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“Fí, look!”
A gasp. The sound of four small feet, creeping forward with the awkwardness of youth.
“It’s a puppy!”
“Kíli...”
“It is!”
“It doesn’t look like Óin’s hounds.”
“Well, it’s little. We don’t look like big dwarves!”
“But...well, okay.”
“Fí, it’s hurt. Look at its foot!”
“Did it get caught in a trap?”
“I dunno...”
The crunch of frosty ground breaking under a child’s steps. A soft coo, followed by, “Here, puppy—”
A yelp. “Ouch! It bit me!”
“Kí!”
“No, no, I’m fine, I’m not bleeding—”
“Oh—Kíli, it’s crying...”
“I’m sorry, puppy! I’m trying to help! Will you let me see your paw?”
The poor pup whined, but this time when Kíli approached, it didn’t bite. It howled mournfully as Kíli touched its foot, and Fíli hovered anxiously over his little brother’s shoulder, holding tight to his sling. He knew he couldn’t do much with it—he didn’t even have any stones to throw—but it made him feel a little better to have a weapon with him.
“I dunno what cut it,” Kíli admitted, tenderly parting the fur of the creature’s left hind paw around the red, puffy wound. “We should take it home. Maybe Óin can help! He’s got hounds, and he’s a healer...”
Kíli’s voice faltered. Fíli swallowed.
“Óin’s too busy right now,” Fíli said. “But...maybe if we borrowed some bandages, that would be alright? We don’t have to bother him.”
“He can live in our room!” Kíli exclaimed, eyes brightening. He turned and beamed to the puppy. “You can live with us!”
“It can’t come home with us!” Fíli protested. “Amâd will be so angry!”
“Then he can—he can live in the wagon,” Kíli decided. “Da won’t be using it for...until he gets better. So why not let Puppy use it?”
“Okay,” Fíli said. He knew it was probably a bad idea, but the pup looked so sad, and its paw was really hurt...
“C’mere,” he said, and put out his hand for it to sniff. To his surprised, the dog licked it, and Fíli smiled. It was awfully cute, with those stubby ears...
“We’re gonna get you someplace warm, okay?” Fíli murmured. “Let us help.”
The puppy wagged its short little tail, and Kíli laughed in excitement. Fíli’s smile widened. They’d be alright.
Well...probably.
It took both of them supporting the dog to get it to limp home alongside them. Sneaking back into the Blue Hall was much tougher when you had a big puppy with you instead of just your little brother. Neither of them were supposed to leave the settlement without a grown-up, especially not so soon after there’d been orcs around, but both Fíli and Kíli were going crazy being cooped up inside and they both knew they were just in the way.
Thankfully, they hadn’t been gone long enough for anyone to miss them, even if they were little princes. There was too much grown-up stuff going on right now. But bringing a puppy home was bound to draw attention, even if they weren’t taking it all the way home, just to their father’s wagon. But that was still close enough to get caught if they weren’t very careful, or at least very clever.
“I’ll distract Osmund,” Fíli decided. “You sneak past the hole in the fence.”
They were both great sneaking. Kíli nodded, then hushed the puppy as Fíli “snuck” his way past the door guard.
“Ho there, Prince!” Osmund exclaimed. Fíli jumped guiltily, pretending he hadn’t wanted to be caught. “You’re not supposed to be outside the walls!”
Fíli flinched. “Don’t tell my amâd,” he begged. “I just wanted to take a walk!”
Osmund raised a bushy eyebrow. “And where’s that brother of yours?”
“He’s napping,” Fíli lied. “He stayed up last night, worried about our da...”
Osmund’s frown softened. “Don’t go sneaking out again,” he admonished. “But I know you must feel, cooped up without being able to help. I’ll let you in this one time.”
“Thank you, sir!” Fíli said, his smile just the right shade of tentative.
That was plenty of time for Kíli to have sneaked the puppy through the hole in the fence behind the bush, their secret way in and out. The two of them were waiting on the other side when Fíli walked over.
That was done—but the hardest bit of sneaking was yet to come. Even as stressed and worried as Amâd was right now, she was still the sharpest dam this side of the mountains, and she’d notice them sneaking the puppy in immediately if they didn’t make sure she was busy first.
“Let’s leave him with Gimli,” Kíli suggested. Their cousin lived just down the lane, and he was young enough he could barely talk. “He’s always playing with Óin’s hounds!”
But he was so young he could barely talk, let alone mind a lost hound. “Óin and Glóin will notice for sure!” Fíli protested.
“Just for a moment,” Kíli reasoned. “Then you can distract Amâd while I sneak him into the yard!”
“Then why bother with Gimli at all?”
“Well, Amâd needs to see me with you first, or she’ll think we’re up to something,” Kíli said.
“We are up to something,” Fíli grumbled.
“But she doesn’t need to know that!” Kíli said. “When you’re talking to her, I’ll tell her I left something with Gimli, that’s where we were today, and then—”
“But what if she asks Hlífa if we were there?” Fíli fretted.
“Hlífa owes me,” Kíli said darkly. “I caught her ‘borrowing’ Amâd’s jewels.”
“Borrowing?”
“She put them back.” Kíli grinned. “After I made her promise to help me so I didn’t tell Amâd she’d taken them for the night.”
“You are evil,” Fíli said, but smiled.
“You mean smart!”
“That too, I guess,” Fíli conceded. “Are you sure she’ll remember?”
“She’ll remember,” Kíli promised.
“Then let’s go,” Fíli said. “Puppy looks hungry—we can get some treats from Óin’s kennel while we’re there!”
Little Gimli, only a year old, was delighted to meet a new puppy. His mother Hlífa was napping in her chair when they left Puppy behind, and Kíli whispered very sternly to both baby and pup that they must stay very quiet until he got back.
Puppy whined as they left, but Kíli promised he’d come back. To Fíli’s amazement, the dog actually seemed to listen, and didn’t even yip when Gimli pulled on its ear!
They didn’t make it all the way back home before Dwalin was upon them with a mighty scowl. “Where have you been?” he demanded. “Your mother has been looking everywhere for you!”
“We just went out on a walk...” Fíli mumbled, hanging his head.
“Yeah, we went to see Gimli!” Kíli piped up.
“You don’t go anywhere without permission, especially not now!” Dwalin snapped.
This was much harder with Dwalin than it had been with Osmund, and Fíli knew it would only get worse. “But we’re just—in the way,” he protested weakly. “We can’t even see Da, and Amâd is so busy, and...”
Dwalin sighed, softening a little. He scooped Kíli up in one arm despite his wriggling protests, and took Fíli’s hand with the other. “Let’s go on home,” he said gruffly. “Your amâd will be glad to know you’re alright, at least.”
It seemed to Fíli that Amâd was anything but glad when they finally made it home. She was furious, her eyes red from weeping, and the glare she gave her wayward sons was absolutely crushing. Fíli hung his head and mumbled out excuses, doing an incredibly bad job of distracting her. Why had he let Kíli convince him this would work?
“I left my hat with Gimli!” Kíli blurted out. Fíli glanced at him in surprise, and realized for the first time that his hat was missing. But surely he’d had it when Dwalin found them...?
“Then your ears will be cold,” Amâd snapped. “Neither of you are to leave this house for a week!”
“It’s—it’s alright, Amâd, Hlífa was there with us,” Fíli said, knowing his defense was weak.
“No, it is not alright!” Amâd cried. “You should have told me—she should have told me—!”
“We didn’t want to bother you—”
“Dís,” interrupted Uncle Thorin, rising from where he had sat with crossed arms in his chair. He was always grave, but right now his eyes shone with something like pity. “This has been very hard on all of us. The boys did wrong, yes, but you’ve chastened them enough. I will take them back to Hlífa, and explain things to her, and retrieve Kíli’s hat.”
Fíli swallowed, his heart pounding as he remembered Puppy. “Um,” he squeaked. “We can do it on our own! Don’t wanna...be a bother...”
“Absolutely not,” Amâd said shortly.
Uncle Thorin knelt down before his nephews. “There is nothing more I can do for your father,” he said. “It serves neither him nor you for us grown-ups to keep neglecting you. I want to do better.” He looked up to his sister. “Dís, go back to Vali. Óin thinks he will wake soon, and you ought to be there.”
Dís sighed, hovering in the kitchen for a moment longer before submitting to her big brother’s order and returning to the chamber that had been turned into a sickroom a few days back when Fíli and Kíli’s father had come home terribly injured from an orc attack on his caravan. Fíli wasn’t supposed to know, but he’d eavesdropped enough to learn that their da got his leg bit off by an evil monster, and that he’d been the only survivor of all the dwarves. They were very lucky he was still alive, but still...
“Your mother is dealing with a lot right now,” Uncle Thorin said, laying one hand on Fíli’s shoulder and the other on Kíli’s. “But you’re dealing with it too, and we shouldn’t forget that. From now on, though, if you want to go somewhere—even just down the street to visit Gimli—you tell someone first. Your mother might insist you need a chaperone, too. It will ease her mind. Do you understand?”
Fíli stared at his feet. “But you’re so busy, and...”
“I may not be here always, but someone will be. I’ll make sure of it.” He clapped their shoulders, then rose to his feet. “Come on now, boys. Let’s get your hat back.”
Kíli and Fíli exchanged a panicked look, but there was nothing to do but let Uncle Thorin lead the way back to Gimli and Hlífa—and Puppy.
Perhaps it was something in the way he walked, but Hlífa started herself awake and rose to her feet as her husband’s King in Exile approached, despite having snored through his heirs’ arrival with a puppy only a half hour earlier.
“Prince Thorin!” she exclaimed, for Thorin himself yet refused the title of King under the faint hope that his vanished father still lived somewhere.
Then she took one look at where Gimli was tugging at Puppy’s fur and blanched. “Gimli!” she cried. “Get away from that thing!”
“Hat!” Gimli said as his mother dragged him away. “Hat!” He pointed insistently at Puppy, who held a damp object in his mouth.
Fíli recognized Kíli’s little brown hat, and so did his brother. Kíli bounced forward and gently retrieved his hat, scolding, “That’s not food, Puppy!”
The creature wagged his tail and leaned into Kíli’s touch, much more interested in him than he was the hat. Fíli smiled and walked over to ruffle Puppy’s fur.
“That...is not one of Óin’s hounds,” Uncle Thorin rumbled, a note of warning in his voice. “Boys...”
“It’s just a puppy,” Fíli began.
“It’s hurt,” Kíli added.
“That is no puppy!” Hlífa cried. “That’s a—a beast! A warg!”
At the sound of her raised voice, Puppy whined and scrambled back, then bowled over as it tripped over its injured hind paw. Kíli threw himself in front of him as he howled, and glared up at Uncle Thorin with tears in his eyes.
“Don’t hurt him!” he shouted. “He’s my friend!”
“And where did you make friends with a baby warg?” Uncle Thorin demanded. “You said you were with Gimli and Hlífa all day!”
“They were n—” Hlífa huffed, but when Kíli turned his glare to her, she paled. “Well—ah, yes, they were, Prince Thorin...”
“And the warg?”
Fíli took a breath, standing tall next to his brother. “It’s just an ugly puppy,” he said.
Uncle Thorin knelt down so they were eye level. “Do not lie to me, young prince.”
Beneath his uncle’s fearsome glare, Fíli wilted. Kíli squeezed his hand, and he tried again.
“It’s hurt,” he repeated. “And it’s just a puppy. Does it matter where we found it?”
“It does if you left it with my baby!” Hlífa cried.
“And you,” Fíli snapped. “’S’not our fault you fell asleep.”
She flushed deeply, then hurried into the house with her son in her arms. Gimli wailed in protest, screaming, “Puppy! Puppy!” But soon the door was shut and they were left alone with Uncle Thorin.
“Alright, fine,” Fíli confessed. “We snuck out past the fence and—”
“You did what?!”
“We’re fine!” Kíli said. “Look, we are, and we have friend—oh, Uncle Thorin, don’t tell Amâd, please—”
“I...” Uncle Thorin sat down in Hlífa’s yard, rubbing his forehead. “You boys are going to insist on keeping this warg, aren’t you.”
“It’s not a warg,” Fíli said. “Just an ugly puppy!” Warg was the word Dwalin had used when telling Amâd what had eaten Da’s foot. Puppy could never do such a thing!
“And how do you think it got hurt?” Uncle Thorin asked. His expression darkened. “If there’s a true warg den nearby, with pups...”
“You killed them all,” Kíli accused, one hand fisted in Puppy’s fur and the other clenched around his saliva-soaked hat. “An’—and this one escaped, but it’s got no amâd and adâd and it’s alone, and—”
He burst into tears. “Please, Uncle, please! We can’t help our adâd but Puppy didn’t hurt him and maybe we can help him instead?”
Uncle Thorin closed his eyes, and with a swooping feeling in his chest, Fíli knew they had won. It was impossible to deny Kíli when he cried like that; not even Amâd could do it.
“I’ll have to speak with your mother about this,” Uncle Thorin warned, but he sighed with resignment, and Fíli’s heart lifted. Puppy was going to stay with them!
Amâd was furious when she found out the truth of their adventure beyond the gates, and Kíli was cross he’d wasted his blackmail on Hlífa, and Óin was annoyed they were taking food from his hounds, but in the end they were allowed to keep Puppy—at least until his paw got better. Fíli and Kíli swore to take care of him entirely on their own, and while it did turn out to be a lot of work to clean and feed and pick up after him, they were determined not to ask for help. They would not let him get sent away!
The worst, grossest part was cleaning the wound. At least with that, Óin helped the first time, showing them how to disinfect it and bandage the injured paw. It was infected, and oozed awfully, and Puppy’s mournful howls each time they changed the bandages were enough to drive Fíli to tears. But after a month, it was healing, really healing, and Puppy was running around with only the slightest of limps.
Kíli worked diligently on making toys for Puppy, things to chew and things to fetch and even a collar, while Fíli contemplated a real name. Uncle Thorin had discouraged them from naming him, warning that they’d have to give him up eventually, but Fíli and Kíli had both decided they were not going to let that happen. Still, he couldn’t quite find anything that fit, and so Puppy he remained—for now.
Amâd refused to speak to her sons until they’d washed the dog-smell from themselves, and so Fíli and Kíli had taken to bathing much more frequently than usual. Kíli hated bathing, and Fíli wasn’t fond of it either, but if this was the price they paid for keeping Puppy, it was well worth it. Later, they began to suspect that maybe this was her way of making them do all their chores without complaint, but they didn’t want to rebel and risk her wrath.
And they had so much fun with Puppy! Eventually, Hlífa warmed to Puppy, and even let Gimli play with him, and so the three of them ran—well, toddled, on Gimli’s part—around the settlement playing fetch. Living with Óin and his hounds, Gimli already loved dogs, and though none of his uncle’s kennel would let Puppy near them, he was happy to be Puppy’s best friend. (After Fíli and Kíli, of course.)
“He likes Puppy more than us,” Fíli grumbled on more than one occasion, but he couldn’t complain for long in the face of Gimli’s smile.
Best of all, though, their Da had finally woken up! His injury was ten times worse than Puppy’s, and they’d all feared he wouldn’t make it, but now he was sitting upright and smiling again. He was still stuck in bed a month after the incident, but he wouldn’t always be—Bofur was already carving him a wooden leg to walk around on!
“I hope you boys have been keeping yourselves busy without me,” Da said the first time they visited when he was finally fully awake. He tugged his sons each into a half-embrace, one on each side of the bed, and Fíli leaned into the hug. He was too glad that Da was going to be okay to be annoyed at being treated like a baby.
“Yes!” Kíli exclaimed. “We have a pu—”
But hovering at Da’s shoulder, Amâd glared at him so ferociously that he fell silent, and Kíli mumbled something about playing marbles instead. Da looked up at Amâd in concern, but she just kissed his forehead, and he shrugged.
Later, Amâd took them aside. “You are not to talk about that...thing around your adâd,” she said sternly. “I know you like it, but I fear he will react poorly to having a whelp of the creature that nearly killed him, that did kill his friends, in his own home. When he’s well enough to walk about again, you must let it go.”
“It’s not home,” Fíli pointed out. “We keep him outside, in the wagon—”
“Your father’s wagon, the one he nearly died in!” Amâd took a breath, tugging at her beard, then continued more calmly, “Your pet is healed, and it’s getting bigger every day. It won’t fit inside for much longer!”
“Óin’s hounds don’t get that big—” Kíli protested.
“This is not a hound.” Amâd grimaced. “It is a warg. A young one, but a warg nonetheless: and it will be a monster, eventually, in size and in nature. Perhaps not so vicious for the love you give it, but it cannot deny that nature! It will need room to roam, and creatures to kill. I will not allow you to be one of them!”
“He’s not a warg,” Kíli cried, tears budding in his eyes. “He’s not evil! He’s our friend!”
“Two weeks, at most, and then we turn it out,” Amâd said flatly. “That is final. Make your peace with it. And you are not to go looking for it again! Dwalin is your watcher now, officially, and any further attempts to sneak out past the gates will not go unpunished!”
“Let’s run away,” Kíli declared, curled up next to Puppy in the wagon.
Fíli shoved him, none too gently. Puppy whined as Kíli jostled him, and Fíli patted him in apology.
“That’s stupid,” he said. “Dwalin is a great tracker. So’s Uncle Thorin. They’ll find us—and Puppy is hard to hide.”
“I don’t care!” Kíli crossed his arms. “She can’t—she can’t make him go away! It’s not fair!”
“Amâd is—well, she’s right about him getting big,” Fíli said reluctantly. It hurt his heart to even think about letting Puppy go, but he couldn’t deny that he was already almost as big as the alpha dog in Óin’s kennel. “And...you’ve seen those teeth. He’s more a wolf than a dog, Kí.”
“He’s not evil,” Kíli sniffled. “And—and he doesn’t even have a real name!”
“We can still name him,” Fíli said. “Two weeks, Amâd said. That’s plenty of time for a name, and to figure out how we’ll find him again, when we’re big and don’t have to listen to her.”
Puppy knew he was being talked about. He woofed sadly, snuggling closer to them both, and Fíli blinked back tears. No, he was not evil.
“But when we’re big he might be dead,” Kíli sobbed, clutching Puppy’s fur. “Or—or he could turn evil! If we kick him out, and he doesn’t understand why...and he won’t have any friends! There’s no other dogs like him around, and he’ll be all alone out in the cold—if I got kicked out like that, I might turn evil!”
“If he’s really our friend...” Fíli trailed off. He buried his face in Puppy’s fur for a moment to hide his tears, only looking up when Kíli cried, “But we’re not his friends if we do this!”
“We can’t do anything, Kí,” Fíli said miserably, pulling his little brother into a hug. “Except explain things to him. You know he’s smart—he listens to you. If he’s really a—a warg...” He shivered. “Well, then he’s tough, and he’s smart, and maybe he’ll understand. And we’ll name him, so he’ll remember us later.”
“And hate us!” Kíli wailed.
But Puppy woofed at that, pushing between them with his giant bulk and licking Kíli’s face until he laughed.
“Not if we love him as much as we can right now,” Fíli said, scratching Puppy’s ears. “See? He loves you!”
“I’m gonna give him my hat,” Kíli said impulsively, yanking it off his head and plopping it down on Puppy’s. “He’ll smell me on it!”
Puppy shook his head and sneezed, and the hat fell off. Fíli and Kíli looked at it lying sadly on the floor of the wagon, then looked at each other, and burst out laughing.
“Okay, maybe not my hat,” Kíli giggled. “But we can give him—something.”
“A name, and a present,” Fíli decided. “We can do that in two weeks.”
Kíli’s face fell at the reminder of their looming deadline. “I don’t wanna let him go,” he whispered. “Can’t—can’t we convince Amâd to keep him? I’ll be the best hunter ever, to help feed him, and he can hunt too, and—”
Sometimes, Fíli hated being the big brother. “We can’t,” he said softly. “Da can’t live with a warg. Not after...you know. And—and we can’t pick Puppy over our da.”
Kíli sniffed, wiping his eyes. “No,” he admitted. “It’s gotta be Da.”
“We’ll do the best we can,” Fíli promised. “That’s all we can do.”
“I’m gonna sleep with Puppy tonight,” Kíli decided. “Okay, boy?”
Puppy wagged his tail. Fíli sighed. “You know it’s gonna be cold out.”
“Don’t tell on me,” Kíli pouted.
“Of course not,” Fíli said. “I’m sleep here with you.”
“But you said...”
“He’s my puppy too,” Fíli reminded him. “And you’re my brother. I’ll never leave you, Kíli. I don’t want to leave Puppy, either...but if I have to choose, I’ll always choose you, and Da, and our family.”
That night in the wagon was long, and Fíli didn’t sleep well. Puppy kept kicking, and it really was too small to fit two growing boys and a big warg pup. But Puppy was their friend, and he wouldn’t leave him until there wasn’t another choice.
And all at once it came to him.
“Buddy,” he declared when dawn broke and the three of them went outside to play.
“Huh?” Kíli asked.
Fíli grinned, and hugged their puppy around the neck. “That’s his name,” he explained. “Buddy. Because he’s our friend. And that way, he’ll always know it, and he’ll know us. He’ll be a good warg.”
“Buddy!” Kíli beamed. “Hear that, Puppy? Your name is Buddy now! And—” His smile faded, and then he too flung his arms around Buddy’s neck. “You have to go away soon,” he whispered. “We don’t want you to, but our amâd says so. Please be a good boy while you’re on your own? We still love you. We’ll find you again some day, when we’re big and grown up.”
“We promise,” Fíli said, and Buddy wagged his tail.
“But not for a couple weeks,” Kíli added, and let him go. “And I’ll make you a goodbye present first. A great one.”
As much as Óin resented Fíli and Kíli using his dog supplies for Buddy, he was glad enough that “that creature” would soon be leaving that he agreed to help them with Buddy’s present. Fíli and Kíli had argued over what would be best, eventually deciding he’d grow out of a collar and lose anything that wasn’t attached to him, and so in the end they decided to give him an earring.
They picked one of Amâd’s earrings that had lost its friend, a big gold hoop that would stand out against Buddy’s brown fur. Kíli held Buddy’s paw the whole time as Óin carefully pierced the ear, and Fíli wondered at Buddy’s trust in him. He barely even whimpered, and stayed so very still! Even Óin marveled at his calm; none of the dogs he’d given piercings before had ever taken so well to it. It was as if Buddy could really understand them, Kíli especially.
At last Óin cleaned the piercing, set the hoop inside it, and pronounced the procedure complete.
“But we should wait to let him go until it’s really healed,” Kíli said, looking up at Amâd with big, pleading eyes. “Please? Please?”
Amâd was clearly unhappy, but agreed to the bargain. Her attempt to keep Buddy’s presence a secret from Da hadn’t worked for long, and Fíli suspected it was his soft heart that convinced her to allow them to keep their puppy for a little longer.
Buddy stayed outside and out of Da’s sight, but overall their father took to his adoption much better than Amâd had feared.
“It’s no good to keep warg for a pet,” he agreed, “but he was there for my boys when I couldn’t be. How can I resent that?” He shook his head. “Even if it was his dam who ate my leg!”
But even outside, Buddy’s lingering presence was unavoidable, and when Da had a particularly bad fall in reaction to a warg’s howl, even Kíli understood that it was time to say goodbye.
Uncle Thorin and Dwalin took them out past the gates the next morning, to where they’d found Buddy in the first place. The grown-ups stepped back to allow them some privacy, and Kíli flung his arms around Buddy’s neck.
“I love you, Buddy,” he sniffed.
Fíli patted him gently, and Buddy woofed, licking them both. “Love you,” he echoed, and memorized his every detail: the dangling hoop in his ear, the ash-brown color of his fur, the way his black nose was slightly pink in the middle, the scar on his hind paw, the crook of his tail.
“We’ll find you again someday,” he promised. “Be safe until then, okay, Buddy?”
He licked them again, and then it was time to go.
When they turned to leave, Uncle Thorin walking between them holding one of each of his nephew’s hands, Buddy whined and made to trot after them. But Dwalin huffed and drew his sword, stomping his feet.
“Shoo! Go!” he bellowed. “You’re on your own now!”
“Go,” Uncle Thorin said firmly, holding tight to their hands.
Buddy howled mournfully in confusion. Neither of them had ever been very sweet to him, but they’d never been mean, either. Fíli’s heart broke to hear the sorrow in his voice.
“Go away, Buddy,” Kíli sobbed. “Find—find some wolves! Make some f-friends...”
Buddy whimpered one last time, then turned and slunk into the pine trees, disappearing.
On the way home, Kíli cried incessantly, and Fíli’s own sobs were only a little quieter. He only stopped to glare at Dwalin when he said, “If it comes back with a warg pack, you know we’ve got to kill them all.”
“Aye, I know,” Uncle Thorin said grimly, and Fíli cried all the harder.
They never had another hound. They never saw Buddy, either. But sometimes, Fíli thought he could hear a familiar howl in the distance, and he hoped it was Buddy, living free and happy on his own.
They grew up.
Kíli took to the bow and arrow, and became a great hunter. Fíli turned his mind to statecraft at Thorin’s knee, but he tried to accompany Kíli as often as he could. They always kept an eye out for Buddy, even years and years later, when all of Óin’s hounds had died and been replaced by their grandpups.
Wargs could live for a long time, Fíli told himself. And they were tough.
Too tough for Buddy? Kíli wondered.
After a few years, they stopped voicing their worries to one another. They both knew it was foolish to hope.
Their adâd was back no his feet within a year, and back on the road in another. When Fíli was thirty, he went out trading with him, and a few years later, Kíli joined them. Vali was free with the story of his injury, using it to win sympathy from Mannish merchants, playing up his hurts to his advantage. He also boasted of taking down a whole warg pack, pups and all, and though it wasn’t true, it still made Kíli furious.
At least, that was, until the first time they came under attack from warg-mounted orcs.
That was their first real battle, and compared to what they’d face in the future, it was barely a skirmish. Still, they saw how Vali went white under his beard to hear the wargs howling, and the sight of twisted, filthy wolf-monsters bearing twisted, filthy goblins on their backs was so different from Buddy’s inquisitive, affectionate nature that Fíli didn’t remember until much later that he’d once been friends with a warg.
Kíli confessed, after, that he couldn’t forget, that he saw Buddy in every warg he shot down. But he did still shoot them, and drove away the rest, and no dwarven lives were lost that day.
“I checked their ears,” he said quietly. “None of them had a piercing.”
It wasn’t Buddy. It never was.
Now they were full grown, and ready to face not just orcs and wargs, but dragons and sorcerors. Fíli and Kíli were eager to set off on the Quest to reclaim Erebor, and set out as soon as they could to find the meeting place where Gandalf had arranged for them to meet their burglar. Even though they were the first to to embark from the Blue Hall, they weren’t the first to arrive—Dwalin and Balin beat them, because Kíli insisted on lingering in the foothills tracking warg footprints along the way.
“Kíli, don’t be stupid,” Fíli said, his patience wearing thin. “You’re not going to find anything.”
“If we kill some wargs now, that’s less to hunt us down on the real journey,” his brother pointed out stubbornly.
Fíli snorted. “We both know that’s not what you’re looking for. Kí, Buddy is long dead by now. It’s been sixty years, and wargs lead violent lives. And even if he was still alive, he wouldn’t recognize us!”
“You don’t know that,” Kíli snapped, but he let Fíli drag him back on their path toward the Shire nonetheless.
Before leaving home, Amâd gave Kíli a runestone, a symbol of his promise to return. Da had given Fíli a gift of his own: his lucky knife, the one he’d used to save his life on the day of his injury.
“Kills orcs and wargs as good as anything,” Vali said. “Could kill a dragon, too, if you get close enough!”
“Thanks, Da,” Fíli said, cracking a smile so he wouldn’t cry.
Vali embraced him. “I’m so proud of you,” he whispered. “My big boy! My handsome prince! You’ll do great things, Fíli, great things.”
The knife came in useful a hundred times along their journey. Fíli didn’t know if it was really a good luck charm, or just a good weapon, but he was glad to have it with him, even if Kíli complained that his own gift wasn’t nearly as useful.
The first real orc fight along the journey got Fíli’s blood pumping and reminded him why they were out here. The orcs hated them, wanted to wipe out the Line of Durin, but dwarves were better than them in every way.
The trolls they’d faced had just been in the way: this was a true fight. Not that Fíli himself got much action—Dwalin and Bifur got their axes dirty, but Gandalf insisted they all run around trying to avoid the enemy. Everything in Fíli’s heart hated to run from a good fight, but Thorin ordered them to listen, and he couldn’t disobey Thorin. He was no longer the naive, rebellious youth who’d snuck Buddy into the Blue Hall.
Still, he was envious—and even more proud—of Kíli, who hung back and shot at the attacking orcs and their warg steeds. The luckiest of knives could was still only useful in short range, but Kíli was an expert archer, and saved all their skins before Thorin finally ushered him into Gandalf’s tunnel.
Later, in the elven hall, Fíli found his brother sitting by himself under a tree, turning over Amâd’s stone in his hands. Kíli had celebrated with the rest of them at the elf lord’s table, and been much praised for his bravery, but now he seemed almost...sad.
“You did great today,” Fíli said, clapping Kíli’s shoulder. “How many orcs did you take down—three?”
“And a warg.” But if anything, Kíli’s frown only deepened. “Fíli...I think—I think I saw Buddy.”
Fíli stiffened. In the heat of the moment, he hadn’t even thought about their long-lost pup. “No way,” he said firmly. “Buddy’s got to be dead by now. He can’t—”
“I saw him!” Kíli snapped. “I know I did. I shot down an orc, and its warg reared, and I saw—there was a scar on his back paw; the fur grew unevenly. And he had an earring, Fí!”
Fíli took a breath. “It could’ve been a different warg,” he said.
“It wasn’t. I’m sure of it.” Kíli buried his face in his hands. “I think he was one of the ones who escaped. I don’t know...I don’t think I can kill him. Even if he was attacking us...”
Fíli felt sick to his stomach. It had been a very long time since they were boys playing with a puppy, but he remembered how dearly Kíli loved Buddy. He loved Buddy, too, but...it was different, between the two of them. Buddy understood Kíli, and Kíli him.
“If he’s on the other side now,” Fíli said quietly, “we don’t have much of a choice. If he goes for you, or Thorin, or Óin or Glóin or even Mr. Boggins, I know who I’d choose.”
“I know.” Kíli sighed. “I know what I have to do. I just don’t want to.”
“Then focus your fire on the orcs,” Fíli said firmly. “They’re easier to kill anyway. Wargs have that tough hide...”
Kíli nodded, then got to his feet, his stance proud and determined. “Let’s get cleaned up,” he suggested. “That fountain looked as good a place as any to bathe. Wanna get everyone else to join us?”
Fíli imagined the look on the elf lord’s face to see thirteen dwarves prancing about naked in his fountain, and grinned. “Absolutely!”
They didn’t get much of a chance to talk until they were safe in Beorn’s hall, and by then Fíli had almost convinced himself he’d been wrong. But as he slept that night, visions of wargs and orcs amid burning trees haunted him, and when he woke he saw the same grim look in Kíli’s eye that he felt in his own heart.
“I saw him,” Fíli said bluntly, fiddling with the handle of his lucky knife. “You were right—he’s with the enemy.”
“He nearly took a chunk out of Dwalin,” Kíli said. His hand was in his pocket, no doubt clutching Amâd’s runestone. “I—I rushed at him, and he ran. I...I don’t know...”
“It didn’t happen,” Fíli said, not sure if he was referring to Buddy injuring Dwalin or Kíli killing Buddy, or both. “He’s still alive. And so are we.”
“If he’s working with Azog,” Kíli whispered, “we’ll have to kill him.”
“That implies he’s got much of a choice.” Fíli grimaced. “Wargs are awful, but orcs are worse. I don’t think they treat their mounts all that well.”
“But if he’s got no choice, then neither do we,” Kíli countered. “Azog’s controlling him, and all the other wargs. Maybe he ran from me this time, but next time...”
“We’ll do what we have to do,” Fíli said heavily, and they did not speak of their once-friend again.
It was over. He’d been caught. Azog had him. It was over.
There was no escaping, not anymore, but at least—at least Kíli was safe. Fíli struggled valiantly as the the pale orc dragged him up the stairs to the heights of Ravenhill, but he knew he was done for.
Still, if he could just grab his last weapon, his da’s lucky knife he’d managed to keep even in the dungeons of Mirkwood, he could take one of his captors down with him—the Sons of Durin would not be killed without a fight!
But then—just as Azog thrust him over the high ledge, taunting Thorin down below—
Fíli screamed as a huge, dull force knocked him free of Azog’s grasp, over and off the ledge. Around him, orcs fell screaming to the cold, hard ground below, and Fíli twisted, trying frantically to find a way to land that wouldn’t kill him—
But at just the last moment, something—someone—grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back up onto the ledge.
Fíli fell back, dizzy and winded and bleeding from his arm as the creature let go of his surely-dislocated arm. But it wasn’t slathering and ready to eat him, it was looking at him with big brown eyes, and it had a gold hoop in its ragged ear—
“Buddy!” he sobbed, and threw his arms around the great, fearsome warg.
Buddy shook him off with a growl, and Fíli tensed, finally grabbing at his knife, but the warg whirled around to snarl at an approaching group of orcs. He leaped, taking one out, while Fíli drew his knife and lunged at another, ignoring the pain in his bad arm.
They fought their way out together, back down to where the other orcs were fighting Thorin, Dwalin, Kíli, and—Mr. Boggins? What was he doing here? And was that the elf prince, and oh no, Tauriel—?
Well, it didn’t matter, Fíli told himself. They hated orcs too, and if he was fighting alongside a warg, he had no room to distrust elven allies.
“Fíli!” Kíli cried. “Fíli, you alright?”
“I’m alive!” he shouted back. It was more than he could ask for, under the circumstances.
“And—Buddy!” Kíli hollered. “Buddy, I knew you’d know us, I—”
“Watch out!” Fíli yelled, and Kíli turned just in time to dodge Bolg swinging his great mace at him. Tauriel joined him, and soon they were fighting back to back, the the elf prince shooting down from a tower above while Dwalin and Thorin faced off against Azog. Still, there were many lesser orcs, and wargs too, and together Fíli and Buddy defended Ravenhill together while two mighty duels raged on. Mr. Boggins even joined in, appearing and disappearing just where he was needed, taking full advantage of that incredible hobbitish stealthiness!
The wargs were wary of Buddy, not daring to attack him directly, and Fíli realized suddenly that he was by far the biggest—at least three times Fíli’s own size, and absolutely enormous compared to the tiny pup he once had been. The other wargs scurried away when Buddy came near, throwing their orc riders in their desperation to escape their fellow’s wrath, and Fíli realized...
“Buddy!” he called. “Tell them to flee!”
It was far too much to expect the wargs to switch sides like Buddy had done, but this, he thought might work. That was, if Buddy really was a smart as Fíli remembered.
And it seemed he was. Buddy howled, the noise so terrible and ear-piercing that Fíli nearly buckled to his knees with the force of it. He thought he saw one orc faint entirely. The wargs whimpered, turning to tail to run, all except one—Azog’s white warg queen.
Buddy growled at her, and she snarled in response—and to Fíli’s complete astonishment, she leapt atop her master from behind, pinning him down against the icy ground at just the right moment for Thorin to drive Orcrist right into his chest.
Overhead, there was a screech, and Fíli looked up to see the giant eagles soaring down to battle, Beorn leaping down from their grasp and transforming into a bear mid-fall. Radagast hollered from atop one of their backs, and Fíli watched open-mouthed as one eagle tore down the orcs’ signal tower atop Ravenhill while another grabbed a fleeing warg and threw it violently from the mountainside. Below, the orc and warg armies faltered, and began to run.
Fíli turned back to survey his companions, and gaped in astonishment to see Kíli and Tauriel entwined together in a tight embrace, followed by a passionate kiss, Bolg’s dead body lying decapitated at their feet. Dwalin and Mr. Boggins supported Thorin, who was swaying on his feet from blood loss, and the white warg nuzzled curiously at Azog’s corpse.
Fíli sighed, feeling very faint himself, his wounded arm and shoulder screaming with pain. Beside him, Buddy loomed, and bent to sniff his filthy hair.
“Thanks, Buddy,” he rasped, leaning against his warg friend despite his stinking, matted fur. He wasn’t much better off, after all. “You...you saved me. You saved us.” He sniffed, tears dripping down his cheeks. “I’m sorry we had to let you go all those years back...”
Buddy woofed like he had as a pup, and Fíli burst into true sobs. Buddy tolerated his crying for a moment, then stepped back, looking over to the white warg as she padded over. He licked her ear, grumbling at her in warg-talk, and Fíli stared in amazement to see the affection between them. Were they mates? But she looked—younger, somehow, while Buddy’s fur was certainly greying... Perhaps she was his daughter?
A cheer went up in the valley below, great cries of victory from elves and men and dwarves. The white warg bristled, and Buddy looked to Fíli.
Kíli hobbled over, his arm slung around Tauriel’s waist, and then threw himself at Fíli in a fierce embrace. “We won!” he cried. “We won! The mountain is truly ours—and you’re back with us, Buddy!”
He flung his arms around Buddy, who shook him off with astonishing gentleness, glaring up to where the eagles circled the skies above.
“I’ll explain to them,” Tauriel said, addressing Buddy directly as if there was nothing strange at all about the situation. “Go, friends. Be free.”
Buddy and the white warg bowed their heads. The white warg bounded off, but Buddy lingered just a moment longer. Then he licked Kíli’s face.
“Buddy! Gross!” Kíli laughed, wiping his arm over his eyes.
Buddy barked joyfully and ran a circle around them, his giant feet making the ground shake beneath them. Then he licked Fíli, and crouched down, looking deep into his eyes, then into Kíli’s.
Fíli didn’t quite know how, but he understood: this was not a goodbye forever. They would see each other again.
Then Buddy turned and raced after his daughter, disappearing into the falling snow.
Fíli, Kíli, Óin, and Glóin had volunteered to meet the caravan of Longbeard dwarves journeying east from Ered Luin to Erebor. Glóin was eager to reunite with Hlífa and Gimli, his wife and son; Óin wanted to see his hounds sooner rather than later; and Fíli and Kíli were looking forward to seeing their parents again. Tauriel went with them, also, having been (rather grudgingly) accepted by the dwarves for Kíli’s sake, and so was Mr. Boggins, heading home at long last.
They had just gotten to the western foothills of the Misty Mountains when they spotted the caravan, and Kíli bounced on his heels in excitement, when a howl ripped through the air. Óin and Glóin bristled, drawing their weapons, but Fíli and Kíli froze exchanging a hopeful look.
Could it be...?
“Go,” Tauriel encouraged, for Kíli had long since told her the story of their relationship with Buddy. “We will wait here, and see your kin tomorrow morning. He won’t come close to a dwarven population that big—he’s not a pup any longer.”
Though Óin and Glóin grumbled, they set to making camp with Mr. Boggins’ aid. Fíli and Kíli didn’t wait any longer, hurrying into the trees toward the source of the howling.
A small pack of massive doglike creatures emerged from the woods as they approached, and at their head was Buddy. Some Fíli recognized as fearsome wargs, others as noble wolves, and some a strange mix of both. He saw the white warg there, standing between Buddy and a pure white she-wolf, and Fíli realized that Azog’s steed—and killer—was not a full warg, but likely half deadly wolf of the north.
(Later, Kíli and Tauriel would theorize that Buddy had been adopted by a pack of white wolves as a young pup, and grown so big and strong he took over leading the group. Then, somehow, Azog must have discovered this warg among wolves, and his intelligent half-warg child, and taken over his will. But the love he’d been shown as a pup saved him, and doomed Azog, Fíli didn’t know if that was exactly right, but his heart told him it was at least near the truth.)
Without the heat of battle and the sting of pain clouding his mind, Fíli saw now just how much older Buddy looked than the other canines. At sixty or so years old, he was not likely to live much longer. Tauriel had explained that wolves tended to live less than two decades and wargs rarely more than fifty. Buddy was truly exceptional for his kind.
Yet he was still strong, if aged, and he loped forward to gree them confidently. Fíli lifted a hand to touch his nose, black with just a bit of pink, and smiled.
“Thanks for everything, Buddy,” Fíli murmured. “You saved all of us, back in Erebor. You deserve to live in peace.”
“I’m so proud of you,” Kíli said, gently running a hand over the gold hoop earring that marked him as theirs. “Fí and I would’ve died without you. You’re so brave—and so big!”
“Imagine if we’d tried to keep him,” Fíli laughed, and Kíli giggled. He was far, far too big to fit in a wagon now!
It was only a few minutes before the other canines began to grow restless. The white warg growled at them, and Buddy huffed, bowling over his dwarf friends and covering them in licks. Then he stopped, one of his massive paws on each of their chests, and looked down at them seriously.
They understood, now: this was the last goodbye. Buddy was happy; he had a home; and he was growing old, while Fíli and Kíli were still in their youth.
“We love you,” Kíli said, and hugged the hug leg that pinned him to the ground. Even now, with such a fearsome creature atop him, Fíli felt only affection for the little pup that had grown so big. “So much.”
“Thank you,” Fíli said, and he was not getting choked up—or, well, maybe he was. Only Kíli and Buddy could tell, if so. “We love you.”
With one last, slobbering kiss, Buddy lifted off them. The other wolves, wargs, and warg-wolves had already vanished into the woods, and with only one final look behind him, Buddy followed, disappearing into the shadows of the pines.
“We did a good job,” Fíli said, sitting up and laying his hand on his brother’s shoulder.
Kíli pulled him into a big hug. He, too, was crying. “We did,” he rasped. “And you know what?”
“What?”
“He did, too.”