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WE WILL NOT BE PARTED FOR LONG

The Battle of Five Armies

The hope of the dwarves hung in small remnants as the majority of them surrounded the tents to have word of their leaders, wounded in the battle that would soon be called The Battle of Five armies. Thorin had been struck such that his recovery would have taken the combined efforts of the greatest medicinal wizards that could be found- yet here they had very little magic to offer. Fili's wound, the severing of his hand, had all but bled him dry, though he clung to his remnants of life stronger than his brother. Of Kili, no one could be certain, though the arts of elf folk led them to hope he could be saved.

"I do not give you permission to pass out of this world."

Kili looked barely awake when Fili had spoken. The archer lifted his head just enough to grimace at the haggard Fili who sat against the opposite wall of the tent, trembling and holding the arm of his severed hand.

The linen of the cot probably had a healthier shade of color than Fili's sweating face.

"I don't think you have the authority to deny me." Kili retorted.

Fili leaned forward, his brow knit together and his frown more pronounced. "The mountain is won and there is a throne to lead our people from."

Kili let his head thump back to the cot and he stared ceiling. "Then you had better recover your strength and stop bickering with me."

"You know that I will not live out the day—"

"I know well what you mean to say and I will not hear it." Kili muttered above a whisper.

He looked as though he wanted to scream the words, but his chest was wet with new blood from the exertion of the few words he'd already said. A cloud of panic seemed to seep into the tent, and the cold ground became that much colder.

"Help! Kili needs help!" Fili called out after the circle of red erupted from the younger dwarf's chest and spread across the cloth which was a poor bandage for such a gouge.

Two or three bodies entered and knelt by the ragged body of the younger dwarf, but when two abruptly left, Fili's heart sank. The one that stayed shook his head and left the tent slower than his companions, though it spoke what was on their minds: The wounds Fili's younger brother sustained had no hope of being healed and those men were needed with others who could.

A fit of coughing overtook Fili before he could cross the tent to Kili. His resolution of drawing closer to his brother was again stifled when he stopped to listen to an argument just outside the tent opening.

"No one is beyond saving; else they are not beyond comforting in their last moments." Sang out the voice of a determined woman. And upon entry she revealed herself to be a familiar face.

Fili was not surprised at seeing Tauriel; she had proven herself against sword and poison alike, but he had not expected that she would be tending bodies wracked with the blood badges from the fight for the dwarven hill.

Her first glance was at Fili, whom she bent over to scan, but he brushed her off and pointed to the mangled Kili behind her.

Fili watched a chill sweep through her on seeing the horrific damage... and then on learning to whom it belonged to.

"How do you keep finding me?" Kili smiled and spoke through ragged lips as the she-elf leaned over him.

She worked over his bandages, freeing his flesh from its moist prison and grabbing for new layers to bind him with. "I know that if I look for trouble it is most likely where I will find you."

Kili grinned, but then grabbed her hand almost too strongly as she reached for a bandage. "Don't." He sneered through gritted teeth. "These stripes will not mend with a song. My brother is sick- if you want to ease my suffering, you'll do something about his."

Coughing from Fili made it clear he objected and impossible to hear what she'd said next, but Kili had applied too much of his energy and his body looked as though it were going limp.

Fear struck a chord in Fili as Tauriel gripped Kili's cold hand and did not let go- as though the act would be to release him from the world. With her other hand she pulled at a thick covering to warm him.

"The powers that have kept me alive have also blessed me with this moment." He clapped his hand over hers weakly and spoke on. "If I dove into the pits of the earth and uncovered jewels beyond price, and if I walked among stars to take in the lights of that eternally deep black, nothing could please me more than seeing you for the last minutes of my life…" He craned his neck to look at her. "…though I know your regard for me does not run as deeply."

"I never said—"

"And I will not make you say anything."

"That is not fair of you." She exhaled in frustration, but did not break her gaze from eyes that held her in high esteem. "Ever have I feared those things which might cause my happiness- this world is full of evil which might take them from me. It is a curse granted to those I love."

"There is no curse in admiring you, Tauriel." He startled her with his haste. "The mountain has claimed my life as a price for our victory. We knew that it might. But my death is not a consequence of my affection for you."

"You declare your sentiment so openly to me." The she-elf shook her head at him, incredulous.

"Did you expect anything less from a dying dwarf's last moments?"

"They will not be your last if you would cease to speak." She implored him. "No healing skill can match a will set against them."

But Kili's answer was a gurgle and another eruption of blood from his chest. Fili's heart slammed against his ribs as the elf hurried fabric over the mutilated flesh to absorb some of the precious, life-giving liquid, but the color left Kili's face and his eyes seemed to search through a fog.

"Tauriel? I cannot see you..." He groped blindly for her hand. She gripped its unyielding strength and braced her other hand on his shoulder, leaning over him.

"Fili?" He called out in desperation.

No injury could prevent Fili from stumbling to his brother, now. He grunted in the scramble, but knelt opposite Tauriel on Kili's other side. "Here, Kili—I'm here!"

Fili held his brother's hand and both he and Tauriel noted the diminishing pulse that throbbed in Kili's fingers.

"Fee—" he gasped, blinded eyes still searching. "I don't want to leave you!"

Fili's eyes were filled with tears and his heart broke at the younger dwarf's words. "You won't leave me," Fili fought against sobs to utter the words. "I won't be far behind."

As defeated as the statement was, Fili could see that Kili knew it was the truth and took comfort from it. They had never been apart and even death would not distance them for long.

There was panic in Tauriel's eyes, but Kili stopped searching as he regained his vision. His breaths came ragged now and he was forced to speak a few words only.

"Tell me again." He turned his face toward Tauriel while his chest rose and fell in quick movements. "Could you love me?"

Her composure was full of distress and fear, but she almost sang the word, "Yes."

There was victory in his eyes and his chest slowed. His breathing diminished and his hand slipped from her grip. The tent was filled with quiet, save the weeping of Fili, which had begun a few moments after his brother had found peace.

Tauriel's eyes seemed to pierce through the tent wall and into another realm as though she were watching the newly departed ever the halls of the dead.

Passing his hand over Kili's face, Fili closed his brothers eyes and brushed fingers through the dead dwarf's hair. His fingers trembled and his body convulsed with shivers, either from loss of blood or from the sorrowful heaves of his wracked chest.

Fili shakily lowered himself to the cot where his brother had met eternal rest and laid an arm over Kili's chest, resting his head against his Kili's unmoving shoulder and lining himself beside the body.

Tauriel looked as though she wanted to leave, but the blonde dwarf's voice stopped her.

"I am no fool, elf." Fili murmured as loud as his lungs would let him. "I have seen your kind play at charity before, performing the cruelty of not meaning things as honestly as they said them."

Her face contorted. "What are you accusing me of?"

"You did my brother a kindness in making him believe you were affectionate toward him. The ending of his life deserved nothing less than to see that he was loved, but as for you…? Was that a truth, or were you only saying what would have given him peace?"

Tauriel's head sunk and her shoulders were heavy. "Will you believe my answer or are you determined against me because my kin have done you harm?"

Fili broke into a fit of coughing, and startled her by gripping her arm, and he said, "I am not determined against you and I would not ask you to be forthcoming with your intimate affairs, save that he was my brother and it is my dying to wish to see that his love for you was not in vain." He coughed again at this and added bitterly, "though we both know it does neither of you any good to speak it now."

Tauriel's tears were glass droplets which caught the meager light in the tent, and she summoned all the strength she had left to answer his call to her honesty. "I have walked alone though I have loved many. This middle-earth in all of its evil reminded me that there was nothing worth having for myself while the conflict lived on. But for once…"

Fili coughed again and Tauriel soothed him with a damp rag on his forehead. "…for once the odds were so entirely against us, being of different races, alliances, and purposes that the amount of evil was no longer of any consequence. So much was against us that it overcame the evil which had suppressed so many of my desires." She wiped the sweat from Fili's brow and found that it had begun to chill.

With more tears, she continued. "I would be grateful now for the orc blade that finds its mark, for I have lost a dearer treasure to me than all the stars!"

Fili's eyes began to lose their light. "Then you have assisted me with my own passing into the next world, for my brother's attentions were not lost to a woman of deception. I thank you for your kindness to…" and with that his head fell to his shoulder and his chest heaved no more.

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This snippet is constantly going through revision. Mostly because I'm a perfectionist.

How am I going to cope? How can I go into the theater and watch them die? *ugh*