A/N: Hello, dearest readers, sorry for the long delay, but now at least classes are over and I survived them.

Celebrisilweth, Bilbo made the terrible decision of going up alone, and we both know what lurks there... Our dearest captives took a secret route, Legolas studied maps of the fortress since he was an elfling, thanks Erú!

Mizz Alec Volturi, some moving up, some moving down, but definitely moving!

Welcome on board, Kolbi, and have a nice ride!

=^.^= =^.^= =^.^= =^.^= =^.^=

Colision Route

Tilda toggled in and out from consciousness, sometimes diving into a dark and silent oblivion, sometimes the sounds around her coming as if from through a long tunnel, now and then as clear as the pain that shoot through her body at every inescapable jolt. One of those led to a halt, and she felt the arms around her relaxing a minimum.

"We need..."

That was the voice of a dwarf, she was sure. Years of learning with Óin and healing both her people and those under the mountain gave her the certainty. What him and whomever needed, she was unable to grasp.

"We must..."

An elf, now, she was sure. No other race had such musical quality to their everyday voices. Why was she surrounded by strange people...?

Someone touched her throat, and it stung. Oh, that was it. She was hurt. She got hurt when...

Tilda lost consciousness again, and when it came back it was full, and what she heard was too much for her to bear.

She knew the voice, and it was Kíli's. A dwarf she remembered from when she was just a bairn, and now that their paths brought them together neither of them were willing to be put apart again. So she believed.

But then she heard his sob, felt it coursing his body, rippling through his muscles and shaking even her own body, which he held close as if his life depended on it, not the reverse.

"Why must I love just for them to suffer and…?"

The last word was unspoken, but Tilda understood it all the same.

She would die.

Eventually.

If not that night, any moment from then on. Always before him. Years before him. Decades from now, if they escaped the fortress and the Powers were kind. But he would outlast her. That was the reality of their races. And she would die, and he would be left behind, heart broken as he was when Tauriel died.

It wasn't fair, on him! It wasn't fair on him...

Tilda recoiled into unconsciousness again, too soon to perceive the tender kiss her dwarf placed to her temple before striding resolute in the direction of their freedom.

=^.^=

"My son is here." Declared Thranduil, already taking the lead to the innards of the fortress. "Your daughter is alive."

"And I've seen elves die, whatever the legends say." Bard's grumbling should be quite inaudible in the midst of the skirmish. If the man took heed of the superior hearing of elves, he didn't care. If the elf cared about the man's opinion, he didn't care less.

"Bilbo said they would be up." Thorin informed his fellow kings on the rescue, ignoring their quarrel and heading to the next staircase.

Thranduil didn't hide his satisfaction as he grabbed the dwarf's collar to lead him another way.

"They're not that way. Follow me."

"Why should I?"

Thorin seethed, but complied anyway. Bard just followed, more used to the antics of elves from his days of barging.

"Because I know this place and I know my son."

"Sure, as I know my sister-son, and he would not follow an elf!"

Thranduil just lifted half an eyebrow.

"Sure, like he didn't follow the captain of my guard when you released a dragon upon Lake Town."

"It wasn't me who..."

"Will ya just shut up and follow the ivory fairy?!"

It was Dís who added insult to injury, rushing forward with a war axe in hand, barreling even Bard in her hurry to find a wayward son only Mahal knew where he was.

Said ivory fairy wasn't very pleased by the title, but didn't stop in his tracks to protest. The life of his only son was more important than such petty arguments. And Thranduil was decided to keep this in mind if – when - he got Legolas out of this nightmare place.

If Thorin were an elf, he would have seen the slight change of stance in Thranduil's shoulders, and prepared to face whatever he was supposed to. But he wasn't, and prepared just for to fight.

If Bard were an elf, he would have sensed certainty in Thranduil's steps, and followed swift instead of just trampling like a desperate father in search of his lost daughter – which he was.

If Dís were an elf, she probably wouldn't hit hither and thither at whatever moving target posed by orcs of several kinds with her axe, preferring instead some more elegant weapon and a fancy style of fight. But she wasn't, and such treatment kept her ahead of any remaining rescuers, hand in hand – in a figurative way, please take note – with the king of Mirkwood.

So Thorin, Bard and Dís followed swift the one who knew the place and whose urge was as strong as theirs. Almost running after the elf, who was heading straight to a dead end, Bard considered what a bump between Thorin's head and the wall would do to the wall, knowing too well Thranduil would be able to divert from any collision just in time to embarrass the dwarf.

An abrupt turn to the right made them disappear from sight to any inattentive observer. Even Dwalin, who never kept more than one eye away from Thorin, almost lost them in the blink of an eye that their move took. Sheer experience told him to follow his instincts more than his eyes, and the illusion of a continuous wall was broken by the simple stepping ahead where his king vanished.

Even used to stone as Dwalin was, the immediate drop of the staircase didn't help his balance, and his war axes hit the walls seeking purchase. Too much smooth stone, too little clefts, too determined a dwarf. Thanks Mahal the ground wasn't too slimy, or the whole party would tumble down the exquisite staircase.

"Durin's beard, really, why would one build such a trap?"

Thranduil didn't even blink at the question, stepping down step after step, graciously.

"Messengers and staff need free ways to accomplish their tasks with no hindrance. Some people use tapestries or curtains to conceal such passageways. My father's staff preferred to use light and shadow, and the intent of the person."

"Elf sorcery." The head of the guard of Erebor murmured to himself.

"We prefer to call it physics, and optics, thank you very much." Retorted the elf, almost a whole storey bellow Dwalin in the spiralling staircase.

"The intent of the person, physics? Really?"

"The intent of seeing what is really in front of your eyes rather than what illusions might show."

Dís would have elbowed Thranduil in the ribs if he weren't moving too fast for her to reach him, annoyed by the idle conversation.

"Too much philosophy and too little..."

She bumped into Thranduil, who stopped at the turn of a corner.

They were there, at last.

=^.^=

As soon as he was out of sight form the remaining searching party, the hobbit pulled out his secret weapon. Or secret trinket, as he didn't find any use of it as a weapon, yet. Up to now, turning him invisible was the most powerful thing the Ring did, and Bilbo had no reason to suspect it could do more than that and allowing him to understand what giant spiders and spawns of Mordor intended. Sting was the only weapon he considered as such, and more than once in his life he forswore its use out of pity.

Upstairs he ran, as fast as his stature enabled him. The sound of steel against steel receded, yet the swishing of otherworldly voices only increased. Each step was a thud in his ears, and there was something – a pull of the darkness – that was hard to resist. It called to him, demanded his presence. But it also came from above, and all he felt in his first incursion told him that the prisoners were up, at the higher terrace of the fortress.

With all the darkness around him, and the amount of orcs curdling the place, all Bilbo prayed was that Sting wouldn't show its blue glow beyond the protection of his own invisibility.

It didn't.

On he went, guided by the pull of evil and driven by the push of kindness. Because that was what steered him then and again, when first Thorin and his Company sought for his aid as a – goodness, did they really believe he was a… – burglar, and he accepted the contract because they were not a bunch of vagabonds, but just people trying to reclaim their rightful home. And kindness was what was moved him now, to find and rescue a friend, and the daughter of another friend, and to simply kick the butts of any orc that trespassed his path or the path of any friend of his.

So, invisible, Bilbo kindly kicked one small orc from a walkway down to their death, kindly elbowed another one in the ribs in the right timing so that they blamed another one for the hit and then began to quarrel and rally their encircling comrades to settle the scrimmage.

The higher he was in the fortress, the darker it became. Surprisingly – or not – the vision of the Unseen that the Ring bestowed him was sharper. There was a foyer ahead of him, and the darkness of night was tainted by wisps of a milky hue, yet it was a sickly white, not the silvery trace of light someone would expect from any kind of magic intended to do kindness.

So, that was what Bilbo was looking for.

Not that he intended to do some unkindness (except to orcs, of course), but it was clear as day that whomever planned to take hold of Kíli and little Tilda wasn't keen on keeping them safe and sound. So, if the path that led to the worse feeling in the fortress was what would lead him to save those two, that was the path he would take.

He had no time to step out of the foyer.

A deep, harsh voice greeted him, and the face of an ancient and decayed man hovered before his eyes, the shadow of a crown adorning - with debatable taste - the wrinkled brow that topped a sunken face.

"And so, we finally meet."