, removing her hand from his coat. "When I was still angry with you and believed that the thing was the cause, I left it in a safe place near the front of the cave. I have not carried it with me these past two nights. If you want it, I will get it for you."

He waited, hoping that she would laugh or smile or tell him that it did not matter, but she only nodded and went back to hear meal. "Thank you," she said. "I do want it."

Unhappily, he left her there, but by the time he stepped out of the darkness of the cavern and into the pale morning light, he had cast aside his doubts. What did it matter now who carried the pearl? Betta would explore her tunnels and by the time the sun had reached her highest peak and turned her prow toward the western shores, they would have their packs upon their shoulders and be setting off into the snow.

In the ice cave, Fili was surprised to see how much work his brother had done in so little time. Kili had already set two large steaks in the embers of the fire to cook, and the scent of meat made Fili's stomach grumble. He smiled at his brother, his look expressing his gratitude better than any words could have managed.

"You have done nearly all the work for us," Fili said, nodding to the pile of wood and meat already in the cavern. I hardly recognize the young dwarf who used to go hiding in the coal bin to avoid his evening chores!"

"You know why I would do this work," Kili said, leaning on his axe and wiping the sweat from his brow. "I wish to see the bowels of this mountain, as far down as Betta is willing to explore them, and she will need a guard. We cannot see that she is safe down there if we are up here chopping wood, and we cannot set out at the time that you have named if we have not prepared our supplies. Now, pick up your axe and help me here. I have cut enough wood for the journey, but these logs are too large for torches."

"In a moment," Fili said. "I have promised our guide that I would give her back her pearl. My first task today is to dig it out of the snow and, by my beard, I shall be in hot water if I cannot find it again."

Fili started out across the cave toward the front door and the pillar of troll-ice. The blue sky was bright overhead and the sun was shining over the eastern rim of the mountain. It was as fine a day as they could hope for, and Kili was half inclined to let his brother search and worry over the missing pearl for half an hour at least before he admitted to holding the thing himself in his pocket. It would serve Fili right for sleeping in and ignoring the work. But Kili knew that his prank, however amusing, would mean time lost from their search of the tunnels. Fili would not allow them to delay their setting out at noon.

"Brother, come back," Kili called, laughing. "I have…"

A loud crack interrupted his words, echoing high up under the mountain's peak. Kili looked around in confusion. Under his feet, he felt a growing rumble and heard the sound of thunder rolling down the hill from above, breaking the calm of the morning and setting his hair on end. He knew that sound. He had heard it before.

"Fili, run!"

Well, we all knew the good times couldn't last for long. Let me know what you think! This story would not be what it is today without your lovely comments to inspire me. Thanks to Borys68, and especially Latina44870 (you know what you did!).

-Paint