Cooper led Blaine and Kurt below ground. The entry to the Mountain sucked away all of the light, and Kurt stopped at the doorway. He peered into the Mountain, not too eager to be away from the light.

Daylight didn't penetrate the Mountain, and in his soul it frightened him as much as entering a battle unarmed.

Or the thought of losing Blaine to that Orc's arrow.

Blaine stopped walking when Kurt did, refusing to leave his side.

“Are you okay with this, Kurt?” he asked, holding out his hand for the Elf to take.

Now that it came to it, Kurt didn't want to go. He didn't want to venture where he couldn't readily see the sky.

He saw Blaine's face watching him, that smile on his lips that he seemed to reserve only for Kurt, his honey-gold eyes waiting for Kurt to follow.

He took Blaine's hand in his.

He could be without the sky for a while.

“I will follow you, Blaine,” Kurt recited with a shy grin, “wherever you lead.”

Blaine bit his lip at the sound of Kurt recalling those words. Blaine led, and Kurt followed, and hand and hand they began the journey underground.

They followed Cooper down, down, into the belly of the earth - far beneath the tree-lined trail above their heads, or the massacred thicket of razor sharp thorns. They walked over elevated passageways of carved stone, high above canyons that seemed to drop endlessly into the very center of the earth.

In the quiet of the deep, where only ghosts and demons felt safe to roam, Cooper led them. They walked in silence; every creak of the stone beneath their feet, every crumbling cascade of pebbles over the side showering into the abyss, was like the whispers of dread to Kurt - horrible ghastly moans that rang only in his head and warned him that a mine was no place for an Elf.

Kurt squeezed Blaine's hand. Blaine squeezed back, and Kurt knew all was well – the danger he perceived existed only in his head.

The last maze of tunnels opened up into a massive hall, with vaulted ceilings and stone pillars, their intricate patterns and carefully carved bas-reliefs wasted in gloom. Beyond the grand hall Kurt could see an arched doorway illuminated from within, and he heard the sound of voices singing and laughing, with an occasional mention of his and Blaine's name.

Blaine caught it, too, and looked at Kurt, giving him a shrug.

The Dwarves were sitting down to a meal when Cooper, Kurt, and Blaine walked into the large store room. The entourage cheered when they entered. Sam stood and offered Blaine a piece of salted pork. Dave had one that he tried to give to Kurt, but Kurt politely declined.

“The throne room is further down that corridor,” Cooper said, gesturing to a door at the far end of the store room that led back out into the inky darkness of the mine. “I'll give you a moment alone.” Cooper joined the party seated in a lazy circle on the floor. He picked up a flagon and triple checked it for ale.

“Empty,” Puck muttered. “They're all empty.”

Blaine looked away in the direction of the door, and then around the room, searching for something that might help him take those difficult steps to walk through it.

Kurt ran his thumb over Blaine's knuckles, and Blaine realized that what he needed to lend him strength was standing beside him. He glanced down at their joined hands, and then up at the Elf's friendly eyes and the comfort he found there.

“You will come with me?” Blaine asked.

“Are you sure?” Kurt asked, taken by surprise. He took his first glance at the door.

“Yes,” Blaine said. “I'm sure. I would like you to accompany me, if you wouldn't mind.”

“I wouldn't mind,” Kurt replied.

Kurt followed Blaine, leaving the Dwarves to their meal, but the group fell silent as they watched Blaine and his Elf leave.

“Are all mines like this?” Kurt asked when they were spit out into the dark again. “Dreary and quiet and full of old ghosts?”

“No,” Blaine laughed wistfully. “They're not. The Blue Mountains' mine is always lit, always busy. All day long, it never sleeps.”

“Ah,” Kurt said. He heard a distant screech, and the sound of stones untouched by him or Blaine tumbling over themselves as they bounced down the wall. Kurt peeked over his shoulder to the blades on his back to see if either of them were glowing blue.

He had already been attacked by Orcs. Kurt didn't need to fight off Goblins as well.

“So…who are we going to go see?” Kurt asked, unable to hold the question in any longer.

“My father,” Blaine answered simply.

Kurt waited for a further answer, but there was none.

“And your father is the king?” Kurt asked, hoping he wasn't overstepping his bounds by being so nosy.

“He should have been,” Blaine confessed without a hint of pride. “My father was a great leader.” Blaine slowed his pace as they walked to allow them time to speak. “He talked so often about this Mountain – huge caverns and halls overflowing with golden light, and not just from the forges below, but from hearths and fireplaces where Dwarves would gather to tell their tales and sing their songs. He told us they used to have great feasts here, celebrations that would last for days and days, till the meat was gone and the flagons dry.” Kurt looked around him, at the shadows upon shadows, trying to picture it the way Blaine described. “This was not just a mine. It was a safe haven. It was a place of joy and friendship, unique among the Seven Kingdoms of the Dwarves.” Blaine stopped walking to talk to Kurt face to face. “My father didn't just mean to revive this Mountain for his brothers and his sons, but for all Dwarves. He longed to renew the friendships with the Elves and the old alliances with Men…” Blaine let his thoughts trail off as his eyes beheld the truth before him. The Mountain, still grand in stature, was worn down, dug out. The air felt old and tired. It would never again be a working mine, and without his father, it wouldn't be the great safe haven he had hoped for.

The spirit of the Mountain was gone.

Blaine had his suspicions before they even came here, but he had to see it for himself to be sure.

“But alas, there will be no king,” Blaine said, turning away and continuing on. “We shall abandon the Mountain and return to live among the Blue Mountain Dwarves as we have for so many years.”

“Well, what will your father say about that?”

Kurt thought of his own father, sitting on a throne. Rightful or not, it would probably take all of Rivendell and the Woodland Elves combined just to budge him off of it. Even if he was the king of a sour and rotting dark land plagued by Orcs and Goblins, there would be no power on all of Middle-earth or the heavens above that could move him.

“My father would say that's what's best,” Blaine answered quietly, and not until that moment did Kurt realize that Blaine spoke about his father solely in the past tense.

They approached a door that glowed from within, not quite so brightly as the store room, but bright enough to see the silhouettes of objects inside. Kurt had only once been in Lord Elrond's throne room, but he imagined a Dwarf throne room to be very different. Stories among the Elves told of rooms painted in gold, walls inlaid with rubies, sapphires, and diamonds plucked straight from the mines, and hordes full of treasure, set at the Dwarf Lord's feet so he could pass the time staring at it, since it was widely regarded that Dwarf Lords did nothing other than tend their horde and weighed their gold, like stout, hairy dragons who breathed ale instead of fire.

The throne room probably housed the treasure Blaine sought.

The Heart of the Andurinin Clan.

Kurt had almost forgotten it, but apparently it had been on the forefront of Blaine's mind still.

“Welcome, Kurt,” Blaine said mournfully as they passed over the threshold, “to the great throne room of my father, Enduin, Lord of the Andurinin Clan.”

What they entered wasn't a trove of wall to wall riches, but a dusty, ramshackle hall that hadn't seen life in generations. Blaine seemed to know where he was going, but Kurt took a moment to sweep his eyes over the dimly lit room.

“This is no throne room.” Kurt gasped. “This is a tomb.”

“Yes,” Blaine agreed, walking directly to the center of the room where a raised, stone platform had been constructed with a single purpose. On top lay the figure of a Dwarf – a corpse - the body preserved by the cold of the Mountain, but carefully prepared, wrapped in cloaks of fine wool and furs.

“Blaine,” Kurt began, all the clues suddenly connecting, “is this…”

“Yes,” Blaine said. “My father came to reclaim the Mountain for his people, but the Mountain claimed him instead.”

Blaine bowed his head over his father's body, reaching out a hand to gently touch his.

“He's the treasure, isn't he, Blaine?” Kurt asked. “He's what your brother and your kin came for. Your father. Your father is the Heart of the Andurinin Clan.”

“Yes,” Blaine said. “Yes, he is.”

“They came here to find him because they thought he was still alive,” Kurt deduced. “His trip to the Mountain is the one you don't speak of because he never returned.”

“We've come to bring him back to the Blue Mountains,” Blaine explained, though it seemed to cause him immense pain to do so. “We've been given permission to lay his body to rest there.”

Kurt regarded the mummified corpse, so attentively laid to rest here on this pedestal.

“If…if this Mountain is your home, then why not just bury him here?”

“Because, here he'll be alone,” Blaine said with a sniffle he hoped he could hide, but Kurt's Elf ears caught it, “and I don't want him to be alone.”

It wasn't that, and Kurt knew. Blaine wasn't bringing his father's body back for the sake of his father, or his people. He was doing it for himself. He was a son, lost and grieving, who just wanted his father back home.

Kurt grieved in his heart for Blaine, but he grieved for himself, too, since he didn't know what that kind of love for a father from his son felt like.

Maybe he had once, a long time ago, but he no longer remembered it.

“Why didn't you tell me?” Kurt asked.

Kurt felt the weight of Blaine's regret surround them.

Blaine had proven to be an honest Dwarf. If he had lied, or left out the truth, he surely had a reason.

“You don't seem to love your father,” Blaine said cautiously, choosing his words from the many conversations the two of them had had instead of from any speculation of his own. “I was afraid you might not help me if you knew.”

“Why would I not help you?” Kurt asked, hurt that Blaine would not trust him to finish what he had started.

“I was afraid that you might think it was…foolish. I would rather have had you hate me out of a belief of my greed than for you to leave me when you found out the truth.”

Kurt looked at Blaine and saw him with brand new eyes.

Blaine – the lost and lonely.

Blaine – grieving and treasured son.

Blaine – Dwarf Lord, heir of the Missing Mountain, standing strong and tall in the throne room of his father.

And that was the way Kurt chose to forever remember him, even if their paths never crossed again.

“Blaine,” Kurt said, taking a knee so that he could talk to Blaine eye to eye, “a great many things about you are foolish.” Blaine looked down at his feet and laughed. “But not this.” Blaine nodded, balling his free hand tighter as Kurt spoke. “And even if it was, Blaine, I wouldn't have left you.” Blaine looked up slowly, at Kurt kneeling before him in the dim light of the cavern he had so long hoped to claim as his home. “I would never leave you.”

“I'm sorry I dragged you into this, Kurt,” Blaine said. “I'm sorry you risked your life to come all the way out here and retrieve the body of a dead Dwarf.”

Kurt chuckled nervously.

“You have not a thing to be sorry for,” Kurt said. “Not a single thing.”

The sound of footsteps echoed just outside the door; one set only and Kurt knew exactly which of the Dwarves they belonged to.

“Hey, little brother,” Cooper called within. “Are you alright?”

“Aye,” Blaine said. “I am.”

It wasn't exactly a lie. It was more of an incomplete truth.

Cooper entered the throne room. Kurt watched him. He hesitated a step at the doorway before walking in. Kurt wondered if he did that every time he came in here. He wondered if Cooper did that the first time. The five Dwarves of the Andurinin Clan had been trapped within the Mountain with the dead body of their king.

Kurt didn't want to imagine what that was like.

“Look,” Cooper started, his eyes settling on Kurt, kneeling at his brother's feet, before turning towards Blaine, “I know we always said that we would rebuild the mine, that this is our home, but I've been thinking about this long and hard all this time we've been trapped here, Blaine, and I don't see…”

Blaine put up a hand to silence his brother and shook his head.

“I know what you're going to say, Cooper,” Blaine said. From the doorway, the remainder of the Dwarves entered in, patiently waiting to see what Blaine felt on the subject of rebuilding the ancient mine. “You believe that this mine is a lost cause, and that the Mountain is best left the way we found it…” Blaine looked at Kurt. “Forgotten, because there will come a time when we gathered here will be gone, and this Mountain and its mine will be nothing but a hive of Goblins and death.”

“Aye,” Cooper said, walking further in. “I think you do see. But this decision does not belong to me alone. In this matter, we must both agree. So, tell me, what is it that you wish to do, Blaine?” Cooper asked, looking to his younger brother for an answer. “Do we spend our lives here, or do we abandon the Mountain?”

Blaine looked from face to face around him - first to his clan, then to his brother, and finally Kurt.

“We did what we set out to do,” Blaine said. “We found the one among us who had gotten lost. Our mission here in the Mountain is done. Now, I want to take my father back to the Blue Mountains.”

Blaine looked at Kurt, but he didn't smile.

“I would like to leave right away.”