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 brothers did not set their watch as they were wont to do. Fili fell asleep first and was swiftly drawn into the dark dreams that he feared where his body was washed forever down deep tunnels and through black waters and the thoughts that filled his head were like the rushing noise of endless waves. He was battered back and forth against stone walls and yet, at times, when he could get his head above water, he would see beside him, glowing in the dark, a pale white body. Betta's body. He reached out to her again and again, but could not catch hold. Always, she slipped through his fingers like water.

Kili had sat down beside his brother, determined to keep the watch, and he held his resolution for nearly half an hour, sitting bolt upright with his eyes on the invisible doorway before him, but it was not long before his weariness wore him down. His eyelids began to droop and finally to close; his head nodded until his chin rested on his chest and he slept.

His dreams were not troubled as his brother's, but they were strange. He dreamt that the hidden door slid open and a bright light shone through from behind. A long line of short creatures marched down the road from above and past him going in and out of the door. There were carts, too, and ponies to draw them as they were laden with many barrels and boxes of Kili knew not what. They were not Dwarves that he saw, nor were they Men, but some strange crossbreed between them, and their eyes were bright and keen. As the creatures passed, they looked often toward the two sleeping dwarves with curiosity, but they did not speak or stop their work.

Kili shook himself suddenly awake and sat up. At some point in the night, he and his brother had stretched out upon the floor to sleep, but the road they were on still ran dark and empty, and he heard no sound but the heavy breath of his brother. Quietly, Kili stood up and crept across the road to the far wall. He felt the stone with his hands until he found the edge of the hidden door and assured himself that it was still shut tight.

With a sigh of relief, he returned to his brother's side and gently shook Fili awake. Kili guessed that it had been four hours since they had sat down and, though he blamed himself for failing the watch, he knew that the rest had done him good.

Fili was yet deep in his dreams and it took a great deal of prodding to pull him out.

"It was nothing, only a dream," he said, in answer to his brother's questions, but Kili heard the fear in his voice, and he almost did not believe it. Fili was never afraid, so Kili kept to himself his own strange dreams as they ate their handful of cold meat apiece and took up their baggage again.

Kili had lit their torch and, in the firelight, his brother's face was pale and haggard. There were dark circles under Fili's eyes and he blinked blearily in the smoky light. Kili did not comment on his brother's appearance, however; he guessed that his own face was not much better to look at.

They walked on, tired and stumbling. The light of the torch allowed them to see each other, but that was the end of its usefulness. The walls and ceiling, the floor under their feet, all was the same and it would have taken them hours to walk a dozen yards if they had stopped to examine every inch of stone for hidden doors. They saw none with their eyes. The light cast their shadows on the polished walls and more than once, the brothers were startled to catch sight of strange shapes following them only to realize it was only themselves, but Kili was still anxious. Every now and then, he thought he heard from far behind, the soft pat of a single footfall, but he still said nothing. He did not want to worry his brother.

The road ran on and on, rising in a gentle slope; after half an hour, Kili lit a second torch from the first. Half an hour after that, the brothers found themselves approaching a blind end.

They neither slowed their step nor commented on it until they were close enough to touch. If the road would end, then there was nothing that they could do about it. Their path ran straight forward for a dozen yards, and probably it ran on for miles after that, but the ceiling had collapsed and buried the way. There was no going over it or through it without cutting tools and explosives.

"That is the work of the fire, no doubt," Fili muttered, shaking his head and looking up at the broken ceiling. "Whatever was the source, it is down there. These walls suffered the greatest heat and for the longest time."

"There is a side-road here," Kili said, pointing to the right. And, indeed, their western road was crossed by another heading north. The wheel ruts flowed that way as well and also ran beneath the collapse.

Fili shrugged and the brothers turned to go that way. They had no choice in the matter. With each blocked path, their chance to survive was slipping away. In his heart, Kili was not surprised to find that this road also ended. Not thirty yards along, they found themselves facing another blank wall. There was no broken stone, no fire-welded doors; it was smooth, flat rock, unmarked. A dead end, in every sense of the word.

Fili stopped short and stared at the wall, and Kili watched his brother. For several moments there was no movement or sound, and then Fili let out a cry of anger.

"No!" He shouted, the word bursting from his mouth like an explosion in the mines, but his voice could not cut through rock. He rushed forward to beat his fists against the wall and, when that did no damage, he threw off his gloves and began to search frantically over the stone, feeling for cracks or edges. "There must be a door," he muttered, "another hidden door somewhere…"

Kili stood back and watched his brother, holding the torch and resisting the tears that welled up in his eyes. Even if there was a door, he knew they had no hope of getting it open; they had no tools to cut through the stone.

Eventually, Fili gave up the search. He knelt before the wall and suddenly made a strange sound. Kili frowned at him and saw that his brother's shoulders were shaking. At first, he thought that Fili must be sobbing his despair into his arm, but no. Laughter burst from Fili's lips.

"We might have slept the night away down below," Fili said between giggles. "There was no reason to hurry on only to die here instead. The view is no better from this establishment."

Kili stared at him, wondering whether his brother had not finally given himself over to madness. He was almost ready to strike him, to stop the laughter, but Fili stopped it himself and lay down. Then, the crying began, and Kili let him lie. Why not? They were trapped, and Betta was dead. There was no hope left. Let his brother cry or laugh or beat the stone. Why not.

.

Fili lay on the floor with his back pressed against the cold wall. He was breathing hard and his arms were wrapped tight about his shoulders. He had worn himself out, throwing himself against the wall until his fists were bruised and his arms ached, but there was no sign that he had so much as scratched the surface of the stone.

Kili sat a little ways from him. He had taken out the burnt ends of the logs that he had salvaged from their last cook fire and, with the scrap ends of the torch-sticks that they had burnt, he had lit them a small fire with the last flame of their torch. It would burn for an hour, and the embers would smolder for an hour more, perhaps, and then they were be back in darkness.

Kili warmed his hands over the fire and waited for his brother to speak.

"What time do you think it is?" Fili asked, after a while.

Kili shrugged. "I do not know," he said. "Still night, I think. Perhaps an hour past midnight? It is not morning yet outside, for all that means to us."

Fili sighed and sat up. "I am sorry, Kili," he said. "I should never have brought you to this place."

Kili smiled, and his face was grim. "We have had this conversation before, I think," he said. "You did not bring me here. I was as eager to follow as you were to lead, and we both were willing enough to join Betta on her quest." Kili paused, and then he laughed quietly to himself. "If anything, it is my fault," he added. "When Betta left us at the black stone, you wanted to go home, but I was the one who insisted on going after her. It was I who got us lost in the mist and trapped by the troll. Without that old goat, neither one of us, nor Betta either, would have come into these caves."

"I wonder if she has got out yet," Fili said.

"What do you mean?"

"That river must flow to somewhere. Perhaps it has carried her out from under these mountains. It would be a joke on us if Betta managed to get free while we die trapped in here."

Kili had no answer to that. He took out a bundle of meat wrapped in cloth and set it near the fire to warm.

"Thorin will blame me for all this, of course," Fili went on.

"Of course," Kili agreed before his brother could say anything more morose. "It is a perk of being the younger brother. Nothing is every my fault."

"It never was." Fili poured water from their skin into their mug and handed it across. "No matter what you did to cause trouble, I was always cleaning it up or being blamed for it. You remember the time that you blackened cousin Dwalin's axe handle with coal dust? It stained his hands for days and made him sneeze."

"I was not the only one who played pranks, brother. It was you who put salt in Frei's sugar jar, but it was also your luck that the fires ran too hot that day and her cakes were all burned. No one tasted the difference under all the jam and gravy that they had to pour over the crusts to make it edible."

"That was a poor prank," Fili said. "And our belts were already tight that winter, having lost so much flour to the damp." He leaned back his head and looked up and the ceiling. "What I wouldn't give for a loaf of bread, even burnt and with too much salt."

"I would rather a bowl of stew, heaped full of vegetables. If I never chew another piece of meat…" Kili rose up and pulled Betta's pack toward him. "Well, I suppose we might make use of these." He took out the two withered carrots and half potato and the shard of bowl that they had used before.

Fili laughed. "What a feast we shall have," he said. His eyes drifted to one of the cloth bundles that Kili had taken out. "What is that?"

Kili looked and then he frowned. "Some of Betta's things," he said. He waited for Fili to ask for them, but his brother did not, he only looked at the bundle sadly. "It is good that she is not here for this," Kili added gently. "Better to die bravely in battle than to starve and suffocate in the dark. She never did like the dark…"

"No, she did not," Fili agreed.

Kili frowned into the fire for some time, and then he looked up at his brother. "Will you tell Thorin about her?" he asked. "I mean, will you tell him all of it, not just the adventure? Will you tell him what you promised her…?"

Fili shook his head. "No. There is no reason to trouble our uncle with that. If we survive the dragon, better for him to think that his eldest nephew will follow him into spinsterhood. That disappointment will be short lived, shorter than his anger would be if he knew that his heir gave his heart to a human woman.

"And besides," Fili went on with forced cheerfulness, "you shall have your pick of all the dwarf-women east of Hithaeglir! You shall give him so many dwarflings to bounce upon his knee that he shall go lame from the sport."

Kili smiled sadly. It was not lost on him how quickly they had both fallen into talking of the future, as if they had any, as if they were already out from under the mountain and heading back to the safety of Thorin's halls.

"I suppose I cannot complain about shouldering the responsibility," Kili said. "After all, you have cleaned up after so many of my messes, it is only natural that I must bear the burden of yours. You could not have had children with a human woman, anyway."

Fili said nothing, and immediately Kili regretted his words. It went without saying that when Dwarves married outside their own race no children would come of the union, but that was a choice and tradition, not the law of nature. There had, indeed, occasionally, been half-human dwarves, but they came from the lower classes and were hidden deep down in the mines. No heir of the royal line of Durin could end his line that way. Fili had always looked forward to the time when he might build his own home and family proudly, when he could hold his children and grandchildren upon his knees.

"Brother, I did not mean to say…"

"We might have had children," Fili said wistfully. "I did not ask whether she would want any. But perhaps she was too old, for one of the tall folk, I mean."

"There is some luck in it," Kili said, and Fili looked at him sharply. Kili grinned. "I will miss my chance to be the mischievous uncle, spoiling your children and tormenting their mother. You are lucky that I will not."

Fili could not help but smile at that. He shook his head. "A very little luck," he said, "but we will not live to enjoy it. I only hope that Thorin will go on without us. He must win back his kingdom without his nephews to look out for him."

"Balin and Dwalin will look after him," Kili said. "And probably Gloin will go, too, perhaps old Fror will finally leave that overstuffed easy-chair of his and put some miles on those boots." He bit off a mouthful of lukewarm meat and chewed it unenthusiastically.

"I suppose we might try to get back up to the troll's cavern," Kili said after a time. "The tunnels are straight forward enough. It would only be the bridge over the chasm to worry about. If there's still wood and meat up there, and it might buy us more time…"

"If the orcs haven't spoiled it all," Fili interrupted him.

"… if the orcs haven't spoiled it," Kili said. "We might find some way to dig out through the front door, through the snow. Or one of the other side-tunnels might lead us somewhere…" He knew that there was little hope in the plan, and he shrugged. "It seems the only chance we have left."

"I can think of no other," Fili agreed. "We must try something, but it is a long journey, and I am still very tired."

"I would not mind a few more hours of sleep, myself," Kili said. "The air is thick and the sorrow of this place is more than what we have carried into it. Like a ruined city, it seems to me; there is too much memory in these old walls."

"Sleep now, brother," Fili said. "I will keep the watch."

"We will both sleep," Kili answered. "If any foul creatures creep up on us in the dark, then we won't be any worse off than we are now."

Fili could not argue with that and so, after finishing their meal and putting away the supplies, both brothers lay down side by side and closed their eyes for sleep. They gave no thought to when they would wake or how they would go on after that. They thought only of sleep, and how good it was that they yet had each other for company and forget the trouble they were in. Fili put his arm around his brother's shoulders, and Kili closed his eyes.

.

Fili woke to the scent of bacon and the sound of eggs frying in the pan. He smiled but kept his eyes closed, listening to the soft voices of his family as they whispered around the hearth. The rooms in Ered Luin were simple, but somehow Betta had contrived to cook upon the small coal stove. For most meals, they joined the other dwarves in the great hall down below, but when Fili was free from the forge and might spend the day with his children, she always cooked the morning meal at home.

High, ringing laughter burst through the doorway; it was his daughter, he knew, though he could not make out her words. Like her mother, his daughter's voice was always the loudest.

"Hush!" was Betta's usual reply. "Your father is still sleeping!"

Fili's smile widened at the exasperation in his wife's voice. The raising of two small children had not cured her of her impatience, and she still did not like to have her orders questioned. Prince Fili knew better than to cross her when she took that tone with him, but the little ones were as stubborn as their great-uncle, Thorin.

There were more quiet whispers, and Fili knew that the children were pleading with their mother. When Betta next spoke, he heard the smile in her voice that she saved only for them. Fili had never seen it himself, but it changed the shape of her words and made them soft and sweet to hear. Even when she was shouting in anger or surprise, that smile would make its way into her words like a light in a darkened room.

"Alright then, go," Betta said. "Go wake your father."

The explosion of giggles would have woken him if he were not already feigning sleep. Both children, son and daughter, came running into the room, laughing like the town bells on festival. Fili heard their bare feet racing across the floor and knew the moment that they leaped into the air, diving onto the wide bed that he and Betta shared. He opened his arms wide, ready to catch them and tickle them until they cried out for their mother's aid. Then, he knew, Betta would come and wrestle them all three apart, scolding them for their noise and sending the children back to the breakfast table, and Fili would earn a kiss on the nose for his troubles before joining them there while Betta served up the meal.

But the weight never came. The children leaped up, but they never landed on the bed, and when Fili opened his eyes, he saw only the dim dark of the empty roadway and his brother's face looking down at him. The cheerful fire and warm rooms of his home, the laughter of his family, all were gone. They had never been and would never be.

Fili shook the dream away and saw the worry on his brother's face. "Kili? What is wrong?"

"There is trouble," he whispered and looked back over his shoulder, but Fili did not need his brother's words. He saw that the dim light came not from their own fire – those embers had long ago cooled to ash. A pale blue light shone from the open windows of an iron lamp set in the middle of the road. Beyond the lamp, crouched a short, stunted figure with broad shoulders and a narrow face. It was searching through their baggage, seemingly indifferent to the dwarves themselves.

"It seems that we have a visitor," Kili said, reaching for his sword.

kboyd912: I'm so glad. Sadly, the same week that I've been writing these chapters, I did have a personal loss in my family. It has been very bad timing, but I am glad that I was able to do justice to the feeling for you.

Agent Five: Sorry, still can't PM :( Don't know why, but no biggie. Golly, I feel like you'll all be disappointed if there is no dragon, so many of you are convinced that there must be one. I hadn't really intended to... but, well, we'll have to wait and see ;)

-Paint