“By the Valar, Dwarf, can you not travel any faster?” Kurt growled in frustration, barreling across the open meadow toward the hillside, speeding up a hair on purpose. “If I am forced to hobble along at your speed, we will be walking this road until you are old and grey.”

The Dwarf didn't respond, unable to catch enough breath to speak a word. He huffed through his mouth as he put on a burst of speed, doing his best to trod faster behind his reluctant companion. Kurt looked back at the wobbling Dwarf and sighed. Regardless of his grousing, the Elf stopped and waited by the line of trees, listening in the growing dusk for the telltale shuffle of the Dwarf's feet approaching the base of the hill where the supple green grass transformed into dry underbrush. His footfalls rolled unevenly left to right as he walked, stuttering on the final beat of the last step before he could begin to take a new one. Kurt heard him scurrying his way up the hill behind him and rolled his eyes at the seemingly exaggerated effort made by the runted creature.

“And would you mind breathing through your nose instead of your mouth?” Kurt grumbled. “You pant so loudly I'm amazed that we haven't already been attacked by every sinister creature within a mile of here just to shut you up.”

The Dwarf – Blaine, he was called, of the Andurinin Clan – looked up at Kurt with apologetic eyes as he fought his already exhausted body to quicken his pace, and Kurt, though he despised all Dwarves on principle, felt his heart hurt for the creature. Blaine was not unhandsome, even if he was a Dwarf, and despite the unfortunate circumstances of his birth, he had a discernible kindness in his face and eyes. But Kurt would not allow himself to be swayed. Blaine was a burden, and that's the only way Kurt intended to see him from now until their quest was complete.

“I am sorry…Master Elf,” Blaine managed between pants. He came to a stop beside Kurt, who stared down at him with a glare of superiority. Blaine stooped over at the waist with his hands resting on his thighs as he sucked in deep gulps of air to revive his air-starved lungs. “Would it…be alright…if we…rested a moment?

Kurt rolled his eyes, not hiding the groan that came with it, but he relented. Better to stop a moment and let the Dwarf catch his breath than to have him pass out further up the hill and need to carry him…which Kurt wasn't entirely convinced he was willing to do.

“Fine,” Kurt said, “but for only a second, Dwarf. We need to make camp up the hillside before it gets too dark.”

Blaine looked up with appreciation at his guide, but then his eyes traveled up the length of the hill, the steep slope spattered with tall, thin trees, already ominous in the growing gloom.

Blaine gulped audibly, his mouth hanging open.

“We will be spending the night…here?” Blaine's voice trembled slightly, as did his knees. Kurt smirked.

“Yes,” Kurt said, relishing the Dwarf's fear of the Forest.

Blaine's eyes stayed glued to the trees, waiting to see if they would move or reach out to them with twisted, wooden fingers, bare like jointed bones, ready to drag them down to the depths of the peat beneath their roots.

“It is said that the trees capture trespassers and bury them below the earth,” Blaine mumbled. “They skewer their bodies with their roots and feed off of them slowly for hundreds of years…while their victims are still alive.”

Blaine gulped again. Kurt wanted to laugh.

“The trees have no reason to kill an Elf,” Kurt said, brimming with confidence from the toes of his shoes to the braids in his chestnut hair, “and I doubt they have a taste for something as sour as Dwarf-flesh.”

Blaine didn't seem to register the insult, sighing in relief instead. Without asking first if the Dwarf was okay to continue, Kurt turned back to the trail and headed into the woods.

“Lord Elrond says there is a darkness brewing,” Blaine spoke above a whisper, “rumors of a nameless fear. Even if the trees don't seek to harm us, will it be safe for us inside these woods?”

Kurt took offense to this horrid little beast questioning his sound reasoning and impeccable sense of direction. There were things an Elf's eyes saw clearly that preferred to stay hidden from the view of Dwarves or Men, and Blaine should simply take heed and trust Kurt's sight instead of asking so many inane questions.

“We will be fine, Dwarf, as long as you keep your axes to yourself and you follow my lead.” Kurt made it a point not to mention the addition of an Elvish blade in an intricately-tooled scabbard that hung clumsily off the Dwarf's back. He glared at it enviously, but he did not acknowledge it.

“Well then,” Blaine said with a small, reassured smile aimed at the ill-tempered Elf, “pick a direction, Master Elf, and I shall follow wherever you lead.”

Kurt rolled his eyes at the flowery sentiment. Oh, how he wished this was a quest he could have managed alone. All his life he had longed for an adventure - some noble quest that would give him the chance to explore the world. Here he was, out on the road leading him away from Rivendell and into the unknown…and all he wanted to do was to turn around and go back home.

In reality, Kurt had no reason to be angry with Blaine. Far from it. If not for Blaine and his asinine need for an Elf guide, Kurt wouldn't be on this quest. He would never get to see any of the land that lay beyond the borders of his homeland.

His father would make sure of it.

It had been barely two weeks since a lame and nearly blinded Dwarf was carried into their midst by a company of Silvan Elves from the Forest of Mirkwood. Kurt could only watch from afar. He didn't have the chance to speak to the wounded Dwarf himself (nor would he want to, really) but no sooner had he arrived than a party of Rivendell Elves were dispatched on horseback to the Blue Mountains. Three days ago, they returned with this Dwarf – this Blaine in tow - and this ridiculous folly fell right into Kurt's lap. By all accounts, Kurt should feel honored. This task was handed to him by Lord Elrond directly. His father, who had never approved of anything that would bring Kurt accolades or honor of any kind, did not initially approve, but when all was said and done, his father did nothing to hide the fact that he was more than happy to see his youngest son, the bane of his existence, sent away on a fool's errand in the aid of a Dwarf, no less. What burned Kurt the most was that while he was babysitting runts (truly a runt, for Blaine must have been the tiniest Dwarf that Kurt had ever seen pass through Rivendell), Kurt's older brother, Finn, was off on a mission of his own, rescuing a prince of the Woodland Realm along with the help of the Silvan Elves and the Rohirrim. The whithertos and the whyfors of that particular quest were not explained to him, and his brother said that he was not at liberty to discuss it.

For his part, Finn admitted so with great regret.

Finn also said that he would miss his brother very much.

Kurt rolled his eyes again, this time at the image of his brother mounting his gorgeous white stead and wearing golden armor, glittering in the sun with his bow and quiver slung over his shoulder and a specially crafted sword at his side.

Such a contrast to Kurt, who trundled along on foot through the grass, clothed in hand-me-down tunics and an ill-fitting leather vest, armed with a single blade and an aged bow, his quiver barely competent to hold the eleven arrows it contained. The only thing new that he wore was his jacket – a gift from his stepmother.

He couldn't fault his brother (actually, his half-brother), though. He could never blame Finn. Finn was an unusual Elf – muscular instead of lithe, tan instead of fair. He bore the look of a Dúnadan Ranger, which might have been why he was sought out for his quest. Apart from all that, he was also the kindest, the most giving, if maybe not always the most intuitive Elf in all of Rivendell. He didn't dream of adventure the way Kurt did, and that was part of the heartache attached to watching him leave. His eyes looked longingly back while all other eyes were steered forward, and the sorrow on his face had been palpable, even from a distance.

Finn deserved whatever honors his quest showered upon him. So, as beleaguered as he found himself at the indifference of his father, he offered up a prayer to the Valar, asking for Finn's safe return.

“You know, I've never really met an Elf before,” Blaine piped up, shaking Kurt from his musings. They had walked on for hours, more or less in silence, since the moment they had set out from Rivendell, not for any lack of trying on Blaine's part. The Dwarf seemed to find agony in quiet, and asked question after question, which Kurt answered only with a grunt or a non-committal nod or shake of his head. Once Blaine realized that Kurt was disinclined to talk, the insufferable Dwarf started to sing. A few miles in, he became comfortable with the woods and he sang loudly, entirely unaware of the dangers that lurked even in the brightest lit and most welcoming looking places in the Forest.

It wasn't simply the trees that they had need to fear.

Appearances could be deceiving, especially when it came to the dark spaces that lay in between the rocks and the trees. Several times Kurt scolded the Dwarf, regardless of how sweet and soothing his voice proved to be, how it seemed to speed their journey along to have his music fill the air.

Blaine stayed silently obedient for hours, and if not for his constant heavy stomping through the crunching leaves (almost for his own amusement) or his labored breathing, Kurt might have been able to convince himself that he was travelling on this quest alone.

“I said, I've never really met an Elf before,” Blaine repeated, raising his voice as a courtesy in case Kurt had not heard him the first time.

“Really,” Kurt replied in a flat and disinterested manner.

“Really,” Blaine said, encouraged by the Elf's rare response. “I've heard a lot about them, though.”

“Have you…” Kurt sighed with exaggerated frustration in a passive-aggressive attempt to get the Dwarf to keep quiet.

“Oh, yes,” Blaine continued, puffing as he attempted to keep up. “I have heard they are magic. That they are born of the angels and sent here as caretakers of Middle-earth.” Blaine sighed, looking up at the sky, starry-eyed. “Oh, but to be blessed with such glorious purpose.”

Kurt laughed.

“Yes,” Kurt said, “I imagine that would sound wonderful and mystical to you, but it's not exactly true.”

“It's not?” Blaine asked with surprise.

“No, Master Dwarf,” Kurt spat, “it's not.”

In Kurt's head, he could hear his father laughing cruelly at this Dwarf's rosy-colored perception of Kurt's purpose in this equation.

Dwarf guide.

Babysitter.

That's all Kurt really was.

“Blaine.”

“Excuse me?” Kurt snapped.

“You keep calling me Dwarf, but my name is Blaine.”

“I know your name, Dwarf,” Kurt said with little concern for the Dwarf's feelings on the subject of his name.

Kurt marched his Dwarf companion to near exhaustion, not stopping until every trace of the sun was erased from the sky and the stars had come out – every last one - in the hopes that Blaine would succumb to sleep and finally leave him in peace. It worked better than Kurt had expected, and for that, he felt a pang of guilt, for the bone-tired Dwarf crawled immediately into his bedroll and fell asleep without taking even a bite of his dinner.

Maybe a bitter Elf, but not entirely uncompassionate, Kurt made a mental note to make that up to the Dwarf at breakfast.

They slept out in the open, sheltered by the ruins of an old vacant watchtower. With no fire to warm them, they huddled inside their bedrolls completely clothed with shoes and jackets as well – separately, but close enough to be of aid to one another in case of an unexpected Orc attack. Blaine snored while he slept - his breathing coming in even, stuttering inhales and long, smooth exhales. Kurt lay awake, staring up at the starlight – each one a memory, precious and pure.

He sorted through the stars, some dim, others bright, wondering which ones held the memories of his mother.

The events of the day played through his mind, each second from his visit with Lord Elrond to the moment he left the borders of his homeland. His father did not come to see him off, but his stepmother did, to give him her present and to wish him farewell, but most of all to make him promise to keep himself safe and return to her. She held him tight in her arms and cried, and Kurt knew that he would miss her dearly.

Lord Elrond had put his hands on Kurt's shoulders and given him his blessing. He told him that the blessings and good wishes of all the Elves of Rivendell traveled along with him.

“Keep the Dwarf safe,” he had said quietly in Kurt's ear so only he could hear, “for he may hold the future of renewing our alliance with the Dwarves.”

Kurt hadn't said a word, but in the silence that followed, in itself a question, Lord Elrond continued, “A day may come when a friendship with the Seven Kingdoms of the Dwarves may have a part in determining the future of all of Middle-earth.”

None of it made sense to Kurt. Middle-earth, as far as Kurt knew, was in no danger. Orcs and Trolls and Goblins kept to themselves, and were of no concern to the Elves of Rivendell since they never came anywhere close to their shores and borders.

“And be wary, Kurt,” he said finally, “a nameless Evil is growing, a great distance from here, but you walk in its shadow, you follow in its footsteps, and I fear that the farther you walk from us, the closer you may come to it turning its eye on you.”

Apparently, Lord Elrond had hinted the same to Blaine. Kurt wondered what else the Great Elf Lord had said to his Dwarf companion.

Kurt would think of those words over and over as his eyes fell closed, as he drifted off to sleep, but not deep enough to ignore the passing of the world around them, the wind as it carried with it the far-off scent of danger, the sounds of horses and wolves and rabbits and mice and other animals skittering across the land, and the feel of the sun as it began to warm the sky. What seemed like the mere blink of an eye later saw Kurt packing up his things and rousing Blaine from what appeared to be a blissful sleep if the smile on his face was any indication.

Kurt shook his head in amazement. This Dwarf would probably be the death of him.

The rays of a new sun barely touched the horizon when Elf and Dwarf set out on their journey again.