I can feel my heart pounding in my chest as I try and battle my way through the dense undergrowth. Brambles are snagging at my clothes, hidden tree roots threatening to trip me up with every step. Sweat is pouring down my face and I can feel my shirt sticking to my back as I fight my way up yet another steep, rocky hill. It is unbearably hot, even in the shade from the trees, and far from being cool, the forest is stuffy and the air is still and humid.
Pausing briefly for breath at the top of the incline, I scan the area, wishing I had thought to bring something to drink with me. My throat is parched, my mouth feels dry and fuzzy and there is a horrible taste on my tongue. What I wouldn't give for a drink of cold water...
That is when I spot him. He is creeping along almost bent double, clearly tracking something. I don't think he has even noticed me standing here. Annoyingly, he doesn't look at all bothered by the oppressive heat and looks as irritatingly cheerful as ever. I can see his stupid grin from here. I feel my heart sink. I know that grin and it never means anything good. He has had another one of his ridiculous ideas. I can tell.
With I sigh, I push myself away from the tree I am leaning on and make my way as fast as I can down the hill in his direction. I can't see him but I must be gaining on him. I am almost running and he was practically standing still when I saw him. I know I am heading the right way because I can hear twigs snapping and branches rustling up ahead.
Finally, I break through the wall of brambles and ferns and stumble into him. Literally. He is crouching behind a fallen log, his body almost flat to the floor and I don't see him until it is to late. The result is me landing ungracefully on the floor next to him.
He doesn't look round, even though I have just practically sat on him, so I wipe the sweat from my eyes and sweep the area, to try and work out what it is he is studying so intently. At first I don't see anything, no deer, no rabbits, nothing. Then my eye is caught by a large, hairy, towering, black shape lurking at the edge of the clearing. It is the biggest bear I have ever seen. My breath catches in my throat."Kili, no!"
Still he doesn't answer. His dark eyes are fixed determinately on the massive animal. I try again. "What on earth do you think you're doing?" Even in my own ears my voice sound exasperated and despairing. I know I have lost this battle already. Whatever I say, he is going to try and catch that bear.
He starts to crawl forwards slowly, inching along on his hands and knees. In a last ditch attempt to stop him I hiss: "Come back here! Can't you see that huge bear?" It's a vain hope. There is no way he hasn't noticed it.
At least that does the trick, though. He stops and turns to look at me. "Of course I can," he whispers back. His eyes are glowing with enthusiasm and a wide grin is plastered on his face. Inwardly I sigh. Why can't my little brother just be sensible for once?
"What?!" I pretend to sound shocked. Maybe if I can convince him what a bad idea this is he will change his mind. Or maybe I can at least keep him talking until the bear has wandered off. It might always work. Not a chance, a little voice in the back of my mind comments. I ignore it.
Kili's grin gets even wider. "That's what I'm heading for?"
I try and look horrified, like I hadn't seen that answer coming all along. "What? Why?" Because he is a complete idiot and can't help coming up with ridiculous suicidal ideas that almost get us both killed, is completely incapable of thinking before acting and has absolutely no common sense?, the voice in my head I keep this thought to myself.
"I'm hunting." Ok, that answer is even more ridiculous than I thought. And still he is beaming like some sort of lunatic and inching further into the clearing.
"Hunting?!", I yelp at him. The bear glances in our direction and I quickly lower my voice. "Kili, you don't have any weapons with you and it's five times your size."
He looks over at it, looking it up and down as if weighing up his chances. I could tell him what his chances are without even studying the bear. Without weapons, against an enormous bear, Kili's chances of being eaten alive are about one in one. He doesn't seem to see it that way, though, because "I like a challenge." is his only response. That and a casual shrug. Oh, brilliant, my brother has actually gone completely mad. Either that or he is suicidal, I can't decide which.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed? Get back here now!"
My words make no impact whatsoever. "Don't be such a spoil-sport. It's not that big, we can take it on." We?! Hang on, where did this we part come from? I don't like the sound of that at all. Not only is he suicidal, he is now attempting fratricide as well. Brilliant.
"Kili, It's huge! And you don't have any weapons with you," I try stating the blatantly obvious. He doesn't even have a small hunting knife with him and I left all my weapons at home. Well, I didn't think I would need them. This situation is, quite frankly, ludicrous.
"Yes, I do. I've got this," Kili informs me happily. He holds up a small twisted stick. It's fairly heavy looking and would do quite well for clubbing rabbits. Rabbits not bears!
"That's a stick!", I exclaim furiously, "What are you planning to do, club it to death with a twig?"
His enthusiastic smile makes me feel physically sick. He looks delighted that I seem to have finally grasped his brilliant plan. "That's the plan," he tells me, nodding encouragingly like you would to a thick child who has finally got the hang of some particularly simple concept. He can be so patronising sometimes!
As I am quietly fuming to myself I hear the sound of grass rustling and look up just in time to see Kili moving towards the other side of the clearing. He is sneaking round, keeping as close to the trees as possible. He can't be more that a few metres away from the bear by this point.
Throwing caution to the wind, I leap up and fling myself in front of him. As I land, I crack my elbow on a tree-branch. It smarts painfully and the sting makes my eyes water.
Kili looks indignant and outraged. "Get out of my way."
I refuse to budge. As the oldest, I am supposed to be responsibly looking after him. I would never hear the end of it if he got himself killed. "No. I'm not letting you get yourself killed. This is just another of your stupid ideas." I try to look as strict as possible and cross my arms across my chest, just like Uncle Thorin does when he is telling us off. It doesn't have quite the same effect, but it's the best I can manage.
"It is not. I wanted it's fur as a present for Uncle Thorin," Kili informs me in his most superior voice. I refrain from pointing out that Uncle Thorin would probably prefer a live nephew to a dead nephew and a bear skin. I don't think that would help.
I reach out and grab him firmly by the arm, fixing him with the most serious stare I can manage. It is time to try and reason with him and make him see sense. "No, Kili. You're always having these ridiculous ideas and has a single one of them ever worked out?", I say. He is always a little touchy about his so-called good ideas. If all else fails bring up embarrassing incidents from the past, that he would rather everyone forgot about. If I can't reason with him, maybe I can embarrass him into giving up on his bear-hunt.
On cue Kili gets defensive. I can see his brain working furiously to come up with something, anything, to prove me wrong. "There was that one with the horses...", he hisses, trying to sound as dignified as he possibly can. It doesn't work.
"... where you almost got us both trampled to death," I point out helpfully.
"... or the one with the new hunting technique..."
I remember that one. Vividly. "The one where you decided it would be easier to hunt by climbing trees and jumping on deer from above so they can't see you coming?"
"Exactly."
"The one that resulted in you breaking four ribs, both legs and an arm?" My face is a picture of innocence, as if I am genuinely just trying to remember which incident he means.
Kili flushes bright scarlet. "That was a good idea. Is it my fault it didn't work? Ok, fine. How about that time we went off exploring when we were little and found that really cool valley full of ogres and giant tigers and stuff. That was fun."
"You almost got us both killed and we had to be rescued by Uncle Thorin."
"... or that new map I made so we wouldn't get lost when hunting. Even you have to admit that was a good idea."
I have to give him that one. It was actually a good idea. It was just the execution that let it down a little. "It would have been a brilliant idea if you hadn't got us lost when trying to make the map." I can't help but grin slightly.
"We got home again eventually," Kili huffs, needled.
"After seventeen hours." Not that he needs reminding of that incident. He had such bad blisters afterwards that he could barely walk for a week. It would have been funny if he hadn't been in so much pain.
"It's not that long. And we do have a map now."
I can't help myself. "You still always manage to get lost," I tease. What else are older brother for if not to make fun of their little siblings?
"I do not!", Kili growls outraged. Just a little too loudly.
Behind him the bear moves, lumbering towards us a couple of steps and stopping to sniff at something on the ground. I can hear it's breathing and smell the musky scent of its fur. The thing is definitely too close.
As silently and stealthily as I can I back away from the bear into the bushes, making sure to keep my eyes fixed on it, watching in case it suddenly decides to run at us. Only when I am safely in the trees do I look round and notice that Kili is not with me. He is still stood exactly where he was a second ago. "Kili, come away from that bear!", I hiss frantically at him.
Shaking his head, he whispers back: "No. Anyway you can't make... What on earth is that?!" He points wildly at something just behind me, eyes wide in terror. Horrified I whip round to see what it is he is pointing at, only to be confronted by an empty stretch of woodland. There is nothing there.
I turn back angrily to look at Kili ready to yell at him for scaring me like that, but he isn't there any more. The words stick in my throat as I see him leaping towards his prey, his cause of death, more like, brandishing his feeble little stick. "Kili!", I shout and fling myself forwards, knowing full well that there is no way I can possible reach him in time.
He is right in front of the bear before I have got two paces. There is nothing I can do. He brings his stick crashing down on its skull with a sickening thud. For a second nothing happens and I think that maybe by some miracle the bear is not going to tear my little brother to pieces, but then it lets out a roar and rears up onto its back legs, jaws snapping ferociously, ropes of saliva hanging from it's foaming mouth.
By this point even Kili seems to have realised that this was probably not his best idea. He is hurriedly backing away towards my tree. As he turns to run, one of the creature's massive paws swings at him, missing his head by an inch and it's mouth snaps shut so close to his arm that it leaves a trail of drool down the back of his shirt.
In seconds he has clambered as high as he can up the tree and is clinging on with all his might as the bear tries to climb up after him. I fling myself on the ground under a bush and hope that it doesn't notice me. Through the leaves I can just make out Kili's tiny figure clinging to the very top branches as his furious opponent tries and fails to get at him. The branches are just too thin and won't support its weight. It keeps slipping and falling back to the ground. If Kili can just hold onto the wildly swaying tree until it gets bored, we may both get out of this alive. I close my eyes and hope against hope that it will tire of trying to eat Kili in a minute.
And it does. After a few minutes futile effort the bear grunts to itself and heads back over to whatever it was investigating before Kili hit it.
Above me I hear a delighted laugh and my idiot brother comes sliding down to stand next to me. Understandably, I am furious with him. "Are you alright?", I demand, roughly grabbing him and checking for any obvious injuries. When I look back at his face, I see to my horror that he is still grinning happily.
Seeing the look on my face he shrugs casually. "I wasn't ready that time."
I am literally speechless. For a moment I just stare at him, my mouth hanging open. Eventually I manage to croak: "What do you mean you weren't ready?! It nearly tore your arm off!" I have a deep, dark sense of foreboding. I know that look in Kili's eyes. He's going to want to go and try again, I can sense it. Please don't, Kili. Please don't be that stupid, I think, willing him to somehow pick up on my thoughts but not wanting to bring up the subject in case he hasn't thought to try again. The last thing I want to do is give him ideas.
"Only nearly", he says breezily, "Come on, let's try again." He happily brushes some moss off his trousers and wipes the drool off his shirt on me. I don't even complain.
"No! You only just escaped that time." As if me telling him no will have any effect whatsoever.
"Only just?", he exclaims sounding genuinely taken aback. "It didn't even scratch me." Kili holds up his unharmed arms to show me, proudly like this is some kind of amazing achievement.
No, I think bitterly, and it wouldn't have even got close to scratching you if you weren't so thoughtless! Out loud I say: "Only because you ran away and hid up a tree." I can hear the barely controlled anger in my tone and mentally tell myself off for it. Fighting with Kili is not going to make this situation better.
Clearly Kili heard it too because when he answers he sound defensive and cross. "It was a tactical manoeuvre to outfox the enemy, I was not hiding!" A frown is creasing his face and he looks close to shouting back at me.
Quickly I shoot him an apologetic glance and say in a more reasonable, if somewhat exasperated, tone: "Come on, Kili. Let's go." I hold out a hand to him like I always used to when he was very little and he takes it, the grin reappearing on his face.
"One more try?", he asks persuasively.
There is no way that is going to convince me to let him try and get himself killed again. I shake my head and turn to leave.
But Kili digs his heels in. "Why? I nearly had it that time."
Honestly, I can't believe we are still having this conversation. I feel the annoyance rising again. "You nearly had it?", I ask incredulously. It's official, Kili has completely lost his marbles. If he ever had any to lose in the first place.
"Yes," he snaps back waspishly, head held high in defiance.
Oops, clearly I must have sounded like I was belittling his amazing hunting skills and now his pride is wounded. Racking my brains I try and think of something non-confrontational to say. "When exactly? All I saw was you running up to the bear, hitting it over the head with a stick, almost getting your arm ripped off and running away to hide up a tree," is what eventually makes it out of my mouth. As I say it I wish I hadn't. My little brother looks outraged. Nice one, Fili, I think angrily to myself, couldn't have just gone with a nice, safe 'of course you did, Kili, but lets go home now. I think mother will be worried about us', could you?
"That is not what happened!"
"Oh, really?", I growl back. Seriously, what is wrong with me? Why do I sound so argumentative? I reckon it must be exhaustion from running through the woods followed by the stress of almost having to watch Kili being mauled by a bear. It must be catching up with me.
"I wasn't hiding. And I managed to injure it. I tore it's ear." Kili points to a small, bloody hole in the bear's left ear. It is exactly the same shape as the end of the stick.
Despite myself I can't help laughing. "That was an accident. The stick caught in it's ear when you hit it. I refuse to believe that was planned."
Kili instantly brightens up again and snorts with laughter. "Yes, it was! I...", he announces loudly.
"Keep your voice down, it'll hear...", I begin to say, but too late. The bear's head has snapped round to look at us, it's nostrils flaring, piggy eyes straining in our direction.
"Oh great. Well done, Kili." I sound more amused than annoyed. That's strange. We're both about to be killed horribly and I find it amusing? What does that say about me?
Obviously I am not the only one. "What did I do?", Kili asks innocently, eyes glittering mischievously.
"Do you want the full list?"
"Seriously?"
"First, you pissed it off by ripping it's ear off and then you started yelling so it heard us and now we're about to get eaten by an angry giant bear!" Even now I can't help winding him up. And this whole situation is his fault so it seems fair to me.
"Maybe it didn't hear me. It's ear was damaged in..."
I punch him lightly on the arm. "Shut up, Kili!"
The bear has started lumbering towards us, picking up speed as it goes. Kili decides to state the ridiculously obvious: "It's coming right at us." His voice sounds slightly panicky now, as if he is torn between panic and mirth. I think he's getting hysterical.
For that matter, I think, so am I. "Yes, I can see that," my voice is deadly serious and I haven't moved an inch. For some bizarre reason I am just stood here studying the giant bear that is charging murderously at us. That is definitely not sane behaviour. Maybe I'm in shock.
"Why are you looking at me like that?", Kili asks me and I realise I have been staring at him.
I glance from my brother to the bear and back again. "You've just got us both killed. Really, you should be congratulated," I say dryly. The bear is getting closer and closer.
"Why?" He sounds suspicious and rightly so. I wasn't being serious about congratulating him. He is an always will be irresponsible and thoughtless idiot. Not that he'll be one for very long. Only about the same amount of time as it takes a bear to cross a forest clearing and munch its way through a pair of dwarfs. A few minutes, I guess.
I turn and grin at him. "This is your stupidest idea yet. You truly have surpassed yourself." If I'm going to be killed anyway, I may as well try and see the funny side of it.
"Oh very funny, Fili. Now what do we do?" Clearly I'm alone in trying to see the hidden humour in this situation.
I shrug. "I thought this was your master plan."
"Don't be an idiot. Do something!" He is starting to sound frantic.
I turn away from the bear to stare at him incredulously. He got us into this mess, what does he expect me to do about it? It's not like I can conjure weapons out of thin air or anything useful. "Like what?", I demand.
"I don't know. You're supposed to be the sensible one." As if being sensible has anything to do with it. What exactly about this situation is sensible? As the 'sensible one' personally I would have avoided getting into this in the first place but, hey, that's just me.
"What about this situation is sensible?", I can't help but ask out loud.
Kili looks round at me and I see he is laughing again. "Fair point. Run!"
We turn as one and sprint off into the undergrowth. Just in time, it seems, as behind us I hear the bear crashing into the tree we were just hiding behind. That is not good. It means it's closer than I thought.
My breath is coming in gasps and my lungs are burning. I am exhausted and covered in sweat, my legs are on fire. Next to me I can see Kili is in the same state. It really is too hot for this sort of exercise. And still the bear is following us. I can practically feel its breath on the back of my neck. Any minute now it will catch us, we're not exactly moving quickly, and then we will become its dinner. Not a nice thought.
We leap over logs, dodge round trees, scramble over rocks, battle our way through brambles and splash through a small stream. I find myself wishing I could stop for a drink but with the monster in hot pursuit that would probably be a bad idea. The chase seems to go on and on, until I am convinced this is just a particularly sadistic bear that is enjoying making us suffer before it eats us. Maybe prey that has had a good work-out tastes better, I don't know.
Up ahead I spot what looks like a dark stripe cutting across our path. From my position slightly ahead of Kili I realise it is a ravine running through the forest and at that moment I have a plan. I change direction slightly and run towards it, behind me I sense Kili has done the same. As I run I bend down and grab the nearest branch I can reach. It feels like oak and seems to be fairly strong. That will do.
Using my last reserves of energy I speed up and hurl myself across the gulf in the forest floor, landing with a soft thump on the other side. Immediately I stop and whirl round. "Kili, jump!", I yell at the top of my lungs.
And for once in his life Kili does as he is told. He flings himself into the air and clears the ravine a few feet away from me, landing safely. I hope. I don't have time to look. The bear is still hard on our heels and is coming up fast. It launches itself into the air and I brace myself. It is flying straight towards me and I feel fear knotting in the pit of my stomach. This plan had better work.
Taking careful aim, I swing my branch, just as the bear is reaching out to land and catch it full in the chest. The impact of the blow shatters my stick and jars both my arms painfully but it has the desired effect. The huge creature is thrown off balance and knocked backwards. Briefly I think it will still manage to make the jump but it doesn't. It falls backwards, vanishing from view, and I hear the thwack as it lands on the rocks at the bottom of the ravine.
Exhausted and drained, I rest my hands on my knees and gasp for air. Never again, I think furiously, I am never going anywhere with Kili ever again.
Just behind me I can hear him clambering to his feet, panting. As soon as he has go his breath back enough, a smug grin creeps across his face. "I told you we could get it!", he wheezes happily and I could happily throttle him. Or throw him down the gorge to join the bear.
Luckily for him I do neither. "That was sheer luck!", I snap at him instead.
"Skill, my dear brother, not luck." Kili smirks at me, unable to keep the self-satisfied 'I-told-you-so' expression of his face. Wonderful, now he thinks he was right all along about the ridiculous bear-hunt. He is going to be absolutely insufferable. "Now help me get it back home, I don't think I could carry it by myself."
With I sigh I straighten up and follow him towards where the bear is lying. You just can't argue with some people.