The stench of rancid death and earth entered his nose like a foul smelling-salt. Waking from a drowsy darkness, he wept. As Kíli opened his eyes, tangy tears poured forth and tracked down his blood-crusted cheekbones. Some crippling grief must have inhabited him, to arise with instant sorrow.
His bleary world began to focus, consciousness sharpening the terrific pain wracking his every fibre. The craggy land before the mountain was mounded with dead, piled against the sky's iron ceiling. Kíli lamented the sight that was so horribly inglorious and appalling. It was reason enough to wake crying. Lifting a trembling hand to remove the tears, his bleeding, broken fingers brushed a downy object.
Slowly, mechanically lowering his gaze, he gave a choking sob. Sickening reality returned. Cradled in his lap, his brother lay broken. Sooty light illuminated the gruesome bruises and gashes on his pale countenance, wreathed in golden, mud-caked curls. His beautiful, beautiful brother. It was truly hell's wrath on earth, that anyone so pure could be brought so low. Shaking and gasping, Kíli was overcome with panic. Realization was in the crude axe fixed in Fíli's side, the grotesque angle of his legs, the arrows in his shoulder moving up and down. He had perhaps minutes left. Kíli kicked himself for wasting time passed out from personal wounds.
"Fíli?" Kíli's cracked voice echoed. Wincing at his ruined wrist, he gingerly shook his brother, as if taking him from a summer's nap. Fíli's deep slumber was likely related to the sluggish blood coming from a head wound. He stirred, rolling his blue-orbed eyes skyward to Kíli's face. A steady, teary drip fell from it, wetting his own face. It pained Fíli greatly to see his little brother so upset. Fíli opened his mouth to soothe him, but only thick blood issued forth. At this, Kíli wailed and shook his head. He knew a prince, a warrior should not act in this manner. Yet what was a warrior, if the one he fought to protect expired before him?
Fíli wore an empathetic expression, unable to speak. He achingly lifted his hand instead to pet his brother's chestnut hair. He was just like a bairn again, feeling his baby brother's dark locks. Looking up at his large, frightened eyes, Fíli was struck by the fact that Kíli was still a child. A noble fighter, yes, but wholly unprepared for the ancient grief that now marred his handsome, youthful features.
Fíli shared his brother's despair at the injustice of the situation. It was unnatural, abhorrent that one so young should perish before knowing old age and it's wisdom. For he, too, realized Kíli's finality on this bleary evening after the battle.
Arrows also littered his body, and a deep gash at his collarbone oozed. Kíli had been crippled with a blow to his spine, forced to drag them both behind the rock where they now resided.
Fíli's hand faltered on Kíli's head, as he violently coughed red over himself. Kíli clutched his hand before it fell, and rocked both their bodies.
"I am so v-very sorry, Khâzash (Brother)," he whispered, sobbing. Fíli began to weep as well, for guilt that he was the one who should hold his brother, just as he had when Kíli was born.
"I would have seen a thousand years with you, and fought a thousand battles."
Fíli nodded weakly, letting his brother know that he felt the same. Kíli began to hum an aimless tune, and Fíli joined in, gurgling the sound in his throat. The eerie, sentimental noise broke the grim silence of the battlefield. Abruptly, Fíli grew ashen, and began to seize and make groaning gasps. It was so violent, so nightmarish. Kíli panicked, clutching his body to him so as to tether his soul to the earth. He screamed when he saw Fíli's crazed, terrified eyes. By Aule, they were frightened by the carnage claiming him. Fíli choked out,"P-Please don't l-leave m-", cut short by one tremendous gasp and tremor. His cold body collapsed against his brother.
Kíli fell mute for a second, not comprehending that Fíli was now a rag-doll in his arms."Never, "he said, "I would never leave you," as if shocked at the suggestion. His vision grew black and the scene was swallowed in despairing darkness.
He awoke this time, still silent, and his keen eyes snapped to attention. Kíli shook the sleep from his head. For that was what it was; sleep, a ghastly nightmare, a creation of his anxieties. Taking in his surroundings, he was indeed still on the battlefield, though trapped under the torso of an elf and his bow missing. He heaved himself out, stumbling on his broken foot. Relief began to tickle his mind, yet he was determined to find Fíli, and extinguish all worries.
He saw none of the other company while he went, and remembered hazily the form of Beorn retrieving Thorin. Most likely Fíli had returned afterwards. Tramping back towards the river nearby, he spotted a well-concealed boulder in his periphery. Some aspect of it seemed hauntingly familiar. Kíli approached cautiously, a sense of dread kindling within. Rounding the bend, he let out a nervous sigh as he saw nothing.
What had he gotten himself into? He had spent many years dreaming of the day he could prove himself in war, and return victorious. Now his boyish confidence was gone; he didn't care how many foes he had slayed. All he wanted was to find his brother and seek quiet rest.
As Kíli turned back from the rock towards camp, a sunray struck something gold in the mud. Kíli bent, and he screamed. He would know that flaxen hair anywhere. He could now make out Fíli's body, cloaked in dirt and blood. He ran to him, pulling his head into his lap and brushing the muck from his face. It was a horrid shade of blue beneath, his usually lively lips as pale as snow. Yet it was the eyes: utterly empty, and still frozen in sheer terror. Kíli knew. The events of his dream crashed upon him, and he felt a devastating sickness. Fíli had died violently, no doubt, until his terrified body gave up. Except Kíli had not been there, to protect him, to hold him. He had breached his promise in the most unforgivable way, even if made in an other-wordly state. Kíli's self-disgust and grief caused him to cry out and pull at his hair. He was fairly certain that he could not live with himself, though he was most likely on death's doorstep anyway. His broken, wheezing sobs already mimicked that of a dying animal. Therefore, he never heard the half-dead orc, which managed to straggle upright and release one last cruel arrow.
The pain was exquisite, surreal. Kíli understood that he should react to the arrow, whose head now protruded from his neck. But the hot blood gushed forth, and all he could do was stroke his brother's locks one last time. He choked quietly on his crushed windpipe, body crumpled and bent on the ground. He felt serene, but did not blame his brother for his fear in the final moments. The prospect of the encroaching darkness chilled him, too. He questioned those fabled warriors, able to embrace death with open arms. Yet he clung to the hope that his brother might be there, waiting patiently for him. "I will search for you, and when I have found you, we never shall part again," he thought, as his mind unraveled and his body shut down. In any case, maybe his nightmare had not been that at all. In that dream world, he had had the blessing of a final goodbye.