[Imladris]

Ori

Slinging his pack over his shoulder, Ori lumbered down the stairs rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, fondly remembering the lazy mornings and the mug of ales that would normally have awaited him. Instead it was a hasty bite and then going off with Balin.

Dawn yet crept from the east and in the lingering twilight he could see Flori staring at the mountain. His blue eyes were soft, a smile played about his lips. Ori, with a murmured greeting went over and stood beside him and they both looked upon the mountain. In the distance Frar and another burst into drunken fragments of song.

“Do you remember when we first came here,” said Flori, “we were so excited…least I was. To us the piles of treasure were incomparable and it was hard to remember that there could be more added to the lot.”

Ori nodded. The mountain towered above them, a fortress curled in morning mist. “It is still grand,” he said. “But…some have outgrown it…long for better things. They long for Mithril.”

“Come, Ori,” Flori said, clapping him on the back, “it will be a glorious adventure. Look at the dwarves around you -- there’s even a poet, a dwarf after your own heart! There will be danger, but there was danger when you went after Smaug, too! And it was fine, was it not, as you cowered in the hidden tunnel with your friends about you? Moria is just the next step…whatever is there, it will be just another Smaug.”

Ramming his elbow playfully into his brother’s side, laughing at his cheerfulness, he said softly, “Just another Smaug.” He thought of the unknown shadow that rested in Moria, the doom that settled like a dark cloud -- he smiled at his own poetic description.

He suddenly realized that Balin was beside him: his brown eyes glimmered in the rising sun, a broad smile grew upon his face; his white beard hung in a billowing fall down his chest.

In Moria, in Khazad-dum.
But still the sunken stars appear
In dark and windless Mirrormere;
There lies his crown in waters deep.
Till Durin wakes again from sleep.


“Long have I wished to look in Mirrormere and see the stars and the crowns ripple within the deep waters,” Balin murmured.

Orli looked at him, at the eyes that did not see the Mountain bathed in the rising sun but the realm of Dwarrowdelf gilded in gold and Mithril it‘s broad halls ringing with the song of dwarves in time with the pounding hammers. “You will soon, Balin,” he said.