"We came into the world like brother and brother;
And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another."
— William Shakespeare, "Comedy of Errors"
As children, they did everything together.
They ate side by side, shared the same bed, played with the same toys, and fought the same petty arguments over and over. They even had the same worries and questions about life, answered by their world-weary uncle as he balanced one lad on each knee.
Eventually they become more independent, and often ventured their separate ways. They began to collect their own toys, ask their own questions. Yet at the end of the day each always returned to the other's side; every argument soon ended in peace, with a warm embrace and youthful laughter; every adventure was described in detail and every achievement was shared.
They were two, and yet they were one.
Kíli observes this one sunny day as they lie in a field of cornflowers.
"We are so different," he pipes cheerfully as he leans on his elbow, tossing a single blue flower onto his brother's upturned face. The other laughs.
"And we are so alike," Fíli replies with an indulgent grin. He huffs the wayward plant off his large nose and squints at him with playful accusation. "For better or for worse."
Kíli frowns at this. "How can it be for worse?"
The elder lad shrugs. "That's what Uncle says."
"It cannot be for anything but good." Kíli lies back down and stares at the sky. "We are brothers. We were meant for each other."
A contented hum from beside him. "Mahal designed it so. We shall never be separate."
Kíli giggles with sudden delight, but he is yet a small dwarfling who is prone to such things. His heart bursts with affection and he grabs his big brother's hand. "I love you, Fee," he declares.
"I love you too, squirrel." There is no derision in the soft reply.
Then a cold breeze blows and Kíli shivers. Suddenly, he is afraid. He needs reassurance. "Promise me?" He turns his head toward his brother. "Promise. For always?"
Fíli sighs, but he smiles. He looks at Kíli, blue eyes alight with merriment, and with a wink he holds out his pinky. As Kíli grasps it with his own, the elder nods gravely. "Kíli," he says, "If I love you, I will love you forever and ever and that is that; end of story. We will always be together."
And Kíli forgets his fear, his heart wiped clean by such an unshakeable oath. He is still a child.
Decades later he is a full-grown warrior, strong and skilled beyond his youthful age, but as the icy rain cuts into his face and the wind takes his breath away he loses his courage. In three seconds he sharply remembers his old fear.
One.
There is a horrible sound like the very core of the earth is being rent by some angered god. The ground trembles and shakes, and to his alarm it begins to pitch.
"Kíli!" His brother stumbles beside him, his voice high-pitched with terror. Fíli is never afraid and the sound of it makes Kíli's own blood run cold.
Two.
He panics. "What's happening?" he cries, yelling like a lost dwarfling, his words all but swallowed by the gale. He scarcely has time to process it. The rock cracks ominously between his own feet, a yawning fissure appearing then and growing with startling speed. He jumps aside on instinct, lest he fall into the gaping hole, before he realizes his mistake: Fíli is on the other side of the fissure.
Three.
"Grab my hand!" Fíli roars at him, reaching for him and almost toppling over the edge in his effort. The fissure has suddenly become a bottomless gulf and the dwarf gasps helplessly, outstretched fingers closing on air. He stumbles backward, eyes full of anguish that is reflected in Kíli's own eyes.
They are separated, and Kíli is afraid.
Around their ears echo the screams of their companions, the terrifying groans of the stone giants above them, the rocks and boulders smashing all about them, and they are separated. Kíli's fear now swallows him whole as he freezes, watching his desperate brother being pulled away from him and into the darkness of the terrible storm. This is it, he realizes. This is where we die. And we are not together. He cannot feel Óin's steadying grasp on his arm. His face is wet with tears mixed with rain and sweat. He cannot help the sobs that gurgle forth.
Don't leave me.
. . . . . . .
Minutes upon hours, upon years, slowly pass. When they finally escape the storm and the battle, every member of the company is miraculously intact—including Fíli, who somehow survived the ignoble end of being smashed and splattered against the mountainside. Kíli huddles beside him in the cave clutching at the soaked blond hair, forgetting his age, forgetting his station, remembering only the pain that had stabbed his heart in those three seconds of horror. They both lie there on the stone floor, exhausted and out of breath.
"Fíli," he finally gasps. "Fee."
He can feel his brother shudder beneath his touch and cough before he offers a feeble little laugh. "That was a mite too close for comfort, I daresay," he jests. "Was nigh between a bit of a rock and a hard place, I was."
Kíli grits his teeth as the stupid emotions threaten to overcome him. "That's not funny," he grinds out in a hoarse voice.
The other dwarf sighs. "I know," he murmurs. "I'm sorry." But it's not for his weary humor that he expresses remorse. Kíli knows this.
"Don't. You ever," he hisses forcefully, "Do that again." He knows his brother did nothing. He knows it was the storm, the giants… fate. He is not condemning him for that. Fíli understands.
"I promise." His brother's words are spoken with conviction, though punctuated by a sneeze.
"Please," Kíli pleads tiredly. "Do not ever leave me in trouble."
Fíli's somber gaze falls on him. "I will not, my brother. Not ever." Then he reaches for him and places his hands on either side of his face, pulling them close until their foreheads touch. His breath puffs warm over Kíli's cheek and Kíli shuts his eyes.
"Please," he whispers again.
"You shall ever be at my side, Brother," Fíli swears. "Always, I will reach for you. I shall never push you away."
An apology and a promise all in one. Kíli shivers with cold, but warmth has slowly begun to seep back into his chest. It should feel like an empty promise but it does not, because Kíli know his brother does not make empty promises.
The fear fades… but yet remains. He is no longer a child.
Kíli feels his brother's presence long before he sees or hears him. He knows something is wrong.
It had felt wrong when they walked into that passage, and it had felt wrong when Fíli sent him away.
"I've got this," his brother had assured him. Kíli hadn't questioned it. He knew his brother always told the truth.
But it still felt wrong.
Now Azog's voice is booming over the empty hill and he is dangling something, something over the precipice that is just within Kíli's line of vision. It's too high up to see. It is when he hears his brother's final scream he knows that everything has gone wrong. When the figure plummets down, down, to land on the snowy ground at his own feet with a sickening crack he knows it's over.
Kíli hurls back into the shadows with shock, stands there gaping and struck dumb as everything around him slows to infinitesimal movement. There is no breath in his lungs, but he doesn't need to breathe. The world tilts and sways and he cannot find his voice, any voice, and a black cloud numbs his mind. A pool of hot ice deep inside him reaches up and pulls him down with wispy fingers, and he drowns silently within himself. A century passes before he can hear his own heartbeat, and its quiet thud is the sound that nudges his teetering world to the edge; to shiver, fall, and shatter into smithereens with a deafening roar that fills his ears with rushing, pumping blood.
There is blood on Fíli's face.
Blood.
Fíli is dead.
And just as suddenly Kíli is overcome with an uncontrollable and all-consuming rage, and he can't think; all coherency of time and space and reality has fled his brain. Suddenly he is breathing but it's not enough, and he growls until it becomes a roar, and he runs…
As he cuts down a heavily-armored orc he screams hoarsely in his rage, filled with anger for a world full of evil, for monsters who seek to kill and destroy, for a golden life cut cruelly short…
For broken promises.
For a universe that does not honor a promise spoken in faith.
He runs.
Now the inside of Kíli's head rattles with the bellows and shrieks of a soul in agony, a cacophony of abstract noise, and he screams out loud. He screams in his misery and cuts down one hideous creature after another, but it is not enough. His heart screams for revenge, for a wrong to be paid for in blood, but it will never be enough. He runs, bellowing and cutting down every adversary, and anxiously waiting for this hellish nightmare to end and for Fíli to wake him up in their field of cornflowers… but it's no dream.
The fear has become reality, and there's no fixing it, now.
As he finishes off another orc with a single sword swipe and sends him careening off the cliff, Kíli pauses in his step to bitterly watch his sickening fall.
"It's not fair," he gasps beneath his breath. His vision clouds and he chokes on a sob. "Fíli, O my Fíli."
This is a reality he cannot—nay, will not—accept. A world without that presence by his side, a voice like raw honey in his ear, with his teasing laughter and patient blue eyes. Never again to share stories over a mug of cheap ale, never again to worry and badger their beloved mother, and never again to smoke pipes on the bearskin in front of their fire at home. Who will play fiddle with him? Whose hair will he braid now? These and a thousand other things he does not know, for his one and only brother is gone.
Fíli is dead.
Shock begins to set in and his knees start to shake, but then he hears a cry for help and an abrupt rush of adrenaline pushes back the terrible onslaught of grief. He straightens up, swallows the prickling threat of tears, and sets his face in flint. He is a warrior, after all.
There are more stairs.
Kíli runs.
A/N: Sorry for this… I woke up missing my best friend and wrote it in one sitting. ["My troublous dreams this night doth make me sad." – Shakespeare]