A/N: First fanfiction ever, so sorry about any formatting issues. Not entirely sure how this works yet.
There is no glory in death. There is no honour on the battlefield. One small mistake, one tiny slip-up and all is lost. The lucky ones die quickly, the others linger on for hours in agony and terror. That is one thing they don't tell you about war. Even the bravest and strongest men are terrified; helpless in the face of death.
Death does not discriminate. Nobles and common folk, grizzled veterans of many wars and those barely older than children, eager to prove themselves in their first real battle. Their bodies pile up and the blood turns dry earth to treacherous mud beneath the feet of those still living.
Fili was the first to fall. There was no time for tragic goodbyes or the meagre comfort that his brother and uncle might have offered. His life extinguished with a single slash of an orc's sword to the exposed throat. He bled out in seconds. One more life gone too soon.
Thorin did not last much longer. The defiler's sword slipping under his guard even as Azog himself died from a Thorin's sword to his heart. Unconsciousness claimed Thorin. To all appearances already dead himself.
That left one of the house of Durin still standing. With his uncle's unconscious form at his feet and his brother's body not far away, Kili, crazed by grief fought with a wild abandon that once would have had him chastised for his recklessness.
For a time, it seemed like he would succeed in somehow escaping alive from the battle. Such was his fury and grief that many enemies faltered simply at the sight of him. But that was not to be. A single stray arrow, shot by none other than one of his own allies mistaking him for an enemy, would prove the undoing of the youngest of Durin's line.
It pierced Kili's upper chest and drove into his lung. He stumbled back with the force of it only to fall to his knees as the agony followed a split second later. Like Thorin consciousness abandoned him for a brief span of time, his return to awareness heralded by a wheezing cough that brought blood to his lips. The battle had since shifted away to a different area and the only noises that permeated the still air were the cries of the dying. Soon even those soon began to lapse into silence.
Kili struggled to breathe as the excruciating pain of the arrow in his chest flooded through him. His back resting against one of the many mounds of dead that littered the field. His uncle at his feet pale and still.
A massive shape began to emerge from the dust and chaos of the battlefield, intruding into the strange quiet that occupied this small section of the battlefield. Beorn, in human form, searching for any survivors amongst the dead. The sound of Kili's laboured breathing drew his attention, his piercing grey eyes landed on the ailing dwarf. Taking in the blood bubbling at his lips and the arrow piercing his chest, before drifting down to the body that lay at his feet.
Beorn shifted closer and knelt beside the king under the mountain with his ear close to Thorin's chest. Apparently satisfied with what he saw he gently lifted the dwarf in his great arms. The king would not die just yet.
Kili moaned quietly as a coughing fit incited agony in his chest. Beorn's eyes once more alighted on him, indifferent and cold, before the great shapechanger turned and bore Thorin away towards the mountain. Kili wanted to beg and cry out for Beorn not to leave him behind. But the words stuck in his chest as more blood bubbled up his throat and threatened to choke him. He was terrified, his eyes desperately seeking out anyone to help him. No more shapes emerged to comfort the young dwarf or bear him away from this place. He was alone.
Time passed and Kili shifted in and out of consciousness as it became harder and harder to breathe through the blood. He would awake to the terrifying sense of drowning before a small quantity of air would once more reach his abused lungs. During one such moment of panic his eyes were drawn to his brother's body amongst the many dead littering the battlefield. Fili faced towards Kili, his dead eyes staring at his brother and nothing all at once, a faint expression of surprise still on his face. Kili searched his brother's empty features, desperate to find some form of peace or comfort in them. But there was nothing.
Kili's passing came hours after his initial injury. Alone and surrounded by the dead he drowned in his own blood.
Stories would be told for many years after about the sons of Durin and the manner of their passing. Many would speak of how Fili and Kili died together, comforting each other in their final moments. Of how their arms encircled each other and an expression of peace rested on both their faces even in death. Of how Thorin died peacefully and surrounded by friends after thanking the remaining members of his company. Only his companions themselves knew how little of that was true.
Thorin may have truly had an expression of peace on his face come his own death. And the surprise on Fili's was not necessarily interpreted correctly. But all who saw the body of the youngest Durin could not deny that the look on his face was pure terror.
There is no glory in death.