After Blaine's declaration – a sentiment shared by the clan as a whole - the Dwarves set to work preparing their king for the trip to the Blue Mountains. They constructed a makeshift stretcher from materials they found around the store room – long white table cloths made of finely woven fabric, permanently creased from ages of being folded on shelves instead of draped over tables in the great hall; and the frames from old chairs, long past their use and already falling to pieces. Those not employed in the construction of the stretcher were busy finding whatever they could that was suitable to eat on a long journey. They all shared the load, dividing the food into each of their packs, with the lion's share of the supplies stowed into Dave's pack, since he was capable of shouldering the heaviest burden.

On the search for food, Mike stumbled across three expertly hidden and unopened bottles of mead that would have otherwise gone overlooked if not for the need to turn the store room inside-out. The find was seen by all as providence, a sign of good fortune for their journey.

While the Dwarves worked, Kurt began to sing. Blaine stopped when he heard the angelic sound. Kurt had sung for him many times after his fall – to keep him calm in the throes of illness, or to help him go to sleep. But this song was different – melancholy and sweet, but full of yearning. It was a music that wove through the stale air like a fine silver thread. The words Kurt sang Blaine had no hope of comprehending, but the tune - the tune he could understand.

All who heard it stopped to admire its beauty - all except for Puck.

The embittered Dwarf became unexpectedly enraged by Kurt's lilting song.

“What is that, Elf?” Puck roared, leaving his work and storming over to where Kurt paced the entrance to the store room. “Are you casting a spell? Do you mean to leave us trapped here to rot?”

Blaine rushed after him, not sure whose safety he worried for more – his hotheaded cousin, or the Elf with the ice blue eyes trained on him. Where Blaine had expected to see offense in Kurt's eyes - and rightfully so - he saw only kindness, compassion, and forgiveness.

“Tis not a spell,” Kurt said, his lips curling a touch at the edges, “but a blessing.”

“A blessing?” Puck snapped, folding his arms over his chest, unimpressed by the Elf's weak excuse.

“Yes,” Kurt said, “A blessing.”

“I don't see, Elf, how you feel you can bless us,” Puck alleged, “for we here do not belive in your Elf gods.”

“It's a song to Aulë - the creator you Dwarves call Mahal - asking him to find the great king's spirit and exult him among the other great kings of your race.”

All of the Dwarves stopped and stared at the Elf in disbelief, as not a one of them had ever been spoken to with such honest respect by an Elf before. Kurt held his ground, and Puck backed slowly away, his mouth open wide, unsure of what to say in response.

“Well, then,” he said, making an uneasy motion with his hands since he knew not what else to do, “get on with it then. Sing. Bless us. Forgive me for interrupting.”

Kurt nodded and continued his song.

Blaine looked from Cooper to Sam – both perplexed beyond belief - and shook his head. Blaine had witnessed history being made. He stood in the presence of a true miracle – a tongue-tied Puck struck humble enough to offer up an apology, especially to an Elf.

***

Kurt expected the return trip to be as daunting as the first, but the journey back down the Mountain was in some ways easier, and in other ways harder. The trees no longer toyed with them, so the path that had taken so much perseverance to pick through was mostly clear.

But much that the Dwarves brought with them, they had either lost or left behind.

Kurt reflected on his own journey and didn't know how to feel. Much of him was stripped bare, with pieces scattered all over the countryside. The dreams that he long thought he wanted to follow he found he had outgrown a while ago. He saw that now. It took him walking from nearly one end of Middle-earth all the way to the other in order to figure that out. He was a much different Elf than the one who had left Rivendell - the one who had cursed his life and his dreadful luck.

The Elf he was now longed to find a home to call his own.

Watching Blaine give up his Mountain drove that realization to the heart of him.

Then there was Blaine.

So much of what had changed Kurt was tied up in Blaine – in his patience, in his giving heart, and in his sweet disposition. Every time they stopped to rest, Blaine was by his side. On the rare times he wasn't – when he was regaling his clan with tales of their adventures, of Artie's terrible misfortune with the Spiders, or of Kurt's dramatic escape from the Orcs with him in tow - Kurt shut his eyes but could not rid his mind of Blaine. His black curls, his hazel eyes, his soft lips pressed against Kurt's skin all haunted him. Blaine had made his way into Kurt's brain. He had wormed his way under Kurt's skin. Kurt tried to find any way to exorcise the Dwarf from his thoughts, but it was no use.

Blaine would leave a hole in Kurt's heart that might never be filled.

Kurt would need to learn to live with being torn in two.

They walked more than they rested and covered quite a bit of ground, traveling until they reached an obliging meadow. It was easy for Kurt and Blaine to set up camp when it was just them two, but with extras in the party and more mouths to feed, much more work had to be done.

Cooper and Puck started the fire.

Mike and Dave prepared bedrolls for sleeping.

Sam and Blaine set out their snares so they could celebrate their first night together with fresh meat and not dried-out rations from the mine.

Kurt gathered grasses and berries nearby. He even pulled out his bow and attempted to hunt, not willing to let Sam best him in Blaine's eyes.

After six failed attempts, he managed a kill, and Blaine, with his handful of rabbits, beamed at Kurt with pride.

As night began to fall, it did so without a single star, and Kurt began to worry. He left the Dwarves by the campfire to cavort and reunite with their lost companion while he found a tree on a slightly elevated patch of grass and kept watch. He pricked his ears to the sounds all around. He sniffed the air to get a sense of the creatures nearby.

He heard a rustle in the grass, the footfalls of a cricket in the soft peat, the wings of an owl's feathers cutting through the air, and the slight shifting of fur on a family of mice hunkered down beneath the soil. The scent of the fire reached him, and of rabbits roasting on the spit of the Dwarves, who laughed and sang almost drunkenly even though barely a gulp of mead had been ingested. Kurt laughed when he heard Blaine laugh, the sound warm and comforting. It wrapped around his heart and squeezed hard, leaving a bruise that Kurt hoped would never heal.

He didn't relish the thought of saying good-bye to Blaine. In his own silly way, he had hoped this day would never come.

The breeze shifted, the fire crackled, and on the crisp air the scent of Orc hit the Elf's nose. He spun around, peering into the tree line, trying to catch sight of their enemy, but there was none to be seen. The Orcs were far off, and apparently not too inclined to cover the distance to attack a party of Dwarves and their Elf guide this time if it didn't serve their purpose.

Which meant they had a far more sinister purpose at hand, and Kurt did not like the thought of that at all.

He would allow no more harm to come to Blaine or his kin.

Kurt heard another footfall approach, this one heavier than a cricket or a mouse.

“Blaine?” Kurt called into the dark.

Of course, Kurt already knew who it was traipsing through the grass. There was no mistaking his peculiar limp, though the Dwarf had learned to mask it better. He might be able to hide it from Rangers, maybe even from other Elves, but not from him. Kurt knew the cadence of that walk the way he knew his own heartbeat.

“I have come to relieve you of the watch, my friend,” Blaine said as he approached. It made Kurt's heart flutter to hear the Dwarf address him so, though Kurt liked to imagine that when Blaine said the word friend that it meant something more.

“No, no,” Kurt said with a chuckle, “go back to your firelight and your drunken kin! Catch up with your brother and drink yourself to sleep. Me and my swords will keep you all safe tonight.” Kurt said the words, but he didn't feel them. In truth, he didn't want Blaine to leave.

Blaine look of concern deepened, and Kurt waved him away.

“Worry not about me,” he insisted. “I shall be fine. Trust that I will be getting no sleep at all tonight.”

“Then, may I beg a seat beside you?” Blaine asked, suddenly sounding shy.

Kurt sat up straight against the tree where his back rested, his blue eyes wide.

“But…but what about…” He gestured toward the fire.

“Oh, I'll have more time than I care to have to catch up with those ruddy arses,” Blaine joked, “but I feel that my time with you is growing short.”

Kurt smiled at Blaine's revelation, and keeping his sorrow veiled, he patted the space beside him. Blaine leapt to the spot, settled down, and curled in close. Kurt put an arm around him, feeling protective of the Dwarf despite his best efforts.

“Look at them,” Blaine said, moving closer to his friend, “carrying on as if there isn't danger lurking everywhere in these woods.”

“Yes,” Kurt agreed with a knowing smirk, “so we'd better stay aware and keep an extra close eye on those trees.”

Blaine tilted his head and took in Kurt's face, awake and alert, eyes sweeping the meadow.

“Do Elves never sleep?” he asked, surrendering to a yawn.

Kurt hugged Blaine closer.

“We sleep as much as we need, but at this rate I may not sleep until I get safely back to Rivendell.”

“Why no-awww-t?” Blaine asked, another yawn interrupting his words.

Kurt sighed.

“I have far too much to think about.”

“Planning your next epic adventure?” Blaine teased.

“No,” Kurt said emphatically, smiling down at the Dwarf by his side, who looked up at him with heavy-lidded eyes, “no, no, no. I was wrong.”

Blaine yawned again.

“Wrong about what?”

“About wanting an adventure,” Kurt admitted. “About leaving home. About far too many things.”

“Like…” Blaine pressed, letting his eyelids droop.

“Like the world and my place in it. About my kin. About Dwarves…” Kurt looked down again and smiled even though Blaine's eyelids had drifted shut and he couldn't see him. “About you.”

“Me?” Blaine asked. “What about me?”

“Just that…” Kurt's mouth formed words, but his voice wouldn't say them out loud.

That Blaine was wonderful.

That he treasured their friendship over any in his life.

That Kurt would miss him.

“That you are the strangest Dwarf I think I shall ever know.”

“And you were wrong about that?” Blaine scrunched his nose in his confusion.

“Yes,” Kurt said adamantly. “That honor now belongs to your brother and that crazy band of miscreants you call a clan.”

Blaine snickered through yet another yawn.

“So…what will you do now?” Blaine asked.

“I really don't know,” Kurt said. “Try to make amends with my father. Settle down maybe. Make a home. Find someone to share my life with.”

Blaine yawned in earnest, leaning all his weight into Kurt's side.

“I…I would share my life with you,” Blaine said, sleep slurring the words and transforming them into snores.

Kurt held his breath, waiting to see if Blaine would add an addendum to his statement – something along the lines of, “I would share my life with you if you were but a Dwarf,” or, “I would share my life with you if I were but an Elf.” But Blaine fell swiftly to sleep and had nothing else to say.

Kurt felt the start of tears, and struggled to keep them at bay.

“I would share my life with you, too,” Kurt said, leaning over and placing a small kiss to the head of curls resting against his side. He looked out into the starless sky and let a couple of stray tears fall.

Sitting by the firelight, passing his mug of mead to Puck, Cooper watched his brother and his Elf friend sitting close together beneath a tree some distance away – huddled close and looking content with this time that they got to spend together. Maybe it wasn't perfect. Maybe many – Dwarves and Elves and Men alike - would disagree with this pairing, but if it made Blaine happy, that's all that mattered.

Throughout his life, their father had talked to his sons about the legacies he wanted pass on, which included reclaiming a Mountain, renewing old alliances, and reviving a heritage that would soon be snuffed out if Cooper and Blaine were unable to have heirs.

Alas, their father was gone, and their homeland was lost, but Blaine was happy at last, and truthfully that's exactly what their father would have wanted.

Cooper knew his brother. Blaine didn't have to say a word for Cooper to know that he was in love.

Joy in life, and family, and love - that was the true legacy of the Heart of the Andurinin Clan.