AN: Now that the story is done, I'm going through and editing again. I've found some discrepancies that I can't believe I missed before. D:

Chapter One

TA 2869, Ered Luin, The Blue Mountains

77 years before the journey to the Lonely Mountain

Three little figures bolted past a stooped miner in a flurry of laughter, drawing the attention of the scruffy dwarf from the ore deposit he was carefully extracting from the wall of the shaft. As the path began to descend into a slope, Fili bounded over another dwarf worker who was busy collecting raw emeralds from the ground, pretending said dwarf was a boulder blocking his way. Kili followed close behind, mimicking Fili's daring leap. By the time Din reached him, the dwarf had risen to complain, so she veered around him, desperate to catch up to her fellow hooligans.

Although she was only a decade older than Kili—the younger of the two—the duty of looking after the boys was often left to her. The female population of the dwarves being as low as it was, she was expected to help out in such ways when the older dwarf women were occupied with other responsibilities. She had been playing with them since they were born and now that Kili had reached six years of age, he insisted he was old enough to brave the mines. So, they spent what time they could pretending to wage war with ancient villains and armies, their favorite of which was Gothmog, King of the Balrogs. They'd slain him half a dozen times already.

"They're back again!" Complained the dwarf behind them. Whatever response came from the first dwarf was too distant for Din to hear, but it probably meant that her mother and her uncle, Bofur, would be contacted. Ahead she spotted Kili and Fili strategizing about their next course of action with exaggerated gestures.

"At this rate, we'll never reach the battlefield before our troops are overrun," said Fili, readjusting his large helmet as it fell forward, covering his eyes.

"I think I have a—whoa!" Din lifted a hand to emphasize her declaration when her boot slipped on the damp ground and she was unable to stop herself from colliding with the boys. Tumbling they went, over the edge of the path to the next level a few feet below. They crumpled in a heap on an empty handcar. Kili grumbled and climbed off the wide hand crank in the middle, stumbling onto his rump next to Fili. Din brushed her dark hair out of her face and the three stared at each other. Laughter ensued.

"An ingenious plan, Din," declared Fili. It didn't matter that this hadn't actually been her plan. He stood at the front of the platform, pointing down the tracks, and shouted, "Charge!" Despite being older than he, he had passed her in height several years ago, a fact he never let her forget. Din had to use all her weight to shift the break lever, granting hearty laughter from him.

Fili had to help Kili pump his side to move the car, but slowly, it began to roll. They cheered as the wheels squealed across the iron tracks and picked up speed. Around corners and past miners they whizzed until they reached a wide open cavern that the dwarves had discovered recently. The glowing blue crystals that the Blue Mountains were known for scattered the walls, captivating the three with their illumination.

As they started rounding a corner, Din abruptly spotted a group of miners loading minerals into minecarts at the other end of the the clearing and threw herself on the break. The boys hollered in surprise and the suddenness of the stop wrenched Kili's small fingers from the hand crank. With a screech, Din lunged for him and barely managed to catch hold of his wrist before they both fell over the side of the path. At the last moment, Din caught hold of the ledge. She heard the air rush from Kili's lungs as he connected with the steep rock. Fili was leaping to grab her arm, but the sudden pull of Kili's dead weight ripped her grip from the wall and they descended toward the darkness.

"No!" Fili screamed, still reaching for them where she had been only moments before.

Din couldn't find the air to scream and her mind stalled. The wall fortunately began to slope until Din felt the thick leather she wore scraping against it's rough surface. They were not so much falling as they were sliding at a steep pace now. She reached out with her free hand, the other firmly gripping Kili's wrist, until she found a sturdy handhold and the falling finally stopped.

"Kili?" Her words wobbled with fear and the threat of tears.

His small voice sent a rush of relief through her. "I'm alright," he said. He must have found rocks to support his weight as best he could, because the pressure lessened. She looked down to be certain he was truly unharmed. The nearby glowing crystals faintly illuminated his features. Crimson streaked down his cheek where a rock must have cut or scraped it, but he looked otherwise in good health. His brown eyes met hers, alight with trust that she would see him safely out of this. A paralyzing fear gripped her at the thought of failing to do so.

"Kili! Din! I'm throwing a rope down to you," Fili called out. Sure enough, a tendril of rope uncoiled toward them and landed above her head. Her first priority had to be Kili.

"Can you try to climb with your feet toward the rope? I promise that I won't let go of your arm," she said. Kili nodded and started to climb. The effort of helping him by lifting him put too much pressure on the rock she was holding and it started to come loose. When he finally grabbed hold of the rope above her head, she tried to shift on the wall to give him room to shimmy up, but her rock slid out from the wall. She had the sense to flip onto her back in the moment before she fell so that her back scraped against the wall, rather than her front. The rocks quickly bit through her leather shirt and dug painfully into her back.

Fili and Kili's screams grew distant until she could no longer hear them. The glowing crystals became less frequent the further she descended until finally, the slope rounded and she rolled onto stable ground in complete darkness, flat on her stomach. Her back screamed. As was instinct when one found themselves in the dark, her eyes searched for any source of light. Surprisingly, a small dot of luminescence greeted her a few feet away in the floor. She was grateful for this source of life, no matter how small it was, and pulled herself to it.

It looked like one of the glowing crystals, but was a richer shade of blue. She carefully rubbed the dirt away from it until she could pull it free. The crystal was the size of her palm. The moment she picked it up, a warm pulse surged from it and it glowed brighter. Its light accompanied her in the time that followed. She wasn't sure how much time, only that it felt as if days had passed when voices finally drifted down to her from men that had come to her rescue. That was the last day the three of them played in the mines.