Fili was the first to see Thorin fall. He shouted his uncle's name in pure terror and ran to the fallen warriors side. Kili's eyes followed his brother and then he saw the man that had been like a father to him lying on the ground with a spear in his chest, unmoving.
"No!" the archer yelled as he ran toward his fallen leader, blood pumping in his ears. Kili crouched down beside his uncle.
"Boys?" Thorin coughed. Kili looked towards his brother, silently pleading if their uncle would be alright. Fili simply gave a grave look at his brother before turning back to their leader. "My brave, brave lads," Thorin continued weakly. "I'm glad that at least the line of Durin shall live on after my passing. I only wish that I could have been there to see Erebor taken back."
Fili and Kili looked desperately between each other, knowing that there was nothing they could do to save their uncle and yet not able to accept that he was truly dying.
The King Under the Mountain took one last shaky breath before uttering, "Tell your mother that I'm sorry." And with that, the great Thorin Oakenshield closed his eyes and left the realm of the living.
The two brothers were speechless. The man who had practically raised them since birth, who had saved them time and again from both foolish troubles and fights to the death, was gone. Even though death was a very real possibility, especially in their quest, Fili and Kili had never actually thought that Thorin could die. Even when Azog had beaten him within an inch of his life, they both somehow knew that he would be alright. But now . . . now their invincible uncle had finally been defeated.
Silent sorrow suddenly morphed into blinding rage. The thought that any of these foul creatures would dare hurt one of their own gave the brothers a lust for revenge. Without a word uttered between them, they reentered the fray.
For quite sometime Fili and Kili remained unbeatable. They hacked through orc after orc, never once straying from their newfound lust for vengeance. Black blood stained the brothers clothing and weapons, but that mattered little. The only thought either of them had was that they hadn't killed every one of the foul creatures.
Kili had but one arrow left from all the death that he dealt. Scanning the landscape carefully, he determined who would be the best target for his final arrow. Finally, his eyes landed on an orc astride a gray warg. Firing with wicked accuracy, the arrow landed right between the orc's eyes.
The warg, however, noticed its masters death and turned its head towards the assassin.
Sensing that the creature was about to charge, he looked around for a weapon that he could possibly use. The archer finally settled on his sword, wishing that he had at least one more arrow instead, and trained his eyes toward the approaching warg. Blood pounding in his ears, he waited until the warg was only a few feet away before he stabbed it in the shoulder.
But the warg kept charging.
The animal ran full force into the defenseless dwarf, knocking him harshly onto his back. Razor sharp claws dug into the archer's flesh as he tried to pry the sword from the warg's shoulder. However, he was unsuccessful.
"F-Fili!" Kili cried out in pain.
At the familiar sound of his name, Fili whipped his head around to see his little brother cry in pain as a warg sunk its teeth into his shoulder.
"Kili!" Fili ran as fast as he could and thrust his sword into the creature's abdomen. The warg let out a yelp in pain before slumping onto the ground, lifeless.
"Kili?" Fili sank down next to his brother. "Kili, can you hear me?"
Kili opened his eyes and looked into his brother's eyes, showing nothing but fear. "F-Fili?" he asked weakly.
"It's okay, Kili. Everything's gonna be fine, you hear me? Just stay awake, and everything will be fine. You're gonna be okay."
Kili laughed meekly. "You a-always were a t-terrible liar." And Fili looked into Kili's eyes and realized that his little brother knew he wasn't gonna be okay.
Fili felt a sharp pain blossom in his chest, and looked away from his brother to see what had caused it.
"You hurt?" Kili asked.
Fili looked back up, and said, "No, I'm gonna be alright."
Kili coughed harshly, blood spattering on the elder brother's coat. "F-Fili?"
"Yes?"
"Did we w-win, Fili?"
Fili looked around the bloody battlefield. Most of the orcs had either been killed or were fleeing in defeat. Yes, technically, they had won the battle. But then Fili saw his dead uncle a few feet away, and his eyes drifted towards his wounded brother. "Mhmm. We did." But at what price?
Kili smiled, and looked deeply into his brother's eyes. They weren't looking at each other for very long, but to each of the brothers it seemed like a lifetime. They said their farewells, I'll miss you, and I'm scared, all without uttering a single word.
And then, Kili's breath hitched.
And his heart stopped.
Fili finally closed his eyes and let the tears flow. His reason for living was now gone. The little boy that he protected from the bullies, the innocent little dwarfling who wanted to learn archery, the brave young warrior who fought every adversary tooth and nail, was dead. And there was nothing Fili could do to change that.
He had only dwelled on the deep sorrow he felt for a moment, before the pain made itself known again. Fili looked down, and strangely, he welcomed the arrow that had embedded itself in his abdomen. Because to him, it wasn't the reason he would die. It was the thing that would reunite him with his courageous uncle and his beloved brother.
Hours later found Dwalin searching the battlefield for their missing leader and his two nephews. After searching his brain for any memory as to where they might have been, he remembered the last place that he saw them. He ran as fast as his age would allow him to the jagged rocks that marked the near end of the battlefield. There, he saw the King Under the Mountain and his two heirs lying unmoving amongst the dead.
Of course he mourned for the death of such heroic warriors. But at the same time he was grateful that Durin wasn't so cruel as to make one of them live without the other two. For at least in death, they are together.