Hi guys! So I'm back! I'm toying with writing another Loki but this came up instead! You can thank (or curse) I See Fire by Ed Sheeran for the inspiration.

It's just one-shots of what happened after, during and possibly before the story ending of Debts Repaid. If you haven't read that then this isn't going to make any type of sense whatsoever I'm afraid.

I liked these characters too much to let them go. And hey, if you want to see something that I never expanded on then don't hesitate to ask! This isn't going to be update all the time though. Like very rarely so...

Thanks guys! Hope you enjoy.

Two weeks after the battle the dead had finally been separated from the wounded, the unconscious and the living. Medical tents, elf and human alike, made a fabric city on the blood drenched field, the smell of death lingering on everything and, in the the middle of it all, a dragon's glossy eyes surveyed everything accusingly. Not that it resembled much of a dragon's head any more. Several arrows had hit it during the blood. One sword was stuck in its side from where the owner had swung and got caught. There were a good number of non-accidental angry hackings in to the dragon's head from both dwarf and human alike.

Fili, upon discovering that Karnok had returned to her own body and his wife had disappeared, spent a good few hours trying to destroy as much of the dragon as he could. There'd been no where to go once he'd reached the skull but that didn't stop him trying. In the end both Thorin and Kili had to forcibly drag him away. The moment they were in their own tent, shared with Dain, Thranduil, Legolas and Bard, Fili went to the bed his wife's body has last lay in, curled up and sobbed until he passed out. He was truly inconsolable. Neither Kili nor Thorin could rouse him. They could not feed him, make him drink or make him leave the bed for two days. It wasn't until Bard came in to talk to Thorin, who had remained steadfastly by his nephew's side, to discuss burial did Fili finally emerge from his cocoon of grief.

"- of the princess? There's no body for us to bury, not a dead one. Karnok refuses even to wear true mourning clothing. Do we-"

"We burn her." Fili interrupted Bard with a hoarse croak, his barely used voice a shock to everyone.

"Karnok?" Kili started, "I know it must be strange but you can't just burn her for the body she's wearing."

"Not Karnok. We burn Kayleigh." Fili was insistent, staring at Thorin as if he held all of the answers. Thorin was torn between appeasing his grieving nephew and appeasing the burial practices of his people.
"It isn't the way of our people." He offered tentatively. Fili let out a string of swear words in Khuzdul strong enough to shock even his brother. Clearly this wasn't going to be a subject he changed his mind about. Briefly Thorin wondered why his heir was being so insistent about this unusual burial until a memory resurfaced, a night that felt too long ago and a conversation he'd barely paid attention to.

Kayleigh giggled at something Fili whispered into her ear. Whilst Thorin fought the urge to groan from their nauseating newly-wed romanticism Dwalin did not, despite being a newly-wed himself. As soon as he saw Ori looking wistfully dewy eyed at the couple Dwalin sighed. He may not be a romantic but his young husband is. Thorin knows that, as taciturn as Dwalin is, he'd do anything for Ori, including the worst thing of all. Being romantic. So quietly Dwalin took Ori's hand and led him away from prying eyes so that he may wax lyrical. Bilbo's slightly jealous sighs didn't go unnoticed either.

"So how do you want to be buried lass?" Bofur's voice cut through Thorin's slightly cluttered thought process, "I mean, it's best we be clear now, just in case. How did your people do it?" Kayleigh and Fili shared a look Thorin couldn't quite parse, part amused at something secret and then distressed by the thought of arranging a burial.

"Well we're buried in a variety of different ways, depending on our religion or lack thereof."

"All of your religions bury you differently?" They'd discussed this before but for dwarrows, who all believed that they came from Mahal who, in turn, was only one god amongst others, it was a very difficult concept to get their head around. Especially because all of Middle-Earth's pantheon was shared.

"Well yeah. I mean you've got your standard coffin burials and cremations. Those happen whether religious or not. A bunch of religions actually mandate cremation because the body is what contains the soul so if the body isn't burnt then the soul remains trapped. Some religions think you shouldn't wilfully hurt the body in any way. I want a warrior's burial. I've always liked the idea of being pushed away on a boat surrounded by things I've owned, burnt with me until there's nothing left. Push the boat away and then light it on fire with an arrow. How cool would that be?" Thorin vaguely noted that it would suit the phoenix name he had given her but fervently hoped it would never come to that during his lifetime, if only because he didn't want to see the look Fili was wearing ever again. Grief, even imagined, wasn't a good look for his achingly young charge.

"I shall have our children organise it when we're all old, ugly and senile." Kili butts in loudly. Kayleigh laughed as if she couldn't sense the heavy atmosphere she'd just caused.

"You will be senile, Fili will be ugly and I will just be old. Don't worry Fili, I'll love you whatever." Thorin tuned out of the conversation the moment Kayleigh dropped a small kiss on Fili's nose.

"We will create an effigy." Thorin sighed. Fili nodded in a grim satisfaction.

As it turned out it was how some of the humans wished to honour their dead and so it was that the Company, elves and humans gathered around the lake, boats being carried towards it with the dead already arranged inside and placed on the edge of the water so that everyone could place their beloved's things around them. In Kayleigh's place there was simply an effigy hastily put together and wearing her old travel clothes that Karnok had thrown away. Half of the Company had almost punched her and Kili had yelled at her until she'd stormed away in upset. There was nothing else they could put in the boat with her though. All she possessed were her beads and the wedding ring she'd asked for, hastily fashioned in a smith the day before the wedding. Fili wasn't ready to part with the beads, the only solid evidence he had of their relationship, but he could part with the ring. It was her tradition after all and only fitting that she go with it. Fili placed it gently on top of the effigy and fell when he stepped back. He'd lost all will to stand. So he didn't. Bilbo sat with him, allowing Fili to lean against him. Fili cried. He cried as Thorin pushed the boat out to the lake. He cried as Kili readied the fiery arrow along with the other archers. He let out an anguished howl when the boats burst into flames. He cried when the dwarrows sang their song for the fallen, when the elves sang their lament and when Bard made his speech. He cried as they carried him back to the tent clutching her beads, nails digging so hard in to his palm that they bled. He cried until he could no longer stay awake.

At the same time, elsewhere

Kayleigh stared at the dying sun from inside her room. She felt numb all over. Two weeks away from Middle Earth, two weeks pouring over Karnok's diary and there was still no clue on how to return. A clink shook her from her depressed musings. There on the writing desk was a ring where there had definitely been no ring before. A plain steel band that Kayleigh knew without putting it on would be just a tad too loose on the fourth finger of her left hand. She picked it up and slipped it on. Kayleigh cried too.