A RED / NO RETURN

"My boy, if every time I thought the end was nigh had come to pass, I would've died a hundred times in my lifetime."

Dwalin clapped a hand to Fíli's shoulder as he lowered himself, armour clanging, to sit by Fíli's side, feet dangling over the smooth edge of the bridge. With his palm flat against the surface of the cool, smooth stone, he could almost feel what it had been like: the steady string of reverberations in the gold-veined quartz and jade that was the backbone of Erebor's roads and walkways; the vibrations of feet and boot and stick and wheel and hooves. The thrum of a city alive, made so by the breath and sweat and blood of their people.

It was a shell. It was dust and ash, a shroud to a treasure that sickened him.

There was no point in regurgitating for Fíli what had transpired in the throne room between Thorin and him; what words had been spoken, what unfounded accusations spat across a distance that had not had any right to grow between them. No; no point at all in letting Fíli see behind the heavy veil of Dwalin's thoughts. Things that were a burden on him need not be so on another.