Chapter 10 - Dwarves are Dense but Not Dim

AN: This is like half of a chapter that I wrote a long time ago... and I can't seem to pick up right where I left off. So I started 11 and just tidied this one up. So it's a bit short and not quite up to standard.. but it's as done as it will get.

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"Just relax and let yourself float. I'm right here to catch you if you sink." Sin encouraged as he slowly pulled his hands away. "Don't panic I'm not taking me hands away. Just relax and float."

He stepped back slowly and carefully, grateful for the slightly creepy way the water parted about him without making any ripples. Kili floated for a moment on the surface before some sort of drowning phobia took hold and he began splashing madly trying to reach Sin who had stepped well out of range.

"Just stand up. You can just stand up. The water is only three feet deep... if you stand up you'll be fine." Sin said with exasperation as Kili finally found his footing. "I know you're dense but I didn't think you were dim too."

"I'm not doing this anymore!" Kili announced with vehemence. "You're enjoying this too much."

"I'm not enjoying it at all." Sin answered honestly. It had been fun, on the first day when they were both enjoying it and spent more time trying to grab fish that trying to swim like them. Now though? Four days camped on the river bank and Kili still hadn't mastered floating, he didn't think it was a dwarf thing... more likely a Kili thing. "Perhaps we sighed try a kickboard?"

"Kickboard?" Kili questioned with interest.

"We need a little raft anyway, to float our things across... you can just kick next to me and use it to keep afloat." Sin mused to himself. It actually sounded plausible and he wished he'd thought of it four days ago when they started out. The raft wouldn't have to be that sturdy to hold his pack... but Kili's was a different story. He was fairly certain that along with his own sword and bow there was also an axe somewhere on Kili's person.

He pulled a surprisingly compliant Kili towards the shore, plans for a raft already forming in his mind. It would of course have to be significantly better thought out then his paper gutter boats he'd made in Surrey.. but hopefully it would have the same sense of fun without the requirement for circling down the drain into oblivion.

The kickboard raft combination ended up taking several days to plan and build well. It might've gone faster but between them they'd also managed fishing and foraging and a generally merry time with Kili forgot his foul mood.

The raft balanced Kili well half on the raft and half off kicking in the water. Sin privately thought that Kili could kick all day and all night and with legs that short he wasn't going to get anywhere.. but that was why he was towing. A long lead rope tied in a harness around him trailed the raft behind but not so far that he couldn't hear all of Kili's grumbling and cursing and occasional watery spluttering.

The water around him was as frigid as it had been during his last dip and equally refreshing. His eerie elvish self felt delighted and refreshed in nature, the river almost spoke to him in it's thundering. If it was speaking to him though it was trying to drown poor Kili and that he could work with.

Kili's snit had come and gone and then returned at least a dozen times in a day, something weighed heavily on his deceptively care free brother. With Kili it was definitely a case of still waters running deep. Sin knew his own mind was at least 17 years deeper than it ought to be, but Kili had a streak of some sort of wisdom you didn't expect and a stubbornness that rank of Thorin. The river certainly wasn't still though, it was choppy and fast and certainly more than a little frightening to his young brother.

So stopping the raft in the middle might be considered a bit cruel, but with Kili it sometimes took drastic measures to get results. Circling under the raft and grabbing legs to pull him out and away into the river was most definitely cruel, but Fili's girlish screams of sharks in the water were entertaining enough to make up for it. Perhaps elves had some sort of mischievous nature? Pranks like these were somehow more satisfying now then when he had been human.

Circling around Kili and his desperate and pitiful attempts to tread water he held his brother firm from behind, head well about the water. Leaning in close to his brother's ear he whispered as ominously as he could while still holding back a few giggles, "I think this might be a good time to let go of all your stubbornness and tell me what troubles your mind brother".

Kili froze up stiff as a board next to him and then relaxed just as quickly, a good soldier knew when he was caught. "I spoke with mother and Fili... they say.. they say this might be the will of the Valar. That we should journey to restore you to where you should have been. Mother said you are like a stolen treasure, and eventually you will be found. She said the elves will love you as we do.. that they are your first people and it is perhaps willed that you learn their ways."

Sin snorted in disbelief even as he considered some of the possible truth.. he might've been misplaced. Whatever force had taken him, he had thrown himself to a different path? His current situation certainly made very little sense though for now he would hold no complaints.

"I know that men believe dwarves are carved from stone.. but this isn't just a story like that." Kili continued, his tone serious and his expression grim despite they both bobbed up and down in the water looking quite ridiculous. "They live forever... so they're all old and to them you're a child... if they see you Sin... they'll take you, they'll kidnap you... and I don't think we can stop them..."

"Kidnap me?" Sin replied, recoiling in surprise, he pushed Kili away and towards the raft letting him get a firm grip so he could see his face. "I'm not a child for the taking."

"You don't know that Sin!" Kili insisted. "You've never met an elf, you might want to be one once you see them... They like trees and sunlight and rivers just like you. If you stayed with them you wouldn't have to live on the mountain anymore... you might like it."

Sin leaned back and looked up into the sun. He did love it, he loved the air and the earth and the trees and the way the wind almost whispered to him. It had a very pocahontas feel to it or maybe like the druids or the first wizards who drew more power from the earth. It was almost him, but not quite. It was too soft, like a gentle breeze when he was searching for a storm.

"I don't think so Kili... I don't plan on running away... and if I did... I wouldn't want to be an elf. I'd want to be a wizard." Sin finally replied, his eyes never leaving the sky above them.

"A wizard?" Kili questioned, pulling himself further up onto the raft and angling to look at Sin.

"Mmmhmm... I would be a wizard, and I would fly. Can you imagine flying? All the way up there in the clouds, can you be any more free than that? I don't think there is a better feeling. If I was a wizard... I would fly..." Sin paused a moment and looked Kili straight in the eye. "I would fly and I would kill that dragon."

"You've said that word before... 'wizard'.." Kili said, rolling the word around in his mouth. "What does it really mean?"

Sin hesitated, his mind having suddenly caught up with his wayward mouth. Why had he said that? Kili had a terrible way about him that brought out the truth from people, put them at ease.

"Is that what you were before?" Kili asked, pulling himself further up atop the raft to gain height as he leaned towards Sin intently.

"Before?"

"Before you were you.. before you found a place with us." Kili replied hesitantly, but with an undercurrent of surety, he wasn't nervous about being wrong.. but rather about Sin's response.

"If there was a time and place before I was you... it would be of no meaning in the here and now..." He couldn't look Kili in the eye though, would it even be possible to explain his life before? Instead he sunk beneath the surface of the water and took his place at the front of the raft once again.