Clarity of Vision, Chapter 20
Title: Clarity of Vision, Chapter 20
Relationship: Thorin/Bilbo
Characters: Bilbo Baggins, Thorin, Gandalf, Kili, Fili, Balin, Dwalin
Fandom: Hobbit
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: G
Word Count: 2600
Story Summary: In a Middle-Earth where Erebor never fell, a shadow remains in the heart of the Lonely Mountain. Bilbo Baggins finds himself drawn reluctantly into a quest that will lead him across the continent--from Bree to Lake Evendim to the icy North and beyond--with a party of five dwarves searching for an artifact that will cure the ailing King Thrór.
Chapter Summary: The party leaves Lothlórien and makes its way to the gates of Khazad-dûm, as Thorin struggles with the return of his dark mood.
"You--you won't be coming with us?" Bilbo's voice quavered a bit as he looked at Gandalf; Thorin set his jaw and refused to share his worry. "I thought maybe--"
"My path does not lie with yours for now, Mr. Baggins," said Gandalf. "But I trust you to show this hard-headed dwarf the right way."
Thorin couldn't help snorting. "Our road is through Khazad-dûm, the hall of my ancestors," he said. "I do not think a hobbit makes a likely guide through dwarvish halls." Gandalf gave him that exasperating wizardy look that meant you-haven't-followed-my-deeper-meaning, but Thorin was in no mood for riddling words. He bowed to Galadriel, Celeborn, and Arwen, who stood in a blaze of overwrought glory in the morning sun. "My thanks to all of you for your guidance and help," he said.
"Le fael," Bilbo blurted out from beside him; Arwen smiled like the sunrise and Thorin wondered with annoyance when exactly the hobbit had learned to say "Thank you" in Sindarin.
"I shall guide you back to your people," Arwen said, murmuring farewells to the Lord and Lady and Gandalf. "Follow me."
Blindfolds were apparently unnecessary for the return hike, which was a relief. Soon enough they were back at the campsite. They heard the party well before they arrived, four dwarvish voices roaring out a drinking-song of Erebor, with three elvish voices following along with some hesitation. The group came into view, and--
Thorin stopped and raised an eyebrow at the sight of Kíli with a lop-eared gray rabbit in his arms, its pink nose twitching as it stared at the newcomers. Kíli looked chagrined and put the rabbit down hastily; it looked up at him wistfully from the ground. "Uncle! It's good to see you again!"
"I gather you haven't been doing much hunting," Thorin observed.
"Oh, but we have!" Kíli announced gleefully. "Haven't we, Haldir?"
Haldir nodded. His icy demeanor had given way to satisfaction. "Indeed. We have been hunting orcs. And a good hunt it was, too."
"Our count was higher than yours," said Dwalin.
"But you are four and we are three," Haldir pointed out.
The conversation seemed about to break down into a quarrel once more when a very round bear cub tumbled into the glade, looking around with some bewilderment before running over to Fíli and trying to steal his honey cake. "Hey!" said Fíli, "Back off, bear." He swatted its nose lightly and it sat back hard on its haunches, giving him a reproachful look. "This little guy won't stop annoying me," he said, then sheepishly broke off a piece of cake and gave it to the cub, who snorted happily and ran off again.
"Anyway," said Kíli, "The point is that things went fine here. How about you?"
Thorin felt Bilbo fidgeting next to him. "The glass was not the cure," he said before Bilbo could blurt it out.
Four dwarvish faces stared blankly at him. "It...wasn't?" Fíli said, his voice faint.
"Apparently not. We are back where we started," Thorin said.
"But that's a lot better than thinking it was gone forever!" said Bilbo. "Isn't it?"
Thorin was forced to nod. "At least we know a cure may still exist somewhere."
"But...now what?" said Balin.
"Now," said Thorin, "We go to Khazad-dûm."
As if at the sound of a distant horn, all of the dwarves sat up, their faces intent. "Durin's city," breathed Balin.
"But the orcs control it now," said Kíli.
"We seek only the Chamber of Records," said Thorin. "We can stay near the surface, where orcs stray more rarely. We travel light and fast, find the Chamber, and get out with the full poem--if indeed it is there."
"Khazad-dûm," murmured Kíli, his eyes distant. "I never dreamed I would see it."
Thorin reached out and clapped him on the shoulder, then turned to Bilbo. "Bilbo," he said, and was surprised to find his voice husky, "You have traveled far with us and been a boon companion. But Khazad-dûm is a danger beyond any you could imagine. If you wish--"
Bilbo wagged a finger at him as if scolding a child, and Thorin felt all his resolute kingliness leak from him. "You promised you wouldn't do that again," he chided. "You're not getting rid of me now."
Thorin felt he should argue more, but his relief was so great that he couldn't manage it. "Very well," he said. "We should begin now, before it grows any darker."
The dwarves stood, shouldering their packs, and there were awkward but heartfelt handshakes and back-thumpings (and half-hearted insults) all around between the dwarves and elves. "Farewell, Lady Arwen," said Thorin at last, and she bowed deeply to them, her hands clasped before her heart.
"Good travels to all of you," she said. "May the knowledge you have gained here ease your way."
As they walked, Thorin went back over what knowledge he had gained in Lothlórien and found it distressingly scanty. The glass held no magic: a relief and a goad. The poem might reside in whole in the halls of Khazad-dûm: a hope and a challenge.
A hill of flowers in the wind and a round green door.
Thorin pondered his glimpse of Bilbo's dwelling as the terrain grew more rocky and the trees less towering. Was it a vision of the past or the future? Was it something he would himself see one day, or was it a message of some sort? Somehow it was strange to think that Bilbo had a place out there, a life that Thorin had no part in. A spot of safety and refuge, free of fear and despair.
Free of the kind of terror and privation being with Thorin had brought him.
They crossed a small stream whose song seemed a lament in the winter air, and Thorin knew in his bones they had left the bounds of Lothlórien. Somehow, as if crossing that line had released something inside him, Thorin felt his mood darken and turn inward, a veil falling between him and the rest of the party. What, after all, had he ever given Bilbo besides hardship and loss? For all his service he had received nothing but the palest of thanks. It would take a mountain of gold to repay the hobbit, Thorin realized.
The kind of treasure still found deep within the halls of Khazad-dûm.
For a moment he let himself dream of it: retaking Durin's fabled halls, driving out the orcs and reclaiming the throne. He would be sung about for generations, his fame would eclipse that of his grandfather's. He would possess all the riches of the lost kingdom, all the gold and gems that lay in its depths. A pang of visceral pleasure went through him at the thought, and he touched his breast pocket with a stealthy hand, remembering the shining gold hidden within. He had barely thought of it for days now, his only remaining treasure. How could he have let it slip his mind? Someday I shall be king of a vast realm, but I shall always remember that this ring was the beginning of it all.
"Uncle?" Fíli's voice held a faint note of concern, as if he had been asking for some time. "Should we camp soon?"
"Do as you wish," Thorin said curtly.
"I...very well," said Fíli, looking at Thorin almost sadly. He turned to the others. "We shall continue a little further, then find a place to halt so that we may enter Khazad-dûm in the morning rather than as it grows dark."
When Thorin spotted the small gray stone marker half-hidden in weeds, he looked to see if anyone else had noticed it. When no one else reacted, he stored the information away and walked on until Fíli made the call to set up camp. He helped make up the small fire mechanically, his mind far away, and ate the food that Bilbo gave him without tasting it.
"I am planning our infiltration of Khazad-dûm," he snapped when Kíli asked him what was on his mind, but in reality his thoughts were roaming through those vast and fabled halls, imagining himself ruling in splendor there, Balin at his side as his trusted counselor, Dwalin the chief of his guards, Fíli and Kíli his heirs. All would kneel before him, the greatest dwarf since Durin the Deathless, and his name would be sung in the halls of Khazad-dûm and throughout the world.
Annoyingly, whenever he tried to imagine Bilbo as part of this life, the visions went wrong somehow. The Bilbo in his mind complained that the halls were cold and pointed out that his seat beside the great throne was hard and uncomfortable. Thorin gave him a cushion of the finest golden brocade, and he pined for white cotton pillows and a rocking chair in the sun. By the time his imaginary Bilbo began to scold him for never smiling, Thorin cut the fantasy short in exasperation, glaring at the real Bilbo so thunderously that the hobbit began to look uneasy.
Night fell abruptly, the late-afternoon sun vanishing behind the jagged hills surrounding them and leaving nothing but cold and silence. The air smelled of frost, the lingering gentleness of Lothlórien gone. Fíli took the first watch, and the rest of them crawled into their bedrolls, teeth chattering, and tried to sleep.
And when he thought everyone else was asleep, Thorin slipped away from the camp, making his way back to the little gray marker and the hidden path that wound away from it, not noticing the small figure trailing silently behind him in the dark.
: : :
For the first time, Bilbo found himself deliberately sneaking instead of doing it accidentally. He followed Thorin through the starlit wood, wondering why he hadn't alerted the others instead. What exactly did he intend to do if Thorin was planning...something rash?
Too late to turn back now, Bilbo Baggins. And a proper muck-up you're making of this, too!
Thorin finally emerged from the weed-covered path into the open, and Bilbo found himself on the shores of a lake, cradled within snow-capped mountains. The water was dark, and--Bilbo blinked and rubbed his eyes--the stars that spangled the sky seemed to blaze even brighter within the depths of the lake, as if their reflections were burnished into unbearable brilliance.
Thorin went to the edge of the lake and bent over it, looking within. For a long moment he was silent, staring at the water. Then, with a violent motion, he snarled something and dashed a rock into the water, the ripples setting the stars into swaying motion.
His voice was filled with such distress, and he glared at the icy black water with such a wild gaze, that Bilbo could stay silent no longer. Stepping forward, he cleared his throat slightly.
He felt something cold touch his neck and realized that Thorin had spun and drawn Deathless in one unbroken motion, and the tip was resting against his throat.
For the briefest of instances there was no recognition at all in Thorin's eyes; then they cleared and he sheathed his sword, glaring at Bilbo. "You should not--"
"--sneak up on an armed dwarf, yes, you've made your--er--point," Bilbo said, rubbing his throat.
"Look into the water," said Thorin. "Tell me what you see."
Bilbo stepped closer to look into the black water. The stars were what he saw first, seeming to drip brilliance from the sky into the wavering ripples. The mountains hung upside-down, framing their glory.
That was all. Stars and mountains.
"I don't see myself," he said blankly. He glanced at Thorin, standing beside him. "I don't see you."
Thorin's face was bleak. "This is Mirrormere, Kheled-zâram. Here did Durin the Deathless in the days of old, wandering the world, stop to gaze within. And he saw himself crowned with stars and knew that beneath these mountains would he delve the greatest of the halls of our people." He stopped and looked into the pitiless starry water. "I see nothing of me in its depths."
Bilbo bit his lip. Below them and above them wheeled the great stars and the endless mountains, and he and Thorin seemed very small within it all. "Well, I'll never be as great as my great-grand-uncle Bullroarer Took either, I suppose. But you don't have to do great things to be a good person, you know? Isn't what matters in this world being happy and--and together?"
"Spoken like a true halfling," Thorin said. Bilbo started to thank him, but he talked over his voice: "You say such things without cease; it is enough to drive one mad." He put a hand to his chest, over his heart, a brief motion as if at a sudden pain. Then he turned away from Mirrormere's unyielding waters and began to walk back toward camp. "You will never be able to understand my heart, Bilbo Baggins."
Bilbo trailed after him, fearing terribly that Thorin spoke more truly than he knew.
: : :
The next morning dawned bleak and cold, and they began walking once more. Thorin was lost in thought, and it was once again Fíli that led the way, consulting their maps and making the decisions. Bilbo watched him as he talked to Balin and Dwalin about possible entrances, his shoulders squared as if under a burden he had become accustomed to bearing.
When they came over a rise and saw at last the great East Gate of Khazad-dûm, he felt the breath rush from his lungs, echoed by gasps from the rest of the party. Carved into the mountain face was a solemn figure, its hands clasping the doors in its stony grip. It gazed off into the east as if in defiance, guarding the entrance forever.
But Fíli gestured, and the party avoided the gate, slipping silently along the sheer cliff face until they found a span of rock that was veined with scarlet ore. Fíli stopped and traced a pattern with his finger along the lines, breathing across it. The veins he touched glowed briefly, and there was a creaking, grinding sound.
The rock slipped aside to reveal darkness leading into the mountain.
Fíli took a deep breath, gazing into the dark. "Khazad-dûm," he whispered. He took a step forward, then stopped and turned to Thorin. "You should be the first to enter," he said.
Thorin nodded curtly and stepped forward, and Bilbo realized when he felt his heart sink that he had been hoping Thorin would defer to Fíli. But instead he brushed past his nephew and walked into the dark without a backward glance.
"Well," said Bilbo, looking at the blackness that had swallowed him. "Here we are."
Fíli had already followed his uncle into the mountain; Balin and Dwalin exchanged glances and entered Khazad-dûm as well. Bilbo swallowed hard.
"Are you ready, Mr. Boggins?" said a voice beside him. Bilbo turned to stare at Kíli, who smiled at him. Then the smile faltered and turned wry. "I know, you want us to call you Bilbo. And I know it's Baggins. I just...sometimes I miss the times when I called you Mr. Boggins."
"Ah," said Bilbo. "Well, you are welcome to call me Mr. Boggins at any time if it makes you feel better."
Kíli chuckled. "Actually, I feel a bit better already." He bowed, sweeping a hand toward the gate. "Shall we?"
Side by side, they entered the blackness of Moria, where only evil had dwelt for many an age.
Relationship: Thorin/Bilbo
Characters: Bilbo Baggins, Thorin, Gandalf, Kili, Fili, Balin, Dwalin
Fandom: Hobbit
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: G
Word Count: 2600
Story Summary: In a Middle-Earth where Erebor never fell, a shadow remains in the heart of the Lonely Mountain. Bilbo Baggins finds himself drawn reluctantly into a quest that will lead him across the continent--from Bree to Lake Evendim to the icy North and beyond--with a party of five dwarves searching for an artifact that will cure the ailing King Thrór.
Chapter Summary: The party leaves Lothlórien and makes its way to the gates of Khazad-dûm, as Thorin struggles with the return of his dark mood.
"You--you won't be coming with us?" Bilbo's voice quavered a bit as he looked at Gandalf; Thorin set his jaw and refused to share his worry. "I thought maybe--"
"My path does not lie with yours for now, Mr. Baggins," said Gandalf. "But I trust you to show this hard-headed dwarf the right way."
Thorin couldn't help snorting. "Our road is through Khazad-dûm, the hall of my ancestors," he said. "I do not think a hobbit makes a likely guide through dwarvish halls." Gandalf gave him that exasperating wizardy look that meant you-haven't-followed-my-deeper-meaning, but Thorin was in no mood for riddling words. He bowed to Galadriel, Celeborn, and Arwen, who stood in a blaze of overwrought glory in the morning sun. "My thanks to all of you for your guidance and help," he said.
"Le fael," Bilbo blurted out from beside him; Arwen smiled like the sunrise and Thorin wondered with annoyance when exactly the hobbit had learned to say "Thank you" in Sindarin.
"I shall guide you back to your people," Arwen said, murmuring farewells to the Lord and Lady and Gandalf. "Follow me."
Blindfolds were apparently unnecessary for the return hike, which was a relief. Soon enough they were back at the campsite. They heard the party well before they arrived, four dwarvish voices roaring out a drinking-song of Erebor, with three elvish voices following along with some hesitation. The group came into view, and--
Thorin stopped and raised an eyebrow at the sight of Kíli with a lop-eared gray rabbit in his arms, its pink nose twitching as it stared at the newcomers. Kíli looked chagrined and put the rabbit down hastily; it looked up at him wistfully from the ground. "Uncle! It's good to see you again!"
"I gather you haven't been doing much hunting," Thorin observed.
"Oh, but we have!" Kíli announced gleefully. "Haven't we, Haldir?"
Haldir nodded. His icy demeanor had given way to satisfaction. "Indeed. We have been hunting orcs. And a good hunt it was, too."
"Our count was higher than yours," said Dwalin.
"But you are four and we are three," Haldir pointed out.
The conversation seemed about to break down into a quarrel once more when a very round bear cub tumbled into the glade, looking around with some bewilderment before running over to Fíli and trying to steal his honey cake. "Hey!" said Fíli, "Back off, bear." He swatted its nose lightly and it sat back hard on its haunches, giving him a reproachful look. "This little guy won't stop annoying me," he said, then sheepishly broke off a piece of cake and gave it to the cub, who snorted happily and ran off again.
"Anyway," said Kíli, "The point is that things went fine here. How about you?"
Thorin felt Bilbo fidgeting next to him. "The glass was not the cure," he said before Bilbo could blurt it out.
Four dwarvish faces stared blankly at him. "It...wasn't?" Fíli said, his voice faint.
"Apparently not. We are back where we started," Thorin said.
"But that's a lot better than thinking it was gone forever!" said Bilbo. "Isn't it?"
Thorin was forced to nod. "At least we know a cure may still exist somewhere."
"But...now what?" said Balin.
"Now," said Thorin, "We go to Khazad-dûm."
As if at the sound of a distant horn, all of the dwarves sat up, their faces intent. "Durin's city," breathed Balin.
"But the orcs control it now," said Kíli.
"We seek only the Chamber of Records," said Thorin. "We can stay near the surface, where orcs stray more rarely. We travel light and fast, find the Chamber, and get out with the full poem--if indeed it is there."
"Khazad-dûm," murmured Kíli, his eyes distant. "I never dreamed I would see it."
Thorin reached out and clapped him on the shoulder, then turned to Bilbo. "Bilbo," he said, and was surprised to find his voice husky, "You have traveled far with us and been a boon companion. But Khazad-dûm is a danger beyond any you could imagine. If you wish--"
Bilbo wagged a finger at him as if scolding a child, and Thorin felt all his resolute kingliness leak from him. "You promised you wouldn't do that again," he chided. "You're not getting rid of me now."
Thorin felt he should argue more, but his relief was so great that he couldn't manage it. "Very well," he said. "We should begin now, before it grows any darker."
The dwarves stood, shouldering their packs, and there were awkward but heartfelt handshakes and back-thumpings (and half-hearted insults) all around between the dwarves and elves. "Farewell, Lady Arwen," said Thorin at last, and she bowed deeply to them, her hands clasped before her heart.
"Good travels to all of you," she said. "May the knowledge you have gained here ease your way."
As they walked, Thorin went back over what knowledge he had gained in Lothlórien and found it distressingly scanty. The glass held no magic: a relief and a goad. The poem might reside in whole in the halls of Khazad-dûm: a hope and a challenge.
A hill of flowers in the wind and a round green door.
Thorin pondered his glimpse of Bilbo's dwelling as the terrain grew more rocky and the trees less towering. Was it a vision of the past or the future? Was it something he would himself see one day, or was it a message of some sort? Somehow it was strange to think that Bilbo had a place out there, a life that Thorin had no part in. A spot of safety and refuge, free of fear and despair.
Free of the kind of terror and privation being with Thorin had brought him.
They crossed a small stream whose song seemed a lament in the winter air, and Thorin knew in his bones they had left the bounds of Lothlórien. Somehow, as if crossing that line had released something inside him, Thorin felt his mood darken and turn inward, a veil falling between him and the rest of the party. What, after all, had he ever given Bilbo besides hardship and loss? For all his service he had received nothing but the palest of thanks. It would take a mountain of gold to repay the hobbit, Thorin realized.
The kind of treasure still found deep within the halls of Khazad-dûm.
For a moment he let himself dream of it: retaking Durin's fabled halls, driving out the orcs and reclaiming the throne. He would be sung about for generations, his fame would eclipse that of his grandfather's. He would possess all the riches of the lost kingdom, all the gold and gems that lay in its depths. A pang of visceral pleasure went through him at the thought, and he touched his breast pocket with a stealthy hand, remembering the shining gold hidden within. He had barely thought of it for days now, his only remaining treasure. How could he have let it slip his mind? Someday I shall be king of a vast realm, but I shall always remember that this ring was the beginning of it all.
"Uncle?" Fíli's voice held a faint note of concern, as if he had been asking for some time. "Should we camp soon?"
"Do as you wish," Thorin said curtly.
"I...very well," said Fíli, looking at Thorin almost sadly. He turned to the others. "We shall continue a little further, then find a place to halt so that we may enter Khazad-dûm in the morning rather than as it grows dark."
When Thorin spotted the small gray stone marker half-hidden in weeds, he looked to see if anyone else had noticed it. When no one else reacted, he stored the information away and walked on until Fíli made the call to set up camp. He helped make up the small fire mechanically, his mind far away, and ate the food that Bilbo gave him without tasting it.
"I am planning our infiltration of Khazad-dûm," he snapped when Kíli asked him what was on his mind, but in reality his thoughts were roaming through those vast and fabled halls, imagining himself ruling in splendor there, Balin at his side as his trusted counselor, Dwalin the chief of his guards, Fíli and Kíli his heirs. All would kneel before him, the greatest dwarf since Durin the Deathless, and his name would be sung in the halls of Khazad-dûm and throughout the world.
Annoyingly, whenever he tried to imagine Bilbo as part of this life, the visions went wrong somehow. The Bilbo in his mind complained that the halls were cold and pointed out that his seat beside the great throne was hard and uncomfortable. Thorin gave him a cushion of the finest golden brocade, and he pined for white cotton pillows and a rocking chair in the sun. By the time his imaginary Bilbo began to scold him for never smiling, Thorin cut the fantasy short in exasperation, glaring at the real Bilbo so thunderously that the hobbit began to look uneasy.
Night fell abruptly, the late-afternoon sun vanishing behind the jagged hills surrounding them and leaving nothing but cold and silence. The air smelled of frost, the lingering gentleness of Lothlórien gone. Fíli took the first watch, and the rest of them crawled into their bedrolls, teeth chattering, and tried to sleep.
And when he thought everyone else was asleep, Thorin slipped away from the camp, making his way back to the little gray marker and the hidden path that wound away from it, not noticing the small figure trailing silently behind him in the dark.
: : :
For the first time, Bilbo found himself deliberately sneaking instead of doing it accidentally. He followed Thorin through the starlit wood, wondering why he hadn't alerted the others instead. What exactly did he intend to do if Thorin was planning...something rash?
Too late to turn back now, Bilbo Baggins. And a proper muck-up you're making of this, too!
Thorin finally emerged from the weed-covered path into the open, and Bilbo found himself on the shores of a lake, cradled within snow-capped mountains. The water was dark, and--Bilbo blinked and rubbed his eyes--the stars that spangled the sky seemed to blaze even brighter within the depths of the lake, as if their reflections were burnished into unbearable brilliance.
Thorin went to the edge of the lake and bent over it, looking within. For a long moment he was silent, staring at the water. Then, with a violent motion, he snarled something and dashed a rock into the water, the ripples setting the stars into swaying motion.
His voice was filled with such distress, and he glared at the icy black water with such a wild gaze, that Bilbo could stay silent no longer. Stepping forward, he cleared his throat slightly.
He felt something cold touch his neck and realized that Thorin had spun and drawn Deathless in one unbroken motion, and the tip was resting against his throat.
For the briefest of instances there was no recognition at all in Thorin's eyes; then they cleared and he sheathed his sword, glaring at Bilbo. "You should not--"
"--sneak up on an armed dwarf, yes, you've made your--er--point," Bilbo said, rubbing his throat.
"Look into the water," said Thorin. "Tell me what you see."
Bilbo stepped closer to look into the black water. The stars were what he saw first, seeming to drip brilliance from the sky into the wavering ripples. The mountains hung upside-down, framing their glory.
That was all. Stars and mountains.
"I don't see myself," he said blankly. He glanced at Thorin, standing beside him. "I don't see you."
Thorin's face was bleak. "This is Mirrormere, Kheled-zâram. Here did Durin the Deathless in the days of old, wandering the world, stop to gaze within. And he saw himself crowned with stars and knew that beneath these mountains would he delve the greatest of the halls of our people." He stopped and looked into the pitiless starry water. "I see nothing of me in its depths."
Bilbo bit his lip. Below them and above them wheeled the great stars and the endless mountains, and he and Thorin seemed very small within it all. "Well, I'll never be as great as my great-grand-uncle Bullroarer Took either, I suppose. But you don't have to do great things to be a good person, you know? Isn't what matters in this world being happy and--and together?"
"Spoken like a true halfling," Thorin said. Bilbo started to thank him, but he talked over his voice: "You say such things without cease; it is enough to drive one mad." He put a hand to his chest, over his heart, a brief motion as if at a sudden pain. Then he turned away from Mirrormere's unyielding waters and began to walk back toward camp. "You will never be able to understand my heart, Bilbo Baggins."
Bilbo trailed after him, fearing terribly that Thorin spoke more truly than he knew.
: : :
The next morning dawned bleak and cold, and they began walking once more. Thorin was lost in thought, and it was once again Fíli that led the way, consulting their maps and making the decisions. Bilbo watched him as he talked to Balin and Dwalin about possible entrances, his shoulders squared as if under a burden he had become accustomed to bearing.
When they came over a rise and saw at last the great East Gate of Khazad-dûm, he felt the breath rush from his lungs, echoed by gasps from the rest of the party. Carved into the mountain face was a solemn figure, its hands clasping the doors in its stony grip. It gazed off into the east as if in defiance, guarding the entrance forever.
But Fíli gestured, and the party avoided the gate, slipping silently along the sheer cliff face until they found a span of rock that was veined with scarlet ore. Fíli stopped and traced a pattern with his finger along the lines, breathing across it. The veins he touched glowed briefly, and there was a creaking, grinding sound.
The rock slipped aside to reveal darkness leading into the mountain.
Fíli took a deep breath, gazing into the dark. "Khazad-dûm," he whispered. He took a step forward, then stopped and turned to Thorin. "You should be the first to enter," he said.
Thorin nodded curtly and stepped forward, and Bilbo realized when he felt his heart sink that he had been hoping Thorin would defer to Fíli. But instead he brushed past his nephew and walked into the dark without a backward glance.
"Well," said Bilbo, looking at the blackness that had swallowed him. "Here we are."
Fíli had already followed his uncle into the mountain; Balin and Dwalin exchanged glances and entered Khazad-dûm as well. Bilbo swallowed hard.
"Are you ready, Mr. Boggins?" said a voice beside him. Bilbo turned to stare at Kíli, who smiled at him. Then the smile faltered and turned wry. "I know, you want us to call you Bilbo. And I know it's Baggins. I just...sometimes I miss the times when I called you Mr. Boggins."
"Ah," said Bilbo. "Well, you are welcome to call me Mr. Boggins at any time if it makes you feel better."
Kíli chuckled. "Actually, I feel a bit better already." He bowed, sweeping a hand toward the gate. "Shall we?"
Side by side, they entered the blackness of Moria, where only evil had dwelt for many an age.