"Not you. You stay here."
Kili stared at Thorin, then forced a laugh.
"What are you talking about? I'm coming with you."
"No. You'd only slow us down."
This can't be happening. Kili's voice shook. "I'm going to be there when that door is opened. When we first look upon the halls of our fathers. Thorin—"
"Kili." There was pity in his uncle's eyes, but it was, as ever, overshadowed by hard practicality. "Stay here. Rest. Join us when you're healed."
Kili wanted to protest, to argue and fight until Thorin would be forced to let him come. But he knew there was no use. The look in Thorin's eyes brooked no arguments. Angrily, Kili turned away.
He limped over to a barrel and collapsed onto it. Merriment flowed around him as the townspeople rejoiced, but Kili felt none of it. The iron will with which he'd forced himself through the trials of the past day was deserting him now that he had nothing to work towards. Kili closed his eyes and breathed hard, the pain of his wound flaring viciously. He heard Oin clump up to him and start speaking, the older dwarf first cheery and then anxious as Kili didn't answer. He couldn't. Suddenly it was taking all his strength to breathe.
Distantly, Kili heard Fili arguing with Thorin. No good, brother, he thought tiredly. He always gets his way.
Kili didn't remember very much after that.
Staggering through the crowds... Fili, frantic, begging for help from strangers... Bofur's voice, when had he joined them?... the man, Bard, ushering them through a doorway... and suddenly he was on a bed, lying down, but still reeling.
The others were talking about him, and Kili wanted to know what they were saying, but his hearing was playing tricks on him, and he could only catch one word: fever.
Makes sense, he thought dazedly. Because this must be a dream.
He was no longer lying in bed, but standing at the foot of the Lonely Mountain, and Tauriel was there. She stood in the middle of a clearing, starkly beautiful against a brilliant black-and-silver night, and she was playing with the talisman his mother had given him, tossing it in the air and catching it as he so often did when bored. The elf smiled at him, then leaned back and hurled the runestone into the sky. Kili tilted his head to watch as the token sailed up and up until it stuck glittering among the stars.
"It's all right," she assured him. "It was broken anyways."
"But I wanted it," he said plaintively.
"Oh, Kili." Suddenly Tauriel was before him, touching her fingers lightly to his cheek. "It can never come back. And neither can I."
She moved away from him, and Kili saw that Erebor had become a great grey tree, huge as a mountain, with branches that spanned the sky and held the stars like leaves. Its trunk twisted elegantly into a spiral staircase, and as Tauriel began to climb it Kili felt his heart ache with loss.
He groaned, returning briefly to reality, but the pain there was too great to bear, and he retreated back into his own fevered mind.
Bilbo was there, looking at him with the bemused, faintly annoyed expression that the hobbit so often wore.
"No, I'm sorry," he said tightly. "I told you, I'm not a burglar. They look your life, Kili, and I'm sorry, but I can't get it back for you."
"Can you at least tell me where they took it?"
Bilbo pointed to the ground. Kili looked down and saw a chasm opening up between his feet. Shocked, he leaped back. He was once again on the trail in the Misty Mountains, and the world was tearing apart.
"Kili!" Fili was reaching for him. "Grab my hand!"
Too late. A black canyon yawned between them. Kili stared at his brother in terror.
"Fili..."
The stone they were standing on lurched and the other dwarves yelled in fear. Kili felt oddly detached. He looked up at the sky.
There was Tauriel, standing on the wind and gazing down at him.
"Can you help us?" he asked her.
She shook her head. "I told you, dear Kili, that I could not return."
"But you're so far away."
"There is so little for you in this world. Why not leave?"
"Not without Fili." Kili looked for his brother, but all he could see was rain and darkness.
"As you wish." Tauriel turned away and began walking back to the stars.
"Wait!" Kili called. "Wait, Tauriel, don't go, not again—"
The ground fell out from under his feet.
Kili jolted awake with a start, and blinked in surprise.
He was back on the path to the boat that would take them to the Lonely Mountain, swaggering through the streets with the rest of the company as cheers sounded around them. Kili sighed with relief. He'd only been dreaming. He was going to the Mountain after all. What a silly idea, that they'd leave him behind. His leg felt fine.
They reached the boat, and as Kili was about to step aboard, Thorin barred his way. "Not you. You stay here."
Kili's heart plummeted. "What? Why?"
"I'll tell you why." Thorin's face was twisted and ugly. "Because you're a weak, stupid fool. You don't belong here. You've never belonged here. You've been running around like a puppy, clumsy and ridiculous, trying to show off so that we'll pat you on the head. Don't you know how you disgust us? A real warrior wouldn't have to prove himself. A real warrior would command my respect. But you'll never be anything more than an idiot boy."
Kili shrank back as Thorin loomed over him.
"One day your brother will be King Under the Mountain. But you? No one will even remember your name."
Thorin spun away and stepped aboard the boat. Kili was frozen to the spot as the little vessel sailed up a river of gold and into the heart of a diamond. Fili turned around and smiled brightly back at him, and then Kili was utterly alone.
"Fili!" he called into the fog swirling around him. "Fili! Don't leave me!"
The river chuckled menacingly behind him.
"Tauriel!" Kili shouted. "Tauriel, I need you! Please!" He looked up at the sky, straining his eyes, but there were no stars.
"How interesting," said a low voice behind him.
Kili whirled around. The blond elf, the one with angry eyes who often shadowed Tauriel, walked out of a wall of mist, holding a curved Orc blade.
"What?" Kili shouted, backing away and feeling the bite of the icy river at his feet. "What could you possibly want?"
The elf had a hungry look on his face as he strode up to Kili. His blade flickered with the reflection of the water.
"The spiders are coming," the elf said, and ran him through.