and if we should die tonight then we should all die together

[willnothide]

Fili is alive.

It's all Kili had needed to hear to make him move, and he clutches his rune stone in his fist as he runs through the trees and back to that great expanse of green where he'd woken to those of the race of Men mulling about aimlessly, so unlike what he's doing now. Tauriel had offered an explanation, one that Kili isn't sure he understands because she speaks of a land he does not know, this Darrow that he's never heard of in any stories from his elders, and he'd been certain that she was only a dream, a figment of his own imagination sent to guide him to where he truly belongs, reunited with his brother in the Halls of Waiting until Arda is built again.

She had offered no guidance, at least not the sort he would have expected, but the moment Tauriel had told him she'd seen Fili here, Kili's heart had stopped as surely as if he'd been pierced by Bolg's stake all over again. Later, he might feel a sense of guilt at rushing away from her when she'd expressed such sorrow at seeing him again, both of them sure that the other couldn't be real, but Kili's greatest loyalty has always been to his brother and even in death, that could never change. The stone he holds in his hand had been given to him in exchange for a promise, that he'd return to his mother, and Kili had passed it on to Tauriel in hopes that in the end, both would promises would be fulfilled. He'd failed his mother but now, he makes a new promise, one to his brother that he will find him in this foreign place so that they can be together again. There's an emptiness in Kili, a void that had grown wider from the second he'd seen Fili fall, but the hope of finding his brother alive drives him forward.

Whether Erebor had been reclaimed, he cannot know, but if Kili has been given this chance, a chance to live again with his brother by his side, there is nothing he can do but whatever is in his power to take it. "Run!" Fili had cried, and so Kili does. He won't rest, he'll search every corner of this Darrow if he must, but if Fili is here as Tauriel says, Kili will find him.

Comments

[willnothide]

He hears the words, hears the force behind them, and if it weren't for the fact that this is own brother telling him these things, Kili doesn't know that he could have believe it. "I was going to rush in, headfirst and without any sense of what might be there, just like I always do," he says, tightening his hold around his brother as if releasing him for even a second would mean losing him again. He couldn't take it, not a second time. He remembers how fearful he'd been during their encounter with the Stone-giants, how he'd truly realized then for the first time that the journey might have the sort of dangers that Bilbo Baggins couldn't simply outsmart and that the sun could't turn to stone.

He'd slept closer to Fili than usual that night, clinging loosely to his brother's sleeve because he'd wanted to make sure even in his sleep that nothing else would tear them apart.

"If we'd stayed together like Thorin intended for us to do, it might have been different," he continues, pulling back just slightly so he can meet Fili's eyes. There's pain in them, and Kili hates to think he might be a cause of it, but he's sure it's only reflected in his own. He forces a small smile, shaking his head just slightly as he thinks of what Thorin would say to them now. He doesn't picture a King, not in this moment, but the uncle they'd known when they'd been much younger, before Thorin's duty to his kingdom had visibly outweighed his duty to his nephews.

"It doesn't matter now, does it? You're here."

It does, he thinks, it matters quite a lot, but he wants to forget all of this for a moment. He doesn't want to have to explain to his brother that Kili, in a blind rage, had rushed to avenge him only to end up dead himself. He's made a choice not to tell Tauriel that part of it, and he thinks he ought to do the same here. Watching Fili die had already destroyed him, having to watch Fili learn that Kili, too, hadn't survived the battle... Selfish as it may be, he can't bear it.

[sonofdurin]

Fíli honestly doesn't think it would have ended differently if they'd stayed together. He had tried not to engage the orcs, as Thorin had ordered, but they'd surrounded him before he even knew they were there. He hadn't been able to escape, and he hadn't been able to force them to kill him in the tunnels - if Kíli had been there, he would have died as well. Died, instead of...

Had he lived? It's been a week since the battle, but people, even mortally injured ones, can cling to life for days before succumbing to their wounds, and Kíli's always had a stubborn streak. But Tauriel had been alive when she arrived here, Fíli knows that much, so Kíli wouldn't have had to have died for the city to claim him. He could have lived, then, could have just turned around one day and found himself here, vanished out of Erebor like he'd never been there at all.

"I'm here," he says. "And so are you, thank Mahal, but... I hope the rest of the Company is alright." He means Thorin, mostly. It had seemed, in the moments before the battle, that his uncle's madness had been broken, but if it came back... Kíli, who might have had a shot at getting through to him, is here now, and given what had happened on the battlements, Bilbo, who could get through to him, had no doubt left Erebor as soon as the battle was won. And it had been won, it must have been. Fíli refuses to consider the other option.

[willnothide]

"The last I remember, I was in battle," Kili answers, choosing his words carefully because it wouldn't do to admit that he hasn't the faintest idea what's become of Thorin or Mister Dwalin or Bilbo or the rest of the company. Fili wouldn't even know that Tauriel had been there, that she'd come to help them take back their home, and he cannot find it in himself to tell his brother the truth of what had happened. It isn't reliving it that's the problem, though it is one, it's wanting to keep Fili from more pain than is necessary.

He remembers very vividly what it had felt like to watch his brother fall, to see the light faded from Fili's eyes and to know in a sudden rush of grief that he would never hear his brother say his name again. If he can save Fili from that at least, he'll consider it a brotherly duty that hasn't failed.

"I'm sure they're all fine," he continues, nodding firmly. "Thorin would have had Azog and Bolg's heads for what they'd done, I don't doubt it and neither should you." He forces a smile that reaches his eyes, though his hands still tremble against Fili's back. "Let us forget it for now. Whatever happened, it's been undone and as long as this world doesn't take you from me again, I'll be glad for it. In any case, whoever rules this place has seen fit to give me a place to sleep right next to where you are. We should go, find food and drink and-- And-- Well, we should go."

He will not rest tonight, even with Fili back at his side. Kili won't rest much in the next couple weeks, he thinks, not when he so fears that a mere blink of an eye will see his brother gone and as they start their journey back to Candlewood, he makes sure to keep close enough to Fili that their shoulders bump with every step. He will not lose his brother again. Kili simply won't allow it.