Kíli sat idly by the large table pushing the food around on his plate with little interest, listening to Thorin continue his winded speech about the battle. It was a moving speech, truly, but Kíli had heard it several times throughout the night already. The stone between their chambers had suffered damages during Smaug's occupation of the mountain and as such the young prince had listened to his King fret all night about the next day's ceremony.
Today's ceremony.
It was one he was sure would become an annual celebration—after all, the dwarves had been reunited in their ancestral home once again after decades of living as vagabonds: a lifestyle unsuited to the sturdy race. Elves, he imagined, would be fair nomads indeed, what with their knowledge of plant life and their swiftness. He had to restrain himself from sighing. Elves were never far from his mind these days. He had been disappointed when the elves turned back to their dark woods after the battle. Actually he had been elated to know that Thranduil and his son would be leaving without pressing his kin for their "due payments" but he was sure that Thorin would be hearing from the Sindarin king sooner rather than later in regard to the matter.
His disappointment, he acknowledged for the umpteenth time, was focused on her. As Thorin continued to preach about the value of lives lost; a part of the speech that, upon first hearing, had brought tears of bittersweet pride to Kíli's eyes and was proving to do the same to the others, his mind began to wander back to battle.
His vision was only black and white as he slipped in and out of consciousness. He had a foggy idea of who he was and where he was but moments and memories alluded him when he grasped for them. A fire seemed to burn in his gut, a pain more overwhelming than anything he had ever felt before. What is this ache? he tried reaching for the pain in his middle but his arm refused to obey his command. Then the darkness of sleep… or was it death? he would later reflect, found him once again.
His next memory was that of feeling the pain again in his chest. He still could not see beyond the blinding white but now he heard something strangled, words he could not place. He felt warmth on his face and he could feel the frigid cold creeping into the tips of his fingers. And then nothing, once more.
He could feel himself in darkness for a long while after that. When Kíli was very young one restless night of counting sheep found him suddenly in a pasture surrounded by the wooly beasts. Above him towered a great mountain under a blanket of heavy clouds. He had been far too young to remember the slopes of the Lonely Mountain when his people were ejected from it but he knew that the mass of stone before him was meant to be it. A crack of lightning in the distance startled the livestock around him and they all bolted away from him as he tried to calm them. The herd stormed nervously toward the peak with Kíli in tow. The closer the sheep got to the crest the further they seemed from him. When he woke that night a feeling of dread had consumed the young dwarf. He recalled that sense of dread now, in this darkness of his mind. It felt like he was once again chasing the sheep up the perilous mountain, and yet he felt as if he was the one being pursued.
Suddenly there was warmth on his face once more and the burning returned. His mind tried shrinking from the pain but he clung to the light that slowly filtered back into his vision. This time he could see a streak of bronze through his vision. There were more words exchanged, this time the higher lilt from before was accompanied with something more familiar, deeper and brusque. He tried to call out to no avail. When his vision began to fade once more he loudly cursed his mental fortitude. But the darkness that consumed him this time was comfortable, not threatening as it had been before. He felt his pains subsiding and then he found himself truly unconscious once more.
When he came to his vision was exceptionally clearer despite the headache that hid just behind his eyes. Even the dim glow of firelight on stone caused him pain. Pain, he had remembered then, reaching for his chest once more. The movement of his arm sent tendrils of the lightning to his brain and the pressure of his fingers on the bandages was too much to bear so he dropped his arm back to his side, not interested in being consumed by the defense mechanisms of his mind again. He turned his gaze to the side, finding his brother on a bed across the room and his heart lurched- the events of the battle coming to him slowly. He immediately made to check Fíli's vitals when a hand pressed his shoulder back to the bed.
"He's in a critical condition, but he lives."
He looked up to find Tauriel above him, her long fiery hair almost brushing against his face. She straightened and pulled a chair up to his bedside murmuring about checking his wound again as she did so. "W-what happened?" His voice was rough and scratchy.
She responded by pressing a water horn to his lips. He felt the tips of his ears heat with embarrassment at his useless state but nodded gratefully as he swallowed down large gulps. Once he was finished she even considerately swiped the remaining moisture from his mouth causing his blush to sink into his cheeks. He hoped the lighting was too dim for her to notice and tried to clear his throat but the sound came out sounding nervous and strained. She began to unravel the bandage as she spoke. "To Fíli?"
He nodded again. "Stabbed through but none of his major organs were hit. We were able to cauterize his wound in time. He sustained more damage from the drop, a broken arm and a concussion that has left him comatose," at this last word her eyes met his apologetically. He took a moment to consider his brother.
"He'll pull through sooner or later," Kíli decided, sure. He was touched by her concern for his brother, but did not want to see her troubled. "We dwarves are fighters in battle and otherwise." He added a wink there for good measure, unable to resist. The worry present on her face was replaced with a knowing smirk. "Were there any other severe casualties?" he asked tenderly, not wanting to bring her down again but needing to know all the same.
Tauriel's eyes dropped to the floor then, darkened with loss. "Many, I'm afraid. The mountain's shadow is still littered with bodies. We've all been working to sort out our dead. The company you traveled with through Mirkwood have all survived," her eyes quickly glance to his prone brother, "they've all come by to offer prayers for your health. There were many deaths suffered by the dwarves of the Iron Hills, the men and my own kind."
A moment of silence hung between them before Kíli spoke once more. "And how did I come to be in such a state?"
A sadness Kíli could not understand found itself deep in Tauriel's voice despite her attempts to mask it. "You were almost killed by an orc. The blow crushed your sternum and pierced a lung. There was also damage sustained to your trachea. As well as your heart." She looked away then and Kíli could not figure out what to make the sorrow that seemed to grip her. He needed to see her smile then and reached out to take her hand. She was surprised by the touch and he caught sight of the tears in her eyes as she turned back, blinking them away quickly.
"Oi, you make it seem like I died there Tauriel. I'm here though. In rough shape, sure," he said with a nudging chuckle and continued softly, "but I'm still here."
The corners of her mouth quirked then and she rested her hand briefly on top of the hand that held hers. "That you are, Master Dwarf." She stood then taking her hands back from him gently, moving to a table near the foot of his bed to retrieve some supplies. When she returned she had another roll of bandages and some kind of plant laced between her long fingers. She chewed a leaf of the stuff as she slipped the soiled bandages to the floor by her feet and poured some water into her palm. Taking the mush of green from her mouth, she rolled it around in the water and he watched as it became thick and pasty in her hands. She then took to dabbing the mixture around the edges of his wounds. While the pain was certainly more bearable than it had been in his fight for consciousness he was glad for the relief the medicine brought. When she finished she placed the remaining leaves on top of his wound and took to dressing it once more.
"You should continue to rest. Remain in bed for the next week," she said seriously as she cleaned up, "but you should stray from any kind of bodily stress for the next moon or so to be sure your wounds do not reopen."
He was dismayed to hear her diagnosis—sitting around was not something he was accustomed to nor enjoyed doing. He was more concerned about the way in which she delivered the diagnosis however. "You're leaving..."
She had set out later that day to accompany the rest of the elven company back to Mirkwood.
"Kíli?" He was brought back into reality, turning to the owner of the hushed whisper beside him. Fíli looked at him with fatigued concern; he had only just come to from his coma in the last week and was still ragged. "Are you alright?"
The younger prince nodded, trying to cover up his mental absence, "Yeah, why, what do you mean?" His response sounded suspicious even to his ears. His brother quirked an eyebrow at him and gestured to his plate. The dark haired dwarf looked down to find his fork driven deeply into the cold and hardly touched piece of mutton. He sighed then, quickly glancing to Thorin who had not seemed to falter in his speech-giving before turning back to his brother. "Sorry Fíli, my injury is just acting up a little is all," he lied, raising a hand as concern consumed his brother's face, "I just sat up too fast earlier. I'll be okay, really." The blond dwarf continued to consider his brother for a moment. Kíli offered a sheepish smile and finally the older prince was persuaded.
They turned back to Thorin then just as their King began to issue his thankfulness to Dáin and his soldiers for their efforts on the battlefield as well as their voluntary decision to bring the other scattered clans back to Erebor.
While Kíli felt safe within the walls of his ancestral home he longed to be back on the road. He did not believe that dwarves were nomadic but after his prolonged stay within the Lonely Mountain's halls he was itching to feel the road beneath his feet and fresh air in his lungs. He had spoken with Thorin of accompanying Ironfoot when he heard of Dáin's plan. Because Tauriel had briefed the King Under the Mountain of his nephew's state, Kíli's request to leave was hastily denied because of his injury. And so, for the time being at least, he was confined within the stone, left crave the sun and the one whose hair shined like it.