Hey everyone here's another story I came up with while working on the second chapters for Easy Emptiness and As The Heart Wants so the second chapters to those will be up a little latter than I had planned. Sorry in advance but they are coming along so BIG smiles all around! :D :D :D
Anyway, I have big plans for this story and it will probably be my longest, even longer than Eilwyn Fire-Bane which I plan to be a least thirty chapters posted in due time. However I do not know how long it will take me since I still have school work to do in order to graduate on time.
Any ideas, thoughts, advice or anything really about/for this story is welcome so leave a review or two to tell me what you think. ;)
Also, this story will jump around with flashbacks and memories so the whole of the story and the feelings in it can all fit together since the theme really is Fili having lived, and that he is currently living, two lives so if its a bit confusing, you have my apologies and I will try to remedy it along with any spelling or grammar mistakes that I may make since I tend to type faster so I can get all my thoughts out before I draw a blank if you know what I mean. :)
DISCLAIMER : I do not own "The Hobbit", any of its characters or the main story line only the things you do not recognized from Tolkien's original works are mine the rest of the credit goes to the amazing J.R.R. Tolkien who is a god among writers in my humble opinion.
Without further ado here is a short (for me) first chapter . . .
Ever at your service,
LonelyWinterRose
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Summary
Fili is the only one in the Company who survived the Battle of Five Armies. Many years later after ruling Erebor for nearly 250 years he is on his death bed surrounded by his family and fully expects to join Kili, Thorin and the Company in Halls of Mandos. Only he doesn't, instead he wakes up a year before the Quest for Erebor begins. Can he change the fate of the past? Can he save his brother, Uncle and the rest of the Company from their evident demise? And does anybody else besides the ever meddlesome Grey Istari have any idea of why he is reliving his life again?
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Chapter One :
Beginning at the End
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SOMETIME WELL INTO THE FORTH AGE, EREBOR, THE KINGS ROYAL QUARTERS
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He was surrounded by his family.
His wife and One, Queen Gvenour who barely looked older than the day he met her one hundred and ninety four years ago save a few wrinkles and a couple stands of graying hair at her temples standing out like mithril against her dark brown hair nearly matching her smokey dray eyes in shade.
He could feel her gaze looking down at him as he looked around him at their gathered family even as he felt her squeeze his left hand which she held between her own two hands as she sat as graceful as ever on the side of their bed with tears like glittering diamonds forming in her bright love filled eyes as she looked down at him.
Her beautiful seemingly timeless face was already drawn in grief even though he had yet to leave her and that they had both know for many months that his end was coming and that no matter how many cures he could try they would not cure him of his illness.
The eldest of his two sons Thorin IV looked like a younger mirror image of his late uncle for whom he was named, right down to the stern set of his mouth framed in a neat shortly trimmed beard and the deep steely blue of his eyes which held a hidden fondness for his family that only those who knew him could see.
His wife Cwene stood at his side clinging to his arm as she looked on in sadness and support her normally finely braided golden hair was left untamed and mused in a tangles bush from being called from their beds with no time to brush it.
She had become a second daughter to him and over the years since his eldest son had married her she had sat with him quietly reading in his study with an open ear as he told her stories of the great man her husband was named after.
Their only son Theorn stood with his back ramrod straight valiantly trying to keep his face in a calm expression though the wetness showing in his eyes told another story just as his hands were as they played with the furs settles at the end of the bed where he stood looking at his dying grandfather.
He was his first grandson and looked the spitting image of his father and his fathers name sake before him, the boy had always been proud feeding off his grandfathers stories of old noble warriors who he tried to act like even though he had his mothers gentleness about him along with a wonder and curiosity for the world he lives in.
His eldest son and eldest grandson will take his place and do well, he thinks before moving to look at the youngest of his two sons who looked just as he remembered his younger brother Kili looking like before they left on their journey.
He had named his second son after his brother for a good reason for Kili II also refused to wear braids in his wild brown hair, he also had his own share of trouble growing his beard out and favored the bow as his weapon of choice.
If those two characteristics had not been enough motivation for him to name his son after his younger brother than his warm laughing brown eyes so full of life and over spilling with good humor and happiness would have added the need to double.
His rash and unthinking ways also added to the bundle but he wouldn't have it any other way and he often thought that it was a lucky chance of fate that his youngest son had found a dwarrowdam who was also his One that didn't mind his odd ways, something his brother had not had when he lived. But his wife Jaide had accepted him and he found another daughter in heart and law in the small stature bright red haired and hazel green eyed beauty that she is.
It is a inner joke for him that his brother would have found it amusing that his son who he had named him after also had an interest in fine boned red haired and green eyed lasses.
Of course they fit together like two puzzle pieces and Mahal had blessed them with two beautiful daughters Verida who inherited his own blond hair though it does have a more strawberry tint to it giving a hint of her mothers coloring and the Durin blue eyes, and Dis II named after her great grandmother Dis and strangely looked like a much smaller version of her namesake though he could always tell that her hair would eventually lighten up as she grew older most likely taking on a lighter brown color like his brothers had been as a young dwarfling.
Then the youngest of his children and his only daughter Guenloie had been born the most beautiful thing he had seen in his life and not only because it was so rare for girls to be born but because she was a perfect mixture of him and Gvenour.
She took from him his own golden hair and her mother silvery gray eyes and though he was the first he is not the only person who thinks her one of the most beautiful creatures in Middle Earth for both the races of Men and Elves too complimented her on her beauty and even more had asked for her hand in marriage some before she had even learned to walk but he had refused each and every offer no matter how much it would have profited his Kingdom since he firmly believed in and had vowed at the birth of his first child that they would chose their own people to love and he was right to do so because each of his children had been blessed to have found their Ones so early in their lives.
Guenloie had found her One in her husband Borakk when she had still been little more than a dwarfling though it had taken them many years to recognize their bond of friendship for what it truly had been.
His own wife had nearly skinned him alive with a meat cleaver for even suggesting that as her parents it was only their duty to bring the two of them together, but as it is in all things his wife had been right to say that they were not to interfere with their daughter and her loves relationship for the very night she came of age Borakk declared that they were courting and not five years latter they married.
And now even more years latter they have two children, his second grandson Garin who takes after his fathers darker looks but his mother fierce and gentle heart and his third and youngest granddaughter little Feya who is only seven years old and barely even out of her toddling stages even though she has charmed all of their races people and more than half of every other Kingdom's people who have seen her with her small short head of white blond curls and blue eyes like sapphires reminding him of himself in looks and his long dead friend Ori with her innocent large doe eyed looks.
Sometimes he has the thought that having his children and grandchildren look like his late long loved friends and family had been a gift and a way to tell him that they had never gone from him, that they were looking down at him and his new family and and that their spirits would continue to help their people prosper just as they had when they lived in the flesh.
It is a strange notion to be sure but he is thankful for it even if that is not its meaning.
He was happy to have his wife and his children and his grandchildren around his bed, or in young Dis II and little Feya's cases on the bed nestled against his side since they were trying to get as close to him as possible not understanding why their grandfather could no longer even bring them into his chest in a tight hug nor why everyone else in the room was so sad as they were too young to truly understand.
But even as he was giving his last words to each of them he felt even more happiness in knowing that he would very soon be rejoining his brother, mother, Uncle and the Company in the Hall's of Mandos where they have waited for him to join them for over two centuries.
It had taken him a long time after losing everyone he was close to in the battle, and his mother seventy years later to grief of the heart that she had put off to be be with him, to be happy again and to accept that he had to go on and live his life if only for the memory of his passed loved ones.
And when he did finally let to of the guilt and sorrow the battle had caused in him he had slowly bit by precious bit opened his heart back up to love and in doing so Mahal had seen fit to gift him with his One Gvenour and then blessed the both of them with both a long prosperous reign and three lovely children and then later five grandchildren.
He has lived a full life, longer than most Dwarves have the gift to live, just as he knew his Uncle and brother would have wanted him to.
Yes, it had taken him a little longer than most may have wanted but he healed with time and with the help of his Queen and his children. If not for his Gvenour literally slapping some sense into him after nearly declaring a blood feud with his aging cousin Dain in front of nearly the whole Kingdom he would have been worse off.
Not just because he had been minutes away from becoming a kin killer when his cousin had brought up the taboo subject of his deceased brother and Uncle but also because it had been in the moment that he felt the sting on his cheek from her slap that he finally opened his eyes and saw Gvenour for who she really was to him, his One.
It had been the days when he held his wife close against his chest while they laid on their bed at the end of a long day with their three young children cuddling with them as he told the four of them about the Quest to reclaim Erebor, about a brave Hobbit named Bilbo Baggins who dared stand up to his Uncle the great Thorin Oakenshield, about a Company of thirteen Dwarves who couldn't have been more different from each other but more the same to one another's hearts, the trouble he and his brother got into together on said journey and a maddening meddlesome Wizard who had led them on a merry journey through heavy rain and heat and over many a mountain and hill to face a dragon, that gave him back the smiles he felt were lost to him when all his kin and kith died.
The fact that he would soon leave this world and them along with it hurt his weary old heart in the likeness to how much it hurt to lose the Company and his Uncle and younger brother that fateful day so long ago but he drew strength in the thought that he would soon see his deceased loved ones and one day hopefully a long time from now he would be able to greet his wife and his children and even his children's children's children again with wide open arms in the Hall's of Mandos with his dead kin and friends by his side to help him welcome them.
It was both a sad and a happy thought much like his life has been since the battle.
Some days he had never felt happier than he was when he was with his loving wife and children and others the memories of his past and the ache of his old wounds threw him into a chasm of sorrow that was deep and seemingly unending.
He had found joy when he thought that he may never have been able to find it again, and he in the years since his marriage to his wife and Queen has found a sense of fulfillment and an even deeper sense of love like no other he has ever felt before.
He was happy to hold the hand of his wife, weakly lift his other to caress the tears away from the small flushed cheeks of his two youngest granddaughters and gaze upon all his kin in these last moments he has allotted on this earth.
He knows that his son Thorin IV and his eldest grandson Theorn, both of whom - he is once again reminded - look exactly like his late beloved Uncle so much it hurts, will take his place to rule Erebor and that they will treat their people well.
Just as he knows that his second son Kili II who both looked and acted like his late dear little brother and his daughter Guenloie glows with the love of motherhood like his lovely late mother more and more everyday will stand at their brothers side just as his own brother stood by his and support him as he makes his own name among their people.
He had no doubt that his line will thrive for generations to come if only from the sheer stubbornness that comes with being of Durin's line, something his wife has remarked upon many upon many times over the years, and he is also without a doubt proud of each and everyone of them for nothing has given him more pride and joy than watching them all grow into their own.
He regrets of course that he is dying before he can hold his sixth and seventh grandchildren who his two daughters in law and heart had only just told him they were expecting a few days before but he knows that his sons will pass down stories of him to them just as he did for them about the family they had never known and that they will be raised well with much love.
But he will see them again one day and he reassures them of this even as he feels himself take his last breaths.
The last thing he thinks before he closes his eyes and a happy smile takes over his age worn face to welcome the warm darkness of deaths arms claims him is, I am coming to join you Uncle and you needn't wait any longer for me little brother, I am coming home.
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To Be Continued . . .
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So what do you think? Like it? Love it? Hate it?
Let me know and leave a review or two.
Thank you to all of you who have Favorited, Followed, Reviewed and/or just took tie to read this.
As a side note, I kept thinking about a quote from the last Harry Potter book The Deathly Hallows, "I open at the close." if any of you remember that while I wrote this and I thought about naming the story that but since this is a Hobbit fanfic and not a Harry Potter one I thought it might get a little confusing. It's an amusing thought though because it kinda fits. :)
Next Chapter : Fili wake's up understandably confused as to why he is once again alive and it is one year before the Quest to take back Erebor even begins.
Ever at your service,
LonelyWinterRose
