AN: Just a little oneshot that got stuck in my head and wouldn't leave. Fíli and Kíli must flee after the murder of their parents to safety with Thorin in Bree.
Warnings: Fairly graphic depiction of death, character deaths, violence, babies struggling for life on the road. Not very happy.
It had all passed in a blur. One day, they were safe and secure with their mum and da, and the next they were gone.
Thorin had carefully hid them all away in a town of men not long after the boys were born, swearing all who knew of their whereabouts to secrecy, intent on keeping the heirs of Durin hidden and safe.
But someone had talked. Somehow the men of the town heard the rumors and whispers of Durin's heir, and, blinded by the greed, they'd stormed into their small home, demanding coin and gold and treasures that they did not have. Their mother had the acted quickly to hide them away, in a hole in the ground beneath a loose floorboard just beyond the cellar. She'd made them swear not to make a sound, and told them that she loved them with all of her heart.
When the sounds of fighting started, with the clash of metal and pain-filled screams, Fíli cradled his little brother tight against his chest to keep him quiet and squeezed his hands against his ears so Kíli wouldn't hear.
It didn't last long, and soon all he could hear was the sound of the men ransacking their home, ripping through everything they owned, breaking pottery and glassware for hours. They were angry, furious that there was no treasure to be found, and before they left they had vowed to kill the one who had told them the heir of Durin had dwelled there.
He waits until the house has been quiet for hours more, waiting until the din of the town dies down with nightfall before he dares to release his brother and emerge from the floor. He knows what they will find up there, he knows what they will see, and he's not at all anxious for it. Kíli's eyes are rimmed red and full of tears and he trembles something fierce. Fíli knows he does not fare much better, but he stubbornly tries to mask it.
Quiet as possible, they slip through the floorboard and into their ruined home. Their mother lies not far from where she'd hidden them, eyes sightless into the dark. Their father is closer to the door, sword still clutched in his hand but his soul just as gone.
He thinks he might be sick.
Kíli lets out a tiny little wail but stays frozen beside him. He knows they cannot linger, so he hurries through the house, quickly packing two satchels with as much food and clothing as he can manage, along with their father's weatherworn map. It takes him longer than he would like to find their supplies in the mess that's been left behind. He grabs the quilt from their bed, the one their mum had sewn for them while pregnant with his brother, even if it makes an uncomfortable weight settle in his chest.
When he returns to the front room, he finds Kíli kneeling beside their mother. He'd tended to both of them, smoothed the hair from their faces and closed their eyes, crossed their arms across their chests. His brother is covered in their blood. Fíli rushes to the settee, grabs the scratchy blankets that lie there, and, while resolutely fighting the tears and anguish bubbling in his chest, lays one over top of each of them.
They cannot stay here, and he knows they won't receive the funeral they deserve. They can give them this, but nothing more.
He looks for weapons, but the men have taken all of the swords, save for their father's. Fíli pulls it from his hand, choking on a sob as he does. Then he turns to his brother, who still sits numbly on the floor next to their mum.
"Come on, Kee," he whispers, his voice tight as he tries to fight his tears. They have to get out of here. He fears they have lingered too long already.
Kíli shakes his head. "Can't just…can't leave them here." He's right, and Fíli knows it. He doesn't want to leave them behind, but he needs to keep his brother safe. If they can get to their Uncle, who had headed east, to Bree, they would be safe. He hopes.
"We have to go," he urges, crossing the small room and reaching for him. "They'll come back. They'll kill us. We have to go, have to find Uncle…"
Kíli shakes his head, but he doesn't resist when he pulls him to his feet and to the door. With great haste, they sneak out into the night, Kíli's hand clutched firmly in Fíli's, heading away from the town and into the wilds, hoping that he is headed east. He keeps them moving for hours, just until the sun begins to rise on the horizon and illuminates their appropriate path. Then, and only then when he thinks it safe, he pulls his brother under an outcropping of rocks to rest.
It is there that they clutch each other close and sob out their anguish.
He keeps them moving constantly, always fearing that those men will catch up to them and he will have to see another of his kin dead. For days they head straight east, without any sign of road or people. They try to kill some game as they go, but Kíli only knows how to set snares that he doesn't dare wait on, and he's not yet experienced enough with a sword to hunt for them.
He worries that he's just gotten them lost in the wilds, that they'll starve here.
Then they find the river.
From his map, he wagers that it must be the Brandywine, and if they follow it they will find themselves in the Shire, with Bree just beyond it. It gives him the hope he thought he'd lost.
By daylight, they travel along the water's edge. In the evening, Kíli fashions a pair of poles from large sticks and they fish. At night, they sleep huddled up together for warmth and safety, hidden in the thick rushes at the river's bank.
On the third such night, they are seen.
It's a small group of men, just five of them, but they rush upon the lads before they even have the time to blink. One of them has Kíli pinned on the ground; his arm twisted painfully behind his back from where the man had tackled him as he'd tried to run. Another has Fíli by his hair, forcing him to his knees, to look at the other three with their leering smiles.
"Ought to take 'em back to market," the oldest one of them sneers. "Could always use more working boys on the farms."
Kíli shouts at that, makes a desperately but follow attempt to escape, and one of the other men kicks him hard in the head, and he falls helplessly, hopelessly still.
"Let us go!" Fíli shouts, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. "We've done nothing wrong by you!"
The oldest man looks at him thoughtfully for a moment. "S'not good for boys to travel alone," he says, tone mocking and condescending. "Never know what bad things could find you out 'ere."
With a smirk, he makes for their satchels, and he makes a grand show of dumping the contents of them carelessly to the damp ground. They root through their meager possessions, stealing all of their remaining food and most of their extra clothes. The only things they leave in the mud are a few pieces of threadbare clothing and their mother's blanket, as those had been viewed as worthless.
"C'mon, mate; just leave 'em here," the man holding his hair mutters. "Won't survive long out here anyhow. And no one'd be willin' to take some dwarf runts, even for a farm boy. They ain't worth the trouble to bring 'em back."
The older man appears thoughtful for a moment. "Suppose we could let 'em go as thanks for the nice meal we'll be eatin' tonight," he agrees, and after a wave of his hand, Fíli is thrown roughly to the muddy ground. The men are off just as quickly as they came, snickering in delight as they depart.
"Kíli," he calls out into the approaching twilight, crawling across the ground to his brother as soon as he's released. Kili still lies unconscious, and a rather large lump has formed along his temple that trickles blood. "C'mon, Kee," he urges quietly as he shakes his shoulder; despair fills his voice when he doesn't wake. He's still breathing, but that does not offer him much comfort.
He takes great care to pull him through the mud and hide him back into the rushes before returning to the riverbed to fetch what remains of their belongings. All the food and the map and their fishing poles are gone, as well as their extra, warmer clothes. He picks through the clothes that have been carelessly thrown on the ground, but finds them all to be ruined, so he leaves them. The only thing he is able to salvage is one of the satchels and their mother's blanket, though it is no less ruined from the filth.
He doesn't have the heart to leave it.
He'd had the good sense to hide his father's sword in the underbrush before they'd sat down to eat and murmurs a silent thanks to any god that will listen when he finds it still safely hidden.
Kili wakes not long after he returns to the rushes, the swelling from his temple having spread to his eye. He immediately draws him tight into his arms, wiping the blood from his face as gently as he can manage. "What's gon'a happen now, Fee?" Kíli asks, his voice a raspy, tumultuous whisper. Fili can only shake his head, not wanting to admit that he has almost lost all hope.
That night is cold. Neither of them sleeps, as they stay silent and huddled together under the damp blanket.
They're much more careful after that. They stick as close to the river as possible, never straying too far from the large clumps of grass and rushes that can conceal them should someone pass. He relents and lets Kili set snares at night, but they don't manage to catch much at all.
For two days and one night it rains non-stop. Kili manages to find a small willow tree that they stay hidden under for the duration of the storm, but even the tree's branches and their mother's blanket cannot hope to keep them dry. At the end of it, they're soaked completely through, and Kili's lips turn blue from the cold. Two days later, his brother has a horrid rasp in his throat and a cough from the chill that has lodged itself there, and the day after that Fili finds himself the same.
He insists that they start moving again, but it seems like they've been following the river for weeks with no sign of the road. They haven't eaten in days. Kili has gotten pale and gaunt and it seems like each step he takes requires every last ounce of strength he has. Fili knows he isn't much better.
He starts to wonder if they should have run at all. Maybe they should have stayed in their home and waited for the men to come and finish them off. He wishes he had won them a quick death, instead of this one that will surely be slow and agonizing.
One day, long after he's lost count of how many, he collapses into the muddy riverbed, his legs unwilling to carry him any farther. Kili begs him to get up, but he just can't, even though he hates himself for drawing the desperate pleading from his little brother. Everything fades to black and all he can think of is how badly he has failed.
When he is next aware, it is evening. The sun has dipped low on the horizon, painting the sky in rich reds and oranges. It's beautiful. Kili must have drug him into the rushes, for they're no longer on the riverbed. His little brother has tucked them both underneath the blanket and lies huddled against his side. He manages to murmur out a word that sounds something like "thanks," and Kili only nods against him and they both fall asleep.
In the morning, he tries to get up, but Kili just whispers, "No more," and he agrees.
When the first report had come, he'd drunk himself into a stupor. He'd failed. He'd hidden them there to keep them safe, and now they we're gone.
His entire family was now, all of them, gone.
When the second report had come, he'd vomited at the graphic description of the bodies that had been found. He'd hefted the table he'd been seated at halfway across the room, howling in rage and indignation. But then he'd heard Dwalin's frantic cry, just barely breaking through the cacophony in his mind.
"It doesn't say anything about the lads."
He didn't let himself hope. Not until three more reports came of the young dwarf couple that had been slain in their home. Not a one mentioned any dwarflings being found.
"They could still be alive," Dwalin had said.
And he believed him.
He'd sent word to his cousins, Oin and Gloin in the Blue Mountains, asking them to search for two lost dwarflings, neither older than twenty-five, but spared no more details. He'd been careful with his secrets about his sister-sons. He asked Balin to stay in Bree should they try to make the journey there, for he and Dwalin set out on the road, determined to scour the wilds and find the lads.
The first weeks were hopeless. They followed the road that lead to the Blue Mountains and found no signs of them, no whispers of lost little dwarflings at all. He received word from Oin that said the same.
A wretched storm passed through one day, one that forced them to take up shelter in an inn for the night. As they sat in front of a fire, eating warm meats and cheeses, he could only think of how the lads could be out in the cold, starving and freezing and alone.
Then one night they'd heard some men boasting. Boasting of how they'd lifted a load of food from two dwarf runts and left them to die in the wilds by the river.
He'd wanted to kill them then, but Dwalin had insisted they leave. If the lads were truly out there alone, then time was not on their side. Still, he did not hesitate to memorize their faces. He vowed to return for them when they found the lads.
When they reached the Brandywine, they found no signs of them. The rain had washed any footprints or trails away. Still, they pressed on, following the river to the east, as he'd hoped the lads had. Fíli was well advanced enough in his studies that he should know the geography of the land, should know that the river would lead them to the Shire, then Bree. Fíli was resilient, clever, like him; he could keep them safe.
The next day, the find a pile of muddied, tattered clothes, the perfect size for little dwarflings. The discover spurs him on, and the move with great haste, scouring the riverbed and covering many miles of ground before darkness forced them to stop for the night. The resume their search at first light, and it is at midday that Dwalin spots something in the distance.
A flash of blue – Durin blue – in a heap of rushes.
"Fíli?" he calls as he hastens his steps. "Kíli? Lads!" He doesn't get an answer, but he finds them when he reaches the cluster of grass and peers inside. They're huddled up together, both pale and thin as death, eyes closed tight against the noontime sun.
He's taken too long to find them. He's too late.
Then Kíli's eyes flutter open and hope blossoms anew within his chest. His youngest tries to get up, but he's so exhausted that he cannot even lift his head. Thorin reaches out with shaking hands and pulls him up from the ground. He gathers him into a close embrace before kissing his dirtied face, thanking Aulë that he still lives. With great care, he hands the young lad to Dwalin, who cradles him close to his chest with more tenderness than he's seen the warrior show in an age.
Fíli lets out a soft noise of protest when he realizes his brother has been pulled from him, and Thorin gathers him up and pulls him free from the rushes. "Uncle," his heir gasps out, his voice a horrid, ragged wreck. "You…found us."
"My boys," he murmurs. "I thought I'd lost you," he struggles to say around a sob. "I…I thought…oh, thank Aulë you're alive."
It is with great reverence and care that they carry the lads from the riverbed, farther into a nearby clustering of trees to rest and camp for the evening. He knows it will take a while for them to heal, a great deal more for them to grieve, but he will not leave them again, will not abandon them to suffer their torment alone. He vows as much to them.
And to himself, he vows to never be too late to save them again.
As always...thanks for reading.