Chapter 4: The Loss Of Bofur's Hat
A week passed before Thorin's Decision was updated, and much to Fili's relief it appeared as though he was going to survive.
Their worries set aside, the two dwarves and the hobbit sat down and began to read the new chapter.
"Oh look, it's Radagast," said Bilbo happily. "I always did like him. Rather pleasant fellow albeit a bit strange."
"'It - whatever it was - sprung from the bushes with a yelp, soaring above the dwarves' heads barely missing the taller two and taking Bofur's hat with it,'" said Kili, reading aloud from the story. "Oh no, they got Bofur's precious hat!" he exclaimed in tones of mock concern. "You know, that hat could come in handy in case Fili has to spew again. He could just spew in Bofur's hat."
"That's revolting," said Fili, wrinkling his nose in disgust.
"I just thought of something," Kili said, grinning. "I could just see Fili doing battle with Smaug. Smaug would come out, roaring and breathing great torrents of fire. Then we'd send Fili out and he'd open his mouth and projectile spew all over Smaug from head to tail. And Smaug would wave a white flag and be like 'I surrender! I surrender! Waaahhh!' and flee from the mountain never to be seen again."
Fili groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Would you stop with the vomit jokes?" He was then taken by surprise as a belch rose up in his throat, and he clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle the belch.
"Careful, Fili," Kili warned. "You didn't spill any, did you? Do you need me to get Bofur's hat?"
"Just shut up and read the damn story, Kee."
"Rest in peace, Bofur's dearly departed hat," said Kili, wiping away nonexistent tears from his brown eyes. "You were sacrificed for a noble cause, so the not-yet-king-under-the-mountain Fili would not be forced to spew on the ground like a common peasant."
"Oh, this isn't good," said Bilbo, who had been reading ahead in the story while Fili and Kili were talking. "Listen to this. 'Plus, Thorin had taken his eldest nephew's swords, leaving him defenseless and the younger on his own should they cross paths with the foul beings.'"
"Well of course uncle Thorin took Fili's swords," said Kili as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. He placed a hand on Fili's shoulder, turned to his brother and said, "As sick as you are we wouldn't want you to collapse and accidently land on one of your swords and end up commiting hara-kiri, now would we?"
Fili's blue eyes widened. "Hara-kiri? Well, isn't that what they're going to do to me? Isn't hara-kiri when you stick a knife in someone's belly and split them up the middle?"
Bilbo continued reading aloud from the story. "'He wondered once the princes were found, would they cut Fili out there or bring him back to camp to carry out the heinous task?'"
"I'm sure they will do it out in the cave," said Fili. "Everyone will show up and Oin will be running and pushing past everyone to get to me, and he'll tell them, 'There's no time! We have to do it here now!'"
"You really think so?"
Fili sighed. "Yes, Bilbo, I do. I see it coming to that in the end."
"I don't like the part where it says 'Bilbo pondered if Thorin possibly preferred his younger nephew over the eldest,'" said Kili, frowning as he read the words off the screen. "Uncle Thorin loves each of us equally. There are no favorites."
"That's right," Fili agreed.
"However," Kili continued, causing his brother to groan and roll his eyes. "You'd think that if Fili was uncle's favorite he wouldn't have been forced to spew on the ground. Thorin would have run and stuffed Bofur's hat under him."
"I said enough with the vomit jokes!" Fili shouted, his bright blue eyes blazing with anger. "I swear to Mahal that if I hear one more vomit joke out of you I'm going to chuck the arkenstone into the firey pits of Mordor and tell Thorin you did it!"
Kili held his hands up infront of him. "Alright, Fee, alright. I get the message. No more jokes about you spewing. I'm sorry. I thought it was funny."
"Well, it isn't," snapped Fili. "Next time we get online we'll read about you throwing up in Oin's helm in the story Kili's Fire Within. See if you think it's funny then."
Later that night as Fili slept in bed, he began to toss and turn, the blankets twisting around his lean frame as his mind was locked in a bizarre nightmare about the Thorin's Decision story he'd been reading.
The dream began peaceful and normal enough. He was back in Bilbo's house sitting around the fire with Thorin and company. The dwarves were content and relaxed, some of them smoking pipes by the fire as the stars outisde the window twinkled and shined in the deep midnight blue sky. A few of the dwarves began to hum a tune, their rich baritone voices gently rumbling in their chests, filling the small room of Bilbo's house with the low sound of the dwarves' pleasent tune.
It was then that Fili realized he wasn't feeling well. There was a sharp, stabbing pain in his side.
As Fili winced and held his stomach, Oin approached him with a small glass vial of some foul looking brownish-green fluid in his hand.
"Fili, you don't look so good, laddie. I think you shoud drink a bit of this. It'll help with the pain."
The blond prince cast a wary eye on the vial. The liquid in the vial looked like wet mud mixed with thick green slime scraped off the underside of a boulder in a swamp.
"What is it?" he asked the old healer.
"This, young lad, is zydrate," Oin replied. And with that the dwarves around Fili began to sing.
"Zydrate comes in a little glass vial," sang Oin as he pointed to the vial in his hand.
"A little glass vial?" the chorus of dwarves behind Oin sang.
Oin nodded. "A little glass vial."
Kili snatched up the vial from Oin's hand and tied it to one of his arrows just below the arrowhead. He fitted the arrow to his bow, aimed it at Fili, and this is what Kili sang -
"And the little glass vial goes into the gun like a battery
And the zydrate gun goes somewhere against your anatomy
And when the gun goes off it sparks and your ready for surgery."
Kili fired his arrow at Fili's abdomen, Fili screamed, and suddenly the scene changed to one of Bilbo singing as he dug a grave for Fili in the middle of a cemetery located at the base of the Lonely Mountain.
"Burglar
Burglar
Sometimes I wonder why I even bother
Graverobber
Graverobber
Sometimes I wonder why they need me at all," the little hobbit sang as he heaved great mounds of earth out of the grave he was digging, adding to the ever increasing mound of soil on the ground beside him.
The next thing Fili knew he was standing in the cemetery with Thorin and company.
Bilbo leapt out of the grave he was digging, unrolled a sheet of parchment that was longer than he was tall, thrust the parchment into Fili's hands and sang, "Fili's contract's got some mighty fine print."
"Mighty fine print?" Fili questioned nerverously, glancing down at the parchment in his hands.
"Mighty fine print!" Bofur and Bomber sang in unison.
Kili came forward, materializing out of the ghostly fog that hung cold and still in the cemetery air, and this is what he sang -
"And that mighty fine print
Puts Fili in a mighty fine predicament
If Fili up and splits
His guts are forfeit
And if Opal1030 does will it
Then a repo man will come and he'll pay for that surgery."
Thorin grabbed hold of Fili by one arm, Bifur seizing hold of him by the other, and together they dragged the blond prince who was now screaming and kicking through the cemetery.
Thorin and Bifur slammed Fili down hard onto his back near the grave Bilbo had dug. Fili suddenly found himself spread eagle on the cold hard ground, his wrists and ankles tied with heavy ropes to pegs pounded into the earth, keeping him flat on his back and preventing him from moving or escaping.
Bilbo and the others were still singing their twisted song as Dwalin approached Fili with a large battle axe in his muscular hands.
Dwalin raised the axe above his head, preparing to bring it down on Fili. Fili panicked, screaming and struggling against the ropes that held him down. Dwalin brought down his axe, and with a single gutwrenching scream of terror the blond prince sat bolt upright in bed, waking up from his nightmare trembling, pale and drenched in cold sweat.
Startled by his brother's cry, Kili woke up and practically flew out of bed.
"Fili, what's wrong? Why did you scream?" he asked, turning to face his brother in the bed opposite his own. He was then met with a pillow striking him square in the face.
Feathers flew in every direction as Fili proceeded to beat Kili mercilessly with his pillow as though they were still children.
"The next time that story is updated you'll read it without me!" Fili yelled angrily as he beat his brother about the chest and face with his pillow. "I've had it with that story! It's over! I'm done!"
A/N: where are my reviewers? I was enjoying all the reviews I was getting for this but now only one person has been leaving me reviews. I know this story is being read because the traffic stats are really good. So if you read this, would you please be so kind as to leave me a review? Thank you.