I literally started this before BotFA came out. How awful is that. Anywys, have some angst and sadness. Because what else is fanfic good for.
oOoOo
I made a promise, he tells himself as he steps over broken spears.
I made a promise, he says over and over again, pointedly ignoring the strewn limbs and gore littering the ground and spattering his feet.
I made a promise, he repeats in a mantra, urging himself to take one more stumbling step and heft his limp burden over his shoulder one more time.
Kili, near unrecognizable beneath the blood and gore smearing his features, hangs off his shoulder and lets out a low moan. Blood seeps from the corner of his mouth-Fili remembers he was smashed in the face by the butt end of an orc sword-and his left eye is swollen. His feet drag on the ground, catching on corpses and discarded blades.
"Cheer up, Kee," Fili whispers, trying not to think of the more grievous wounds littering the younger Durin's body, and resettles Kili's arm over the back of his neck. "We're almost there."
Kili's response is low and mumbling, most likely something ornery. His free hand somehow reaches up and wipes clumsily at his mouth. He doesn't do much good, though, because the stump where his pinky used to be leaves a red smear across his bottom lip and chin.
Fili scolds him and tells him to be still, because he can't hold onto someone wiggling like a lost babe. He doesn't tell Kili it's because if his brother moves around too much, it'll cause his leg-the one skewered by a black arrow-to collapse, and then no-one will be going anywhere.
Dis is washing dishes when she sees a familiar white beard and funny hat bobbing through the trees.
She drops the dish in her hand-she's lucky it wasn't on the floor-and dries her hands on her apron, a sudden dizzy feeling coming over her. Something in her-something terrible-told her the quest to take over her homeland was a vain one, and all of its partakers were dead or dying. She doesn't quite know what to do with herself, unsure of where to place her suddenly trembling hands. Finally, she settles on taking off her apron and smoothing her hair. She runs her wrinkled hands over her dress, resisting the urge to wring them with excitement.
She tells her fluttering heart to be still, and immediately chastises herself. Her sons are home! From a quest that could have resulted in their deaths! Why shouldn't she greet them with excitement? Running to the door, she flings it open and gives a huge wave, unable to contain the grin that spreads across her face.
Her boys are home.
Something rattles in Kili's chest, his breath ragged and uneven. Fili's stomach twists as he listens to the ghastly sound, and he wonders if his own sounds the same. It might, because it feels like there's something sucking at the bottom of his lungs and stealing his ability to breathe. With each gasp for air, Fili doubles his intent on getting his brother to a healer. If he can only make it back to Erebor, he can find someone to make Kili better again. He can find someone to keep Kili safe.
He needs to keep Kili safe.
Kili sags again, nearly pulling Fili down with him. Fili stifles a cry of pain between his teeth, letting it out in a strangled grunt, and pulls his brother up again. "Stay-stay up, Kili," he murmurs breathlessly, grasping at his side and pulling. Kili chokes, his eyes flying open as Fili's fingers accidentally probe a gaping wound at his side. His fingers clutch at the side of his carrier's neck, sliding in a mass of blood congealed there.
"Sorry! Sorry," Fili exclaims, moving his hand. "Oh, Mahal, I'm sorry. Come on. Just a little further."
Kili lets out a gasp and gives a brave attempt at pulling himself up, trying his best to stand-and failing miserably. Fili is about to tell him to relax, let his brother do the work, when Kili's head lolls to the side and he spits blood.
Fili stares in horror, and for a second his feet forget to move.
The dwarves are too far away for her to see their expressions, but she can already it's Balin and Bofur riding upon the ponies entering the clearing she lives in. They're flanked by a few other dwarves that she doesn't recognize, and she sees with a pang that her sons are absent. Well, of course, she supposes. After all, they have just reclaimed the home they've grown up hearing tales and songs about. Not to mention their uncle has just been-or is about to be-crowned king. No doubt they wanted to stay and assist him, and explore every nook and cranny of Erebor.
Time enough to see them later.
Fili starts to panic, his heartbeat speeding and erratic as he begins to drag his brother onwards. Blood drips into his eyes from a cut on his forehead he didn't know he had, and his shaking steps start to unintentionally zigzag.
I made a promise, I made a promise, I made a promise, he tells himself, and it's only the image of his mother's sober face that keeps him on his feet.
Until it doesn't, and he trips over the corpse of an orc. The two of them go down in a heap, Kili flat on his face and Fili on his side.
It knocks the breath out of Fili, leaving him suffocating for a few precious seconds. His vision goes black and hazy around the corners, the landscape swimming in a sea of red and death. Don't close your eyes, he tells himself, because they might not open again.
I made a promise.
"Kee?" he croaks, lifting a finger towards the still form. "Kee, y'still thrr?"
Kili doesn't respond.
Fili could cry like a babe, then and there, but he resists the urge to give up and braces himself against the ground. One hand, two hands, one arm, two, and then he's precariously sitting up. Pain ripples across his torso and back—orc spear, orc spear—but he soldiers through it. He slides his hands over and slumps to the side, just able to grasp his brother's shoulders and roll him halfway over.
Kili's breath comes in short, shallow gasps, his chest heaving and lungs gasping. Bloody saliva drips from the corner of his mouth, staining his teeth a grim crimson, and his eyes are only half open.
Fili doesn't even look at the rest of him.
Smoothing a hand over Kili's forehead, Fili chokes back a sob and looks around desperately for someone—anyone—who can help him (help Kili).
There's no one but the dead and the birds circling over his head.
"Come in!" she cries as the dwarves' ponies approach. They dismount wearily, stretching aching backs and cramped muscles with pops and cracks. Balin's beard is a little less well-kept than normal, the frizz surrounding his head in a halo even larger than usual, and Bofur's hat is on askew—though that isn't too out of the ordinary. The sight brings comfort; a familiarity she has felt the absence of for far too long.
Bofur hops down and stretches his back, contorting like a cat. Balin is a bit more stately in his departure from his pony; however, he allows his legs to stretch soundly.
His white hair bobs in a circle as he casts a glace around the clearing surrounding the house, his eyes lingering over the surrounding trees. Dis imagines for a moment that his eyes hide more sadness than previously; that the bags underneath are more pronounced than before. But she brushes away the bad premonitions and welcomes them with open arms, bustling them into the house with promises of food and drink before they can spit out a word.
"F-Fee?" Kili finally moans, and Fili gasps out a ragged sob of relief.
"'M here," he says, though he finds his response time dropping. Since when did time grow so murky, the world a thick sludge that dragged him along moments after it was supposed to? His eyelids have grown heavier, burdened by the strain of his wounds, but he keeps them forced upwards, if for no other sake than his failing brother's.
"Mum'll kill us."
Fili barks a laugh, wincing as it pulls at the slice mark in his side. She'll have to get in line, he thinks, but doesn't say, because he is Fili and he must always be hopeful, always be optimistic, always know what to do.
Except for when he doesn't.
"What—" he stops and heaves for breath, his lungs constricting around themselves and slowly filling up with something. "What do you think she'd say?"
Kili spits blood to the side and lets a slow breath out through his teeth. "Prob'ly grab our ears. Tell us we were reckless."
"Nah," Fili says. "Tell you you were being reckless."
Kili grins, crimson staining his teeth a grotesque color. "You got me there," he huffs, and Fili lifts a shaking hand to place it on Kili's grimy hair. His bloody fingers sink into the rough strands, and Fili imagines for a brief moment that he is back in Ered Luin in front of a fire after a long day of hunting.
"Think she'll be okay?" Kili whispers thickly, his humor evaporated.
Fili doesn't answer for a moment—his mother, with her black hair, piercing blue eyes, fury to melt a thousand suns and laughter to pierce a thousand storms. His mother, with hands calloused and rough from years at the forge, hugs to encompass any wrong, kisses to smooth the most grievous worry.
He thinks of his mother with her love to stretch through the ages and cannot answer.
Dis settles her friends at the table and bustles about the kitchen, doing her best to calm the excitement and curiosity threatening to squeeze her stomach in two. They're alive. They're alive, and they're here. The quest was a success. Erebor—Erebor-! Dis's chest tightens as she thinks of roaming the halls of her childhood once more, and she wipes a cup to mask the shaking of her hands.
Turning back to her guests, Dis flashes a smile and places the cup on the table. She slips into a seat and folds her hands in front of her—granddaughter of Thrain, royalty, dignified.
Peace.
But peace is for normal days—not days of celebration, of return, of long-sought outcomes come to fruition. So she folds her fingers over each other, exhales carefully and simply asks, "Erebor?"
Balin pastes a small smile on his face. "Reclaimed."
It's as if a thousand suns have come out to shine upon her; a warm glow fills her insides and spreads to the room. Smaug, dead. The home of her forefathers taken back. Home. It has been so long since she applied that word to Erebor, she almost forgot what it was like.
And now her boys will know it to be home as well.
"Dis," Balin says softly, and she lifts her eyes, the sheen of her happy tears reflecting the sunlight glinting in through the window, to meet his.
Bofur surreptitiously stands up, mumbling an excuse about tending to the ponies. He flees the room, sending Dis a pitying glance before shutting the door. A cold feeling starts to chase away the warmth she felt, and Dis turns her head slowly towards Balin.
"Balin?" she whispers.
He doesn't meet her eyes.
Fili wants to move; Mahal, he wants to move. He wants to stand up, brush off the dust of this place and carry his brother to a warm bed and healing medicines. He wants to fly this evil, evil place, and ride back to Ered Luin, where he will find his bed and his favorite hollow in the forest and his mother.
Then he hears Kili cough, a hacking noise sounding from his decimated chest, and immediately feels guilty for allowing himself to daydream of such frivolities when his brother already has a foot in death's door.
There is no hope for Fili. He has accepted it. The spear in his back is too deep, the wound in his side seeping too much blood, the half-dozen other injuries littering his body too extensive.
Fili will not leave this battlefield alive, but he has hope that Kili will.
"C'mon, Kee," he says breathlessly. "Let's go find someone."
Kili tilts his head back, closing his eyes against the sun's unrelenting rays. Fili has the fleeting thought they will be cooked in their armor, like so many eggs. "Dun'think I can," Kili says, and Fili swallows as he registers the palor of his little brother's face, the blue tinge lining his stained lips.
Fili sucks in a panicked breath. Kili never says "I can't." Kili is the one to climb the tallest trees, swim the fastest rivers, run the farthest, perform the foolhardiest prank; he will take any dare, accept any challenge, as long as it means he proves that he can "do it."
The sad thing is, Fili's not sure if he can either.
"Balin?" Dis repeats, and finally he tilts his gaze up to meet hers. His face is grave, and pale as death. Dis' mind immediately flashes to the worst—but surely she is overreacting.
"I'm afraid I bring news of a most grievous nature," Balin whispers.
Dis inhales slowly, doing her best to keep the shake out of her voice and the tremble out of her hands. Her upbringing in a royal household comes out, and she relapses into the stately, grave princess she was trained to be. "The sooner it is heard, the easier it is borne, then," she says softly, laying a hand on Balin's.
Balin shakes his head. "No amount of haste could make this news any easier, I think."
Dis closes her eyes, preparing herself—stay strong, Daughter of Durin. She counts to ten, then opens her eyes and nods, beckoning him to go forward.
Balin inhales a sharp intake of breath before saying, "Thorin is slain." His hand reaches into a pouch he carries and withdraws a lock of dark hair, wavy and knotted, streaked with gray.
Dis ducks her head sharply. The news, though not entirely unexpected, still cuts her to her very core, the last of her brothers gone. She shuts her eyes against the tears, forcing herself to look up and at the light to dispel them. Voice watery, she gasps out, "I thought you might say so."
How could anyone have ever hoped to achieve such a mission? Such a foolish quest? How could they have made it through without a casualty? It is fitting that it was Thorin; he would have wanted it that way, after all, but it makes the news no less sorrowful.
Balin doesn't move as Dis scrubs a hand over her eyes, attempting to compose herself. After a few frozen moments, her emotions scattered like leaves before a gale, she gathers them, gives a piteous sniffle, and looks up at Balin.
"Forgive me," she whispers, and Balin shakes his head.
"Indeed," he replies, "It is you who must forgive me." And he reaches into the pouch once more.
"C'mon," Fili grunts, and Kili's weight on his shoulders is more of a burden than ever. How they managed to even get off the ground, he'll never know, let alone take that first step. He staggers, avoiding careening into a nearby corpse by a near miss, and Kili's breath hitches. Fili mumbles an apology and shifts him—careful, careful—as he swings his gaze towards the mountain. Erebor, Erebor, what should have been Thorin's—is his uncle even alive? Beorn swooped him and stole him away with such quick ferocity, his nephews have been forgotten—but Fili would have it that way, if only Thorin returns to his former hale health.
Kili's head knocks against Fili's shoulder. "I c'n walk," he slurs, and Fili huffs a breathless, soggy laugh.
"Ever will I carry you, little brother," he says, because that's how it's always been. Through foolhardy pranks, and sprained ankles; through spankings and frights; through battles and easygoing wrestling; through dark and through light he has, and will, carry Kili; until his breath is gone and his body cold. He realizes he wouldn't change that for the world.
Off in the distance, Erebor sits as stately and cold as ever, and Fili imagines he can hear the sound of his kin and friends searching for them.
The lock of hair Balin places on the table is brown and soft. Without touching it, she already knows its texture; how it feels combed through one's fingers; how the firelight flickers on it and turns it a bright copper; how it mimics its father's in feel, if not looks.
"It's Kili's," Dis rasps behind the sudden-rising lump in her throat that threatens to choke her.
"Aye," says Balin softly.
"Wha—why—" Dis stammers, unable to tear her eyes away from the unassuming braid. "Why do you show me this?"
Balin pauses, collecting himself before he can speak. His knuckles are white against the dark brown of the table, his fingers curling around the edges. He inhales, exhales, then says, "Kili also fell."
Dis' heart stutters in her breast, her vision tunneling and swirling around the edges. She cannot seem to move, or breath, or speak—she is motionless, lifeless. It's as if her brain has shut down; Balin's statement doesn't even seem to come through, instead bouncing hollowly at her ears.
"Dis?" Balin asks hesitantly, and she turns her unblinking, impossibly wide gaze to him. It's only when she feels tiny drips of water on her skin that she realizes the swimming around the edge of her vision was unshed tears, tears she didn't even know she'd made.
"What?" she breaths. "Wha—what?"
Balin turns his eyes towards the ceiling, as if to gather strength from the heavens. He reaches out a hand towards her, but she snatches it away as if his skin was hot coals. She feels herself rising from her chair, but it's as if she is disembodied, watching a puppet made of flesh move all on its own. "What?" she questions again, stepping away from him, as if that will distance the truth from his statement.
Balin doesn't answer.
"I—you said—Thorin—"
"Aye," Balin says.
"And Kili?"
"Aye," he repeats sorrowfully, and he looks as if he will add something on, so she turns away. Her ears are ringing, her heart pounding in her chest, and her hands tremble as she grips them to her breast. Her Kili—her sun—the laugh that lit up whichever room he walked in. Her troublemaker, her reckless prankster, her optimistic sunbeam, her preacher of shameless love and joy.
Dead?
Dis gasps out a ragged sob and braces herself on the counter in front of her, her knees feeling weak. She presses a hand to her mouth and weeps, and tries to wrap her mind around the fact that half of her children and all of her brothers are dead in the ground.
"Dis," comes Balin's quiet voice.
When Thorin told Dis he was going to take back Erebor, she called him a fool. When he told her that her sons would be joining him, she grew very still, and very white, and didn't anything for a solid second. When she did, the only word she said was, "What." Thorin, being unwise, repeated himself once more.
She threw the sheath of a sword at him. Then a chair. Then a frying pan. She would also have thrown an axe, but Thorin snatched it away from her just in time. She screamed at him at first, allowing her wrath to blaze like a forest fire. Dis' anger was legendary among dwarves; when she loved, she loved, but when she was rageful, may Aule have mercy upon the poor subject's soul. Fili and Kili could do nothing to abate her tempest, simply sit by and watch as Dis shouted and raged about the room, calling to mind their kin and friends already felled by Smaug.
It was only after her voice quieted that Fili grew truly afraid, however; when the tones of her sentences were low and clipped, icy and cruel. When she threatened him with the gravest of injuries and slowest of deaths if her sons were harmed. When she made him swear he would protect them to his last breath, and Fili knew she would hunt his uncle down if those promises weren't kept. When she swept from the room, a chill in the air following her, and they felt they could somewhat breathe again, but they still tiptoed around the house for fear of setting her off.
Fili walked upstairs and found her sitting in her room, a candle sending a soft, orange light flickering on the walls. Her hair was down and her eyes tired as she stared at the wood panels, holding a likeness of his father in her calloused hands.
Fili tread softly to her and sat down next to her, not saying anything as he joined her in staring at the wall. After a moment's gauging to make sure she wouldn't smite him, he brought a hand up and let it brush through her hair, his fingers snagging on the remnants of knots on the bottom. "It'll be okay, Mum," he whispered.
Dis shook her head, and the tears gathered in the bottoms of her eyes fell to her dress. "You are too young."
"But we are fighters," he said, and he knew she couldn't disagree with that. "This is our birthright."
"You are reckless," she said.
"Kili is reckless," he corrected her. "I'm just a bit foolhardy sometimes."
Dis tried to laugh, but it came out as a choked sob, and Fili knew she thought of her family's blood spilt on the hills of Erebor. and he knew the battle was won.
"Just bring him back," she whispered, and Fili felt no offense. He would come back. He was sturdy and upright and dependable. Kili would need someone to watch out for him. Good thing Fili was skilled in that area.
"I promise," he whispered, in the hazy orange light.
His mum always told him not to make promises he couldn't keep, he reflects as he stumbles towards the wretched mountain with his failing brother half-slung over his shoulder. He feels ashamed to admit that he may not be able to keep this one.
Dis shudders and runs her hands over her face, resting them on the edges of her hair. Kili—Kili—Kili—she turns towards Balin and tries to concentrate on his face, though he swims in her vision.
Balin casts his eyes towards the heavens, tears spilling down his cheeks, and places his curled fist on the table.
Dis' eyes widen in horror. Another?! How can there be another? Deep in the pit of her stomach, a feeling as cold and dark as Mirkwood's forests spreads, a disease eating her up inside as she waits in horrified anticipation for the object's unveiling. It is Dwalin's—it is Ori's—it is anyone else's but the last of her line.
Balin's hand opens, and upon his creased palm there lies a braid made of silken gold. She knows its strands better than anyone save its owner's brother, and she is broken.
Dis screams.
His mouth is dry and tastes of copper, and his side is numb and blazing with heat—is that possible? —and his brain cannot think a solitary thought save Kili, Kili, Kili, like the beating of the drums of his people on a momentous occasion. His feet drag even more than before, like plows preparing the land for a seeding; in this case, the crop that grows will simply be his blood, and the blood of his brother.
Oh, Kili-! he thinks in despair, and with that thought, his leg gives out.
For a second, it doesn't register with him that the scream of agony echoing over the battlefield came from his own throat, because there is fire blazing across his body and in his brain as the two hit the ground.
He blacks out, but it can only be for a few seconds, for all too soon he is clenching his teeth against the pain that assails him. He coughs something sticky and warm up from his throat and flops onto his side, retching against the agony that flares up as he disturbs his injuries.
"Kee—" he gasps out, for his mouth can form no more than that. "Kee—"
Kili's face is as pale as the snowflakes that drift down on them, adding insult to injury, but his eyes flutter open with a low moan. Glassy and unfocused, he meets Fili's gaze and barely has the strength to twitch the corner of his mouth is what hardly passes for a reassuring smile.
Fili cries because he knows he cannot get up—and without him, neither can Kili.
Kili flops his hand up to grasp his brother's, bloody fingers clutching Fili's like an anchor. Fili squeezes it as his shoulders shake and tear tracks freeze on his cheeks, and they lie in silence.
Dis screams once, and allows a terrible sob to rip from her breast as she tears out her hair in grief, and Balin tries to console her but she pushes him away. Drawing in deep, ragged breaths that threaten to destroy her lungs, she wails and tries to process the calamity that has befallen her.
Her sons, her sons-!
Far too soon for her own good, the hurricane stills and she rocks back and forth on the floor, silent and dry-eyed, staring at the wall. Balin brings a blanket, but it is Bofur that brings her a hot cup of tea and sits down next to her. They sit without speaking for a moment, then Bofur says softly, "They were brave to the last."
Dis stares numbly ahead.
"I've never seen anyone fight as hard or as long as they." Bofur's eyes are not here, recalling terrible memories of a bloody battlefield and boys lying dead on frozen ground. "They wouldn't let anything touch him for as long as they could."
Her sons are dead.
"You raised them well." Bofur lies a comforting hand on her shoulder, but suddenly his company—well-meaning as it is—stifles her. She shrugs him away and stands up, as if in a dream. Upstairs, she pauses outside the boys' room, and for a moment she doesn't know if she can walk in—but she does.
The room is exactly as they left it, a carefully measured chaos. Sure, it is clean, but weapons are piled in corners, and half-finished iron projects are stacked haphazardly, and dirt is pasted into corners. She sits on their bed, their blankets folded neatly on top, and folds the nearest one into her chest. She buries her face into it, then wraps another around her, and falls asleep surrounded by the remnants of her children.
The next day she prepares to leave for Erebor.
"S'alright, Fee," Kili rasps, and Fili feels another sob wrack his chest.
"No," he says, "no."
"S'alright," Kili repeats, and coughs something wet and terrible. "We—we did it."
No I didn't, Fili thinks dimly, because he made a promise to his mother that he will not keep. His brother will die on the battlefield, and his mother will be alone save for a brother who will undoubtedly hole himself up due to grief—if the gold sickness does not steal him away entirely once more.
Aule save the dwarves from their wretchedness.
And save my brother, he prays. "I'm—I'm g'nna get you home," he slurs, and Kili squeezes his hand.
"We did—what we set out to do," he says.
Did we?
Kili spasms and curls in on himself, gritting his teeth, and Fili knows it is the end for his brother, and for him, and for quite possibly the world. Or, indeed, will the world at all be affected by the passing of two foolhardy, would-be princes barely out of their mother's home?
Fili pulls Kili closer to him, feeling the trembling wrack his brother's frame as he chokes for breath, and sobs into his grimy, bloody hair. Mahal, of course he would die for Thorin—but Kili was never supposed to.
"Stay 'wake," Kee," he pleads, and touches his forehead to his in the vain hope that he can transfer whatever life is still in him to Kili. Vain is vain, though, and all men must have their passing, for Kili lets out one shuddering breath and then lies still, his body limp.
"Kili?" Fili gasps out. "Mahal—no, Kili, no, no-!" He clutches Kili to himself and weeps, and feels his own life drain, and knows he wants no part in a world where Kili is not. And even though he hears the sound of searchers calling his name—Erebor is so close, yet a lifetime away—he allows the black tinging the corners of his vision to flood it entirely.
He wishes his mother were here.
Dis knows no passage of time during the trip to Erebor. They come across no distractions, no impediments to their journey, which is surprising, considering the amount of opposition the others encountered. They ride ponies in silence and eat in silence and take watch in silence, and Dis tries to rouse herself from her fog but finds herself unable to care anymore.
Until they reach Erebor, and the sight of her childhood home, the halls of her ancestors, reawakens the longing in her heart she has kept stifled for decades. She urges her pony on a little faster, the waning light of day lengthening their shadows in front of them, and before long she finds herself staring at its gates.
Dain greets them, and embraces her, and expresses his condolences. She is cool and cordial and tries not to blame him for the blood spilt on the fields before his new home.
She wanders the halls for a while, trying to muster the courage to enter the burial place of her kin. She knows every nook and cranny, every secret tunnel, every hiding spot. Of course the gardens are unkempt, and of course it is yet dirty and unclean, though the dwarves work tirelessly to restore it, but she knows it. She reacquaints herself and aches for times long past.
And then she finds herself at the tombs.
Shielded by ornate oak doors that stretch high above, carved with likenesses of dead ancestors, Dis allows her hands to trace over the cool wood before drawing in a deep breath and pushing them inward. They creak open, and a shaft of light pierces through the darkness to illuminate half a tomb. Using a lone candle, she lights the lamps situated around the cavern. Their yellow-orange light bathes the three tombs in a warm glow, and Dis cannot avoid this any longer.
With held breath, she approaches Thorin first. She brushes her finger over the top of his stone burial place and forgives him, bending over to place a kiss over where his head must be. He was a fool and a hothead and arrogant, but he was her brother and he loved her and did his best by his people.
She wishes she could have saved him.
She finds it hard to turn to Kili. In the middle of the three, a bouquet of lilies rests over him, and she dimly wonders who would have put them there. On feet made of rocks, she slowly treads to him. Why, oh why is he beneath cold, unfeeling stone? Let the sun shine on him and the wind kiss his cheeks, just as she longs to! Let him stand beneath the sky and whoop, and she will never tell him to hush again!
Give back her baby, and she will love him better.
With this kiss to stone, tears leave their marks beneath her, and she huddles over it for longer.
Then, to Fili.
For some reason, it is nearly impossible to leave Kili and stumble over to his elder brother. She feels guilt pulse in her chest. Why had she made him promise such a foolish thing? Her words echo in her head, condemning her with every syllable. Why did you not tell him you loved him more? She demands of herself, and water drips onto his tomb. Why did you not tell him how proud you were? How he was your world?
She has no answers for the voice, and it grows in volume until it is screaming. She grips the edges of the tomb to support herself, her legs shaking, and bows her head to the stone.
"Forgive me," she gasps out. "Forgive me, my sons!"
And for a moment, it is as if a comforting hand alights on her shoulder, a warm presence pressing down. She doesn't look, for she knows it is not there, but it relieves some of the pressure on her heart that threatens to break her in two.
"You did it, Fili," she whispers. "You kept your promise." Because he was there until the very end with his brother. And he did bring him home—even if not in life.
She kisses his tomb too, and then she smooths the stone. "Sleep well, my sons," she says into the darkness, and then she is gone; a phantom in the night. She is shocked to see light peeking over the mountains when she emerges from the great, cold room. She tarried there longer than she had thought, it seems.
And then she returns to her rooms, alone.
There are voices, he thinks. Voices that call to him. Take Kili, he wants to plead. Take my brother. Save him.
But there is no saving either of them, perhaps. They are too far gone—and they will never see the glory of Erebor restored to what it was before. They will never walk its halls, and Fili will never be king.
But they did make it. They did see it. They returned once more to the home of their forefathers. And though he knows this is not what his mother meant, Fili hopes, with his last waking breath, that this will be enough.
This is all he has.
Dain asks her, a few days later, as she prepares to return to Ered Luin, whether she plans to stay in Erebor. She is more than welcome, he says. This is her ancestors' home, after all.
Dis looks around at the great columns and pillars, the gold littering the ground, the halls and architecture that spans for miles, and is tempted. She hears, as if on the wind, strains of children laughing—two boys, one strong and fond of war, one fond of reading and softer, and a girl, full of life and fire. Their laughter curls around the corners and smooths over edges of the kingdom, and Dis feels the pull.
Then she thinks of a wooden house, in mountains whose grasses are more blue than green, whose sun shines as bright as her youngest son's smile, and whose waters are clean and pure. And she thinks of the laughter that will echo in her mind there; over hill and dale, grass and flower, through the halls of her simple home.
"No," she says simply. "This is no longer my home."
And she turns, and the faint strains of long-past laughter leave with her.
Tell me what you thought. Let me know. I always love to hear your thoughts.