The Halls of Mahal are vast and warm, with fires burning in plentiful hearths and cheerful faces constantly bustling through the halls. Food weighs down creaking tables in a constant feast, arenas clang with the sounds of practiced battle, and the forges are ever working as dwarves prepare weapons for the final battle and other, stranger things, for the new Arda that will follow. Gold, mithril, and the finest steel all stand ready to be worked with, with no scarcity to merit guarding them. Old friends and family gone before are hale and hearty, ready to forgive and to work.

For the first time since the dragon attacked, Thorin feels at peace.

Or he would.

Except.

"I visited Mum's dreams again," Fili announces from his perch on the worktable. He's supposed to be helping Thorin with the sword he's crafting, but Fili has always been far more comfortable wielding weapons than making them. It's enough just to have him here, a warm presence that Thorin can still hardly believes bears no malice for Thorin's part in his death.

He still tenses at the words and pauses in his work. "How fares she?"

"She still hasn't cried," Fili says unhappily.

Thorin closes his eyes. She hadn't died when Frerin died either, nor when her husband passed, nor when their father went missing and their mother perished soon after. Instead, she'd curled in on herself until she might as well be stone.

"Dwalin will help her," he says roughly. That had been Thorin's role once, fumbling though he'd often been, but he cannot help her now.

"I hope so," Fili says, still unhappy. "And she'll come here sooner or later, I know."

Thorin nods.

Then a part of what Fili has said finally hits him, and he turns around to look at his nephew. "You visited her dreams? Did your brother not go with you?" Fili and Kili had visited her together before. There is no reason they should not do so separately, but it strikes him as odd.

Fili grimaces. "Not this time. He was in . . . someone else's dream."

Thorin raises an eyebrow. "Bilbo's?" he guesses, the only member of the company or their extended kith and kin that he can imagine Fili being reluctant to admit to. There is no reason for it; for his part, all is well between himself and the burglar, and he hopes that Bilbo's forgiveness of him on his deathbed had been more than a kindness to a dying man. He hadn't realized they could reach hobbits, however, and -

And Fili is shaking his head. "Tauriel," he says, wincing a little as he anticipates his uncle's reaction.

"Tauriel," Thorin repeats, trying to place the name. It sounds elvish.

It is elvish, he realizes. The elven maid who had healed Kili's wound and fought beside them. That was it.

"Tauriel?" he repeats incredulously. The living remember little from their dreams with the dead. A little comfort can be passed on, no more. What possible reason could Kili have for contacting her?

Fili looks even more uncomfortable. "She hasn't been taking it well," he says, as if this is some kind of explanation.

Thorin's eyebrows burrow together. Certainly there is no reason why anyone should take his nephews' deaths well, but why an elf would care -

Fili looks ready to die, if only that were possible a second time. "They kind of, er. Kissed," he says. "I - I'm guessing from the look on your face he hasn't brought that up."

Thorin takes a deep breath and buries his face in his hands. "Why?" he demands.

Fili shrugs helplessly.

An elf, he thinks in horrified bewilderment, but there it is, and it will certainly do no good to start shouting about it now. "I am sure she will . . . also . . . grow better in time," he says haltingly in the hopes that a civil response will at least make Fili stop cringing back from him.

"Of course," Fili says quickly although with a worrying amount of uncertainty. "But - " He stops himself.

"But she will not come here in time," Thorin finishes. He turns back to the uncompleted sword in some bewilderment. His craft, his crown, and his kin: those are the only things he has ever felt the need to devote himself to, and he is as uncomprehending now as he was when Dís had been pursuing Víli. "Perhaps he'll get over it?" he suggests hopefully.

"I hope so," Fili says glumly, just as uncomprehending as himself.

Kili does not get over it.

He works and he eats and he fights, but he also spends a concerning amount of time wandering in the dreams of his elf.

Thorin is also getting a little concerned by proxy for how much time that elf spends dreaming, but he's too disturbed by that piece of concern to dwell too much on it.

He brings a plate from the feasting halls to where Kili is sitting and staring at the ever fuller armory that is slowly being stocked for the final battle. It's said that when it's finally fully stocked the time will be at hand.

"You'll see her then," he says, though even he knows that the words are not all that comforting.

"I will," Kili says, picking at his food. "And then what?"

Thorin cannot emphasize enough how little he has ever been involved in a courtship. "Gifts are traditional, I think," he says, shoving back his discomfort, "though your father would know far more about it than I." And perhaps that will help the awkwardness between them that must inevitably arise when Kíli had been too young to remember him when he died.

Kíli almost smiles at what Thorin presumes is his obvious discomfort, but his nephew shakes his head. "Not that," he says before pausing. "Well. Yes, that, actually. Do elves do things differently?" he asks, turning to Thorin as if he actually expects his uncle to know.

"No," he hazards anyway because he hasn't gotten this far by admitting ignorance to his nephews.

Kíli believes this, fortunately, and he relaxes back against the wall. "No, it's just - The elves don't know what happens to them at the end of Arda, did you know that? They're bound here until then, and then - " He waves his hand as it to indicate all the elves possibly vanishing into thin air.

Up until now, Thorin would have been all in favor of that idea, but he can't bear to see Kíli like this, so he throws an arm around his shoulders and tugs him closer. "We'll figure it out," he promises. He nods to the armory. "We still have plenty of time."

And they do, but with this kind of problem, Thorin has no idea what constitutes time enough.

Thorin is sure the issue can at least not grow worse until it abruptly does. He finds Fili and Kili both in his workshop. Kili has a stunned look Thorin recognizes all too well.

He is far too familiar with the faces of bad news.

Fili has a protective arm wrapped around him. Thorin goes over to them, wishing deeply there was someone or something he could fight to make this better.

"What's happened?" he murmurs to Fili, low enough that he hopes Kili won't hear in his stunned state. "Did she move on?" He almost hopes she has. At least then Kili might be able to put his fears to rest.

"Worse," Fili murmurs back. "Passed on. There was a fight." He provides no more details. He might not have them.

Kili might not either for that matter. Thorin is surprised he managed to learn that much.

If Tauriel was a dwarf, this would be a mixed blessing. At least she would be here.

But much to Thorin's eternal regret, she's an elf, which means she's gone on to different halls where she shall not even dream.

Until the very end of Arda.

Thorin sets his jaw and sets out to find his Maker.

Anyone in Mahal's Halls can be granted an audience with him if they're willing to wait for it, and Thorin is most definitely willing to wait. He waited for decades to try to reclaim his mountain until the omens were right; he'll wait for centuries if he has to in order to see Mahal. He's dead. He has the time.

Much to his surprise, the line isn't actually that long. Apparently most dwarves are hesitant to bother their Maker.

He is also surprised to find that Mahal is genuinely happy to see him.

The Maker is a mountain at his work, towering over even Smaug at full height, but when he turns and sees Thorin, he shrinks down until he is merely rather tall for a dwarf, though one whose presence still commands attention and who has fire burning in his eyes. "Thorin, son of Thrain," he says warmly. "Yours was a hard road. I had hoped you would find peace here. What disturbs you so now?"

Thorin bows and takes a breath in the hopes of regaining his voice. "I have come to ask about an elf."

"An elf?" Mahal rocks back on his heels.

"An elf," Thorin says firmly, hardly believing himself. "Is there any way to talk to one who has passed on to the halls of the dead?"

Mahal blinks at him. "That is not the first time I have gotten that request, nor do I think it will be the last," he admits, scratching his beard, "but I did not expect it from you."

Thorin grimaces. That makes two of them.

" . . . Unless Thranduil has passed without my noticing and you wished to express your displeasure?"

Unfortunately not. "My nephew," he tries to explain. "He - there was an elf maid, Tauriel - " He spreads his hands helplessly. "I cannot bear to see him so unhappy."

Mahal's eyes soften, but he shakes his head. "Unfortunately, my brother is quite firm in his rules," he says. "In a thousand years perhaps he will reembody her, and Kili may share her dreams once more, but I fear it may be longer. Many who have mortal loves linger in the halls."

Thorin aches with the urge to hit something.

"Nor can I knowingly allow you to pass from here to there," Mahal continues, and something about the way he sees knowingly catches Thorin's attention.

And allow implies that there is a way, even if it is forbidden.

"I see," he says slowly. "Forgive me, my lord, I have one more question. If I was not the first to ask, who was?"

Mahal smiles.

"Narvi?" Thorin calls. HIs voice bounces down the long, narrow tunnel. "Lady Narvi?"

He is not sure where he expected to find one of the dwarves' most legendary craftsmen, but this project others have murmured of is certainly not it.

He finds her at the very end, a dwarrowdam slightly shorter than average with fiery red hair pulled up at the base of her neck and a small equally fiery beard held in place by a gold clip, her one nod to decoration. She is energetically chipping away at the rock in front of her when he finds her, and she doesn't pause for his entrance.

"Grab a pickaxe," she calls, nodding to the three leaned up against the rough tunnel wall, just under one of the torches providing flickering illumination.

"I came to - "

"Don't care. If you want to talk, that's my price. Grab a pickaxe."

He takes one up and gets to work.

After an hour of this, she finally pauses. They don't have to; they don't tire here, or grow thirsty, but it is still hard to talk over the noise. "So," she says, "what project did you want help with? I warn you, I won't cease my work here no matter how interesting you think it is, but if you're stuck, I'll help you think it over."

"I need to find a dead elf," he tells her.

She blinks at him.

"That makes two of us then," she says. "How'd your's die?"

"Not mine," he hurriedly corrects. "My nephew's."

"Well, go get him then, and any other dead relatives you can guilt into it," she orders. "We'll work faster with more hands."

Thorin has a sudden suspicion about where this tunnel is leading.

Narvi's wicked smile confirms it. "Did you know," she says conversationally, "that Mahal's Halls and Namo's are on the same continent? And that the library here has maps?"

"I did not," he says slowly.

He thinks of his nephews and their father, of his parents and grandparents, of the first of the Company to join them here and of the dwarves who still insist on calling him their king.

"But I do know that I can get us a fair bit of help."

Narvi's elf, he learns, is called Celebrimbor and has been dead for some time. With only intermittent help, however, progress has been slow.

It speeds up considerably.

"We're getting Celebrimbor first," Narvi says firmly. "I can feel him, faintly, so that's what I've been aiming this tunnel towards. Once we've got him, though, I'll stick with you as long as it takes to find your elf lass. After that, we can have a nice discussion on which afterlife's better and hunker down there until someone figures it out."

"What happens then?" Kili asks.

Narvi hefts her pickaxe. There is a slightly crazed look in her eyes. "We'll still have these," she says calmly.

Thorin hopes that by that she means they can always make another tunnel, but he can't say he's entirely sure.

Celebrimbor had taken two months to die, she'd told them. She'd been in his dreams every time he slept for all of it.

She smashes her pickaxe into the stone like its the face of whoever killed him.

The tunnel angles upward slowly.

And then there is no more stone, just soft silver light filtering down from smooth silver walls.

Narvi bolts up out of the tunnel. Thorin is right behind her just in case they have come out in the wrong place and there is danger lurking.

For a moment he thinks there is. Seven spirits of fire and shadow are huddled under the silvery light, but after a moment's glare they resolve into the figures of elves. Burned and damaged to a degree, all, but still elves.

Thorin still watches them warily as Narvi throws herself at one of the most damaged of them, but he catches her with startled delight, shadowed eyes drinking her in, and the other figures obviously relax at his pleasure.

Thorin slowly takes in the rest of the room. The walls are entirely blank, lacking the carvings that decorate even the most obscure room in Mahal's Halls, and one wall is missing entirely, replaced instead with floor to ceiling bars. They'll have to tunnel under them to find Tauriel.

Kili pops up out of the tunnel too, and the rest come tumbling after, quickly filling the small space.

Kili looks horrified. "We're definitely taking them back to Mahal's Halls," he says firmly.

As reluctant as he is to bring elves there, Thorin can't say he disagrees.

(Tauriel, it turns out, is not in a cell. She is in a seemingly endless hallway of perfectly featureless stone and perfectly unblemished light.

This does not in the slightest change anyone's decision on which afterlife they're hiding in.)