Disclaimer: The Hobbit property of JRR Tolkien; lyric quote property of Frank Ocean I'm just ripping my heart out through my eyes-I mean, playing in the sandbox. You know the drill.

Warnings: Mentions of violence, canonical character death

Notes: This fic is so ridiculously short, I'm honestly embarrassed to even post it, but I needed an excuse to get y'all to think about The Battle of the Five Armies while listening to Frank Ocean's Wise Man-if I suffer, so must you.


They would've died together.

It looked for all the world as if it was going to end like this: Thorin, slumped against the body of a bloated goblin, blood burbling through his fingers; Fíli, planted solid and stone-faced in front, slashing and stabbing with weary determination; Kíli crouching glassy-eyed, picking off orcs with razor-sharp precision.

But he was running out of arrows and Fíli's arms were aching, and the two of them were no match for the staggering waves of rival swords. In the final hour they had nearly bled dry: Fíli had taken two hits, one to the shoulder and one to the abdomen; he buckled, swinging his sword one armed and holding Kíli close. The younger had taken arrows to the lung, breathing blood and fluid and seeping tears. Fíli's hand clutched his brother's shoulder, Kíli's head in pressed against his knee, and he swung, and swung again.

Thorin yelled with a raw throat, roaring their names like a funeral chant, and Fíli brushed him off, stumbling onto his knees, "We're fine, da," he choked, Kíli lying dead against him, "we're—"

He choked, and was gone, blood trickling down his back from a wound like a rose blossom. And Thorin wept, fierce tears, until Beorn came and gathered him up off the field.


"Thorin had been mortally wounded on the field, pierced by spears; and his nephews Fíli and Kíli died defending him as he lay on the ground."

~JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit

"Strong man don't exist, no undying man exists

Weak man don't exist, no—just flesh and blood exist

But our mother would be proud,

I bet our mother would be proud of you"

~Frank Ocean, Wise Man