They spent several more days in the same secluded spot. When Blaine was fully awake and on the mend, Kurt felt confident leaving him alone for long spells, and took the opportunity to make their shelter safer, concealing it better from passersby above and below. Kurt heard no more foul voices on the air; he felt no more spectral eyes following their steps. The Elvish swords no longer glowed blue, but Kurt would pull his swords from their scabbards every once in a while and check, keeping one exposed during the night to alert them of any danger.

No Orc search party came after them, and Kurt's Elf eyes and ears could tell that what was left of the enormous army had moved on beyond his reckoning. Kurt wondered where the mongrels were headed, where their final destination lay – what poor town or village would finally face their wrath.

He also wondered if the loathsome creatures had written them off as dead.

Kurt gathered as much of the edible flora as he could find, which Blaine appreciated, but it didn't quite suit the Dwarf's palate.

Blaine didn't say a word, but he didn't need to. Kurt could tell.

For Blaine's sake, Kurt tried his hand at hunting. He didn't consult Blaine beforehand, not wanting to get his friend's hopes up in case he proved to be a phenomenal failure. His traps were sloppy, mangled things – dangerous, but not altogether lethal. He hurt himself more than he actually snared anything. The few rabbits he managed to capture he did so by hand, but even then he had to carry the poor, wriggling creatures back to Blaine to be dispatched.

Blaine smiled when he saw them, knowing what his friend had done for him. He relieved Kurt of the unappealing task of killing, skinning, and cooking the animals. Kurt fetched kindling for their fire and left Blaine to his work, since the cries of the rabbits tugged at his heart strings unpleasantly. By the time Kurt returned with his arms full of twigs and sticks, the meat was completely prepared and ready for the fire. Kurt admired Blaine's skill, and rewarded the Dwarf with a small smile and a hand carding gently through his hair.

While the game roasted over the fire, Kurt and Blaine talked – mostly Kurt talked at first while Blaine regained his strength, and then Blaine added his share to the conversation.

Kurt felt that through these conversations - by sitting for tales of his family and his clan, by listening to Blaine sing the songs of the mines - he was truly beginning to know his unlikely little friend, so Kurt was amazed to discover that there was one more secret that Blaine was keeping, one more left untold, but he didn't press his friend to reveal it.

They talked long into the night, with Kurt keeping watch, even after Blaine drifted off to sleep. Sometimes Blaine stayed up with him. Kurt would scold him and tell him that he needed his sleep.

Blaine always said that he had slept enough.

Blaine watched the swords as often as Kurt did, fascinated by his memory of the shimmering blue light that the swords gave off during the battle.

“So, is it an enchantment?” Blaine asked one night. “Do they only glow like that during battle?”

“Ahhh,” Kurt sighed, “my inquisitive Dwarf returns.”

Blaine blushed to his roots, but he didn't turn away from his friend's enchanting sky blue eyes.

“No and yes,” Kurt said. “The Elves who forged these swords imbued them with the power to indicate when Orcs or Goblins are near with the ability to glow from within. That is the blue light you saw.”

Blaine nodded, chewing on a handful of berries and, at Kurt's request, a crumb or two of lembas bread.

“So, they are ancient swords then?” he asked. “Do they have names?”

“Yes,” Kurt said. “Mine was given to me by my brother. It is called Deadheader.”

“Deadheader?” Blaine repeated, sitting up with interest. “Has it seen many battles?”

To that question, Kurt ducked his head, smiling through his memories before he answered.

“Not exactly,” he said. “In fact, until recently, I think it may have only seen one other.”

“Then how did the sword come by such a name?” Blaine asked, popping another berry in his mouth. Kurt watched Blaine as he devoured the fruit, strangely drawn to the occupation of his mouth.

“I-it was actually given the name by my stepmother,” Kurt continued with a slight stutter at the start when Blaine noticed the attention of his eyes and smiled. Kurt returned his gaze to the sword, pulling the blade from its scabbard and holding it aloft. The blade hummed lightly in his hands, as if knowing it was the topic of conversation. “When my brother was first given the sword, this amazing piece of Elvish craftsmanship, an heirloom of my kin to be cherished and honored…” Kurt's eyes grazed along the sword as he spoke, and Blaine caught his breath to revel in the sound of awe in his tone. His tone dropped along with his eyes, looking back over at Blaine when he continued, “Finn used it to deadhead the roses.”

Blaine laughed suddenly, covering his mouth as he choked on a piece of improperly chewed fruit, his face turning an alarming shade of red, but his eyes shining.

Kurt found an infectious joy in Blaine's laughter and joined him, returning the blade to its resting place and silencing its gentle hum.

“And the one I gave to you?” Blaine asked as soon as he could speak again.

Kurt lifted the second sword, scabbard and all, and held it reverently in his hands.

“It is called Riverdancer,” Kurt said, slowly removing the sheath to examine the blade properly. Blaine tilted his head and watched him.

“How do you know its name?”

“I remember this blade well,” Kurt said with his eyes glued to the metal. “There are many songs about it.” He wrapped his hand around the hilt of the sword, pulled it from its resting place, and held it high in the air. “It was forged, and then lost. It was carried away by the Great River and thought to be gone from the Elves forever.”

“So, how did it return?” Blaine asked. “Who found it?”

“It is said that this blade traveled all the way to the Undying Lands,” Kurt said, slicing the air, “and that it was rescued from the water by the Valar. It was passed around from one to the other and then sent back by the river until it washed up onto our shores once again.”

Blaine sat forward as Kurt spoke, listening intently but also longing to be nearer to him.

“How do you know, though?” Blaine asked. “How can you tell it has been where your legends say?”

Almost in response to the want in Blaine's mind, Kurt stood from his seat to sit beside Blaine. He rested the sword against the Dwarf's leg and pointed to the symbols etched along the smooth edge of the blade.

“These markings,” Kurt explained, indicating each one with his finger, “are symbols of the Valar, which had not been etched into the blade when the sword went missing.”

Blaine's eyes followed Kurt's fingers as they traced over the marks and symbols, his light touch against the metal sending a chill down Blaine's spine. He trembled, and Kurt felt it, the ripple of movement down his arms and back.

Kurt misunderstood. Thinking Blaine had caught a chill, he set the blade aside, took off his jacket, and wrapped it around Blaine's shoulders, holding him tight to keep him warm.

Blaine shivered again.

“That's…that's amazing,” Blaine said.

“Hmmm,” Kurt said, “I like to shut my eyes sometimes and imagine it, the sword dancing down the river, rolling with the waves, floating out into the world, unfettered and free.”

“Is that where you long to be?” Blaine asked, eyes looking upward to search Kurt's face.

“I used to,” Kurt confessed. “Every day I'd dream of going on an adventure, exploring the wilds.”

Kurt sighed, the swell of his chest lifting Blaine's head gently with it so that when it came back down to rest Blaine could hear the thrum of the Elf's heartbeat against his ear.

“And now?”

“Now I think that maybe a life of adventure is a bit much for me,” Kurt laughed, glancing down and catching Blaine's upturned eyes. “Look at all that we've done so far and we haven't even retrieved your treasure.” Kurt laughed again, struggling to cease when he saw how it jostled the Dwarf, who was too stubborn to move. “By the time this is over, I think I will have had all the adventure I need to sustain me for the rest of my days…if I'm still alive when this is over, that is.”

Kurt meant it as a joke, but Blaine didn't find it amusing.

“Please, don't say that,” Blaine said quietly, so quietly that Kurt had no choice but to stop laughing and listen. Blaine's eyes welled with his affection for Kurt, and Kurt could see his still weakened heart break.

“Blaine…” Kurt said as the start to an apology.

“I promised I would not leave you,” Blaine intervened. “Now you have to make the same promise to me.”

Kurt didn't look away when he leaned down and kissed Blaine's forehead, brushing his nose through the crown of silky, dark curls that cascaded over the crown of Blaine's head.

“I will endeavor never to leave you, Blaine,” Kurt said, feeling the Dwarf relax against him. “That is a promise.”

***

As soon as Blaine could put weight on his legs, he wanted to be off again on their quest. He felt better, and his health had vastly improved, but Blaine was still unsteady on his feet. He could not take a step without his knees buckling, and he could barely carry the weight of his pack on his shoulders, especially while he favored one. Kurt better understood why Blaine was so eager to make his way to his Mountain. It hadn't simply been a matter of treasure. Several lives would pay dearly if Kurt didn't get Blaine to his Mountain, and time, he realized, had become their greatest and most persistent enemy. But it would do no good for them to set out and have Blaine collapse from exhaustion. With a heavy heart, Kurt managed to convince Blaine to stay in their woebegone shelter for two more nights, until his legs held him upright at least.

On the final day of Blaine's convalescence, it was the Dwarf who roused the Elf first with a sweet song and an equally sweet but chaste kiss.

Early morning mist still clung to dew speckled grass when Elf and Dwarf set out again.

Kurt watched Blaine hobble along, gripping onto his pack with white knuckled hands. It was much lighter without the blade strapped beneath it, but Blaine still labored under the weight of his axes and his gear, which he refused to let Kurt help him carry. Kurt was of a mind to just pick the Dwarf up – pack, weapons, and all – and carry him across the landscape, but he did not wish to bruise his friend's ego.

Steadily on foot, they made their way beyond the borders of land where Elves held any influence, their focus captured by a singular goal – a Mountain whose presence was not recorded on any map - an ancient Dwarf stronghold bereft of a name that anyone could recall.

“Is that…is that my Mountain?” Blaine asked when his eyes first beheld it, the towering mass of grey climbing into the sky, appearing over the threshold all at once, like a manifestation of dark smoke that decided in the instance of its existence to become rock and stone.

“Yes, Blaine,” Kurt said with his own unrestrained gasp of awe. “There is your Mountain.” Kurt turned to Blaine, who looked upon it with a dropped jaw, an expression of bittersweet rapture on his ruddy face, and tears in his hazel eyes. “Are you ready to see it?”

He nodded, still staring, unwilling to look away from it.

“Aye,” Blaine said, holding his axes close, looking to them for a comfort that came from memories of family and home, even if it was a home he'd never seen before. “Aye. Let's go.”

***

The road that led to the Mountain of Blaine's clan was less an established trail and more a thicket of brambles and thorns that snagged their clothes, their hair, and their skin. Every inch of their bodies that could be nicked or pricked was scratched bloody. Blaine tried to combat the briers and clear a path, but he could only manage the one axe. His body shook with every swing, and because of the handicap of his injured arm his balance became hard to keep. Several times he fell forward into the thorns.

Unable to watch his Dwarf friend hurt himself any longer, Kurt grabbed the axes from his hands and attacked the twisted branches and their dagger-sharp thorns. He struggled silently when the skin on his palms tore beneath the wooden handles, or when his shoulders ached from swinging the axe more vigorously than necessary. The brambles only seemed to get denser and thicker the further they walked.

Kurt began to groan, and then to wail, his mind spiraling with torment and self-doubt.

Blaine's strength – gone.

Blaine's arm – done.

Blaine's life – inexorably altered because of him.

Kurt knew that Blaine bore him no ill will. He knew that Blaine wanted Kurt to forget, and he thought that he had until this moment when the reality of Blaine's wrecked body and its impact on his future hit Kurt square in the face.

“Kurt,” Blaine beckoned, keeping his distance from the flailing weapons, “Kurt, please. Slow down. You're hurt.”

Kurt heard his voice but all he saw was their destination – the road up the Mountain that led Blaine back to the mine of his clan, the home of his people.

Kurt couldn't give Blaine back his strength, or his arm, but he could give him this.

“No,” Kurt said, somewhere between a growl and a sob, “no, Blaine. I can see it. Up ahead. We can make it.”

“Kurt,” Blaine said, coming up behind the Elf and putting a comforting hand on his back, “we're here.”

And they were, standing before the start of a road at the base of the Mountain, arbored by winding branches and overhanging vines so heavily intertwined that from where they stood they could not see a way through to the top. Kurt stood dumbfounded with the axes in his hands, his palms swollen, blisters which had formed already bleeding. Splintered wood littered his hair and his clothes, and carpeted the ground around him.

He felt a hand pull the axes from his grip and press a clean, dry cloth to his hands.

“It wasn't your fault, Kurt,” Blaine said, turning Kurt's palm up in his hands and wrapping it gently. “Nothing that happened was your fault.”

Kurt wanted to nod, to tell Blaine that he understood that, but he couldn't make himself agree. Instead, he stood in silence and let Blaine wrap his hands.

“What do you know?” Blaine asked, focused on Kurt's hands. “What do you know about my Mountain? Why it's not on that map? Why this road…” Blaine's eyes traveled to the impassable looking road ahead of them, “looks so unused and abandoned?”

Blaine tied off the last bandage and Kurt wrapped his fingers around Blaine's hands.

“Long ago, I was told, that the Dwarves of this Mountain…” Kurt smiled at Blaine, “your kin…had good relations with the Woodland Elves. This road was built specially for the Elves' particular use.”

“What do they call this road?” Blaine asked.

Kurt's small smile turned sad, and for the life of him he didn't want to say.

“Well, that's the thing. It's been so long since those friendships were honored, so long since it was used,” Kurt explained, looking up the length of the dangerous path, “that its name has passed from the languages of Elves and Dwarves, but the Elves call it…” Kurt stopped for a moment and swallowed, the words leaving a bitter taste on his tongue as they waited to be spoken, “A Long Forgotten Road.”

“That…that's just a description,” Blaine said, looking from the road, to Kurt, and then back to the road again. “It's not a name.”

“Exactly,” Kurt sighed. “It's been so long since anyone has had need of this road, that its name stopped being necessary.”

Blaine held onto Kurt's hands tighter than he intended, but Kurt adsorbed the sharp pain and made no mention of it.

“It takes a long time to forget a name, Kurt,” Blaine whispered, his chest suddenly tightening with grief and sorrow.

“Yes,” Kurt agreed. “A very long time.”

“Did my kin pass by way of this road?” Blaine asked. “Can your Elf eyes tell?”

“They did not,” Kurt said. “Lord Elrond informed me that they carved a path along the far side - an easier path.”

“Probably easier because it was already in use by the Trolls they set upon, I'd wager,” Blaine muttered.

“Possibly,” Kurt agreed, “but if not for the occupation of the Trolls, that road might very well have been destroyed by the landslide that trapped your brother and your clan inside.” Kurt walked with Blaine to the head of the trail. “Either way, it's too far from our destination to chance taking it. Your door is at the end of this road.”

“It does not look safe,” Blaine said, his voice meek and small - much smaller than Kurt felt suited his brave Mountain Dwarf.

“No paths are safe,” Kurt replied solemnly. He turned to see Blaine peering through the menacing trees, reaching for his axe. Kurt stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. When Blaine's eyes stared up at him, Kurt smiled. “But worry not, my friend. I will protect you.”

Blaine looked back at the road. He raised his foot to take a step forward, then stopped, letting the limb hover in the air.

“If I take this step,” he said, “it will be the first time I have ever been to the Mountain of my kin. It will be the first time I have ever been home.”

Kurt smiled softly at his Dwarf companion. “Then we should get started,” he said.

For the first time in the life of many of these ancient trees, they witnessed something so unfamiliar that none knew how to process it. The Dwarf Blaine slipped his hand inside the grasp of the Elf Kurt, and the two walked boldly into their Forest, hand-in-hand . This alone may be the only thing that kept them safe, as the general confusion among all creatures that lingered was such that none knew whether or not to risk separating the two, for whatever enchantment could bind a Dwarf and Elf in friendship must be powerful indeed.

They walked as long as they could keep their feet beneath them. Night and day meant nothing in these woods, since the tangled limbs that made up the Forest canopy completely obscured the light. They camped only once along the trail, and kept close together, joining their bedrolls and sleeping beneath them. Kurt held Blaine tight in his arms with his twin swords nearby, daring any dark creature that inhabited the woods to come out and try to claim him.

The presence of an Elf in their woods woke the trees, stirred them from their slumber. They saw the determined Elf guarding his Dwarf friend, and took pity on the two. So they bent their braches over them to keep them safe. Kurt heard the trees moving, heard the bark crack and the branches moan. Barren boughs, black as pitch, resembling ancient charred and skeletal bones, wove themselves together and concealed the companions from view. When the trees had bowered them safely inside, they settled their knotted limbs together and went back to sleep. Kurt smiled at the grace that had been bestowed upon them, and satisfied that they would be protected for the night, Kurt fell asleep.