A/N: The first in a part of a series of six fics focusing on Thorin and his sister sons, expect a mix of book and film-verse The series is called When Love Is Given Freely, and can also be found on A03
The Meaning Of Never
After his father died, it was Thorin who taught Kíli the meaning of never . . .
He remembers the insufferable warmth of that day, the brightness of the sun. The whisper of summer edging towards Harn Baland to overtake the later part of spring.
There was an ornately carved stone box high on the table of the Great Hall, so high he could not see what was in it. Voices droned on for long hours, speaking of matters he was too young to understand. Songs were sung in words he had not yet learned, growing louder and more off key as emotions swelled. His mother stood stone-faced before the box between him and Fíli, Uncle Thorin tall and silent at his brother's other side.
He remembers Fíli's face looking like a crumpled drawing.
At the time it was the oddest mystery, making him miss Fíli's sunny smile. Surely if he could just go to him, he could get him to reveal that smile. Fíli smiled wide and often, just for him. Yet, no matter how much he whined and fidgeted, his mother would not allow him to stray to his brother's side.
"Kíli, be still please."
He remembers how it had sounded too little like a supplication, and very much like a harsh order.
Wet heat prickled the corners of his eyes, and his keen of distress was loud even amidst the murmur of the room. But Fíli was not inspired to defend him, a rare and awful thing, settling for watching his feet with a quiet sniffle on the other side of their mother. The sigh his mother heaved sounded shaky and her grip only tightened when he tried to pull out of her hand once more.
"I want Da," he cried.
He remembers his abrupt release, as if his hand had suddenly become a hot coal in her grasp.
Covering her face, his mother's shoulders shook silently. Fíli glared around her skirts, and the confusion only made his sobs grow louder until he was hoisted up into strong arms. Uncle Thorin's furs tickled his nose, but his warmth was a reprieve from the unfathomable madness going on around him.
He remembers patient, soothing whispers, and chapped lips brushing his wet cheek.
The silence in their home afterwards left him wriggling with nervous energy. His mother went about about preparing supper, exchanging quiet words with their Uncle who it seemed would spend the night. He gave them each a slice of dried apple to hold the hunger at bay until the meal was ready.
He remembers Fíli staring vacantly at his piece. In the end, it was Kíli who ate them both.
"Fíli, let us play!" he cried with an armful of toy figures, warriors, and the foul beasts they would slay. But Fíli would not be swayed from his perch by the window, listless eyes staring outside.
"What do you see?" Kíli clamored up with some difficulty, small nose pressed to the glass, but his sharp eyes saw nothing that should keep his brother so fixated.
He remembers the strange emptiness of the path leading to their door; where there should have been the familiar figure of his father hurrying back from a late day at work.
"When is Da coming home?" Beside him Fíli stiffened to stone, no answer forthcoming. He turned to his mother, "Da promised to show me weedle dim when he came back."
"Widdling," His Uncle corrected.
He remembers the echo of melancholic affection in his tone.
"Come here, little one," his mother reached out to him.
Crawling into his mother's lap, surrounded in her warmth and strength, it was hard to listen to her words, to focus and comprehend their meaning with his naive little mind. Her heartbeat was easier to bear than the somber lilt of her voice.
He remembers dreaming that night, of sleeping fathers who would never again waken.
But he did not understand. What was never after all?
The permanence of his father's absence was a concept as tangible as the sawdust that would slip through his fingers when he played in his father's workshop. Night after night, he wondered why his father was once more late, watched the door until they were sent to bed, asked for him in his dreams. Some days he awoke to the feel of callous fingers stroking his hair, but when his eyes opened, it was Uncle Thorin who greeted him with a wistful smile.
"Mummy, Mummy-" Kíli still tugged at her skirts a week later, "Where is Da? He is late again! He will get no sweets after dinner today, right? When is he coming back, Mummy?"
He remembers the stillness that took over her frame where she sat mending one of his trousers by the light of the fire, stew simmering slowly over the hearth.
"Fíli," her voice sounded like a piece of glass blown too thin, fragile and ready to shatter, "Will you fetch some water from the well for me, please?"
The barrels by the washing basin had been filled by his brother that morning. Kíli had hindered him more than anything with his attempts to help as his faithful shadow during the chore. Yet Fíli uttered no complaint, only gathered the bucket and trudged out the door.
"Come, Kíli," his brother took his hand.
Kíli nearly stepped on his heels in his haste to follow, bouncing with the enthusiasm only youthful ignorance could allow; not yet bored of his unfortunate choice of topic.
"Perhaps when we return, Da will be home!"
He remembers the way Fíli's grip tightened painfully around his little hand.
Pulling away with a sullen pout, Kíli soon forgot the injury at the sight of frogs hopping about the puddles near the well. With a peal of laughter, he set off to capture one. Tiny boots splashing murky water everywhere as he leapt from one to another on his determined hunt. Fíli did not cheer him on as he normally would, only hooking the bucket to the pulley and tossing it into the well.
He remembers the slump of his brother's shoulders as he stared down the darkness of the well. Kíli never liked looking at it. It would always feel as if it were swallowing him whole.
"Fíli! Fíli, look!" A grin stretched wide across his face, revealing the gap of a missing tooth for the world. In his hands, a wriggling frog, "I will show Da when he comes home tonight!"
"Da will not come home tonight, Kíli," his brother spoke without turning from the well.
"When will he come home, Fíli?"
He remembers the brittle cold rolling off his brother's countenance.
"Never."
Large wide eyes blinked, still failing to perceive what had stolen the light from his brother's face. Prevented the smiles from reaching his mother's eyes. Inspired the frequent presence of their oft far-traveling Uncle. The laughter that had been so prevalent only a few days ago was now gone from his family's home.
"When is never?" he stroked the frog in his hands thoughtfully, then brightened, "Is that like tomorrow?"
"No! It is not tomorrow! Or the day after! Or even the day after that!"
He remembers the sharp prick of hurt when the croaking creature was slapped from his hands.
On its heels came fear. Of something unknown. Something unthinkable. The dawning cognizance of an irreversible loss.
"Never is when he will not come home at all! Ever again!"
He remembers the flush on his brothers face. The redness stark against golden whiskers on his cheeks, his eyes swimming with the grief he struggled to hold at bay.
But Kíli's own tears rolled free and hot down his scrunched face. A tremulous whimper hitched along with his breath. And he turned, stumbling off to a blind run- only to crash into a pair of hard unforgiving knees.
He remembers hoping-
"Da?"
"Oh, Kíli..."
His expectant gaze fell not his father, but upon his Uncle Thorin; large and imposing, stern gaze gentled into something uncommonly soft.
With the most acute of pains, all the odd affairs of the past few days gained a sudden clarity. Kíli thought even then, that all could be right again if only his father pulled him up into his arms, and tossed him high in the air to cheer away the troubles of his heart.
But his father was not here.
A loud keen spilled out of his throat just as the meaning of 'never' finally wedged its way into his heart.
And he remembers warmth. The smell of forge smoke, cold stone, and the crisp green that only came from long hunts through the forests outside the slopes of Ered Luin.
Curled under his Uncle's chin, Kíli sobbed unabashed as only a mourning child could. Little fists curled tight in the old worn satin of a once regal tunic, vestiges of a lost kingdom he never knew outside of fireside tales. At some point Fíli had latched skinny arms around Thorin's waist and wept just as bitterly, despite the gentle hand resting tenderly on his head.
"Come little dwarrows," Thorin's voice rumbled low and steady like the timbre of mattocks picking away at the stone deep in the mines, "Your mother worries."
He remembers hot tea, and the smell of stew, the crackling of the fire, and the comfort of sharing his Uncle's lap with Fíli.
Across the skins on the floor, their father's chair sat empty. Fíli's voice echoed in his head- never... The whimper escaped his throat before he could stifle it, fresh tears clouding his vision.
"Uncle Thorin, how long-" He hiccuped, "how long is never?"
He remembers Fíli smoothing long bangs away from his face. An unspoken apology that he accepted with the brush of pudgy fingers across his brother's damp cheek.
Thorin's chest rose and fell with a deep sigh, "I fear it is a very long time, little ones."
Kíli's whimpers grew louder, "Then Da is gone forever?"
"Not forever."
"I don't understand," Fíli spoke for them both.
Thorin tugged them closer, the calming murmur of his words easing the anguish in their hearts, "Your father has parted this world, but he is not lost. He dwells in the Halls of Waiting, just as your grandfather, and great grandfather-"
"What do they wait for?"
He remembers sucking his thumb into his mouth, only to have his Uncle gingerly pull it out again.
"For you, little ones. Many long years from now, we will all be reunited with them in those Halls. And never again shall we be parted from one another. Remember this, when grief threatens to overpower you."
And Kíli remembers the meaning of never losing it's cold frightening grip on his heart; and in its place, cuddled warm in his Uncle's lap, fingers twined in long dark hair, he found hope.
Fin