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!

The worst of the crossing was over and what was left, though difficult and dangerous, troubled the company only a little. Fili had gone down the tunnel nearly a quarter of a mile and back, and he declared it… a tunnel. There was little more that he could say, and less that he had learned about it in so short a time. Their path descended far into the mountain, running east and curving south; it joined up with small rooms and side passages, but none that looked promising, and there was no hint of any door to the outside.

One small comfort was that there was no sign either that the passage would prove to be a dead end, and no indication of any danger to them. The walls were strong and well-built, and Fili found nothing to suggest that any feet but his had trod that path for an hundred years or more. He returned to the entrance of the tunnel and signed to his brother what he had seen. There was no reason to change their former plans. They would bring the rest of the company across and continue on from there.

Working quickly, Kili knotted the troll's rotted rope to one end of the sound one from Betta's pack. The extra few feet of length proved just enough that, with an iron rod tied for weight, he was able to swing one end across the chasm to the cave where Fili caught it. If the angle had been better, they might have tightened the line and slid their supplies down from one end to the other; instead, the dwarves devised a scheme whereby Kili would fasten small bundles of their wood and meat to his end of the rope and drop them over the side of the shelf. Fili would then be able to draw up the bundle into the cave, untie it and pass the rope back to his brother. In this way, their burdens would be passed in small enough batches not to overstress the rotted rope, but it would take much longer.

While the brothers threw the rope back and forth, Betta stood in the tunnel, tying and untying their supplies into bundles the size that Kili had directed her. Her fingers were stiff and sore from the cold, but she was glad not to be standing on the shelf, watching anxiously and waiting, aware that any slip might still send one of the brothers tumbling over and into the falls. One or the other, or both…

She frowned and shook her head, dismissing the thoughts and focusing on her work. While Fili drew up yet another bundle, Kili walked back to the tunnel to pick up the next. He saw Betta's angry frown and her narrowed eyes focused on the task; he hesitated to interrupt her, guessing what it was that troubled her thoughts.

Finally, he spoke up gently. "You were afraid for him, too," he said.

She pursed her lips and pulled hard at the string. "I am still afraid for him. Are you not?" She looked up at him with an accusing eye.

Kili shrugged. "I am more afraid for us who still have to make the crossing. Fili has most of our supplies. If we die, he can look after himself."

"He should not need to."

"What do you…?"

"He should not need to put himself in danger. I should have been able to…" She stopped and shook her head. She did not know what more she could have done, but there must have been something.

Kili nodded. "That I do understand," he said. "I will not tell you not to blame yourself, for I still hold myself to blame for how close it got. We should have prepared better to prevent him from slipping, but it was Fili's choice to go first. Your arms are not as strong as his. If you had gone, you would have fallen, and even if you had not fallen, you would not have had the strength to do what he is doing now." He smiled. "You see, he was the best choice to cross first."

Betta stood up and looked him in the eye. "I heard what you said before," she told him. "You wish I were a man."

He stared at her in surprise and confusion. "I certainly do not," he protested, "and I know that my brother does not. But if that is what worries you, I tell you from personal experience that if you had been a man when Fili fell, you would not have been able to do any more for him than you did."

"I will not be coddled. I am not weak."

"You are not," he agreed. "But what brings this up now? When have I ever treated you that way?"

She knelt down and tied off the last of the bundle, then stood up and handed it to him. Her eyes were on the bundle and not on Kili, but he saw in her face the same look of grief that he had seen pass through his mother's eyes whenever her brother, Frerin, was mentioned.

"I could not fight beside my uncles or my brothers or my father…" Betta said, shaking her head sadly. "I was untrained and had been treated too softly as a girl. Even if I had wanted to fight, it would not have been allowed. I loved them and they are dead."

Kili frowned and did not fully understand her, but he nodded as if he did. "Fili will be waiting for this," he said, holding the bundle. "If you do not wish to be coddled, then when the next is ready, you may carry it out to me. I hope that there will be no more need for battle on this journey, but if there is, you have your bow still."

She looked at the bow where it leaned against the wall. She had had little need of the weapon in the enclosed tunnels or in the cavern above when she was limited by her crutch and sprained ankle. When she looked back at him, the old determined fire had returned to her eyes. "I do," she agreed, "and I will use it. Thank you."

Kili hesitated, wondering whether he had done right to encourage her, but he had tarried too long already and by the time he returned to the shelf, he could see Fili looking out from the cave with worry in his eyes.

It took them a few short hours to pass all their baggage over the brink, but they had begun late in the day. Fili finally drew up the last bundle of meat just as the chasm burst suddenly into flame with the bright rays of the sun. The light washed over them, shining brighter and brighter, dancing on the walls. Betta and Kili could not attempt the narrow crossing while that brilliance dazzled their eyes, and Fili could not have watched out for them while looking into the glare.

They sat impatiently waiting for the sun to fall below the window. To Betta's eyes, the yellow light was cold and dull. She no longer thought that the glittering chasm was a treasure to behold; it was a place of death and one that had nearly killed her love.

Fili and Kili were equally impatient. Fili sat within the tunnel, measuring the line of their rope and guessing how far it would reach after it was tied around Betta's slim waist and Kili's not-so-slim one. Kili stood on the shelf with his face to the light, but he looked more often toward his brother than at the sparkling falls. No one was tempted to look down into the torrential waters below.

Finally, the light show ended and Fili threw the rope back to his brother. Kili tied the end firmly around Betta's waist. She would have no need to untie it until she was safe inside the tunnel. There had been much signing back and forth between the two brothers that she did not understand, but they had decided that the safest course was to keep the rotten end of rope tied and to let Fili draw the line in on his side. He was confident that he could hold up Betta's lighter weight and brace his feet in one of the shallow cracks on the tunnel floor so that he would not be drawn over with her if she fell.

Betta paid little attention to their talk or their worry. Her fear was for the dark, not of heights. When she finally stepped out onto the bridge, her small feet fit easily onto the narrow ledge and she had little trouble making her way across until she was at the far end and Fili was able to reach out and take hold of her belt. He drew her into the tunnel and into his arms where he held her close, and she was just as eager to kiss him and reassure herself that he was safe and whole.

For several minutes, Kili waited on the shelf, holding his end of the rope that stretched across the chasm and disappeared into the tunnel on the other side. He did not begrudge his brother and Betta their warm reunion, but eventually he grew impatient at being left out. He tugged gently at his end of the rope, reminding them that there was still one more member of their company who wished to be helped across.

His own passage was more difficult than Betta's, and almost as risky as his brother's. By the time Kili set foot on the bridge, nearly all the light had faded from the window above the chasm and he could see only dim shadows and the outline of his brother's pale face backlit by the torch that Betta held for him. Kili relied wholly on Fili's description of the path that he was to traverse, of where there may be loose stones or sunken fissures, where a raised edge might trip him up. Neither brother was willing to leave their rope behind; Kili had tied himself to one end and Fili held the other; if Kili fell, they both knew that his brother may well fall with him, but Fili refused to let Betta touch the line and add her strength to his. She stood far back in the tunnel – there was only room for one at the entrance looking out – with the torch in her hand and her eyes shut tight. If the end came, she did not wish to see it. She was helpless again and did not like it.

As he had done with Betta, Fili held the weaker end of their rope and drew it in as his brother made his way across. He held his breath and braced his feet; with each step that Kili took, his anxiety tightened in his chest until he held the stronger rope in his hands. At least then, he would have a chance to hold Kili's weight if he fell.

Of course, Kili did not fall and all their worry was for nothing. He reached the end of the bridge and with Fili's help, swung himself into the tunnel and into his brother's arms. Fili held him close, as close even as he had held Betta, but he did not hold him as long. After a brief reunion, they broke apart and Kili slapped his brother on the back with a smile. "Nothing to it, eh, Fili? Just like back home."

"I was not at all worried," Fili said with a shrug. "Why, were you?"

Kili laughed, but his legs were still shaking from fear and adrenaline. He shook his head and then pushed his brother toward Betta who still stood with her eyes closed and had not heard their voices over the roar of the water outside.

Fili stepped up to her and touched her arm. She opened her eyes and when she counted two whole dwarves standing smiling on the threshold of the tunnel, she laughed and hugged Fili again. Kili knew that her relief was not equal for both brothers, but he did not blame her. Her greater gratitude for Fili's life only proved what she had said before, that she loved Kili as a brother and Fili as something more.

They took up their various bags and baggage that lay strewn about the floor of the tunnel, and Fili led them farther in, beyond the noise of the waters. It was nearly dark in the chasm and no light reached them there. They would rest the night after their long and anxious labor, but then they must move on.

The torch had gone out and Kili built their small campfire in the dark, his hands working with well-practiced skill. While he began the cooking, Betta cut cloth from her old sling and bound Fili's torn hand. There was little that they could do for the scratches on his cheek, but those, at least were shallow and had stopped bleeding on their own. That done, they sat around the fire and cooked what meat they could before the embers died and darkness took their sight from them once more.

"Let us hope that this was the most difficult trial of this leg of our journey," Kili muttered, chewing on a tough and tasteless bite of meat. The desperation of their crossing had drained the last of his good cheer and made him as grim as his brother.

"I hope that it was," Fili agreed. He hoped, but his own heart told him that it was far more likely that they would face many other dangers, too, before death or the open air found them.

The tunnel was silent again, save for the soft sound of the embers burning, until Kili sighed and said, "I would not mind the dark so much, nor the underground, if only there were some better food to find… and water. I wish that we had more than one skin to carry our drink."

"As do I," Fili agreed again, mechanically. He stared hard at what was left of the fire, clinging to the light of the fading embers. Betta had been careful not to use much of their water in cleaning his wounds, but he knew that every drop was one taken out of the mouths of his company. They could not know for certain whether they would find another fresh spring along their path so far below ground.

Betta sat beside him – and Kili across from them – and he felt her hand on his arm. He turned to look at her, but in the dim light he could not read her expression. He saw movement as she shook her head and had to resist the temptation to reach up to touch her face, to see with his fingers whether she smiled or frowned at him.

"Wishes will not help us here," she said. "Nor will hope, I think, but why worry over what tomorrow brings when today is yet uncertain? We must go on. It is a fact."

He guessed that she meant it to reassure him and did not know how bleak her words sounded to other ears. Going on without hope was as natural to her as living under stone was to him and his brother, and he covered her hand with his and smiled though she could not see it. "I will worry about tomorrow," he told her, "and the day after that, too. I have made myself leader of this company, and such is my burden to bear… though I wonder if I did not take on the load before I was ready to carry it. It has proved far heavier than I thought it would be."

She pressed is hand and said, "Wait until our journey ends, and then we will consider how well you have done." She echoed back his own words from the night before, even imitating the tone of his voice, and Kili laughed to himself under cover of darkness. "We are alive," Betta went on, "and we are glad that you are alive. That is enough."

"Where there is life, there is hope," Kili said. "Though it may seem that we are the only life in this place, I do not give up hope."

Fili nodded, comforted by both of his companions. The light had faded finally and he could no longer see even the shadows of his brother or Betta, but he knew they were there. Kili's presence would always be felt in his heart, and Betta's hand was warm, her weight against his side a reassurance to him that she had not wandered off again.

"With hope or without it, we go on or we lay down to die," Fili said. "I have no intention of giving up just yet. Take your rest, Kili. My watch is first and you shall have the second, then we will go on. We must trust to our own sense of time; there will be no more daylight here."

"Our only light is what we make ourselves," Betta said softly under her breath. Only Fili was near enough to hear it.

Forgetting his restraint, he reached up and touched her cheek lightly with his fingertips. "The same may be said of our hope," he told her and felt the smile pull at her mouth.

She moved and he felt her arms working their way under his coat and around his waist. Her hands were warm there, too. "You are my hope," she whispered in his ear, "so don't go falling off of anymore cliffs."

He smiled and he nodded, hearing in her voice the fear she had felt to see him almost fall. He could not imagine what he would have done if she had slipped during her crossing. They sat together quietly, whispering each in the other's ear so that they would not wake Kili whose snores could already be heard. It was some time before Fili felt her head nod onto his shoulder and heard her breath slow. She had fallen asleep, and this time, he made doubly sure that his arms were wrapped firmly about her; she would not slip away and he would not doze off and fail his watch again, risking his company's safety.

.

Fili kept his word and did not fall asleep on his watch. He woke his brother three hours later and, inadvertently, woke Betta as well when he reached across the tunnel. She was more polite to him that Kili, who muttered in annoyance at being expected to stay awake in the dark, but there was no help for it.

"There is nothing but dark," Fili reminded him and his brother grudgingly agreed. Fili returned to Betta's side and they both fell asleep again until Kili woke them at the end of his turn.

Rested, for the most part, they packed up their things and began the long walk through darkness. They lit only one torch, and Fili carried it at the head of their line. Betta followed after him and Kili after her, but the floor was smooth and Fili knew that there would be no obstacles as far as he had walked the passage before.

Now and again, they passed narrow doors opening into small rooms. Fili showed them the first and said that none of the others that he had looked into held any other door or window but the one that opened into the tunnel. There were some signs of ancient habitation, broken stone and deep hollows worn in the floor that would have held food or water for the family who lived there. The climate was cold, but in the lower tunnel, moisture had invaded from the falls above, and any organic evidence of the people who had dug and dwelt in these caves was long gone.

"I wonder where the old troll pillaged his hoard," Kili said after they had passed by the third cave and found nothing but stone inside. "He had metal and cloth in his stash."

"Perhaps from travelers," Fili said. "We followed a road to get here. It may be that it was not abandoned as long ago as the Ranger implied. And Dwarves have passed this way for many years."

"The old troll wouldn't fit down these tunnels," Betta said. "Was there nothing to see down the eastern passage, Kili? It was wide enough for him."

"Not much to see," Kili said, remembering with shame the argument that he had had with her before they left the cavern. "There were some orc bones and armor, the cast-offs of our old friend's midnight snacks, I don't wonder. It seemed to go down for some distance and widened farther along. I suppose that it led to a larger hall or store rooms."

"That is likely enough," Fili agreed. "I cannot imagine so many Men dwelling so far underground and in such cramped quarters as these. But in any case, you are right, Betta, and the troll did not come this way."

They walked on, passing other rooms all the same until they ceased to look into them. There were side-passages, too, all more narrow and less promising than the road they walked upon. This was the main highway, both brothers agreed, even if it bore little resemblance to the wide, well-trod roads that the dwarves carved for themselves underground. If this settlement of Men bore more than a passing similarity with Dwarf halls, then the main road would lead through the whole city and eventually take them to another door and a way out.

All that day, Betta relied wholly on the dwarves' sense of time and direction. She took their word for it when they said that they had walked for so many hours or had gone so many miles as they wound this way and that, for the road was not always straight. It curved often though it seemed to Fili that they travel generally east and south. There were sometimes stairs, always leading down, but he assured Betta that the southern turn of the passage was a good sign and that, although it seemed as if they would walk on forever, he was not worried. Though Ered Luin was a small kingdom compared to the Dwarven halls of old, it would have taken many days to pass from the east gate of Moria to the west; and even in Erebor, a whole city of Men might have fit under the mountain with room to spare.

"It goes on forever. How do you stand it," she murmured, looking up and down the claustrophobic tunnel. They had stopped to rest – their third since starting out that "day".

Kili glanced at his brother. They had already guessed that she would have trouble being trapped underground.

"Think of it only as any other road," Fili advised. "You spoke once of a city of Men, Minas Tirith, I think it was called. I have heard the name before but do not know much about it. I think that it is very large, is it not? It lies in the eastern White Mountains, I have heard."

Betta nodded. "East of the mountains," she said, "It is built at the foot of Mount Mindoluin, and is as large as many villages all stacked one upon the other. There are seven stone tiers, each one higher and smaller than the last, but their roads are open to the sky, not like this. I have only been inside those walls for half a day, and no farther than the market square on the second tier. My father stopped to buy food and tools that he said we would need on the road to Rohan."

She frowned and her expression turned sour. "He also thought to sell me off as a wife, but the men of Gondor can find younger and fairer wives for free in their city. My mother told him that it was because my blood was tainted by his northern heritage."

Both brothers looked away. Kili coughed uncomfortably. "Harandir said that there was a tower?" he asked to change the subject.

She nodded. "There is, the tower of Ecthelion, named for a lord from Gondor's history. I do not know the tale… But the fields! The Pelennor was green and its grasses washed like waves on the summer breeze. The wide, blue Anduin!" She sighed. "But I cannot speak of that now, of green grass and free air; it makes the breath choke in my throat. I am suffocated, buried in this hole!"

She was crouched down by the wall and now hung her head between her arms and shuddered. Fili knelt beside her and for the first time noticed that her breath was coming in slow, shallow gasps. It was not serious yet, and aggravated by her own anguish, but he lifted her head and straightened her shoulders.

"Carefully now," he said. "The air is thick and stale down here. You must take care not to block your mouth or nose." Her face was pale even in the yellow torchlight. "There must be vents to bring in the fresh air, but some will undoubtedly be blocked up by snow and fallen stone. We will rest here for a while until you catch your breath."

"No," she said, shaking her head. She stood up and put off his hands. "We will go on. The air seems thicker now than it was before. If there is a vent blocked, then waiting here will only make things worse. We go on."

Fili nodded and stood up. "If you are sure," he said.

"It was only a passing weakness," she assured him, taking up her baggage. Neither brother was convinced and when they started forward again, Fili slowed his pace from what it had been, and he looked back often to be sure that she was keeping up.

He had never before given much thought to how a human could survive in the same underground that was home to a Dwarf. Now that he took the time to notice, he agreed that the air here was closer and thicker than it had been half a mile before, but he had been deeper and in tighter places beneath Ered Luin. The heartiness of a dwarf, as Betta often called it, meant that he gave little notice to the dark or the depth. His body was more sturdily built than a Man's, and his heart and lungs strong enough to endure the heavy labors of his race. Neither the thick air nor the hard stone under his feet would trouble him, but Betta was built for the free air and fresh sky. If they did not find a way out for her soon, she might indeed suffocate.