Hey everyone. Yes, I did it. A Bo5A fanfic about Kili and Fili.
MAJOR SPOILERS FOR Bo5A! Don't read if you don't want to know...
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Alright, I knew I had to write this after watching The Hobbit DOS, but it took some time for me to figure out how I'd like the end to be. This is my version, and it was inspired by the song "Brothers in arms" by Dire Straits, and the heart-breaking drawing on deviantart which I also used in the picture of this story. All credits go to Brilcist, whose wonderful drawing you can find on deviantart dot com slash art slash Fili-and-Kili-Battle-of-Five-Armies-345449925 (replace slash with / and don't use spaces). I hope I don't get into trouble for using it, but it's too damn perfect to not share it.
The title of this one-shot is the title of a great instrumental song by Mark Knopfler (listen to the beginning, it starts quite slow and melancholic) and also refers to the first line in "Brothers in arms": These mist-covered mountains are a home now for me...
I love the quote at the end, I wish I knew who said that.
Going home
This is the end.
Fili doesn't know how he can be so sure about it. Maybe it's the pain in his back where the orc's arrow has pierced through skin and flesh. The creature's head is only a few feet away from the rest of the torso. Probably it's the warmth of the blood running down his thigh. Whatever it is, it will end here.
More orcs are coming, and Fili slays them all one by one, for they will not get his uncle's dead body into their rotten hands.
Oh, Thorin.
An agonised scream pierces the night, and Fili freezes.
'Kili.'
A toneless whisper, and he turns around, immediately seeing his little brother standing in front of one last orc, hands clutching his side, swaying where he stands, and the orc is wielding its axe... It falls dead before it even sees Fili's dagger coming. Kili collapses, and Fili runs.
'Kili! Kili, no! No, no, no.'
He falls to his knees beside his little brother, and Kili is staring up at him, eyes wide with shock and pain. Fili can see a pool of blood growing larger at an alarming rate underneath the dwarf's body, and he lays his hand onto Kili's blood-soaked one which he is pressing against his stomach.
'It's going to be okay, you're going to be alright, Kili.' His voice is shaking. 'Let me have a look.'
But weakly, almost invisibly, the younger one shakes his head, his lips forming a soundless 'No'.
And Fili understands what he never wanted to know. An icy blade is ripping through his heart, making him cry out when his eyes start to burn. This isn't right. It isn't supposed to end like this. He wants to call out for help, but his voice betrays him, and after all, the battle is still in full rage and no one will hear him.
'Stay... please.'
The raspy voice hurts Fili more than he has ever been before. It's strangely high-pitched, like a child's, and isn't he a child, his little brother, whose usually vibrant face is deathly pale and contorted with agony. He is too young to die on this field of blood.
Carefully, Fili pulls the younger one closer, resting his head on his lap, and pushes a few strands of hair from his forehead.
'I'm not going anywhere.'
'Thorin... he's dead, Fili,' his brother whispers, sorrow and sadness reflected from his dark eyes. 'I failed him.'
Fili shakes his head in despair. Trying hard to hold back the tears burning in his eyes, he keeps on caressing Kili's head, all the time looking everywhere but at the wound that the fallen dwarf is hiding beneath his hand.
'No, you didn't, Kili. You didn't. Please don't think that.'
'Should have... should have protected him,' Kili gasps, 'should have been there...'
'You were where you were supposed to be. You didn't fail him.'
Fili tries to make his voice sound strong and reassuring, for his little brother mustn't feel guilty, not he who sacrificed everything for his dead King. And somehow Kili seems to believe him, his muscles relaxing a little as he closes his eyes.
Up above, Fili can see the full moon hidden behind storm clouds. From time to time the clouds allow the moonlight to reach the scenery below, illuminating the battlefield soaked with the blood of thousands of fallen warriors. His leg is getting numb, and he can feel the blood still running freely from the wound right above his knee. He ought to bind it, seek medical aid, but for some reason Fili knows that it won't make a difference for him, though all the difference for his brother. So he stays and keeps on cradling his little brother and tries to shut out the noises of terror and death around him.
His mind is in a haze as he murmurs incoherent words, for this can't be happening, not here, not to Kili, not after everything he's gone through. It is only a nightmare, he has to hold on to that, because anything else is just not possible.
Denial. The first stage. Denial, grief, acceptance – the three stages of loss.
He will lose his brother. The sheer thought takes his breath away, and he wants to break down and scream and cry and beg for Mahal to make this all undone.
But it will be in vain, and he knows it.
Kili is shivering, whether from the cold or the loss of blood Fili can't say. He can only hold his brother, who looks too small for the armour he is wearing, and pray that he can somehow find the strength to help him through this.
'Fee?'
The younger one grabs his hand more tightly, his knuckles standing out even whiter against the pale skin.
'I'm here, Kili. I'm here.'
'I'm scared, Fee.'
The words are almost carried away by the wind, but to Fili they are like a hammer tearing at his heart. There is a timbre in Kili's voice that he has never heard before, and all he can think is that his little brother shouldn't be afraid, and if he is, then hasn't he, Fili, failed to protect him? His eyes dart from the wet, scarlet blood on the earthy ground to his brother's eyes, wide and agonised, and back to the ever growing red stain underneath his body.
'Don't be scared, Kili. You're going home.'
His voice breaks at the last words. Home. He can see Kili's expression soften, pain and fear momentarily being replaced by a kind of peace that Fili hasn't seen in him for a long time.
'Home,' he repeats quietly, the ghost of a smile faintly visible on his face. 'Missed it.'
Fili bites his lip and chokes back the tears that begin to burn in his eyes. Home. It has been a long time since they left Ered Luin, and he can still see their mother's face as clearly as it had been yesterday.
He made a promise, back then, and it is here at the side of the mountain, so close to their old and new home, that he has to break it.
Home. The word carries memories of childhood, of adventures, of worlds to be discovered and a place to come back to when the world was too big to handle for a dwarfling. Memories of growing up, learning of life and death and what's in between, and the promise of shelter when the world was crashing down.
'Yes, I miss it, too,' Fili whispers, quickly wiping away the single tear that is silently rolling down his dirty cheek. 'I miss the sun rising behind the Blue Mountains, the way the light finds its way through the clouds on a rainy day. I miss the noise that the river makes on its way through the stone.'
He closes his eyes, for a moment letting the memories of this distant place wash away the horror around him.
Kili mumbles something, and Fili is back at the mountain, back on the battlefield.
'What did you say, Kili?'
'Wish I could... could see it again.'
The younger one's voice is strained, as if every word he says causes him pain, and Fili thinks he would gladly trade all the gold of Erebor for his brother's pain to ease. But he can't give anything but soothing words of comfort while his vision begins to blur before his eyes.
'You will see it again,' he says softly. 'You will see it all, I promise. You will see our mother, and Thorin... you might see Tauriel again and eventually you will have all the time in the world to talk to them all.'
'That sounds nice.'
'Aye, it does.'
Kili shuts his eyes. His breathing is even, and Fili suddenly remembers the times when he used to stand next to his little brother's bed and watch him sleep, reassuring himself that the little one was alright before he went to bed himself. No one had ever asked him to do it. It had been the only right thing to do.
He looks almost like that child now.
Tears are running down his face, and Fili doesn't try to hold them back anymore. It doesn't matter. It will end here.
'You will be a great king.'
Fili flinches and holds his breath. Kili has opened his eyes again, love and trust and warmth reflected from the dark irises with such intensity that Fili has to look away. In that moment he decides that Kili must never know the truth. So he simply squeezes his hand and hopes that the younger one won't notice him shaking.
'A great king... like you've always been a great brother.'
The words are barely audible, but they drown out all other noises and echo in Fili's ears. There is a kind of finality in those words that tear at his insides, and he gasps when he feels the sobs emerging from somewhere deep within which he has tried so hard to hold back. His shoulders are trembling, and he feels cold but for the hot tears on his face. His body is going numb and his brother's face is swimming before his eyes.
'Don't cry.' Kili's eyes search for his brother's, and for a moment they are wide and clear. 'I'm going home.'
Then his eyelids close, his features relax, and Fili knows.
He stares down at his brother's face, at his lips curled to an almost invisible smile, at his closed eyes, and he looks so peaceful that he might as well be sleeping.
The world is beginning to close in on him, darkness surrounds him as he presses his forehead against his brother's, seeking the comfort only he has ever been able to give.
'Wait for me,' he whispers. 'Wait for me.'
He keeps on holding his brother's hand until the nothingness comes and carries him away.
Home.
All for one and one for all
My brother and my friend
What fun we have
The time we share
Brothers 'til the end.
(Author Unknown)