I still can't remember what the game I promised to write about was, unless it by chance happened to be this. I started it a while ago, got stuck, and have now returned to it. And I've finished it! I've finished it! Oh, I love the holidays!

In which past reminiscences leave Thorin a changed character and the company baffled. Can Kíli succeed in returning their king to his normal self?

Teetering

"I think," says Bilbo carefully, "that my blisters have blisters." He doesn't really want to check.

"You should ask for a piggyback ride."

"Sorry?"

Balin smiles the soft, slightly sad smile of reminiscence. "It's what the lads used to do when they were smaller. Any time they were tired they'd ask for a piggyback."

"And often when they weren't," Gloin adds.

"Weren't what?"

"Tired."

"Thorin used to do it too. Those were the days."

Bilbo looks at Balin quizzically. "You used to give Thorin piggybacks when he was tired?"

"No, he used to give them to the lads."

"I don't know which one's harder to imagine."

"The real question is why they stopped." Fíli, Bilbo has noticed, has a knack of turning up when you are talking about him. It must be part of training for kingship.

"Because you got too big."

"No we haven't. I can still pick Kíli up."

"It's because we're not sweet little dwarflings any more." Kíli, as usual, has followed his brother.

"I can at no point in time remember either of you being 'sweet little dwarflings'."

"Not true!" Fíli protests with a grin. "I used to smile at people and chase ducks and draw lovely pictures of Thorin on the wall. Kíli, on the other hand, used to hit people with wooden swords-"

"Which you had made for him."

"Finest craftsmanship. The point I'm trying to make is-"

"-There's no reason you can't still give us piggybacks."

"Go ask Thorin."

"Kíli was definitely easier to look after than you were," Dori informs the elder Durin. "All you had to do was sit him down with a pile of things to count."

Gloin nodded glumly. There was a time when he had hoped that young Kíli would grow up to be a great counter of coins, someone who could keep track of a company's expenditure and provisioning. This was not to be the case.

"Aye, you'd just sit him on your shoulders and let him count things." Dwalin too seems to have a preference for the younger versions.

"What were you counting?"

"Just… things."

"Ways to get into trouble, probably."

Instead of jovially rebuking his brother, Kíli starts counting instead. "1. Eat all the supplies. 2. Push someone off their pony."

"3. Shout boo at Bilbo."

"I d-"

"4. Pretend to have seen a pack of wargs."

"5. Ask Thorin for a piggyback."

"6. Say that in front of Thorin?" Bofur hazards.

Fíli looks up. "Hello Thorin!"

Balin gives the summary before Thorin can ask for it. "Fíli thinks that if Kíli asks you for a piggyback you will say no."

"Has anyone bet on it yet?"

Bofur risks it. "Are you more likely to say yes if we do? Because I think most of us would happily pay out a bit of coin to see that."

"But you haven't bet on it yet?"

"Well, it's a losing bet, isn't it?" Fíli points out succinctly.

Thorin thumps him on the shoulder. "It's good to see we raised you with some sense in you. Kíli, come with me."

Balin clears his throat, but Thorin has already ridden off. With a shrug Kíli follows, although he does turn to look over his shoulder with a half-quizzical look at his brother. Fíli wraps the reins round his fingers.

"Sorry, lad," Bofur begins, after an uncomfortable pause. "That wasn't really how we intended it to turn out."

Bilbo coughs anxiously. "He does have a sense of humour, doesn't he? Thorin, I mean."

"He used to." Balin turns back to Fíli. "I'm sure it can't be anything-"

But Fíli has already dug his heels into his pony's sides, racing off after his kin.

Balin shakes his head. "Better give them some space," he mutters.

"Coward," Dwalin growls, with a mixture of good-natured humour and worry.

"I don't see you moving either, brother."

"Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-"

Fíli draws in a deep breath as he spots the pair. "Oh, for Mahal's sake-"

His brother raises an eyebrow and grins, looking down on him from his vantage point.

"We're scouting," says Thorin, as though it is the most natural thing in the world.

"You're facing back the way we came."

"Can't have anyone spotting us." Thorin pivots on the spot.

"Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty… Why don't you walk around like you used to?"

"You used to be lighter."

"Fíli says that too."

"Well it's true."

Kíli nods and carries on counting.

"And how long do you expect me to do this for?"

"Seventy-three… until I've finished counting."

Fíli stops smothering his laughter with an arm and asks, "When will that be?"

"Probably quite a long time," Kíli concedes matter-of-factly. Fíli is forced to bury his face in his sleeve again.

"And what if I make you lose count?"

Fíli can't quite believe that he is hearing his uncle say this.

"You can't. Eighty-five…"

Fíli backs out of the way as, well, as Thorin begins charging up and down the clearing, occasionally stopping to gyrate on the spot, whilst his brother clings on grimly, snatches of numbers still audible above the confusion. He steps back again and bumps into-

"Bilbo?"

"Yes."

"You're a terrible burglar."

Bilbo doesn't answer for a while, transfixed by the sight he's been sent to scout out. "We couldn't hear any shouting, so…"

"I don't suppose there's a bet on, is there?"

"Well…" Bilbo begins tentatively, before new heads poke their way through the trees.

"And what jolly sight do we have here?"

Thorin freezes. Due to physics, Kíli continues to move for another second or so, then blithely continues counting. The resulting effect is not the one Thorin wished for.

The company try. They really, really do. But the urge to laugh is overwhelming. The relief when Thorin joins in is tangible.

Thorin jiggles his shoulders. "So what is it that you count then?"

Fíli shakes his head frantically, but Kíli, buoyed up by laughter and light-headedness, opens his mouth and…

It wasn't Kíli's fault. Not really.

It had all started one day when Balin had taken him out of the house. Kíli had asked why, and Balin had patiently explained that he thought Kíli's mother probably wanted a bit of peace and quiet for once.

Kíli asked 'why' again. It was a speciality of his. Balin just shook his head. "You've given her most of the grey hairs on her head, poor lass."

"I make her hairs go grey?"

"Aye. And poor Thorin's too."

"How?"

"Making them worry about you with all the things you and that brother of yours get up to."

Kíli kept the idea and pondered over it for some time. The subsequent occasions when his uncle allowed him to have a piggyback (generally to prevent him partaking in some mischief on the floor) Kíli started taking a tally of the grey hairs already present on his uncle's head, and investigating if there was a correlation between the number of hairs and, say, the fact that Kíli had accidentally set fire to the goat the day before.

Later in life he discovered that correlation does not equal causation, but it remained a tempting diversion all the same.

"… and we used to keep a tally of them so we could look at the changes, but I left it at home…"

Fíli flinches at 'we' and 'tally' and again at 'home'. If Kíli could see Thorin's face then he might have chosen his words more wisely. Then again, perhaps there is something to be said for his brother not being able to see his uncle's face…

"Although I suppose we'd have to count the white ones separately now, so…"

Then again, maybe not.

Something about the expression on everybody else's faces finally penetrates Kíli's happy flow of explanation, at approximately the same time that Thorin finally tosses him from his back.

"Ouch," says Kíli, more to make a point than anything.

"And you can walk the rest of the way as well!"

Kíli brushes himself down as he watches Thorin's retreating back, leading two ponies with him.

"Here," Fíli grabs his arm. "I'm sure mine can carry two."

The pony moves slowly forwards, and Fíli can feel his brother frowning behind him. "Why did you say that?"

"I thought he was in a good mood."

Fíli reflects on that a while. "I think he was. For a bit." Privately he wonders if his uncle would have made quite such a fuss if it had only been the three of them there.

Kíli cranes past him, leaning dangerously to the side in an attempt to see further up the line. "It's good to see him back to his old self, isn't it?"

It's succinct enough that Fíli can think of nothing to say in reply.