A Shot in the dark (Bagginshield)

Interlude

"WHAT?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE'S GONE?!"

Dwalin looked up from his watery soup and squinted at the door. He could hear Dáin alternating between cursing something fierce, and interrogating the unfortunate bastard that had managed to piss him off. He felt a brief stab of surprise at the Dwarf's anger—Dáin kept his cool even when things went sour; like that time he and Thorin decided to steal King Thrór's favorite book, "The Stone Mason's Mistress," only to be caught by the king himself—but mostly he was curious over what ruffled him up so badly. Whatever it was, it had to be big.

To his joy, Dáin came stomping into the room with his face as red as Glóin's hair, and his braids messy and undone. He looked like a weasel that had been upturned in the middle of his nap. When his blue eyes landed on Dwalin, they narrowed into slits. He stomped over to the warrior and threw a wrinkled envelop into his face.

"Read this. Now," the Lord growled before turning back on his heel with a dramatic flourish of his cloak because he was secretly as dramatic as Thorin was in front of Bilbo.

"Wait, why? Who is this from?" he called as Dáin stalked off. "Dáin!"

"Just read it!" the other Dwarf roared back without stopping. "And I'm going to tell our stupid cousin that his dumbass intended has run off for Mordor!"

Dwalin dropped his bowl of soup. "WHAT?!"

"Master Balin? I have a letter here for you from Lord Dáin."

Balin nodded and held out his hand without looking away from the papers he was going through. "Thank you. Dismissed."

The attendant gave him a thickly bound letter before bowing and leaving. Balin tossed it onto his table and finished reading the reports he had before finally looking at the letter from Dáin. To his surprise, the handwriting on the envelope was not the familiar slashes he had been expecting. Curious, he picked up the letter, broke the seal, and then skimmed over the excessively curvy letters. What he read made his very heart stop in his chest.

"Oh no. Bilbo... what have we done?"

"From Uncle Dáin? About what?" Kíli wondered as he took a thick envelope from one of Dáin's personal guards.

"Wait, this is Bilbo's handwriting," Fíli realized as he scanned his own yellow envelope. "Why is he sending us letters?"

The guard shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. All I was told by Lord Dáin was to deliver these letters to you both."

Fíli exchanged a look with his brother before dismissing the unknown guard. Once the stranger was gone, he opened the letter and began to read. Five minutes later the letter was a crinkled mess on the floor as he lunged for his still-reading brother. Kíli squawked and caught him with one arm while the other splayed behind him in order to balance himself from falling off his chair.

"Fíli! What the hell?!" he yelled as pushed away the blond braids falling into his face. "What is wrong with you?!"

"You were supposed to die," Fíli rasped as he hugged his only brother tighter. "We both were. We were meant to die..."

He felt Kíli relax in his arms slightly but he didn't dare relinquish his hold. "Fee, what...?"

"Read your letter, Kíli," he bid as he buried his face in the messy dark locks, and tried his best not to imagine a world without his little brother at his side. "Just read it."

"Brother? What are you reading?" Glóin asked as he waltzed into the room that Óin had claimed as his own. His older brother stood before a table covered with his herbs, tools, and other healing nonsense that he knew all about, but never bothered to share with anyone. Óin had always got pissed at him for not knowing so he made it a point to act dumb just to annoy him.