Come to Morning Through The Shadows

Endings

Home is behind, the world ahead,

And there are many paths to tread

Through shadows to the edge of night,

Until the stars are all alight.-J.R.R. Tolkien

WARNING: Depictions of violence

"They stoles it from us. It's ours. OURS. And they stoles it from the master and froms us."

"Not our master, not our master, no. The hobbitses was never our master."

"But they stoles the hobbitses and the precious!"

"Quiet. We will gets them, yes, yes. Quick and quiet we have to be. Musn't be seen."

"How will we get it back? We can'ts go in there and takes it. They will sees us. Those nasty mens will see us and take us captive like the master of the precious."

"We waits for darkness, yes. We waits for darkness and then we strikes. Find the hobbitses and set her free. Kills the mens who stand guard. Quick and quiet."

"And when the hobbitses is free we will take the precious for our own. "

"Yes, yes we takes the Precious fors our own. We'll takes the hobbitses to the stairs where she waits."

"But-but what abouts the dwarfses? What about him? He knows wees is false. He knows. He sees and will tries to stop us."

There echoed a dark chuckle.

"Then we stops him. Stick him withs a blade of shadow we must. The orcses are coming. And the wraiths with their blades. We takes a blade and sticks him. Then, Precious, then he'll nots stand in our way."

His forearm caught the rough edges of the tower as he slipped downward.

Fili let out a low his as he fumbled for one a couple of knives. If he could just wedge them in...

The blades were produced and angled towards the gleaming, ebony stones, the tip of the metal shooting sparks above Fili's head.

He briefly worried that his hair might catch fire...though that really should have been the least of his worries honestly.

Thankfully, the dwarf's forearms connected with a low, thin ledge of sorts, slapping against the harsh, yet smooth granite stones, and the knife points found some purchase in the small creviced corner that jutted inwards, much in the same way they had on the ledge that led into the goblin tunnels all those months ago at the beginning of their journey to reclaim the mountain.

The connection of blade to stone halted Fili's decent and strained his arm muscles, sending a searing pain into his shoulders. He let out a small his of pain, his eyes watering.

It smarted, that was for certain, but at least he'd stopped falling.

Fili's boots clacked against the slick surface of the tower's side and he strained his arms, trying to pull himself up somehow.

But it wasn't working.

The dwarf grunted, feeling the tricklings of sweat slipping down his brow and onto his cheek as he gritted his teeth, digging his grip tighter around this knives, scraping his boots against the outer wall, trying to find some sort of hold.

No luck.

And, as he strained, his ears picking up the guttural snarls of the Ents below him, the feeling of the metal starting to give way to his pull sent a lurching pain through his stomach.